Oh yeah, she doesn’t have a clue that I’m Connor.
I didn’t think she’d catch on—it had taken me a whole month to stumble on the realization, after all. No, my biggest concern in all my nighttime activities was that I didn’t want Killian getting a hint of it.
Thankfully he lived out of town, and while I ruled over the vampires in the area, it was unlikely they’d complain about me to him—I’d kept my movements small enough that, at most, the scant vampires I’d disciplined would snivel about me to their half-mad elders. There was almost no chance the vampires would motivate themselves enough to tell Killian. The Curia Cloisters was the larger risk of informing him.
I took a step closer to Jade.
She, in response, pulled her gun from her shoulder holster and thumbed the weapon’s safety off.
“Come now, slayer,” I purred. “I haven’t even done anything. Yet.”
Tapping my vampire speed, I tried to pluck the gun from her grip.
She yanked her hands free and pointed the gun down at the road—always a stickler for gun safety—but moved into my space, using her free arm to elbow me in the throat and force me back.
I ducked around her elbow with a chuckle trying to sneak around to her back, but she pivoted and must have realized I was aiming to stand between her squadmates because she rammed me, knocking us both into the road and well past her clueless comrades.
“RUIN ON GOLDSTEIN STREET,” the blonde vampire shouted at top volume into her radio, blasting the announcement through Jade’s and the fae’s radios.
Okay, maybe not quite as clueless as I assumed.
“I feel so included that I have my own code name,” I announced, holding up both hands as I backed away from Jade.
“It’s not the compliment you think it is,” Jade said. “We named you for the same reason humans name serial killers.”
I held a hand to my chest. “Ouch. Slayer, you’re so spicey even though we fought together!”
“You’re gonna milk that forever, aren’t you?” the fae scratched his jaw. “You’re just as bad as a fae.”
“Maybe I’m in love with the slayer,” I said, impressing even myself with my ability to sound serious and not break into laughter at the sheer ridiculousness of the idea.
Jade—as both herself and her slayer identity—had opened my mind to the reluctant possibility that humans could serve as half decent entertainment. But growing attached to one?
That was pointless. Humans lived to die.
The fae’s mouth dropped open and his eyes bulged. The blonde vampire was less convinced—as a vampire she was aware of all the bad blood between slayers and vampires—and instead she narrowed her eyes into slits and clutched her radio in a way that suggested she’d be shouting into it again if I stuck around much longer.
Jade, as expected, didn’t react at all. Her heartbeat didn’t even speed up.
Instead, she racked her gun—but kept it pointed at the street. “Go back to your territory, Ruin.”
“Fine, fine. This area is dead boring anyway.” I spun in a circle, feeling remarkedly better.
It was the right idea to ditch the Dracos children for some fun.
I stopped moving when I was pointed north—towards downtown—and looked back at Jade. “However. I expect, Slayer, that you’ll be returning to your regular patrols now?”
“Yes,” Jade said.
“Good.” I nodded in satisfaction, then sauntered off. “I’ll see you around!”
I walked a block down the center of the road before peeling off and stepping into the shadows, pleased with the experience.
Based on the actions of the blonde vampire, the task force was wary of me but not to the point where I needed to be concerned.
It seemed that the greatest risk to blowing my cover was if those who had met me as Considine Maledictus happened to catch sight of me at night.
That was why I’d stayed in the shadows when the Slayer and her team had postured at the dragon shifter. I’d met Gisila as Considine in September, and I wasn’t interested in testing just how keen a dragon shifter’s senses really were.
But for now, I am safe. I can bait Jade at night and simper at her during the day, and she’ll never know.
It was going to be fun—and a welcome escape from all the irritation the Dracos children represented.
Hopefully, they’d leave soon, and I would be free to entertain myself in obscurity for a few months, maybe even a year or two, before I’d have to leave and drag Ambrose’s sorry offspring from their impending doom.
My good mood soured at the reminder that time was relentless and, eventually, I’d have to go back to my droll existence.
For now—at least—things are different.
CHAPTER
FIVE
Jade
Would you like a cookie? They’re chocolate chunks, and they taste amazing—wait, I need to say first thing that I bought them from the grocery store bakery so it doesn’t seem like I’m trying to pass it off as my work. Not that any of my neighbors could make that mistake…
I clutched the white, wax, paper bag that contained half a dozen cookies as I rounded a turn in the staircase.
While I hadn’t given up on the idea of using baked goods to soften up my human neighbors in my apartment building, I’d changed tactics by purchasing them since my own attempts at baking had been coming out inedible.
Would you like a cookie? I bought them from the grocery store bakery—they’re still warm!
There—that sounded more sincere…didn’t it?
I groaned and my head sagged forward with my exhaustion.
The run in with Ruin/Considine Maledictus had put me on high alert for the rest of the night, and I still hadn’t found a way to tell Sarge about it.
Maybe I should wait to approach my neighbors until after I get some sleep. Then I’d be thinking more clearly, and I wouldn’t be any more tongue-tied than usual. But the cookies wouldn’t be warm…
I staggered onto my floor, teetering, until I realized one of the neighbors I’d been targeting—Shelby, she was a young mom who lived across the hallway—was standing in front of her door, locking it.
“Shelby!” I said a little louder than was socially acceptable in my surprise.
Shelby turned in my direction and smiled. “Hello, Jade. How are you?”
“Great. I’m great,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound robotic as my heart thumped painfully in my chest.
I desperately thrust my white paper bag out in front of me. “Cookies—from a grocery store bakery. Would you like some?” I didn’t realize until the words were out of my mouth that I’d been clutching the wax bag so hard I’d crumpled the top, and the words came out way more jumbled than I meant for them to.
But Shelby still hadn’t refused me as she slipped her purse strap over her shoulder, so I rushed to add, “They’re fresh—still warm!”
“That’s very sweet of you, but no thank you.” Shelby smiled and rested a hand on her massive purse.