Chapter Three
“OH! YOU STARTLED ME.” Eve took a step back, covering her gasp with a trembling hand, as if the man’s sudden appearance had truly startled her. As if. She’d just dispatched two burly vampire thugs. Her first double kill. A lone human male wasn’t even a blip in her pulse rate. Still, she eyed him carefully, searching for any sign that he was other than he appeared. But there was no trace of fang, and none of the predatory arrogance that she associated with vampires. Plus, she’d never seen him before, and she knew every vampire in Howth, at least by sight. Especially the ones who hung around the docks late at night in order to greet certain sneaky boat captains.
“Sorry,” the man said, stepping back politely, to give her more room. “I thought I heard a ruckus and wanted to help.”
“A ruckus, was it?” Eve wanted to laugh at the word choice, but he seemed so very sincere that she didn’t want to hurt his tender, knight-to-the-rescue feelings. “You’re American,” she said, looking up, way up, to meet a pair of remarkably blue eyes. Crystal blue, and gleaming like fine glass in the dim light from the dock. He smiled—a perfectly white, very American smile—and she felt her heart flutter. It was embarrassing, but there was no other word for what her heart was doing. He was more than handsome. He had . . . She didn’t have a word for it. Some people would call it “charisma” or “sex appeal.” She only knew it made her want to get closer to him. A lot closer. And maybe naked.
“Guilty as charged,” he admitted. “But born in Ireland, I’ll have you know.”
His voice was as striking as his looks, a smooth growl that made her nipples hard. Eve stared wordlessly, trying to deal with her reaction. It had been months since she’d had anything to do with a man, other than the vampires she’d killed. And they weren’t really men. She hadn’t had sex with anyone in . . . fuck, it had been years not months. So, why her reaction to this guy? Sure, he was good-looking. More than that, if she was honest. His hair was styled in a longish razor cut, trimmed on the sides, longer on top, and it was the color of dark honey. The kind of blond that had probably been paler when he was young. And those remarkable eyes. His looks alone would have drawn attention, but it didn’t hurt that he was such a big man. Not just tall, but broad-shouldered and firmly muscled. A man who looked like he could handle himself in a fight. A man who’d stepped up in the middle of the night to defend a woman he didn’t know. She hadn’t needed his help, but he didn’t know that.
“You’ve come back to our fair country to claim your heritage, then?” She heard the flirty lilt in her voice and wondered where the hell that had come from.
“I don’t have a heritage to speak of. No lords in my family history,” he said, still smiling. He glanced over her shoulder into the shadows of the narrow passageway, but she wasn’t worried. There was nothing left of the two vamps, but dust. “You’re all right, then?” he asked, looking concerned. “I thought I saw two very dangerous-looking guys following you.”
“Oh, them. Just a couple of lads I know. Friends of my brother, actually. They’ve just come in from a long run at sea and are blowing off steam. They like to talk but they’re harmless.”
He studied her a moment, and she wondered what he saw. Eve had a mirror. Her looks were still there, still enough to attract men, but she’d changed. The last five years had hardened her. Gone were the soft cheeks and innocent gaze of the university student she’d been before her brother died. Grief lived in her eyes now. And death. She didn’t fool herself into thinking the killing she’d done was anything but murder. Sure, they were vampires, monsters. But the law recognized them as people. If she were ever caught, she’d be imprisoned for life. Assuming the vampires permitted it to get that far. More likely, the local vampire lord would lock her up in a dark room and torture her for a very long time. The possibility should have worried her, but that would mean feeling something. And she hadn’t done that since her brother’s funeral.
Which was why her reaction to the handsome American was so unsettling.
“Well, nice meeting you—”
“But we didn’t,” he interrupted quickly. “Meet, that is. I’m Quinn Kavanagh.” He held out a hand.
Eve looked at his proffered hand. She didn’t meet many Americans in her regular life. Her side job of doing research for grad students who had the money, or the parents, to pay others to do their work for them, sometimes included non-Irish clients, including Americans. But since her work was almost exclusively online, she rarely met any of them in person, either.
So, she didn’t know quite what to think of Quinn Kavanagh. A fine Irish name, if it was real. And why wouldn’t it be? Just because she was a criminal, that didn’t mean everyone else was. She slipped her hand into his, feeling the rough skin of his palm and fingers as they closed around her much smaller, but equally calloused, digits. She practiced a lot with her knife, and it showed. She waited for the crushing handshake. So many men tended to do that, as if wanting, or needing, to establish dominance from the very beginning. As if she wasn’t already aware of their greater size and strength. But Kavanagh’s shake was carefully calibrated to be firm, but not crushing. It was a warm, enveloping exchange of pressure that somehow managed to be reassuring instead of overwhelming. Her heart did that damn fluttering again.
“Eve,” she said simply, not offering her last name. Her heart might be smitten with this handsome American, but he was still a stranger, probably just come from the pub, and she was still engaged in some questionable behavior in her off hours.
“Can I walk you home, Eve? I wouldn’t want you to run into any more of those overfriendly lads.”
“Not necessary,” she said instantly. “It’s not far, and I can—”
“I’m not trying to insult you. I’m sure you can handle yourself just fine. But my parents raised me the old-fashioned way, and that means a gentleman never leaves a lady to walk alone on a dark street.”
That sparked a real smile from Eve. “What makes you think I’m a lady?”
His remarkable eyes gleamed in a newfound shaft of moonlight. “Why wouldn’t I?”
Eve blinked. There was private knowledge in those eyes. Did he know about her vampire hunts? Was he Garda, the Republic’s national police force, after all? She frowned. Impossible. He was definitely American, with that accent, the perfect teeth and hair. Even his clothes were finely made, for all they were casual. Why not let him walk her home? There had to be more to life than stab, stab, stab, right? She grinned at her own tasteless joke.
He caught the grin and gestured toward the street behind him. “Which way, my lady?”
QUINN STUDIED THE woman as they walked slowly down the deserted streets. Howth rolled up the sidewalks early on weeknights. He could still hear faint sounds from the local pub, but these were the suburbs. Families lived here, wanting away from the hubbub of the city, while still being close enough to commute to work. Not exactly Quinn’s scene, but he could be anyone he needed to be. Even before he’d been turned, he’d been good at that, at showing people what they wanted to see. Lovers and girlfriends in the past had criticized him, saying he was emotionally unavailable, whatever the fuck that meant. And now? Well, hell, he was a vampire lord. He could wrap himself in power and make people see whatever he wanted them to. He wasn’t putting that much effort into it tonight, however. He was simply making sure that the lovely Miss Eve of the unknown last name didn’t realize she was walking home with a vampire.
She’d done him an unwitting favor by killing the two thugs, but that didn’t make her innocent. Why had she done it, and how? She was an unknown. A random factor he hadn’t counted on, and Quinn didn’t like random. He could make her talk, of course. He could seduce her, fuck her. Hell, he’d do whatever it took to become the next Lord of Ireland.
Not that seducing Eve would be a burden. She was a beautiful woman, with moody dark eyes and long, red hair that caressed the pale curve of full breasts beneath her black leather top. Her short, tight skirt showed off legs that were slender and well-toned, and even those spike-heeled boots could only make her tall enough that her head hit his chest. Sexy as hell. Certainly the sexiest woman he’d met since arriving here. But it was more than her looks. An indefinable ping against his vampire senses was telling him something that told him that Eve was more than she appeared.
Oh, yeah, we can’t forget that part, he reminded himself with an inward grin. This eminently fuckable woman had just killed two vampires and had nothing but a slightly elevated heart rate to show for it. He’d intended to kill those two himself as he moved up the chain of Sorley’s command. But he couldn’t ignore the fact that she’d killed them, instead. What was her role in all of this? Whom did she work for? Because Buffy didn’t exist in real life. There was no organization of watchers who kept track of vampires and sent out killer cheerleaders. If Eve was hunting vampires on behalf of some shadowy organization, he needed to find out what it was and shut them down. And if she was doing it on her own, then the shutting down might very well include Eve herself.
Though, he’d really like to fuck her first.
“You live alone then?” he asked, as they turned to climb another hill. Howth was a city of hillside streets, many of them old and narrow.
“Who says I live alone?”
Quinn rolled his eyes inwardly. She was a combative little thing. “No one. That’s why I asked the question,” he said smoothly.
She gave a breathy laugh. “My mam lives down the way, but you’re right, I live alone. It’s a small place, but at least it’s quiet.”
Quinn smiled to himself. He could understand that. He’d loved his folks, but he hadn’t lived with them since his first year of college.
“Is it safe for you to live alone here? I’m still learning this area.”
“Safe enough. You’re thinking about those two earlier. I told you. They’re harmless.”
Quinn was a damn powerful vampire. He could spot a lie as easily as breathing, and even if he hadn’t already known the particulars, he’d have known Eve was lying through her pretty little teeth. He could push her to tell him what he wanted to know. Telepathy came with being a vampire. The stronger the vampire, the stronger the telepathy, and the greater the ability to use it. But he didn’t want to use it on Eve. There was no urgency yet. It wasn’t as if she was going to take on the entire vampire establishment of Dublin all on her own. Hell, if she tried to force her way into Sorley’s Dublin headquarters, she’d be dead before she cleared the first gate, no matter how sharp her knife was. Oh, yeah, he hadn’t forgotten the shiny blade she’d slipped into the sheath on her firm thigh, barely hidden beneath that tiny skirt. Nor the calluses he’d felt on her fingers when they’d shaken hands. But there wasn’t a knife in the world that could stand up to a machine-gun toting vampire or two.
So, while Eve presented no real danger to his future subjects, she clearly knew more about vampires than the average citizen. And she was a native to the region. She could be useful to him, even if she didn’t know it. And then there was the whole fuckable quotient. He decided to wait and see how the situation played out.
They slowed in front of an older building. Probably much older. It wasn’t unusual in Dublin—or Ireland, in general—to find homes and other buildings that were hundreds of years old and still occupied, most with significant upgrades over the years. The block where Eve lived was the working man’s version of Lucas Donlon’s modernized castle.
The street was mostly unlit, but for a single pole lamp on each corner, with the rare glow from an unshaded window casting a dim square of light on the uneven sidewalk. Quinn could see well enough with nothing but moonlight, but he wondered how Eve could maneuver the uneven sidewalks on those heels. They walked side by side, their bodies close enough that she could grab his arm if she needed to, but she never did. She’d said her mother lived nearby. Maybe she’d grown up in this area and had memorized the rough streets over the years.
Eve’s place was one in a line of four small units, each no more than twelve feet wide with a painted door in the middle. She stopped and turned to him, keys in hand. “Well, thanks for the escort, Kavanagh.”
Quinn was amused. It had been a while since a woman had given him the brush-off, even when he’d been human. But as a vampire. . . . Hell, women tripped over each other to get to him when he visited a blood house. That wasn’t ego speaking, either. It was fact.
Eve, the vampire killer, on the other hand, couldn’t wait to get rid of him. Too bad for her that Quinn had no intention of being shaken off. Even if he hadn’t wanted to bed her—and look at him, being all polite with his words—he’d have stuck close. If vampires were being killed, it was his business as the future Lord of Ireland, to investigate. Whether Irish vampires knew it yet or not.
He drew closer to Eve, trapping her against the door with his body, while not actually touching her. She was the skittish sort. He’d have to go slowly. “Good night, Eve,” he murmured. Without warning, he dipped his head down and kissed her. It was a bare touch of his lips against hers as she sucked in a surprised breath. He didn’t know if it was anticipation or fear making her heart pound, but she didn’t pull away and didn’t try to draw that wicked knife of hers and cut off his balls, either. He took it as a positive sign. “We’ll see each other again soon,” he promised, and walked away.
EVE WATCHED THE American stroll down the block, not even glancing back at her before he turned the corner and was gone. Cheeky fucker. Maybe it was the American way to kiss women you barely knew, but not in Ireland. She scowled. It obviously did happen in Ireland, since it had just happened to her, and she hadn’t so much as breathed a word of protest. None of the local lads would have dared take such liberties. Even without her brother to defend her, she had a reputation as a cold bitch, one who wasn’t afraid to leave marks on anyone who got too friendly. The question was . . . why had she let Quinn Kavanagh get as close as he had? She had a knife for fuck’s sake. And if she didn’t want to use that, there was always her fist. Or her knee.
Her face pinched in thought before she realized she was standing in front of her half-open door, staring down the empty street like a daft cow. Blowing out an exasperated breath, she shoved into her tiny flat before any additional cold air could get inside, then closed the door behind her.
Whatever had possessed her to kiss Kavanagh, or let him kiss her, didn’t matter. She had a job to do, a brother to avenge. There was no room for midnight dalliances with handsome strangers. She locked the door with a firm click of the deadbolt, dropped to her only chair to strip off her boots, and thought about the day ahead. She couldn’t afford more than a few hours of sleep. She had a heavy research workload right now—the kind of work that paid the bills—which meant it had to take priority over her vampire hunts. If she went out at all, it would be well after midnight, when she’d already done her paying research through the day and into evening. Sometimes she got lucky, catching a vampire or two on their way home. Vamps tended to pay less attention as dawn drew near. Bodies were tired, thoughts were sluggish. All of which made her hunting a lot safer. A tired vampire was her perfect prey.
She set the alarm on her mobile, hoping for an early start in the morning, then flicked off the light and pulled the covers over her head. Her eyes closed, and she saw Quinn Kavanagh’s smiling face for a brief moment, before her thoughts scattered and sleep claimed her.
QUINN PULLED through the gate of his newly-acquired home in Howth, glad to see Garrick’s sedan already parked near the front stairs. He let himself into the house, not bothering to call out his arrival. They were vampires. Garrick had known the moment he arrived. There was no need for a lot of unnecessary shouting.
He found his cousin in the ground floor room they were using as an office. It was the dining room, which they were obviously never going to use for that purpose. But the dining table was more than spacious enough for the two of them, the overhead lighting was good, and the room had plenty of outlets in convenient places. The table held what seemed like a lot of computers for only two vampires, but that was Garrick’s doing. While Quinn had been laser-focused from his early teens on getting good enough grades for law school, Garrick had been charming the school secretary, sneaking into her office, and changing his grades in history and English to match the ones in math and science, to ensure he got into his geek college of choice. He’d graduated from that same college with a host of job offers, and had been fully and profitably employed in the early development of what would become modern personal computing, when he’d caught the eye of the vampire bitch who’d changed both their lives forever.
Boston, Massachusetts, USA, 57 years ago
QUINN RAISED HIS eyes from the contract, frustrated by language that was unnecessarily congested even by legal standards that were designed to obfuscate and confuse. He squeezed the bridge of his nose, wondering if he needed glasses, and then frowned. Why was his phone ringing? More importantly, why the hell wasn’t his secretary answering the damn thing?
He lifted his head and blinked, surprised at the nighttime lights outside the windows of his high-rise office. Fuck. Now that he thought about it, he had a vague memory of his secretary bidding him “good night.” He was even fairly sure he’d answered and had told her to leave the door open. But that might have been the previous night, or, hell, any of a hundred nights before that. He’d become the workaholic his mom had warned him he would become, something that had cost him more than one girlfriend.
And the damn phone just kept ringing. He looked, saw it was his private line, and hit the speaker button, expecting his cousin Garrick’s voice. “Yeah. Kavanagh here.”
“Mr. Kavanagh,” a woman purred. He wasn’t a fanciful man, but there was no other word for the sound of that voice. It made him suspicious. No one had his private line except family and ex-girlfriends. And she was neither of those.
“Yeah,” he said. “Who’s calling?”
“This is Marcelina Rios,” she said, as if he should recognize the name. He didn’t. Figuring this was his cousin’s idea of a joke, he checked the calendar. Not his birthday, not April Fool’s, or Valentine’s.
“How can I help you, Ms. Rios?” He played along on the off-chance this wasn’t a prank.
“Your cousin recommended you.”
Quinn’s jaw clenched. He didn’t have time for this shit. “Right,” he said tiredly. And he was tired. Fucking exhausted. He’d thought making partner at the law firm would make his life easier. “Give my regards to Garrick,” he muttered and lifted his hand to disconnect.
“Mr. Kavanagh,” Rios said somewhat sharply. “I no longer expect much from your kind, but simple courtesy would do.”
Something about her voice—not the purr, but a sense of authority or . . . no, it was entitlement—made his finger freeze before he could hit the button.
“All right,” he agreed. “So again, how can I help you?”
“I’m in need of legal advice. Garrick tells me you’re the best.”
“How do you know my cousin?” He hadn’t actually seen Garrick in months, though they’d once been as close as brothers. They were still close, but like everything else in his life, Garrick had slipped away under the constant demands of his job.
“Garrick is very dear to me,” she said.
Quinn frowned. What the hell did that mean? And what was it about the way she talked? It was formal, as if she had to think about each word before she said it. He considered. Maybe English wasn’t a ready language for her. She had no discernable accent, or, rather, she did, but it was the accent of a person who spoke multiple languages. He’d had clients like that before, mostly older people who’d been born in Europe and had lived in the U.S. a long time. But this woman didn’t sound old.
Telling himself his next call was going to be to Garrick, demanding to know what the hell was going on, he dug down for his polite voice and asked, “What sort of problem are you having?”
“So, you’ll help me?” She sounded way too pleased.
“I don’t know if I can yet. What’s the problem?”
“We should meet.”
Quinn frowned. This was the oddest conversation. “Maybe you can give me the basics first.”
“It’s complicated.”
“It usually is. Give me the highlights.”
“The highlights,” she said distastefully. “A rather large corporation wants a piece of property that I’ve no desire to sell. It’s been in my family for generations, you understand.”
Quinn didn’t understand any of this, but he said, “Yes,” just to keep her talking and get this damn farce over with.
“Good. Garrick said you would.”
He was going to kill his cousin. “I still don’t quite understand the problem.”
“They’ve bought off some politician or other and are trying to take it away from me by force. They’re saying I have an imperfect title or some nonsense.”
“And do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Have an imperfect title?”
“Mr. Kavanagh, I don’t even know what that is, and I’m beginning to think this was a huge waste of my time. Garrick was obviously mistaken about you.”
“Wait,” he said, cursing himself in the next minute. Why the hell had he said that? But he knew why. Because of Garrick. Because he’d been a bad cousin and a worse friend over the last few years. Because Garrick, who never asked him for anything, had reached out through this admittedly odd woman, and Quinn couldn’t simply blow him off. “We should meet,” he said, hoping she mistook the resignation in his voice for tiredness at the end of a long day. “I don’t know my calendar . . .” He paused, knowing how stupid that sounded. “My secretary—”
“Perhaps we can keep this informal,” Rios suggested. “A conversation between friends.”
Friends? He wasn’t friends with this lady. He sighed inwardly. But . . . Garrick. “All right,” he agreed. “I’ll call Garrick—”
“That won’t be necessary. Garrick will escort me to whatever meeting we arrange.”
Quinn didn’t like the sound of that. What the hell was his cousin into? But since it seemed the only way to get answers, he glanced at the display on his computer, checking the date and time. Friday. He shook his head. What the hell was he doing at the office this late on a Friday night? He was 32 years old and single, for fuck’s sake. “What did you have in mind?” he asked. “I can do lunch tomorrow, or one day next week, if you prefer.”
“Tomorrow,” she said quickly. “But not lunch. In the evening, if you please. I have a place in the city. Garrick will give you the particulars.”
“What time—” But she was already gone. He stared at the phone for a long moment, then immediately hit the speed dial for his cousin. He listened to it ring before it rolled over to voicemail.
“Garrick, buddy,” he said. “I just got the weirdest call. Some chick . . . well, maybe not a chick, she sounded a bit older than that. But, anyway, she used your name and said she wants to meet tomorrow night. You’re supposed to provide the particulars. Her word, not mine. Call me when you get this.” He paused. “Oh, and, dude, if this is a joke? You’re going to pay.” He disconnected, threw the phone down, and picked up the contract he’d been working on. He stared at it for ten seconds, then dropped it to his desk. The hell with that. It was Friday, he was tired, and life was short. He was going to do something wild, something totally out of character. He was going to go home and sleep for 12 hours straight.
Howth, Ireland, present day
THAT PHONE CALL, the one that had set so much else in motion, had been 57 years ago, but the memory of it still had the power to enrage Quinn. He sometimes wished he’d kept the bitch alive, just so he could kill her all over again. He’d torture her, bring her right to the edge of death, and then let her live, knowing he’d be back to do it again the next night.
Maybe that made him a monster. But if anyone didn’t like it, they could take him on, or shut the fuck up about it.
He glanced over at his cousin. While he’d been reliving nightmares, Garrick had rolled down the table and pulled up a second keyboard. The multiple computers covering the table weren’t simply for Garrick’s hacking fun. There was also the rather extensive security network they’d set up on a separate shielded network, in an abundance of caution. Without daylight guards, they had to rely on technical means of safeguarding their daylight sleep. They’d installed pressure plates and cameras all around the perimeter, and motion and entry sensors on every door and window, all with piercingly loud alarms. They’d also installed vastly improved locks on every door, both inside and out, and were painstakingly careful to lock them every morning. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best they could do. If someone tried to break in during daylight, the loudest alarm in the world wouldn’t wake them, but it would, hopefully, scare off the intruder. And, of course, it would let them know they’d been tested.
What Quinn needed was his team of daylight guards from the U.S. They were ready and eager to deploy, but he wanted to wait until everything was in place. He would take over the smuggling op here in Howth, present Sorley with the fait accompli—thus establishing himself as a powerful ally—then slide into Sorley’s inner circle, with the vampire lord unaware that he’d just invited his killer through the door. Fun times. It would be so much easier if he could just walk into the fucker’s house and kill him. Hell, he’d do that, too, before the month was over. But there were steps to take first. This was a campaign, not a smash and grab.
Once he had Howth, he’d move into the Dublin house that he’d acquired some months earlier, when he’d first known he’d be moving to Ireland. At that point, he could bring in his own team. Not only the daylight guards, but his fighters, too.
He’d told Raphael, after the Malibu attack, that he didn’t want to bring any American vamps with him to Ireland, that he was going to recruit locally. But that wasn’t entirely true. He hadn’t wanted any interference from the Western Lord or anyone else when it came to choosing the vampires who’d form his inner circle of fighters and advisers. These were the vampires he’d have to count on in the coming battles. Their loyalty had to be unambiguously his. But he’d seen this day coming from the first moment he’d learned what Mathilde had done to Raphael, and why. He’d known that war wouldn’t be far behind. And when the European incursions had kept coming, he’d known that the only way to win would be for the North American vampires to fight back, to go on the offense, instead of standing and waiting for the next invasion.
He and Rajmund, the vampire lord who ruled the American Northeast, had discussed it at some length, and they’d known that the day was coming when the North American vamps would be forced to take the battle to Europe. A day when the call would go out for a vampire powerful enough to command the vanguard of that battle. They’d both wanted Quinn to be that vampire, so Raj had given Quinn permission to recruit a small group of vampires as his private invasion force. He’d chosen his people carefully, and they’d all trained and socialized together for months, waiting for what they believed would be the inevitable call to arms. Like Quinn, they’d all been sworn to Rajmund initially. But now that the North American lords had set their sights on Ireland with Quinn as its lord, they’d sworn a blood oath to Quinn. They’d become his, and they were waiting for his call.
With their strength behind him, he’d use his newfound position with Sorley to expand his own power, while undermining the Irish lord himself. After that, it would be a matter of days before he formally challenged and killed Sorley. It sounded tedious on paper—if he’d ever written it down—but he figured it would take less than a month altogether. He frowned. A month was a long time. Maybe he could skip some of the middle part. He was a fast learner.
“Garrick,” he said quietly, staring at the papers on his desk without seeing anything.
“Yeah?”
“We need the house in Dublin up and running.”
“Okay,” he said slowly, dragging out the word.
“I know it’s sooner than we’d planned, but things change, and we need to pick up the pace. I think it’s time to embrace our vampire side and shed some blood.”
“Thank God,” Garrick said fervently. “When do we start?”
Quinn laughed. “Tomorrow night. But first, I need you to run a full background on someone. Her name’s . . . Fuck,” he snarled.
“You didn’t even get her name? You’re such a dog.”
“It’s not like that. I just walked her home.”
“And didn’t get an invite through the door?” Garrick said in disbelief. “You’re slipping, Q.”
Quinn balled up a piece of paper and threw it at his cousin. “Fuck you. Her first name’s Eve, and I have an address. Howth’s a small place. How difficult can it be to find her?”
His cousin snorted. “Give me what you have. I’ll find your lost maiden for you.”
“Be careful. She killed two vampires last night.”
That got Garrick’s attention. “What the fuck? Why’s she still breathing?”
Quinn shrugged. “I didn’t particularly like the two vampires she killed. She probably saved me the effort.” He paused. “And she’s rather fuckable.”
“Fuckable,” Garrick repeated flatly. “Look, I know you like complicated women and all, but let’s keep our eyes on the prize, okay? We’re here to seize a country, not get you laid. Besides, Dublin is full of fuckable women. Don’t get hung up on one that likes killing vamps.”
“I’m not hung up. I want to know who she is and why she’s killing vamps. Hell, I want to know how she’s killing them. She’s not exactly superhero size.”
“Not a vampire herself?”
“Definitely not.”
“Huh. Okay, I’ll find her for you. You go be a vampire lord and get us back to Dublin.”
Quinn laughed and wondered what someone like Raphael would think of his relationship with Garrick. Strictly speaking, his cousin was his lieutenant. In the world of vampires, a vampire lord’s lieutenant was an important and powerful position. More than one lieutenant had gone on to rule his own territory, although it was such a close and almost symbiotic relationship that many powerful lieutenants preferred to stay with the lords they served. And even the ones who left tended to maintain a deferential relationship with their lord. Quinn was reminded of Raphael again, and the way his former lieutenant, Duncan, still deferred to the powerful Western Lord, even though he now had a territory of his own. Lucas was the same. He played at being the disobedient son, but when it came down to it, Raphael’s word was law.
Quinn and Garrick had a different relationship. They’d been raised together from the time they were born, had lived next door to each other most of their lives. Their families had vacationed together, spent all their holidays together. He and Garrick were more brothers than cousins, and becoming vampires hadn’t changed that much. Sure, Quinn was by far the more powerful vampire, but Garrick was no weakling. He was a strong master vampire who might have ruled a nest of his own, had he not chosen to serve as Quinn’s lieutenant.
But they were still brothers under the skin. In public, they played the game as well as any other powerful vampire lord and his lieutenant. But in private, they were simply Quinn and Garrick, brothers and co-conspirators, just like always.
“I’ll do the bloody part,” he told Garrick now. “You find the girl.”
“Wait, wait,” Garrick protested. “I want in on the bloody part.”
“Fine,” Quinn agreed with feigned impatience. “But, first you find the girl.”
“Already done,” Garrick said, with an exaggerated slap of a computer key. “Check your in-box.”
Quinn gave him a surprised look and opened the email. “Eve McKenzie Connelly,” he read. “That’s a lot of name.”
Garrick shrugged. “You don’t have to shout the whole thing when you’re coming, lad. Fact, it might be odd if you do. Just stick with ‘Eve.’”
Quinn sighed, thinking it might be nice sometimes to have a proper lieutenant.
THE NEXT NIGHT found Quinn and Garrick back on the Howth docks, but there was no cozy café this time, no hot pot of tea or pretty waitress. They stood in the cold and damp, watching a lone boat slide into the darkened harbor. The boat docked, and two of the three men onboard jumped onto the pier, looking around as if expecting someone to meet them. Figuring that was their cue, Quinn and his cousin stepped out of the shadows and strode down the dock to the waiting boat.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” Quinn said casually.
The men jolted into readiness. “Who the fuck are you?” one of them asked, as behind them, the boat’s engine revved, preparing for a quick departure.
Quinn turned his head slowly, until the gleam of his eyes painted the cluttered boat deck with an icy blue light. Reaching out, he touched the captain’s mind and stopped him from running, or anything else, until Quinn gave him permission.
“You’re here to drop off a shipment,” Garrick said in a friendly voice. “We’re here to pick it up. Simple as that.”
The man who’d spoken glanced back at the boat, his muscles tensed to hop back on-board, probably wondering why his captain hadn’t reversed engines yet. He found no answers, and his next words demonstrated why he was only muscle.
“Yeah, well. I don’t know you, and I ain’t about to turn over the shipment to you or anyone else I don’t know.”
Garrick grinned. “I was so hoping you’d say that.” He moved before the man had a chance to react, before the human’s eyes had even widened in surprise. The second man was still staring at bloody ruins of his fellow smuggler when he, too, became little more than blood and flesh on the dirty dock. Through it all, the captain hadn’t moved, still caught by Quinn’s will. He studied the human briefly and noted a complete absence of the usual stress reactions. There was no increased heart rate, no rapid breathing, no more than the usual sweaty skin. He looked deeper and saw that some other vampire, either here or wherever he’d picked up the contraband, had put him under compulsion. The human would still feel fear, but he couldn’t act upon it.
“We’ll have to scuttle the boat,” Quinn said.
Garrick chuckled. “Let’s get Captain Ahab there to help us unload first.”
“Not here.” He eyed the gore splashing the worn boards of the dock. “I don’t want blood all over the crates.”
“Good point. Think you can convince him to move the boat?”
“Does a bear shit in the woods?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Quinn laughed, and caught the captain’s flinch from the corner of his eye. Interesting. The human must have some small measure of in-born resistance to telepathic control. It wasn’t enough to resist whatever vampire had planted the compulsion, though, which, oddly enough, was a bit of good luck. That compulsion had saved his life. If he’d fought back when Quinn and Garrick had first confronted them, he’d be dead along with his crew. Quinn decided, in that moment, to let the human captain live. After all, he wasn’t guilty of anything other than conspiring with vampires to smuggle illegal goods. And he was unlikely to go running to the authorities with that story.
With a graceful leap, Quinn was on the boat. Two long strides took him into the small wheelhouse which reeked of the captain’s stale sweat.
“Relax, Captain,” he said smoothly. “What’s your name?”
“Bohdan,” the human rasped. “Bohdan Honza.”
Czech, Quinn thought to himself. Not entirely a surprise. Despite its landlocked status, a lot of young Czech men found their way to the ports of Europe and worked as crew on big cargo ships. It was a short step from that to running a small smuggling vessel of your own. “Well, Bohdan Honza,” he said to the man, “this is your lucky night. Is there a place nearby where we can unload your cargo without anyone noticing?”
“Yes, sir. The other end of the harbor. No one’s there this time of year, and especially not at night.”
“You wouldn’t be setting me up, would you, Bohdan?”
“No, sir!” the man said fervently. “It’s a good place to unload. I tried to get the others to use it, but they wanted to be close to the pub.”
“They should have taken your advice. Okay, let’s get what’s left of your crewmen back aboard, shall we?”
The captain nodded, his terror ramping up a notch now that Quinn had removed the old compulsion. He probably assumed he, too, was going to die that night.
“Don’t worry, Bohdan. I’ve decided to let you live.”
The man nodded again, though it was obvious he didn’t believe Quinn’s assurances. That was all right. He’d learn soon enough that Quinn was a man—or a vampire—of his word.
Quinn leaned out of the boathouse and signaled Garrick, who quickly picked up the bloody bodies of the two crewmen and tossed them onto the deck, then jumped onboard himself.
“Where we going?” he asked Quinn, as the captain backed out of the slip.
“Captain Honza has suggested a more discreet location to unload the cargo.”
“You trust him?”
“Not at all. But right now, he’s mine, and he’s telling the truth.”
Garrick grunted. “I’ll have to move the car.”
“The exercise is good for you.”
“Good one, Q.” They both laughed. Garrick hardly needed the exercise. He was something of a fitness freak. They both were, if truth be told. Vampire longevity was a blessing, but it didn’t come with instant physical health. Regular vampires—those who weren’t in the business of running a territory—had the luxury of being out of shape. Although between the vampire symbiote’s obsession with keeping its host body healthy, and a diet of blood alone, it was rare to find a vamp who was overweight. But vampires like Quinn, and like his cousin, who thought to rise to the top, to rule a territory . . . they had to be prepared to fight for their lives on a nightly basis. And that meant rigorous and constant training in every form of combat.
Quinn turned back, his attention divided between keeping the captain from stroking out from fear and watching their progress through the still water. It was only a matter of minutes before they’d motored to the other, darker end of the small harbor, with its modern concrete dock. The lights of the busy pub were visible, but distant, with only the occasional loud laugh rising up enough to break the silence. There were no other boats in sight, and, though modern light poles arched overhead, none of the lamps were lit. Quinn thought back to what he’d learned about Howth. This part of the harbor had been upgraded for the tourist trade. It would be busy during the summer, when vacationers swelled Howth’s population, but in the cold winter months, like now, there was no one around.
The boat bumped the dock. Garrick stepped off and tied it down with efficient motions. “I’ll go get the car,” he called softly and took off with a burst of vampiric speed.
“Let’s go, Captain,” Quinn said in an upbeat voice. “Shut down the engine, and help me get these crates off so you can get on with your night.”
Sweat was rolling off the man’s face, his eyes wild as he obediently turned off the engine and led Quinn out onto the deck, where he stared, frozen, at the bodies of his former crew.
“Don’t worry about them. You can dump the bodies out at sea. You know better than I do what the best location would be.” Quinn pulled back the thick tarp covering the cargo. “Just stack them on the dock. We’ll do the rest,” he said, lifting the first crate and noting its substantial weight. It was too heavy for drugs, and the configuration of the crate was consistent with weapons shipments. Guns, then. The only question was, what kind?
The captain tried, but he couldn’t lift the crates alone. It was faster and easier for Quinn to do it himself, so he told the man to sit and rest, while he went to work. By the time Garrick returned with the car, nearly a third of the crates sat on the dock. And with the two vampires moving in unison, the rest were quickly off-loaded and stacked.
Honza’s agitation seemed to increase with every crate unloaded, until he was practically shuddering with terror. Quinn eyed the man and shook his head. “Honestly, Bohdan. There’s no need for this.” Reaching out, he touched the human’s forehead with a single finger, then gave him a jaunty salute and jumped off the boat to stand next to his cousin on the dock.
His foot had barely touched the concrete before the captain had the boat reversing away.
“Where’s he going?” Garrick asked, watching the boat depart.
“Our good captain will travel several miles out to sea, where he’ll scuttle the boat.”
“He’s going down with it?”
“Of course, not. I’m not a monster. He’ll escape on a life raft, the lone survivor of a tragic wreck. What he does after that is up to him. But he won’t remember anything of this night.”
“You’re sure?”
Quinn turned to study his cousin. “If you were any other vampire, Garrick, I’d take offense at that question.”
“Lucky I’m me, then.”
Quinn snorted. “Help me transfer all this mess to the car.”
Garrick hefted the first crate. “We’re going to need the back seat. It won’t all fit in the trunk.”
“It’s called a boot, you American heathen. Do whatever’s necessary, but do it fast. This place is deserted for now, but I don’t want to take any chances.”
EVE KICKED OFF her shoes and sat on the bed, reaching down to rub her foot. The damn heels were sexy and made her legs look great, but they hurt like hell. She wondered if the really expensive shoes, like the ones with the red soles that all the movie stars on the talk shows wore, hurt as badly. Did those beautiful women go home and rub their feet, too?
She flopped back on the bed, rolling to one side and reaching for her cell phone, immediately rolling back when the hilt of her knife dug into her thigh. She laughed to herself. That was one thing Hollywood starlets didn’t have to worry about, she’d wager. Not that her knife had seen much business tonight, she thought, with a sigh. She’d gotten a late start, bogged down as she’d been on her side job, and, though she’d walked her usual patrol, the night had been eerily quiet. Almost as if some greater threat had the local vamps and other bad guys lying low. And then she wondered what kind of threat could make a vampire want to hide out.
Shit. Well, whatever it was, there’d been no sign of it or any stray vampires, either. The pub had been active, but the vamps had stuck to the crowds and each other. Looked like she’d be visiting Dublin sooner than expected, a move she’d been planning for some time. Not that she expected to immediately start hunting vampires in the big city, but that had been her ultimate goal all along, and it was time for some reconnaissance. She knew vampires had a pecking order, an almost military structure of command. Vampires might not be human anymore, but they gossiped and bragged, just like everyone else, and she’d listened. She even knew the name of the so-called Lord of Ireland. Orrin Sorley. Talk about a puffed-up bastard. Lord of Ireland. She heard those words and pictured some fancy vampire doing a step dance across the stage while his fang-toothed soldiers cheered him on.
She laughed out loud at that, but sobered almost immediately. It wasn’t going to be that easy. Ordinary vampires were dangerous and strong. But the big boys? The ones at the very top? They were something else. They had true power, almost magical abilities if one believed the rumors. And she had no reason not to. There were now entire online sites dedicated to the worship of the monsters, sites filled with first-hand accounts of people—mostly women—who’d been to their blood houses. Places like the local Howth pubs, but run by the vampire lords and dedicated to vampire needs. There were even a very few stories on one site from women who’d been taken as lovers by vampires close to the top, women who’d seen for themselves what the vampire lords could do.
Eve didn’t know how much she believed of what they said, but she couldn’t dismiss it out of hand. There was too much similarity between the stories, too many repeated themes. She hated the thought of going to one of those places and mingling with the monsters, of offering herself up like meat in a market. But she had to do it. The vampires who’d killed her brother weren’t in Howth. They were in Dublin. And though she’d searched the Dublin streets for them, quietly visiting pubs frequented by the vamps, and lurking outside Orrin Sorley’s palatial Donnybrook estate, she’d never caught a glimpse of them.
Her years of hunting had only confirmed what she’d begun to suspect early on, that the vampires who’d killed her brother were high up in Sorley’s organization. She wasn’t going to catch them roaming the streets or drinking in the pubs in Dublin or anywhere else. It was going to take more than that. She’d hidden in Howth for too long, telling herself they might show up. Telling herself she needed the practice, needed to hone her skills. But the time had come. If she really wanted to find the vamps who’d killed Alan, she was going to have to put her life on the line in a way she hadn’t yet. And the truth was, she was scared.
“Looks like you’re headed for Dublin, lass,” she whispered. A shiver shook her body, and she told herself it was just the cold. She had a heater in her flat, but she used it sparingly, to save money. She got up and put on the kettle for a cup of tea, but couldn’t escape the dread that sat like a block of ice in her chest. Yes, she’d managed to kill some vampires over the last few years. But she had a feeling Dublin would change everything.