Half Blood (2 page)

Kicking out of his chair, he went to the kitchenette they had in the back corner of the office to make himself a cup of instant. It tasted terrible, but at least it got rid of the taste of vampire that was still sticking to the back of his tongue. He took another sip and from over the lip of his coffee cup, he saw his boss walking towards him.

‘Wolfe. My office. Now.’

‘You got it,’ he replied, walking casually back to the desk to dump his still-full coffee cup.

‘Sit down,’ his boss said as soon as he’d shut the door to his office behind him. His boss’s name was D'Angelo. His dark hair had started going grey around the sides, but his black eyes were still sharp. ‘I’ve just spoken to Hauptmann. He says he wants off your service.’

D'Angelo’s blood pressure went up a few clicks. ‘You know what, if you weren’t my best detective, I would get your ass transferred someplace else where I don’t have to see you every single damn day.’

‘But I am your best detective,’ Vaile reminded him. ‘And I’m sure you’d miss me.’

D'Angelo opened his mouth to argue again, but a knock on the door saved him. ‘Come in!’ he barked. The door pushed open and the scent of roses wafted in. Vaile’s head swivelled around to see a female officer standing in the doorway. He’d never seen her around the station before, but then again he’d never really looked at human women. What was the point? Love couldn’t transcend species. Lust? Fuck yeah, but love? Not a chance.

‘You wanted to see me, sir?’ she asked, breaking Vaile’s fixation on her. He turned back around in his seat.

‘Grey, come in.’

She shut the door behind her and parked it in the chair next to Vaile. The scent of roses grew stronger, but it wasn’t her perfume. It was something fainter than that. Maybe it was her soap or shampoo or some shit. ‘You expressed interest in working with Detective Wolfe. Does your interest still stand?’ his boss said.

Vaile looked over at her and wondered why in the hell she would volunteer to spend time with him.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Congratulations. You’ve been reassigned. Now get your asses over to Buxton Gen. There’s another girl been brought in overnight—rape suspect. Get a statement. See if we can’t finally nail this guy’s ass to the wall.’

Vaile stood up, Grey shadowing him. ‘You got it,’ Vaile rumbled.

One week earlier …

Indi knew he’d be trouble the first moment she laid eyes on him. Men in suits were always a problem for her. She felt like she’d had the words “harass me asshole” tattooed onto her forehead from birth. And of course he was sitting in her section. Her anger prickled over her skin ever so softly, but she shoved the feeling away; sucking in a deep breath and walking over to his table.

‘Do you want me to take him for you?’

Indi turned to look at the only other male friend she had besides her brother. Rhett had only been working at
Jerry’s
for a few months, but she felt as if she’d known him her entire life. Rhett’s mismatched eyes were soft and cautious. He had heterochromia which meant that one of his eyes was a light sky-blue and the other a pale pistachio-green.

He pushed the six-foot-four mark; his broad shoulders tapering down to a narrow waist and muscular legs. He didn’t look like much with his clothes on, but Indi had accidently walked in on him when he was changing out of his uniform one evening after the café had closed, and he was packing some serious muscle under his Hanes.

She smiled, shaking her head at him. ‘Nah, I’m good.’ She rubbed the back of her neck, working some kinks out as she prepared herself to talk to the customer in her section. Plastering a fake smile on her lips, she made her way over to him. The guy’s dark eyes watched her with all the eagerness of a hungry predator.

Her skin crawled with anger. She wanted nothing more than to stop him looking at her like something delectable. Shaking off the murderous impulse, Indi pressed her omnipresent anger further down into her belly. Sometimes she felt as if her anger was an actual Thing inside her; a giant black cat wanting to claw its way out of her body when she let it get out of control.

‘Hi. What can I get you?’ she asked, keeping her voice light and easy.

His top lip curled up a little in the corner. ‘Hi,’ he replied smoothly.

She stared into his eyes, realising that they weren’t dark brown as she’d originally thought, but black––as black as clouds that threatened a tempest.

‘So … what can I get you?’ Indi tapped the long end of her notepad against her thigh to stop herself from being tempted to reach for the hunting knife she’d always kept in her boot. Her anger liked that idea. The cat inside her wanted to draw blood when the weight of his gaze set the hairs on the back of her neck on end.

He licked his bottom lip slowly. ‘How about your phone number?’

She curled her free hand into a fist at her side and let out a deep lung-full of air. ‘Sorry, we’re not serving that today.’ She tried to keep her voice peppy and bright.

His dark eyes lingered on her breasts. When he met her eyes again, Indi was glaring back down at him, practically chewing off her own tongue to stop herself from telling him to keep his eyes to his fucking self.

‘Look, I can come back once you’ve decided,’ she said, turning around to leave, but his warm hand on her forearm stopped her. She turned back, visually tearing strips of his skin from his body.

He squeezed her forearm gently. ‘Nancy,’ he repeated in a drawl. ‘That wasn’t so hard now, was it?’ His voice was rich like dark coffee and she could see the appeal. ‘Nancy, you have the most extraordinary eyes.’

‘They’re contacts,’ she snapped before faking another smile and stalking off.

Her whole body shook with the effort of not turning around and slugging the guy in the mouth. When she got to the front counter, her boss Jerry was standing behind the coffee machine working on an order.

‘Alright,’ he said softly. Indi watched his expression relax as he went back to work on her order. She lived alone now, but she and Jerry had lived together since she was fifteen and he was eighteen. As far as she was concerned he was her brother and the closest she had ever come to having a real family.

Jerry finished up the order, placing it onto a saucer on the counter. Indi looked up to find him staring down at her with his usual concern.

‘Are you sure you’re alright?’ he asked while placing a warm hand on hers.

Mustering up a small smile, she replied, ‘Peachy.’ Indi picked up the saucer carefully and walked back over to table number three.

‘So when do you get off, Nancy?’ the guy asked as she put his coffee down. She looked at him from under her lashes and knew what an epic mistake that was the minute she did it. Fuck it.

‘Late,’ she replied sourly.

‘How late?’

She watched him turn the coffee cup on the saucer and levelled her gaze on him once more. ‘Won’t your wife wonder where you are?’ she asked in a quiet snarl.

His eyes darted down to the tan mark left from his wedding band. ‘We’ve come to an agreement, me and her. She only does vanilla sex and I … don’t,’ he smiled, his lip curling up in the corner again. ‘So, what time?’ he asked, running his index finger over her hand. She flinched away from his touch, folding her arms under her breasts and stopping herself from going for her knife. She felt the beast of her anger raking at her ribs, demanding retribution for being held back; for being trapped.

‘Touch me again and I swear to you I’ll remove your hand with my knife,’ she said in a low, threatening voice. ‘And I’ve never made a promise I haven’t kept.’

He never even batted an eyelid. ‘I’ve got an apartment over in Waterside that we can use. I’m a very successful businessman,’ he preened.

‘You disgust me,’ she spat.

He gave her a sly smile, but the heat in his eyes didn’t match. He was hungry for something more than just flirting. ‘I like wildcats.’ He grabbed her wrist, wrapping his fingers tighter and tighter until she felt her circulation cut.

‘Let go of me,’ she hissed. He manoeuvred her around the front of his body, blocking what they were doing from the rest of the café.

‘Or what, hmm? Are you going to attack me? Are you going to scream for me to let you go? I’d like that, you know.’ He jerked her a little closer until they were sharing a breath. ‘Fight back,’ he suggested.

The beast within her growled low and fast. Her arm moved faster than he was able to track because she’d pulled the knife from her right boot with her left hand and held it against his skin. ‘Let. Me. Go,’ she breathed.

He released her wrist, laughing at her—a gentle, rolling rumble of a sound—and pressed his neck into the tip of the blade until a small bead of blood rose from his skin. God, she was tempted to just run the blade across the front of his throat, to let his life force spill out of his body from a five-inch wound. She would have done it too if she hadn’t felt Rhett come to stand behind her. With a warm hand on her upper arm, he let her feel the strength he possessed.

‘Indi? Drop the knife. Now isn’t the time for this.’ He spoke the words calmly and softly into her ear until she loosened her grip on the handle. She stared into the asshole’s dark eyes as Rhett talked her down. She wanted to hurt him, but she also knew that she couldn’t shed any blood in her brother’s café after he was good enough to give her a job. ‘That’s it. Give me the knife.’ Rhett’s huge hand curled around hers and tugged to get her to let go of the handle, but she resisted. She wouldn’t be left unarmed.

With a jerking motion, she pulled the knife from his neck and held it against her thigh. She turned to look at Rhett and shock made her take a step away from him.

‘What?’ he asked softly, dropping his gaze to the floor. She could have sworn that his eyes were two totally different shades of green and blue for half a second.

‘Nothing,’ she replied when she could talk. She fixed her gaze back on the man.

‘I’ll see you later, Kitten,’ the man said. Indi’s rage exploded. Her movements were fast, her hand curling into a fist and slamming into his neck, just under his ear. Most people didn’t know about the bundle of nerves there. The asshole’s eyes rolled back in his skull before he passed out; his face colliding with his coffee and the table top with a loud, fleshy slap.

*

Jerry launched himself over the counter and ran to the back of the café where Indi’s customer had just slumped over in his chair. Dark coffee dribbled down from the top of the table and onto the carpet beneath.

‘Indi? What the hell?’ he demanded. She was holding her knife against her leg, her expression gone past reasonable. He could practically see the rage coming off her body. Jerry looked down at the table, expecting to see a huge pool of blood, but was relieved to see none. Looking back at Indi, he asked, ‘Well?’

Movement in his peripheral vision caught his eye. Turning his head, he saw Rhett moving towards them, slipping his huge frame in between him and his sister. He bristled, but didn’t understand why. He looked into the warm colours of his heterochromous eyes and waited.

‘It was my fault,’ Rhett said calmly. ‘I accidently elbowed him in the face as I was trying to take her away.’

Over Rhett’s shoulder, Jerry could see Indi’s shocked expression at what he’d said. Rhett had just lied for her, but why? He didn’t owe her anything. With Indi still fixed in his gaze, he asked, ‘Is that true?’

Her haunting eyes were glowing slightly and she nodded. ‘I was resisting him. I tried to elbow him and he elbowed the customer. Sorry,’ she replied just as calmly.

A low moan escaped from behind them. They all turned to see the customer coming to. Jerry pushed them both aside and went to the man. He had to get him out the back and cleaned up as quickly as he could. Sliding the man’s arm around his neck and taking his weight around his waist, Jerry lifted him and started moving towards the storeroom. The customer’s head lolled about as he shuffled them both towards the door. Looking at his profile, Jerry took stock of his injuries; noting the swelling and the cut to the bridge of his nose. Blood trickled out of one nostril; one bright, red drop threatening to take a nose dive from his chin and onto his ridiculously expensive suit.

He shoved the door closed behind him with his hip, placing the guy down onto an upturned milk crate. As he leaned him against the wall, the bastard suddenly came back to life again, pushing Jerry away and pitching wildly to his feet. Jerry took a few steps back with his hands outspread before him until his butt hit the edge of the sink.

‘I’d sit down if I were you,’ Jerry told the man in a flat voice.

The guy’s charcoal eyes fixed on his, and there was nothing friendly in them. He now had a death grip on his nose, trying to stop anymore blood from ruining his Tom Ford suit and silk tie.