Stakeout (Aurora Sky (10 page)

“Oh, crap!” I said to my reflection in the bathroom
mirror, noticing what time it was the night of Marcus’s party.

My makeup and hair were done, but I still
needed to put on my dress, and I was supposed to pick Aurora up in
front of school in two minutes. Tonight, I’d chosen matching red
silk bra and panties. Who said I couldn’t pull off both red and
black? There were all kinds of surprises beneath the surface.

I grabbed my short black dress off the
dresser, pulled it on over my head, clasped the Bite Me pendant
around my neck, and hauled ass over to West High. Traffic didn’t
help. There was a school dance that evening. You couldn’t pay me to
go to one of those.

I spotted Aurora pacing the sidewalk.

“Sorry!” I called out the moment Aurora
slipped inside the car. “I didn’t notice the time.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Aurora said evenly.
She didn’t look too pleased, but for all I knew that had nothing to
do with me and everything to do with Fane.

“Are you going to be okay tonight?” I asked.
The last time Aurora went to the palace, she left against her
will.

As though reading my thoughts, she answered,
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Besides, I deserve a
night off after The Great Pizza Caper. I helped rid the world of
not one, not two, but three killers, and I had to put up with
Valerie in the process.”

I snorted. “That’s what I call fighting fire
with fire.”

Hopefully Valerie didn’t show tonight because
it wouldn’t be much of a night off for Aurora if she did.

Marcus’s place wasn’t far from the school. He
lived directly beside the coastal trail. We buzzed through downtown
and entered Marcus’s inlet facing neighborhood. I found a parking
spot within a block of the palace, which was nice since we chucked
our jackets in the car.

The moment we walked in, Marcus called out,
“Joyeux Noel and Aurora Sky!”

He directed us to the kitchen where a young
man in a tux offered drinks from a tray. He was as young and fit as
the bartender from last weekend.

One of the trays was lined with shot glasses
filled with thick, red liquid.

Aurora’s eyes widened. “Is that...”

“Blood,” I said. “Don’t worry, it comes from
the blood bank. There’s wine in the fridge or champagne if you
prefer.”

A dark figured slipped into the kitchen
behind us. Amusement danced across Fane Donado’s face as he focused
on Aurora. He wore all black and had black hair buzzed at the sides
with a tuff of blond at the top. Somehow, he managed to pull it
off.

“I think Aurora would prefer the blood,” he
said.

It was a good thing Aurora had her back
turned to him. It gave her time to recover from the flash of alarm
that crossed over her face. By the time she turned around, she took
on an expression of annoyance. She wasn’t fooling me, and I’m sure
she wasn’t fooling Fane. Vampires seemed to have a sixth sense
about that sort of thing.

I wasn’t about to stick around for the
fireworks.

“Have you seen Gavin?” I asked, looking over
Aurora’s shoulder.

“He’s in the living room,” Fane said.

“Great. See you around.” I left the kitchen
without a backwards glance. Aurora seemed to understand that she
couldn’t be with Fane, so I was sure she wouldn’t do anything
stupid like hook up with him for one night.

I stopped at the edge of the living room and
scanned the vampires and humans dotting the palace in red and
black. I spotted Gavin in a chair by the windows. He had his eyes
on his phone, which hovered at his midsection.

I maneuvered through the crowd, anticipating
the moment Gavin looked up and noticed me, but his head remained
bent.

“Hi, Gavin,” I said when I’d reached the
small space beside him.

Gavin didn’t bother looking up from his
phone. “Good evening, Noel.”

The formality of his tone took me back. I
wasn’t sure how to respond, so I looked at the source of his
interest and asked, “Did you get a new game?”

Gavin frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Just that you’ve been glued to your phone
all week.”

Gavin’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not playing
games.”

I leaned back not even sure what to say
besides a pouty, “Okay. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Gavin didn’t respond; he just kept his head
down and began texting again.

It took several seconds for it to register
that he actually wasn’t going to stop and talk to me. Not only was
I utterly confused, but now I felt like a complete idiot on top of
everything else standing in front of a guy blatantly ignoring
me.

I needed to sit down and regroup, but the
closest seat faced Gavin, and there was no way I could be near him
after getting the brush-off.

What had changed? What had I done wrong? I
didn’t have a single theory to comfort me.

I found a seat in the far corner of the
living room, facing away from everyone. All I had was my reflection
in the window for company, and she had no answers, either. I sat
staring at her. She offered no comfort or encouragement of any
kind—the perfect companion to fit my hollow mood.

I must have zoned out because I hadn’t
expected to see Aurora again for at least a couple hours, but it
felt more like a couple minutes when her reflection joined mine in
the window.

“Noel?”

Slowly, I looked up.

“Oh, hi.”

“What’s the matter?” Aurora asked, taking a
seat beside me.

Normally I wouldn’t discuss Gavin with
anyone, but his weird behavior was making me nuts. “I don’t know
what’s going on with Gavin. He’s being so cold to me tonight.”

Aurora raised a brow. “He’s a vampire.”

“Ha, ha.” That’s what I got for sharing my
feelings. “What about Fane?” I asked. “Is it true he broke up with
Valerie?”

Aurora was so easy to distract. “He says they
were only together a day.” She slumped forward. “He was rather
cold, too.”

I felt a twinge of pity. It had been easy for
me to place judgment on Aurora for not wanting to break up with
Fane and obsessing about him and Valerie after she did. If she felt
the way I did about Gavin, I could begin to sympathize.

I sighed. “Why can’t we like normal
guys?”

“Because we’re not normal girls.”

We gazed into the blackness beyond our
reflections in the window pane.

Aurora cleared her throat. “A boy from school
followed me here.”

“What?” I said, turning away from the
window.

“Well, actually he followed us here after he
saw me get into your car at school.”

“Why would he do that?” I never realized
February was National Stalk Someone Month.

Aurora rolled her eyes. “I guess he likes me.
Annoying, right?”

“And stupid,” I added. “Did he see
anything?”

Aurora scrunched up her nose. “No, I got him
out of here right away and told him to never come back.”

“Let’s just hope he doesn’t.” And that was
hoping a lot from a high school boy who’d already followed Aurora
to a party.

“I was very clear,” Aurora said. She sighed.
“So much for a quiet evening out. Ready to get out of here?”

Was she serious? We’d barely arrived. Then
again, maybe it was better if Aurora left before she attracted any
more trouble. I stood and led the way out of the living room.

I caught Henry’s eye in the kitchen as I
passed. I wondered if he knew what was up with Gavin.

I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel as
I drove across town. When we reached Aurora’s home, she said,
“That’s weird. All the lights are on.”

I vaguely remembered her saying her dad had
split. I wish mine had taken off. If he’d left, I wouldn’t have had
to. Aurora didn’t know how lucky she was. Not only that, but
obviously her mother was up worrying about her. Mine couldn’t even
muster up the guts to protect her own children. I thought that was
supposed to be a basic animal instinct. We had the capacity to
reason and communicate verbally, but all it had done was corrupt
us. All hail the human race. If any creature deserved eternal life,
it was dolphins or elephants, not humans. People were a plague on
earth.

Aurora stepped out of the car and wished me a
good night, but I wasn’t calling it a night. My roommates were out
for the evening. Even Eric couldn’t get away with staying in on
Valentine’s. Clive would never allow a Hallmark holiday to dictate
his dinner plans. He likely assumed that no guy wanted to be with
me and could very well be stalking the entrance of my building.

Screw that.

I was going back to the palace. Maybe Gavin
had finished texting or whatever the hell he was doing and
lightened up. He’d made moves on me before. I hadn’t imagined it.
Obviously he was interested. He must have been distracted by some
important news. He wasn’t the most open guy. Probably didn’t want
to bother me with whatever it was.

I zipped through downtown, only vaguely aware
of traffic and street lights.

Finding a parking spot proved challenging,
especially later in the evening, but my luck improved when a car
pulled away from the curb. I took their spot as soon as they
vacated it.

I let myself into the palace. There was a
small gathering in the kitchen, but I didn’t see any sign of
Marcus. I glanced at the last place I’d seen Gavin, but he wasn’t
there. The living room was packed, the voices within louder than
the music. A couple going up the spiral staircase squeezed past a
couple coming down.

I hadn’t noticed Gavin during my initial
scan, so I stepped further inside the living room.

Hopefully he hadn’t gone home or
upstairs.

A flash of red caught my eye when I looked
around the room a third time. Valerie. Red hair, red dress. Big
surprise. She was sitting in a guy’s lap on the couch. My first
thought was that it was Fane and that it was a good thing Aurora
had left early. Then Valerie moved back ever so slightly and I saw
that it wasn’t Fane, but Gavin taking the brunt of her ass. My
Gavin.

My fingers curled. My stomach clenched into
one tight fist. I tasted bile. I felt rage. And still I couldn’t
believe it was true.

That heinous bitch!

Apparently I wasn’t the only person who felt
she’d stepped into an alternate universe. Maxine, a regular female
vamp at Marcus’s parties, honed in on Valerie as she entered the
room from the spiral staircase.

“This is new,” Maxine said, tossing her
copper highlighted hair over one shoulder. “What happened to
Francesco?”

Valerie did her own hair toss, one that sent
her tresses over her shoulders—like billowing boob curtains. “Fane
is old news. Emphasis on
old
. Gavin here
is nineteenth century. Barely old at all. Besides, he’s so much
better to look at.”

Gavin beamed with pleasure. He gripped
Valerie’s hips and said, “You’re the most gorgeous thing I’ve
looked at in two centuries.”

My heart dropped. All I’d ever gotten out of
Gavin was a “You look nice,” and he’d never looked at me the way he
stared at Valerie, as though he were a thirteen-year-old who’d
never seen breasts before.

A gust of bitter wind reached my legs when
the front door opened. I turned in time to see Fane flick the butt
of his cigarette to the ground before stepping inside. He might
have gone unnoticed longer if other guests hadn’t seen him and
quieted in that way that attracts instant attention.

Fane took languid steps across the stone
entrance, stopping at the lip of the living room. He glanced at
Valerie. I wish I could have looked as bored as Fane when he
noticed his ex-girlfriend in another vamp’s lap.

Fane scratched his pale cheek. “Two exes in
one night. Marcus really knows how to throw a party.”

Valerie sniggered. “Maybe you should have
stayed at home drinking tea with Joss.”

Fane took another step inside the living
room. “There’s only one thing I like to drink.” His voice was
intimate, as though it were just he and Valerie having a private
conversation without the rest of us listening in. “Good thing Gavin
likes sharing.” Fane winked.

Gavin wrapped an arm around Valerie and
glared at Fane. “She’s off limits.”

Something inside me felt broken.
Taken.
He’d said I was taken. Now I’d been tossed
aside and replaced by ginger vamp bait.

Fane looked around the room and chuckled.
“Just remember I had her first. But then, you always went for the
leftovers, Gavin. I guess that makes you more of a vulture than a
vampire.”

The people standing around only looked mildly
interested in the male bravado on Valerie’s behalf.

I was so disgusted I wanted to leave, but
it’s not like I could retreat mid-act. I so wanted Fane to steal
Valerie back, claim his former rights, yank her from Gavin’s lap,
and haul her skanky ass up the stairs then ravish the banshee until
there was nothing left but a pile of red rags. But a Fane and
Valerie comeback was about as likely as Marcus suddenly developing
an appetite for snatch.

Valerie rose to her feet and glared at Fane.
She lifted her nose in the air. “Come on, Gavin. I’ll show you how
tasty
leftovers
can be.” She shot Fane and
me a silky smile.

Gavin shot up after her, not sparing either
of us a glance.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” I whispered
as Valerie sashayed her way up the stairs, Gavin following eagerly
at her heels.

I hadn’t realized I’d spoken aloud until I
heard Fane’s voice inside my ear. “It’s his loss. She tastes like
rotten fish.” I hadn’t seen Fane move next to me. My senses had
gone numb the moment I saw Gavin with Valerie.

“Rotten fish,” I repeated with a frown. So
Valerie’s blood did taste off. That or Fane was still putting on
his macho show. I hoped so. Maybe my taste had turned Gavin off.
But he’d sucked my blood before. Please tell me I did not taste
like rotten fish!