No question, Noelle was going to end their friendship.
Sad, really, since Hector was the last single man standing. The last friend Dallas had. Losing him was going to hurt like a son of a bitch.
His hands fisted on his chair arm as he studied Hector. The agent was watching Noelle, expression blank. No hint of attraction was evident. Still. Dallas sighed. If only that were true. The fact that Hector was looking at her at all said more than any emotion could have.
“So anyway,” Noelle continued. She curled her fingers around Bride’s beer and drained the contents. “You were telling me about McKell.”
A few masculine groans blended in a chorus of disappointment.
“I don’t know why I was doing that,” Bride said dryly. “I don’t know anything about him.”
Noelle arched a dark brow. “You were engaged to him.”
“Yeah, as a child. Then my memory was wiped clean, and I was sent to live here. We’ve chatted a few times, but I promise you, I know nothing about him.”
“And what she does know, she isn’t impressed by,” Devyn added firmly.
Bride just lifted her empty beer bottle and waved it under Devyn’s nose. “Be a good boy and fetch me another drink.”
She only drank red wine and blood, but Dallas knew she liked to blend in, so she was pretending to throw back a few cold ones.
Devyn’s mouth dipped into a pout. “Darling, I can’t. You know how jealous you get when every woman in the room watches my ass as I walk away from you. So, really, by refusing to help you, I’m doing you a favor.”
Bride rolled her eyes, clearly trying not to smile, and signaled a waitress.
Devyn placed his hand over his heart and met Dallas’s gaze. “No need to say it. I’m too good to her, I know.”
Like Bride, Dallas found himself trying not to grin. How did the bastard get away with the ego and the laziness? If Dallas had said something like that to one of his dates, he would have been slapped.
A new beer was promptly delivered. Bride didn’t drink it, of course, but Devyn did, aiding her illusion. They were both enablers.
“So … tell me about vampire weaknesses, then,” Noelle said. She reached over, grabbed a few cashews from the bowl in the center of the table, and tossed them into her mouth. “Real ones, not shit from myths.”
Bride shrugged, leaning back against her man. “I’m not the best source of information for that. I, well, I don’t have any weaknesses.”
“True story,” Devyn said with pride.
“And I only recently learned there were other vampires out there,” Bride continued. “I haven’t spent a lot of time with them. They weren’t exactly welcoming when I visited them underground.”
Noelle scrubbed a hand down her pretty face. “You’re so not helping.”
Dallas risked another glance at Hector. Man was still watching Noelle, expression still blank. He’d wanted so badly to be wrong, but he’d been battling these types of visions for over a year now, and not a single one had failed to come to pass. He was going to sleep with Noelle, even knowing the outcome, and then Hector was going to sleep with Noelle.
“Do you think we failed to talk to Bride while filling out McKell’s file?” Mia, too, propped her elbows on the table. She sat across from Noelle, allowing her to glare straight into the trainee’s face. “I assure you, everything Bride knows, which amounts to shit, is in his file.”
“Hey,” Bride said at the same time an unimpressed Noelle said, “never hurts to return to a source with follow-up questions.”
Mia shrugged. “Work the rest of the night, then. But me? I’m relaxing for once.” Her chair skidded behind her as she stood. “The rest of you can go to hell.” With that, she stomped to the bar.
Dallas was positive he heard every person at the table utter a quick prayer for the safe and speedy return of Mia’s husband. She always morphed into Cranky McBitch when Kyrin was out of town. And as he’d only departed for a meeting with his people, the Arcadians, this morning, and planned to be gone for seven days, the next seven days were going to be long and torturous.
Bride regarded Noelle intently. “McKell giving you trouble or something?”
“Not me.” She waved her fingers. “See, I still have these. He’s messing with Ava. No one messes with my Ava.”
The Rakans, who’d been without female companionship for two years before settling here on Earth, watched her with utter adoration. Her Ava? She had to know what kind of reaction that kind of statement would get, but she blithely continued munching on those cashews.
“Really?” Bride furrowed her brow, the picture of confusion and disappointment. “He cut off her fingers?”
“No, no, nothing like that.” Noelle licked the salt from her nails, and Dallas moaned, deciding he and Hector were technically only acquaintances. “But he’s got to be screwing with her mind, you know? He’s not pissed at her for stabbing him. And he wants to work with her, even bargained with her.”
Bride tapped her fingertips against her chin. “Hmm. That is odd. Usually he erupts with the slightest provocation.”
Yeah. A real conundrum. “He wants to sleep with her,” Dallas said. They acted as if they’d never met a man with a penis.
Johnny, he noticed, leaned forward to listen to the rest of the conversation, gaze sharp.
Bride asked for details about the bargain, but Noelle refused to give them. She loved her friend, and wouldn’t betray her confidence, even for answers of her own. Great. Something else to like about her. Exactly what he hadn’t needed.
“Is it true that vampires can’t go out during the day?” Noelle asked.
“Not necessarily.” Green eyes hardened, and it was clear Bride didn’t like discussing her people. But she did it. Anything for her precious Devyn, who sometimes worked for AIR. What would it be like to have someone care that much? Dallas wondered. “We burn easily, so we like to avoid the sunlight, but we don’t burst into flame or anything like that.”
“And you heal quickly? Faster than humans?”
“Yes.”
Noelle’s head tilted to the side. “So what does it mean if you don’t heal quickly?”“That there’s not enough AB negative in my diet.”
“That’s it? The only problem?”
“Yep.”
Now it was Noelle’s eyes that hardened, turning the gray to steel. “And when you’re hungry, you’ll eat anything?”
Dallas cast another glance to Hector, expecting to see more of the same. A blank mask. Only, his friend had his beer poised at his lips, his gaze gobbling up Noelle with massive amounts of heat. Had thoughts of biting and sucking pushed him over the edge?
Didn’t matter, really. Here it was, unadulterated proof that Hector wanted Noelle.
I’ll fight her appeal, Dallas thought, determined. No matter what the vision promised, he could control his body. He could say no. Even if Noelle stripped and straddled him while he was tied to a chair, slipping and sliding, begging—and shit. None of that, you gutter-loving bastard.
“I can’t, no,” Bride said. “Once I met Devyn, I couldn’t drink from anyone but him. If I tried, I vomited.”
“And can you blame her?” Devyn grinned like a man who had just experienced the best orgasm of his life. “My blood is the best.”
Wasn’t bragging when you spoke the truth. Dallas had no designs on the guy, but if either one of them had been a woman, Dallas would have tapped that. Confidence really flipped his lid.
“Mated vampires can’t drink from anyone else,” Bride added. “Whether the blood’s good. Or bad.”
Devyn clutched his heart as if he’d been stabbed.
“I wonder if there’s a way to force the mating …” Noelle said, mind obviously drifting.
Johnny tried to gain her attention, but failed. Did he want to know more about Ava and McKell? Probably. Moron, Dallas thought again. Like there was any way the asshole would get a chance with those goods again. Ava wasn’t stupid. Plus, the few times Dallas had seen her with Johnny, her disgust had been palpable.
Johnny would have better luck with a nice girl from church. Really, McKell was a stone-cold killer, and Dallas wasn’t even sure he could handle Ava. Girl was a man-eater. And man-eaters were dangerous. Real dangerous. Junior twitched again.
Maybe Dallas should make a play for—he jumped to his feet with a curse. Everyone’s attention swung to him, but he didn’t care. The Schön queen had just materialized behind Johnny and was now tracing her fingertip along his shoulder. The trainee didn’t seem to notice, was still snapping his fingers for Noelle’s attention.
The queen’s navy gaze locked on Dallas.
For a seemingly endless moment, he was paralyzed. Never had there been a more beautiful woman. She was petite in every way, almost delicate, like a china doll, with long, pale hair and utterly flawless skin. While looking at her, all a man wanted to do was protect her. After screwing her senseless, of course.
Breathe, damn it. Protecting and screwing her should be the last things on his mind. She had destroyed planets. Ruined countless civilizations. All without a single shred of remorse. And she did it through sex, by hitting men where they couldn’t resist. Whoever she screwed became infected with her disease. And if the infected male didn’t constantly infect others, in turn, he died.
It was a vicious, never-ending cycle.
Dallas had met her once before, on the day she’d come to this planet. He’d tried to kill her, failed, nearly allowed her to seduce him, despite everything he knew about her, and had battled midnight fantasies ever since. Fantasies that left him hard and aching and moaning for one little kiss of her lips.
God, she was gorgeous. And looked so soft. Smelled like fresh, dewy roses. And would probably taste like—
Fuck. She’s evil incarnate. Don’t forget.
“I’ve finally returned for you,” she said in a smoky voice that rivaled Noelle’s. She glided forward, closing the distance between them, tracing her fingers along Hector’s scalp as she passed him. Like Johnny, he seemed oblivious.
“Get your fucking hands off him,” Dallas snarled. He didn’t mind the threat to himself. But to his friends? Hell, no. He wanted to race to her, choke her, watch her eyes close and her body flop uselessly, but he remained where he was.
With anyone else, he could have moved faster than the speed of light and attacked. He could have gotten into her head and forced her to do anything he wished. Sadly, with her, he was as human as he’d been before Mia’s husband had healed him, changed him. His “powers” simply didn’t work.
How? How did she render him so … ineffective?
He’d once cursed his abilities, hadn’t wanted them, had thought they made him alien. Now, when he could have used them to save the goddamn world, he cursed the fact that he didn’t have them.
“Uh, Dallas,” Bride said, standing and waving her hand in front of his face. “Who are you talking to?”
“Who am I talking to?” His eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “Who do you think I’m talking—” He pressed his lips together as understanding dawned. The boys hadn’t felt the queen. That had to mean they couldn’t see her, either.
No reason to alarm anyone. And no reason to anger the queen—what was her name?—by mentioning her presence and possibly sending her fleeing. Not before he’d had a chance to kill her.
This time, he wouldn’t fail.
Grinning, the queen wiggled her fingers at him. “Come, Dallas. Let’s go outside. Chat.”
He nodded. “I need some air,” he told his friends. When Hector made to stand, as if to join him, Dallas shook his head. “Alone,” he added. Then he stalked off without any more explanation, following the object of his hatred.
She reached the bar’s front door, but didn’t stop to open it. She merely walked through it, like a ghost. His stomach clenched. Maybe she was a ghost. A ghost who could take corporeal form for sex. And wasn’t that just an utterly peachy thought? One, the pyre-gun at his back would be useless. And two, killing her would only be possible while sentencing himself to death.
He stomped outside. The sun was setting, the sky a hazy pink and purple, the air warm. Wonderland, the bar, sat in the middle of a strip club and a Taco Bell, so there was plenty of traffic coming and going through the parking lot.
The queen didn’t stop until they stood between two of the metal buildings, hidden in the shadows. Dallas expected several of her soldiers to jump out and grab him—bitch always had her soldiers nearby—but all remained calm. That he could see.
He met her gaze, her beautiful, mesmerizing gaze, and felt himself melting, edging closer to—no, no, no. Grunting, he settled his weight on his heels. She’s the enemy. He’d remind himself as many times as necessary. “Why are you here?”
Her white dress billowed in the breeze, caressing her. “I’m here for you,” she said, matter-of-factly. Just then, her voice was almost childlike. Innocent, full of wonder.
Enemy. “And what do you want with me?”
“My name is Trinity,” she said, ignoring him. She frowned, again almost childlike, only this time in a way that reminded him of a kid who hadn’t gotten the lollipop she wanted. “Not that you asked.”
“Or cared,” he lied. Trinity. Merely a name, like his, or was there a deeper meaning to it? Any other name, and he wouldn’t have wondered, but the literal translation of trinity was three. There was the woman, the disease, and … what? Something else? Something worse? His stomach did that clenching thing again. “Your soldiers are infecting my people. I want you gone.” Forever.