Chapter 2
“Account balance: $15.00”
His bank's electronic reminder system was just too damn efficient sometimes.
Lance Soleil shoved the offending BlackBerry in his pocket. He'd never understood the temptation to kill the messenger, but now he wanted to throw the cursed thing into the wall. It would make such a satisfying crash of tiny electronic parts.
Such behavior would not, however, make money magically appear.
He rested his elbows on his scarred desk and dropped his tired head to his hands. By 5:00
P.M.
tomorrow night, the Tualatin Mountain Homeless Shelter would close its doors forever.
He'd been so sure he could save this place and the fragile hope it nurtured. Failure felt like a small animal chewing on his guts. Frustration and disappointment led to anger.
The stale air in his cramped office smothered him. Lance wove through the piled boxes of old paperwork, the broken chairs, and the dead computers until he emerged into the main room of the shelter. Somehow he and his staff had managed to scrape enough funds together for dinner tonight. Homeless people dressed in ragged army surplus jackets and dirty camouflage pants served themselves plates of lentils, rice, and onions.
When the shelter left, the building itself, now a faded reminder of an elegant past as a luxury hotel, would most likely be sold for expensive condos.
Smiling through his teeth at everyone, he pushed through the usual olfactory combination of unwashed bodies and industrial cleanser to reach the front door and blessed fresh air.
He would rather be back in Afghanistan, being shot at, than dealing with this horror. No money meant no food, no blankets, no
toothpaste
for sweet God's sake. The private trust that the founders had left behind to run the mission had been bled dry by decades of mismanagement. And by mismanagement he meant embezzlement. For some reason, that left the public reluctant to invest in the homeless.
Lance's gonzo fund-raising tactics had only delayed the inevitable. He had cut his salary to a symbolic $1.00 a year, relying only on his veteran's benefits for living. He used volunteers instead of paid staff. Even the well-publicized Pirate Ball last April hadn't bought them enough time to find a stable income stream.
Only a miracle would save them. Lance was clean out of miracles.
“Hey, Father,” Jay, one of his regulars, called out from the sofa in front of the television. Lance waved, momentarily cheered by Jay's greeting. Being on the street was hard. Lance knew that. Somehow, Jay always managed to smile, even when his only warm bed was about to go away.
Tirelessly, Lance's little phone chirped at him again. He sighed and pulled the damn thing out as he exited the building. Letting the cracked front door swing shut behind him, Lance breathed in the wet air. His courage shored up, he opened the phone. Just a low battery warning, thank God.
Relieved, he raised his face to the sky.
The ageless crescent moon hung suspended over the city, white, cool, and serene behind its cloud cover. The dignified buildings across from him sported damage, but still stood proud. Old claw marks from the Riots added to their stately air the way courage enhanced a woman's beauty.
What could he do to keep his life's work open?
He caught movement in his peripheral vision.
A dark-haired woman watched him from the roof opposite. A gust of wind pushed her long coat away from her body. Even in the dark and the rain, he could tell it was quite the body. Her businesslike air was belied by a hip thrust to one side, a sensual contradiction to the way she perched.
That hip action could get a rise out of any heterosexual man with a pulse. Lance's own pulse reminded him of his sexual appetites.
Down, boy,
he thought. Because holy burning tears, here was his downfall. If she made one move toward him, he would never be able to resist her.
His breath came a little faster. He must resist.
He'd fought so hard to eradicate lust from his pile of sins. Giving in to it would only delay his ultimate goal of attaining lost grace. If he saved the shelter, he could forgive himself for all his mistakes. He would be worthy of mercy.
Denial was a knife in his gut, but Lance set his teeth. He turned away from the woman on the roof.
Wait. What was she doing on the roof, anyway?
As though he was a puppet and she pulled the strings, he looked over his shoulder. Opening his senses, he let her in.
Lance Soleil and the woman stared at each other as traffic eddied between them.
Sweet God, he wanted her teeth on him. Lance's destruction was better looking than he'd ever hoped for. Lean body, deadly eyes, and each ear adorned with three enormous diamonds. She'd taken long enough to find him. At age thirty-eight, he'd despaired of ever finding his woman.
The darkness of her aura combined with her unnatural grace told him something he didn't want to know.
She was a vampire. Since World War II, vampires, once populous city creatures, had been hunted until they were nearly extinct.
She had to be here as part of the Twelfth Annual Paranormal Citizen's Conference. Even though it started in two days, Portland already buzzed with a wide variety of beings.
Lance remembered the posters around town. They had prominently included the well-known vampire Radu Tepes.
Mr. Tepes, Dracula's younger brother, led a so-called civil rights group, the Consortium for Concerned Citizens, commonly called the CCC. Lance cynically thought the CCC was long on rhetoric, but short on action. He wiped the rain from his eyes.
Not even the few brave or drunk souls wandering in front of the shelter distracted either of them from their staring match.
Her black aura blended into the night. Then a flicker of gold against the inky depths bade him to look deeper.
Deep inside her, a light burned, like a lone candle in an abandoned mansion. Hope still lived. Buried deep, nearly dead, a part of her yearned for salvation.
Lance could no more turn away a penitent than he could flap his arms and fly to heaven. He was strong. He would defeat his temptation. He would lead her to her Higher Place and help her achieve the peace she wanted.
Damnation, his body refused to stop hardening.
Chapter 3
His cold gaze warmed and probed deeper. Surprise punched her in the stomach the minute his eyes narrowed and dropped to her mouth. He saw what she didn't want anyone to see.
He knew exactly what she wasâone of the very few surviving vampires. No neighborhood at night held terror for her.
Who was he, this man who saw what no one else did? Her heart answered her.
He would be her lover.
Something hard and cold inside her softened, relaxed. A delicious languor crept over her limbs, easing her ever-ready battle stance, loosening her neck. She could have him here on her rooftop and naked in less than ten seconds, buried inside her within thirty if she stopped to kiss him. Maybe she'd hold the kissing for round two....
No. No. No, no, no.
Absolutely not. As fast as she could, she pulled her tight control around her body. Valerie was the master of her life, not her long-dead and unreliable heart. She was not about to go through that fuss again.
Someone like her, damned, undead, ridden by her vengeance, should have nothing to do with a man like that. She hitched her black dragon-embroidered coat higher on her shoulders, ignoring the wooden stake's weight strapped to her shoulder holster. Tonight's work called for stealth, not bullets.
Music blared for a moment as the doors to some bastion of costumed party-goers opened.
“And stay out!” a bouncer ordered. Valerie caught the quiet “Drunken fools” tacked onto the end of the order.
A swarm of ten well-fed human males swaggered out the door. The heavy haze of too-ripe testosterone and cheap beer around them told Valerie they were in their very early twenties.
A twenty-something woman leaned out of the bar's door behind them. Her Halloween costume was a maze of straps and flounces. Valerie had no idea what it was supposed to be. Made bold by the presence of the enormous bouncer, she exposed her breasts to the boys.
“You'll never be man enough for these!” she slurred, jabbing a finger in the air. With that, she covered up and stumbled back into the bar.
The leader of the pack moved in. The bouncer blocked the doorway. “Keep moving,” he warned them.
Interesting, but this had nothing to do with her. Packs of young men were problematic for her. Valerie wiped the water from her brow. Best to go.
She turned her chin, ready to leave, her heart relieved and sad, when her golden-haired god's posture sharpened. He took on the intensity of a crouching lion. She followed his gaze to see impending disaster.
Two ragged werewolves, obviously homeless, sat on the wet sidewalk, holding cardboard signs. Like a lion on the hunt, he was already on the move.
The men paused by the wolves. An unnecessary fight in three, two, one....
“Fucking animals,” the leader yelled. “Get a job.”
Valerie thinned her lips ever so slightly. Human nature never changed.
“Break it up,” her man ordered, his mature musculature wedging through the still-weedy humans.
Swell. An ordinary do-gooder with an unusual aura and unusual powers. He was nothing to her, nothing that should delay her. Valerie twitched her collar higher around her neck, shaking off the rain.
Her legs wouldn't move.
Valerie's war-weary mind automatically wagered the odds. The underfed werewolves shivered, wet to the skin in the unending, penetrating Portland drizzle. The mortals were fit and sleek, shiny in their expensive rain gear.
Even a starved juvenile werewolf still had the strength of five humans. Mature and fit werewolves topped out at eight.
Vampires were the top of the food chain, so to speak, with the strength of ten.
She rubbed her chin, already knowing the sad outcome of this scenario. The well-meaning fool would try to make warring species into friends. He'd go through the predictable steps of avoiding violence, say something kind but stupid, and then get chewed up in a slaughter of epic proportions.
Those boys wouldn't respect anyone who couldn't beat them. Of course, no one human could defeat them all. He would go down. The werewolves would attack, the humans would die, and the streets would erupt in violence.
Those with a Higher Calling were doomed to failure. That was the way of the world.
Valerie shook her head. Her deadline pressed at her.
But how could she abandon such a bright soul to that depressing fate? Despite his distraction, that dazzling aura still caressed her. Valerie closed her eyes for the merest second. This was the closest she'd come to the sun in over six hundred years. She hadn't realized how much she'd missed it. Her skin prickled pleasantly in its fiery hold.
The bulkier of the wolves lifted a lip to reveal sharp white teeth at the crowd. The boys ignored the warning.
“Demons!” One boy jabbed his index finger toward the pair on the ground.
“Freaks!” Another aimed a kick at the smaller of the wolves. He rolled out of range.
The weres lumbered to their feet, folding their signs in massive hands. The boys shuffled back an involuntary half step. The crowd that had rambled up and down the street just a few seconds ago managed to disappear into the drizzling air. Some humans still had a sense of self-preservation, even if these children didn't.
“We don't like your kind here. Get out,” the largest boy said, gathering his pack's courage. The crew firmed their line.
“You tell 'em, Chad.” A weaselly voice snickered from the back.
“Lollipops,” the alpha werewolf rumbled, fur sprouting on his face. “Tasty, soft vanilla lollipops.”
Valerie relished the waves of dread that the boys generated. She licked her upper lip in anticipation. All that young, hormone-laden, alcohol-rich blood. The gang was ripe for plucking and sucking. Her stomach growled. Groups of young men were so tasty.
The herd flushed at the derisive terms that the predatory races used for humans. Forget the fact that only vampires hunted people. Forget that nearly fifty years ago in Prague, mortals and paranormals signed a treaty not to hunt each other. Those did nothing to stop the primitive fear of being eaten.
“Get out of the way, Father Soleil.” The second werewolf raised himself to the balls of his feet and nudged her dream man away. “These bigots need a lesson.” Like their single-shaped cousins, the shape-shifters' hair lifted in threat.
The humans shuffled, but held their ground.
Father Soleil? A priest with that body? Well, damn it. Priests and vampires were a very bad mix. He could kill her with a simple hand gesture.
But light was such a wonderful temptation.
The man had to have a death wish, or he wouldn't be in the middle of this cluster-fuck.
Her curiosity, as always, kept her from walking away from what would surely turn into a species riot.
“Yeah, Lance,” the boy named Chad singsonged, trying for derisive and ending up with juvenile. “Go away.”
“I have nothing better to do tonight,” Lance answered blandly. His voice came easily to her supernatural hearing. The place between her thighs tightened. Oh, something that husky and sexy should be illegal, Father-What-a-Waste. Her stupid heart jumped.
Her brain ruthlessly quashed it.
Pay attention,
she chastised herself.
Chad, his white face shining against the murky rainy night, shoved the priest with his full youthful strength. Valerie tensed her shoulders. If the man went down, the werewolves would attack and win. Anyone suspected of being supernatural, or even a sympathizer, would be hunted and butchered.
Amateur Van Helsings would crawl out of the woodwork again, undoing all her careful work. Valerie stood on the precipice of the slippery roof, ready to jump, declaring her intentions despite her preference to stay uninvolved.
Soleil held his ground against the pressure, his arm relaxed as he scratched his chin. As surely as if he shouted, his chilly-eyed glance warned her to hold still.
“Chad, can it.” The mild admonishment startled Valerie. She would have broken the boy's arm for daring to touch her. Who knew that someone could convey so much authority with so much peace?
Valerie saw the subtle shift of Chad's feet. The boy clearly didn't understand the difference of the calm before a tornado and passivity. The fool was preparing to shove Lance again.
Valerie shook her head. Looks like Chad would learn some manners tonight. Even as she lifted her foot to jump down to them, the priest did something miraculous.
Moving vampire fast, Lance's hand swung from his chin to Chad's crotch. His scarred knuckles snapped into the teen's groin with the force of a sledgehammer.
Eyes nearly popping out of his head, Chad dropped to the ground, clutching his testicles before anyone else saw what happened. An amusing whimpering groan rose from each of the boys in the pack. Chad writhed on the grubby sidewalk, unable to breathe. What delicious entertainment.
One of Valerie's carefully plucked eyebrows soared to her hairline. Since when could humans move like that and hit that hard? She blinked the rain from her eyelashes.
As Chad gasped for air, Father Soleil finally faced the mortals, turning his back on the two werewolves. His face remained mild, even slightly bored. “Play elsewhere.”
The humans froze. Preparing for a fight, the werewolves went up on the balls of their feet. Father Soleil's perfectly composed expression didn't change.
One of the boys squared his shoulders to defy the good Father. The rest shifted in place, ready to attack.
Three seconds would get her there to fight on the priest's side. The werewolves would be able to keep her from draining the boys dry. Groups of young men were so damn tasty; she really couldn't stop with just one. Her thigh muscles bunched, ready for her own attack.
Chad vomited in the gutter. His posse sagged. The onlookers moved on.
Valerie relaxed. Seemed no one else wanted their testicles mashed.
Defeated in one move, the boys gathered up their leader. As he retched over their shoulders, Lance spoke to the werewolves behind him.
“You want a place to stay tonight?”
“Shelters don't let us in.”
Lance pivoted on his heel. Jerking his thumb at the building behind them, he said, “This one does now. This one should have years ago. Come on.”
He walked to the front door and opened it.
With that, the gangly weres disappeared from the rain and through the battered door of the shelter. The blue-eyed priest looked over his shoulder at her, their gazes locking one more time. He held the door and tipped his head toward the inside, inviting her to join in a move as bold as Rosa Parks refusing to leave her seat.