“He was wearing one of those fluffy collar things around his neck like Queen Elizabeth wore,” she said.
“Ruffs,” Lucian said. “They were around near the end of the Renaissance. Sixteenth century. What else?”
Valerie hesitated, and then bit her lip and closed her eyes. “A fur collar, dark clothes, maybe a robe or something, but it’s only from the shoulders up.”
“The face, Valerie,” Anders said gently.
She sighed with resignation and then her face screwed up. He couldn’t tell if she was in pain or thinking really hard. “A beard and mustache, big ears, a miserable expression.”
“Everyone looked miserable back then,” Anders said with amusement.
“Yeah, but I don’t remember facial hair on Count Rip-Out-Your-Throat,” she said raising a hand self-consciously to her neck as she opened her eyes.
Anders reached for her hand and drew it away from her neck to kiss her knuckles. She was struggling with this and he wished she didn’t have to go through it, but she wouldn’t be safe until they found this man.
“He may have removed the facial hair since then,” Greg said soothingly. “Just try to remember his eyes and nose and what color his hair was.”
“Right,” she muttered, and closed her eyes. “Eyes and nose and hair color. Well, the painting was dirty, but it looked like his hair was terribly fair.”
“Blond?” Anders asked.
“Fairer than blond. Almost white, but his face wasn’t old-looking. He had a straight nose and his eyes were kind of like— Oh,” she interrupted herself with surprise.
“What is it?” Anders asked and could feel the way everyone in the room had suddenly stilled and were leaning forward with anticipation.
“I just realized why he looked so familiar,” she said with wonder. “He looked like the man in the portrait.”
“Who did?” Anders asked with alarm. “You’ve seen the man from the portrait since leaving the house?”
“Yes.” She opened her eyes and turned to him. “In the grocery store parking lot. The man at the cart corral.”
“Damn,” Anders growled, recalling exactly who she meant. The greasy bastard he’d thought was giving her the eye when she took the cart back. “I knew there was something wrong with that guy.”
“You saw him too?” Lucian asked sharply.
Anders nodded. “I didn’t recognize him though. But then I didn’t see much of his face. He kept his back and side to me.”
“Then he
is
after Valerie too,” Greg said with a nod and when Anders turned on him, he said, “Well, you don’t think his being in the parking lot was a coincidence, do you? He must have been following you.”
“How?” Anders asked with a frown. “He couldn’t know Valerie was at Lucian’s so couldn’t have followed us from there.”
“Perhaps he was after Billie earlier in the day and spotted Valerie when she was talking to her. Or he might have been following Cindy and just awaiting his chance but followed the two of you instead because Valerie isn’t at her home anymore,” he suggested. Pursing his lips, he added, “I suspect if you hadn’t watched Valerie so closely the whole way, and had got into the SUV to start it as she’d suggested, he’d probably have her even now.”
“How did you know—?” Valerie began and then muttered, “Oh right. Mind reading.” She scowled, and added, “It’s kind of rude of you to read my mind, don’t you think? I’d appreciate it if you’d all stop that. If you don’t, I might just put some nasty thoughts in there for you to find.”
“Nasty thoughts?” Justin asked with amusement.
“Things you won’t enjoy finding,” she assured him.
“Oh, now you just have me curious,” he said, focusing on her forehead.
Valerie’s eyes narrowed on the young immortal, and then she tightened her lips and closed her eyes. A heartbeat later, Justin gasped and stepped back, his expression horrified.
“Eww, that’s disgusting,” he exclaimed, giving his head a shake as if trying to get an image out of it.
“Anytime you want a refresher, give my brain a go,” Valerie said sweetly, and then added grimly, “I’m a vet. There’s plenty more where that came from.”
Anders had been about to ask what she’d thought of, but her words were explanation enough. He had a farm. He could imagine an unpleasant thing or two himself. He’d just never thought to bombard the others with it for reading his mind. But Valerie had, the clever little minx. Damn, he did love her.
“All right,” Leigh said suddenly, clapping her hands. “Dinner will be ready in ten minutes. Lucian, that gives you just enough time to call Bastien and have him send back that nice sketch artist who did the picture of Igor. That way we can get Count Rip-Your-Throat-Out’s picture without traipsing through images of puppy guts and Doberman diarrhea in Valerie’s mind,” she added with a grin for her. “Everyone else go wash up so you can help fetch plates, condiments, and whatnot.”
“I don’t think I can eat after what Valerie showed me,” Justin muttered with disgust.
“That’s a shame,” Leigh said, not sounding terribly concerned as she bent to peer in at something she had in the oven. “We have lasagna, chili, garlic bread, salad, potato salad, and then hamburgers and hot dogs on the barbecue. I was hoping everyone would find something they like in that collection.”
“Your lasagna? Homemade?” Justin asked, his interest and appetite apparently returning. But then it was only to be expected. Justin was always hungry, Anders thought.
“Go wash up,” Leigh said with a laugh, one hand rubbing her belly and the other her back as she straightened.
“Are you all right, Leigh?” Valerie asked, giving Anders’s waist a squeeze before slipping free of his arm and moving toward the other woman.
“Oh, fine,” she said sounding tired. “I think I’ve just been on my feet too long.”
“Sit down,” Valerie said at once, taking the woman’s arm and ushering her to one of the stools around the island in the center of the long room. “I’ll take over from here.”
“Take over?” Leigh asked with amusement. “You did most of it to begin with.”
Valerie shrugged and grabbed a ladle to give the chili a stir, saying lightly, “You can return the favor when I’m pregnant.”
Anders stared at Valerie, her words reverberating in his head. When she was pregnant? He immediately started to imagine just that, Valerie glowing and beautiful, her belly rounded with his child.
“Has she agreed to be your life mate?”
Anders glanced to Greg at that soft question and then turned back to look at Valerie as he shook his head.
“Well, whether she realizes it or not, she’s accepted what we are and isn’t afraid of us. I think you can thank Leigh for that,” Greg added.
“Leigh?” he asked with surprise. He’d been rather hoping it was him.
“Sorry, Anders, but that’s not how a woman’s mind works. You’re a dark, mysterious, and sexy vampire to her, and none of those words are equated with trust and feeling safe,” he pointed out dryly, and then added, “But Leigh . . .” Greg glanced to the woman and smiled crookedly. “She’s the most non-threatening vampire on the planet right now. Valerie can see herself in Leigh. It will help you that they are becoming good friends. I think she’ll choose you in the end.”
Anders grunted. He hoped Greg was right. He’d been alone a long time and never really minded until she’d come into his life. Now he didn’t even want to contemplate a future without her in it.
“Y
ou look tired.”
Valerie grimaced at Anders’s comment as she approached the couch where he sat. He was alone in the living room of the Enforcer house, which looked like a normal house to her. Well, a normal, huge, expensive house with loads of bedrooms upstairs, high-tech security, and guards at the entry gate as well as walking the perimeter, not to mention a big outbuilding that was half prison cells and half garage, although she hadn’t yet seen that.
She gathered Mortimer, who was in charge of the Enforcers under Lucian, lived here with his life mate, Sam, a lawyer who now worked at his side as well as helped out with legal matters that came up. However, she’d been told that the spare bedrooms were often used by either Enforcers from other areas, or mortals and immortals who needed a safehouse.
“I’m a little tired,” she admitted as she settled on the couch beside him. “But I’m not the only one.”
“Leigh?” Anders asked.
“Yeah, she’s lying down upstairs. She says she can’t get comfortable enough to sleep through the day, so ends up taking several naps.”
Anders nodded. “She’s all right though?”
“She says she is,” Valerie said with a frown.
“You don’t think so?” Anders asked.
Valerie hesitated, but then sighed and shrugged. “What do I know? I’m just a vet. If she says she’s fine, she probably is.”
Anders was silent for a minute, and then reached out and took her hand in his. “And how are you?”
“Me?” she asked with surprise. “I’m fine.”
“So you haven’t been avoiding me for the last hour since we finished cleaning the kitchen?” he asked solemnly.
“Has it been an hour?” Valerie asked with surprise. Everyone had stayed to help after eating, but then Lucian had taken Christian, his life mate, and his band members with him and left. He was taking the band members to replace the two teams presently watching Cindy and getting them settled, then taking Christian and Carolyn home before bringing back the men the band members were replacing. The band members didn’t have vehicles here to use, so Lucian and Mortimer had come up with just swapping out the teams.
After Lucian had left with them, everyone else had cleared out pretty quickly, the couples all heading home. No one was expecting any activity until tomorrow. They didn’t think they’d be able to get the sketch artist back till then. Once they had pictures of the rogue, they would be out showing it around . . . if one of them didn’t recognize the man.
Once the last of them had left, Leigh had announced that she needed to lie down. Sam had shown her to a room and Valerie had followed to be sure the woman was all right. She couldn’t explain why, but she was just getting the sense that Leigh wasn’t feeling well. But Leigh had assured her she was fine and then had started talking to distract her and it appeared Valerie had been up there for an hour chatting with the woman.
“Leigh and I talked for a bit,” Valerie admitted. “But I didn’t think it was an hour. I’m sorry.”
“There’s no need to apologize. Leigh’s a good person, well worth talking to.”
“She
is
nice,” Valerie said with a smile. “Nothing like I would have imagined a vampire would be like . . . if I’d have even imagined vampires existed,” she added wryly. “But then you’re all nice. Well, all of you that I’ve met since escaping Count Rip-Your-Throat-Out.”
“We’re just people, Valerie. We have good ones and bad ones and some in between,” Anders said quietly.
She shook her head, a crooked smile on her face. “And you’re delusional if you think that, Anders.”
When alarm crossed his face, she patted his hand soothingly. “I believe you want to believe that. But you aren’t ‘just people.’ ‘Just people’ don’t live centuries or even millennia. They can’t see in the dark, or lift a small car with little effort, or read the minds of, and control others. And ‘just people’ don’t need to feed on other ‘just people’ to survive.”
“I—”
“It’s all right. You were born this way, so you don’t have a clue that you’re like a fricking superhero. You probably don’t even realize how differently you see things. That your perception of time is so much different than non-immortals because it has so little hold on you,” Leigh had mentioned that to her. That one of the things she’d noticed about immortals since becoming one herself was that the old ones had a different concept of time. That what she considered a long time, was a mere twinkling of time to them. Valerie supposed if you lived thousands of years, a day was a blink in time and a week wasn’t much more.
Grimacing, she added, “You probably don’t realize that you have so many fewer fears and worries than mortals because cancer, and heart disease, and all those other nasty little life stealers can’t claim you. And you’ve surely never been afraid of a mortal doing you harm.”
Valerie paused and glanced down at their entwined hands. “Leigh said that to be your life mate I’d have to be turned.”
“Yes.” His voice was husky. Clearing it, he added, “Though not necessarily right away. Sam didn’t turn right away after agreeing to be Mortimer’s life mate.”
“Leigh told me that too, but said that Mortimer was a mess, constantly worried that Sam would be killed in an accident or something before she agreed to the turn.”
“But she wasn’t,” Anders said. “And I’d be willing to go through that if you needed me to.”
Valerie smiled faintly and shook her head. She didn’t really want to make him suffer, but she was having trouble with this situation. She hadn’t considered that she would have to become a vampire to be with one. Stupid, she supposed. He had told her that Leigh used to be mortal. He’d also told her that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. The rest of his life could be a hell of a long time. Certainly, it was longer than the fifty or so years she had left in her. But she hadn’t considered that his wanting her to be his life mate included turning her into an immortal until her talk with Leigh. Now the decision to be his life mate was that much bigger.
It wasn’t like just saying, “Ah heck, let’s give it a go,” and then moving in with him, knowing she could always move out. It wasn’t even like taking a risk and marrying him. That could be reversed through divorce if it was a mistake. But this was not reversible. She would have to become one of them. And from her talk with Leigh, Valerie knew that wasn’t reversible. She had a decision to make that would affect the rest of her life.
Did she want to become a vampire and spend forever with this man?
Cripes, marriages nowadays were lucky to last ten or fifteen years. There were exceptions, of course. The newspaper and the news occasionally ran articles or items on couples who had been together for fifty years or more. But that was the exception, not the rule, and he was asking her to spend a heck of a lot more than fifty years. Try adding a zero or two to that number. Surely even that incredible life mate sex cooled after a millennia or two?