Night Hungers (21 page)

Things were not going well. Not well at all, as a matter of fact. There was no money left, at least none that he was willing to let go of. There was very little left in the way of jewels too. Sherman had told him that they were from the throne chair that he’d resided in when he had been in the castle. Simon had never believed there was a queen, much less a castle, but had prudently kept his mouth shut about that. Sherman had a mean temper and Simon never wanted to be on the receiving end of that again.

Pulling out the bottom drawer to the desk, he looked at the ten rubies and the six emeralds that were left. Not a lot. He had to find a way to make more money or he would have to give up his house and car very soon. No matter how much he’d tried to persuade the idiot landlord, there just wasn’t any way to convince him that the money would soon be pouring in. Of course Simon had been saying that for the past five years so maybe he should come up with another line or just move. But moving required cash, which was where the issue was to begin with.

That’s why he needed to get that Sara person. He really wanted to get his hands on Mel the bitch—Simon had never thought of her as anything but the name Sherman had given her so it had stuck. Selling Mel would be the most profitable, but she was powerful and if Simon was honest with himself, she was a tad scary. No, he needed to find a way to get Sara, or at the very least Zulu Alpha Nine. No hope for it, he thought, he was going to have to do it himself. Picking up the phone he dialed the phone number just in front of him.

“Hello, my name is P. Simon Sinclair. You need to put that MacManus person on the phone now. I have something I would like to propose to him.”

Yes
, Simon thought,
a very nice proposal. Give me your wife or I kill you
. When the man who answered the phone asked him to please wait, Simon figured the Sara person would be in his hands by nightfall.

~CHAPTER 22~

Aaron and Aiden were just about to go into the living room when Duncan came out of the kitchen. He had a very odd look on his face and nearly walked past them. Aaron knew that something had upset the man and waited for him to gather his thoughts.

“A very rude man is requesting…no, sire, he is demanding that you come to the phone. He believes that he has a proposal for you to discuss. I do not believe that he is human. There is evil…or something that I can feel though the phone lines. I do not like this one bit.”

Several years ago, Mel had given Duncan a boost to his telepathic powers. The man had a very good sixth sense about people when he met them, but never any more than a person to person ability. Then one afternoon someone had called and Duncan had been hurt when he’d met the man for an issue that the stranger said Aaron had set up. Now Duncan knew when someone was lying and also when they were not quite human, even when on the phone. Everyone loved Duncan, and with good reason; the man didn’t have a mean bone in his body.

“Is he still on the phone? And what is it he said he wanted?” Aaron started toward the kitchen to answer the phone, when suddenly Aiden stopped him. His eyes had turned and Aaron could see his fangs had dropped. Aaron stilled.

“Don’t. Zane is coming now. She said to wait for her. Something is off and she said that you must wait.”

Aaron hadn’t lived this long to ignore things he didn’t understand. So he waited.

Looking over at Duncan, Aaron saw that he looked relieved. Almost as if he knew that whatever was going on was now going to be resolved.

Zane came into the kitchen as a spectrum. It was quite a sight and one that Aaron was glad he’d witnessed. She just faded into the room, but not completely in a solid form.

She was on an assignment, she said.

“The man on the phone, who is it? Do you know his name, Mr. Duncan?”

“Oh, yes, miss. He said that he was P. Simon Sinclair. I hope you do not mind that I had the queen contact you. I had a feeling he was connected to you in some way.”

“Sinclair is the person from the other day, Master MacManus. He is the person who shot up your home and tried to harm you. I don’t know how he got your name, but it is imperative that you do not give him anything more. I can’t be there for another few hours yet.”

Aaron burned with anger. This was the person who, without Zane’s help, would have shot Sara and had kidnapped little Emma. He felt his mate coming toward him and wondered if she was safe even now.

“Tell me what I can do to end this. This man, this person, is going to die and I for one would like it to be sooner rather than later.”

Zane grinned. Then she looked away from them. He could tell that this was draining on her, being here in the semi-flesh, and wanted to tell her to come back now. But he could see that she was a determined woman and would not intercede. As of yet anyway.

“Talk to him, but tell him nothing. I need to know what he says and what sort of information he has now. I have to…my target is on the move and I have to finish this. If you would allow Aiden to listen in I will be able to get the information from him.”

Aiden didn’t look any happier about Zane not being here than Aaron did and wondered if he had any knowledge that she had left him. Thinking that these two would have a very hard time of it if they didn’t give a little, Aaron reached out and put his hand on Aiden’s forearm when he felt the anger boil from him.

“I would speak to you, Zane St. James,” Aiden practically growled at her. “There is a matter of you leaving here without permission. I thought we had agreed that if you went on an assignment, I would accompany you.”

“No. You said you were going and I said that you weren’t. There was no agreement between us, you stubborn jackass. And when or even if I need your permission to do anything will be a cold day in hell. I’ll be back in a few hours provided you don’t manage to piss me off anymore than you have already.” Then she was gone.

Aaron tried not to laugh. He really did, but it was just too funny to watch the big vamp standing next to him try to regain control of his temper. Aaron thought that Aiden would need to curb his tongue if he ever thought to have a mate he could live with.

“Like you do yours, Aaron, my love? How long do you suppose it was before you
finally figured out that demands and threats don’t work with the women of this Kiss?”

Sara whispered though his mind.

“Too long, I’m afraid. But this girl, this woman, she is stronger than Aiden, I
believe. He will be fighting with her for a great many years if he doesn’t learn it soon.”

“Hummm, I’m not worried. They will come to a happy medium soon. He loves her.”

Aaron felt her love warm his body as he moved to the phone
. “I wonder if he’s told her
yet.”

Aaron had wondered the same thing as he pushed the mute button on the phone.
“I
doubt it. Zane doesn’t strike me as a romantic type.”

“This is MacManus. How may I help you?” Duncan had said the man had asked for MacManus, not Master or Aaron. And Aaron wasn’t going to give him any more information than necessary.

“This is P. Simon Sinclair. I would like to know if you are aware that your wife and I have been having an affair for years? I want her for myself and am willing to take her off your hands. Now. Today, if possible.”

Aaron pulled the phone from his ear and looked at it. He was wondering if the man was serious or simply that stupid. Aaron decided that he was both. “No, I wasn’t aware of that. How long has this been going on, did you say? I don’t believe that I’ve ever heard her say your name before, not even in the throes of passion. And she can be very vocal when she hits her peak. Are you sure it’s my wife?”

Aiden chuckled and Aaron nearly joined him. This man was arrogant, he’d give him that. His shuddered reply nearly had Aaron laugh out loud.

“Pass…I don’t think…I would hope that she…Christ. I need a moment.” Aaron could hear the paper shuffle close to the phone before P. Simon came back. “Yes. Throes of passion notwithstanding, we are having an affair. I’ve asked her several times to leave you, but she seems to think you won’t give her up. Man to man, I would ask that of you now.”

“Ask him to meet you, sire. Tell him that your wife is out of town and you would like
for him to meet you somewhere. Not at the house,”
Zane whispered though his mind.

“Why don’t I meet you somewhere? I’m assuming that she isn’t with you right now and really out of town visiting her cousin. We can discuss your plans for providing for her. My wife, she has expensive tastes as I’m sure you have found out.”

“That would be fine. Out of town, you say? Do you know when she’ll be returning and how? I would like to talk to her before we have our little talk. I’m sure you understand.”

“Of course. She is supposed to return tomorrow night. I pick her up at the bus station downtown. Insisted on riding a bus, of all things. How about you and I meet on Tuesday morning, the day after she comes home?”

“Yes, yes. That would be fine. I’ll see you then. Thanks, MacManus. You won’t regret this. Not at all.”

Aaron hung up a minute later and looked over at his mate. She looked so beautiful and if she thought for one second that she was going to be anywhere near that bus station tomorrow night he was going to beat her pretty little ass but hard. Thinking of her pretty ass made his cock jerk to attention. When she smiled at him he couldn’t tell if she knew his thoughts or that he wanted her again. Either way, he was sure that pain was going to be involved.

“You can bet your sweet ass there will be.” Her smile made his cock settle down.

She could be very scary when she wanted to be.

~~~

Zane moved along the wall of the house. The target, a vampire of great age, was somewhere ahead of her and she had lost just enough concentration a few minutes ago that he’d been able to hurt her. Holding her hand over the bleeding wound at her side she poured magic into it to stop the bleeding.

Damn it, this was Simon’s fault. Well, not all of it. Some of it was Aiden’s too. The nerve of the man thinking she would just roll over and play the simpering mate because he had said so. What did he think she’d been doing all these years before he came along?

Sitting in a padded room waiting to be taken care of? Stupid, arrogant asswipe. When she got back to him she was going to show him the meaning of obey and permission.

The vampire moved to the opposite wall. She couldn’t see him, but she knew precisely where he was. A part of her magic made her able to see beyond the shadows he pulled about him.

“Dillon Nickolas Anderson, by order of the Vampire Council I am hereby ordered to terminate your life. It has been deemed that you have become a rogue and that your crimes against humanity make this warrant of death executable.”

“Join me.” His voice, rough with his beast, echoed across the barren room.

“As good as that sounds I think I’ll have to refuse. I have something to do later and it requires me to be living. Sorry. Do you have anything to say on your own behalf?”

“Join me or die.”

The blast of heat barely missed her. Had she not leaned to her right, it would have hit her full in the chest. As it was, she had a nice scorch mark on her arm. They had told her he was old and that his powers were only transportation and a little ability to move across space quickly. This heat of fire was something she’d never encountered before in a vampire.

The first blade she had pulled hit him in the arm and pinned him to the wall. She could smell the acidity of his blackened blood immediately. The second blade hit him in the chest, just shy of his heart. Pulling a stack of stars from her neckline, she tossed several of them at him and hit his hands, left thigh, and his ear. They were deep enough that she knew he was stuck where he was. She pulled her blade from her back and walked toward him as she finished her order.

“I have been foreordained to remove your head and then to annihilate your body until you no longer exist. This is by order of the Vampire Council of the Ninth District of the Realm of Chicago.”

Her blade whispered through the air and through his body at the neck. His head, handsome even in his beastly state, hung onto his shoulders for several seconds before it tilted forward and then landed on the floor between her feet. Zane didn’t look down at it.

She didn’t want to see it die or the accusations it would toss at her long before it closed its eyes.

Dillon’s body began to burn first. Smoke began to steam from his body then more as the seconds ticked by. Because he was so old it would take longer to turn to ash than a younger vampire. When he was nearly too hot for her to watch his body simply
poofed
, leaving a pile of ash and clothes where a man had once been. His head, mostly bone, followed the same pattern only seconds later.

Zane walked to the windows in the front of the house and lifted a window. As soon as a nice breeze circulated through the house it began to pick up the remains and take them out with it on the breeze. Leaving through the same window Zane shifted to a hawk and made her way to the moonlit night sky.

Her body felt heavy, almost too heavy for flight. And tired. Zane was tired of what she was and what she did. There were more deaths on her head than most full scale armies could account for in a single battle. She wanted it finished and as soon as she thought of that, she thought of the MacManus home and Simon contacting them. Then it wasn’t long before her thoughts turned to Aiden.

She wasn’t angry with him anymore. Well, at least not
as
angry with him. She didn’t want him to order her around, but she could see why he thought he might need to. She was reckless and her job, this one anyway, was dangerous. If she were to get too hurt he’d not be able to feed, and as much as Zane wanted to think otherwise, she knew that that, above all else, was why he needed her. She wasn’t stupid enough to believe that he would want her for anything else. Unless it was the sex, which was extremely enjoyable.

Zane wasn’t sure what she thought of him. He was nice enough, she supposed.