Twice Cursed (36 page)

Sean picked up one of the menus from
the table. “Hmmm,” he murmured, glancing at the specialty drinks on
the cover. “You do know this is all about finesse and diplomacy,
right?” He eyed her over the top this is all about finesse and
diplomacy, right?” He eyed her over the top of the laminated
cardboard.

She nodded.

“
Good. Just because I put
the vamp behind the desk in his place doesn’t mean you have carte
blanche to do the same.” He eyed her knowingly. “If the maître d’s
elders learned of his blatant disrespect, he’d be...”

“…
a very sorry vampire?”
Lily interrupted.

Sean shook his head. “No. He’d be a
very dead vampire. Jack was right when he said vamps are all about
respect for hierarchy and protocol. The maître d’ needed to be
reminded of that, and just the same way an apology was expected
over us being early, a wrist slap was necessary to let him know I
mean business. If I hadn’t done so, it would have been viewed as a
weakness—in their eyes, anyway.”

Jack came back from the bar with three
coronas and dish of sliced limes. “I figured we’d stick with what
we started with earlier.”

Sean nodded. “One beer each
acknowledges their hospitality, but any more compromises us in more
than just the obvious way.”

The three of them clinked bottles then
settled in to wait. The bar itself was packed four people deep, but
there were still a few tables left open. A young waitress
approached, carrying a half liter wine bottle and two long stemmed
glasses on her tray. “I’ll be with you in a sec,” she said, as she
passed to place the wine on the table next to theirs. Pad in hand,
she turned on her heel, placing a bowl of fancy vegetable chips on
their table along with a few napkins. “Are you guys all set, or can
I get you something else from the bar?”

“
We’re good for now,
thanks,” Sean replied with a smile.

She nodded once. “Great. Just give me
a shout if you want anything.” With a tip-worthy smile plastered on
her face, she turned to head toward the bar.

A couple in their mid-twenties had
just sat down at one of the high-top pub tables not far from their
booth. The woman was a stunning brunette, with long silky hair
swept back off her face and fastened with a glittering clip at the
nape of her neck. Her black dress barely whispered across the top
of her thighs and plunged to her navel at both the front and the
back, leaving almost nothing to the imagination.

Her escort was what New York fashion
magazines would call a metrosexual, a man with taste and chic
style, who knows about fashion, art and culture. They were a
typical A-list wannabe couple, as alien as two people could be, to
the two Weres sitting at the booth with Lily.

The woman struck a pose, crossing her
long bare legs. Jack eyes were glued to her, his beer poised
halfway to his lips.

“
Wipe your mouth, Jack.”
Lily said, tapping the corner of her own. “You’ve got a little
doggie drool going on there.”

Sean smirked, taking a sip from his
corona, the little slice of lime bobbing up and down in the amber
liquid as he tilted the bottle up to his mouth. “Can’t say as I
blame him.”

“
Ha. And I’ll lay dollars
to donut she knows it too,” Lily added, taking a purple chip from
the bowl at the center of the table.

Jack wiped his mouth on the back of
his hand, glancing once more at the woman. “What can I say; it’s
been a long, dry week.” He tipped his bottle back, giving Lily a
wink. All was forgiven between them, and she blew him a
kiss.

Lily munched on what she could only
guess was a taro chip. Not that she knew one vegetable from the
next in this mix, but they had a salty crunch and were perfect with
the beer. Condensation dripped down either side of her hand as she
took a sip from her bottle, her thumb absently running up and down
the blue and gold label.

Her hand was cold and wet, but an odd
sensation crawled up her arm and settled in a weedy tingle at the
back of her neck. She reached behind to rub at the spot, twisting
her head back and forth, but it only worsened. Dull needles and
pins pricked her skin, sending numb fingers stabbing across the
base of her skull.

“
What’s the matter?” Sean
asked, watching her oddly.

“
I don’t know. Just a weird
feeling at the back of my neck.”

“
Weird how? Like a pinched
nerve?” Sean slid in closer, but Lily dropped her head backwards
and arched her back as the prickling turned into a stabbing
sensation. In her mind she heard someone chuckle, and then the
feeling stopped.

“
The wolf can’t protect you
forever…”

Lily head snapped up, and she
froze.

“
You sought your revenge,
now I wait for mine.”

A new wave of angry thought tore
through her and she clenched her teeth, jamming her fingers into
her temples. “Get out of my head!” she hissed low and
fierce.

Grabbing her shoulders,
Sean turned her around to face him. Without warning or permission
he merged his mind with hers, and she whimpered at the assaultive
sensation.
“Who are you and what do you
want?”
His defensive presence snarled with
menace along their breached mind path, but the voice just
laughed.

“
Be warned, wolf. Not all
is as it seems, and I am waiting…”

At the oily feel of the voice in his
own head, Sean’s eyes turned from blue to yellow and a savage snarl
escaped his throat, turning heads in the bar.

Jack slipped around the table to flank
Lily’s other side while he scanned the room, staring down the
prying eyes.

Lily slumped forward, dropping her
forehead into her hands. The voice and its evil chuckle faded,
along with all trace of whoever it belonged to. Sean skimmed his
hand across the center of her back, gently massaging the space
between her shoulder blades.

“
Can you tell me what the
hell just happened? One minute she’s eating a chip; next she looks
like the chick from the exorcist,” Jack said out of the side of his
mouth, while staring at people to mind their own
business.

“
Someone or something just
invaded Lily’s mind. It threatened her. And me,” Sean answered, not
taking his eyes or his hand from Lily.

Jack dropped back down into
his seat across from them, and grabbed his beer, taking a long
pull. “
Jesus.
Any
idea who? What did they say, exactly?”

Lily took a ragged breath, leaning up
on her elbows. “They said the wolves couldn’t protect me, and that
they wanted revenge.”

“
Revenge? For
what?”

She pressed her fingers to her temples
and rubbed in a gentle circular motion. “I don’t know. All I do
know is that it wasn’t human. Terry warned me about my practice
runs; maybe whoever it was wanted retribution for someone I killed
last fall.” She sat up, her gaze and her hands dropping to her lap.
“It’s not like I’ve been keeping my presence here on the down
low.”

Sean shook his head. “No. Whoever it
was knows about us,” he said, gesturing to himself and Jack. “They
know you’re under my protection, and that means this could be
another of Parr’s tactics.”

She looked up, her eyes rising to meet
Sean’s. “Could he be tracking us?”

“
I wouldn’t put it past
him. He’d never soil his own hands doing the work himself, but he’s
certainly convinced enough Weres to follow him that anything’s
possible. Plus, he’s skilled enough to cloak himself
telepathically.”

“
You said Parr was backing
off. Why would he risk something so outright?” Jack asked,
distractedly rolling the base of his bottle between his
palms.

“
Because it wasn’t
outright. Parr could deny it, claiming it could be anyone connected
to the trail of bodies Lily left in her wake before she even got to
the compound.”

Lily made a face. “I wouldn’t exactly
call it a trail, and each one was popped while attacking a
human.”

Sean slid his hand the rest of the way
around her shoulders. “Unfortunately, that doesn’t matter. Still,
whoever this is, made a huge miscalculation and all we need to do
is tighten the hold. He thinks his threats will panic us, but all
he’s done is put us on alert and ruined his chances at a surprise
attack.”

“
Gee thanks, that’s a
comforting thought,” she hmmphed. “Like we don’t have enough to
worry about already.”

Jack didn’t interject. Instead, the
younger wolf’s nostrils flared, and he jerked his head to the side,
his gaze tracking across to the man sitting at the high-top table
with the brunette. She was practically in his lap, and he had one
hand shoved up her skirt and the other curved around her
waist.

“
You’re bordering on
stalker, Jack. Leave them be.” She was still shaken, and his
adolescent attention span only served to irritate her
more.

Jack waved her off, his eyes riveted
as the man’s tongue licked the brunette’s throat from her cleavage
straight up to the base of her ear. The woman moaned, and as she
did, he sank a pair of small, razor sharp fangs into her jugular,
his hand sliding up from her waist to unclip her hair. It fell
forward in a curtain of brown silk, obscuring his activities from
prying eyes.

“
No fucking way!” Jack’s
words were no more than a breath, but their harsh undertone matched
the look on his face. “This place is just about as fucked up as it
can get.”

“
What?” Sean asked, his
body language broadcasting his alert level at DEFCON 1.

“
Them.” Jack jerked his
head toward the couple. “The Dapper Fanger and his happy
meal.”

Both Lily and Sean turned, but there
was nothing to see, that is, until the vampire pushed the girl’s
hair back off her shoulder, giving them a close up view of his
blood-stained teeth piercing her exposed flesh.

Sean’s grip on Lily’s shoulders
tightened, and a low growl rumbled from the back of his
throat.

With an arrogant sneer the vampire
released the woman scraping his finger across his lips and licking
it clean, before doing the same to her throat. The woman’s eyes
seemed almost drugged as she glanced across her shoulder at them.
“Don’t knock it till you try it.” Her words and her body were no
more than a languid murmur as she slid off the barstool into the
vampire’s waiting arms. The woman practically purred as the two
walked past on their way to the door.

“
Ugh.
This whole evening… Don’t vampires fear anything? I
mean,
jeez
, this
is a public place,” Lily grimaced. “If they’re supposed to be all
about respect, then don’t they have rules about indecent exposure
or something? But I suppose consensual feeding doesn’t count,
huh?”

Sean’s shoulders rose and fell.
“Respect is a big deal to them, or at least it is to their elders.
Perhaps the undead are going through their own version of a civil
war regarding tradition and law.”

“
Okay, so rogue vamps and
rule breakers aside, what about natural enemies? Don’t all
creatures have competitors?”

Jack huffed. “I can tell you what they
fear. A sharp stake and high noon,” he said, peeling bits of label
from his bottle of corona. “Those little numbers you have hidden in
your kitchen drawer would make any one of them shit their pants.
That is, if they could take a shit.”

“
That’s not what I’m
talking about, Jack. Everything on this earth has a natural enemy.
It doesn’t make sense for them not to, as well. There has to be
some other species that pits against them to maintain checks and
balances. Or are they completely outside the natural
order?”

Sean nodded but didn’t
elaborate.

Her brows knit together as she ran the
possibilities, despite the hedgy look on Sean’s face. It wasn’t
that he was hiding anything. She knew, without a doubt, whenever
that was the case. This had to be something extraordinary for him
to doubt her skills.

“
Okay…give. Either you
nodded because I’m right, or you don’t have a clue either. I think
I’m right, but nothing I can think of fits the bill, so it must be
something I’m unaware of.”

Both perplexed and annoyed, Lily let
out a sharp breath, but Sean’s gaze said he got no satisfaction in
stumping her this time. The answer to her question was no laughing
matter, and one he clearly didn’t relish talking about.

“
Don’t be so hard on
yourself. The answer isn’t an obvious one. A vampire’s only natural
enemy is another vampire—and yes they
are
that outside the natural order.
But that’s not to say they don’t fear.”

“
And?”

Sean rubbed his face with his free
hand. “And nothing. This is a topic I don’t care to discuss right
now. It’s the wrong time and definitely the wrong place. There are
entities out there beyond comprehension, even for supernaturals,
and they are what vampires fear.”

Lily blinked, considering all he’d
said. Every legend she’d ever heard of ran through her mind. She
added up and tossed out likelihoods, running the scope from
folklore and mythology to religion, until she looked up, giving
each of them a quizzical look. “I think I figured out what you
mean. You’re referring to entities from another plane, ones with no
explanation as to origin, even beyond mythology.”