Once Bitten, No Longer Shy by Julie Steimle (chrome ebook reader txt) 📕

reaped, it is going to traumatize him.*

Matthew paled.

“I texted back that maybe she just needs to say goodbye, but uh, we did get the photograph of them together, which is what matters,” JJ said.

Cringing, Matthew wondered how Troy was faring. Rick was right. Troy had fallen for the nymphomaniac hard. It really wasn’t fair that this was happening to him.

Connor once more tried to fight off the police, screaming he was innocent, that he was being framed.

The same time, JJ’s body bag was being carried in. Piranha was no longer swinging the head—thankfully. She was, however, swinging a brown paper shopping bag with handles, which probably had the head in it. Eyes stared at her, the police edging away. Of course they were also edging away from Tom as well, whom they knew from personal experience.

As the police were now fingerprinting the guy, Rick showed up. He was in a hoodie and jeans, fully clothes but relaxed. The moment Connor saw him, he shouted out that Rick was a werewolf. It turned a few heads, but a couple cops said to him, “Tell us something we don’t know.”

“You gotta be kidding me! He’s a monster!” Connor shrieked, smudging his fingerprints.

Tom hopped over. “I’ll hold him down so you can print him.”

“Oh no! That’s not necessary!” The police around him scrambled to get better control over Connor.

“I’d do it well,” Tom protested, genuinely annoyed.

Piranha tugged on his greasy jumper, pointing to where they were taking the vampire’s body. She lifted up her bag and indicated that she would go with them. Tom kissed her on her cheek.

“Is there anyone who can identify the vampire?” a policeman in the group with Officer Johnson asked. “Do we have an SRA agent here with a registry?”

Some of the policemen lifted up a hand.

Rick took a step closer to his friends, shying away from those policemen.

Officer Johnson nodded to those, gesturing for them to follow Piranha. He whispered that she was CIA in training and they could trust her. But they just eyed him back with a shudder of distaste before they left.

“What if he is not on the registry?” Matthew asked, eyeing Connor who had a moment in his shouts at his innocence where his brain cheered that they would not know who the guy was.

Connor shot him a nasty look, then quickly went back into protesting-innocent mode. His façade was breaking. That was good. Yet with a glance to Rick, Matthew realized why. It was possible that even Connor had picked up the vampiric distaste for werewolves like Troy had.

“I know a vampire,” Troy said, walking into the hallway with Deidre. There was also a chill with him. Part of his hair was a little frosted and his breath was puffing.

“Troy!” Tom threw up his arms and jogged over to him with a hug.

“I think he knows enough of them, and he claims to be going straight,” Troy said to Matthew, not to be distracted. He then looked to Connor, his eyes quickly turning a dark red. He advanced.

Rick quickly got in his way. “No! We let the law take care of him!”

“He murdered Nicole!” Troy bared his fangs. Tom stood aside, his eyes saying it would be good to see Troy give Connor the punishment he deserved. 

“I know!” Rick said. “And he’s been caught! Let the police do their job.”

Trembling, Troy backed up, nodding. His eyes rested on Rick, patting him on the shoulder. “You’re right. I’m sorry…. I’m so sorry.”

Tom rolled his eyes, wearily nodding too.

Rick stared at Troy for a second then embraced Troy in a hug. “It’s ok. I understand.”

“He’s a werewolf!” Connor shouted, now looking exasperated.

Baring his teeth at the guy again, Troy said, “Rick, hold me back. I want to kill him.”

Rick did hold him back. And so did Tom, who embraced them both in a bear hug, looking likely to scream “Group hug!”

“Are you talking about Steve Windmiller?” Matthew asked, thinking about the vampire Troy mentioned.

“He’s a New Yorker and he knows the Order of Blood pretty well,” Troy replied, nodding to him. “I bet you Steve can identify the vampire. He’s been pretty cool about driving off the vampires who had been harassing Mr. Lenox.”

That was true. Though, Matthew still did not trust any blood-drinking vampire, claiming to be reforming or not. There was something naturally unscrupulous about vampires and those connected to them that had always bothered him. Troy really was the exception as well as Mr. Lenox. Though even Cameron was just an ass. But the rest… Matthew did not trust them.

“I’ll call him,” JJ said, nodding. He dug out his phone.

Andrew side-glanced him, then looked to the police who had raised their hands about their SRA connections. “Would a… reforming vampire be safe here?”

Hearing Andrew’s full thoughts which argued all the complications in dealing with vampires that he knew from years of knight experience in another world, Matthew said, “We can escort him.”

Nodding to him, Andrew smiled. He then looked to his wife who was talking with Deidre. “Jessica, do you want to go get the baby?”

She shook her head. “Not yet. I don’t want to expose Ivy to this. She’s safe with Randon and Silvia.”

Andrew nodded.

“Randon’s here?” Troy turned to her, hope rising.

“He’s been here all day,” Deidre said, grinning at him.

Nodding, Troy sighed. Of course. Randon would be there. He was his best friend. Distance and marriage may have separated them, but when he needed him the most, he was there. His loyal cat. His true buddy.

Nicole’s ghost whispered with freezing breath near his chilled ear, “You are a funny man. You act lonely and yet you have all these friends. Sometimes you really are blind.”

Troy chuckled, knowing Deidre and JJ could hear her, though no one else could.

“I love you,” she said. “But I will have to leave you soon. You need to be happy in this world without me.”

He closed his eyes, tears rolling down. She had been whispering to him since Deidre had brought her to his cell. He could almost feel Nicole, yet not quite see her. Deidre had gazed at him severely and said he was Nicole’s fixation to the world, and she would haunt him if he did not grieve properly and let her go.

And he was trying to. But he knew he would miss Nicole with all his body. His heart, his spirit—that part had been crushed. It was his fault she had died. He had put her in jeopardy. She would have still been alive if he had simply taken her home instead of arguing with her in the subway, and he could not let go of that.

“You need to forgive yourself,” Deidre said as she passed by him, just barely above a whisper.

“How?” Troy hissed back, watching the scene before him. His anger at Connor still flowing through him. “It’s my fault she was a target—”

“It was not your fault she was a target,” Deidre said, while Nicole stroked the back of his neck, kissing him with her cold lips along his jugular the way she used to when they made love. He could see it annoyed Deidre to watch, but there was nothing either of them could do to stop Nicole from acting this way. Her fixation made her not exactly listen to the words they spoke—though she heard Deidre more clearly than him. “Don’t forget, she was mocking those other men, which provoked Connor to target her.”

Troy had been told this earlier when Deidre explained why Connor had killed Nicole. Nicole even explained in rather embarrassing terms exactly why she preferred Troy to all the other men she had had sex with. She said it like she was bragging. It made Troy want to cross his legs to hide any evidence to support her claims. But it also caused him to blush and feel a certain degree of pride. He blamed it on vampirism, though. He was sure it wasn’t so before the change.

Connor burst out again, this time jumping for a doorway. Some police officer shocked him with a tazer. He got cuffed again and dragged to his feet to go out to a cell. Rick followed him.

“Let me tell you about the SRA,” Rick hissed to Connor. “Unlike the police, they’ll just kill you.”

“They can’t do that,” Connor seethed back as the police pushed him toward the cells.

Rick practically barked his laugh before he said, “You naïve idiot. They’ve got government connections. They can make it so you don’t even exist. The media won’t even hear about it. And your family—whether you care about them or not—will be convinced your death was self-inflicted.”

Connor’s eyes said he did not care about family. They turned on Troy with loathing and he shouted, “You are a traitor!”

“To what?” Troy snapped back.

“The Order of Blood will have your head!” Connor bellowed out, revealing his allegiance to well. And it was noted in record by those watching.

Snarling, Troy shouted back at him. “I never wanted to be a vampire! I still don’t!”

“Good for you.”

Troy turned, as the voice came from behind him.

Up strolled Steve, the cool as a cucumber vampire, hands in pockets. He jerked up his chin. “Is he the one I need to identify? Because you don’t need me for that.”

Rick walked up to him and said, “No. The vampire has been taken to the morgue. If you go with Abey—uh, Andrew Cartwright and Officer Joshua Johnson, they can take you there.”

“He got here fast,” Deidre murmured to Matthew.

Matthew nodded, shuddering.

But the vampire eyed Rick. He then gave a stiff nod. “You must be the famous Howard Richard Deacon.”

“The Third,” Rick said. “My grandfather is no longer around.”

“Will you accompany us to the morgue?” Steve asked Rick. There was an unusual tonal quality to his voice that shivered through Troy. Troy immediately walked protectively up to Rick’s side.

Glancing back to Troy, Rick then gazed at Steve. He shook his head. “No. I’m staying here. I have no business in a police station morgue.”

The vampire looked to Troy. “Will you accompany us?”

“Uh…” Troy stared at Steve, wondering what he was up to. He was acting odd. “I don’t see why—”

“Come with us,” Deidre said, hooking her arm into his. “It will give you closure.”

Troy nodded to her. She was the expert on things like the dead.

“I would like to speak with you after this,” Steve said to Rick, meeting his gaze.

Rick shrugged, in a would-be-casual manner, but Troy could see the werewolf in him was cued into Steve’s worrying signals.

JJ and Andrew walked with Steve, leading him down the corridors to where the vampire’s body had been taken. Troy and Deidre took up the rear. She had not let go of Troy’s arm, though he noticed it was more to assure him things would be ok. Nicole’s ghost eyed her funny during the walk, and almost shoved herself between him and Deidre.

“Knock it off,” Deidre said, batting the ghost out of her face when Nicole nearly sat on her. “I don’t have a thing for your guy. I like his friend. Ok?”

JJ peeked back, a mildly disturbed expression in his eyes. Andrew, however, raised his eyebrows, smirking in approval.

“Who are you talking to?” Steve asked, looking around.

“My lover’s ghost,” Troy said. “Connor had killed her—with this vampire.”

Steve halted and stared. “Connor killed Nicole?”

Troy nodded, lowering his eyes.

Ghostly Nicole kissed his tears, leaving frost on his face. They could almost see her lip marks.

“Oh…” Steve stared with slack jaw. “He should die.”

JJ turned back, shaking his head. “He’s been arrested. And he will be prosecuted by the law.”

“Do you have enough evidence?” Steve demanded.

JJ exchanged a look with Andrew and said, “If we don’t… I’m sure the SRA will take care of it.”

A shiver went through Steve. “I see.” He then started to walk again. “I see.”

“We’re here to protect you,” Andrew said, nodding to him.

And Steve nodded more to himself. “Yes. I see that now. Thank you.”

And they continued on.

Nicole breathed near Troy’s ear, rubbing her hand into his shirt. “Will