The Sharpest Kiss by Elizabeth Myles (the false prince .txt) 📕

“I feel like we should do something, if we can.”

Dara let out a breath. She knew he was right. “I want to help out, too,” she admitted.

He was quiet for a while, sinking his fingers into her hair and then reaching down to fondle her breast. “Kiefer gave me his number before we left the store the other night,” he reminded her. “I think I’ll call him and at least ask how things are going.”

“Okay.”

He shifted her onto her back, and his fingers trailed lower down her body, slipping between her thighs. Dara let out a short cry as the first tinges of pleasure spiraled through her. “But not until later,” he added with a wicked smile.

◆◆◆

Nathan sat in Kiefer’s newly restored and tidied office, across from the security guard, Frankie Lam. Normally, no one but Nathan was allowed inside this room. When Kiefer had “donut-related business” to conduct, he did it from another office across the way, one not guarded by wards or containing magical implements and spell books. But seeing how Frankie was already privy to so many of the sorcerer’s—and Nathan’s—secrets, he didn’t see any reason to try and hide things from him. He had agreed to let the man in for a private meeting with the vampire.

“I’m not here just to gawk at you,” Frankie assured Nathan when he sat down, “or to try and thank you again for saving my life—although I do thank you. Like you wouldn’t believe.”

Nathan was relieved. He had been worried this was all Frankie had wanted, and he was glad to hear it wasn’t the case. Glad and intrigued. “What can I do for you, Mr. Lam?”

The young man’s eyes lit up. “It’s more about what I can do for you. See, my dad and brother are both on the force. I hear things now and again. Things the department sometimes keeps on the DL, if you know what I’m saying.”

Nathan toyed with a pen on Kiefer’s desk. He tapped it absently against a ceramic coffee mug labeled, ironically enough, ‘Magic Potion.’ “Are you speaking of things which…might be of interest to Kiefer and myself?”

“Vampires,” Frankie said bluntly. “I know those two I put in the ambulance the other night were okay, but Theo said a bunch of others had run off and…well, what if I can help you find them?” Over the next few minutes, he offered Nathan information he’d gleaned from a loose-lipped cop friend of his brother’s, who worked a beat not far from the Courtyard at Vintage Meadow Lake. A woman had been attacked in a park, it seemed, and taken to the hospital with bite wounds on her neck and most of her blood missing. The report had been kept out of the official files, which explained why Kiefer hadn’t picked up on it through his routine surveillance of the local police departments.

“Thank you, Frankie,” Nathan said sincerely. “This is very helpful. I can assure you Kiefer and I will follow up on the lead.”

Happy satisfaction animated the guard’s features. “Yeah, yeah, sure, glad I could help.” He stood up to go, and Nathan walked him to the door. The young man stopped, peering up at him from below a thick lock of straight, dark hair. “Hey, uh, listen,” he said. “I have…I have cancer. A tumor in my brain. Showed up when I was in middle school.” He pointed at his skull. “After what you did for me, I went to the doctor and had him look at it again. Just to see, you know? I wanted to know if it was still there, and…well, it is. I’ve had treatments before, and it hasn’t grown since I was a kid but it’s still hanging out in there, chilling until the day it decides to start swelling up and try to kill me again.” He grinned as though this were in any way funny.

Nathan’s eyes widened. “That is terrible,” he said. “I have wondered in the past, just how powerful my…gift is. I have only ever had occasion to heal broken bones and lacerations, things of that nature. I do know, however, that my blood is useless against colds and other minor maladies, so it does not surprise me to learn it did nothing for your cancer. Nonetheless, I am sorry to hear that.”

Frankie shrugged. “I didn’t really expect anything different. I just thought you might want to know. And it doesn’t matter, anyway. I still could have died the other night. You still saved my life—and made it so that my kid might actually grow up with his dad around.” He paused, glancing at his shoes. “I still feel like I’ve been given a second chance, and I want to use it for something good. I think maybe I was meant to, you know?”

“Yes,” Nathan responded, “I think I might.” He reassured the guard he was welcome to get in touch anytime he had information he thought might be useful to him and Kiefer, and then saw him out.

An hour later, Nathan was back at home, working on a project for work, when he received a phone call from Aaron Ames. He was calling on behalf of himself and Lucy, he said, to ask about the status of the stray vampire hunts. He wanted to know if there was anything the two of them might be able to do to help.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Man, I will never look at Halloween decorations the same way again,” Lucy mused.

Jessica looked up from the table where she’d been stacking swag bags stuffed with free paperbacks and promotional bookmarks, and saw her best friend peering thoughtfully at the wall beside them. Lucy was bedecked in a black skirt and pumpkin-colored sweater set, with a blinking jack-o-lantern headband nestled in her blonde hair. Her gaze was focused on the paper bats, tombstones, vampires, and witches dangling from orange and black streamers strung between the light sconces.

“Right? All these years we thought this stuff was