Blood Lily (Lilith Adams Vampire Series Book 1) (14 page)

A silent look passed between Chance and Lilith, wordlessly expressing that neither of them wanted to rush Spencer, so they just waited for him to start.

“I haven’t been particularly close to Dad in a long time.” His voice was completely flat as he finally took his eyes off the photos and looked across the table at the two of them. His blue eyes were a little narrow and pinched, his nose a little too thin along with the rest of him, otherwise you might call him attractive. He ran his long fingers through his bedraggled sandy brown hair and leaned back in the chair.

“Dad’s been so damn obsessed with his pet projects. He pretty much dumped the business on Miriah and
Malachi. A few years back he freaked out over some photographer’s death. He started doing research, spending a little more time at the Madisonville house. Then it was a few days every couple months, then every month, then weekends.” He sighed heavily and started picking at his nails. “He hasn’t left that damn house in six months. He was totally obsessed with whatever he was doing.”

“So it all started with some Photographer that was killed?” Lilith watched him carefully, an occupational hazard. Once you learned to read body language and micro expressions, you had a really hard time turning it off.

Spencer looked up at her with a casual nonchalant look and shrugged. “That’s what he said anyway. He never really mentioned who it was or anything.”

“So you didn’t know what he was working on?”

Spencer met her steady gaze and huffed out a short chuckle. “I’m an art appraiser, pretty much the limit of my usefulness. If Dad had a question about paintings he came to me, if he had questions about anything else, he went to Miriah.”

The very subtle contempt that pulled at his lips almost surprised her, but then what family didn’t have a little inner struggle. “Gregor told me that you and Miriah were going to see Duncan at the Madisonville house for dinner that night?”

Spencer slumped back farther into the chair and casually draped one arm over the back of the chair. It was an odd posture, totally open, even a little confident. “Miriah’s idea. She wanted to keep the whole family vibe going. She seemed to think it would help Dad. He was starting to forget things, important things. If he wasn’t a vampire, I’d say he was suffering from Alzheimer’s. "His eyes drifted to the wall, he blinked, just an instant, and then he leaned forward, leaning his elbows on the table. His face fell and took on that sullen look again.

“Was
Malachi there too?”

Spencer snapped his head up and looked at her, totally confused for a minute. His eyes moved back to the photos on the wall before he answered. “No, he was on some trip. I didn’t ask where. We weren’t exactly friends. It was just me and Miriah. Dad wasn’t home, so we waited for him.
We actually wound up crashing in the guest rooms upstairs. In the morning he still wasn’t there and we knew something was wrong. Miriah found some drops of blood down by the office and freaked.”

“Yeah I saw those too.” Lilith thought back to the untouched bedrooms. The beds were made and hadn’t looked slept in. But then, considering Miriah’s precise personality, she probably made sure both rooms looked picture perfect, even in the midst of stress.

He continued on like she hadn’t spoken, still staring around at the photos on the wall, various emotions from anger to sadness flickering across his face. “Miriah drove back to her office while I checked out Dad’s place in Knoxville. I called Gregor when I didn’t find anything there. Then the other day, early in the morning, Miriah called me with some address to a warehouse outside of Nashville. She’d been checking into it for Dad I guess and she asked me to take a look at it. She said she was going to meet you guys up at the airport and drive you down to Madisonville. That’s the last I’ve heard from her.”

“What was the warehouse?” Lilith glanced at Chance. He was studying Spencer pretty intensely and was definitely in all business
mode.

Spencer ran both hands through his hair now, stopping to rub at the back of his neck.
“Dead freaking end. It was just some dank, abandoned building. Nothing’s been there for years. I was pretty pissed at Miriah until I realized she didn’t make it to the airport.” The anger was still there on his face, slightly blurred by a twinge of regret. He was so angry that it seemed to mask anything else she might have seen on his face.

“Do you have any idea why
Malachi would be in New York City?”

Spencer slowly took his eyes off the wall and met her stare evenly
. Slowly his stare melted and he shrugged. “Is that where he is? Maybe it was some real estate thing.” There was no real reaction of surprise. It was probably hard to be surprised by anything anymore. Of course, Spencer never made his dislike of Malachi a secret.

“He’s dead, Spence.” Chance spoke up with a pointed look at Lilith. Guess he didn’t want her to drag it out.

Spencer’s face crumpled and went completely blank. He just looked at Chance and Lilith. She couldn’t read anything at all in his face. “How?”

“He was tortured, Spencer. I think it was some kind of warning or message, but I’m almost completely certain it has something to do with whatever is going on down here.” Lilith kept her voice neutral. She was still scared of Spencer flipping out like he
had earlier, but except for a briefly clenched jaw, there wasn’t anything else. 

Spencer grunted and leaned back in his chair. “This is insane.” His eyes drifted to the ceiling and ran his hand through his hair again. Apparently he was working through a lot of frustration. He didn’t say anything for a long time, just closed his eyes and took very deep breaths. “So have you found
anything
since you’ve been here?” Oh yeah. The anger was definitely there this time. Even Chance picked up on it and stiffened in the chair beside her.

“Honestly, not much.
Just some vague references to a few things. One note I found said he was having Miriah help him with his research. I didn’t find anything here. Is there any chance she brought stuff back with her to her office maybe? Or Malachi’s office?”

He scratched at his shoulder and let out a frustrated sigh. “It’s possible. I never went to either office. Hell, I haven’t even been here to the apartment for a week or so. Miriah and I were
… disagreeing a lot.” The nervous energy was itching under his skin. He was getting restless and his eyes kept drifting to the wall of photos. She could understand that. He wanted to do something, find his Dad and sister, even if they didn’t always get along.

“Why don’t we split up and take a look? Chance and I can take
Malachi’s office, if you take Miriah’s office. Maybe we can find something useful?” Her voice was a little too high and sweet, like she was talking to a kid on the verge of a tantrum.

Spencer didn’t miss the condescending tone. He cocked his head to one side and stared at her for a moment. His already thin lips stretched into a forced smile
that made her skin want to crawl right off her body. “Sure thing. Do we get walkie-talkies and secret spy names too? Maybe matching trench coats and a decoder ring? I’m not some five year old punk that you have to coddle. You want to talk to me, do it like an adult.” His lip curled in a sneer of pure contempt as his eyes scanned up her body. “You are wasting my fucking time, you useless bitch.”

Chance moved forward in his chair and his face was set in an angry scowl.
He looked like some avenging angel in that moment, all full of righteous fury. “You ungrateful prick. Look, I know you’ve been through a lot, but knock it off, Spencer. We are here to help so if you only have snide remarks to share, just shut your fucking mouth.” Spencer’s eyes went wide in surprise but very quickly hardened into an icy stare. There was an amused glint in his eyes while he stared down Chance that just didn’t seem to fit. Maybe it was some sort of short man, macho syndrome.

Chance grabbed the front of his shirt and hauled
him closer. “Yeah, your family is missing, Malachi is dead. You being a fucking asshole is not going to change that. You want to find your dad and sister? Stop being a dick and let us help.” He shoved Spencer who rocked back in his chair and Chance sat back in his with a disgusted look.

There was an intense moment as they both stared at each other with equal contempt and then Spencer finally dropped his head. He stared down at the table, his disheveled hair hiding his face. “You’re right.” His voice trembled and he pulled in a shaking breath that rattled his shoulders. “I’m tired of chasing dead ends, and because I’ve been fighting with Dad and Miriah, I’m not any help.” He slammed his fists down on the table, making Lilith jump in her chair. “I’m tired, so damn tired of being useless!”

Lilith was more careful this time. When she spoke it came out calm and casual. “Then help us, Spencer.” She paused, warring with herself but decided that ultimately he needed to know how things were. “I’m here to help, but if you ever call me a useless bitch again, I will knock the scowl right off your face, regardless of what you are going through. You hear me?”

Spencer simply nodded without looking up. She figured it was the closest thing to an apology she was ever going to get. Sure, Chance had just put him in his place, but she didn’t want other people fighting all her battles for her.
“All right. We’ll check Malachi’s place and you take Miriah’s. Do you know where they kept the keys? It would definitely be easier and less suspicious then picking the lock.”

“Yeah
, but I’ll take Malachi’s office. I know more about real estate than I do about accounting. I’m sure if there’s something to find it would probably be at Miriah’s office and seeing as you’re so keen to be helpful...” A warning look from Chance caught his attention and Spencer stopped in mid-sentence. His red-rimmed eyes flicked back to Lilith and slowly each of his angry inflections smoothed into a mask of humility that she knew was forced. She suddenly understood why she’d spent more time around Miriah. It was hard to even imagine that they were related.

Miriah was full of bouncing southern charm. Lilith spent a lot of summers with Miriah hiking up Bald River Falls to take pictures and just explore. They’d never been truly close, not like she was with her friends in college or Gloria, but they’d always gotten along well together. Spencer she never really remembered seeing much, but if he was always like this, she was glad she hadn’t been around him much.

“I’ll just grab the keys.” Spencer dragged himself out of the chair, staring at the floor like a kicked puppy. A few minutes later he returned with two key rings, one of which he tossed to Chance. “Meet back here in two hours?”

Chance and Lilith shared a look and then nodded at Spencer. “Sure, Buddy. Sorry about the tough man act, but you
were flipping out. You need to grip on your emotions and stop blaming the people that are trying to help you.”

One side of Spencer’s mouth came up in a smile. It wasn’t even vaguely attractive
and there was something almost smug about it. Spencer was a mangled mess of visible emotions that Lilith just couldn’t seem to make sense of. “It’s cool. You have to do what you have to do right? You guys head out, I’m going to grab a super quick shower and borrow some of Malachi’s clothes. I’m sure he won’t mind if…” Spencer stopped abruptly as he thought back over what he was about to say. His shoulders slumped and he waved Chance and Lilith to the hallway. “Anyway, happy hunting.”

Chapter 7

M
inutes later, Chance and Lilith squeezed into their tiny rental car and headed downtown toward Miriah’s accounting office. The traffic was light, but that wasn’t too surprising since the evening rush hour ended several hours ago. Apparently, there wasn’t much of a night-life out here. Even Knoxville’s busiest traffic would have been a cake walk compared to New York City at any time of the day. Hell, people here actually obeyed general traffic laws like red means stop.

“It seems like Spencer harbors a lot of resentment.” Chance was staring out the windshield, dodging slower cars as
he sped down the road. His hands were tense on the wheel, flexing, relaxing and flexing again.

Lilith shrugged into her seat. “Families are complicated. Not everyone gets along as well as Gregor and me, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love them.
He may feel left out of the family, but he definitely wants to find them.”

“
Trust me. I’m all too aware of just how complicated families can be, but Duncan was a good man, a good father.” There was a brief flicker of emotions across his face that said Chance knew exactly what a bad father was like. However, this wasn’t the time to go digging up Chance’s past. “Spencer sure is an ass about it.” His hands clenched the steering wheel tight, turning his knuckles white. “It was all I could do to keep from rearranging his face back there.”

Without even stopping to
over think it like usual, Lilith smoothed a hand over his. “You were amazing. Restrained, yet effective.” She was smiling as she ran it back in her head. The look of utter surprise on Spencer’s face was priceless. Lilith turned in her seat to look at Chance with a sudden thought. “You know you could be an excellent interrogator.”

Chance’s eyebrows flew up in surprise and he slowly turned his head to glance at her, before returning
his eyes to the road. “I’ll try to take that as a compliment. I’m not sure I’m thrilled by the fact that you think I’m scary enough to beat a confession out of someone.”

A bubble of laughter popped out of her and she clasped her hands over her mouth to stop it at
a death glare from Chance. When she had it under control, she tried again. “Not some inquisition interrogator. A real detective that questions witnesses and suspects. It takes a lot of psychology, and your instincts back there were better than my training.” This time when she laughed it was soft and light. Even in the dark, with only the pale glow from the instrument panel, she could see a blush creeping over his cheeks.

Chance ran a hand slowly through his hair. “Uh…thanks.” He glanced over at the warm smile on Lilith’s face and he couldn’t help but smile himself. “I appreciate the compliment, but I seriously wanted to break his face. I couldn’t deal with that every single day. Plus, Gregor’s my boss, and I love my job.”

There was a slight pull of his lips and tightness in his jaw that contradicted his late sentence. It surprised her. “You don’t.” She blurted it out before she could think it over.

He glanced over at her in confusion. “I don’t what?”

Lilith sat and contemplated just dismissing it, but she honestly really wanted to know. “You don’t love your job, not completely.” She sunk as far back in her seat as she could, waiting for the screaming to start.

Instead, Chance quietly looked at her for a second at a red light. “I love Gregor like family. I’d pr
otect him without the paycheck, but no I don’t completely love my job. Gregor is a wonderful man, but he knows the power he has over people and he uses it. There are things in my life, things that would be different if I didn’t work for him.” His eyes caught hers for a significant instant and then turned back to the road as the light changed.

Her arms slowly folded over her chest and she frowned across the car.
The need to defend her father was purely instinctual. “Gregor isn’t a tyrant. Come on, Chance. He doesn’t play people like pawns. He’s always open and honest. So the man flipped out when some eighteen year old kid got a tattoo for his sixteen year old daughter. What father wouldn’t go ballistic? Don’t make him out to be some super villain because of it. He doesn’t control your life. That’s just juvenile.”

The car jerked to the side of the road and Chance slammed on the brakes. Lilith was clutching the dash, holding on for her life when the tiny car finally rocked to a stop.
“Are you fucking insane?!” She tried desperately to catch her breath and control the trembles running through her arms.

Chance twisted in his seat, leaning over the center console and reached out to tilt her chin toward him. His hazel eyes, flecked with green bored into her from inches away. Her breath caught in her throat and she struggled to remember how to
simply breathe. The anger didn’t flood out of her like they talk about in the movies. It was simply intense.  “Just because you know one thing, doesn’t mean that you know the whole story. Sometimes you are too smart for your own good. You think one or two facts will let you fill in everything else. That might work on a crime scene, but not with me. You have some serious rose colored glasses on when it comes to your father. He’s a survivalist. He needs to be. I get that, but don’t sit there and tell me that he doesn’t manipulate things to his advantage. You only see one side of him. I have been with him almost every waking moment of his life for the past decade.”

“I
…” Lilith couldn’t even form a sentence she was so startled. All she could think about was how soft his skin looked and how his warm scent wrapped around her. She couldn’t wrap her head around his anger toward Gregor. None of it made any sense to her. Squashing a teenage crush wasn’t the work of an evil mastermind. She swallowed the lump in her throat and was about to try and form words when he cut her off.

“Yes, Gregor went ballistic over the tattoo, and that’s what I thought too, that you were too young and he was being protective.
So I waited. I worked hard to be the best I could at my job, tried to show how responsible I was. On your eighteenth birthday he sat me down and told me the truth about things. He very calmly told me that this…”He motioned between the two of them. “Would never happen. He made that crystal clear.”

She stumbled through her thoughts and none of it made sense to her. Gregor would never threaten him, that wasn’t her father. “He’d fire you?”

“No, Lilith.” His jaw clenched tight and he stared into her eyes willing her to understand. “He’d ship me off to the ends of the earth with no support. A death sentence. He might as well have threatened to kill me then and there. ”

Her eyes went wide and it seemed like the whole world just turned upside down. “Why?” It came out as a weak breathy whisper.
None of it made sense. Her father barely raised his voice much less threatened people’s lives and Chance was like a son to him.

“You’re basically a pure blood, Lily.
Your body is strong enough to live centuries.” His eyes fell and there was an intimate sadness in them that made her want to cry. “I’ve got one century, if I’m lucky, assuming I don’t die in the line of duty which is entirely possible. Not to mention, the further dilution of the bloodlines. Gregor very reasonably explained it all to me. You’re right, he is a great man and a very protective father, but he’s ruthless to whatever threatens his family.”

There was
a tightness in her chest that felt like her lungs were going to explode. She wanted to take all the hurt and sadness lingering in his face away. She tried desperately to get her brain working. It took a tremendous amount of effort with him so close to her. “But you are family! Gregor took you in, helped raise you. You are like a son to him.”

“No, Lily. I’m a fixture, a tool. I know in some way Gregor cares about me, but it’s not like family. Not to him. You are his family, Duncan, Miriah, Malachi, even Spencer. I’m just the hired help that he knows a little better than the others.”

“Why are you telling me all this? Why now?”

His green-flecked eyes slowly met hers again. “Because you deserve to know, and I can’t keep all these secrets when we’re working so close together. I need you
to understand. When you do things, it affects me. So I’m asking you, begging you, take it easy on me. I don’t have an endless amount of willpower. I need to do my job here. If anything happens to you, I’d never forgive myself and that’s nothing compared to what Gregor would do.”

Her heart was pounding heavy in her chest, drowning out everything else. The tension in the car was thick enough to cut with a knife and it was pulling her in a million directions. Without even thinking, she whispered “Shut the fuck up.” Her lips brushed against his in a
torturously tender kiss that caused every little hair on her body to stand up.

At first, Chance just sat there, paralyzed and she had a moment of blind panic. She was just about to pull back and prepare to be horribly embarrassed when his thin control snapped. His
strong arms slid around her and held her close as his lips pushed against hers in a nudging kiss. Her head swam in dizzy intoxication as her whole body sprang to life. It felt like she’d been in a haze all her life and now it was suddenly, beautifully, vibrantly clear.

She wasn’t the hermit that Chance jokingly thought she was. She’d dated, but nothing ever serious.
The men that could handle her schedule and line of work, usually weren’t the passionate ones that ever moved her to really feel anything. This was different than anything she’d ever felt. It was like her whole body had been sleeping and was just now waking up.

Her arms
slipped around his neck, pulling him closer as his tongue caressed her soft lips. He tasted like sunlight, warm and electrifying. She wanted to live in the bubble of this moment forever. His fingers drifted softly against her ribs and she gasped against his lips. Chance pulled back suddenly, resting his forehead against hers. He drew in a ragged, shaking breath. “God, you cannot do that, Lily.”

Her back stiffened and she pulled away from his arms. Righteous fury flooded through her and she rubbed at her flushed cheeks. “I am a grown woman, Chance. I’m not my father’s pawn, no matter how honorable his intentions.”

A lazy smile so tender stretched his lips that she caught herself just staring at him. “
That
is not what I meant. Believe me. I’ve noticed you’re a full grown woman."

All the anger flooded out of her and relief rushed over her so fast she felt dizzy. Her cheeks burned and she felt the blush all the way down her neck. She swallowed down the breath she’d been holding and relaxed into her seat. “What did you mean then?”

His eyes glazed over and he rubbed a hand over his auburn- speckled hair. “Gasping like that. I’ve wanted to kiss you from the moment I saw you, twelve, thirteen years ago and I’m mostly human after all.” His smile held subtle undercurrents of pain and then doubt slowly started to trickle in.

Lilith reached out and ran her palm along his cheek. The stubble was long enough not to prick her soft skin.
It felt completely surreal to actually touch his face. It was like touching some movie star that you had a crush on most of your life. Chance closed his eyes and leaned into her touch as all the pain, doubt and everything else slowly drifted away. Tears threatened to well in her eyes at how peaceful he looked right then. The thought that this brave, courageous and wounded man found such solace in something as simple as her touch shook her right down to the core. Actually it scared the living crap out of her.

His eyes drifted open and he must have seen the edges of fear on her face. Chance pulled her close and his lips caressed hers as his hand smoothed over her cheek and sank into her auburn curls. Goose bumps ran down her arms like lightning and she melted against him.

A sharp tap on the glass busted the little bubble they’d been in and the real world came to a very sharp focus. Cars were flying past them on a busy freeway and red and blue flashes were filling the car. “Great.” She murmured as she glanced through Chance’s window and saw a sour faced cop standing there with his flashlight.

The cop shined his bright light into the car and Lilith shied away from it, blinking. Chance rolled down the window and took the brunt of the bright light.

“Ya’ll okay?” The cop’s thick southern accent didn’t hold a single trace of concern. It was more like polite suspicion. He shined the light over Lilith who winced against the glare and then settled it back on Chance.

“Absolutely, officer.
I just pulled to the side of the road when my girl and I were arguing over directions. I don’t like to be distracted when I’m driving. It’s a recipe for an accident.”

Officer Humphrey, as his name tag stated, just watched Chance silently for a few minutes. She was about to break the awkward silence when he finally spoke up. “It seems ya’ll have made up. The shoulder is for emergencies, boy. Take it elsewhere.”

Chance nodded. “Of course. Sorry, Sir.” Officer Humphrey didn’t move. He just stood there looking them over. His flashlight bounced all over the car and for a moment, stopped on Chance’s bandaged knuckles on the steering wheel.

“Where are ya’ll
visitin' from?” He didn’t sound casually curious, more like shrewdly interested.

“New York City, Officer. We’re just here visiting family.”
She’d never heard Chance so polite, but she knew that he was struggling, the longer it went on. Usually he was the silent muscle, Gregor was the suave faceman. Of course, it made sense that Chance picked up a few tricks while working for him all those years.