Deadly Liaisons (8 page)

“No record of this crime exists, or I would have been made aware of it. Why hasn’t the SCU taken him down?” Daemon asked, his voice shadowed with annoyance and concern.

Tezra lost it. She whipped around, tears blurring her vision, her heart in her throat. “Because they don’t believe he did it, dammit. They don’t believe
any
vampire did it. But I know!
I know
, because I made him do it. Because I forced him.” She choked back a sob.

Daemon stared at her in disbelief. She stood so close to him her breasts nearly touched his chest. Her green eyes fil ed with tears. He wanted nothing more than to touch her, to hold her tight, but his heart warred with his mind to keep his distance. He tried to ignore the way her blood beckoned to him, the way she looked so damned vulnerable.

Taking a deep breath to break the spel the enchantress held over him, he said, “Talk to me, Tezra. Tel me what you know.”

“You’l be like al the rest who don’t believe me.” Pain reflected in her words, and he wanted to crush the life out of any who had caused her anguish.

“What happened?” He pul ed her toward the bed, and she balked.

“You
are
going to put some clothes on, aren’t you?”

Daemon lifted a brow. “You are sure you want this?”

She frowned, and he gave her a smal smile then let go of her hand. In a flash, he threw on a pair of black denims.

“Enough. Tel me what happened.” He lifted her onto the high bed, then sat next to her.

“Can he come inside?” She seemed fil ed with emotions, wavering between fear of the vampire and red-hot anger.

Her teachers would have taught her to control such feelings, especial y in front of a vampire. Which made him believe she could cross the line and become a renegade. But he wasn’t about to let her go there. Not when it could cause further difficulties between her people and his.

“I’ve never invited Krustalus inside my home. I only vaguely recal meeting him once in Scotland in the early years after my change. A brief encounter in a tavern, as I recal . Nothing remarkable about the man captured my attention.”

She clasped and unclasped her fingers. “If I had my sword, I’d ask him in.”

This was a dangerous notion, and he couldn’t fathom why she would wish to put herself at such risk. “If the SCU hasn’t condemned him…”

She growled her response. “
I
condemn him for the murder of my parents.”

She
didn’t have the authority. “What proof do you have, Tezra?”

Turning her glare from him, she stared at the floor. “He didn’t take their blood, just slashed their throats and left them to die in front of my sister when she was twelve. I was training at Portland SCU’s elite school, learning how to use my wrist daggers, learning how to be a huntress, but when I came home…” She looked at the patio door. “My sister’s in a world of her own, doesn’t speak or seem to understand most of what I say to her. It’s al my fault she’s the way she is.”

Daemon
knew
Tezra had trained to be a huntress. He sensed it in her actions, in her thoughts when they weren’t guarded. A dark huntress. Reaching down he took her hands, forcing her to unclench them. Her long nails had dug into the skin, but hadn’t cut it yet. He didn’t need to be exposed to any more of her blood.

He doubted the crime was Tezra’s fault, but she seemed to think the burden of guilt rested on her shoulders, and he was bound and determined to find out why.

Before he could question her further, Krustalus spoke to him privately.
“It is I, Krustalus. Will you invite me in? I have important
issues to discuss with you
.
”

Daemon had ruled the vampires of America since the time of the American Revolution. Krustalus had never pledged his al egiance to Daemon’s rule before, not that it was required as long as the vampire did nothing to stir up trouble. So why al the interest to see him now? To get at Tezra? Or did he have some larger just as equal y dark purpose in mind?

Daemon sensed a smugness emanating from him.
“I’ll meet with you in an hour at Popia’s Wharfside Restaurant.”

“Ahh, you are busy with sweet Tezra. Give her my love, will you, Prince Daemon? ’Til then, milord,”
Krustalus communicated in a mocking tone, then left.

Now suspecting what Tezra had said about Krustalus was true, Daemon tightened his hold on her hands. Why else would the vampire know her wel enough to recognize she was in the house with him? Why use an endearing term in connection with her name?

She relaxed as if a ton of bricks had been lifted from her shoulders. “He’s gone,” she whispered. “He spoke privately to you, didn’t he?”

“Yes, he said he knew you were here.”

“Of course he knows.” She yanked her hands free. “He always knows where I am, and I sense his close proximity, but he won’t come near enough when he’s in human form for me to catch sight of his face. I only know the demonic tone of his thoughts. He was there, taunting me before Officer Stevens died.” She rubbed her neck.

Daemon glanced at the ribbed material of the turtleneck she wore and a new concern flickered across his mind. “Has he bitten you?”

Her eyes widened, but she shook her head.

But something about her action, the way she’d touched her neck when she thought of Krustalus taunting her, drawing close, made Daemon think there was something more to the situation than a vampire out for revenge.

“I thought you’d been cal ed to investigate the murder. That others were with you at the time. What the hel were you doing alone in the warehouse district beforehand?” he snapped, not meaning to. But dammit, didn’t the woman know how dangerous her actions were?

Her spine tensed. “Stevens said he knew my parents’ kil er’s name.”

“And he said to come alone?” Daemon asked, his voice hard. “You didn’t see it as a setup? Hel , woman.”

“Of course I considered it.” She narrowed her eyes. “But I had to know the vampire’s name.”

Daemon shook his head in disbelief. “He couldn’t tel you over the phone? You had to meet him in the middle of the night in an isolated place…the same place the other officers were murdered?”

She didn’t say anything in response, just glowered at him.

“So Stevens gave you Krustalus’s name, then the vampire murdered him. You witnessed it.”

“
No
, I didn’t see him kil Stevens. If I had, I would be an eyewitness and have the proof I needed, now wouldn’t I? He’s too clever for that. Besides, I think there are two of them. Stevens never had a chance. The chief gave me Krustalus’s name over the phone when I reported the murder.”

Daemon took an exasperated breath. “Why did Stevens say for you to come alone as if he were the only one who knew Krustalus’s name, but the chief gave it to you without even meeting you there?”

“I don’t know!”

“Did you see Krustalus kil your parents?”

“No.” She shook her head and sniffled, her teeth gritted as if she were trying to fight back the tears.

“Then how do you know it was him?” It wasn’t that Daemon didn’t believe her, only that she had to have proof. If she attempted to kil Krustalus without provocation, she would be no better than what she assumed Krustalus was. “Why wouldn’t he have taken their blood? I don’t know of any vampire who would kil like that and not drink his victims’ blood.”

“I don’t know.”

Puzzling over her parents’ deaths, Daemon rubbed his chin. “Vampires often fight each other using swords, usual y over territorial disputes, but serial kil ers use their fangs to murder. Why are you so sure a vampire murdered your parents?”

She jumped off the bed and paced across the Turkish rug. “Don’t you see? He did it that way to throw the SCU off! He did it that way to get back at me!”

“Why you?” Daemon didn’t attempt to conceal his skepticism. Why would a vampire kil her parents in an atypical fashion
for
her sake
? Had the trauma of her parents’ deaths affected her mind too?

Tezra stopped pacing and glowered at him. “I knew he’d begun kil ing humans, but I didn’t know his name. After reading his mind, I taunted him with the knowledge I gleaned. Young and stupid, I never thought he would discover my identity, because I couldn’t determine his. Hoping I could goad him into making a mistake, I planned to turn him in to the SCU. I thought I’d become famous like Michael Tarantos, who at sixteen discovered a vampire hit squad intending to destroy the SCU. Thinking I was invincible…”

With an abrupt sweep of her hand, she brushed away tears. “Just as surely as if I’d stabbed them in the heart myself, I caused my parents’ deaths. I brought about my sister’s suffering al these years. My own arrogance destroyed my family.”

He rubbed his neck, which was rife with tension. He wanted to hold her tight and take away her pain, but because of her agitated posture, he assumed she wouldn’t appreciate anyone’s touch, least of al a vampire’s. “Why didn’t you tel the SCU

about your abilities? Surely they would have believed you then.”

“I told a senior staff member about what happened, though I left out the part about being telepathic. Patrico died in the same manner as my parents before he could speak to the others. The vampire would have kil ed anyone else I tried to alert. I stil hadn’t learned his name. Not until the chief revealed it.”

This stil struck Daemon as odd. How would the chief have discovered the vampire’s name so easily, when a huntress with telepathic abilities could not? “Do you know how the chief came to discern his name?”

Her brows knit in a deep frown. “You’re thinking the police chief was manipulated. That Stevens was. Maybe so. Or maybe someone he turned or someone who had once been his friend squealed on him.” She wrapped her arms around herself.

“Krustalus said I’d find out his name soon. I’m certain he’s the one, and how the chief or Stevens knew doesn’t concern me.”

“But it should, Tezra.” Daemon finished dressing. “You have to prove he’s committed murder. The SCU wil have no recourse but to condemn you for murder should you kil him without proving he’s committed a crime.”

“He won’t get away with their murders or any of the others he has committed. He’s cunning, but I’m certain he’s stil kil ing. He has to be stopped. Soon, by God, he’l slip up, and I’l meet him in the flesh.”

Daemon couched his disapproval, though another thought nagged him. What
was
Krustalus’s game? “You said Krustalus taunted you. How?”

Tezra glowered at Daemon. The tension in his neck returned when he imagined what the vampire might have done to her. The notion she had to prove Krustalus had kil ed anyone quickly went out the window, and he was ready to terminate the vampire himself. “Tezra?”

“He touches me when he’s in the form of mist.”

Daemon’s temper grew. “How do you know this? Couldn’t it be just your imagination?”

“Forget it! You don’t believe me anyway.”

He couldn’t forget it. He wanted to discover just how far the bastard had pushed himself on her, but his own anger was too near the surface to deal with it objectively. “Did he bite you, Tezra?”

She swal owed hard and shook her head again.

“Tezra?” He touched her arm but she didn’t pul away this time. He embraced her, attempting to coax the truth out of her. “What happened?”

She wouldn’t speak.

“If he’s bitten you, he may believe he’s laid claim to you. At least in his sick mind. I have to know if he’s done anything to you to see where he intends to take this.”

“He’s never bitten me! Don’t you think I’d remember something like that? I wouldn’t ever have let him get that close.”

“He touched you in mist form,” Daemon reminded her. “And from there he could easily have become a man, touching you just as intimately, except in human form.”

She wouldn’t look at him, and he suspected the worst. “When did he bite you?”

She shook her head. “He didn’t.”

Tilting her chin up, he attempted to wil her to be honest with him, but that impenetrable wal of hers blocked him. “Al right, then.”

It wasn’t. But he’d get the truth from her hopeful y sooner than later. “What about your sister?”

Tezra turned away, her voice fil ed with regret. “I’ve had the world’s best psychiatrists work with her with no discernable progress.”

He knew a promising way to bring her sister out of the darkness—most likely at great sacrifice to himself and even greater to Tezra. Frankly, after his last three disastrous relationships, he wasn’t interested in repeating his mistake. Yet a strange gnawing emptiness fil ed him with an unfathomable sense of disquiet. Just the bloodlust, just the hunger, he told himself, attempting to convince himself that was al it was about her that made him yearn for intimacy with the huntress.

She pushed her dark hair away from her face in such a sexy way, he groaned inwardly. His hard body couldn’t take much more of her sweet fragrance or her al uring actions.

“I vow I wil help you with finding a way to connect Krustalus with the crimes. In the meantime, you wil remain here and—”

“Absolutely not.” She crossed her arms, lifting her breasts. Her eyes narrowed with defiance.

“I told you last night, I expect your obedience in al matters.”

“This is not the Dark Ages, and you won’t keep me here against my wil a second longer.”

“Not even if I help you to solve the crimes?”

“I won’t be locked away—”

She quit speaking when they sensed two vampires approach his house.

“Your brother and friend, Maison, are here again?”

Daemon motioned to the bedroom. “You wil stay here and behave, or I’l return you to the cel ar.”

“I need a shower and a change of clothes.”

“My brother wil have your bag. I’l bring it up momentarily. You may use my bathroom to shower.” The thought of seeing her rubbing soapsuds over her soft, naked skin instantly aroused him again. Envisioning his hands soaping up her breasts, bringing her nipples to twin, rosy peaks—

Releasing a heavy sigh, he dissolved into mist and reappeared in the greatroom.
“You may enter my home freely, Atreides,
Maison,”
he communicated before they asked.