Semi-Human (Harper Hall Investigations Book 2) (10 page)

Not that there weren’t also a few pathetic wannabes, she thought, eyeing a kid in a black satin cape and enough white face paint to choke a mime. He offered a drink to a girl dressed up like Selene in the
Underworld
movies. Selene was unimpressed by the kid’s overture.

Riddick slipped an arm around Harper’s waist and turned her subtly toward a raised platform at the edge of the dance floor, roped off in black velvet cord. A vampire sat at the first table, eyeing the crowd of dancers like a hungry lion eyeing a herd of unsuspecting gazelle at a watering hole.

Archer
.

It was hard to tell while he was sitting down, but Harper imagined he was about five-ten, one-sixty, probably leanly muscled, and obviously of Greek descent, as his family name would attest. If she had to guess, she’d say he’d been about twenty-five when he was turned, which, according to Romeo, was about three hundred years ago.

Archer wore a designer suit that Harper assumed cost more than her car. His shoulder-length, black hair was super shiny and styled to within an inch of its life.

He looked exactly like Romeo described him: smug, pretentious, rich, powerful, and exceedingly good-looking. The kind of guy who’d pay men to hurt women during sex while he watched.

Harper hated him on sight.

Romeo had told them that while Archer preferred women to be subservient in the bedroom, he was all for a woman who took charge outside of it. So, once they got his attention, it would be up to her to talk them through this fiasco.

No pressure or anything.

She turned and looked up at Riddick. “You know what we’re going to have to do to get his attention, right?”

He frowned at her. “I don’t dance.”

“I remember that about you,” she said with a smirk. “But we don’t really have a choice this time.”

She extended her hand to him, and his chin hit his chest as he took it.

Riddick looked like he was being led to the gallows as she dragged him to the dancefloor. She tried not to take it personally.

When they were directly in Archer’s line of sight, she smiled up at Riddick and crooked her little finger at him. He gave her his crooked grin, but shook his head.

Oh, so he was going to play hard to get, huh?

She’d just see about that.

Harper lifted her arms and snaked her hips back and forth, slowly sidling toward him. His eyes darkened and his grin faded as he put his hands on her hips.

She gasped when he spun her around, pulled her firmly into him so that his front was pressed to her back, and started bending and swaying to the music in perfect time with her movements.

“I thought you said you didn’t dance,” she said on a breathy sigh.

He nudged her arms up so that they were around his neck and pressed an open-mouthed kiss just below her ear. “I never said I
couldn’t
dance.”

She shivered as his hand slid up her thigh so that the tips of his fingers were under her skirt. Wow. It would be so easy to forget why they were here.

Hell, it’d be so easy to forget
her name
when he touched her like that.

If only they could afford that luxury.

They danced until a light sheen of perspiration covered her skin and she could feel loose curls brushing against her neck, indicating her up-do wasn’t as pristine as it had been when they entered the club. Her feet were actively protesting the mile-high, strappy stilettoes she’d paired with her new dress. And still, Archer hadn’t extended them an invite, even though Harper could practically feel his beady little eyes on her every so often.

Guess they weren’t the best three-way option in the room.

Harper felt both insulted and relieved by his disinterest. On one hand, the scary vampire who liked to watch men hurt women didn’t want to see her hurt—so, yay for her! But on the other hand, damn it, they looked hot. Why
didn’t
the scary vampire want to watch Riddick hurt her?

Reactions like that were exactly why Mischa called her a weirdo, she decided after a little more contemplation.

“Want something to drink?” Riddick asked.

“Absolutely,” she said, peeling the neckline of her dress off her breasts to fan her cleavage. “Anything but blood.”

He smiled and grabbed her hand to walk her toward the bar. She stumbled to a stop when a stranger grabbed her other wrist.

Harper used half of her mental focus and concentration on blocking any visions that might come off this guy.
Nothing to see here
, she told her brain.
Probably just a grabby, drunk jerk who likes the new dress
.

She saved the other half of her focus for breaking the hold he had on her wrist correctly. Just as she’d done to Riddick the night before, she grabbed the guy’s thumb and bent it back until he released her. She was prepared to punch him in the solar plexus next, but Riddick saved her the trouble by doing it for her.

“You okay?” he asked her, examining her wrist. She nodded and turned back to Mr. Grabby Hands. “No touching, pal. I like my personal space.”

Mr. GH lifted his hands in surrender, but she could see the barely contained fury in his eyes. “No disrespect intended, I assure you.”

Riiiigggghhhhttttt
.

Anyone who’d spent any time at all with douchebag assholes would be able to spot Mr. GH from a mile away. And Harper was somewhat of an expert on the type.

He was about her height without heels, which would put him at five-five or five-six. Average for a girl, but short for a guy. Harper would bet every penny she had that Mr. GH suffered from short man syndrome, and probably treated everyone around him like crap in an effort to feel better about himself.

He was also a vampire. She could see his fangs peeking out from underneath his top lip.

Leave it to her to attract a vampire with short man syndrome and grabby tendencies.

Riddick shoved her behind him when the vampire moved toward her again. “Don’t make me fucking break your jaw with this many witnesses, man,” he said to the vamp through clenched teeth.

He stopped in his tracks, but didn’t retreat. “I mean the lady no harm. I was merely instructed to extend an invitation to my sire’s table in the VIP section.”

Harper glanced up at the VIP section and found Archer watching their little exchange with interest.

Well,
hallelujah
, they’d pulled it off after all.

Not wanting to look too eager and raise Archer’s suspicions, she shook her head. “Sorry, but I already have a date.”

Mr. GH smiled at her in a totally creepy way that gave her a screaming case of the willies. “Of course your gentleman friend is invited, as well.”

She glanced back at Riddick, pretending to think it over for a moment, then shrugged. “What the hell, right? You only live once.”

His answering smile was so patronizing and cold, she itched to slam the flat of her hand into his nose and force the broken bones up into his brain. It wouldn’t kill him like it would a human, but it’d hurt like a son-of-a-bitch.

“True, my dear,” he murmured. “But I know from experience, you can die, many, many times.”

She fought the urge to roll her eyes. Not only was he a vampire with short man syndrome, he was also a wannabe philosopher.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

Leon Steinfeld was not hard to find. Mischa, who had near-perfect recall of all things numeric, remembered his social security number from when he’d worked for TEV. After no more than five minutes of serious hacking, she’d learned all she’d ever wanted to know about the little nerd.

He’d been a perfect Sentry recruit. Genius IQ, genetic engineering degree from Villanova. No loved ones to miss him if he died in the line of duty.

Nowadays, Leon spent an ungodly amount of money each month on Xbox games and Star Trek collectables, and most of his downtime on SmackThatBigAss.com, a site where men and women could watch people, well, smack big asses.

But that was beside the point.

The most important tidbit of information Mischa gleaned from her research on Leon was that he spent most Friday nights at the Kitty Kat Palace, stuffing dollar bills into Misty Mountains’ G-string. So, assuming he didn’t change up his pattern—which, it seemed, he never really did—she knew exactly where she’d be able to find him tonight.

Now she just needed someone to persuade him to help her. And she knew just the right vampire for the job.

But what would she have to do to persuade
him
to help her?

Wolf Hunter—or just Hunter, as he preferred to be called—met Harper when he asked her about renting the basement apartment in her building a few weeks after vampires officially came out of the coffin.

“You don’t care that I used to work for Sentry?” she’d asked him.

It was a fair question. But Hunter had merely shrugged and asked, “You don’t care that I’m a dead guy?”

That’d been years ago, and they’d been friends ever since, with a kind of easy rapport that Mischa envied the hell out of.

Mischa’s relationship with Hunter was a little more complicated. After all, she imagined not too many people had almost-sex with someone whose death they'd ordered.

Ten times.

Hunter had been turned in 1492, right about the time good old Christopher Columbus started wiping out and enslaving the native people.(American history books tend to gloss over that little fact, don’t they?) Over time, he developed quite a few talents, mind reading being the most prominent. He also had a fair amount of control over the weak-minded.

His talents—and reported proclivity for draining humans—earned him a place on Sentry’s most-wanted list, which put him in Mischa’s crosshairs.

But after she lost ten slayers in her war against Hunter, he confronted her, and they developed an uneasy truce. He promised not to kill humans, and in return, she promised not to kill
him
. All things considered, it was the best offer either of them could’ve gotten.

Things did get a little weird during their negotiations when he kissed her, though.

But since then, she’d learned that Sentry’s information had been wrong, and Hunter had never actually drained any humans. They’d been dancing around their ridiculous sexual tension ever since.

Well, she danced around it. He’d be more than happy to put it all out there and see where it went. He was brave that way.

Mischa on the other hand? Not so much.

Case in point: she now stood outside his door with her hand poised to knock while an internal argument waged between the two halves of her brain.

You could ask Lucas to help
, her logical, left hemisphere said.

Her more romantic right hemisphere was quick to come back with,
He’s a cop. He won’t help you if you have to break the law.
And you haven’t seen Hunter in a really long time. This is the perfect excuse to spend time with him
.

The last time you spent
time
with him, you ended up naked
, left hemisphere retorted.

Right hemisphere sighed dreamily.
Yeah
.

Left hemisphere snorted with disgust.
You’re pathetic
.

At least I’m not repressed and well on my way to drying up like an old hag.

Mischa pulled her hand back and pinched the bridge of her nose. Shit. All these internal arguments were giving her migraines.

She jumped a little when the door was suddenly yanked open. Her head jerked up, and standing in front of her, arms crossed over his chest, shoulder leaning against the doorjamb, was the object of her inner turmoil.

Right hemisphere started drooling, and left hemisphere grumbled,
OK, I see your point
.

She cleared her throat. “Um…hi.”

Well, that was a lame greeting.

Both left and right hemispheres were in agreement on that, at least.

He didn’t say anything, just raised a brow, looking impassive and all kinds of hot. The impassive stuff hurt a little. The hotness…well, she’d been ready for that.

Which made it no less stunning in person.

Vampires, overall, were an attractive race. Mostly because vampires who chose to sire humans were every bit as image- conscious as the rest of the general population. Why turn an ugly person and be stuck with them for the rest of your immortal existence?

But Hunter? He was an anomaly even among vampires.

Standing in front of him, staring straight ahead, she had a lovely view of his breastbone, which meant he was a little over six feet tall, and he had the kind of lean-muscled, rangy build that suggested his human life had been filled with a lot of manual labor (Or buffalo hunting, she supposed).

His skin? Miles and miles of caramel-colored, smooth perfection. Top that off with classically beautiful, Native American features and shoulder-length, shampoo-commercial-shiny black hair that—Mischa knew from experience—slid through a woman’s fingers like expensive silk, and…yeah, Hunter was pretty much yummy goodness from head to toe.

Well, she supposed there was no graceful way to ease into this conversation, so she took a deep breath and blurted out, “I need to kidnap a guy and I could use your help.”

He stared at her for so long she started to shift her weight nervously from one foot to the other. Would he turn her away? Yell at her for actively avoiding him for most of the past year? Slam the door in her face? It would probably serve her right. She
had
run away from him, left him naked in her bed with a set of blue…

“Let me grab my jacket.”

She blinked. “Just like that?”

He rolled his eyes. “You had me at ‘um…hi’.”

Mischa held in a relieved sigh as he grabbed a beat-up army jacket off the back of his sofa and shrugged into it. Thank God he hadn’t asked too many questions. She wasn’t exactly sure where to even start.

“Something tells me this all begins and ends with Harper,” he said.

Hunter stopped in front of her, so close that she caught a whiff of the clean, soapy scent of his skin. She struggled to keep from pressing her nose into the crook of his neck and taking a few nice, deep breaths. Then it occurred to her that he’d just addressed a comment she hadn’t voiced.