Steal the Day (9 page)

I pushed Felicity Day’s promises firmly out of my mind.

Dev followed my father. He’d gotten dressed in a hurry, it seemed. His clothes were usually immaculate, but now his slacks were slightly wrinkled, and I recognized the dress shirt he’d worn earlier in the evening.

“Well, I don’t need to ask how the meeting went, do I?” Dev asked, looking down at me.

Gosh, he was tall. He towered over me, six foot five inches of pure disapproval. His green eyes didn’t look sexy now. Anger had replaced his natural sensuality. I was glad the blanket was up around my neck. I’d pulled it up because I was so damn cold, but now it offered a certain amount of protection from his disapproving eyes.

“There might have been a few minor problems.” I tried to look as cute and vulnerable as possible, hoping to tap into his softer side. I didn’t want another lecture, especially not in front of company.

“Let’s see it, Zoey.” He braced himself for the sight, his feet planted on the floor, his shoulders squared. “There’s no point in putting it off. I’m not an idiot. I get called in the middle of the night because you need a freaking blood transfusion. I can put two and two together, sweetheart. Let’s see how stupid you got tonight.”

“Hey, you treat her with respect,” Michael demanded, to my surprise. “Watch your mouth around her.”

Dev turned, his eyes flashing and ready for a fight. “Asshole, I’m not the one who caused her to need a blood transfusion. You want to get pissed off at someone, talk to her husband. Trust me, buddy, when I fuck her she doesn’t end up needing a doctor.”

“Dev!” Even in my weakness, I wasn’t going to stand for that.

Ugly claws popped out of Michael’s hands, a particular talent of his. He pointed one at Dev, who proved he had a death wish. He moved aggressively toward the angry vampire. It was one of those testosterone fueled gestures that no female can understand.

“If my mas…my friend hadn’t forbidden it, I would kill you here and now,” Michael proclaimed. “I would kill you and it would be a righteous kill, you understand. You live on his sufferance.”

Dev smiled that sarcastic grin I was sure would be on his face just before he died. “Don’t let Daniel keep you on a leash, Mikey. Since when did you become his bitch?”

“As much as I enjoy a good bloodbath, and make no mistake Mr. Quinn, it is your blood I refer to since Michael could gut you before you thought to scream, I have to ask the question,” Alexander said, his voice a little island of creepy calm. “Are the two of you going to allow my patient to expire while you work out your differences?”

Michael took a deep breath, and his hands shifted back to normal. The tension in the air went down a notch.

Dev turned back to me. “Not until I see it, Zoey.”

It was nice to know his cooperation in saving my life came with ultimatums. I was just pissed enough to pull the blanket back and twist my neck so he got a really good view. It hurt, but I turned into the pain because I didn’t want him to miss an inch of what he’d come to see.

If I expected a sudden onslaught of sympathy, I was disappointed.

“Nice.” He bit off the word before settling into the seat beside me. He unbuttoned his sleeve and started to roll it up. “Any other places he decided to chew on?”

Alexander was busy tying off Dev’s arm with a rubber band. I wore a thin T-shirt, Neil’s blazer long ago discarded. I pulled up the blanket until just my arm was outside its warmth. I looked forward, trying not to watch as Alexander prepped Dev.

“Make a fist, please,” the doctor ordered.

“You don’t want to answer the question, Zoey?” Dev asked. “I’ll find out later. If I have to strip you down and examine you, I’ll find out every bit of damage he did.” There was a pause as I stared sullenly straight forward. Dev huffed a little before continuing. “Seriously? You want to shove that in my arm? That’s not a needle, dude, that’s a drainage pipe.”

Christine pressed a glass of something cold in my hand. “Drink it up, fast as you can.”

“Witchcraft?” I asked, hoping it would knock me out.

“Vodka.” It was Christine’s go-to medicine of choice. I swallowed it before Alexander could stop me.

Alexander’s head shook. “That’s going to go straight to her head. It’s not a good idea.”

“It’ll go straight to her head and maybe she’ll forget you’re shoving a…whatever that is you’re about to shove up her arm.” Christine took the glass from me and refilled it.

“Good point,” Alexander replied as he placed the needle in Dev’s arm. There were several curses in languages I didn’t speak. “Perhaps a dose for this one, too.”

“Just give me the bottle,” Dev demanded.

Christine passed it over and sat down beside me. She took the hand that wasn’t attached to the arm Alexander was working on. “It’s going to be all right, Zoey. Just watch me and listen to my voice.”

She rubbed my cold hand between her warm ones. I felt a great debt of gratitude for the sometimes annoying witch. She started intoning something in Latin in a pleasant sing-song, and I found my world narrowing to the sound of her voice.

“Done,” Alexander said. I was startled by the pronouncement, and when I looked, sure enough, there was a large-bore needle taped securely in my arm. The doctor pulled up on the plunger and bright blood began to flow from Dev’s arm. “All right, get comfortable. This could take a while.”

Dev cursed again and took another long swallow from the bottle of Grey Goose. I laid back and let Christine’s voice soothe me, and before long I was feeling warmth flow inside me again. I don’t know how long the process took, but I was grateful when the needle was sliding out of my arm and the wound was being wrapped. I was ready to fall asleep on the couch when Dev slid his arms under my knees and shoulders and lifted me against his chest. I was completely limp in his arms.

He looked at the assembled room, which now also included Neil. I guessed he’d gotten Daniel settled in the room my father had built for just such an occasion. It was a solid, interior room, with no possibility of that pesky sun finding its way in. Dev turned his gaze to my dad.

“All right, do I go upstairs or bundle her up and take her back to Ether? It’s your choice, Harry, but understand I’m not leaving her here alone with three vampires, even if one of them is incapacitated.” Dev looked to the vampires. “By your own laws, I have the right to care for her. My blood sustains her. At least for tonight, she is mine by right of law. If Daniel has a problem with that, he can get his ass up here and we can handle it here and now. Stay or go, Harry?”

“Upstairs, second door on the left.” My father gestured toward the hall, a grimace of anger on his face, but he allowed Dev to carry me.

Dev turned his back on the room and whisked me upstairs. My old bedroom had been redone as a guest room and now boasted a king-sized bed. Dev laid me down on the bed and stared at me. It looked like he was going to make good on his threat to inspect every inch of me. Normally, I would have gotten a little excited at the prospect, but right now it just pissed me off.

“I didn’t sleep with him, Dev.” I tried to put some fire into my words, but I failed. Though my blood volume was up, I was so tired. Still, it was all he really wanted to know so I decided to put the truth out there. It was good to know my lover wanted to make damn sure my husband wasn’t getting some.

“Right, Zoey.” Dev’s hand found the waist of my jeans. He was an expert when it came to undressing a woman. “I’m supposed to believe he gets his fangs in you for the first time in seven months, but that’s all he impales you on?”

“He was a little concerned about the fact that he was on fire, Dev.” I pushed my hips up because fighting him wouldn’t help. “I doubt he was thinking about how to get in my pants.”

“You would be surprised, sweetheart. I would be thinking about it.” Dev ran his hands up and down my legs before he pulled the T-shirt over my head and dispensed with my bra. His hands smoothed over my skin. Even though I was angry with him, the touch was sweet. He seemed satisfied there was no further damage or evidence of vampiric possession. “On fire, huh? Did the client have a flamethrower?”

I shook my head as he placed me under the covers. Dev stepped out of his slacks and tossed his shirt aside.

“We got surprised. Didn’t know what we were dealing with.” I’d been stupid. I should have never taken that meeting without knowing what I was getting into. I was obsessed with this job, and it almost cost Daniel his life.

Dev was down to his boxers and slipped into the bed beside me. He pulled me into his arms, and I let my head rest on his chest. I was still mad at him, but he felt safe and warm and the events of the day just slammed into me. Tears started to run down my face. I wish I was one of those tough chicks who never cried, but I always do. Dev pulled me closer, his hand tangling in my hair.

“What was it, Zoey?” He laid a sweet kiss on my forehead, his voice gentler than it had been all night.

“Angels. They were angels, and they nearly killed him.”

“Real angels? From the Heaven plane?” Dev asked, his voice hushed with awe. Dev might have contact with all manner of supernatural creatures, but angels didn’t frequent Ether. “Jesus.”

“Yes, those angels,” I agreed. “It was horrible. The light was everywhere, and he was burning.”

“Well, he’s fine now, Zoey,” Dev said with more sympathy than I expected since we were talking about Daniel. “These angels, were they gunning for Daniel or you?”

It was a question he had to ask because I’d had fairly nasty things come after me before. He also knew that if anything wanted to come for me, it would have to get through Danny. I shook my head against the firm muscles of his chest. “Neither. I think Danny just managed to piss one of them off. It doesn’t matter. I won’t have anything to do with either of them again. I think I made myself very clear. I’m only taking straight jobs from now on. Get in, grab some stuff, and get paid.”

Dev sighed. “Yeah, I’ll believe that when I see it.”

Chapter Seven

When it comes to my chosen career, Tom Petty is totally correct. The waiting really is the hardest part. There’s no Monster.com for thieves. We don’t have a social network where we can put out the word we need a little green. There are several reasons for this omission in the modern world of networking, the first being thieves tend to not like one another. It’s a competitive world, and let’s face facts, thieves tend to not be really good people.

Unlike some IT guy who calls up old friends when he gets laid off, a thief is probably trying to hide from his old colleagues. I don’t know what it’s like in real-world thievery. By that I mean guys who steal paintings that don’t bring about the apocalypse or cars that aren’t inhabited by their former magical owners. The real-world guys might refer for each other every now and then. They might get together for a beer years later, but that’s not the way it tends to go in the arcane world. If your crew splits up in the arcane world, it’s probably because someone tried to screw someone else.

The idea of waiting was heavily on my mind for the whole two days I was forced to lay in my father’s guest room. Despite the success of Dev’s donation, the doctor had convinced my dad and my boyfriend that I should lay around doing nothing for a couple of days. Dev made sure I was inundated with flowers, movies, and books but refused to allow me out of bed. For a man who didn’t like vampires, he was certainly willing to listen to Alexander. Dad had tried to bar Dev from the house, but one way or another he showed up every night and climbed into bed with me, holding me to his chest and threatening me with all manner of torture if I didn’t follow doctor’s orders. Not even the promise of sex had moved him this time since he decided I was too fragile. To my father’s surprise and Neil’s delight, Dev even sent over a chef to make sure I ate well.

All of that was nice, but I really had work to do.

I needed a job. I needed to make some hard decisions about the way my life was going to go. The past seven months had been spent in a strange waiting pattern, allowing the way I felt after Sarah was taken to keep me in limbo. Dealing with the angels was a wakeup call. I couldn’t just sit around and hope for some magical solution to fall in my lap. I wasn’t giving up on the idea of saving Sarah. I just had to start living my life again. The morning after my meeting with the angels, I told my dad I wanted to work, needed to work. Daniel needed cash, and I was sure Neil had gone through most of his. I was the leader of this crew. It was my job to bring in the clients, and no one could find a job faster than Harry Wharton.

I was hoping he would find something soon as I let myself into my house the afternoon I was sprung from my comfy jail.

“So, don’t get pissed,” Neil said as he graciously held the door open for me.

“What did you do?” I prepared myself to get really pissed.

I threw myself down on the couch. Alexander had been right. I was still really tired. I tried not to think about how Daniel must feel. His wounds had been grave, ultraviolet rays being one of the only things that can really cause a vampire some serious downtime. Coupled with the fact that he’d weakened himself by trying to detox, he was taking his time healing. He was still being held in the safe room. If the doctor proclaimed him healthy, he would get out tonight. I knew I should have waited to see him, but I didn’t want to deal with it. I knew how it would go down. Daniel would feel guilty, and he would undoubtedly pull away for my safety. When he found out I needed a transfusion, well, I was just hoping he didn’t decide to leave town.