waistline asked. Her red-painted fingernails were stained with the black substance that seeped from her boyfriend’s mouth.
Kir looked to Jacques. His friend’s brow lifted. Both knew the answer. And was the vampiress blind? Her boyfriend was literally skin and bones, starved to the marrow. They could see his veins, and those veins were not plump with blood. And what was he coughing up in thick black globs?
“You got a stake?” Jacques muttered.
“Of course.”
“What?” the girlfriend shrieked. “I trusted you guys!”
Kir grabbed the woman by the arms, trying to settle her. “Your boyfriend is not going to survive. He’s in great pain. The stake will be a kindness. Can you understand?”
Eyes frantic and filled with tears, her lips tightened and she winced. She collapsed against his chest, her breaths heaving out. Her fingernails dug into his arms, but she wasn’t trying to hurt him. She was trying to accept.
Kir couldn’t relate to such a painful loss. And then he could. His father had left him and his sister when they were little. He could never fill that hole left behind in his soul.
Just when he reached to put a comforting hand on the woman’s shoulder, she stood up and whispered, “I’ll get something.” When she returned to the room, she handed a stake to Kir. It had a pair of initials carved on it. “It was a backup in case either of us wanted to jump ship. He didn’t ask for vampirism. He wanted the stake months ago, but I begged him to stay alive for me.”
The vampire on the floor whispered, “I love you,” to the vampiress. And then he said, “Get them. The...the...”
Kir and Jacques both bent close, hoping the vampire would give them a clue that would lead to the pack that had kidnapped him.
“The what? Who?” Jacques urged. “Can you tell me what pack did this to you?”
“The...denizen...” The vampire’s body stiffened, his muscles tightening and his jaw snapping shut.
“The denizen?” Jacques looked to Kir.
Denizen was a term for a group or gathering of demons. The very idea of demons being involved caused Kir’s jaw to tense. The last breed he wanted to deal with was demons.
The girlfriend grabbed the stake from Kir’s hand. Before he could take it from her to perform the offensive task, she lunged over her boyfriend and staked him in the heart. Jacques grabbed for her, but it was too late. They’d get nothing more from the pile of ash.
While the girlfriend wept over the ash, Jacques and Kir stepped outside the house. “Demons?” Kir asked. “So, this isn’t werewolves?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, if it’s not, it’s not our problem.”
“Right.” Kir clenched and unclenched his fists. “Let’s give her a minute, then see if she’ll let us search his things for clues.”
The wolves waited out on the front step until the sobbing settled. A half hour later, quietly and respectfully, they went through the house but found nothing of use for the investigation.
“You have a safe place to go for a while?” Kir asked the vampiress.
“You think they’ll come after me? The pack?”
“Not sure. Why do you think he was taken by a pack? He said something about a denizen. That’s demons.”
She shrugged. “He’d mentioned something about a wolf following him a few days before he disappeared. I assumed.”
“Usually the packs grab a vamp off the street. I don’t know what the hell your boyfriend was coughing up. Or what a wolf could have done to him to make that happen.”
She nodded. “I have a friend who will let me stay with her. Thank you.”
“You shouldn’t thank us for what happened here.”
Her eyes wandered to the stake sitting on the pile of ash. “I couldn’t have done it alone. I wish he could have been more help to you.”
“We’ll find the pack or denizen responsible for his death. I promise you that.”
Leaving her at the door, Kir joined Jacques in the car.
“Let’s hope it is demons,” Jacques said. “We have enough on our plate already.”
“I promised her we’d help her. No matter what.”
“Ah, man.”
“She’s a woman. Alone. Who lost her boyfriend.”
“She’s also a vamp, and it’s not clear wolves were responsible for that vamp’s death.”
“I’m won’t let her down.”
Jacques sighed and shifted into gear. “You and your damned sense of honor.”
Damned or not, if it wasn’t a pack, and they weren’t required to bother with this crime, Kir wanted to stand true to his word. Because he couldn’t stand back and allow anyone, even a vamp, to die for reasons unknown.
The faery had never been shopping before. Bea had told Kir that in Faery she could pull on a glamour to change her clothing and look, but since arriving in the mortal realm her glamour was weak and it was a no-go for clothing changes. So when she strode into the high-end clothing shop on the rue Royale, her squeal might have been heard by dogs.
As well as by wolves.
And Kir liked the sound of her joy. It went a long way in erasing the lump that sat in the pit of his stomach after the call to the vampiress’s house this afternoon. He never liked to destroy another living being or witness it. Since he wasn’t able to get in to see the doctor he’d contacted until tomorrow morning, he decided putting some clothes on his wife would relax him after a long workday.
A salesgirl with brilliant red lips to match her nails led Kir and Bea into the back area of the shop that was more private than the sales floor. He sat on the designated “boyfriend couch,” which was shaped like a huge pair of red lips, sipping champagne and refusing the chocolates offered by the cooing salesgirls while he waited for his wife to slip into the first outfit the staff deemed fitting for her.
The dressing room door opened and out wobbled a faery in a white sheath that hugged her petite figure yet went all the way up to her neck. Pink high heels, higher than the Eiffel Tower, hampered her walk as she clung to the wall and tried to stand upright and maintain a modicum of dignity.
“High heels are new to me,” she said. “Who’d have thought, eh? So is lace. There’s so...much of it. I don’t think white is my color.”
“Nope,” Kir said.
Bea’s lips dropped into
