AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"Hmm. Didn't know you were involved in that business, Quinn. But when we met, I had a feeling the potential was there."
"That's the way it seems to work. What I'm learning, that is."
"How long have you been working for her?"
Quinn considered how best to put it. "Full salary started about a week ago. Been negotiating terms for several weeks."
"Yeah, usually happens that fast. Butch interviewed and took me on within about a week." Humor laced Dix's tone at the double meanings, but Quinn stayed silent, waiting on the calculations he was sure were happening. Was Dix talking to Butch in his head? Selene was pretty out of it by this time of day, but maybe older vampires were different. The pause stretched out, and then Dix's next words proved it.
"Need her name, Quinn. And where she's from."
"She'd rather wait until she's there. There's a protection issue at stake."
"Wasn't a request."
Quinn bit back an oath, because Dix's voice said Butch meant it, in spades. "If my answer works for you and your boss, we'd like to come tonight. Respectfully." Else they might be running tonight, not knowing if Butch had let the cat out of the bag.
Another pause. "Not a matter of it working for me, Quinn. Only for him." That was obviously Dix's part, the next part coming from the third party to their conversation. "Yeah. Tonight works, if the name passes."
"Selene Torres. Out of New York."
"How long has she been down here without Butch knowing about her?"
"She's been working my bar for about a month now." Selene had made it clear Quinn had to be entirely honest, no fucking with this guy. An overlord can pick up a lie from a human faster than shit through a goose, Quinn. We tell the truth and see where the chips fall. Though she'd been pale when she said that. Paler than usual. Apparently hiding out in a territory without an overlord knowing you were there wasn't a good thing. Which was why Quinn would have preferred the question not be asked. He forced himself not to say anything as the silence drew out, but then he couldn't help it.
"She's tough as nails, but she was running scared. Sir." Now that he knew Dix was the intermediary, he'd act like he was talking to the guy in charge. "She's young. I think she would have reached out sooner otherwise. She didn't intend any offense."
"How young?"
"Sixty-two. Made," he added, probably unnecessarily, since she'd made it clear born vampires were much higher ranked in her world.
"Christ," Dix muttered. "Goddamn baby idiot."
Quinn blinked, not sure from whom that comment had come and too surprised to be affronted or know how to respond. Dix saved him the trouble.
"Be here by midnight tonight. You got access to a plane?"
"Yeah. I fly." He'd get the chance he'd wanted to take her up in his small plane. Further, the flight saved them a long drive that might bleed into daylight hours and give his Mistress significant problems.
"Use it. We have a landing strip. I'll text you the coordinates." Dix paused, and when he spoke this time, his voice had a more informal tone, telling him they might be more "alone" now, just the two of them. "And Quinn?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't ever negotiate or give ultimatums like that stuff about her name when dealing with someone like my boss. He let it pass, because it was a minor point and because you're new to this, but take my advice and don't do it again. You have about as much to learn as she does."
He bit back a lot of retorts to that, but Dix had already cut the connection.
That was that.
Flying was sometimes necessary for the big distances he'd traveled and, since Quinn preferred to be the one at the controls, he'd taken flying lessons once he'd earned enough on the rodeo circuit. Early on, he'd supplemented his rodeo income with ranch work on other spreads and many of the larger ones had private planes. Some had their own hangar and runway, others used private airfields. But however they did it, they were always glad to pay a little extra for a hand who could sit in the pilot's seat.
He'd never been so glad to have the skill as he was for this. Flying his own plane also saved any questions about why he'd be taking off after dark and landing at Butch's private airstrip just before midnight.
He'd contacted Selene to convey Dix's information. She'd made arrangements for the others to run After Dark for the time needed and arrived at his place within an hour after nightfall. She was a little pale and tight-lipped, not wanting to indulge in much chitchat. He'd gotten her stuff stowed and had them in the air as soon as possible.
Respecting her mood, he stayed silent for the first part of the trip, casting sidelong glances at her. She'd stayed pretty much motionless, staring out in the darkness. Eventually, he started to feel a desire to help her relax some. This might go good or bad, but it was his experience being too uptight made a tense situation worse.
"So, can a vampire die if she falls out of a plane?" he asked, a random question just to determine where her mind was at.
"No," she said, without a hitch, as if they'd been having a conversation all along. "But I expect it would still be a tremendously unpleasant experience, because pain is pain. Humans are just fortunate that certain levels of pain kill them. Vampires don't have that luxury."
"How about third mark servants?"
She gave him a glance. "Reconsidering the wisdom of all this?"
"Nope. Just trying to get you to smile." Reaching over, he clasped her hand, found it cold.
"I was insane to pull you into this. I was away from this world for only a few months, but apparently long enough to make me forget how horrible and brutal it is."
"What did Laurent do to you?" He frowned.
She shook her head. "It's not that. He could be a tyrant at times, but it comes with the territory, pun intended." A ghost of a smile, no humor to it, crossed her face. "It's just...it's hard to describe unless you see it. Maybe it's different if you're born into it. When I was turned, the Vampire Council fabricated my mortal death. Made my parents think I died in a car crash on a trip, the body too burned to be identified, closed casket. All while I was locked up, dealing with my blood lust. When I was able to control that, I raged against it, wanted to go to them, see them once more, somehow soften the blow. They forbade that for twenty years, and when you are forbidden to do something, you listen. Or pay the consequences."
Her jaw set. "You learn about the pain thing," she said. "It was Laurent's job to administer that, keep me in line during those first difficult years. Some of it I now understand better, the importance of protecting the existence of vampires, how essential that is, but vampires...we sort of enjoy administering pain. I guess you've noticed that."
Quinn tried to push away any images that came to mind of Selene being punished, harmed. What he heard in her voice, saw in her face, seemed a far cry from the mix of pleasure and agony he'd experienced at her hands. He also tried to push down the rage he felt at anyone inflicting pain upon her.
