“The company was created by the U.S. government to keep an eye on supernatural creatures, and to suppress any danger to humanity. To remove it from the equation if necessary. But only if it was absolutely necessary. We weren’t there to play God.” She brushed her hands off on her jeans and took another sip of wine before passing it back to him. “And after all, starting a war with vampires wouldn’t exactly be conducive to keeping the general human population in the dark about who our neighbors really are, now would it?”
“I take it employees of the company weren’t real concerned about that.” It wasn’t really a question. He knew damn good and well the company didn’t follow what they preached. It wasn’t made up of enforcers. It was made up of assassins.
Devon shook her head, and Kohl watched, entranced, as the breeze lifted her curls until they danced around her face. “No. They weren’t. Not all of them.”
“So you turned them in,” he guessed. “And that’s why you were at trial.”
“At the time, I was in disbelief. And I was angry that anyone would take it upon themselves to just wipe out souls on a whim.” She looked away, out over the water. “Now, I wish I’d kept my damn mouth shut.”
“You did what you thought was right.”
“I did it to get back at my boss for cheating on me.”
Kohl frowned, thrown off by the confession.
Her fingers twisted in her lap and she shifted uncomfortably. “I was sleeping with the head of my department. But apparently I wasn’t the only one. When I found out about it, I went to confront them in their office, and I overheard a conversation I shouldn’t have. I turned around and went back to my desk to check out what I’d just heard. That’s how I found out what they were really doing.”
Heat rose within him, hot as blue fire. Whether at the thought of anyone hurting her, or the fact someone else had touched her intimately, he didn’t know. But he was going to find this male who had taken advantage of her. After all, accidents happened all the time. “He was a fool.”
Devon nodded. “Yes, she was.”
His murderous thoughts didn’t diminish because the lover who hurt her was female.
She continued her story, unaware of the murderous contemplations roaming around in his head. “I started digging into her files. Anything I could find or crack on the network—her emails, her reports, her private correspondence, everything. Some I had access to, some I didn’t. But I didn’t care. I found what I was looking for and made it look like I’d stumbled across it accidentally, and I turned her in. She was the one leading the hunt. So, I set up a meeting. My mom’s best friend was involved with the creation of Parasupe, and her recommendation is how I got the job there. She’s known me since I was three, and I knew she would probably be the only one who would believe me. As soon as I told her what I’d found, she was on the phone. Within an hour I was secluded in a room and put under protection. I told the lawyers I would testify, and I was kept under wraps until the court date. The trial took place in a closed court, and the public was told there was a breach within the company. Something to do with not following some serious environmental laws.”
“She got exactly what she fucking deserved, Devon. Not all of us are monsters.” Himself excluded. Not because he purposefully set out to hurt anyone, but because he couldn’t control the beast within him.
Meeting his eyes for the first time since she began her confession, she smiled slightly. “She did. But she also ruined my life. As soon as the trial was over, she set out to destroy me from her prison cell. Before a week had gone by, my face was plastered all over social media, and not in a good way. In the inner circles of the company, I was blasted as a liar, a Supe-lover, a traitor to humanity. To the rest of the world, I had used my position in the company to carry out my own anti-environmental agenda. They even said I wasn’t a citizen, that I was, essentially, a spy. Here to bring down this country all by my little old self. I couldn’t go anywhere without being harassed. Death threats appeared almost daily in my mailbox, under my front door, and once I left my house in the morning to find “cunt” and a hangman’s noose spray-painted down the side of my car.” She paused, and took a deep breath. “I had to get out of there. So, I moved here to Austin. And I’ve been laying low ever since.”
She looked up at him with a rueful smile. Her eyes widened. “Kohl? What’s happening to you?”
He was gonna hunt down and kill every one of those motherfuckers, that’s what was happening.
Chapter 6
Devon stared at Kohl, unsure if what she was seeing was actually what she was seeing. Light reflected off the surface of his face and right arm, much like the moonlight shimmered on the surface of the water. Jewel-like colors rippled across his skin in tiny waves that rose and fell into something that nearly resembled scales, but…not.
She blinked and looked again. Tilting the bottle in her hand, she read the label, wondering what the hell was in the wine. But all she saw were the normal ingredients and warnings.
When she raised her head to ask him straight out if he’d spiked her drink, Kohl’s fangs were fully extended and bared to her view, and his eyes glowed with that strange golden light she’d seen earlier at the club. Was that normal for vampires? She’d never read anything about that in the files at work. Recorded observations said only that their eyes would go black when they were “emotionally charged or feeding.”
“Kohl?” She tried unsuccessfully to keep the tremor from her voice.
He stood, the movement so sudden he was sitting in front of her one second and standing twenty feet away the next. With his back to her, he rubbed the back of his neck and stared out at the water.
Concerned, Devon stood also and went to him. Unsure what to do, she lightly touched his arm. “Kohl?”
He exhaled a short hard breath out his nose and let his head fall back, blinking up at the night sky. Then he dropped his hand from his neck and glanced over at her. “It’s okay. I’m good.”
She tried to lighten the mood. “Funny. You look awful.”
He barked out a laugh. “I’ll be fine. I just need a minute.”
His fangs weren’t quite as noticeable now, his skin appeared perfectly normal, and the glow was fading from his eyes. Devon linked her fingers together in front of her and turned to look out over the water. “Okay.” She didn’t say anything else, just stood there beside him, giving him the time he needed. Maybe she was trying to prove to him that she wasn’t afraid of him.
Maybe she was trying to prove it to herself.
It was quiet here. Peaceful. Devon took a deep breath of the crisp, clean air, and let the gentle lapping of the water soothe her, and throw off the funk she’d put herself in by opening up old wounds. She’d thought, after all this time, she’d be able to tell her story without it affecting her as much, but she’d been wrong. Maybe she’d never get over it. Maybe she’d always be a pariah of society. She sighed again, glad she had no family, no close friends, who were hurt by what had happened. Not really. Her parents were both gone, and Devon had been an only child. The friends she thought she’d had had abandoned her when the scandal broke out. She was used to being alone. It didn’t bother her. Much. And she had Frank. He was all the friend she could handle at the moment.
