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“You’re buying fish. You’re making a commitment.”
She couldn’t give in to the confident, sexy smirk no matter the veracity of his words. “To fish. They won’t betray you or try to kill you.”
“Neither will I.”
The promise in his words sliced into her heart. “How do you know that? How do you know I won’t?”
“I know.” A muscle worked in his jaw, which had turned mulish.
In deference to jostling her already stressed fish, she threw up only one hand. “You know. Right. You don’t know for sure what’s going to happen day to day. I’m pretty obsessive about trying to anticipate every possible outcome in everything I do. But even I know I can’t plan for every eventuality.”
His hand tightened around the steering wheel until she thought the hardened plastic might snap, though he didn’t refute her words. A tiny part of her wished he had. Silence reigned for the ten-minute drive to her apartment during which time she repeated all the reasons she shouldn’t go to bed with him. She barely knew him. He was a demon, and she a vampire. She had a purpose in life—er, death—to end demons and vampires preying on innocents, something which went against the clan code, even if the biters were breaking laws. No. Best if she kept to herself.
He pulled up even with the apartment building’s front entry, and she popped the handle.
Before she exited, she turned to him with a heavy sigh. Damn her logic. “I am attracted to you, Ryn, which is all the more reason not to continue seeing each other. If you want my assistance for an operation, I’ll gladly help eradicate the assholes and help rescue victims, but I think we should stay on a professional level.”
She began her slide from the leather seat when he said, “Dammit, Caro. You don’t understand. You’re my—”
“What I understand is if you can’t accept that, I’ll have to decline your offer, and I’ll make sure the going rate for the medical services and blood used for my healing will be sent to you. Thank you for the ride.” He posed too great a temptation. She must get distance to sort out her runaway desire for him.
She slammed the door shut and marched to her second-floor apartment without looking back. Once inside, she leaned against the triple-locked door. For the first time since she’d murdered her mother, she felt tears prick her lids.
She dashed at the alien moisture with impatient fingers. The stupid demon had gotten completely under her skin.
How long she stood with her back to her door, she couldn’t say. The length could’ve been minutes or hours while an endless cycle of self-recrimination and assurances she’d done the right thing for her sister banged around in her mind. Finally, she remembered the little, finned beings in her hand.
A deep breath banished guilt’s revolving door and allowed her to focus on the aquarium pumps’ comforting hums. They kept the silence at bay, and sometimes the shouts and thumps from next door or upstairs.
She glanced around the room. Racks of fish tanks, thirty in all, obscured the longest wall, with only the exact space for a small television eked out on one of the shelves. When she approached the one tank she’d divided into two, wriggly, glimmering bodies in the adjacent tanks danced at the front of the glass. While she’d like to think they were happy to see her, most likely the beautifully greedy little guys merely wanted to be fed. The fact didn’t stomp on her pleasure with their antics. She enjoyed having something to greet her when she came home.
The hollowness of her life, one now almost endless thanks to becoming a vampire, stretched out before her and her smile at the bettas’ underwater acrobatics died. Were fish going to be the only thing that enjoyed seeing her at the end of the day?
The promise in Ryn’s words when he said he’d never betray her squeezed her heart. No. Relationships, let alone love, weren’t for her. She’d been built for one thing.
Destruction.
She needed more than fish to occupy her time right now. Her tanks were spotless, no crust anywhere. What could she…
The email Cheese sent. While the new fish floated in their little cups to acclimate to the water temperature in the tank they’d occupy, Caro settled into her battered recliner and opened the email.
Interesting. Cheese was still trying to identify the supposed largest blood smuggler in North America, the same one Caro had disrupted less than a week ago. The intel analyst had identified him only as ‘West,’ but still hadn’t been able to locate where the asshole kept his victims. However, Cheese had been able to find a new storage and distribution location.
Caro closed the email to let the information sink in. She’d look at the data again when she made her plan of attack. For now, she would concentrate on her newcomers and continue their acclimation process.
Resolve curled her hand into a fist around her phone. If she couldn’t do the same for the victims of this ‘West,’ she’d damn well bankrupt him by destroying his business and source of income.
Starting with his new blood storage location.
CHAPTER10
West waited outside the apartment building for Caro ‘The End’ Kavenaugh with impatience. He’d broken his vow to wait for her to confide in him and had her researched. His team came up with her nickname from the CIA, given because she wrote the final chapter for anyone she targeted. She had an interesting career, if the broad strokes crossing her fifteen-year employment were to be believed. An even more interesting childhood was her unfortunate foundation, one which ended up with her almost charged with murder when her mother tried to sell Caro’s younger sister to a couple of men for drugs.
He shuddered at the barbarity. Caro was tough. Now he understood her phobia of relationships.
Over the last couple of nights, he monitored her from afar. She’d been true to her word and assisted in several operations with his team, saving two females, one male, and a child from abduction by rogue demons and vampires. While he knew bone-deep she was his mate, he’d deliberately written himself out of the rescues to objectively monitor her performance. He must know if she’d been planted to destroy his efforts.
He’d be kidding himself if he denied he hadn’t been looking for an excuse to see the vampire once more. She intrigued him. Her mixture of grace and deadly skills were like none he’d seen. If her desire to eliminate abuses against humans and human paranormals was real, she’d be an asset to his organization. And, of course, his bed. He had no doubt he could convince her, though persuasion would take time. Fortunately, demons had time in abundance.
