However, criminal creatures that went bump in the night weren’t all that Ian had deemed me needing protection from. He’d extended his attentions to the men in my life—more specifically to the goblin in my life.
Ian didn’t like Rake. Rake wasn’t particularly fond of Ian. Though in my opinion, the vast majority of their animosity was a direct result of two alpha males locking horns.
Over me.
I think Rake kind of enjoyed Ian’s reaction, though even a goblin dark mage knew when teasing was liable to get his ass kicked by Ian and his butt kicked to the curb by me. Rake most definitely wasn’t stupid. Quite the opposite. He knew when to back off.
Rake also knew that where that black Suburban was, Yasha Kazakov would be behind the wheel. Yasha was one of SPI’s drivers. In a city where there were more paranormal perps than parking spaces, having a good drop-off and pick-up guy was crucial. And even better was a driver who’d never hesitated to go above and beyond his job description to keep the streets of his adopted city clean and law-abiding. Yasha broke most of the city’s traffic laws on a daily basis so that those same streets would be safe for humans and supernaturals alike.
Yasha was a werewolf and considered me and Ian part of his pack. So if Ian didn’t like Rake, Yasha didn’t like Rake either, and both for the same reason—protecting me.
The Suburban’s rear passenger door opened and Alain Moreau got out.
Oh crap.
I shouldn’t have been surprised to find Ian, Yasha, and Alain Moreau waiting when the Persephone, with its police and Harbor Patrol escort, limped back to the South Street Seaport.
There were quite a few supernaturals working for the NYPD and the city’s municipal agencies. Many of them were SPI’s eyes in the mundane world. Cases involving supernatural criminals seldom remained separate from the mundane world. Having people on the inside was invaluable for keeping mortal police involvement in supernatural affairs to a minimum.
Having Alain Moreau show up at the scene of yet another awkward situation I’d found myself in the middle of—by no fault of my own, may I add—still put a knot in my stomach.
Alain Moreau was my manager at SPI. Normal people got a hitch in their breathing when their manager asked them to step into their office or a nearby conference room. I’ll admit to that giving me a bout of butterflies, too. But most of the time it was because I’d developed an unwanted knack for landing in the middle of what would become New York’s next paranormal crisis du jour.
It also didn’t help my nerves that my manager was a vampire. He reminded me of a really pale Anderson Cooper, which meant he was as cute as he could be, but that didn’t change the fact that humans were food and I was human. I knew I didn’t need to worry about that, but sometimes your lizard brain outvoted your logic.
I didn’t know exactly how old Alain Moreau was, but I suspected he’d been around longer than America had been a country. The first time I’d found myself in trouble with the boss was when a shapeshifter had disguised itself as me to gain access to SPI headquarters and wreak havoc. My innocence had been proven by surveillance footage showing me and my evil twin at the same time, but in separate places in our headquarters compound—with one notable difference. The shapeshifter had copied the clothes I was wearing that day, but it didn’t replicate one important accessory—powdered sugar. It’d been the week before Christmas and I’d been eating cookies and wearing some of the powdered sugar they’d been rolled in.
Saved by my sweet tooth.
Before I’d been cleared of wrongdoing, I had been afraid of losing my job. I liked my job. Heck, now I loved it. I was good at it, and lives were saved as a result. There weren’t many places where you could get that kind of job satisfaction. Alain Moreau had assured me that my continued employment at SPI as well as my continued survival were important to the agency.
All that being said, my vampire manager didn’t look happy. He didn’t look pissed, but he definitely wasn’t amused.
He and Ian made a nicely matched set.
And Alain Moreau was in charge of SPI for the next three weeks. Vivienne Sagadraco was taking her first vacation in over a century. Everyone needed time off, and a multi-millennia-old, fire-breathing dragon in charge of a worldwide supernatural protection organization needed it even more.
The press was left cooling their heels outside of a very impressive police barrier. As guests finished giving their statements, they were escorted to where their cars and drivers waited to take them home.
Rake had driven us himself in one of his cars, an older model Range Rover. It wasn’t what one would expect a rich spy master/sex club owner would tour about town in. Unfortunately, it was also parked outside of where the police had set up their no-media-allowed barricade. We’d have to walk right past Baxter Clayton to get there.
I saw Rake’s eyes go from Baxter to his car and back again.
I smiled sweetly. “Give you a lift?”
Yasha had parked inside the police barrier.
Rake glanced from Baxter to where Ian and Alain Moreau stood next to the Suburban, arms crossed over their chests, expressions set on disapproving scowl, and sighed.
Ian and my vampire manager had just been declared the lesser evil.
I linked my arm through his. “See? Now you don’t have to get a microphone shoved in your face. Your evening’s looking up.”
“That’s open for debate.”
4
IF you wanted to kidnap a master vampire, you needed to break out the big guns.