Chapter 1
Chapter 1
C assi tried hard not to look at the men standing on either side of the seated vampire. He was the one she’d come to see, Silas Winter. The other men were his flock and didn’t make the decisions. At least according to Jaynie, the harpy mated to her older sister.
At the moment, Silas was holding her tablet and swiping through the images and documentation she’d painstakingly gathered over the last week. She’d planned to take him to court, but now she hoped he would do as she asked instead.
On the wall behind him was a bunch of Valentine’s day decorations. In fact, the whole office building was decorated in pinks and reds. It was a lot for a holiday that no one got off, but maybe that was the appeal. She was surprised Silas the slumlord allowed his employees so much expressive freedom.
“As y-y-you can s-s-see, I’ve enough f-f-for a c-c-class action lawsuit,” she said. Had she really just stuttered that many words? She might stutter a word or two here and there, but usually not so much in one sentence. It had to be the fear and stress. She cleared her throat and focused on singing her words in her head before she spoke. That usually helped her control most of her stutters.
“If you do as I ask, I can make all this evidence disappear.” Yes! She did it. Grinning, she caught the eye of the gorgeous brown- haired man to Silas’s left. He was sitting, no, lounging in one of the chairs. He was seated at an angle with one leg thrown over one arm rest and his upper body draped over the other arm rest. Unlike Silas and the man to his right, this guy had smiled warmly at her the moment she came in. His amber eyes made her feel welcome.
It made her wish he was the vampire instead of Silas. According to Jaynie, this one was Reed, a wolf shifter, and the other man was Idris, a gargoyle. She didn’t know much about either man but they weren’t her worry. It was Silas she needed to convince.
Still, it didn’t hurt to be polite, so she smiled back at him.
“Are you thirsty?” he asked, his slight Texas drawl making him seem even more welcoming. “Silas tends to make people nervous and their throats go dry. We’ve got soda, beer, and all kinds of fancy waters. I could get you one.”
“You’re offering her drinks?” the gargoyle growled. “She’s here to blackmail Silas and you’re treating her like a favorite cousin? What’s wrong with you, Reed?”
Reed gave the gargoyle a quizzical look “You can’t smell her?”
Cassi startled. Did she stink? She’d showered this morning, but it’d been a long day, and it was nearing ten at night. Then she remembered that wolf shifters had heightened senses even in their human forms.
She felt her face get hot and all she wanted to do was snatch her tablet from Silas and run away.
“Don’t be upset,” Reed said, shifting position until his elbows and part of his chest were resting on the table. He was so close she could see gold flecks in his amber eyes. “You don’t smell bad, I promise. Very much the opposite. You smell good enough to eat.”
That was not reassuring. Her earlier embarrassment morphed into fear.
“Please don’t kill me,” she whispered.
Reed looked confused as he sat back in the chair. Grabbing the arm rests, he lifted his body and folded his legs under him.
“Now you smell afraid,” he said. “Please don’t be afraid. That’s a bad smell.”
Fear had a smell? She was learning all kinds of things about the magical community tonight that she could have happily never known.
She had nasty BO.
She also has a stinky fear smell.
Great, the only thing to top this off would be for Silas to sink his fangs into her and say her blood tasted like sour milk.
“Reed, what do you smell?” Silas asked, reaching over and cupping the back of Reed’s neck. The wolf shifter made a happy humming sound at Silas’s touch, his eyes fluttering closed and his body melting into the chair.
“She smells like mine,” he said without opening his eyes.
She smelled like his? That made no sense. Could wolf shifters be on drugs?
“I’m s-s-sorry, Mr. Winter,” she said, moving her gaze back to Silas. “I must be w-w-wearing a product that’s affecting Mr, uh, R-R-Reed.”
When Silas’s dark eyes met hers, she could’ve sworn they had a tint of red to them. “I don’t think that’s the issue, Cassiopea Miller.”
She wasn’t prepared to hear her full name pronounced in such a sensual way. The syllables dripped from his lips like rich chocolate syrup.
“Maybe I sh-sh-should g-g-g-go,” she said and stood up. Suddenly, the gargoyle was behind her, blocking her exit.
“Silas didn’t say you could leave,” he grumbled in an impossibly low voice. The man was probably around seven feet tall, built like a brick wall, and didn’t have any facial hair. No five o’clock shadow or anything. Not even eyebrows! Although his prominent brow ridges gave the illusion of eyebrows.
Falling back down in the chair, she was quick to tell them about her safety net. “If I disappear, all the information I have will be sent to several newspapers, news channels, social justice influencers, and independent journalists.”
The gargoyle glared at her. “I doubt that.”
“Idris, stop scaring her,” Silas commanded. “She’s only a little human and not menacing.”
The change in Idris was swift. He straightened and looked abashed. “She’s threatening you.”
“With a lawsuit,” Silas countered. “That’s not life threatening. What have I said about non-life-threatening threats?”
“Leave them to you,” he grumbled.
“You should shake her hand,” Reed said from his spot on the other side of the table. “You know, kiss and make up. But she’s probably not ready for a kiss so you should shake hands and make up. None of us here should be fightin’.”
She thought Idris would scowl at Reed’s suggestions and tell him to shut the hell up or something, but instead, the gargoyle gave the wolf a fond, indulgent smile.
“Would that make you happy?” he asked Reed.
Reed was almost entirely in Silas’s lap now looking more cat than canine. Silas was running his fingers through Reed’s hair and watching the two of them with interest.
“I’d like you to shake Cassiopea’s hand also,” Silas said.
Were all vampires and flocks this weird?
“If I shake your h-h-h-hand, will you let m-m-me leave?” she asked.
“We still need to discuss what you need from me,” Silas objected. “Shake Idris’s hand and then we can finish talking.”
“Yeah, we can all talk,” Reed agreed, and finished climbing into Silas’s lap. The man moved with such sensual grace it was hard to look away. Did he even have bones?
Oh god, they were kissing. She’d seen men kiss before. It never bothered her, but it also never turned her on like Reed and Silas. Why was this so hot? When Silas brought a hand up to grip Reed’s jaw and hold him in place, she felt her panties get wet. Damn, how did the vampire make one move both commanding and loving at the same time?
A massive hand appeared in her line of vision, forcing her to refocus.
“I’m sorry if I scared you,” Idris said, looming over her.
Right, she needed to shake the behemoth’s hand. Standing up to make herself bigger, she quickly realized that didn’t help much. Swallowing hard, she looked up at the scowling, intimidating man in front of her. Hoping he wouldn’t notice how much she was trembling, she eased her much smaller hand into his.
A jolt of static electricity went through their palms, making her gasp and pull away before his fingers had even finished closing around hers. She didn’t get a chance to comment on how strange that was before Idris’s skin started turning a dark steel blue.
Her mouth dropped open as his shirt shredded around a growing chest and horns budded out of his head.
“Mine!” Idris roared and the world turned upside down. It all happened so fast it took her several seconds to realize that Idris had picked her up and thrown her over his shoulder.
“H-h-help!” she screeched as she watched wings tear through the last of Idris’s shirt.
“Easy, Idris,” Silas said in a soothing voice. “You’re scaring Cassiopeia.”
“We all need to leave,” Idris said, his voice even lower now than when he’d been human. “This place isn’t safe. We need to take her home.”
“K-k-k-kidnapping is-is-is illegal!” she shouted, then realized that was the stupidest thing she could’ve said.
Reed appeared in her limited view, crouching down with wide eyes. “Don’t panic, okay? This is really common with gargoyles. Silas will get him calmed down.”
“Is he going to kill me?” she whispered, blinking back tears. “I don’t want to die!”
Reed shook his head and made soothing sounds. “No, darling. I promise he’s no threat to you.”
“Fine,” Idris grumbled. She’d missed what he was agreeing to, but she soon found herself right side up and cradled against his chest. Then he sat down in a chair facing the table and settled her on his lap.
His naked lap. She’d seen some fully nude statues at museums before but none of them compared to the stone dick currently digging into her backside. Turns out gargoyles can get erections in their shifted form. This wasn’t knowledge she needed to find out firsthand!
“P-p-please d-d-don’t rape me-me-me either,” she begged, fully crying now.
Idris frowned down at her. “I would never do that. It would hurt you! I’d never hurt you.”
He sounded so affronted; she almost had the urge to apologize.
“I know Idris’s actions were startling, but he didn’t mean to scare you,” Silas said as he sat on the table to her right. He was close enough that if she reached out, she could touch his leg.
“C-c-can I-I-I leave?” she asked, glancing at the door.
Idris growled. “No.”
“Yes,” Silas said, giving Idris a quelling look. “But we need to talk first. If you want to leave after that, we won’t stop you.”
Idris made a grumbling sound but didn’t argue.
“Good luck with that,” Reed said with a chuckle. He was sitting at Idris’s feet with his head resting against the gargoyle’s knee.
Cassi looked down at the wolf shifter and tried to blink back tears. So far, he seemed like the most sympathetic of the three. “I’m sc-sc-scared. C-c-could you p-p-please ask them to let me g-g-go?”
Reed looked up at her with sympathetic eyes even as he shook his head. “Talk to Silas first, okay? He’s a good vampire, I promise.”
What did Reed mean by that? What made a good vampire? They thanked your corpse after they drained you of blood?
Hugging herself, Cassi looked at Silas. “S-s-sir?”
“Silas,” the vampire said. “Please call me Silas.”
“S-s-Silas,” she repeated. “I’m s-s-sorry I bothered you. If-if-if you let me go-go-go I’ll d-d-drop everything. I p-p-promise.”
Reaching behind him, Silas picked her tablet up from the table and held it up between them. “You found a lot of evidence of illegal things in these two apartment buildings. Do you live in one of them?”
“N-n-no, S-S-Silas,” she answered. Fear was making her stutter so bad she was finding it hard to get out more than a word or two without stumbling over the syllables. Maybe they’d get annoyed with her and let her go. “I’m a p-p-paralegal w-w-working for Equal Under the Law. It’s a-a-a non-profit that helps p-p-people with legal issues. S-s-several of the tenants came in-in-in a few weeks ago l-l-looking for a way to-to-to make the managers c-c-clean up the properties. We-we-we were going to help them file l-l-lawsuits after the-the-the managers threatened to evict them.”
“But you decided to come here and try to blackmail me instead?” Silas asked. There wasn’t even a hint of anger in his voice, only curiosity. “What did you hope to get from me?”
“H-h-help,” she whispered. “My sister joined a c-c-cult. I-I-I think she’s b-b-being h-h-held against her will, but no-no-no one w-w-will do anything!”
“I’ll go get her,” Idris said, his deep voice making his chest vibrate and send shivers down Cassi’s spine. How had she forgotten she was sitting on the gargoyle’s lap? “I can bring her to you and keep you both safe,” he promised.
He seemed to like the word safe because he used it a lot. Not that it mattered as long as he planned to rescue her sister.
“Th-th-thank you, uh, Idris?” she whispered, feeling hope flower in her chest. “I’ll p-p-pay you all the money I have. And you can have my c-c-car or anything else I own.”
Silas made a humming sound, drawing their attention. “Perhaps not just yet.”
“W-w-what?” Cassi pointed to Idris. “He s-s-said he could do it. You c-c-can’t t-t-tell him he c-c-can’t.”
“Silas is very smart. It’s important that we listen to him,” Reed commented, shifting his body a little so he was resting his cheek on her thigh instead of Idris’s knee. Cassi wasn’t conscious of moving her hand to pet his head until she felt his soft hair under her fingers. Now he reminded her of a sweet dog looking for affection.
“I’ll retrieve your sister,” Silas agreed. “But it won’t cost you money.”
“W-w-what do you w-w-want?” Cassi whispered, pulling her attention from Reed to Silas.
“You,” Silas answered succinctly.
Cassi wasn’t sure she understood what he was asking. “M-m-me?”
“For an entire twenty-four hours,” Silas explained. “You’ll come home with us tonight. Spend a full night and day at our home. If you agree, I’ll get your sister away from the cult. She can come stay with me—”
“My p-p-parents house!” she said. The last thing she wanted was for Andi to trade one prison for another.
Silas didn’t blink. “Very well. I’ll have her taken to your parents’ home. At the end of it, you’ll be free to leave.”
Oh, now she understood. They wanted a girl for the night. There was no need to think about her answer. What was her virtue compared to her sister’s safety?
“Y-y-yes,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “I agree.”