Chapter 2
In some twisted trick of fate, death seemed to follow me everywhere. Then again, I was a vampire.
My mind whirled, and I tried to think of what I needed to do. If someone found a body drained of blood on my doorstep, not only would they discover I was a vampire, they’d believe I killed the fae man lying before us.
Lydia pulled out her phone. “We need to call the police.”
I spun toward her. “No, we can’t.”
She stared at me in disbelief. “George, we’ve been through this once before, and I think if we’ve learned anything, it’s that the law will catch up with us. And besides, you can trust me to find out who did this.”
Lydia was impressive. I had to hand that to her, she’d solved the murder of my band manager and proven me innocent. But this… this brought in other considerations.
“This is different,” I said quietly. I turned and checked the window of my neighbor, Mr. Rothschild.
Ever the nosy onlooker, this would be a bad time for him to be watching.
But even though the lights were on in his window, I didn’t see him peeking out the long curtains.
If there was a moment to act, it was now.
Lydia made a noise as I scooped the body into my arms and headed toward the Jeep. She followed as I fumbled in my pocket for the button to open the rear hatch.
“And how is this different?”
I didn’t look at her as the back of the Jeep lifted open and I placed the body inside. “It just is.”
“Sure it is, because now your fingerprints are all over the body, which is going to make it a lot more difficult to prove you innocent.”
“Vampire fingerprints are next to untraceable.” All they’d get from the body was that a vampire had killed him, which was evident even to me.
I stared at the corpse, realizing that if this was done by a vampire and the body left on my doorstep, that meant someone was trying to set me up.
My hands balled into fists. My sire must be unhappy with me because I’d married a witch.
Or perhaps because Lydia had fae heritage, which made it worse.
I’d crossed a line. Vampires didn’t marry witches or common people or fae.
We were supposed to be an insular community hiding in plain sight.
And I’d broken that rule.
Lydia stepped forward, taking my face in her hands. “George Wickham, you need to trust that I can handle this.”
And if they were upset enough to frame me, what might they be willing to do to Lydia?
Not to mention if I ended up being caught as a vampire by the fae, they would believe that she had full knowledge of what I was and that she hid it, making her culpable.
It would ruin her life. I would ruin her life.
Untenable. Everything was always one step away from going up in flames.
That was why I’d spent so many years having a good time but never committing to anyone.
I couldn’t drag them into my unstable life.
And yet that was exactly what I’d done to Lydia.
My chaotic existence had recently become more perilous, and I didn’t know if I was the cause or if I had the worst fortune in existence.
But either way, I refused to let the woman I cared about more than anything get hurt.
How could I have imagined that this would ever work out?
Pulling from Lydia’s grasp, I grabbed my laptop case that sat in the cargo area next to the dead man’s feet.
After slamming the hatch shut, I tugged Lydia over to the Jeep and opened the passenger door.
She got in and I hurried around the front and got in, laptop bag in hand.
I started the engine and backed out of the driveway.
“There’s a murderer on the loose. I’m taking you home, and I need you to stay there.
You were never here. You never saw any of this. ”
Bewilderment tightened her features as she met my gaze. “Did you hear anything I just said? I said I can help you, but we need to stop looking like we’re guilty.” She lifted her phone. On the screen, I saw the number for the police and her thumb hovering over the call button.
I snatched the device from her hands. As if on cue, the sound of sirens sounded in the distance. My heart sank. It looked as if someone had already called the police. Perhaps Mr. Rothschild had seen more than I thought.
Our time had run out. I had to get Lydia out of here, no matter what it took. I drove down the road away from my place and toward Cupid’s Confections.
“Wickham, give me my phone.”
I turned it off and handed it back to her. “And how do you know I didn’t kill that man?”
“Because I was with you the whole time, I was…”
I let my incisors drop and smiled at her. “Little humans are so easy to control. One bite and they believe anything I say.”
She gasped. Her hand flew to her throat. “N-no, you never. I would have known.”
“Not if I convinced you not to notice while under my power.”
“Wickham—”
“Don’t you see, Lydia? I’m a monster. And the only reason I brought you here tonight was to tell you I want an annulment.”
Her mouth trembled, but she shook her head. “You don’t want that.”
Guilt sliced through me hot and thick. I pulled up outside Cupid’s Confections and reached into my laptop bag. I jerked the papers out and shoved them into her hands. “They’re all drawn up.”
I got out of the Jeep and rounded to the passenger side to open the door. Lydia held the papers as if in shock. A tear slid down her cheek.
I motioned toward the open entryway. “I’ll be back to get the papers from you, but it is best if you go inside, now.”
Lydia got out of the Jeep and hurried around the side of the building. I watched until she entered her home through the side entrance. Then I raced to my Jeep and started the engine, trying to ignore how the look of betrayal in Lydia’s eyes made me feel like I was the worst scumbag on this earth.
I peeled onto the street and drove.