Shameful by May Dawson
49
Rhett
The three ofus walked into Pews & Brews, and I blinked, trying to adjust to the hushed light of the former sanctuary. Pews & Brews used to be a church; now it was a bar. But more than that, it was one of the few places where vamps and shifters met on… well, the ground wasn’t quite sacred anymore. It was kind of sticky.
“I’ve never seen this place in daylight before,” I mused.
Sometimes, working a con meant developing a big network. These people weren’t my friends, exactly, but we neededthem.
“I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that you have sketchy friends,” Legacysaid.
“To be fair, the Hunters think our kind are sketchy,” I returned.
Hunters, vamps and shifters sometimes managed to co-exist in the same space without murdering each other. It was a small miracle.
“What can I help you with?” Fiona, a woman with long red hair came out from the back, then squinted at me. “Oh, it’syou.”
Witches carry grudges.
“It’s me,” I said cheerfully. “I’m looking for somehelp.”
“Probably not the kind youneed.”
Legacy turned to regard me, and I could’ve sworn a spark of jealousy flashed in hergaze.
I’d never slept with the witch—for one thing, she had a few Hunter pals who adored her and no shifter needs to get on the Hunters’ bad side—and I ignored Legacy’s heated gaze. Did she think we owned each othernow?
Well, if that were thecase…
I slung my arm over her shoulders and tugged her into my side. Let everyone know this gorgeous girl was mine. If that was what she wanted, it sounded good to me. I was ready to claimher.
Legacy resisted just for a moment, then leaned into my side. Her hand brushed the small of my back, and my spine straightened before I realized what I was doing.
“Sit down at the bar,” Fiona said. “You want something toeat?”
One of the many things I appreciated about Fiona was her tendency to feed everyone.
“It’s been a long night,” I agreed, taking a bar stool.
She called into the back. One of her guys—big for a mortal, wearing a t-shirt that seemed strained to threads by his biceps—stuck his head out and looked us over. Casey.
“This is Casey,” she said, answering Legacy’s unasked question. To him, she said, “Remember these guys? Helped us out during the Were plague situation?”
“Oh, yeah.” He glanced me and West over. Once he decided we weren’t a threat, he dropped a kiss in Fiona’s hair and retreated back to the kitchen.
“We’re here because of her,” I said, still resting my arm on Legacy’s shoulders and ignoring the way that a certain grouchy brother of mine glared at me. “She’s in trouble.”
“I assumed so,” Fiona answered, giving Legacy a mock sympathetic look. “She’s withyou.”
Legacy told her the story, and Fiona’s demeanor shifted to serious. She twirled a strand of her long red hair around one finger as she listened, her expression increasingly murderous as she heard Legacy’s tale of Lucas and Cyrus.
“Hey,” she said when Casey came out with a family-style platter of bacon and eggs. He grabbed a strip of bacon and chewed as he listened to her. “Do you know a vamp named Tobias Bentley?”
Casey swallowed thoughtfully. “Yeah. I ran into him on a case a while back. Not my favorite person but he’s never given me a good reason to stakehim.”
“Well, there might be a good reason now. He’s been stalking this shifter.”
Casey looked Legacy over in a way that made me fold my hands into fists under the bar, even before he asked a curt, “Why?”
“Why does any stalker obsess over a girl?” I asked him. “Why do you obsess over Fiona, for that matter?”
Casey scoffed. “Watch your mouth.”
“All right,” Legacy interrupted. “Tobias claimed he came after me because I’m Lucas Harley’s fatedmate.”
The man’s eyes tightened almost imperceptibly. If I hadn’t been watching him, I wouldn’t have noticed the way he leaned back, his arms tightening across his broad chest.
He knew Lucas’sname.
And he had some feelings abouthim.
“What dealings have you had with Lucas?” I asked. “And his daddy Cyrus?”
“They used to come in here sometimes,” she said, with a sidelong glance at him like she’d noticed his reaction too. “We don’t discriminate against objectionable clientele.”
She gave him a pointedlook.
“No staking on the premises,” I filledin.
“It’s hard to bring a couple Hunters onboard as waitstaff, let me tell you,” shesaid.
“So Lucas and Cyrus were objectionable?” Legacy asked.
“Yeah, not a big fan,” he said. “Cyrus likes to start fights. But only the kind he knows he canwin.”
He’d started a fight like that with Legacy. I was determined to make sure he didn’t win, though.
“We have something of the vampire’s,” I said. “West. Show them the finger.”
Fiona pulled a face. “Show them the finger has to be one of my least favorite phrases in the English language and I didn’t know it until just this moment.”
West pulled the blood-stained ziplock bag out of his inner jacket pocket. Legacy made a face so subtly that I didn’t think she even realized she’d done it. West had moved swiftly to pick it up and be the one to carry it. My brother’s psycho nature did have its useful moments.
West dropped it on the countertop, in between the platter of bacon and the platter of scrambledeggs.
“Great,” Fiona muttered. “That is indeed a finger.”
“Can you help us? We’ve lost the scent. Maybe a tracking spell?”
“I try to stay out of vamp and shifter business,” shesaid.
“Please. You’ve been elbow-deep in shifter business,” I remindedher.
“You’re not supposed to know about any ofthat.”
“I don’t. Just like you’re not supposed to get involved.”
“You’re a real pain in the ass, Rhett.”
“It’s a good thing I’mcute.”
Legacy’s hand swept across the small of my back. Fiona rolled her eyes, but at least Legacy thought I was cute. Better thancute.
Lucas might be her fated mate, but she was mine anyway, even if I was second-best in the eyes of the moon. I was glad I got to be by herside.
Fiona lifted the finger in the bag and unlike Legacy, she didn’t try to hide her disgust. Casey stepped up beside her and held out a copper bowl, and she turned the baggie inside out to dump the fingerin.
“It doesn’t smell too bad yet,” he observed, which didn’t seem to put her in any better of amood.
“Do you need this back?” Fiona managed.
“No thank you,” Legacy said politely.
Gagging, she worked her spell, then frowned. She turned to us and asked, “Could I get a sample of your blood please?”
“Why?” I didn’t think she was the type to work blood magics.
“Because,” Fiona said, “I think maybe your missing vamp is actually part shifter.”
Frowning, Legacy held out her hand for Casey’s knife as he pulled it from hisbelt.
“I’ll do it,” I said, reaching over her for the knife.
“No.” Her adorable chin rose. “Tracking Tobias is myjob.”
“And you need to be in the best of health to kick his ass when we find him,” Isaid.
Legacy gave me a long look. “You are so slick.”
I grinned. But while Legacy and I were flirting, West had grunted and grabbed the blade, dragging it across his wrist. Casey grabbed a glass from the bar, flipped it dramatically, and set it in front of West in time to catch the blood.
“Show-off,” I accused themboth.
“How is it possible that Tobias could be part shifter?” Legacy demanded. “I don’t think vamps and shifters can marry… or would wantto.”
“It doesn’t take marriage to make a baby.” Fiona couldn’t keep her amusement from her voice.
“Yes, I realize that,” Legacy said, her voice coming out even. “I realize—after falling in love with a complete asshole then recovering from that insanity—that I’ve been a little on the naive side. But I do know how babies aremade.”
“Maybe Tobias and Cyrus are related,” West said. “Maybe that’s what ties them together.”
“Either way, no wonder he’s hard to track,” I said, still frustrated by how difficult it had been to pick up his trail. “He doesn’t just smell like a vamp. That shifter blood is diluting his scent.”
“If they’re related, maybe that’s part of why Cyrus and Tobias have more intense powers than any other vamps or shifters,” Legacy said. “Cyrus is the alpha because he’s the strongest shifter in our pack. Tobias is faster than any vampire is supposed tobe.”
I leaned across the countertop and flashed Fiona my brightest smile, which she definitely did not return.
“Fiona, if we’re dealing with hybrids, I think we’re going to need a lot morehelp.”
She tried to stay out of vamp and shifter business. But none of us needed a world populated by superpowered vampire stalkers.
Or superpowered asshole alphas, either.
Sooner or later, we’d have to deal with Cyrus if we were going to keep Legacysafe.
The road to freedom is paved with blood.