Pretty Little Lion by Suleikha Snyder
2
It was no longer a good world for vampires. It had never been particularly a good world for anyone. Some would say that everything had changed for America in 2016, but Tavi Estrada had lived long enough to know that history was doomed to repeat itself, and humans were doomed to self-destruct. It was just that the speed with which they descended to hell had quadrupled in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Nuclear weapons, man-made diseases, global fascism. Countries that had once seemed like bastions of reason, cradles of democracy, had fallen one after the other like dominoes. All because of human greed, human ambition. Humans’ belief in their own superiority. Even the revelation that they weren’t superior, that more powerful beings existed on earth, had not tempered that arrogance.
A prime example was posturing right before him. Mirko Aston. Despite rumors on the Dark Web that he was some sort of powerful supernatural, he was just a man. With blood and air and ego keeping him alive. Oh, he’d certainly amassed powerful friends—Tavi among them—but any one of them could snuff him out should they choose. He was mortal, breakable, disposable. But useful. For now. A conduit to so many criminal syndicates around the world. If you wanted drugs, Mirko Aston could find you the newest designer narcotics on the market. If you wanted sex, he could send you an entire shipping container full of unwilling options. If you wanted weapons, he could supply those as well. He was like the big-box store of darkness and debauchery.
What did that make Tavi? The FedEx? The UPS? He facilitated so many of Mirko’s transactions. Made sure they went exactly as planned. What can brown do for you? Wasn’t that, after all, his MO? Making himself indispensable to those who would otherwise see him deported, detained, or dead? It helped that he’d taken on a vampire’s pallor after so many decades in the shadows, losing the warm skin tone he’d inherited from his Taino mother and favoring his white Cuban father. It made it easier for his unsavory associates to ignore that he was one of the few nonwhite guests left in the room. Mirko’s latest girlfriend had swished away in a cloud of silk and secrets. Most of the hired security guards were Black and Latinx—not because Mirko was open-minded but because he felt that was their appropriate place. And the brooding supe with the impressive arms who’d held up the far wall all evening had gone on break. Perhaps an extended break. He couldn’t really blame the man or Meghna for finding other places to be. Mirko’s private party would go on into the wee hours of the morning, maybe even the next day. The drinks would flow, the clothing would be shed. Lines of cocaine were already appearing on tabletops, being sniffed from wrists. Tavi would watch. As he’d always done. Watch, wait, act accordingly.
“Thirsty yet, Estrada?” The snide voice was like the persistent whine of a gnat. Instantly annoying. Wholly unwelcome.
Sasha Nichols. A human from a shifter line who seldom left his master Mirko’s side. He thought himself a big player in this game. Didn’t know he was just a pawn. Easily sacrificed. Tavi settled back into the leather banquette, tipping his half-full tumbler of whiskey in a mock salute. One of his many tiny rebellions—sipping the amber liquid while Mirko poured vodka down his cronies’ throats. “As you can see, I’m far from parched.”
He would never be so stupid as to drink blood in front of these men. He’d killed in front of them, of course. He’d done what he had to. But slaking his actual thirst was a vulnerability he could not afford to show them. In the early days of his involvement with Aston and his friends, a few had asked to be turned. That, too, was something he’d opted not to share. The likes of Sasha Nichols being given the gift of a longer life and enhanced abilities…? Ha. No, thank you. Tavi had never been that careless. To turn someone without thinking it through. “Not true,” a voice piped up in the back of his mind, in the cruel part of his memory. “You were that careless once. Dare you be that careless with me as well, Octavio? Try. See what will happen.” He silenced the trilling mockery with another sip of whiskey. With words. “What do you want, Sasha? I’m already bored of looking at you.”
“Watch your tone, vampire,” the henchman sneered, no doubt wishing he could run back to Mirko to play tattletale. To add this latest insult to the ledger they kept of Tavi’s slights against them. Or wishing he could turn into a bear like his ancestors and swipe at Tavi’s face. “You think you’re indispensable? You could get a stake through the heart at any given moment if Mirko wishes it.”
Tavi laughed, adjusted the scarf at his throat, and threw one arm along the back of the banquette. As unbothered as could be. And then he let a little bit of the monster through. In the tips of his teeth. In the flash of his eyes. In the dangerous silk of his voice, softer than that of his scarf. “Just as, at any moment, I could tear your head from your neck. Pity you’ll never know what it feels like to have that power.”
Sasha paled, which was a feat considering the man was already the color of uncooked rice. He stumbled back a few steps, bravado draining like the blood Tavi would never take from him. “Fuck you!” he snarled.
Miracle of miracles, Tavi was actually enjoying this ridiculous party now. He grinned. “Is that what this is about? You’re jealous of Mirko’s beautiful companion, so you want one of your own? Lo siento, Sasha, but my dance card is full.”
“You’re delusional.” Nichols’s homophobia made him scramble three more steps away. Made him utter slurs in both Russian and English that Tavi had heard before and would, no doubt, hear again. How utterly predictable—Sasha was more horrified by the prospect of fucking a man than being killed by one.
This was not a problem Tavi could relate to. He’d fucked many, many men. And killed many too. An equal-opportunity predator. All were welcome to succumb to his sharp kisses. “You came to me,” he said with a shrug. “I was just minding my own business. Maybe, in the future, you should mind yours.”
At a safer distance now—or so he thought—Mirko’s aging errand boy was free to posture once more. “Just wait,” he warned, lower lip curling like a petulant child’s. “When our plans are put into motion, we won’t have to depend on your kind anymore. We’ll have our own resources. That day, you’ll be out on your ass.”
Tavi wasn’t exactly devastated at the prospect. But still… “It’s not my ass being put on the curb that you should be concerned with,” he pointed out. “I haven’t let Mirko down yet. It wasn’t my pet Bratva vor who ended up a literal dead end just last month.”
Sasha had been so sure that Aleksei Vasiliev would prove a valuable connection. Crowing about the greater access to test subjects and key pharmaceuticals. Mirko was none too happy with Sasha’s poor choice of allies and had been not-so-subtly freezing him out in the weeks since Vasiliev’s permanent hibernation.
Tavi’s barb hit its target with unerring aim, and the nonshifting bear growled at him ineffectually. “You’ll pay for your arrogance, Estrada,” he promised.
“Send me a ‘Save the Date’ so I’ll know when to cry.” Tavi dismissively waved his whiskey glass. “Until then…? Do us both a favor and stay the hell out of my sight.”
Nichols listed forward, as if he were preparing to say something else. To continue needlessly bothering a supernatural more than twice his age and one-tenth as patient. And then self-preservation finally, finally, kicked in. He shot Tavi one last glare and stormed away. Likely to find another target for his ire or another way to get back into his boss’s good graces.
It was a perfect snapshot of humanity’s problem as a whole. What would be their undoing when all was said and done. They never knew when to stop pushing, when to stop taking and stealing and killing. Not until it was much too late.
“When willyou stop, Octavio?” The voice from his mental vault taunted him once more. “Or is it already too late for you?”
Tavi downed the rest of his whiskey in one gulp, drowning out reminders he couldn’t afford to let surface. If it all tasted like ashes in his mouth, so be it.
* * *
Meghna Saxena-Saunders was going to be his undoing if he wasn’t more fucking careful. For all his attempts at taking his mind elsewhere, at focusing on anything but the intimacy of the act, Elijah was keenly aware that he’d just gotten the best sodding blow job of his entire life. The back of his head hit the wall, echoing like an empty thing because she’d gone and sucked out all his brains through his cock. His control was somewhere on the floor with her, stayed there as she rose from her knees and smoothed out her dress. Her hair was still perfect. Her lipstick barely smudged, even with his come glossing her mouth.
Who seduced who?He couldn’t say. But it wasn’t finished. Not nearly. Pull yourself together, mate. It took him a second or two, but he managed it. Shaking his head to clear the fucked-out cobwebs. Tucking his cock back in and zipping up his jeans. “Fuck,” he said with completely sincere admiration. “That was brilliant.”
“I know.” She gave a shrug that, even in the darkness, illuminated her confidence. “I should probably get back to the party…but there are a few people inside who might pick up your scent from my skin.”
Because it wasn’t just any party, was it? There were bear shifters inside. Vampires too. Elijah had no love for either, and he admired her forethought…while simultaneously cursing himself for his lack of it. They’d missed something obvious when they hadn’t taken that into consideration. “Makes it risky, doesn’t it?” He played off his unforgivable error as a bit of added spice to an already ill-advised assignation. “Will they notice if you don’t go back?”
“No.” The roll of Meghna’s eyes was echoed by her scoff of disgust. “I doubt Mirko even cares where I am. He’ll remember me two days from now, when he’s come down from the high and painfully hungover.”
There was no love lost between the pair, clearly. So why were they together? For appearances? For social clout? Because her father owned an armaments factory? Elijah would have time to answer those questions later. His most pressing one had to do with the pair of them. “Sounds to me like you have two days to fill, love. What could you possibly do with all that time?” he wondered with a charming smile that would rival Finn’s.
Meghna brushed a nonexistent speck from her shoulder. And then did the same for his…but let her hand linger. “Are you asking what I think you’re asking?”
He glanced down at her fingers before meeting her gaze. There was a test here. Or a trap. She could bring down an entire room of pissed-off wankers on his head if she felt like it. He let the awareness of each of her fingers seep into him. Her pulse through her skin. Trying to gauge the lies versus the truth. The loss versus the potential win. “Depends,” he said slowly. “Do you think I’m asking to fuck your brains out for the next thirty-six hours? Then yes.”
Her palm made a slow slide from his shoulder to his chest. No calling this off. No shouting. No one would be coming for his head except her. As she’d already done. With mouth and tongue and just a hint of teeth. “All thirty-six? With no breaks?” She tsked, her lips making a teasing moue. “That’s going to chafe.”
It was like the crack about the closets. Unexpected. And just like then, he laughed. He didn’t want to find her so charming. Didn’t want to enjoy this all quite so much. But it was already too late for that, wasn’t it? When he was talking about nonstop fucking and looking forward to the prospect. “I’m keen to try if you are,” he offered, mimicking her earlier shrug.
She kept up the seductress routine, trailing fingertips along his belt buckle as if reminding him how easily she’d undone it not too long ago. “How do I know you’re not after something?”
“How do I know you’re not after something?” he countered. “You’re the one who came up to me.”
Meghna’s eyebrows rose. “Makes it risky, doesn’t it?” she echoed him.
She was fascinating. So much more than the profiles he’d read and the intel he’d gathered over the last few months. Sexy as hell and sharp as a knife. “You a risk-taker by nature?”
“I’m here with you, aren’t I?” she replied almost immediately.
She was good at the dance. Evading questions. Asking them. Pushing and then pulling back. He was impressed. More than a bit turned on. But he reined in the beast this time—both the lion and his dick. “Give me an hour and an address,” he said. That would give him time to scrub off her scent in the WC, do one more tour of the party room, and check in with HQ. “I’ll wrap up here and then wrap up for you.” He glanced meaningfully at where her questing hand had ended its journey. Atop his already raring-to-go-again erection.
“Daring but conscientious,” Meghna murmured with some combination of admiration and approval. “How did you know that’s just what I like in a casual hookup with someone I just met?”
Because it was what he liked, too. What he prided himself on. “Just lucky, I guess.”
She leaned in, capturing his mouth with hers even as she released his cock. “Oh, you’ll get lucky,” she whispered as she brushed the lightest of kisses across his lips. A tease tasting of lipstick and his own come. “I promise.”
Elijah could only hope that was true.