Allegiance(51)
What was Frank up to? And what the hell was in that injection?
CHAPTER 15
Robin sat on the front stoop of Mirren’s community house on Cotton Street, drinking strong black coffee that Glory had brewed before leaving for the dining hall everyone called the Chow House.
She didn’t know how Glory managed. Stayed up until dawn with her vampire, stuck with him until he was asleep, went to make breakfast and lunch for the humans at the Chow House, and then, finally, slept a few hours before cooking an early Chow House dinner and greeting Mirren again when he woke up at sunset.
Seemed like it would be easier to always keep vampire hours. Except the whole missing-the-sun thing would suck.
Sucking reminded her of vampire feeding, which reminded her of that whole freakball scene with Mirren last night. It had scared the crap out of her, not that she’d admit it aloud. Although the way she’d wimped out, she wouldn’t have to. They already knew.
It had felt good. Way too good. And she wanted to try it again, for real this time, with fangs, in private, and not with Mirren Kincaid.
Not this morning, either. Her head ached from lack of sleep. A throbbing pain had settled behind her eyeballs, where it would stay until she either napped or drank enough caffeine to fuel a battleship. She was already on cup number three.
“Figured you’d still be zonked out.” Nik came outside and sat next to her, holding his usual cup of sweetened creamer laced with just enough coffee to make it a light golden brown. Take away the man’s sugar and he’d die. “I heard you leave last night after Cage and Melissa headed out. You followed them?”
“Jeez, why don’t you announce it over a fucking loudspeaker, Niko?” Robin looked up and down the street for any sign of eavesdroppers.
“Got a tip for you,” he whispered, leaning close enough so she could smell the spearmint of his toothpaste and that caramel macchiato creamer he liked. “The vamps are asleep when the sun’s up. They can’t overhear us.”
“Smartass.” She took another sip of coffee and was about to get up for more when Nik held up the whole carafe—he’d brought it with him and set it beside him where she couldn’t see it. “Figured you’d be bitchy and needy.”
“Damn straight. That’s why I love you.” She topped off her cup and set the carafe beside her. She’d probably end up drinking the whole thing. “Yeah, I followed them.”
“I don’t want you to tell me where they went, just if you found out what you needed to know.”
Robin respected that need-to-know thing the Rangers preached. A compromised soldier, they’d told her, couldn’t tell secrets he didn’t know, even if tortured—although he’d probably die before letting himself be taken if that option were available.
But need to know had all kinds of meanings. “What I needed to know was where the big vamps spend their days. I might need to find them someday, and I don’t like surprises.”
“Bullshit.” Nik laughed and sucked down the rest of his cup full of creamer. “What you needed to know was whether or not Cage Reynolds is screwing the curvy redhead and, if so, whether or not it means anything.”
“That would be the curvy married redhead, and she’s really more of a strawberry blonde.” Might as well not deny it. Nik knew her too well. “And no, I didn’t learn much since the vamps have an annoying habit of disappearing underground before daylight.”
“What, you want them to stay outside and fry in the sunrise?”
She looked at him with interest. “Do they really do that? Fry? What does happen if one of the fangaroos goes sunbathing?”
“I honestly have no idea except our dossiers said it’s fatal.” Nik shook his head. “You are one warped little bird.”
She took that as a compliment and kept her mouth shut when Nik pulled a silver flask out of the pocket of his jeans and tipped a measure of amber liquid into his coffee cup. He replaced the flask and held up his cup in salute. “Breakfast of champions.”
He only drank his Black Jack bourbon at breakfast when he’d been having nightmares—or was planning to use his Touch to learn something. “Looks like we had the same idea for today.” She looked toward the end of Cotton Street, where wisps of smoke still rose from the burnt-out ruins that lay catty-corner from the old mill.
“Yep.” Nik sipped his drink, his dark-brown eyes fixed on the blackened brick chimney that, along with the concrete steps and porch, was the only part of the house still fully intact. “I figure between my abilities and your shifter sensibilities, we can learn more than anyone else from that fire scene.”