Allegiance(8)

Forget autumn. Winter would be her new favorite season; it had the longest nights of the year.

She walked up behind Cage, appreciating his slim hips in their tight jeans and his broad shoulders filling out the black sweater. A few months ago, he’d intentionally starved himself to infiltrate Matthias’s camp and pass himself off as a stray, but he’d obviously been feeding steadily in London and again had the muscled, hard-planed body admired by most of the women in Penton when he’d first arrived in town last spring. He’d been unofficially voted as having the best ass in Penton, something she doubted he’d ever know and would be mortified by if he did.

Cage turned and smiled, beckoning her alongside him. “Mel, this is Fen Patrick. Fen, Melissa Calvert.”

“It’s Fenton Patrick, technically, but everyone calls me Fen—unless they call me something that can’t be repeated in front of a lady.” Fen Patrick’s accent was a bit like Aidan’s, only much heavier. Irish, then, maybe. And despite the nylon jacket and Atlanta Braves baseball cap that screamed rural Georgia, he was a vampire.

Make that a hungry vampire with a smarmy gift of gab. The lights of the sedan created blue glints on his short, dark hair as he leaned forward to shake her hand. “And always trust Cage to have the prettiest ladies with him, vampire or not.”

“You two already know each other, then?” Melissa thought Fenton Patrick had a hungry, desperate look that fit a starving vampabond, but he also had a glimmer of arrogance that set off her fraud radar. Plus, what were the odds of someone Cage knew appearing on the road just as they were passing? “That’s quite a coincidence—or is it?”

Fen paused a moment, a smile playing on his lips in an expression she couldn’t decipher. Or maybe she’d imagined it, because it was gone in a heartbeat.

“It’s a tremendous coincidence, perhaps an act of God Himself, if He still hears the prayers of those who live in the dark.” Fen’s accent grew more florid as he talked. “Of course, I’d heard my old mate Cage was in Penton, so I hoped he might put in a word for me with Aidan Murphy—a fellow Irishman, I understand.”

If Fen thought an acquaintance with Cage and an Irish accent would get him in good stead with Aidan, he might be surprised. Melissa knew Aidan probably better than anyone in Penton besides his mate and Mirren, and he was tougher than most gave him credit for.

“Fen wasn’t a vampire when I knew him.” Cage’s frown had deepened the longer Fen talked—or had Melissa imagined that, too? “We did a lot of missions together in the ’80s and ’90s, mostly in Central America. He was the only human who’d voluntarily sign up for the hazardous night jobs. He knew what I was and kept his word that he wouldn’t tell anyone. As far as I know, he kept his promise.”

“Always.” Fen grinned. “Hell, I even let you feed from me, and I don’t ever want to get that feeling from another man again. Nothing personal.”

An eighteen-wheeler rumbled past them and then slowed with a flash of brake lights.

 “Damn it, go on.” Cage stepped onto the edge of the pavement and watched the truck slow further, its brakes high-pitched and loud in the still night air. “He’s stopping. Probably thinks we need help. Let me send him on his way.”

He strode toward the truck, which had finally come to a stop a couple hundred yards down, near where the exit lane ended at a state highway running east-west. The truck driver, a heavyset guy wearing a baseball cap, climbed down from the cab, stretching his back with his hands on his hips before walking to meet Cage.

Fen blocked Melissa’s view of Cage, forcing her to look at him. “The two of you been together long?” he asked her. “Perhaps you can give me some insight into Aidan Murphy; I’m rather desperate to stay in Penton and get away from all the Tribunal politics and starving vampires in Atlanta. Any tips on how to win him over?”

She didn’t like him, but she tried to shake off the dislike. He’d done nothing suspicious other than simply being there, and there was no way Fen could have known his former colleague would be in Aidan’s car heading for Penton at what had to be almost 3:00 a.m.

Plus, at least some of her dislike stemmed from the fact that she’d hoped to spend this time alone with Cage, figuring out how they felt about each other. These months away from him had given her some perspective. She suspected that her love for him had been born out of fear, insecurity, and gratitude, but she needed some time around him to be sure—and to see how he felt about her. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt him.