Crimson Debt Read online

  “Oh, honey…” I grabbed her hand and squeezed it tight. “I feel the same way for you. But the point is we both made it through. And now that Corbin’s got you under his protection, you’ll never have to go through anything like that again. So…” I cleared my throat and looked around. “How are they treating you so far? Besides the palatial digs, that is?”

  Taylor gave a little half-laugh—a far cry from the joyful little giggle I remembered from our roommate days, but still better than sobbing.

  “Oh, you know…it’s not so bad. They even gave me refreshments.” She nodded at a half-empty bag of blood lying to one side of the sad, flat pillow.

  “About that,” I said. “Corbin says he’ll find you a willing donor—someone willing to, uh, pay the Crimson Debt?”

  Taylor went pale. “A willing donor would be nice but I don’t want anyone paying the Debt for me,” she said quickly.

  “It wouldn’t be a human, I’m sure,” I said, trying to reassure her.

  “I don’t care who it is.” She looked down. “I don’t want that—sex and blood at the same time, I mean. I don’t think…” She sighed. “Addison, I don’t honestly think I’ll ever want to have sex again. Not after…” She shook her head. “You know.”

  “I know.” I squeezed her hand sympathetically. The broken look in her beautiful eyes made me so angry I wanted to scream. “God damn it,” I said in a low voice. “Roderick, that evil fuck. Vamps are so screwed up—they’re all bowing and scraping to him when what he really needs is a bullet right in the chest. I’d be glad to put it there, too.”

  “Don’t talk like that, Addison,” Taylor implored. “It’s not safe. Besides, I’ve heard it takes more than just bullets to kill the really old ones.”

  “I guarantee if I put enough hollow points in that empty, rotten cavity he calls a heart he’ll die,” I said furiously.

  “No, he won’t,” she said. “Seriously, once a vamp reaches six stars, they’re practically indestructible. So please, Addison, don’t try going Dirty Harry on him. You’ll just get yourself killed.”

  “Well, as long as I take him down with me, maybe I don’t care,” I grumbled, but decided to let the matter drop. I squeezed her hand again. “I’d invite you back to my place but I don’t have any bagged blood on hand if you feel peckish. And I don’t think…” I sighed. “I don’t think I can feed you anymore until after this whole thing with evil fuck Roderick is over and Corbin and I part ways.”

  “I understand,” Taylor said quickly. “Most vamps are picky like that. Me taking blood from you while you’re with Corbin would be like…well, it would be like you were cheating on him, like he said in the car.”

  “Yes, so I understand.” I sighed. “He’s going to have to get over the idea of owning me really quick, though. As soon as this is all over, we’re going back to the usual status quo.”

  Taylor gave me a wan smile. “What, you mean him harassing you and you writing him as many citations as possible?”

  “Exactly,” I said grumpily, although honestly, the idea of going back to our old relationship seemed a little strange now that Corbin had seen me naked. Ugh, now that was going to be a fun fact to consider the next time I came to inspect Under the Fang.

  “Addison,” Taylor said quietly. “Has it ever occurred to you that maybe Corbin really cares for you?”

  “What? Don’t be silly.” I frowned. “I’m just a conquest to him—it’s a feather in his cap to be able to say that a non-glam Auditor is his consort. It’s like…like a mobster showing off his girlfriend who also just happens to be a cop or a judge.”

  “Maybe not.” Taylor looked thoughtful. “I’ve heard rumors about Corbin.”

  “Such as?” I raised an eyebrow and made a go on signal with one hand.

  “Well, he’s not nearly the playboy he makes himself out to be for one thing,” Taylor said. “He’s almost never with anyone—he mostly keeps to himself except to feed occasionally. And he never pays the Crimson Debt or lets anyone else pay it for him.”

  “Meaning he doesn’t feed on anyone during sex or let them feed on him?” I said.

  She nodded. “Honestly, I don’t think he has that much sex at all. Not even glam-sex.”

  “Oh come on, Taylor—he’s a vampire,” I objected. “Sex and blood, that’s what they’re all about—that’s what they do.”

  “Most of them maybe. But if what I’ve heard is right, Corbin mostly keeps to himself.”

  “But why?” I asked, frowning. “I mean, it’s not for lack of willing partners, I’m sure.” He got under my skin like a bad rash but there was no denying Corbin was gorgeous.

  “I don’t know why, exactly.” Taylor shrugged. “They say he had someone once—a human—but he lost her. Now he mostly keeps to himself out of respect for her memory.”

  I thought of what he’d told me, about having a human female he loved enough to be gentle with once and how she’d “died anyway.”

  “Why didn’t he just bond her to him?” I asked. Vamps can bond any human they want, which greatly increases the human’s lifespan, sometimes even enough to match the vamp’s. It makes them a little more durable too, though under the law they’re still not supposed to have sex with the vamp that bonds them.

  “I don’t know.” Taylor shook her head. “But I do know you’re pretty much the only girl he’s shown an interest in. I mean, he does a lot of casual flirting, you know?”

  “Yeah, I know.” I nodded. Nobody was better at eye-fucking than Corbin.

  “But none of it amounts to anything. I mean, I’ve never heard of him taking anyone into one of his daylight resting places the way he took you. Not vampire, not human—no one,” Taylor emphasized.

  I shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah, well… Look, Taylor, I should really get going. I have to be back here tomorrow night to play the dutiful little consort during Celeste’s trial.”

  “Okay.” She sighed and smiled at me. “Thanks for rescuing me, roomie.”

  “You’re welcome, roomie.” My throat was suddenly tight. “I just wish…I wish I could have done it sooner.”

  Taylor shook her head. “Don’t beat yourself up over that. If you hadn’t come…Never mind.” She gave me a trembling smile and swiped at the bloody tears that were gathered in her eyes. “You’re the best friend a girl could have, Addison. I love you.”

  “I love you too, hon.” I gathered her in my arms and didn’t protest a bit over her bone-crushing hug. I felt her shoulders shaking with sobs and I stroked her hair helplessly, wishing there was something—anything—I could do to heal her.

  But there was nothing I could do or say to take away the pain of what had been done to her, nothing to erase the awful violation from her mind. All I could do was hold her and let her cry and swear to myself if I ever got a chance, I would put a magazine full of hollow points into Roderick myself.

  Chapter Nine

  “Okay, I’m here. What’s the plan?” I tried to sound casual and unworried as I strolled into Corbin’s office but the forbidding look in his silver-blue eyes took the wind out of my sails.

  “You are late.” He glanced at the antique clock on the wall of his office. “Fifteen minutes late to be exact.” Today he was wearing a tailored charcoal suit with a crisp white shirt that made him look like a high-powered executive. He looked so good, sitting there behind his desk, that I felt grubby in my rumpled navy blue jacket and slacks.

  I shrugged. “Sorry. I had an execution that ran over.”

  Corbin frowned. “You come from executing one of my kind and act like it means nothing? Tell me, Addison, how would you feel if I said something like that to you? ‘Sorry I couldn’t be on time, I was draining some human dry and it took longer than I thought.’”

  I shifted uncomfortably. “This is different. The vamp who died—he was a serial murderer/rapist. He S and F-ed twenty women to death before they caught him—not all of them human, I might add.”

  Corbin raised an eyebrow at me. “S and F-ed?”