Crimson Debt Read online

  Immediately my heart began to pound.

  “What…what are you doing?” I muttered, looking down at my small hands clasped gently but firmly in his much larger ones.

  “I am trying to apologize. To “make up” as you humans say.” He ducked his head slightly to look in my eyes. “I am sorry I asked you to leave last night, Addison. I was feeling…” He shook his head and gave a rueful laugh. “Well, what does it matter how I felt? The point is, I felt. Do you know how long it has been since I have had true, genuine emotions for another person?”

  “Vampires don’t feel?” I shook my head. “But Taylor—”

  “Is still much more human than vampire in many ways and so her emotions are much closer to the surface. But a vampire can, if he or she wishes, bury their emotions to the point of almost not having them at all.” He looked at me seriously. “Mine were buried for centuries…until I met you.”

  “But…why me?” I asked, shaking my head. “Is it just because I look like Janet?”

  “You don’t, except for your hair. No, it was your attitude. Your fierce temper and your refusal to be afraid of me.”

  “I’m an Auditor,” I pointed out. “That’s my job.”

  “And yet you are the first who wasn’t afraid to do that job. Do you remember the first moment we met? I do.” Corbin laughed softly. “The first time you ever inspected me. You were looking for problems at the Fang and couldn’t find any. So you demanded to see my liquor license and when you found it to be two days out of date, you gave me the highest fine possible and tried to shut me down.”

  “I remember,” I grumbled. “I still don’t know how you got out of that one.”

  “Not without considerable trouble and expense.” Corbin smiled. “Any other Auditor might have given up but not you—you were determined to make me pay.”

  “I want them all to pay,” I whispered, looking down. “To pay for what happened to Taylor.”

  “But I am one of them,” Corbin said softly. “And unless I am very much mistaken, you no longer hate me quite as much as you did.”

  “Maybe not,” I said, looking up at him. “But that doesn’t change what we are. Doesn’t change the fact that you’re a vamp and I’m human.”

  “I could bind you to me with blood,” Corbin murmured. “It would make you more durable. Love between us would be much less risky.”

  “But still completely illegal. And it would tie us together forever and make me practically immortal,” I pointed out with a frown.

  Predictably, Corbin shrugged off the illegal part.

  “What is wrong with being immortal?”

  “Nothing except you have to watch your entire family get older and older and die all around you,” I said. “And what do I tell people at work when they ask why I’m not aging? My superiors will know right away what’s going on—fraternizing with the enemy will get you kicked off the force. I might as well hand in my badge right now if I let you bind me to you.”

  “What was it you did before you decided to harass my kind for a living?” Corbin asked. “I thought you said you were getting a degree in some kind of literature.”

  “I was.” I looked away. “I never did finish my dissertation, though.”

  “Finish it then,” he urged gently. “Give up your grudge against vampires and go back to doing what you truly love. You can’t tell me you really enjoy the endless inspections, the gory crime scenes, the executions…”

  To tell the truth, I didn’t enjoy any of it. In fact, lately I just about loathed it but I wasn’t about to admit that to Corbin.

  “So, what—I’m supposed to give up my job to become your good little wife?” I demanded, pulling my hands out of his. “You’ll put me up in a sweet penthouse somewhere in the city and visit me whenever you want to fuck?”

  Corbin frowned. “You know it would not be like that, Addison. You could live with me—or I with you. Provided you don’t mind me making some modifications to your house. I must have a light-tight place to stay during the daylight hours.”

  For one crazy moment, I actually let myself consider it. There was no denying that there was something between us. But was that electric spark I felt every time he touched me enough to give up my job, my family…basically my entire life? Also, I had spent the past six years upholding the laws that separated vamps and humans in the most basic and vital way. Was I really going to throw all that time in the toilet and jump the fence? Was I willing to live with Corbin and take the chance every single time we made love that he wouldn’t lose control and kill me? After all the horrible, gory crime scenes I had been witness to?

  Was I crazy?

  “No,” I said at last with a sigh. “No, I’m sorry, Corbin. I’ll admit there’s something between us. We have…really good chemistry. But I can’t give up my life and everything it stands for just to be with you.”

  “And this is your final decision?” He looked at me, his silver-blue eyes serious and infinitely sad. “Think, Addison…really consider before you refuse to give me your heart. A love like this doesn’t happen very often—for me it has happened only twice in four hundred years. I lost my first love—I don’t intend to lose you.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, forcing the words out around the lump that had somehow formed in my throat. “But I can’t. Please…just let me go.”

  “I will, for now.” He stroked a strand of hair out of my eyes and tucked it behind my ear in a gesture of tenderness that made my eyes sting. “But I refuse to give up. I love you, Addison. If you’ll only give me a chance, I will prove it.”

  “Prove what? My, my—do excuse me. I hope I haven’t interrupted a tender scene.”

  We both turned to see Roderick standing in the doorway, smirking.

  Asshole, I thought, looking at him. I reached automatically to my side and then remembered I didn’t have my gun with me that night—Corbin had insisted that I leave it in his private bathroom after the incident the night before. Considering how badly I wanted to shoot the vampire Inquisitor, it was probably a good thing.

  “Ah, Roderick.” Corbin inclined his head to the other vamp. “How good of you to join us. I trust Lucinda was satisfactory?”

  “She was…until I accidentally broke her.” Roderick said it in such an offhand way it took a minute to sink in.

  Corbin’s face darkened. “What exactly do you mean?”

  Roderick shrugged. “She was paying the Crimson Debt and I got rather…carried away. You’ll find her in the dumpster out behind your establishment—what’s left of her, anyway.”

  I stared at him, uncomprehending. I had plenty of experience with vamps who S and F-ed their human lovers to death but I had never heard of one vampire doing it to another. Considering how strong they all were, even the fledglings, it must have taken unimaginable strength to kill the hapless Lucinda. The poor girl must have been ripped limb from limb and probably decapitated as well.

  “That’s horrible,” I whispered.

  “It is despicable.” Corbin took a step toward the other vampire, his face white with rage. “How dare you kill one of my people? Especially one who simply wanted to entertain and service you?”

  “Oh, she did both before she met the true death—never fear about that.” Roderick laughed, a very ugly sound. “She served her purpose and I disposed of her—just as I will dispose of you, Corbin, if you displease me.”

  “Lucinda had only one star to her credit—I have four. I think you will find me considerably more difficult to kill,” Corbin growled. “I challenge you, Roderick—you will pay for what you’ve done.”

  Roderick’s eyes gleamed greedily. “By all means, please do make a formal challenge. I will be happy to annex your little territory when you are gone. And I will take Taylor and your human consort with me to court. The Empress will love that—you can imagine how popular human Auditors who attempt to control our kind are with her.”

  Corbin’s eyes blazed. “How dare you threaten my consort?”

  “You