Chapter 9

Getting answers--harder than getting laid.

“You know something?” Ira murmured sleepily.

“Hmm?”

“I’m kinda surprised you stayed.”

I propped my head up to look at him. “Why?”

He was looking up at the ceiling, his eyes half open. “Zo.”

“Pfft,” I harrumphed. “It would take more than that ho to scare me off. Besides, if I did leave that would be, I dunno, rewarding bad behavior or something.”

Ira tipped a shoulder. “It’s enough to chase off most people.”

I sighed. “I’m not most people.”

“Yeah.” His mouth was quirked into one of his crooked smiles. “I know.”

For no reason I could put my finger on, I felt my face warming. His smile broadened. He leaned down, our noses bumping. I felt my heart speeding up. We hadn’t made kissing an off-limits thing, but I knew something was different this time.

He whispered, “Can I kiss you?”

“Yeah.” I was more breathing with sound than whispering. “I want you to.”

I blinked. Whoa, where had that come from?

But Ira just closed the distance and pressed our lips gently together. I think it was the slowest kiss I’d ever had in my life. He took his time, just teasing my lips with his, and even when his tongue slipped inside he made only lazy circles around my mouth.

I pulled back, panting more than when I’d orgasmed just a second ago, but his hand on my cheek stopped me before I got too far.

“I can’t decide if your eyes are green or amber,” he mused.

“That’s ‘cause they’re hazel, genius,” I mumbled.

“Oh,” he drawled, amused.

Sighing, his hand dropped away. I straightened, and he sat up.

“Well, I guess I’d better get you home.”

“My car’s out front,” I reminded him.

He shook his head. “Right.” He looked at me for a second, and then his whole face cracked into a grin. “I really did a number on your hair.”

I laughed, glad for the ease in tension. “The price you pay to play.”

Ira reached his hand out, but I batted it away. He laughed. “Just trying to help.”

“You’ve done enough,” I groused playfully.

“Oh, I forgot,” he said suddenly. “I thought you looked good today. Well, before the hair thing.”

I smiled, fiddling with my arrowhead necklace. “Thanks.”

If you only knew, I thought to myself.

Back at the Parkers, the first thing I did was strip out of my clothes. Once my armor was off, I pulled my t-shirt back on. My mail shirt, arrow necklace, and all the various things I’d taken to protect myself went back in the trunk. That done, I dug out my laptop. The Parkers had wireless, so I didn’t need my connection card.

All hunters had secure email addresses, courtesy of Espy, that we used for missions and stuff. Things we didn’t want leaving electronic paper trails. It was the only place she would have sent whatever information about the skank that dented my car.

The first page was stats. Zo Williams was five six, twenty-two years old, and about to start her third year of college. It occurred to me then that I didn’t know Ira’s last name, or how old he was. But then, I’d never given him mine, so it was only fair.

Realizing I was getting distracted, I read on. Apparently she’d gone to school in a town a few miles over, but moved here to go to college. Well, according to this she’d waited a year first, working to pay for it. How very Lifetime special of her.

None of those mundane details were what I was looking for, so I scrolled down to the part where Espy’s personal notes were. She was marked as a likely vampire—which, duh—and looked to have been turned just a few years ago. Apparently she was working her way upwards in vampire circles, though I had no idea how Esperanza could know that.

After this, Espy had made a note that the town was the likely territory of the vampire house that controlled the surrounding area. I was positive she knew more than that, but I’d probably have to make another call to get that information, and I’d need a good reason. Esperanza St. Thomas was the hunter switchboard for a reason—she didn’t just give out secrets left and right.

I reached into my bag and pulled out a wrapped peppermint candy. I’d found that sucking on something helped me think. As I rolled it around with my tongue, I considered my options. If I told Espy I wanted to hunt Williams, she wouldn’t necessarily give me any more information than she had already. After all, I could always wait until she was alone and then pick her off, no contact with the house required. This was definitely the smartest thing to do, as taking on a whole host of vampires solo was less than brilliant.

On the other hand, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to hunt her. If she was enrolled in the local college her absence would be noticed. Then there was the question of what her death might do to Ira, and whether or not I cared about that.

Sighing, I moved my computer off my lap and leaned back against the headboard. No, I didn’t want to kill her. I just wanted to know more about her, more about her and Ira, why she was trying to kill me, and what she’d done to others to make Ira so sure I wouldn’t want to be around him anymore. In short, I needed to know things that only someone close to them would know. And it wasn’t like I could ask either of the parties in question.

Maybe for now the best thing to do was wait. If she attacked me again after Ira ran her off that would be pretty telling. Ira had made it sound like once was usually enough, which was an interesting detail. Who was she that picking off those closest to her ex was such a priority?

And then it hit me. It might not be a question of who she was—maybe the real question was…Who was Ira?