Page 195 of Black Bird

“The senator. Brent just rang me and told me he was about to violate his restraining order. He’s gonna do something stupid.”

Something like confirmation flashed across Northwood’s face, and she holstered her gun. “We’ll go, sir.”

“I’m going too. Been too long since I’ve had some action. Let’s move.”

“Should we call Foster?” Jenkins asked, zipping his jacket.

“Hell no. If she played nicer, he might have called her instead. Let’s go get this son-of-a-bitch.”

Nick Specter had done plenty ofreallystupid things—some he agreed to … some he hadn’t. Some of those things had paid off. Some of those things had landed him in water hot enough to boil him alive. It was at this particular moment, he found himself wishing that was actually happening. He’d rather have his skin melted off than to do this …reallystupid thing.

“Damn …” Sarah whistled, circling him and looking over her handiwork. “You could almost pass for one of us, Specter.” Kane huffed through his nose as he sat in one of the chairs across from his desk in his office.

“Is this necessary?” Nick asked, fidgeting with an absolutely useless, non-functional buckle on the sleeve of an uncomfortable leather jacket. “How do you wear this shit every day? I feel like I’m being suffocated with plastic wrap.”

“If the wife promised to fuck the shit out of you after seeing you in it, I’m willing to bet you’d find it more comfortable.” Kane smirked. “Hell, you might even take up smoking … or get a tattoo.”

Sarah giggled, glancing at her mate while she applied smudges of eyeliner to Nick’s lids. “Hold still, boss man. I don’t care if you lose an eye, but I doubt it would feel very good.”

“Don’t you think this is a little overboard?” Nick asked, eyes watering. “Kane’s not wearing fucking makeup, St. James.”

“He doesn’t need it. There’s no making up somebody that already looks like that.”

Nick noticed the way the detective eyed every inch of her. “Someone should learn to heed her own advice,” Kane said, toying with the barely noticeable stubble on his chin.

“Shut it, detective …” She smiled, using her thumb to smear up the eyeliner. “You’re distracting me.”

They seemed … normal. More normal than Nick would have guessed, considering what he knew they both were. It was fascinating. As a man who, especially in his youth, had practically drowned himself in science, he couldn’t help but wonder about what had changed in the strange young woman that was giving him his first ever makeover. Nick sat still, focusing his attention on the swirls of color in her eyes while she worked.

“I wasn’t sure if it’d earn me a beating for asking, but … how are you? You look … very different.” He decided to tread carefully, and she paused to meet his curious stare.

“I feel fine.” Her expression grew firm, but that hidden softness she often seemed to try to conceal peeked through her features. “Very different … but fine. I know you’re not asking because you give a damn, so whatever it is you wanna know, I guess I should let you ask … you coulddietonight.” He tried not to shudder as she winked at him, and he heard Kane chuckle from the chair behind her.

“Your heart started beating again. I’m assuming that means you don’t have to survive off blood?”

Sarah tucked the eyeliner into a small bag and pulled some faux ear cuffs out of it, turning his head. “Seems that way, but … for now, I find myself preferring it. What I’ve tried in the past two days has tasted like shit. But the blood?” She shrugged. “The blood hits home, right now.”

Nick cringed at the thought. “Have you … tested it? Yours, I mean. After your change?”

“When would I have had time to do that, Nick?”

He hesitated, but decided he would ask his next question anyway. “Would you allow me to?”

Sarah fit a cuff on the shell of his ear and dropped her hands into her lap. “What for?”

“You’re a biochemist. Aren’t you the least bit curious about it? What’s changed?”

She swiveled in the chair to face Kane, and he lifted a shoulder. “Only if you want to, love. Don’t feel obligated to satisfy his curiosity.”

“I’m—I dunno if I wanna know. But … I do feel like one of us should. I could have just as easily rendered myself useless to whoever wants my blood now.” She glanced between them both. “Gimme a vial.”

If she’d asked anyone else for a vial or a test tube in their office, it would have seemed absurd. But being the ever-prepared nerd that he was, Nick pulled his desk drawer open, and handed her a glass tube. “How long until we have to leave?” he asked.

“Club opens in an hour,” Kane offered.

They went to the same lab Sarah had spent her final moments a couple of nights before. Where she’d become something else. Nick hadn’t come in here since he’d sterilized the area. He tirelessly worked on their request in his personal lab upstairs for the past two days. It unsettled him a little when he’d gone for the cart to fetch a clean needle, only to turn around and catch St. James puncture her wrist with a fang and fill the vial herself. Kane watched her intently as she smeared a drop or two onto a slide and cleaned herself up. When she was done wiping the excess from her wrist, it looked like it had never happened. Nick’s spine tingled.

Everyone was silent as she adjusted the knobs on her microscope and peered into the eyepiece. No one was more quiet than Sarah. “Shit …” she whispered, turning the knob again. Nobody moved. Several moments of tense silence passed, and she finally looked up from her device. He was surprised when she looked at him first. “You have to see this.”

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