Page 25 of By the Pint

How to get across the vampire threshold without being invited in.

I sat opposite him on the edge of the coffee table. “Tell me everything. And tell me now.”

“So demanding for a familiar,” he said, flicking his hair off his stomach.

Killian was twenty when he became a vampire, meaning he would forever look twenty. He had the sort of baby face that, if given the right doe-eyed lash batting, would get away with murder. Probably had done, several times. Another thing he’d hidden from me, and I’d been too self-absorbed to ask him about. Scratch that. I actually didn’t want to know.

He had dimples, a strong but not dominating jaw, and a cute little ski slope nose. He was a blonde too, he’d told me, before his transformation into the undead stripped the pigment from his skin and blackened his hair. I pictured him as a human, a dandy, and a troublemaker, no doubt.

“You headhunted me remember,” I reminded him. “I would have been happy to stay in wingball.”

He rolled his eyes. “Bestie, please.”

We both knew that wasn’t true. And even if it was, my career in wingball had been nosediving long before I met Killian.

“Yes, okay!” he relented. “I know him. Or … knew him, I should say.”

“You knew he was a telepath?”

“Yes.”

I let out my groan of frustration. I had so many questions. Each fighting to be the first out of my mouth. “How do you know him?”

Killian pursed his lips together, laughed. “Long story … Safe to say we’re no longer on speaking terms.”

I waited for him to explain more, but he didn’t. No point in forcing my way into his mind, either. If it wasn’t information he wanted me to have, I wouldn’t be gaining access to it anytime soon.

“Okay.” I had to find a different way around him. “How long has it been since you were on speaking terms?”

“‘Bout three centuries. Maybe more.”

“And why is it you’re no longer speaking?”

He tapped his fingers against his knee, his tongue made a soft repetitive clicking sound against the roof of his mouth. “Because he doesn’t like me.” That was it. No further explanation offered.

“I’ll wait,” I said, pushing to my feet, moving back to the chesterfield, and sitting with my arms crossed.

“Fine. I made a mistake, a long time ago. Not even a bad thing, just like … You know, we were young, all the cool vampires were doing it. I said sorry.” Killian pulled a petulant look, like he didn’t believe apologising hadn’t worked. “He still won’t forgive me. Whatever.”

Part of me wanted to know what he’d done, but it was a foolish, naive part. I’d seen inside vampires’ minds enough to understand the types of things they did and then covered up, and I decided, when it came to Killian, I was always happier remaining ignorant.

“So, what … you sent me to Dreadmourne to get his business secrets or to barter for your forgiveness?”

Killian tucked his legs up onto the armchair and jammed his thumbnail into his mouth. “Both?” he said, like he was asking for my advice.

“No.” I got to my feet again. “Not happening. I don’t care what you’ve done. I’m not getting involved.”

“Come on, Casey,” Killian said, launching himself out of the chair and climbing over the coffee table. “I don’t want his actual forgiveness. I just want … Just tell him I still think of him.”

“Why though? To what purpose? So the whole Bloodsuckers conference was a ruse—”

“No, it wasn’t. He … there is something … I still want his business secrets.” Killian shook out his arms as though ridding himself of excess water. “We have history, okay? I’ll just leave it at that, but I still want his help. With this stuff. Bestie, this turning fee will eat up all my funds, and yours. I need to know that there’ll be a way for me to recuperate it. And then some.”

“You want him to start the business with you, don’t you?”

Killian didn’t answer, he simply sucked his teeth. “What does it matter to you what I do with Dima’s information? You won’t remember any of it anyway.”

Something bubbled in my gut, irritation, worry, I wasn’t really sure. But Killian was right, it mattered very little to me.

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