Page 90 of By the Pint

“Mr Black?” Jean said at eight-million decibels, echoing around my suite.

How do I get this bloody thing off speaker phone?I asked Casey, holding the receiver in two hands, and pointing it at him like a pistol.

He laughed.Why do you need it off speaker? Got something to hide?he said, evidently considering my question a joke.

I paused, and his face fell. Did I have something to hide? I wasn’t even sure, but my palms started to sweat against the receiver and my heart was jack-hammering my rib cage. Casey flicked the light-switch, and we both winced against the sudden brightness.

“Mr Black? Are you there? It’s the front desk. Dima, it’s Jean,” the crackly phone-Jean said.

I cleared my throat. “Yep, uh, I’m here.” My voice was impossibly both husky and squeaky. Beside me, Casey cocked his head to the side, and placed a hand on his deliciously narrow hips.

“Oh, good,” Jean said, with a relieved sounding sigh. “I’m trying to get hold of Mr Freckleman. He’s … he’s not with you, is he?”

“Uh, yes, he’s here.” I had the urge to reach out to him. To pull him to me, trap him in the cage of my arms and never let go. Okay, so maybe kidnapping was an acceptable option to me after all.

“There’s a gentleman here to see him,” she said.

Casey’s face pulled itself into aWTFexpression. He made to grab the receiver, but I lifted it out of his reach, despite Jean still being on speakerphone.

“He said he has urgent news for Mr Freckleman, and it absolutely cannot wait. He’s …” she lowered her voice, “Dima, he’s a vampire too.”

I felt the blood drain from my body, and watched in slow motion Casey’s features go from confusion, to recognition, to … horror? Why didn’t he look pleased?

There was a muffled sound on the speakerphone, perhaps Jean holding her hand over the transmitter. “Sorry sir, what did you say your name was?”

A pause, a moment of silence, which was broken by all three of us in unison.

“Killian.”

29.

Casey

Lead hit my stomach. It flipped. My heart rate spiked.

“Give us fifteen minutes, then send him up to Mr Freckleman’s room,” Dima said, his voice devoid of emotion.

“Absolutely, Mr. Black,” said the feminine voice of the concierge, adopting her formal, guest-friendly way of speaking again.

Dima slammed down the receiver with such ferocity I was surprised the plastic didn’t crack.

“Goodness, Dima, everything okay?” said the concierge.

You have to press the call-end button to get it off speaker, I told him, trying to be as gentle as possible with my mental tone.

Yes, thank you. I’m aware of how human phones work,he snipped back, and said out loud, “Fine, Jean, thank you.” With a stiff pointed finger, he jabbed the call-end. Then, with his telekinesis, he smashed the handset against the wall where the plastic not only cracked but shattered. An angry phone-linebuzzing filled the air around us and Dima yanked the wire from the socket.

“I’m sorry, Dima, I didn’t know he’d show up here.” Fuck knew what Killian wanted. Urgent news? He wasn’t the type of vampire to even get off the couch in the library to get himself a drink, and there was a blood fridge in the damn library, let alone travel across Borderlands, solo, probably on the Red Eye, to what …? To fetch me? Take me back home? Turn me?

A thrill of excitement ran up my spine. At the same time, a thrill of something else ran down it. Something icy and desperate and panicked.

I’d seen Dima happy, silly, jubilant. I’d seen him upset and regretful. But I’d never seen him angry. He was a cold-blooded killer. Had killed before. By his estimation, nearly thirty people dead at his hands. And in that moment, he was furious. With me, with the situation, with Killian.

I could almost see the waves of anger radiating from him. Like a car bonnet in the midday desert heat.

He had every right to be angry at Killian, for what he did in the past, and at me, for bringing him back into his life this way, and I couldn’t think of a way out of it, around it, or to soothe him.

“You’d better go get dressed,” Dima said. He wouldn’t look at me.

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