Page 14 of High Stakes and Soulmates
“Do you want to keep that finger?” Casimir asks.
Yorick’s finger quickly retreats in the hope of keeping all ten of them. “Ah… ha ha… I do.”
I find myself trailing Cyrus to his car.
“What’s up?” he asks.
“Let me know if you hear anything tomorrow, okay? I want to help.”
“Yeah, I will. I always do.”
“What… did Zach want?”
He hesitates before tossing a fake smile on his face. “Oh, something dealing with a different case we’re working on.” Evidently, he doesn’t want me to know, but I’m not quite sure why. He’s made it clear he doesn’t want to date me, so isn’t this the perfect chance to shoot me down?
“I see,” I say as the sky rumbles. It’s not raining yet, but the rain is obviously coming.
CHAPTER FOUR
CYRUS
I pull into the driveway as my windshield wipers do their best to wipe away the rain. And just as I’m drawing close to the garage, a flash of darkness zips in front of me, making me slam on my brakes. My seat belt locks and I’m thrown forward when the car jars to a stop.
They rush to my door and grab it, but the door’s locked, since the car is still running.
“Fuck,” I hiss, my heart pounding out of my chest while I put the car in park, and the moment the door unlocks, it’s ripped open as they reach for me.
“Ohhhh, I’ve missed you,” he says, squeezing the life out of me.
“What the hell, Joaquin? I nearly fucking hit you!”
“I saw that! The rain is coming down so hard that I didn’t see you in the driveway until you nearly crushed my body,” he replies, rubbing his wet face all over me while his hug tightens.
“Dammit, stop! Let’s get in the house.”
“Fine, fine,” Joaquin says as he lets go of me to dash up to my front door. I jog through the rain and up to the door which I unlock to let him inside.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” I ask.
“I wanted to surprise you. So… surprise! I know, not much of a surprise when I was literally only gone two weeks, but I think I might have found something, and then maybe I panicked a bit when I heard what you were up to.”
I stare at him in disbelief. “Are you joking? Like something…useful? The last time you said you found something, you came back with a stray dog.”
“I know! He was so cute. Can I just say that I’m secretly quite pissed that we found his owner? I stalk the owner every now and then. Threaten to suckle his blood if he’s not taking care of him well… but he treats him like a king, so alas.”
“You do realize you could just get a dog of your own, right? You’re an adult,” I say.
“Yes, but I’m an adult mooching off my baby brother.”
“You don’t have much choice at this point,” I remind him. “Not until we find the vampire who killed our family so you can go back to your life.”
“I don’t like you out there exposing yourself to danger. I’m over here hiding, but you’re not and it worries me,” Joaquin says.
“Yes, but they’re after you, not me. You know I have to do this to find them, and so far… they’ve left me alone but I’m sure they’re not going to leave you alone. I’ve been a pretty public face, but I also have Casimir’s protection.”
“His protection only goes so far,” Joaquin says as he pulls his wet hoodie off. “I think you’re taking too much risk working with them. Please just go back to normal homicide.”
“We tracked the people who killed our family here. We just need to figure out who they are.”
