That might be true, but it doesn’t mean the danger has lessened any.

If Rinaldo and Frederick are in charge of at least some of the cloaks, Jackson continued, they’d surely restrain any attack on us. They haven’t yet got what they want, remember.

I guess it all depends on whether Rinaldo believes we need another lesson in obedience.

True. Jackson’s mental tones were grim. He does seem the type.

That type being psychopathic?

He certainly fits the classic model of a psychopath.

He did. But he was also an old vampire and, as vampires aged, they tended to lose their more “human” emotions. Which basically meant we were dealing with one twisted and very dangerous individual.

Lucky us.

The inspector was talking on the phone as we arrived, so the gray-suited woman motioned us to wait and then walked away.

My gaze drifted past the inspector to a man standing several yards to her right, and something within me stilled.

Because that man was Sam.

CHAPTER 4

“What are you doing here?”

The question came out before I could stop it. An all-too-brief smile touched his mouth and creased the corners of his vivid blue eyes, and my stupid heart did its usual little dance.

“It’s nice to see you again, too.” His voice was cool rather than cold; reserved, but not unwelcoming. Both of which were a definite improvement from how he’d talked to me when I’d first stepped back into his life.

“No, I mean—” I stopped briefly, my gaze sweeping his length. The moon’s pale gleam lent his short, close-cropped black hair a bluish shine, and somehow emphasized the leanness of his athletic frame. There was little evidence of the wounds that had almost taken his life—although given he was fully clothed and wearing a bulletproof vest, that was hardly surprising. “The last time I saw you, your chest had been ripped open by the skin runes.”

“The knife you used to kill them didn’t exactly help, either, even if it did save my life.” There was the faintest hint of amusement in his expression, but this faded as his gaze moved past me, and he added, “Miller.”

“Turner,” Jackson replied, in the same remote tone.

That the two men didn’t like each other would have been obvious to even the densest person, but it stemmed more from one being a cop and the other a PI than from any hatred on a personal level. Although Sam’s riding roughshod over our investigations—to the extent that he’d drugged us to force obedience—certainly hadn’t helped matters.