Blood and Sand
Page 24

“I told you not to go to Ivan!” he burst out. “I told you, ‘Never. Never speak to Ivan.’ And you didn’t listen!”
The privacy screen rolled down a few inches. Natalie could see Luis’s saucer-eyed stare. “Um, Boss—?”
“Put the screen back up, Luis!” The screen immediately went up, but Baojia was still fuming.
“I have no idea how my directions could have been more specific. ‘Don’t speak to Ivan’ is pretty damn clear. How many Ivans are there?”
She was as confused as she was angry. “What are you talking about? When did we ever talk about Ivan? I met you one time and then you show up—”
“I should have known. Should have kept you under house arrest after I met you the first time.”
“The first time?” Oh… Those weird flashes of memory sudden Smemer hly made sense. “We met before, didn’t we? You’re the reason I can’t remember that Friday night.”
She could tell from the look on his face she was right. It wasn’t an apologetic look in the least. Baojia was still angry.
“I told you not to go to Ivan, Natalie. Why couldn’t you just listen?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she yelled. “Maybe because I couldn’t remember it, you bastard! What else did you do to me? Was it the same creepy shit you did back there that made me practically unable to speak? What the hell was that? Do you know I thought I’d been drugged? I thought I had a brain tumor, for God’s sake!”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I might have! I spent hours in the emergency room. Kristy wanted me to have a cat scan!”
“Which you didn’t have.” He crossed his arms. “You did, however, go to speak to Ivan when I told you not to.”
“Baojia. It was your name Dez gave me, wasn’t it? Why did she lie about it? Does she know what you are?” Natalie suddenly gasped, terror clutching her throat. “Is she in some kind of trouble? Oh, my God! Matt. The baby! Is Dez okay?”
His head rolled back as he groaned. “Of course she’s okay! She’s the one who called me and told me you were on your way to Mexico, Natalie. She’s the one who sent me after you.”
“How did she—”
“You tweeted some picture at the border crossing.” He paused. “And someday, someone is going to explain to me what the hell Twitter is.”
She frowned. “Oh, it’s this microblogging site where you’re limited to one hundred forty characters and—why? Why the hell did Dez call you?”
“Because she asked me to protect you,” he said under his breath. “She felt responsible because she gave you my name in the first place and got you caught up in all… this. And she knows the case you’re investigating has something to do with our world—”
“The vampire world.”
“The world world.” He looked at her from the corner of his eye. “It’s the same world. You haven’t fallen into another dimension. There are just things you didn’t know about before that you know now.”
She swallowed audibly and didn’t miss the fact that he glanced at her neck. “You’re a liar,” she said. “And a monster. And I want to go home.”
The line of his jaw tightened. He was silent for a long moment, arms crossed, a black enigmatic outline as the night sped past. “I never lied to you,” he finally said. “And you’re not going home.”
“You can’t kidnap me.”
“Yes, I can. And I will if you don’t cooperate. You can call Dez when we arrive at my house.”
“I’m going to call Dez as soon as we get to my house.” She only got angrier at his amusement. “What?”
He started laughing, the kind of rueful laughter people resort to when things were just that bad. “You’re quite…”
“What?”
“Interesting. For a human. And stubborn.”
She curled her lip. “You’re pretty stubborn too. But since I don’t know many vampires, I can’t compare.”
“You’ve probably known more than you realize.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“And you’ll know even more if you return to your house.” His smile faded. “Ivan knows who you are now; he won’t be shy Snspanabout sending spies. He’s going to be curious. I don’t take up with human women, as a rule.”
“Am I supposed to feel special?” They were approaching the border crossing. Natalie knew if she yelled for help, the border patrol agents would stop them. They’d help her. There was no way—
“If you’re thinking about making a break for it, I wouldn’t suggest it, Natalie. I’m quite serious. It’s not safe for you to go home. You’re going to my house for the time being until we can figure out some other, more suitable, location for you. I’ll have a better idea tomorrow evening after I wake and can make some calls.”
“I’m not going to your house. And what? You really sleep all day?” She put a hand to her neck as mental pictures from the club assaulted her. “You’re going to bite me and drink my blood, aren’t you?”
“Already have. And you should take off your heels. Get comfortable.”
“What do you mean you already—wait, why should I get comfortable?”
Her heart caught in her throat when he appeared at her side. It was as if he teleported; it was that fast.