Chapter Twenty-Four
SOREN AND I FELL INTO A PATTERN over the next few days. We attended every house party and gathering in the Charleston area, turning heads and setting tongues on fire with the spicy gossip of a supposed scandal. Soren performed his part well, playing the jealous, forbidding lover by hovering over me everywhere I went and staring down any man who came within a ten-foot radius. I almost believed him myself. Unfortunately, we hadn’t found out anything useful, nor had we come across the smallest whisper of an underworld plot brewing.
We were seated for dinner at yet another house party hosted by the chief of police and his wife, when Soren leaned over to whisper in my ear. “Our host has been drinking more than usual tonight, and I’ve heard that he has been under a lot of pressure. I had his office at the station searched earlier this evening, but nothing was found.” I was surprised at how much Soren had effortlessly accomplished.
“Perhaps a little peek into his personal library and desk is warranted,” I replied, excitement starting to bubble at the thought of finally doing something.
Soren’s eyes scanned mine, probably to see if he could talk me out of going with him. I narrowed my eyes, daring him to suggest it. His eyes dilated ever so slightly, and his nostrils flared. I swallowed. He reminded me of a wild animal some idiot had just poked with a stick. Oh wait, I am the idiot.
“Please, Soren, I need to do something. I’m going insane.”
He gazed at me just a second longer, his eyes back to vampire normal, and nodded, an almost imperceptible movement.
I smiled brilliantly at him, thanking him without speaking for not making me piss him off later by ignoring his wishes. When we finished our dinner, we followed the rest of the party back into the ballroom to wait for the perfect time to make our escape and break into the chief’s personal study.
It wasn’t very much later when we slipped away separately from the party and met in the foyer. We made our way back to the library and slid inside the dimly lit room. It would have been much cooler if we had both been wearing black leotards, face paint, and little black beanie hats. But our vampire-warper team was still pretty badass. We made our way over to the enormous desk and started searching. There was a file in the top drawer, so I withdrew it and skimmed the various documents it contained.
Soren opened and closed several drawers before finding the bottom one locked. I interrupted my illegal perusal to see if he would pull some high-tech lock-picking device out of his pocket. Much to my disappointment, vampires didn’t need to pick locks. Why pick a lock when you were strong enough to pull the drawer free, lock and all, without so much as flexing a muscle? I shook my head. Soren looked at me quizzically, but I simply waved my hand at him and continued searching the file.
"Did you find anything?" I whispered to my partner in crime.
“Just a stack of unsolved murder cases. Unfortunately, all these seem to be the exact thing we have been trying to prevent.”
I looked up to see his jaw clenched in anger. His eyes were close to lighting up the entire room with their golden glow.
“They are all preternatural killings,” he murmured, confirming what I had already figured out. Soren shoved the files back into the drawer and shut it as quietly as possible. “How about you?” he asked.
I shook my head in frustration. “No, I haven’t…” I stopped suddenly when my eyes roamed over the sheet of paper in my hand. It couldn’t be. My God.
“What is it, Sage?" Soren stepped closer and looked over my shoulder to read the paper I clutched in my shaking hand.
“It seems the president of the United States will be giving a speech here in Charleston in less than forty-eight hours.” The paper was a correspondence between the White House and the chief of police concerning security.
I turned to Soren and met his eyes. “You know what this means, right?” I barely whispered.
He looked like he wanted to kick someone’s cat, but he nodded once and muttered, “Someone, probably a preternatural, is going to try to assassinate President Roosevelt in broad daylight in two days. That is, unless we do something to stop it.”
I frowned at the offending paper. Why hadn’t we heard of the president’s planned speech before tonight? I shoved the letter back into the folder just as Soren grabbed my arm and spun me in front of him.
“Do you trust me?” he whispered quickly into my ear.
I could feel his body rigid and tense, and my own stiffened in response. I nodded my head in one quick movement before Soren propelled us into the air to land on a settee several feet away from the desk. Soren landed on his back, and I landed on top of him. Before I could question what was going on or process how Soren had moved so quickly and gracefully, he had his hands buried into my hair and his mouth ravaging my shocked one.
I automatically stiffened in his arms and put my hands on his chest to push away, but the soft sound of the library door opening stopped me. Soren ran his hand up my back, encouraging me to relax and make our tête-à-tête believable. I relaxed my body, melting into the vampire underneath me. I felt Soren’s hand skim my side, leaving goose bumps in the wake of the trail of heat he produced with his experienced hand. I moaned as he slanted his mouth over mine to deepen the assault he led on my lips.
I fisted my hand in the cloth at his neck to keep myself grounded, and Soren made a sound of approval in the back of his throat. A rational part of my brain heard a giggle and a curse as the library door was quickly shut, but most of my mind was a puddle of mush while Soren worked his voodoo on my body. I slowly surfaced from the beautiful haze I had found myself in, only to find Soren’s bewitching eyes searching mine.
I’m not sure how long I would have lain there with my emotions out of whack and my confusion coating the air if Soren hadn’t broken the kiss and spoken up. “Perhaps we should go ahead and make our way out the back door now that they’re gone.”
I gazed into his eyes, willing myself to hate him as much as I hated the two female vampires I had met. If I hated him, then I couldn’t have any feelings at all for him. Wait… I had feelings for him? I was pretty sure I was in love with Aldwin, and here I was, splayed on top of a freaking vampire and wondering about what feelings I had for him?
It was that thought that had me jumping off Soren as quickly as possible. I felt so conflicted—how could someone have feelings for two guys at the same time? I wasn’t the type to mess around with guys’ heads, playing games with them, so what was my problem?
I shook my head as I tried to clear my jumbled thoughts. Maybe I was just sexually attracted to Soren. I mean, no woman in her right mind wouldn’t be attracted to him. He was totally lickable, for crying out loud! That was it. If it had been under normal circumstances, we wouldn’t have ended up locking lips… and that would have been an excellent excuse if I hadn’t felt the same zing of power shoot through me, just like the first time we’d kissed.
We made it to Soren’s home late that evening to send correspondence to Cerberus and the preternatural leaders. I had stayed over at Soren’s large estate twice before, but it felt a little different after what had happened between us earlier. Soren was supposed to have gone to Dwennon’s without me, but he changed his mind at the last minute and decided to accompany me back to his place first.
As soon as the carriage stopped, Soren started to get out, but I spoke his name softly, and he became eerily still. “Soren, I wanted to talk to you about what happened tonight.” He turned around, and I blinked, startled by the golden light that shone from his eyes.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” he stated in clipped tones.
I reached over to touch his sleeve, but he flinched away from me. “I think there is,” I said softly, not breaking eye contact as he stared me down.
I sighed in annoyance when it was evident that he didn’t want to talk. Leaning over, I came nose-to-nose with him and spoke as softly as possible, bottling up all my frustration for later use. “Fine, Soren. We won’t talk about this rig
ht now, but we will talk soon.”
I stepped from the carriage feeling in control, getting the last word in and all. I guess I should have been paying more attention to my surroundings instead.