Brenden laughed and turned off the water and stepped out. Harry handed him a towel. There were no air jets. “It’s meaningless, if you break it down,” he pointed out.

  “I think that’s the point,” she said. “I didn’t like business and economics nearly as much as my history studies. It wasn’t an advanced degree but that bachelor in medieval studies is the one I’m the proudest of.”

  Brenden straightened up with spine-snapping speed. “Proudest,” he repeated, his mind racing. He let the towel drop, thinking it through. “He was proud,” he added.

  Harry got to her feet, the business gown swirling around her ankles. “Brenden?”

  He turned to look at her. “Meadows. He was proud of his skills, of the team he had built. He was protective of them. Almost too protective.”

  Harry took the towel from him. “Do you want to speak with him again?”

  Brenden looked at her. “Yeah. But this time, I pick my ground.”

  * * * * *

  Strasberg, Germany-Austria Confederacy, 2263 A.D.

  The tavern on the outskirts of Strasberg was within walking distance of the g-train station, the first stop outside of Berlin. That made it a convenient but isolated watering hole.

  The noise the tiny tavern generated was astounding. Stepping into it made Brenden feel like he was being mugged. He paused. He didn’t hear the heavy door thud shut behind him but the cold air cut off. He looked around the dark-beamed room.

  “Over on the far right,” Harry said next to him, her mouth almost in his ear. The boots she was wearing were high heels, giving her the extra height she needed to be able to do that. The boots, like the jeans and the leather jacket she wore, made her almost unrecognizable. She was wearing a wig of blonde hair and far more makeup than usual, which completed the transformation. Brenden wondered if she did this often. She was far too casual about the change in appearance than even he was. He kept finding himself looking at her again, a second glance, to reconfirm it was her.

  But no one would know that the wife of Donald Winslow was among them and he was happy with that, at least.

  He looked over to the far right. Meadows was sitting at a table for four. There were beer steins at the other three places, but the seats were empty. All the other tables around him and the seats at the bar were full.

  That suited Brenden fine. He moved faster than was prudent, but no one seemed to notice. He turned the chair opposite Meadows, sat and rested his arms on the back of the chair.

  Meadows looked surprised. “You!”

  “Me,” Brenden confirmed.

  Harry pulled out one of the other chairs and sank onto the edge of it.

  Meadows looked even more astonished. “Mizz Win—”

  She shook her head. “You can call me Hermione.”

  Meadows licked his lips, looking from Harry to Brenden and back. “What are you doing here?” he asked, sounding genuinely bewildered.

  “We’re here for you,” Harry told him.

  Meadows sat back, grinning. “Why on earth would you follow me up to Strasberg in the middle of the night?”

  “You defended your team, Meadows,” Brenden told him. “If you’d shown even a little bit of doubt about any of them, it might not have tipped me off, but your blanket refusal to consider the idea…that was a mistake.”

  Meadows laughed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “It wasn’t a member of your unit who smuggled that footage out to put up for the highest bidder. It was all of you, working together. That’s why the tampering with the archives was virtually flawless. That’s why you were so certain no one in your team was the guilty party. Because you all are.”

  Meadows snorted and reached for his stein. “You’ve been sniffing the good stuff, mister. I spent four days with Mrs. Winslow—” and his gaze cut away to Harry and back again, “—debriefing everyone in the unit. You ask her. There wasn’t a hair out of place in anyone’s life.” He drank deeply.

  “You forgot about the duty logs, Meadows,” Brenden told him.

  Meadows lowered the stein slowly, staring at him. There was no amusement in his gaze now.

  Harry stirred. “I had Sakow pull the logs,” she said. “I’m sure you know what they are, Meadows. They track log-ins and log-offs and which servers are being addressed at any one time. Those logs aren’t scrubbed, like your archives.” She smiled, the bright red lips full and glossy. “Guess what we found?”

  Meadows didn’t try to guess. He sat there staring at Brenden, his face working.

  “Your whole team did unscheduled maintenance on the archives and the high security vault where the videos containing incidents are kept,” Brenden said. “It would have been simple to pull what you needed and use the team members with the most experience to clean the trail behind you. Two days after the unscheduled maintenance, you took the g-train to Athens, where you off-loaded the video for a lot of credits.”

  “Speculation,” Meadows said, barely heard over the noise.

  “Sakow tossed your apartment earlier tonight,” Harry said. “We found the cash. Gold Kronor, as good as credits almost anywhere.”

  “We’ve got you cold, Meadows,” Brenden said. “The only thing I can’t figure out is why.”

  Meadows slammed the stein back on the table. Heads turned.

  Brenden stayed where he was, watching Meadow’s fury build.

  “You have to ask why, you blood-sucking freak?” Meadows screamed.

  “Not anymore,” Brenden said, with a sigh.

  Harry was sitting back, as far away from Meadows as she could get. The expression on her face was one of a woman looking at a particularly vile slug.

  “Your kind are an abomination, a curse on human society,” Meadows railed. “You should never have got legal status in this world. You’re not welcome on this world. You live off humans and you give nothing back. And now, thanks to you, Gabriel and his army will ravage human society.”

  Brenden let out a long breath. “I’ve heard enough.” He looked at Harry. “Do you want to call the police in?”

  “Undead!” Meadows cried. Now more and more people were turning to look. “Unclean! Cursed and vile interlopers! God has no place for you. You’ll be cast into the flames of Purgatory forever!”

  “How can you say that?” Harry asked, genuinely puzzled. “Your mother is a vam—”

  Meadows shot to his feet and pointed at her. “Heretic! Witch!”

  There was a rumble around them from the throats of many, which gave Brenden a sinking feeling of inevitability.

  He leaned over and pulled Harry out of her chair and over to his side. She staggered, but didn’t protest. He got to his feet.

  The silence that gripped the room in reaction was complete.

  “Harry, leave now,” he said, keeping his voice normal. He didn’t have to raise it.

  “I don’t think they’ll let me,” she said, sounding as calm as he did.

  Meadows was jubilant. He waved a hand to encompass the entire tavern. “Meet my team,” he said. “My real team.”

  Brenden sighed again. “Don’t do this,” he urged Meadows. “Think about it. If you know vampires at all, then you know this is a really bad idea.”

  He was wasting his breath. Meadows was thinking in human terms. A single vampire was no match for a room of fifty vampire haters with passion on their side—Brenden could almost see the calculations going through his head.

  Brenden looked at Harry. “I’m sorry about this,” he told her.

  Puzzlement touched her fine features, but he didn’t have time to explain. With another last, deep breath, he launched into action.

  * * * * *

  It was a bloody and brutal fight. After the first of them had succumbed, the rest were triggered into a frenzy of revenge, driven by their hatred of the Blood. But that didn’t matter. Brenden worked his way through them, using whatever weapons they had against them. Working against so many meant having to use vampire speed and strength openly, something that he didn’t like to do.

  The scent of blood was overwhelming by the time he was done. It pooled on the floors and tables and on the people rolling around on the floor. Some of them were still, but he had made sure not to kill anyone. He hadn’t been that hurried. There were plenty of concussions, lots of wounds and bruises and the blood. But no mortalities. Not on his watch.

  A lot of the blood was on him, but none of it was his.

  From far away, sirens sounded. Someone had called it in.

  Brenden crouched down next to Meadows, who was just starting to come around. He lifted him up by his shirt, holding a big handful of it in his fist. “You can tell the police what happened, but if you or any of your buddies here identify me personally, I will come back to find you and next time, I won’t be gentle. Do you understand?”

  Meadows flinched and nodded.

  “Oh, and you’re fired. No references and no severance. If I were you, I’d leave Germany and find another line of work.” He let go of Meadow’s shirt. Meadows fell back, hitting his head on the floor.

  Brenden made his way across the room to where Harry was propped up against the wall. There was blood smeared on her jacket and her cheek. Her eyes were wide and glassy. She cowered back as Brenden stood over her and began to shiver.

  Brenden dropped down to crouch in front of her. “Harriet,” he said softly. “We have to leave. The police are coming. We need to get you home so you can be Mrs. Winslow.”

  She stared up at him as if she didn’t recognize him. Her throat worked.

  Brenden reached out to help her up but she wretched herself out of his grip and slid farther along the wall, hugging it.

  He sighed. “I tried to tell you I wasn’t a man,” he said, keeping his voice low.

  Her eyes seemed to grow even wider, but there was intelligence there now, not just the blank fear of a few moments ago.

  “Now you understand what I mean,” he finished. He got to his feet and held out his hand, the one with the least amount of blood on it. “Do you want help getting up?”

  She looked at his hand. After a moment, she put her hand in his and he pulled her to her feet.

  Five minutes later, he stashed her in the back of her limousine and told the driver to take her straight home.

  Five minutes after that, he was on the station and standing under a hot shower, the water around his feet pink with run-off.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about the last shower he had taken. Oh, how things had changed.

  Chapter Five

  Vienna, Germany-Austria Confederacy, 2263 A.D.

  The fancy society ball in Vienna was the last thing Brenden wanted to attend, but Ryan and Nayara had him cornered. Now that the video was viral, human perception of vampires was at an all-time low. As Cáel Stelios had pointed out, it was Brenden’s responsibility to turn up in public, take whatever crap the media wanted to hand out, be charming and polite and help turn public opinion around. It would be like trying to turn a semi-ballistic in full dive, but he was here.

  This time, it was Ryan who screwed up in public. He had caught a tomato aimed at Nayara and bared his fangs at the crowd, in front of every camera in the area. That didn’t make Brenden feel any happier, but at least it got Ryan off his back for a while.

  The ball was as boring as hell. He circled once around the big opera house courtyard where it was being held, sizing up everyone there. It made him even grumpier when he realized that everyone was measuring him up. There were lots of startled looks and nervous glances. Lots of whispering behind hands and up against ears.

  Gods, he just wanted to go home!

  “You look like you are in desperate need of rescuing,” said a low, contralto voice from behind him.

  Brenden turned to look at her. Harry was wearing a sumptuous ball gown in a flaming red that suited her black hair and eyes. There were several thousands worth of diamonds around her neck and on her ears and wrist. She smiled. It was the warm smile.

  “They’re just doing what every human does once they know what I really am,” Brenden said. He couldn’t hide the touch of bitterness.

  “That’s because they don’t know you properly. If they did, they would be embarrassed—very embarrassed—about their fear.”

  He studied her. “Is that an apology?” he asked.

  She pressed her lips together. “I would rather apologize later. Properly. If you would let me.”

  He glanced over her soft white shoulder. They were drawing attention, just standing here and talking. “Perhaps later,” he temporized, “but should Mrs. Winslow be seen talking to me?”

  “Perhaps you’d better ask me to dance, as this is a ball,” she suggested. “You do dance, don’t you? Or have you really passed through two thousand years of history and managed to duck every single dance on the way?”

  He just managed to hold in his laughter. “I’ve attended one or two, over the years,” he said, making it sound casual. He held out his elbow and she took it with a smile. “It’s usually modern humans who can’t dance,” he added.

  “I happen to dance very well.”

  And she did. It was a pleasure spinning her around the dance floor and he could feel everything relax. His incisors stayed properly retracted, with no more will power needed to keep them there.

  “I don’t know if you managed to hear the news on your space station,” Harry said after two waltzes, “but Meadows has left Germany. I understand that he hinted he would be looking for an off-world posting.”

  “Good,” Brenden said flatly. “There are no vampires out there for him to hate. And one less Blood-hater on Earth is just fine.”

  “Your people are having a rough time of it, lately, aren’t you? I saw the news reports as I was arriving in Vienna. The tomato thing…the optics were not good.”

  “Like you say,” Brenden said, his shoulders tightening. “They don’t know us.”

  “Is that why you are at this ball?” she asked. “To mingle?”

  “Oil and water,” Brenden muttered. “It’s not working.”

  “That’s because you’re not using the proper leverage. I thought you of all people would understand leverage.”

  Brenden stared at her and she laughed. “Money, Brenden! The one thing all of you have by the barrelful.”

  “Aren’t all of you here filthy rich already?” He was genuinely puzzled.

  “But the causes we support are not. Most of them, anyway. A patron of the arts, or a sponsor of a needy charity, especially one who puts millions to good work…doors open for such people. Even people with the most unsavory pasts and reputations have bought their way into society.” She gave another laugh. “The hypocrisy is stunning, but that is how it has worked for a very long time.”

  Brenden almost tripped over his feet, because he was too busy thinking. “Money, why didn’t I think of that?”

  “I could introduce you to some very interesting people,” Harry said. Her smile was full of mischief. “Of course, it would help if everyone believes you are my current…” She looked up at him.

  Brenden felt his laughter rising again. “Blackmail,” he declared.

  “Of the most direct kind,” she agreed.

  A Viennese waltz began and they spun in complicated circles and swaying steps, enjoying the moment.

  “I was wondering…” Brenden began.

  She looked up at him enquiringly.

  “How are you getting home tonight?” he finished.

  Harry’s smile was warm. “One day, Brendan Christos, you will find someone who loves you without reservation or conditions. You deserve every moment of happiness they will bring you.”

  “Your mouth to Fate’s ears,” Brenden said.

  The next book in the Beloved Bloody Time series

  Book 4 in the Beloved Bloody Time series will be out in 2015.

  In the meantime, delve into more time-travelling vampire stories:

  Kiss Across Time, Book 1, The Kiss Across Time series.

  A single kiss can change more than one life…or two.

  Taylor Yates is fired for insisting the 5th Century Arthurian poet, Inigo Domhnall, existed. When she hears Domhnall’s lyrics in a death metal song, she engineers a meeting with lead singer, Brody Gallagher. An unintended kiss sends them spinning back to the poet’s time, when Saxons were pillaging King Arthur’s Britain.

  Brody’s all for kissing her again. More, he wants her to kiss his friend and lover, Veris, to see what will happen. When Veris’ kiss sends them back to the time of the Vikings neither man is willing to let Taylor simply walk out of their lives.

  But Brody and Veris are more than lovers and sexual playmates, as Taylor learns when they investigate the kisses that send them across time. The secrets they share have the power to completely alter her life.

  Warning: This paranromal time travel romance features two super hot alpha vampire heroes, multiple sex scenes, including anal sex, MM sexual play, and MMF sex. Do not read this book if frank sexual language and sex scenes offend you.

  The time-space continuum was restored to order at the end of this book. Promise.

  This is the first book in the Kiss Across Time Series

  Kiss Across Time 1: Kiss Across Time

  Kiss Across Time 2: Kiss Across Swords

  Time Kissed Moments 2.1: Missing*

  Kiss Across Time 3: Kiss Across Chains

  Kiss Across Time 4: Kiss Across Deserts

  [Time Kissed Moments are short stories and novellas featuring the characters and situations featured in the Kiss Across Time series.]

 

1 2 3 4 5 6