chapter One
Hi there.” A woman with short, perky blond pigtails stuck out her hand in greeting. “I’m Ryder Anderson from Midnight Liaisons. You must be Ruby Sommers.”
“That’s me,” I said firmly, shaking her hand. Her grip was wimpy, like most human women’s, and there was an odd scent to her that I couldn’t place. Maybe it was just my nerves. I was so anxious that I felt like throwing up or running out the door. Possibly both.
Ryder gave me a cheery smile. “It’s so nice to finally meet you. Your date isn’t scheduled to arrive for another ten minutes, so I thought I’d finish going over a few things about the dating service with you, if that’s all right?” Her voice was incessantly bubbly.
“Okay,” I said, feeling overwhelmed despite her efficient attitude. When she waved me forward, I followed her like a lost baby duckling, and I hated myself for it.
The restaurant she’d picked for the date had a cozy, publike atmosphere. It was dark and intimate, with a small flickering oil lamp on each table. The booths were surrounded by tall wooden panels with green ivy growing over the edges, making each section private.
I sat down at the table she led me to, tugging my chair in and then wiping my sweating palms over my green linen retro dress. It belted at the waist and had a cute flared skirt. My sister, Jayde, had picked it out when she learned I’d planned to wear jeans and a sweater. “You’ll never catch a man like that,” she’d told me.
Maybe she was right. It shouldn’t be hard for me to catch a man at all. As a shifter female, I should have my pick, right? Yet here I was, lonely and desperate and set up on a blind date through a dating service. Maybe it was how I dressed. I eyed Ryder’s attire. Her polo top was bright pink and belted into white capris with pink piping. Pink-and-white heeled sandals completed the outfit. She looked as if she was ready to go to the country club, and she looked really eager for my date.
I didn’t feel half as excited as she looked. Instead, there was a pit of dread in my stomach telling me this wouldn’t end well.
“So,” she said with a big grin. “Here’s how this works. I’m going to go sit on the far side of the restaurant. It’s like a chaperoned date, but I won’t listen in.” She pointed at her ear. “Humans can’t hear across noisy rooms. It’s just to observe and make sure you feel safe and comfortable. The date will begin and end here at the restaurant. If you wish to meet him again, it won’t be chaperoned, though we will ask you to log each date so we can keep track of where you’re at and any interspecies information you might wish to share with the agency.”
“I see.” This all sounded a little controlled. I just wanted a date with a nice guy. A little conversation and maybe some flirting to break up the monotony of my life. Someone to talk to who wouldn’t make me feel so alone.
Someone who would wipe the memories of my last relationship from my mind, because I couldn’t seem to forget about Michael.
“Now, do you want me to set up a rescue call?” Her blue eyes focused on me.
“Rescue call?”
“In case the date is going badly,” Ryder said, pulling out her phone and typing. “I can call you forty-five minutes into the date and say that you’re needed at work. You can choose to answer however you like, but it’ll give you an out.”
“No, that’s okay. I think I’ll be all right.”
She winked at me cheerfully. “I think you will be, too. Everyone loves Valjean.”
“Valjean?” I laughed. “You mean, like the one from the musical?”
“Musical?” She looked confused.
“Never mind.” I guessed perky Ryder didn’t spend much time listening to anything she couldn’t work out to. “I just thought it was a weird name.”
She grinned. “We’ll get to him soon enough. But first, I need to finish filling out your profile. Can I see your Alliance ID card?”
I pulled my wallet out of my tiny clutch. Another one of Jayde’s brilliant ideas—a teeny, tiny matching green purse instead of my normal serviceable brown satchel. “Here you go.”
Ryder peered at it, then typed something else into her iPad. “Okay, good. It looks like you didn’t fill out your profession on your profile.”
“Oh, yeah.” I could feel my cheeks flush. “That’s because I really don’t have an official one.”
Ryder tilted her head at me, confused. “You don’t have one?” She looked down at her notes on the iPad, then back to me. “But I show here that you’re twenty-six and have some college education. What do you do for a living?”
I hated this question. “I’m a security guard at an Alliance storage facility.”
She blinked at me as if it did not compute, and her gaze flicked over my five-foot-nothing frame and my slightly too curvy body. Her response was a polite “Oh?”
“It’s the nose,” I said lamely, gesturing at my face.
Ryder looked even more confused.
“My sense of smell,” I clarified. God, this was so embarrassing. “They hired me because of my predator instincts. We’re good at chasing things down in shifted form. Hunters. Apex predators,” I mumbled.
Ryder’s smile was brilliant once more. “Oh. Of course.”
God, I felt stupid. And short.
“Sooooo,” Ryder continued cheerfully, tapping her fingers on the iPad. “You also left number twenty-five blank. ‘What made you decide to contact Midnight Liaisons?’ It’s a purely optional question, but we like to get an idea of what brings people to the service. I hope you don’t mind me asking.”
What made me decide to contact a supernatural dating agency? I was twenty-six and alone and couldn’t date humans because of Alliance rules. I worked in a dead-end job and saw no one except my boss when we switched shifts. At the few places I did go to on a regular basis—the library, the movie theater, the grocery store—I couldn’t just pick a guy up on the fly. He had to be vetted by the Alliance before I could date him. Men in my life had to have a tail or fangs or both. And since supernaturals lived on the down-low, I was essentially limited to my circle of friends.
Which pretty much left my sister and my boss. I didn’t meet new people easily, and were-jaguars were loners by nature.
But there was a difference between loner and lonely. “My sister suggested the service. She says she’s met a lot of guys through Midnight Liaisons, and it’s been a while since I dated.”
“Of course,” Ryder said sympathetically.
“I had a long-term boyfriend, but it didn’t… work out,” I added, feeling the need to explain or she’d think something was wrong with me. “We sort of broke off on an ugly note.”
She made sympathetic noises in her throat, nodding at me. “Of course. Men can be such dicks.”
Such a vehement phrase from such a perky human. “Actually,” I said, feeling my heart squeeze painfully for the thousandth time since that day, “he was a really nice guy. I broke it off.”
“Why is that?”
I couldn’t tell her that I’d been dating a human, since that was forbidden. Humans weren’t supposed to know about people who grew tails and things that went bump in the night. A human might freak out and tell others, and then we’d show up on the pages of the Enquirer. Dating a human put everyone in jeopardy.
But I’d been so very in love with Michael. Handsome, funny, sexy. God, so sexy. He’d had a sweet smile that would come over his face slowly when he saw me, as if the sight of me instantly made his world a better place. I’d been addicted to him and spent half of my senior year practically living in his dorm.
Once my father had found out, he’d been furious. Not over the classes I’d been skipping or my slumping grades but because I’d broken a sacred rule. Humans were a one-night stand, and only if it couldn’t be avoided. And what I had with Michael could not be construed as anything but a relationship.
My father had threatened me, and when I’d ignored his threats, he’d threatened Michael’s life instead. I’d had no choice but to end the relationship, and quickly. I’d ended it badly enough to make sure that there was no chance of us getting back together ever again.
“It wasn’t his fault,” I said. “He caught me with another guy.”
“Oh,” she said slowly. “I see.”
Why couldn’t I keep my nervous mouth shut? “It was a long time ago. Four years. Not a big deal.”
“Of course,” Ryder said soothingly, then patted my hand. “So, are you ready to hear about your date tonight?”
My stomach gave a little lurch in protest. “Sure.”
Ryder practically wiggled in her seat with excitement. “Now, you did say you were open to dating all kinds of men.”
I didn’t remember that, since I’d filled it out in the groggy post-work-shift state. Lord only knew what I’d written down. “That’s fine. I don’t care what breed of shifter he is.”
Ryder smiled. “Let me tell you a little bit about Valjean. He’s a more recent member of the Alliance. He went to the same university as you, which is a great common ground. I think you’re really going to like him.”
“What’s he do for a living?”
She glanced down at her sheet. “I’m told he’s an investor. He loves to travel. I think he recently spent a few years in Europe.”
Envy flared through me. I’d always wanted to travel to Europe, back before real life beat me down and smothered my dreams. “A world traveler? I don’t know how much we’ll have in common, then. I never travel.”
Ryder smiled brilliantly. “Then you’ll enjoy his stories! I’m sure you two will get along just fine.”
“What breed is he?”
“Welllll.” She tilted her head and lifted her shoulders a little. “He’s a vampire.”
I blinked. “You set me up with a vampire?”
“An Alliance vampire,” she clarified, then raised a hand to stave off my objections. “I know what you’re thinking, but when vampires join the Alliance, they have to sign strict nondisclosure and nonharassment policies. I assure you that he’s very safe.”
I rubbed the side of my neck. “You know, I’m not really sure a vampire is a good idea—”
“Well, you did mark ‘anything’ on your form,” Ryder said in a businesslike tone. “After this date, you can revise your form as you feel necessary, but until then, I think you should give him a chance.”
I sighed. It wasn’t Ryder’s fault, I supposed, but I didn’t like the thought. Undead was just kind of… not my type. “It’s fine.”
“Good!” Ryder pulled out a silk scarf and laid it on the table between us. “There’s another condition to this date that I haven’t told you about.”
Oh, no. “What?”
“He’s a little uncomfortable with the vampire thing. Says the fangs bother people, and they stare at his mouth when he talks. He says he won’t be able to relax unless you can’t see him.”
I stared at her, then at the black scarf. “You’re joking.”
This was going to be a literal blind date? I growled low in my throat.
“It’s just for tonight,” Ryder hastily said. “I know it’s a weird request, but he’s a really nice guy, and I’m going to be in the room the whole time. You’re a shifter, and you go by smell anyhow, right? So the blindfold thing should be trivial.”
“It’s not trivial,” I snarled. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“I wish I was,” she said with a patient little sigh. “But unfortunately, Valjean really wants you to wear this. I’ve got you two a private table at the back of the restaurant, and no one will see that you’re wearing it but Valjean. I promise you that it’s totally safe.”
“No,” I said flatly.
“He’s just nervous about his teeth,” she pleaded. Her eyes were wide, as if I were somehow being unreasonable. “You can understand that, can’t you? This is the first date he’s had in a very long time, and he’s anxious about meeting you.”
I wavered.
Sensing my hesitation, Ryder pounced. “How many Saturday nights do you get to spend with an immortal millionaire who wants to buy you dinner? Doesn’t it beat staying at home?”
She nudged the scarf at me.
Damn it. I stared at it for a moment longer, then glared at her. “He’d better be hot.”
“He’s gorgeous,” she assured me, standing up. “Come on. I’ll take you to your table.”
I clutched my tiny purse and, with Ryder at my side, approached the table as if it would bite. I sat with a thump, my heart hammering. She was right; the table was in the farthest corner of the room, dark and secluded and tucked away from the other tables.
My nostrils picked up the scent of the last couple who’d sat there—both human. No vampire in the proximity, either. I’d smelled two of them at Alliance meetings once; they had an odd, spicy scent that was impossible to get out of the nose. I’d have noticed if he’d been there. I set my purse on the table and put my fidgety hands in my lap.
Maybe I should back out. I wasn’t really ready to date again, even after four years. Michael had been perfect for me, except that he hadn’t been a shifter. If I was still thinking about him this much, I wasn’t ready to move on.
But backing out now would be rude. Maybe I was just being a chicken. Maybe this Valjean would be really nice.
But he was undead. I mean, I was desperate, but I didn’t think I was that desperate.
Ryder lifted the scarf toward me just as a human waiter set a glass of water on the table and smiled at me. He glanced at the blindfold, and his smile faded a little. “Are you ladies ready to order?”
I slid the glass closer, not making eye contact. I guess I was going to do this after all. My stomach quivered uncomfortably. “Not yet. I’m waiting for my date.”
He nodded and moved to the next table, his gaze flicking over Ryder again.
After he left, I sighed. “He thinks we’re weird.”
“Just tip him well. He won’t care.”
I glared at her as she handed me the blindfold again.
“I really appreciate you being such a sport about this,” she said, her smile evident in her voice as she covered my eyes with the blindfold. Combined with the dim lighting, it ensured that I wouldn’t be able to see anyone. Great.
“Okay, how many fingers am I holding up?” Ryder asked, waving her arm in front of my face and making her powdery perfume waft through the air.
I sighed. “One.”
“Three. Good. I’m going to be just on the other side of the room, so don’t worry in the slightest. This is all totally safe.”
“What if I have to go to the bathroom?”
“Oh. Um.” She thought for a moment. “Just don’t drink a lot.”
So much for the thought of loading up on fortifying alcohol. I drummed my fingers on the tabletop, tempted to tear the blindfold away. If he had weird protruding teeth, I’d want to see that, right?
But I’d agreed to this, and Ryder was right—I was lonely. I didn’t have anything better to do tonight than curl up with a movie. The thought was depressing.
“Go get ’em, tiger,” Ryder said, and patted me on the shoulder. “I’ll be across the room if you need me.”
I’d heard enough cat jokes to last me three lifetimes, so I said nothing. I heard her shoes tap on the hardwood floor as she moved to the other end of the room. With my eyes covered, my other senses, already acute, flared to life. Someone at the bar was laughing in a low, husky voice that wobbled as if she’d had too much to drink. A man murmured in the drunk woman’s ear. I could hear the tap of Ryder’s fingertips hitting her phone as she texted someone. Heard another person drop a fork from across the room. Heard someone at the closest table—still a good distance away—whispering about stock portfolios. My sense of smell was heightened, too, although I was doing my best to ignore that. The scents of everyone who had walked past the table recently all mixed into an overwhelming cocktail that my brain couldn’t process without becoming overloaded, so I focused on small things. The sizzle of fajitas at a table somewhere in the room. That smelled good. Maybe I’d order that, provided I could eat anything while blindfolded. God, this was so stupid.
Well, it was just one date. I’d politely get through the evening, and then we’d go our separate ways, and maybe I’d date a nice were-hyena next.
Or maybe not. That was the problem with being an apex predator. Smaller creatures had dominance issues. When I’d been around other guys, they hadn’t been interested in a shifter who was dozens of times stronger and more dangerous in cat form than they were. It did terrible things to the male ego. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to play down my strength or pretend to be a simpering female to appease some guy’s insecure ego.
I’d never been able to just be me with a guy. I’d had to keep a distance on so many things, even with Michael. I hadn’t introduced him to my family when he’d asked. They were complicated, I’d told him. When he’d invited me to move in with him, I’d declined. I needed the ability to come and go as the predatory instinct struck me. I’d been such a shitty girlfriend to him, yet he’d been patient and understanding.
Until the day my father told me to end it with Michael, or he’d end Michael to protect me. It was Jayde’s idea to have him catch me in bed with another man, and she’d volunteered her sometime-boyfriend, Thad. Then Jayde had set Michael up, inviting him to go to my dorm that evening for a surprise.
He’d seen a surprise, all right. He’d thrown my key down, declared that we were through, and slammed the door. Seeing his face stark with betrayal had destroyed me. He hadn’t heard my sobs as he’d stormed down the hall, sobs that any shifter would have picked up. And I’d known that, even as I’d known it was for his own good.
I took a gulp of water, trying to dislodge the knot in my throat. Four years, and I still hadn’t moved past it. Maybe because I spent so much time alone at my job. In the slow moments, I thought about Michael. I wondered what he was doing. I had searched for him online at every social-networking website, but he was nowhere to be found.
Maybe if I could find him, his hair receding, his gut paunchy, in a picture with a wife and two kids, that would cure me of my obsession.
I scowled. How sad and pathetic I was to be mooning over a human—a human! Maybe I needed to be more like Jayde. At least she got around. And she dated everything—wolf, lion, tiger. You name it.
Well, I thought with a grimace, not vampires. Jayde drew the line at that.
I heard footsteps, then the swish of clothing that told me someone was approaching. The air shifted, and I caught an appealing new scent: spicy, with a hint of sweetness, mixed with the perfume of human flesh. I immediately stiffened.
My vampire date was here.
“Your hand,” a low voice murmured. There was an odd quality to his voice, as if it were somehow modified.
The fangs? Maybe he was newly turned and struggled with controlling them? I pictured a vampire with buck teeth and quelled the hysterical giggle that rose in my throat.
He waited, so I raised my hand and was surprised when he leaned over it to kiss the back of it. I felt the brush of teeth and jerked away.
“I wouldn’t bite you without permission,” he rasped, his voice a bare whisper.
“You’ll have to forgive me for being nervous,” I said dryly. “I’m not a fan of the blindfold bit.”
“Yet I appreciate the gesture.”
“You should,” I said, my tone sharp. “Sorry. I’m a little on edge. I’ve never dated someone who refused to let me see his face.”
I heard his chair being drawn out, and his clothing rustled as he sat down. His hand touched mine on the table, as if he meant to hold it.
I pulled away, noticing that his skin was cooler than mine. “That’s a little forward for a first date, isn’t it? How about we talk first?”
Man, vampires were weird, and I apparently had a handsy one.
“You look very nice tonight, Ruby.”
I tilted my head a little, puzzled. His tone sounded a little more intimate than a stranger’s should. Or was I just imagining things? “Thanks. I’d say the same to you, but…” I gestured at the blindfold.
He chuckled, and the sound made my body prickle with pleasure. Whoa. Down, girl. I’d heard that vampires could be very enticing, but that was… alarming.
An awkward silence fell again. “Tell me about you,” he finally said. “Please.”
Did he have a hint of a British accent? How had I missed that? I deflected, wanting to hear him talk more. “Oh, I’m just your average girl with a tail.”
He chuckled again. “I believe I’m supposed to ask for your ID to confirm that.”
I flipped my purse open, running my fingers over the cards in my wallet until I found one that had no raised numbers on it and offered it to him. “That’s either my driver’s license or my ID. Are my eyes open in the picture?”
“They are.” He sounded amused.
“Then that’s my Alliance ID.”
There was a moment of quiet. “Were-jaguar?”
“Yes,” I said, getting defensive. This was what usually made men run out the door. It was hard dating when your shifter side was at the top of the food chain. “Is that a problem?”
“No, just surprising. I’d have thought you were something smaller… softer. Like a were-bunny.”
I bristled. Who did this guy think he was? “Not funny.”
“Then I apologize,” he said in that same odd voice I couldn’t figure out.
“Uh-huh. I’d ask for your ID, but that seems useless, seeing as how I’m blindfolded.”
“Ryder has vetted it prior to our date. And the ID would do you no good. Vampires don’t photograph, and my sketch does not do me justice.”
“How can I confirm that you are one?”
“Give me your hand again, and you can tell.”
Despite my unease with him, I stretched my hand over the table, palm up. He’d have to place his hand in mine, not the other way around. There was that apex predator in me again, always needing the upper hand.
To my surprise, he placed his hand in mine and waited. His fingertips were cool against my skin, his scent enveloped me, and it was impossible to think that he was anything but vampire.
His thumb grazed the inside of my palm in a caress.
Startled, I jerked my hand away. Were all vampires so grabby? I resisted the urge to flick out my claws to scare him and instead put my hand in my lap. Be nice, Ruby. I cleared my throat. “How long have you been a vampire?”
“Four years. How long have you been a were-jaguar?”
I forced a smile to my face, still feeling a little annoyed. “I’ve always been one. Most of us are born shifters. It’s rare that anyone is turned.”
“I see,” he said in an odd tone.
There was something he wasn’t telling me, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what it was. It was as if he knew something I didn’t and was judging my answers according to that. I didn’t like it. Plus, the damn blindfold was driving me crazy. I tugged at the scarf. “Can I take this off so we can have a real conversation?”
“I would prefer you kept it on,” Valjean said. “As a favor to me.”
Again, that odd lilt that seemed to come and go. Something he’d picked up in Europe?
“Fine,” I said after a moment. “But I just want you to know I’m not enjoying this. I can’t get comfortable with my eyes covered.”
“I think you’ll be more comfortable around me with it on,” he said cryptically.
A twinge of sympathy shot through me. “If it’s about the teeth, I assure you that it’s not a big deal to me. I’m used to big canines hanging out of my own mouth.”
“Still, this is what I prefer. It allows me to feast my gaze upon you without worry.”
I squirmed uncomfortably, my nipples pricking at the thought. I hoped he didn’t notice that. I also hoped he wasn’t spending the whole evening staring at my boobs.
“You are very beautiful,” he said in a soft, husky voice that sent a shiver through my body. “Any man would consider himself lucky to be sitting in my chair right now.”
“Thank you, but I can’t date any man,” I said, a hint of bitterness in my voice. “I have to date Alliance.”
Awkward silence. Probably not the wisest thing to say. This is why you’re single, I could hear Jayde saying. You’re too hung up on that human guy. Forget him.
“So tell me about you,” I said, rushing into the awkward silence. “Is Valjean a family name? A nickname? Do you have a thing for musicals?”
“It is a name I chose. It seemed appropriate.”
“How so?”
“A man betrayed on all sides, forced to live a double life…” He trailed off.
“Betrayed?” I had to ask.
“It is a long story, and one for a different day.”
I rolled my eyes under the blindfold. This Valjean guy needed to get over himself. “Just thought I’d ask. It’s an unusual name.”
“Didn’t you know? Vampires assume new identities. It helps us break our ties with our old lives.”
There was something about him that bothered me, even as I found him appealing. I tilted my head, trying to put my finger on why his responses were unsettling to me. As I moved, I heard him inhale sharply across the table.
I froze. Was he turned on by the sight of my neck? My entire body tingled with alarm… and a hint of arousal. That my slightest gesture could turn a man on so much was bizarre and heady.
Not a man, I corrected myself. A vampire. That changed everything.
Perhaps I’d misunderstood his reaction, though. The blindfold made it difficult to trust my senses, since there was context that I was missing. As a test, I tilted my head further and brushed my long, curling hair over one shoulder, baring my throat. I tilted my chin slowly, working over to the other side as if stretching.
I heard the barest hint of a groan, and he shifted in his chair, adjusting his clothing. As if it had become suddenly… too tight in one area?
That pervert! “Okay, that’s it,” I said firmly, getting to my feet. I tugged at the knot at the back of my head. “I can deal with a lot of things, but I’m not going to sit here in the dark while you’re getting turned on by this freaking blindfold—”
“Ruby, don’t—” the vampire began, his accent suddenly gone, his voice sounding oddly familiar.
I popped my claws, sliced through the fabric, jerked the blindfold away, and stared at my date.
Michael.