D. Reynolds: Aden

It was also a very dangerous step. The traffickers would do almost anything to stop her from exposing their disgusting, but extremely profitable, business. She’d learned that the hard way, although it was Janey who’d paid the price. Janey had been one of those slaves, but she’d been luckier than most. When her owner had decided he had no more use for her, he’d given her a hundred dollars and dropped her on a corner.

But Janey hadn’t stayed on that corner. She’d found a shelter and a program. She’d gotten off the streets, earned her GRE, and was working as a waitress when Sid happened to stop at her diner one night. And when she found out what Sid was investigating, Janey had offered to help. Which had gotten her dead.

The slavers hadn’t dared go after Sid directly; her father had too much money, too much influence. Sid’s death would have brought in the police and the press, would have triggered a real investigation. But not Janey’s. Her death had gone all but unnoticed by everyone except Sid.

And while Janey’s death hadn’t changed Sid’s mind about exposing the ugly truth, it had convinced her to try going to the cops. She’d called in every favor, had thrown her family name around, but eventually even the cops had stopped taking her calls and wouldn’t return her messages. They had more important crimes to solve, crimes with American victims, monied victims, high-profile victims. The women caught in the slavers’ web were nameless, faceless foreigners, and by the time they arrived in the US, most were hopelessly addicted to heroin. Their story was lumped in and buried beneath the overall problem of drugs, and nobody cared about one more heroin addict or how she got that way.

What Sid needed was a blowout story, something no one could ignore, and the vampire angle was it. She was determined to do whatever it took to get close to the big honcho vampire, to get her story from the inside. Vampires needed blood, and Sid had plenty of blood. She just needed to meet the right vampire. Past experience had taught her she could draw the attention of any man she set her sights on, and a male vampire couldn’t be all that different from any other male, right?

A bit of research had led her to Claudia Dresner, a sociology professor at University of Illinois who was writing a book on vampires. Dresner had tenure and so couldn’t be fired for her choice of subject, but that didn’t mean her colleagues respected her work. Sid had provided a sympathetic and interested ear for the professor and in the process gleaned a wealth of information on vampires, including the existence of something called a blood house, a place where vamp groupies and wannabes went to mingle with the real thing and offer blood on the hoof, so to speak. There were several in a city the size of Chicago, but Professor Dresner had taken her to the one closest to the center of power, a club where she’d insisted Sid could meet the kind of vampire who could take her to the top. Dresner had only gone with her that first time, but she’d pointed out a couple of possibilities. Not the big guys themselves, but vampires who could get her access to the big guys, the vampires powerful enough to go all the way to the top.

Sid had been an excellent pupil, and her reward was the vampire standing next to her, the one who’d wrangled an invite for her to this highest of vampire galas. His name was Travis, and if she’d met him under any other circumstances, she’d have seen nothing more than an easy-going surfer dude who had somehow been displaced to Chicago. Just over six feet, he had the sleek, muscled body of a swimmer, with the sharp edges of a tribal tattoo visible below the right sleeve of the black T-shirt he wore like a uniform. And underneath the hustler attitude, he was a surprisingly sweet guy.

“Exciting, huh, babe?” Trav was standing too close, his body constantly brushing her ass as he fidgeted from side to side. If anyone was excited, it was Travis. He was like a little kid about to meet his superhero for the first time. Either that or a dog with a juicy piece of meat that he worried would be stolen by a much bigger dog at any moment. Unfortunately, that made Sid the meat. And she wasn’t anyone’s dinner, not yet anyway. She’d managed to avoid actually letting Travis drink from her, although she’d have been willing to go that far, if necessary. And she had a feeling that the next time she met him, Trav would be asking for payment for getting her in here tonight, but for now, at least, she was off the menu.

“So,” Sid said, taking a sidling step away from Trav’s nervous twitching. “Any idea who’s going to win this thing?”

“Sure, no question. See the big guy over there?”

“I see a lot of big guys, Trav. Just point him out for me.”

“Wow, great idea! These guys are pumping adrenaline like prize fighters on cocaine, but I’ll just stick my finger at the baddest guy in the room for you. You can scoop up my ashes later.”

“Don’t be dramatic. Can you at least give me a clue?”

“He’s the one standing alone over there, no drink in his hand.”

Sid scanned the crowd in the direction Travis indicated and huffed an exasperated breath. For fuck’s sake, most of the vampires here were standing alone. According to Travis in his less dramatic moments, tonight was about the contenders displaying their power, kind of like animals giving off aggression pheromones during the rut or something. She figured it wouldn’t be long before one of these guys pulled out his dick and start spraying everything in sight. The mental image had her snickering, but her laughter died in her throat when her gaze fell on him .

Oh, yeah. Trav had been right. He was standing alone. But his aloneness was more than a physical separation, it was an invisible wall that kept anyone from getting too close, a force field of get the fuck away from me .

“What’s his name?” she whispered, afraid he could hear her somehow from across the room.

“Aden,” Travis supplied, and his voice was quiet and drenched in awe . . . and something else. Worship?

“Do you know him?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I mean, we’re not buds or anything, but . . . he’s the one.”

“I want to meet him.”

Travis laughed. “Right.”

“I’m serious,” she said, tugging on his hand. “Introduce me.”

He shrugged. “Introduce yourself, babe. Just make sure you know what you’re doing.”

Sid tightened her hold on Travis’s fingers, though whether it was to keep herself from moving or to drag him along with, she couldn’t have said. Either way, it didn’t matter, because Trav had a mind of his own, and he was a vampire. He wasn’t going anywhere he didn’t want to. He shook his fingers free.

“You’re on your own for this one,” he said, “but take a tip from someone who knows . . . be polite.”

She scowled. “I’m always polite.”

“Sid, what’s your gut telling you right now? Be honest.”

She glanced over at him in surprise. This was more serious than she’d ever seen Travis, and it made her swallow the clever response on her tongue and go with the truth instead. “My gut’s afraid of him.”

“You’ve got a smart gut. Talk to him if you want, but listen to your gut and watch what you say.”

Sid flattened her lips in irritation, then quickly rolled them together, not wanting to ruin her lipstick. She hated using her looks instead of her brain, but first impressions mattered, and she’d use every weapon she had. She found herself considering a dash to the restroom for a quick makeup check and discarded that idea, seeing it for the act of cowardice it was. This was what she’d been waiting for, what she’d spent the last several months working toward, a chance to meet someone who could make a difference. And if this Aden really was going to be the next vampire lord, she couldn’t afford to blow it.