Radclyffe - Firestorm

“Like I told you last time, lady, she ain’t working. And no, she ain’t called in for the five messages you already left. Maybe you should take the hint.”

Becca flushed. As if. “My interest is professional—” And why was she explaining something that was no one’s business to a man she didn’t even know? “Can you tell me when she’s scheduled—”

“She was due in at twenty-two hundred. Yesterday. She’s late.”

By about twenty-four hours. “Surely you have procedures for—”

“Her lieutenant don’t seem too worried. Maybe she should take the hint and look for another kind of work.” He snorted. “Don’t really need Vampire cops, now do we?”

A click was followed by empty air. Becca stared at the silent phone. Since when was it okay for city officials not to even pretend to hide their prejudices against Praeterns? Or had the discrimination always been this blatant, and she was just now noticing? God, she hoped she hadn’t been that blind.

This plan to track down the elusive Detective Gates wasn’t working—time to try something else. She’d been watching Jody’s town house almost nonstop since someone shot the Were Alpha there following a meeting with Jody. Jody had given her own blood to revive a dying Were guard and nearly died herself. Talk about a huge scoop, and she hadn’t called it in. She’d been right there—really right there. Kneeling in blood and praying that someone didn’t die. She’d held off reporting the shooting because she didn’t have the bigger story—she wanted to know what was behind those gunshots. And if she reported an assassination attempt on the U.S. Councilor for Were Affairs, the AP would bury the city in TV newscasters and there’d go her chance at the real story. Nope, something big was brewing and Jody was her best source. Sort of a sad statement, considering how the Vampire detective wasn’t speaking to her at the moment, but hey, a reporter worked with what she had. Detective Jody Gates. God, what a pain in the ass.

She didn’t even like the damned Vampire, but she hadn’t wanted to see her die either—or whatever living Vampires did before they reanimated as Risen Vampires. She hadn’t even known that a Vampire could die from giving up too much of her own blood, but then who knew what the rules were anyhow? It wasn’t as if the Vampires—or any of the Praeterns—let humans in on their secrets. Well, okay, maybe that was understandable, considering that humans had done a pretty good job of wiping out the Praetern species something like a millennium ago, and they’d all gone into hiding and hadn’t resurfaced until two years ago, when Sylvan’s father more or less announced to the world, “Hey, everybody, there are a whole lot of preternatural species who have been living among you for forever, and we are tired of hiding.” The great Exodus had pretty much turned the world upside down, and humans, outnumbering the Praeterns by thousands to one, weren’t so sure they really wanted to share living space with species like Vampires and Weres who just might consider them prey, or the Fae who had all kinds of magical powers, or the Psi who might be influencing minds, or the Magi whose incantations and spells and wizardry were better weapons than anything humans had been able to construct. Humans, despite their numbers, often built their cultures based on fear, as Becca came to realize more every day.

Well, she wasn’t afraid. She was pissed off. She’d tried to help Jody—she’d offered her blood —and what did she get for her efforts? Jody had practically tossed her out on her ear. She’d left Jody’s house, but she wasn’t going to stay gone.

She was an investigative reporter, and she wanted to know who had taken shots at someone as high profile as Sylvan Mir, and while she was at it, she wanted to know what was going on with the mysterious girls who were showing up in ERs with deadly fevers no one wanted to talk about. Not quite true. Someone wanted to talk about them because he—she thought it was a he, she couldn’t really tell from the muffled voice on the phone—had been calling her to tell her about these cases. Why? Why did someone want to alert the press to these infections? Were they, as the caller claimed, instances of Were fever being transmitted to humans? If that was true, she needed to alert the human population. Didn’t she? Wasn’t that her responsibility—to report the stories that made a difference, to expose the dangerous secrets that ultimately cost lives? She hadn’t written anything about it yet. She told herself it was because she didn’t know enough, but how could she know enough if no one would tell her anything?

Feeling like a stalker, she’d waited and watched and waited some more, from before dawn the day before until well after sunup, for Jody to return. When the Vampire hadn’t shown, she’d figured Jody was spending the daylight hours somewhere else, and she’d gone home for a few hours’ restless sleep, then back on watch before sundown. As the hours passed with still no sign of Jody, she’d started to worry. Maybe Jody hadn’t recovered from nearly bleeding out, or the Vampire equivalent of it. Maybe Jody was at the hospital, although come to think of it, she’d never seen a Vampire patient in the ER. Like Weres, they didn’t seek conventional medical care. After giving the Were her blood, Jody had said she’d needed to feed. And she’d said to Sylvan Mir, You may not thank me when your centuri wakes up hungry. I need to be there when she does. When I’ve taken care of my needs, I’ll come.

Becca pulled her laptop from underneath the front seat and ran a Google search on Sylvan Mir. She’d read enough exposés and editorials about the Were Alpha and the Adirondack Timberwolf Pack to have a general idea where their Compound was located. After scanning a few articles, she clicked Google Maps and punched in the coordinates on her GPS. Time to hunt. First stop—the private headquarters of the most powerful Were Alpha in the Western Hemisphere.

About the Author

Radclyffe has written over thirty-five romance and romantic intrigue novels, dozens of short stories, and, writing as L.L. Raand, has authored a paranormal romance series, The Midnight Hunters.

She is an eight-time Lambda Literary Award finalist in romance, mystery, and erotica—winning in both romance (Distant Shores, Silent Thunder ) and erotica ( Erotic Interludes 2: Stolen Moments edited with Stacia Seaman and In Deep Waters 2: Cruising the Strip written with Karin Kallmaker). A member of the Saints and Sinners Literary Hall of Fame, she is also a 2010 RWA / FF&P Prism award winner for Secrets in the Stone . Her 2010 titles are finalists for the Benjamin Franklin award ( Desire by Starlight ), the ForeWord Review Book of the Year award ( Trauma Alert and writing as L.L. Raand, The Midnight Hunt ), and the RWA Passionate Plume award ( The Midnight Hunt ). She is also the president of Bold Strokes Books, one of the world’s largest independent LGBT publishing companies.

Books Available From Bold Strokes Books

Firestormby Radclyffe. Firefighter paramedic Mallory “Ice” James isn’t happy when the undisciplined Jac Russo joins her command, but lust isn’t something either can control—and they soon discover ice burns as fiercely as flame. (978-1-60282-232-0)

The Best Defenseby Carsen Taite. When socialite Aimee Howard hires former homicide detective Skye Keaton to find her missing niece, she vows not to mix business with pleasure, but she soon finds Skye hard to resist. (978-1-60282-233-7)

After the Fallby Robin Summers. When the plague destroys most of humanity, Taylor Stone thinks there’s nothing left to live for, until she meets Kate, a woman who makes her realize love is still alive and makes her dream of a future she thought was no longer possible. (978-1-60282-234-4)