Sucker Bet (Vegas Vampires #4)(38)
Author: Erin McCarthy

"The very same one."

"Why is his wife here with Ringo? Isn’t she mortal?"

"Yes, she is. And as to why she’s here… that’s a very interesting question, my dear, and I don’t know the answer to it. Now leave, Gwenna." He gave her a hard, commanding look.

If she wasn’t so disturbed for reasons she didn’t understand, she would have told him where he could stick his commands, but she didn’t bother. She found she had no desire whatsoever to hang about. In fact, she had done her duty. She had showed up, kissed her brother, and she desperately wanted to leave.

Turning, she nearly bumped into a couple of women who were watching the doorway and murmuring in low voices. "I can’t believe Kelsey married him," the brunette was saying, shaking her head and fingering her diamond pendant.

"Well, you know ever since Kelsey had all her blood drained and was left for dead, she’s been nuts. Not that she wasn’t nuts before, because she was, but since she was drained, she’s like incapacitated. You know they say that Donatelli did it…"

The woman with curly blond hair stopped speaking when she realized Gwenna was staring at her. "Are you okay? You look a little pale."

"Sorry… I’ve skipped feeding for the last few days. I feel a bit faint."

"There’s an open bar. Go get something to drink."

"Thanks." Gwenna turned and walked quickly off. Roberto couldn’t have drained Kelsey… she just couldn’t believe he could be so cruel. Not to mention that surely Ethan would have told her his suspicions. Then again, Ethan preferred to think she was incapable of handling unpleasant truths and tended to shield her. So she supposed it was entirely possible that Roberto had been the one to leave Kelsey for dead.

But that aside, the conversation had also triggered a possible theory for the loop killings.

Heading straight for the balcony, Gwenna dodged and weaved in and out of vampires young and old, smiling and nodding and giving cursory greetings. When she stepped outside in the cool spring night, she pulled her phone out of her bag. Edging away from an amorous couple sharing a cigarette and heated looks, she dialed Nate, hoping like hell he wasn’t in bed already.

"Hello?"

"It’s Gwenna. Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"How did those boys die? Do you know?"

"Strangulation. Then they were drained of blood, though we’re not sure how. That’s not a clean job normally."

"There were puncture wounds on their necks, weren’t there?"

Nate was silent for a second. Then, he just said, "It’s possible."

"Oh, God." Gwenna put her hand over her eyes and leaned against the wall for support.

There was only one explanation for what was going on.

She was not the only vampire on the slayers’ loop pretending to be mortal.

And that other vampire was a killer.

Chapter Twelve

"What are you thinking, Gwenna?" Nate asked her, his voice sharp, curious.

She couldn’t tell him the truth in its entirety but neither could she bring herself to lie to him. And they were on the same side—they wanted to catch a killer. "I think the killer is on the vampire slayers’ loop." She was whispering, aware of the couple ten feet away from her.

"Yeah, we figure that’s pretty much a given, since that’s the only connection between the two victims, and they were killed by the same method."

"I think that whoever is doing it is trying to make it look like a vampire killed them."

"Okay." Nate was rustling around and she heard a soft drink can being opened. "So we have a delusional serial killer."

He wasn’t getting the bigger picture. "No, what we have is a killer who understands that killing members of a slayers’ group in a way that makes it look like a vampire did it, will have those slayers ready to take action and retaliate. Which means to kill a vampire before—in their minds—another slayer is taken out."

She should have seen it before. It was a brilliant strategy. Some of the slayers had been pushing for action, for a large-scale attack on vampires. This kind of violence would only give credence to their claims that vampires were dangerous and the time to eliminate them was now.

Nate was silent for a second. Then he said, "You’ve got to be kidding me. These people on this loop… they don’t really take this shit seriously, do they?"

Gwenna stared out at the Strip, at the faux landscape that was Vegas, everything meant to look like something else, everyone intent on forgetting reality. "Some don’t. But some do. They take it very seriously."

"Why are you on that loop anyway? You just a Buffy fan or what?" he asked her.

"I like observing people," she told him.

She heard Nate swallow as he took a drink. "You don’t really believe in vampires, do you?"

If he only knew she was standing at the Inaugural Ball for the president of the Vampire Nation, with approximately a thousand undead voters behind her in the room celebrating. That would test the boundaries of his black-and-white world.

"It doesn’t matter what I believe. What matters is that someone either believes it himself or knows others do."

"Why do you think Slash has been contacting you and wanting to meet you where bodies are turning up? If there’s something you can tell me, any thoughts at all, I really need to know it."

"I have no idea why Slash is suggesting these meeting places. And I actually contacted him privately first." She looked back, saw the party going on full swing, the dancing, the flutes of blood being passed around on silver trays, the laughter. Those who were vampire understood who she was, and why they needed to stay together, organized for their protection and prosperity. "No, there’s nothing I need to tell you. I’ve told you everything."

Everything she could. And that made her suddenly sad. She had been sharing such intimacy with Nate, their bodies, his grief, her frustration with Roberto. Yet it was cursory, elusive… Nate was mortal, and she would live forever. He would never believe what she was, and she didn’t want to try to convince him. She didn’t want to see the look in his eyes, the admiration and attraction for her, disappear.

He would either think she was a complete lunatic or he would actually believe her, and that would be even worse. Mortals had all manner of bizarre reaction to vampires, including a fiery moral obligation to kill them, intense fear, or the desire to share their immortal gift. Gwenna didn’t want to see any of those from Nate. She wanted her relationship with him to stay as it was, a quiet growing friendship and a steamy physical attraction.