Blood Flame (Flame 1)

“It’s definitely the main reason. I have a healthy fear of vampires, but an absolute dread of dark witches.”

“Anyone in particular?”

“You’ve probably heard of her. Seraphina.”

His nostrils flared and his lips turned down. “I’d kill her if I could find her.”

Seraphina and her group had murdered over a hundred of Connor’s kind in the last year alone. Rumors had it she planned one day to rule the Tribunal with the intent of turning Crescent into a police state.

Still looking at her, Connor narrowed his eyes once more, something he did a lot. His eyes were incredibly blue, his brow as furrowed as ever. “I need to be honest here. None of the criminal encounters I’ve had with witches have ended well. I’ve destroyed many of your kind and thought nothing of it.”

“But my guess is, you only take a life during the commission of a violent crime. Am I right?”

Connor shifted his gaze away from her. His eyes looked haunted. “Not always. There have been a couple of incidences where I was out of control and deserved to be taken out. If you’d seen me, you would have shot me and I would have welcomed it.”

This was a lot of honesty and she wasn’t sure what to do with the information. Finally, she said, “Did these events happen earlier in your life?”

“Somewhat. Yes.” He shifted his gaze to stare at the slate floor. “And they’re my biggest regrets.”

Iris could have pressed him for more details, but she didn’t want to know too much. If he told her, she was pretty sure she’d have to leave. And right now, she needed him.

“I’m not innocent either. When my sister, Violet, was murdered, I’d fully intended on hunting down the vampires who tortured, raped and killed her. If I’d found them, I know I would have used any witch power I possessed to drive them into the dirt.”

“Iris, I’m really sorry you lost your sister. You never discovered who did it?”

“No.”

“Can you tell me when this happened?”

“I’d rather not go into it. I’ve worked hard over the years to let it go. Had to, otherwise I was slowly going insane. But I miss her.”

“I understand.”

She considered him for a moment. “Have you ever killed a vampire?” She knew what she was doing; she was looking for some reason to dislike Connor. The proximity of the situation was beating her down and giving rise to a lot of unhelpful ideas. If he confessed to showing partiality to his own species, she could think badly of him and maybe then she wouldn’t crave him the way she did.

Mostly, he sat so close she had to keep resisting a powerful urge to touch him and to glide her hand over his massive shoulders.

God help her, was she falling for a vampire?

~ ~ ~

Connor felt weighed down by the conversation. He hated sharing the nature of his actions and the why’s of anything he did. Yet he felt a strong need to as honest with Iris as much as he could. “I have a lot of guilt over some of the vampires I’ve taken out. But each time, I’d caught them in the middle of a violent crime. I’m sure my answer isn’t what you expected, but, yes, I kill my kind as well.”

She shook her head, eyes wide. “I’ve never met an officer like you. Most of the Crescent Border Patrol spit at me and refuse to share details about a scene I’ve been sent to report on. And since we’re being honest, I thought all of you were corrupt. That’s the word on the street that no officer is beyond being bought off.”

He hated the stereotype. “Not me. Not some of my brothers, though maybe half the force is greasing its fingers.”

“But not you?”

“Did you need to ask twice?”

She shook her head and released a whistling sound through her lips. “No. I apologize.”

She shouldn’t be so pretty. That’s what he thought. She had large brown eyes that glinted when she was mad. He’d like to see those same eyes lit with passion.

He knew she was interested. She might even need a good lay, especially someone like her who seemed to go it alone. They were alike in that way. He’d been checking up on her for months and in all that time she’d never gone out on a single date.

His gaze fell to her fingers. She had beautiful hands, the nails trimmed close and covered with some kind of shimmering violet polish. But he had to remind himself that with enough power, she could release a killing shot from the tip of one of those fingers. If she felt justified in doing it, she’d kill him without batting an eye.