The Darkness Calls (The Transfigured Ones 1)

He slid into bed beside her and agreed, “Absolutely.”

When she lazily flopped her arm on him, he grunted and said, “Be gentle with me.”

She giggled and said, “Says the man who just fucked me senseless and pulled my hair.”

“Yes, love. I’m quite fragile,” he said, smirking.

With a slight groan she moved over and curled into his side. “Better,” she asked?

“Much.”

****

When Talan woke up that afternoon, he was on a mission. Lilly had very effectively changed the subject last night, but it was clear that Colette had scared her. Despite her claims, Lilly was damned near fearless as far as he was concerned. He wanted to fix this for her.

After he got into the office, he was surprised to find that he had messages from both Lachlan and Stefano. Both of them apologized again for Colette’s behavior. He just wished to hell he could remember her last name.

Quickly he dialed Lachlan’s number. Instead of the voice mail he thought he’d get, Lachlan picked up and said, “Bloody hell. You better be dying.”

“It’s important. I’m sorry to wake you. What’s Colette’s last name? Do you know?”

“You woke me up to ask me about that fucking twat?” he bellowed.

Talan sighed and said, “Look, it’s important. Really important.”

“Fuck,” Lachlan said. “Monroe, I think. No. Moreau. That’s it. I’m sure of it. Can I go back to sleep now? Christ.”

“Yes,” he said.

Lachlan disconnected the phone without any further discussion. Talan figured he’d be paying for that sometime in the near future. He had the information he needed though, and that’s what was really important.

With the power of the Internet and his sizable wallet behind him, he was looking at addresses for the last twenty years for Colette Moreau. Surprisingly, there were over forty of them in the US alone. This would take some work. He would need some way to narrow it down.

Since the records had been pulled from Change of Address requests, it would be difficult to keep them separate. Perhaps he could eliminate anyone outside of Kansas? He sorted the spreadsheet by state and deleted the majority. Well, that was easy.

There were two left, both of whom lived there at the time per the address records. He would have to check with Lilly tonight to see what her hometown was. If either of these cities were near hers, then perhaps there might be something to her fears.

Colette had been a nasty piece of work. Seeing her as someone who killed for sport wasn’t the longest stretch. Perhaps he could locate a social security number for her and search that way. How would he come up with that, though?

Stumped, he gave a slight jump when his phone buzzed. When he picked it up, he saw a text waiting from Lilly. “Morning. Hope you slept well. Just got done with school.”

“You should have stayed in bed with me and played hooky all day,” he typed back.

She responded back almost immediately with, “I would have but my boss is kind of a tyrant.”

He couldn’t help but grin. God, he loved her smart mouth.

He looked back at the screen and decided he had enough to go on right now. He’d work on the next steps, when and if one of these women was Colette.

It would be easy if he could somehow come up with social insurance numbers or dates of birth. In books, the rich and powerful always had people to do this sort of thing for them. Why didn’t he have people? He really needed people.

He frowned as he considered something. Even if she was one of the two, what could they really do? It had been a decade, and Lilly had never seen the woman. For all they knew, the real killers were all dead. He sighed and then saved the spreadsheet. They would tackle those questions when the time came.

Their relationship was rather like that as well, he realized. She was human. The average lifespan of a human was eighty-nine for a woman, maybe? That meant that if he was lucky, they had another sixty or sixty-five years together.

Could he ask her to become one of the Transfigured? Would that even be fair? They had taken so much from her already. Would she be willing to become one? How was she even dating him, let alone in love with him? So many questions swirled through his mind. Christ, he thought, rubbing a hand over his face. Life had been a hell of a lot easier when he didn’t have feelings.

Chapter Fifteen