Deadly Desire (Riley Jenson Guardian 7)

Kade shook his head. "They scattered when I tried earlier this morning. I think I looked too much like a cop for their liking."

He looked about as much like a cop as I did. It was probably more the fact that he was a big, imposing male who looked ready to handle any sort of trouble that had them running.

"Then maybe that's what I need to do next." Jack might have told me to write up a report, but solving this case was infinitely more important. Besides, talking to the street kids got me out of the office and away from Kade's delicious aroma. I might be strong willed, but I wasn't a fool. Even the saintliest werewolf could succumb to temptation during the moon heat, and I certainly had never been a saint. "Could you do me a favor?"

"Look out, Kade. We're about to be asked to do something she was asked to do."

I glanced across to Iktar. "Hey, I bought you coffee. Be nice."

White teeth flashed-an odd sight in his all-black face. "I was. I didn't tell him to say no, although that is what he should do."

"Why don't you just go back to your reading?"

He chortled softly. "If Kade didn't want to get back into your bed, he would say no."

"Kade knows there's no chance of that."

He met my glance with a raised cup. "Doesn't stop me from hoping otherwise, of course. What's the favor?"

"Could you run a check for break-ins in the Toorak area? One of Jack's friends was murdered this morning during a robbery, and he wants to see if there have been any similar occurrences."

"That explains the explosion of anger I felt just before he stormed out of the squad room."

Kade, like Quinn, was an empath, but he was also kinetic, which had definitely come in handy when fighting many a bad guy.

"And it means he'll be in a foul mood for days to come." I hesitated, then grinned. "Another reason for me to be in the office as little as possible. You know how easily I can annoy him."

He snorted softly. "Go. I'm stuck here anyway. The lizard and I have to cross-check the details of everyone in that emo nest you found to make sure there's no illegals or underage turnings."

The emos were a large group of vampires I'd discovered while investigating a previous case. Rather than living on blood, emos fed off emotion. Which, according to Jack, made them even more dangerous than blood suckers, simply because they could amplify emotions like hate and rage, and feed off the resulting chaos.

Not that this nest of emos had done anything like that as yet, but it paid to be cautious. Especially when we hadn't even known they'd existed until I'd stumbled upon them.

"The lizard has a name," Iktar said mildly. "Kindly use it."

Kade grinned. He loved teasing Iktar, and I had a fair idea Iktar enjoyed prodding back-although it was hard to tell because very little expression showed on his face. "I'll stop calling you lizard when you stop calling when me horse boy."

"Can it for five minutes, will you?" I shook my head and took another sip of coffee. "What happens if you find illegals or underage emos?"

"From what Jack said, the vamp responsible will be given a warning and fined, and then the vampire council will get called in to keep an eye on her."

I raised my eyebrows. "I thought the vampire council preferred the Directorate to deal with such matters." Hell, we cleaned up the rogues, and that had once been the council's job.

Although if Quinn was to be believed, the council was still very much involved in such duties, only its cleanups involved vampires far worse than anything we ever saw. Which was a scary thought considering some of the psychos we dealt with on a regular basis.

"We don't police the vamp community, remember," Kade said. "We just hunt the ones who kill humans."

"And nonhumans."

He nodded. "But from what I've seen, it's rare for us to go after vamps who kill vamps."

I frowned. "I'm sure we have." And yet, I couldn't remember a clear example, and wondered if this was because such cases were automatically shunted to the council.

I took another sip of coffee, then added, "Anyway, I'm glad it's you doing the paperwork, and not me." Being stuck in a small room with the luscious smelling Kade during the moon heat was always a test for my resolve, but after my close call with Kye, I just didn't want to push it. Feeding some hungers just made them grow. I slid off the desk. "Let me know when Cole's full report comes in."

"Will do."

I headed out. According to the report, last night's victim had been sharing a squat in an old section of Fitzroy. The building had once been an old machine shop and, like the other factories around it, had been bought out in preparation for a new housing development. But the plans had been caught up in red tape, and the buildings had lain empty for years. Street folk were never shy about claiming such buildings as their own, though, and it wasn't unusual for a whole mini-city to be surviving within the grimy, run-down shells.