Cole glanced at me. "You can smell the same scents?"

"Yeah." I nodded toward the piece of china he held in one hand. "You found something?"

"A thumb print. It probably belongs to those who live here, but we might get lucky for a change."

I snorted. The chances of us getting lucky right now were about as good as the chances of me ever having kids. "Where's the girlfriend?"

"Second bedroom down the corridor," Cole said, returning his attention to the broken vase. "Her name is Anna."

"Ta." I turned and headed that way. The first bedroom was obviously Shore's. In was masculine in design-all brown leather, dark wood, and a bed that came complete with black satin sheets. Why anyone would prefer them over Egyptian cotton I'll never know. I knew from experience that everything just slid around too much on satin.

I paused to smell the room. That "wrong" scent was stronger in here, just as it had been in the bedrooms of the other victims. It had to be a clue. We just had to find the key.

I continued. The second bedroom was definitely more feminine. The walls were a very pale gray, and the furnishing a mix of white leather and linen, with hot pink accents.

A thin, pale young woman with fiery red hair and large breasts looked up as I entered, her blue eyes red rimmed and mouth trembling. "I don't know anything," she said. "I really don't."

"Anna?" When she nodded, I couldn't help adding, "How old are you?"

"Seventeen." She sniffed. "Almost eighteen."

I was betting her eighteenth was farther away than what she was admitting. Hell, I'd be surprised if she was even seventeen. She just didn't look it, despite the almost weary light in her eyes.

I sat down on the white cane chair nearest to the bed, then reached out psychically and lightly linked to her mind. Not so much to read it-not exactly, anyway-just enough to tell whether her vampire had placed her under some sort of geas. After all, she was human and young, and while the age of consent was sixteen, vampires weren't legally allowed to have a relationship with anyone under the age of eighteen.

Not that it ever stopped them.

Sifting through the layers of her mind did indeed reveal a male imprint, so he'd definitely been messing with her thought processes. Which meant she'd have to go to the Directorate for deprogramming. I might be strong enough to do it myself, but it wasn't something I actually knew how to do. I could control or read minds right up there with the best of them, but undoing the damage others had done was work for a specialist. And that wasn't me.

But I'd been right about one thing-she wasn't seventeen. She was barely even sixteen.

"How long have you been living here?" I asked.

She sniffed and wiped a pale hand across her nose. "Nine months. He treated me very nicely."

He'd have to, given she was underage when they first became lovers. The vampire community might look the other way when it came to sex and youngsters, but only for as long as there was nothing that could draw attention to themselves or their community. A mistreated underage lover would certainly do that. "And you were lovers?"

"Of course. Me and Mandi both were."

"And is Mandi also human?"

She nodded. "Her room is the next one along."

"But she wasn't with you when you found the body?"

"No." A sob broke through. She squeezed her eyes shut, but tears leaked out regardless. "How could someone do that to him? Why would someone do that to him?"

"That's what we're trying to find out," I said softly. I reached across and took her hand in mine. Her flesh was cool, the tips of her fingers almost blue. It made me want to ask just how often Shore had been feeding off her. "Were you and Mandi his only lovers?"

She shook her head. "We couldn't be. He had a voracious appetite."

Most vampires did, I thought with an inner smile. But some of us were more capable of handling the situation than others. "Can you remember seeing anyone new in the last few days? Anyone who you thought acted strangely?"

"No. I mean... He had new lovers all the time, but there was no one I'd consider strange."

"But how many of those new lovers appeared within the last week?"

She frowned. "Maybe two? There was a Rita, and I think the other one's name was Vicki. Vicki Keely, actually. Marty introduced her to us. She was young."

Tags: Keri Arthur Riley Jenson Guardian Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net