Deadly Desire (Riley Jenson Guardian 7)

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."

I frowned. "How young?"

She shrugged. "Maybe fifteen, sixteen? She looked nervous, too. Like she didn't want to be there."

Which suggested she wasn't under any sort of vampire "persuasion," because second thoughts wouldn't have shown. "If we brought in an artist, would you be able to give us an image of them both?"

She nodded. I squeezed her hand, then released it and sat back in the chair. "Do you know where he met the two women?"

She shrugged. "Probably at one of the strip clubs. He used to enjoy going to those."

Her tone suggested she didn't approve and again a smile twitched my mouth. Humans had such strange ideas when it came to sex. I mean, here she was, barely legal, knowingly sharing her vampire lover with other women, and yet she turns up her nose at him visiting strip clubs? What was with that? "Do you know which ones?"