Passion of the Vampire King (Blood Fire Saga Book 5) Bella Klaus (the red fox clan TXT) 📖

dropped open, and all thoughts of Lazarus disapproving of my relationship with Valentine evaporated. Of all the desperate attempts to grab a girl’s attention, this had to be the lowest.

“What?” Lazarus snarled.

Another message popped up. I have reservations for Le Gavroche. After dinner, you can pop my cork.

I shook my head. Everything made sense. I knew enough about the feeding habits of supernaturals to understand that all those dates were Christian’s attempts to break through her aura and create a cord between them. As soon as it was formed, he dismissed and ghosted her.

Christian couldn’t be an incubus because they fed during sex. There was one type of faerie who seduced women and made them pine after them, but they fed on misery. Beatrice had gotten over Christian and was now happy with Lazarus. Perhaps Christian was a hybrid, who operated differently from the more popular sex predators?

“Ask him for another picture,” I whispered.

Lazarus reared back and hissed through his teeth. “Why?”

“Maybe he’ll show us his face.”

He met my eyes with an assessing gaze as though to say maybe I wasn’t such a worthless Neutral after all.

Lazarus scrolled back to the image of his naked torso before tapping out a text. “Do you know where the bastard lives?”

I rubbed my temples. “Berkley Square, I think, but isn’t it odd for a supernatural to feed so openly from a human?”

He turned his gaze to Beatrice and winced. “She won’t notice any difference until it’s too late. None of the humans in her office could see her change in appearance.”

“Right.” I nodded. “And an enforcer would look at her and think she was an old woman who dressed too young.”

“There’s plenty of them around.”

I turned back to the sofa, my veins thrumming with determination. “Let me finish the sound bath.”

“You think it made a difference?”

“He wouldn’t have called if his supply of her life-force wasn’t under threat,” I replied.

“What’s his address?” Lazarus said as I returned to the coffee table. “I’m going to kill him.”

I rounded the armchair and spared Lazarus another glance. Macavity had now reverted back to Bengal size and perched himself on the vampire’s shoulder like a living, blinking stole.

“The last time he tried to get his hooks into Beatrice, he came down to Wimbledon.” I lowered myself onto the floor and picked up the mallet. “How much do you want to bet he’ll start texting her again with reservations from a local restaurant?”

His features hardened. “When he does, I’ll be there to tear him apart.”

“Let me come with you for backup.”

Lazarus snorted. “Your power is useless in a fight unless you want him to rise from his grave and prey on humanity for an eternity.”

My lips thinned, but I didn’t spit out a retort. Lazarus could probably take care of the life-sucking lover boy on his own. I needed to concentrate on severing every single attachment on Beatrice’s body before Christian decided to redouble his effort to drain the rest of her youth.

Over the next few hours, I played every chiming instrument I could find in Beatrice’s flat, including the gong she kept in the corner of the room. As her phone continued to buzz, even Lazarus joined in, ringing a set of bells Beatrice had bought in front of the Notre Dame.

Lazarus glowered at the screen. “Bastard won’t give up.”

“What’s he saying now?” I asked.

“Some bullshit about having made a mistake,” Lazarus muttered. “He wants to meet up and give her an early Christmas present.”

Disgust rippled through my insides, and I shook my head. “Do you know what kind of supernatural creature he might be?”

“Faerie, demon, a wizard using her life-force for a spell…” Lazarus shook his head. “He could be anything.”

I ground my teeth. We were better off luring him to Wimbledon and teaching him not to mess with Beatrice.

A loud knock sounded on the door, making me scramble to my feet and rush out of the living room. In a blur of movement, Lazarus appeared in the hallway and stood at the door, breathing hard.

He shot me a glower over his shoulder. “Stay out of this.”

I folded my arms over my chest. “Fine, but you’re going to kill him somewhere else. If there’s a magical flare—”

“And attract enforcers to her door?” he snapped.

I raised my palms. It didn’t hurt to remind Lazarus of the consequences of magical flares in the presence of humans.

His snarl filled the hallway, making me roll my eyes. Now Christian would know Beatrice had a vampire or a shifter as a protector. He would probably slither away and move on to the next innocent woman.

If he was a shapeshifter, he might even change his appearance and set up a new profile on the dating app. Then all we’d have to track him was the apartment in Berkeley Square, which might even have been an Airbnb. No serial killer who wanted to remain at large ever remained in the same place for very long.

Lazarus opened the door to a six-foot-tall figure with black hair, wearing the black uniform of an enforcer.

“What business do you have here?” he hissed.

“My apologies, Your Highness,” said the voice of Captain Zella. “Hemera Griffin disappeared from my custody this morning, and we tracked her to this apartment.”

My shoulders sagged, and I exhaled an exasperated breath. She or someone else must have placed a tracking device on me in the Council building.

Lazarus shot me a cold glower. “Get out.”

I picked up my bag and hurried toward the door. There was absolutely no way these people could ever know of Beatrice’s existence. Even if they could whisk her to a healer, she would lose three years of her memory when they discovered the depth of her contact with supernaturals.

“May I know who dwells in this property, Your Highness?” asked Captain Zella.

“My brother’s cow came to relay a message,” Lazarus snapped. “Take her and bugger the hell off before I report you for insubordination.”

Macavity hissed and batted Lazarus on the head.

I turned to the cat and held out my hands,