Embrace the Night Read Free

phone closer to her ear. “So, you’re calling because . . . you want to get together for dinner tonight and tell me more about the suckfest of budget cuts?”
    Tess chuckled. “You’re a mind reader.”
    â€œSure. That’s totally a plausible explanation, Doctor.” Chloe inserted as much drawling derision into her voice as possible, and Tess laughed. Telepathy wasn’t one of Chloe’s magical skills, so it wasn’t an outright lie, it just wasn’t the whole truth. This time. A familiar twist of guilt knotted her insides, but she pushed it aside. Tess was Normal, Chloe was Magickal; there was nothing she could do about the need to prevaricate. “How about you meet me here around seven?”
    â€œPerfect. See ya. I’m hitting the hay now.” The call was punctuated with one final yawn from Tess before both women disconnected.
    Chloe went to drop the phone in her purse and saw she’d missed a call about an hour before. There was a voice mail message waiting for her. She hadn’t heard the phone ring, but then, why would her subconscious want her to wake up from a steamy episode of her regularly scheduled Merek dream?
    She shoved a hand through her disheveled hair and pushed the reminder of her one-night warlock out of her mind. Flipping her cell over to speakerphone, she accessed her voice mail while she wandered into her bedroom to dress for work.
    A deep, silken male voice emerged from her phone. “Chloe, it’s Damien.”
    Chills crept down Chloe’s spine and a hollow feeling settled in the pit of her stomach. The last person she expected to get a call from was Damien. Hell, the last person she wanted a phone call from was Damien. Shaking off that inane thought, Chloe zipped up her skirt and shoved her feet into a pair of ballet flats. While she walked into the bathroom to brush her teeth and hair, she hit the buttons to replay the message she hadn’t really listened to.
    â€œChloe, it’s Damien.” A muffled thump sounded in the background of the call, but Damien hurried on. “I’m sorry to bother you at home. Don’t erase this.... I need to talk to you about work. It’s . . . It’s important to the project. Call me back. Please.” The call ended abruptly, as if someone had stabbed the End button with more force than necessary.
    The please gave her pause. Damien never said please. Then again, he also never said I’m sorry. He was a vampire. They were, by definition, cold-blooded. They also tended to have superiority complexes and thought everyone, from other Magickal species to Normals, was so far beneath them they didn’t even register on their radar. Sure, most of them would stoop to having a fling with a non-vampire, maybe one or two non-vampire friends, just for variety, but anything else was out of the question. They didn’t mix.
    Luckily, Chloe hadn’t wanted more than that from Damien, but she had expected fidelity while they were together. Apparently, that had been beneath him, too. She sighed, disconnected the call, and slid her cell into her pocket.
    The worst part about dating someone you worked with was when it ended badly. She’d learned that lesson the hard way. They were both team leads in pharmaceutical R & D for Desmodus Industries, but since those teams were working on the same project, they did see each other, though not that often. Thank the gods.
    Shoving her arms into a jacket, she picked up her handbag and headed for the side door that lead to her detached garage. If the bloodsucker wanted to talk to her about work, he could do it when she got there.
    She wasn’t calling him back.

2
    W hat a fucking mess.
    Merek Kingston shoved his sunglasses up his nose and stepped away from the shattered window. His shoes crunched in the glass that littered the living room of the penthouse apartment. He swept the room in a glance. The woman’s body lay crumpled near the