Your Coffin or Mine? Read Free Page A

was going to accomplish by coming here. I just knew I had to do something. It had been two hours since I’d heard Ty’s silent message.
    Since then?
    Nada.
    While I’d handed out cards at the MMV studio and given my own ten-minute video interview (not that I was even remotely interested in being on the show—my mother would DIE—but I’d had to go through the motions), I’d tried to convince myself that the silent message had been a mistake. Ty had obviously dialed a wrong number. He’d been trying to contact the slut he’d left me for and had inadvertently sent the message to moi.
    “You have to listen to me. I need you. I’m in…”
    In what?
    In the middle of slapping the salami? And he’d needed a booty call to keep from going blind?
    Or maybe he’d been in the shower and he’d needed someone to bend over and pick up the soap?
    Or maybe he’d been in the mood for a little AB negative and he’d needed a warm, willing donor?
    Really, who knew how many women Ty was currently playing? He probably let everyone with a vagina and a pair of fangs sip away at him. He could be telepathically linked to every female vampire in Manhattan.
    Or he could be in serious trouble.
    My mind voted for the first explanation. My hormones chanted for number two. And my heart?
    Girlfriend, pu-lease.
    I was saving that particular piece of anatomy for Count Right. Since Ty’s a made vampire and I’m born, settling down, squeezing out a few baby vamps, and living eternally ever after are not in the realm of possibility for us. Made vamps can’t procreate. I need one of my own kind for that. Someone as megalicious as Ty, but with the appropriate born vamp DNA. Someone like, say, Remy Tremaine.
    Remy was the chief of the Fairfield police department, and owned a megabucks security company on the side. I hadn’t really liked him at first. We’d been friends forever and I’d seen him wear knickers back in the old country. Nuff said.
    Recently, however, he’d helped me in a desperate fight for my life with a vengeful female vamp. Funny how kicking royal ass can make a man oodles more attractive.
    Then again, Ty kicked ass for a living. Day in. Day out. He faced danger with a capital D. Which meant that I couldn’t get him or his naked badass bod off my mind.
    It also meant that he’d probably pissed off his fair share of people and made a great deal of enemies. People who might want to hurt him. Or worse…
    The elevator car came to a jarring stop. I stepped into another small hallway. The gangsta theme continued. More blue and orange with a little purple, and a few four-letter words thrown in.
    I reached his door and grabbed the knob. With any luck, the place would be a train wreck and ripe with clues as to his whereabouts.
    Metal ground and snapped. The door creaked open.
    My preternatural gaze sliced through the darkness and swept the inside of the large loft. Ditto on the train wreck. Furniture had been overturned. Pillows had been slashed. Drawers upended. Trash littered the floor. I was fairly certain there were dozens of possibilities for fingerprints and DNA.
    Unfortunately, my Super Vamp benefits package didn’t include crime scene analysis and I didn’t have a friggin’ clue what to do or where to start looking.
    I concentrated on breathing instead. Not a requirement for my kind, but it comes in handy when I get a little freaked.
    Just breathe. In. Out. In…
    I stepped inside the loft and a sick feeling started in the pit of my stomach. Instead of drinking in the whole scene in one large gulp, I decided to sip slowly, one small section at a time.
    Moonlight filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows that filled one wall and illuminated what had once been a dark blue leather couch. It had been shredded, along with a nearby black leather chair. The chrome and glass coffee table had been upended. A matching entertainment center lay on its side. Shards of glass littered the floor and mingled with broken bits of