Steal the Night (Thieves #5)(166)

As the hunt intensifies, she finds herself trapped between two men—Gray, a magnetic half-demon lawman, and the ancient vampire Marcus Vorenus. Both men call to her, but when a shocking secret about Kelsey’s family is revealed, it could ruin them all. To stop the killer, she will have to embrace the truth about who—and what—she truly is.





“They make a beautiful family,” a voice said from the doorway. He was backlit from the blue light coming from the club and I only saw his silhouette.

I turned quickly, hoping he wouldn’t catch me crying. I wiped away the obnoxious evidence of my self-pity. “Yes, they’re lovely.”

One minute he was behind me and the next he was right in front of me. His hand cupped my jaw, his thumb gently rubbing across my cheek, sweeping away the tear caught there. I should have backed away, but I was too surprised to move. Vampires are fast.

“Did Devinshea make you cry?” the vampire asked with a melodic accent. Italian, I realized as I recognized the man from last night. “He can be rude though not usually with a woman. Should I talk to him?”

“Marcus Vorenus.” It came out as a breathy revelation.

In the dim light of the office, I saw a smile break over the vampire’s face. It tugged his lips up and caused his dark eyes to crinkle appealingly. It took him from a gorgeous work of art to something far more dangerous. He was just a handsome, approachable man when he smiled.

“You’re the girl from the club.” He sounded like he was happy to have found me again.

“I am.” I had to wonder if I would be crying if I’d followed through on my initial instinct and taken Marcus up on his invitation that night. I probably wouldn’t be standing here crying over Grayson Sloane.

He stepped back and dropped his hand. He seemed a bit wary now. “You came to look for me?”

“No.” I wished a little I could lie to him. “I’m a private investigator. I’m here on a…murder case. Mr. Quinn just kind of became my new client. He said I needed an escort so I suppose he picked you. And I wasn’t stalking you or anything. I was staking the place out and you just happened to be there.”

He looked amused as he leaned back against the desk. “An investigator? Very interesting. You must be a good investigator since you already know my name. Why don’t you tell me yours?”

“Kelsey Atwood.” I wondered if someone was laughing at me. I’d just gotten dumped by one guy out of my league. Now I was standing alone in a room with another too beautiful man, and I was determined not to make an idiot of myself over this one.

“Kelsey. An interesting name for an interesting girl,” the vampire said. “It used to be a surname. Old English, I believe.”

“I have no idea. I think my mom just liked the sound of it. Are you really two thousand years old?” He looked like he was maybe thirty-five.

His head moved ever so slightly, an aristocratic gesture in the negative. “Not quite. If you include the twenty-two years I walked the plane as a human, I have one thousand nine hundred and seventy-four years.”

I stared at him, thinking about what that meant.

“Tell me, Kelsey.” His mouth turned down as he stared back at me. “Give me the first thought you had when I told you just how old I am.”

He seemed really interested, so I gave him my honest answer. “I thought that was a lot of time for regrets.”

He was in my space again. “Almost all humans have a different reaction. They say how much I must have seen and how amazing it must be to never have to die.”

“I guess it says something about me.” I wished I’d given him a less than honest answer, but it was me and I didn’t see a reason to hide it. “I think about what you must have lost along the way. I don’t think I’d want to be immortal.”

He didn’t touch me. I knew all I had to do was ask and he would. “Do you belong to the demon, little Kelsey?”

“No,” I said quietly. “He doesn’t want me now.”

“But you want him.”

All I had to do was say no and I knew the vampire would offer himself to me. We had a strange connection, Marcus Vorenus and I, and if I hadn’t met Gray when I did I would have been all over him. But I had met Gray and even though he’d walked out on me, it seemed too soon to consider anyone else. “Yes,” I said and I heard the longing in my own voice.

“He is a fool.” The vampire backed up. His face was once again pleasant, but without the emotion that previously lit it. This was Marcus as he wanted the world to see him—cool and regal, distant. “But then aren’t we all? I thought, for a moment, that Devinshea was doing me a favor. I thought, perhaps, I was reading too much into our situation. I see he’s still playing a game with me.”

The vampire sounded bitter, and I hated the fact that I’d made him feel that way. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying…”

“It isn’t your fault, dear girl. You must be careful around the fertility god. He always knows what he is doing when he puts two people in an intimate situation. He knew I would be attracted to you. He knew you’re precisely the type of female to catch my attention. He also knew you’re involved with another man. It’s his way of telling me it is time to go home, that there is nothing here for me.”