Free Cunningham, Pat - Legacy [Sequel to Belonging] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) by Pat Cunningham

Jeremy asked.
    “Had to be another one. The first ain’t coming back.” He watched Colleen with an unsettling, blinkless stare. “No way this is coincidence.
    “It’s the cult, isn’t it?” Colleen said. “They’re still after me. Why? What do they want with me?”
    The stare whipped over to Jeremy’s face. “Cult?”
    “You know,” Jeremy said with deliberate emphasis. “The blood drinkers. The ones you hunt.”
    “Oh. Right. That cult.” He gave Jeremy an odd look. “They must be sharing intel. Not their usual MO.”
    “Maybe you should have questioned him.”
    “There kind of wasn’t time. Damsel in semi-distress and all.” Wallace shrugged. “Another one bites the dust, so what? Plenty more where he came from.”
    “Please,” Colleen said. “Isn’t it bad enough you killed that man in cold blood? With a stake? Do you have to joke about it?”
    “Hey, you’re welcome.”
    “She saw you?” Jeremy cupped her chin and tilted her head to face him. “You saw him?”
    “No.” She jerked her head free. “I didn’t see anything. I was scared. I was in shock. I hit my head. I was hallucinating.”
    “Don’t try to shit us, sweetheart. Or yourself. You’re tougher than that. That man who jumped you wasn’t a man, and you know it.”
    “Wallace—”
    “Stow it, Scarecrow. If she’s been targeted by a flock, she deserves to know what she’s up against.” He hunkered down beside the chair to bring them to eye level. Those jungle-cat eyes held admiration. “You’re one nervy chick. You don’t put up with bull, even the bull you dish out to yourself. You know what you saw.”
    “I told you, I didn’t see anything. I couldn’t have seen what I saw. What I thought I saw. Vampires aren’t real. They don’t exist outside of bad books and TV shows.”
    Wallace leaned forward. The chair left little room to cringe away. His sea-breeze scent and emerald eyes pinned her to the fabric. Yet, even now, she didn’t fear him.
    Until he smiled. Animal fangs flashed in a tiger’s grin. She discovered she had just enough room to recoil after all.
    “Sometimes,” Wallace said, still smiling, “TV gets it right.”

Chapter 5

    “You’re an asshole,” Jeremy said. “You know that?”
    “So I’ve been told,” Wallace said. “Usually by you. How you holding up there, sweetheart?”
    “Leave me alone,” Colleen’s muffled voice snapped. She perched on the edge of the recliner’s seat, bent over with her head between her knees. She hadn’t passed out, thank God for small mercies, but the room had gone dangerously gray for a minute. Jeremy crouched beside the chair. His hand made soothing circles on her back.
    Wallace said to Jeremy, “You told her we were a cult ?”
    “I had to tell her something. If I’d said vampires, she’d have thought I was nuts.”
    “Yeah, you’re right. ‘Cult’ works so much better. So what am I, the high priest?”
    “No, you’re…” His voice picked up a sheepish note. “Special Agent Hamilton.”
    “Seriously? Oh, well, that solves everything. I’ll just give the Bureau a call, and we’ll dump it on Mulder and Scully. Jesus H. lap-dancing Christ.” His next words came from far too close to her ear. She felt no breath against her skin. “I am not a special agent.”
    “I kind of figured that.”
    “We are not a cult.”
    “You’re not a vampire, either. You are crazy. Both of you.” She lifted her head to glare at Jeremy. She wasn’t quite ready to look Wallace in the fangs again just yet. “I don’t know what kind of nutty role-play fantasy thing you’ve got going here, but leave me out of it. I don’t play those games. Take your fake teeth, and go away.”
    “Feisty,” Wallace pronounced. “I like this one, Scarecrow.”
    “Stop making fun of me. Vampires aren’t real. They can’t be.”
    “Then riddle me this—What happened to the guy I staked? Don’t tell me you didn’t see that.”
    “I must have blacked out for a