Free Shift of Time (A Rue Darrow Novel Book 1) by Audrey Claire

hanging funny.” I pressed knuckles to my mouth.
    Milo stumbled to his desk and pulled open a drawer. He removed a Baggie of herbs and set them before him. I wondered what he intended to do, but he frowned at me. “Stop worrying. I can heal myself. My kind don’t visit hospitals any more than yours does.”
    “Oh.”
    “Find my treasure, Rue.”
    “I will.” I spun to face the cube. “Do you mind if I take the box with me?”
    He forgot his injury. “Why would you need it? You remember the scents, don’t you?”
    I clenched my hands at my sides. “I’m still new to all of this. You’re the one who wanted to hire me and keep calling me a baby vampire. I need to remind myself of the scents, and this box gives off vibrations. So do other nonhumans I’ve met. If I can match its vibrations with others I come across, I might make a faster match. I don’t want to have to keep coming back here.”
    He hesitated.
    “What’s the big deal, Milo? The treasure has been stolen. This is just a holder!”
    His shoulders slumped, and he winced then went back to extracting herbs from the clear plastic and adding them to a small white bowl. “You’re right. Take it with you. I wanted to hold onto it because it made me feel less like I had lost something important to me. With both gone…”
    “I’m sorry,” I said again. “I will do everything in my power to find it.”
    “Thank you.” He slid a sheet of paper across the desk toward me. “Write your bank account information on here, and I’ll deposit a partial payment. The rest will come when you hand over the treasure and the box.”
    “Fair enough.” I started to scoop up the box to place into the pouch, but Milo beat me to it. I frowned at him. “If you’re worried about me obscuring the scent, don’t. Vampires have little of our own. We do pick up a bit from our environment, but not much. It’s all a part of the cloaking our presence thing.” Or so I had heard.
    Milo grunted. “You know about that? I guess your sire would tell you that much.”
    I looked at him, but he had already bent his head to the task of the healing spell. Milo confused me. One minute he flirted, and the next he was distant. I didn’t blame him now after I had tossed him across the room. Doing so must have hurt his pride as a man.
    I had learned about cloaking my presence from Ian. However, it was one more item on my list to master, which I hadn’t as yet. More time, I kept telling myself, but more time never came when I spent my days either working, sleeping, or hunting. I had never needed to mask my presence from a human in the dark of night. They bumbled about like they were blind. I supposed they were, when I still marveled over my own advanced eyesight.
    “Even so,” Milo said. “Don’t handle the box too much. Don’t lose it, and above all don’t tell anyone you have it.”
    “You got it.” I picked up the pouch.
    “Wait.”
    I paused, and walked to a cabinet against the wall. When he had retrieved a backpack from inside, he tossed it to me.
    “Put the pouch in there so it’s not so obvious.” He held up a finger. “Remember, Rue. No one is to know. Okay?”
    “ Okay , I understand. No one but you and me.”
    I left his office with the backpack hanging from my shoulder. Who would I tell about the box or the job for that matter? With any luck, I would find the treasure right away and end my pursuit. Milo hadn’t given me a deadline, but I had every intention of wrapping it all up in the next day or two. He would be happy, and I would be alive—you know what I mean—and richer.

Chapter Eight
    I opened my eyes to the scent of chocolate and roses. Georgia sat on the stairs outside my apartment door. She wasn’t saying anything and moved little. Her slow heartbeat and steady breathing told me she had fallen asleep, but what was she doing out there, and what was the chocolate about?
    As soon as I opened the door, she popped to alertness and shuffled to her feet,