Free Make Me by Parker Blue Page B

Jack double-check, but there was no mention of them anywhere.
    “I’m not surprised,” Shade said. I touched his hand so I could see his features and he added, “I looked them up on my cell while I was waiting for you. I don’t think they’re real. The first sighting was in the midnineties and seems to have come from a woman who watched too many horror movies.”
    I nodded. “So, if they’re not real, the goat-sucker is either a vamp or some other demon we’re not familiar with.”
    Shade grinned. “I’m going with vamp.”
    “Yeah, Lisette said a few were missing. She didn’t seem to think any of them would go rogue and suck on livestock though.”
    “It could be rogues who aren’t affiliated with the Movement,” Jack said.
    Could be. We’d had some trouble with them in San Antonio. “That’s what I thought at first, but rogues would more likely snack on people. I hear they taste better.”
    “Maybe Lisette’s people drank some demon blood?” Shade suggested. “That made some of Alejandro’s people go crazy.”
    “Maybe,” I said doubtfully. “But if the blood banks were tainted, Lisette would know by now. I don’t know of any demons who would volunteer to be dinner for a vamp, and the members of the Movement wouldn’t take it from anyone who is unwilling.”
    “Are you sure about that?” Jack asked, looking skeptical.
    I thought about it for a moment. “No, not really. Lily rose to become a trusted lieutenant in the New Blood Movement, and she didn’t think ‘willing’ was a necessary adjective for a snack.”
    “Who?” Jack asked.
    “Lily Armstrong. She was Dan’s ex-fiancée who turned vamp and tried to take over Alejandro’s organization by leading the rogues.”
    “What happened to her?” Jack asked.
    Shade grinned. “She lost her head. Literally.”
    Decapitations-R-Us. I shrugged. “She was holding Dan, Fang, my stepfather and my sister captive and was going to kill one or more of them. I had to stop her.”
    Jack nodded as if it were a completely reasonable thing to do. Thank goodness for demons who understood the world I lived in. “We cleaned out most of the rogues from the Movement in San Antonio,” I added, “but there could be some in Austin. So, no, I wouldn’t trust Lisette’s judgment on this.”
    “Okay,” Shade said, tapping the screen on his smartphone. “Let me see what I can find out about these sightings so we can track them down.”
    I pretty much used my phone for talking and texting only, but Shade used all its capabilities. This was the kind of stuff he loved—playing with electronics and researching stuff. Yep, he was totally hot and a geek. Who said they couldn’t coexist in one body?
    While Shade surfed the Internet and took notes, I asked Jack to tell me more about being a keeper.
    “What do you want to know?” he hedged.
    “Tell me more about these powers the books gave you. How does it work?”
    “You know they can’t actually talk? The voice you heard was me when I was trapped inside, and the voice urging others to do evil was the mage demon I’d imprisoned with me.”
    I nodded impatiently. “But can you communicate with them?”
    “I can’t anymore, but you can, since you’re the new keeper. The books know what you’re thinking, so you can ask them for certain abilities.”
    “So I could get my strength and fast healing back?” I asked eagerly.
    “Maybe, if the books want you to have it.” He shook his head. “But remember, those abilities are no longer part of you, so if you are granted those and use them, your succubus abilities will weaken.”
    Would that be a bad thing? Sure, I’d come to rely on Lola, but the thought of never again having to keep my distance from men, or fend off advances from those who got too close and got sucked into Lola’s lustful energy field… well, it was very appealing. I had always yearned to be normal, but was it even possible now? Everyone in the vamp and demon communities knew me as