Night Huntress 06 - Eternal Kiss of Darkness by Jeaniene Frost

dinette table, she didn’t recognize any of them.
     
    Conversation stopped as Kira entered, and they looked up at her. From the food in front of them, Kira surmised that the two men and one woman were human. More witnesses kept against their will? Kira wondered. Good Lord, did Mencheres have a stable of people held captive who’d inadvertently found out about vampires? A tremor went through her. Maybe everything Mencheres had said was a lie. Maybe he had no intention of ever letting her go.
     
    “Hi,” the blond woman said in a cheerful way, waving over at the stove. “There’s some eggs and bacon left over, if you’re hungry.”
     
    “ ’S up,” the dark-haired male said, to an accompanying friendly grunt from the sandy-haired guy whose mouth was full.
     
    Kira blinked at their greeting. If these three were prisoners, they sure seemed relaxed about it.
     
    “Thanks,” she managed, heading over to the stove more for something to do as she pondered this new development. Kira glanced around. No signs of Gorgon or Mencheres, but that didn’t mean they weren’t nearby.
     
    She scraped the leftover eggs and bacon from the two pans onto a plate, then sat at the remaining empty chair at the dinette table. Three sets of eyes regarded her curiously.
     
    “I’m Kira, by the way,” she said, wondering how to discreetly find out if they were being held against their will.
     
    “We know,” the black-haired guy replied, with a slight grin. “Name’s Sam, and this is Selene and Kurt.”
     
    Kira chewed some eggs, trying to appear casual. “You know, huh?” she remarked once she’d swallowed. “What do you know?”
     
    “That you’re not staying here long, and that you’re not thrilled about the time you are spending here,” Selene summarized with that same sunny smile.
     
    Kira swallowed another bite of eggs before replying. “And you are, ah, thrilled about the time you spend here?” she asked carefully.
     
    “Beats working a nine-to-five,” Kurt said, speaking for the first time.
     
    The three of them laughed at that. Kira blinked. They were here willingly? Did they not know what Mencheres and Gorgon were? Mencheres had sounded so confident about his ability to mesmerize humans under normal circumstances. Was it possible that these three had no idea their other “roommates” were vampires?
     
    “So, are you three self-employed, then?” Kira asked, wanting to keep them talking.
     
    More chuckling. “You could say that,” Sam replied. He leaned back, balancing himself on the back two legs of his chair. At a glance, Kira guessed he was in his early twenties. All of them looked younger than she was, in fact.
     
    Come to think of it, so did Mencheres, despite his “older than dirt” comment. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe these three weren’t human. They were eating regular food, yes, but so far most of Kira’s assumptions about vampires had proven to be wrong. Maybe vampires ate three square meals a day just like everyone else—except they followed up those meals with a blood chaser. Kira looked them over as surreptitiously as she could while she pushed her eggs around on her plate. Selene, Kurt, and Sam appeared normal in every way… but so did Mencheres. Right up until he started moving like greased lightning or ripping heads off people.
     
    “How did you meet Mencheres?” Kira settled on asking.
     
    Selene shrugged. “I was turning tricks for meth back in ’Frisco several years ago when Mencheres rolled up on my pimp knocking me around. He drank him, then asked me if I wanted a new life. I did. So Mencheres took me with him, got me off the drugs, and here I am.”
     
    Kira had heard far-more-sordid tales as a P.I., but she almost gaped at how casually Selene relayed a tale of drug addiction, prostitution, and murder to a complete stranger. Before she could even say anything, Sam spoke up.
     
    “I was a Legacy. Used to belong to Tick Tock, but he died in the war over a year