We Own the Night (The Night Songs Collection Book 3) by Kristen Strassel Page A

remember the rest of us being there, but I remember you slapping Tristan when you saw everyone come in with Talis.”
    I nodded and bit my lip. That night. Would I have been able to stop anything if Jack would’ve let me in that room? Would Blade have gone for me instead? “Was Blade still human then?”
    “I’m not sure. He was so strong, he overpowered her easily. Could a human do that?”
    “I don’t think so.” Blade had been the kind of strong that came from manual labor, not from being a gym rat. Definitely not strong enough to take out a vampire clan leader. Somehow, I felt better that the last thing he saw as a human wasn’t me laying under Tristan in a room full of people. “What did he do?”
    “She wanted to show me what happened when someone betrayed her.” Melanie wouldn’t meet my eyes. “He’d been beaten up pretty badly already, but she was going to do something else to him. She had him on his knees. Talis was so tiny, he still almost came up to her shoulders. He tore her heart right out of her chest.”
    I sucked in a sharp breath at the visual. Just like Blade said. Is that what he’d done to Janelle and Jacey? Or those poor prostitutes he lured to the Strat?
    Is that what he’d planned to do to me?
    “Somehow, he managed to light her body on fire. I don’t know what happened. You guys move so fast sometimes, I can’t comprehend it all. And I was in total shock, to see a beating heart outside of someone’s body. He licked it, the heart, as he watched Talis’ body melt.”
    All the blood in my body rushed to my stomach as I listened to her. Did vampires puke? We were dangerously close to finding out.
    “Then he threw the heart in the fire, and it all just disappeared.” Tears ran down Melanie’s cheeks. “I don’t know how. I never asked Ryder, this is the first time I’ve really talked about what I saw. It was just too horrible. But I think you need to know.”
    I nodded. Keep your composure, Callie. “So what is it that you want me to do for you?”
    “Ryder said that Talis controlled the cops in Las Vegas.” She looked hopeful. “Ryder and the guys in Soul Divider are the only vampires I know, so all I know about vampires is what they’ve told me. They don’t have all the answers. I’m not a bad person, Callie. I know you don’t know me, but I caught my boyfriend in bed with another woman. I just went crazy with rage. I’m not a killer.” The tears flowed again.
    Now it was my turn to look away. I’d done things I wasn’t proud of, too. And most of them involved sex and passion. I had no place to judge this girl.
    Vampires weren’t meant to be monogamous . Tristan’s voice echoed in my head. I hated it and felt comforted by its justification all at the same time.
    I didn’t have time to mull over my sins at that moment. This girl needed an answer. And she reminded me of something very important. I didn’t only have a bar, or a band, or a hotel in my arsenal, I had the entire city. And I knew what they needed to be protected from, even if I wasn’t quite sure how to do it.
    “I’ll help you out,” I said quietly, raising my hand to still Melanie before she rose to hug me. “But I think I need you to help me, too.”

“B ack so soon?” Tristan raised an eyebrow and smirked. I made it back to the side of the stage in time to watch the encore. Like nothing unusual had happened tonight.
    “I do my dirty work quickly.” I smiled and pecked his cheek as I slipped my fingers around his. I felt better, being here. Excitement and adoration of the crowd filled me even if it wasn’t intended for me. “I need to talk to you, though.”
    “Can it wait?” He’d turned so he leaned his forehead on mine. His skin didn’t feel cool anymore, since my body temperature now matched his, but he never broke a sweat. “I was thinking I should do the meet and greet tonight.”
    Before Blade tried to pull rank, Tristan had taken the band’s fan events for granted. He knew