A Vampire's Muse

Chapter 13

“What was he here for?”

I peeled my gaze off of Calum Reed’s retreating back and turned around to find Kyle walking towards me. His eyes were also trained on the latter with confusing intensity. My heart picked up its pace when I let myself entertain the idea that he might actually not be as supportive towards my—albeit fake—relationship. But a split second later, my head caught onto my delusions, and I immediately dismissed the thought.

“Just dropping off a gift,” I shrugged. “I don’t know what came over him.”

Calum Reed finally disappeared into his carriage and sped off, so Kyle’s stare landed on my empty hands. “Well, where is it?”

“Where’s what?”

“The gift.”

My instinctive hand found its way to the dagger sheathed at my hip, my fingertips carefully tracing the smoothness of his silk cravat tied around its handle. Suddenly, a pang of guilt hit me—after all, the ragged cloth underneath was the handkerchief Kyle gave me once back when we were at the Academy.

I remember the day like it happened yesterday.

I was eight and newly recruited into the Black Rose Guild. It was an especially cold morning, with winter just coming right around the corner. I had to drag myself out of bed, my bones stiff and aching from the chill despite the thick blankets I wrapped around myself the night before. Because of it, training felt tougher than normal, and it didn’t help either that our instructor would often haul a string of insults my way at the slightest mistake, each word a tiny, consecutive blow to my confidence.

What are you doing here all by yourself? I recall looking up from burying my head into my arms only to find myself staring back at Kyle’s kind eyes matched with an equally empathetic smile.

I was too surprised to see him that all I managed was a pathetic sniff. He handed me his handkerchief then. It was the first act of kindness extended to me on that especially difficult day. I remember crying even harder while he stood there in comfortable silence.

Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I turned back to Kyle whose smile still weighed with the same kindness throughout all these years. “Anyway, where to today?”

“I scouted the meeting place earlier and everything looked just as we expected. Heavy security, high profile clients…” Then he grinned wider and raised a brow at me. “But there’s a place we need to stop by first.”

I instinctively recoiled from him. “Why do you have that look on your face?”

Moments later, I was alighting my horse in front of one of the boutique shops in the fancy district of the city. The road was almost flawless, with no bulging bricks nor debris to look out for, and was lined on either side with establishments boasting elaborately decorated facades. Through the shop windows, I could spot displays of each shop’s finest merchandise. I looked down and suddenly felt self-conscious with my hair haphazardly tied into a ponytail and clad in my dingy work attire. Upon closer inspection, I even noticed a few stains here and there. Blood? Coffee? It was hard to tell.

Ahead of me was Kyle who annoyingly seemed amused at my reaction. After securing our horses, he approached me laughing, his hands on his hips. “You know, I’m thinking we should frolic around in this side of the city more often.”

“We’d burn through our money in a blink of an eye,” I scoffed playfully. “Plus, we’ll be swamped with too much work for the foreseeable future because of this strange assignment anyway.”

“Speaking of…” Kyle stepped behind me and grabbed me by the shoulders to lead me into the doors of the boutique. “We can’t go to the meetup tonight looking like this, right? So we’re here to go shopping for appropriate clothes.”

I quickly studied the boutique and the clothes displayed on the mannequins through the front window, shaking my head in disappointment once realization fully sank in. “Oh, no no no. I am not spending a ridiculous amount of money for clothes I’m only using once!”

I heard the familiar sound of coins clinking from behind me as he retrieved a surprisingly hefty pouch from the pocket of his coat. “Don’t worry. The guild’s got our back.”

Hence began an excruciatingly long hour of putting on and taking off outfits I almost felt too afraid to even touch while constantly willing myself to turn a blind eye to the numbers on the price tag.

***

I read the location indicated in the tiny card we got from Edna for the nth time before lifting my gaze towards the small copper plaque hammered onto the wall near the heavily guarded door. But even without checking, it was fairly obvious that we were at the right place, judging from the short queue of important-looking people accompanied by their modest slew of personal guards.

“God, I can’t wait for this assignment to be over,” I mumbled while tugging at the hem of my dress.

“Stop doing that,” Kyle told me in a low voice, bending over to whisper in my ear and placing his hand on top of mine to keep me from fumbling with my outfit. The gesture felt almost too natural for him as if it was something he’d been doing for a while. “You’re usually so professional. Keep it together.”

The cold night breeze rushed by and goosebumps formed on my exposed limbs. Despite that, it was the warmth from his hand and his breath tickling my earlobe that made me shiver. Anticipation unwillingly bubbled inside me until I was at the verge of spilling, my heart thumping dangerously loud and a blush creeping up to my cheeks.

But the feeling immediately subsided upon realizing that none of this meant anything.

I blurted out the words before I could even think about it, “How are you so natural at this?”

“Well, obviously someone has to keep our cover intact,” he replied sarcastically, unoffended by my sudden question. “I didn’t expect you’d be so nervous about this. If I knew a lot of guests would be bringing their own guards, I would’ve offered to go undercover as one, too.”

Kyle was wearing a blatantly expensive three-piece suit with his hair slicked back, making his usually delicate features seem sharp. The clothes fit him just about right, effectively highlighting his athletic physique. His broad shoulders. His robust arms. Strong chest.

I shook my head before my thoughts could go into dangerous territory.

“It’s fine. It’d be less suspicious to talk in hushed tones like this if we went in as…l-lovers,” I barely got the last word out. Straightening my back and mustering the courage to at least look confident in the dress I was wearing—although there was less fabric than I preferred—I nodded towards the direction of the door. Thankfully, the short line from earlier had long dissipated. “Let’s go. I’m okay now, just a little unaccustomed to this kind of dress.”

I touched my sheathed knife at my hip under the fabric of my clothes out of habit and suddenly remembered Calum Reed’s silky cravat wrapped around its handle. Suddenly, my thoughts seemed to rearrange themselves. In a split-second, I donned my game face on and my focus heightened.

Much to my surprise, the men guarding the door were exponentially bigger and more intimidating up close. They didn’t budge an inch when we approached, so I took out the card and presented it to them. All the while, Kyle’s guiding hand remained at the small of my back, right where Reed’s mark was burned over my guild tattoo. The idea undeniably sent a mix of confusing emotions at the pit of my stomach.

“He’s my plus one,” I told the guards when they threw an inquisitive gaze at Kyle. With the most confident voice I could manage, I continued to say, “You wouldn’t dare deny my lover access, wouldn’t you?”

They threw each other a cryptic look, and for a brief moment, I truly believed we were in trouble, until they nodded and stepped aside to open the door for us.

I’ve had my fair share of visits to the fancier, local pubs in the area, but none of those competed to the luxury awaiting us behind the establishments unassuming facade. The room had high ceilings and bathed in the gentle, yellowish light emanating from the wall sconces. The guests roamed about with drinks in their hands, their bodyguards stationed at a far, less lit corner, standing in attention, intimidating. My dress suddenly seemed not as extravagant as I initially thought it was upon seeing what the others were wearing—fur, leather, and differently colored beads. It created a striking contrast against my rather simple red dress that slightly glimmered with multiple hues with the slightest movement.

Kyle pulled me closer. When I tilted my head to look at him in confusion, his blue eyes were glued to something on one side of the bar.

Whispering into my ear and sending my heart into a frenzy yet again, he told me, “Avery. There. I see it.”

I followed his line of vision and squinted my eyes a little bit to compensate for the poor lighting. A small crowd was hanging out near the bar. Swift hands were exchanging cash for a bag of what I was certain was the drug we were looking for. I concentrated harder to take a look at who were leading the transactions. A burly man with glasses. A tall woman subtly counting cash. A younger guy, seemingly in his teenage years, holding onto inventory.

I grinned. “Bingo.”

Before we could come up with a strategy to approach them without arousing suspicion, a waitress impressively balancing a full tray of drinks approached us. I instantly plastered a faux smile and leaned in closer against Kyle.

“Good evening,” she started. “Care for a drink?”

On the surface, the encounter seemed harmless. But with my trained eye, I immediately noticed the sharp look in her gaze, the fakeness of her gait, how she managed to study Kyle and I with precision, and how her stare lingered on the slight bulge at my hip where my knife was concealed a beat longer than any ordinary person would.

“Would you like a drink, love?”

I looked back at Kyle and right away, I could tell he was thinking the same thing as I was. This woman was undercover too.