Love Me Forever. Rosemary Laurey

full of them.” And if the three louts getting out of the van had their way, it would soon be empty of them. “I’ll take care of them.” He clapped a hand on Justin’s shoulder. “Want to join the fun?”

      “What exactly do you have in mind?”

      Christopher laughed. “Mayhem!”

      “And you deny you’re flamboyant! Use your sense!”

      “I will. And I’ll be careful. Dixie will throw a wobbly if I come home again with bullet holes in my shirt.”

      “You really think petty thieves will be armed?”

      “Justin, this is the United States. Pickpockets pack guns. Hell, children take them to school.” Christopher ran his hand through his hair. “We’re outnumbered. There’s bound to be a fourth driving the car. Let’s wait until the others get inside. You get Fred there to open the bonnet and then send him bye-bye and I’ll take care of the van.”

      Justin smiled. “I think I get your drift. Nonviolent intervention?”

      “What did you expect? I might be an ocean away from the rest of the colony but I’m still part of it. I’d never harm a human. Give them a bit of a scare, you bet. Terrify them into lawfulness, okay. But harm anyone? What do you take me for?” Kit grinned. “Watch me and follow my lead.”

      They hung over the gutter and watched. These weren’t amateurs. In minutes they had disabled the alarm and seconds later all three climbed in through a ground floor window.

      “Time, I think,” Christopher said and dropped to the ground three stories beneath.

      Justin was right behind him. Brushing off his hands, he strolled up to the driver and requested he open the bonnet.

      “They call it a hood, here,” Christopher whispered and darted to the front of the van.

      Justin’s reworded request got results. In moments, Christopher had the distributor cap in his hand, and just in case they happened to carry a spare one with them, he yanked out all the spark plugs as well. And, in the unlikely event they had the foresight to bring another set of plugs, he slipped to the back of the car and pulled off his socks and stuffed them up the exhaust pipe.

      “Everything all right.” he asked Justin, who was gently patting the driver’s shoulder.

      “He’s out for a while and…” Justin reached into the open window. “Hell, you were right.” He pulled a gun from the driver’s jacket pocket. “Nasty things.”

      “Never mind, we’ll get rid of it. Up for a bit of flying?”

      Christopher soared, Justin just seconds behind. Minutes later they landed on the riverbank.

      “Nice spot,” Justin said.

      “Jogging path really, but quiet this time of night.” As Christopher spoke he tossed the plugs and distributor cap into the water. “Throw the gun, too. I used to dump them in the pond in the park but decided that was too risky, in case they ever drain it.”

      Pausing just long enough to slip out the clip, Justin tossed the gun one way and the ammo the other. Both made a heavy splash in the night but the sound died fast and they stood in silence watching the widening circles on the surface. “Now we go home?” Justin asked,

      “Nah! Not yet. The fun’s just beginning. Come with me.”

      Kit walked this time, a couple of hundred meters to an all-night petrol station. While Justin mentally translated the prices into pounds and decided petrol couldn’t be that cheap, Kit went up to a pay phone and punched in 911. “I just drove past Stewart School. Something’s going on there. You need to check. Looks like a robbery,” he said and hung up.

      “That’s it?” Justin asked.

      “It’s enough,” Kit replied. “Columbus’s finest always come to a call. They haven’t let me down yet. We can fly back and beat them there perhaps, or we can stroll by and observe the proceedings like concerned and horrified citizens. I prefer the view from the roof.”

      They flew back and watched, hanging head-down from the gutter so as not to miss a single detail. Kit had a point, this was well worth watching. The burglars walked out the front door with the first load of computers, just in time to meet the first blue and white car with flashing blue lights. Two others arrived right behind and the getaway was beautifully botched. Nothing like a dead car to slow things down.

      Lights came on in the houses opposite. No one could sleep through the sirens and the shouts. The thieves were cuffed and shoved in the back of police cars. Two uniformed policemen wrapped the van in yellow tape, and slowly the excitement died down.

      “Seen enough?” Kit asked. “I’d like to get back to Dixie before dawn.”

      “She still sleeps throughout the day?”

      Kit grinned. “Let’s say she’s livelier at night.”

      Justin refused to feel the pang at his friend’s words. Kit deserved Dixie after what they’d gone through together, but it underscored his own solitary state.

      Sitting with an unread book open on his knees after Kit went upstairs to his companion, Justin tried to assess his own feelings and had a darn hard time of it. For decades, he’d mourned the loss of Gwyltha, felt an empty pang whenever he thought of her. Suddenly the pain had faded and all he could summon up were distant good memories.

      If Vlad could give Gwyltha what contented her, so be it. Justin could hardly believe his own thoughts, but he meant them. He’d used up all his hurt. He hadn’t lied to Kit in saying he was untroubled at meeting Vlad. All that mattered now was that he establish a clear territory for Kit and Dixie, and that Stella accept his disguised “gift.”

      “Have you heard what happened last night?” Stella’s neighbor, Mrs. Zeibel, stopped her as she got out of the car.

      “What happened?” There was always trouble in this neighborhood.

      “Young Sid Day got himself arrested.”

      Stella wondered how they’d slept through it. “When? What happened?” Might as well know the worst.

      “Over at the Stewart School. Four of them caught taking computers and suchlike.” Mrs. Zeibel clucked her tongue and frowned. “Those boys. I don’t know. Their poor mother.”

      Their poor mother was no doubt resigned to having her sons arrested. She had to be to keep going. Between Sid getting arrested again and the younger one, Johnny, always hanging around with the drug dealers…Stella sighed. This was no place to raise a child. She only stayed because she’d promised her mother to take care of her house. Dumb promise.

      No point in worrying about it now. She had plenty to do now that she’d dropped Sam off at school, but when she shut the door behind her, the man in Dixie’s store yesterday was foremost in Stella’s thoughts. Justin Corvus! She said his name under her breath as she scraped oatmeal off the cereal plates. It suited him. Polished, smooth—but not in a nasty way, good-looking to the point of dangerous, eyes that did strange things to her thought processes and as for that voice…He could talk her out of her panties in a heartbeat. No, he couldn’t! She had too much self-preservation instinct for that!

      She laughed aloud as she reached for the drying cloth. Who was she fooling? Men like that dated bankers and lawyers, not dry cleaner clerks—and just as well. The last thing she needed right now was another complication in her life.

      Chapter Two

      Justin half-wished he still possessed the ability to take slow, relaxing breaths. He hadn’t felt this nervous in centuries. Why did it matter so? All he had to do was deliver a box. Delivering was the easy bit. It was what to say afterward that bothered him. “I long to taste your rich-scented blood,” would not be the thing to say, but he had this awful fear of blurting it out anyway.

      Abel, help him! He wasn’t a randy youth