Read Online Finding Fire: Paranormal Romance (Bad Boys Of The Underworld Book 1) by Mallory Crowe - Free Book Online Page B

who housed or helped me would be executed. The kill order has been rescinded, but some of these cowards still can’t even abide to be in the same room as me.”
    “Are you sure that’s why they ran?” asked Anna.
    “What do you mean?”
    “I never got any order to stay away from you and yet I can barely stand to be in the same room as you.” She gave him a playful smile.
    He stood. “That, Annabelle, is a lie.”
    She didn’t fight him on that one.
    “Would you like something to drink?”
    Anna shook her head and watched him walk up to the bar. He ordered his drink, but she couldn’t hear what he ordered.
    Her eyes were once again drawn to the men who had moved away when she and Nicolas had sat down. She thought about Aleksander ordering no one to shelter or help Nicolas. How long ago had he said that was? Sixty years ago.
    These men appeared to be in their thirties. She’d spent most of her life looking for vampires, and here she was in a room with at least three. She scanned the rest of the room, trying to tell whether anyone in the room looked supernatural.
    No one stood out to her. Then again, even the men she knew to be supernatural looked like two perfectly normal, if not a bit scary, men. No wonder the Stakes never found any. How often had a vampire passed her on the streets with her being none the wiser?
    Nicolas walked back to her. As she watched him, she felt another unwelcome burst of attraction spread through her.
    Despite the chill, he wasn’t wearing a jacket tonight. Instead, he wore a dark blue v-neck sweater that he filled out beautifully. His shoulders stretched out the fabric, and the rest fell and hit all the right places. Just a bit of his neck was revealed, showing the end of his collarbones and cords of his neck.
    When she looked at his neck, she almost felt like a vampire. All she could currently think about was running her tongue along it and taking a gentle bite. Her dream of him came back to her. She remembered she’d tried to see his chest, but couldn’t seem to focus. That had been right before he bit her.
    As Nicolas sat down in the booth, Anna shook away her dirty thoughts and tried to appear as innocent as possible. She stared at the tall black glass he brought back with him from the bar. When she worked up the nerve to look at his face, he didn’t appear to suspect anything.
    “So,” he said. “We should get down to business.”
    “Probably,” Anna agreed, though she wasn’t looking forward to this conversation.
    “Have you heard from this Mr. X today?”
    Anna frowned. “I haven’t gotten any calls from him. He contacted someone else I know before he told me about you. I’ll have to write Dennis an email to see if he heard anything else.”
    “Try to do that. See if you can arrange a meeting at night. I would like to know who is running around and giving amateur vampire hunters my address.”
    “He knew I was running by your building. He called me right as I was passing by. So he must have been watching me from somewhere, but I didn’t see him anywhere on the street.” She shivered just thinking about it. “Speaking of strange men watching me, did you follow me home last night?”
    He smiled an all too innocent smile. “Why would you think that?”
    “The wonderful surprise of finding you waiting for me at my door this evening was a big clue. You either followed me last night, or you knew where I lived before.”
    “It only seemed fair that I know where you live. You have already violated my private space.”
    She did feel a bit guilty about that. “I didn’t violate— ”
    “You were in my room. On my bed.”
    “It’s impossible to get anywhere in that room without getting on the bed. It takes up the whole space.”
    While she was on the defensive, he changed the subject. “Where were you today?”
    Anna wasn’t sure she wanted to tell him about Abigail. If he really wanted to know about her, it wouldn’t be too hard to find out who raised her and