One Bite With A Vampire (Hidden Species #2) - Louisa Masters Page 0,1

warning is the sudden brush of the magic against me, and then my chair is being jerked around and Nikita is looming over me, her otherness now sharply defined. Most members of the community can pass as human—you’ve probably walked past hundreds of them and never known. Maybe you even live near one, or work with them. But when they embrace their innate selves, it’s so incredibly clear that they’re not human, even if not much seems to change on the surface.

She’s definitely a succubus—there’s a magnetic attraction to her features, even with the vicious glare she’s giving me, and I can tell she’s dialed up the pheromones from the way my body reacts. I’m not even into women, but my dick is still standing to attention. It’s purely physical, though, and I feel a sick sense of disgust that she’d do this without my consent—weaponize lust because of a petty office squabble.

At the same time, I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to be able to think this clearly. Isn’t there supposed to be some kind of mental euphoria with a succubus whammy? That’s meant to be part of the attraction—or so my sketchy research has told me.

“What’s going on here?” The sharp voice cuts through the tension in the room like a whip strike, and Nikita stumbles back from my chair. There’s a sudden flurry of people doing their jobs.

I look over at the man striding toward me. His habitual wicked grin is missing, and there’s a grim set to his face that makes him look seriously fucking scary. Or maybe that’s just because I know he’s a centuries-old vampire and a member of the deadly senior team that reports directly to the lucifer.

“Well?” He comes to a halt about two feet from me and looks between me and Nikita.

I keep my mouth shut for once. Andrew pisses me off anyway, so why would I voluntarily want to talk to him? Plus, I’m no snitch.

He raises a brow at me, then rolls his eyes when I set my jaw and turns on the succubus trying to edge away. She freezes and starts to stutter excuses. It’s hard to tell what she’s saying, what with how jerky and broken the sentences are, but I can’t really blame her for being terrified. If I remember right, she works in the accounting department, and she’s currently being faced down by the community equivalent of a Navy SEAL or Green Beret—or whatever those scary military types are—while knowing that she just broke a whole bunch of rules.

Andrew finally loses patience. “Go back to work,” he orders. “Someone will speak with you later.”

She literally runs away. If I wasn’t so annoyed by the fact that Andrew’s in my space, I’d have enjoyed watching that.

Meanwhile, Mr. Big Bad Vampire is looking around the open-plan area at all the people trying so hard not to meet his gaze. “If it turns out that she was attempting to use her abilities to intimidate Noah, which is what it looked like, and you all were just watching, there’s going to be serious disciplinary action. So you may want to very carefully consider your next steps.”

Way to threaten a dozen people I need to work with, dumbass. Well, work next to, anyway.

The flurry this time is vaguely uneasy. I sigh, haul myself up from my chair, and jab my index finger in his direction.

“How about you stop trying to boss people around and let everyone do their work? What did you even come down here for?” He and the rest of the lucifer’s crack team, including Sam, who likes to think he’s my mentor, work on a different floor.

He looks down at my finger and grins his stupid grin. Ugh. Does he seriously think that being a centuries-old silver hottie who acts like a teenager is attractive? I can’t even. It’s like when your dad tries to be cool.

Well, not my dad. Other people’s dads. My dad never bothered with shit like that.

Plus, he isn’t actually my dad.

And smooth, refined Andrew in no way reminds me of him.

“We’re having a meeting, and Percy wants you there,” he says.

Sighing, I turn back to lock my computer. Percy is the lucifer, and since it’s his beneficence that got me this internship-slash-job and the apartment I live in, I like to stay on his good side. Plus, he’s been nice. I’ve found it a little hard to trust anyone after what’s happened these last few years, but if I was going to