The Lying, the Witch, and the Werewolf (Down & Dirty Supernatural Cleaning Services Book 4) by Kate Quinn (uplifting books for women .txt) 📗

I can’t stand the idea of VSK hurting someone else I care about. He’s been quiet since he went after Liam and McGinnis, but I know he’s not done. He’s just biding his time. All I can do is wait and hope that the next person he comes after...is me.

In the meantime, though, the bills still gotta be paid.

I lug my bucket and cleaning supplies to the front door and knock. A handsome twenty-something man opens it and grins. He’s covered in blood.

“You’re here! That’s great, just...small hiccup,” he tells me, moving aside so I can enter the hall. “My wife is still in labor. I should have called, but it slipped my mind.”

“You have more important things to deal with,” I tell him, eyeing the bloody footsteps on the wood floor. He could have thrown a freaking towel down at least.

“It’s coming,” someone shouts. “The baby is crowning!”

He rushes off and I follow behind to a large bathroom. A woman is in a tub filled with crimson water, and blood coats the walls. Between her legs is another woman, who also looks about twenty-five.

I have no idea how old any of them actually are. Vampires don’t age. If the wife’s super sexy voice over the phone hadn’t clued me in that my new employers were vamps, the smell of the powerful sunblock vamps use has done the trick. I smelled it as soon as I walked in the door, a little tang under the heavy smell of copper.

In a flood of blood, the midwife pulls the baby out and it cries, its wailing somehow endearing. My ears suddenly turn hot and I feel my face redden. The man rushes to his wife and I stand awkwardly to the side. I could come back later, but honestly, I’d rather scrub off the blood while it’s still wet—less work that way.

The midwife turns and smiles at me. “Oh, looks like somebody might have a touch of baby fever!”

“What?” I ask, backing away, warding her off with my mop.

“You’re flushed,” she says, reaching for my cheek. Her palm is cool against my skin and I relax a little. “It’s the hormones,” the midwife confides. “Your body is reacting to the baby.”

She gives me a quick once over, her vamp eyes assessing my human frailties. “You’re what? Mid-fifties?”

“Thirties, thank you very much,” I snap back.

“Sorry,” she shrugs. “Vamps aren’t very good at judging human age. But don’t worry.” She pats my wrist. “You’ve got time.”

“I don’t—”

“This must be a lot,” she motions toward my mop and then around the blood-spattered room. It looks like someone was murdered here. Vamps have more blood inside their bodies than is scientifically possible. There’s a particularly nasty gif circulating among the Humans First group of a vamp being hit by a car. He just kind of explodes like a water balloon. But one filled with blood.

“It’s actually not my first vampire birth,” I tell her and am pleased to see that now it’s her turn to be taken aback. “I’ll start on the hallway,” I announce. “Then I’ll tackle in here.”

Some people hate cleaning, but I like it. It’s satisfying to make something dirty look brand new. It also lets me focus on a simple, obtainable goal, instead of thinking about all the crappy things in my life.

Like my ex-husband Jax who is playing house with his new witch girlfriend. Or my ex-boyfriend Brent who is a murderer and Humans First senator. Or the fact that a vampire serial killer is obsessed with me...and forced me to turn my boyfriend into a vampire or let him die.

Hmmmm, maybe I shouldn’t call Shauna’s life a dumpster fire. People in flaming bins shouldn’t throw garbage.

By the time I clean the hall and start on the bathroom the happy new parents are all showered off and cooing to their new baby in the nursery. The woman looks like she just ran a 5k and then did a shampoo commercial, all sheeny and glowing. The dad looks at his wife and kid like they’re the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

He catches me staring. “Sorry about the mix up. I booked you as soon as she started labor; I thought it would be like the others...done in twenty minutes.” He laughs. “But this little guy had other plans!” He makes googly eyes at the baby and I can feel a tug at my heartstrings.

“How many other children do you have?” I ask.

“This is ten,” the woman tells me. I look around. There’s no indication of other children in the house.

“Our other kids are grown,” the man tells me. “We like to wait at least thirty years before trying again. It makes things easier on us.”

I nod. The couple do not look a day over twenty-five, but that’s the age most vamps look. “How long have you two been together?” I ask, more to be polite. I’m eyeing the bathroom down the hall. It doesn’t take long for all that bloody water to dry on the tile.

“We just celebrated our half millennium,” the woman says, not taking her eyes off the baby.

I nearly drop my mop. “You’ve been together for five hundred years?” I ask.

The man nods. “A lot of vampires marry for political gain, but we fell in love. And once a vamp falls in love, well, we’re a fiercely loyal bunch.”

I think of Shauna; she was born a fae and turned vamp, but she still loves Tina with a passion that I can only hope to one day feel for someone. I had thought Liam might be that person. And now he’s not a person anymore. Not a human, anyway. Now that he’ll live forever like any other vamp, it’s totally possible he’ll hate me for a half millennium. It’s not exactly the mark I hoped to leave on the world.

I trudge to the bathroom and try to lose myself in my job but