VET Vampire Romance 01 - Covet

crisis. He couldn’t think straight at the moment, let alone deal with the drama of their star performer having a broken nose when he was due to go on stage tonight.
    “So tell Antoine.” Javier swept his suit bags over his shoulder, resting the back of his hand on the soft material of his black suit jacket. “He deals with the performers, not me.”
    “Antoine is busy with Snow, and I have good reason for coming to you first.” Callum mounted the sandstone steps again and led the way into the brightly lit foyer of the theatre. The black haired elite vampire looked over his shoulder at Javier, his vivid green eyes still dark. “It was one of the staff who hit him.”
    “One of the staff broke his nose?” Javier found that one difficult to digest. All of the staff were either human or of weak vampire lineage. Victor was of elite blood. His family weren’t as strong as Javier’s or Callum’s, their blood diluted by too many turned humans in their ranks, but he was still powerful enough to deal with any of Javier’s staff.
    “A woman.” Callum dumped Javier’s expensive luggage down in the middle of the marble floor. He waved to one of the passing male staff and the man came over to them. “Take these things to Javier’s office.”
    The man dutifully picked up the suitcase and then held his hand out to Javier. He stared at it.
    “I was going to freshen up and change before the performance tonight. It has been a long journey, Callum. I’m sure this can wait.”
    The look on Callum’s face said it wouldn’t. Javier sighed and handed the dark grey suit bags to the man. He bowed his head, hurried across the foyer to the side of the double-height elegant room and opened the plain wooden door that led to the staff only areas of the theatre.
    “The show starts in under an hour. We need to get Victor fixed up and then you need to speak with the woman who hit him and find out what happened before Antoine hears. He has enough problems on his plate at the moment. Snow is going through a rough patch again. I doubt he will tolerate this, regardless of who her owner is.”
    “Owner? The female is human?” Javier said and Callum nodded. “Who was it?”
    Callum’s dark eyebrows rose and he shrugged his broad shoulders, shifting his black designer suit jacket. “You know I’m not good with their names.”
    Javier knew that. Callum dealt with the darker side of the theatre business, tracking down vampires who could become good performers from cities all over Europe and sourcing human victims for the final act and other parts of the show the theatre hosted each week. His friend had long ago given up finding out anything about the humans. He had said it made his work easier. Javier took that to mean that his old friend was growing a conscience about what he was doing. He had even given the sourcing of victims over to a firm of vampires recently, letting them deal with it all, and had focused on finding vampire performers to bring into the Vampirerotique family instead.
    Callum started across the foyer in the direction the man had taken and Javier followed. An hour wasn’t a long time to fix this mess without Antoine hearing about it. If Snow was in a bad way again, Antoine would be in the mood for bloody murder. Whenever his older brother went off the rails, Antoine’s temper degenerated into nothing short of vicious.
    “Can you describe her?” Javier suspected that Callum would be able to manage that at least. He had an eye for detail, especially when it came to human females. The prettier the better to him.
    “Tall, reddish brown hair... fiery... great tits... and had the strangest golden eyes.”
    Javier stopped dead. Callum paused with his hand on the wooden door, holding it open, and looked back at him.
    Lilah had hit Victor?
    Before he could ask Callum more about it, a female member of staff appeared out of the gloom on the other side of the open door. She bowed her head to Callum, who still held the door, and then Javier and walked through. Javier’s gaze tracked her, his head tilting to one side as he took in what she was wearing.
    “Do you like it?” Callum said and when Javier looked back at him, he was smiling, all trace of anger and concern gone from his eyes. “I thought it suited the theatre more and it means the staff can move around during the performances without being an eyesore for those attending.”
    Javier turned back to stare at the woman again. She stood near the glass doors,