Alex lifted her right wrist, still enclosed in the hard iron cuff, as she lifted a brow at Tre in question.
Tre shrugged. “Yeah, fool me once and all that shit, babe. One mind-fuck is enough, thank you very much.” He lifted himself from the chair and stepped away from the bed.
Alex relaxed a bit and moved to sit on the edge of the mattress, her long bare legs dangling over the side. She was wearing one of his T-shirts, which he had laid out for her to use after her shower, and with her movements the soft cotton material was now bunched up to the top of her thighs. Tre fisted his hands to keep from reaching out to touch her silky skin. He took a step back. The impact this female had on him pissed him off.
She rubbed her eyes like a little girl just waking up from a bad dream, then met his gaze. “I know you want to get to this Nicolette you speak of, but I’m telling you, I don’t know the names of the women they have now. The only ones I knew of were the ones I found out about yesterday and they weren’t called by name. And the two subjects I overheard Luca talking about are now probably—”
“Dead?” Tre finished the sentence for her in a hard, flat tone and watched as she closed her eyes. “Yeah. Well, maybe I’ll let you come and take a look at your people’s handiwork once we find these women. Maybe once you see with your own eyes what your precious people do to innocent humans, you’ll be more willing to spill what you really know. But we’ll get to that once we’ve moved you.”
Tre stepped forward. He took her by the shoulders and pulled her from the bed to stand before him. His emotions were raw and he knew he had to get away from her before he did something he’d regret, like kiss her senseless. She was Valta, she was tied to their breeding experiments, she knew where the women were and refused to say, yet he still wanted to shove her back against the closest wall and slam his dick inside her sweet heat until they both came for hours. His beast definitely liked that idea.
Tre growled low as he turned to leave, fed up with his weakness where she was concerned. “Get dressed now. I’ll give you some privacy but be ready in ten minutes.”
Alex spoke just above a whisper. “Where are you taking me, Tre?”
He looked back at her as he opened the door to his room. She actually looked edible. All rumpled from sleep, eyes wide with fear. He didn’t want to do what he had to do next—it went against all his ingrained ethics about protecting females—but Nic was his priority and he would do whatever it took to get her back safely. And if that meant he had to be a cold-blooded bastard to get the information he needed, then so be it.
Tre met her worried gaze with a forced sense of detachment. “Someplace where no one will hear you scream.”
Tre turned and left the room, pulling the door closed behind him. He felt her fear coming off her in waves and didn’t do a thing to stop it. He was torn but he needed her scared. Needed her to fear him. He couldn’t afford her knowing that with one touch, his beast would rear its ugly head and take her for his own, whether or not either of them wanted that.
* * * * *
As they exited the SUV in front of the warehouse off the riverbanks, the stench of death wafted through the hot wind blowing into their faces. Probably nutria from the night before. Kids in the area had a tendency to take out their pellet guns at night, blind the giant rodents with flashlights and shoot them as target practice.
Tre turned toward the vehicle and watched as Michael pulled Alex from the back seat. He noticed Alex’s body jerking behind the warrior as he roughly led her to the side entrance of the building. “Take it easy, Michael. Just get her into the building.”
Michael jerked down hard on the wrist irons they had reattached before leaving the Royal house, wrenching a painful yelp from Alex. “Fuck that, Tre. She knows where Nic is and she’s going tell us.
Tre leaped forward and grabbed Michael’s arm, stopping him from yanking Alex’s arms from their sockets. “Hey, pup. You do as I say. Nic’s my friend and you don’t have to tell me how to handle an interrogation. I want her back more than anyone.” He peeled Michael’s hands from around the irons and transferred his grip to them. He pulled Alex to his side and looked back at the furious Michael.
“What the hell is up with you, Michael? This isn’t you. I’ve never known you to be rough with a female.”
As though a fuse was lit, Michael exploded. “What the fuck, Tre? Have you forgotten what she did to you six months ago? This bitch is Valta! Our enemy. She knows where all those women are. Is responsible for the mutilated bodies we find every week. Possibly responsible for hybrid babies out there we don’t know where to find. And she knows where Nicolette is.” His eyes narrowed as his stare bored through Alex, causing a shiver to run through her that even Tre could detect. “And this bitch is going to tell me where she is or I swear to Roderick himself, I will rip her to pieces.”
Tre felt Alex stiffen next to him and his protective nature kicked in. He put his hand firmly in the center of Michael’s chest and pushed hard, sending the warrior flying back against the metal wall of the warehouse. “You’ve spent too much time around your hot-headed brother, Michael. You won’t touch her. I do the questioning around here and you’d do well to remember that or I’ll ship your ass back to Washington and let Talon deal with you. Now step aside and let me get to work. I don’t know what’s going on with you and Nic, but whatever it is, it stops when we get her back. She’s in this mess because she’s my friend. But that ends when she returns.” Tre nodded toward Alex. “In the meantime, no one goes near her but me. Understand?”
Michael straightened and backed off. “Fine. You get her to tell you where Nic is. Do what you have to do but I want Nicolette back by tonight. I don’t want to even think about what those bastards are doing to her. And I swear to God, if I find Nic and she’s harmed in any way, there’s nowhere this bitch Valta can hide where I won’t find her.”
Tre tucked Alex behind him before he leaned in and pointed his finger in Michael’s face, even though he was shocked by the other warrior’s intensity. “Back the fuck off, Michael. Whatever you think you have with Nic, you don’t. You will stay away from her or you will deal with me. Got it, pup? Your little crush, or whatever you think you’ve got going where she is concerned, isn’t worth her safety.”
Michael stood stoic, obviously biting his tongue to avoid a smartass comeback. Tre knew the man wasn’t stupid. Michael knew Tre was in charge and would carry through on his threat to send him packing if he dared to cross him.
Jude walked up and grabbed Michael by the arm. “Come on, man. Don’t fuck with him right now. We need the intel and you need to shut the fuck up so he can concentrate on doing what he does best.”
Michael allowed Jude to pull him back but Tre couldn’t miss the lethal glare Michael sent Alex’s way before he turned his back on them and stomped off.
Chapter Eight
Tre walked into the coolness of the airconditioned warehouse. Gently pulling Alex by the wrists, he led her to a set of chairs and sat her in the center one. He kneeled before her to unlock one of the irons and noticed that her hands were shaking, the confrontation with Michael and the stress of the entire situation obviously affecting her. As he looked up into her eyes, he saw her fear. It was killing him not to take her in his arms and console her. To hold her and tell her everything was going to be all right. But as he turned away from her and walked toward the back wall, he knew if she didn’t tell him what he wanted to know, things would be far from all right.
“Why are we here, Tre?” Alex asked on a shaky breath.
He threw his keys onto the table before turning to face her. “I told you. I needed you out of the city so we could talk.”
She wiped her hands up and down her legs in her nervousness. “I don’t understand. We could have talked back where you lived. I told you what I know. I didn’t see your friend and I don’t know her. What else do you want from me?”
He slowly walked toward her and pulled a chair from beside her. He quickly turned it backward and
straddled the seat, now facing her and only inches away. “I need you to tell me where you were yesterday and where the women are.”
“Why? So you can grab them for yourselves and do your own sick experiments on them? Fuck you, Tre. I won’t send them from one prison to the next. At this rate, it’s better they die than live through what the Coteri would do to them.”
Tre quickly stood and kicked the chair away. “God damn it, Alex! I don’t know how many times I have to tell you. We don’t do anything to harm human women. The Coteri are charged with protecting the human race. All of those horrible stories you were told were true up to one very important point—it’s the Valta who do those things. The Valta who brutalize, terrorize and murder innocent humans. Not the Coteri. And it’s my job to stop them!”
Alex shook her head back and forth, then stared at him defiantly. “Prove it.”
“If that’s what it takes, child, I will prove it to you.” Isla glided from the shadows to get a better look at the Valta woman. Her bravery with Tre during their brief conversation had impressed her and she wanted to see her face. The long, black hair hanging across the back of the chair shifted as the Valta prisoner turned her head. The minute Isla saw her eyes, she knew something was different about the one they called Alex. Something off but definitely familiar.
She continued toward the prisoner and stopped directly in front of her. “What information do you have, child, that would make you believe the Coteri are an evil race? Tell me your stories and let me enlighten you.” Isla motioned for Tre to retrieve a chair. He did so with haste and moved away once she was seated. “Now, they call you Alex. Is it all right if I do the same?”
Alex straightened in her chair in response to the regal air rolling off the older woman. Her perfectly coiffed silver hair with a single black streak down the side, the perfection of her ivory one-piece jumpsuit accented by a matching ivory bolero jacket, the multi-strand pearl choker wrapped loosely around her neck screamed nobility and Alex wondered who she was and what the hell she was doing in a mangy warehouse on the outskirts of New Orleans, dressed all in white, no less.
Alex cleared her throat and fought for courage. “Yes. I’m certainly not a child but you may call me Alex. And you are?”
The woman chuckled and smiled genuinely. “It’s just an expression, my dear, as everyone seems as young as a child when you reach my age. I am Isla. Private consultant to our king, Roderick. Consultant to two prior kings of the Coteri and here to offer you safety and asylum if you will just tell us what we need to know.”
Alex shifted uncomfortably in her chair. A consul to the Coteri king here to speak with her? She was in some deep shit.
“I beg your pardon, ma’am, but I told Tre everything I knew. I don’t know his friend Nicolette, wasn’t allowed to meet with or see any of the women held, and can’t provide you with any additional information.”
Alex watched as the stately woman gracefully crossed one leg over the other, letting a small tattoo peek out from under the cuff of her linen pants. Alex knew it was the symbol of the Coteri race. An open-looped infinity cross daintily placed on the curve of the woman’s ankle. Alex knew the location of the lab in the marsh as well as two others, but could she afford to trust these people? Everything she’d believed had now been turned upside down and she didn’t know what to do. Her instincts told her to trust them, but if she was honest with herself, those instincts had more to do with the trust she felt for Tre based on their shared night of passion six months before than what this woman was telling her. And yet he’d been so cold to her that morning, terrifying in his intensity to get this “Nic” woman back. God, her head hurt and she just wanted to be left alone to try to sort everything out in her own mind. That obviously wasn’t going to happen.
“Now, Alex,” Isla continued, “we both know that’s just not true. You have a vast knowledge of what’s been going on for the past few years and I believe you have been involved in the very heart of it. Knowingly or not, you, my dear, have provided the Valta with information that has resulted in the deaths of countless numbers of human women, all in the name of strengthening your race.”
Alex gasped in surprise. “H-how do you know all this? You don’t even know me. And I swear I knew nothing about what was being done to those poor women. All my research has been done within the confines of my lab back in Belize and never on human subjects. When I found out what was happing here, I fled, refused to be any part of it, and was determined to destroy all my research so others wouldn’t be hurt.”
She was rambling and she knew it but for some reason this tiny woman scared the shit out of her, even more so than the feral warrior who had wanted to rip her to pieces mere moments before. Alex took a deep breath and tried to steady her nerves. “How do you know this about me? No one here even knows who I am.”
Isla chuckled and reached out to pat Alex’s hand. “I do believe we share a gift child.” She tapped her temple with her index finger. “Although mine is quite a bit more developed than yours, as it should be given your relatively young age. I’d be happy to help you to strengthen yours. That is, once we’ve settled the matter at hand.”
Alex shook her head in disbelief, her mind a raging whirlwind of information, questions and emotions. She couldn’t seem to process everything she’d learned and didn’t know what to believe anymore, or who she could trust.
Isla patted her hand once more before continuing their conversation. “Now Alex, tell me why you won’t cooperate with my dear Tremayne here. What is it that stops you from helping us to save the women your brother is currently holding?”
Tre, who had been silent during their entire exchange, suddenly exploded. “Brother? What brother?”
Isla cocked a brow toward Alex. “You’ve kept quite a few secrets, dear.”
Alex straightened in her chair, knowing there was no use denying this truth with the all-knowing Isla in the room and absently wondering how the small woman knew so much about her. Besides, she refused to act as if she were ashamed of her race. Even though at that moment she was painfully ashamed of what her brother had done, supposedly in the name of protecting their people, she refused to believe there wasn’t at least some good still left in him, because if she did her heart would truly break. And although she wasn’t close to her mother, she couldn’t fathom that the woman who’d borne her could have been aware of and supportive of his actions.
She met Isla’s gaze. “Yes, I have kept secrets from Tre, but only out of self-preservation because I knew what a Coteri warrior would do to me if he knew I was Valta, and especially what would be done to me if any of you knew of my family.”
Alex turned her attention back to Tre. “Yes. Brother, Tre. Luca is my brother and, until yesterday, someone I loved and trusted above all others. I’ve been alone for most of my life, hidden away from my family and most of my kind for my protection. He’s the one person who’s always been there for me. Protected me, encouraged me. And although I hate what he’s obviously done here in New Orleans with these women, I can’t simply forget the lifetime of love and tutelage he’s given me. I am Valta, Tre, and proud of that fact.”
Alex watched as Tre’s head bowed in obvious disgust. “Jesus,” she heard him mumble.
Her temper flared. “Yes, Tremayne,” Alex reacted, using his full name for emphasis. “You fucked Luca’s sister. A Valta. Do you want to kill me now or just hand me back over to Michael, whom I’m sure is more than willing to do the job for you?”
“Now, Alex. Language dear, please,” Isla retorted, patting her hand in a strangely comforting gesture. “There’s no need to be crude. Only a select few of the Coteri have knowledge of Valencia’s second child, her daughter. I’m sure Tremayne was just surprised by this new revelation and means more to you than your harsh words imply.”
Tre’s head popped up and he stared directly at Alex. She felt a blush rush to her cheeks at Isla’s declaration but could also see and feel the confusion, disappointment and anger in Tre’s gaze. She
didn’t want to continue down this road. But Tre took that choice out of her hands.
Tre took steady strides toward her. “New Orleans? You honestly think the only sick shit your brother has done has happened in the few short months he’s been in New Orleans?” He snorted. “You can’t possibly be that naïve, Alex.”
Tre paced, his fury evident, until he suddenly stopped and drilled her with an icy glare. “So Luca is your brother and Valencia is your mother. Then tell us, Alex. Who’s daddy dearest?”
“I’ve never met my father and don’t know who he is. It’s only ever been my mother and brother,” Alex answered softly.
Her throat felt tight and the air thick. She could feel the resentment in his gaze and didn’t like that she’d put that expression on his face. Before yesterday and what she’d found out about her brother, she would have been enraged if someone had tried to make her feel ashamed of her family. Now she didn’t know what to feel. Her entire world and everything she’d ever known was now in question. Why in hell had she gone with Tre to his hotel all those months ago? She never would have met him and none of this would be happening right now if she had followed her head that night instead of her libido. And Tre certainly wouldn’t be looking at her now as if she were some disgusting stain he wanted to smear off the bottom of his boot. God, she just wanted this all to be over.
Tre stormed forward. “So that’s why you hooked up with me, Alex? You knew who I was the entire time, yet…what? You wanted a walk on the wild side with your enemy? Wanted to get close to me to learn information that could help your sadistic brother or your fucking research? Did you follow me after the night we had, to find out where Nic worked?”
Alex initially shrank back in her chair in the face of Tre’s tirade. But as he continued, her anger got the better of her. He was cheapening one of the best nights of her life into something lurid, dirty and sinister, and it was more than obvious that his beliefs that all Valta were evil and untrustworthy applied to her as well.
Infinite Desire Page 7
