Wicked Love

by Michelle Dare

  After Gail left, I read everything I could get my hands on about this strange other world—which wasn’t much as I was only eight. I thought I’d discovered a secret—that I’d stumbled upon something magical.

  On Bailey’s ninth birthday, we were out to dinner with our grandparents. In the middle of devouring my meal, my brain began to tingle. It felt like tiny ants crawling inside my head. When the crawling suddenly morphed into a burning pain, I reacted. I’m not sure what I did, but whatever it was, it stopped the awful feeling. On the way out the door, I saw a man sitting alone at a table by the window. Our eyes met, and I felt that same crawling sensation inside my head. Don’t ask me how, but I knew he was the cause of it. I also knew that what he was doing was wrong. Staring defiantly at him, I spoke—not out loud but inside my mind. I called him a bad man and told him to stop bothering little kids. From the surprised look on his face, I thought he might have heard me. As I couldn’t see his animal, I thought he might have been a vampire. In truth, I had no idea what he was.

  Nevertheless, I was beside myself with excitement. Not able to stand it, I told Bailey. Once again, she told my parents. I’ll never forget my mother’s words. In that imperialistic tone that I hated, she said, “You are a Duvail, and Duvail’s do not associate with those kinds of creatures. One more time, Diana, and Daddy and I will ship you off to live with your aunt Reba.”

  Aunt Reba was old and mean. I was devastated. If my mother knew about those so-called creatures, then it wasn’t a secret. We never spoke of it again.

  My father died when I was seventeen. Mother said the good lord took him, but we all knew it was the alcohol. The day after my eighteenth birthday, she drove me across town to the family attorney’s office. It was there that I learned I was adopted. Evidently, I needed this information to access my trust funds. There were two, to be exact, one from each side of the family. Both contained more money than I could spend in ten lifetimes. I should have been thrilled to discover I was loaded. Instead, I was angry. I felt betrayed, felt as if I’d been living a lie. If I wasn’t Diana Duvail, then who was I?

  I was still trying to figure that out.

  My mother passed away during my first year at the police academy—no doubt from shock that I’d chosen such a lowly profession. Once Mom was gone, Bailey, who’d been kept on a tight leash, set out to find herself. She met a guy while traipsing across Europe, and ended up marrying him. His name was Amos, and he looked like Shaggy Rogers from the Scooby-Doo cartoon. The three of us had dinner together once a month. I never told Bailey I was adopted. I also hadn’t told her about Mick’s death or my reassignment to the PHD. If I’d learned anything from living in that awful house, it was how to keep a secret.

  One afternoon, not long after the spilled-coffee incident, Akeno was teaching me how to take down a shifter using tranquilizer darts, when Tymon suddenly appeared.

  “Class over, I need to borrow Diana,” he announced.

  His ominous tone caused anxiety to ripple through my belly, and I silently cursed Ayden. Last night, after a grueling star-throwing session—where he did most of the throwing, and I did all of the dodging—he invited me back to his apartment. Let’s just say the night started with beer and pizza and evolved into shots of cinnamon-flavored whiskey and him teaching me how to construct mini bombs out of dog poo. Yes, it was an incredibly juvenile thing to do, but it was also a hell of a lot of fun. Stupid Ayden said Tymon would find it funny. I knew better than to listen to him.

  We were almost to the elevator door, when I blurted, “It was Ayden’s idea.”

  Eyeing me sideways, Tymon asked, “What was Ayden’s idea?”

  Okay, so maybe this isn’t about the poo bomb. Hedging, I replied, “Why did you need to see me?”

  “What was Ayden’s idea?” he repeated.

  I knew that tone. It was the one he used right before he brain-blasted me. In an attempt to preempt the inevitable, I threw up my shields.

  His lips curled into a smile as the elevator doors opened. “Smart girl,” he whispered as I quickly scooted past him. He waited for the doors to close before saying, “A little advice, the next time you decide to act immature and idiotic, you might not want to sing about diarrhea at the top of your lungs while doing it.”

  A snort of laughter shot from my mouth. I’d completely forgotten about that. At Tymon’s sigh, I laughed even harder.

  We exited the elevator, and I followed him into his office. Once we were both seated, he finally told me why I was there.

  “I received a disturbing call this morning from your old unit. It appears that a number of women have gone missing over the past few months. Last night, victim number six walked into the police station, asking to speak to you.” My stomach lurched. “I say victim because according to the officers who spoke with her, she was so emaciated and riddled with bite marks that she could barely stand on her own two feet.”

  Ignoring the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, I asked, “Did she say what happened?”

  “She collapsed before they could get it out of her.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “In the hospital.”

  I stood. “Great, let’s go.”

  “She’s in a coma and is currently unresponsive.”

  “Shit,” I whispered, my heart plummeting to my toes. I sank back into the chair. “Tell me what happened from the beginning.”

  “There’s not much to tell. She apparently stumbled into the precinct asking for you. When they told her you no longer worked there, she got agitated. She mentioned there were others, and that you were supposed to help them, then she collapsed.”

  Frowning, I asked, “Are you sure you heard right? She said that I was supposed to help them?”

  He nodded. “That’s what I was told.”

  “Who contacted you?”

  He paused, his nose flaring as if he smelled something rotten, then said, “Officer Gonad made the call.”

  Great, it would have to be him. Gonad hated me, not because of Mick’s death, but because he made a mistake, was put in a position where he felt helpless, and couldn’t handle the humiliation. He was pissed that I got transferred instead of fired and was making it his life’s mission to bad-mouth me to anyone who would listen.

  “I’m out. Let someone else handle it.” It sickened me to give it up, but if it meant not having to deal with that idiot, so be it.

  He sighed again. “Believe me; I would if I could.”

  “Wow, thanks for the vote of confidence.” The asshole at the end was implied.

  “You’ve come a long way, Diana, but we both know you’re not ready to tackle something this big, and trust me when I say this is big.” At my questioning look, he explained. “Shortly after I hung up with Gonad, I got a call from Tobias—he’s Zacharias Wylde’s right-hand man. He said the woman in the coma belongs to Zacharias. They would like our two offices to work together on the matter. When I told Tobias I would be the one handling it, he shut me down. Zacharias wants you, and he wants to meet with you tonight.”

  A sense of trepidation rolled through me. Working with Zacharias Wylde was like being a lowly analyst and having the head of the FBI call you in on a case. Tymon was right; I wasn’t ready for this.

  As if reading my mind, which I was pretty sure he could do, he said, “You are not in this alone. I told Tobias that I would be helping from the sidelines. I need you to trust that I’ve got your back, that we all have your back. Do you think you can do that?”

  Five months ago, the answer would have been no. The only person I trusted was Mick, but things had changed. Tymon had kept his promise to me. Each time I managed to stop him from frying my brain, he’d praised me with information. I’d learned that Lenora Moreau was born in the 1800s to a wealthy French family. At the age of seventeen, she married a French count. She was turned sometime in her late twenties, but Tymon didn’t know the specific details on how she became a vampire. He talked about the coalition, which took place fifteen or so years
ago when a group of men—all of them human—accidentally stumbled into a shifter bar. When asked to leave, they put up a fight. It was a lose-lose situation, and they got their asses handed to them. Two nights later, they went back to that same bar and killed every shifter inside the place. It wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. A year or so prior to that, a man was refused entry into an underground blood club. Blood clubs were places where vampires were allowed to feed freely on humans. Enraged at being denied entrance, the man and some of his buddies went back to the club after closing and torched it. The twenty or so vampires still inside the place all perished. A week later, the guy and his four buddies vanished. The incident caused an uproar, and relations were strained between humans and vampires after that.

  A year later, when those men walked into that bar and killed all those shifters, it was like pouring gasoline on an already blazing fire. It was a declaration of war—a war in which, no matter how you sliced it, we could not win. When powerful players in the supernatural community came forward and demanded that our government take action, the coalition was formed. For us to peacefully exist alongside each other, there would need to be rules, laws, and regulations put into place. Alphas in the shifter communities came together peacefully and divvied up lands, while vampires split into territories. Each territory was to be governed by a Lord. The United States was divided into North, South, East, and West. I already knew all of this, but it was interesting hearing Tymon’s take on it. What I didn’t know was how a vampire Lord was chosen. According to Tymon, a vampire Lord was determined by three things: age, strength, and cunning. Lenora, who at that time was living with her seethe in Alabama, decided she wanted to be Lord of the South. Unfortunately for her, so did Zacharias Wylde. Tymon didn’t know much about Zacharias, other than that he was originally from Europe and had relocated to Charleston in the early 1900s. Rumor had it, Zacharias challenged Lenora for the position. The day before the challenge was to take place, she got cold feet and called it off, which meant that Zacharias won by default.

  Three years later, Lenora relocated her seethe to Charleston. Tymon suspected it was to pester Zacharias. Not long after that, Zacharias established the Paranormal Human Division. This meant that he was essentially my boss, or rather, my boss’s boss. After learning all of this, I had two questions: Who was Zacharias Wylde, and why was Lenora Moreau still alive?

  I guess I was about to find out.

  4

  After my talk with Tymon, I hauled it to my office where I accessed PHD’s database and everything I could find on Zacharias Wylde. I discovered that he was wealthy, intelligent, and reclusive. The guy owned everything from small businesses to large corporations, had five degrees—a few I had no idea even existed—made smart investments, and apparently, didn’t like to be photographed. After an hour of searching for a picture of him, and finding nada, I got my secretary, Barbara, on it. Barbara lived for this shit. If she couldn’t find a photo of the guy, then there wasn’t one to be found. Barbara searched for over two hours before coming back empty-handed. According to her, the man was a ghost. A vampire ghost—just what I needed.

  A little before eight, I shut off my computer, grabbed my backpack, and headed for the elevator. My gut churned as I stepped inside, my thoughts on the upcoming meeting with the enigmatic Mr. Wylde. Depending on how I played it, this meeting could either make or break my career. It’s one meeting, I told myself. One meeting with an antisocial, old-as-dirt vampire who had the power to end my career in law enforcement with a snap of his petrified fingers. I pictured a wrinkled-skin, rheumy-eyed, thousand-year-old vamp with tobacco-yellow teeth and a bad comb-over and shuddered at the thought. There had to be a reason he was so reclusive. The whole thing put me on edge, and I couldn’t help but wish that Tymon or one of the other guys was going with me.

  PHD headquarters reminded me of a small college campus. The ground floor, with its large windows and high ceiling, had an open-air feel about it. Add in the café with the French pastries and fancy coffee, and it was downright inviting. From there, one could either catch an elevator or ride the escalator to the second floor where the reception desk and conference rooms were located. The third, and top floor, housed our offices, and could only be accessed via key card. Within walking distance of the main building were four other buildings as well as an outdoor track and a state-of-the-art shooting range. One thing was for sure, whoever built the place had money. The only flaw that I could see, other than the job itself, was the damn parking lot. Located across the street from the main building, it was a pain in the ass to deal with during rush hour. As it was currently rush hour, I was going to have to take my life into my own hands and Frogger it across the two-lane street to my car.

  My phone rang as I was exiting the building. When I saw Barbara’s name on the screen, I picked up the call. “Please tell me you found a picture of the guy, and that he doesn’t look like Willie Nelson.”

  She laughed. “Sorry, I wish I could. Mr. Wylde’s office just phoned. He’s sending someone to get you. He said to expect a black Escalade. They should be waiting outside the main entrance as we speak.”

  I glanced at the street and immediately spotted the Escalade. Irritated that I wasn’t getting to drive my own car, I thanked Barbara and ended the call. As I reached the side of the vehicle, the black-tinted passenger-side window slowly rolled down. A man in a dark suit leaned across the center console, and said, “Hello, Diana, I take it you got the message. My name is Carl, and I will be driving you this evening.” He motioned to the backseat. “Please, get in.”

  With a muttered, “Thanks,” I opened the door. The car was so tall that I had to reach for the ‘oh-shit’ handle to haul myself inside the thing.

  As I settled onto the plush, leather bucket seat, I discovered I wasn’t the only passenger. A man occupying the seat adjacent to mine was typing furiously on his laptop. This must be Tobias. I tried to recall what I knew about the guy. It wasn’t much. I knew that he was Zacharias’s right-hand man, that he was older, and that was about it. While fastening my seatbelt, I did a quick study. He didn’t look older. In fact, he looked about my age. The first word that came to mind was dark—dark hair, dark complexion, dark shades, dark clothing. Someone needed to introduce him to a color other than black, such as yellow, or even red. Red would go well with his skin tone. Aside from his colorless taste in clothing, he was nice looking. Who was I kidding? The guy was hot. He looked Latin American or possibly even Italian. The next thing I noticed was the speed at which he was typing. Barbara was the fastest typist I’d ever encountered, but Tobias put her to shame.

  As the car pulled from the curb and eased into traffic, I tried to get a sense of him. Carl’s warm glow lit up the front seat, but old Toby gave me nothing. No glow, no chill, no tingle, no pressure—nothing. He wasn’t human, but he didn’t feel like a vampire either. Huh, strange.

  My eyes dropped to his shirt. I had to admit, I was surprised to see a vamp that high up on the totem pole dressed so casually.

  In an attempt to break the ice, I said, “Nice shirt.”

  His fingers halted on the keys. His sunglass-covered eyes lifted to mine, and in a whiskey-deep voice that made my belly flutter, he asked, “You don’t like my shirt?”

  I shrugged. “It’s okay, if you’re an AC/DC fan. I’m more of a Zeppelin or Eagles kind of girl, although, I’m not opposed to listening to something harder.” Still not getting a read on him, I went with a more direct approach. “You must be Tobias.” I held out my hand. “I’m Diana Duvail.”

  A moment passed before he extended his arm across the center aisle. The instant our hands touched, I realized my mistake. He’d been shielding. With just a touch of a hand, he was inside me. Like a tidal wave, he poured through me. He was everywhere—filling me up, breaking me down, inside my head, and infiltrating my deepest parts. He was day, night, light, dark, the thoughts in my head, and the air in my lungs; he was all-consuming. I could hear his heart beating, could
feel the blood pumping through his veins. His desires were mine, and my fears became his. We were two people, yet one being. I didn’t know where he ended, and I began, and I needed it to stop. I needed to let go, but I didn’t know how. Infused with panic, my lips parted on a silent scream. I was forgetting something. What was it? Tymon’s face popped into my head, and suddenly, I remembered. Teeth gritted, I dug deep for my shields. Up they went, and it was unlike anything I’d been able to produce before. It was an impenetrable steel wall, not just in my head, but my entire body. The connection between us was instantly severed, and a blinding pain burned through me, the loss so excruciating that it felt as if my insides were being ripped from my body.

  I must have passed out because when I came to, we were parked outside SVO headquarters. Carl was no longer in the car, and a frazzled-looking Tobias was hovering over me. Dark eyes fringed with coal-black eyelashes stared down at me with concern.

  “What happened?” I croaked.

  “I’m not sure.”

  He was lying. I hit him with an angry glare. “Look, Toby, I’m pretty sure your master would be most unhappy to learn that you mind-raped me, so I’ll ask you one more time, “What the hell just happened?”

  He sighed as if I was a giant pain in his ass. “You wanted a connection. I dropped my shields. I’m sorry, I didn’t expect that to happen.”

  I thought about it for a second and decided to believe him. Glancing around, I asked, “What happened to Carl?”

  “I sent him away.”

  We stared at each other, his obsidian eyes burning through me, and I had the urge to sink my fingers in his thick hair and taste those dangerously dark lips.

  Are you okay to move?” he asked. Thankfully, one of us was still holding onto a thread of self-control.