Bloodlust By Midnight (Last Witch Standing Book 2)

by Deanna Chase

  “Are you sure about that?” she asked with a self-satisfied smile just as Dax sucked in a deep breath and his eyes fluttered open. She glanced down at him, her smile turning to a grin. “Welcome back, Daxon. I don’t mind telling you we were really worried about you there for a moment.”

  “Dax!” I cried out and grabbed his hand, my magical light still flashing from my fingertips.

  “Ouch,” he croaked out, his voice cracking as he turned his face to shield his eyes from the bright light.

  “Oh no. I’m sorry.” I yanked my hands back and turned my focus inward to calm my magic.

  “It’s Phoebe who brought you back, Dax,” Imogen said, leaning down to check his pupils with a tiny penlight.

  “Dammit,” he said through a growl. “Can I have a minute?”

  “Nope,” she said cheerfully. “Need to log your vitals so I can get a baseline and see where we’re at.”

  I reached out and took one of his hands in both of mine again and sat on a stool, grinning at him like a fool. After Imogen moved on to checking his blood pressure, I said, “Hey there.”

  He turned his head, and his dark eyes focused on me. He was quiet while he studied my face. “You’re smiling, but something’s wrong. What happened? Why am I here?”

  I’d been expecting his memory to be faulty. He had been in a coma after all. “You broke up an altercation between Leo and Strix. The vampire got the jump on you and stabbed you with a syringe full of Scarlet.”

  “Fuck,” he said, running the back of his hand over his forehead.

  “Exactly. You went into a coma and you were only getting worse as the day wore on. Imogen here was the one who saved your ass.”

  “She’s being modest,” Imogen said with a kind smile. “Without her light, there’d have been no path out of the darkness.”

  I stared at her, wondering when she’d turned into some sort of new age philosopher. She caught my eye and shrugged as if to say she didn’t know either.

  Dax cleared his throat. “Where’s Leo?”

  I grimaced.

  “Phoebe?” he pressed. “Is he all right?”

  “Sure. I mean, he’s safe.”

  “Safe?” Dax wasn’t buying any of my stall tactics.

  “Listen, his wolf got the better of him, and we had to put him in a cell for his own safety.”

  He closed his eyes and shook his head as he whispered, “Dammit.” Then his eyes flew open and he focused on me. “Are you sure he’s all right? When’s the last time you saw him?”

  The sounds from the heart monitor started to speed up, and that steady beep, beep, beep that had been so comforting was really starting to annoy me. “Not since they took him out of here. I—”

  “What the fuck, Phoebe?” he said, pushing himself up into a sitting position. His color had returned to normal, and any weakness he’d suffered from the drug appeared to have vanished. “Why the hell haven’t you checked on him? You know they stuff wolves in cages and just leave them there until someone takes responsibility for them. Hasn’t the kid had enough trauma over the past few days? We can’t just—”

  “Enough!” I held a hand up and shook my head at him. “Do you really want to know why I’m not sitting downstairs babysitting your stray wolf?”

  “Dammit, Phoebe. You don’t need to put it like that. Babysitting? Really?” A scowl spread across his face and there was no denying he was seriously annoyed. “You know they lock us shifters in cold, dank cages, right?”

  Of course I knew. I’d worked at the Void long before Dax had come along. I was intimately familiar with just how awful those cages could be. Willow and her pup Link had been locked up in the basement a few years ago for days after the director had been spelled to carry out someone else’s sinister agenda. Interestingly enough, it had been Allcot and his son who’d helped me free Willow and Link. I was well versed on just how bad things could get. Annoyed that he’d started in on me about Leo almost immediately, I turned to him and said, “Dax… shut up.”

  His mouth worked as he tried to come up with a reply to my childish outburst.

  But before he could say anything, I added, “You almost died. In fact, if Imogen hadn’t gotten here when she did, the worst would’ve probably happened. I’ve spent the past two hours trying to narrow down the effects of the drug on you, convincing the director to let Imogen try to help, and worrying my ass off right here at your bedside. So don’t guilt me about not keeping an eye on Leo. He’s here, in the Void, and not posing a danger to anyone. Now that you appear to be back among the living, I’ll go see him and find out if they were able to stabilize him enough for him to shift back into human form. If so, I’ll bring him in to see you.”

  Dax blinked, glanced between me and Imogen, then shook his head. “Sorry. Clearly I had no idea how bad it was.”

  Imogen handed him what looked like a vitamin pack. “Take this. It will help get your strength up.”

  The door swung open and Talisen rushed in. As soon as he saw us, he paused and then let out a sigh of relief. “Thank the gods.”

  “What is it?” I asked, confused.

  He held up a monitor, showing some sort of reading with a giant spike. “I thought Dax had a heart attack and I got up here as soon as I could.”

  “These two did something,” Dax said, waving a hand at me and Imogen. “Not sure what, but I seem to be okay.”

  “For now,” I said with a heavy heart, then explained to them what the director had told me about the possibility of the toxin turning him insane. When I finished, there was a hush of silence.

  Finally, Dax swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. “Well, if I only have seven days, I have some things to take care of.”

  “Dax—”

  “Don’t worry, Phoebs,” he said with a wink. “I’ll leave the Trooper in your care.”

  “Goddammit.” I shook my head. “Stop talking like that. We’re going to figure this out.”

  “Right,” Talisen added, turning to Imogen. “Do you know anything about this drug? Because I’ve been running some tests and I have a few theories. Maybe I can run them by you?”

  “A little bit,” she said. “I’ve had some clients who were addicted to it, and I have access to medical journals and other resources.”

  Other resources. She was talking about Cryrique. It was the main reason I’d wanted to bring her in on this investigation.

  “Okay then.” Tal held his arm out to her. “Let’s get to the lab and see what we can do.”

  Imogen turned to me with one eyebrow raised.

  “Go ahead,” I said. “The more we know about the drug, the better. Come up with some sort of antidote while you’re down there too, okay?”

  “We’re on it,” Talisen said as he led the other healer out of the room.

  Once they were gone, Dax glanced at me, all traces of humor gone. “How bad is this really?”

  I sat down on the bed next to him, our thighs barely touching, and said, “It’s bad, Dax. Of the nine shifters we know who’ve OD’d on this shit, three have perished and another was terminated after he went insane. The director has tasked us with finding the other five and bringing them in just in case they suffer the same fate.”

  “And what about me? What if I’m infected?” he asked, twining his fingers with mine.

  I stared down at our connection, squeezed his hand, and said, “The director has made me responsible for you and your actions until we figure this out. So keep your shit together, all right?”

  He turned and stared me in the eye. “Does that mean what I think it means?”

  “That I’ll be staying at your house from now on? Yep. Get used to it. I require clean sheets and toilets.”

  He snorted out a huff of laughter. “You got it.”

  That silence fell between us again, neither of us wanting to voice the reality of what would happen if he lost control of his inner wolf. It didn’t matter that I’d been ordered to take him out if the worst happened. It’s what he’
d expect of me anyway.

  “You scared me there for a minute,” I said softly.

  “Just a minute?” he asked, caressing the back of my hand with this thumb.

  “Maybe two.” I gave him a wry smile, then sobered. “Seriously, don’t do that again. I don’t think my heart can take it.”

  He tilted his head down and gave me a kiss on the top of my head. “I won’t. I’m not going anywhere.”

  I reached up and pressed my hand to his cheek. “Good, because I’ve gotten used to having you around.”

  A glint flashed in his dark eyes as he gazed down at me, his expression tender and full of emotion. My heart swelled, and I wondered if the warmth coursing through my body was what everyone called love. I pressed my lips to his and buried my other hand in his thick hair, needing that physical connection. His arms came around me, and suddenly I just felt safe and at home, right where I was supposed to be.

  The kiss was slow and tender, and I knew then I was a goner.

  I pulled away and cleared my throat as I slid off the bed. The wall clock ticked, catching my attention. The day had slipped by, and it was well into the afternoon. “Get back in that bed and get some more rest. I’m going to go check on Leo, make sure he’s okay and let him know you’re awake.”

  Dax shook his head and got to his feet. “I’m going with you.”

  “But—” I started.

  “Phoebe,” he said, pressing my hand to his chest over his steady heartbeat. “I’m fine… at least for now. Let’s go. We need to see Leo, and then we have a case to solve.”

  He was so steady, so confident and sure of himself. How could I argue with that?

  “Okay then. Put some pants on and we’ll get moving.”

  He glanced down at his short medical gown and chuckled as he ripped it off, revealing his perfectly sculpted naked body. It was no wonder Frank was so bitter. What mortal could compete with the likes of that?

  “You’re staring.” Dax pulled on a fresh pair of jeans from the well-stocked closet.

  “Yep,” I said, unashamed.

  “Like what you see?” he asked, grinning over his shoulder as he grabbed a T-shirt.

  “You already know the answer to that.” I walked up behind him, cupped my hand over his ass, and whispered, “Later tonight, I’ll show you just how much.”

  8

  The steep stone steps led to a dreary, cold basement. One fluorescent light swung from the middle of the room while steel cages lined the wall on the right. Rage, tied to injustice and discrimination, welled in Dax’s chest. It took everything he had to swallow the frustration that always tried to choke him when he had to deal with caged wolves.

  While Dax worked for the Arcane, the organization had a long history of discrimination against shifters. A century ago, shifters had still been seen as animals, second-class citizens who were inferior to all other supernatural beings. In those days, more often than not when shifters were arrested, the charges were bogus. Then they were thrown in cages just like the ones lining the walls of the Void’s basement, and they were left there until they either went crazy or confessed to a crime they hadn’t committed just to be moved to better conditions.

  “There he is.” Phoebe pointed to the shadow in the corner of the closest cage.

  Seeing Leo locked up made his blood boil. The young shifter was curled up on the stone floor, naked, no blanket, no clothes in sight. He’d clearly been thrown in the cage and left without regard to anything other than locking him up.

  Leo lifted his head and blinked a couple of times.

  “You okay, man?” Dax asked him, crouching down to see him at eye level.

  “Dax?” Leo blinked then jumped to his feet to hurry over to the bars. “You’re okay?”

  “I seem to be,” he said, rising back up to standing position. “What about you? I heard your inner wolf got a little wild today.”

  Leo hung his head in shame as he nodded. “I didn’t mean to let it happen, I just… It was a bad day.”

  “You can say that again,” Phoebe said, giving him a sympathetic smile. “How long have you been back?”

  He shrugged. “No idea. Too dark to tell time. No one has been down here except you two. A couple of hours maybe? Am I getting out of here?”

  Dax shared a glance with Phoebe. No one had cleared Leo to leave, and if history was a predictor of the future, the Void wasn’t going to be too hot on the idea. Not after he’d already lost his shit.

  “That’s a no, right?” Leo started to pace. His limbs became jerky and he grumbled under his breath about never getting a fair shake.

  “Leo, listen,” Phoebe said. “No one has said anything either way. As far as I know, they just put you here to keep everyone, including you, safe while you slept off the sleeping spell. We need to get a psych consult down here to see where we go from here.”

  The young shifter snorted his derision. “Psych consult. Right.” He stomped around, fisting one hand in his hair much like he’d done earlier in Dax’s room. “I guess I should just get real comfy here, because no one is gonna let a fuckup like me back out on the streets.”

  “I think if you—” Phoebe started.

  “Who cares what you think?” Leo roared, his eyes watering and his body so tense he was vibrating. “I am nothing. Worthless. Don’t you understand that? They don’t care about me. I’m just a shifter with no roots, no money, no education. You think they’re gonna—”

  “That’s enough,” Dax said, his voice low but full of authority.

  Leo clamped his mouth shut and stared down at the ground.

  Good, Dax thought. That meant the pup actually saw him as an alpha. That would bode well for him when arguing to get him out. “They will never let you leave if you’re just going to rant like a maniac. Like it or not, you are dangerous. We all are. And it doesn’t matter what your intent is. If you can’t control yourself, the Void has every right to think the city is better off with you off the streets. Unless you can contain that inner wolf of yours, you’ll likely find yourself institutionalized. Do you want that?”

  “They can’t do that to me,” Leo said. But his voice wavered, and it was clear he wasn’t at all confident in his statement.

  “They can, and they will,” Phoebe said. “The Void’s mission is to police the supernatural activity in New Orleans. They have broad power. And while I don’t agree with these conditions”—she waved a hand indicating the dank basement—“I do understand that they’ll do what they have to.”

  “It’s up to you to change their minds,” Dax told Leo.

  The shifter rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck, visibly trying to ease the tension in his frame. Then he met Dax’s gaze and said, “I don’t want to be locked up.”

  Dax nodded, grabbed a nearby metal stool, and took a seat near the door of the cage. “Good. Now let’s talk about how you can control your inner wolf.” He glanced at Phoebe. “This won’t take long. Can you see if we can find someone to sign off on at least getting him some clothes and released from this cage?”

  “I’m on it.” Phoebe nodded to Leo. “Listen to Dax. He knows what he’s talking about.” Then she took off up the dark stairwell.

  Leo’s gaze stayed trained on the stairs until they both heard the door at the top slam shut. He turned to Dax. “How did you ever get a hot woman like that to share your bed?”

  Dax let out a growl. “Don’t ever talk about Phoebe Kilsen like she’s just a piece of ass. Do you understand me?”

  Even though there were bars separating them, Leo held his hands up and took a step back. “Sorry. I didn’t mean any disrespect. I just meant…” He shrugged. “She’s smokin’ hot and smart and dangerous. That’s one hell of a combination.”

  “Right,” Dax said dryly, wondering when he’d gotten so defensive about his partner. There was no denying she could take care of herself. Hell, she could probably beat Dax’s ass in a head-to-head showdown. Still, he didn’t like Leo commenting on how “hot” she happened to be.
She was so much more than that, and Dax knew if it hadn’t been for her determination, he’d likely still be upstairs in a coma. “Now, about your inner wolf.”

  Leo stood perfectly still, giving Dax his full attention.

  Good. He was taking this seriously. He’d need to if he wanted to get his freedom back. “You can always tell when you’re going to lose control, right? Your body tenses. You’re not just irritated but pissed off beyond reason. You want to literally rip someone’s head off. You thirst for it like you need it to survive. Sound familiar?”

  “Yeah,” he said, almost in a whisper. “It’s familiar.”

  “That’s called bloodlust.” Dax held the younger shifter’s gaze. “It makes us no different than a vampire who feeds off the unwilling.”

  Leo sucked in a sharp breath, his expression stricken.

  “That’s right. All that hate for vampires and what they are, we have that same instinct right here.” Dax pointed to his chest. “Acknowledge it. Own it. Then resolve to control it.”

  Leo was quiet for a moment. Then he asked the question Dax had been waiting for. “How?”

  Dax nodded, pride filling him up. If he was thinking it through and asking questions, his protégé was taking this lesson seriously. “You remember who you are, who you want to be, and you embrace your human side. You hold on to the empathy that you carry with you, and you hold on tight, never forgetting that if you lose yourself to your wolf, one day, someday soon, you’ll be consumed by your bloodlust.”

  Leo visibly shuddered in the shadows of his cage.

  “And then you’ll be living your life in a cell just like this one, consumed by hatred. Don’t ever let go of your humanity and give others an excuse to take it from you.”

  “I won’t,” Leo said earnestly. “I promise you I won’t.”

  Dax let Leo’s words hang in the air. Then he reached his hand through the bars, offering it to the other man. The younger shifter clasped it, and the two men shook on the promise.

  It wasn’t long before footsteps sounded on the steps again, and Phoebe appeared with a pile of clothes and a message from the director. “No psych consult. Halston wants to see you in five.”