by Debra Webb
“Yes,” he said before she’d asked the first one, “Ellen Green was mine.” Something primal flickered in his eyes. “She’s dead, no?”
Rowen swallowed to dampen her throat. She really hated the idea that he could apparently read her mind. But then, why else would she be here, right? The thought gave her some comfort.
“I’d like you to explain this donor system to me.”
His gaze did a thorough exploration of her body, coming to rest on the area where her Glock rested in her shoulder holster. Her pulse reacted.
“Am I a suspect, Detective?”
What was the point in lying? “Yes.”
He smiled, drawing her attention to his mouth. The cut and fullness of it made her chest feel tight.
Breathe. Concentrate. Don’t get lost in the details, Rowen. Observe and evaluate.
“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Why else would you have come back?”
Rowen ignored the question. “The more we learn about the victims, the closer we’ll get to the killer,” she offered, recapping the psychologist’s words. “We need to follow up on anyone connected to their lives. You, by your own admission, have a connection.”
Azariel nodded. “I see.” He stroked his smooth chin. “You’re looking for motive.”
Irritation overrode the other confusing emotions this man evoked in her. How could he act so nonchalantly? “Five people are dead, sir. I’m looking for justice.”
“Of course you are,” he agreed, his tone barely a cut above condescending. “It would be a disgrace for anyone to die for naught.”
Now he was paraphrasing the psychologist’s words. How the hell did he do that? “Don’t patronize me, Mr. Azariel,” she said curtly, maybe more so than she should have.
His expression turned hard instantly. “I would never patronize you, Rowen.”
The way he said her name—exactly as Hunter did—rattled her, made her think of shadowy dreams and restless nights.
Another set of doors on the other side of the room suddenly opened. These likely led to where he slept. Rowen’s gaze jerked in that direction, her attention piqued in anticipation of what she might see. The idea of a coffin flitted briefly through her head. She mentally kicked herself for momentarily going stupid.
A woman, obviously nude and wrapped in a sheet, appeared in the open doorway. Her blond hair fell all the way to her hips. Even from across the room Rowen saw the small tattoo on her right shoulder.
“Viktor, are you coming back to bed?” she asked coyly.
Rowen looked away. She could feel her face turning red with the heat of embarrassment. The reality of what she’d interrupted shouldn’t have bothered her. She’d caught suspects in far more compromising positions. Her reaction screamed of a lack of objectivity. She had to get a handle on her screwed-up emotions.
This was Hunter’s fault.
She gritted her teeth and forced her attention back to the matter at hand. He had put her off balance and she just couldn’t seem to get it back.
The impatient blonde tossed her head and that mane of thick hair twirled over her shoulders to cascade down her back. The move revealed her neck more fully and Rowen’s breath stalled in the vicinity of her seizing lungs. Two small puncture wounds marred the creamy perfection of her slender throat.
Rowen blinked, noted somewhere in her peripheral vision that Viktor made a vague sort of gesture with the fingers of one hand.
Images of him and this woman making love flashed one after the other, splintering her attention. When she cleared her mind and looked again, the woman had retreated back into what was, as Rowen suspected, the lord’s bedroom beyond those double doors.
“You don’t want to believe,” he said, drawing Rowen’s gaze back to his. “You resist that which you don’t understand.”
She would not be seduced by his words. “I understand murder perfectly, Mr. Azariel. And that’s what we’re talking about.”
“It scares me, as well,” he admitted, “at times. But it’s there…lurking just around the corner.”
She didn’t move, didn’t speak for fear that he would stop talking now that he’d begun. The distinct impression that they were no longer talking specifically about murder sent off a warning inside her.
“The hunger rages through my blood, pulses just beneath my skin. A force of nature I cannot hope to defeat.” His hand flattened on that sculpted chest as he spoke and moved ever nearer to her.
Rowen refused to back away, refused to let him see that she feared him in any way.
“As much as I despise my need—and I do despise it—it fulfills me in a way that nothing else can,” he said softly. “Grants a vividness like no other living soul can fathom. Sings to me, promising power and pleasure. And I cannot resist its melody.”
He towered over her, showed her the truth of his words with his eyes, and she was mesmerized.
“As beautiful and healing as that need is,” he continued in that deep, sensual voice, “when ignored, the pain is equally intense. There is no cure…no hope beyond what I cannot resist…what I know I must do.”
“Drink the blood of your victims,” she murmured, comprehension clarifying the moment for her.
“It is my curse.”
Focus on the case. No feeling sorry for the man who could be a killer.
“So rather than kill to provide for your needs, you have a group of donors who willingly supply your…necessary…requirements.”
He knew what she meant.
“That is correct.”
His words were slow to penetrate, delaying her responses. Whatever he said, she couldn’t seem to take her eyes off his. She tried to reclaim control, but it wasn’t happening. Her palms had started to sweat. Her pulse raced with the fear building inside her. This was too crazy. It couldn’t be real.
“The relationship is handled discreetly, I presume?” At least she sounded reasonably calm.
“Yes. They come to me at their scheduled times.”
Rowen cleared her throat. “How do you…?” She wrestled with the best way to introduce this question. With him standing so close, peering down at her, it was difficult to focus. The woman who’d appeared at the door moments ago kept intruding into her thoughts.
“There are a number of methods,” he said in response to her incomplete question. “Removal in the usual manner one would utilize when donating blood. Or…”
Her gaze momentarily dropped to his mouth, but quickly moved back up to his eyes. She wanted to be looking directly at him when he gave this answer, however difficult that might prove to be. “Or?” she prompted.
“I can take it the old-fashioned way, while making love to the donor.” He flashed a smile that made her gasp. “Would you like a demonstration, Detective?”
Rowen couldn’t breathe. “I…” She struggled to draw in air, but it simply wouldn’t pass through her throat, as if something blocked it. She couldn’t have seen what she thought she saw…no. This man had made himself what he was. Fiction. Fantasy. Not real.
He moved even closer, leaned down to whisper against her hair. One hand closed around her waist, sending a frightening yearning through her. “Why would I kill them, Detective? They were part of my harvest. I would never waste a human life when it is that very living thing that ultimately gives me life.”
No matter what the chief said she should not have come back here alone. Rowen didn’t remember how she got out of his room or the house so quickly. One moment, she was staring into those alluring eyes; the next, she was outside in the dark.
She blinked, gasped for air.
Wait…she turned all the way around, stared up at the sky.
It couldn’t be dark yet. How could she have been here for hours?
She groped her way around her car and flung herself behind the wheel. She had to get out of here.
She drove straight home. One glance at her cell phone told her she’d missed three calls from her partner. She listened to the voice mails he’d left. The fi
rst gave her an update on where he was with his part of the investigation. Both the second and third were just attempts to touch base with her. She couldn’t call him back, not right now. He would hear the uncertainty…the downright fear in her voice.
Even after she’d arrived home and struggled to fall into her usual routine of walking Princess, she constantly watched over her shoulder. Felt that persistent presence shadowing her. The reality of those lost hours plowed into her thoughts again. She shuddered. How could it be this late?
She’d lost at least three hours.
How had Azariel done that?
Drugs?
Impossible. She hadn’t had anything to drink or eat while she was there.
Hypnosis?
Maybe.
She didn’t know.
She hurried Princess through her walk, then locked up the house for the night, taking care to check each window and door at least twice.
For the first time in three years, she longed for the shelter of Hunter’s arms. For the comfort she knew he could give her.
Cursing herself every step of the way, Rowen climbed the stairs and ran a hot bath.
Maybe if she relaxed her muscles, she would sleep halfway decent tonight. God knew she needed to re-charge her lagging brain cells.
Scrounging up her favorite gown, a floor-length white, gauzy, Victorian-looking chemise, and a clean pair of panties, she started to undress but hesitated. Maybe she should have a glass of wine to go with her bath. Now that might actually do the trick and ensure some decent shut-eye. Considering how her afternoon had gone, a little mental anesthetizing was definitely in order.
With the tub ready and her nightclothes on a nearby chair, she padded downstairs and poured herself a glass of chardonnay. She downed it and poured another.
If she had trouble concentrating tomorrow morning, it wasn’t going to have anything to do with lack of sleep or crazy dreams. Not if she could help it, anyway.
She dragged herself back up the stairs and set her glass on the table next to the big old claw-footed tub, lit a couple of candles for the ambience and stripped off her clothes. Shedding her work garb felt liberating. She placed the Glock on the closed toilet lid.
The water welcomed her, instantly calmed her. She slipped deep into the tub and rested her head against the bath pillow Merv’s wife had given her for Christmas. She closed her eyes and sipped her wine.
She blocked all thoughts of the case. Right now, she needed to wind down, to forget about the horrors of the day. Tomorrow morning would be soon enough to think about it all again. Not once in her career had her ability to maintain a sense of professionalism been so elusive.
Slowly, the hot water and the wine did its work. Rowen felt more relaxed than she had in days—weeks maybe.
As hard as she tried to block it, the idea that she’d somehow stayed in Viktor Azariel’s home for several unaccounted-for hours bobbed to the surface of her hard-gained state of relaxation.
How was that possible?
A frown furrowed her brow, disrupting her calm. But this was too wacked to pretend it hadn’t happened. She had no recollection of anything beyond the short verbal exchange she and Viktor had shared. What had happened after that? How had it happened?
Subliminal hypnosis?
God, she just didn’t know.
Eventually her respiration slowed, grew even. She was so tired. Too tired to think anymore. As she slipped toward unconsciousness, pictures reeled past in the private theater of her mind. Making love, not wild and frantic movements, but slow, thorough rises and falls, moans and grinds. She could feel the male weight on top of her, feel masculine lips, full lips, devouring hers. The press of his hard-barreled sex against her making her ache to be filled.
It had been so long…three endless years.
“Rowen.”
Hunter’s voice.
But the man moving over her was not Hunter.
Viktor…
She tried to wake up…tried to open her eyes but she couldn’t. She felt herself climaxing…felt her body contract with that moment of swelling pleasure. He plunged deep inside her one last time and then his mouth opened wider and she saw the unholiest part of him…
Rowen jerked up. Water splashed over the edges of the tub. She gasped frantically for breath.
She coughed. Choked.
She’d fallen asleep and slipped beneath the water’s surface.
She sputtered and gasped until she got her breath back.
When she’d stopped wheezing for oxygen, she pulled the drain plug, her hand shaking turbulently, and got out. Shivering from the cool air on her damp skin, she quickly dried off and wrapped a towel around herself. Her limbs felt weak with the receding fear…and the other sensation she didn’t want to acknowledge.
She picked up the wineglass that had slipped from her fingers and dropped onto the throw rug, the thick wooly fabric all that had kept it from breaking on the tiled floor.
How had she done something so stupid?
What infuriated her the most was the way her body still throbbed with the fading waves of an orgasm she’d reached in her sleep.
And almost drowned in the process.
Now there was a wet dream she’d just as soon forget.
Chapter Seven
Evan watched her sleep. Careful not to make a sound or any sudden moves, as much for his benefit as for hers. She wasn’t going to like what he’d done. But it was the only way to protect her.
He was too weak to risk waiting any longer for her to see things his way.
More and more of the medication was required to give him any measurable resistance to the mind-shattering pain. Soon all his efforts would fail, and he could not take the chance that Rowen would still, at that point, refuse to listen to his warnings.
Viktor, the bastard, had crossed the line. Effectively goading Evan into a desperate move. But then, Evan wasn’t surprised. He’d halfway expected as much.
Rowen had, unknowingly, gotten herself trapped in the middle of a war.
Evan understood what was happening here, even if she did not and even if the cast of players had not as yet been identified. Someone had decided to wage a battle against Viktor’s kind. Evan was still unclear about the motive. But the end result was crystal clear—many more would die.
The media was the enemy’s tool. If the body count continued to rise, unrest and panic would invade the community like a disease of biblical proportions. And while this mass hysteria played out, distracting the authorities, the real war would take place.
Ellen Green had been a blatant message to Viktor Azariel. As one of his donors, the precious commodity that had pulsed in her veins had been poured out, wasted, waved like a red flag. Viktor would seek revenge. But the question was, against whom?
He couldn’t know who the enemy was any more than Evan. Or did he?
Evan had reason to believe that his old nemesis wanted him preoccupied while this war played itself out.
It would be dawn soon. With Rowen safe, perhaps he should get the necessary confrontation over with. Time was Evan’s enemy. There was none to waste. And though daylight hours proved the most physically draining, his choices were limited.
He pressed a kiss to Rowen’s forehead, allowed the sensation to wash over him despite the pain he would endure as a result of it.
With the house he’d chosen as a safe haven securely locked and Rowen still sleeping off the effects of the drug, he drove to the Berkshires.
Azariel’s mighty keep wasn’t that far away. Evan had chosen carefully when he’d planned his steps, allowing himself easy access to the one primary player he recognized.
When he parked in the circular drive, Viktor was already waiting for him on the front steps.
“I expected you sooner,” he said mockingly.
Evan ignored the remark and followed him inside those massive stone walls. He had no desire to exchange idle chitchat with his nemesis in the open.
Whispered sounds echoed in the hall
. Viktor was not alone. He had apparently summoned those closest to him. Evan could feel their presence. The heaviness of it bore down on him, made him feel weak. He dispensed with the pointless waste of energy, refused to bow to the weight of it. This battle was between the two of them. Honor would not allow Viktor to rely on others.
“Would you like some wine?”
Evan pinned him with his gaze. “You know why I came here.”
“I’ll take that as a no,” Viktor said glibly.
“Talk, now, while you still can,” Evan threatened, his rage momentarily getting the better of him. “Your continued survival is looking dim at best.”
“I have no control over the situation. I know nothing useful to you.” Viktor sat down on one of the sofas and gestured to the other. “It is out of my hands.”
“You must know who sent the message,” Evan pressed relentlessly. It had to be one of Viktor’s kind who wanted to destroy him. Someone who wanted to hold his position as a royal.
Viktor shrugged. “I have no idea. But whoever he is, he will die a slow, painful death.”
Evan had difficulty believing he had no idea whatsoever about this new enemy. He was far too calm for that. “One of your breed?”
Since Evan had not chosen to sit down, Viktor stood, assuming a more cautious stance. His senses were too guarded. It was quite impossible to judge what he might be hiding.
“Most definitely not,” he countered savagely, giving away a mere glimpse of his emotional state.
Evan’s suspicions were aroused more fully. He’d obviously hit a sensitive spot. “How can you be so certain? You and yours have been a closely kept secret for decades. Who else could know of your beliefs?”
Another blast of fury lit the other man’s eyes. “Decades? Beliefs?” He scoffed. “You still refuse to believe the truth that we have existed for centuries.” He shook his head. “What a shame, when it is only by virtue of our breed that you’re still alive.”
His jaw tightening, Evan met that lethal gaze head-on. He would not be distracted by double-talk. “I’m alive because I was lucky.” The rage he felt set off a chain reaction in his brain, making him shudder with pain, but he quickly snatched back some measure of control.
