Primal Desires

by Susan Sizemore

  Both men nodded, solemnly accepting this offer.

  With that, Jason gave them each a quick hug, put on his heavy, hooded coat, and stepped out into the excruciating light of day.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Y ou were being chased by a vampire?”

  He ignored her skepticism. “That’s not the point.”

  This man kept showing her the craziest things, but what the hell did it all mean? “Why were you being chased by a vampire?”

  He brushed his thumbs across her temples. “I was being chased by a vampire cop, if you must know.”

  Sofia tried to take this in, and not be distracted by his gentle touch. “I’m still not sure I believe in werewolves; now you’re adding Dracula to the mix. Why was Dracula after you?”

  “His name is Matthias, not Vlad Dracul, and your family put themselves at risk to keep him from capturing me.”

  “But why…?”

  He sighed. “Because I did the wrong thing for the right reasons. The point is, I wanted you to know why I’m protecting you, why I’m training you. I made a promise to the Hunyara and I keep my promises.”

  She understood why he would be indebted for their trying to keep him from being captured, but he seemed to expect her to find her family’s behavior admirable.

  Sofia shook her head.

  “You don’t get it, do you?” she asked Jason. “You were a fugitive, and they helped you avoid capture. People who commit crimes are not sexy outlaw heroes—they are evil. People who help them are wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong! I don’t care that you’re sworn to protect me now, because they helped you then. It’s not my job to give you redemption, or pay your blood debt.”

  Jason took a step back. “Whoa. You don’t have to be so melodramatic about it.”

  “I’m Rom and Hispanic—drama comes naturally.” Actually, she’d been living a quiet life and avoiding drama for years. Jason brought out the unwanted wilder side of her nature, which was another good reason to get him out of her life.

  “Now that you know that I don’t find your vows and crimes to be romantic, will you please leave?”

  “Would it help if I told you your family’s sacrifice didn’t do me much good? Matthias caught up with me a week later, and I spent the next twenty years in prison.”

  The shadow that came into his eyes when he told her this twisted her heart. No, no, no! She was not going to feel sympathy for any con. Or any ex-con, no matter how fascinating and sexy she found him to be.

  “Stop trying to manipulate me.”

  He sighed. “Point taken. That wasn’t fair.”

  “Besides, don’t you have to go feed your wolves, or something?”

  “Thank you for thinking about them.”

  He seemed genuinely pleased, and when he touched her cheek, the ice around her heart nearly melted.

  “All right, all right, I’m going,” he said after they stood looking at each other for an unknown time.

  The next thing Sofia knew, Jason was gone, but she had no memory of his leaving her room. She didn’t remember the kiss either, but she still felt the effects of it, from the tingling top of her head to her toes curled on the thin motel carpet.

  “Whew.” She touched her sensitized lips and sat weakly on the bed. Only when her hand brushed across the cell phone there did she recall what she should be doing.

  “Sorry, Cathy,” she murmured contritely. “With that man around, I can’t seem to keep my mind on your emergency.”

  Cathy shut her mouth. Her panicked scream didn’t last more than a few seconds but left her terribly embarrassed. Werewolves might howl occasionally, but Cathy hated being caught screaming like a girl.

  So she glared at the captors staring at her and asked, “How the hell did he do that?”

  Eric smiled at her with proprietary pride. “It’s your right to know, Hunyara.”

  “My name’s Carter,” she said as the feral changed back into human form with the same ease as when he’d become a wolf.

  This time she didn’t scream, but she did watch his transformation carefully. Somehow her muscles seemed to almost understand the process. She’d never had this response when watching any of the Bleythin brothers change their form. She needed to learn this! She needed time to think about it, and to practice. She had to get out of this cage.

  She looked to Eric. Damn, but she hated asking anything of this bastard. “Tell me.” She wasn’t quite ready to say “Show me.”

  He still regarded her with that smug smile. “Research has revealed that, like any mortal, those with the Hunyara mutation must first be bitten to activate the changes that make you special. Once bitten—”

  “Twice shy,” she grumbled.

  His smile widened somehow, and he made a gesture with his empty hand that took in her whole form like a distant caress. The naked guy looked her over as well, his eyes shining with hunger. Her hackles would have risen were she in wolf form. Still, she was unbearably curious.

  Eric sensed her interest. “Can you guess why the Hunyara are different? Do you want me to tell you?”

  The other feral’s hand landed on Eric’s shoulder. He seethed with impatience. “What about the other female?”

  “Soon,” Eric told him. His gaze never left Cathy.

  Cathy finally gave in to that look. “Go on. Please.”

  “Vampires,” he answered. She gaped, and he laughed. “Yes, you have vampire blood in you as well as werewolf.”

  “Not possible,” she said.

  “Vampires mate with mortals.”

  “Yeah.” Among her friends and coworkers were Laurent and Eden, a vampire and mortal couple. “But vampires do not mate with werewolves.” She wrinkled her nose. “That would just be wrong.”

  She’d never been attracted to any vampire she’d met, and both Sid and Joe had told her that it wasn’t possible for the two of them to be more than just good friends. Really, really good friends who gave each other longing looks when the other wasn’t looking, from what she’d observed.

  “The researchers want more proof,” Eric went on, “but we think that once upon a time a vampire and a werewolf produced a child and began the Hunyara line.”

  “I realize you’re trying to impress your future mate,” the shifter said. “But I came here to collect the second female.”

  “I know,” Eric said, and flipped open the cell phone. “You have quite a few voice mails,” he told Cathy. “The natural-borns are quite anxious to have you back under their influence.”

  “You mean my friends are worried about me.”

  “Your cousin certainly is. Sofia has left as many messages as all the others put together. Family is so important, isn’t it?”

  Cathy sneered, “I suppose the plan is for me to call Sofia so you can lead her into a trap. I don’t care what you threaten me with, but I won’t do that to family.”

  Eric shook his head. “Trust you with a telephone? I don’t think so.” He began pressing buttons on the cell phone’s keypad. “Not when text messaging can be used to trap her instead.”

  Chapter Twenty

  J ason left the motel reluctantly, but Sofia was right about George and Gracie needing some attention.

  “I’m sorry this isn’t the vacation I promised you,” he told the wolves when he let them out of the pen in the back of the SUV.

  They jumped down to the crumbling parking lot concrete and George let out a howl while Gracie bumped her head against Jason’s thigh. He rubbed her head while carefully looking around the area one more time. Sunlight warmed the cracked concrete and reflected off the pastel walls of the single-story motel buildings that stood on three sides of the parking lot. The street beyond was lined with almost identical motels and fast-food restaurants. The traffic moving by was light. It was all very worn-down and sad. He caught no sense of danger yet, but knew it was coming.

  “Come on,” he said to the wolves, and set off on a run with the animals at his side. Running with the wolves was good for him. They were mortal
and he had to keep pace with them, because they could not keep up with him. Continual practice in being among mortals was necessary. And now he had a mortal woman to protect and cherish and bring into his world.

  Kicking and screaming, no doubt. Jason smiled.

  After a few more blocks he stopped at a fast-food place and bought a lot of hamburgers. He fed most of the burgers to the wolves, who complained because they preferred their meat raw. Then he headed back to the motel.

  Once again he had to leave George and Gracie penned up in the SUV, but it was safer for them this way. A small generator provided them with air-conditioned comfort, which he envied as he climbed onto the roof over Sofia’s room in the blistering Southern California sunlight.

  There, Jason closed his eyes and opened his mind.

  Sofia’s restlessness reached him first. And the awareness that she missed him. He couldn’t help but smile. What was righteous indignation at his supposed sins, compared to the draw of the bond?

  She was stubborn, and determined to see the world in terms of black and white and right and wrong. She’d put him firmly into the black and wrong categories—but down there in her lonely room, she wished he was there.

  The same way he wished to be with her. How much better it would be if they spent the day making love. She wouldn’t be so self-righteous once he’d worn her out with hours of pleasure beyond bearing, now, would she?

  After allowing himself a few moments of smugness, Jason tamped down that part of his Primal nature and went back to shameless telepathic spying on the woman he was sworn to protect.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  D o you want to know what she has to say about Dracula on her blog?” Eden asked.

  “No.” Sid looked up from her computer to glance around the office of Bleythin Investigations. Eden was at her desk researching Sofia Hunyara, and Daniel sat on a chair behind Cathy’s. He held something belonging to their missing friend cupped in his hands and closed his eyes as he psychically searched.

  Joe, Mike, and Harry were off checking out an address out in the desert where Cathy had been asked to meet with some mysterious relatives.

  Laurent was still following his own line of investigation, and hadn’t checked in by telephone or telepathy for quite a while.

  “The place seems so empty,” Sid said.

  “But at least no one’s shedding on the furniture.” Eden sighed. “I miss my husband and kid. At least Antonia is having a good time babysitting her only grandchild.”

  “I heard the slight emphasis on ‘only.’ Don’t you start, too,” Sid complained. “I’m working on the baby thing.”

  “With David Berus?”

  Sid did not want to get into this subject. “So, what does this Sofia person have to say about Dracula?”

  Eden cleared her throat and assumed a pedantic tone. “I quote from the wisdom of Sofia Hunyara: ‘When I first read the book, I thought Stoker was the worst writer in the history of the English language. The story was full of too many characters, too many plot holes, and far too much overblown prose.

  “‘Of course, I was thirteen at the time. Reading the book again after puberty set in, I came to the revelation, “Oh, that’s what it’s about.” Why didn’t the guy just say all that exchanging of fluids between dark foreign strangers and fair English flowers was about forbidden sex?

  “‘I now understand what makes the story so timeless and evocative, but it’s still full of plot holes. And why must there be fanatically loyal gypsies running around doing this vampire’s bidding in Stoker’s book? Why are Romany always portrayed as being on the side of the Dark Occult Powers in Western literature?’”

  Eden stopped reading and chuckled. “I hope I meet this Sofia Hunyara sometime, so I can fill her in on the real history of vampires.”

  Sid boggled at her ex-vampire-hunter sister-in-law. “Are you saying Stoker didn’t have it all wrong?”

  “I’m not sure you have a need to know on that one, oh, Daughter of the Clan.” She scrolled through several more screens of Sofia’s blog. “She’s really into old writers. She goes on and on for pages about The Scarlet Letter. I thought that was a Demi Moore movie.”

  “You don’t read anything that isn’t put out in comic book form from Marvel.”

  Neither did Laurent. Sid had even heard her brother and Eden refer to each other fondly as Gambit and Rogue.

  “I’m a geek, I’m entitled. And don’t tell me you’ve actually read The Scarlet Letter.”

  “Point taken. Tell me, does any of what this woman says bring us any closer to finding Cathy?”

  “Probably not,” Eden replied. “But you’re right about the place seeming empty, and I’m trying to keep my mind off worrying about Cathy while we wait to hear from the guys.”

  “Me, too. My research isn’t getting anywhere.”

  “What are you researching?”

  “Not what, but who. I’m trying to figure out what Jason Cage has to do with all this. Not that there’s much about him in the data I can access. Not without bringing a liaison between the Clans and Families into this already overpopulated mess.”

  “Why not call up the Caeg Family Matri? Aren’t the vampire Clans and Families close allies?”

  “We’re close because we make a point of staying out of one another’s business as much as possible. You saw how Jason had to ask permission to hang out in Clan territory, but didn’t explain to the Matri what he’s doing here, and she didn’t press him for details.”

  “I wasn’t actually there for that.”

  “Right. Oh, mighty hunter.” And please tell me he’s decent genetic material, she added to herself.

  Eden looked thoughtful and rubbed her chin. “Let’s see, I know that the Caegs are the largest and most influential of the vampire Families. I think Jason is the grandson or great-grandson of the current Matri. He’s from one of the Eastern European branches of the family that came to America after the Communist takeover of their home territory.” She rubbed her chin again. “There’s something I should remember about him—something I read in his dossier that I thought was cool and romantic, but—”

  “You have dossiers on all of us?”

  “Not all of you,” Eden responded calmly to Sid’s outrage. “I never heard of you before we met, or Laurent, but I did know a little about Antonia. Mostly the hunters concentrate on keeping tabs on the Tribe vampires,” she reassured Sid.

  Sid couldn’t blame the mortal vampire hunters for spying on the Tribes. Tribal Primes were nothing but bad news for mortals and immortals alike.

  “So, what did you think was cool and romantic about Jason Cage?”

  Eden thought for a few more seconds, tapping a finger on her chin. “Oh, yeah, I remember. He got into trouble for trying to stop World War II. I guess he telepathically brainwashed some high-ranking Nazi. That’s the kind of interference my kind goes after vampires for. Good intentions or not, your kind doesn’t mess with our heads and get away with it.”

  “Messing with people’s minds is bad,” Sid agreed. It was evil and wrong and not to be tolerated; she believed this with all of her being, even though she’d done it herself—with good intentions. At least she hadn’t been caught.

  “I can’t believe the hunters let Cage get away with brainwashing.”

  “We wouldn’t have, except that the Families sent their own cop after him and put him away in solitary for a good, long time. I remember thinking that he was all cool and tragic for trying to save the world and getting in trouble for it. He sort of combined the Clan Primes’ idealism with the pragmatism of the Families.”

  The Clans could use a bit more pragmatism, Sid thought. Maybe Jason Cage’s DNA could help with that.

  “But what does his past have to do with our present situation?” she wondered.

  “Well, Cage used to hang out with Romany,” Eden said.

  “This Sofia Hunyara is Rom, Jason Cage is involved with Sofia, and Sofia is Cathy’s cousin. Maybe they kidnapped Cathy.”

>   “We don’t yet have any proof that Cage is involved with Sofia.”

  “I’m psychic; I—”

  Her phone rang and she answered it instantly. “Harry! Have you found her?”

  “I’m not sure what we’ve found,” the senior werewolf partner of the firm said. “When we reached the house there was nobody here, but the traces left behind are like nothing I’ve ever smelled before.”

  Harrison Bleythin had the best nose in the business. Harry’s twin, Michael, had the ferocity, and their younger brother Joseph was one tenacious scent hound, but Harry was the elite bloodhound of the pack.

  “Tell me,” Sid said.

  “Werewolves have been all over the place. And mortals. And a vampire. Most of them are related to Cathy.”

  “We knew that her family had contacted—”

  “The werewolves are kin to Cathy,” Harry interrupted, speaking slowly and distinctly.

  This made no sense. “Please, Goddess, don’t let her have been biting people when we weren’t looking.”

  “That isn’t possible,” Harry reminded her. “You know she hasn’t been out of our sight once during her moonchange.”

  Sid had a moment of relief, for Mike’s sake as much as Cathy’s. Mike Bleythin had another job besides private detective. Among werefolk kind he was known as the Tracker. It was his duty to take down the ferals and rogue werewolves. He’d spared Cathy from execution once. Sid knew it would destroy him if he had to kill her after all.

  “The werefolk and the mortals that were in this house are all blood relations to our Cathy,” Harry said.

  “I so do not understand that.” Had Cathy lied about how she’d been turned into a werewolf? “Mike rescued her from a feral. Didn’t he? What about the vampire scent? Anyone you recognize?”

  “Male,” Harry said. “Not Wolf Clan, that’s all I can tell. There was also a pair of true wolves here.”

  “Jason Cage travels with wolves,” Sid told him. “I knew he had to be involved! He’s with Cathy’s cousin Sofia.”