by Amanda Vyne
“Thank you for your offer but I will decline. You may go.” With a calm he did not feel, he walked the few steps to the balcony doors until he could see the light of day through the dark tint of the glass. Reaching out, he pressed his hand against the pane, feeling the slight tingle of sun-warmed glass against his palm. His other hand reached up for the stone medallion beneath his shirt; his thumb traced the outline of the Ferrar House crest.
Beyond the security of the glass the sun beckoned, so alluring yet so dangerous.
Like her. Her blood was a dark craving that had the potential to destroy him.
Gabe turned away. Tonight he would attend his cousin’s ritual but once the ritual was over he would return to San Francisco and Incog. But was it this case that drew him so strongly or was it the dark brown eyes of one little crossbreed?
Chapter Three
“How do you feel this evening?”
Kel frowned at the red-headed woman in the lab coat. Dr. Mahoney was the head of Incog’s medical department and oversaw a small group of brilliant scientists. She was also the personal physician for the crossbreeds that worked for Incog, aptly determining their unique medical needs.
“Like I’ve been hit by a Mack truck,” Kel groused as she sipped one of the steaming cups of coffee she held. She and Raife were meeting up at the lab to work on the case of crazy Karl and his superhuman strength. She desperately needed the caffeine to deal with all of this tonight. By the time she’d finished her paperwork and getting her ass chewed by her boss it had been late morning. When she made it back to her apartment, she fell into a restless sleep that was plagued by dreams about the sexy stranger. Very explicit dreams. Dreams that left her feeling edgy and frustrated.
“I believe you may have been hit by your bloodmate.” Dr. Mahoney studied her face with a clinical interest, rolling her pale blue eyes when Kel shot her a threatening look. “Most of the department has heard of your…meeting last evening. I fear your molesting of that stranger is rather common knowledge.”
Kel swore.
“Did he take too much blood? You look a bit pale. Did you drink from him?” Her eyes hardened with that mad scientist’s look than never failed to make Kel feel like a lab rat.
Dr. Mahoney was an unknown. They suspected she might be a crossbreed or half-breed, but she didn’t display any strengths of any of the Arcane and never offered any information on herself or her past. She’d been brought in to run the medical research department at Incog personally by the director. She was absolutely brilliant but could often get carried away with her thirst for answers.
“Maybe I should take a small sample of –”
“No,” Kel interrupted with a shake of her head. “No. No sample, no poking, no prodding. No.”
A small flash of disappointment streaked through the woman’s pale blue eyes before it was replaced with that impassive look again. Kel rolled her eyes and took another sip from one of the coffee cups she held. She knew what a bloodmate was, remembered the term from what little of her childhood she had spent in a Sanguen House before they’d tossed her out on her twelve-year-old ass. The Sanguen highly romanticized the concept when it involved purebloods. As for those females who had the misfortune of being born of mixed blood, they barely warranted a roof over their heads let alone a chance at the sacred pureblood males. As far as she was concerned, they could all stuff their blood bonding bullshit up their righteous asses.
“I don’t believe in true love, Doc. That’s just a bunch of bull.”
Dr. Mahoney’s red brows rose. “Love?” Her laugh seemed harsh. “Hardly. It is completely chemical in nature. Male and female pheromones communicate compatible genotyping via your accessory olfactory system causing estrus. A truly amazing evolutionary process when one considers it. I suspect our interference in that process has weakened our species.” That gleam returned to her eyes and her Irish accent became more pronounced.
Kel frowned. “English?”
Dr. Mahoney blinked and started again. “Our bodies produce chemicals that we can smell. That smell tells our bodies who we can safely mate with to produce the best possible offspring to make our species stronger. Basically, all spontaneous mate bond processes boil down to this,” Dr. Mahoney explained. “In Sanguen, the bond is made exclusive through a blood exchange resulting in the female’s inability to experience estrus with any other males.” When Kel gave her a blank look, Dr. Mahoney simplified her explanation. “A female Sanguen needs the blood of a male to trigger the luteinizing hormone surge that causes ovulation. Once she takes that blood she is unable to react sexually with any other male.”
Kel raised the coffee cups up in the air and shook her head. “Wait, wait, wait. Let me get this straight. What you’re saying is Sanguen chicks can only release eggs if they take the blood of a guy which means that guy is the only one that can get them off?”
Dr. Mahoney stared at her for a long moment with a little disgusted twist to her lips. “That was not precisely how I would say it, but that basically covers it, yes.”
Kel lowered the cups and took another sip from hers with a thoughtful frown. “Sanguen females can obviously mate with Guardians but what of the other species?”
The doctor shrugged. “When the Sanguen female takes the blood of any male, provided he has the specific hormone in his blood that triggers ovulation, she will release an egg. As far as we know, that egg can be fertilized by the sperm of any species except Drachon. Science has yet to find a means to manipulate the genetic coding that prohibits a Drachon’s sperm from fertilizing any other egg but a female Drachon’s.”
Kel tried to ignore the doctor’s avid pale gaze as she sipped her coffee.
“None of this should worry you unless your boyfriend shared his blood with you.”
“Boyfriend my ass.” Kel raised the coffee cup to her lips with a small laugh. The swallow of the hot liquid lodged in her throat as an image of that scarlet drop glistening on his lip rose up in her mind. Her body’s reaction was instantaneous and strong. Her breasts tingled and a rush of damp heat between her legs made her want to press her thighs together. Refusing to allow herself to writhe beneath the onslaught of her arousal, she clamped down on her libido and carefully examined what the doctor said.
A blood bond? Mates? What a joke! In the Triumvirate home where she’d spent half her childhood, the Guardian males had used the concept as some kind of excuse to justify taking the girls without their consent. They’d claimed they were mating them. It had always seemed like some contrived title a man used to validate their abuse. Yet it obviously existed. Without so much as a single word some questionable stranger had become her mate and taken away her rights to her own body. What kind of bullshit was that?
“Can it be reversed?” Kel ground out.
“Reversed? No. It can be replaced if the blood of another male is introduced,” Dr. Mahoney murmured, her crystalline blue eyes not missing anything. “But if it is any consolation, it appears that you and the Sanguen succumbed to a spontaneous bond. That can only occur between biological mates and is very rare. It often results in the pair being able to engage in emotional telepathy.”
Kel gaped at her for a long moment. “How in the hell is that supposed to be a damn consolation?”
There went her premature plans to deny the bond. If he was able to sense her feelings, she would never be able to convince him that the blood exchange was ineffective. All she had to do was think of seeing him and her body went into overdrive. Her day was just getting brighter and brighter.
“Oh, I don’t know, short stuff, it could be worse.”
Kel spun on her heel, spilling some of her hot coffee on her hand. With a curse she looked up at the big man who stood behind her. Raife had been her partner for the last five years. He was an unmated Drachon. Drachon needed to breed or they died prematurely. Since they could only breed within their own species and females were rare, almost all male Drachon faced a death sentence at birth.
“Sorry, big guy.” Kel sm
iled and offered him the other coffee she held. Raife had it even worse than most. She suspected he had feelings for a full-blood Sanguen from one of the Marina communities. Kel thought he should just indulge and be happy the last bit of his life. It wasn’t like he could get her pregnant since his swimmers and her eggs weren’t compatible. As long as he didn’t create any fire-breathing bloodsuckers, the Triumvirate wouldn’t try to kill them. But Raife was too honorable.
Honor was a dying animal. Like the man.
Raife shrugged it away as he took a sip of the coffee. Kel frowned as she noted the dark circles beneath his eyes. She knew he was dying. She’d tried to talk him into going home. She’d met his parents once and they seemed like good people. The homemade cookies and model train kind of parents. She was sure they wanted to spend his last year with him. Looking at him today made her think he had even less time than that.
His golden eyes met hers square on.
“Don’t start, Kel.”
Kel snapped her mouth shut but she knew he could see her worry. Raife was the closest thing she had to family and everything in her didn’t want to let him go without a fight.
He flashed her a boyish grin and turned to Dr. Mahoney. “So, Doc, tell us what they got on our body.”
“Well,” she said, opening a file folder, “it was a rather rushed thing. The body was already gone by the time I arrived today. Kel’s, ah…friend was rather insistent on returning the body back to his House early this morn.” Ignoring Kel’s dirty look, she frowned as her eyes scanned the pages. “Cause of death was abdominal hemorrhage. Well now, this is a bit strange.” Her red brows lowered as she flipped a page in the autopsy report. “His liver temp increased during the autopsy.” She flipped several more pages. “His body must have continued to catabolize molecules after his death.” She flipped another page, her gaze flying over the paper. “Interesting.”
Raife and Kel exchanged a look of impatience. “All right, Doc, share the wealth.”
“Guardian blood. His drug of choice before his death was Guardian blood. A Sanguen needs to drink blood to help with metabolism. Guardians have very high metabolic rates to maintain the amount of energy it takes to” – she waved absently to Kel – “do all that Superman stuff you do. The infusion of Guardian blood into his system without an equal infusion of Sanguen blood would have increased his catabolic rate but decreased his anabolic rate.”
“His body was breaking his blood down faster than it was making it,” Raife murmured. “So, even if he’d hadn’t been shot, he would have died from the blood he drank,” Raife concluded.
“Exactly.”
“That makes sense. Right before he dropped he was trying like hell to make a snack out of me.”
Dr. Mahoney nodded. “He would have felt a driving need to replenish his blood supply.”
“That’s just great,” Kel bit out sarcastically. “We have a new drug that makes Sanguen raging blood fiends just before they drop dead. How do we keep that from the human authorities?”
“Well, our job is going to get more interesting around here.” Raife sipped his coffee then shook his head. “We need to find out who’s dealing straight up Guardian blood to these Sanguen, pronto. Our stiff was trying to buy from Jimmy Centrone last night. Could it be him?”
Kel leaned against the gleaming stainless steel counter and cradled the warm cup between her palms. “No, I don’t think so. He stays in business because he’s careful. Not only that, but how would he get close enough to a Guardian to get their blood?”
Raife considered that. “True, most Guardians wouldn’t be okay with losing any amount of blood.”
Kel remembered how strong the drugged Sanguen had been the night before. She brought the coffee to her lips but didn’t drink. “Would the Guardian blood have given him strength? Because this guy was cock strong. A hell of a lot stronger than me.”
Dr. Mahoney nodded. “Quite possibly they could have experienced some of the strengths that Guardians possess. But only temporarily. Their bodies could not have sustained at the rate the blood would have burned through them.”
“What if that blood was from a crossbreed? Say half Sanguen and half Guardian?”
Dr. Mahoney’s forehead creased, and Kel could see all the possibilities snapping through her brain at warp speed. “That would certainly yield an interesting answer.”
“Last night Centrone said something to the dead Sanguen about scoring the crossbreed blood he was looking for. He even had a sample. The vic tried to take the vial by force when Centrone refused to give it up. That’s when he shot him.” If pure Guardian blood gave them strength temporarily then what would the blood of a crossbreed do?
“I certainly would like to know what was in that vial that was so damn important that someone would kill for it,” Raife mused.
“Well, it’s funny you should say that.” Kel pulled the vial from her pocket, and held it between her thumb and index finger, and gave it a little shake. “Who wants to put money on this blood belonging to a crossbreed?”
“Shit, girl,” Raife said. “I take back everything I said about you.”
“Whatever, Merrick. You worship the thin ice I walk on.” She handed the vial over to the doctor.
Dr. Mahoney was no longer listening. She’d snatched the vial and was already at work.
As she and Raife stepped out into the hall, her phone jeered at her from her hip. After snapping it open, she held it to her ear. “Sheridan.” Kel listened for a moment and then replaced the phone with a low curse. “We’re being beckoned to the boss’s office.”
“Now my morning’s complete.” Raife snorted.
But Kel wasn’t listening as she absently kept pace with him down the gleaming hall. Her stomach dropped and her heart started a frantic beat. He was here, the stranger from the night before. She knew it with a certainty that she had no desire to question. The worst part of it was she didn’t know if it was dread or excitement that had her pulse racing.
THE CROSSBREAD WAS near.
Gabe Ferrar could feel her. After the burning ceremony he’d returned to Incog and demanded the woman work with him on the case involving his dead partner. He didn’t know why in the hell he’d made such a ludicrous request, but the thought of her working with that fucking fire breather created a surge of darkness in him and the damn beast rose to reassert its claim. He hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours and hadn’t taken any blood in well over forty-eight. He told himself the combined shortages made him slightly irrational, but the truth was he was obsessing over the little dark-haired crossbreed. The craving for her clawed at his gut until he wanted to roar with frustration. That darkness seethed inside him, impatiently waiting for a sight or scent of her, threatening his sanity.
Gabe stood in the back of the office, casually leaning against the marble fireplace with a clear view of the door. When she walked in she didn’t immediately see him, but he could smell the sharp, clean perfume of her arousal. So she’d known he was here too, had felt him the same way he had her. It gave him a dark thrill to know her arousal was for him alone, that it would only ever be for him.
No more than two steps into the room she froze, her shoulders stiffening. She was aware of his presence. Her arousal sharpened, became heavier. The beast shifted inside him with pleasure, and he was filled with a sense of possessiveness toward the crossbreed. A little shiver of arousal went through his body.
A large man appeared behind her, stopping when she did. It was the man whose teasing had been too familiar with her last night. A lover?
Gabe’s entire body stiffened with the effort to keep himself restrained. A raw possessiveness lunged away from his control, his entire focus on the man that touched his woman. The thought made his palms itch to feel the twin blades strapped to his thighs. The man immediately jerked around, his amber eyes slamming into Gabe’s. There was a slight flash of silver in his eyes, like the sun glinting off the hood of a car. A Drachon. He’d suspected as much.
“Hurt her
and I’ll kill you.”
Gabe strengthened his mental barriers against the telepathic Drachon and gave a curt nod, ignoring the pain in his skull from the effort of controlling his fierce urge to attack. The last thing he needed was one of those damn mind readers in his brain when his entire being was being torn apart by the burning for the tiny woman the bastard hovered over.
The crossbreed turned slightly to glance in his direction, the dark liquid brown of her eyes meeting and holding his firmly. Dark brows arched up over eyes that had an exotic tilt to them. She had a wide mouth with full lips and a small, heart-shaped face. That sexy little diamond stud winked at him from her nose again. Despite her young, girlish looks he could sense the strength and resilience that ran just beneath her innocent exterior. She was letting him know who she was with that steady gaze.
The challenge stirred him in ways he wasn’t yet ready to willingly acknowledge.
His gaze traveled down over her compact form. She was wearing a pair of faded jeans that formed perfectly around the small curve of her ass and were worn through at the knees. They hung low on her hips, revealing the very sexy curve of her back.
Inside him the beast pressed against his control, its hunger burning him from the inside out. He wanted to learn every satiny shallow and swell of her body with tongue and fang. Gabe almost groaned as he felt his canines lengthen in response, not to mention the other parts of his body that quickened at the descent of his thoughts.
Her hooded zip-up sweatshirt and print tank didn’t quite meet the top of her jeans, revealing a delicious strip of pale skin and the shadowy depression of her belly button.
His eyes returned to hers and she narrowed them, letting him know she was aware of his thoughts. Her eyes denied his possession, and he lifted one corner of his lips in a parody of a smile, revealing the sharp tip of one canine. She turned away from him and approached the desk, dropping negligently into a chair to casually inspect her nails.
