by Alyssa Day
He repeated his sentence, slower this time, as if she might not have understood him the first time. "You need to go to the ER and get checked out."
She started to shake her head no, but stopped as the movement shot bolts of pain through her skull. "I don't want to go to the ER. It was just a punch."
She brushed his hand off his arm and stood up on unsteady legs, which probably proved his point, but what the hell. "I've had worse. I need to go for a walk. I need air."
She'd already talked to the detective in charge of what was now a murder scene. Her part of it was done. And now the room was closing in on her.
It had been such a surprise to her at first, how many people show up at a murder scene. So many official types convened in a confluence of the mundane—photo taking, fingerprinting, tape measuring.
The profanity of death, obscured by the details of modern police work. It seemed wrong, somehow, as it always did.
She'd seen too much of it. Should have been a secretary, like her baby sister. Quinn never had to face despair. Or fists. Or blood on her clothes.
It was hell on the dry-cleaning bill.
The EMT stepped back and turned off the penlight he'd been shining in her eyes. "I don't think you have a concussion, but you're going to have a helluva shiner. You really should come and get checked out by the doc."
Riley's belly twisted, empty and nauseous. She moved away from him, tuning him out, and scanned the room again. The cheap apartment. The chaos left in the wake of violence.
The stench of death—blood and the body's release of wastes. It had surprised her at her first death scene, that release. The final indignity. A soiled corpse left for the impersonal attentions of the morgue.
Riley heard the moaning sound, low in her throat, and choked it off. She was tougher now. Hardened to it.
Immune to any emotion.
That's what she told herself, at least. Until she saw the bear.
Propped up in the corner of the room, next to a bassinet, a giant teddy bear wearing a pink bow grinned foolishly out at the room, unmoved by the drama that had played out before it.
That damn pink bow sent her over the edge.
"I have to get out of here. Please, just get out of my way. Please." She whirled around and shoved past the EMT, careful to walk around the personnel crouched on the floor taking pictures.
"Hey, Dawson. Where do you think you're going?" The detective she'd spoken with earlier—Ramsey? Ramirez?—pulled on a fresh set of gloves, the lines in his face deepening as his gaze traveled to her face. "You look like shit. You should go with them to the ER."
Riley didn't stop; only slowed down a little. "I'm going to be sick. I've got to go get cleaned up and get some rest." She glanced back over her shoulder at him. "I'll call you as soon as I do."
He opened his mouth, probably to protest, but she was beyond caring. What were they going to do, arrest her? They knew who she was and, if only by rep, that her word was good.
He nodded, resigned. Sympathy and something she didn't want to define warmed his expression. Pity? He should save his pity for Dina and her baby. They'd need it. She was just doing her job.
This time she did laugh, even though it came out sounding… wrong. Yeah, doing her job. She was screwing up her job on a royal level.
Another day, another dead body. That made eight murder scenes this year.
He nodded. "All right. You've told us enough for now, anyway. Call me in the morning. You've got my card."
She fingered the card she'd shoved in her pocket and headed for the door. The morning. She'd call him in the morning. Now she had to get to the water. To the beach. Her sanctuary. She felt the power and peace of the ocean calling her.
She needed to feel the caress of the waves, and she'd be fine.
Conlan stood alone in the dark, eyes closed, senses unfurled to seek out the presence of anyone nearby.
Friend or enemy.
Hell, he almost preferred an enemy. He was solidly in the mood to kick somebody's ass. He bared his teeth in what passed for a smile. Then his eyes snapped open.
Because the door holding the emotion out of his mind had smashed open again. He staggered, fought to remain standing under the barrage of anguish. All he could do was try to ride it out and pray his brother or Alaric arrived soon. He closed his eyes again. Fought for focus. Turned to the portion of his training not conducted with swords and daggers.
Compartmentalize. A Warrior of Poseidon cannot countenance emotion. The price of arrogance is your life, Conlan.
He could almost hear Archelaus whispering in his head. Use all of your senses. Never rely on your mind, alone. To underestimate your enemy's potential to create illusion means death.
He focused, strained. Achieved detachment. His mind analyzed the problem of his own duality; emotionless calculation studied raging grief.
The evidence supports no internal cause. Seek the external.
So, then. It was outside of him. Somebody—or some thing—broadcasted grief powerfully enough to shove through his mental defenses.
The enemy he'd been wishing for, maybe. It was sure as hell no friend. No Atlantean could send emotions to another. "Well, they say be careful what you wish for, right?" he muttered to himself, muscles straining with the effort of managing the flood of anguish.
He spared a thought for the source. Somebody, somewhere, was suffering all nine hells' worth of hurt.
Riley trudged away from her old Honda, parked carelessly across a couple of spaces in the deserted parking lot, heading toward the beach. Not many beachgoers at this hour on a chilly October night.
The smell of sea air and salt water reached her, and she took a deep breath, a tendril of calm threading its fragile way through her. Her stomach growled a reminder that it had been more than fourteen hours since she'd eaten. Almost without thinking, she reached into the pocket of her jacket for one of the protein bars she usually carried around.
Regular meals were unpredictable in her line of work.
She started to peel a corner of the wrapper off the bar, and it hit her: Morris would never eat anything again.
The thought smashed into her, doubling her over. What was the magic number? How many times would she have to watch somebody die before she could be blase about it?
And what the hell kind of person was she that she even wanted to?
Forcing herself to straighten up, she glanced at her watch, then swore under her breath. Nearly curfew. She knew all about curfew; she even had the requisite copy of the 2006 Nonhuman Species Protection Act taped up to a window of her home, as mandated by the new law. "I don't care. I need this walk. Nobody will bust me for a few minutes past human lights out," she muttered. The ocean meant healing. Solace. Her mind desperately needed both.
Talking to myself. Now there's a sign of imminent whacko-dom.
She kicked an empty can out of her way as she finally reached the sand and shoved the unopened protein bar back in her pocket. Maybe later.
The moonlight pirouetted on the surface of the waves, careless in its joy. Unaffected by human concerns. Riley glanced up, judging its phase. She hadn't caught the lunar alert on the radio that morning.
Waxing gibbous. Good. Still a couple of days before the full.
They'd all gotten way better at keeping track of the moon since the shape-shifters had first announced their existence. Funny what a difference a decade made. She probably would have guessed a waxing gibbous had something to do with monkeys, before.
Life had been way easier when the moon was just something cows jumped over in storybooks.
Cows. Storybooks.
That damned bear and its pink ribbon.
Riley sank down on the sand near the water and gave in to the tears.
When a fresh wave of grief flooded his mind, Conlan raised his head, scenting the air.
She's near. She? I don't know how I know, but, yeah, it's a she. Maybe a few miles from here?
He started walking, sped up.
&n
bsp; Began to run. Flashed into molecules of pure water with the preternatural speed of his kind.
Must find her.
Need, inexplicable but intense. Primal determination.
Must find her now.
Riley heaved in a shaky breath, trying to surface from the currents of sorrow threatening to drag her under. Dina would go to jail.
Please, God, watch out for Dina.
Riley looked up at the impervious moon again and laughed bitterly. Although, why do I bother? It's not like the hundreds of prayers I've sent up before have made a difference. The baby is the worst of it. If she even lives, she's going to a foster home.
Riley thought of a baby she'd just placed with a foster home; one of the better ones. Mrs. Graham loved all of her kids, but had a special affinity for the broken ones. The baby had peered up into Riley's face as she'd handed his twitching, crack-addicted body over to his new caregiver. His tiny fingers had furled and unfurled like sea anemones searching for a sunlight that might never come.
She rubbed her arms, shivering. Mrs. Graham was at max capacity. Riley didn't have anybody available who was as good. Dina's baby probably would be raised in an even worse form of the culture of violence and poverty that had shaped both Dina and Morris.
If the baby even lives.
Riley almost physically shoved the thought to the back of her mind. She couldn't go there. Not now.
Not when she was so close to the edge of sanity.
Put it in the box, Riley. Think about it tomorrow.
Even as she clenched her jaws to stop the scream clawing its way out of her throat, some weird sixth sense picked up the danger. She caught a glimpse of them out of the corner of her eye, creeping across the sand, flickering in and out of sight in the shadows cast by the clouds.
Three of them. She jumped up into a crouch, ready to run, scanning the area for a way to escape.
Stunned that—for the merest split second—she'd felt too hopeless to even try to save herself.
Chapter 4
Conlan swirled through the air faster than he'd ever moved, arrowing his focus to use the droplets of water in the sea air as a prism, until he could see the outline of her shape.
Score a point for Atlantean vision.
Shadows caught at the moonlight, obscuring her face. All he could see was a slender form, huddled on the beach. The impact of her grief magnified—trebled—when he saw her shoulders shudder.
She was definitely the source of the emotional grenade that had smashed into his defenses. No army. No vamp mind-control conspiracy.
One lone human female. And she was projecting emotion.
She was aknasha. Empath.
Stunned, disbelieving, he sent a tentative mind probe to her. Her mind clamped on to his probe, the energy of her thoughts rearing up, defensive. As if she sensed danger.
She thought he was a predator. He bared his teeth, nearly smiling. He'd been called worse.
He tried to shut down his mental shields, but she lashed out at him. Defense turned to offense—seeking to discern what the hell he was.
Get out of my mind! Defiance. Courage.
Pure, heated emotion.
And, buried way down deep: a tendril of fear.
His logic tried to make sense of the impossible. Not even Atlanteans could project emotion into the mind probe anymore. And yet she did. On a level so intense, so visceral, that his warrior senses nearly missed the threat to her.
There were three of them. They planned to hurt her. He swore viciously under his breath in the ancient tongue.
They were going to die.
He moved even faster.
Riley lifted her head, suddenly aware of a threat far greater than the three who stalked her. Something—someone—she almost felt him inside of her.
"Great. Either we've got vamps with new mind-control powers, or that damn sixth sense of mine picks now to go haywire," she muttered, even as she pushed herself up off the beach and started walking. Fast.
Maybe she'd been wrong. Maybe they were just three guys out for a walk on the beach.
Yeah, and I'm Goldilocks.
"Hold up there, babe. We want to have a little talk with you," one of them called out in a thick voice. The others laughed, and the menace in their laughter sent a curl of fear shivering up Riley's spine.
The air around her thickened, seemed to swirl with a darker black, as if an opposing force gathered itself, threatened.
But it didn't threaten her.
The dark caressed her as it passed, then built into an ominous cloud behind her. She kept walking, faster, nearly jogging now, glancing back over her shoulder. The men had stopped, openmouthed.
"What the hell is that?" one of them said, rubbing his arms. His belly hung low over his belt and his greasy hair was combed over his balding scalp. An angry-looking red scar snaked up out of his collar to the side of his neck. He caught her looking at him and leered at her. "Yeah, you're anxious to get a piece of me, aren't you, chickie? Guess you're not as tough as the other one."
The men put their heads down, driving their way through the shadows of the barrier, and stumbled after her.
She shuddered. Started to run. The unseen threat in the air around her escalated.
Nothing human could do that. It was an intangible presence—but a very tangible threat.
Oh, no. Somebody please help me. It's a damn vampire. Or a shape-shifter. I never should have broken curfew.
The sand seemed to mock her, catching her ankles, making her stumble. She heard her pursuers thundering closer and closer.
She shoved the panic away. Remember what you tell your clients. It's rape—horrible, soul deadening, but you'll be alive. It's not murder. It's only temporary. Nothing matters but staying alive. You can survive this.
An inhumanly vicious roar sounded through her head—no, it wasn't just in her head. She heard it. She lurched to a stop, glancing behind at her pursuers.
The bastards behind her stopped, too. "What the hell was that, Red? You said none of those fucking werewolves hung out around here," one of them whined.
Riley shook her head, trapped. Bones turned to liquid. She forced herself to keep moving.
Better to risk being lunch for an unseen vampire than victim of a gang bang. Too early for shape-shifters.
"Guess rapists these days aren't up on lunar phases," she said, hysteria threatening to overwhelm her.
The roar came again, stopping her in her tracks. Terror whipped through her. Nothing human made that sound.
She was going to die.
She choked on a laugh. Maybe they'd put her in a drawer at the morgue next to Morris.
A voice—a silken melody of sound—rang inside of her head.
The undead will never have you, little aknasha. You are too valuable to us. We need to figure out just how you acquired this interesting talent.
The velvet caress of the voice caught at her mental defenses, trying to insinuate itself into her mind.
Fascinated in spite of the situation, she tried a mental push of her own. Who are you? How can you talk to me like that? No vampire or shape-shifter has that power, do they?
She frantically scanned the skies, afraid of an attack from above, then looked behind her at the thugs.
Great. I get trapped in some mind-control games and they catch me. Brilliant, Riley. Why not just give up and lie down now?
The voice sounded in her mind again, gentleness gone, implacable ice in its place. Do not worry about those fools behind you. I'm in the mood to deliver a little death.
"Death?" Even as a small, dark corner of Riley's soul stood up and cheered at the idea, her conscience wouldn't go for it.
She'd seen enough death for one night.
She'd seen enough death for one lifetime.
"No. Whoever you are, no killing. Please, just help me get away," she said out loud, realizing she was probably bargaining with a freaking bloodsucker.
Stand aside. Now. They're already dead. I don't like verm
in who prey on helpless women. His melodic tones wrapped around her senses, raising her nerve endings to heightened alert, even as she bristled at his arrogant presumption.
You picked the wrong woman to order around, bud. And if you are some kind of preternatural badass, you picked the wrong woman to try to eat, too.
She whirled around in midstride, dropping into a defensive crouch, wondering how she could possibly defend herself against all four of them.
One of them with enough undead strength to pick up a house.
So fierce! Eat you? I'm no vamp, fierce one. But I must admit, for some reason the idea of… tasting you… isn't making me all that unhappy. And I haven't even seen your face yet. So who's using the mind control here?
His silent laughter insinuated itself into her mind, simmering with… sex. A wave of heat washed through her, over her, around her.
"I hope you're not waiting for an answer to that one," she muttered, feeling her face flame and glad for the darkness. "What kind of moron feels sexy when her life is in danger? Next I'll be putting on a slinky nightgown and going down in the basement with the serial-killing hockey players."
She backed away from all of them—mind-control boy's likely direction and the thugs. But one woman didn't have a chance against all four.
Riley watched, fists clenched so hard her nails bit into her palms, as the drunks moved to surround her. The sour reek of their unwashed bodies tripled the nausea she was already fighting, and she gagged as her stomach tried to rebel.
She'd never be able to defeat all three of them, and escape was impossible, now. Not only from them, but from the stranger whispering in her mind. But she could at least punch and kick the crap out of any body part that came in reach.
They wouldn't get her without a fight.
Be still. I'll deal with these criminals. And then, aknasha, we'll have a little chat about how you transmit emotions through the mind probe. Don't even think about trying to get away from me.
Riley fell back a step as the stocky, muscle-bound man in front of her reached forward as if to grab her breast. She could smell the fumes on his breath—beer and the sour tang of something stronger.
