Harlequin Nocturne January 2014 Bundle: The Vampire HunterMoon Rising

by Michele Hauf

  In fact, he was here.

  A man, fifty-plus in years and excess weight, shoved back a bramble. He was standing sideways; he hadn’t seen Marc, the female werewolf or the dead Russell yet. And he wouldn’t see Marc, not if Marc didn’t want him to.

  The vampire prepared to slip out of the man’s awareness, to let him focus instead on the two wolves.

  He glanced at the female.

  She stood with her hands at her sides and her body taut. She’d waited too long; she couldn’t shift, not without the human witnessing her transformation.

  Without thinking, Marc moved and jerked her toward him, until her chest, damp with sweat, pressed against his. She looked up; her eyes flashed with surprise.

  “Play along.” Then he dropped his mouth onto hers. Her lips were soft for a second; then she realized what was happening. Her body stiffened, her lips hardened and she tried to break free.

  His hands on her upper arms, he pulled her body closer and pressed his lips tighter against hers, until their teeth touched.

  “Relax,” he murmured. “Give the human something to see and he won’t see anything else.”

  Before she could comply or fight more, the human turned and froze. “What’s...?” He slapped his hand against his thigh as if calling a dog.

  Marc ignored the annoying noise. It wasn’t hard to do. It was, in fact, much more difficult to remember that what the human was seeing was staged, would under any other circumstance have never happened, could never happen again.

  The female tasted wild and sweet, like honey stolen fresh from a hive. Her blood pounded through her veins. Her skin was warm and slick with perspiration. Marc wanted to slip his lips from hers, trail them down her face and onto her neck...sample and explore everything she had to offer.

  His fangs hung heavy in his mouth. He pulled his lips from hers and grazed her skin with one tip, enough to give him one tiny taste.

  The female jerked and the human cleared his throat.

  “You two...is everything all right here?” The man took a giant heavy-footed step forward.

  “Fine. We’re fine.” The back of her wrist pressed against her lips, the female slipped from Marc’s embrace. Her voice was husky, but at least she had a voice. With a desire he hadn’t felt in a century swirling through him, Marc was unsure of his ability to place words into sentences.

  “You sure?” The man shot a glare Marc’s direction. He turned to the side, giving the human his profile. His fangs were extended. He needed a moment to harness the desire and hunger pounding through him.

  The female hesitated, but only for a moment. “I’m sure.”

  The man didn’t reply. Instead he bounced his gaze over the area surrounding them. Remembering the purpose of his act with the werewolf, Marc focused on the middle-aged human, forced his attention back to the female werewolf and Marc.

  “Got a call of a smell. Something rotting. Either of you smell something like that?” His attention settled on the female werewolf. He frowned.

  Marc stepped forward to sling his arm around her shoulder. She stiffened, but didn’t pull away.

  “I’m afraid we haven’t been aware of a lot,” Marc replied.

  “Huh.” The man snorted; then reached into his front pocket and pulled out a pad. “You look familiar, miss. Were you at the bar last night?”

  It was then Marc noticed that the drab outfit the man sported was actually a uniform. Marc lowered his gaze, checking for a gun. The man was unarmed and not, Marc guessed, with the local or state police. More likely in this area, a sheriff’s office.

  The officer’s pen tapped against the edge of the notepad.

  Marc shifted his gaze to the female. “You should answer him,” he whispered. Stalling would only make the man question more.

  She twisted as if to step away. Marc pressed the tips of his fingers into her bare skin. “I wouldn’t do that. Sudden moves might shake our friend from his trance.” It wasn’t true. Even days from a feed and decent rest, Marc’s powers were stronger than that, but he enjoyed having the female so close, all the more because he knew having her body pressed against his made her uncomfortable.

  “You say something?” The man’s brows lowered and his pen wavered.

  Marc relaxed his fingers, let them brush over the female’s upper arm, up and down. Her skin was soft and damp with a combination of humidity and sweat.

  If Marc bit her, she would taste sweet and salty. A heady thought.

  “You—” the human began.

  “I was. I gave a report.” The wolf twisted in place, made it obvious she was ready for the conversation to be over.

  “That’s right. I thought I remembered you. My deputy talked to you. You want to remind me of your name?” He wrote something on his pad.

  Marc smiled, enjoying the female’s discomfort. He could have made it easier on her, poured more of his powers into making the sheriff go on his way, but she’d give Marc no reason to help her. That he’d done as much as he had deserved recognition and thanks. Neither of which he guessed would be coming his way.

  “CeCe. CeCe Parks.”

  The female’s response startled Marc out of his thoughts. He hadn’t expected her to answer, at least not that easily.

  “And you?” The man stopped his scribbling to look back at Marc.

  “Is this necessary, officer? Have we done something wrong? Trespassed perhaps?” Marc had no reason to keep his name from the human, but he knew that the female werewolf, CeCe, was waiting to hear it. Knew not knowing his name, when he now knew hers, was pricking at her, like a burr caught in her fur.

  The man rolled back on his heels and then forward again. “Probably, but I doubt anybody cares. Just need the information for the report’s all.” He grinned, a friendly act to gain Marc’s trust that the vampire did not believe. “Gotta keep the pencil pushers happy.”

  Marc paused another second, just to tweak the female more, then pulled in a breath as if the information had been forced from him. “Marc Delacroix, but I’d really rather this little―” he waved his free hand to indicate the woods around them “―incident not be reported. You see...” He dropped his arm from CeCe’s shoulder. “She’s married, not happily, but still...”

  The officer grunted, but kept writing. CeCe, however, glared.

  “Got ID?”

  With a smile at the werewolf, Marc handed the man two business cards, one from his dry cleaner’s, the other from his favorite hunting grounds, a bar in D.C.

  The officer nodded and scribbled some more. The werewolf’s eyes widened, but wisely, she kept her mouth firmly closed and her feet firmly planted in one place.

  After a few moments, the man returned the business cards, gave the pair a warning to find a new spot for “whatever” and left.

  “You spelled him.”

  Marc tucked the business cards back into his pocket. “It is called thrall, and only a little. Besides...” He pinned her with a look. “You should be thanking me. I didn’t have to include you or your pack mate into my ‘spell.’ I could have simply stood by and watched as the human cuffed you and dragged you in for questioning.”

  She snorted. “Werewolves have their own way of escaping human detection.”

  He tilted his head. “Shifting, then running? Effective, if you don’t have a 175-pound body to drag behind you. Or are you saying you would have left him behind?” He walked to the body and kicked off the branches she’d thrown over the dead werewolf.

  She didn’t answer and he didn’t expect her to. They both knew he’d saved her from, at the very least, a few hours of uncomfortable questioning.

  Her wild scent crept back into his consciousness. She had moved to stand beside him. Annoyingly silent on her feet, he hadn’t even noticed.

  “If you’re so powerful, why play the game a
t all? Why not just cast your spell wider, make him think he saw nothing but trees?”

  “Thrall,” he corrected.

  Her brows inched upward.

  Marc shrugged. “What would have been the fun in that?”

  As he reached for the dead were’s arm, he felt her glower.

  And for the first time in decades, a true smile curved his lips.

  Chapter 6

  CeCe clamped her jaws together, refusing to growl. The vampire knew he was annoying her. He was toying with her on purpose, playing with her as a cat would a mouse.

  But she was no mouse; she was a wolf. She needed to act like one. Do what her pack and alpha would do in her place.

  She stepped between him and Russell, knocking against the vampire and cutting off his access to the wolf. “Don’t touch him.”

  The vampire raised a brow, but didn’t move from his crouch. “Have you smelled him? Seen if he smells of wolf?”

  “He is a wolf.”

  “Another wolf, one that might have killed him.”

  Despite the fact it hadn’t worked earlier, she pulled her cell from her pocket. “I’ve already told you, that is impossible. I have my facts. The pack will decide what to do with them.”

  In one fluid motion, the vampire stood and knocked her hand aside. The phone flew from her fingers, landing deep in the brush.

  She snarled.

  “What next, vampire? You think you can toss me aside as easily?” She let the wolf inside her raise its head and sniff the wind, let the vampire see the animal that was so eager to escape. Her frustration with the vampire, his quick confusing words, had agitated the beast.

  A shift would come easy, swift.

  “What makes you think I want to toss you aside?”

  The question was simple, polite even, but brought with it memories of being pressed against the undead vampire. His body had been cool against her too-hot flesh. She should have been repulsed, but instead she had been tempted to stay with her body flush against his.

  Her body still tingled with awareness.

  Attraction, to a vampire. It was unheard of...sick and disloyal. No wolf would think of a vampire that way.

  Still, a tremble ran through her. She tried to hide the unwelcome reaction, forced her mind, her body, everything inside her to remain still...strong.

  Back under control, she looked at him.

  The vampire, damn him, smiled.

  He knew.

  Then before she could react, snap at him, curse or do something else she would regret, the smile disappeared and his face went earnest.

  “What side are you on, CeCe? The pack against all else? Against right? Against truth? How far does your loyalty go? Would you give up lives, your soul to give the pack what it wants?”

  The use of her name startled her almost as much as his questions confused her. “Calling the pack won’t stop the truth—it will hurry its discovery. If you truly had nothing to do with Russell’s or Porter’s death, you have nothing to fear.” Even a wolf with as much reason as she had to despise the vampires wouldn’t hang...or stake...an innocent one.

  A look of knowledge she didn’t like filled the vampire’s eyes. He stared at her as if he knew things she didn’t, had experienced things that she hadn’t.

  Which of course he had; he was a vampire. There was no way of knowing how old he was, what times he had lived through. But even if he was a thousand years old, he wouldn’t understand werewolves or the pack. Only a wolf could truly do that.

  She turned to retrieve her phone. His fingers on her arm stopped her. Her heart thumped in her chest. He touched her too easily, and damn everything, she didn’t mind.

  She jerked her arm more violently than necessary to break free and spun. Her hands balled into fists and her lip rose.

  He held out both hands. “Let me look at the body. I can tell you things no werewolf could.”

  She wanted to argue the point, but couldn’t. How he had manipulated the people outside the bar and now the sheriff spoke for itself. Vampires had powers werewolves didn’t, and he might notice something she couldn’t.

  If she could trust anything he said.

  Still, she was curious what he might say, what wild explanations for the stake wound he might create.

  “Fine.” She stepped back. “But I’m watching.”

  He didn’t acknowledge her threat, just lowered his body back to a crouch and began a cool, controlled examination of Russell’s body.

  “He was stabbed, once.” Marc’s voice was professional and detached, like a doctor’s. “The wound didn’t close as you would expect.” He glanced at her. She could feel his suspicion, but didn’t acknowledge it. She kept her gaze as dispassionate as his.

  After a moment, he continued.

  “No signs of struggle.” He tilted the werewolf’s head to the right and then the left, examining his neck. “No bites.”

  “The neck isn’t the only place a vampire will bite,” CeCe commented, instantly suspicious that he was trying to mislead her.

  He looked up; no emotion showed on his face. “No, but unless the relationship is intimate, it is widely preferred.”

  His gaze stayed on her a little too long.

  Intimate. It was as if he’d whispered the word into her ear. She could feel his breath against her neck, could feel the tingles again, creeping up her body, but, she told herself, the sensation was only in her mind, the vampire causing it somehow to bring her discomfort.

  CeCe ran her palm up her neck. Realizing what she was doing, she jerked her hand away.

  The vampire was still crouched on the ground next to Russell, five feet away. He didn’t seem to notice her unease. His gaze back on the dead werewolf, he picked up one of Russell’s wrists then the other, rotating Russell’s arm back and forth as he did, obviously looking for any marks.

  “Clean,” he announced.

  “So, no bite. That doesn’t mean a vampire wasn’t involved,” she added, shifting her feet.

  “No.” Marc rolled Russell’s body onto its stomach and lifted its shirt.

  Unsure what he might do next, if the vampire would try something Karl would question later, CeCe edged closer.

  Marc released an impatient sigh. “I am looking for signs of struggle. There are none. If I attacked you, would you fight back?”

  “Of course—” She cut off her own reply. “But you could have put him under―” she struggled for the word “―thrall.”

  Surprise and then indecision crossed his face. After a moment, he sighed. “You saw me at the bar. You even sensed me at Porter’s house when you had no reason to suspect I was there. Thrall doesn’t work as well on other preternatural beings. If it did, the war would have lasted only a matter of months. The vampires would have picked the werewolves off one by one.”

  What he said made sense, but he had reason to lie. “I didn’t see you at Porter’s, though.” She hated admitting it.

  “Because I didn’t move. One flicker of my eyelash and you would have sensed me—you did sense me. And once the dog revealed I was there, there was no hiding from you again. So, as much as I would like to be all-powerful, let me assure you this wasn’t a product of thrall.”

  She blinked. She believed him.

  “But perhaps you think this werewolf would have stood still, let a vampire, let anyone he didn’t know, walk up and shove a blade through his heart—”

  “Stake,” she corrected.

  Silence greeted her. Marc’s eyes turned appraising.

  “The wound was caused by a stake,” she added.

  “And you know this how? Are you an expert in stake wounds?” He tilted his head and for a moment she thought an accusation would follow, but he simply continued, “I see a wound, and while I’ll admit my first r
eaction was stake, it could be from something else, a knife or a dagger.” He looked back at the Russell’s chest. “I do know it was something sharp and that there are no bits of wood or debris in the wound...but...” He turned his attention back to her. She could feel his gaze, weighing, assessing. “I can’t tell you one hundred percent for certain it was from a stake.”

  “It’s too big.” She gestured over Russell. “Too far across. I arrived before you. I had longer to look.”

  “You removed his shirt and put it back on?”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “Look—more carefully this time. Tell me I’m wrong.” If he did, she’d know he was lying, she’d know she had more reason to suspect him of being involved.

  His lips thinned, but Marc did as she said; he raised Russell’s shirt higher so the wound where the stake had been lodged was fully visible. He ran his finger around the opening; then without asking for permission, he prodded the gap in the flesh.

  “Don’t.” She dropped to a kneel, her hand reaching to pull Marc’s away. Allowing a vampire to look at Russell was one thing, allowing him to get Russell’s blood on his hands was too much. The pack would object; Karl would object.

  A growl sounded in her head; hairs rose on the back of her neck. The pack, even unaware of exactly what was happening, sensed her distress, and was reacting two hundred miles away. She wondered why it had taken them so long, why they hadn’t felt her need for support when she was being held by the humans at the bar, or when she had found Russell.

  Did the vampire affect her that thoroughly? Cut through her control that completely?

  She removed her hand without touching Marc and pulled in one deep, calming breath. Agitating the pack while they were so far away would do nothing to help her now.

  The vampire slowly removed his hands from Russell’s body and held them palm out. Blood streaked his right index finger. She stared at the stain. Werewolf blood on a vampire’s hands. To the pack it would be cause for war.

  But this blood wasn’t fresh, wasn’t a mark of guilt, she told herself.

  Still, she knew how Karl would react, and seeing Russell’s blood on Marc’s skin made her uneasy, feel guilty, as if she was hiding something.