Seduction's Shift

by A. C. Arthur

  “Dammit! Dammit! I need you,” he heard himself say and felt empty. He knew there was more he wanted to say, probably needed to say, but he didn’t.

  “You’ve got me” was her reply, and everything inside him tightened. “I’m right here with you, Nick. I won’t leave you,” she stated clearly.

  Nick opened his eyes and looked down at her to find she was staring right back up at him. “I won’t leave you, Ary. Ever again,” he told her with everything he had inside. He would not leave her and he would not let anything happen to her.

  “You’re my companheiro,” she told him just before opening her mouth over his dick and taking the bulbous head between her lips.

  It was hot there, moist, and so fucking fantastic he almost came instantly. “Ary, you are my companheiro. You are fucking mine!”

  She took his entire length into her mouth then, letting his tip sit at the back of her throat and holding him there. Nick tensed all over, his fingers pulling at her hair as he struggled not to pull back and pump full force into her mouth. She was so his, so definitely his. No other female, even the most promiscuous of the lot he’d been with, had ever turned him on the way Ary did, had ever done things to him the way Ary did. So yes, she was definitely his until either or both of them drew their dying breath.

  Nick couldn’t stand it a second longer. He pulled her up to him, loving the way his length slid so slippery from her pouting lips. “I need you now!” he told her.

  She grabbed his cheeks and rose to her tiptoes. “Take me, then,” she told him before running her tongue over his lower lip then dipping it inside his mouth.

  In no time Nick was ripping her clothes off, popping buttons, tearing fabric. He didn’t give a shit. All he could think about was her, all he could smell, see, feel was Ary. When she was naked he pushed her down on the bed, had her palms flat on the mattress, her arms fully extended but her back bent over.

  Nick kissed down the line of her spine, spreading her cheeks as he neared them, licking over the pretty globes before pressing a finger inside her anus.

  “Take me!” she yelled.

  “I will!” he told her, inserting yet another finger, stretching the pretty entrance.

  “Now!”

  “So bossy,” he told her before pulling his fingers out and positioning his tip at the opening. “I’m going to take you.”

  “Yes!” she moaned, wiggling her ass at him as if an invitation were really needed.

  He pressed forward slightly. She wiggled again. He slapped a hand to one cheek, watched it blush, and slapped the other one.

  “Nick!”

  “Oh yeah, baby, that’s my name. Say it again.” He pressed in deeper. She wiggled again, gasping his name over and over.

  Through with the theatrics, Nick sank his entire length inside her, palmed her ass cheeks, and pulled out. When he pushed back inside she came, thighs shaking, his name rolling off her lips like a litany. Nick pumped until he felt like his legs would falter or his back would break. Instead his essence poured from him in thick streams, shooting inside of her, taking all that he had, all that he was. He closed his eyes and saw her face. He inhaled and smelled her scent, their combined calor. In his ears was her voice saying his name, saying he was her companheiro, saying she loved him.

  Chapter 30

  “Felipe Hernandez, one of the Cortez Cartel’s lieutenants, was captured in New Mexico last night. I made a few calls and had him transferred to Bas’s resort for safekeeping,” X said.

  “That’s great. Commit a couple hundred murders, ship millions in drugs to American soil, killing thousands of humans, and get rewarded with a night’s stay at a four-star resort in beautifully scenic Sedona,” Nick quipped.

  Rome shook his head at Nick. “You sound like a commercial for a fun-filled vacation.”

  “Well, that’s what this crook is on, a vacation.”

  “He’s locked down tight in one of the wine cellars. Bas isn’t giving him any VIP treatment, I can guarantee you that.” X motioned for the bartender to bring him another drink. “I want to head down there sometime this week to talk to him.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Rome said.

  They’d left Rome’s mansion right after breakfast, making sure the females were in the house and safely guarded—especially after yesterday’s events. Now they were at the country club where Rome was an upstanding member, even after he’d married a local police officer instead of some high-powered female on the political scene, having drinks.

  After the botched attack at the museum and the bank robbery, messages had gone out to all the shifters in X’s database to be on alert for the Rogue scent and suspicious shifter activity. Every trained guard they had was at Rome’s mansion ready to roll out at a moment’s notice.

  “I also found out that Julio Cortez is living in a luxurious nursing home in Colombia. Word is dementia keeps him pretty busy these days.”

  Rome drummed his fingers on the table. “There goes any information we could expect to get out of him. My father’s notes said he talked with Julio on a regular basis. That would have been more than twenty-five years ago.”

  Nick nodded. “Julio would have been in control of the cartel at that time when running cocaine was the biggest part of their business. Under Raul’s auspicious leadership, they’ve moved into ecstasy and human trafficking. I hear he specializes in teenage girls.”

  “Bastards,” X said with a growl.

  Both Rome and Nick looked at him.

  “You okay, man?” Nick asked. “You’ve been a little tense.”

  X cut his eye at Nick then looked back down to his drink. “This is a tense situation. We’ve got a few things going on at one time and all of them are damn volatile. It’s going to be hell trying to keep control of each situation.”

  “Then we don’t control them, we just counteract,” Rome replied. “I want to know what our parents’ connection was to Cortez and that symbol that’s now displayed on drug packages being sold on the streets. But our safety comes first. Sabar remains the priority.”

  Nick nodded his head. “Any more news on the bags?”

  “They’re being sold out of a club called Athena’s. I’ve got a couple of shadows down there keeping watch.”

  “People are dying because of what he’s putting in those bags.” Nick took a deep breath and decided it was time to spill. “Ary thinks he’s mixing the cocaine with damiana and another jungle root called ayahuasca. She says that’s probably what’s adding the crazy factor in all the overdoses. That woman I saw was freakin’ out of her mind.”

  “So who’s manufacturing it? The shaman we caught last night?” X asked

  “I’m betting he has someone here, too. A human, probably,” Rome added.

  “Yeah, you might be right. The shaman’s costing him some money. Once he figures out how to duplicate whatever he’s giving him, Sabar will probably kill him. The human, however, he can intimidate to accept the fact that he’s letting him live as payment.” Nick dragged his hands down his face, sitting back in his chair. “What a mess. I don’t think even our parents could have predicted this.”

  “But they knew something would happen. You’ve got to wonder how they knew,” Rome said quietly.

  “Probably because they were orchestrating the beginnings of the war before we even knew what we were,” Nick added glibly.

  “So what are we going to do about it?” X asked.

  All eyes rested on Rome, who looked almost as evil and animalistic as Sabar at this moment.

  “We’re going to bring the war to their backyard. Make that shaman tell you where Sabar is,” Rome told Nick.

  “We finally get to kick some Rogue ass?” Nick asked.

  Rome nodded. “And then some.”

  * * *

  Rome’s guest house had probably been lavish at one point; now it was simply a neat dwelling that nobody bothered to use. Well, it was currently being put to good use. Nick had suggested facilities be built at Havenway for captives such
as Yuri, and Rome readily agreed.

  For now Yuri’s thin body had been shackled to a pipe that ran down one of the back walls of the kitchen. He was gagged, his hands chained behind him, his ankles linked together with the same chain that led to the pipe. And around his neck was a brace that beeped with a red light. This was the prisoner collar Nick and Ezra had suggested to Rome a couple of years back. Rome thought they’d never need it, but Nick had wanted to be ready. It was a good thing.

  The thought was that if they had to hold a shifter, they’d fit him with this collar. If he shifted while wearing the collar, the instantaneous growth of the neck would trigger electromagnetic waves from the collar; the cat would die as its paws hit the ground. They hadn’t used this on the cheetah shifter they’d held because he was never meant to live long.

  Yuri wasn’t a shifter, but Ezra probably figured it was wisest to slip on the collar anyway, just for the hell of it.

  “When I first came to see you, I wanted your help,” Nick said, moving until he was standing completely in the small kitchen.

  The shaman gazed at him with bleak eyes. The man looked like he starved for a living instead of milking people for their money or personal belongings to give them fake-ass remedies.

  In the center of the beige-tiled floor was a round table with two wooden chairs. Nick pulled one out and took a seat. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and glared at Yuri.

  “This time I’m not asking for your help. I’m telling you what I want to know and you’re going to supply the information. It’s that simple.”

  Yuri didn’t even blink.

  “Nod if you understand.”

  Yuri didn’t nod.

  Nick shrugged, got to his feet, and walked over to were Yuri was propped against the wall. He punched the shaman in the gut and watched his eyes bulge a millisecond before he doubled over.

  “I told you to nod if you understand.”

  Yuri kind of dangled there, his head held low, the lower half of his body now crumpled on the floor.

  Undeterred by the continued lack of cooperation, Nick grabbed his hair, pulling his head back until he almost snapped a neck that looked thin enough to slip right out of the collar.

  “Nod if you understand.”

  The shaman blinked rapidly, and Nick felt the slight pull against the hold he had on his head. He smiled. “Good.

  “Now, where did you meet up with Sabar? I want to know his exact location.”

  Yuri shook his head.

  “Oh, you know. I’d suggest you not lie to me,” Nick warned, his claws emerging on the hand that didn’t hold Yuri’s head.

  He watched as the man’s eyes closed and he heard some sort of moaning coming from him. Nick pulled on his head again then dragged four of his fingers down the side of his face. “Don’t fuck with me, old man! I want answers!”

  There was a muffled scream as Nick’s claws penetrated the skin of Yuri’s face. He remembered the gag and used his claws to pull it out of his mouth. “Start talking.”

  Yuri gasped and blinked, probably trying to get himself together since now he was bleeding like crazy, as well as being tied to a pipe. He coughed when Nick shook his head again.

  “A house, I went to a house when I get off the plane,” he said in a hoarse tone.

  “Where was the house?” Nick asked as if he were talking to a toddler.

  Yuri’s eyes glassed over and his lips pursed, and Nick thought he was going to start with the smoke again. He punched Yuri in the mouth just as a warning. “All you’re going to do is answer my questions. Nothing else, just answers,” he told him.

  “I do not know. I do not live here.”

  Nick didn’t know if that was meant to be sarcastic or not, but it had some semblance of truth. If Yuri wasn’t from here, without an exact address he might find it a little hard to describe where Sabar lived.

  “How many shifters are with him?”

  Yuri’s eyes lit up then. His thin lips spread into an awkward smile considering the huge bone going through his lip. And yes, that was some disgusting shit to look at, and it would have hurt his human knuckles like a bitch if his skin and bones hadn’t thickened when his claws came out.

  “New shifters are good. Souls are obedient,” Yuri said with a hiss. His tongue moved over the bone, touching lightly against his lower lip, then his top one. “It worked.”

  “What worked? What did you do to his shifters?”

  “He now owns the souls.”

  Nick hit him again just because he didn’t like what the hell the shaman was saying. Had he blown that smoke onto shifters? Now there were some brainwashed shifters running around town? Fuck!

  “I’m sick of the bull, tell me where he is. Where were you supposed to meet him again?”

  “You will not defeat him,” Yuri said.

  “And you will not live to see another sunset. Tell me where the fuck he is!” He pulled Yuri up so that his feet dangled off the floor. Nick held him by his hair, and the shaman yelled in pain as he was hoisted up higher.

  “Talk!”

  “D,” he hissed. “It is on a road called D.”

  Nick released him immediately, not giving a rat’s ass about his body slumping to the ground. “If you’re lying I’m coming back here to rip your guts out.”

  He grabbed the rag off the floor and stuffed it back into Yuri’s mouth. “Sit tight, I’ll be back.”

  Chapter 31

  “You’ve got ten minutes,” the short, pudgy man told Kalina. “I could lose my job doing this.”

  Kalina smiled and rubbed the guy’s arm. “Thanks a lot, Pete. I really appreciate your getting us in. We’ll only need five of those minutes. Right?” she asked Ary and X, who stood behind her waiting to get through the double swinging doors.

  Ary was anxious, had been since last night when Kalina had announced they’d be able to get in to see the latest corpse today. Weeks had passed since this female had died. According to Pete, no one had claimed the body and the police were still investigating. The truly astonishing fact was how well the body had held up. Decomposition should have already started, but it seemed as if the body had been frozen in death. If Sabar’s drug was capable of what Ary thought, it was going to be a catastrophe once it went global. X had that same fear; that’s why he was here with them. The fact that Rome had doubled both their security was another reason X was tagging along. Jax and Leo were both standing right outside the front doors of the city morgue just in case anyone tried to come in while they were there.

  “I’ll wait right out here,” Pete told Kalina, his chubby cheeks flushed red at her touch. “Ten minutes.”

  Kalina smiled and gave Ary and X a nod as she moved through the double doors. From behind, Ary heard X growl at the man who was no doubt still watching Kalina with his big blue eyes.

  “You’re an agitator,” she told him once they were walking down a short hallway that lead to a second set of double doors.

  “What? He was looking at her like he wanted her for his breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She is the First Female, you know,” he said in his defense.

  “Whatever,” Ary said with a chuckle. “Bully.”

  “It should be this one,” Kalina said once they were through the doors and near a wall full of handles and tags with dates on them.

  Ary came up beside her as she reached for the handle.

  “I’ll get it,” X said, motioning for both of them to move out of the way.

  Ary immediately unzipped the black body bag, pushing it to both sides.

  “Goddammit!” X yelled.

  Both Kalina’s and Ary’s eyes shot up, wondering what had happened to make him explode like that.

  “You okay with seeing a dead body?” Kalina asked.

  X was rubbing his eyes, the veins in his neck bulging, his bald head glistening with tiny beads of sweat.

  “I know this girl,” he said before taking a deep breath. “I just spoke to her a few weeks ago. She’s a stripper from that clu
b Athena’s.”

  “Oh,” Ary said for lack of anything better.

  “Was she the one you thought had information on Sabar’s drug?” Kalina asked.

  X nodded, looking down again at the girl, reaching out to close the one gray eye that was still open. The other eye wasn’t exactly in a position to be closed since it barely hung in the socket while the rest of her face had been ripped off.

  “Her name’s Diamond,” he said, clearing his throat. “The drug didn’t do this to her,” X finished adamantly.

  “I agree,” Ary told him, wanting to touch him, to console him in some way but refraining. X did not look like the type of man you consoled. Cussed out or punched, maybe, but not hugged and consoled. “There are scratches over here on her arm as well.”

  “So a Rogue did this? Why?” Kalina asked.

  X cursed. “They don’t need a reason, the filthy bastards!” He looked like he wanted to say more but squeezed his lips until they were in a tight line as he kept staring down at Diamond.

  “Maybe the Rogue is infected,” Ary suggested.

  “You mean the Rogue took the drug, too?” Kalina asked Ary.

  “No. I mean, maybe Yuri was able to perform the ayahuasca ceremony and opened the Rogue’s soul. He could be controlled and made to do anything for any reason, without a second thought.”

  “Rogues don’t second-guess anything. They decide and they act. Period. And they don’t hesitate to kill. The other females were mauled, too,” X said.

  “Not in the face like this,” Kalina said.

  “And look here.” Ary parted the legs of the female; thick, deep scratches had ripped her skin there as well. “Give me a hand,” she said to Kalina.

  Together they pushed the body—already in rigor—until they could see more scratches up and down her back, deeper and longer ones on her buttocks.