“Jasmine. Everybody calls me Jazzy.”
Once more, Dominic held out his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Jazzy.”
“Whatever.” But she placed her hand in his.
“I won’t hurt you—or her. But you have to help me find her.”
Jazzy shook her head. “I have no reason to trust you. No reason at all.” Then she tugged her hand away, tucking it back in her pocket. “So why do I feel like I’m supposed to?”
“Instinct. I can help.”
She sighed, her thin shoulders rising and falling. Thin, too thin. She had the look of somebody rarely able to eat her fill. “Do you know her?”
“Sort of. But you know her better. You can help me help her.”
Morose, Jazzy just stared at him. “I don’t know her so well anymore. She’s been gone a while. Maybe I never really knew her.” She kicked at the plush carpet with the toe of her worn-out shoe. Shooting him a glance from under her bangs, she asked, “How come you’re so sure you can help if you don’t really know her?”
“I don’t know . . . I just know I need to find her.” He shook his head, hoping she wouldn’t press. “It’s too complicated to explain. We would need all night. Hell, we might need all of tonight, tomorrow night, plus the next five nights. And you’d probably want me to call a shrink. But we don’t have that kind of time. She doesn’t have that kind of time.” He paused for a beat and then asked, “Does she?”
“Fuck, no.” She flopped down on the couch and stared at him, her blue green eyes shadowed and worried. “Morgan’s my sister. She thinks she’s protecting me. But she’s going to end up in a world of trouble . . . and probably drag me down with her, if I hang around. Which I am not going to do. I love her, but I’m not gonna stand around and watch her do this.”
“Do what?” Dominic forced the question out past a tight throat. It was a good thing he didn’t need to breathe—also that he didn’t have much of a heartbeat anymore.
Morgan. She’d called her Morgan. For some reason, that name sent a fucking cold chill straight down his spine.
“Work for him—Peter Sanders. He owns these streets . . . and once he decides he doesn’t want her around anymore, he’ll have one of his men kill her.” Once more, Jazzy buried her face against her knees. “I just got my sister back. I don’t want to lose her again.”
NEED warred with duty.
Dominic couldn’t leave Jazzy here alone. She’d take off. He could see it in her eyes. That would be bad news all around, for him, for Jazzy, and for . . . Nessa.
Hell. He didn’t even know if she was Nessa. His gut said Nessa was here, and he could scent her all over this kid. But the kid kept calling her Morgan.
Morgan. Who in the hell was Morgan? The name had to mean something, otherwise it wouldn’t have turned his blood to ice. Storming out to the deck, he pulled his cell phone out and made a call to Excelsior.
Kelsey’s voice was bright and clear, despite the fact that it was two a.m. “Do you ever sleep?” Dominic demanded.
“Oh, sure. When people let me. But people have this annoying habit of calling at two in the morning,” she said, her voice droll.
“Sorry. Question . . . does the name Morgan mean anything to you?”
Her silence said everything.
It stretched on for . . . ages. It was probably only a few seconds, but it seemed to take forever. Finally, her voice soft and worried, she asked, “Why?”
“Just answer the question.”
“Yes. It means something. Bad news. Now answer my question. Why?”
“I don’t know. Who in the hell is Morgan?”
There was a soft murmur—Dominic recognized Malachi’s voice and he swore. “Damn it, one of you answer me.”
Kelsey sighed. “Dom, it’s complicated. This was one of things Malachi wanted to talk to you about before you left, but you weren’t in the mood to wait, and frankly, it didn’t seem to be anything you needed to know.”
“Obviously, it would seem different. Who in the hell is Morgan?”
“She was a witch that Nessa fought a few years ago. One who nearly killed Nessa—hell, we thought she did kill her. She was a dream thief, and she used blood magic. She was bad, bad news, all the way around.”
Blood magic. That bit, he pretty much understood. “What’s a dream thief?”
“Rare talent. Kind of a psychic vampire. It’s a witch who can slip into a person’s dreams and suck their life force out of them while they dream. They can drain a person dry—even kill them.” Kelsey’s voice was heavy and tired. “Like I said, bad news.”
“But Morgan is dead, right? Dead, buried?”
“Well . . .”
Just when Dominic thought things couldn’t get any stranger. But things could always get stranger—always. Kelsey managed to break it down to the bare bones, explaining in under ten minutes, and even though she’d kept it simple and concise, his head was spinning when he hung up the phone.
So Morgan’s body wasn’t dead. Nessa’s was.
Morgan’s soul was gone, but Nessa’s wasn’t.
Son of a bitch, what in the hell was going on?
All the questions tumbled through his mind, but before they could take over, he shoved them all aside, because in the end, none of them really mattered. He had the answer he needed—he knew who Morgan was, or who she had been, at least.
Whether or not she was truly dead, he didn’t know, but that didn’t matter now, not to him.
No, what mattered to him was the fact that his woman was just miles away and in more trouble than she possibly knew. That was one thing he was sure of.
He came back inside and started to pace, turning things over in his head. From the corner of his eye, he watched Jazzy. She sat on the couch, pretending not to watch him watching her.
“Do you know where I can find her?” Dominic asked, coming to a stop. He turned to face her, and once more, he caught sight of the fear in her eyes. It was enough to turn his stomach. She was just a kid. The last thing Dominic had ever wanted to do was frighten a kid.
She shrugged, her blue green eyes meeting his for just a second before she looked away again. “No, not exactly. But I probably have a rough idea.”
“A rough idea is fine,” Dominic assured her. All he needed to do was get close enough to her, and he’d be able to track her down like a bloodhound.
Or a ravenous vampire.
“You . . . you’re not going to try to go after her alone, are you?” She shook her head and said, “You can’t do that. Sanders is a fucking psycho. I’ve heard that he kills people just because they looked at him wrong.”
“Sounds like a paragon.” Dominic smiled humorlessly.
Jazzy didn’t look amused. “I’m serious. You seem to think I’m kidding around. But I’m not. He’s bad news.”
“I get that.” Dominic wished he could reassure her. But he wasn’t about to tell her some drug dealer and his lackeys just weren’t much of a threat to him. She’d want to know why. He wasn’t going to explain that part to her.
“There’s a club.” Jazzy sighed and tucked her hair back behind her ear. “It’s closer to downtown, in an older building. His club is on the main floor. The second level for private areas.” She curled her lip and added, “You can probably figure out what those private areas are for.” She licked her lips and looked away. “That’s where he keeps his girls.”
Dominic didn’t need to ask what the girls were for, either. He knew.
Jazzy rubbed her hands together, staring at the floor. “Now you need to understand, I’ve never been in any of his places. I don’t like him. I keep my distance. But I do hear things. Last I heard, Sanders had a place on the third floor they use for business. He doesn’t like to do any business in his home—it’s always at the club. And I’m pretty sure that’s where Morgan met up with him.”
Morgan . . .
Dominic rubbed the back of his neck, staring off into the distance.
There was some seriously weir
d shit going on and if he had a hope of untangling it, he needed all the information he could get—starting with whatever this kid knew.
CHAPTER 14
LESS than an hour later, Dominic was crouched in the alley outside the club. He had found it with no trouble. It had been harder for him to walk away from the kid than it had been to find this place—he hadn’t wanted to leave her there, but he hadn’t had much choice.
I’ll take care of your sister, kid. Just trust me. Trust me and wait here, he’d told her.
She didn’t trust him, but she was still young enough to hope, to want to trust him. He only prayed it was enough to keep her in the house while he dealt with all the other problems.
He could feel her now . . . his witch. His woman. Nessa . . . It didn’t matter what name she was calling herself. He knew who she was. It was her. That pull was back. Deep inside, he felt it tugging on him, drawing him. It no longer felt like he was being pulled in five different directions at once.
He knew where he was going. Her. He was going to her.
He could feel her.
Adrenaline crashed through him. His body responded as it always did to the rush of adrenaline. His fangs throbbed in their sheaths. His senses were on red alert.
Inside the building, even over the throb and pulse of music, he could hear people talking. He could hear the beating of a hundred hearts . . . more. He could smell the drugs. He could smell the sex.
And . . . son of a bitch, he could smell Jazzy.
Swearing under his breath, he rose and began to pace back down the alley. She was here. He could hear her footsteps, the erratic beat of her heart.
Should’ve tied her up.
He should’ve known she would follow him.
Furiously, he thought, contemplating possible plans, discarding them almost immediately. He wasn’t going into a fight with the kid at his heels. He couldn’t risk it.
Even though she was so close . . . so close, he had even been able to sense the familiar lavender-vanilla scent of her skin.
It flooded his senses like a drug, a thousand times more potent than any of the illegal ones being passed around inside the club. More addictive than heroine, more seductive than ecstasy.
Close . . . so close. Just a few feet away.
After all this time, she was almost close enough to touch.
He ached. Ached to hunt her down, pull her close.
But he couldn’t. Not right now.
He could feel the threat in the air—sweat, fear, drugs, money. A bad, nasty combination, the kind that often ended in death. He couldn’t take Jazzy in there, and he couldn’t go in and hope she had the sense to keep her distance.
If she had, she would still be back at the safe house instead of slinking closer and closer.
He wouldn’t risk the kid but he couldn’t go in there with his attention divided, which meant he had to deal with Jazzy. Why in the hell couldn’t she have stayed at the beach house?
She was too strong-willed. He could have tried just laying a heavy dose of mind-control on her, but as it did with many of the gifted, vampire mojo crap would wear off if he wasn’t there—he’d already seen that she had a natural resistance.
He’d hoped she’d listen to him, and wasn’t that a fucking mistake? Should have figured something else out.
Closing his eyes, he tested the air.
Nothing.
His eyes flew open and then narrowed. Again, he checked the air.
Nothing.
He couldn’t smell her—not now.
What in the hell . . . ?
One second, he had known almost exactly where she was, how far away she was, just by her scent. He had even heard her heartbeat, her unsteady breaths.
Now it was like she had disappeared.
Couldn’t smell her, couldn’t hear her.
With silent movements, he made his way to the mouth of the alley. He peered down the street, searching through the shadows for her. There . . . she was right there.
A bright, blond head of hair was visible down the street now.
He could see her—she was still more than a quarter of a mile away, and walking slow, keeping to the shadows. But it was Jazzy.
Hissing out a breath, he withdrew back into the alley, hiding in the shadows.
Everything felt blunted.
It occurred to him that it wasn’t just Jazzy. He couldn’t hear much of anything over the music coming from the club.
He couldn’t smell anything beyond the trash in the alley and cigarette smoke.
He was scent-blind and his ears didn’t work any better than they had when he was a mortal.
A spell . . . ? Jazzy hadn’t felt that powerful, but could she have done some sort of spell?
No. That didn’t seem right. Magic had a feel to it. Witches had a feel. And even though he couldn’t smell her, even though he couldn’t hear her, he could still feel something coming off Jazzy . . . her magic.
Whatever this was, it didn’t feel like her.
An engine roared, drawing near.
Looking away from Jazzy, he glanced automatically up the street. A Mustang convertible, raven-wing black, the top down.
Dominic narrowed his eyes as the car began to slow down.
His nose and ears might not be working, but his eyes were just fine. He recognized the man behind the wheel of the car. He also recognized the pretty blonde in the seat next to him. The kid in the backseat looked vaguely familiar, too.
As the car rumbled to a stop, Dominic retreated into the shadows of the alley once more.
A door opened, and Duke Lawson climbed out.
“Shit.”
Although Dominic remained in the shadows, Duke’s gaze landed on him unerringly and a wide grin split his face. The shapeshifter ambled toward him.
“I don’t have time for this,” Dominic growled.
“Yeah, hello to you, too. Long time, no see. What am I doing here? Oh, hey, I just happened to be in the neighborhood, along with my wife and her obnoxious brat of a brother. That brat of a brother kept telling me we needed to be somewhere . . . but he wouldn’t say where. Then all of a sudden, I start feeling witch. Then I feel vampire. Then I feel blood. Now I know where I’m supposed to be, and why. Here. Right here, helping your sorry ass,” Duke drawled.
Dominic stared at Duke. It was the longest speech he’d ever heard out of the shapeshifter. “What?”
The car door slammed again and he glanced up, watching over Duke’s shoulder as Ana approached. The tall, lanky blond at her side looked vaguely familiar . . . her brother.
A memory flashed through his mind. A few years earlier, Dominic had spent a few days at Excelsior, after Rafe had told him he was showing Master tendencies. He had met Ana there, and her brother.
Brad, his brain finally supplied. The boy’s name is Brad. He didn’t look much like a boy now. He had one vivid memory of how this boy had sent a vampire hurtling through the air with just the power of his mind.
Although Dominic’s instincts still felt off, standing this close, he couldn’t not feel the power from these three. Especially the boy.
Power all but crackled off him.
Psychic.
He met Brad’s eyes and then looked at Duke. “I don’t need help . . . unless you feel like kidnapping a kid witch.”
Duke rubbed his jaw. “The witch I felt earlier wasn’t any kid. And there was a hell of a lot of blood.”
“Wrong witch—there’s a kid. I need her out of the way.” He reached up and rubbed his nose. Still couldn’t smell much of anything . . . he was barely even aware of his own scent. “I’ll handle the other witch.”
Running his tongue along the edge of his teeth, he looked from Duke’s face to Ana’s. She gave him a strained smile. Fear and nerves danced through her eyes.
Abruptly, he remembered something else. Something he had heard about Ana back at Excelsior.
“You.” He stared at her, hard. “You are the reason I can hardly smell a damn thing, the reason
I can’t hear much of anything beyond that fucking music.”
She gave a single, jerky nod. “I’m blocking. Have to, otherwise the witch will feel Duke, and maybe me and Brad. Definitely you.”
Protectively, Duke placed his body in front of her. “I told her to. You got a problem, you settle it with me.”
Dominic scowled at the shapeshifter. “Hell, if you three are here to help, who in the hell am I to complain about how you do it?” Then he headed back toward the mouth of the alley, peering around the corner.
Jazzy was getting closer. In another few minutes she’d be just outside the alley.
“There is a kid coming. The witch I want you to help with. You wanna help me, you get her out of the picture. Get her someplace safe.” He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Hell. Just take her to Excelsior. Dump her in Kelsey’s lap. Kelsey will know what to do with her.”
“What about the other witch?” Duke asked.
“She’s mine.”
MORGAN shivered, the mysterious confidence from earlier gone—along with that unending well of power.
She still had the strength she’d gotten from the blood, but the rest of it? Gone, like it had never existed, and damned if she could figure out why. She stood there, confused and shivering, while her head pounded and her heart raced.
She tried to tell herself she was just tired, cold and hungry. She tried to tell herself she just needed some sleep. But deep inside, she knew that wasn’t it. Something was wrong. If she was honest with herself, she might admit she was afraid. But screw that. Tired, cold and hungry sounded so much better than afraid.
And her head—her head was killing her, like it was trying to split apart from the inside out. Those annoying whispers kept coming and going, and she’d almost give her right kidney for some peace inside her skull.
Yeah, a headache, cold, tired, hungry—much better than afraid. She’d already shown Sanders she could deal with him and she damn well knew she could, right? She didn’t need to be afraid of him. He was just a two-bit, mean-ass drug dealer.
All she needed to do was get through the night and make sure he hadn’t set her up and planned anything to hurt Jazzy.
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