Animal Instincts (Entangled Ignite)

by Patricia Rosemoor

  Not liking that, I closed the gate behind me and said, “Here to try to make me forget again?”

  He shrugged. “I doubt that would work.”

  “Then why?” I made my mind go blank to keep him from getting inside my head.

  “I was simply checking up on you, making sure you were all right.”

  Which didn’t make sense to me. “Why?” I asked again.

  “I told you I owe you.”

  “You do, don’t you?” I changed direction and narrowed the distance between us, not stopping until I got into his personal space. “And you probably don’t like owing anyone anything very much.”

  “And you what?” His gaze narrowed on my face. “Have a way I can obliterate the debt?”

  “I do.”

  I wanted to lick my lips, but not only had they gone dry, so had my mouth. I was playing with fire here, and I knew it. He dipped his head so close to mine that his breath fluttered across my face.

  “Shall we go inside?” he asked.

  “Don’t flatter yourself.”

  “Your pulse jumped.”

  “Perhaps because I don’t trust you.”

  His lips were nearly brushing mine when he said, “I have your best interests at heart.”

  “Right.”

  When he didn’t answer, simply stood so close that I had trouble breathing, I felt as if he could seduce me right there, right in the middle of my own backyard, and I wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing to stop him. He ran a thumb down the side of my face. Sensation jumped from neuron to neuron, lighting up my internal network and spreading throughout my body.

  I stood frozen. Unable to move.

  My breasts swelled and my nipples tightened and in one tiny corner of my mind, I got the picture of his mouth on them, doing unspeakable things, while his hands explored lower territories now wet with anticipation. Rather, I would be unspeakable, so caught up in sensation that I could only make unintelligible sounds.

  And then he removed his thumb from my jawline, and I jerked back to reality. Whatever he’d been doing to entice me flatlined. Relieved, I was able to take a deep, normal breath.

  How had he done that?

  My face flamed. Despite my best efforts, he undoubtedly knew everything I was thinking.

  “Not everything,” Luc said, looking distinctly unhappy.

  Unhappy why? He’d had power over me for that moment. Maybe he hadn’t wanted that kind of power but hadn’t been able to stop himself.

  Now I was smiling. Not an all-out, wide mouthed grin. More like an ironic curve of my lips. Maybe I had some power over him, as well. Now if only I could make him talk.

  I tested that hope, saying, “Maybe you can tell me why someone wanted your mother dead.”

  His brow furrowed. “If I knew…”

  “What?”

  “I’d fix things.”

  Somehow I didn’t get the feeling that would involve turning in whoever had shot his mother and killed my brother to the police.

  “What was your mother into? Something to do with the casino? Or with the animal fights?”

  He looked as if I had struck him. And then he scowled at me, making me quake inside. Just a little.

  “My mother is one of the most decent human beings that you would ever hope to meet.”

  An odd way of putting things. Was he trying to tell me that Elizabeth Reyes wasn’t something else the way he was? I didn’t want to consider what I’d learned about my own lineage if The Book of Powers was to be believed.

  “Does that mean you want me to meet your mother?” I asked. “That you’ll introduce us?”

  “Stay away from her.”

  “Why? She knows what happened the night my brother was murdered. You owe me, remember. You said you have my best interests at heart. My best interests mean I find out who killed my brother and see that justice is done.”

  “Oh, justice will be served. It’s merely a matter of time.”

  He sounded so sure of himself. And still, I didn’t know what justice meant in his world. I suspected we might be at odds on that one. Though part of me figured the killer deserved whatever he got, I was from a family of coppers. I believed in the legal system. Arrests. Trials. Incarcerations. No death penalty in Illinois.

  But the killer being something else—whatever that was—would put a kink in the legal system.

  Whoever it was couldn’t go free.

  I thought of all that I had experienced at the animal fight, on board The Ark, and with Luc in a few short days. And then there had been the nightmare about the human-animal predators aboard the biblical ark. It had all seemed so real, almost as if I’d been transported back in time. As if I’d witnessed the event.

  What if the killer was like one of the men—beings—that had entered a predator?

  Would it even be possible to hold on to such a suspect if the CPD arrested him?

  “How do you define justice?” I asked Luc.

  He moved closer to me again. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

  My pulse shot through me. “Don’t start.”

  I noted the smile curling his lips before he came so close that all I could see were his eyes. Their color subtly shifted from a soft gray to molten silver, as if gleaming with some knowledge that I couldn’t quite grasp. I felt my body react the way it had earlier. As much as I wanted to, I refused to move away from him, refused to let him think he had the upper hand. Even so, he must know.

  “You’re a tempting woman, Skye Cross.”

  Not as tempting as he was. Not that I would say so. Not that I had to. Obviously he knew how he affected me. How he sent my imagination spiraling. Even with my eyes open, I could see us together, naked, rolling, me landing on top, him buried deep inside me. Shocked, I squeezed my eyes shut tight and banished the image from my mind.

  And when I opened them again, he was gone.

  Vanished.

  Again.

  “You’ve got to stop doing that!” I yelled.

  I had no doubt that, wherever he was, he somehow heard my message.

  How? Something I needed to learn along with dozens of other things. Luc probably knew the answers to all my questions.

  The problem was that he wasn’t talking.

  But perhaps his mother would.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Shade appeared the moment I entered his apartment through the back door. “About time you got back.”

  I tried to hug him. When my arms went straight through his upper body, I withdrew, the flesh on my arms pebbling. The reminder that he was dead put a lump square in my throat and made my eyes sting.

  Hearing his master, Boomer came running from the front room where he’d been napping. Shade crouched down and gave the dog an air kiss.

  “What was going on out there in the yard?” he asked. “I saw you with Lazare.”

  Uh-oh, what had he seen? “Luc was checking on me. You saved his mother and he intends to save me. From what, I have no idea.”

  “Me, neither.” Shade rose. “I got nothing. Well, almost nothing.”

  “What do you remember?”

  “I keep seeing animals.” He threw up his hands. “Predators.”

  “Maybe with more time, you’ll remember everything, and we’ll be able to figure out the identity of the shooter.”

  “I’ll still be dead.”

  I wished I could touch his hand and reassure him. “But you’re still here now.”

  “I can’t help you,” he said, “not when I’m stuck in this apartment.”

  “I wonder about that.” Thinking I might get an idea from The Book of Powers, I fetched it, and my mind made connections.

  Our abilities. Shade’s with humans, mine with animals. We’d never been normal, never like other people. But I didn’t want to be something else. And I didn’t want the responsibility the book put on me.

  How was I supposed to neutralize evil?

  My stomach knotted, and I told myself I didn’t have to do anything I didn�
�t want to. I could leave things as they were. Not get involved. I had my job during the day, and I could have my brother’s company at night.

  I looked at Shade, what was left of my brother. His spirit must have remained behind for a purpose, and I knew in my heart that the book demanded more of me than stepping back.

  On her deathbed, Mom had told us we had a vital destiny to fulfill. That because her inheritance was shared, Shade and I were two halves of a whole and only together could we do what she couldn’t. Only seven at the time, I’d had no idea what she’d meant then. Now I did.

  Unless I figured out a way to get Shade out of this building, I would have to work alone. I told him about my early-morning nightmare. About Noah’s ark. About the demons entering the predators.

  “I think it was more than a dream. It was more like a vision. Something the book wanted me to see. I think the predators in that vision—or their descendants—are the ones fighting each other in those animal fights.”

  Shade swore. “There’s a certain logic there.”

  I shivered. “We have to figure out a way to stop the fights and shut down The Ark Casino.”

  “Big order considering I don’t have a body.” He swiped a hand through his hair. “I can’t even step a foot out of the damn apartment.”

  “Maybe you can leave the apartment.”

  “How?”

  “The Nephilim joined spirits with the animals on the Ark. What if you can do the same?”

  Simultaneously, our gazes shifted straight to the dog. Boomer whistled through his nose as if in agreement.

  “You’re kidding, right?” he asked. “I can’t do that to Boomer. You told me those animals in your dream experienced terror, that you felt their pain.”

  “Because evil entered them. You’re not evil. And Boomer loves you.”

  “We can’t know.” Shade reached out a hand to Boomer’s nose as if he wished he could touch his dog one last time. “If you’re wrong, you’ll stop me.”

  Hearing the screams of the animals on the ark in my mind, I felt my gorge rise, but I took a big breath and nodded. “All right.”

  I slipped to the floor and kept the book on my lap.

  Let Shade and Boomer be safe.

  “Boomer, come.” When the dog got up from the floor to see what I wanted, I patted the book. “Come over here.”

  After getting him to lie down partly on me, partly on the book, I ruffled the top of his head and kissed his nose. Shade sat close to his dog and closed his eyes. Gradually he began to shimmer.

  “Now,” I said softly.

  Opening his eyes, he reached out and touched Boomer’s side with one hand, then with the other. As his hands disappeared through the dog’s furry sides, Boomer wiggled around as if he was startled, but not like he was hurting. He looked around to see what Shade was doing. Shade leaned in…closer…closer…closer…and disappeared.

  A few seconds later, Boomer barked and thumped his tail against the wooden floor.

  “Shade?”

  It worked. I could kiss you.

  With Boomer’s big, sloppy tongue, my brother planted a wet one on my cheek.

  I was overwhelmed. I wept and my hands touching the book felt electrified.

  Opening the book again, through my tears I scanned the registry of previous owners, going back not decades but centuries, starting with Brigit. Then Cerridwen and Epona and Maeve and Rhiannon. More names, ending with our mother, Dawn. There were a dozen or so lines left. For future generations?

  I knew that began with me.

  The book called to me, a low undertone that rumbled through my bones. I would swear it could sense my unease and was trying to give me its strength. Mom had done this. And so many others before her. It was an inheritance I couldn’t simply put aside. I might be afraid, but I wasn’t weak.

  I wiped away my tears, found a pen, and signed my name on the next blank line in the registry.

  An even more urgent sensation swept over me then, as if The Book of Powers was a living entity…as if it could feel me…as if it accepted me.

  As if it was now a part of me.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Luc ate his frustration as he tried to get through the casino to find Nuala to check on her and was stopped at least a dozen times. Putting on his best face, he exchanged pleasantries with invited guests. Then he straightened out a couple of Kindred who were messing around on the job, and dealt with replacing a security guard who hadn’t shown for a shift change.

  All the while, his mind was on his sister, as it had been since the day before. He’d been distracted by Skye, but now he needed to tend to his own family. He’d already stationed a reliable security guard at his mother’s place.

  Now he had to find out what was up with his sister.

  Nuala had been different lately. Insular at times, emotional at others.

  The way she’d reacted to Skye had amazed him. He’d never seen his sister so vulnerable, not even when she’d learned her lover had been killed. She’d closed down then, had put up a barrier that Luc hadn’t been able to penetrate. So why break down with Skye?

  And how had his sister made the connection between Skye and Shade in the first place?

  Finally able to go in search of Nuala, who was nowhere in the public area, Luc headed for the Lazare private quarters that lay two floors below.

  Added to his own experience with Skye, Luc was getting a very bad feeling about his sister’s psychic connection to her. They didn’t need more trouble. They had enough as it was with the police bearing down on them. Damn shifter fights. Damn whoever had made Jez participate in the sport. He’d had a great deal of affection for his only friend in this underworld. She hadn’t deserved to be ripped apart.

  He couldn’t ask anyone here for help, not even Pop. He didn’t want to think it, but Pop might approve of the fights.

  His fault. He knew it. He’d tried to warn her that being friends with him would bring her nothing but trouble. But even he hadn’t guessed to what extent. He hadn’t tried hard enough to protect her.

  Arriving at the door that was a barrier to intruders—only the Lazares and their inner circle were allowed inside—he pressed his thumb to the pad that read his print. The door clicked open to a large reception area in reds and golds, reminding Luc of the brothel area. Beatrix proudly told visitors she herself had done all the decorating. Luc figured his stepmother must equate the decor with royalty. After all, she’d always fancied herself the queen of the underworld.

  Luc headed straight for Nuala’s rooms. As he reached the corridor, he heard his sister’s voice.

  “I’m not interested, Doyle, as I’ve told you before.”

  Luc stopped before turning the corner so he could eavesdrop. What was Nik’s toady up to now?

  “Circumstances have changed,” Doyle said.

  “But I haven’t.”

  “You need the proper consort. Someone who can protect you, look to your best interests.”

  “Like you do for Nik?”

  “Well, on a more personal level.”

  Luc instantly wanted to rip off the man’s head. Pulse thundering, ready to do battle, he whipped around the corner, then stopped dead in his tracks. Doyle might be all over Nuala but she wasn’t having any of it. He’d actually dared to cup her behind to pull her toward him, but to Luc’s satisfaction, her expression shifted, revealing the real Nuala beneath the human exterior.

  Her eyes burned like molten copper as she shoved two fingers into the middle of Doyle’s throat hard enough to make him spring away from her.

  “Don’t confuse me with the women you normally prey on.” She shifted again and smiled sweetly, all traces of both intensity and vulnerability wiped away. “I am not available, especially not to you. Touch me again and I’ll rip out your throat.”

  Face darkening, Doyle stalked toward the door, starting when he saw Luc.

  “And if she doesn’t succeed,” Luc said, knocking shoulders with the thwarted man so hard that Doyle prac
tically bounced off the opposite wall, “I will.”

  Doyle swore under his breath, averted his gaze, and rushed off. Luc watched him until he disappeared from view, then turned to his sister, thankful that she was herself again.

  Giving him a look, Nuala said, “I can take care of myself,” and entered her quarters.

  He followed, saying, “Usually. Last night, it didn’t seem that way.”

  “So I had a moment.”

  Luc closed the door and softly asked, “The question is why?”

  Nuala turned to face him. Her expression was fierce. “Haven’t you ever had a moment when you weren’t yourself?”

  “Lots of them.”

  “Then give me a break.”

  She hadn’t talked about it yet and she needed to. “You miss Shade more than you let on.”

  “So what if I do? It’s the soul, not me.”

  Of course Nuala would blame the soul she was currently using. No self-respecting Kindred would admit to a weakness that another could use against her.

  “What went on between you and Skye?” Luc asked. “How did you figure out who she was?”

  Nuala shrugged and avoided his gaze. “I don’t know. I felt Shade when I got near her. There must be some connection.”

  One that that made his sister vulnerable. Luc caught a glimpse of pain in her expression. “Skye is looking for answers,” he said.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t give them to her.”

  “Good.”

  Though Luc knew that Skye Cross wasn’t through with them. Knowing how he felt about Nuala, maybe even about Nik on good days, Luc couldn’t blame Skye for wanting to know why her brother had died. And she had connected his death and The Ark to the shifter fights. Something he couldn’t tell anyone here, not even his sister. Nuala might have cared for Shade Cross, but she was Kindred, first, last, and always. She would protect their secrets with all she had.