“It’s what goes on in the houses that matters,” Dee said. “Our house zinged with spell work, but we didn’t bother the neighbors.”
“I suppose black magic doesn’t have to bother the neighbors, either.”
She chuckled. “If anything is going to bother the neighbors around here, it’ll probably be us.”
He chuckled too. They shared a conspiratorial look. “Keep it quiet and professional, people,” they both said, quoting the Dark Angel leader’s usual pre-raid pep talk.
They moved toward the back of the target house. Laurent Wolf had called in another member of the Bleythin detective agency, a werewolf named Harry. The Prime and the werewolf were going in through the front of the house. Two Primes and a werewolf weren’t worried about going up against some devil-worshiping humans, magic or no magic. While no one had said anything, Dee supposed the three macho immortals considered her the weak link in their little invasion force.
“If I tell you to wait here, you won’t, will you?” Piper asked after they crossed a wide deck to reach a sliding glass door. Her mortal, but highly trained, senses tingled with warning. The place grew creepier with every step.
“The place is warded strongly enough to give even you a nasty headache,” she said. “I’ll be perfectly happy to wait here until the energy dissipates attacking you.”
“Happy to be of service,” he grumbled.
Curtains pulled across the glass door blocked any view into the house. Piper touched the glass, fingers splayed out.
Dee couldn’t help but notice the long-fingered, elegant yet powerful shape of his hands as they splayed across the glass. The more she was around him, the more she noticed about him. The visceral data were almost overwhelming. She’d been so much happier merely being aware of Jake Piper as an object of suspicion.
“TMI,” she grumbled.
“You’re right about the headache,” he said. “They are definitely trying to blank out energy signatures. I can’t pick up a specific number or people inside. Lots of psychic energy blending together. They are up to no good, I can tell that much. But we already know that.” He looked back at Dee. “Black magic at dawn? Don’t you people do your ceremonies at midnight on a full moon?”
“Dark of the moon is better for black magic,” she answered. “Which it is at the moment. If they call themselves Burners, they’re likely invoking solar energy.”
“Hence, sunrise human sacrifice,” Piper said, turning to look at her. “Then what? Off to pancakes at Denny’s?”
His expression went still and concentrated. She recognized that telepathic communication was going on between Piper and the others in the front of the house. After a few seconds Piper gave a decisive nod.
Time to roll.
“Harry’s certain everybody’s in the basement. He and Laurent are going in through basement windows in the front. You and I will go through the kitchen to the basement stairs. Stay well behind me.”
She nodded.
He took off his jacket, wrapped it around his hand and arm. Piper punched a hole in the glass near the door handle, flipped the lock and let them in. Dee watched Piper closely as he took several steps into the house, guarding his back even if she was unarmed and he had fangs, claws, and superhuman strength and speed as well as telepathy in his natural armory.
It wasn’t surprising, if you thought about it, that vampires imagined themselves superior to mortals.
He stopped briefly, took a sharp, deep breath as he absorbed the resistant shock of the magical wards. He gave a glance back, and Dee followed him into the house. A flash of pain ripped through her head, but it wasn’t so strong that she missed the movement to the left. She’d picked up a large shard of glass on the way in. She threw it.
The glass left a line of blood across the attacker’s cheek. A quick kick from Piper put the attacker completely down. Piper licked his lips at the sight of the blood.
“Hey,” she complained.
“I’m hungry, all right?” he countered.
Screams and shouts erupted from the basement. Piper was through the door and down the stairs in a blink of an eye. Dee hurtled down the stairs a second after, but far behind.
The basement walls were painted black. The place was lit by more candles than a cathedral, and about as much chokingly sweet incense smoke hazed the air.
All the mortals in the room were naked. Most of them were covered in blood. Their own, Dee hoped as she took in the sight. She stood at the bottom of the stairs and watched as a huge black wolf tore out a man’s throat. If you were mortal, you didn’t want to go up against a werewolf; they always went for the kill.
She gasped when she saw Piper holding one of the mortals, his fangs fully extended as he stared at the woman’s throat.
“Hey!” Laurent yelled at Piper. “You took the pledge!”
“Fuck you!” Piper yelled back, but he didn’t bite the woman. He dropped her unconscious body on the floor.
His gaze scraped across Dee’s as he turned to a man attacking him with an elaborate silver dagger.
For some reason Dee gave Piper a thumbs up, encouragement for his keeping ‘the pledge’.
The werewolf morphed to his mortal form. He shook his head hard. “This place reeks of vampire. Other than you two,” he added.
Laurent held up one of the Burners by the hair. “This one told me a vampire brought the sacrifice to them.”
“Brought, or sold?” Piper asked.
“Let you know in a moment,” Laurent said, and went back to his telepathic interrogation of the Burner.
“I don’t suppose you can find this vampire?” Piper asked the werewolf.
“Not a chance,” he was answered. Vampire psychic energy messed up werewolf psychic energy.
Laurent dropped the man whose mind he’d been searching. The prisoner dropped bonelessly at the Prime’s feet, unconscious. “I think all of the mortals’ minds have been messed with. I don’t think they really know what their ritual was meant for—not that they aren’t all happy participants in the chance to rape and murder.”
“Charming,” Piper said.
Dee moved to the woman they’d come to rescue while the boys continued mopping up the opposition. The victim was naked and bound on an altar in the center of the room. Let the boys take care of the bad guys, she’d look after the girl. The young woman’s pale skin almost glowed against the black satin altar covering. Her body was splayed out, wrists and ankles tied at the corners of the altar. The prisoner’s eyes were open, but the pupils were huge and completely unfocused. Drugged—and more than drugged—Dee suspected. Energy hummed around the altar.
In the girl?
Oh, goddess, she hoped not!
“How far into the ritual were they when you showed up?” she asked. Her only answer was a shrug from Piper.
Dee bent over the girl, and brushed hair from her sweat-damp forehead. “What do men know, sweetie?” she asked, voice as gentle as possible. “You’re safe now, I promise. I know you’re afraid, but we’ll take you home.”
The girl’s skin was burning hot. She moaned and squirmed in her bonds, her hips arching. Her nipples were hard, a sharp tang of arousal rising off her body, along with an electric pulse of energy. Too much energy for a frail mortal vessel to hold.
Some of this had to be bled off or the girl’s brain and body was going to burn out. The rescue would mean nothing if she died from the magic surging through her.
Dee gave a quick glance at the vampires and werewolf. She shook her head. The obvious solution to help the girl was out of the question.
Dee swore under her breath.
This would not be pleasant, but you did what you had to do. She closed her eyes, forced her muscles to relax. Took a deep breath. Then Dee placed a hand on the victim’s forehead, dropped her shielding, and whispered the incantation to establish a connection with the girl.
“What the hell are you doing?” She heard Piper shout. Then the blast of energy bored into her, and everything expl
oded around her.
* * *
Leviathan sat in the shadow of the chimney on the roof across from the Burners’ house, his head covered by the hood of a black sweatshirt. Black leather gloves protected his hands. Sunglasses gave his eyes protection, though they wouldn’t be much help once the sun rose higher. He’d be gone by then, anyway.
One by one he felt his mortal slaves dying, or dropping unconscious, becoming prisoners of the good guys. He had no interest in rescuing them from their fate. They knew nothing, even about their own slavery. What they thought they were doing was pure nonsense.
What mattered was that the spell he’d tortured out of the Tower wizard and planted in the minds of the Burners Coven had actually worked. The Cave wizard had railed at him for this deviation from the plan, but Leviathan wasn’t working to the mortal’s timetable. The plan was not coming to fruition until they were together again.
Now that he’d found the youngest Leviathan he could bring him back to the Tribe fold. Would the boy obey a simple order to come home? He wasn’t a boy anymore, was he? No matter if that was how Leviathan saw him, he was a Prime, one who had pledged himself to a Family. He let a female rule him. He took the drugs that weakened his instincts even as they let him exist in daylight. He was chained by rules. Perhaps he was so used to the chains he didn’t feel them anymore.
Poor boy.
Leviathan would make his brothers whole again.
Chapter Fourteen
“What did you do?” Piper demanded. McCoy was kneeling beside the altar. She was shaking. He dropped down beside her. “Tell me!”
His words were harsh and angry. He was angry with himself, for being scared, and even more angry at McCoy for scaring him. Something reckless and stupid had just happened, and he wanted to shake her for putting herself in danger.
What physically happened was that McCoy touched the bound woman. What Jake felt was a powerful surge of dangerous energy rushing out of the woman and into McCoy. It was not his imagination, even if he had no tangible or telepathic proof anything had happened. Magic? Had to be magic, which was far too weird for a simple vampire’s understanding of the world.
McCoy looked up slowly. She might be mortal, but Jake was certain her eyes glowed bright electric blue for a moment when their gazes met. Her intensity certainly burned into him, leaving him hot, hard, and shaking. What the hell?
He pulled her to her feet. Touching her skin sent electric shocks of desire through Jake. She swayed for a second when he abruptly let her go and stepped back.
“What did you do?” he asked again.
McCoy blinked slowly, took a shaky breath. “She’ll be okay now,” she said. “She’ll be okay.”
“What about you? Are you going to be okay?”
McCoy’s tongue slowly moistened her lips. The gesture was incredibly sensual. “I’ve got to keep it together,” she said, voice husky. “Just get through it.”
Jake watched worriedly as McCoy slowly turned to Laurent Wolf. Wolf had freed the prisoner from her bonds. He wrapped the black satin covering around her and gently lifted the woman into his arms.
“She’s asleep,” McCoy told the other vampire. “She needs to sleep it off. Be careful with her.”
“Of course,” Laurent promised.
Harry put a hand on Laurent’s shoulder. “Clean up crew’s been called. We better get going.”
Laurent nodded. He looked at Jake. “Thanks for the help. Here’s what I found out.”
Jake opened his mind for the rush of telepathic information Laurent sent into his head. He put it aside to sort through later. Time for him and McCoy to get back to their own assignment—and hope that helping find the missing woman turned out to be more than a sidebar adventure.
Besides, he had an almost overwhelming urge to get Dee McCoy alone. He wanted her away from every male in the world but himself. He accepted the instinctual urge to make this female his exclusive mate. He didn’t know what to do about it in the long term, but for now he had to get her alone before he started snapping, snarling, and making an utter vampire fool of himself.
“Let’s go,” he said to McCoy.
She nodded. She took a step, and stumbled. Only to jerk away when Jake would have steadied her. She looked at him with wild, hungry, pain-filled eyes. “Don’t touch me! For both our sakes, you can’t touch me right now!”
He backed off, and let her proceed him up the basement stairs. He tried not to notice the way her hips swayed invitingly in her tight jeans as he followed.
Jake was glad to get out of the house, to have a few moments alone outside before once more suffering being closed in the SUV with the female he couldn’t touch. He took deep breaths while squinting in the light of the rising sun. He stretched and rolled his shoulders. His body wanted sustenance, his brain wanted sleep. Even vampires needed to sleep sometimes. Stress and sleep deprivation did things to a mind, even a strong, telepathic mind.
Someone was watching him.
Jake looked around cautiously. He didn’t see anyone. Was someone there? He turned around slowly, searching with all his weary senses. What he felt wasn’t tangible.
“Probably nothing there,” he muttered. He waited until the passenger door had closed behind McCoy before following her to the SUV. He imagined a gaze on his back, like a knife between his shoulder blades, the entire way.
* * *
“May I make an observation?”
Dee hoped he wasn’t about to mention the blood on her lower lip. She was biting it so hard to keep the moaning inside that she knew she’d broken the skin. Her hands were balled into fists at her sides. Her eyes were closed as she tried to meditate. She burned with aching need—she was afraid her insides were literally on fire. She fought the need to squirm and writhe and denied the longing to be touched by staying very, very still. As still as death.
She wanted to grab the male beside her and have her way with him, over and over, until the maddening need went away. Since she couldn’t do that, she didn’t want to be reminded of his presence.
“No talk. Drive,” she managed to get out.
“You’re in heat.”
Dee’s eyes flew open so she could glare at the vampire. “That’s—that’s so rude!”
Piper kept his gaze on the road. His tone remained calm, matter of fact. “It is the truth.”
It was.
“You are not the only one being affected,” Piper went on. “Even if I weren’t telepathic, I’d be aware—”
“It’ll wear off,” she said.
“It’s been one hour and fourteen minutes since we left the house. Your arousal is growing, not dissipating. This is disturbing.”
“Tell me about it,” Dee grumbled. It shouldn’t be happening like this, but, well, it was.
“Disturbing for both of us,” he added. “I am Prime, remember.”
“I know!” She shouted. “You were born horny and telepathic to boot! I can’t help this, Piper!”
“But you are trying,” he conceded. “What exactly happened? Why are you this way? Will it endanger the op?”
Oh, he had to add that about their assignment, didn’t he? Dee heard herself growl; a sound of pure animal fury, and need. Damn.
“The girl would have died without some help. The bastards had already poured a hell of a lot of sexual energy into her. The energy was burning her up. It was part of the sacrifice spell they were performing when we arrived.”
Dee kept her eyes tightly closed. She could still see flames behind her lids. The images dancing through her inner vision frightened and disgusted her. Maybe talking with Piper would help keep her mind off all the lewd and lascivious temptations calling in her head.
As long as he didn’t mock her. As long as he didn’t tease. As long as he didn’t touch her. She wouldn’t be able to control herself if he touched her. She could barely keep from touching him as it was. She didn’t think it was any old male she wanted, or simply because he was so close by.
She wanted Yakov Pi
per. The lust had come into her in an artificial way. Her body wanted sex. Her soul wanted sex with a specific male, and that had nothing to do with the spell. Why him? Why now? Damn her stupid soul.
“You are in pain,” he said. “Do you know how to get through it, so that we can get on with our assignment?”
Oh, she knew how she could get through it all right. The cure for her condition was currently driving the car, and asking sensible questions.
“I could seduce you,” she said.
“I could be seduced. You would consider that inappropriate.”
He sounded so calm and clinical she wanted to kill him.
“Yeah.” She thought about the op, about the dynamic of the Dark Angels. How she would be using him, objectifying him, and how wrong that would be, if she had sex with him. Oh, and they didn’t like each other. “Inappropriate.”
“Can anything else be done to help your condition?”
She shook her head. He could probably smell the blood from the way her nails were digging into her palms. She should apologize for unintentionally provoking him like that. “It should be wearing off by now.”
“Do you know a spell to counter the spell you absorbed? We need to stop for gas,” he added in the same matter-of-fact tone he’d used for the whole conversation.
“Maybe. I’m trying to think of one.”
“I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”
Was he being sarcastic, even though he didn’t sound like he was? Change the subject, she told herself. Stop making it all about you when there’s work to be done.
She asked, “Where are we heading, anyway?”
“Back to Los Angeles. Not to base,” he said before she could panic. “Don’t worry, we aren’t going home until we’ve solved our leader’s bad feeling about magic, which seems to have a solid basis.”
When Tobias gave you a job, you did it. You didn’t call for help. You didn’t run back to the Angels with excuses. She was happy to know Piper shared her team spirit.
“Back to the Wizard of Oxnard’s place?” she asked.
“Not necessarily us,” he said. “I think we should get a sniffer in to see if a trail can be picked up from there. We can contact Shaggy Harker for a freelance werewolf. Shaggy’s head of the local werefolk.”
Primal Cravings Page 6
