His hands moved down her back, kneading her muscles, bringing her closer to him. His fingers didn’t stop moving, skimming every inch of her skin, burning in their urgency. Lust and love joined in a heated passion Moira couldn’t stop, didn’t want to even try to control.
Rafe’s hands moved down to her corset, unhooking each button one by one down her back. Rushed, unable to get it off fast enough for either of them. When the last hook was released, it fell to the floor, her breasts freed from the restraint. Rafe pushed her back until her thighs hit the bed, then she was on her back and Rafe’s mouth was on first one breast then the other, his hands kneading and rubbing, creating an erotic friction that was just shy of being painful. His hair was still damp from the rain that continued to steadily fall outside. She breathed in his raw smell, sweat and soap and a hint of aftershave so subtle she couldn’t discern what it was.
She pushed at his shoulders, wanting his shirt off, his skin against hers, but he didn’t yield. Rafe’s mouth moved from her breasts, up her throat, his breath coming fast, his hands touching her everywhere he could reach. The sounds from her chest were unfamiliar as he touched places she had no idea were erogenous. His hands held her head firmly, and she thought he was going to kiss her, then he turned her head and kissed her behind her ear, his tongue taunting the sensitive skin, until Moira gasped.
She pulled his shirt out of his pants. His skin was hot, almost burning, but she was used to the heat he generated. She broke into a sweat, the intensity of Rafe’s embrace turning her into a furnace.
“Off,” she commanded, pulling at his shirt. She heard a button pop. Then another.
He sat up and pulled both the button-down and the T-shirt over his head. She stared at his face, his expression a mix of passion and deep need. Then he laid back on top of her, his mouth on hers. She almost couldn’t breathe, but she didn’t want him to stop. Never had Rafe been so demanding of her, giving her his full self, claiming her full self.
Their struggle with his pants and her skirt was short. He unhooked her garters, and her panties fell off. His fingers touched her between the legs and she cried out, a sudden tornado inside her, spinning out of control. She didn’t need to guide Rafe into her, he was already there, replacing his fingers with his penis and sinking into her with one deep stroke.
Rafe held himself in check a moment, on the verge of explosion. But he didn’t want slow and easy. As soon as Moira reached down and grabbed his ass, he gave and took what they both wanted, what they both needed, at that moment.
He wrapped his arms around her body, both holding her close while pinning her with his weight to the bed. He planted his feet on the floor for support. He buried his face into her neck, her thick hair smelling wonderfully like lavender and soap and rain.
“I love you,” he whispered in her ear. He didn’t know if she heard him, didn’t care. His body was filled with intensity for this woman, a love and passion so profound, so deep, it made him near-crazy. “I love you,” he repeated.
Her legs wrapped around his waist while her hands were around his neck. She had put herself in a vulnerable position, all for him. Moira was hardly helpless, her steel shields making her rough around the edges. But right here, right now, her complete trust in him, in them was the strongest aphrodisiac.
“Rafe,” she gasped. “Rafe.”
Her muscles clenched around him and he lost himself in her.
o0o
Moira finished brushing her hair, damp from their shared shower, then slid into the bed Rafe had warmed for her. She thought for a moment he was asleep, then he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her warmly. She sighed, a blissful moment of happiness in her crazy and dangerous life.
She rested her head on his bare shoulder and said, “I love you.”
He kissed the top of her head and held her, his right hand caressing her arm. They didn’t speak for several minutes, but sleep wasn’t quickly coming. Then he said, “I was scared tonight. Something was happening to you on the dance floor. I don’t know what it was, but you were in danger.”
“We’re always in danger.”
“This was different.”
Moira didn’t discount Rafe’s concerns, but she’d faced witches more deadly than Rex and Tessa. So had he. And after battling two corporeal demons, they hadn’t terrified her. She didn’t enjoy the bloody visions she had while Tessa touched her, but she was blocking the worst.
“It wasn’t fun, but I was handling their battle magic.”
“I think they were trying to distract you and weaken you. I heard something—that Baphomet was coming.”
Moira raised her head. “Heard?”
“A voice.”
“A ghost?”
“I don’t know.”
She lowered her head. She didn’t know if he was telling the complete truth. “I think,” she began slowly, “that both of us are becoming more...sensitive to the supernatural energy around us. I don’t like it, but it is what it is. As long as we don’t use magic, we’ll be okay.” She hoped. She didn’t understand it anymore than Rafe did. Magic had been a part of her life from the very beginning, until seven years ago she’d turned her back on that world after so many people were hurt or killed.
“Maybe.”
“Do you think Carter is going to make it?”
“I don’t know that, either. I’m more worried about the curse they put on him than the poison.”
“We should have known he was in danger.” It had been bothering Moira ever since they took him to the hospital. “He didn’t know what to expect. We shouldn’t bring outsiders into our war.”
Rafe didn’t say anything. He stared at the ceiling.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I knew Carter was in trouble. I told him not to drink anything, but I should have gotten him out right then. Except I knew you were in danger. More danger than you thought.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were!”
She flinched from his sudden rage. He wrapped his arms around her tight; she put her palm over his pounding heart.
Maybe she was threatened. She had certainly been in pain, but they hadn’t gotten in.
“You can take care of yourself, I know that,” he said. “But sometimes you push it. You don’t care what happens to you as long as you stop them. But I care.”
“I had a death wish for a long time after Peter was killed,” Moira admitted. “But not anymore.” She rolled on top of him and kissed him firmly. “I have too much to live for.” She kissed him again, then settled back down. “I have a responsibility to send the Seven Deadly Sins back to Hell. We face evil that most people don’t even believe exists. I hate it, but I can’t turn my back on it. But I promise not to be reckless. Not when I have you to live for.”
“You have more than me.” Rafe stroked her back, giving her more love and comfort in the easy caress than she had before she’d met him.
“But you’re the most important. Before you, I really didn’t care about anyone or anything except finding my mother and stopping her. But now? I dare to see a future. Because of you, I have hope I never believed in.”
As Moira drifted off to sleep, one leg and one arm draped over his body, Rafe considered his true motives in choosing to help Moira first, over Carter. At the time he’d been so irritated—angry—at the cop for how he treated Moira, how he looked at her, how he touched her. Jealousy, plain and simple. A feeling completely foreign to Rafe he didn’t know how to deal with it. It didn’t help that Moira was striking. She’d never flaunted her sex appeal—he doubted she even gave it any thought—until tonight. But when she needed to, she used everything at her disposal. And tonight, that meant her body and her beauty.
He mentally ran through what happened when he saw Moira on the dance floor with the blonde, Tessa Standler. He’d then realized it wasn’t Rex who was the greatest danger to Moira, it was Tessa. Every cell in his body had pushed him to get Moira away from her. He acted without conscious thought. Pu
re, primal instinct.
Because he knew what Tessa was. A vampire. Not the Hollywood immortal sleep in a coffin vampire, but a devout follower of Baphomet, the Blood Demon. She had power that was not simple magic. The negative energy that Moira had felt was Tessa and her sphere of influence. The evil oozed out of her, surrounded her, and she could draw it in at any time and use it against anyone she chose.
Rafe not only knew what Tess was, he knew her endgame. She was preparing herself to become a vessel for Baphomet. She was seeking immortality, and would have it as long as Baphomet was satiated.
This wasn’t the first time Rafe had known something he shouldn’t know. And the more it happened, the more he feared what he was becoming.
Chapter Nine
Pounding on the hotel door had both Rafe and Moira jump out of bed from a dead sleep, each reaching for their knives. Rafe checked the peephole as Moira slipped on jeans.
“It’s Grant.” Rafe put down his knife and opened the door.
“Neither of you answered your phone,” the cop grumbled as he walked in.
“You look like shit,” Moira said.
Unshaven with bloodshot eyes, Grant was wearing the same clothes he’d had on the night before. Rafe said, “Carter?”
“Same as last night.”
Meaning, still unconscious and the doctors didn’t know what was wrong. But to Rafe, that was a good sign. If he wasn’t worse than the night before, they had gotten to him in time.
“Tori Schaffer is missing,” Grant said.
Tori was one of the girls from Amy and Beth’s cabin at the nature camp.
“Tori? Didn’t you stake out Tessa Standler’s house?”
“I did. She was home all night.”
“That’s impossible. Unless she had someone else snatch Tori,” Moira said.
“She’s not the girl in the picture. I showed it to her this morning after I found out Tori was missing. Both Tessa and her mother looked at the picture. Not only was it not Tessa, she hadn’t been at the camp that week. She’d been the year before. As soon as I looked at the photo next to Tess, I realized that while there’s a passing resemblance, it’s not the same girl.”
“The witch at Defiance used her identity.” And likely cast a confusion spell, Rafe reasoned, so anyone from the camp who may have met the real Tessa wouldn’t have recognized the imposter. He exchanged a glance with Moira—he didn’t have to repeat their conversation from the night before: she understood that they were dealing with a powerful magician.
“I don’t fucking care whose identity she stole, we don’t know where she is!” Grant reached into his pocket and pulled out a near-empty bottle of aspirin. He spilled four tablets into his hand, tossed them into his mouth and chewed. “I sent a unit to Defiance, and the owner, on paper, is Reginald “Rex” Van Allen. He did nothing to land himself in prison, was apparently helpful and alarmed that anyone had taken sick. The health department will inspect the place on Monday, but we all know they won’t find a fucking thing!”
“By Monday it’ll be over,” Moira said.
“That doesn’t help Carter, and that doesn’t get me any closer to finding Tori Schaffer!” He glared at Moira. “Why did you leave Carter in there? How could you not see this coming?”
Rafe said, “Leaving Carter was my call. I told him not to drink anything.”
“So this is now his fault? He was doing me a favor! Do you know what shit I’m getting from my boss because of an unsanctioned undercover op? Once Tori went missing, I had to tell him the whole thing. At least everything except demons and witches. Which means I told him nothing.” Grant kicked a chair.
“Arguing isn’t going to get us any closer to finding her,” Moira snapped.
“Don’t you get it? It’s not my job anymore. I gave the local cops what I know about the camp and the threadbare connection to Defiance. And I had to lie—I said I saw her, not a psychic demon hunter!”
“I’m not psychic!”
Rafe put his hand on Moira’s back. “You understand, Grant, that the cops won’t be able to stop this. They won’t find Tori until she’s dead.”
“What am I supposed to do? Did you not hear that I’m no longer working this case? I made the argument that Amy was killed by people associated with Defiance all on specious circumstantial evidence. We have nothing connecting Amy with that club, and nothing connecting the fake Tessa Standler with Amy except a photograph.”
“Why isn’t that enough?” Moira asked.
Grant looked at them both as if they were stupid.
Moira strode over to the hotel desk and pulled a map out of her backpack. “We have to find Tori.”
“What are you going to use, a Ouija board?”
Moira turned and shoved Grant backward. He was a big guy, but Moira was strong and he wasn’t expecting to be pushed. “I don’t have magical answers, I’m a lot like you, believe it or not. I investigate crimes, only mine are spiritual and yours are human. I know a lot more about how these people operate than you do.”
“You do? Then how come you didn’t know that they would go after Carter? He was doing me a favor!”
“So are we!”
“Forget it. I don’t know why I came here. I’m all out of options. At least I found out what happened to Amy Carney and she’s being buried Monday. At least one good thing came out of this fucked situation.”
Rafe said, “It’s not over.”
“For me, and you, it’s over. The cops know what they’re doing.”
“This time, they won’t know where to look or what to do,” Rafe said. “I know what type of place they need to set up the ritual. If you want to find Tori before she’s drained of her blood and the fake Tessa is one step closer to becoming a vessel for Baphomet, you need us.”
Grant ran his hands through his hair and sat on the edge of the bed. “I don’t know what to do.”
“We do,” Rafe said. He looked at Moira. She was staring at him.
“How did you know?” she asked quietly.
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have the answer.
Moira spread the map on the desk, taking her time because she knew that Rafe was hiding something from her. Maybe he didn’t know how he knew Tessa was preparing to become a vessel for a demon, but that he did know with such certainty scared her.
Why should it? She had unexplained visions connected to demons and Rafe didn’t back away from her. He didn’t look at her with surprise or as if she’d betrayed St. Michael’s Order. He wanted her to accept her curse—he called it a gift—and find a way to use it.
But how did she know if she actively sought out the visions that she was doing so purely, without magic, without snapping the thin spiritual line between them and the astral plane? What if she weakened the layers between her life and Hell? She was already connected to the underworld from birth, thanks to her mother. What if she only sealed her fate?
She glanced at Rafe. She had to trust him. He was the only one who truly seemed to care about her future—that she even had a future.
She extended her hand and Rafe took it, standing next to her looking at the map. “Grant,” she said, “where was Amy’s body found? That’s our starting point.”
Reluctantly, Grant walked over. He looked at the map, pointed to a place in near the Encino Reservoir.
“Was her body moved?”
“Yes, we believe her body was dumped in the woods, but very close to the time of death.”
“She died in the mountains,” Rafe said.
Moira didn’t ask how he knew, because she suspected Amy’s ghost had given him the information.
“Her body was found off Encino Avenue,” Grant said. “There’s a lot of open space, valleys and hills. She wasn’t tossed, she seemed to be positioned.”
“It’s common for rituals like this to be performed outdoors, but they can’t risk contamination of the area, and they’re not simply casting a spell,” Moira explained. “They’ll have placed her on an altar. The altar may have
been flush to the ground, but she would be on something.”
“Can we go back to the morgue?” Rafe asked.
“Why?” Grant asked.
“Amy’s ghost spoke to me. Now that we know more about what happened, I can ask her questions.”
“I don’t fucking believe this!”
Moira defended Rafe, though she didn’t want him to talk to Amy or any other ghost. “You saw your girlfriend possessed by a demon, you saw what that demon did at Grace Harvest, you believed Julie when she told you about Amy Carney in the first place—that she’d spoken to the ghost—and you’ve risked your life and your career finding out what happened to her. Why can’t you accept that Rafe can talk to ghosts?”
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