Playing with Passion Theta Series Book 1

by Gayle Parness

  Johnny added, "Leave her in peace, because if you break her heart we'll lose our best hunter and then we'll have to kill you." He and Tom both chuckled.

  "You two aren't together?" Gene pointed at Johnny, and then down the hall where Liz had disappeared.

  "Nah, I have a girl, but she's at the other safe house." He looked back in the direction of Liz’s room. "She's brilliant in the field. In fact, the only time I see her happy is when she's hunting and roving. She needs to learn how to trust someone again."

  Gene's eyes lit up, bringing a scowl to Ingrid’s face. "Don't go falling for the first female you meet," she warned.

  "A girl with issues can be challenging. Ask Mack." Gene winked in a very exaggerated fashion.

  “I’m not challenging.” Ingrid rested her hands on her hips.

  “Oh no. Never. Right, Mack?”

  “Never.”

  Ingrid grabbed Mack’s shirt and pulled him down closer so they were eye to eye. "So what's my name?"

  "How do you feel about Chubby Cheeks?”

  “Is that another fat ass joke?”

  “Would I do that?” He squeezed one of the cheeks under discussion.

  "You’re stalling. Did you forget to think of one?"

  "No, of course not." He squeezed the other cheek.

  “Are ass cheeks an obsession I should be made aware of?”

  “Only yours, my love.”

  “And what’s so special about mine?”

  “They offer a male a wonderful place to rest his hands when you’re having your way with him.” He’d added a slight brogue, charming and sexy at the same time.

  “Ah, truly? And where should a maid place her hands in such a situation?”

  “I’m verra fond of watching a maid pleasure herself, ya know.”

  “We’re not alone.”

  “We can be.”

  “Important meeting, remember?”

  “Salome.” Mack hissed. She giggled.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  “What happened to the money I gave you?" Ingrid asked Johnny, as she and Mack helped him clean up the kitchen and check through the cabinets for supplies.

  "It fed about seventy people in three different safe houses. Some of us hadn't eaten in a couple of days. Thanks for that, Ingrid."

  Diane and Dave were back among the living, still wary, but insisting they'd decided to stick it out and see how things progressed. Staci sat down with them, trying to ease their minds about what the future might be like now that they weren't part of a troupe. No one mentioned anything about the organization they’d formed, deciding to wait until they knew for sure that the two former divas were sticking around for good.

  It turned out that lunch was either tuna salad or peanut butter and jelly, both on whole wheat bread with a bag of chips, an apple, and a glass of juice. Gene joked that he was back in the cafeteria at the institute. After the meal, Mack heard Staci speaking to Johnny and Tom. "If we don't eat well, we lose power. I'd like to make a trip to the supermarket, if that's okay. We need meat, fresh vegetables, dairy...and probably vitamins, too. We'll buy enough for your friends who we've displaced.”

  Diane and Dave offered to help, so along with Tom and Sam, the group morphed, leaving the safe house in pairs and trios. The masking spell that hid the building, extended all the way out to the end of the parking lot, so they were able to get into their beat-up vans without being noticed.

  Alan, Mack, and Ingrid sat down to talk, while Gene scowled at his tablet, working furiously.

  Ingrid was nibbling on a small bag of trail mix. “I like the idea of being here at the start of everything.”

  "The start?" Alan asked.

  Gene piped in from the other side of the room. "The first days of our lives as free supes. The beginning of the revolution, the uprising, the insurgence. Whatever it’s called, we’re here as witnesses to the early days."

  "A free life and a revolution are two totally different beginnings," Mack said, stealing an almond from Ingrid’s bag.

  "There's no freedom for us without change. As long as The Director and his cronies treat us like slaves, we are slaves."

  "We can't take on every other supernatural group," Alan argued.

  "Most mid-level supes would back us against the jerks that are running things now. I think they'd at least stay out of our way. They've also suffered under their leaders. Maybe if they see what we're capable of doing, they'll negotiate a peace with us."

  "What exactly are you thinking?" Mack asked.

  Gene turned to him. "You must see the potential. We can kill...kill with our minds.” He glanced at Ingrid. “You did it yourself. If you'd told Joseph Herron to aim his gun at his own head and pull the trigger, he’d be dead." He shifted away, his hands scanning the image displayed in the air in front of him.

  Ingrid sat in the chair next to Gene’s, peeking at his projection currently displaying the site of a local real estate office. "Gene," she whispered. "We need to help and train these people before we start attacking anyone." He didn't look up. "C'mon." She laid her hand on top of his, bringing it down to his side. "Where's my easy-going southern boy?"

  He smiled, touched by her affectionate words. "I'm here, sugar. But look at this."

  He had accessed The Director's website. Pictures of their entire troupe were splashed across the screen, constantly changing to show posed photos, candid photos, and even pictures of them performing.

  "They're searching for us using dart guns loaded with Psycho32." Psycho32 was the nickname of a particularly powerful hallucinogen used to discipline thetas in the institute. "Have you ever seen what that drug does to a theta?"

  “I have,” Mack said. “One boy, around thirteen years old, had been defiant, not willing to practice the amount of hours mandated by the teachers at the institute. They gave him the drug in front of the other males in his grade, locking him in a room down the hall from mine. The kid screamed non-stop until he lost his voice entirely. When the drug wore off, he spent ten days in the clinic. On his last night before being allowed back into the general population, he killed himself by slitting his wrists with a broken glass. At least that's what we were told.”

  Gene explained further to Alan. "The drug brings on fantasies, horrible nightmare projections that are so real, you believe you're being eaten alive or burned or one of a dozen other horrendous things. It's a drug keyed in directly to our psycore energy."

  Gene scrolled down The Director’s page to the section under the troupe’s pictures. "They have orders to bring Mack, Ingrid, and me in alive. Everyone else is to be questioned upon apprehension to see if they have information regarding our whereabouts. If not, they die right then and there.”

  Mack squeezed Ingrid’s hand as Gene continued to summarize what he was reading. "We’re to be executed before a live audience at the Eastern Arena.”

  “I wonder how much he’s planning to charge for tickets?” Mack’s gut had coiled into a tight spring.

  There was a commotion at the front door and Sam rushed into the room. "Diane and Dave took off."

  "What?" Mack stood, moving closer to hear the rest. The others were filing in with grocery bags, looking worried.

  "They shopped in the store with us and checked out at a different register. We think they bought food and supplies for themselves. They left before we did, but we figured they'd be waiting by the vans." Staci said, distraught.

  "When we finished shopping, they'd disappeared. We checked all over, but there was no sign of them anywhere." Sam added.

  Gene got to his feet. “We’ll have to pack up and get out now.”

  Everyone stared at him in shock, not moving. Mack took Ingrid by the hand, urging her toward the door to their rooms. "He's right. They'll be captured and interrogated. We have a couple of hours, tops."

  "Shouldn't we keep searching for them?" Staci was crying.

  Sam pulled her closer and wiped her eyes. "They've made a choice. We have to protect ourselves and the others now, honey.
"

  Tom added, "We have a small truck. We'll take what we can to wherever you decide to move, but we won't take you to another safe house. We have to protect our friends."

  Gene smiled, shutting down his H-tab. ”That's not a problem, because I'm about to buy a building."

  Mack didn't have time to question Gene about the purchase. Instead, he spent the next two hours racing around helping Johnny, Liz and Tom pack up as much of the safe house as they could and loading it into the truck they'd driven over from another house. Morphing their bodies to look like moving company employees, coveralls and all, they left behind most of the furniture, taking only mattresses, bedding, towels, one picnic table, a bunch of folding chairs, kitchen supplies and the food. Gene said the building had working office-sized refrigerators and bathrooms with showers on every floor. Later that evening, Tom and Alan would go out to purchase camp stoves and anything else they might need to keep them going temporarily

  The building Gene was thinking of purchasing was half a mile away, in the Port Richmond area. The real estate agent met them on site, and Gene took over the exchange. The female agent left with a happy smile and a promise that the money would be wired from an offshore account. After the deal was complete, Gene planned on stealthily hacking into their system to wipe out any information pertaining to the listing or the sale.

  Liz called in her witch friend to work another glamour spell, which was accomplished quickly and professionally. The witch’s name was Claudia, and she looked more like a business executive than a traditional witch, dressed in a designer suit and too-high heels. Apparently, she'd come directly from work. Gene, who'd morphed to look a lot like a popular movie star, managed to get her to expand the spell to include the parking lot. As she was finishing up, Gene strolled over to Mack and Ingrid, his expression serious.

  "We need to wipe the witch’s memories." He and Gene turned to Ingrid, who'd morphed into a burly Hispanic man.

  "No. She's a friend of Liz, Tom, and Johnny.

  "We can't take a chance," Gene said. “If she’s captured…”

  Ingrid frowned at Gene. "Can't you do it? She's all ready to give you her H-tab code, directions to her house and maybe even her bra size."

  Gene smiled as he shook his head. "You've been practicing this shit for years. Do you want me to fuck up her mind?" He glanced at the witch. "She's a 34C."

  Mack laughed, then covered his mouth when he noticed Ingrid’s glare.

  "Fine. But if you two think I'm gonna be spending my time and my energy cleaning up memories and psy-looping street thetas, you'd better forget it."

  "Oh yeah, we forgot. You're the mighty kick-ass huntress who's taking down Dr. D, single handed."

  "You can laugh now, but that's what all the history scans will say." Ingrid lifted her chin, re-morphing into a good-looking guy, before walking to the witch. She smiled at the woman and introduced herself as a friend of the guy Gene was pretending to be. A few minutes later, the young witch drove off in her late model Audi, a satisfied grin on her face and no memory of what she'd just done or for whom she’d done it.

  When the building was both secure and officially theirs, the fun started. The already exhausted group of thetas had to lug everything inside, which took a while. There were two working elevators, thank the gods, but the building only had emergency power and they decided not to waste using the elevator on the stuff that could be carried easily up the stairs.

  A former office building, photographer’s studio and residence, the building’s floor plan was pretty straightforward. The first floor had a large lobby, restrooms, and a few large offices. The second and third floors contained more offices and a conference room. The fourth and fifth floor were more like loft spaces with balconies and enormous windows.

  “Who owned this building? It’s great,” Ingrid asked, wandering around the second floor.

  “A human company that moved to a more stable neighborhood,” Gene answered, rubbing his neck. They were all exhausted.

  Mack poked his head into the large conference room. “This building has a lot of potential.”

  “This is a bad neighborhood?” Ingrid asked, threading her arm around Mack’s waist.

  Johnny collapsed into a folding chair. “There’s a wolf pack in Travis and a vampire nest in Westerleigh, but neither one of them causes the theta population any trouble. Their alpha and master vamp are low on the power grid and are struggling to keep their people alive like the rest of us. I think it’s perfect.”

  “I don’t recommend wandering the streets at night.” Gene said.

  “Why are you looking at me?” Ingrid’s feathers were ruffling.

  “Because you’re the one most likely to go out there and hand out cash and granola bars,” Gene teased.

  “No. I have to save my money now. We need it to help our fellow thetas.”

  “And humans,” Staci added. “They’re suffering the most.”

  Everyone picked out sleeping areas. Gene decided the top floor would be his base and no one argued with him about it. Ingrid and Mack made a nest on the fourth floor loft, because of the balcony, and the others chose to stick together on the third floor, all of them exhausted, grumpy, and scared.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  The next morning, Ingrid and Mack returned to consciousness twisted around each other on the small mattress they’d hauled upstairs the day before. Ingrid’s leg was draped over his thigh, her head on his shoulder, his arms securely holding her in place. Ingrid squirmed, enjoying the feel of his warm body pressed firmly against her own.

  Mack opened one eye, the other one still hidden by his pillow. “You’ll be sorry if you keep that up.” One of his hands slid down to her ass, squeezing one cheek and then the other.

  “Keeping it up is the point.” She pushed her knee closer to his groin, but he was already standing at attention.

  “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  Without any further encouragement, Ingrid crawled on top of his prone body, straddling his hips. Sitting up, she slid onto his erection so, so slowly, enjoying every long, hard inch. Mack grunted, moving his hands to her hips, but didn’t force her to quicken the pace of her descent. “You’re rather stiff this morning,” she teased.

  Ingrid wore one of his tee shirts, a band named The Dark Forgotten, screen-printed across her chest. He picked up the hem, sliding a hand over her abs, tweaking both nipples. She gasped, so he did it again. Mack slipped a hand between her legs, circling her with a skilled finger.

  “You’re rather wet this morning, love.”

  She gasped when his finger found a particularly delicious spot. “Might I expect this kind of treatment every morning?”

  “Every morning I’m breathing.”

  When he’d filled her completely, she met his lips with hers, her tongue demanding entrance so it could dance in his mouth the way his cock danced inside her body. The kiss was the kind that curled a female’s toes, passionate and loving. She whispered against his ear. “I dreamt you had me tied up.” She clenched the muscles surrounding his cock, punctuating her confession.

  “Mm. I’m putting in an order for a four poster and some handcuffs.”

  “Dozens of possibilities.” Ingrid started to move, undulating to create the most perfect friction.

  “So much better than breakfast.” Mack kissed her palm, her wrist, her elbow—each kiss heating her skin.

  Ingrid giggled. “I’ll give you an hour before you’re complaining about how hungry you are.”

  Mack leaned up, taking one of her nipples into his mouth, sucking hard, licking, and nibbling. She arched backwards, resting her hands on his muscled thighs. “Oh, god…” An intense tightness was building low in her belly, her vagina slick with arousal.

  He blew on the wet, puckered nipple, drawing her heated gaze. “If I get hungry, I can always eat you.”

  Ingrid returned his very wicked smile. “Let’s skip breakfast.”

  An hour later, they shared a shower, still tingling from th
e afterglow of super sex. Ingrid suggested sitting on the balcony, so they placed one folding chair on the cement deck and Mack sat, drawing her into his lap. The view was nothing extraordinary, only the narrow channel and the more industrial side of New Jersey, but it was peaceful, private, and perfect.

  “What do you think of our new accommodations, Trogg?” Ingrid thought the huge room had a lot of potential as a terrific apartment for the two of them, although it could be divided in half to provide living space for another couple with no problem. The floors were hardwood, and there was a bathroom with a shower, a small kitchen area, and a windowless room that would make a great closet.

  But right now, the fourth floor was their hideaway and Ingrid was determined to enjoy every minute of their time alone.

  “So I’m Trogg again, huh?”

  “You were very Troggy a few minutes ago.” She kissed his cheek. “And I loved every manly grunt.”

  “I’d live in a cave, if you were there with me.”

  “Very romantic, but where would you really like to live?” Ingrid kissed his palm, clutching his hand to her heart.

  “In a boat, so we could see the world.”

  “Hmph. With archdemons running it, I doubt there’s much left to see.”

  “Gene told me the sisters are more reasonable.”

  “What, like they actually make sure humans have enough to eat? Everyone gets paid fair wages?”

  “Pull your head out of your ass, honey,” Mack grinned.

  “What is it with you and my ass?” she teased back.

  “It’s abundantly round and soft and…” Ingrid glared indignantly. “Think whatever you want, but I’ve had my hands all over that delicious melon.”

  “You…” She started to stand, but he pulled her back down.

  He was laughing now. “Okay, okay. It’s perfection, can I say that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. To answer your question, I’ve always wanted to live on some private beach. Somewhere it doesn’t snow. I hate the cold.”