Corpse Thieves (Shifter Squad Book 5)

by J. C. Diem

  He’s helping me, I told him. Find Reece. He raced off with a doubtful glance at my helper. I could feel Reece sprinting towards me. He would be here in seconds and I didn’t want him to catch sight of my assistant.

  “Go back into the tunnels and rest,” I told the zombie. He disappeared into the dirt without leaving any sign that he’d ever been there. Using the last of my strength, I reached out to the rest of my undead soldiers. I mentally ordered them to break off their attack and to return to the earth as well. They’d killed dozens of ghouls, but I could sense survivors fleeing through the passages below.

  Closing my eyes, I succumbed to the blood loss and passed out. When I roused a short while later, Reece was kneeling beside me. He didn’t realize that I’d come around and his expression was chillingly clinical. Brushing his mind lightly, I sensed that he was weighing up his options. I was still bleeding heavily from multiple bite marks. An artery in my leg had been severed and the wound had yet to heal. If he did nothing, I’d die and then he would no longer be chained by his bond to me.

  The thought didn’t seem to come from him directly, but appeared to be coming from someone else. I realized he wasn’t alone in his head. The other presence was back and it was whispering to him seductively. It was telling him that he’d be better off without me. His eyes were distant as he listened to it dreamily.

  Zeus whined and humbly licked Reece’s hand, begging him to help me. Snapping out of his contemplation, he saw me watching him and gave me a strained smile. “Being bitten again is probably the last thing you want right now, but it’s the only way I’m going to be able to help you.”

  Relieved that he’d resisted the insidious voice in his head, I nodded my permission. Fresh blood ran from the deep wound in my throat at my movement. My shirt was already in ruins, so he tore it away from my left shoulder to give him access. Placing his hands on either side of my body, he leaned down and bit me hard enough to draw blood. I cried out in pain that was mixed with pleasure. As always, our bond was strengthened as he ingested my blood. Unlike vampires, we didn’t need to drink much. A few small swallows was enough to renew our link.

  Stripping his shirt off, he leaned down and lifted me up high enough for me to be able to bite him in return. Strength surged through me and my wounds began to close as my teeth sank into his shoulder. My desire rose as my flesh knitted back together.

  Breathing raggedly and fighting against his own desire, Reece lay me down and ran a hand through his short Mohawk. “This isn’t exactly the most romantic place to have sex.”

  Despite his reluctant tone, I felt his need and splayed my hands on his chest. “Ask me if I care.” His muscles bunched as I ran my fingertips lightly down to his abs. I was still lightheaded, but the pain was gone. By morning, I’d be fine. Now I just had the burning pain of being surrounded by holy symbols to battle.

  “Do you care?” he asked with a wry smile.

  “Not even a little bit,” I admitted then pulled him down and kissed him. I didn’t care that we were in a cemetery. All I cared about was that we were alone and that he wanted me. Even if it was just for a short while, he desired me again and I wasn’t about to let this opportunity go. The ghouls had fled from the area and we weren’t in any danger. Sensing that he was intruding, Zeus slunk off to give us some privacy and to keep watch at the edge of the graveyard.

  Holding me tightly, Reece ignored the blood and dirt that covered me from head to toe. He sat up and pulled me up with him then leaned back against a headstone. Straddling him, I looked up to see an angel peering down at us disapprovingly. I was thankful it wasn’t a cross. The burning pain was already almost too overwhelming to bear. I couldn’t imagine how bad it would be if I was only inches away from one of the crosses.

  Before I could come to my senses and rethink what we were about to do, Reece ripped my ruined shirt off. My bra joined it on the ground then his hands were cupping my breasts.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he breathed then leaned down and put his mouth on me.

  Heat flared inside me and I moaned at the sensation of his teeth teasing my nipple. His hands went to the button of my jeans then they were sliding down my legs. Without breaking contact, he wrestled his cargo pants and boxer shorts off then we were both naked.

  A low mist had risen, hiding us from sight from anyone who might stumble across us. Unlike the green fog that had been conjured when I’d raised the zombies, this one was natural.

  Reece positioned me above him and I sank down until we were joined. I rode him slowly and he slid into me deeper each time our groins met. He groaned when I bit him a second time and his hands on my back became almost crushing. I drank his blood down and the residual traces of weakness were swept away.

  “Faster,” he urged and I complied.

  My head went back and he took that as an invitation to bite me. Pleasure burst through my core as his teeth sank into my flesh. His hands slid down to my hips and he urged me to move even faster as he drank from me.

  Moaning in intense pleasure, my nails dug into his back as I was catapulted over the edge into ecstasy. I clenched around him as he pounded himself into me in mindless pursuit of an orgasm. Pulling his head aside by his short hair, I bit him again and that sent him over the edge as well.

  With a few final pumps of his hips, he shuddered then went still. Our bite wounds closed in seconds, leaving only faint marks behind. As I’d hoped, there were no new scars on my body from the ghoul attack. Only my mind would bear the scars of their frenzied biting.

  Reece spoke, sounding a little dazed. “We should call Mark and tell him you’re okay.”

  “We need to find Kala,” I said in dismay when I remembered that she’d left with the two lions.

  Zeus alerted me that Mark and Flynn had reached the cemetery and I scrambled for my clothing. Reece didn’t object when I commandeered his t-shirt. Mine was in ruins and my bra wasn’t in much better shape. My jeans were torn and bloodstained, but they were better than nothing.

  “What happened?” Mark asked when he and Flynn followed Zeus through the fog to us.

  Flynn knew what we’d been up to, but he didn’t mention it to our boss. He merely watched us in concern.

  “I was attacked by ghouls,” I said.

  Mark was astonished. “Are you certain they were ghouls?”

  “They look human, but they have bigger than usual eyes, greenish skin and they tried to kill me so they could eat my flesh,” I told him.

  “Sounds like ghouls to me,” Flynn said. “Are you okay?”

  For a moment or two, I came close to bursting into tears before I mastered myself and nodded. Zeus trotted over to me and leaned against my leg. He knew how traumatized I was.

  “Where’s Kala?” Mark asked when he realized she was absent.

  “I wasn’t the only one who was kidnapped tonight,” I told him.

  “Kala was taken? By whom?”

  “They were shifters. They didn’t hold a gun to her head or anything like that, but it didn’t look like she left of her own free will.”

  “They had to be werelions,” Mark said with a wince. “This is bad.”

  “How could they make Kala go with them?” Flynn asked.

  “True born shifters can control lesser species, especially ones that were bitten,” Mark replied. Kala hadn’t been bitten, but she also wasn’t a pure blood. Both she and Flynn had been injected with the virus by a rival organization to the PIA.

  “Can’t we just follow their scent to their lair and get her back?” I queried.

  Mark shook his head. “I wish it was that easy. Unfortunately, lions are almost as territorial as wolves. If their Rex has claimed Kala, it will be very difficult to convince him to let her go.”

  ₪₪₪

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Now that we know who and what is responsible for taking the children,” Mark continued, “we can assume that they’re already dead and have been consumed by the ghouls. Let’s head back to the house so Lexi c
an get cleaned up.”

  “What about Kala?” I asked. “We can’t just leave her with the werelions.”

  “She’ll be safe enough for tonight.” He didn’t sound very convincing.

  “They won’t hurt her physically,” Reece told me as we headed out of the cemetery. He could feel my anxiety and was trying to reassure me.

  “What will they do to her?” Some part of me already knew the answer. Kala had mentioned her love of sex many times by now.

  “The Rex of the pride will decide whether he wants to add her to his harem or not.” His tone was offhand, but I sensed his anger at the thought of his near sister being kept against her will.

  “What if he decides he doesn’t want to keep her?” Flynn demanded.

  “Then she’ll be passed to the rest of the lions in his pride,” Mark said flatly.

  Flynn shook his head in automatic denial. “There’s no way Kala will stand for that.”

  “She’s not going to have a choice,” I realized. “You didn’t see her, Flynn. They took control of her and she followed them like she was a puppet.”

  “How many lions will be in the pride?” he asked.

  “Too many for us to confront without sustaining casualties,” Mark warned us. “There will be somewhere between ten to twenty of them and they won’t be alone. They tend to gather other feline shifters as well. There could be dozens of them.”

  Despair washed away some of the alertness that I’d regained through my intimacy with Reece. My shoulders slumped and Flynn slipped his arm around my waist. “I’m not going to let them keep her,” he whispered quietly enough for only me to hear him. “Are you with me?” I nodded and he squeezed my waist before helping me into the SUV.

  Zeus hopped into the cargo area in the back and crowded as close to me as he could get. He hung his head over the seat and rested his face against mine. I couldn’t take strength from him like I could from Reece, but his presence was comforting. He wasn’t happy that Kala was missing and he knew that something had happened to her. He was just as anxious to get her back as we were. They might not be the best of friends, yet she’d become part of his pack and he was protective of her.

  I’d lost my keys as well as my gun and jacket in the tunnels beneath the cemetery. Losing my weapon bothered me far more than losing the keys. I’d had the Beretta for two years. It had been a gift from my father on my sixteenth birthday. Most teenagers wished for a car to celebrate that milestone. Since I’d been planning on joining the army, it had seemed like a needless expense. I couldn’t take a car with me wherever I was deployed, but I could always take a gun or two.

  Heading upstairs to take a shower, it wasn’t until I was beneath the spray and washing away the blood and grime when it hit me. I’d raised a small army of zombies. As far as I knew, only someone who practiced voodoo or the dark arts could bring the dead back to life. I hadn’t used any of the chants that were usually involved in the ritual. I’d just used my blood and my strength of will to command them to rise and then to kill.

  I felt cold even with the hot water beating down on me. I’d always been different from other shifters and now I had another black mark against me. I didn’t know how or why, but I was apparently now a necromancer. Everything that I’d read about zombie raisers had been highly disturbing. No one raised the dead with good intentions. The very act itself was considered to be evil. The dead should never be disturbed from their rest. I wouldn’t be happy if someone forced my corpse to piece itself back together just to satisfy someone’s needs.

  Calling on the undead had saved my life, yet I couldn’t let it happen again. If the others knew what I’d done they’d probably be tempted to lock me up. Reece had seen me dismiss some zombies after I’d killed their master, but he’d put it down to being a random anomaly. I now knew it was far worse than that. The talent had been inside me all along.

  This new knowledge explained how I was able to sense the zombies in New Orleans and why they’d reacted to my presence. They’d known that I was a threat to their master. My minions had succumbed to my will without protest because I’d owned them completely. My blood had brought them to life and my will had sent them back to their rest.

  There was a seductive draw in having power over death itself. Maybe that was why I’d been so afraid when I’d been able to feel the undead in my head. Perhaps I’d subconsciously known that I had the power to control them. It had been far simpler than I’d thought it would be. I could see how easy it would be to become addicted to the dark arts.

  When the hot water began to fail, I stepped out of the shower and examined my body. The bite marks had disappeared. The only marks on my flesh were the ones that had been made by Kala, Flynn and Reece. There was also the vampire bite on my right shoulder, but I avoided looking at it. Katrina was always in the back of my mind like a splinter beneath my fingernail. She’d be there until I finally dug her out and purged the wound forever.

  Mark had a mug of coffee waiting for me by the time I dressed and headed downstairs. I picked it up then sank down onto the couch beside him. Zeus lay on the floor with his head resting on my bare feet. He preferred to have some kind of physical contact with us whenever possible. His previous owners had left him alone in the yard most of the time. They’d rarely bothered to play with him. He’d been a guard dog to them and nothing more.

  That was why he’d decided to switch his allegiance to me, I realized. He’d known that he would be far more than just a minion to me. He was my friend and I’d already come to depend on him for emotional support. Plus, he’d saved my life a couple of times.

  “We have two missions now,” Mark said. “We need to persuade the pride to release Kala and we also need to find out how many ghouls we’re facing.”

  “The Rex won’t talk to a human,” Reece said. “If he’s feeling magnanimous, he might allow me an audience simply because I’m another alpha. They respect male alphas more than female,” he said to me almost apologetically.

  “That answers the question of who’ll be paying him a visit,” Mark sighed. “Once we’ve located the pride, you and Flynn can request a meeting. While you two are speaking with him, Lexi and I will investigate the cemetery.”

  That reminded Reece of a question he’d been meaning to ask me. “How did you get away from the ghouls?”

  “I emptied my gun into them and they scattered,” I lied then grimaced. “I dropped my Beretta as I was running away.”

  “What do you know about ghouls?” Flynn asked Mark. I was relieved that I didn’t have to explain how I’d managed to get back to the surface. That was a question I’d prefer to avoid. How could I possibly explain to them that I’d used a zombie for transportation?

  “They’re nocturnal, but sunlight doesn’t harm them like it does vampires. They were human once, but they’ve changed into something far stranger.”

  “How are they made?” I asked.

  “They breed just like we do.”

  I made a face at the thought of the large eyed, green skinned monsters mating. “That would explain why there are so many of them, I guess.”

  “They don’t usually live in large numbers,” Mark said. “They mostly live in small groups, feeding on the recently interred and staying out of sight of humans.”

  “That doesn’t seem to be the case in Lilydale,” I told him. “I’m pretty sure there are dozens of them living in the tunnels. There were human bones everywhere. Maybe they’ve bred too much and have used up their food source.”

  “That must be why they’re taking children.” He was disturbed by the prospect of hunting down a large number of ghouls and I didn’t blame him. They were strong, they could move very quickly and they were ravenously hungry.

  “I don’t think we five are going to be able to take them all down.” I wasn’t going to discount Kala. We’d get her back, one way or another.

  “You’re lucky they didn’t tear you apart,” Mark told me. “I’ve seen footage of a pack of them in a feeding frenzy and it w
asn’t pretty.”

  I looked down at the floor and shuddered at the memory of teeth tearing into my flesh.

  “I think they came close to killing her,” Flynn said. “Reece healed her with their bond just before we found them.”

  Mark looked at me then switched his gaze to Reece. His face reddened when he realized they’d almost stumbled across us while we’d been naked. “Oh. That’s good.” He cleared his throat and Reece smiled faintly. “It’s lucky you found her in time.”

  That wiped Reece’s smile away and he turned grim again. We both knew that I’d have died if he hadn’t been there. Our job was dangerous and we were frequently put in harm’s way. If he left us there would be no one to save me the next time my life was in peril.

  He might be able to find a different mate and break our bond, but I didn’t have the option of finding someone new. My heart belonged to him and so did my body. Simply breaking our link wouldn’t absolve me of the pledge that I’d made. He would always be the only man I would be willing to give my body to.

  I shut down the link between our minds so he couldn’t pick up on my thoughts. He knew how I felt about him and I wasn’t going to guilt trip him into staying with me. Either he wanted me or he wanted a pure blood mate. It was as simple as that.

  “You look beat,” Mark said when I yawned. “You’d better get some sleep. We’re going to have a long day tomorrow.”

  I stopped in the kitchen long enough to rinse out my mug then headed upstairs with Zeus at my heels. He lay on the floor beside my bed with his head facing the door. He was ready to stand between me and anything that posed a threat.

  Knowing my companion would warn me of danger, I fell asleep and was glad to escape from my whirling thoughts for a few hours.

  ₪₪₪

  Chapter Sixteen

  I woke several times during the night to find Kala’s bed still empty. The third time I woke I saw Zeus chewing on something. Realizing that the object wasn’t edible, he spat it out. It was one of my sneakers and it was now a chewed up lump. Shaking my head, I didn’t bother to admonish him. The deed was done and it was no great loss. I had other shoes to choose from.