Dead After Dark (35 page)

Nothing happened at first. She remained with her back to him, unwilling to quit now. He grasped her gently at the waist with both hands and started working his thumbs slowly up each side of her spine. His touch sent streaks of heat across her sensitive skin. She wanted to moan over the incredible feel of his hands, wanted more than that. When his fingers reached her shoulders, she turned, her chest a breath from his.

“My brother used to hug me and crack my back. Think
you could do that?” She poured on the innocence and held a straight face. Tough act to pull off when she wanted his hands between her legs.

Trey wrapped her in a hug that sent her thoughts tumbling back to when she’d turned to him for escape from a family plagued with problems, for comfort and . . . for love. He slowly lifted her up against him. When her hip met his, she felt solid proof he was still just as affected by touching her as she was by his hands.

Oh yes, very affected.

He groaned into her hair. Hot breath raked her skin.

She folded her arms around his neck and kissed his throat, then ran her tongue along the bottom edge of his ear.

He shuddered and turned his face to hers, pausing for a fleeting second before his mouth captured her waiting lips, the kiss powerful and filled with longing that melted her heart.

No one else had ever made her feel anything close to this cared for in all these years. She’d grown out of her tomboy looks in her mid twenties, but Trey had always found her attractive. Where other women had been intimidated by his stature, she’d enjoyed a male that made her feel feminine.

His mouth stoked the simmering heat she’d thought never to feel blaze up again, until now. She wanted this man, craved him like a drug. Long fingers of one hand drove up into her hair, holding her as if he thought she’d stop. No way. She wanted him here, now, anywhere. His mouth demanded more, caressing her tongue with his. He reached up, grazing a finger across her hard nipples through the sheer material.

Her thighs tightened in reaction, damp and ready for him.

Why had she never felt this way about another man?

His hand cupped her bottom and raised her up. In a move as natural as breathing, Sasha’s legs wrapped around his
waist, wishing she could unzip him so he could drive inside her.

Trey growled with the contact as though he couldn’t believe what they were doing. She locked her legs tighter and rubbed against the thick bulge from his hard shaft.

She smiled, happier than she’d been in forever. “Trey, I want—” A force jerked her backward.

Her muddled mind fought past the sensuous fog. What the dev il was happening? Another yank broke the kiss.

“Something’s got me,” she blurted out. Her eyes met Trey’s. The fury rocking through his gaze took her breath.

He lunged for her and wrapped an arm around her waist, drawing her back to his chest in an iron grip. Feet planted wide, Trey shoved his other arm up, palm out.

Wind lashed the park, tearing at her hair. Sasha followed Trey’s gaze to see what he stared at with murder in his eyes.

Standing high above them on one end of the Park Drive Bridge overpass was the silhouetted shape of a man. Red lightning bolts sparked everywhere, highlighting the trees towering above each side of him and outlining his body, which was well over six and a half feet tall.

This guy was larger than Trey and just as deadly looking. His shoulder-length hair and long jacket whipped back and forth in the rogue wind that had come out of nowhere. The rest of his body remained rigid as a statue, one arm extended with a rock that glowed with multicolors in his open palm.

That couldn’t be Ekkbar. Trey’s description of the spindly magician had matched Rowan’s from her dreams.

The crazy guy held the stone high and called out, “She is mine, Belador. Owed for a blood debt.”

A stronger force wrenched her body hard. She shrieked and clutched Trey, terrified of losing her grip. How was he holding them back against a magician’s power? Trey’s massive build vibrated with strain.

With no time to question what was going on, Sasha searched for a way to help. Birds fluttered between the trees on each side of their attacker, back lit by the red aura. Sasha concentrated and started chanting, “Hearken elements, thy power I seek . . .” Her voice blurred with the loud roar of the wind.

A sharp crack rent the air. Then another.

She stared in horror as two trees crashed down, barely missing the strange guy.

The magnetic pull disengaged.

“Hold on.” Trey yanked her tight then raced away.

Sasha clung to him, her heart banging her ribs. She opened her eyes to see if the lunatic was pursuing them, but no human could have followed at the speed Trey was traveling. Before she took three breaths, he’d shoved her inside the Bronco, cranked the engine, and tore away from the parking spot.

Sasha didn’t loosen her death grip on the door until they’d passed the Carter Center, shocked as she studied the profile of a man she’d thought she knew at one time. But the feral look in his eyes tonight was one as foreign to her as watching him battle an unworldly being.

“Um, Trey,” she started carefully. “Want to talk?” Did he think he could just drive her home after
that
and not explain?

His neck muscles pulsed, pumped as tight as his fingers gripping the steering wheel. “Yeah, I do.”

She held her breath, wondering how she could possibly believe any explanation for what just happened. And maybe he’d been so caught up in the metaphysical battle he hadn’t noticed the trees falling.

“Sasha, what exactly
are
you and why is a cursed Hindu warrior trying to take you from me?”

Trey ground his molars then eased up before they turned into powder. What the hell had happened back in Piedmont Park? The stoplight he barreled the Bronco toward changed to amber. He shoved an annoyed glare at the swinging lamp that switched right back to green before he reached the empty intersection and spun the truck left. Adrenaline surged so hard through his tight body he could wrench the steering wheel off the column.

He took a breath and glanced at Sasha.

She stared openmouthed at him in a stupor then recovered to yell, “
Me
? What are
you
?”

Touché. His fury subsided. He’d been so shocked at her dropping two trees he’d overlooked exposing his own abilities.

But he could not share much about Beladors outside his own kind and only to protect the tribe. The one exception was telling his mate, which Sasha would never be. Aside from the telepathy issue, he’d still never risk linking her life
to his, a condition of taking a mate. And mating to anyone with powers was a major no-no that was rarely allowed.

Trey wiped a hand over his face, buying a minute to formulate an answer then went with a stock line that VIPER’s PR department doled out for government bureaucrats.

“I’m trained to deal with . . .
unusual
situations. That’s why I can’t talk about what I do. Our agency’s identity and operation are tightly protected secrets.” Not bad. That was a reasonable answer without giving up anything significant.

“If you think I’m going to accept a blanket statement written by someone who deals with damage control for your troops, you’re crazy.”

“Sasha, I can’t—”

“Don’t you Sasha me! I just watched you battle something from another world. What was
he
? And what did he mean about being owed for past blood debts?”

Trey swung the Bronco onto her street, parked along the curb several car lengths from her house, and cut the engine. Tension battled for space in the sudden silence. He turned to her, expecting a woman close to hysteria.

Sasha had swung around to face him and leaned back against the door, arms crossed with a you-better-have-answers look in her eyes. Forever his tough girl.

“He’s a Hindu warrior who lived eight hundred years ago,” Trey answered. “I’m wondering why he’s here and thinking he must have come in Ekkbar’s place. As for the blood debt, I wouldn’t want to speculate.” He knew the story, but preferred to wait until he contacted Brina, who led the Belador warriors and answered to the Celtic goddess Macha. Bottom line—his Belador ancestors had murdered families of the Kujoo in an attempt to enslave the race, forcing future generations to make amends for past sins. How the hell was he going to keep Sasha safe from this demon and not draw the Beladors into a war?

“Wait, you
know
who Ekkbar is?” Sasha asked.

Trey leaned an elbow on the door panel and supported his forehead with his fingers. “Yeah, and you do, too. Time to start explaining, but first tell me how you dropped two trees.”

“I didn’t hit him,” she protested and shrugged sheepishly. “I was
trying
to send the birds down to break his focus so we could get away.” She stared off in thought. “Must have used the wrong inflection. But I had the words right. Or maybe I—”

“Sasha, what—are—you?” he repeated.

She sagged against the door. Her arms relaxed. One hand lifted to her hair, twirling a length round and round a finger. She answered in a soft voice. “I’m a . . . witch.”

He wanted to laugh it off as a joke, didn’t want to believe she’d kept
that
from him all this time. The embarrassed glance she sent him said she’d been serious. She’d never told him.

Who am I to quibble
? He’d never told her about being a Belador. “Since when?” he asked.

“My whole life. My sister and I are tenth-generation witches. My twin brother, Tarq, is a warlock.” She dropped her hand to her lap, tapping her fingers on one another.

“What about your parents? What are they?”

“Just plain dysfunctional.” A wry grin touched her lips. “They aren’t our biological parents. Rowan tried to tell me they weren’t when I was a child, but I wouldn’t believe her. When she moved in with me, I finally understood that she was a witch . . . and I was, too. Together, we found out our adoptive parents had inherited us from some distant cousin, but the records are vague. The house was given to our adoptive parents through a legal network that’s been impossible to break through. That’s why I started researching ancestries—trying to uncover mine—but my parents covered their tracks well.”

“So you never realized you were a witch?” he said, still amazed at her admission.

“I should have since my ear drove me crazy sometimes.”

“What do you mean?”

“After Rowan convinced me about being a witch, she explained that our ear burns as a signal when an unknown witch is nearby. The stronger the sensation, the stronger the witch.”

“Why did trees come down instead of the birds?” he asked.

Her lips drew up to one side in a chagrined expression and she sighed. “Rowan is better than I am, but I’m learning.”

Trey lost his smile, reality just sinking in. “So you don’t have
control
of your powers?” She could have dropped a building on the two of them while his mind was lost to everything except wanting her. Naked and hot.

“Don’t look at me that way. I’m not dangerous, just a half-bubble off sometimes,” she groused. “Back to the original topic. What do you know about Ekkbar?”

“Uh-uh. You were looking for him first. Why?”

Her smooth brow puckered in thought. “How did you know I was looking for him first?”

Damn. He’d screwed up. “I just know.”

“That will so not work right now.”

Might as well tell her. He’d have to at some point if they were going to catch this guy. “I had your phones tapped and heard you telling your sister you were going to find Ekkbar.”

“You
what
?” Sasha’s jaw dropped. She jumped out of the truck. Trey was right behind, trying to catch her. Leaves blasted away from the sidewalk, taking refuge in the gutter.

“Sasha, wait a minute.”

She rushed up the steps to her porch, shouting, “You
tapped
my phones? I know exactly what you are—a snoop. Go away.”

He snagged her an arm’s length from the door and wrapped her up from behind, her back to his front. She struggled, elbows digging into his side. “Stop it and let me explain.”

“There’s no explanation for spying on me, you bat dropping.”

“Bat dropping?” He started laughing. “You don’t boil lizard tongues and eyeballs in a big cauldron out back, do you?”

That was the wrong thing to say. She jabbed him with a hard elbow, banging his ribs.

Trey lifted her off the floor until she quit kicking. “I’m sorry for tapping your phones, but I saw you leave the cemetery alone at night a couple days ago. I was worried about you.”

“Why would it matter to you after nine years?” she snarled.

Trey lost his smile. He didn’t want to tell her about all the other times, but he owed her more than a lame reason.

He dropped his lips close to her ear. “Because I care.”

She stilled. Her heart pounded under his fingers.

The porch light blinked on and the front door opened. Rowan stood before them in a flowing bloodred house gown and robe.

Trey spoke on his cell phone and paced across Sasha’s living room while keeping an eye on her and Rowan, both curled up on the sofa. Rowan looked more exhausted than possessed, but Trey kept close watch of her in case she changed.

“Give me Findley,” Trey said, asking for his VIPER field contact in Virginia. If the rest of that bunch escaped, every supernatural asset at VIPER, be it Belador or not, would have to fight the Kujoo army. Until then, one warrior did not warrant a team assignment from VIPER. The coalition of
unusual beings functioned as a paranormal intelligence and defense force. Agents were deployed whenever a supernatural threat against the United States and other countries committed to peace arose, but Trey could handle Vyan with backup.

What a mess this close to November second.

When Findley came on the line, Trey explained the problem in general terms.

“Why can’t you get a Belador, McCree?” Findley said.

“Nobody available,” Trey lied. He could call in an army of Beladors, but felt certain that would play into the Hindu warrior’s hand to put his whole tribe at risk. Trey’s agreement with VIPER did not supersede his oath as a Belador. He wouldn’t trust a covert agency full of supernatural beings with the fact that his tribe could be destroyed by this Hindu race.