Powerful Moves [L.U.S.T.] (Siren Publishing Classic) (12 page)

“I said I couldn’t move more than myself through the realms. I can teleport from place to place within a realm and take a passenger along.
When
I can fucking teleport,” he added through gritted teeth.

Elena winced and chewed on her bottom lip. “Do you ever consider that we rely on our powers too much? I mean, just because we can do something doesn’t mean we have to do it all the time.”

He shot her a bland you’ve-got-to-be-kidding look and returned to staring out the window.

Elena frowned and tried again. “I know what you’re feeling. A few years ago my vision went wonky. I couldn’t see clearly two inches in front of my nose, let alone two feet in the pitch dark.”

“Did you try wearing glasses?”

Elena’s chiding look landed on the back of his head since he didn’t bother to look away from the window. “I didn’t see you strap on some kind of invisibility belt or rocket-propelled backpack when you realized your teleportation powers are on the blink.”

“I don’t care if someone sees me, and I’m not trying to fly. That seems to be Cedric’s thing.”

“Touchy. Touchy.” Elena bit back a grin. “At least you didn’t kiss a tree this time.” But the exertion he expelled in his attempt to teleport had knocked him on his sexy ass. She swallowed a laugh when he sent her a sidelong, narrow-eyed look.

“I’m glad you find this whole thing funny.”

“I don’t. Really, I don’t.” If anything, she found it disconcerting. She wondered if he’d considered that something in the Earth realm could be affecting his powers, causing them to short out, become inoperative. What if that something could actually cause him harm? Though she didn’t ask, she made a mental vow to keep a close watch on him for any signs of disorientation or worse.

“Your other powers are working, right?”

That got her another noncommittal look. This time, his gaze landed on her neck and did a slow glide down her torso that felt like a physical caress. She fought the urge to squirm as sparks of arousal tingled just below the surface of her flesh. Her nipples leapt to hardened points, pushing at her blouse as if seeking escape to get to him. Her pulse kicked and her belly did a low flip as desire speared through her center. Jumping jellybeans, he could have her teetering on the edge of full-blown, spewing orgasm with looks like that.

“Would you please stop that? I’m trying to drive.” She clenched her teeth and struggled to keep her breathing shallow to fight off the flames igniting in her core.

“Vision is working just fine,” he said thickly. “As is the augmented hearing.”

Confusion helped to tamp down the urge to yank him closer and sink her teeth into the strong line of his jaw. “Augmented hearing? You mean you can amplify sounds?” She knew others who could do the same, so it didn’t surprise her much. She just hadn’t known he possessed that ability, too.

“I can hear a pin drop,” he said matter-of-factly. His gaze dropped to her neck and she fought not to gulp, not to move. “I can even hear that moan bubbling in your pretty throat. The one you keep swallowing every time I look at your breasts.”

“How can you hear a sound I’m not making?” she snapped. None of the others she knew with amplified hearing could do anything that strong.

“You’re making it, muirnin.” Sex and charm reverberated around her, stroking her as surely as his hands would if he touched her. “You’re just keeping it smothered inside that lovely throat of yours.”

“What else can you do?” Besides making her want to pull to the side of the road, throw the car in park, and go down on his cock simply because of the smooth glide of his voice, the electric pulse of his gazes, the anticipation of his touch.

“Teleport.” He scowled and focused his attention straight ahead. “Usually.”

“Cedric will track Le Mort until we can get there. We won’t lose him.” They couldn’t afford to lose him. A vampire as potentially dangerous as Regulus Le Mort loose in the party city could have grave consequences.

“You know something you aren’t saying.” Tavius sounded accusing.

Elena’s temper sparked. “You know a lot you aren’t sharing.” Even after asking him point-blank about his abilities, she knew he was still hiding something.

“I’ve told you all I know about Le Mort. Now that you know who he really is, that he’s the one who made Michael, I’m betting that tied a lot of loose ends together for you.”

“The only thing I know now that I didn’t know last night is the true level of danger we’re up against. Few vampires have a heart like Michael. Most are pure evil. That’s why they are hunted and killed, because they hunt and they kill without thought to humanity or remorse for the lives they take. Everything I know of Le Mort, the stories I’ve heard, tells me he’s one of the worst.”

“Put that together with what he’s stolen from Terra, the plans he’s brought from my realm…” He shook his head. He didn’t need to complete the sentence. Elena already knew. Le Mort could reap destruction and bloodshed on a global scale.

“I thought you said Cedric couldn’t get a sense of him through the crowd on the streets in the French Quarter.”

Elena sighed. Maybe she shouldn’t have relayed word-for-word Cedric’s earlier call to Tavius. “He can’t. He’s picking up on all kinds of interferences.”

“It’ll be daylight before we get there at this rate. He’ll go underground. He won’t risk being vulnerable to attacks.” Tavius raked a frustrated hand through his hair. “He’s got to have a contact, someone helping him here in this realm like Lerak helped him in Atnalta. He’s moving about too quickly, too freely to be working alone. He might be from this realm, but it’s not the same as when he left it.”

“Nowhere close,” Elena agreed. “From what I know of the past, what Michael and Gideon have told me, which hasn’t been much, all of Le Mort’s followers were slain when he was believed to have been buried for all eternity.”

“That doesn’t mean he didn’t find others somehow. He’s had centuries. Who knows how many of those years he’s been able to communicate through the realms.”

If that were true, the vampire would have a guard, someone to watch over him in the daylight. “We’ll be ready for him when he rises at sundown.” Elena took a deep breath, let it out slow. “Look, I know this is irritating. At least we know where he is. Cedric found him a lot faster than even I thought he would. He’s an amazing tracker.” And Cedric’s powers of flight would ensure he kept the vampire’s whereabouts close even if he momentarily lost sight of him.

Tavius scowled at her. He opened his mouth, but the question he asked threw her for a loop. “Tell me about your father.”

Elena’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. She shut off her peripheral vision, centering her view on the seemingly endless interstate out the windshield. “There’s nothing to tell.”

“Is he is New Orleans?”

“I don’t know. Michael and Gideon kept tabs on him for years. Then about two years ago he dropped under the radar.”

“How did he get the name The Whisperer?”

“You hear rumors, whispers, about his existence and the powerful people he controls. He doesn’t have any powers of his own to speak of, but those in his cartel do.”

“He’s metaphysically powerless? Then your talents came from your mother?”

Elena shrugged. “That’s always been my guess. I can’t say for certain since I never knew her.” She didn’t even know her name. Douglas Cabot managed to bury all evidence of his relationship with Elena’s mother so completely it was as if he never knew the woman at all. Elena stood as the only proof he had ever encountered the woman.

“People know he’s dangerous,” Elena said of her father when the compassion in Tavius’s gaze became too much for her to bear. “Every agency across the country is after him, but no one can catch him. He’s the source of a lot of terrorist activity, a transmitter. He’s The Whisperer.”

“What will LUST do if they catch him?”

Tavius was watching her now, his gaze both scrutinizing and empathetic. She hated being looked at that way, didn’t want his pity.

She leveled a cursory look at Tavius, making sure he saw the callousness and determination she felt toward her father and the act of bringing him down. “LUST will do exactly what should have been done long ago. Eliminate him.”

Gideon watched Michael pace the plush white carpet of the office like a caged animal. He understood the torment ripping through his brother, felt the mirroring need to be anywhere but inside these four walls tonight.

“We should be the ones going after him.” Michael stated exactly what Gideon felt and precisely what he knew they should
not
be doing.

“We are where we need to be.” Gideon leaned against the desk, ankles and arms crossed, and ignored the beast pacing inside him in step with Michael. If he allowed the wolf its way, he’d shift in an instant and be through the streets of Atlanta, across the states of Alabama and Mississippi, and planting all fours on the partying streets of New Orleans in a flash.

“I killed him once.”

“Not before he killed you,” Gideon reminded as flashbacks of that night so many centuries ago played through his mind like a strobe of images on a television screen. The blood, the pain, the bodies, the fear, Michael changed forever to live in death and despair without the one he lost.

Gideon shook off the memories. “We wait. I’m making the call this time, and I say we leave it to Cedric, Tavius, and Elena for now. I don’t know why Le Mort hasn’t come after you again. Maybe he thinks you’re dead as we’ve thought him dead all these years. If he’s moving about then he knows we’ve slain all his followers. He has no one left. But if you get near him, the bond between you will alert him to your presence.”

Michael slid him a look. “You know how I hate to be reminded of that.”

Gideon shrugged. “It is what it is. He made you what you are just as Ely made me. I’m not crazy about my beastly roots any more than you are, but there’s little we can do about it.”

“And Tavius,” Michael prodded. “You seem pretty crazy about him.”

Gideon grinned. “Not me, dear brother. Our Elena is crazy about that man.”

“Something has already transpired between them, something that runs deeper than the physical. I could not get a full sense of it. His shields are strong, and I did not want to intrude on Elena’s trust.”

“Cedric got a good sense of it. He’ll play daddy for you in your absence. Not to worry.”

“It is my job to worry.”

“Yes, but is it Elena going after Le Mort without us there that concerns you or the attraction you know that is between her and Zolan?”

“It is both.”

“I’ve said it many times before, and I’ll say it again. Elena can take care of herself.”

“Yes, Gideon, I am aware of this fact.” Michael shook his head as he resumed his pacing once more. “But it is whether or not she can take care of her heart that remains to be proven.”

* * * *

Tavius felt as if he lost a part of his soul. The ache in his head, his heart, and his loins muddled his concentration and pissed him off. Add to that the striking blonde with the amazing scent and sultry voice he couldn’t get out of his mind, and formulating a plan to catch the vampire he’d driven—
freaking driven, not teleported
—to New Orleans to find became next to impossible.

He couldn’t teleport. He couldn’t plant suggestions, at least not in Elena’s mind with or without being supremely aroused. He couldn’t think, at least not about anything useful.

“You’re in a hell of a mess, Zolan.”

“The question is how do you plan to get out of it?”

Tavius shot a glance over his shoulder at Cedric’s softly spoken question. The man slouched in one of the hotel room chairs. Moments before, he’d been sound asleep in one of the double beds.

“You move like a cat,” Tavius muttered and turned back to the window. Sunlight streamed through the midday clouds casting an almost heavenly glow over the city of New Orleans.

“I always wished I could shift into one. I thought it would be pretty cool.” He clucked his tongue and paused. “You’ve got a lot of thoughts bouncing in that head of yours. A lot of anger and irritation, too. So much I can’t get a grip on any single vibe.”

“Good, maybe you’ll get the fuck out of my head then.” He didn’t need Cedric figuring out that he thought his powers might be diminishing one by freaking one.

Since he hadn’t attempted to teleport until the call came from Cedric last night when he found Le Mort in New Orleans, Tavius couldn’t say for sure when he lost that particular ability. He wondered if it went before or after his evocative mind play.

Maybe he hadn’t exactly lost that particular power. Since he’d yet to fully experience sex in this realm, he couldn’t say for sure. He only knew he hadn’t managed the smallest suggestion since his arrival on Earth.

Because of Elena’s natural ability to block him, as he originally thought? He’d tried and failed a number of times with her, drew on the power he felt within him with the intent of using it, gave the ability the necessary push, and hit a brick wall in her mind. Now he wondered if he’d been wrong. Could the ability have left him along with his powers of teleportation?

“I could make you a deal. Keep your thoughts about Elena as pure as a nun and I won’t pry anymore.”