BAD BOY ROMANCE: DIESEL: Contemporary Bad Boy Biker MC Romance (Box Set) (New Adult Sports Romance Short Stories Boxset) (28 page)

At a different time in his life Claude would have been offended by her words.  He did many powerful and incredible things, but there was the other side of Voudon that wasn’t so incredible.  A man had to make a living!  But at the end of the day a man was all he was.  Sometimes it was necessary to take a few measly fist clenched dollars from some crying female.  Sometimes it was necessary to chant and shake a feathered rattle over a heaving oiled chest; knowing the whole time that crying woman’s loved one was going to die anyway.  He shook the thoughts out of his head.        

“You mean the blood of a vampire?”

“I do.”

Claude didn’t like talk of vampire’s.  The undead and the shifters had a war a few years back and the undead had cleared the city of all but a handful of shifters.  In Claude’s desperate opinion he wished there hadn’t been a winner at all.  He wished they were all gone from his city.

He set the vial back down carefully, raising his dark brown eyes.  “What are you really, Angela?”

She laughed, once again airy and magical.  “I’m whatever I need to be at the moment.”  She moved from behind the counter and stood before Claude.  With the heels she had on, she was almost eye to eye with him. 

“Tell me why the stone is so dangerous.”  He whispered.

“If a mark is left on human skin by it, the human touched becomes something else.”  She held up a finger to stop the onslaught of words ready to pour from his open mouth.  “But, there must be potential there, blood or mind already tainted with the paranormal; otherwise, the person touched just goes mad.”

Claude licked his lips.  The greedy glint in his eyes unmistakable.  “Joseph already has a small following.”

“Based on lies and half-truths.  I’m shocked you would be so eager to attach yourself to him.”

“You talk about potential; well he…”

“Has none.”  She said sharply.  “Unlike the girl who’s with the shifter.”

Again the greed.  “What kind?”

“If I’m right, she could be the most powerful witch this city has seen in a century.”

“More powerful than you?”

Angela smiled slowly, sending a chill through Claude’s already aching bones.  “I am much more than just a witch.”

Sinclair’s eyes stung and she yawned again.  They had watched from the shadows to see if Joseph and his woman would exit the hole in the wall business they had followed him into for over two hours.  Niall crossed back over to her side of the street, with a frown marring his features. 

“He had to have gone out the back, Sinclair.  Let’s just go back to the hotel.”

“Whatever.”  Sinclair mumbled.  Her feet ached and she had a small head ache threatening at the base of her skull.  Bourbon Street was still a flutter of activity, but it had lost some of the allure for her. 

They walked in silence to the hotel and took the stairs at the slow pace to their room. 

“Do you want a drink from the machine?”

“Bottled water.  Two.”  Sinclair sat on the couch with a plop, opening her bag to look for her bottle of Tylenol. 

Niall sensed someone had been there again, but once more it was too faint of an imprint for him to identify.  He shrugged it off, but checked the bathroom and in every nook and cranny of the suite before going down for Sinclair’s water. 

He felt the same twinge at the base of his skull, like he was being watched, all the way down to the drink and ice machine, and all the way back up.  The weirdest part was the way it felt like someone was behind then beside him as he traveled back to the room. 

Niall could hear Sinclair talking as he pushed the door open.  She was on her cell phone and had her head in her hands. 

“No, I understand.”  She looked up at Niall with troubled eyes, and mouthed the word
Carla
.  “I’ll have to talk to Niall about…”  There was a long silence before Sinclair shook her head at empty air.  “No, Carla!  Don’t take him to one of those people!  Let me see what we can find out, ok?  Promise me you will just wait until you hear from us, ok?”  Sinclair nodded her head and visibly relaxed as she ended the call. 

“What was that all about?”

“Carla thinks the stone that marked the boy is Voodoo, and she wants to have a Shaman or priest or whatever fix him.” 

“I take it he’s worse?”

Sinclair leaned back against the couch.  “Yes.  He keeps chewing his fingers until they bleed and she said he left the house last night to go out and scream at the moon.”  Her bottle green eyes were completely round under raised eyebrows.  “The
moon
, Niall!”

Niall joined her on the couch.  “I hate this case.”

“It’s the first I’ve been involved in, and I hate it too.  This stuff is scary, Niall.”

“It is.”  He ran a finger along the edge of her face.  He wished they were still out on Bourbon Street, feeling the buzz, while only halfheartedly looking for Joseph Overman.  His appearance was fortuitous, but completely a coincidence.  The way Sinclair had become completely carefree and happy was a sight to see.  He felt like she had been cheated of a nice evening.

Sinclair turned her head slightly.  She didn’t want to look at him directly.  The pull towards him was becoming harder to resist.  The way he casually took her hand while they were in public had nothing to do with her safety anymore.  She was smart enough to recognize that much at least.  She wasn’t sure what was happening between them, but it could no longer be ignored. 

“What do you want from me, Niall?”  The words lipped out softly while her eyes were trained to his hand playing with the edge of her t shirt. 

“I don’t want anything from you.” 

Sinclair risked a look to his face.  His dark features were placid.  She wished she could read minds.  Maybe if she concentrated hard enough she could.  She closed her eyes and exhaled slowly, attempting to empty her mind as best she could.  Sound was the first to go.  Her immediate surroundings became a vacuum.  Touch was the next.  She no longer felt Niall touching her, nor his presence beside her.  She was weightless, and it was wonderful. 

Sinclair felt her mind unravel like a flower opening its petals.  A whisper, barely there, touched her inner mind.

Beautiful
.

She fought the urge to recoil, allowing the open petal feeling to come again.

She could be mine
.

Sinclair’s eyes flew open.  Niall was staring at her with an odd expression.  He ran his tongue over his lips and exhaled in the same fashion as she had only moments earlier. 

“What just happened, Sinclair?”

“I…I don’t really know.”

“What were you thinking?”

She blushed and tried to lower her eyes, but Niall forced her head back up. 

“Tell me.”

“I was thinking how I wished I could read minds…so I tried.”

“What did you hear?”

Sinclair wanted to forget the whole thing.  It was probably a figment of her imagination anyway.  Niall’s thumb and forefinger tightened on her chin. 

“Tell me.”

“I heard the word ‘beautiful’, and then I heard ‘she could be mine’.”

Niall let go of her chin and sat back, his face incredulous. 
She read my mind! 
Niall leaned in to her quickly, forcing her backwards on the little couch.  Both of his hands cupped the sides of her face and he kissed her the way a man kisses a woman when he’s claiming her.  He was tired of games.  He was tired of being alone.  He wanted Sinclair.  Not just for her looks, or because she was there in the moment.  He was
choosing
her.   He was approaching a time in his life when it was imperative that he have a mate, and Sinclair was the end of the line for him. 

Sinclair’s mind spun, and she thought that perhaps her spent buzz from earlier was making an impromptu return.  Niall loosened her t shirt and ran a hand under the fabric, tracing the outline of one nipple through the lacy bra.  Her body responded and the nipple became rock hard.  Niall moaned quietly. 

Sinclair didn’t want to think this through.  Thinking was dangerous.  This was an opportunity to be loved by a man, even if it was temporary, and she was going to take it.  She grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled it over the top of his head, revealing cut sinewy muscle.  He was truly a beautiful man.  She allowed her fingertips to touch the ridges of his taut stomach. 

Niall smiled down at her and pulled her up by her wrists. 

“Your turn.”  He said and began pulling her shirt up.  A slight breeze blew the thin drapes inward at the open French doors.  Niall’s head turned sharply.  The smell of decay had entered the room.  He sensed the unseen presences again.  He was sure there was more than one. 

“What’s wrong?”  Sinclair breathed, tugging at the waistband of his jeans.  She turned her head to try and see what he was looking at.  Her eyes scanned the open French doors and did a double take to the drapes.  A man was standing behind each flimsy floor length curtain.  They flanked the doors like sentinels.  She scrambled from under Niall and stood, her face completely white. 

“What is it?”  Niall looked from her to the doors, a frantic desperate feeling clawing its way up his esophagus. 

The men seemed to be made of smoke.  One lifted a dark arm and grinned as he laid a finger over his smoke lips to indicate for her to be quiet.  The other closed one empty eye in a grotesque wink. 

Sinclair’s scream was the exit music for their fast departure. 

Angela waited patiently for her pet wraiths to return.  It had been a risky experiment, but a necessary one.  She pushed the hood back from her cowl as they approached.  The dark alley where she waited had been touched with her own special blend of glamour.  Anyone passing by would see an empty alley with overflowing trash at the other end.  No one would bother stepping in for a quick romantic interlude or for any other reason; she had ensured it. 

They breezed into the alleyway and stopped just short of her, both bowed formally causing a trail of smoke like substance to swirl upwards.  They weren’t actually made of smoke.  Rather it was some type of ectoplasmic material that gave them substance as they roamed the earth doing her bidding.  At the moment, there wasn’t any real facial features on them.  It took time and energy for them to replicate what they once looked like.  

“Well?”

The only one who could speak opened his mouth.  The sound was thin and nasally.  It entered Angela’s mind more than entered her ears.

She can see us.  The shifter cannot.  But he senses us
.

Angela smiled with satisfaction.  “I knew she was special.  The fact that the shifter can sense you bodes well for him.  Perhaps I will allow him to live.”

Angela turned and motioned for her pets to follow, the hood of the cowl returning to the crown of her head.

Sinclair hadn’t completely unpacked anything from her suitcase, but she threw her cosmetics and toiletries in the bag haphazardly, not even checking screw on tops and lids.  Her movements were jerky and disjointed.  Niall watched her helplessly, an arm partially extended towards her. 

“Sinclair…”

“
What
?”  She demanded whirling on him.  “Don’t give me that lame bullshit again about how everything is going to be alright, or about how there are things in this world I don’t understand!” 

“I…”  He halted his original attempt and clamped his mouth shut.  There was nothing to say but those things.

“After everything we have seen here, you think I don’t already know there are things in this world I don’t understand?”  Two tiny bars of wrapped soap, complimentary of the hotel, entered her bag like tiny missiles.  “But
nothing
is going to be
alright
in
this
situation!”  Hair had escaped from her pony tail and raged around her face as she moved. 

Niall crossed to her and grabbed her face, forcing her to still.  He stared into her eyes, forgetting the situation as he sank into the green depths.  The admittance to himself that he wanted her, wanted to mate her, had solidified the thought.  It was now a reality in his mind.  That, for a shifter, made it a reality period. 

“Sinclair…”  He whispered.  “It will be alright if we’re in it together.”

She stilled and stared back at him.  She felt something let go in her chest, and her mind bent towards him.  She was suddenly hyper aware of everything about him.  The way he had miniscule silky black hairs that ran the length of his jawline.  The way his eyes weren’t perfectly round, but had a slight upturn giving them a slightly almond shape.  The way his breath was always sweet to her nostrils, but tainted slightly by a watery odor.  She pulled her teeth along her bottom lip slowly. 

“What are you saying?”

“I don’t want to say anything.  Let me show you.” 

Niall let go of her and killed the light.  He swept his arm over the edge of the bed, knocking her bag to the floor, its contents spilling in a tight circle around it.  Niall took her by the hand and led her to the bed, pushing her down gently.