Master of Darkness (12 page)

“A drop or two.”

She looked horrified for a flash of a second. “That doesn't mean we're bonded, does it?”

It was good to know that she was as opposed to the idea of bonding as he was. At least that was something the Tribes and the hunters had in common. Okay, there was a part of his ego—or maybe it was Prime instinct—that believed, deep down, that bonding with him was something
this mortal should be eager for. Which was such a load of crap.

“Bonding can take years. What do they teach you about vampire and human sex at hunter school, anyway?”

She blushed and momentarily looked away. When she looked back, there was a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. “We're told not to, of course. You,” she reminded him, “are a monster.”

“I am,” he agreed.

“We are also told that temptation is inevitable, but must be resisted.”

He grinned smugly. “You seemed to have flunked that class.”

“I'll get back to resisting you later.”

He ran his hands over her back. She reacted by arching her back, and the movement caused his penis to grow hard, pressing tightly between their bodies. She shifted a little, arousing him more.

He let his breath out in a long whoosh. “Woman, are we going to start all over again?”

She grinned. “Feels like it.”

He rolled them over, putting her under him. “You are insatiable.”

“Isn't that supposed to be my line?”

She traced his lips with a fingertip, the touch
maddeningly seductive. Then she pulled his head to hers for a fierce, possessive kiss. All Laurent could do was lose himself again in the wanting. And in the having.

Eden had no idea what time it was. It felt like she'd been asleep for hours.

She was thoroughly rested, yet she didn't want to move. The bed was comfortable, and the warm, hard body wrapped around hers provided secure contentment she'd never felt before.

That she'd never felt this contented feeling with a man before disturbed her. But he wasn't a man—though he was very male.

She was going to have to get up soon. Physical necessity needed to be met. And she was going to have to get back to work. Eden sighed. Though she'd done it under protest, she had taken on the responsibility of running this op.

“You just didn't know how hard it was really going to be,” Wolf whispered in her ear.

“Are you reading my mind?”

“Body language.”

She suspected this wasn't quite true, but let it go. “I'm more of a computer geek than a commando. Though I shouldn't be admitting that to a big, bad Clan Prime.”

He gave a snort of laughter and kissed her
ear. “Being a commando isn't my day job, either, sweetie. You learn to fight when you have to,” he added. “And you're pretty good at it.”

She chose to take this as a compliment, because he probably did mean it that way. And it was good to know that he found her competent.

She rolled out of his grasp and off the bed. “I'm getting out of the hunter business when this is over,” she announced, and then left the room.

“Poor kid,” Laurent said when she was gone.

The fact that he really meant it scared him.
Claustrophobia
. He'd been in one place too long, with one woman, carrying out a disguise that admittedly carried a certain amount of temptation.

What he'd needed—what he'd always needed—was a life to call his own.

And that's where Eden really comes in. A means to an end
.

He got up and followed his means to an end to the bathroom, where the shower was running.

When he got in with her, he said, “No shower sex, I promise.”

“Too bad.” She pressed her back and buttocks
against him. Her skin was warm and slick, fragrant with jasmine soap.

He put his hands on her shoulders, moving her so that they weren't so tightly pressed together. He wasn't sure if the steam surrounding them was from the water, or coming off their skins. He took a deep breath.

“Showering together is simply more efficient. But I will scrub your back,” he added when she gave him a skeptical look over her shoulder.

He ended up washing her hair as well. And from the look of pleasure on her face as he massaged her scalp, that was almost as good as sex.

“Another cup?” Wolf asked.

“Sure.”

Eden was surprised he was asking for coffee, and that made her realize she was getting used to the sight of his drinking blood. Another way of letting her hunter's guard down.

She poured, and glanced at the clock on the microwave before putting down the carafe. It was nearly eleven in the morning. She was fairly certain that it was Monday. She was finally rested, and she hadn't realized just how badly she needed it until now.

“Living by night is not my thing. How can you stand it?” she asked the vampire.

He was leaning back against the kitchen counter, looking relaxed and refreshed in tight black trousers and T-shirt. His damp hair was tightly braided.

She remembered it hanging long and loose in a silver cloud around his face, and the ache for him knotted deep inside her. She'd been careful not to touch him since they'd stepped out of the shower and gone to separate rooms to dress.

Thinking about his hair reminded her of the comment he'd made about the eighties. He'd probably been hanging out at the Roxy while she was in grade school. She considered age differences, and how deceptive it was that vampires looked so young.

He smiled. “How do we stand living by night? It is our natural state, remember. Our children are raised in the dark, like mushrooms. Even the ones who use the daylight drugs can't take them until they're adults.”

That reminded her of the vampires they'd taken down—yesterday? Hell, she should have followed up on it hours ago.

“We've been distracted,” she told her partner. “Which was my fault, and I apo—”

“Not again,” he warned. He put his mug on the counter. “You have something you want to tell me?”

She nodded. “There were a pair of Manticore Primes having psychotic episodes yesterday morning down by—”

“Manticores?” He shook his head. “Justinian wouldn't allow his Primes to use drugs.”

His fierce certainty rattled Eden. “They
were
Manticores. We tested the one we caught—”

“Only one?” He looked disgusted.

“Let me finish. This Manticore was using Dawn.”

“How do you know he's a Manticore?”

“He told us. Actually, he threatened us with Justinian's ire at daring to hold a Prime, blah, blah, blah. But you can read his mind if you want to check for yourself.”

“No need. Nobody's going to claim to be one of Justinian's if he isn't. But I can't see Justinian letting his boys use Dawn. That would loosen his control of them.”

“Who says they asked permission?”

He opened his mouth to answer, then closed it after a moment. He looked bewildered, and bemused, then he shrugged. “That's just a weird concept for me.” He gave a mirthless chuckle. “Though I'm the last person who should be surprised by that.”

“Why?”

“Manticores by daylight, eh?”

His evasiveness left her wondering if he had some personal knowledge of Justinian. She recalled his waking nightmare words—
It was a game to make me scared, but I ran away
—with an awful suspicion that couldn't possibly be correct. Those had been the words of a terrified child, and the Clans were fiercely protective of their young.

“Up to no good, as Manticores usually are,” she answered, dismissing her suspicions.

“What did they do?”

“They didn't actually get around to attacking anyone,” she admitted, “but the one we caught was chasing a woman. Somehow I doubt he was trying to ask her for her phone number.”

“It's possible that using the drug had nothing to do with why they were acting out,” he suggested. “Maybe their weird behavior had nothing to do with the drug.”

“I really don't follow you, Wolf.”

“You asked how we can stand living by night—but if living in the dark is all you know from birth, adjusting to daylight has to be traumatic. Maybe what you hunters have been assuming is psychotic—because goodness knows, vampires are primed to turn violent at any moment—is actually a reaction to a new way of sensing the world.”

“It's still dangerous,” she pointed out. “That's why you Clans and Families supervise the transition, right?”

He didn't look happy at her reasoning, but grudgingly said, “Yeah. I suppose.”

“Suppose?” His diffidence made her angry. “Right. You don't
do
daylight. That's why we're stuck in here for the rest of the day.”

In reality, she was mad at herself for all the time she'd taken away from the job. The quirked eyebrow and half-smile he gave her told her that he was well aware of where her true annoyance lay.

“You can leave at any time, Faveau,” he reminded her.

“Yeah.” But the truth was, she didn't want to be away from him—which was bad for the op. And worse for her emotional well-being. “I should go check in with my people and find out the test results. Then pick up some groceries and stuff.”

These things could be done with a couple of phone calls. But it would be good for her to get away from Sid Wolf for a while.

He gestured toward the door. “You go to work, sweetheart.” The grin he gave her was totally mischievous, totally devastating. “I'll stay home and watch Spanish soap operas.”

Chapter Fourteen

J
oe Bleythin went up the walk to the rambling stucco house that held Bleythin Investigations with reluctance. He used to look forward to coming to work. To a job worth doing, and doing it with thoroughness and pride. He'd been honored to learn the business.

And, the pay was good.

They were private detectives, but they didn't take just any cases. No following cheating spouses for divorce cases—his elder twin brothers Harrison and Michael founded the business strictly as a missing-persons agency. As the family joke went, they had a “nose” for it.

Right now Joe was in the mood for chucking it all in and finding something less stressful to do with his time. Like chasing rabbits, maybe. Or going back to the Air Force.

He stepped up to the door and walked in, because he was the boss at the moment. The main room was large, containing three desks and a lot of other office paraphernalia. A picture window looked out on the desert landscaped lawn and busy street beyond. Doors led to two other offices, and a long hallway went to the private areas in the back of the building.

Two people were already in the room, and they looked at him as he entered—the male in mild surprise, the female in faint annoyance.

“What? Am I late?”

Joe would have checked his watch, had it not been stolen from the café bathroom the day before. At least his clothes were still there when he got back from the vampire chase. He'd learned never to take a wallet with him. He'd only lost about ten dollars in cash, and thieves never took the car key he carried.

All in all, yesterday morning had been pretty weird.

“Sid in yet?” he asked the annoyed office manager.

Cathy Carter bared her teeth at him in a snarl.

“Hey! What'd I do?”

“You're being insensitive,” Daniel Corbett said.

He was seated in the chair next to Sid's desk.
Typically, he had a cup of coffee in one hand and a book in the other. Daniel didn't technically work for the agency, but he was around so much, Joe figured they should either pay him a salary or start charging him rent. He was a cousin of Sid's, the result of crossbreeding between a vampire and a human; scarily brilliant and weirdly psychic, but otherwise a fairly normal mortal—for a geek.

A geek who was looking disapprovingly at Joe over the top of his glasses.

Then it occurred to Joe why Cathy was in such a foul mood. He'd been born a werewolf, so he didn't pay much attention to the phases of the moon. Cathy was one of the unfortunate victims of a werewolf gone bad; a bite from an attacker had brought her over to the wolf side. It took years for a human who'd been turned to get control over their morphing abilities, and the full moon played hell with their lives. Cathy was entering the time of month where she'd be spending four days locked up in the padded and soundproofed back room.

She hated that they had to get a temp in once a month to mess with her well-organized office.

“Sid's not in, and I have a lot to do,” she growled.

“Sorry. I'll leave you alone.”

“You do that.”

He carefully didn't show any annoyance at being even more short-staffed in the days ahead. It wasn't Cathy's fault some crazy bastard had taken a bite out of her, left her for dead, but turned her, instead. His brother Mike had found the bastard and made sure he never victimized another human. It was Mike who'd brought Cathy home.

And right now Mike was another missing member of the agency's staff. Not that Joe was going to complain about Michael Bleythin checking himself into rehab. He hadn't fallen off the wagon, but he had been having
urges
.

“And there's nothing meaner than a drunken werewolf,” Joe muttered as he settled behind his own desk.

“Don't talk bad about your brother,” Cathy called from across the room.

Blast and dang werewolf hearing! “It was a statement of fact,” he replied.

“He had to kill another feral,” Cathy said. “You know what that does to him.”

Mike could do no wrong in Cathy's eyes—but he was the only person who couldn't. If Joe were to complain about Harry's neglecting the family business to spend too much time with his new wife in Arizona, Cathy would agree with him.

She'd not only agree, but launch into a lecture on how it was not only a bad idea, but downright wrong for a werewolf to have married a human. Cathy was recently converted to the shapeshifter way of life, and in the way of new converts, she was somewhat fanatical about ancient tradition.