Sanibel Sizzle - Vampire Werewolf Menage (11 page)

“Forgive me if I don’t kiss you goodbye,” she said indignantly, yet tried to soften him by wiping a fake tear from her lashes. 

“I understand.”  

She misted away
.   

Ciaran’s relief from her absence didn’t
last.  His black leather boots crushed the grass, giving under his nearly three
hundred-pound
weight. Leading back where he didn’t want to go, he faced his Da, his Ma,
all siblings, and his unclaimed mate: Helene.   Rotting in their graves for many lifetimes, yet centuries didn’t erase memories.  
I watched you die.
  His Da fought for what was
right and tried
in vain to protect the females for
naught.
  A new day, a different century, yet he stepped into the middle of the same bloody battle – a series of them.  Winning them all, but nothing
changed, only
worsened. 

For every female
or bride
Habaline Shapeshifters stole from werewolves and
species vampires, Ciaran
felt
a r
emarkable shift in power
slip away from the Weres
as rogue
Habalines bred anew.

Everglades  FL

“
W
here’s my sister?”
  Bren
Walker
spun on Steve
Palazzo
. 
Head
lowered, eyes flipped up.  “You’re dead,” he whispered, stepping closer.  A predator after his intended, he added, “I’ll kill you slowly, skinning you
piece by piece.  Your brother is
first; he knew you were unfit to exist.  Maestru or not, I’ll feed his parts to Captiva’s gators.  They’re always starving, none too picky.”  Still creeping closer, barely audible, he added, “I’ll make you watch.”

Jayce slid his phone back in his pocket, circling the two, waiting to intervene, bu
t not wanting to.  Steve
was the proverbial dead man walking.  “Bren,” Jayce started and stopped, Bren’s warning growl slid over the Everglades.  Smooth as whiskey over broken ice and powerful enough to burn everything it touched.  He wanted the kill, and Jayce couldn’t blame him
in the least
, since he wanted the very same thing.  He tried again, thinking Bren wasn’t stupid enough to argue with the Alpha in front of pack members, but then again, he’d never had his sister abducted.  “Steve is on the endangered list, no doubt,” he reasoned, “but he needs to keep breathing until we find Rebecca.  Remember that.  He drank from her; he tracks her.” 
Plus the fact that Tatum and Renee pleaded for the asshole’s life.
 

J
ayce wasn’t heartless.  Well… Tatum’s persuasion tactics
could rival the military
.  Regardless, he saw his mate’s point.  Steve was no angel, yet he wasn’t quite guilt
y
.  The ghost of Renee’s fiancé p
ossessed Steve
.  And Steve
tried to kill
Renee
to rid his body of his eternal hitchhiker
.
In delusional hopes,
Steve thought
the spirit would leave him and chase after her
s
. 

Jayce had witnessed possessed creatures and humans over the years
.  Still, it was
a rarity.
Sometimes murdered humans fought back and jumped in
their attacker’s body
, never levitating to the light. 
As an Alpha,
Jayce could s
ympathize with that type of justification
.  Why not make a boatload of trouble for the being that took your earthly life away?  Problem was, most desperate souls didn’t realize they were better o
ff forgetting and moving on.
  And as a result of all Steve’s chaos, he fooled Ciaran into thinking he captured Renee Shirley and threw Rebecca Walker under the uncrowned Alpha’s bus. 

So things were going pretty shitty right now. 

Bren had Steve up against a tree.  After hearing Steve’s co
llarbone snap, Jayce pulled his co-mate
off.  “Enough, we have to track her, not waste time.” 

“Go home, Jayce.”  Bren misted to the swamp’s edge, sniffing everything, coming up with nothing. 

“What are you talking about, my man?  You know we aren’t leaving without
her.”  Jayce
misted next to him, baring his canines at an enormous and too curious
rattler that Bren didn’t notice
.  No, the
venom couldn’t kill an immortal
, but the weeks of
headaches were a bitch.
Jayce watched the snake slither under a rock and pulled his attention back to Bren.  “You’re not watching your back, Bren.”

“I heard the repti
le.”  Bren studied the horizon
, and then looked over his shoulder.  “Go to Tatum;
guard her
.”

“She’s protected.  Plans changed.  Your sister is my responsibility as well as yours.  This was a personal message to me.  Steve filled me in while you
were tracking in Miami
.  It’s a blood vendetta from Jody and Mike’s clan led by none other than Ciaran.
  His traveling circus includes Habaline mixed bloods.
”  Jayce braced his feet shoulder-width apart, thin
king he’
d have to stop Bren from attacking Steve again.  To his surprise, he didn’t.  Bren stood perf
ectly still, a little too still
.  “Get to
Tatum.  I can’t worry about her
and my sister at the same time, there’s no room in my head for that.”

“Rock is with her.”

“Obviously, that’s not enough if we’re dealing with Ciaran
and Habaline mixed
bloods.”  Bren’s eyes were
firestorms
, blazing with knowledge of what’s
to come.  “All the available werewolves following R
ebecca’s scent aren’t picking up a direct trail
.  This could be a trap.”  He misted to Sanibel without another word.

Jayce followed, instinctively knowing his destination.

“Oh, my God,” Tatum yelped
, dropping her phone on the stairs, “a little warning next time.”

Bren disregarded
the phone, picked her up, and carried her to the lanai that centered the manse.  Putting her down, he pulled her back to his chest.  His large
tanned
hand cupped t
he underside of her jaw, persuading her to evaluate
her surroundings.  “Look around, Tatum.”  His voice
was hoarse, barely a whisper
.  “Learn to survey your peri
meters, use our blood bond
to pull from your
Were
side.  Somewhere inside you, find the
mist
.  Maybe it’s a color, sometimes a gray cloud, surface it, and bring it to your line of vision.”

“Bren, ease up.
” Jayce reached for her, pulling Bren’s hands a
way, rubbing the faint finger crescents
on her face.  “She’ll learn in time.”

“Something we don’t have.”

Tatum spun around
, wrapping
arms around Bren
’s muscled neck.  “You haven’t any news
.”

Grabbing her, he lifted Tatum around his waist.
  One arm crooked under her
bottom
and one
crushed her face against his shoulder
.  “No, love, she eludes me.  First, it was you, and then Renee, now my sister.   

“All because of me,” Tatum added
sadly
.  “It’s dominos, one after the other.  Beginning with Mike and Jody’s deaths,” she said, looking under her lashes at Jayce
, remembering everything he
explained e
arlier over the phone.  “Shouldn’t
there
be
prisons for these Weres? 
Or
is it always death?”

“Don’t dig into things you know nothing about.”

“How unfair is that, Jayce?  You brought me into this world,
your
world.  I can’t question anything you do?”

“It’s your world
,
too.  Always has been, whether I brought you in or not.  Fact is, according to Steve Palazzo, Habaline Shapeshifters are coming back through vampire breeding in
groves
.  They don’t need celestially given mates to procreate, since they can choose anyone of immortal descent – even
our
mixed bloods, and their shap
e
shifter side stays prominent with each generation.  That puts our species
on the edge of survival
.
”

He took a deep breath. “
So
questioning why I took out an insane bitch that tried to murder the queen o
f the North American Pack is point
less.  You will give birth to the next Alpha.  Everyone in the immortal realms knows that and so do you.
  If Habalines
want to take over, you become a bigger target than you already are.
  What a prize you’
d be for their breeding program
.
”

“If you’d handled things differently,
” she dared, “
maybe Rebecca would be here right now
.”

With an impassive smile,
Jayce studied his mates.
“I’ve l
et a lot slide
lately, Tatum, but that’s enough
.  That includes your temper, Bren
.
  Refocus your attitudes and we’ll all keep it together through this horrifying situation and everything else that’s bound to blow our way. We are one.
”

A length of silence stretched
before Tatum voiced the impossible.
“I want to hel
p.  Give me pictures of Rebecca.
I’ll go through Miami with Rock and question everyone I can.
We’ll work together as a family.
”

Growls came from both
sides, causing Rock to appear.  Looking around, scanning the perimeter,
confused
he
asked, “Where’s the threat?
”

“The threat is in Bren’s
arms,” Jayce answered, pointing
to his mate.  “She thinks your escorting her to Miami on a person
al mission to search for Rebecca
.”

Rock curled his lip, holding in a purely masculine laugh.  “She’s under control, Alpha.”

“Do you hear yourselves?  I can go to Miami if I want to,” she arg
ued
hotly
.

“Tatum, love, would you cause me added worry when I have to find my only sister
, not knowing if she’
s still alive
?”  Bren spoke against her temple.  “Would you n
ot stay where I
know you’re
safe?  Easily, Ciaran
could obtain you in an unprotected environment
such as open Miami.
” He sniffed his claiming mark. “
Maybe you’ve forgotten.   He
was after your sister, not mine.  What happened when Jody and Mike abducted you, I can’t go through that again,” he w
hispered hoarsely and shuddered.
“I just can’t.  The memories alo
ne, they haunt me every day, every single
night.  If I were to lose you, I wouldn’t survive.”

“Alright,” she soothed, “relax the best you can, Bren
.
” She pushed her lips against his chin. “
I want to
help,
and it’s the first thing I came up with,” she
explained
while
kissing the
stern
line of his
scratchy
jaw.  “
As it is,
I know some of what you’re feeling
.  When Renee was abducted, I thought I would split in two.
  Actually, that’s not the full impact, sin
ce words can’t begin to describe it.”

“
Exactly, we’re all
too
aware of how it feels.” Jayce stepped behind her,
slanting
in and wrapping the three with the Alpha’s static power, a soothing comfort for his mates. “
Let’s go, Bren.”

“Hold up,” Gage’s voice preceded his body
.

“You found her?”  Bren asked as Gage materialized
.

“No, but I have news.”  He stilled, glancing at Tatum, but not fully meeting her eyes.  “Lady Tatum, it’s always a pleasure no matter the circumstance.”

She slid off Bren.
Walking
over to Gage, she smiled warmly.
“I heard you were one of many directing the search for my sister.  Thank you.”  She wrapped her arms around his middle, pulling him in for a hug.  Growls started up all over again.  “Cut
it out,” she groaned.
“
Since when can I not
express
my gratitude?”