SEDUCTIVE SUPERNATURALS: 12 Tales of Shapeshifters, Vampires & Sexy Spirits (110 page)

If so, what would kill a shapeshifter?

I had cut him before, so a dagger might work, and I realized I somehow still had the weapon in my hand.

“So,” Etienne said from his spot down the way as the sirens grew louder. “The choice is yours, my love. Will you come with me to duel willingly somewhere else without the law to stop us? Or do you wish to die here right now?”

“Tell me something first.” I needed to get a few last breaths in before I fought him, because I wasn’t about to go anywhere willingly—not unless it was to Philippe. “Did you love Michelle as much as you say you love me?”

As he paused, I knew he didn’t know who Michelle was, and I bared my teeth at him. “She’s the woman you killed last night, you bloody bitch.”

High talk, coming from someone who sported a piece of wood through her arm. But I had enough spitfire in me to ready my dagger, planning to strike at his black heart.

But just as I prepared to use the rest of my strength to spring at Etienne, he suddenly stumbled backward, gagging, someone’s hand over his mouth and another wrapped round his neck.

What?

He fell to his knees, and when I saw Philippe behind him, gagging and choking him, my body burned, and not in the way it had when the Meratoliages had punished me. It burned now with joy at seeing him.

“How did you…?” I started to ask.

“Extra silver bullets with me…” he said as Etienne swallowed hard, crying out under Philippe’s hand. “I shoved one in his mouth…silver is bad for most supernaturals… and the Tarot said—”

“That the bullets would work on him.” Success for us! “I think he’s a shapeshifter.”

“Then let’s stop his shape from shifting again. Get over here and finish this with the dagger while the bullet he has in him is still paralyzing him.”

But I was bleeding again. Still, I managed to get to my knees, crawling over. The sirens were upon us, and time was wasting. Yet just as I thought we were going to shut down the paralyzed shapeshifter…

Philippe tensed, throwing back his head, and I knew what was happening, even if he hadn’t intended it.

A touch reading.

Was Philippe unable to stop one with a supernatural creature?

He groaned in misery as Etienne started gagging again.

What if he chundered out that bullet and recovered?

Philippe slumped from the force of his reading and, at the same time, Etienne jerked, spitting out that bullet. He broke away from Philippe, “dematerializing,” or, as I knew now, camouflaged by the grass and speeding off to who knew where.

I fisted the dirt. We’d nearly
had
him.

Philippe had recovered from his vision, darting over to me. “Goddammit, you’re hurt. God
dam
mit.”

Outside the cemetery walls, a car screeched to a halt, the siren blaring, but I could have sworn I heard a scream that sounded like Etienne’s over everything else.

I had enough energy to crawl to the corner of the gate, where a policeman had tumbled from his car, his firearm out as he aimed beneath his front tires. “Don’t move!” he said, over and over. Beneath his wheels, a body dressed in a long blue coat, white trousers, and high boots lay.

As I watched in horror, Etienne’s body disappeared in a slow fade.

Dead?
I wondered, pulling back from the gate.
Or still very much alive?

Shadows Till Sunrise: Chapter Eight

It had taken every gram of energy I had left to make it out of the cemetery, my arm still throbbing with the large splinter impaling it. Yet since I had no time to be a victim and have my poor little injury babied, I paid no attention to the pain, holding back a groan and climbing over the gates on the opposite side of the lot while all the police who were gathering were distracted by the car accident and the mystery of Etienne’s disappearing body. People from the neighborhood, dressed in robes and tracksuits, were even walking past us toward the scene, and Philippe and I made the most of the confusion, avoiding them as best we could as we rushed to his bike one block away.

Was it psychic intuition when he spotted his revolver near the outside wall and snagged it at a jog? I thought so, but it was pure, heart-fluttering manliness when he swooped me into his arms after he saw me stumble while crossing the street.

“I can manage,” I whispered through my sore throat as I wrapped my good arm round his shoulder. It felt as if welts and bruises had formed on the inside of me as well as the outside.

“I’m sure you could do just fine on your own,” he said. “But we’re in a hurry, darlin’. Let’s forget the stroll.” Was he trying to soothe me by acting like a smartarse, as if all was fine and we could afford some cheekiness?

I was too knackered to sass him. He was right at any rate—we didn’t want to tangle with the law back there. Who knew what they might make of my magic boots and me? Would they call in the U.S. government and put me in a holding tank, just like in the movies?

Sinking against his hard chest, I allowed his strong arms to carry me. I even closed my eyes until he had secured me on the bike and we zoomed onto the streets. As I slumped against his back, my boots pounded into me, as if they were working extra hard to heal my arm wound, neutralizing the pain and bleeding. But by the time we made it to Philippe’s double-shotgun home near City Park and drove his bike into a small alley that separated his house from the next, I was nearly falling off my seat.

He scooped me up again, and I murmured, “Stop treating me like a gimp.”

“Relax, tough girl. Just let me take care of you.”

There was something about the way he said this, as if he truly wanted to coddle me, and I piped down. Honestly, I rather did like the attention, now that I had to admit it.

So I allowed him to carry me toward his porch, which was fenced in by iron railing. Woozily, I rested my head on his shoulder and took in the night-shaded details of his home, stretched long from front to back, fresh white paint on the wood siding and dark-blue steps adding a splash of color. There was another unit attached to one side, housing whoever lived wall-to-wall with Philippe.

As we climbed the porch steps, he noticed where I was looking. “An old couple rents out the other part of the house now. They’re old friends, moved in after
maman
passed. She was a nurse back in the day, and I wonder if I should wake her up to see your arm.”

“It’s merely a flesh wound.”

“And the Mississippi is merely a creek.”

Was he more worried about me than I had realized? I laughed, but that only made my wound scream, so I stopped.

He set me on my feet as he unlocked the door and, as I leaned against him, I peered back at the sky, which had grown dark and rumbly with clouds. How many hours away from sunrise?

How much more time with Philippe did I have left?

Strange that this was first and foremost on my mind, but I had grown attached. Deeply, quickly, achingly attached…

He slipped an arm round my back, holding me against him and dragging me into his home.

I saw through my increasing haze that the house was a narrow rectangle with rooms one behind the other, doors at each end. The floor was composed of beautiful wood planks with fine graining, and I got a brilliantly close gander at it as I sank to my knees, utterly spent. My boots seemed to be sinking right along with me as I closed my eyes, my mind whirring into…

Blackness, complete and all-encompassing. That was all I remembered until I felt Philippe’s hand stroking the hair away from my forehead as he murmured to me.

“That’s right,
cher
, it’s all fine and good. Wake up now.”

How much time had passed?

I made a small sound that told him I was conscious, but I didn’t want him to stop touching me, so I relaxed for a moment more, feeling cushions beneath me, reveling in the warmth that rolled through me and settled in my chest. I wanted to hold on to every last moment before sunrise, and I rested my hand on his fingers.

He bent down to kiss my temple, and I sighed under the gentleness of his gesture. His lips…so soft…

Then I realized my arm wasn’t hurting anymore and, with a start, I saw that the shard of wood was gone and a vine had slithered up the side of my body, wrapped round the wound, covering it.

But the vine and my boots…They were withered, graying.

My heart twisted at the sacrifice they had clearly made to heal me.

“They’ve been diligent,” Philippe said quietly, still stroking my hair. We were on one of his sofas. “The second you collapsed, one of those suckers wiggled out of a boot and yanked that wood right out of you. Then it sucked to you like a leech.”

“Who knew,” I said, “that I had a mobile emergency room right on me?”

But, as the Tarot cards had said to Philippe earlier, there was a price to what we were doing, and I choked up at seeing how pale my vines had become. Throughout the night, I had come to learn that these boots were more than just a fashion accessory or my beauty picker-uppers—they were loyal sidekicks, living things, and to see them suffer for me…

“I need to ring Amari,” I said. Even my throat wasn’t sore anymore, due to the boots. “I have to ask her how to help them.”

“I called while you were out,
cher
. After the vines finish nursing you, she said for you to soak in the bathtub. They’re too busy concentrating on healing you now to heal themselves in the water.”

For a moment, I wondered why the vines couldn’t just replenish themselves with water instead of knocking me out everyday.

Philippe understood the direction of my thoughts. “Water isn’t nearly as powerful as your energy is. Water will be just the boost you’ll both need after this is all said and done, though, even if it’s a bubble bath. Amari said the boots will filter out the chemicals.” He shrugged. “It ain’t swamp water, but any will do right now. You can replenish the vines in the bayous fully when you get back to Amari’s—it’ll be like a spa day for them.”

“So my boots will not die tonight?”

“They’re here for good.”

I exhaled, and Philippe ran his fingertips over my cheek, then back up and through my hair. I nearly wilted under his caresses, and it was only then that I truly did relax, knowing that he had survived the night along with my best friends—my boots.

As he kept petting me, I allowed myself to finally look round the room. It said so much about him with its rustic charms: a railroad-lantern chandelier, an end table that had once been a wine barrel, a cypress-door bench brushed with artfully faded paint.

Philippe stilled his hand on me. “I helped
maman
renovate after Katrina.”

“Is this the furniture you make?”

He nodded, holding back a smile. Pride stretched at the edges of his mouth, and it might have been the most endearing thing I had ever seen.

“It’s all beautiful,” I said. “You’re very talented.”

“Thank you,
cher
.”

He twirled my hair round his finger, back to flirting again. But unlike earlier in the night, there was a tenderness about his lightness, as if he was respectful of my injury and didn’t want to rile me.

But I was riled. It never took much from Philippe Angier, and as desire swamped me, I looked into his eyes, letting my yearning shine in my gaze.

His eyes brightened, from cloudy gray to sparkly silver. Was he going to kiss me again? Oh, please, yes…

The vine against my arm shifted, and he cleared his throat. Well, shite. It seemed we weren’t as alone as we should have been for a kiss.

I closed my eyes again, and I felt him move away from the sofa.

“Where’re you going?” I asked, fully awake, wishing he would stay. But what was new?

“To shower off. I’ve got crypt crud on me, and I can’t stand it anymore. I’m also hungry as hell. I’ve got the makings of a muffaletta or two in the fridge if you want something.”

Oh, I knew what a muffaletta was—a pile of meats, olive spread, and hot peppers, all on a delicious roll. “Sounds smashing.”

But I wasn’t merely thinking about the grub—the notion of Philippe in a shower made me go “mmm,” as well.

As he headed out, the oddest, most annoyingly out-of-place thing suddenly occurred to me. “I left the flamethrower in that cemetery.”

He stopped, raising an eyebrow at me. “So you’ll make another.”

True, and I still had the dagger. I had slipped it into my bag before leaving the cemetery. But did one less weapon make me feel a bit more vulnerable?

“He might still be out there,” I said, because
that
was what truly disturbed me at the moment, not my injured state, not one less weapon.

My wilted vine nestled against my arm, swiveling as if shaking its head at me. And we had been
so
relaxed.

Philippe rested his hands on his hips. “You don’t think Etienne died after being hit by that cop car? Because I was hoping that’s how shapeshifters bit it—by simply disappearing.”

“Aren’t you the optimist.”

He shrugged, sinking to an ottoman nearby, leaning his arms on his thighs and planting a hand in his hair. It was loose, as if he had been running his fingers through it quite a bit because of worrying about me.

I turned onto my good side, facing him, wishing he were near me again. “When are you going to tell me what you read on Etienne’s skin, Philippe? Because I noticed you seized up while you were choking him. You must have learned something.”

“I didn’t mean to read him. I wasn’t putting my energies toward it, but yeah, it happened, probably because of his supernatural power. I didn’t want to bring it up until you felt better.”

“And…?”

“Well, let’s just say the Tarot cards were right.”

“About what?” That the silver bullets had worked, even if the one Philippe had shoved in Etienne’s mouth didn’t go deep enough to kill him? That we had been successful in the end, even if the price had been my injury and my boots’ health?

But the Tarot hadn’t been the only predictor of news. St. John Ortega had even nailed it when he had warned that Etienne would “get to” me.

Philippe’s eyes had gone cloudy, haunted once again. “The Tarot said that Etienne wasn’t the monster we were expecting, and it was right. So goddamned right.”