Skye's Trail (20 page)

Flesh of one father’s flesh.

Blood of the other father’s blood.

Bound together by Angelini magic.

Skye finally understood who and what she was.

If she’d been born male, she would have been able to shift to wolf form, just as any son that she gave birth to might be able to do. If she’d made her first kill under the direction of her family unit, then she’d wear the tattoo of a dedicated hunter—as her mother did, as the man she’d encountered at Big Daddy’s did, though she could not place him in her childhood memories.

Her thoughts shifted into the present, to Gian, her own vampire mate. She could feel his compulsion, his call, buried deep within her mind, tearing at the barriers that had always protected her.

There was no other choice but to involve him. She couldn’t return to the dark-magic house alone and there was no time to seek out the hunter she’d encountered at Big Daddy’s.

The occult priestess had to be destroyed before others like Brittany Armstrong were sacrificed. Judgment needed to be rendered on the newly made vampires. If not tonight, then later.

Skye paused as she neared Bangers, considered her options, then skirted through the car-jammed parking lot in search of a second, more private entrance. A small measure of relief washed through her when she found it, when she saw that the bartender from the other night stood outside, smoking a cigarette.

She moved toward Sarge, glad that she hadn’t been forced to use the front door. If he was surprised by her nakedness, at the knife she held at her side, he didn’t show it.

Sarge dropped his cigarette to the asphalt and stubbed it out with the toe of his boot as he stripped off his shirt and handed it to her.

“Thanks,” Skye said.

“The shirt’s all I can do to help you. Word’s out to call if you show up here.”

Skye stilled. “Whose word?”

Sarge touched a spot on his neck. “Same guy who’s been around before.”

“Kyle?”

The bartender nodded.

Skye relaxed. “Call him.”

Sarge nodded. “Come on in, there’s an office here that doesn’t get used much. You can wait in there.”

* * * * *

As he watched Gian pace back and forth, Kyle stroked his hand along Haley’s smooth flesh and rejoiced in his choice of a companion. She’d only been with him a short time, but he knew a satisfaction that hadn’t been present in centuries. Until Haley, he’d never been tempted to bind a human to him, to face the decisions that such a selection demanded.

Kyle caressed her silky hair, unable to contemplate that she might not choose to spend eternity with him—that one day she would turn away from his blood, aging and dying as a human would—or worse, that she would elect to become vampire and not survive the change.

There was an innate purity in Haley, a goodness that shone like a candle in a mineshaft. She hadn’t sought him out, hadn’t sought his kind out. She’d merely wandered into Fangs one night with some friends from work.

He’d seen her and kept her.

Kyle traced the companion medallion and felt its power against his fingertips. The blood-red stone and engraved symbols combined to amplify his will, to make it impossible for Haley to resist his compulsion, though in truth, he’d never used it for that purpose, never needed to. Instead the medallion served other purposes.

It let others know that he had claimed her. And more importantly, it magnified the safeguards he’d constructed in her mind. She could not kill him as he slept, nor could she betray him—intentionally or otherwise—by leading someone else to his sleeping place.

Kyle feared for Gian. He wished now that he’d tried harder to dissuade his friend from wanting Skye as a companion. But the damage was already done. Now there was no choice but for Gian to try and bind her to him.

The cell phone in Kyle’s pocket rang and Haley tensed under his hand. He whispered a kiss across her forehead as he reached for the phone. It amused him to carry it, to embrace this modern technology. He and Gian and Nahir had been fledgling vampires when messages where sent by runners or by word of mouth as peddlers traveled from one small cluster of human settlement to another.

“This is Kyle.”

“She’s here at Bangers. Waiting in the backroom for you.”

Kyle recognized the bartender’s voice. “This is Sarge?”

“Yeah.”

Kyle could feel Gian’s impatient presence standing over him. “She is unharmed?”

“She’s got some vicious-looking scratches…and some bites. Neck, chest, inner thigh. No clothes. Gave her my shirt but didn’t ask her any questions. Like I said, she’s here waiting for you.”

“Your assistance is appreciated.” Kyle closed the small cell phone and said, “She’s at Bangers.”

* * * * *

Gian could smell the stink of black magic around her, but he didn’t hesitate to reach for Skye and pull her to him. His fangs ached with the need to pierce through her skin and take her blood, his cock strained to escape his pants and plunge into her slick channel, even as wild rage rushed through him at the damage that had been done to her.

He tightened his grip on her, using one hand to tilt her face upward. “You are safe now,” he said before lowering his mouth to hers in a kiss that both punished and reassured.

Skye’s heart lightened. In all the years she’d hunted, there had never been anyone to hold her afterward, to care for her. She met his kiss and pressed into his body, wanting to feel him inside her, to celebrate the fact that she still lived. She was wet, aching by the time their lips separated.

Kyle and Nahir came into the office, closing the door behind them. In the close confines of the small space, Skye could feel the combined power, the combined menace, radiating off them.

When she would have pulled away, instinctively preparing to defend herself, Gian tightened his grip on her. “Where have you been?” he asked.

She’d had little time to think about what she would say, how much knowledge it was safe to reveal. She had only a child’s vague awareness of the supernatural laws that governed those not human.

Vampires existed. The Angelini hunted them down and killed them—sometimes.

“I found Amy Weldon—or rather, her ‘handler’ found me,” she said, her mind flitting back to the visit with Patrice, to Patrice’s anguished sob at the sight of the Death card. It was too much of a coincidence that she’d been taken as soon as she got back to Las Vegas. Somehow Patrice had managed to warn Amy that she was being hunted.

“Where?” Kyle demanded, moving forward and earning a hissed warning from Gian.

“In a house not far from here.” There’d been no time to look for an address, but she could find the house again. “There’s a trailer park close by. I’ll have to backtrack.” There was no question that they would go with her.

“How many were at the house?” Gian asked.

One vampire was dead, but Skye didn’t know if the man she’d gutted could be healed. “Four, maybe five.”

“Let’s go,” Gian said, moving her toward the doorway.

She allowed herself to be herded to a dark SUV. Kyle took the driver’s seat with Nahir next to him. Gian and Skye got in the back.

“Do you know where the trailer park is?” she asked.

“We know this area well,” Kyle answered, and she wondered if this was a well-used hunting ground.

When they reached the broken and torn fence that ran along the back of the trailer park, she said, “I’ll need to get out and track from here.”

Gian gathered Skye and settled her on his lap with her back to his chest. “There’s an easier way, a faster way,” he said, his voice a seductive whisper that stroked her core even as his fingers caressed the bite on her thigh.

Skye arched, unable to stop her body from answering his call. Blood rushed to her clit, to the lips of her sex. Gian’s fingers moved upward, just barely grazing her now throbbing flesh. Her buttocks clenched in reaction, her legs widened, offering his fingers a place in her wet slit. Gian whispered, “Close your eyes. Picture what you saw as you ran. Allow yourself to be there again.”

Her first instinct was to resist, to fight the compulsion in his voice, but Gian didn’t allow her time to build her defenses. His fingers grasped and pumped her clit, sending an arching wave of fire through her body. His hand alternated between her breasts, rubbing her tight, hard nipples, making them burn for his mouth. “Let yourself go,” he whispered before his lips and tongue covered the bite on her neck. She was only vaguely aware of his fangs sinking into her neck as she dropped into his compulsion.

This time she ran not out of fear, but out of ecstasy. She was
other
, and yet different than she’d ever been before. Everything around her was richer, fuller, her senses wide open, embracing the feel of the air against her sensitive skin.

The smell of lust, of heat, surrounded her. Her labia were swollen, slick, ready. Her body throbbed in time to her footsteps. She felt like a wolf leading its mate on a chase that would end in mating.

Gian was with her, she could sense his presence as she ran, somehow knew that he was communicating what she saw to the others, but she didn’t look behind her. He would catch her, and when he did, he would mount her. She leaned forward, pushing herself faster to her destination, aware now that she was panting, that her body was begging for release.

Just as the house she sought came into sight, Gian plunged into her wet channel. In part of her mind she knew that he pumped in and out of her with his fingers, but it didn’t lessen the sensation, didn’t lessen the pleasure spiraling through her, pushing her to crest and flood his hand with her orgasm.

She came back to herself, panting, her body damp, wet where her juices had soaked into Gian’s pants, coating his rigid cock with her essence.

He was rock-hard underneath her, holding himself completely still as though he feared any movement would be unbearable. Need began to build in Skye’s body again, but she forced it down, forced her thoughts away from what had just happened, from the presence of the men in the front seat.

Kyle drove until he found a place where the car couldn’t be seen from the house where she’d been held. Without a word, he and Nahir slipped out of the car and disappeared into the night.

Gian fought the urge to rip his pants open and mount her. There was too much at stake, too much that had to be done.

He fought the desire, but when her buttocks pressed down on his erection as she reached for the door, intending to follow Kyle and Nahir, his control snapped. He pulled her from the car and pressed her chest to the hood, spreading her legs and freeing his erection in a blur of motion.

The smell of her arousal swamped him, filling his mind with only one thought, to cover her body with his, to fuck her, claim her, to celebrate that he hadn’t lost her.

He rammed into her, knowing by her scent, by the blood-connection that deepened each time he bit her, that she wanted this as much as he did.

She moved against him, her hungry moans and writhing body inflaming him further, pushing him to pound in and out of her with fierce hard strokes. He could feel her body opening, coaxing him to move deeper, closer to the hidden recess that allowed an Angelini female to lock her mate’s cock into her body. He was only barely able to avoid the temptation of her, only barely able to wrest some measure of control back.

He covered her body completely with his, grasping her hands in his, as he once again sunk his fangs into her neck, this time sharing the orgasm with her.