Soul-Mate (Immortal Love 1) (25 page)

“So Eric is the prince?” I asked, putting two and two together. Shane nodded and then kissed my shoulder and held me tighter. I moaned, because he was all aroused against my stomach.

I burst out laughing as he teased, “Make up sex?” in my ear, then bit my earlobe slowly.

Suddenly I opened my eyes, checking my urges as I realized something. “Are you stupid? You picked a fight with a pureblood vampire!” I broke the hug to stare at him. I was mad now.

“I had a good reason to pick a fight,” he mumbled, surprised by my reaction. Then his face opened in a smile, and his playful attitude surfaced again. “Eric is one of my best friends. He would never seriously hurt me. Besides, we are all good now. You don’t need to worry.”

“But you’re all bruised, and you smell like blood, your blood. You
bled
! And you are probably all sore and hurt,” I said, making my point by poking my finger in his bruises. He moaned with pain, and I frowned in apprehension.

“He’s also in bad shape,” he said, defending himself but seeming to try and make me feel better. I was worried about
him
, not some vampire prince I had never met.

“Vampires heal faster,” I reminded him, annoyed and I held up my arm and bit my own wrist. As if it was the most natural thing to do, I put my wrist to his mouth for him to drink my blood. He was surprised by my action, but then he narrowed his eyes, surrendering to my blood. Moments later, he had healed completely. The side effects of my blood inside him soon came to the surface… if we could call increasing lust a side effect.

I just had time to step back before his eyes shifted to amber and he smirked at me, showing his canines. “Cute little vampire mate,” he whispered with a husky voice, coming closer to me and sweeping me off my feet in a tight hug as he gave me a hungry kiss.

I just had time to growl, annoyed, against his lips. The nerve of his wolf calling me
little
!
I knew I was cute, but little?
I could so kick his ass! Who was he calling
little
?

I could feel the smile on his lips as he tried to open my mouth with his tongue. He knew he had offended me. “Come on, honey. Calling you little is not an insult. We both like you just like that, so we can wrap our arms around you and carry you everywhere,” he whispered against my lips, wrapping my legs around his waist and tightening his fingers on my hips. I kissed him back because he had said the most adorable thing.

My back was against the shower wall, and I could feel his stiff body against mine. I was trapped there, but I was not looking for a way out. I was happily trapped. I gave in to his mouth, letting him do whatever he wanted. He was hungry and savage. I was still smiling about his excuse for calling me little. It was sort of cute.

Jason was an idiot if he thought that Shane wasn’t in love with me.
If what we felt for one another was not love, then what the hell was it?
Shane couldn’t be more perfect for me than he already was.

I still needed to know what Shane and the prince had fought about. I had the weird feeling that it was because of me. However, I could obsess about that later and ask Shane what was going on. I had other stuff to be obsessive about at that moment.

My hand reached for the shower tap and water poured down on us. He still needed a shower, and I was offering myself as his human sponge. He didn’t complain. He kept kissing me, using one of his hands to open his pants and strip away any clothes still stopping our bodies from melting together.

***

Finally I had a chance to talk to Shane about my cousin’s sudden arrival in town. We went to Sam’s Bar, even though Shane was reluctant to leaving the house that night. He seemed anxious, more distracted and pensive than usual. Or maybe I was projecting on him.
I
definitely felt nervous and anxious about the conversation I needed to have with him. It was ten o’clock and Jason hadn’t yet showed his face. I was beyond impatient by then. I had called him several times, but his phone was off. I was disappointed with him. However, his reluctance to show up didn’t change the fact that I was going to tell Shane that night all about me.

“I don’t think your cousin is coming,” Shane said after getting up to grab a beer.

“I think you are right.”

“We should go back home.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to play pool with the guys?” I asked, surprised—that was third time he had suggested that we go home.

“You are nervous and worried that Jason may do something stupid. I’m… nervous, too. I want to talk to you about Eric and about a lot of other things that concern us. This isn’t the best place to talk. Besides, if Jason does come here, he can always call you, and we will tell him how to meet us at home.”

“His phone may have run out of battery.”

“He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself. Let’s just go home.”

“Yes, I guess we should be in a place more private to talk,” I agreed, getting up and holding his hand. He grinned and kissed my hand. “What?”

“You are the most amazing thing in the world,” he said, caressing my hand against his cheek. Then, suddenly, he pulled me near his chest, placing his arms around my waist. I leaned back in his arms, watching his face with pondering eyes. “Relax, baby. I can open us a bottle of wine when we get home, and we can sit on the balcony, watching the stars, and cuddle.”

“I would love that,” I whispered, finding his idea extremely agreeable.

“We could listen to that new CD you bought.”

“Or we could talk.”

“Yes, we can talk. Anna… if he’s mad, let him just cool down. He will eventually accept that you’ve moved on with your life.”

“He doesn’t believe that I’m your soul-mate.”

“It doesn’t matter what he believes.”

I was going to agree with him but then there was a commotion in the bar. Brad, one of Shane’s officers, came in.

“Sheriff Shane, we really need you at the police station,” he said, adrenaline making his vampire form surface. He immediately put his hand over his mouth, looking around in search of humans who might have witnessed his transformation. Luckily for him, there were no outsiders around; his rushed entrance, however, had drawn attention to him.

“What’s happening?” Shane asked, tensing at the urgency in Brad’s voice.

“The police station was robbed,” he explained.

“
What
?”

People started whispering because it was a really strange event.

“No one noticed until now, when they went into your office to use your computer. You know how the one in the lobby is always breaking down?”

“Yes, just tell me what they robbed,” Shane demanded, impatient.

“We are not sure,” Brad said, scratching his head. “You need to get back there and see for yourself.”

“Have you seen the surveillance tapes?”

“Sergeant Martinez told me to call you as soon as we found out. You weren’t answering your phone, Sheriff.”

Shane looked for his phone in his pockets. “I left it in the car. Okay, Officer Brad. I’ll be right there. Let me just tell my mate to go home.”

“I’m not going home. I’m going with you,” I said, sensing his panic when Brad talked about his office being robbed. There was something important to Shane inside that office.
I’m going with you,
I clarified inside his mind, so he wouldn’t find an excuse to leave me behind.

“Let’s just go then,” Shane said, taking my hand tightly, like the end of the world was coming.

During the entire ride to town, Shane’s heart was beating fast; he was breathing heavily and not answering any of my questions. He just wanted to get to the police station and understand what had been taken then try to find clues about who could be the perpetrator. But one thing was for sure: whatever he had in his office that could have been stolen was really important.

Minutes later, we rushed inside his office, and Shane saw his vault opened and the files, like Brad had said, missing. I actually thought his heart stopped when he realized what had been taken. There was a lot of money there and plenty of other files and random papers, but it seemed that whoever went there was interested just in those particular files. Shane had actually become pale when he realized that they were gone. He didn’t tell me what was in the files. It seemed to be something confidential, maybe about the royal family. I didn’t have a clue. It was definitely important to Shane, though, because I had never seen him so anxious.

He paced around his office for a while, thinking about what he was going to do. He had previously spent his time yelling at his deputies for letting something like that happen and then only realizing it much later. I stood quietly, not interfering in the way he treated his men. He knew what he was doing, and they should be more attentive. I would have done the same to my men, if they had let something be stolen under their noses.

Then I began to look around his office, trying to figure out how the perpetrator had entered the office, stolen what he’d wanted, and then gotten away. Let’s face it, the place was crawling with werewolves and vampires with super hearing and super strength. None of the men had noticed anyone or anything.

No one had a clue as to what time the files had been taken. Shane had left the police station when the prince arrived at school and then left to go to the woods. Therefore, the time between the robbery and the discovery of the event was long. To make things worse, the cameras had not picked up anything, at least the ones that were working. Someone had put them on some kind of loop, making it look like no one had been there by repeating the same image. Whoever did this break-in was a professional.

Not finding any clues, Shane grew impatient. He was also staring at me more, touching and holding me against him as if I might vanish at any second. Then, after holding my face, kissing my forehead, and telling me for the hundredth time that everything was going to be okay, a light seemed to pop on inside his head. It seemed like he had a possible suspect, so he dragged me out of the police station, put me inside his car, and drove to some unknown location. We took a road I had never taken before. We went deep inside the woods, passing a few houses until we were surrounded by nothing but trees.

Moments later, we parked the car in front of a big, old house. It was all lit up and noisy, as though someone was having a party. I could hear laughter, loud music, and a mixed smell of humans, werewolves, and vampires inside. It reminded me of those fraternity parties back in college, where everybody got drunk and crazy. I had no idea that those types of parties happened around here, in such a calm, conservative town.

Shane had the unfortunate idea to ask me to stay in the car; my reply was to open the door and get out. He was out of his mind if he thought I was going to let him go inside without me. There were a lot of vampires and werewolves there. They could hurt him if he tried to accuse someone inside and take him away. I didn’t even know where we were or who owned that house, but I knew a party like that was not a good place to enter alone.

I followed him closely as we entered the house. I studied the place, watching the people inside. There were many whom I didn’t know at all, but others were familiar. Most of them were a part of the community and attended the same practices as I did. Some were even part of the school staff and the town’s elite force. I was beginning to realize that this wild party house belonged to James.

Shane didn’t stop to greet anyone, and he seemed to know his way around the house. He climbed the stairs and followed a long corridor where I could see what appeared to be several bedrooms. A couple of them were closed, and by the sounds coming through, I didn’t have to guess what was happening on the other side.

At the end of the corridor, we paused in front of a white wood door, but Shane didn’t knock or anything, he just pushed it open and entered, growling, in search of his victim.

It didn’t take long for Shane to check out the room and see what I saw: James having fun with two young women who were offering their bodies and blood to him. I almost covered my eyes so I didn’t have to witness what was going on in the bedroom. It was really nauseating. I was glad he was not entirely naked, or I would have nightmares about that.

Shane jumped on James and took him by the neck, dragging him out of the bed and holding him against the wall. James looked like he was about to shit himself, and Shane was growling like he was going to bite his head off. His wolf was not kidding. He was
pissed
!

The girls started to scream hysterically, warning others that something was wrong. Soon enough, two big gorilla-like vampires came our way, probably to protect James from Shane. Meanwhile, the girls grabbed their few clothes and ran out of the room.

Quickly analyzing the door behind me and the guys, I ran to them, using my fast movements to knock them out cold with little effort on my part, then closing the door and locking it. It seemed to be a normal wood door from the other side, but inside the room we noticed that it was iron-reinforced, constructed to be extremely hard to open or take down by supernatural beings. It would keep out unwanted guests for a while, until I could figure out why Shane was acting like this and why he was holding James by the neck.
They were friends, weren’t they? So why was he ready to kill him?

Shane noticed what I did and stared at me in his beast form for a moment. I shrugged my shoulders, not knowing what to say or what was going on, but I had his back anytime. Then he brought his attention back to James, who was trying to get himself free from his grasp. He was trying to speak but not able to and was having difficulties breathing, too. I started to feel sorry for him.

“I told you to leave Annabel alone,” Shane growled, loosening his grip a bit so James could breathe. James inhaled deeply and looked at me as if he didn’t have any idea what Shane was talking about.

“I left her alone. What did she tell you?” he asked with difficulty.

“Don’t even dare looking at her,” he threatened, making James tremble and pale. “You were the only one to know about her, besides Eric. He didn’t say a thing to anyone. So why in the hell did you break into my office and steal the files?”