Tempting the Enemy (3 page)

Jorgensen’s oh-so-appealing remark interrupted their mutual stare, leading to a loud laugh that grated on Pale’s eardrums. It also reminded him there were others in the room, something the female seemed to remember as well, because she blinked suddenly and glanced around.

Her gaze returned to him, though, with a questioning squint as she looked him over again.

A chair wheeled backward with a squeak, which meant Jorgensen was on the move. A little older than Pale, a lot friendlier and apparently everything women found attractive, Jorgensen rarely had to work to grab a woman’s grateful attention, so Pale knew it wouldn’t take long for this Sibile to become equally captivated. He waited to be relieved. All he felt was a decidedly strong desire to tear out the other detective’s throat and lay it at her feet for a gift.

“Lady, you’re barking up the wrong tree. No one around here is even sure this guy’s human.” Jorgensen winked at Pale as he passed in front of him to get closer to their visitor.

Pale gave him the finger.

The other man stumbled, surprised, but he quickly turned from the gesture, regaining his composure in the blink of an eye. “He’s on the clock, which means you’re 16

Tempting the Enemy

not registering anywhere on his radar as anything other than animal, mineral or vegetable.”

The oversize blond man circled the desks, hand extended toward the Sibile. There were better reasons to hate a man than disliking his success rate with women, but in that moment, it was a good enough excuse. Damn Heat.

“On the other hand,” Jorgensen added, deepening his baritone, “
my
radar sees you just fine.”

The Sibile stared, taking Jorgensen’s measure as he came closer, pointedly ignoring his hand. Eventually, he got the clue and put his palm back in his pocket. Pale felt something in him thrill at the rejection. Not a good sign.

“I’m Detective Chris Jorgensen.” The introduction rang hollow without the oozing charm. “You must be our Sibile.”

Her gaze flickered with dislike, whether for the idiot or his casual reference to her race, Pale couldn’t be sure.

She edged away from him like a bad smell. “I’ve been instructed to report to Detective Palen Rysen.” Her gaze sought Pale again, this time from the corner of her eye.

A muscle ticked in Jorgensen’s jaw, but the man admitted defeat easily enough, with a casual sweep of his hand in Pale’s direction. “Looks like you’ve got your man then.”

Her hot eyes locked on Pale, her scent seeming to bloom around her in a burst, pulling at the leash he kept around himself with a near-vicious tug. If he didn’t know better, he’d even swear the whole room took on a fine red haze, spiking his need. Just like that, his defenses to the pheromone pull cracked.

Dee Tenorio

17

This had to be some kind of game the Order was pulling. A trap.

For a heartbeat, he couldn’t dredge up the ability to care.

She moved like silk in water. Smooth, rippling with possibilities. She’d be strong enough for him, he could tell. She wasn’t fragile, wouldn’t break. Those long legs were made for wrapping around his waist, holding on tight while he feasted.

The Instinct all but roared, pounding in his ears like a chant.
Take her.

His blood thickened, his body already hard and heavy with need. He could almost taste her, and his teeth ached to test her nubile flesh. The ways he would bend her, drive her to satisfaction, flashed in his mind.

Claim her,
it demanded without mercy, each thought textured with sensation until he almost swore he could feel her wrapped around him in every way a woman could.

The Instinct had no care for the pains he took in public to build his life or the people he protected with it.

For the vow he’d made long ago to never take a female’s choice from her
.
It saw a fresh young woman, ripe and ready to take his seed.

Make her
yours
.

He strained to keep his hands spread on his desk as she came closer, each step measured, each breath heightening his senses until they arrowed to a point set firmly on her. Then she stood there, in front of his desk, her amber irises taking in more than his expression. He could practically feel her tasting the air around him, scenting him for suitability.

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Tempting the Enemy

Choose
, he willed, not sure if he wanted to be found worthy or not. Sane thinking said no. But he wasn’t exactly sane right now, not by human standards and, many would say, not by Wolf. A strong male in his prime should be stalking
her
. Taking her and any challenger fool enough to interfere. Pale only sat in his chair, perfectly still, waiting to be judged.

A long second later, she put out her gloved hand carefully, purposefully. “Jade-Scarlet.” Her red lips parted to reveal even white teeth.

Except for the slightly lengthened ones, top and bottom, that he’d mistaken for slightly longer-than-usual incisors. Definitely not, he realized as her eyes turned sleepy. Inviting. Hungry.

Canines
.

Her voice softened until only he could hear. “In case you were wondering, you can classify me as…
animal
.”

Chapter Two

I hate Destiny.
No, that wasn’t it. She hated Jalla-Rouge’s
interpretation
of Destiny. Or maybe she just hated that Jalla never shared the
full
interpretation, which would come in handy at times like these.

Jade was tired, sore, irritable. The day had started off much like any other in the enclave. Birds tweeting in the trees. Sunlight slowly creeping into her dorm through the French doors that led to their small balcony. Waking fully to the sound of her best friend and dorm mate, Sage, already talking in her mind. Sage’s telepathy was of unimaginable strength and, unfortunately for Jade, at times completely inescapable.

Except this day Sage was scared. This day, the Tribunal had summoned Jade to their most sacred chambers.

Sage had been right to be afraid.

Even now, Jade could still feel the stings and aches from the “tests” she’d been put through, administered by the Magistrate herself. To make sure she was worthy of the assignment. Tests Jade still wasn’t entirely sure she’d passed. In fact, the only thing she did know for sure what that Magistrate Verda-Rouge had taken far too much pleasure in her duties.

With little more than a piece of paper and a pack she’d filled in a few minutes, she was ordered to begin the journey into Moonridge. Well, a paper, a pack and a few final instructions from her mentor.

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Tempting the Enemy

“Walk into the city without your robe,” Jalla said as they walked to the gates of the enclave together, her voice as serious as always. “When you enter, you must be a woman, not a scarlet.”

The three-mile walk from the enclave to town became nearly five, because the police station hadn’t exactly been built at the edge of city limits. The temperature dropped as Jade walked, so that her breath felt icy with each draw, but for some reason she was unable to make herself ignore the order that Jalla had given her.

She was a woman, all right. A woman who was cold and miserable and fed up beyond words. “Follow the pale light,” Jalla had said. As if everything hinged on finding it.

Unfortunately, knowing Jalla, everything did.

So Jade used her gift, opened herself to the colors she could see as clearly as one saw sunshine through the trees.

The signatures of hundreds of beings, some like stains, marred the walls in the station, the very air, one on top of the other, making her want to gasp and hold her breath at the same time, until she saw the beautiful, nearly solid streak of blue light, so subtle a shade it was nearly white. Like a psychic slap, it struck every other signature from her mind and there was no question of following it.

The vivid blue streak somehow flowed around her, threatening to touch her, leading her up stairs and through halls without requesting permission—something she couldn’t remember ever seeing a signature do. As if it were an entity all its own.

Which made no sense. Signatures couldn’t move on their own. Weren’t sentient. But this one seemed to be, Dee Tenorio

21

and intent on luring her in. The closer it wrapped around her, the more parts of her felt as though they were coming awake from a long drugged sleep.

With every step, her body warmed from the inside out. Her blood turned thick, sluggish. Hot. In her belly, low and deep, something changed. The sensation was curious at first. Like rubbing fingers coated in oil together. Then startlingly, it grew into an ache that throbbed in her core. By the time she reached the doors of the Violent Crimes Unit, every hair on her skin sizzled with awareness, and the throb stung. Her head pulsed.

And her power… She didn’t know what to do with it all.

It filled her, charged the air around her, flowed as if it were searching for something as well.

Desperate to clear her head, she closed her psychic eye, shutting out the signature that now blared too brightly. She felt tied in it, tangled by its strength and raw masculinity no matter how she tried to pull clear.

Not being able to see it only stopped the acceleration of the feeling. It didn’t go away. Neither did the insistent throbbing in her head. Not when she snapped at the crowd of men talking about her in such crude terms, or when the large blond man, his smile so practiced and assuming, presumed to attempt to touch her. Especially not when she was pointed to the detective she’d been ordered to find.

The one who’d been watching her so intently.

Actually, that was when it grew worse. The throb became her heartbeat, her headache blazed into a haze, and her body shivered while her belly clenched tight. All because she met those barely blue, ghostly light eyes and realized what he was.

Wolf
.

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Tempting the Enemy

Like lightning, her psychic eye opened on its own, and the aura of his signature almost blinded her. She stood in the tendrils of his color, wrapped in his emotional scent. It flooded her, stuttering her heartbeat and warming her blood like liquor after a rainstorm. Want. Need.

Hunger like she’d never known.

Part of her questioned what these feelings meant, what she was supposed to do with them, but another part, that newly awake part, reveled as if stroked by a firm hand. The hypersensitivity rang her senses more, but nothing made it through the yearning she felt in her belly.

She
needed
to touch him. Feel him, head to toe, skin to skin. To wrap herself around him until he was hers. Hers and no one else’s.

He watched her, expressionless behind the thick black beard that covered most of his face. His firm bottom lip made her mouth water but the intensity of his stare made her burn. Ebony hair fell in artless hanks, some right into his eyes, shrouding him in shadow. But she could still see him, a predator watching and waiting patiently for his prey to move closer. To come within reach.

Rational thought intruded for a second, wondering why she was so suddenly ready to devour him when, only seconds before, she’d been ready to claw him for daring to stare at her. The way she felt, the urge to run her teeth over him and mark him, were these his wants or her own?

His strange signature seemed to be melding their thoughts and feelings and she lost track, but recklessly, she didn’t care. She
wanted
. It felt so
good
to want.

She crossed the room to him, their gazes locked the entire time. The closer she came, the stronger the need.

Dee Tenorio

23

Images flickered in her mind, blue and midnight, impressions of her own body, twined with his. Her thighs open and clamping around surging hips, her head thrown back while he licked at her flesh. Bit.
Feasted
. Intense pleasure, satisfaction…and
heat
. Like fire everywhere, leaving her parched, making her shudder. That was when she knew for sure it couldn’t be her own desire.

She’d never
known
desire.

She stopped in front of his desk, taking in his steady gaze, his rigid control evident from the way he splayed his hands flat to the desk. Strong hands. Huge. Powerful.

Without a doubt, they could destroy her. But she couldn’t remove from her mind how they would fit over her hips, how they would mold over her body.

Jade stretched out her gloved hand and introduced herself. She couldn’t risk touching him skin to skin, but she wanted to feel his warmth. His strength. If he crushed her, he would pay dearly. But he didn’t. It took long seconds, but he finally took her hand in his, rising to his feet as he did. Unfolding his massive frame, he forced her to stare upward as he rose above her like a dark god.

“Follow me.” The deep voice made her quiver inside, in places that had definitely never quivered before. Her breath shivered through her lips, even as he pulled his hand away and moved with predatory grace out of the squad room.

It didn’t leave her much choice, but his movement did give her a chance to try to regain her bearings. To try to shut him out. Ignoring the others, who were no doubt watching avidly, she tightened her hands into fists and strode after him, pulling her power in as she went.

Tromping down countless stairs behind the man, she grew angrier with each step.

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Tempting the Enemy

Wasn’t
he
the one imagining her body bent in ways she’d never known it could? Wasn’t
he
the one pulling her into his hunger? Why was he acting angry at
her
, not saying a word? He hadn’t even looked over his shoulder to make sure she was following. He simply assumed she’d come after him because he’d told her to. If she didn’t need him for the case, she’d draw the light from one of the bald overhead lights and throw it at the back of his head. Since she couldn’t, she had to settle for a few panted breaths to pull herself together.

Strengthening her resolve as he led her into the bowels of the building, she reminded herself that as a Sibile, she could maintain control no matter what he threw at her. She’d keep her hands knotted and her questions locked down, even from herself.