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“Okay,” Catch panted. “New plan. We aim for fifteen minutes
next
time.”

Matty lifted her legs, wrapped them around his waist and slid her fingers over his lips. Catch bit her finger, leaned to bury his face in the curve of her neck and began to thrust. Her mind misted as their hips collided. The feel of his thick cock gliding back and forth, the lovely sensation of fullness propelled her nerves into a frenzy.

Catch kissed her, mirroring the thrusts of his tongue with those of his cock. Held tight in the sensual rhythm, Matty’s body rose on a thermal like a circling bird, shifting higher and higher on spirals of pleasure as he fucked her. Time stopped. Time accelerated. Catch lifted his head and stared into her eyes.

“Now,” he gasped.

He changed the angle of his hips and Matty exploded like a flare gun. Bright lights filled her vision and Catch’s cock swelled and jerked inside her, bathing her with his cum. A sharp ache filled her chest as Catch clung to her, shuddering and rocking through his climax. He whispered the same word over and over again. “Mine, mine, mine.”

Chapter Sixteen

“We’ve gone far enough,” Gabriel said. “Turn left here.”

They needed to find somewhere secure before sunrise. Dava pulled off the main road, heading for a village called Linton. Pete lay comatose on the backseat. After vigorous sex with Dava and the donation of a couple pints of blood, the youth had passed out. Gabriel had used Pete’s mobile to reach several former members of the Calling, carefully sounding them out on their level of support. No one had heard from or seen Logan.

On the outskirts of the village, Gabriel spotted an isolated house with lights still burning. “That one. Pull up the drive. Shove Pete’s coat up your sweater and pretend to be pregnant. We need to spend the night in their attic.”

After they exited Pete’s rusty car, leaving him lying in the back, Gabriel adjusted the bundle under Dava’s clothes and put his arm around her. A middle-aged man in a tartan dressing gown answered prolonged pressure on the bell.

“I’m so sorry to bother you. My wife’s pregnant and needs to use the bathroom. I realize it’s a terrible imposition, but do you think—?”

“Of course, come in, honey,” said a much younger woman in a thick toweling robe who’d come to stand behind the man.

Damn.
Gabriel wasn’t “honey” and so not invited in. He stayed on the doorstep while Dava was escorted into the property. The man had a scowl on his face. Gabriel didn’t blame him.

“Live round here?” the man asked.

“London. On the way to see relatives. We need somewhere to stay for a while. Your house is lovely. You’d like us to stay here.” Gabriel maintained eye contact as his voice lulled, soothed, persuaded. “We’d be no trouble.”

A sharp scream rent the air and Gabriel gritted his teeth.
Bloody Dava.
The man’s gaze wavered and Gabriel spoke quickly. “You want to invite me in. I can help.”

“Come in.”

Two words and less than two seconds before the man slumped unconscious on the hall floor. Gabriel raced to Dava. She’d pinned the wife against the wall and was sucking her neck. Dava growled when Gabriel dragged her off. He growled back.

“Heal her,” he snapped.

One lick and the wounds on the woman’s neck closed before she slumped to the floor.

“What the fuck did you do that for?” Gabriel grabbed Dava by the throat.

“Pete’s sweater fell out, she screamed and my fangs dropped.”

“Stay with her. Keep her quiet. I need to check no one else lives here.”

Gabriel passed the unconscious husband and quickly explored the house. Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Love, whose large display of photographs showed no children, appeared to live alone.
Thank fuck for that.

Back in the kitchen, Dava was using an extension cable to tie the unconscious woman to a chair.

“Go and get Pete,” he said. “Put him in one of the bedrooms. Keep him asleep. Move the car to a place where it can’t be seen from the road. And don’t bite anyone else.”

Gabriel tied the husband next to his wife. The woman’s head lolled back and Gabriel’s fangs tingled as he stared at the smear of blood on her neck. He brought the phone to her husband, roused him to a more cooperative state and persuaded him to make two calls to report that he and his wife were too sick to work the following day.

As Gabriel switched off the phone, the man became alert enough to show fear in his eyes. Though Gabriel’s inclination was for the female, feeding from the male was an easy way to make him weak. Gabriel sank his fangs into the husband’s neck and moaned at the sweet taste that flooded his mouth. Too easy to lose control when something tasted so good. No wonder the Council wanted everyone on Plasmix.

After he closed the bite marks and lifted his head from the husband’s neck, Gabriel listened for Dava. He couldn’t hear her, which was both good and bad news. Casting a frustrated glance at the wife, he made his way upstairs. Pete snored in one bedroom and in another he found Dava flicking through the clothes hanging in the closet.

“Aren’t you going to answer that?” she asked.

Shit.
Gabriel snatched his mobile from his pocket. “Hello… Sorry, I’m not used to the ring tone… No, of course I understand. I’ve no intention of going out this evening. I’m looking forward to watching…that talent show on the television.”

Dava shot a glance at him.

Gabriel coughed. “The young boy, I think. Such a great voice.”

Dava played air guitar.

“And his guitar playing—excellent.” Gabriel was desperate to tell the VRB representative on the other end of the phone to shut up. Dava had told him not to stay connected for too long in case they decided to check where he was using a global positioning system. Apparently they could even pinpoint his location when the phone was merely switched on, but he’d had to leave it on until they called. There was a lot Gabriel had to learn about this new world. It annoyed him Dava knew more than he did.

“No, I haven’t seen Dava.” Gabriel watched her strip and kick her clothes to one side. “No, I have no intention of having anything to do with her and yes, I read the small print. I understand the conditions of my release… Next week? Fine.”

He switched off his phone, hoping they hadn’t had time to trace him.

“You really think the young boy—” Dava asked.

“No,” Gabriel snapped. “I don’t watch it.” Well, he’d only seen it twice. He’d been more interested in how the audience and contestants responded to a judge who was unafraid to tell the ugly truth to those auditioning—that their singing was crap, they bored him to tears and they had no chance of stardom unless they moved to the moon. It had given Gabriel a few ideas. Maybe people sometimes needed to hear hard lessons so that praise eventually strengthened their faith. Could he spin his incarceration into some sort of test of the Calling’s followers? Could he convince them he’d been back to their home planet? Maybe that was a step too far.

“What did the VRB say when you told them their guy failed to show?” Dava asked.

Gabriel sat on the bed and leaned against the headboard. “Surprisingly unsurprised. They’re sending someone next week.” So if all this went tits-up, he could be back in his apartment being a good boy when the social worker visited.

Dava put on a red lace bra and a matching thong. She sighed with what he presumed was happiness, always hard to tell with her, and ran her hands up her thighs over a flat stomach to perky breasts. Gabriel developed a tent in his pants. His cock was more easily pleased than him. Venomous snake she might be, but she was still an attractive woman.

“There might be something in here you and Pete could wear,” Dava said.

Gabriel was more interested in taking his clothes off, but it didn’t do to look too keen.

“Think I should go and see if Mr. Love likes me in his wife’s lingerie?” Dava asked with a giggle.

“No.”

Dava slinked over and straddled Gabriel’s hips.

“Why can’t we spend the night in this bed?” she whined. “It would be much more comfortable than their dusty attic. And how are we going to drag Pete up there with us?”

“We’re not dragging Pete up there. He’s going to be busy doing things for me. We can’t stay in here because it’s dangerous. We need the Loves in their own bed, waking tomorrow, feeling lousy and remembering they’d called in sick. If we leave them tied up and go to sleep in their bed, we’ve lost control of the situation. Not forgetting the fact we have no idea who might visit the house with a key—a cleaner, relations, neighbors.”

“We could just…kill them.” She twisted her lips in a sulk.

Gabriel sighed. “And if we did kill the Loves and someone found them and then found us asleep in their bed, what happens when they whip open the curtain?”

She gave him a blank look.

“Daylight?” Gabriel added, and watched it finally sink into Dumb and Deadly’s brain. “This way, we’ll leave after sunset tomorrow and the Loves won’t even remember us.”

She unzipped his pants and freed his cock. “I can’t wait until we can go out in the sun. Once we get the books, we can find details of the plant. Right?”

Well, that had sort of been the next stage of Gabriel’s brilliant scheme. After he’d begun raising money to find the books twenty-five years ago, a further influx of cash would be required to fund research into duplicating a nonexistent plant. Which would take forever while he lived on a specially designed mega-yacht and travelled the darker parts of the world, supposedly with a team of botanists looking for plants to mix, match and blend. Only, what if there really was a plant that would enable them to walk in the sun? Had he made fiction fact? Fuck, he really
was
a messiah.

Dava slid her hand up and down his cock, squeezed hard and he hissed. She had the perfect touch, a blend of pain and pleasure.

“What happened to all the money we raised?” she asked.

“It was returned.” Some of it. The rest was safe.

“All of it?”

Dava slipped down his legs, wrapped her lips around his cock and he groaned. She swallowed him down and tightened her throat muscles.

“Not all,” he blurted.

She sucked hard. Dava was rushing him in more ways than one.

* * * * *

Turner backed away from the attic door, away from a naked Catch and Matty, and descended the stairs in silence.
Fuck.
But what had he expected to see? The pair sitting on opposite sides of the room having a conversation about hypothermia?

He shouldn’t care. He wanted not to care. He had no right to care.

But he did. Oh God, he did.

He’d thought now that Catch had returned… After they’d… That the pair of them— Turner tossed the thought from his mind. What was the point dwelling on redundant emotions? For all he knew, Catch had come here doing his SBI job, checking whether Turner had any contact with Dava or Gabriel. Maybe Catch was using Matty to get at him. Maybe word had somehow seeped out about what Turner had been doing for a large chunk of the last twenty years. It hadn’t escaped his attention that Catch hadn’t asked.

Turner was drowning in a flood of never-ending questions. Rage, regret, jealousy and sorrow tumbled around with an unhealthy dose of self-pity. None of which appeared to have any effect on his cock, which had hardened the moment he decided to walk upstairs. Still hard because even if Turner struggled with the vision of Matty and Catch lying together, his overarching desire was to lie there with them.

He sat on the bottom step and leaned back on the stairs. He needed to think things through before he acted. It would be all too easy to storm off in a fit of pique, yell at Catch for his intransigence, call Matty a slut and slam the door on life for another twenty years. Turner slid his hands into his pants and adjusted his cock. He might think more clearly if he was comfortable.

A snort of laughter escaped his tight lips. Turner had accused Matty of being in denial and wasn’t that just what he was doing? When he’d touched her for the first time, Turner knew something exceptional had ignited between them. It happened with Catch twenty years ago and Turner had spent all that time trying to deny it. Catch had asked him if Matty was his and he’d said no. Turner had lied to protect himself and her, and instead of feeling secure, he’d left himself wide open to disappointment. He took his hands out of his pants and put them behind his head.

They’d both sensed she was in trouble. At the exact same time. How big a clue did he need? Catch had risked his life to save hers. He’d growled over her, for fuck’s sake, and while Catch had at least acted, Turner had dithered. Though only over who to save—if it had come down to that. He wanted them both. His cock thickened and twitched. Maybe Catch felt the same. He’d seen something in Catch’s expression when he’d come to the study and found him alone. Disappointment Matty wasn’t with him?

Turner closed his eyes and sighed. He could
really
see the wolf sharing.
Not.
Neither was Turner known for his unselfishness. He’d suffered George’s glare often enough to understand that, even though his valet was
paid
to put up with Turner’s self-centered ways. Except this was different. Turner
wanted
to share Matty with
Catch, he
wanted
to share Catch with Matty.

And now, as he thought life might once again be worth living, there were a couple of problems, forgetting for the time being the issue of Dava and Gabriel. Matty had no idea Turner was a vampire and presumably since she’d not run out of the house screaming, she had no clue Catch was a cross between a vampire and a werewolf. They were the stuff of her nightmares, not her dreams. Just because the pair of them might want her didn’t mean she wanted both of them.