Talon/Xavier

by Alexandra Ivy

  But a necro always asked for a name.

  “It helps me to connect with her mind.”

  He shuddered. “Christ.”

  “You asked,” she reminded him in a low voice.

  “Do you need any other details?”

  “I need to touch her.”

  “There.” He pointed toward the forearm where Frank would have prepped the victim. “It’s been sanitized.”

  She at last lifted her head. “Would you make sure—”

  “That no one enters?” he finished for her.

  “Yes.”

  He abruptly frowned. “Where’s your Sentinel?”

  A necro never left the compound without a guardian Sentinel. Not only were they capable of opening portals to travel from place to place (a mysterious talent that was never discussed among the mundane mortals) but they were also trained warriors who were covered in intricate tattoos. From what little Duncan had been able to learn the ceremonial markings protected the warriors from magic as well as any attempt at mind-control.

  And oh yeah, they were capable of killing with their bare hands.

  There were also rumors that there were other Sentinels.

  Hunters who weren’t marked and could travel among the humans unnoticed, but info on them was kept top-secret.

  “I asked him to wait outside.”

  He lifted a brow. “Why?”

  “Because you take such pleasure in tormenting him and he’s too well trained to fight back.”

  “Are you saying I’m not well trained?”

  She ignored the open invitation to point out that he was barely civilized and instead returned her attention to the victim.

  “The door, please.”

  He slowly straightened, swallowing his groan as his head gave another protesting throb.

  Whiskey was the devil’s brew, just as his ma had always claimed.

  “No one’s coming in,” he muttered, “but I’ll keep guard at the door if it makes you feel better.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant.”

  “Duncan.” His headache forgotten, he flashed a smile of pure challenge. “One day you’ll say it. Hell, one day you might even scream it.”

  No response. With a low growl, Duncan made his way to the door, leaning in the door-jam to make sure no one could enter while keeping his attention on the woman kneeling beside the corpse.

  She ignored his unwavering attention, lifting a hand to remove her sunglasses and setting them aside. At the same time the slanting sunlight spilled over her, catching in the sapphire blue of her eyes.

  Duncan’s heart forgot how to beat.

  He’d seen them before. At a distance. At the time he’d thought they looked like expensive gems, perfectly faceted and shimmering with an inner light. Up close they were even more magnificent.

  Christ.

  The beauty of those eyes was hypnotizing.

  Priceless jewels that revealed this was no ordinary woman.

  * * *

  Duncan would be pleased to know that it was only her years of training that allowed Callie to ignore his raw, sexual magnetism.

  He was the sort of primitive male that should have infuriated her, not tantalized her deepest fantasies.

  Of course, the Mave would tell her that fantasies were meant to be filled with unsuitable desires. Why not lust after a bad boy cop? It wasn't as if she was going to do anything about it. She didn't know if his flirtations were a way to taunt her or if he were one of those groupies who got off on sleeping with ‘freaks’ but either way, it had nothing to do with her as a person.

  Still, it was only with an effort that she managed to crush the tiny tingles of excitement fluttering in the pit of her stomach and the dampness of her palms.

  Now wasn’t the time or place.

  Tonight in her dreams...well, that was a different story.

  Clearing her thoughts, she laid her hands on the victim’s arm and closed her eyes.

  It took a second to slip from her own mind and into the female stretched on the floor. There was always a strange sense of...floating. As if her consciousness was hovering between one body and the next. Then, focusing on the feel the female’s arm beneath her fingers, she murmured her name.

  “Leah.”

  The soft word was enough.

  With hair raising jolt, she was sucked from her body and into Leah’s mind.

  She could easily sense the female soul, just as she could sense she was fading.

  Fast.

  Despite the ridiculous myths, a necromancer couldn’t control or raise the dead. Her only ability was to tap into the mind of the murdered victim to see the last few minutes of their life.

  And only within a very short timeframe.

  Once the...spark, for a lack of a better word...was extinguished and the soul moved on, the memories were lost.

  A meaningless talent for the most part. But on rare occasion it could mean the opportunity for justice.

  With a well-honed skill, Callie touched on the female’s memory center. Just being born a diviner didn’t automatically mean that a person would be capable of reading memories. There were many necromancers were never able to do more than enter the body and hopefully catch a stray thought.

  Callie, however, was one of the most talented.

  Which was why she was always sent when there was a suspicion the death might have been caused by a high-blood, as the freaks preferred to call themselves.

  Finding the spot she was searching for, she delicately slipped into the fading memories and allowed them to flow through her.

  Suddenly she was no longer kneeling on the hard floor. Instead she was in the attached garage, stepping out of her sleek black Jag. She sensed a pleasant weariness in her limbs, as if she’d just finished a vigorous workout at the gym, a suspicion confirmed when she glanced down to see she was wearing a pair of stretchy pants and a matching sports bra.

  Rounding the car, she moved to unlock the door that led to the house. She stepped into the small laundry room and stripped off her sweaty clothes to toss them in the washing machine. Now naked she moved into the sun-drenched kitchen.

  There was an ease in her steps as she halted at the stainless steel refrigerator to pull out a bottle of water that hinted this was a routine morning for her, and a comfort with her surroundings that said she had lived in the house for at least a few weeks.

  Callie, however, could sense a faint surge of pride as she turned to study the large kitchen that looked like a picture out of a fancy magazine.

  Leah had recently moved up in the world.

  And she was fully enjoying her elevation.

  Callie had barely managed to grasp the knowledge when Leah was stiffening, her head turning toward the French doors.

  Was there a shadow lurking by the trimmed hedges that lined the patio?

  She gave a strained laugh, lifting the bottle to drink the last of the water before tossing it into the recycle bin next to the fridge.

  The neighborhood was the safest in the city. Besides, the house was guarded by a security system.

  If there was a creep out there trying to sneak a peek through the windows then he’d set off a hundred bells and whistles the minute he stepped on the patio.

  Brave thoughts, but a tiny shiver inched down the female’s spine as the shadow moved, stepping away from the hedges to reveal—

  Without warning the image was snatched away.

  Just like that.

  Callie blinked, expecting to have been returned to her body. When the spark left, it destroyed any connection that Callie had to the dead.

  But instead she found she was still in Leah’s body, standing in the center of the kitchen as if she were still in the memory...without Leah.

  What the hell?

  “I’m afraid I can’t allow you to see anymore,” an unexpected male voice drawled.

  Callie turned in shock to watch the tall man with silver hair pulled from his lean, darkly bronzed face to stroll through the door leading into t
he dining room.

  She pressed a hand to her racing heart.

  No one should be here.

  No one but her and the soul she’d connected to in the physical world.

  Unfortunately, no one had given the stranger the handbook on necromancy. Instead of disappearing, he continued forward, the muted light revealing his painfully beautiful features. His brow was high and intelligent, his nose a thin blade and his lips carved along full lines. And his eyes…

  They were gemstone like hers, only instead of blue they were perfectly clear, like diamonds glittering with a cold light.

  A necromancer? She’d never encountered one with those color eyes. And none with the sort of power she could feel swirling through the air around him.

  His muscular body was covered by a thick gray robe that covered him from neck to feet, although she caught a glimpse of slender fingers the same bronze shade as his face.

  More terrified than she’d ever been in her life, Callie struggled to speak.

  “Are you the one who killed Leah?”

  He halted a mere foot from her, studying her as if she were a rare bug beneath a microscope.

  “A diviner,” he at last said, his words edged with a faint accent. “And one of astonishing power.”

  “How is this possible? Are you in Leah’s mind?”

  He seemed to pause, his eyes widening before he suddenly tilted back his head to laugh with a cold amusement.

  “Callie Brown. How very ironic.” The diamond eyes glittered with a blinding light. “It must be fate that brought us here together.”

  He knew who she was? The thought disturbed her on a cellular level.

  “Who are you?” she rasped.

  A slow, mysterious smile curved his sensuous lips. “That’s not the right question.”

  Did he think this was a game?

  “Okay.” She forced herself to hold the diamond gaze. “What are you?”

  “That’s not it either,” he warned, lifting a hand toward her face.

  Callie leaped backward, her heart slamming against her ribs with the force of a steam-hammer.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  His low chuckle seemed to wrap around her like sinful magic.

  “The question, my beautiful Callie, is—” He deliberately paused. “Who are you?”

  Her pulsing fear was disturbed by the unexpected sensation of Fang tugging her back to reality.

  “No.” She tried to fight against her Sentinel’s ruthless pull, knowing that there was more at risk than the death of one young female. “Wait. Damn you.”

  Her last sight was of the stranger blowing her a taunting kiss.

  Sneak Peek for ETERNAL SIN

  by

  Laura Wright

  Coming November 5, 2013

  From NAL Publishing

  CHAPTER ONE

  The hawk shifter flew overhead, circling Petra in the cloudless sky as she stumbled back and forth in front of the mouth of the cave; the same Rainforest cave she’d pulled a burning, fiercely stubborn Synjon Wise into after he’d tried to follow his lover into the sun seven months ago.

  Now it was Petra’s turn.

  Not to burn, but to feel the constant aftershocks of a misery she couldn’t shake.

  Tears ran down her cheeks, another great sob exiting her tight throat. She was in so much pain. Unimaginable and inescapable. Her body, her swollen belly, her mind, her heart...

  No. She had no heart. It was silent. An empty, useless organ.

  It was a realization that had once filled her with curiosity. She was a vampire. A veana. Not a shifter, like her adopted family. Gone were the perpetual feelings of being an outcast among a society who wanted nothing more than to embrace her. Now she had living proof to her own existence. Now her questions could truly be answered.

  Who did she belong to? Where were others like her? What could she expect from her life? How long was that life?

  He had gifted her with those answers. That male, the paven who’d come to the Rainforest to bury his beloved, and himself if Petra hadn’t been there to stop him. Inside the shelter of her treehouse so many months ago, Synjon Wise had told her everything, offered her a future. He’d just had to kill someone first.

  Vengeance before romance, Love.

  But the one he’d had to kill, the one who had murdered his Juliet, well...he was Petra’s only connection with the outside world. Her only connection to her blood. He was her father.

  Cruen.

  Another pained cry wrenched from Petra’s lungs, from deep inside where the ache seemed to emanate from, and she stopped and gripped the cool, moist curve of the cave’s entrance.

  She heard her mother’s voice somewhere behind her. “What can we do?” Not the mother who had given her life, but the one who had raised her. As part of her pride, a cub to be cherished.

  The beautiful lion shifter, Wen, had been the best mother any creature, shifter or vampire, could hope for. Now she nearly wailed in pain at Petra’s distress.

  “I don’t know,” said the other female, the one who had brought Petra to the Rainforest a week ago. This was her biological mother, Celestine. A pureblood vampire who was as desperate to make up for lost time and bond with her daughter as Petra was to push her away.

  She didn’t need another parent. Especially not one who considered her part in creating Petra a grave mistake.

  “You’re a vampire, like her,” Wen continued, her unsteady voice carrying on the breeze. “Surely you’ve seen this kind of—”

  “Never.” Celestine’s tone was emphatic, impassioned. Fearful. “Her sister, my daughter, Sara, is also in swell, but she is an Impure. She never went through Meta. Getting pregnant before you’re of age, before you experience your transition is very rare.”

  “Do you think that’s why she’s reacting this way?”

  “Emotional surges are predicted in pre-Meta swell...”

  “But not like this.”

  Celestine paused before saying, “No, not like this. And not this far along. The surges are purported to be very early on in the pregnancy.”

  “What are we to do?” Wen said, her own throat breaking with emotion. “She’s been here a week, and every day – every hour – it grows worse.”

  Their voices grated on Petra’s exposed nerves, searing her mind with agony. Her nails scraped against the rock.

  “There must be something we can give her to ease this suffering,” Wen continued. “This strange hunger. The pain.”

  “Blood,” said Celestine.

  “She won’t drink it,” Wen returned. “I’ve tried. You’ve tried. She—”

  “Stop it!” Petra snarled over her shoulder, tears raining down her cheeks, relentless. “Stop talking about me as if I’m not here!”

  Both females froze in the glare of the sunlight, their gazes cutting to her immediately. Petra despised the fear and empathy she saw in their eyes. Or maybe their expressions made her feel frustrated...or was it desperately sad? She didn’t know.

  Whimpering, she gripped the underside of her large belly. She couldn’t decipher her feelings. There were too many of them, and too much of them. What was wrong with her? And was it affecting her baby?

  Celestine moved toward her. “You must drink.”

  “No,” Petra growled. Blood. Just the thought of it on her tongue, running down her throat made her gag, made her vicious. She hissed at the both of them, pressed back against the mouth of the cave. She wanted to drink, wanted to feed her growing balas, but she couldn’t keep anything down. Gods, wasn’t gagging and vomiting worse for the child?

  Tears in her own eyes now, Wen started rolling up her sleeve. “You can have mine, baby. Take all the blood you need. Please, Pets. Please.” She bit her lip, the loving childhood nickname swallowed up by a sob of despair. “Seeing you like this...”

  Overhead the hawk cried, swooping in low, before returning to the sky. Petra glanced up and growled at the bird. She’d told Dani she didn’t want to see her, didn�
��t want a ride over the treetops of the Rainforest, didn’t want her looks of sympathy or fear. But her best friend refused to leave, retreat to her nest.

  “Our blood won’t stop this, Wen,” Celestine said gently. “I’m afraid she needs his.”

  “The father of the child...”

  “Yes.”

  Father, Petra silently screamed. Synjon Wise was no father. That bastard wanted to kill her, and the baby...Revenge for Juliet’s death – vengeance against Cruen...it was long reaching, and she’d never allow him near her again.

  She turned and ran into the cave. Sobs burst in her chest, scraping her throat. She wanted to get away from her mother and Celestine. From everyone. From light, heat, sound. She wanted to search for darkness. Maybe it would claim her.

  No. Fuck no. She had to survive for the balas. She had to fight her pain and misery, grant this child the home and family it deserved.

  “Oh, gods,” she heard Wen cry. “It’s not possible to bring Synjon Wise here, is it? To ask him to care for her and the child? After what was done to him, does he even remember their time together?”

  “His memories weren’t taken, just his emotions,” Celestine said, her voice echoing inside the walls of the cave. “He knows about her and the balas. He knows that she carries the grandchild of his enemy. The question is, will he care?”

  Petra met the back of the cave. It was dark and wet and cold and rough, but it welcomed her. Breathing heavily, panic and sickness and fear and anger rippling through her, she curled up against it and tried to force every thought, every feeling, every memory from her mind.

  But it was impossible.

  Along with the staggering emotional and physical pain her body rent, her brain conjured her past. Flipping by, scene after scene, she saw every bit of her childhood in the Rainforest. She saw the hunts, the shifters, her friends. She saw her work, helping shifters with their early transitions. She saw her brothers.

  She saw Synjon.

  Once again, she experienced the desperation and pain of dragging him inside the cave she huddled within now. She felt his interest in her, both mentally and sexually. She felt his kiss, his touch.