by Nova Archer
By the time he had finished and piled into the SUV, his nerves were as jumpy as his pulse. His blood raced through his veins like liquid heat. He had to dig his nails into the palms of his hands to stop from shifting.
It was becoming progressively harder each passing moment.
And being cooped up inside like a prisoner didn't help matters either. The lab was starting to feel like a cage.
Having a warden didn't help matters any.
His gaze shifted to the door of the analysis room they were in. Their police escort, Tala Channing, stood just outside the room, drinking coffee. There was something about her that bothered him. Something that wasn't quite right. And he couldn't put his finger on it.
When he had been collecting the evidence in the backyard she had stood guard near the fence watching him. He felt her gaze on him like a physical thing. It had given him shivers and he was still having a hard time shaking them.
Her gaze lifted and for a brief moment their eyes met. A zing of something explosive flashed through the air between them. It hit him right between the eyes, pushing him back a step and into the work table. Fumbling for something to hold, Jace pulled his gaze and forced it back onto his work.
What was going on? He'd never had that kind of reaction to anyone before, especially not a human.
A tap on his shoulder had him swinging around, a growl building in his throat.
Lyra stood staring at him, her eyes wide.
"What?" he barked.
"I've been talking to you for the past two minutes. You haven't heard a word I've said."
"I'm working. You know better than to interrupt me when I'm in the groove."
"You're in something, but I don't think it's a groove."
Ignoring Lyra, Jace tried to concentrate on the task at hand. The machine finished scanning his print, and he was now looking at a full image of it on the computer screen. It was a pretty good lift. From the picture he could make out several unique lines without the aid of the computer analysis. Now, he'd just have to put it into the computer system and see if it would be enough to run against the catalog of shoe treads on file. Hopefully, after a few hours they would get a match. And with it, a path to investigate.
The longer the case moved on without a suspect, the harder it would become for them to solve it. He didn't think they'd have much leeway on this one. He could just imagine the pressure Caine was receiving to solve this quickly and quietly.
They had been lucky with Lillian Crawford's case. The outside pressure to solve it was lessened by the fact that the human press and politicians wouldn't come into Necropolis. They had sent in Eve to work with them instead. And it proved to be a good move in the end. They had solved the case together-or thought they had.
Moving over to the keyboard of the computer system, Jace started to punch in some commands. The computer remained quiet, unresponsive. He punched in the codes again. Still nothing. Frustration flowed through him; he banged on the keyboard.
"What's wrong with this thing?"
Lyra sidled up next to him, nudging him out of the way. "Probably nothing wrong with the computer. It's the user that has issues."
He watched as she punched in the same commands he had. It didn't work for her either. That gave him a small sense of satisfaction.
"Shoot, it's not working."
He gave her a sideways glare.
She ignored him and looked around the room. They had been alone for the better part of an hour. The lab tech had shown them the equipment then had skittered off as fast as he could. Jace had smelled the ripe stench of fear on the guy.
"Hey, Tala," Lyra called.
Tala flinched and looked up from staring at the floor.
Jace snarled. "Damn it, don't call her."
"Why ever not? She probably knows how to work this stupid system." Lyra waved at Tala, indicating for her to come into the room.
Jace watched out of the corner of his eye as the woman hesitated, glanced his way, and then cautiously stepped into the room.
"Can I help you with something?" she asked.
There was something about her voice that caused the hairs on his arms and legs to stand at attention. He could feel them rise even under his lab coat and his denim jeans. Clenching his teeth, he ran his hands down both sleeves.
Lyra pointed to the computer. "Do you know how to get into the system? We need to run this shoe print through the catalog."
With a half-smile on her face, Tala walked around the counter to stand in front of the keyboard. Jace noticed how graceful she was when she moved. Unfortunately, he also noticed how well her khaki pants fit around her legs and her rear end.
With apparent ease, her fingers raced over the keyboard and the partial print was transferred into the system. Onscreen, Jace could see that the search had started.
She stood back and smiled. "There you are."
"Thank you, Tala." Lyra swung around and smirked at Jace. "You see, Jace, she's not useless."
Tala swiveled around and glowered at him. Whoa! It felt like he'd been hit by a tree trunk right across the head. He felt the need to take a step backward in retreat.
"You said what?" she demanded.
Jace put his hand up in defense and took that distancing step away. "Hey, I didn't say anything like that."
"What did you say then?" Her brow arched in question. Although she looked angry, Jace found he couldn't tear his gaze away. There was something so appealing about the woman. It wasn't that she was gorgeous, because she wasn't.
Her eyes were certainly stunning, a green reminiscent of fresh spring days. Her face and nose were thin, almost too thin, as was her body. Willowy, would be what some would call her, he guessed. Long legs, slim hips, high pert breasts. She had a model's figure, not that Jace was complaining.
Her cheeks were flushed as she continued to glower at him, and her lips were slightly parted. He wondered what she would do if he suddenly took her in his arms and kissed her.
The urge to do so jolted his system. It took everything he had not to cross the distance between them and satisfy his growing carnal hunger. Damn it! He wished he had mated before he came to San Antonio. Why did he have to get the call from the lab right before tussling with one of the pack females? Life just wasn't fair.
Shaking his head to dislodge the unwanted erotic notions racing through his mind, Jace glared at Lyra. "I didn't say anything about you. The witch is a troublemaker."
"I am not." Lyra stuck out her lower lip in a pout, but Jace could see the twinkle in her eye. She was purposely pitting him and Tala against each other. Egging on the tension between them.
He wondered if Lyra felt it as fiercely as he did. It was so strong, it was almost palpable.
"Are you still trying to get back at me for putting that snake in your boot last summer?" he asked Lyra.
"No. Don't be an idiot."
"Oh, I'm an idiot now, am I?"
Lyra smirked. "Jace, you're always an idiot. You can't even see what's in front of your face."
What did she mean by that? Before he could ask, Caine walked into the room with Eve and Hector trailing behind him.
He looked from Lyra to Jace to Tala and back to Jace. "I see everything's as normal as ever."
Lyra smiled innocently and turned toward Caine. "Tala was just showing us how to work the computer system so we could check for matching shoe treads."
Jace watched as Caine took thorough stock of Tala. He took a step forward, intent on protecting her from the vampire's gaze. But he stopped himself before he could move any further. What was with him? The predatory urge to protect Tala surged through him. Foolish to say the least, but the sensation would not go away, even when Caine turned that steely gaze onto him. Something was up. Jace could see the concern in Caine's eyes.
"We have, yet again, a big problem."
"What else is new," Jace grunted.
"We got an ID on the victim." Caine ran a hand over his face. "It turns out she's Samantha Kipfer, the only daughte
r of Andrew Kipfer, a local television celebrity."
Jace cursed vehemently.
Caine nodded. "Well put, Jace. That's exactly how I feel right now." He leaned against the counter and crossed his arms. "So, be warned that the press is going to be all over this case. If we go out, we have to make sure there is local law enforcement with us at all times. The last thing any of us needs is more scrutiny."
Hector cleared his throat and looked at Tala. "I'll need you to stick to Lyra and Jace as much as you can, Channing. If they go out, you're going too. To the crime scene, to the hotel, to a restaurant. Wherever. Your job is to keep the press away from them. Got me?"
Tala's gaze locked onto Jace. Heat instantly surged through his body. It was getting mighty uncomfortable in his jeans. Lord help him, if he got an erection here and now. Talk about bad timing.
But the intensity of her stare made him quiver all over. She had power, this female. He just had no clue why it affected him or how she possessed it. She smelled like Other, but he knew her not to be. It was an oddity and he wasn't sure if he was equipped to deal with it.
"I got you sir," she said at last, then dropped her gaze.
"Take a couple of hours. Go home, get showered, eat, and be back here ready to go fourteen hours if need be."
With a curt nod, she turned on her heel and marched out of the analysis room.
Sighing, Jace closed his eyes and ran a shaky hand through his mop of hair. This case was getting tougher by the minute. And he wasn't talking about the crime. That could be solved, eventually, with hard work and careful analysis of the evidence. It was the mystery of Tala Channing that piqued his interest. Who was she? And why did he want her so bad that he would drop to his knees in submission to have her?
CHAPTER FIVE
Violent fury raged through him while he sat on the hard wooden chair and stared out the apartment window toward the pinkened San Antonio sky line. His entire body shook with it.
They were here. He could feel them close by. The stink of their Otherworlder flesh nearly made him keel over in revulsion. To think he had spent so many years around them without doing just that.
Caine and his team of miscreants were in San Antonio trying to make sense of the latest murder. He smiled, worrying his fangs against his bottom lip. He was confident that they would never figure it out. They were too stupid, and he was much too smart. He'd been doing this for longer than most of them had been alive.
They had thought they had caught their killer. Using Mel Howard had been a fantastic ruse. The vampire had been greedy and pliable, eager to please someone he knew to be his master. The perfect pawn for his ongoing game.
Caine and his team had fallen for it beautifully. Like a movie being played out, perfectly scripted, and brilliantly acted.
And he was the director.
Low mewls broke into his thoughts, disturbing him. Annoyed, he glanced over his shoulder at the queen sized bed in the middle of the bedroom. Standing, he ambled toward the bed. He enjoyed the way his naked body glistened with crimson streaks even in the soft light made by the black candles lit around the room.
As he neared, the young woman bound to the mattress began to whimper under the gag shoved in her mouth. He could smell her terror. It was a fragrant bouquet, making him drool with hunger.
He touched her foot and ran his long nails up to her ankle where the rope he used to bind her, dug cruelly into her sweet pale flesh. Running his forefinger over the restraints, he gathered the blood and skin shed there onto the pad of his finger. He brought it up to his mouth and sucked it between his lips. Such sweet honey.
Taking a step away from the bed, he studied his work. A network of crisscrossing red marks lined her body. He had spent hours on her. Every cut took several seconds to complete and he had reveled in the way she had squirmed and whimpered in agony.
The girl had been an easy mark. So easily charmed and seduced. He had picked her out in a club. Plied her with drinks and compliments, then accepted her invitation up to her apartment. Silly girl had no clue exactly what she had been inviting into her bed.
She knew now.
By the way she stared at him in utter horror, she knew exactly what he was and where he'd come from.
He trailed his talon over her torso to her breast. She tried to draw back from his touch, but she had nowhere to go. He chuckled at her instinctive response.
She was going to make a lovely present for Caine and his team.
"You're going to die, my dear," he chimed in a sing-song voice. "And it's going to be brutal and painful." He pinched her skin between thumb and forefinger. "But before you die, I'm going to play some more. I hope you don't mind." Chuckling, he twisted his fingers and tore open her flesh.
CHAPTER SIX
Tala unbuttoned her white blouse, shrugged it off and tossed it into the dirty clothes hamper in the corner of her bedroom. Walking to her closet she grabbed an identical shirt. As she slipped it on and started buttoning it, she wandered out of her bedroom and into the kitchen.
She thanked whatever benevolent spirit that allowed her a few hours to come home and recharge. Being in the lab had been stifling. She had tried hard not to be in the same room as Jace. She volunteered to get coffee, run to the various labs, be the go between, anything to keep her out of the same space as the lycan. It had been working up until that last hour when Lyra had called her in to run the computer.
Although Tala had only been in the room with him for no more than fifteen minutes, she could still feel the electrical current that had been zinging through the air between them skimming across her skin. She'd never felt anything like it before. And she didn't want to feel it ever again.
He was off limits.
She shouldn't even have been thinking about him, especially in such sensual ways. It was far too dangerous. Even though everything about him screamed sex and seduction, she had to force herself to stay away. Of course, that was going to be near impossible since Hector assigned her as Jace and Lyra's police escort. Why couldn't she have gotten the vampire and his human wife? She had no fear of them.
Opening the refrigerator door, Tala took out leftover Chinese food and a jug of milk. She opened the small white box and dug in. Between bites, she chugged from the milk carton.
While she stood in the kitchen leaning against the counter to eat, she turned on the small TV sitting in front of her on the little nook separating kitchen from living room. She flipped channels until she got the news. The sheriff was giving a press conference about the murder.
Andrew Kipfer was a much loved local television personality and Tala knew the city was mourning with him for the loss of his only daughter, Samantha. She had been only twenty.
Tala remembered seeing her once at a charity fundraiser a few years ago. She had been a sweet innocent-looking girl, blond, blue eyes, perky and upbeat. A good girl, with good upstanding friends.
Tala certainly knew that bad things happened to decent people. She'd worked in the narcotics division long enough to know that lesson well. But how did a girl like Samantha end up in a dilapidated house, hanging upside down from the rafters with her throat slit?
Suddenly, a jolt of pain sang down Tala's arm to her hand. Clenching her fist, she crushed the Chinese food box. Noodles and sauce oozed out from the cardboard around her fingers and dripped onto the floor.
She swung around and dumped the box and contents into the sink. She turned on the tap and washed off the remains of her breakfast. Closing her eyes, she bit out a curse. The pain was coming too soon. She thought she'd have another couple days for sure before she'd need to take care of it.
It was being around Jace that spurned the increase and speed of her cycle. Her body was reacting to him. It called to him just like she had read it would.
Twisting the water off, Tala grabbed the dishtowel to dry her hands and walked out of the kitchen, down the hall and into the bathroom. After tossing the towel on the vanity, she opened her medicine cabinet.
There were
the usual items lining the shelves. Headache pills, antacids, vitamins, and old prescription drugs that she never seemed to finish. In the top corner on the top shelf was a bottle of unassuming eye drops.
She took down the plastic container, titled her head back and opened her eyes wide. Holding it above her, she squeezed a drop of liquid into each eye. Pain, sharp and immediate, radiated over her.
She wanted to scream as liquid fire shot through her system. Tearing, ripping agony surged over her. It started in her eyes and raced from the top of her head to the tip of her big toe. It was the same every time. And every time she felt like dying.
Dropping the container into the sink, she shuffled sideways to find the toilet and sit down on the closed lid. Her legs were shaking too much to support her weight. Clamping her eyes shut to stem the tears, she buried her head in her hands and rode it out.
It was for the best, she told herself. She muttered that under her breath repeatedly until the adrenaline rush ended and the pain subsided to a dull ache.
When she was able to control her breathing again, she stood and went about cleaning up the mess. After everything was put away, she splashed cold water on her face and glanced in the mirror.
You're okay, Tala. You're a survivor.
After running a comb through her hair and applying a thin layer of lip-gloss, Tala figured she was ready to go. She looked in control and that was all that mattered.
She left the bathroom and went into her living room to put on her shoes, her gun holster and her jacket. Once she had her holster on and was buckling it up, her phone rang. Not her cell phone but her home phone.
She hesitated to answer. There was likely only one person on the other end, and Tala didn't really want to talk to her today. But loyalty needled her and she snatched the phone on its sixth ring.
"I thought maybe you weren't home," her mother, Claudia, whined.
"I'm on the way out, Mother. Is there something you needed?"
"A mother can't call her only child to see how she's doing?"