Primal Heat

by Susan Sizemore

  She spent another few minutes scanning the area, looking for anomalies. When she finally determined that nothing and no one was out of the ordinary in the neighborhood, she finally got out of her car and approached the parking garage. She didn’t have a security keycard to swipe through the reader, but she remembered the emergency number her sister had used the day before and pressed those buttons for entrance. The metal door slowly came up with an almost grudging groan.

  The moment she slipped inside the garage, all her senses intensified. The feeling was odd, but she knew she wasn’t alone. It wasn’t just a keen awareness that someone else was in the garage—she was drawn toward the other. And then she knew.

  She stepped forward into the cool shadows and called, “All right, Bridger, what are you doing here?”

  He came around a pillar and faced her, arms crossed. He was wearing sunglasses. “What are you doing here?” he responded.

  For some reason she expected to see him sprout fangs in this setting, but she shook off the memory of the dream. And fought off the urge to run to the man. Just looking at him stirred aching need in her, but this was no time to let lust get in the way.

  “Didn’t I drop you off at the airport?” she asked.

  He shrugged and took a step closer. “I missed my flight.”

  His voice sent an electric charge through her. There was a dangerous edge in his tone, and nothing friendly in the way he was frowning. Instead of being intimidated, she wanted to eat him up.

  “That’s no excuse,” she told him.

  “I wasn’t offering any. What are you doing here?” he demanded again. “Why aren’t you somewhere safe?”

  “I’m investigating an attempted homicide.”

  “You aren’t a copper anymore,” he said in a steely British growl.

  Which only annoyed her. “And you are?”

  Suddenly they were standing toe to toe in the wide aisle of the garage, and she had no idea how they’d crossed the intervening space. He wasn’t really that much larger than her, but this close, he sure seemed like it.

  “Yes,” he said.

  For a moment she couldn’t recall the question.

  “I am a cop, of sorts,” he explained.

  “Not in this jurisdiction.”

  He gave a thin, dangerous smile. “The world is my jurisdiction.”

  Matt was aware that he was telling Phillipa too much, but being near her rattled him enough to loosen his tongue, as well as arouse everything else in him. “It isn’t safe here,” he told her.

  Phillipa glanced around. “Why? Do you think I might get run over by a truck?”

  He put his hands on her shoulders and drew her closer. “Anything might happen.”

  Bridger’s voice was so rich with sensual promise that it sent a shiver through her. She considered the surroundings and said, “Sweetie, I haven’t made out in the backseat of a car since I was a teenager.”

  His answering smile showed the deep creases of dimples. “It might be fun to relive your youth. In my youth we used carriages,” he added.

  She guessed that he was somewhere in his forties. “Britain wasn’t that backward in the seventies. You had Queen when you were a teenager, after all, and Led Zeppelin. And Whitesnake…no, that was the eighties.”

  “How did you know I’m a Zeppelin fan? And we will not discuss the so-called music of David Coverdale on my watch. And why have we gone off on this odd tangent?” he added. Then he pulled her close and kissed her, because he couldn’t take it anymore.

  Sweet goddess, she was delicious!

  And he was greedy for the taste of her. It wasn’t just a kiss he needed; the pulsing rush of blood beneath soft skin called to him.

  He moved with her until they were hidden behind one of the wide concrete pillars, and all the time he kept his mouth pressed against hers, drinking in the sweet heat of her. She clung just as greedily to him, and arched against him when his hand came up beneath her blouse to caress her breasts. Her nipples were already stiff and he teased them to harder points, drawing a long moan from her. He drew even more excitement from arousing her. Her thigh ground against his erection, and it was his turn to groan.

  Phillipa was overwhelmed by the swift intensity of her arousal; an orgasm shot through her at the speed of light. It left her shaking, only half in possession of her senses. She pulled her head back from Matt’s and pressed her hands against his chest.

  “Whoa! Slow down! I’m embarrassing me!”

  “Why?” he demanded, his voice a tight growl. “We need each other.”

  She gave a swift look around the garage. No one was in sight, but they could be interrupted at any moment. She had a crazy vision of slipping to her knees and giving the man a blow job right here—the man drove her to distraction, tempting her to do things she’d never dared before. But she was stronger than temptation, right?

  “I’m happy to perform any lewd and lascivious acts you have in mind,” she told him. “But not here.”

  He backed up a step and took a few deep breaths. “Right,” he said. “You’re right. It’s just that I’ve been out of my mind ever since you fainted yesterday and—”

  “You were here!”

  “Yes, I—”

  “I didn’t dream that?”

  Oh, goddess, Matt thought. Marc and I were in full hunting mode. How much did she see?

  He stepped toward her, ready to give her a glib explanation or wipe the whole incident from her mind if necessary. When her eyes widened at his approach, he thought for a nanosecond that it was with fear. Then he realized that she was looking past him.

  He moved at the same moment she shouted, “Down!”

  He heard the bullet whiz past his shoulder and felt the heat of its passage. He grabbed Phillipa around the waist, and they darted around the pillar together. The first bullet plowed into a car door. The second hit the pillar, sending up a spray of concrete dust.

  “Silencer,” Phillipa complained.

  “Which impedes the accuracy of an inexperienced shooter,” Matt pointed out.

  She opened her mouth to reply, closed it forcefully, then said, “Not a good time for a technical discussion.”

  “Agreed.”

  Matt held Phillipa firmly against the pillar as he peered cautiously around it. He wasn’t afraid of the attacker or the weapon for his own sake, but he was terrified for Phillipa’s sake. He was not going to let anything happen to her. It was time to end this thing.

  “Don’t move,” he ordered.

  But as he stepped away from the pillar, the elevator door slid open, three people walked out into the garage, and the metal gate to the street started to lift. The shooter broke and ran for the gate, the car that entered giving him cover.

  Matt snarled and grabbed Phillipa by the hand. By the time they got outside, the attacker was already inside a large white van with the engine running.

  Matt could have reached him, but he was not going to leave Phillipa alone for a second. Purists roamed in packs.

  The van was moving by the time he pulled Phillipa to his car and pushed her inside. The van had turned onto the street when his own car reached the lot exit. As he turned to follow, he had to stomp hard on the brakes to avoid hitting a car entering the lot.

  “Bloody sodding hell!” he shouted.

  The woman driving the other car lay on the horn and gave him a blistering look, all the while blocking the turn he needed to make.

  He revved the engine and made a rude gesture, and woman finally took the hint and pulled all the way into the parking lot.

  By the time he pulled out into traffic, the damn van was nowhere in sight.

  Michele tried not to laugh at the furious driver she’d just blocked, though his reaction was very satisfying. Since he had the Elliot woman with him, he was clearly the enemy. He was probably one of the vampires that had foiled their original plan, but she wasn’t sure about that yet. Elliot was known to have friends in the Las Vegas police force. Whoever her protector was, if
he had to die for Andrew’s mission to be completed, so be it.

  It was a good thing she had decided to act as backup when Andrew went on the hunt. The mission had been given to him; she knew in her soul that he was the one who had to carry it out. Britney was also right about hunters needing to work together, though. It was how they had survived against the overwhelming strength of the vampires for centuries.

  But Britney was too much of a hothead; she’d taken a personal grudge against Phillipa Elliot from the first. Michele couldn’t be sure that Britney wouldn’t get in Andrew’s way.

  “So I’ll have your back as long as you need me, my boy,” she murmured. Even though she was tired and wanted to go home to San Diego.

  Duty first.

  And for now, duty meant turning her car around and following Elliot and the man who was searching for Andrew.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  M ike had never woken up to find a wolf staring him in the eye before. Not a werewolf, but a wolf. He’d never actually met a real wolf before, but he recognized the scent even before he opened his eyes and saw the animal.

  Then he remembered what he was, and began to wonder where he was. And he saw the bars of the cage.

  Shit!

  He was up and snarling in a moment. The wolf was on the outside, he was on the inside, and the cage reeked of cat. It was a big cage, since it held him standing upright, so it must be a big cat.

  There was a growl from the other side of the cage, and he turned his head to look.

  There were two wolves waiting outside the cage. They were guarding him, weren’t they? As if they’d have a chance, if he were to get out. But the cage was so sturdy and strong, there wasn’t a chance of his getting out. So the wolves were perfectly safe.

  He was safe from them, too, he supposed, even though the pair glared at him with domineering menace. He ignored them, and forgot about them altogether when he spotted the large metal dishes in the cage. He was drawn to the water like a magnet and gulped down every drop of it, before he turned to the bowl of meat and finished it off just as quickly. He was so thirsty and famished that the idea of drugs or poison didn’t occur to him until the meal was already done.

  Too late now, I guess.

  He yawned, replete, and realized that while his flank ached, the pain wasn’t so bad anymore. The fur had been shaved from the wounded area, and the wound itself had been cleaned. It smelled of disinfectant, and a topical cream had been smeared on it as well.

  His captor could have killed him; instead he’d taken care of him.

  Beyond the cage, beyond the watching wolves, he saw that he was a prisoner in what looked like a luxurious studio apartment. For some reason, there were a lot of flowers and stuffed animals in the place. What was that all about?

  And the vampire was a Cage, some distant relative of Matt Bridger’s. Mike recognized a trace of the Family pheromone permeating the room. But the Cages were a large family, and Mike had no reason to trust the vampire just because he was kin to his partner. Especially since this particular vampire had captured him and locked him up.

  He needed to figure out a way to escape. Out of the cage somehow, then out the door. He badly missed having thumbs. Somehow he doubted he was going to be able to gnaw through steel bars meant to hold lions or tigers or some such revolting feline creature.

  What was he supposed to do—laze around letting the vampire feed him and tend his wound, and wait for his chance? He didn’t have the patience for that—but he might not have any other choice.

  Luckily, he soon sensed the approach of the Cage vampire. The wolves did as well, and they were waiting by the door, tails wagging excitedly, when the vampire entered.

  The first thing Cage did was drop to his knees and pet the wolves. “Did you miss me?” he asked as they wriggled like puppies under his hands and licked his face. “Did you keep our guest company? You didn’t try to play dominance games with a werewolf, did you? Of course you didn’t.”

  Cage and the canines’ enthusiasm for each other was disgusting. It annoyed Mike that the vampire greeted the animals before paying attention to him, and he growled to show his displeasure.

  That got Cage’s attention, but it also made him laugh. “Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed?” he asked as he got to his feet and approached the cage.

  I didn’t get a bed. Mike bumped his head against the cage door.

  But Cage didn’t take this obvious hint to let him out. Instead, he crouched down until he was at eye level with Mike. “That’s odd,” he said. “I assumed you’d morph back to human eventually, after I knocked you out.”

  Mike bared his fangs, showing his displeasure at having been rendered unconscious.

  The vampire sat down cross-legged in front of the cage. “I’m Jason Cage.” He held out a hand. “And you are?”

  What did this guy want, for him to shake paws? The vampire reached to touch his head, and Mike backed quickly away from any contact telepathy. Oh, no—no vampire was getting into his head, even if he had to gnaw the bastard’s hands off to keep from being touched.

  “We really need to talk,” Cage went on. “It’d be simpler for both of us if you’d morph back to human.” He gave a thin smile. “I’m sure I have something you could wear. And I might even let you out of the tiger pen.”

  Mike was anything but amused. Why had the vampire locked him up in the first place? And where had he heard the name Jason Cage before?

  From Matt, he thought, and Matthias Bridger didn’t tend to deal with the nicer members of the vampire population. Great—so there was more than one bad-guy vampire in town. Wait a minute, how many vampires had been at the bank robbery? His wolf memory wasn’t the most reliable thing in the world.

  “It’s very inconvenient that I wasn’t able to capture your friend as well. I don’t particularly want to deal with two of your kind at once, but one or both of you is responsible for murder, and that has to be dealt with.”

  This guy didn’t make any sense. If he’d been at the bank robbery, he already knew about the human-slaying werewolf. They worked together, didn’t they?

  “Not that seeing you punished is exactly my problem. For that we’ll have to call in the tracker.”

  I am the tracker, you idiot!

  “But I guess I have to take responsibility for catching—”

  A phone rang, interrupting this soliloquy. The vampire gave an annoyed look toward the table where the phone sat, but by the third ring he reluctantly got up to answer it.

  “I really don’t need to be disturbed right now, Sonja.” After listening for a moment, he said, “You’re right, that is important. I’ll be right there.”

  No, Mike thought. You can’t leave now! Talk to me!

  Jason Cage turned back toward Mike after hanging up the phone. “I’ve got to see about a tiger with a bad tummy ache.” He patted his pet wolves on their heads. “Howl if your cousin here makes any trouble, okay?”

  But it was Mike who howled as Jason Cage left the room, in utter, complete frustration.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  I missed you,” Phillipa said.

  Damn! That was a stupid thing to say. Especially since she’d seen him just twenty-four hours ago, at the airport. Where he’d been anxious to catch an outbound flight.

  “What are you still doing in town, anyway?” she demanded.

  “I missed you, too,” he replied.

  His gaze was firmly on the road, and his hands were tightly gripping the steering wheel. He was tense and angry, and it radiated from him like heat; she was feeling much the same. They had lost the white van before they even managed to turn onto the street, but Bridger was still trying to pick up a trail. She didn’t try to talk him out of it.

  Her own thoughts were zinging around a hundred subjects at once. She was trying desperately to pull up details from her memory. She had a thousand questions. She needed answers, but everything kept coming back to—Matthias Bridger.

  “Why didn’t you leav
e?” she asked him.

  She hated that her tone sounded more than a little petulant. She didn’t want him gone, yet her emotions were less complicated when he wasn’t around. Okay, maybe her emotions were just as complicated, and centered around an aching need to be with him—but she could at least think in a reasonable fashion. Being with him sent her hormones into overdrive and kept her thought processes too screwed up for reasonable use.

  “I meant to leave.”

  Matt hated that his tone sounded more than a little apologetic. It wasn’t his fault he and Phillipa were together right now. Being together meant fighting the attraction. Being apart meant having to fight the attraction as well, but distance ought to ease some of the pain. At least, that had been the plan.

  “I think I’m an idiot,” he muttered. “A stubborn, ridiculous fool. But enough about me—what were you doing in that garage?”

  “Looking for evidence,” she answered.

  “That isn’t your job. You aren’t with the Las Vegas police force.”

  Her glare was scorching. “What were you doing there?”

  He had the feeling she wasn’t just talking about today. “Looking for evidence. And it is my job, even if I am not with the Las Vegas police force. But the evidence found us.”

  “And now we’ve lost him.”

  Matt didn’t agree with the plural, but he agreed that giving up the search made sense. He gestured toward the GPS screen in the center of the dash. “Do you know how to make that thing work?”

  Phillipa studied it for a moment. “Yes.”

  “Good.” He gave her an address, and she pushed buttons. Soon a map appeared on the screen, and voice directions issued from a speaker.

  “I dislike having an auto talk to me,” Matt complained, but he drove as the bland female voice instructed.

  Phillipa couldn’t help but smile. Here was something else she and the Brit agreed on. “Technology has gotten a bit uppity, hasn’t it?”

  “Most definitely.”

  She sat back and closed her eyes against the brutal sunlight that made her head ache. She was tempted to ask if she could borrow Bridger’s sunglasses, but she supposed the driver needed them more than she did. The adrenaline rush was fading, leaving her tired, and thirsty.