“But nothin’.” He pulled her hard against his chest and held her there.
The intensity in his stare didn’t soften, but her nearness ignited another element in it. Now she saw desire flickering like lightning in the cloudy gray storm. His gaze trailed to her lips.
There was no hiding her body’s response. Her breath came out in a shaky exhale. She melted against him, her skin turning hot as her dragon stirred within her.
“That’s more like it.” He circled her waist with his hands.
Whatever this was between them, it was strong, unique, and undeniably dangerous. She understood Nick could be her undoing, but she couldn’t resist him.
“Considering that in the past several hours, I’ve learned there are vampires, shifters, and one exceedingly attractive dragon living in Manhattan, I think I’ve handled things fairly well, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes,” she said breathlessly.
“Good. Because we have more important things to discuss.” He guided her hand to the front of his slacks. “Do you feel what you do to me?”
She did. The considerable size of him pushed hard and thick against her palm. “Yes.” A warm ache uncurled deep within her belly.
He kissed her softly, gently teasing her bottom lip with his teeth. Everything in her reacted. Her fingers tangled in his hair, and her body pressed fully against that hard length at her belly.
Much too soon, he broke away, glancing at the sliver of watery light coming in between the curtains. “Is that the sunrise?” He checked his watch. “Aww, crap. It’s almost five o’clock!”
“Are you sure you’re human?” Rowan mumbled, still affected by the kiss.
He snorted. “Positive. I have to go.”
“Hmm?” She couldn’t have heard him right. She was falling into his arms, practically throwing herself at him. He couldn’t possibly be thinking about leaving.
“Believe me, I’d love to stay. But I have a dog at home who has all four legs crossed by now and is probably taking out his frustrations on my shoes.”
“You have a dog?”
“A German shepherd named Rosco. He’d love to meet you. Tomorrow night? My place?”
She shook her head. “You can’t go, Nick. It’s not safe.”
He smiled at her but continued for the door. “Get some rest. I’ll call you tomorrow. And you owe me another date. I’m not sure what this was tonight, but it doesn’t count.”
“A date? You’re asking me on a date? Now? No, Nick, I need to—”
But he was already out the door. She ran after him, but he’d caught the elevator. What could she do anyway? If she followed him and tried to force him to accept her protection after what he’d said to her, she’d be crossing a line and violating his right to self-determination. He was a man, a warrior like her brothers. He’d never agree to be treated like a child.
But he didn’t understand the danger. Which meant her agreement with Verinetti was the only chance she had of keeping him alive.
Chapter Seventeen
As soon as Nick was safely inside an Uber, he called Soren. His partner answered in the groggy voice of someone who’d been awakened from a deep sleep.
“Nick? What the hell happened to you last night?”
“Long story. I’ll tell you in person on Monday when I see you at the station.” That would buy him some time to decide what he would say. For obvious reasons, telling Soren that a coven of vampires was invading the city under the protective umbrella of a corporate identity didn’t seem prudent. But he’d have to tell him something.
Soren cleared his throat. “Listen, Nick. I found Kendra, the girl I told you about. She said the tattoo means she’s part of a… club, a sex club, okay? Nothing violent. I think we’re barking up the wrong tree on this one.”
“We are definitely not barking up the wrong tree.”
“So then you did find something.”
“Yeah. I can’t talk about it now.”
“It’s just you ignored all my texts and calls. If you found something, why didn’t you bring me in?”
Nick rubbed his eyes. Soren was usually more reasonable than this. “I was distracted with the case.”
“And with the girl,” Soren suggested.
“Yeah. She’s a distraction. A gorgeous, lovely distraction.”
“Is that right? I want details.” There was a pause. “Are you just heading home now? Is this call on your walk of shame?”
“No shame here.”
“Well, get some sleep, think about what I said, and call me later.”
“Sounds good.”
“Oh, Nick, I almost forgot. I ran into Gerald Stevenson last night.”
Nick raised an eyebrow and adjusted his phone on his ear. He’d almost forgotten that he’d seen the real estate tycoon in one of the booths during the auction. “How is old Gerald?”
“He’s one Raindrop of Heaven short.”
Nick sat up straighter. “What?”
“The jewel was stolen along with a set of matching earrings. Camilla opened her safe to try to wear them and they were gone.”
Intense pressure squeezed Nick’s brain, as if pincers had been applied at his temples and a sadistic madman was trying desperately to crack his skull like a nut.
“Any leads?” He rubbed his head and prayed the Uber would arrive at his apartment soon so he could medicate the hell out of this.
“No. But Gerald mentioned that the last person besides him and Camilla that had access to the safe and was on video surveillance was… you.”
“Bullshit,” Nick said. “He has housekeeping staff, and his regular security detail would have checked that the diamond was secure after my shift. That’s procedure.”
His head hurt so bad he thought he might throw up. Images were flashing through his mind, a fragmented zoetrope in black and white with splashes of color. The Stevensons’ Hampton home. A woman’s silhouette framed in the light of the moon on the bedroom balcony.
“I’m going to be sick. Migraine,” he mumbled. “Later?”
“Sure. Take care of yourself. We’ll talk Monday.” Soren disconnected the call.
“Here you go,” the driver said, pulling up to his apartment building.
Nick exited the vehicle, relieved that whatever had caused the pain in his head seemed to be abating. It was all the stress and exhaustion from the night. There was some dark shit going down in that basement. But real vampires?
And Rowan said she was a dragon. Those wings were part of her and stunning. He couldn’t wait to explore them again, run his hands along their edges and learn everything about her anatomy. Could she change into a dragon the way he’d seen Verinetti change into an owl? It didn’t really matter. She wasn’t human, and although he knew that should scare him, it didn’t. He was enchanted. Whatever she was, she rang all his bells and pushed all his buttons. Beautiful, smart, strong, she had it all. He was still thinking about her when he unlocked his door and a gray blur plowed into him.
“Hey, Rosco. Sorry, buddy. You’re about to pop, huh?”
He clipped the leash onto the German shepherd’s collar and led him out onto the patch of grass behind his apartment building. The sun wasn’t entirely up yet, although the sky had taken on that bright lavender quality of coming dawn. The street was quiet, but he remained vigilant as Rosco did his business. Vampires, he supposed, could only come out at night, but Verinetti and his men, they could be a threat twenty-four hours a day. He took comfort in the weight of his gun. Whether or not she approved, he needed Rowan to teach him about the strengths—and, more importantly, the limitations—of vampires.
A bottle rolled across the sidewalk and into the building. In a heartbeat, he drew his gun and whirled, then lowered his weapon when he saw who it was.
“You up early, Mistah Nick,” Regine said, hobbling toward him from the alley. He’d never known her to sleep here. She loved her place in the park.
“Rosco needed to do his business.” He glanced at the dog, who was
sniffing every blade of grass for the right spot, and then looked back at Regine. “I don’t usually see you around here. What’s going on?”
“Somptin’ goin’,” she said in a shaky voice, clearly on the verge of tears. “Blood breathers be everywhere. Ne’er like dis before.”
“Blood breathers?”
She blew a breath toward her open palm. “Ha. Ha. Blood.”
“Their breath smells like blood?”
She nodded, her dark, tangled hair bobbing. “I no wan’ dem to bite me. I seen dem bite Alice, and she don’ come round no more.”
“Where did they bite Alice?” Icy water filled his veins.
She pointed to her neck. “Here. In da park. At night so nobody could see. But Regine sees. I always watchin’.”
Rosco nudged his hand and looked up at him with warm brown eyes, waiting for him to pick up his steaming pile of dog shit. Well, if that wasn’t a metaphor for how Nick’s life was going, he didn’t know what was. He rubbed the dog between his long, pointed ears. Reaching into his pocket, he grabbed his wallet and drew out a twenty. “Here, Regine.”
“What dis fo’?”
“Sleep on the bus or go get breakfast.”
“Oh, you a sweet man, Nick. Some woman be happy-happy to fin’ you.”
“Maybe someday. And uh, I think the blood breathers can’t come out during the day, so maybe that’s when you should sleep.”
She nodded her head slowly, then pointed a finger to the sky. “Good. Good.” She took the twenty and hobbled off toward the bus stop, and he sighed in relief.
Nick drew a poop bag from his pocket and quickly cleaned up after Rosco, not wanting to linger out in the open. Vampires. Real fucking vampires. He shook his head. Despite what Rowan said about the danger, it wasn’t enough for him to hide from this. These things were hurting innocent people. He prayed that Alice wouldn’t end up like his murdered girl.
He let Rosco into the apartment and locked up tight, then crawled under the covers, making sure his gun was within reach. He was almost asleep when he grabbed his phone off the nightstand and texted Rowan.
I want you to teach me everything you know about vampires. Please.
Tomorrow? she texted back. For a moment his mind wandered. Was she in bed? What was she wearing? Were her wings out? He ran a hand over his face.
7 PM. Meet me here. He included a contact file with his address.
See you then.
He drifted to sleep to dreams of dark hair, amber eyes, and wings.
Chapter Eighteen
New Orleans, Louisiana
* * *
This had to work. Raven had tried everything to locate Rowan. Every other spell she could think of. But every time she came close to pinpointing her location, she hit a wall of magic like no other she’d encountered before. What good was being a sorceress if she couldn’t even find her mate’s sibling to warn her of danger?
Raven stood in the enchanted library above Blakemore’s Antiques, dressed in Rowan’s red gown, the one she’d been wearing on the day her older brother was murdered by her uncle and their mother cast the remaining eight siblings to Earth. That was over three hundred years ago. Gabriel owned Blakemore’s, a store boasting a delightful collection of high-end furniture and decor from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries. But it was the library on the third floor where Raven had first connected with her power. Gabriel had collected hundreds of grimoires from around the world over his lifetime. Shelves and shelves of books on magic, some of the tomes hundreds of years old, filled the room. Raven couldn’t read all the languages they were written in, but that didn’t stop them from being useful to her. She absorbed magic. It made her an extremely powerful witch.
The tracking spell she’d employed today to find Gabriel’s sister was druidic in origin and combined blood magic with a less complicated location charm. It had required her to push aside the desk in the library in order to make room for a circle of bloodstones whose energy would not only seek out the former owner of the dress but would also use Gabriel’s blood to amplify the locator magic, specifically toward his siblings. She wasn’t sure of the range of the spell, but she hoped it would be strong enough to reach as far as New York.
“Are you certain about this, Raven? I do not like your doing this here. Why not perform the spell from inside the Prytania house?” Gabriel scowled at her from outside the circle.
He’d been brooding about her trying this all day. He wouldn’t be happy unless she was lounging in a padded chair in a padded room and sipping a tepid cup of tea, lest she burn her mouth. That was what you got when you took a dragon as a mate—twenty-four seven protection from a man whose very nature was to hoard the things most precious to him. His mate and his developing whelp topped that list.
“If I did it in our Garden District house, I’d have to fight our own protective blood magic. It would reduce the range of the spell. Blakemore’s is protected with a defensive shield but not an offensive ward to repel intruders. It’s much simpler and easier to navigate.”
“I don’t like this. What if Aborella and my mother sense your use of magic? You’re drawing on dragon’s blood. It will be like a beacon for them.”
The thought of Aborella made her shiver. The fairy sorceress with dark purple skin had almost lured her to her doom when Gabriel had taken her to Paragon earlier that year. Aborella was an extremely powerful magical being who worked directly for the evil queen of Paragon, aka Gabriel’s mother.
“Aborella scares me as much as she scares you, but if she is watching from Paragon, it will cost her time and magic to get here. We’ll be safely home before we’re in any danger. Besides, if I do it here, there will be nothing linking us back to Prytania Street. It’s safer.”
Gabriel chuffed and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Hand me the map. Did you ask Tobias to get the candle for me?” Raven took the rolled parchment from Gabriel’s hands and was relieved when Tobias chose that moment to enter with a paper-wrapped package.
“One ginger-root-infused blue candle.” Tobias handed it over to her. “Why does Gabriel look like he’s going to have a stroke?”
“Ignore him. He’s upset that I’m not in a bubble at the end of a leash.”
Gabriel growled. “Not true. I’m simply concerned about the risk.”
“Do you want to find your sister or not?” Raven yelled, purple sparks rising from her skin.
Tobias waved his hands. “Whoa, cool it, Raven. You’re lighting up like a sparkler.”
“We’re doing this,” she said, glaring at Gabriel. “Give me space.”
Tobias took three large steps back. Gabriel stayed exactly where he was. Fine. Raven turned in the circle so that her back was to him. Taking a deep breath, she glanced once more at her mate before unrolling the map and pinning down one corner with a wooden toothpick, another with a metal tack, the third under a glass of water, and the last under the candle Tobias had brought her.
“Incendia,” she whispered. The candle blazed to life.
She removed the ruby pendant from her neck and dangled it over the map. “Virite tórach kin adelphí. Verimas avich drochorus.” She chanted the spell in the native language it was written in, a language long dead.
The ruby started to spin at the end of its ribbon, and the circle of stones around her produced purple strings of magic that crisscrossed around her until she was standing under a glowing, pulsating dome of power. “Your blood! Now. Both of you.”
At least Gabriel didn’t fight her on this. He held his palm over the silver chalice she’d left outside the circle and sliced it with her ceremonial dagger. Tobias offered his own hand. One cut and the blood of the brothers mixed in the belly of the cup.
“Bring it here. Pour it over the stones.” Raven gestured at the front of the circle.
Eyeing the dome skeptically, Gabriel did as she commanded, his mouth twisting in distaste as the blood left the cup. It never hit the stones. Every drop was caught in the web of magic
al energy, suspended, thick and crimson along the tracks of power that arced around her. She concentrated, gripping the fabric of Rowan’s dress.
All at once, the blood rained down toward the map on the floor near her toes.
“It’s happening!” Raven cried.
The ruby in her hand began to spin, so fast she could barely keep hold of the ribbon it was tied to. Drops of blood rolled across the map like marbles, spiraling under the gem.
“I’m close! I can feel it.” The blood rolled toward the state of New York. “Yes. Yes!”
Suddenly, as if she’d opened the door to a moving airplane, a powerful wind howled through the room, blowing back her hair and sending the material of her dress flapping in the gale force. The candle in the corner of the map flickered.
“No. No!” Raven yelled. “It’s the defensive magic again. Fuck! The candle! Incendia. Incendia!”
Raven tried her best to keep the candle burning, but the wind blew so hard through her magical dome she dropped the ruby. The flame extinguished. The purple dome shattered and fell like sand to the floor, where it disappeared.
“For fuck’s sake!” she yelled. She had a blister where the ribbon from the necklace had rubbed too hard against her thumb, and she sucked it into her mouth to soothe the burn. Her knees started to shake, and Gabriel rushed to her, gathering her into his arms. “Whoever is protecting your sister is a magical genius.”
Tobias stared at the map, tilting his head. “Uh, Raven?”
She detangled herself from Gabriel’s grip and followed Tobias’s gaze to the map. Although the ruby was cast aside, off the edge of the map, all the blood had stained one specific place in a concentrated red dot that had soaked through the map.
“Sedona, Arizona,” Raven said.
“What would Rowan be doing in Arizona?” Tobias asked.
Raven shook her head. “I don’t think it’s her.” She pointed at the ruby. “This is not how the spell is supposed to work. The spell had two parts, the first to find Rowan specifically, using the stone and this dress, the second to find your siblings using your blood. The stone is off the map, deflected by the defensive spell.”
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