by Zara Chase
Vadim and Zayd needed a human mate to restore their waning powers. Shifters wouldn’t cut it for them. If they took the chance of having sex with the wrong person, they could end up losing their powers altogether. That meant being stuck in a human body, with feline instincts they couldn’t follow. Vadim shuddered. Being unable to shift would be worse than death itself.
By the time Vadim and Giron had thrashed out details of the additional security patrols, Vadim had his priorities back in order. He returned upstairs and found that Rochelle, ever efficient, had already delivered the food Zayd had ordered. He and Talia were seated at the table, waiting for him.
“Sorry about that,” he said.
“No problems,” Zayd replied. “Everything okay with Giron?”
“Yeah, he knows what needs to be done.”
Talia ate sparingly and refused all alcohol, sticking with water. She didn’t speak a word, but Vadim could see that she was assessing the pair of them the entire time. He watched her as he and Zayd consumed thick steaks so rare that blood oozed each time they cut into them. Talia toyed with a smoked-salmon salad and didn’t seem interested in near-raw meat. Did that mean she wasn’t actually a shifter?
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Zayd pheromoned. “She could still be playing us.”
“Think I don’t know that?”
“What I think is that you ain’t thinking straight at all right now for some reason.”
“Smart-ass!”
They finished their meal and Vadim stood up.
“It’s time for some answers,” he said, holding out a hand to Talia.
She stared at that hand for some time before slipping hers into it, almost hesitantly, like she didn’t want to touch him. Vadim understood why as soon as his fingers closed around hers. The electric charge created by the simple contact surged through his bloodstream, messing with his newfound resolve to keep her at arm’s length. Shit, this wasn’t good!
He dropped her hand like it had scorched him the moment they left the nook in the kitchen where they’d eaten their meal. The sitting room had full-length windows looking straight out onto the Gulf. It was early evening and the fiery ball of setting sun had cast the calm water a dappled orange. It looked beautiful—and harmless. But Vadim knew these unpredictable waters were anything but harmless.
Talia sat in the chair that Vadim indicated and stared at the view, seemingly transfixed by it.
“Did you really pull me out of that?” she asked.
It was the first time she’d voluntarily spoken since they’d fought one another.
Vadim shot her a look. “You don’t remember?”
She shrugged. “It’s all a bit vague.”
“What do you remember?” Zayd asked.
“I don’t, not really. I can remember my name, if Talia Regan is my name. I know the president’s name. I knew what all the food we just ate was called. But I can remember absolutely nothing about my life before today, about how I got to be in the ocean, how I learned to fight like that…nothing.” Her voice rose, sounding shrill and panicked. “How can that be?”
“Stay calm, darlin’,” Vadim said. “We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“What sort of fighting was it that I did in there?”
“Karate,” Vadim replied, “and you’re damned good at it.”
“Thank you. I think.”
She smiled for the first time since they’d met her. Vadim and Zayd shared a glance and suppressed a mutual groan. Unsmiling, she was sensational. When she smiled she was…well, indescribable. The two of them had spent hours fantasizing over every physical detail of the perfect mate for them, convinced she was out there somewhere, waiting for them to find her. Talia checked all those boxes, and then some. But she knew shifters existed. That could only mean one thing, damn it!
“Just as a matter of interest, why did you try so hard to kill me?” Vadim asked.
“That’s just it, I don’t know.” She dropped her head into her splayed hands and shook it from side to side. “I don’t have any reason to kill you. I don’t even know you. There was just something…I don’t know how to describe it. This will sound stupid, but there was something inside my head telling me that I had to attack you. Every time I tried to fight it, a terrible pain ripped through me. I—”
“It’s okay,” Vadim said grimly. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Her head shot up. “You know what happened to me? You don’t think I’ve gone crazy?”
“Yeah,” Zayd said, serious for once. “We know, and we don’t think you’ve lost it.”
“Then please, you have to tell me!”
“We will, shortly,” Zayd replied, “but first, you said you thought we were shifters. What made you say that? And how come you think shifters even exist? They’re just the product of Hollywood, aren’t they?”
“I can’t answer that, either. All I know is that I keep getting little flashes breaking through the fog inside my head.”
“We can’t keep putting it off,” Zayd pheromoned. “I’m as hot for her as you are, buddy, but if she’s a shifter it’ll be easy enough to find out.”
“I know, but—”
“Don’t tell me the great, unflinching Vadim has lost his edge.”
“Shit, leave it, Zayd.”
Vadim sighed. Zayd was right, just like he almost always was. Vadim’s first duty was to the colony, not to his own aspirations.
“Excuse me for a moment if I do something that seems a bit odd,” he said to Talia.
“Everything that’s happened to me today is odd.” Talia shrugged. “If you think you can top that, take your best shot.”
Vadim hesitated for a protracted moment and then, matching Talia’s sigh, he stood and leaned over her chair. She looked up at him with curiosity in her expression, but no fear. Vadim rubbed his cheek against the side of her face, up and down, creating friction between their heated skins.
“Damn!” he muttered as he moved away.
Talia looked up at him with a bemused expression. “What did you just do?”
“Bad news?” Zayd asked.
“She’s not purebred, but there’s something there.”
“Fuck!”
“Would you two please stop talking about me as though I’m not here and tell me what’s going on?”
“Humor us, babe,” Vadim said, “and step out onto the terrace just for a moment.”
“Okay, but I don’t see what—”
“You will.”
She followed the guys outside. Vadim and Zayd stepped up to the railing and watched her. She took a deep breath, coughed, and then took another.
“Hey, it’s kind of humid out here.”
“She can’t be pure shifter,” Zayd pheromoned. “If she was, she’d be able to breathe our air.”
“I already told you she’s not purebred. If she was, she would have shifted when she attacked me.”
Zayd screwed up his features. “She’s still got shifter blood, buddy. We have to forget about her as a mate.”
“Think I don’t know that?”
“The air’s a bit thin here in Impulse,” Vadim said, guiding her back inside. “Not everyone can breathe it easily.”
They all sat down again and Vadim knew the time had come to explain.
“I know you’re tired,” he said, “and this is gonna sound a little weird. But you need to understand that someone’s messed with your mind.”
She laughed. “Don’t be silly. That’s not possible. I figured I’d been in the water for too long, or something.”
“Nope. You said yourself that something inside your head made you attack me when you didn’t want to.”
“We need to try and figure out who got to you,” Zayd said.
“And why?” she suggested.
“Oh, we know why,” Vadim said. “Tomorrow, when we’ve all rested, we’re gonna try and unblock the block, if you’ll trust us enough to let us do that.”
“This is beyond creepy,” she said, shudderin
g.
“No odder than you trying to kill the guy who saved your life,” Zayd pointed out. “And you don’t fight fair, in case you didn’t know it. Going for his balls was just plain mean.”
A grin crept around the corners of her mouth. “I was looking for a large target.”
Zayd roared with laughter. “And his are as big as they come, honey, trust me on this.”
“Glad you find it amusing,” Vadim said, laughing as well. “Still, it’s time to turn in.”
“I really don’t want to sleep with such a foggy brain,” Talia said. “I get all these images that freak me out. Besides, what if I feel the need to kill you again?”
“You won’t,” Vadim replied. “The people who were controlling you are now too far away to keep the pressure on. They knew they only had one shot at it, and fortunately for me that failed.”
She looked at them helplessly. “You might as well be speaking Swahili for all the sense you’re making.”
“Just trust us,” Zayd said, offering her a full-on sexy smile that she responded to, probably instinctively, with a wide smile of her own. “We need to get some rest and so do you. First thing tomorrow, we’ll set about unlocking the Pandora’s box that’s lodged inside your brain.”
“Okay. I guess you know best.”
* * * *
Talia felt like she was an actor in a play, looking on as someone else portrayed her life, unaware what went before or after the scene that was being enacted. It was weird, but also kind of exciting, in a masochistic sort of way. She didn’t believe it was possible for anyone to wipe her memory, much less control her actions. But Vadim and Zayd seemed so convinced that she was starting to believe it herself. The explanation helped to assuage her guilt. She’d tried to kill Vadim, but it wasn’t her fault because someone was screwing with her brain.
Welcome to the blameless society.
The two guys led her to the room where she’d slept before.
“You got everything you need?” Zayd asked.
“Some clothes would be nice.”
“We’ll sort that in the morning,” Vadim said. “And we’re right across the hall if you need us.”
He pointed to a single door. Did they share the same room then? Were they gay? The possibility disappointed her—they didn’t seem the type. Besides, the way Vadim had kissed her wasn’t how a gay man kissed a woman. The gesture was backed up with a ton of passion, and he was rigidly erect. She was still reeling from her reaction to him.
Get a grip, girl.
Heck, she was a basket case. She didn’t know who she actually was, what sort of crazy shit she’d landed herself in, and yet she was lusting after a man—no, make that two men—one of whom she’d just tried to kill.
“Good night,” she said abruptly, closing the door on them and leaning against it. If they were right about this mind-play stuff, she absolutely didn’t want them reading what few thoughts she now owned, especially since they focused on ravishing the pair of them. She must be a truly shallow person.
Left alone, Talia went through what felt like a regular routine. She washed her face and cleansed it with products she found in the bathroom cabinet, then brushed her teeth and her hair. Naked, she slid between crisp cotton sheets, wiggled into a comfortable position, and stared at the ceiling. She was bone weary, but her blank mind refused to shut down and sleep eluded her. All sorts of unanswered questions rattled through her head. Where had she learned karate? How had she ended up on a boat and then fallen off it? She could have picked out Peru on a map but had no idea what she’d eaten for breakfast that day.
Her mental demons fed on the darkness, taking her to places she didn’t want to be. It was a long time before exhaustion rocked her into a restless sleep. She woke from it abruptly, bathed in perspiration, and sat bolt upright, forgetting for a moment where she was. The sheet was twisted round her body like a straitjacket and she trembled from the aftereffects of a dream in which she was charging round the country with a sword, cutting off the heads of anyone who crossed her path.
“This is ridiculous,” she said aloud, hoping the sound of her own voice would restore a little sanity.
She thumped her pillows into a more comfortable nest and again tried to sleep.
“Admit it, girl,” she said after another ten minutes of wide-awake fear had elapsed, “you’re afraid of your own shadow.”
She had good reason to be afraid. The guys’ insistence that she was being manipulated by forces beyond her understanding no longer seemed so outrageous—not now, in the early hours when she was alone and afraid. If only she could remember who she was, what her life was all about, she’d feel more in control. But the harder she tried, the hazier it all became. Talia felt isolated and afraid.
“I guess I don’t have to be alone,” she told herself. “They did tell me where to find them. What do I care if they think I’m a wuss? They seem to know what’s going on, which is more than can be said for me.”
Talia threw the covers back and slipped her arms into the sleeves of the robe hanging behind the door. Then she paused. What if her determination to go to them wasn’t her own choice? What if they were wrong and the people manipulating her still had control of her thought process? They had assured her that she was no longer dangerous, but they couldn’t know that for sure, could they? Even so, the desire to leave this lonely room was compelling.
Without giving it any further thought, Talia let herself into the corridor and opened the door to their room without knocking. She expected them to be sound asleep and annoyed by the intrusion. Nothing could have been farther from the truth and Talia stopped dead in the doorway, blinking at the scene that greeted her.
Vadim was wearing some sort of kinky harness that pushed his balls way up his body. An impossibly huge erection was encased in some sort of ring. His wrists were shackled to the bedhead and he was on all fours while Zayd paddled his ass with a whip, pulling back on a collar round his buddy’s neck as he did so, making it seem as though he was choking him.
“Oh, sorry,” she said, red with embarrassment. “I’ll…er, leave you to it.”
Chapter Five
At the sound of her voice, Vadim twisted his head sideways, surprised that he and Zayd hadn’t sensed her arrival.
“We were too engrossed,” Zayd pheromoned.
“I guess.”
“So, what do we do now?”
Vadim chuckled. “Finish what we started.”
“With an audience?”
“Why not? It might throw some light on a few things.”
“You think she’ll go for it?”
“One way to find out.”
“Hey, don’t leave,” Vadim said aloud. “Come join us.”
“Looks like three would be one too many.”
“Not embarrassed, are you?” Zayd taunted.
“I’m not into voyeurism.”
Zayd blew her a kiss. “You don’t know what you’ve been missing, babe.”
“Why did you leave your room?” Vadim asked.
“I…er, I’m not really sure.”
“Did you remember something?”
“No.” She turned away from them, then turned right back again, like she was too fascinated by what she’d seen to pretend indifference. “I didn’t realize you guys were gay.”
“We’re not,” Vadim said. “We swing both ways.”
“Oh, I see.”
Vadim watched her debating with herself. She mangled her lower lip between her teeth as her gaze kept coming back to him in his fetish harness.
“You got some questions you need to ask, honey?”
“Well, I…” She released her lip and moistened it with the tip of her tongue. “The strap thing you’re wearing. What does it do?”
“The rings encompass my balls and my cock separately,” he said. “It makes me last longer while Zayd spanks me and then fucks my ass. When he pulls back on the collar it restricts my breathing and heightens the sensations.”
“Right.�
� Her cheeks flamed with embarrassment. “I’ll…er, take your word for that.”
“Don’t suppose you can remember if you’ve ever seen anything like it?”
“No, I can’t.” She grinned. “And I’m sure I would if I had. It’s not something you see every day, I shouldn’t imagine.”
“Are you repelled?” Zayd asked.
“Actually, I’m fascinated.”
“Shit, she’s definitely the mate for us,” Vadim pheromoned.
“Down, boy!”
“Well, if you’re curious,” Zayd said aloud, “you could come give me a hand.”
“What do I need to do?”
“Atagirl!” Zayd grinned at her. “Lose the robe for starters. Clothing is surplus to requirement in this room.”
A slow, uncertain smile invaded her lips. “Evidently.”
The robe slithered slowly from her shoulders and she stood before them stark naked. Both men inhaled sharply. She was perfection, and then some.
“My tits are probably too small for you,” she said, glancing at them with uncertainty.
“They’re perfect,” Zayd said, abandoning Vadim and standing to join her. “Welcome to the party, babe.”
Vadim watched as his buddy pulled Talia into his arms, bent his head, and kissed her hard and deep. Shit, she had the longest, slimmest legs, and the cutest butt he’d ever seen on a woman. Why, oh why was she sent here if they couldn’t have her? It was the cruelest irony—a living nightmare.
Zayd’s hands drifted to her butt as he prolonged the kiss and pulled her against his erection. She made cute little needy moans, even while she was still being kissed.
“You wanna play dress up?” Zayd asked her when he broke the kiss.
“Er, yes, I guess.”
Zayd tweaked a nipple and then delved into his drawer full of tricks and held up a leather bra that didn’t have any cups.
“I think this’ll be perfect for you,” he said.
“What does it do?”
“You’ll see.”
He fitted it onto Talia and stood back to admire his handiwork, sharing a smug grin with Vadim. The bra pushed her tits high and closer together. Vadim could see that her large, dark nipples were rock hard. She was standing close enough for him to also see that juices were trickling down her inner thighs.