He closed the lid and ran his fingers lightly over the bed, leaning his face close to the surface. Yes, the scent patterns matched. Although the smell was old, Serrano had definitely been here.
But there was something more.
He pulled back the comforter and sniffed again.
Although faint, the smell of sex still clung to the sheets. Serrano had fucked someone in this shit hole? A whore? Did he drain her as well? Rejavik didn’t detect any blood scent, though.
He was about to leave when his hand alighted on a lump near the foot of the bed. Flipping back the comforter entirely, he spotted a tiny, wadded ball of black string and lace forgotten on the sheets, kicked off in the heat of the moment.
With just the tip of a finger so as not to disturb the scent, he lifted the flimsy material to his nose.
A woman’s scent. Yes, but—
He inhaled again, letting the top notes dissipate as he processed all the markers.
Not just a female. A vampire female. And Serrano’s scent was almost as strong as hers.
A pleasant thrill ran over his skin like a tropical breeze. He could hardly believe his luck.
Carefully, he removed a small plastic bag from a pocket and tucked the lace inside. He stood, his cock now painfully hard.
It wasn’t just two separate smells he detected—semen and the female’s scent. The semen was mixed with her scent, which only meant one thing.
Serrano had taken the vampire female’s blood.
This was perfect. Now he had two targets to hunt. If he couldn’t find Serrano, maybe he could find the woman.
Rejavik wanted to laugh out loud. What a fool. It wasn’t the first time Serrano’s whoring had gotten him into trouble. Some people never learned from their mistakes, no matter what the consequences were.
He examined the panties through the plastic. They were the impractical kind worn by a female who knew they’d be seen at some point.
He was half tempted to relieve himself right here. He’d mark this spot with his own scent—his own potent scent—and drown out the smell of that betrayer.
As he slipped a hand into his trousers, he heard a rustle outside the door and paused.
Ah, yes. The woman. She was waiting for him outside.
He pulled his hand from his pants and smoothed the front of his jacket. No use wasting his seed just to grandstand. It might as well serve a purpose.
Outside, although the night was still young, the light in the sky was gone; it was ink-black now. The jagged outline of the San Bernardino Mountains looming to the east had disappeared into the darkness.
He loved when night fell earlier and ended later. Soon, the hours of darkness would exceed the hours of daylight. It was truly a magical time of the year for his kind. The human advantage was lessened, because vampires ruled the night.
Since he’d clicked off the bulb as he left the shed, the only illumination now came from one stark floodlight on the far side of the property. Cicadas and other night insects buzzed from the bushes as he slipped past the old car, careful not to brush up against the rough siding of the shed and snag or soil his clothing.
Several coyotes howled in the foothills, their crazy, wild yapping signaling that they had surrounded their prey. All that was left was the thrill of the kill.
Indeed.
With his hands clasped together, he slipped around the corner of the car and didn’t bother to conceal his elongated fangs. The woman sat on the front bumper, her back against the grill, as she sucked in a long draught of her menthol cigarette. He watched as she exhaled two smoky columns from her nostrils, like a dragon.
He willed himself not to disappear amongst the shadows when he stepped in front of her. It was important for her to see him like this.
He needed her to see him like this.
Fear-infused blood tasted so much sweeter on the tongue.
CHAPTER SIX
WHEN LILY OPENED ALL THE VENTS and rolled down the windows, cold gusts of air circulated around the interior of the car. Although tracking a target while inside a moving vehicle was difficult to do, Alfonso knew that Lily wasn’t your ordinary Tracker.
With one hand, she held her honey-blond bangs out of her eyes, while the rest was clasped into a sleek, thick ponytail, wrapped by a thin coil of hair. God, she looked great. Maybe a little thinner though, which bothered him. Her curves were perfect before. Her breasts had always been—
Shit, they’d better find Kip quickly because he had to stop thinking like this. Her feisty, she-cat attitude had always turned him on, but when she’d gone off on him in the parking garage, it made him acutely aware of how much he missed her. His leg ached and he rubbed his palm on his thigh, trying not to remember the feel of her hips under his hands as he held on and pushed himself deeper into her warmth. Not once had he made love to her without taking her blood, and now that he was marked for assassination, he’d never risk her life like that again. Unlike before, this short-lived assignment would be strictly platonic.
“Take I-Five North.” Her head was slightly turned away from him as she gazed out her window.
Had she moved on and found someone else? As much as it killed him to think about it, he hoped she had. She deserved someone whose love didn’t put her in danger, who would be a good role model for her daughter, someone whole and unbroken. Not some former Sweet-addicted member of the Alliance’s inner circle who’d made evil promises long ago and was now too weak to defend her.
He gripped the leather-covered steering wheel tighter and jerked the car around the corner a little too quickly. The low-profile tires squealed on the wet pavement. Her scent didn’t seem to be mingled with anyone else’s, but he sure as hell didn’t have the courage to ask her.
“How far did you track Kip? Jackson told me you went out in the early morning as soon as you discovered him missing.”
“Jackson, the shit,” she mumbled to herself. “I got as far as the North End before I had to turn around at sunrise. That’s not happening again.”
“Why? Are you confident we’ll find him soon? Is his scent that strong?”
“I’m not heading back until I find him, that’s all. Regardless of whether his scent is strong or not, I’m not coming back without him.”
“Tell me what you know about his disappearance.”
In the same slightly husky voice that he knew so well, Lily recounted what little she knew. He could listen to her talk forever, he thought wistfully, recalling the times he’d made her read to him aloud. Books, newspaper articles, advertisements. It didn’t matter. He was mesmerized by the silky sound of her voice and could listen to her forever.
Aw, Jesus, he had to knock this off.
Since when did Lily have a problem tracking someone? Especially someone she’d been working with, whose scent memory should be familiar to her. It wasn’t like she had to conjure the memory from an object. He had the distinct impression she wasn’t telling him everything.
“So even after you heard DBs were looking for Trackers, you set out on your own? What would possess you to do something so idiotic?”
Her eyebrows pinched together and her caramel-brown eyes flashed darker. “You don’t need to remind me that I screwed up, Alfonso. Don’t you think I know that? I shouldn’t have left Kip alone. Period. He’s not had any formal hand-to-hand combat training. If I had been with him, he wouldn’t have been taken by DBs.”
“I’m not talking about Kip. I’m talking about you. Do you think I give a shit about some Agency trainee I’ve never met? If you had been with him, they’d have taken you. They wouldn’t have bothered with him.”
She crossed her arms and settled back in her seat. They drove north on the freeway, the silence almost tangible.
Finally, she cleared her throat. “This is it. This is as far as I came this morning.”
At the top of the exit, he pulled the car off to the side of the road and left the engine running, waiting for direction from her.
“Pick up his scent yet?”
Without looking over at him, she pursed her lips tightly together and shook her head. Something was clearly bothering her. He didn’t need to be a pop-psychology guru to figure that out.
“Well, it rained last night, which always makes tracking a scent more difficult, right? Come on.” He turned off the ignition. “Let’s walk around and see what you detect outside.”
They climbed out of the car and gravel crunched under his footsteps as he came up behind her. She held her shoulders stiff, bit her bottom lip between her teeth as she looked around.
“May I?” When she didn’t answer, he slipped a hand under the collar of her jacket, touching the skin on the nape of her neck as he had done so many times before. He had loved to kiss her there from behind, precisely where his thumb was rubbing, feel her quiver beneath his lips as she waited for him to trail along her shoulder blades and down the center of her back. Now, though, she tensed up at first when he touched her, but he kept rubbing until she relaxed and dropped her head slightly.
God, she was all knotted up, with kinks on top of kinks. He knew from experience that she kept her tension in her neck and shoulders, but this was ridiculous. Only a long soak in a hot tub and a deep-tissue massage would begin to loosen her up, get her to truly relax. Maybe that was her problem. She was too keyed up.
“So who is this Kip? Are you…ah…seeing him?” He forced himself to say the words as calmly as he could. Although he’d not been with another woman since he’d left Lily, he doubted she’d been celibate, given her sexual appetite.
“No, he’s the son of my mother’s best friend. Gorgeous, but way too young for me. I promised her I’d take care of him. Gave her my word.”
Aware that his relief was completely self-centered, Alfonso continued with both hands now, massaging tiny circles on either side of her spinal cord with his thumbs. Out of habit, he found himself pushing a little of his energy into her body before he slid his hands over her coat to rub her shoulders and the tops of her arms. Looking down, he saw that her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted. He desperately wanted to kiss her, drag her into his arms, but he knew that she’d never let him. Besides, as much as he wanted to, he was a selfish fool to even think about going down that path. Kissing led to fondling, which led to sex, which led to blood sharing. It was easier not to start, rather than trying to shut things down midstream. With Lily, he’d never had a good track record of stopping himself once he got going.
“Better? Is this helping any?” he asked.
When she took a deep breath, he thought she might launch into him again. Tell him she could take care of herself. That she didn’t need his or anyone else’s help.
Instead, she straightened up and her eyes blazed with excitement. “Got it!” She pointed down the street. “He was taken somewhere in that direction.”
They jumped back into her car and for the next few hours they wound around the city, each road and neighborhood seedier than the last. Chain-link fences surrounded many of the run-down houses, keeping in the pit bulls and keeping out unwanted guests. Grass lawns were nonexistent, choked out by crabgrass, dandelions and blackberry bushes long ago. And none of the junkers lining the streets had seen a showroom floor in decades.
“They must be using some sophisticated scent-masking techniques,” Alfonso said.
“I’m…ah…not sure.”
They had to be. Lily was the best Tracker with the Agency and wasn’t easily stymied.
She finally directed him to a dilapidated house with a red Condemned sign stapled to the front door. “His scent is strong, but it’s not active,” she said when they pulled up to the curb. “In fact, I can tell the place is empty.”
“Maybe they held him here while they waited for instructions. Let’s check it out anyway. We might find something inside that shows where they took him.”
They crept around to the back of the house, stepping over huge cracks in the driveway and avoiding the trash piled up inside the carport. Alfonso wasn’t surprised to find the back door kicked in, hanging on its hinges. It was totally in character for this neighborhood. He poked his head inside and looked around.
“It’s not insulated well enough from the sunlight to make a decent place to hole up dayside,” Alfonso said as he eyed the living room’s caved-in ceiling, “and I don’t think it’s got a basement. They must not have held him here for long, since he was kidnapped shortly before dawn.”
An overturned chair and a few empty vials of blood were the only signs of recent activity in this pit.
“Come on. There’s nothing here,” he said. Without thinking, he grabbed Lily’s hand to lead her back to the car.
Instantly, her uncorralled energy blazed into his palm, causing his cock to slam against the crotch of his jeans. Fuck. He let go of her as if she were on fire and stuffed his hands into his pockets. She’d always been so free in sharing her energies with him, whether she meant to or not. Obviously, things hadn’t changed. Not wanting to see the longing he felt for her mirrored in her expression because he was liable to do something stupid if he did, he stormed ahead of her and climbed into the car. The memory of her elegant fingers clung to his skin and his thumbs ached to caress them again. He rubbed his hands on his thighs, trying to eliminate the compelling sensation.
She slid in next to him without saying a word, the only sounds the creak of the leather seat and the click of the door as it closed. As he swung the car away from the curb, he glanced over at her, but she kept her face turned away. She had to have felt it too. It couldn’t have been just him.
“It’s getting stronger,” she said, once they’d driven around for a while.
He turned onto a five-lane roadway dotted with billboards in both directions advertising car insurance for drivers with a DWI, lawyers to help avoid child support, and loans for those with bad credit.
She angled her head out the open window. “Yes! It’s strongest over there,” she said, pointing to a windowless strip club. “Do you think they could be holding Kip there?”
That was odd. Shouldn’t she be able to determine that from the strength of his scent? She’d always been able to do that before.
“I’d say it’s a good possibility.” He turned the car around and headed in the opposite direction.
“Where are you going? His scent is coming from over there.”
“I’m parking this fancy car of yours elsewhere. It’s clearly out of place. When you work undercover, everything someone sees or hears from you needs to be a reflection of their expectations. And as much as I love this car, it does not fit the expectations of someone who hangs out in that kind of an establishment. It’d need to be at least ten years older and sporting a few dents to belong out front.” He turned down a side street and parked under a burned-out streetlight. “Wait for me. I’ll go in and see if I can locate him.”
“You can’t be serious. You want me to wait here, while you go in and take care of things? Do I look like a damn shrinking violet to you?”
He hadn’t thought she’d stay, but it sure as hell was worth a try.
LILY CALLED IN TO THE FIELD office that she had a lead on Kip’s whereabouts, but Jackson and another team were dealing with some rowdy youthlings just south of town and wouldn’t be able to get here for a while. Maybe it was a good thing Alfonso was with her, but she’d never admit that to him.
Alfonso led the way as they jogged along the back side of the next block, his boots pounding out a don’t-fuck-with-me rhythm on the pavement that made her nerve endings sing with excitement. From her vantage point slightly behind him, she found herself admiring his tight butt, which was accentuated by the design on his back pockets. His broad shoulders stretched the leather of his jacket; he moved in a way that was at once powerful and lithe, as if he could ricochet himself in a different direction at the blink of an eye. With his arms bent as they were, his fists clenched, would his biceps be flexed as well? Yes, they probably were. Her fingertips tingled at the thought of what they’d feel like under th
e leather of his coat. Strong, masculine, athletic. Whenever he made love to her on top, she delighted in running her hands along those arms and shoulders, feeling the pronounced definition between the two muscle groups as he strained to keep his weight from crushing her…too much…while he moved inside of her.
Oh God, she had to stop thinking of him like this. He’d left her and proved that he was no different from Steven. She didn’t need to revive another doomed relationship. Reluctantly, she dragged her gaze away from him and focused on where they were going and what she hoped to find there.
Out on the main drag, they slowed their clip to a fast walk. As they passed a sandwich board advertising late-night psychic readings and a secondhand clothing store with barred windows, Alfonso grabbed her arm and yanked her inside.
“What are you doing?” she said, as the doorbell jangled loudly over their heads. The smell of stale clothes and old furniture reminded her of all the times she and her mother had gone antique-hunting.
“Since you wouldn’t stay inside the car, we need to disguise your scent in case they recognize it. Muddle it up. With their all-blood diet, a Darkblood’s sense of smell isn’t all that acute, but I don’t want to take chances.” He sifted through the rack by the door, the wire hangers clicking together with purpose, as if he was on the hunt for something in particular.
“But we don’t have time for—” She eyed the long fake fur vest he held up in front of her. “That’s hideous. With all the bare spots, it looks like it’s got mange. Who knows where it’s been?”
“That’s the point.”
He took it to the counter where he grabbed a bent straw cowboy hat.
“Turn around.”
“What? Why?”
“Just do as I say.”
When she didn’t, he spun her around anyway and started to loosen her ponytail.
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