by Cynthia Eden
“You’ve got some explaining to do.” Her hands were on her hips as she continued to face off with Owen. The human cops had scattered for their search. “You should have told me. You should have—”
“I didn’t know what you were, Agent Townsend, until about five months ago.” Owen’s upper lip curled. “You didn’t exactly go around advertising your true self, now, did you?”
Sully didn’t like the tone the man was—
“If you hadn’t bugged my house, you would have never known,” she fired back.
Ah, so that was how the Bureau had discovered Sadie’s not-so-little secret. Interesting. Sully had long known that the Bureau had a special division, a group of agents with particular…gifts. But he hadn’t realized exactly how most of the agents for that unit were recruited.
He should have known the agency would be screwing over its own people. Big Brother liked to know everything and use everyone.
“Don’t get why you’re so pissed,” Owen muttered. “So I didn’t tell you that your ex-lover had turned bloodsucker. Maybe you should be thanking me for not telling you.”
Bloodsucker? Sully’s teeth snapped together. “You’re pushin’.” It wouldn’t take much more to send him over the edge.
Owen ignored him and focused on Sadie. “I figured you’d be grateful, especially after what happened to your friend Jasmine—”
Sadie swayed. Stumbled. “Stop!” Her cry was directed straight at Owen. “Don’t talk about her. Not ever. I agreed to stay on with this unit to help—”
Instantly, Owen went from attack mode to kind-friend persona. “You are helping, Sadie,” he murmured as his eyebrows lowered. Fake SOB. “Only someone with your talents could work this case. You’re going to catch another killer. You’ll keep the streets safe—”
“I didn’t catch anyone tonight.” She shook her head. Looked fragile, as she’d never looked before. “Just let the perp get away and tipped him off to the fact that another shifter is hunting him.” Her hand rose and raked back her hair. “I’m going home. The guy’s long gone. Tomorrow, tomorrow—I’ll start tracking him again.”
She turned away and didn’t once glance at Sully. Her steps were slow. Steady.
Sully watched in silence. He was willing her to glance back, just once, and look at him. But soon she disappeared into the shadows and left him with the man who’d sent him off to die two years ago.
Owen began to edge back. Cautiously, moving like a snake and—
Sully’s hands flashed out. He grabbed the special agent and effectively halted his exit. “Going somewhere?”
Owen’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he gave a frantic shake of his head.
“I didn’t think so.” Sully stared into the other man’s lying eyes. “Who’s Jasmine?”
Owen’s lips thinned.
“Who. Is. Jasmine.” Sully let the power of the vampire sweep through him. He knew that his voice had deepened. That his eyes had darkened to black.
But it apparently took more than a few theatrics to rattle the special agent. Owen inhaled on a rasp. “You weren’t put on the extermination list, Sullivan. That’s the only favor you’ll be getting from me.”
The extermination list. The list the Bureau kept of the Other who’d gone bad and needed to be eliminated. A harsh laugh broke from his lips. “Let me clue you in, Agent Miller. In the last two years, I’ve learned a few things. And you know that infamous list of yours? It’s not worth a piss.” The handful of names. The list of paranormals who’d blatantly killed.
That list barely scratched the surface of the evil out there.
He leaned in close to Owen. “And even if you’d sent your men…” His teeth came together on a snap. “They wouldn’t have stopped me.” Sully let his gaze drop to Owen’s throat. “I’ll ask once more, and then I’ll stop playing it nice.” He smiled. “Who is Jasmine?”
Owen began to shake. Sully knew the truth about the prick. He wasn’t human, either. Not really. Owen was a charmer. A being gifted with the ability to talk to animals. Sully didn’t know precisely what animal linked with Owen, but he was betting it was a rat.
His hands tightened around Owen. Sully’s enhanced strength easily bruised the agent’s skin, and, if Sully just applied a dash more pressure, he could break—
“V-vampire killed her. When she was a teen.” Owen’s words rushed out, nearly tumbling over each other. “Jasmine—she was Sadie’s best friend. She died in Sadie’s arms.”
Well, fuck.
Sully shoved the special agent away from him.
That explained a few things. Like the way Sadie had come at him with a stake as soon as she’d realized he was a vamp.
What a damn tangled mess. Sadie wouldn’t want to be around him, not knowing what he was. She’d never agree to be with him again, unless—
His lips curved.
Owen flinched.
“Tell me about the man Sadie is hunting for you.” Not a man, though, he knew that. “Tell me why she’s after him.”
“That’s confidential. Only FBI—”
Sully laughed again. He couldn’t help it. “Right. Save the bullshit for someone else.” Someone who didn’t know the real score.
Owen’s brows raised. “I’ll tell you, but only if you agree to help on this one.” More confident. But then, maybe the fear had been all for show. Cagey, that was Agent Miller.
Such a sly jerkoff. “Talk, then we’ll deal.” Making deals was the way of the world, for the living and undead.
The agent began to talk—about blood and death, bodies found in trees, and the claw marks of a monster.
And Sully began to plan.
***
He followed the woman back to her house. He’d transformed, picked up the clothes he’d hidden, and blended in easily with the humans milling on the streets. He’d passed right by two uniformed cops and they’d never given him so much as a second glance.
Humans. Not even worth his time most days, but she was different.
A female shifter. A leopard. Someone with his strength. His cunning.
He’d never thought to find a female like her.
So perfect.
He used the wind, knowing exactly how to manipulate the breeze to hide his scent. And he hunted.
He watched her through the windows of her house. Watched her silhouette. Her supple curves.
He’d been settling for humans, enjoying the prey’s screams, when he could have had…her.
She opened the balcony doors. Let her gaze sweep over the street. Stared right past him. Leopards were so good at blending in with their surroundings.
She should know that.
Her head tilted back as she glanced toward the sky. She exposed the slender column of her throat. A sign of submission for his kind, from one lover to another.
He purred.
Oh, this was going to be fun.
Chapter Five
She’d left her balcony doors open. The better to let in the gentle breeze of the night. And him.
Her back was to the doors when she sensed him. She caught the whiff of the ocean. Heard the faintest rustle of sound. Sadie had known that he would follow her.
Just as she’d known that she wouldn’t be able to kill him at that bar. She’d missed his heart, not because he’d turned at the last moment, but because she’d weakened.
Sully. She hadn’t seen the monster when she’d looked at him. She’d just seen the man. And her aim had wavered.
Her head lifted, and she moved, very slowly, to face him. “Into scaling buildings these days, are you, vampire?”
He strode forward and looked so sexy and strong that an ache lodged above her heart and heat bloomed between her thighs. Sully had always had a powerful effect on her. She’d wanted him more than she’d ever desired another.
His lips curved into a smile that had her breath catching. “Ah, love, the trellis made it too easy for me.”
Love. The one word sent pain stabbing through her. “Did you come for your c
oat?” It had been like wrapping up in his scent—in him—when she’d worn it after her shift. “It’s here, just give me a—”
“Fuck the coat.”
Her gaze held his.
“We both know I’m not here for the coat.”
And she could almost see, in his eyes…
I’m here for you.
Her gaze dropped to his chest. To the dried blood on his shirt. “I’m sorry, Sully. I-I shouldn’t have—” Tried to kill you. “I shouldn’t have attacked you back at the bar. You just—um, caught me by surprise.” When I saw your teeth, I remembered the vamp and the way he’d laughed. So long ago, but the nightmares would never stop for her.
Fury, instinct—they’d taken over and she’d moved without even thinking. The stake had been over his heart when she’d glanced into his eyes and seen the stare of her lover.
And she hadn’t been able to kill him.
She was too weak where Sully was concerned. Always had been.
Sully stepped toward her with a long, smooth glide. “Not the first time an old friend has tried to murder me.”
She blinked. “But I—”
His finger pressed against her lips. “I’m not the monster you think.”
Vampires are evil. Predators. They live to kill. Live by draining their victims dry and stealing their screams. Even the devil won’t let those bastards in to hell. Those had been her brother’s words after they’d buried Jasmine.
“I didn’t choose this life. Didn’t go searching for the exchange.”
Others had. Others had bartered more than just their souls for the blood-soaked promise of immortality.
His hand moved to cup her cheek. Such an oddly tender touch. “I spent the day with you, tasting heaven, then when I went on my assignment that night, I found hell.”
She shivered. From his touch? His words? Sadie didn’t know. Didn’t care. “Sully…”
His hand stroked lower, curving over her neck. The wound from his bite had already healed. Her kind healed fast—some faster than others, depending on the beasts they carried—and the shift had only sped up the restoration. “We were ambushed,” he told her, voice rasping. “A fuckin’ den of vampires were waiting on us. It wasn’t some kind of cult who’d been kidnapping and killing—it was vampires. My team wasn’t ready to face them. There were too many.”
Pain was in his words and in the memories she saw in his eyes.
“The leader, I swear, he looked like some twenty-year-old kid.”
Because he’d been the Blood. Jacob had made certain she had a very thorough vampire education after Jasmine’s death. The Blood were born vampires. They stopped aging in their late teens or twenties and developed a ravenous hunger for blood.
They were the most powerful. Both psychically and physically.
“He sank his teeth into me, but I fought him. Clawing. Shooting. Punching.” He drew in a breath. Because, yes, vampires still breathed. Their hearts still beat. The Taken, vampires who’d been made, not born, only died for an instant, then their bodies awoke with a flood of power.
And with a desperate hunger for blood.
She wanted to touch him. To hold him. But he wasn’t her Sully anymore, if he’d ever been hers.
The hand against her throat seemed slightly cool, but so strong.
“How did you…” She stopped, cleared her throat and tasted the breeze from the balcony on her tongue. “How did you change?”
His hand fell away. “Wasn’t supposed to. Bastards left me for dead, like they did the rest of my team. All I can figure, I must’ve gotten some of his blood, the one who attacked me. I shot him to hell. Blood was everywhere.”
Becoming a vampire didn’t really take three exchanges like the movies said. Just one. The victim had to be nearly drained for the transformation to work, but he didn’t need to take much blood from the vampire. A few drops had been known to do the trick.
Vampire blood was powerful. Tainted, Jacob had said.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Hell, why the whole charade? The funeral? The closed casket? She’d thought the casket had been sealed because the damage to Sully had been so severe. Sadie knew about the ravaged conditions of the other agents’ bodies.
But, no, Sully hadn’t been torn apart. The casket had been closed because Sully hadn’t been inside it at all.
“At first, the Bureau took the choice out of my hands.” Anger simmered in his voice. “They’re the ones who found me and threw me in a cell for five days while they tried to decide if I was going to live or die.”
The extermination list. Her heart thudded into her chest.
His smile was grim. “They decided I got to keep living, provided I agreed to do the old U.S. government a few favors.”
She didn’t want to ask about those favors, not then, because she knew just what sort of deeds Owen would give to a vampire.
“When I was stable, I did my part.” The faint lines around his eyes tightened. “Then I settled some scores of my own. After that…” A shrug. “Well, let’s just say for a time it was better for me to go back to my Ireland.”
And it had been better for him to leave her. To never reach out to her. The pain knifed through her gut. “Why are you back now?”
“Because I want to be.”
Okay, not exactly the “Oh, my God, I missed you and couldn’t spend another day without you so I had to come back” response she’d been hoping to get. But, then again, the guy sure as heck hadn’t bothered to look her up the moment he’d come back to town.
An image of the redhead flashed before her. No, he’d been a bit occupied with other things.
She backed away from him. “Look, I have a case that I have to work on—”
“We’ve got a case.”
Uh, oh. That sinking—it was her heart. No way. For a moment, her eyes closed. “Come again?”
The floor squeaked as he crept forward. “Owen thinks you could use some backup on this case.”
So he was gonna send the big, bad vamp to cover her ass. Her spine stiffened even as her lashes lifted and her eyes locked once more on his. “I don’t need help. I could’ve taken the perp down tonight—”
“But you didn’t.” A calm statement. “And he almost got you instead.”
Her nostrils flared. “I haven’t worked with a partner since Owen dug into my life and blackmailed me into this unit. I don’t need a—”
“You’ve got a partner now.” His eyes were expressionless. “We worked well together before. Remember, love?”
Remembering was easy—and painful. Forgetting was the problem.
“You need someone to watch your back,” Sully added. “Owen told me about the shifter out there. Hunting on your own isn’t the way to handle this.”
But her kind usually hunted alone.
Damn Owen.
And damn Sully for making her feel so much again.
He offered his hand. “Partners, Sadie?”
Oh, it grated. But she stuck out her hand. He’s not like the other vampires. He can’t be. Her fingers wrapped around his. “Partners.” She couldn’t help but add, “For now.”
His hold tightened, and Sully pulled her forward. “Sealed with a kiss?” he asked.
She shouldn’t. Obviously, kissing him would be a huge mistake. Massive. But…
She still wanted him. The wanting had never gone away. Vampire. Human. Didn’t matter.
No other man had ever made her feel the way he did. No other man had ever come close to satisfying the woman or the beast that lived within her. So she was the one to lean into him. The one to open her mouth, to have her lips and tongue ready.
Mixing business and pleasure—she and Sully had done it before.
They’d do it again.
His mouth locked onto hers.
***
The bitch.
He shifted in the darkness and heard the crunch of leaves beneath his feet.
She was letting that vampire bastard touch her. Kiss her.
&n
bsp; A snarl rumbled in his throat. She’d pay for that. Pay for allowing one of the damned to touch her.
Leopard shifters—they were blessed. Superior. Not to be touched by fucking bloodsuckers.
She’d pay, but first, he’d get the vampire. He’d killed his share of the undead before. It wouldn’t be too hard. Then the woman would be his.
The thrill of the hunt flooded his veins.
Chapter Six
Sadie was back in his arms, and this time, she wasn’t staking him. She was warm and willing.
Oh, aye, this was what he wanted.
His hands were around her waist, fingers pressing just over the sweet curve of her arse. Her breasts were crushed against his chest. Sully could feel the soft stab of her nipples. Pretty pink nipples. Nipples that tasted like candy.
He couldn’t wait to taste them again.
His mouth fed on hers. Took. Savored. It’d been too long. She’d been in his dreams for so long, and part of him was afraid this was a dream. That he’d awaken without Sadie, as he’d done so many times.
Couldn’t go back to her as a monster. Couldn’t watch the terror on her face.
But Sadie—his Sadie—had been hiding secrets.
Not the fearful human he’d expected. A warrior queen, a shifter. More than a match for the undead.
His hands rose—he’d come back to her fine arse later. His fingers caught the edge of the T-shirt she wore. He tore his mouth from hers as he hauled up the shirt and yanked it over her head.
“Sully…”
The husky whisper of his name had him stilling.
Her eyes were so gold. Deep, and filled with secrets. Why hadn’t he noticed the secrets before?
He swallowed back the desperation that rose in his throat. He wouldn’t beg her. If she didn’t want his touch, he’d pull away, he’d—
She yanked up his shirt. The garment hit the floor with a faint rustle of sound.
Then she smiled, and he was lost.
“This time…don’t be easy with me.” Pure seduction dripped from her words. “You know what I am—I don’t need soft touches and candlelight.”
His body was tense. His cock so hard he ached. “What do you need?”