The Midnight Hunt

by L. L. Raand

  “Meredith used your own thoughts to enthrall you,” Jody said sharply.

  “You can do that? See someone’s thoughts…twist them around?”

  Jody took a deep breath, battling her still-raging hunger. She needed to sate the bloodlust stirred by the feel of Becca in her arms, the taste of her against her lips. She needed to feed. “Some can. Especially if someone is broadcasting strongly enough. Meredith is very powerful.”

  Becca watched Jody pace in a tight circle. She’d never seen her so agitated. Her eyes flickered with slashes of flame and her perfectly proportioned features projected starkly beneath her pale skin. Becca remembered the insistent thrust of Jody’s crotch against her ass, the press of incisors into her neck. The Vampire had been excited, close to feeding, and Becca had wanted her to. Invited her to. Now Jody was still hungry, still needing.

  “I’m sorry,” Becca said. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” Jody grimaced. “I’m old enough to control myself, but some of the others in there—the young pre-ans and newlings aren’t. And old ones like Meredith just enjoy enthralling the unsuspecting. What are you doing here alone?”

  “You weren’t giving me anything on the investigation, so I thought I’d follow you.”

  “Into Nocturne?”

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “Not without an escort,” Jody said. “Give me your word you won’t do it again.”

  “Have you found out anything about the girl at the hospital?”

  Jody hissed in frustration. She needed to get away from Becca before she gave in to the hunger twisting through her like a knife.

  “Meet me in the morning and we’ll talk. Now I want your word you won’t come back here without an escort.”

  “There are plenty of humans in there without escorts,” Becca pointed out.

  “Most of them came to host, and the rest are blood-bonded already.”

  “Was does that mean?” Becca asked immediately.

  Jody shook her head. “It’s not important. Just don’t come back on your own.”

  When Jody turned away, Becca called, “You’re going back inside?”

  Jody stopped and looked back, her expression once again as smooth and as unreadable as marble. “I need to finish feeding.”

  Becca felt her face warm. Jody was going to find someone else to give her what she hadn’t taken from Becca. She should be grateful. Not jealous. “I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

  But the Vampire was gone.

  ———

  Sylvan nuzzled Drake’s neck. “Better now?”

  “Much,” Drake murmured, realizing she had fallen asleep for the first time in what felt like days. Sylvan held her against her chest, their limbs entwined. She kissed Sylvan’s throat and smiled when Sylvan rumbled deep in her chest. “How long will it last—before I start hurting again?”

  “You might not get this bad again.” Sylvan ran her fingers through Drake’s hair. “But you should have a few hours, maybe a day at least before the need starts building.”

  “Why did you come to me? How did you know?”

  Sylvan unconsciously ran her fingertips over the bite on her chest.

  “I am Alpha. I feel the needs of the Pack.”

  Drake pushed to her knees and pulled the remnants of her shirt out of the pine needles and loam that had been their bed. “Do you take care of every Pack member like you did me?”

  “Are you asking me if I couple with all my Pack?” Sylvan asked softly.

  “I guess I am. I know it’s none of my business.”

  “I don’t. Why didn’t you tangle with someone earlier? Your need was strong this morning.”

  “Then why did you leave?” Drake was angry even though she wasn’t certain why. “You knew, didn’t you? That I only wanted you? Why? Why is that?”

  “You’re mistaken.” Sylvan stood abruptly and started toward the forest. “Your wolf needs time to settle. Once she does, you’ll find someone else—”

  Drake grabbed Sylvan’s arm and spun her around. “You don’t know what I’ll wa—”

  A red-gray wolf tore from the forest, teeth bared, and launched itself at Drake. The wolf struck Drake in the chest and knocked her onto the ground, snarling and snapping at Drake’s throat as it straddled her torso. Drake gripped the wolf’s neck in both hands and tried to throw it off. She felt her fingertips tear open and sharp pain erupted in her mouth. She growled and inside, a furious raging wolf tried to burst free.

  Drake cried out in agony as her skin threatened to split and her bones crack. She couldn’t fight the pain and the wolf both. She lost her hold on the mad wolf and just managed to get her arm between the wolf’s jaws and her neck.

  “Enough,” Sylvan roared, ripping the wolf from Drake’s body.

  She threw the wolf to the far side of the clearing, where it landed on its side and quickly jumped to its feet, still snarling. Sylvan dropped to her knees by Drake’s side and pressed her hand to the center of Drake’s chest. “You’re safe. You’re safe now. Breathe, Drake. Calm your wolf. I won’t let anything hurt her.”

  Drake sucked in great gasps of air, adrenaline pouring through her blood. She settled her mind the way she did in the middle of a crisis in the ER, forcing herself to see clearly, to think past the rush of fear and uncertainty. She took another breath. And another. “I’m all right.”

  “You will be in a minute.” Sylvan looked over her shoulder at the wolf pacing restlessly at the edge of the clearing. “Niki. Come here.”

  When the red-gray wolf hesitated, Sylvan snapped, “Now.”

  Niki crouched low, her eyes on Sylvan, and slunk close until she was pressed against Sylvan’s side. Sylvan buried her fingers in Niki’s ruff and massaged her neck. “Everything is all right. Drake was not attacking me.” She continued to stroke both Niki and Drake until they calmed. The red-gray wolf shivered and shook and blurred in the moonlight until Niki lay curled around Sylvan’s body, her head on Sylvan’s thigh. Sylvan stroked Niki’s back and looked from Niki to Drake. “All right now?”

  Niki nodded. Drake said, “Yes. Fine.”

  “Niki,” Sylvan said, “I want you to find Sophia and bring her and Drake to the infirmary.”

  “Yes, Alpha.”

  “I’m entrusting Drake to your care, Imperator.” Sylvan stroked Niki’s face and Niki brushed her lips over Sylvan’s palm.

  “Yes, Alpha.”

  “Drake, are you well enough to go with Niki?”

  “Anything you need, Alpha.” Drake sat up and rubbed the bruise on her arm from Niki’s teeth. She hadn’t drawn blood.

  Sylvan was suddenly at the edge of the clearing, calling, “Andrew!” Then she bounded into the forest, a streak of shining silver in the starlight.

  Drake hadn’t moved but she felt as if she were running. The wind rushed over her body and the scent of the forest engulfed her. She caught glimpses of moonlight glinting through the leafy canopy and sensed another body running close to hers. She shivered and the sensations faded, but did not completely disappear. Agitated, Drake jumped to her feet and strode toward the dark woods. Sylvan was somewhere in the heart of the mountains with only Andrew to protect her. Drake wanted to shift and go after them, but she couldn’t. She didn’t know how. Couldn’t follow her instincts. Frustrated, angry, she stared into the dense wilderness, willing Sylvan to return.

  “You’ve put the Alpha in danger. I’ll kill you before I’ll let you hurt her,” Niki said from behind her. “I should have killed you before you turned, but the Alpha wouldn’t let me.”

  Drake spun around. Niki stood naked in the moonlit clearing a few feet from Drake, a warrior sculpture carved of muscle and bone, primal and fierce. Her eyes glinted with shards of gold and her body shimmered against the dark silhouettes of the pines. Drake looked her in the eye. “I would never hurt her.”

  “You will, if you call her to you again,” Niki said. “She is our Alpha. Even if the Pack accepted you as
her mate, you are mutia. You can’t bear young. You would weaken her position in the eyes of the other Alphas. Even to some in our own Pack.”

  “Her mate?” Drake said dully. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “She heard your call from miles away,” Niki snarled. “I could smell you on her this morning. I can smell her on you now. So will the others.”

  “We just had sex,” Drake said. “Of course I smell like her.”

  “No. Your scents are mingled. Your pheromones are blended with hers. That shouldn’t happen unless your kinins are chemically fusing.”

  “But I haven’t done anything,” Drake said.

  “You bit her, didn’t you?”

  Drake’s body flamed with the taste of Sylvan. A rumble rolled through her chest and she felt a wave of possession so strong her canines protruded violently. “Yes.” She fought down the surging wolf that demanded she assert her right to Sylvan. She had to understand what was happening. “But Elena said Weres bite during sex. That biting was natural.”

  “It is natural,” Niki said, “for a dominant to bring a beta Were to orgasm with a bite. But only a mated wolf or one wanting to mate will bite a dominant one. And no one bites the Alpha except her mate.

  Ever.”

  “Sylvan forced me to shift,” Drake said, searching for an explanation. “I didn’t know. I…” She stopped, unwilling, incapable, of repudiating what she had experienced with Sylvan in that glorious moment of incredible transformation. Sylvan had been so beautiful—so tender and so powerful. Drake had needed her, wanted her, desired her. She had bitten Sylvan because she had wanted her completely, as deeply and passionately as she had ever wanted anyone. She would never let anything diminish that memory, especially if the memory was all she was ever to have. “But we’re not bonded, are we?”

  “I don’t know,” Niki said. “I don’t think so, or Sylvan would not have left your side tonight, even for a few minutes. A newly mated pair are always inseparable, and the Alpha’s mate is usually very possessive about letting the Alpha run with the other wolves.”

  “Even her centuri?”

  “Even us,” Niki said. “The Alpha’s mate never completely trusts anyone to protect her.”

  “Then we aren’t bonded yet, so she is still safe,” Drake said, fighting a wave of sadness that verged on despair.

  “Possibly,” Niki said. “I hope so.”

  “Are you saying if we do bond that you’ll kill me?” Drake wasn’t angry with Niki. In fact, she respected her, appreciated her unwavering desire to protect Sylvan.

  “If I have to, yes.”

  “And what will Sylvan do then?”

  “She’ll execute me,” Niki said.

  “But you would still kill me, even if it meant you would die? You love her that much?”

  “She is our Alpha. I am her second.” For the first time Niki looked away. “I would do anything I had to do to protect her.”

  “I won’t let her lose her mate and her second. That would destroy her,” Drake said.

  “Then take another mate before it’s too late—and none of us are left with any choice.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Jody slowed her car in front of the arching sixteen-foot-high wrought iron gates that spanned the driveway to her father’s estate. A massive stone wall enclosed the ten acres immediately surrounding the thirty-room mansion. Beyond that, another hundred acres of woods were patrolled by her father’s minions at night and by human guards during the day. She waited while the video cameras scanned her vehicle. The gates opened silently and she drove the half mile down the tree-lined driveway and parked in front of the stone staircase leading to the entrance.

  Before she’d crossed the expansive patio to the front door, a willowy brunette, one of Zachary Gates’s human servants, opened it.

  The brunette, her clinging floor-length claret gown slashed low between full flowing breasts, cocked a hip and smiled indolently.

  “Hello, Jody.”

  “Hello, Angela,” Jody said.

  Angela slowly ran her tongue between her lips and slid her gaze down Jody’s body. “I’ve missed you.”

  “That’s unexpected.” Jody stepped around Angela and started down the wide central hall. “Considering that you stopped dating me to sleep with my father.”

  “Oh, don’t be like that.” Angela fell into step and linked her arm through Jody’s. “You know you weren’t interested in anything serious with me.”

  “And you think he is?”

  “He said he’d turn me.” Angela ran her mouth over the edge of Jody’s ear. “Unless you’ve changed your mind and are ready to bloodbond me. I’d love to be just yours forever.”

  Jody whipped around and grasped Angela’s shoulders, giving her a shake. “This isn’t a game, Angela. Do you know why there are so few Vampires? Not many are born, and humans who try to turn usually die.”

  “You’re always so serious.” Angela tapped her blood-red fingernails against Jody’s mouth. “Except when you’re fucking. Then you’re wild.”

  With a curse, Jody let her go and vaulted up to the second-floor balcony. She didn’t stop to acknowledge the burly Vampire standing guard at her father’s door, but shoved him aside and burst through the heavy mahogany doors into the opulently appointed office. The high-ceilinged room was lit with hanging crystal lamps. Rich brocade tapestries adorned some walls, floor-to-ceiling bookcases lined others.

  Marble pedestals in both far corners held priceless Chinese vases.

  Thick Persian carpets covered the hardwood floors. Soaring windows opposite the doorway gave a breathtaking view of the mountains—a view her father would never again see in daylight.

  Zachary Gates was on the phone, and when he saw her, he murmured a few words and hung up. He leaned back in his massive leather chair and straightened the cuffs on his black silk shirt. “That was an impressive entrance.”

  With his thick collar-length black hair shot with silver at the temples, sculpted face, and piercing black eyes, he looked like a displaced pirate from another era. Jody knew they looked alike and was always irritated when people mentioned it. She wanted to believe that any resemblance to her father stopped at the physical.

  “You said you wanted to see me. I’m here.”

  “Sit down,” Zachary said, indicating one of the leather club chairs with a sweep of his arm. “Can I get you a drink?”

  “I can’t stay.”

  Zachary went to a circular polished wood bar in a sitting area filled with leather sofas and chairs and poured several inches of scotch into two crystal glasses. He walked back and held one out to Jody. She took it and put it down on the table next to her chair.

  “How is your investigation of Sylvan Mir coming along?” her father asked.

  Jody kept her expression blank. “I’m not investigating Sylvan Mir.”

  “Really? I was given to understand that you and a reporter—Becca Land, isn’t it?—have been investigating—”

  “Your information is wrong.” Jody got to her feet. Whatever her father was after, she wasn’t going to let Becca be drawn into his dark games. “I don’t work with reporters.”

  “Jody,” her father said with a tinge of disappointment in his voice.

  “We want the same things.”

  “No, we don’t. I’m not interested in power or politics.”

  “You should be. You’re in line to rule one of the largest families in the territory.”

  “I don’t want to rule, and I expect you will be in power for a long, long time. You do want to be Viceregal, don’t you?”

  “I have no desire to challenge Francesca.”

  “Somehow I doubt that. Isn’t that why you supported the Exodus? To gain public support when you move against her?” Jody clenched her jaw. “You needed a new power base—a public one with money and influence behind it, but I think you’re wrong in hoping the humans will involve themselves in Vampire politics.”

  “Humans will o
verlook species differences if the price is right.” He shrugged elegantly. “You and I don’t need to be at odds. Our immediate goals may differ, but there’s no reason we can’t share information. For example, I was given to understand that there might be a problem with the Weres. An outbreak of some kind?”

  “I am a police detective. I don’t share information with anyone, especially politicians.”

  “So noble.” Zachary smiled. “You’re very much like your mother.”

  Jody took two steps toward him, her incisors slicing from their sheaths. “I hope so.”

  “You should be careful where you place your loyalties, Jody,” Zachary said softly. “You’re a Vampire before anything else.”

  “I don’t need you to tell me who I am.” Jody spun on her heel and walked out, her father’s laughter following her.

  When she drove through the gates, they swung closed and locked behind her. She drove two hundred yards along the narrow twisting road and pulled over after rounding a bend. She watched her rearview mirror, waiting for the car that had been following her to catch up.

  When it was almost alongside her, she flew from her car and landed with her legs spread wide in the middle of the road. The car screeched to a halt a few inches from her body. The driver’s door shot open and Becca jumped out.

  “Are you crazy? What is the matter with you? I could have killed you!”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Becca marched to within a few inches of Jody and planted her hands on her hips. “Well, I don’t want to find out. Don’t ever do anything like that again.”

  “Why are you following me?”

  “Because I knew if I went home I wouldn’t be able to sleep.”

  Jody grinned. “Why not?”

  “Never mind why not. Who lives here?”

  “My father,” Jody said grimly.

  Becca looked over her shoulder at the sprawling estate. “Nice.”

  “Not really.”

  “You promised me information.”

  “In the morning,” Jody said with exaggerated patience.

  “It’s four a.m. That’s morning in my book.”