The Midnight Hunt

by L. L. Raand

  “I have work to do.”

  “At four a.m.?”

  “I’m a Vampire. A lot of my sources are Vampires. We live and work at night.”

  “I know what you are, thank you very much.” Becca rubbed her arms. She could still feel the heat of Jody’s body pressed against her back. She’d remained in the car watching the club after Jody went inside, wondering what Jody was doing and who she was doing it with, imagining Jody making someone orgasm while she fed from them, coming herself while she drank. She’d made herself crazy with the images. She knew if she went home she’d give in to the fantasies and have to masturbate. Then she’d feel pitiful for being so aroused by someone whose idea of intimacy consisted of mind games and anonymous sex.

  “Funny,” Jody said, “everywhere I go tonight, people seem to think they know what I am.” She turned and walked back toward her car.

  “Hey!” Becca followed her. “Where are you going?”

  “Go home. I’ll call you in a few hours.”

  Becca grabbed the edge of the door before Jody could close it.

  “Look, I’m sorry.”

  Jody slid behind the wheel and regarded her coolly. “For what?”

  “You’re right, I don’t know you. But I know you’re a good cop. And I’m a good reporter.” Becca leaned down. “You’re going to talk to me in the morning anyhow. So let me come with you now.”

  “Are you going to keep following me otherwise? I knew you were behind me when I left the club.”

  Becca grinned. “So I’m not very good at it.”

  Jody laughed. “I’m going to the morgue. I’ll meet you there.”

  “Why did you change your mind?”

  “Can’t you just be satisfied that I did?” Jody countered.

  “No. I like to know the reasons why people do things.”

  “Not everyone wants to be known, Ms. Land.” Jody gently removed Becca’s hand from her door, closed it, and drove away, leaving Becca racing to catch up.

  ———

  After her hunt with Andrew, Sylvan returned to her private quarters to shower and dress. Niki and Lara were already waiting on the porch, having tracked her and Andrew through the forest. She sent Andrew back to the Compound although he hadn’t asked to be relieved. He was excited after his run with her, and she suspected he needed a tangle.

  She stood for a long time under the cool spray, waiting for her body to settle. The run and the kill had helped dampen some of her urgency to claim Drake again, but the hunger had never entirely abated. Almost as soon as the intense pleasure of her release faded away, she was ready again. She’d had to get away from Drake, satisfy her primal needs in some other way, or risk losing control completely. Drake was newly turned, still struggling for harmony with her wolf, still adjusting to the tremendous physical and psychological shock of her transformation.

  Sylvan couldn’t expect her to understand what had almost happened out there in the forest. Drake inflamed her, called to her in some deeply instinctual way, stirred her need to guard and protect and cherish as no one ever had before. The first time she’d seen Drake, when Drake was still human, she’d been aware of the connection. Drake hadn’t feared her, and even in the midst of the danger to Sylvan’s young, Drake had managed to calm her. To steady her wolf.

  Even Niki, who she loved with all her heart, could not touch her in the places Drake had touched.

  Sylvan toweled dry and held the damp cotton against her face. She smelled Drake. The chemical mix that marked her as unique, as Alpha, had absorbed Drake’s kinins and incorporated them. Drake had marked her with a bite. She had marked Drake in turn. They were very close to completing a mate bond. She was still ready, full, her wolf demanding she finish the mating. Another bite, another intense coupling when their victus—their essence—erupted and fused, and they would be mated.

  Drake couldn’t know any of this, couldn’t understand what she was doing. Drake’s drive to release was wholly physiological, the result of her tumultuous transition. How could she willingly accept the bonding when she could barely manage the chaos within her still-evolving body?

  How could she possibly comprehend that once mated, she would be joined physically and mentally to Sylvan for life—and if Sylvan died, she might too. One member of a mated pair rarely survived the death of the other. Sylvan was certain her father would not have survived if he hadn’t been determined to protect the Pack until Sylvan could ascend.

  He had begun to fade as soon as Sylvan reached maturity. He hadn’t wanted to live without his mate.

  She would not force such a destiny on Drake. She would not take a mate when so much of the future was uncertain. She was a target of humans and Weres alike, she knew that. Even if Drake accepted the risk, Sylvan wouldn’t. A mate would make her vulnerable and the Pack needed all of her energy, all of her attention. She was Alpha. That was all. That was enough.

  Distance was the only safeguard against another impetuous coupling. Drake should be all right for at least the rest of the day, and when the frenzy resurfaced, she would have to take someone else.

  Her need would be too strong, too powerful, for her to resist. Sylvan imagined another Were pleasuring Drake, stroking and caressing and teasing her to release—coating themselves with her essence when she erupted for them. She pictured Drake biting them, forcing them to come on her, absorbing their scent. Heat blazed through Sylvan’s chest and she started to shift, her spine bowing, her facial bones shifting, elongating, claws and canines extruding, a blaze of silver exploding down the center of her body. Panting, she dropped to her knees and battled her raging wolf. She would not shift. She would not claim a mate. She would not.

  Niki burst into the room, Lara right behind her. Lara, less dominant than Niki, was already in mid-shift, called by the ferocity of Sylvan’s wolf. Niki’s face contorted in pain as she fought her own need.

  “Alpha?” Niki groaned, searching the room for signs of danger with eyes gone hunter green.

  “It’s all right.” Still on her knees, Sylvan forced herself to straighten, although she couldn’t yet stand. A sleek brown wolf now guarded the open door against intruders. Lara.

  “What is it?” Niki asked, her breathing easing as Sylvan calmed and got to her feet. “I’ve never felt your call like that before.”

  “Nothing you need to worry about.” Sylvan draped an arm around Niki’s shoulders while running her other hand down Lara’s back. She kissed Niki’s temple as Lara whined softly and rubbed against her leg.

  “Why don’t you two stand down for a while. Max can take over.”

  “I’m fine, Alpha,” Niki said quickly.

  “Get some sleep,” Sylvan whispered, rubbing her cheek against Niki’s hair. “We’ll be going back into the city in the morning.”

  Niki’s eyes widened in surprise. “So soon?”

  “Yes.” Sylvan released her centuri and went into her bedroom to dress.

  After pulling on jeans-style leather pants, a white cotton shirt, and black boots, Sylvan walked back to the Compound in search of Drake and Sophia. She found them in the infirmary center. Drake had showered and wore clean jeans and a T-shirt. Her gaze went immediately to Sylvan, and heat curled through Sylvan’s belly at the hunger in her eyes. Sophia, her blond hair loose and curling delicately around her face, sat next to Drake on a sofa by the fireplace, their shoulders nearly touching. Sylvan barely managed to keep from snarling at Sophia’s proximity to Drake.

  “Have you eaten?” Sylvan demanded. So soon after Drake’s tumultuous transition and their heated coupling, Drake would be dangerously depleted. In her weakened state, she was more susceptible to a return of the frenzy or even a recurrence of the fever. If Sylvan had been thinking instead of half crazed with need and trying to ignore it, she would have seen to it that Drake got the proper nourishment.

  “Yes, Sophia dragged me back to the mess hall,” Drake said, smiling at Sophia. “I pretty much devoured everything in sight.”

  Sylvan rumbled
and stalked to the far side of the room, turning her back until she could control her temper. Sophia had done what she should have done, and she ought to be grateful to Sophia for taking care of Drake. Instead, she wanted to drag Drake away from the beautiful Were. When she dampened her possessive anger enough to walk back to them, she noted the anxious way Sophia edged away from Drake.

  “Thank you for taking care of her,” Sylvan said, briefly caressing Sophia’s cheek before resuming her pacing. She couldn’t be anywhere near Drake without a painful urge to touch her.

  “Of course, Alpha,” Sophia said softly. “I’m honored.”

  Drake looked from Sophia to Sylvan, trying to decipher the unspoken. She could feel Sylvan’s agitation, and she could scent her need. Sylvan prowled, a low steady growl emanating from her chest.

  Drake doubted she was even aware of it. Sophia was, though. With each passing second, Sophia grew more uneasy.

  “Wait outside,” Drake said quietly to Sophia. When Sophia hesitated, Drake smiled. “It’s all right. I’d like to speak to the Alpha alone.”

  When Sophia cast an apprehensive glance in Sylvan’s direction, Sylvan nodded curtly.

  “We’ll meet you in the treatment room,” Sylvan said. “Go ahead.”

  Drake waited until the door closed behind Sophia, then went to Sylvan. She wanted to calm her, to stroke her, but she was wary of the fury riding hard just below the surface. “What’s wrong?”

  “Our scientists want to study some specimens from you—to understand what happened.”

  “Good,” Drake said immediately. “I was talking to Sophia earlier—”

  Sylvan snarled, her canines flashing.

  “Stop,” Drake murmured. Not caring about protocol or what the Pack might think or even the dangerous glare in Sylvan’s eyes, she cupped Sylvan’s jaw and smoothed her thumb over the corner of her mouth. “You’re all I think about. Don’t you know that?”

  Sylvan closed her eyes and rubbed her cheek against Drake’s palm. “I don’t want you hurt.”

  “Nor I you.” Drake allowed herself a few more seconds of touching her, but she knew she had to stop. Niki had said there was still time for her to break whatever bond was forming between them, and even though she knew it would tear her heart from her body to let Sylvan go, she would. If it meant keeping her safe, she’d leave. She had no idea where she would go or how she would live or even if she could live.

  Already she felt a tremendous connection to the Pack, to the community of wild spirits who filled the forest with the sounds and scents of home.

  For the first time in her life she felt as if she belonged somewhere.

  She belonged to Sylvan, but she knew Sylvan was fighting the forces that drew them together. And she understood why. Niki had made it very clear. Like Niki, she would die before she would let anything hurt Sylvan—anything, even her own need for her. She wouldn’t allow Sylvan to put herself in danger or weaken the Pack because of her. The imperative to protect Sylvan flowed through her blood more strongly than any other need she’d ever known, even her own need to survive.

  Calling on every ounce of strength she had, Drake dropped her hand and moved away.

  “Who are they? Your scientists?” Drake asked.

  “Leo and Nadia Revnik. Sophia’s parents.” Sylvan’s voice was rough, her eyes tracking Drake as she might follow the path of prey in the forest. “The foremost experts on Were physiology in the world. They defected from the Blackpaw Pack when Sophia was an adolescent. About the time the latest skirmish in the Pack wars broke out and my… our Alpha was killed.”

  “Sophia wasn’t born in your Pack, then?” Drake asked.

  “No,” Sylvan said. “My mother allowed her family to immigrate.”

  “That’s unusual?”

  “Our Packs have been at war for centuries. Members of my Pack have had their entire lines wiped out in the conflict. Many disagreed with my mother’s decision, but she was Alpha.”

  “What do they want from me?”

  “Blood samples. A muscle biopsy, if you agree.”

  “Of course.” Drake caught the angry flash in Sylvan’s eyes.

  “What? What else?”

  “Nothing.”

  Drake shook her head. “There’s more, and for some reason you don’t want to tell me.”

  Sylvan grumbled in warning.

  “No. You can’t protect me from this.”

  “I can,” Sylvan snarled.

  “No,” Drake said gently. “I know you want to. I know what being Alpha means. I know how strongly you’re driven to protect everyone in the Pack. I saw it with Misha the night we met. I think that’s when I…” She caught herself before she confessed to what had to remain unspoken. She wanted to touch her so badly, but she knew she couldn’t.

  But she had something she could give. She had her body and whatever was happening inside it. She could help Sylvan. Help the Pack. “You need…we need to know why humans are displaying signs of Were fever. We need to understand why I survived when most don’t. You know I have to do this.”

  “Your blood. A tissue sample,” Sylvan snapped. “That’s all.”

  “What else? What else do they want?”

  Sylvan was suddenly right in front of her, her body pressed tight against Drake’s, her hands in Drake’s hair, her mouth against Drake’s ear. “You’ll do as I say. I won’t have you hurt.”

  Drake sank into the heat of Sylvan’s body, her flesh molding to the hard planes and subtle curves of Sylvan’s form. She drew in her scent, felt herself stiffen and throb. She licked the faint dew from Sylvan’s neck and her skin sheened. “You make me so ready so fast.”

  “I shouldn’t touch you like this,” Sylvan rasped, her body vibrating against Drake’s. Her claws skimmed Drake’s neck. “It’s too soon for you to control the frenzy.”

  “It’s not frenzy,” Drake whispered.

  “I’m used to touching my wolves. I’m sorry.” Sylvan released Drake, her face hardening. “You’re not ready for casual handling.”

  Drake shuddered with the brutal sensation of being cut adrift, of being terribly, horribly alone. “I understand, Alpha.”

  “We should let Sophia get the samples.”

  “Of course.” Drake’s legs were unsteady, her stomach cramping. She could hardly control the aching need to touch Sylvan. Just touch her. If she couldn’t be close to her, she had to be much farther away.

  “Let’s do it. I want answers as much as you do. I’d like to be able to get back to my life.”

  “Your life is with the Pack now,” Sylvan said, her tone dark and ominous.

  “I have another life that’s just as important to me.” Drake strode to the door and pulled it open without looking back, hoping Sylvan hadn’t heard the lie.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Becca parked next to Jody in a nearly empty lot behind the municipal complex at Lark and Madison. The city morgue was in the basement of one of the older buildings. Jody led the way through a labyrinth of poorly lit alleys and walkways to a dark loading dock. As they climbed the narrow concrete stairs to the raised platform, Jody cupped Becca’s elbow. The gesture was oddly courtly and Becca found she liked it. Flustered, she pulled away.

  “You sure you want to come down?” Jody asked as she pressed the buzzer next to the heavy metal doors.

  “I’m not afraid of the dead,” Becca said.

  Jody shot her a sardonic grin. “Even when they animate?”

  “You already know the answer to that, don’t you?”

  “Sometimes we’re drawn to what we fear most.”

  “Look,” Becca said, “let’s get something straight. I’m not afraid of Vampires and I’m not drawn to them—you—either.”

  “Good to know.”

  For some reason Jody’s response irritated her, but Becca didn’t have time to ponder her annoyance because the doors swung open and a giant of a man stared out at them with a belligerent expression on his face. He had to be six-ten and four
hundred pounds, with a wild mane of tangled brown hair and arms and legs the size of small saplings.

  “Hi, Davey,” Jody said. “Is Marissa here tonight?”

  The giant smiled and his face transformed from fierce to friendly.

  “How you doing, Jody. We’ve been really busy. Big pileup on the Northway.” He held the massive door wide. “Marissa is in three.”

  “Thanks. We won’t stay long.”

  “Who is that?” Becca whispered as she followed Jody through the twisting hallways. Their footsteps ricocheted like gunshots through the unnatural stillness. The air smelled faintly of death and disinfectant.

  “Davey Gleason. He’s a diener—an autopsy assistant.”

  “What else is he?” Becca muttered.

  “You guess. Your Praetern radar’s pretty good.”

  “Must be the company I keep.” Becca thought she saw a brief smile flicker across Jody’s usually composed and unreadable face, and realized she liked making her smile. “Who is Marissa?”

  “Dr. Marissa Sanchez. She’s the night shift supervisor.”

  “Does she have to work nights?”

  Jody paused in front of another set of double doors, these with glass windows through which Becca could see a gleaming autopsy suite.

  “She isn’t a Vampire, if that’s what you mean.” Jody punched a saucer-sized red button on the wall and the doors swung open. “She just likes them.”

  As soon as they walked into the room, the reason for Jody’s remark was obvious. The petite Latina, wearing scrubs and dictating into a microphone as she bent over a body on an autopsy table, took one look at Jody and stopped what she was doing. She pulled off her gloves and switched off the microphone, then practically ran the length of the room to meet them.

  “Jody,” Marissa said breathlessly, ignoring Becca as if she were invisible. “Tell me this isn’t business.”

  “Sorry,” Jody murmured, “I’m afraid it is.”

  Marissa ran a short sculpted nail along the edge of Jody’s jaw and leaned so close her breasts touched Jody’s chest. “We could save the business for after pleasure.”

  Becca had an overwhelming urge to grasp the finger that was slowly trailing down Jody’s neck and snap it like a dry twig. If she hadn’t noticed Jody subtly ease away until there was space between her and the medical examiner, she just might have. The reaction totally confused her. She wasn’t ordinarily jealous even of women she dated, and that certainly wasn’t the situation with the Vampire detective.