For a split second his hold on her tightened and she was sure she’d broken him, but instead he swept her to the left, avoiding a collision with Great-Uncle Edward and his wife Annabeth.
Nate stared down at the lovely woman in his arms, his teeth clenched, his whole body wire edge taut. He would not get involved with Charisse he swore to himself, no matter how gorgeous the woman was, she came with way too much baggage.
He’d learnt long ago, thanks to Maat’s constant harping on about free will and choice that not everyone wanted to be fixed…. to be saved. It was a hard reality to accept that it was not his job to interfere, to save or fight another person’s internal battle. He could save their lives as a warrior of Maat, but it wasn’t his job to save their souls.
True he might flirt occasionally to shore up crumbling self-esteem, or compliment, to brighten a bad day, but that was just his minimal do-gooder instincts coming to the fore. When it came to the big internal conflicts of the soul, the only person who could win that battle was the individual involved, and they had to be the one to do the fighting, otherwise, it would prove a hollow victory.
Just like the battle Charisse was waging with whatever inner demon had its claws into her. From the brief glimpse of her core through the cracks of the black entity practically engulfing her soul, he knew that she fought with courage and integrity combined with an admirable dash of dark humour daily... hourly. In this fight she needed to be the champion, whatever freedom or peace she sought, had to be won on her own terms.
He would not… could not, interfere, not with something on this scale, but at the same time dancing with her in his arms, drinking in her lovely features, smelling the tantalising notes of her perfume, tiare flower, passionfruit and jasmine, feeling her full breasts brush up against the silk of his shirt, it was eating away at his resolve to keep his distance. Fuck, why were all the really great women so darn complicated?
And now he was wondering what the black barrier was. Maat, would he never learn? It wasn’t debilitating shyness or agoraphobia. No, it was something else, more of an external influence. He ran through a list of possible causes, crossing off drugs, alcohol and it definitely wasn’t a sex addiction, that came with a red aura … pity.
No, the barrier reminded him of the dark smoke like clouds he’d seen wrapped around women who had abusive boyfriends or possessive husbands. But the damn thing encasing Charisse’s psyche looked practically solid… it had to have some sort of magical component, but what? The woman certainly on the outside didn’t look as if she were suffering; confident, bright and gorgeous… it was a mystery damn it, and now he was intrigued.
“Well?”
It was a simple word but the way she said it had him picturing her using that gorgeous mouth of hers on his aching cock. Pull yourself together man. “Well what Cyd?” He frowned down at her, shaking off the sudden urge to find the nearest dark corner and let his hands find out how much access that split in her skirt provided.
Charisse arched a fine dark eyebrow for a split second at the gruff abrupt tone he used. “Um, I asked you to tell me a little bit about yourself.”
Nate shrugged. “Warrior… elite guard… kill the mystical magical bad guys when they step out of line… pretty much self-explanatory really.”
“Um, okay.” Charisse bit the inside of cheek to keep from issuing a frustrated sigh. She was beginning to get an inkling of how Darcy felt when dealing with Nate. Speaking of whom, off to the left, she caught a glimpse of Darcy still hovering, her blue eyes intent and focused their way. Lifting her hand Darcy used two of her fingers to make scissor like cuts at long imaginary hair. Bitch, always with the threats, couldn’t she see she was working on the problem?
And what a problem Nate was turning out to be. The man was a complete enigma, scowling and gruff, somehow immune to her charms. The silence that fell over them should have felt awkward except being here in his arms, she felt… safe, content and kind of… turned on. Through the thin silk of his shirt the muscles of his shoulder under the flat of her palm were twitching and jumping, and the bare skin of his throat, only a few inches away from her fingers, looked warm and enticing. Without thinking about it too carefully she pressed her body into his ever so slightly, thanks to her ultra-high shoes, her breasts moulded to the hard planes of his chest, her hips bumping up against his… hmmm, maybe the man wasn’t as immune to her as he was acting.
“Do you hear that?” Nate looked around the room. Hard as it was for her to believe, the frown on his face had actually deepened.
“Hear what?”
Nate shrugged, continuing to look around perplexed. “I don’t know it’s kind of a droning… maybe more of a whining or a humming.”
Oh Good Goddess, she’d become so relaxed she’d been humming out loud hadn’t she. She steeled herself for Nate’s imminent slobbering state… oh well, seeing him blubber and pleading for her touch would at least cure her ridiculous instant infatuation with the novelty that was… had been, Nate. Straightening her shoulders, steeling herself, she met his gaze.
“It was really loud. You sure you didn’t hear it?” Nate shook his head, glaring around the room for a moment before returning his gaze to her.
Charisse braced herself.
“It’s stopped now thank Maat, because whatever it was, it was really annoying.”
Charisse’s mouth dropped open in shock, first she went very pale and then flushed with colour. He thought her humming was annoying! Her humming! The voice that men wrecked their boats for and sold their souls to hear? Annoying! The utter gall of the man.
Nate was oblivious to her reaction, still trying to shake off the sound that had grated across every last nerve ending he had, irritating him down to his very bones. “It was like a really annoying mosquito buzzing around or a car engine stuck in third when it should be in fifth.”
Charisse was seething. Why she’d show this irritating jerk what a Siren was all about. Ignoring the gnawing pain as that interfering bitch-rock, Bettina, scratched and clawed at their mutual bond, Charisse took a deep breath. Keeping her voice low, after all she wanted to prove a point, not start a stampede; she began to sing along with the Julie London song. Infusing her voice with just the right amount of sensuality, longing and desire to bring an elite warrior of Maat to his knees.
Nate stopped dancing abruptly… hah, finally he was succumbing to her charms.
“Sorry.” He dropped her hand, taking a step back, absently rubbing at one of his ears. “All of a sudden my hearing is shot to hell. Everything is sounding garbled and weirdly pitched.”
Maat, his ear canals felt as if they’d been scraped raw. A headache blossomed at the base of his skull. When was the last time he’d had a headache? Maybe a decade or so ago - during a fight at a construction site - when he’d taken a hit to the head with a steel beam.
Fuck, he had a pretty good idea that whatever was going on with him could be attributed to the gorgeous woman standing in front of him. Cyd might be ten kinds of gorgeous but he was more certain than ever that she was a hundred times more dangerous than any woman he’d ever met before.
Even as he watched with his inner eye, a black scaly tentacle slowly wound its way up Charisse’s body, extending from the nest it had made in her inner core just below her heart, the appendage encircled her beautiful pale throat. Nate had a deep suspicion that if he made any move to take Cyd back into his arms that tentacle would tighten and throttle her senseless.
Charisse stood there, feeling strangely bereft to no longer be in Nate’s arms. At the same time her mind was trying to process what had just happened. She’d sung for a man in full Siren mode and he wasn’t in the slightest bit moved. It was… unbelievable.
But hold on, hadn’t she dreamt of meeting a man immune to her Siren charms? Maybe here was an opportunity for her to put aside all her Siren gimmicks and associated hang ups and have a real, genuine interaction with an attractive man. Forget Darcy’s covert mission and just… flirt and dance, like any norm
al woman would when she met a gorgeous, almost immortal warrior.
Nate fought every instinct he had not to reach out and wrestle that scaly black tentacle from around Cyd’s throat. The damn thing was invisible to everyone but him for a start. Even Cyd appeared to be unaware of its presence. So grappling with it at a party, that’s if he could even touch it, would be very uncool, not to mention Cyd would probably think he was attacking her, double uncool.
Shit, every warrior instinct he had was screaming at him to do something, protect, fight, defeat. Yet all he could do was stand there and stare at the gorgeous woman in front of him. She was currently unhurt and it seemed she was in no danger, unless he made a move in her direction. So what options were open to him? Damn it, he hated it, but what else could he do? It wasn’t his fight.
“Well, thanks for the dance Cyd. See you around.” Abruptly Nate turned and walked away, disappearing into the crowd.
Ouch, that kind of hurt, standing alone in the middle of the dance floor, Charisse could do nothing but watch Nate retreat. This would have to be the most embarrassing day of her adult life. Had anyone seen her get snubbed by the annoying dolt? Goddess she hoped not. Explaining to Darcy what had just happened was going to be bad enough without speculation running rife that her Siren powers were on the fritz.
As she walked off the dance floor, trying to make it look like it had been her idea to end the dance with Nate so abruptly, Charisse brushed past the newly melded couple. Hadleigh, looking gorgeous in a fitted cream long dress that dipped surprisingly low in the back and did great things for her cousin’s curvy figure, glanced her way
“Char.” Hadleigh’s grey eyes practically beamed with happiness and love for her new meld mate Vaughn. “I issue a blanket apology for whatever fawning compliment or naughty invitation Nate just made. The man is an irrepressible flirt. I promise, if you ignore him, he’ll soon move on to some brainless bimbo more easily taken in by his cheeky ways.”
Charisse managed a breezy smile and kept on walking, all the time wondering in what universe Nate was considered an irrepressible flirt? Seriously? With that scowl - gorgeous though he might be - and his abrupt gruff ways? Great, just fricking great, hah, so much for her first real attempt at flirting with a man sans her Siren powers. She could take it, but it seems without her powers, she couldn’t dish it out. How humiliating, she prayed to the Goddess above that she would never have to see Nate of the wicked whiskey coloured eyes again.
Chapter Three
Six weeks later
Nate leaned across the reception desk, a sexy grin on his face, a leer in his eyes. “You rang my Sweet?”
“Get off my folders you clumsy oaf, I just sorted those.”
“Ah Vivian, you’ll turn my head if you keep up this litany of charming pet names.”
Vivian Dupree, receptionist for Maat Productions, sent him a mock glare from her dark brown eyes, though she couldn’t stop the small laugh that escaped her lips. At twenty-three, Vivian counted herself very lucky to have landed her current job, she wanted to be a producer someday, but with no formal education she’d been forced to devise a plan of working her way up the corporate ladder. Step one was the receptionist gig.
It had turned out to be a lot more exciting than she’d imagined. Mainly because the men who worked on the reality show, debunking all things paranormal, were a bunch of exceedingly nice guys and it didn’t hurt that they were mega eye candy. Not that she’d ever mix business with pleasure, she had her eye on her prize dream job after all, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t indulge in some low key, friendly, meaningless flirting. And let’s face it, if Nate was breathing – he was flirting.
Reaching down beside her chair she scooped up the heavy crystal vase that had just been delivered. The twenty-four roses it contained so dark red, they were almost black in colour. “Another delivery just came in.”
Nate straightened abruptly, a shuttered look coming down over his features.
“What’s that make it now?” Vivian hunted around for the card. “Eight… nine bunches of flowers, six boxes of truffles, the balloons, the fruit basket and the silk pyjamas. You must have really rocked this girl’s world hard, Nate. Hah, here it is.” She held out the card, her attention already on tidying up her desk for the evening and gathering her things, missing entirely the look of distaste on Nate’s face as he contemplated the contents of the card and eyed the roses. “Well.” She stood up to grab her raspberry red coat. “It’s home time for me.”
“I’ll walk you to your car.” Nate offered, flicking the card into the waste bin at her feet with amazing accuracy.
“Everything okay?” She frowned into the bin, what was that on the card… a word… a name? Well, it was none of her business for a start.
“It’s all good. You can keep the roses out here in reception. In fact, if any more are delivered, flowers, gifts, whatever, just bin them or give them away.”
Vivian thought about following up with a few more questions, perhaps tease Nate a little bit more about his admirer but there was a serious, almost remote look on Nate’s face that was so far from his normal easy going smiling self, that she didn’t quite know how to broach the subject. “You don’t have to walk me to my car. It’s in the parking garage after all.”
The flirty smile was back on Nate’s face as he rounded the desk and slipped his arm through the crook of her elbow. “Ah, but it gives me an extra ten minutes in your company sweet Vivian.”
She rolled her eyes but accepted his escort. It was kind of late and to be honest, Nate’s reaction to the card… to the roses, it kind of worried her. He was her friend and she’d never seen him shaken or even slightly perturbed by anything until now. Determinedly, she spent the next ten minutes trying to lighten the mood and bring the sparkle back to her friend’s eyes.
Back in the elevator, on the way to his apartment located on the 84th floor, Nate was running through a litany of curses in his head. Three weeks now… three weeks and it didn’t look as if the psycho bitch assassin vampire Queen was going to give up on her infatuation with him or show her face so he could cleave her head from her skinny - catsuit wearing - body.
Fuck and double fuck, she was proving to be an elusive thorn in their… his, side.
It had all started when demented Queen D and her little vampire kiss posse of assassins had been hired to kill his friend Serena. Knowing the vamps were gunning for Serena, the Elite warriors plan had been to use the Queen to lead them back to her clients; Sek and Mot, two Chaos Demi-gods intent upon performing a ritual, the key ingredient of which was Serena’s witchy blood, to awaken their father Apep, the God of all Chaos.
All had been going splendidly. They’d lured in Vampira and her minion posse for a final show down, killed off all the minions, he’d personally planted the tracker on… well technically, in, Vampira… he still hadn’t gotten the nasty taste of their kiss out of his mouth. Then he and Drum had intentionally let Queen D escape the hospital with what she thought, was a vial of Serena’s blood.
Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, their plan had fallen over in a big smouldering heap; somehow, Vampira had managed to ditch the tracker.
At least Sek and Mot were back to square one. Believing Serena to be dead, they would be resuming their hunt for a witch. Likewise, they would be looking for a long lost descendant of Apep. The blood, the Chaos duo had ordered the vamps to steal from Xander, Apep’s last known descendant, had been destroyed when Maat’s warriors had raided the vamps’ lair.
With all her vampire posse henchmen dead, the Queen should have gone to ground, should have disappeared to lick her wounds. Not this bitch. The moment he’d laid eyes on her, Nate had realised she was a well-deep pool of insanity and trouble.
Following his instincts, he’d known that killing one of her henchmen in front of her, in the bloodiest manner possible, would draw her attention his way like a Great White Shark scents a midnight swimmer. But they’d needed her distracted in order to get the tracker into
play. What he hadn’t quite factored in, was the fixation aspect.
Who knew Vampira could fall in love… or whatever her blackened soul recognised as love. And he, thrice damn his luck, was the recipient of her affections. The candy, the flowers, the gifts… all untraceable, all unwanted. All kind of vaguely creeping him out.
In his apartment Nate grabbed a bottle of cold beer from the fridge before heading out onto the balcony. It was late winter in Atlanta, but he needed no extra clothes other than the informal work uniform he had on of khaki pants, t-shirt and his steel cap boots. The chilly night air couldn’t touch him, he was a warrior born of the sun, one of the Goddess Maat’s chosen Elite.
What he needed was the distraction of the city skyline whilst he came up with a plan of how to draw out the vampire bitch. It was long past time Vampira found out if there really was a vampire heaven. Taking a swig of beer, he ran through all his options but his attention kept wandering… sea green eyes… long glossy auburn hair… wicked wide mouth… full breasts… toned dancer’s legs.
Maat damn it, with Vaughn and Drum both recently melded and understandably distracted and Marcus, concentrating all his hacker information gathering skills on finding any remaining mortal descendants of Apep. That left only Rafe, Flynn, Dash and himself free and clear to focus all their energy on dealing with all the mystical bad guys they normally tackled on a daily basis. The vamp Queen lurking in the shadows and following their every move wasn’t helping the pressure cooker situation. He needed to come up with a plan of how to track down and obliterate the vamp Queen, sooner rather than later.
His head snapped skywards… what was that sound? It wasn’t one of the flyboys – Dash or Flynn – coming in for a landing on one of the upper decks, no it was like something… or someone, was falling. On instinct his boot shot out, kicking a nearby lounger across the balcony with a shriek of metal. It had barely come to a stop when the object from the dark starless sky hit it with a muffled thump. Even then, it took Nate a second, maybe two, to register what… who, he was looking at… the few remaining shreds of coat… raspberry red in colour, gave away the body’s identity.
To Seduce A Siren Page 3