Born in Blood (The Sentinels)

by Alexandra Ivy

  She was hot then cold then hot then ...

  “Hey, relax, sweetheart,” a male voice whispered in her ear, those strong arms again sweeping her off her feet to carry her to the nearby bed. “I just want you close.”

  With care he settled her on the mattress and shucked off his robe to reveal his lean, surprisingly bronzed body covered by a pair of green boxers. She barely had the opportunity to appreciate the broad shoulders, the well-defined six-pack, and powerful thighs before he was sliding in the bed behind her, tugging the blanket over both of them.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “I’m fine.” She sucked in a deep breath, forcing her tense muscles to relax as the heat of his body seeped through her skin. He smelled of soap and toothpaste and an enticing scent that was uniquely Duncan O’Conner. “I’ve never slept with anyone before ... I mean ... not for the whole night.”

  Cautiously he scooted closer, wrapping his arms around her waist.

  “Do all high-bloods keep themselves so isolated?”

  She settled her head on the pillow, her gaze absently studying the oil painting depicting a field of daffodils that hung on the wall.

  “It does seem to be a common trait.”

  “Is it because you’re afraid of trusting anyone?”

  She struggled to concentrate. She told herself her jitters were because she’d never cuddled in bed with a man and tried to have a conversation. Her few sexual encounters had been brief with little in the way of actual chitchat.

  It was bound to be awkward the first time, wasn’t it?

  Certainly it had nothing to do with the intrusive images of what would happen if she shimmied out of her robe and turned to face him.

  “For some.” She was forced to clear her throat. She wasn’t going to imagine rubbing herself against all that male hardness. Or her sensitive nipples being tickled by his golden chest hair as he nuzzled kisses down the curve of her neck. Nope. Not gonna do it. “Most have special abilities that mean they have to maintain constant control when they’re around others,” she managed to continue. “They need time and space just to relax.”

  “I get that.” His warm breath puffed against her nape, sending arrows of pleasure down her spine. “Cops don’t have special powers, but after a day spent in the gutters they need some serious decompression. Not all spouses understand why we want to go to a bar and toss back a few shots or lay on the couch and try to pretend that we can forget the sight of a young woman found dead on her kitchen floor.”

  She stilled. For once they were completely alone with no danger of being overheard.

  “That’s not entirely true, is it?” she asked softly.

  “What isn’t true?”

  “That you don’t have special powers.”

  He tensed, remaining silent for a long minute. Callie bit her bottom lip, regretting her impulsive question. It was beyond intrusive to prod into a person’s private gifts. Even the youngest high-blood knew that.

  If Duncan wanted her to know about his powers he would have told her.

  The apology was on the tip of her tongue when Duncan abruptly broke the silence.

  “How long have you known?”

  “I don’t know anything for certain,” she assured him. “You work very hard to keep them hidden.” She hesitated, torn between curiosity and the manners that had been drilled into her from the cradle. Curiosity won. “Are you ashamed?”

  “Not ashamed,” he clarified, his voice pensive but thankfully not angry. “But when I was very young my ma warned me never to speak about my ... gift.”

  A typical response. Mothers around the world did what they could to protect their children.

  Well, except for hers. Her loving parents dropped her in the nearest trash can.

  “Did she think it was a curse?”

  “No, she was worried I might be taken from her.”

  “Ah.” She kept her gaze trained on the daffodil painting even as she was vividly aware of his lean body pressed against her back. It was somehow easier to share confidences without being face to face. “Will you tell me?”

  Another pause before he answered in a voice so low she barely heard him.

  “I see auras.”

  She sucked in a startled breath. “A soul-gazer.”

  “Soul-gazer.” Duncan allowed the words to rattle around his brain. He’d never heard the term, but it seemed oddly right.

  “You can see the souls of people, right?” Callie asked, the very casualness of her tone easing the raw knot of discomfort in the pit of his stomach.

  Revealing his darkest secret was like stripping in a crowd and allowing a bunch of strangers to measure his dick. The fact that she treated his “big-reveal” like it was an everyday occurrence made him feel less ... exposed.

  “Yeah, I guess that’s what I do.”

  “A rare gift,” she murmured. “No wonder you’re such a good cop.”

  He frowned at her soft words. He’d worked his ass off over the years to reach his position of sergeant.

  “Hey, it takes more than a flash of color around a perp to make me a good cop.”

  “But it doesn’t hurt.”

  His lips twitched with a grudging humor. Okay. Maybe he’d used his abilities to sense the guilt or innocence of a perp.

  “No, it doesn’t hurt,” he agreed, his fingers absently toying with the belt of her robe.

  When he’d first climbed into bed with Callie he’d barely been able to think beyond the fierce desire that had pounded through him. He wasn’t an animal. Or at least most of the time he wasn’t an animal. But being in bed with the female who’d haunted his dreams for more nights than he wanted to admit was doing wicked things to his libido.

  He wanted her with a compulsive need that was becoming downright painful.

  Only the memory of her trembling unease when he’d come out of the bathroom kept him from sliding his hands beneath the robe to explore the ivory silk of her skin.

  When he became her lover it would be when she was soft and melting in his arms.

  Not skittish with nerves.

  “No one but your mother knows?” she asked, thankfully unaware of his struggles.

  “No.” He was struck by a sudden thought. “Are you going to tell anyone?”

  “Not unless you want me to.”

  That sounded waaaay too easy.

  “It isn’t some sort of duty to report high-bloods?”

  “Not for me.”

  Ah. Now the catch.

  “But?” he prompted.

  She hesitated, as if considering her words. “I’m sure Fane would have sensed your powers.”

  He’d suspected as much, but that didn’t stop his stab of annoyance. The last thing he wanted was the pain-in-the-ass Sentinel to have something to hold over his head.

  “And he said nothing?” he growled. “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Nothing to you,” she corrected, snuggling deeper into the mattress, the short strands of her damp hair glistening like licks of flame against the white pillow. “But he would have reported to the Master of Gifts.”

  “Master of Gifts?” He made a sound of disbelief. It sounded like a character from a video game. “Is that a joke?”

  “No. Calder and his order search for high-bloods around the world.”

  Great. There was an entire order searching for high-bloods.

  “Should I expect to be hauled to his office?”

  “The truth?”

  He actually considered her question.

  He’d been going along just fine by pretending his abilities were nothing more than a quirk of nature. Like being double jointed or color blind.

  Why rock the boat?

  Then the realization that if Fane knew he had powers, the boat was not only rocked but in danger of capsizing. He heaved a sigh of resignation.

  “Hit me with it.”

  “They would already have checked you out and determined you aren’t a threat to yourself or others.”
>
  Oh. He wasn’t dancing for freaking joy that he’d been secretly checked out, but really was it that much different from Internal Affairs?

  Besides, if it meant he was going to be left in peace, he’d take it.

  “So they’re not going to try and keep me here?” he asked, not about to take anything for granted.

  You know, assumptions making asses out of gullible cops.

  “Valhalla isn’t a prison.” She paused, clearly realizing she wasn’t being completely honest. “At least it’s not a prison unless you’ve committed some sort of crime.”

  He wasn’t going to dig into the justice system set up by the high-bloods. Cops who poked their noses where they didn’t belong soon had them chopped off.

  “And they won’t say anything? My chief—”

  “Your secret is safe, cop,” she assured him, abruptly yawning as the stressful day caught up with her. “Now can we go to sleep?”

  “We can,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to the nape of her neck.

  Closing his eyes, Duncan allowed himself to appreciate the simple joy of having Callie in his arms.

  It didn’t matter that he was hard and aching with a desire to consume her. Or that her robe rubbed roughly against his bare skin.

  The creepy Boggs had warned that Callie was the center of a coming darkness, and whether the doppelganger was the real deal or just a nut-bar, Duncan sensed that this moment of peace was going to be a rare commodity in the future.

  He intended to savor every second of holding her close.

  Unfortunately, as much as he was enjoying the feel and scent of his beautiful companion, he couldn’t shut off his mind as it shuffled and reshuffled through the implications of his secret no longer being so secret.

  Assuming that Callie had fallen asleep, he was caught off guard when her hand lightly brushed over his fingers, still clutching the belt of her robe.

  “Duncan?”

  He squeezed his eyes shut as a jolt of heat speared through him at her light touch.

  “Hmm?” he managed from between clenched teeth.

  “What’s bothering you?”

  His eyes popped open with surprise. How the hell had she known something was bothering him?

  “Are you psychic?”

  “Female intuition.”

  “Yow.” He grimaced. “Now that I’m all too familiar with. My ma and sisters could sniff out a lie a mile away.”

  “Then you know it’s a waste of time to deny that something’s wrong.”

  “Not wrong,” he denied.

  She squeezed his fingers. “Talk to me, cop.”

  Wild horses couldn’t have dragged the question from him if it had come from anyone but this woman.

  But Callie was different.

  She ... understood. In every way.

  “Are there other people like me?” He asked the question that had been gnawing at him.

  “Soul-gazers?” She seemed startled by his interest. “Of course.”

  “Here?”

  “Yes.” A short pause. “Do you want to meet them?”

  Did he? There was no denying a tiny temptation to actually speak with someone who shared his talents. Perhaps even to discover how to hone it so it would be a more effective tool.

  But was he truly prepared to come out of the closet?

  “I don’t know,” he said, his voice tight. “Not yet.”

  “There’s no need to hurry,” she assured him, her tone distracted, as if she were troubled by a sudden thought. “In fact, it might be better that your gift doesn’t become common knowledge.”

  “Why?”

  She paused. “It’s just a theory.”

  “Tell me.”

  “If the necromancer we’re searching for can truly raise the dead then we need to be able to spot them.”

  Yeesh. Walking dead? They belonged in B-rated movies. Not shuffling along the streets of Kansas City.

  “I would think walking corpses would be a little obvious in a crowd.”

  “Not if the magic gives them the appearance of life.”

  “Damn.” Duncan scowled. Like the thought of rotting zombies wasn’t bad enough without the possibility that dead people could be waltzing around without anyone knowing. “I suppose I can’t just start shooting people to see if they’re alive or dead.”

  “I would prefer you didn’t.” Slowly she turned her head to glance over her shoulder. “There’s an easier way you could help.”

  He braced for her answer, already sensing he wasn’t going to like it. “How?”

  “A dead person has no soul.”

  He studied her pale face in confusion, wondering if she were teasing him.

  Then he sucked in a sharp breath.

  Of course. He could see the auras that flickered around people.

  Which meant if there was no aura, he was seeing a corpse.

  “You want me to be a zombie-hunter,” he muttered.

  “Who better?”

  “Shit.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Callie wasn’t entirely shocked that she managed to sleep through the night. She’d been on the verge of utter exhaustion, both mentally and physically.

  And there was something to be said for having her own private heater to keep her toasty warm.

  But she’d been so tense when he’d snuggled in behind her that it seemed difficult to imagine that she could actually relax enough to fall asleep.

  Slowly coming awake, she managed to pry open her heavy eyes, surprised to discover the room still shrouded in shadows. Usually she had to set her alarm clock if she wanted to wake up before noon.

  So why was she awake at such an ungodly hour?

  It took several minutes to realize what had pulled her out of her dreams. Probably because the feel of warm, male lips stroking over the sensitive skin of her neck was precisely what she’d been dreaming about.

  Clearly sensing she was awake, Duncan buried his face in the curve of her neck. “Mmm.”

  She shivered, but it wasn’t with nerves. After an entire night of erotic dreams, she was no longer tense at the thought of spending a few hours in the arms of this man.

  Actually, she felt all melty as he spooned close enough for her to feel the hard length of his arousal pressing against her lower back.

  “You woke me,” she murmured, her voice husky.

  “Did I?” His tongue traced up the back of her neck, pausing at the tiny dip just below her ear. “You smell like apples.”

  She trembled at the rasp of his morning beard, instinctively pressing her head deeper into the pillow as she invited him to continue his sensual exploration.

  “What time is it?”

  “Early,” he breathed in her ear, giving her lobe a sharp nip.

  She jerked in pleasure, her heart picking up speed. “Then why aren’t you sleeping?”

  He trailed his lips along her jaw, his touch seeming to sear her skin.

  “I’m a morning person.”

  Of course he was. She wrinkled her nose.

  “Ugh.”

  “Hey.” His arms tightened around her, surrounding her in delicious heat. “‘Ugh’ isn’t a word a man likes to hear from the woman waking in his arms.”

  Callie swallowed her moan as he pressed his cheek to hers, his breath brushing her lips with the promise of a kiss.

  “Then you shouldn’t have woken me up in the middle of the night.”

  He chuckled. “Haven’t you heard that the early bird gets the worm?”

  “Fine, you go hunt your worms and I’ll ...” She forgot how to speak as his hand slid beneath her robe to cup one aching breast. “Duncan.”

  With a skill that made her eyes slide shut in feminine bliss, he circled her nipple with the tip of his finger.

  “You told me to go hunting,” he reminded her. “You’re the only prey I’m interested in.”

  Her hand clutched his arm as he tormented the sensitive bud with light, teasing strokes.

  “I don’t think I lik
e being called prey.”

  “Okay.” With a speed that caught her off guard, Duncan had her robe pulled open and was yanking it off her body. “You be the bird and I’ll be the worm.” He pressed his fully engorged cock against the bare skin of her ass. “I have better equipment for the role.”

  She gave a husky chuckle as he pressed a line of kisses down her shoulder.

  “You’re such a man.”

  “I try.” He growled low in his throat, one hand continuing to pleasure her breast while the other slid down the flat plane of her stomach. “My god, you feel so good in my arms.”

  She arched her back, shocked by her sizzling reaction to his every touch. It was as if she were perfectly tuned to his seduction.

  Or maybe he was so practiced in pleasing a female he knew just how to elicit the response he wanted.

  The thought was oddly troublesome.

  “Do you do this often?”

  His lips explored down her shoulder blade, his hand skimming along her hip and over her thigh to slip between her legs.

  “Hold you in my arms?” he teased. “Not nearly often enough.”

  She pulled in a shaky breath, barely capable of thinking as he gently tugged her leg up and over his hip, leaving her exposed to the caress of his searching fingers.

  “Wake up in strange beds,” she managed in a strangled voice.

  “I haven’t been with a woman since my divorce,” he confessed, his lips settling at a tender point on her nape as his fingers drew absent patterns on her inner thigh.

  She groaned, a damp heat forming between her legs as his fingers strayed ever higher.

  Oh ... baby.

  It was almost more than she could stand. The tingles of electric pleasure darted from the tips of his fingers straight to the aching void in the pit of her stomach. The gentle tug on her hardened nipple. And the brush of warm lips up and down her nape.

  No man had taken such care to ensure she was so fully aroused.

  “Why me?” she demanded.

  His fingers traveled another inch higher. “There’s the obvious reason.”

  She grasped his forearm. Not to stop him. Hell, she might strangle him if he tried to halt.

  But it was becoming increasingly difficult to remain still beneath his bold caresses and she had to do something to keep from squirming right off the bed.