by Anne Marsh
“Other.” The small smile spoke volumes. “You really don’t care for the supernatural, do you? I didn’t, either, which didn’t make this whole relationship thing go smoothly at first. Once you bond,” she explained, “there’s a mental connection between you and your bond mate.” She shrugged. “I can always feel Brends in the back of my head.”
Lovely. The deal came with a mental stalker as well. “So he’s got a 411 on what you’re thinking”—she was still highly skeptical, but no point in alienating the first potential ally she’d met since her abduction—“but how does that translate into order giving?”
Mischka set her cup on the bedside table, avoiding Nessa’s gaze. Whatever was coming, it wasn’t good. “He can do more than watch. If he wants to”—her gaze came up—“he can take charge. Take control.”
“Of you.” She wanted this out in the open. “He can make you do things.”
“My body, yes. I don’t believe,” she added thoughtfully, “that he can do a damn thing about what I’m thinking. It’s part and parcel of being a bond mate. You invite the Fallen in. You give him that access to you.” She lifted her cup and sipped again.
“That’s slavery. Mind control.” No way in hell was Zer getting her bond, even if she hadn’t had her own little secret to protect.
“No.” Mischka stared at her thoughtfully. “It’s trust. Intimacy. Brends is bound to me; I’m bound to him.”
No favor was worth that kind of price.
Setting her coffee cup back on the tray, Mischka stood up and brushed stray pastry crumbs off the duvet. “You’re the one who’s responsible for that pee-on-a-stick genetics test, right?”
That had been either a moment of brilliance or insanity on her part. Part of her was proud of the accomplishment, because it wasn’t every day a scientist brought a product to market. Unfortunately, the terms of her contract with the university meant she’d never see a dime of the money the kit had made on the open market. She’d known that going in, and all she’d ever really wanted was her lab and enough money to keep the groceries stocked and the lights on. It wasn’t too much to ask. She knew that.
Mischka wasn’t handing out accolades, however. If Nessa wasn’t mistaken, that was a slightly accusing look in the other woman’s eyes. Her run-in with Nessa’s genetics test hadn’t been the other woman’s idea of a good time. “You weren’t expecting the test results you got,” she hypothesized. Most people didn’t. They opened up the box with a full set of preconceived notions—or, worse, daydreams about who they were going to turn out to be related to.
Maybe, no one ever quite gave up on the Cinderella fantasy. God knew, she’d been guilty of it. Some secret part of her had been so very sure that cracking her own genetic code meant she’d find a father and a family. A family that wanted her.
So, Mischka Baran could take her own disappointment and shove it where the sun didn’t shine.
“I peed on that damned stick in a gas station bathroom.” Mischka glared at her. “I had a pack of Fallen angels standing right outside the door, demanding I fork over the results.”
Why had they cared so much?
“Paranormal,” Mischka said carefully, but her fingers were curling into the duvet cover, crumpling the expensive velvet. “I was part paranormal. Not human, just like them.”
Part paranormal. “There are plenty of paranormals in this world.” That was the truth and no getting around it, no matter how much the full humans wanted to believe they could.
“Brends read the results.” The idea that the Fallen were using her genetic testing kits made Nessa unexpectedly nervous. “The results said my bloodline came from a small, obscure tribe that moved away from the Jordan River some three thousand years ago.”
Mischka’s eyes watched Nessa carefully. She didn’t seem terribly surprised by the spark of recognition Nessa couldn’t quite hide.
“What do you know about the twelve tribes of Israel?” she asked.
Mischka shrugged, picking up a pillow. “That there are twelve?” she offered, going with the change of subject.
“No. There are thirteen. That small, obscure tribe you mentioned? That was the thirteenth tribe.”
Mischka blinked. “Since when?”
Nessa waved a hand. “Since forever. The thirteenth tribe doesn’t make an appearance in the canonical literature, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist.”
“It was a secret?”
“Not precisely. Somehow, though, that tribe disappeared off the historical radar.” That disappearance mattered, and it was no longer a purely academic question. That extra chromosome haunting her DNA? All the female descendants of that tribe she’d found so far had had that chromosome. So, the real question was, were there others—and were they alive? Or were they dead?
“You believe my own life has been all smooth and easy?” Nessa went on. The other woman’s assumptions annoyed her. “My own genetic test upended my life. Karma’s a bitch sometimes, Mischka. Imagine being a junior faculty member in a system that makes that old boys’ club you hear about seem like a day at the spa. I worked my ass off to get there, now I’ve lost it all. I want it back—my lab, my university office, my RAs. I can’t afford this little pit stop in a Goblin club, because the clock is ticking for me.”
Mischka crossed her arms over her chest. “You can work from here.”
With a massive influx of cash and some serious online shopping, she could, but it wasn’t the same thing. “I had three days.” Why not spell it out? The Fallen already held the upper hand. “One of which is now irretrievably gone.”
“Three days to do what?”
Nessa levered herself out of the bed. It was time to stop lying around feeling sorry for herself. “Three days to prove my theories about the thirteenth tribe. That’s my deadline. Then, my funding’s yanked, and my job’s gone. Someone’s gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to make sure I’m in a position where I can’t say no—so what does Zer really want from me? Because this isn’t about sex, and we both know that.”
Mischka looked like she wanted to disagree but couldn’t. She eyed Nessa. “He wants the women who appeared on Cuthah’s list. You’re one.”
Zer hadn’t mentioned that Cuthah was the author of the list. Nessa stared at the other woman, as if Mischka could shed some light on the inscrutable thinking of a Fallen angel. “There could be other women who shared the same name.” One by one she ticked off her objections. “A false positive. There could be misdirection. Perhaps this Cuthah added a control group. And why were any of those names on the list in the first place?”
The other woman shrugged but answered without hesitation. “I’d like to tell you,” she said. “So far, there’s not all that much to know. The only shared characteristic we’ve found is gender—we’re all female—and that all of the women have a paranormal gene. We’re not quite human. You could help us figure that out, Nessa. The Fallen could use some answers, and you’re exactly the person to find them. You could break this, be the first to know.”
A great big conspiracy theory waiting to be unlocked, sweetened by the bait of what they could tell her about the thirteenth tribe. Someone had prepped Mischka Baran well. Someone knew her, and that was startlingly seductive. They weren’t offering riches or fame or a beach house in Maui. They were offering precisely what she would have chosen—information. The scoop of a lifetime.
“All you have to do,” Mischka continued, “is bond with one of them. Get them to trust you.”
“And the bond will do that.”
“Yeah. And then you do your thing, continue with your research, but this time you have a new sample pool. Plus”—she hesitated—“you’ll have their list.”
The list on which her name had appeared.
The command room was the heart of G2’s, wrapped in a carefully deceptive web of dance floors and club rooms. The high-tech equipment should have been out of place with the Russian antiques. Zer liked old shit, though, so there was no reason to upgrade, was there? Plus
, it wasn’t as if he wasn’t a dinosaur himself. Three thousand years old and counting, so, yeah, maybe he didn’t need new furniture. Whenever he ran a hand over the lacquered surface of his desk, he could feel the nicks and gouges in the wood. The desk had come to him from a Russian prince, who had himself undoubtedly purloined the massive piece. That chain of succession was comfortingly familiar.
The strongest won. Simple. Effective. Goddamn brutal.
So it was too damn bad if he couldn’t shake last night’s memory of Nessa St. James. All that soft skin and those bottomless brown eyes a male could lose himself in. She was a professor and damn smart. Despite that whip-smart brain of hers, however, she was as lost in his world as he would have been in hers. The smile he felt stretching his face wasn’t a nice thing. Yeah. As if he’d spend the day caged in a musty office, doing the pen-on-paper thing.
He’d been bred to fight, and that hadn’t changed.
The faces looking at him as he kicked back in his chair and landed his feet on the desk’s surface, leather duster banging around him, were familiar, too. He wasn’t in a mood for subtle, not after last night. She was the key to redeeming one of his brothers. Two nights from now, she was bonding with one of them, and he wouldn’t stand in the way of that. She was still struggling to come to terms with the way he’d upended her tidy little laboratory of a world, so, if he’d had any shred of decency left, he’d have left her alone last night.
Of course, he’d never been a gentleman.
So, he’d touched her—just a little and just enough to keep her off balance. That was strategic.
“Dog in the manger.” Nael rocked back in his chair, kicking his booted feet up onto the desk. Rather than paper and pencil, the desk was loaded with weapons. They were sitting smack in the middle of an arsenal, and that was perfect.
“You think?” He’d never understood Nael’s strange sense of humor, but that was fine.
Nael shrugged and slouched lower in his chair. “You don’t want this city, but you’re not letting go, either.”
Of course not. This city was his. His territory. His brain shot him a mental image of Nessa St. James, courtesy of last night. She was his, too. Christ, she’d tasted sweet. Sweetest soul he’d ever had.
She wasn’t his, he reminded himself. His job was to keep her safe until she was bonded with one of his brothers. Just a loaner, his conscience taunted him.
“Where are tonight’s hot spots?” He was done talking about the human female upstairs. He was so not thinking about whether or not she might be waiting for him to come back.
Nael wasn’t ready to let go of the subject. “You keeping her or what?”
Zer shot his brother a glare that could have iced over the river flowing through M City. “I told you. She’s gonna choose.”
“Right.” Nael nodded sagely. “The rave. Two nights from now. But, right now, I’m asking what’s up between the two of you. Maybe you should consider keeping her.”
There was no mistaking the sudden stillness of Brends at the far end of table. The brother’s hands stilled on the blade he was sharpening. That one had found his soul mate, and he’d never been the same since. He had feelings for the female, and the one thing Zer had never regretted was losing his feelings.
Sleek and gleaming, the limousine slid smoothly up to the curb. The driver had his orders.
Cuthah scanned the waiting faces. Bored. Impatient. Greedy. Curious. Glazed-over eyes perked up with the limo’s appearance. Humans loved their fairy tales. As long as the car stayed in the bus lane, they’d dream about life-changing events and being picked from the pack. Singled out for some special reason.
Their greed and stupidity made them easy to manipulate.
“A brunette,” he snapped to his driver. “You’ve seen the picture. She has brown hair and the right name to send my message loud and clear.”
The car picked up speed, and disappointed faces slid back into their stupor as the fantasy drove away. Two stops later, he found the one he was looking for.
The girl was waiting for the bus, her book bag dropped by her feet. Careless, really. She could have lost both bag and contents to a purse snatcher. One quick grab, a little mad dash down the street, and she’d have been poorer but wiser. That trust would make his job here so much more enjoyable. Because she simply wouldn’t see the bad things coming until the nightmare knocked her off her feet.
To his surprise, Zer had kept Nessa St. James locked up safe in G2’s, making it impossible for his rogues to get at her. It was time to put Plan B into play. He stroked his fingers along the smooth leather of the armrest and gave her another once-over. Female. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Not a bad approximation on the height. She was insurance. And fun. He’d never liked waiting.
He tapped on the window, and the driver hit the brakes, bringing the car’s slow prowl to a dead halt.
When Nessa St. James received his little message, she’d come out of her nice, safe hidey-hole. She’d want to see for herself what had happened to Cuthah’s latest pick. Then, she’d run—straight into the arms of his rogues, or right into the arms of the Fallen. Either way, she’d stop straddling the damn fence and make a move. A move that would work for him either way. Life was good.
Whistling, he opened the door, and the girl’s head did a 180, peeling away from the empty, bus-less street to try to see inside the car. “Moira St. James?” When she nodded, he added, “It’s your lucky day, love.” It had been easy to find a girl with the same last name, to learn her habits and schedule.
Sliding back into the darkness of the limousine, he waited. All she’d see was his hand, stroking the empty seat beside him. That hand, and the shadows.
She hesitated, but not for too long. He’d scented the exhaustion and desperation on her. Whatever she believed wasn’t going right in her life, she’d also believe he could offer the magic ticket to fix. “You’re one of the Fallen, aren’t you?” A smile lit up her eyes as excitement replaced the exhaustion. Transformed her face into something approaching pretty. Shape of the eyes wasn’t quite right, but he’d known he wouldn’t find perfect.
She’d do.
“Get in the car,” he ordered.
Sure enough, she did as he asked, even pulling the door shut behind her. The book bag tangled around her feet.
“Do I get to ask you for my favor?” Her voice was breathy with excitement, so eager to whore herself out for the Fallen. Really, he thought dispassionately, he was doing her a favor. Saving her soul for her.
“Not tonight, darling.” Pulling out the knife, he made himself wait just a handful of seconds. This close, her pulse beat visibly beneath her skin, and the faint, warm thread of her scent called across the small space to him. Mass-market perfume. Talcum powder. Sweat. He made her nervous, but she’d gotten into the car.
“No one said anything about a knife.” Her hand reached for the door. Lazily, he reached out, his hand crushing those fingers. Her mouth opened uselessly, dragging in air as she tried to scream through the pain. Not that screaming would have done her any good. Limousine was sound-proof, and there were so very few beings in M City who might have been able to stop him, anyhow. No one was riding to her rescue.
He brought the knife up and got busy.
The look on her face, right before the light went out in those brown eyes, told him she understood, loud and clear. Just because he could, he gave her the words, anyhow.
“You see,” he whispered against her throat, gathering her up close to him, “right now I need you to do a favor for me. I need you to die for me, love.”
The latest body had been dumped on the outer edge of the university campus. Zer’s hesitation had already warned Nessa; whatever had happened had transformed a living, breathing woman into a murder victim. Yeah, she understood what to expect.
“You sure you want to see this?” Twice he’d asked, and twice she’d nodded her head. The third time, she’d thrown in a more graphic explanation of where he could stick his concerns. She had to s
ee, and they both knew it.
Still, nothing could have prepared her for the graphic nature of the woman’s death. She shifted restlessly. Or for how helpless she would feel. Someone—something—had slashed the woman apart with casual, brutal strength. Blood splattered the street. The killer had made no attempt to conceal the body. Now, she couldn’t help watching Zer as he examined the crime scene. She’d known the Fallen were fast and strong, but she’d conveniently overlooked the fact that, sometimes, they were also murderers.
This woman had died fast, and she’d died alone.
Nessa couldn’t reconcile last night’s lover—the male who had taken such tender care of her—with the stone-faced, cold-eyed warrior king riding roughshod over MVD. He’d taken charge of the dead woman—and the crime scene—without so much as a please or thank you.
She should run. It was the perfect opportunity. All she had to do was ask one of the MVD techs for a ride. She could be home in minutes. Still, even as the escape plan presented itself, Zer’s eyes met hers, those hard lips curving into a slow, male smile. Yeah. Who was she kidding? They both knew that she could take off right now, but he’d be right there on her ass. She wasn’t a free woman—she was merely on parole.
She needed to keep her mind on the facts. He was her kidnapper. He was bad, bad news.
“You need to understand,” he’d said when the call came in. Then, he’d brought her here.
“Was this random?” Maybe the woman had simply been unlucky.
He shook his head, slowly. “No. This was deliberate. Eyewitness reports place a limousine cruising the bus stops near this edge of campus. That sounds like Cuthah, not just some random rogue. He was looking for her, and when he found her, all hell broke loose.
His eyes examined her and then the dead woman. “She had the same last name as you. Same brown hair and eyes. Not too close, but close enough.”
“Are you suggesting she was targeted because she looked like me?”
“No. I’m saying that yesterday’s run-in wasn’t an accident, and Cuthah hasn’t stopped looking for you just because you suddenly dropped out of sight.” He shrugged. “You’re the scientist, baby. You tell me which way the facts are pointing here. Random rogue kill—or someone who had the misfortune to look too much like Nessa St. James?”