by Cat Devon
Clusters of erotic earthquakes shook her body. That was magical. That was vampire magic. She didn’t want to know the details at the moment. She just wanted him to continue.
“More,” she both begged and ordered.
He gave her more, licking his way across the curve of first one breast and then the other until he reached the aureole. He paused there, giving the sensitive skin his complete attention and giving her even more intense erotic quakes.
Her hands shook as she attempted to undo the zipper on his pants. She fumbled, muttering her frustration.
“Let me help,” he whispered.
Using that super-fast vampire speed of his, he removed his pants and hers. Now only underwear—his black briefs and her lime-green cotton briefs—separated them.
Kneeling before her, he gripped her hips and tugged her closer. He stealthily introduced his fingers beneath the elastic of her underwear to cup her with the heel of his hand and rub against her. He licked the skin of her stomach above the waistband of her panties while thumbing her clit with a rhythm that gave her an orgasm that shattered her control.
His briefs were gone and so were hers. He pulled her down, shifting so his penis slid into her moist vagina. His thrusts were powerful and deep. The feel of him filling her was enough to send her over the edge as she came again. She never knew it was possible to feel such fierce bliss. Wave after wave of ecstasy consumed her.
She opened her eyes to see the feral hunger on Alex’s face. A hunger for her. Not for her blood but for her body, heart, and soul. This was more than mere lust. This was something beyond her realm of human experience.
Alex stiffened in her arms as with one final upward thrust, he came. Lowering his head, he rested his forehead on her shoulder.
Neither of them spoke for some time. “Not feeling claustrophobic, are you?” he murmured.
“Nope.”
“Good. I wouldn’t want you busting out the glass a hundred stories up.”
“A hundred and three stories up,” she corrected him. “I did a story when they opened this attraction.”
“Speaking of an attraction…”
She felt him hardening within her. “You don’t have to speak. You can just show me.”
He did. Then and again throughout the night.
“Can you keep your hands on the glass?” Alex asked her as she stood facing the window.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure? Without blasting anything?”
“I’m sure.”
“Despite me tempting you?”
“Tempt away.” Her voice was heavy with anticipation.
“I will.” He licked the nape of her neck and she was a goner.
Turning in his arms, she faced him and reached for him, holding him in her hand, rubbing the tip of her finger over the tip of his penis, before guiding him to the part of her that ached and throbbed with the need to have him fill her.
They came in unison, leaving Keira with the knowledge that her life was now forever changed.
* * *
“It will be daylight soon,” Alex said a while later. “We need to get dressed and moving.”
“Does the sunlight outside of Vamptown bother you?” she asked before answering her own question. “You seemed okay with the sunshine at my apartment. Wait, it was cloudy that day, wasn’t it?”
“The Willis Tower will have people coming into it soon. That’s why we need to leave.”
“Unless we merge with the crowd as they leave.”
“That will take too long.”
“Where do we go from here?”
“You’ll see.”
“Meaning you just had sex with me but you don’t trust me enough to even tell me where we’re going next?” she said.
“Meaning you just had sex with me but you don’t trust me enough to tell me where your grandfather’s journal is?” Alex countered.
“So we’re back to that, are we?”
“Apparently. You’re going to have to tell me the journal’s location soon. Like I said, we’re running out of time.”
“Why is that?”
“Because someone is not only stealing blood but killing vampires.”
“You’re not still thinking it’s my grandfather, are you?”
“I’m not ruling anything out,” Alex said.
“Including me being a traitor of some sort out to destroy Vamptown?”
“No. I am ruling that out.”
“Why?”
“Because of this.” He lifted his T-shirt to show her the small of his back and the new tattoo there.
“When did you get that done?” She looked closer. “That almost seems to be like mine.”
“It is exactly like yours. And I didn’t get it done. It appeared on its own.”
“Is mine still there?” She turned her head this way and that, trying to see.
“Yes, but it’s changed a bit.”
“Changed how?”
“There’s more to it now.”
“It’s bigger?”
“It’s more complex.”
“I need a mirror.”
“I don’t have one.”
“Because vampires can’t see their reflections.”
“I can see my reflection just fine. That mirror thing had to do with the fact that mirrors were backed with silver back in the day.”
She pointed to the tattoo at the small of his back. “How did that happen?
“I suspect it’s tied to the link we share.”
“Sex?”
“More than that. I researched it. The tattoo isn’t your standard Eye of Horus. This particular version of the protection symbol has an ancient Moorish design.”
“My grandfather’s journal did have some sort of ancient text that I didn’t recognize,” she admitted.
“All the more reason why we have to recover it.”
She knew he was right. But she hated that their time together had shifted from erotic intimacy to practical matters.
“It’s not over,” he murmured, running his hand over her cheek.
“You mean it’s not over until you get your hands on my grandfather’s journal.”
“No, I mean this is just beginning.”
“What is?”
“You and me. This is just the beginning of you and me.”
“How do you figure that?”
“I haven’t figured it all out.” He brushed the ball of his thumb over her bottom lip. “But I know we are meant to be together. You feel it, too. I know you do.”
There was no point denying it. Not after the smoking-hot sex they’d just shared. He’d made her come more times than she could count. Well, actually it had been half a dozen times. She could count that far.
“Here, put this on.” He handed her an oversized Chicago T-shirt from the duffel bag he’d retrieved from the ceiling air vent several feet away. “Stuff your top into the front of it.”
“Is that your way of saying I’m not busty enough for you?”
“You’re fine. We’re trying to get a disguise together here. Work with me.” He handed her a Cubs baseball cap.
“I prefer football and the Bears,” she said. “Just letting you know for future reference.”
“I’ll be sure to make a note of that,” he drawled. “I’ll file it right under—” He stopped and put his hand over her mouth. Leaning close, he whispered in her ear, “Someone is coming. I’m going to cloak us.”
He already had the bag slung over his shoulder as he pulled her tight against his body. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she hid her face against his chest.
A security guard walked past them. “Nothing to report up here,” he said into his radio.
Alex waited until the guard entered the elevator and used his key to make it work. Keeping them cloaked, Alex took her in his arms and rushed to the elevator, hitching a ride down with the guard.
He waited until they were outside and a block away before undoing the cloak. “Glad that worked,” he said. �
�I wasn’t looking forward to climbing down a hundred-plus flights of stairs.”
“Did I tire you out on the skydeck?”
“No way. Did I tire you out?”
“You were incredible.”
His grin was downright wicked. “Glad to hear it. Unfortunately we don’t have time to talk about it right now.”
The street was deserted but it wouldn’t stay that way for long. Soon hundreds of commuters would be filling the sidewalk and street in cars and on foot. The light seemed strange—and looking up, she saw why. Fog was rolling in from the lake, covering the tops of the taller buildings like the Willis Tower.
“Where to now?” she asked while tucking loose strands of her hair up under her baseball cap.
“A safe place.”
“Safer than the love hotel and the boat?”
“A room at the Palmer House hotel,” he said. “Safe enough for you?”
Keira nodded.
They walked into the historical hotel with a group of Japanese tourists and headed straight for an elevator. Alex cloaked the security cameras until he reached the room he’d selected.
“My grandfather wrote about this hotel in his journal. He used to bring me here every Christmas season to see how they decorated it,” Keira said. “He told me stories about Potter Palmer, who built this hotel originally. It burned down two weeks later in the Chicago Fire. Potter rebuilt it as a fireproof hotel. Potter’s wife, Bertha, was a huge supporter of the arts. She donated many of the impressionist paintings at the Art Institute here in Chicago. She also helped develop the brownie during the Chicago World’s Fair. I’m talking too much, right?”
“You’re fine.”
“Am I? How do you know someone won’t try to check into this room?”
He held up his phone. “I hacked into their reservation system. This room is taken for a week by us under an assumed name. Not that we have that long. We don’t have seven days to figure this all out. At the most we have twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”
She eyed the bed. “Then there’s no time to rest.”
“Vampires don’t need much sleep.”
“I haven’t gotten much sleep since all this started.”
“You certainly didn’t get any sleep last night,” he said in a husky voice that was like velvet over her skin.
“I didn’t mind.”
“I’ve got some logistical things to set up, so you can go ahead and rest for a few minutes,” he told her.
“You’re not going to leave me, are you?”
“No. I won’t leave.”
“Good,” she whispered before crawling into the bed.
Alex wasn’t sure how good things were. He was in deep shit here. He’d broken Vamptown rules, rules he’d been warned not to cross on pain of death.
He knew the policy and procedure despite the fact that the rule hadn’t been enforced during his time with the clan. Nick, Damon and Ronan had all done things to protect the women they loved at all costs. Alex had merely done the same.
Just his luck that the woman who was The One for him was related to the most hated vampire hunter of all time. Talk about a royal snafu. Was this fate’s way of paying him back for all the bad things he’d done after his transition?
There was a darkness in a corner of his soul that never went away. He wasn’t even sure he still had a soul. He liked to think so. But maybe his soul had disintegrated when Mitch had turned him. Or maybe it had died even before that, during those tormented weeks on Iwo Jima.
Other troops had survived. They hadn’t resorted to the violence he had. Of course, they hadn’t been bitten and drained of their blood before being forced to drink vampire blood from the wrist of the sire who’d changed him.
Why him? Mitch had never been real clear on that. Lynch had said that Alex wasn’t as special as he thought. Did Lynch somehow know what that secret was? Was there something in The Executioner’s journal that explained everything?
Keira seemed certain that her grandfather truly was dead. Alex wasn’t so sure.
He had to get that journal. Glancing over at the bed, he saw that Keira had already fallen asleep. He tried to reach into her mind while she was dozing. He’d tried before at the loft without success. But she trusted him more now than she had then.
Her thoughts were jumbled, but they were all images of them having sex on the skydeck. He leaned closer and noticed the slight smile on her lips. Avoiding temptation, he whispered in her ear. “Where is your grandfather’s journal?”
She shook her head, almost clocking him in the process.
“It’s okay,” he soothed her. “You’re safe. We need the journal. Where is it?”
He saw an image of downtown Chicago. The Water Tower, one of the few buildings left standing downtown after the Great Chicago Fire. Could she have hidden it there? Why? The iconic landmark was hardly a safe depository for something as valuable and irreplaceable as the journal.
Unless her grandfather told her to take it there for some reason? Why? Was there some sort of portal there dating back to the fire that only The Executioner knew about?
Shit. If that was the case, how the hell was Alex supposed to retrieve it? What if the journal was returned to her grandfather back in 1871? Was it locked in some weird time–space continuum like you saw in science-fiction movies? He was certainly no expert on that stuff.
Starting a turf war between the Gold Coast vamps and Vamptown would be a smart move on The Executioner’s part. But why had the blood thefts started after his death? Maybe so no one would suspect him.
Had Keira been sent to Alex so he could protect her? He had no doubt that she was not part of whatever plan her grandfather may have devised to destroy vampires. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t being used as The Executioner’s unwitting pawn in this mess.
She moaned in her sleep, reminding him of the noises she’d made the night before on the skydeck when he’d kissed her. Despite knowing what he was, she hadn’t shown any fear of their joining. Sure, she’d asked questions, but that was part of her natural curiosity.
She’d told him he was incredible. He doubted she’d think so if she knew he’d just been sneaking into her mind while she was asleep. She’d kick his ass for sure. Which was one of the reasons he couldn’t let her know what he’d been up to.
* * *
“Why is no one here to report in on the status of the search for Sanchez?” Lynch demanded, speaking into his cell phone. “I was supposed to get an update five minutes ago.”
“Everyone is out in the field,” Lynch’s second in command said. Lynch no longer bothered assigning him a name or title.
“Well, get them out of the damn field. At least one of them. And send them to me with an update.”
“Our team is two members short.”
“I know. Move some fledglings up.”
“They aren’t ready yet.”
“They’re ready when I say they are ready.”
“Yes, master.”
“Good help is so hard to find these days,” Lynch said. “That doesn’t mean I won’t have you all replaced.” He’d already tried doing so with demon mercenaries, but that hadn’t worked out as he’d hoped. They were too hard to control. And control was something critical to the continued success of the Gold Coast clan. Control and obedience. “Do you understand?”
“Yes, master.”
His plan was brilliant even if he did say so himself. Overall, things were progressing as he’d hoped. Except for Sanchez. Oh, the vampire cop had fled Vamptown as he’d expected. But Lynch hadn’t anticipated that it would take so long to catch him.
He’d tapped into the police department records to get information on the cases Sanchez covered and had sent his vamps to those locations. He’d even tried to capture Sanchez’s vamp cop partner, Craig, again without success. Then he’d tried to get Craig’s vampire wife, again without success. They’d both gone into hiding, the cowards.
Lynch could feel his aggravation rising. He should hav
e just grabbed The Executioner’s granddaughter when he’d first seen her at the police station. And he would have had he known her true identity at that time.
Taking a deep breath, he reminded himself that they were getting closer to resolving the problematic issues. He would win in the end. He always did.
* * *
Keira was dreaming that she was in a very tall, very old building looking for someplace safe to hide. She was in danger. She wanted to run but couldn’t. She felt frozen in place. Unable to escape.
“Wake up, Keira. You’re okay.” Her eyes flew open and she blinked at Alex.
“You’re okay,” he repeated. “But the bedspread isn’t.” He pointed to a still-smoking burn hole the size of a silver dollar. “You just blasted it.”
“That’s not good.”
“It’s better than blasting the skydeck last night,” he pointed out. “Listen, we need to retrieve your grandfather’s journal. We can’t wait any longer. There could be something in it that will help us track down whoever is behind the blood thefts.”
“I won’t tell you where I stashed it.” She put her fingers over his mouth when he would have protested. “But I will show you.”
“Let’s go.”
“I guess I have to tell you where we are heading,” she said. “I haven’t done that yet, right?” She rubbed her forehead in confusion. “Did I talk in my sleep or something?”
“Yes.”
“So where is it?”
“The Water Tower.”
She nodded. “The historical building, not Water Tower Place.”
“Why there?”
“My grandfather said to put it there.”
“So he could retrieve it?”
“You think he’s still alive.”
“I think it’s a strange place to stash it unless…”
“Unless?”
“Unless it’s a portal of some kind,” Alex said.
“A portal? To where?”
“I don’t know, but I aim on finding out. Let’s go.”
“Wait. Do you have any clean clothes in that duffel bag of yours?”
He handed her a black T-shirt. She peeled off the Chicago T-shirt and put on the black one, which was almost equally large. She tied a knot in the bottom hem and made it as normal-looking as possible.
“Okay, I’m ready,” she said.