Harlequin Nocturne March 2014 Bundle: ShadowmasterRunning with Wolves

by Susan Krinard

  Even that was not the end. For as her body throbbed with sated pleasure, he put his lips to her neck and bit her.

  There was no pain. She knew there would be none, because no Opir bite was uncomfortable unless the Nightsider wanted it to be.

  And this was every bit as wonderful and astonishing as the sex. She felt her blood flowing into his mouth, but it was an incredibly erotic experience, sending new shock waves of orgasm through her body. She came again and again until her senses nearly overloaded, and only then did he draw back, licked the small wounds, healing them with the touch of his mouth.

  He lay over her for a while, and she mumbled a soft protest as he withdrew completely and rolled to the side. Still throbbing with pleasure, she maneuvered herself into the crook of his shoulder and laid her hand on his chest, feeling his heartbeat thunder beneath her palm.

  They lay together in silence for an indefinite length of time, and eventually Phoenix fell asleep. When she woke, her head was tucked under Drakon’s chin, and he had looped his arm around her shoulder. Holding her. Protecting her. Almost making her believe...

  “We’ve still got a problem,” she said softly.

  His ribs heaved with silent laughter under her stroking hand. “Only one?”

  “You gave me a chance to stop you. I didn’t take it. Now what happens?”

  His faced turned to stone, and his mouth remained firmly closed.

  “You can’t let me go and make your bargain for you,” she said. “Maybe I could never hurt you, but I’ll have to tell them who you are. You won’t get a chance to try for the mayor.”

  He stared at the far wall, decorated with a brown photograph in a cracked frame. “And young Patterson?”

  “Once I tell them who and what you are, they’ll have no choice but to move against you,” Phoenix said. “He’ll be sacrificed, no matter what outrage it causes or the hell his father will raise. If they have to choose between the consequences of that sacrifice or the far worse problems that will follow the mayor’s assassination, it’ll be the former.” She released her breath. “And unless you stop me, they will get you eventually.”

  His chest rose and fell three times before he spoke. “What if I agree not to take action during the week in question?” he asked. “What if I leave the city the moment Patterson is exposed?”

  “Are you—” she began, rising on her elbow to look into his face. “Will you actually—”

  “Yes.” He turned his head to meet her gaze, and there was absolute sincerity in his eyes.

  He meant it. Somehow, she’d convinced him.

  Without another word she kissed him, pouring all her passion and gratitude into it, making him feel how deeply he had affected her. He put his arms around her gently, barely returning the kiss, as if he were embarrassed by what he perceived as a terrible weakness in himself.

  She drew back, catching his gaze as he tried to look away. “If you’ll have me,” she said, “if you want me, I’ll come with you.”

  “Phoenix—”

  “Don’t tell me now. Think about it. You’ll have time while I’m arranging the other things we discussed.”

  “Then you’ll go through with the bargain?”

  “To bring Patterson down? Yes. Whatever happens to him and his faction afterward...that I’m willing to risk. He deserves whatever he gets.”

  Drakon pulled her head down and kissed her brow. “Thank you,” he said.

  “Are you kidding?” she said, laughing as the tears spilled over her cheeks. “You’ve made me the happiest woman in the world.”

  “Then maybe you won’t be too upset when I tell you your other part in my plan.”

  “I don’t think I’m going to like this,” she muttered.

  “It’s very simple. When I go to confront the senator with you and his son, I’ll have young Patterson read the files while I have a burner trained on both of you. When he’s finished, I let him go and hold you as a hostage to make sure they let us leave. Once we’re away, we head straight for the passage I’ll have arranged for us to use. One just for you and me.”

  “We have a deal.”

  “There’s only one thing I need you to understand, Phoenix.”

  She already knew what was coming. “I know you...don’t feel the same way about me as I do about you. I never expected you to. You lost people you loved, when you were human. Maybe even if you’d remained human you can’t feel that way about anyone again.”

  “When I was human,” he said, his voice thick and heavy, “I believed Opiri couldn’t feel the way humans do. In Erebus, I learned it wasn’t that simple. Different things are important to them—us—but we can still feel grief, and happiness, and hatred and affection.”

  “Not love.”

  “I loved Julius, as a father. He loved me as a son. I saw other examples in the Citadel. But they don’t express it the way we... The way humans do.”

  “I understand,” she said quietly.

  They lay side by side for a while, legs entangled, until Phoenix began to grow drowsy again. Drakon got up, dressed and left the room on silent feet. She stretched, trying to awaken stiff muscles.

  At this very moment, Drakon was probably consulting with Brita, making arrangements, speaking with the other members of his crew, concocting some explanation for why he was sending Phoenix to make a bargain with Matthew Patterson’s father when, ignorant of her true purpose as they were, they’d have trouble believing she’d willingly go anywhere near the authorities again.

  It would have to be a very good story, Phoenix thought as she gathered up the clothes that had become tangled among the sheets and flung on the floor, but she didn’t doubt he could do it. His crew had to trust him, fight him or abandon him. And she didn’t think they’d try the last two options. When she left, they wouldn’t stop her.

  And as for Brita...if they were working together, as Phoenix had always believed, how would she react? She must have known all along that he was the assassin. Would he tell her the truth about his decision not to go through with it, or would he conceal his intentions? Would she consider him a traitor to his own kind, and act accordingly?

  Whether he told her or she simply figured it out, she could be a very, very big problem.

  Pulling on her shirt and pants, she took stock of all the incredible things that had happened in only four days. Her clothes felt cold against her skin. All of her felt cold, robbed of Drakon’s warmth and of the blood he had taken.

  And of the love she knew he could never give her.

  There were no windows in this room, not even boarded up. She couldn’t see the sky. But she knew it must be after midnight, and she didn’t have much time to prepare herself mentally for the task she was about to attempt.

  * * *

  Brita sat on the edge of the table in the meeting room, staring at Drakon. Her dark eyes held neither warmth nor understanding. “You’re not going through with it, are you?” she asked. “She’s convinced you.”

  Drakon listened for anyone outside the closed door. Nothing. The others had accepted his story and had gone to bed, except for those assigned as guards at the exits and just outside the Hold.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

  “Don’t even try, Drakon,” Brita said. “I know you told her everything.”

  “Yes,” Drakon said, “I did.”

  “Elders! And now, because of her, you think—”

  “Nothing has changed,” he said, holding Brita’s gaze as he spoke the lie. “Any feelings I may have for her—”

  “Are obviously stronger than the ones you had for Julius. And probably for Cynthia and Mark, as well.”

  Drakon took a step toward her. “I told you when you first came to me that I didn’t want their names spoken in this Hold,” he said.

&n
bsp; “Except by you, and her,” Brita said, the corner of her lip lifting in a sneer. “I never thought you could be so weak, brother.”

  Brother. That was the word that always stopped him when he was angry with her, with her perpetual bitterness—greater even than his own—her easy ability to slide between two worlds without feeling any attachment at all to the humans she was supposed to be serving. Aegis operative on one side, Council agent on the other.

  She’d never felt any conflict over her loyalties. She had never been human, though her peculiar genetics allowed her to pass for one. She was considered a quarter human by Aegis, believed to be the peculiar offspring of a male dhampir born before the Awakening and a female Daysider scout from the War, who had come to the Enclave to avoid execution by the Opiri for creating a child of their own. Drakon had once claimed that his own fictional dhampir mother had been seeking the same sanctuary, but his story had been false.

  Brita’s was not. Not entirely. But her father had not been dhampir. He had been full-blooded Opir, a Bloodlord, whose Daysider mate had fled Erebus near the end of the War out of fear that the father of her infant child could not protect them. She had died at human hands, creating and confessing Brita’s half-dhampir heritage and leaving her daughter to be rescued by the very soldiers who had killed her mother. Hardened soldiers who believed Brita had enough human blood to be worth saving.

  So she had been brought into what had then been the foundation of the Enclave, just as the Armistice was about to be signed. She had been told her parents had been killed by Opiri. She had become an agent of Aegis at nearly the same time Drakon had become an Enforcer, though they had known nothing of each other then.

  “I am not your brother,” he said calmly. “You became a double agent the day you learned that your mother had been killed by humans. You returned to Erebus to find your real father. I was—”

  “My father’s serf, and then his vassal. He set you free.”

  “And I did love him,” Drakon said. “But you didn’t even know I existed until two years ago, after you began working for both sides. I didn’t know who or what you were until I ‘saved your life,’ so that you could become Aegis’s spy in my Hold. And keep watch on me for the Opiri who sent us.”

  “Now I know they were right to do it. You’ve become a human again...Charlie.”

  The name sounded like a curse on her lips, but Drakon didn’t look away. She slid off the table, her booted feet rapping against the hard floor.

  “Don’t lie to me, Drakon. The very fact that you’d trust Lark—Phoenix—to carry out your instructions by turning against her own people shows you’ve lost your judgment, if not your sanity. She’s very likely to betray you the moment she arrives at Aegis, and then—”

  “She won’t. I’ve convinced her that I won’t go through with the assassination, that I only want Patterson. She’s the weak one, Brita. She thinks she owes me for making such a sacrifice.”

  “Does she know your motive for wanting Shepherd dead?”

  “Yes. But it doesn’t matter to her what happens to Patterson’s reputation as long as I leave Shepherd alone and get out of the Enclave after I’m done with the senator. She won’t get a chance to stop me if she believes I’ve given up.”

  “It sounds very neat and tidy. And it all rests on your judgment of flimsy human emotions.”

  “Phoenix will return with what I asked for. I’ll make sure it looks as if she was coerced, and she’ll be out of the way when I do my job. Then I’m heading south into the Zone. I’m not going back to Erebus.”

  Chapter 15

  Folding her arms across her chest, Brita scowled. “You owe your Sire more than—”

  “No. I don’t love what I am, Brita. I’m not interested in fighting for serfs and a household in the Citadel. I’ll make my own life.”

  “With her.”

  “She won’t want me when I’m done. If I survive. But I’ll take her, anyway. What would you do if I didn’t?”

  “I have nothing personal against her.”

  “Except your fear that she might somehow find out who you are and expose you.”

  “My fear—”

  “But you don’t really need a reason, do you, Brita?”

  “You make me sound like a monster, when the humans are the monsters.”

  “Neither side has a premium on savagery.”

  Brita didn’t answer, but her face was ferocious in its hatred. “When are you going to move?”

  “Once Phoenix is gone, I’ll start scouting. It’ll have to be fast, so I’ll need to take some pretty big risks. And that increases the chance of failure.”

  “You were too cautious before,” she said. “If it had been my mission—”

  “But it isn’t. You’re too valuable here. Your loss would be catastrophic to Erebus. If I fail, they’ll send another assassin.”

  “That isn’t good enough.” Brita circled him slowly, ever the predator in a way he had never quite become, even when he’d developed the need for blood.

  Phoenix’s blood, he thought, his mind drifting. He craved the taste of it, the sweetness of it, as he craved her body. He never wanted anything else, even though he might never taste it again.

  Or get the chance to tell her....

  “Listen to me!” Brita demanded, swinging him around by his arm. “You have to succeed, because something has happened that Erebus didn’t anticipate. The humans are making a weapon to use against us. I don’t know everything about it yet, but it’s definitely biological, probably a pathogenic virus specifically tailored to kill Opiri.”

  Drakon stared at her. “How did you learn this?”

  “I’m trusted in Aegis. I listen to rumors. I’ve even gotten close to Shepherd from time to time.” She waved her hand as if to dismiss Drakon’s question as irrelevant. “They’ve probably been working on it for well over a year, and Shepherd is behind it. I believe that he and Patterson are secretly involved in overseeing the creation of this weapon together, even while they’re publicly rivals and enemies. I don’t think anyone other than high-ranking members of the government even knows the project exists.”

  Drakon listened with growing disbelief as she described what she’d recently learned. She would have no reason to lie about such a thing, even to cement his commitment to the assassination.

  And he knew what both men were capable of. That they were working together, that Shepherd claimed to want a new peace...there couldn’t be a more perfect cover for a secret and illegal act of aggression that the full Senate would never approve, knowing what would be unleashed if such a weapon were discovered by Erebus.

  “Is it dangerous to humans?” he asked.

  “Not according to what I’ve learned.”

  “Are they creating an antidote?”

  “I think they’ve been working on one just in case their research is wrong.” She dug her fingers hard into his sleeve until he felt his healing skin protest in agony. “If the mayor is taken out,” she said, “the project will be delayed and we’ll have time to stop it, or at least find the antidote.”

  “Doesn’t Erebus know about this?”

  “I won’t be making a report until I have more information. I’m sure that Shepherd and Patterson aren’t ready to deploy it yet. You take care of your part in this, and we’ll have every advantage.”

  Drakon closed his eyes. He’d had so many doubts about his mission. He’d even determined to give it up, because of Phoenix, because of his feelings and her influence. And he’d managed to convince Brita that he’d never doubted his loyalty to Erebus.

  But everything had changed again. It wasn’t only the prospect of the Enclave’s ultimate destruction that rode on his success now. How great the irony that his lies to Brita weren’t lies anymore, and he was back where he’d started.

 
He had to go through with it. He had to kill Aaron Shepherd.

  “I’m going to help you set things up so there won’t be any mistakes,” Brita said, breaking into his thoughts. “I’ll find an excuse to return to Aegis near the same time Phoenix does. I’ll get Shepherd into his office at noon on the day of the meeting. It’s up to you to set up at the right vantage point without being seen or caught.”

  “You’ll have to get the window panels down and the guards out of the way,” Drakon said, his chest tight with bitter resignation. “Do you think your acquaintance with Shepherd will be enough to override all his security precautions?”

  “I’ll make it work. You do what you have to do.”

  “And Patterson? You may not care about my wife and son, but he has to pay.”

  “I need him alive for now. He’ll pay well enough. Do your job, get out of the city and I’ll take care of him.”

  “How, Brita?”

  “I said I’ll take care of it. I promise you, brother.” She stood on her toes and kissed his cheek, an affectionate gesture that would have been perfectly natural among human siblings but was almost a mockery between Opiri.

  The problem was that Drakon could never be sure if she meant such gestures as mockery or not.

  “I don’t want you killing Matthew Patterson,” he said. “Use him, but don’t kill him. He doesn’t deserve death, unlike his father.”

  “What makes you believe that?”

  “Call it a remnant of honor.”

  “Very well. But that’s it, Drakon. No other promises. If you care about this half-dhampir female, get her out when you leave, or make sure someone else does if you don’t survive.”

  Drakon stared at her until she—daughter of a Bloodlord—looked away. “You will leave her alone, Brita, whether I get her out or not.” He softened his voice. “For the sake of the Opir we both considered a father.”