by Vanessa Jaye
“Its venom is deadly, if it were to show enough mercy to stop at a bite. Even for a shifter, with your superior physiology, the survival rate is so infinitesimal as to be none at all.”
“And yet here I am.”
“Yes. Curious that.”
He drew on his joint and endless plumes of smoke streamed from his nostrils, wreathing his face in obscurity. The pungent scent made Nate dizzy and set his heart trip-hammering against his ribs.
Without moving Alejandro seemed to fill the space and the light brightened around him till he was almost in silhouette. Another man entered the room, muscular and dark as polished walnut. What he lacked in Alejandro’s aura of sheer power he made up for in pure menace. The newcomer stood back, his golden eyes dispassionately appraising Nate as the Elder approached the bed.
Nate’s wolf wanted to cower to the Alpha-shifter but the other thing inside him bristled. A growl vibrated in his throat.
Alejandro raised a brow, wild anticipation dancing in his dark eyes—the creature still lurking too close to surface. Amusement curved his mouth.
“I. Wouldn’t.”
Nate forced his muscles to unlock and broke eye contact.
“To be perfectly frank, the unexpectedness of your continued, if somewhat shaky, survival, is the only reason we haven’t put you out of our misery,” the Elder mused. “That and the fact you’ve shown no signs of turning.”
Nate kept his eyes down and his breathing steady, even as his heartbeat sped faster and the darkness writhed inside him. Instinctively hiding the signs.
“You could prove very useful to us,” Alejandro continued. “Survival has been a gift. It suggests a certain natural immunity. Now we build strength and skill. We will take another approach to the puzzle that is Nathan Barcza. And perhaps your ending need not be so unhappy. Perhaps you will have…justice.”
“Revenge,” Nate gritted out, his hand compulsively seeking the leather pouch he’d worn around his neck since that night.
“So, there is something you want more than dying. More even than wallowing in self-pity.”
“I want to make him pay.”
“Then you shall have your vengeance. I will show you how.”
Chapter Two
It never got better.
Nearly five years after Beth’s death and the pain always came back, just as hot and sharp every time he discovered another of the Pithcus’s victims.
“Son of a bitch!” Nate made a fist. He wanted to pummel something and illogically that something was the mess of ravaged flesh in front of him.
The man’s torso was ripped open with ghostly white ribs sticking up like grotesque pickets from the gelatinous ruin of intestines. An arm was missing and the spinal cord was severed at the neck, leaving the skull connected to the body by shredded tendons.
Steeling himself, he dipped his fingers into the victim’s stomach and brought them to his mouth. His breath caught at the first taste of blood, then near-orgasmic shudders raced through him, brought on by the bitter aftertaste that marked the Pithcus’s poison. Hunger for raw flesh spiked inside him and Nate sprang up, backing away from the body.
While he fought to slow his heartbeat, he surveyed the park area. The moon was barely quartered in the sky but the expanse of manicured lawns provided no cover. The only place to hide were the bushes lining the public path, where Mitch was now searching for any evidence the monster might’ve left behind. They’d gotten more than one lucky break that way—the last time in Paris, which had led them here to Cape Canaveral.
A faint rustle of leaves announced Mitch’s exit from the hedges. Dressed all in black, the cat-shifter was almost invisible despite his size. A great advantage in an assassin.
They approached each other quickly over the manicured lawn.
“Anything?”
Mitch shook his bald head. “Nada. Slippery mother-effer got away clean, again.” His yellow eyes flashed white as he scanned the deserted recreational area. “Think it’s time we made like Bin Laden and split.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Even in their non-shifter form, they moved faster than normal humans and within minutes were out of the park and blocks away. By tacit agreement they slowed once they hit the more populated area.
As they wended through the crowds Nate was overwhelmed by the fleshy scents of the humans. His hearing sharpened to the blended drone of their heartbeats that wove between the traffic noises and endless cacophony of chatter and music from various sources. His gums felt tender, his canines sensitized as they lengthened and he shoved his fists into the front pockets of his jeans, claws digging into his palms.
It was the victim’s blood still on his tongue, the fresh hit of the Pithcus’s venom that spiked this dark hunger, but the need was getting harder to control. Nate swore through clenched teeth.
Obviously unaware of his true struggle, Mitch clapped him on the shoulder.
“Hey, it’s cool man. We’re so hot on that mother-effer’s tail he’s smelling like barbeque. Might’ve lost him tonight, but we closing in, baby. We…” Mitch stopped his patter as he scoped out the trio of babes they’d just passed.
“Looking good, ladies. Hey now, what’s your rush? How y’all just gonna keep walking like that? I’m hurt. Got a big ole ache in my—” he switched from almost cupping his groin to clasping his chest, “—heart.”
The women’s hip-swinging steps slowed and their sultry smiles came fast as they gave Mitch and him the once over. Nate got an impression of long, tanned legs, firm breasts, smooth, bared stomachs and hot blood singing in their veins. Shit!
“Come on, Romeo.” There was more urgency in his steps as he headed back to the hotel. From behind, he caught the tail end of Mitch’s muttered cussing.
“You’re a real buzz-kill, Scooby. You know that?” In the few feet it took Mitch to catch up with him, his partner forgot his ire. “Damn. I am so loving this scenery.”
“I noticed.” From Nate’s vantage point, Mitch couldn’t swivel his head fast enough to take in all the hot-looking women.
“You gotta admit this is better’n some of the places that furry bastard child of Hannibal Lecter picked to party in. Remember Russia? Colder than a mother-effer. And that damn Sikhote-Alin forest had ticks as big as my balls.”
“It’s a wonder you don’t furrow the ground as you walk.”
“Hey, whatever, man. All I’m saying is that ain’t what I’m plowing.” Mitch mimed slapping an ass while moving his hips suggestively.
Nate gave him a friendly shove to get some distance between them. Man, some of the shit this guy pulls in public. “I got news for you, you ain’t plowing. You’re shoveling—” his smile died. Something teased his senses with the faintest tendrils of delicious familiarity.
“What is it?”
Nate’s heartbeat revved up as his gut tightened. “Not the Pithcus…”
He turned slowly, inhaling deep. If he didn’t know better he’d almost swear it was anxiety he was feeling. But it was more than that. It was dread and salvation rolled into one. A feeling he’d only experienced once before.
Paralyzed by hope, a moment passed before he could breathe again. By then the scent was gone, swallowed by a mélange of urban odors. The muscles in his jaw bunched. Years of hunting the monster were obviously taking their toll if he was having delusions now.
“Nate?”
He felt Mitch’s scrutiny bore into him and tore his gaze from the flow of traffic. He shook his head. “It was nothing.”
“False alarm?”
“You could say so.”
“Didn’t think you got those.”
Because of the very lack of inflection in Mitch’s voice, Nate chose his next words carefully. Five years of partnering on this hunt would count for nothing if the other shifter got it in his head Nate was a threat. The Elder’s had spared his life once because they’d seen no signs of him turning Pithcus—a forbidden and dangerous form for any shifter. He didn’t kid himself that he�
��d get a second chance if they knew the truth.
“It was just a weird scent.” And a disturbingly familiar one. He shrugged. “It’s gone now. Let’s roll. We got an early morning tomorrow.”
Mitch followed without hesitation, but Nate knew the big cat wasn’t totally buying his explanation. Regardless of the mission, some Elders had remained uneasy about Nate.
Something Mitch as their enforcer would be very aware of.
“And here we are.” Anya pulled up in front of the hotel.
While her boyfriend dealt with some last minute business dealings, she and Tessa had taken advantage of the fact that they were both in town for the night.
She turned to Tessa now and made a face. “I wish we’d had time for dinner and not just dessert.”
“I know,” then Tessa added on impulse, her voice wistful, “I wish you were coming with me.”
Her hand rested on the door handle but she made no further move to get out of the car, reluctant to go back to the empty hotel room. Plus, she was having second thoughts about tomorrow; courtesy of Anya’s own misgivings.
Right on cue, her friend started in again. “You know, maybe if you waited, Eric—”
“I’m tired of waiting on Eric.” Tessa banged her head back on the headrest.
She could’ve added that she was tired of waiting on life period. And that her relationship with Eric had been another symptom of going with the flow, of being and doing what others expected of her. But that would just start a conversation she had no intention of getting into. She wasn’t ready to face dissecting real ugly stuff like guilt, resentment and anger. Much less hash it out in a parked car in front of a hotel.
Anya, hopeless romantic, was blithely yammering on about misunderstandings and the possibility of Tessa and Eric getting back together.
“That’s not going to happen.”
“But—”
“But nothing. Eric never—” She searched for that one single reason that would convince her friend the relationship had been a mistake. All she came up with was, “he never treated me like a princess,” and immediately felt stupid for saying it, but it sounded right.
“Oh well, la-di-dah.”
“That is not what I mean. Stop it.” She gave Anya a playful smack on the arm, but Tessa’s short laugh faded as she formulated a clearer explanation.
“He didn’t treat me like a priority. You know? It always felt like I was runner-up to something more important.”
Story of her life, except with Eric she’d actually put herself in the situation rather than being born into it.
“Well, his job is pretty demanding, Tess.”
“I realize that, but it wasn’t just because of his job. He never once put my wishes first. There was always some reason why his idea was better for us. Hell, I’d still be home right now waiting on him to make up his mind about this vacation. Meanwhile he had his next five chest-waxing appointments booked.”
Anya’s eyes went as big as saucers. “Eric waxes his chest?”
“And down there.” Tessa gestured. “Said it made his junk look bigger. To me he just looked like an anatomically correct Ken doll.”
While Anya howled Tessa envisioned Eric’s plucked and pampered penis. Waxing was more hygienic, he said. More aesthetically pleasing. That exact phrase: aesthetically pleasing. This from someone who’d never had the thing poking out two inches away from his nose.
Other men used words like “big”, “hard” and “long” to describe their equipment, and pleasing was what they did with it to you.
But that was Eric for you. He took fastidiousness to insulting lengths. Like how he’d get up to brush his teeth after he went down on her, or refused to kiss her after she did him.
Before she let anger get the best of her—at him for being such an asshole, and herself for putting up with his shit—Tessa drew a calming breath and took in her surroundings. She’d really done it. She was in Florida on her first real honest-to-goodness vacation. And tomorrow she was going to get on that ship and spend ten glorious days in the Caribbean. Who knows, maybe she’d have a little shipboard romance with some hot guy while she was at it.
Immediately, the guy they’d driven past several blocks back, as Anya had blown through the intersection, came to mind. It looked like he was horsing around with some other guy, yet in the midst of the crowds on the sidewalk, he’d grabbed Tessa’s attention like he’d snapped a winch to her head and yanked.
She’d gotten little more than the impression of a hard angular face and a whip-chord lean body a bit taller than average. So why that glimpse caused her belly to do slow dips she couldn’t say, but there was something there.
The memory of his powerful stride played continuously in her head, then that image was replaced with ones of him beneath her, wild and bucking, thrusting hard, his voice rough with passion. She clenched her thighs together.
Hell yeah, there was definitely something there.
She’d bet the only thing he waxed that was long, hard and ready to ride, was his car. Tessa shivered, barely stopping herself from covering breasts that suddenly felt heavy and achy.
“Hey, you okay? Should I stay?” Anya laid a hand on her forearm.
“No, it’s all right, really. I’ll be fine tonight.”
“And what about tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow is the start of a grand adventure.”
Anya gave her a searching look.
“I need to do this. For me.”
Anya still looked skeptical and Tessa crooked a brow, at which point her friend shook her head with a rueful smile. “I am woman, hear me roar?”
“Exactly.”
A car horn honked and she gave Anya a quick, hard hug. “I’ll see you back in Toronto in ten days and we’ll compare vacation notes.” Then she hustled her butt out of the car.
Anya leaned across the passenger seat. “Hey, don’t go doing anything crazy.”
“Who me?”
“Yes, you. Little miss homebody-turned-intrepid traveler.” Anya shook her head for the umpteenth time that evening. “This is so unlike you.”
How many times had she heard those words in the last few months?
“Or maybe this is me all along,” Tessa said softly.
She swallowed her resentment, as she’d done practically all her life. At least Anya refrained from making the comparison to Trisha, like everyone inevitably did. A habit not even her twin’s death had stopped. Tessa stepped back and gave her friend a stiff wave.
Anya looked like she wanted to jump out of the car and pursue the conversation, but another blare of the horn from behind her changed her mind and she drove off after mouthing a rather serious goodbye.
Chapter Three
Nate narrowed his eyes against the sun’s glare. It was a fantastic day, not a cloud in the sky and the constant sea breeze kept the temperature bearable. If he’d been on this cruise for pleasure, he would’ve joined the norms lazing in the sun. Too damn bad pleasure hadn’t made his to-do list in years.
“Man, I can’t believe you talked me into this.”
Nate glanced over at Mitch on the barstool beside him and snorted. Dude’s natural mocha tan was decidedly tinged with green.
“I didn’t talk you into anything. Besides I guessed right, didn’t I? So quit your bitchin’.”
“Bitch, I’ll bitch any time I want. Especially when I get stuck following one of your stupid-assed gambles—which I’ll admit worked out this time. But if it hadn’t, better believe I would’ve effed your shit up UFC style once we got off this floating tin can. Leave you looking like Mickey Rourke’s ugly twin.”
Nate’s mouth twisted into a humorless smile and he raised his water bottle. Bad hunches aside, if he ever became a liability, they both knew what Mitch’s orders were from the Elders.
“Then here’s to the preservation of my pretty face.”
As he drank, he conceded Mitch had a point. Yet the long-shot clue sourced in Paris had paid off in spades. First, the Pithcus
left its calling card in Cape Canaveral, then soon after boarding the Pleasure Princess, Nate had picked up the creature’s foul scent. Proof positive it was on the ship.
All things considered, it was one of their luckier breaks. There’d been too many times when the trail had gone stone cold, only to have them chasing rumors again halfway across the world months later.
“So that’s it? I’m suffering here and that’s all you got sympathy-wise?”
Nate rubbed his forefinger over his thumb imitating the world’s smallest violin.
“You’re one cold-hearted mother. You know that?”
“You need a heart for it to be cold. Mine was ripped out years ago.”
He turned from the careful blankness in Mitch’s eyes. He didn’t want sympathy or pity. He wanted blood. Nate touched the small leather pouch hanging around his neck. This is what kept him going. The need for revenge.
And guilt. Don’t forget that. Never forget…
Suddenly the weight of their mission pressed down on him and he scrubbed a hand over his jaw. The latest string of near misses were taking their toll, with the nightmares and dark urges coming more frequently, never mind that he and Mitch were making stupid mistakes like a couple of rank amateurs.
As if he’d read his mind, Mitch said, “Let it go, man. This Pithcus creep is bat-shit crazy. No rhyme or reason to how he operates. No way we could’ve known he was going to strike again so soon, if it even was him.”
“Oh yeah? The Pithcus is a vicious, blood-thirsty bastard and he’s growing reckless, if that’s even possible.” Nate gripped his bottle tighter. “So you tell me how we were not supposed to know he’d make a play on that island?”
Within hours of the ship’s departure from its first itinerary stop, news of the local grisly murders had hit the airways. Some schmoozing ’n’ boozing later with a few crew members provided gossip that wasn’t made public. Something he pointed out now.
“And what do you mean ‘if it was him’?” Nate leveled a hard look at Mitch. “You really have doubts? Because based on what we found out, I’m as sure as shit as I can be, without seeing the remains, that the son of a bitch struck again.”