He laid her down upon the blanket, raised her skirt and removed her panties. His strong hands caressed her. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear he had bewitched her. Bo had a magick all his own. Sex appeal.
All magickal species enjoyed sex. Bo was no exception, but Raven psychically felt new emotions flooding his mind and heart. He seemed to want to protect her. As if he wanted her to be his mate—he was easy for her to read—something he had never before considered about another woman.
She radiated freshness and purity, though at that moment her thoughts were filled with many things, none of which were pure.
Raven writhed underneath him.
He leaned over her. The weight of his body sent sparks of heat through hers. “The desire between blood and lust is strong,” he whispered. Her hands stroked across his back, igniting a fierce fire.
“I don’t…I mean…I’m not like this, really. There’s something about you—like I’ve known you forever,” she whispered.
“Shh…it’s okay, I feel it, too.”
She reached for the waistband of his pants, unsnapping them, freeing him of the hindrance of the material. Raising her hips, she attempted to guide him inside her. He murmured words in a foreign language as he entered her warmth. A groan of satisfaction passed his lips.
He suddenly stopped. “You…you’ve never…you are a virgin.”
Bo must have seen the pain on her face. He was a large man, and she looked at him with wonder. He smiled as if to calm her for fear she’d run off into the woods and live out her days as a spinster Lamai.
She held onto him when he tried to pull out. “No, please. I want you… Don’t stop,” she whispered.
“Are you certain? I-I don’t want to hurt you, physically or emotionally.” He buried his head in her hair and kissed her neck. “Hmm, but I do want you so very much…” By the end of this night, he was going to have her. And she was going to let him.
“I want you, too,” she murmured.
He took his time as he gently eased his way inside of her. “Tell me if I’m hurting you…”
Then the world around them dimmed, and they were lost in each other’s energy. Her moans of slight pain turned to pleasure and filled the night air as they made love. Although she’d just met Bo, she felt she had known him for eons.
He nipped at her breasts and neck, gently breaking the skin and drinking her blood. She let him. She would let him do whatever he pleased. She wanted him to explore her.
As he rocked within her, he held back his long black hair, exposing his neck. “Taste,” he offered. His eyes flashed to golden orbs.
“Are you sure?” Raven wondered if he knew that for her kind this was an act of marking a mate.
“Oh, yeah,” he groaned.
She moaned in the throes of an orgasm.
The moment her teeth dug into his flesh, he let out an ear-piercing howl as he came inside of her. Worlds collided between shifter and Lamai, man and woman, and neither would ever be the same.
They lay in each other’s arms, staring at the stars, catching their breath.
“I’d say we did our part to welcome spring and celebrate the season of mating,” he mused then sighed with the sheer contentment of satisfaction.
Talk about a dose of reality. “Yes. I suppose we did. I-I’d better go,” she said, beginning to dress while pulling the dried grass out of her hair. She cursed herself for thinking this was anything more to him than a ritual. That he felt the same emotions she did. How stupid could I be?
Bo’s eyes widened as he noticed the blood on her thigh. He gently touched between her legs. There on his fingers was her blood. He wiped it on newly sprouting wildflowers.
“A gift to the Earth Mother,” he said with a wink.
She could feel her ire growing. “Yes. It was my pleasure to give up my virginity to…the Earth Mother,” she said between gritted teeth.
Raven slid into her bra and panties and pulled on her wrinkled dress. Any idiot could see this man was trouble. Too good looking, with a body to shame the gods and enough confidence for ten men. Oh, Raven, you fool.
“Nice to meet you, Bo. Good night,” she curtly said. She couldn’t help but feel insulted by his casual reaction to her lost virginity. The thought that she may have simply been one of many he’d had sex with that night turned her frosty cold. To imagine she gave him her most precious gift. What was she thinking? Obviously, she wasn’t thinking, in the throes of passion.
His jaw dropped open. “Wait…don’t go. The night’s still young.”
This man was at a loss for words. Okay, confidence level dropped to five men. His eyes betrayed his disbelief that the night would end so quickly.
He reached for her. “Please don’t go. There’s so much more I want to know about you. We’ve only just begun…”
Raven cut him off. “I’m sure there are many other young maidens who would love to share your blanket.” She turned and walked away, leaving Bo speechless and fumbling to dress.
What she would not know, until years later, was that he would spend the rest of that night—and the weeks that followed—looking for her.
Chapter Nine
Philippe Laroque sensed the Lamai’s energy in the air as he tied his boat to the dock. He silently cursed the day he promised his daughter he wouldn’t hurt Raven Strigoi. It was too late; he’d given his daughter his word.
He feared the half-breed had come for his daughter. If she did, all bets were off. He would do whatever was necessary to get Jade back.
He rushed to the back of the house, past the sliding doors, punching in the code for the alarm before it sounded. It was disarmed. Checking each room, he called out to his daughter, but there was only silence.
Stepping toward the bookcase in his den, he reached for the thick black leather-bound grimoire. Inside the book was a cut-out of pages measuring three inches by five inches, and in it he kept three small vials. He closed the book, satisfied his virus was still safe, and replaced it on the shelf. Before doing so, he removed one of the vials and slipped it into his pocket.
There were a few more hours until dawn. Tobias Strigoi would soon relive the pain that Laroque had suffered: the loss of a loved one.
“What do you want from me?” Jade struggled against the restraints. The room was dark and her eyes had trouble focusing, but she sensed someone was in the room with her.
“Where does he keep the virus?” Her icy voice cracked through the blackness. Raven had to keep her temper in check. If it took over, she could not be responsible for her actions. She remained connected to Bo’s aura and could feel his life force slipping away along with her self-control.
“There are things I could do to you that would make you beg for death. Or worse, I could turn you into a Lamai, and you would live long past all those you love. And your father would despise you, of course, knowing that you have the blood of Tobias Strigoi coursing through your veins. That would be an added bonus.”
Jade was panicking and she began to hyperventilate. “I don’t know what virus you’re talking about. He keeps his work private. I know nothing about what he’s done. All I know is that he blames your father for our mother’s death.” Hearing her say our mother sounded strange. She imagined it was odd for Jade as well. “I made him promise not to hurt you.”
Raven huffed. “How sweet.”
“Bitch,” Jade muttered.
“I make bitches look angelic.”
“My father’s a scientist. He’s always working on a project.”
“Then you knew he was up to something.” Raven paced the floor. Her mind raced. Time was running out.
Jade gasped in the gloom of the cold autopsy room, squirming. Raven smelled her fear. “All I know is that he wants to hurt your father.”
In an instant, Raven was at the side of the bed once more. “Were you in on that little scheme in the park?” She leaned over, inches away from her sister, baring her white fangs enough for Jade to see in the limited light.
&
nbsp; Jade was silent.
A ripple passed through Raven. A menacing source of energy had entered the hospital grounds. Time was up.
“Answer me,” she growled, moving closer to the young woman’s neck.
“No.”
Raven swore back. “Liar!”
She thrust her head forward and sank her teeth into the flesh of her younger sister’s neck, grateful for the dark. If Raven had to see her face, she wasn’t sure she would be able to follow through.
“No…” Jade moaned as her blood pulsed into the Lamai’s mouth. The fingers of Raven’s left hand circled around and caressed Jade’s cheek then slowly wound around the soft brown curls of her hair.
It had been years since Raven had fed from a human. The emotions of the blood throbbed through her body. Jade arched against her sister and she shuddered from the ecstasy of it. Raven knew that intense ecstasy.
The joining of one being to another.
The sensations of flesh against flesh.
The scent of her sister filled her being.
Life experiences of her younger sibling flashed before her inner mind. Raven felt the impact of their mother’s death on Jade. Her years as a little girl and what it was like for her living with Frank Dubois’s sister, and then Laroque.
What was Laroque like? What had drawn her mother to him—and why? All these thoughts ran through Raven’s mind, lost in the auspices of the blood.
At once, Raven pulled away.
Her face flushed. Blood dripped from the corners of her mouth. She reached for a cloth that rested on a nearby sink and wiped her lips.
Laroque was coming for her.
Ingesting Jade’s blood gave her psychic antennae a boost and a direct link to Laroque. He was too close.
Jade grabbed her arm in fear.
Raven psychically observed as both the auras of her father and Laroque intertwined. Moments passed before she collected her wits. Then she realized what she had done and what she now had to do.
There was little time to think. With locks, charms and spells, she sealed the door to Jade’s room. Raul, a member of Bo’s tribe and a Jaguar shape shifter guarded the door.
Raven headed to Bo’s room.
A voice echoed down the hall. “Raven!”
She spun around to face Tobias.
He was livid. “What is going on? Do you want to die?”
“I’m trying to save Bo.” She tried to pass her father, but his energy was too forceful.
“By bringing Laroque here? You know he’ll come for her.” His eyes flashed, full of rage.
“If he loves her, he’ll leave her right where she is. She’ll need a blood transfusion. If he doesn’t give me the antidote, he’ll have to deal with the consequences.” As an afterthought, she added, “And I don’t care what the Counsel has to say.”
Tobias lowered his head. “That’s the least of your troubles right now, Raven. You need to get to Bo’s room—now.”
Raven raced through the halls and into the ICU. Ian had added something to Bo’s IV. She couldn’t see what it was.
Tracy paced the floor.
Raven tilted her head toward her friend. “Trace, please give our friend a pint of O negative.”
Tracy dropped her gaze to the floor and walked out quietly.
“What’s that, Ian?” Raven asked as she approached Bo’s bedside. He looked so vulnerable, so weak—not like the strong warrior with the heart of a wolf that she knew him to be.
“Ian?” Raven asked again.
“Human antibodies.”
She knew they’d reached at the end of the line as far as treatment options were concerned. “Ian, I want you to take blood from me. We’ve fed from each other. Maybe I have some antibodies that could help him.”
Ian Odin shook his head. “Raven, he may bleed out. We don’t know how this will affect him.”
“Ian, please, try,” Raven begged. She was a doctor, and in her mind there had to be an answer to this medical puzzle. Ian Odin was a Master Wizard and a doctor. Together there was no way—no excuse—for them to lose Bo.
Ian nodded in agreement.
The nurse on duty set up a gurney for Raven and prepared the needle.
“We’re going to give him some of Mordred’s antibodies and see if that has a positive effect. I’m afraid the virus has mutated again,” Ian reported to his crestfallen co-worker.
Raven closed her eyes as the needle went into her arm. She was weak and worn out. The past few hours were taking their toll on her.
“What about Tobias? If he turned Bo to a Lamai? My father’s blood is powerful…” A knot formed in her throat when she heard the desperation in her voice. Mat, Bo’s grandfather, got up and walked over to Raven. He took her hand in his. She felt enormous strength from the elder.
He was soft-spoken and kind. “That would surely kill him, dear one. It is the wolf-magick in his blood that the virus is attacking. The spirits have warned me that Bo needs his human side to stay strong—to fight. You must pray to your mother’s spirit and to Hekate to help Bo. That your mother’s blood, which courses through your veins, strengthens him.”
For the first time all day, Raven smiled. Everything happens for a reason, she mused, and Jade being at the hospital might turn out to be a blessing in disguise.
Laroque knew his daughter was near. She was weak, but alive. His senses remained open as he targeted her location. Before he could rescue her, though, he had work to do. He needed just a few more victims to help spread his virus, and then he would get Jade and take her home.
He wandered the streets looking for leftover partiers and found a sleeping Lamai sprawled on a park bench. With the trick of a practiced bokur, Laroque stuck the young man with a needle full of the deadly virus. Laroque deftly sprinkled the white powder under the man’s nose. The enchanted crystalline powder entranced his fledgling, giving Laroque complete control.
“Go and feed, my friend,” Laroque whispered. “Feed as much as you can tonight. You need your strength.”
The fledgling abruptly awoke and stared at Laroque. Although he looked confused, he obeyed Laroque and began searching for his own victims. In spite of it being close to dawn, there were still plenty of people around to feast on. The bokur watched as the new recruit disappeared into the crowds.
Before the sun rose, Laroque had his minion infect a dozen islanders, including two more shape shifters.
Chapter Ten
Jade felt the needle enter her vein and she jolted, forgetting about the heavy leather restraints that held down her arms. They dug into her tender flesh.
Tracy looked at the young woman lying in the hospital bed.
“I’m administering blood. Your sister ordered this. Contrary to what you must think, she is not a monster. Your sister is a woman in love, trying everything she knows to save the life of the man she cannot live without. The man your father is trying to kill.” Jade watched the woman finger a pendant that hung around her neck.
Jade was too weak to answer. She silently watched the older woman exit the room. Her eyes closed as sleep took over.
In an instant, she was on a beach looking at her own reflection, only older.
“Maman.”
She was back in New Orleans.
Her mother held her close as a cool breeze passed around them, bringing the scents of honeysuckle and orange blossom. “Jade, my sweet, beautiful Jade. You will be fine. Your sister would never kill you. She is just hurting so badly,” Nicolette said.
“Am I dead?”
Nicolette hugged her tighter. “No, you’re dreaming.”
Jade held on, unyielding. She frowned. “You haven’t come to me in my dreams in so long, Maman. I miss you. What’s happening?”
Nicolette took her daughter’s hand in hers. “Your father has done a terrible thing. He is trying to hurt your sister and all those she loves.”
Jade’s astral form stood, feeling the sand between her toes. It was all so real, being here with her mother.
&n
bsp; But that couldn’t be.
Her mother was dead. Jade’s analytical mind fought with her psychic side. She pushed those questions from her mind. Focus on getting answers, she thought.
“Listen to me, chéri, there’s not a lot of time. You know how in your dreams you always ask why I haven’t explained things to you? I wanted to wait. Honestly, I never wanted to tell you at all, but things have gotten out of control. You need to know the truth, and not your father’s version of it.”
Jade sat back down next to her mother. “Go on…”
“First of all, when I knew your father, he was a good man, no matter what people say about him now. It was my fault that all this happened. I don’t want you to ever believe that it was your fault in any way.” Nicolette gently stroked her daughter’s cheek.
“Père always blamed Tobias,” Jade explained.
“I know. And Tobias blamed Philippe, but it was me. I’d been angry at Tobias for always leaving us, your sister and me. Your father had been a good friend until he fell in love with me. I did love him, in my own way.” Nicolette stood and turned away from Jade.
“One day at Mardi Gras, I gave in to Philippe, and you were conceived. I was so confused and very angry for being left alone all those times. I thought I was falling out of love with Tobias and in love with Philippe. It is all so clear now. But back then I didn’t know.”
“Didn’t know what?”
“Your father had enlisted the help of a fae. A fledgling with a reputation in casting love spells. That was the real reason I gave in so easily, though your father is quite charming when he wishes to be. I wasn’t falling out of love with Tobias, I was enchanted by the fae’s magick. I know that now. I didn’t know it at the time.
“As soon as I saw Tobias and realized what I’d done, I knew I loved him still. He was my husband, and I had deceived him. The man I’ve loved for lifetimes. Your Uncle Frank convinced me to tell Tobias that Philippe raped me.”
“Uncle Frank?”
Nicolette turned to her daughter once more. “It was wrong to say such a thing about your father, but Frank was so convincing that this was the best way to handle the situation. He told me Tobias would never forgive me if he knew the truth, and I was naïve and so wracked with guilt. I didn’t know where to turn, chéri. When the heart is involved, people do things they wouldn’t normally.”
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