Julian had not noticed Reysa when he first entered the room. Now he could not take his eyes off the phenomenal woman dressed in black leather. She was an African goddess. To call her beautiful was an insult, as that word could not come close to describing the exquisiteness of this flawless being. She was true perfection and way too good for Kaden, whose attraction to Reysa was evident on his lascivious face.
Corinne did not like this stranger’s tone, and she wanted to retort with her usual snarky comment; however, one look at the intense warrior standing at Kaden’s side made her back down. Corinne was no fool. Even though she might be older than the woman in front of her, that warrior looked like she was born and raised to kick ass. Corinne knew her limits. You certainly do not pick fights with someone that can slice you into pieces with minimal effort. Besides, the jaguar next to her looked ready to pounce if anyone made a move in the direction of Reysa.
“Well, excuse me. I guess I will get to the point, then. Sorry to waste your time.” Corinne moved to the center of the room to address everyone. “You guys were focusing on the first and last victims, so we decided to look at the other five. The fourth was the most interesting. Her name was Tessa. She was a human. Apparently, she was a real hottie who knew all about our kind. She hung out in vampire clubs and got off on being fed on.”
“A blood whore,” Reysa acknowledged.
“Harsh, but I guess fitting. Anyhow, she met our boy Kaden at a bar, a human bar actually. I’m not sure why you were there, Kaden, but this chick spotted you. According to the security guard, she flirted with you, practically throwing herself at you. At first you seemed uninterested, but she whispered something to you and then you were suddenly very interested.”
“She was human, but she knew what I was. She knew right away. I don’t know how and she would not tell me how she knew, but she sniffed me out. She offered herself to me.”
“Offered what?” Corinne asked, already knowing the answer but loving the uncomfortable look on Kaden’s face. What she did not know was whether he was embarrassed to answer because his mother was in the room or because of the woman standing protectively next to him.
“You already know that,” Kaden growled.
“I need to be sure,” Corinne smiled. “We must have all the relevant facts.”
“She offered me her blood and her body and I accepted both.”
Corinne saw Kaden glance in Reysa’s direction. It was the warrior woman whose reaction worried Kaden. Corinne smiled at the realization that Kaden was besotted with Reysa. “Don’t be so embarrassed, Kaden. Everyone knows you’re a man whore.”
“Look who’s talking. Who hasn’t tapped that ass yet?”
“Do not speak to Corinne in such a manner!” Lorenzo stood in front of Kaden with his claws extended.
Kaden was not the least bit intimidated by the threat. “Look, Lorenzo. If you want to be with Cori, then go for it, but don’t fool yourself into believing that you’re discovering new territory there. You won’t be planting your flag there marking her as your new land. Many flags have come before you and knowing my aunt, many will come after.”
Lorenzo launched a fist into Kaden’s jaw, causing a loud crack. Before he could respond in kind, Reysa stepped in and flattened Lorenzo’s nose with a hard right hook. Had he been human, that nose might have dislodged completely with the force Reysa wielded.
Kaden wanted to yell at her for interfering, but he could not help but admire this woman’s strength and willingness to defend him. The only other person who had ever defended him was his mother.
Lorenzo was not so impressed, and his fury resulted in his shift. The sound of bones snapping filled the room. Lorenzo’s claws extended further and his clothes shredded as they fell from his body. His smooth olive muscular skin was now filled with long silky brownish hair. Within moments, the man was now a seven-foot-tall beast. A very angry beast that looked ready to destroy anyone that got in the way of his target. Lorenzo roared, shaking the foundation of the house.
Kaden moved in front of Reysa. She refused to stay behind him and fought to be at his side. “Woman, stay back!” Kaden shouted at her.
“Don’t order me around,” she yelled back at him. “I can handle this beast. I’m sure I have more experience with hormonally challenged Lycans than you do.”
Lucian called out to Lorenzo, hoping to calm his friend before he went too far. Lucian knew that when Lorenzo was fully turned, it was almost impossible to reach him. Fortunately, it was not a full moon, so Lorenzo still had some control over his beast.
“Lorenzo, calm down. You need to calm the beast before you do something you will regret.” Lorenzo looked at Lucian. His breathing was steadier, but the fury in his eyes remained.
“Control your pet, Cori, before he gets hurt,” Kaden warned his aunt.
Lorenzo’s attention shifted back to Kaden and he roared again. Lorenzo swiped at Kaden’s face, knocking him into Reysa. Both fell to the ground. Alejandro launched himself into Lorenzo, sinking his teeth into the Lycan’s throat. Lorenzo tried to free himself from the cat, but his teeth were embedded in Lorenzo’s neck. He reached for one of the cat’s limbs and jerked it, breaking it with ease. The cat screeched and Lorenzo pushed Alejandro off of him. The cat would not give up. He bared his teeth and positioned himself to attack again. A shot went off, freezing everyone in the room.
Reysa pointed a gun directly at Lorenzo’s heart. “A silver bullet to the heart will take care of you. Touch my friend again and I promise I’ll turn you into puppy chow.”
Lucian cautiously approached Lorenzo. “Shift back, Lorenzo. Control the beast and return the man.”
The beast nodded as the man fought to take control. He struggled to shift as he fell to the floor on his knees. Corinne stood in front of him. Her feather-like touch squelched the last of the fury that kept the beast in control. After several minutes, there were the sounds of bones retorting. On his knees, naked and bleeding in the center of the room, was Lorenzo. The beast was finally controlled.
Instant shame plagued Lorenzo, and it was not because of his nakedness. He was known for his control. Unlike his brothers, he never gave in to the anger; he never gave in to the beast. Today, the beast won. He looked up to Corinne. Her hazel eyes looked down on him as if he were a stranger. What was happening to him? he pondered.
“I’m sorry,” he offered to everyone in the room, but mainly Corinne. His relationship with her was already tenuous. He had to be so careful not to push her away, and then he unleashed this display of possessiveness -- a reaction he knew would push Corinne away. His rage returned at the thought of her leaving him. He had to fight to stay in control or he would lose her for good.
She smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Put some clothes on. Everyone does not need to see Lorenzo Jr.”
Julian offered Lorenzo a pair of jeans and he stood to face the room. “Lucian, I don’t know what overcame me. I have never lost control before. I won’t let it happen again. I apologize again to you and to everyone. I should have controlled my temper better.”
Lucian was concerned about his friend’s unusual display of temper. In all these years of knowing Lorenzo, he had never seen him lose control of his beast. Fortunately, he had the strength to rein him in again before he caused irreparable harm. “It’s forgiven, my brother,” Lucian assured Lorenzo.
“Speak for yourself,” Kaden remarked. “Someone needs to chain the dog to a tree.”
“Shut up, Kaden!” Olivia and Lucian shouted in unison.
Reysa walked over to Alejandro, who was trembling slightly. His leg twisted painfully. “I will heal you, my friend, my protector.” Carefully, she wrapped her hands around his leg and twisted it back into place. Alejandro screamed out in pain. Reysa slit her wrist and put it against his mouth and Alejandro drank her blood.
“What are you doing?!” Kaden yelled behind her. He hated seeing another drink from her. She was his. As soon as those words escaped his lips, he regretted them. Ther
e was no way this woman was his. The last thing he wanted was to be bound to anyone.
“I’m helping my friend. If you don’t like it, then don’t watch,” Reysa replied defensively.
Julian approached Reysa. “Is there anything you need or that your friend needs?” Julian ignored the scathing look on Kaden’s face. His older brother was jealous. Julian could not help but enjoy this rare opportunity to get under his brother’s skin.
“Thank you, Julian, but we’ll be fine. My blood should be enough for him. It helps with the healing process. It can’t fix everything, but it can help with certain wounds like this one.”
“Vampire blood is not known to heal,” Lucian stated.
“I’m a half breed and I don’t know what the other half is, but I do know that when my friends have gotten hurt in the past, sometimes I could help them. I can’t resurrect the dead or anything, but I can heal some wounds.” She glanced at Kaden. The look in his eyes showed that he also remembered how her blood eased his pain when he was chained to the wall.
“That’s an amazing gift. It must affect you, though.” Lucian noticed Reysa was becoming increasingly pale.
“It weakens me a little until I replenish, but nothing I can’t handle. I would give every drop of my blood to save my friend.” She gently stroked the jaguar’s head as he continued to drink from her.
“He’s had enough,” Kaden snarled as he snatched her wrist from Alejandro’s mouth. Her wrist immediately sealed.
Alejandro jumped up on all fours as if his leg had never been broken. There was no hint of a lingering injury. He resumed his place by Reysa’s side as she sat on the couch to regain her strength.
“It looks like order has been restored again, so can we get back to what you guys discovered?” Olivia asked. “This time, maybe Julian can tell the story.”
Corinne pouted but did not say another word. Julian began to explain what they learned. “According to the security guard, he saw you,” he pointed to Kaden, “walk into one of the backrooms with Tessa, which apparently isn’t unusual in that bar. The backrooms are used for extracurricular activities. He did not stop you two from going in there. After several hours, he saw you exit the room, pay your tab at the bar, and leave. Tessa left the room shortly after you, and planted herself at the bar. She started telling others about her time with you. That’s when things got interesting. A cloaked figure entered the club and sat at the bar a few stools away from Tessa. The guard said the figure was beyond creepy. It made his skin crawl. He felt absolute fear and he couldn’t tell us exactly why. He just wanted to run away from that creature.”
“Did he describe this thing he saw?” Kaden asked.
“Oh yeah. He first told the cops, but no one believed him. They thought he was imagining things. I can understand why once I read the description. The creature’s back was to him at first, but he caught a glimpse of its slender arm, which was red and full of boils. Fascinated, he approached closer and could see a few strands of blonde hair that had escaped the cloak. He was certain the figure was a woman. The creature got up and moved closer to Tessa. Tessa faced it, but not with fear. She looked somewhat repulsed at first but then relaxed and talked to the being. They sat there for a few moments. They got up and left the bar together. The guard wanted to follow them, but got distracted by another patron starting a fight. After he broke up the fight, he went outside to see if there was any trace of Tessa and the hooded figure, but all he found was Tessa’s butchered body.”
“It sounds like the reaper figure Savannah mentioned seeing with Kimiko,” Olivia noted.
“The reaper?” Julian asked.
“That’s how Savannah, a bartender at The Lore, described the cloaked figure. It reminded her of the grim reaper. It was a similar story. The figure approached Kimiko at the bar and that’s the last person Kimiko was seen with before she was killed.”
Corinne could not remain silent anymore. “Well, this where my great investigative skills come into play, but I won’t go into details and offend anyone’s sensibilities,” Corinne promised. “After reading my Hackers for Dummies book, I hacked into the police department computers to get all the case files regarding the victims. I found everything, even the confidential notes. Anyhow, Jules, Lorenzo, and I read the files thoroughly, looking for common facts. That’s when we hit the jackpot. For two of the victims, Vivienne and Lasha, there were statements of a cloaked figure lurking around them after Kaden, the black widow, had his hands on them. The description of the figure varies, but there is one constant. All claim it was a disfigured woman in a cloak. Some of the other characteristics differ, which is common when dealing with human memories and their instinctual need to embellish stories, but the underlying facts are the same.
“One story in particular caught our attention, and it was worth further reading. The fifth victim was an artist, Mia Gervin. Her body was found in Washington Square Park in the village. There were several witnesses who gave the same exact bizarre story. They all saw her enter a brownstone near the park with a man fitting the description of Kaden. After several hours, they left the brownstone and walked through the park. They sat for a few moments in the circle at the middle where some college kids were performing. Shortly thereafter, Kaden left her there and Mia remained. Here’s where things get interesting. Around three a.m., the park had emptied, but Mia remained out there on the bench sketching. A woman in a black cloak sat near her. The two struck up a conversation. Everything seemed rather innocent. Mia stood up and the cloaked woman followed her back to the brownstone. As they climbed the steps, Mia looked in her bag for the key to the door. While the figure waited behind Mia, a gust of wind pushed back the cloaked figure’s hood. All three men claimed that her hair was alive. Each lock looked like a golden living tendril. One man described it as coils of snakes. They gasped and the woman pulled up the hood and turned to them. Her eyes were as black as the night, but they glowed. She hissed at them and they fled. Mia did not seem to notice anything transpiring behind her. She let the stranger into her home, and that was the last anyone saw of Mia.”
Everyone sat there in stunned silence as Corinne finished her story. “I know it sounds weird, but I believe those guys. Between the boils and the living tendrils, we’re probably dealing with some kind of revenge-seeking demon.”
Finally, Olivia broke the awkward silence. “You believe this story. You think we’re actually hunting a Medusa-resembling killer? As much as I would like to believe this, it sounds a bit far-fetched.”
“Mother, I would have thought this was nonsense as well, but the stories were so detailed and the descriptions by these men were pretty consistent. Granted, they were homeless bums, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they were insane. Regardless, it doesn’t matter. As Corinne noted, the common factor is this cloaked figure that appears after Kaden slept with these women. I may not be the CSI expert, but this sounds like a jealous ex killing Kaden’s flings. Let’s be honest, Kaden certainly has a fair share of exes. It’s not that surprising that he’d hurt one bad enough that now she wants revenge.”
Kaden knew that remark was intended to communicate a message to Reysa about Kaden’s checkered past with women. “I can assure you that I would never have been with a woman that looks the way those witnesses described. I may be a horny bastard, but I do have standards. I don’t do boils or snake hair.”
“What about someone you may have rejected?” Olivia asked. “Maybe someone really wanted you and you cast her aside because she didn’t meet your standards. Now she wants revenge against those that have had what she wanted.”
“Maybe he slept with boil lady not realizing she was a boil lady and then dumped her when her glamor faded, breaking her boiled heart,” Corinne joked.
Olivia rolled her eyes as the other tried to muffle their snickers. Kaden was not so amused. He got up to leave.
“Kaden, where are you going?” Olivia asked.
“I’m going to find this bitch. If you guys want to sit around and waste time h
ypothesizing and joking about my sex life, then that’s your choice. I’m trying to save my life and I need to catch a killer. Whether I banged this bitch, ignored her, or dumped her doesn’t matter. She needs to be found and stopped.”
“You’re right,” Lucian acknowledged. “We will find her. Your past relationship -- whatever that may have been -- with this person is relevant, however, to helping us find her. Can you think of any woman in your past that may have a desire for vengeance against you?”
“Just about everyone I slept with.” Kaden turned to Reysa. “We don’t have enough time for me to give you a list of names. Frankly, I doubt I could remember half of them.”
“Maybe he doesn’t need to,” Reysa offered, unperturbed by Kaden’s laundry list of conquests. “If the key is this demon is going after women that Kaden has been with, maybe we can use that to set a trap for her. I can be a decoy or something. Kaden and I could go out publicly together and hopefully this woman will spot us. She will likely try to kill me in retaliation, but unlike the others, I can defend myself and stop her.”
“Absolutely not!” Kaden kicked Julian’s antique coffee table into the wall, splintering the wood. “I’m not going to allow you to put yourself in danger for my sake. We don’t know what this being is capable of, or if you could stop her.”
Reysa stood tall in front of Kaden, pointing her finger in his chest. “Do you doubt my strength or my skills? I can surely take you, so no doubt I can handle some obsessive demon.”
“No,” Kaden relented. “I’ve seen what you can do, but you’re underestimating this lunatic we know nothing about. Those women she lured away were not stupid bimbos. Somehow, this lunatic convinced these women to go with her and then she killed him. For all we know, she hypnotized them or possibly drugged them. We can’t just set you up to face such an unknown. That’s dangerous and stupid and I won’t allow it.”
Lover's Betrayal: Misfits of the Lore Series Page 21