by Marata Eros
I frown. Cochran wasn't even vaguely amusing.
Her finger runs along my sofa table. I notice she's strategically placed herself between my front entrance, and the French glass doors leading to my small patch of back yard. She wants both exits in sight.
“What's your confidentiality policy?” Arden asks suddenly.
She cocks a pale eyebrow. “Are you speaking for Dr. Phisher?”
“Talyn,” I say.
She gives a tight chin dip in acknowledgment.
“No, but I was wondering.” I look at Arden and we exchange a look of understanding.
“I don't tell anyone anything.” Narah Adrienne doesn't over-explain things. She's a fact-stater. It makes me curious as to her background.
I'll pulse Google her later.
She cocks her head, eyeing me. Her eyes glitter like peridot jewels. I can't see fangs, though I'm ashamed to admit I have an almost freak show-act curiosity about vampires. Reality pulsevision just isn't enough.
Arden holds up the baggie with the canine.
Narah tracks it with eyes like a predator. She snatches it before he can take his next breath. We simultaneously gasp.
Adrienne ignores our reaction.
“Where's the original piece that this came off from?” Her eyes light on me with new interest.
Maybe I'm not some quack after all.
I walk to the junk drawer and slide it open.
I step back, sucking in air.
The tooth. It's gone.
Enforcer Adrienne must see my panic and she's by my side in a blur of pale flesh before I can form a question. “What is it?”
I feel clumsy—thick. “I had it right here—in my junk drawer.”
Narah asks, “How big was it?”
I widen my index fingers to about five inches apart.
Narah's low whistle threads through the kitchen like a creepy string plucked. “Looks like you've got yourself a Lycan problem.”
Arden gives me another look.
Her gaze moves between us, noting the glance. “What's with all the surreptitious looks, guys?”
“We wondered,” Arden says.
Adrienne's lips tilt. “You wondered, huh?”
“What with the world all vamping out,” he says then gives her a guilty look.
“It's okay, Arden—there's a lot of miscommunication.” She seems resigned to that fact.
Arden smiles slightly. “I don't know. You're as lethal as I thought a vampire would be.”
She grins. Fangs appear like sharp little pearly curved claws.
We back away.
“Chill out. I can't smile without some fang.”
I'm as tense as I've ever been in my life.
Arden recovers first. “So you're saying there are Lycans.”
“Yeah.”
I'm pretty sure the world at large doesn't need to know that yet.
We look at each other again, he shrugs. “So what can you do?” I ask, frustrated.
“Depends on what our boy wants.” She lifts a shoulder, black tank perfectly matching black combat pants. Weapons stud her belt, hanging off her like deadly jewelry. Except for her gage plugs in her earlobes, she doesn't wear any. No—I take that back—a slim metal band of Tungsten encircles her left ring finger.
“That's it,” I fling my hands out. “I don't know what he wants.”
Her pupils dilate, capturing my gaze. A weird sensation like static electricity flows over me and is gone. “Quack like a duck.”
“What?” I reflexively laugh.
Adrienne frowns.
Arden cooperatively quacks behind me.
I whip my head in his direction. I'm a little alarmed at how realistic he sounds.
His face is slack, eyes glazed.
I turn back to Adrienne and she says, “Okay—so here's the news: you're a hybrid.”
“A what?” I ask in a choked voice.
“Part-human, part-Lycan.”
I shake my head. It was a mistake to call in Final Enforcement.
She nods. “It's okay. A doctor will find abnormalities during a rudimentary physical. They're really looking for that now.” She chuckles again as though sharing a personal joke with herself.
I'm not laughing. I sit on my bar stool by the kitchen peninsula. Hard.
She continues. “That's why you've got a Changer sniffing around.”
“A Changer?” I ask through numb lips.
“Yup. You're Lycan enough to be changed and he's probably the boy assigned to do it.”
“Blue-eyes?” I ask, though I don't feel like I really need the confirmation.
“How bad did he tear up the asshole—Duncan?”
I don't even pause, “Badly. And fast.”
She nods thoughtfully. “Okay, so he won't hurt you.” She throws up her palms.
A quack sounds.
Adrienne's face screws into annoyance. She looks at Arden. “Stop quacking.”
Arden wakes up.
“That didn't work on me,” I note.
Adrienne looks at me, and I notice for the first time she's sort of pretty beneath all the piercings, tats and gage plugs.
She shakes her head. “A little test of mine. Lycans are resistant to vampire thrall.”
God. “Well that's something, I guess.”
We glance at Arden. He looks insulted. We ignore him.
Adrienne puts hands to hips. “So you're calling me in to—what?”
“He's stalking me—this Lycan man,” I explain to her slowly.
“Don't condescend to me, Dr. Phisher.” Her voice is instantly cold.
“I apologize, that wasn't my intention.”
“Might be natural,” she says coolly, her pale eyebrows rising slowly.
We stare at each other.
Finally she says something that gets my full attention, “He is a protector—not a stalker.”
“I don't want—if I am—Lycan, to be changed or whatever he's planning. He has no right.”
Adrienne's head dumps to her breastbone, and she speaks to the floor. “This isn't about rights.” Her face rises, eyes locking with mine. “You will die without him.”
“Die?”
She gives a sharp nod.
“What's his role?” I ask. I have to ask.
“It's different for Lycans, I guess. For vamp female hybrids, a male Turner brings you over through blood exchange.”
Gross.
She reads my expression and laughs.
“So he's going to fang her?” Arden asks with a nervous chuckle.
“Nope,” she says, “he's going to fuck her.”
14
Merck
I scent the female vampire hybrid the instant she slides out of her vintage Mustang.
I don't attack for a couple of reasons. One: she's female. Two: she's Final Enforcement. The word on the supernatural street is she has two males. Vampires—one a former Hunter.
My female would never be in a job as dangerous as this one.
I hang back, watching their conversation from my vantage point in a huge ash tree. My talons bite deeply furrowed bark, readying my stance in case the truly bizarre happens.
And Narah Adrienne decides to go berserker on my change.
When Talyn collapses, Adrienne reaches for her, and I jump from my perch.
I loathe what I'll have to do but I can't have anything happen to Talyn.
I rush the back door, shouldering through the glass in a ball of speed. It shatters into tiny pieces.
Non-tempered glass shreds me into ribbons.
A human male shrieks, pinwheeling backwards.
Hair sprouts from my skin as I go wolfen. I shake hard, the glass clinks to the ground as my skin repairs the shallow cuts that cover my exposed flesh.
Narah Adrienne looks up from an unconscious Talyn.
“Get the fuck away from my change, vamp.”
She rises smoothly, a wisp of a female and hisses, standing protectively over Talyn's body. “Do your wo
rst, wolf.”
My eyes flick to the naked silver hardware in her hands.
I charge anyway.
I'm almost on her when two vampires plow through the glass carnage.
Narah's gaze shifts to their presence, and that's all the distraction I need. I backhand her, her head whipping to the left.
Her foot also connects with my chin but she's going down.
The two vamps close in.
They're her mates, I realize through scent alone. Their claim is all over her, knitted between them in a trio signature of claiming.
And pretty soon, my life will be next thing they claim.
The End
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***Please read on....
THE DRUID SERIES
A Three Volume Druid Compilation, 1-3
Reapers
Bled
Harvest
New York Times Bestselling Author
MARATA EROS
All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © 2011-14 Marata Eros
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Marata Eros Website
Marata Eros FB Fan Page
Font art by Bookish Brunette Designs
Editing suggestions provided by Hazel Novak
***Note***
Adult Reading Material.
Content within intended for readers 18 years and older. Violent and disturbing themes throughout. Might contain triggers.
The vampires are a dying race, their females sterile. When it's discovered that human females of Druid ancestry can be viable breeders... the harvest begins.
Rachel Collins is a young woman living in the frozen north of Alaska in a dead-end job with a circular life. She yearns for something more.
When murders begin taking place in the city where she lives, she and her girlfriend try to be more cautious, only to be caught in the middle of a dangerous situation in which an unlikely savior emerges.
Can Rachel escape her destiny while two different factions hunt her?
REAPERS
A Druid Series Novella
Volume 1
New York Times Bestselling Author
MARATA EROS
All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © 2011 Marata Eros
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Marata Eros Website
Marata Eros FB Fan Page
Font art by Bookish Brunette Designs
Editing suggestions provided by Hazel Novak
CHAPTER 1
I looked at the clock, yet again... and knew that if my boss caught me I'd be toast. Safe in my cubicle, I swung my gaze away from the the dreaded time and looked for Michelle. She'd be hanging by the cooler, which she was.
Michelle caught me looking and lifted her chin up in greeting and grinned. She knew what I was about. It was all about getting out of here and doing something for ourselves. It had been a Long-Damn-Week and I was going to let my hair down and have some fun.
Michelle wrapped up her conversation with one of the petty chicks that lounged all day while we picked up the slack.
As Michelle walked toward me, I thought that maybe we wouldn't have to change: pencil skirts, thigh high stockings, stacked heels and blouses that yoked just where they should be to look sexy, nothing too much.
Michelle stood in front of me, tapping a foot. “Watching the time won't help it go faster.”
“Yes, I know, but I feel like the day should have ended already.”
“I've got an idea, let's go to Spinners tonight,” she nearly squealed in delight. I wasn't feelin' the love on that place. It was always packed with a rough crowd and you had to beat the guys off with a bat.
Michelle saw my expression and started to wheedle immediately, “Listen, give it a half hour and if it's super-lame, we'll just bail and go somewhere else. Like that brewery place... what's it's name?”
“Talbot's,” I replied absently.
She snapped her fingers. “That's it!”
“Listen,” she leaned forward and our hair mingled together, “that new gal... with the red hair...”
“Molly?” I said, automatically looking around for her.
“Yeah,” she waved her hand, dismissing the name. “She was talking about that piece of creepy news that's been circulating today.”
I looked at her blankly.
“Oh for shit's sake, Rachel! Don't you pay attention to anything?”
“Not really,” I said noncommittally. My life was beyond boring right now. I worked here, hung out with Michelle, worked out, read, fed my cat. I was dying for some Excitement. Dying. But the news wasn't going to deliver. Excitement... no way.
“You're hopeless! Anyway,” she sounded the syllables out slowly, “there's been another killing. Another bleed-out.”
That got my attention.
It had been almost a month since the first murder and they still hadn't found the killer.
Then there were the rapes.
Somehow, it was all connected. Men were killed and drained dry of their blood and if there were women with them, they were raped.
But none of the women could remember the attack or their attacker.
Our gazes locked. “So... they found another body. Two, actually.” Michelle said ominously, waggling two fingers.
Great. Just when I thought we could flounce around for the weekend. Talk about a wet blanket.
“Maybe... we shouldn't go to Spinners then. I mean, if it's not safe.”
“Eff-that, you're going! I just wanted to spread the gory gossip.”
“That's kinda sick, you know.”
Michelle nodded vigorously, she knew.
I sighed. There was no getting out of it once Michelle had her mind set. And, in my soul... if I didn't get a break from this job and do something out-of-body, I'd scream.
“I gotcha talked right into it, don't I?” Her eyes sparkled.
“I guess but, we need to be careful, especially now,” I said in a conspirator’s whisper.
“Hell, I'm more worried about the regular guys.”
“Were the women... you know, was there blood... there?” I asked.
She spun back around, her skirt twirling a little with the motion. “That's the major weird thing, they had all been bitten, but still had their blood. Only a pint gone.”
Well, wasn't that just comforting.
Michelle winked as she sauntered off, hips swaying. “Pick ya up at seven sharp.”
She didn't wait for me to respond. Michelle knew she had me, hook, line and sinker.
I gathered up all my stuff, slipped my heels back on my feet and headed for the door.
Unfortunately, my dragon lady of a boss was blocking my way.
“Miss Collins, I see you're ready to leave.” She looked at her behemoth of a wristwatch. “Two minutes after five.” S
he raised a humongous unibrow at me and I stifled a giggle. It was hard to be pissed at her when she looked so ridiculous.
Almost.
“Yes. That's traditionally when the work day ends for us here, Ms. Hogan,” I replied, thinking with mild irritation that Hogan had me by the short hairs. She knew I needed the job, she couldn't lambast me for leaving when the work day was through, technically. But... she liked to make me feel diminished for leaving so close to the chiming of the clock.
Hogan looked me over from head to toe, taking in my long black hair, so deep a black it had blue highlights in the right light. My eyes were a pale blue, I was shapely but not skinny, and on the tall side. I didn't consider myself a hot number but I held my own. Hogan, on the other hand looked like she was always trolling for a new bridge.
I had discreetly pressed my elbow into the elevator button and it dinged just as she opened her mouth to mention something else equally unimportant, her jowls swinging as she popped her mouth open then closed it again.
I felt my escape portal open at my back and walked backwards into its gaping mouth, never more glad to be out of mortar range of the enraged cow, aka my boss.
She glowered at me, starting to waddle forward and I blurted out, “Have a great weekend!” The door swept closed in front of me.
I did a mental forehead-wipe. Thank God I was out of there.
As the elevator descended I prepared myself for the onslaught of cold weather, my car would need at least five minutes to heat up. The days were long here in the north and heating my car in the underground parking garage was just part of what we did in Alaska.
The elevator doors hissed apart and the cold air swept into the tight space, momentarily stealing my breath. I huddled my full length coat around myself, silently wishing the car was already warm. I rushed out of the elevator's cocoon of heat, my heels making clicking sounds on the concrete as I made my way to my car. If you could call it that.