Chasing Shadows (The Initiative Book 1)

by Kindra Sowder

  “Izzy, thes looks awfy,” he observed.

  Yes, it was extremely red and maybe a little blistered, but some of the pain had eased off while I had been waiting. “Nice to see you too, darling,” I joked, practically staring at the top of his head as he looked at the palm of my hand like nothing else existed.

  “Och, come aff it. Ye coold’ve killed yerself wit ‘at thin’,” he lectured.

  “As opposed to that vamp back there killing me?” I said sarcastically, jerking my head back in a kind of nod toward the back of the alley. “I’ll see someone about updating my weapons this week. I promise.”

  “I’ll tek’ ye thur. Make an appointment.”

  I gave him an impatient look in just enough time for him to stare at me and shake his head. “Is that really necessary?”

  “Sure is, loove. Ye don’t loch change so I’ll gie ye th’ push ye need. Make th’ appointment.”

  I sighed and caved, “Alright. I’ll make the damn appointment.”

  He kissed the palm of my hand and smiled, putting it back down at my side gently and moved around me to assess the blade they came to pick up for me, smacking me on the ass as he did so. I yelped and he laughed, the both of us looking over our shoulders at each other.

  “Noo git yer gorgeous arse in th’ damn car.”

  Chapter 2

  I wasn’t sure how long I waited in the car, but before I knew it, I had passed out in the back seat using my jacket as a pillow. McGrady was shaking my shoulder and whispering my name in the sexy accent that always made my knees weak. Then we were on our way home with the Sanguinarian Blade tucked away in the very back in its particular case where it couldn’t hurt anyone. McGrady bandaged my hand as we drove along. His dark hair fell over his forehead, and his amber eyes concentrated on the palm of my hand that looked like I had touched the eye of a stove that was still hot. There were no blisters. That was a blessing in and of itself.

  “God, love. Can ye promise not tae tooch a Sanguinarian Blade ever again?” he asked as he dabbed my palm with a cool, green burn ointment formulated just for this type of injury. We knew not to touch them, so this didn’t happen often, but the retrieval team always carried it no matter what.

  “I could, but it might be a lie depending on the circumstances,” I answered, trying not to look into his eyes that I knew were now staring holes into my flesh.

  “An’ whit circumstances woods make ‘at necessary?”

  I shrugged and said, “Well, right off the top of my head, a vampire with one and all I have is a stupid silver stake.”

  “Weel, let’s try tae avoid ‘at next time, huh?”

  I raised my good hand into the air with two fingers up and straightened my back, “Scout’s honor.”

  He chuckled and began to dig into the massive first aid kit the retrieval teams also carried, pulling pure white gauze and paper tape out of the case. Out of everything that could hurt me I just so happened to be allergic to latex so we could never use the plastic tape hospitals were famous for. My rare case of it among Van Helsings was the reason they carried it in the first place. How lucky was I?

  “We’ve lost enuff folk this past year, Izzy. Ah don’t want ye tae be th’ next body. Ye hear me?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said as I watched him work, wrapping my hand in the gauze and placing the tape on the free edges. He then took my small hands in his large ones, the warmth of his skin causing my burned flesh to tingle and sting slightly as the gel took effect. When I looked up, his face was barely an inch from mine, and I could smell the icy mint on his breath that meant he had brushed his teeth before leaving the office.

  “Aam serioos.” He reached up with one hand and pushed my long bangs away from my face, his eyes becoming slightly teary which made them look like liquid fire. “‘At hin’ coods hae killed ye jist by toochin’ it.”

  “I know, McGrady. I know. I won’t do it again. You have my word on that. I’ve learned my lesson. I swear,” I defended as I watched his expression change from that of a concerned friend to that of the terrified boyfriend.

  “Yeah, Ah doobt ‘at.” He sighed and turned doctor on me just like that. “Make sure tae wash aff th’ gel when ye git home. Ye knoo whit it will do tae ye if ye leave it on too long.”

  “Or so I’ve heard.” I leaned against the black leather interior of the seat and watched him as he packed the supplies back into the kit, making sure to fit them in so that things weren’t a jumbled mess. Some of his team had a tendency to do that, and it annoyed him, making his Scottish accent even thicker, if that was even possible.

  “If ye want tae spend th’ nicht throwin’ yer guts up, that’s up to ye. I’ll hold yer hair back fur th’ first half hoor,” he teased, his eyes flickering to me with a smirk on his lips.

  “So that means you’re coming over tonight?” I was genuinely curious as this was something we often did, going back and forth between places every so often to keep it interesting. Of course, he was the only one that had one of those fancy tantric couches at their place to keep it that way.

  “Only if ye want me to.”

  “I only want you to if you want to.” I was practically beaming. This bantering was like foreplay for us, leading to even more fun later on in the evening.

  “Hoo abit thes,” he chuckled as he leaned forward, putting his lips just within reach again, “Ah drap th’ blade aff at th’ office an’ I’ll come right over. Sound loch a plan?”

  “Sounds like a great plan.”

  McGrady moved toward the man driving whose red hair glared at me as the street lights shown on it from outside of the car, despite the dark tint on the windows. He whispered to him, but I couldn’t hear what he said, but I knew what his words were. He had just told him to drop me off at home and head to the office. Now I was nervous about some stranger having my address, but he seemed trustworthy enough. Right?

  Within ten minutes we pulled up in front of my house. It was an old Colonial style house with the fancy pillars that everyone in New Orleans loved. I had moved into the house five years prior and refinished the entire thing with my inheritance from my parent’s deaths, supplementing with what I was getting paid by the government to take care of our unmentionables. It wasn’t like everyone in the whole world was ignorant about the fact that vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural beings existed, and it wasn’t a newly known fact either.

  Since the beginning of time, it was a well-known truth that there was another world out there that coexisted with ours, and I was a part of it along with the rest of my family and some of the other households in the world like mine. Some people like me never even came from a distinct line of hunters. Some were just born with the power and the talent to hunt and to protect. I had one friend who I shared the house with whose abilities didn’t come from her family. As a matter of fact, she didn’t even have any hunters in her lineage. None whatsoever, but she could still battle demons like the best of them. I was just hoping she wasn’t in to hear anything that went on with McGrady tonight. The thought made my cheeks flush with heat as I opened the door, now being greeted by the humidity the city was known for. At least I had removed my coat before we pulled up.

  I opened the door and stepped out, hanging my coat over my arm and sweeping my hair away from the back of my neck.

  “Hey,” McGrady said as I turned my back on the car, causing me to turn back. He was leaning slightly out the door and jerked his head slightly telling me to come closer. He gave me a soft peck on the lips and grinned promising, “I’ll be back suin.”

  “You better be.” I let heat creep into my voice, making it as smoky and sultry as I could so he would rush back as fast as he could. He was a chronic speeder anyway so I knew it wouldn’t take him long, particularly when any action was concerned. Plus, the office was all of five minutes away going the speed limit. He would have no problem getting ba
ck to my place in ten. I even bit my bottom lip for maximum effect.

  “Och, hen, ye knoo Ah loove it when ye do that,” he hissed through gritted teeth, his muscles working as he watched me.

  “The faster you leave the faster you can do something about it.” I playfully pushed him back into the car and, laughing, he closed the door. I could still hear him as they pulled away, leaving me in the darkness of the night besides the old fashioned street lamp the city had converted to take power years ago.

  I sighed and watched them drive away, missing him already, but decided to go into the house and start washing the gel from my skin. It worked great for burns, but there was one drawback. It helped your injuries heal much quicker, but, if left on too long, the gel made you violently ill until it was out of your system. The labs were working on a better system, but were still attempting to perfect the one we had. Until then, I was happy to get the green goo off of me as soon as possible. I walked to the door, looking out in the swamp that lay along the edge of the single acre the house was on. I didn’t need more than that so when I bought the house, and it had, at least, five attached to it, I sold the rest. The bald cypress trees were hypnotizing at night with the moonlight bouncing off of the water, showing off the moss that accumulated on their branches. If I had a choice, I could stay outside all night and watch the tiny orbs of crocodile eyes peeking out from the water’s surface.

  It was only seconds before I made it to the front door, opening the door right up into a spacious foyer with a crystal chandelier that had been hanging there initially that I’d had restored. The walls in this portion of the house were a crisp, clean white, but that changed as soon as you ventured even further into the house. When I moved in, I painted the walls with a mossy green that spread into the kitchen and dining room area, every wall upstairs coated in a calming blue with only one exception. My bedroom was painted a crimson red, the color of passion. I was beginning to think that was the reason McGrady loved that room so much. Because it mirrored how we felt every time we entered that room. I had decorated the house with a modern feel, only sleek and clean lines for this girl, but nothing too fancy. While the chandelier in the foyer seemed grandiose compared to the rest of the house, I couldn’t bear to part with it once I had seen it.

  “Addison?” I called out into the house. I was greeted by silence, confirming my suspicion that my roommate wasn’t home. I sighed and said, “Thank God.”

  It wasn’t that I didn’t love Addison, but I did want some alone time with McGrady which had a tendency to end up producing deafening sounds of ecstasy. And she had told me multiple times before that I needed to soundproof my room or go to his more often if we were going to do things like that. I wasn’t planning on doing either. After all, she was living in my house. Granted, she did help with the bills every month, but I had told her a long time ago that demands could not be made that would cost more than I wanted to pay for them. After living with me for about three years, you would think she’d have learned her lesson by now, but she still managed to annoy me by complaining, which was why she was lucky I loved her as much as I did. McGrady liked her alright, but she wasn’t his favorite person by far.

  I dropped my keys and phone from within my pocket on the table by the door, hanging my jacket on the rack I had placed right next to it for convenience. In New Orleans, you didn’t need a jacket, but when the humidity levels were low enough, and Van Helsings were known to run a little cooler than those around them. It was an unfortunate side effect of being different. I also had a tendency never to lock the front door, which had nothing to do with what I was at all. People were always telling me that New Orleans was a dangerous place for a woman, but had never once had an incident here at home. It was always either at the office or out on the streets. My home was still my sanctuary that had managed to remain untainted by the darkness I lived my life in. I was hoping that would be drowned out for at least the next eight to twelve hours.

  I headed upstairs, removing my shoes and clothes as I went, not even caring to pick them up off of the floor. Some would say lazy. I would say it was an excellent way to let McGrady know where I was and what I was doing when he got here. All so he would know where he should also be headed. At least, I hoped he would get the hint. I smiled, knowing full well that he would and that he would leave the same trail behind him when he saw the scattered clothing. When I reached the top of the stairs, the only clothes that were left were my bra, panties, and jeans, but that wouldn’t be the case for long. I took a few steps forward, the bathroom door in plain sight, and removed my jeans, letting them fall to the floor. I stepped out of them and took another couple of steps, removing my lacey black bra and dropping it to the dark wooden floor as well. Before long I was standing in front of the bathroom door, and there was only one article of clothing left on my body. The matching underwear joined its mate on the floor.

  A shiver ran up my spine as my feet touched the cold ceramic tile in the bathroom, the cool blue of it matching the color of the walls perfectly and lined with white trim that made the blue pop. I turned on the water in the claw foot tub, turning the hot all the way up and not even touching the knob with the big ‘C’ on it. I never did, and McGrady had always been alright with that. I needed to make the decision of bath or shower, going with shower which would make it much easier to rinse off the burn gel without having it floating in the water with me. While I let the water heat up, I moved to the bathroom sink and stood in front of it, unwrapping the gauze from my hand and dropping it into the wire trash can by the toilet.

  Inspecting my palm, I saw it was no longer red, and it didn’t sting, but the burn gel had congealed in a very disgusting way on my hand. I had never had to use it before so I had no idea it would do this. It absorbed the heat from the burn as well as caused it to heal quickly, but the unfortunate thing about that was that the gel turned into what I could best describe as ‘boogers’ on my skin.

  “Oh, now that’s gorgeous,” I scoffed as I looked down at the mess. My eyes caught my reflection in the mirror, and an oval shaped face greeted me, pale skin, long dark hair, and tired blue eyes. I sighed and said, “You’ve definitely seen better days, lady,” I said this while pointing at myself in the mirror, the glass fogging as steam billowed out of the shower.

  Turning to the shower, I made the few steps to the tub and got in, standing in direct line of the scorching spray of the water. It hit my flesh like rain, cascading down my flesh and washing all of the filth from the day away and down the drain. Before doing anything else, the burn gel was thoroughly rinsed from the palm of my hand. It had turned into a gooey mess when I did, which made me groan with disgust at the sight of it. I leaned my head back and let the water soak my hair, washing my hair as quickly as I could before turning toward the tiled wall that lined the bathtub to reach for the soap. Then there was the sound of the shower curtain moving along the shower rod and a radiating heat near my back that told me McGrady was there. His breath was warm against my bare neck, and I leaned back against him, his bare flesh against mine smooth and hot as his chest rose and fell against me. He was breathing heavily, and my breaths moved to match his as our naked bodies pressed together. His lips touched the nape of my neck, sending a tingle of anticipation up my spine as my gut clenched in that familiar way. It happened every time he touched me with his lips, and I always welcome it.

  I felt him stiffen against me, causing my breath to hitch in my throat and chest as his hands roamed over my body. He gripped my hips and pulled me against him. He groaned into my ear as his lips grazed my earlobe, and I couldn’t help but moan with him. The pressure of him against me was pleasurable all by itself, but I wanted more. My body ached with wanting, the feeling only becoming more intense as his rough hands moved over my flesh, groping my breasts as I ground myself against him, causing him to moan even more. I sighed, reaching my hand back and running it through his soft hair, gripping it and pulling just slightly like he enj
oyed. Heat was pouring through my veins and down until it pooled at my very center, throbbing as we touched each other. When it came to sex, we were a couple that didn’t need much in the way of foreplay, but sometimes we did indulge, and I didn’t think this would be one of those times at all.

  I reached behind me and in between us, gripping his considerable length and stroked him, barely even finishing the first stroke before he was pushing me against the cold tile wall that the tub sat against. I used my other hand to brace myself against it, but continued to rub against his hard flesh with the other. It slid so smoothly into my palm as he moved his hips along with my hand, pushing against me. I turned my head and pressed my cheek against the tile. It cooled my flushed skin, but nothing could quench the fire between us that was only building until it would consume us both.

  “Do ye want it, loove?” he asked as he gasped through the steam and the heat, nuzzling his nose into my wet hair and breathing in deeply. Another sigh escaped him as one of his hands grazed my curves and moved toward the sweet spot, feeling the moist pool that had gathered there just for him. “Och, Ah think ye do,” he breathed.

  “Hmm, I’ll never tell,” I moaned as his fingers pushed gently into me and his teeth grazed my earlobe.

  “Ye don’t have tae say anything,” he whispered into my ear, taking my earlobe in between his teeth and nibbling just rough enough to cause me to whimper with need. “Yer body says enuff.”

  “And what is it saying?” I asked as his fingers worked their magic, sending a ripple of pleasure through my entire body and causing me to shiver. I felt his lips curl in a smile at my neck again as he planted a kiss there.

  “‘That ye want me tae fill ye up an’ take ye over an’ over again until ye scream my name.”