Electric Heat (A Raven Investigations Novel Book 3)

by Stacey Brutger

  The manipulative ass.

  “You’re cheating.”

  He only raised a brow. “I’m not even touching you.”

  Yet remained unspoken, and she gulped. She was susceptible to his charms, and the smug ass knew it, willing to use everything at his disposal to get his way.

  She’d almost succumbed, wanted to so badly she could taste it, but there was no way she would let him get away with leading her around whenever he felt like it. She reached out and pinched him…or tried to. Damned if she could find any fat.

  “Back off.” In spite of her command, and much to her mortification, her fingers lingered against the hot muscles that packed his abdomen. When he continued to hover temptingly close, desperation tumbled through her gut. If she didn’t escape now, she wouldn’t have the will left to walk away. She pulled up a string of energy and let a tiny spark dance over his skin. He grunted at the impact, and whatever spell he wove around them snapped. He took his own sweet time before turning away, clearly stating that he was allowing her to win.

  Bastard.

  When Rylan headed toward the door, she leapt the distance between them. No way could she remain alone in a room with Durant. “Where are you going?”

  Her voice might have squeaked.

  Amusement darkened his eyes.

  “The bed is yours. Durant will sleep across the floor in front of the door to dissuade any intruders seeking to cause mischief.”

  It wasn’t a suggestion. Durant narrowed his eyes at the command from a vampire, before finally relenting with a nod.

  “What about you?” Concern overrode her nervousness at being alone with Durant.

  “I’m going to roam the campus until sunrise, then go to ground.”

  “To ground?” He couldn’t mean what she thought it meant.

  Bury himself alive.

  “It’s the safest place.”

  She shuddered at the thought of being imprisoned by thousands of pounds of dirt. “You can stay here. We can’t take the risk of someone tracking you.”

  Rylan’s amusement fell away, and he seemed genuinely baffled by her concern. “We’ve managed this way for thousands of years. Only you will know where I rest. The ground won’t even be disturbed.”

  Before she could protest more, he vanished into the night, melting into the darkness from one breath to the next.

  Durant reached over her shoulder and firmly shut the door, his body much too close for her sanity. His heat and leather scent enveloped her, inviting her to lean back against him. “Ready for bed?”

  Chapter Eight

  DAY TWO: TWO HOURS BEFORE SUNRISE

  Raven bolted upright from a sound sleep, suddenly wide awake. She absently rubbed a spot against her chest, uncertain what had disturbed her. The room was silent, nothing to cause alarm. She ran her hands over the cold sheets. Much to her surprise, she missed sharing the bed with the pack. The twin mattress felt lonely and vast, and she was beginning to understand why the pack slept in piles.

  She curbed the impulse to ask Durant to join her. With just the two of them, it felt too intimate, and she wasn’t ready to go down that path yet.

  She’d expected to spend hours tossing, but Durant’s comforting presence allowed her to drop right off into a deep sleep.

  So what had awakened her?

  Durant rose from where he slept on the floor, naked except for his pants. His golden eyes glowed in the dark as he searched for a threat. His muscles gleamed in the faint light, his body tense and ready to leap into action. She clutched the covers to her chest, not because she was worried he would take advantage of her, more the other way around. The gold in his tattoo shimmered in the moonlight, but wasn’t aglow. Which meant no magical threat.

  “What is it?”

  Raven didn’t have a clue. Sleep was almost gone from his voice, and her body tingled in response to his raspy question. She smoothed a hand over her hair, managing to resist looking at him directly lest she became distracted all over again. “It’s nothing. Just a feeling. Go back to bed.”

  Instead of obeying, he grabbed a shirt and pulled it over his head.

  “Where are you going?” Not wanting to be left behind, Raven quickly followed suit. Her hands hesitated over the gloves. Nothing good could come from being called out into the middle of the night. She needed to be ready. She gave the gloves one last look, then left them behind.

  “Your eyes are glowing.” Without another word, he was out the door before she could escape the bedroom. By the time she hurried out into the night air, Durant was using his voice to suggest the guards take a nap. Something about his eyes and the tone had the power to seduce people into doing whatever he wanted.

  At least this time he didn’t try it on her.

  He reached back and grabbed her arm, pulling her in the opposite direction of the main buildings. In minutes, they were surrounded by trees.

  The darkness was almost absolute.

  Or should have been.

  The pitch black eased to shades of gray, and shapes became more defined as her vision automatically adjusted. Another new adaptation thanks to her creature. Durant dropped her arm and stepped back.

  “What are we doing here?”

  “Remember the feeling that woke you?”

  Raven nodded.

  “Follow it.”

  Easy for him to say. “How the hell am I supposed to follow a feeling?”

  “Get out of your head.”

  “What?” She began to turn to face him when he caught her shoulders.

  “Empty your mind. Allow your animal forward.”

  She swallowed an immediate protest. If her condition was only going to intensify, she needed to listen and learn how to handle it. She closed her eyes and waited for the creature to rise.

  Nothing.

  Not even a peep.

  “Why isn’t it working?”

  Leaves crunched, and she opened her eyes to see Durant crowd closer. “You need to stop thinking of your creature as a separate being. You are one and the same. That side of yourself is more wild and instinctual. You have to cede control.”

  That was the last thing she expected him to say…and the last thing she could allow to happen. “But I thought shifters had to contain their emotions so as not to go furry and lose themselves in their beasts?”

  “What happens when you lock an animal in a cage and ignore him? Never feed him?”

  Raven didn’t answer.

  Durant circled, almost stalking her. Something about his lithe movements, the absolute silence, put her on edge. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear he was hunting her.

  Trying to provoke a response.

  When it didn’t work, he halted in front her. “We go feral. Yes, we practice restraint, but not the way you think. The human and our beasts are not separate. If you try to keep them apart, you’ll risk losing one or the other.”

  He paused as if trying to find a way to explain it in human terms she’d understand. “Think of your animal as a sixth sense. The animal is there to help you. Its purpose, its function is to protect you and further your survival. Ignore it, and you’ll die.”

  “But I’ve seen shifters turn violent and revel in the cruelty of their beasts.”

  “That’s just the point. They’re not balanced. They’ve embraced their beast, love to stir the animal up and whip it into a frenzy. Just like humans, there are violent shifters who love the torture. They train and break their animal to be the same way.” He cupped her face and tipped her head back. “Trust your animal. It will save your life.”

  She didn’t know if it could be so easy. “What happens when you don’t agree with your animal?”

  He appeared genuinely confused.

  “My animal claimed the jaguar without thinking twice. I believe it actually blocked me from knowing what it had planned.”

  “There might be two reasons she chose to act. You wanted to rescue the jaguar. The simplest, most direct method was to offer him a pledge.”

>   She didn’t like his answer. “So doing my bidding without care of the consequences.”

  “You’ve blocked your animal. She’s probably trying to please you. Once you have a balance, you’ll have the control you seek.”

  Raven wasn’t sure she believed him. “What’s the second option?”

  His face shut down, his mouth hard, his eyes grim, until he was the imposing man she’d first met. “She’s trying to gather a pack around you to keep you safe.”

  “Putting others in danger for my sake.”

  Durant shook his head in frustration. “You don’t get a choice. You’re an alpha. You’ll naturally want to gather a pack. You’ll want to protect them. You can survive on your own. Lesser shifters cannot. They need to have the pack around them or they go feral. They will kill and die to preserve their pack. You need to stop trying to protect them from you. They don’t want it.”

  He glared down at her, anger vibrating off of him in waves of frustration. “You’re talking about yourself.”

  “Hell, yes. It’s our duty to protect you. It drives our animals into a rage to see you in danger when we’re unable to do anything. You have to stop hobbling us.”

  “But you don’t know how my power will react—”

  Durant tugged on a piece of hair the wind blew toward him and tucked it behind her ear. “It doesn’t matter. We don’t think your powers would purposely hurt us. We’re trying to be patient while you figure it out. Why not give us a break and do it our way for a while, just to see how it works?”

  Raven wanted to deny his plea. They were asking her to risk their lives on a guess, which wasn’t good enough for her.

  He must have seen the refusal on her face, because he heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Let’s get back to the reason why we’re out here.”

  “Why are we?” She rubbed her arms to keep warm, a little miffed to note the drop in temperature didn’t bother him in the slightest.

  “You were being summoned.”

  Raven stopped moving. Being summoned could never be a good thing. “By whom?”

  “You must follow the call and find out.”

  He was asking her to trust him. Her whole life had been focused on hiding her gift, never revealing herself to others. Now her pack was urging her to do the opposite.

  She didn’t need to be told that if she didn’t learn to adapt soon, she’d lose everything…including her pack.

  The thought was terrifying enough that she gave a shaky nod, willing to risk anything for them.

  In the past, she would have simply dropped into her core, the vat of power she kept locked away. The core was now glaringly empty, but she wondered if the process was the same for shifters. If what Rylan believed was true, the power and the creature were one and the same. If she wanted her power back, she needed to accept the connection between her and the creature and work as one.

  The thought petrified her to her bones.

  She’d never forgive herself if she hurt those closest to her. The creature gave a huff, offended at the implication that it was a mindless beast, and breathing became difficult as they tussled for dominance. If felt like the beast was sitting on her chest in retaliation, trying to smother her into taking her words back. It left her with the impression she was arguing with herself.

  Amusement got the better of her.

  The pressure in her lungs eased. Feeling foolish, she closed her eyes and tried to recall what woke her. Much to her surprise, she experienced a definite tug, urging her deeper into the trees.

  They were getting closer, practically on top of the source, when Raven opened her eyes. And saw nothing but trees. Disappointment pinged through her. She’d thought she was finally learning something. “I must have messed up—”

  A noise in the distance caught her attention, and Raven cocked her head, trying to zero in on the source. A snarl echoed through the treetops, a predator catching scent of its prey, and she had the sinking feeling it was her. Durant tensed, hissed back and moved to stand in front of her.

  Dread gathered in her gut, and she wondered if the summons had been a trap to lure her out in the open. Going on instinct, Raven turned and saw them emerge from the darkness, more of a stir of air than any noise. Two shadowy shapes sped through the woods, the figures barely touching the ground as they flowed over the forest floor.

  Thirty feet and closing.

  “Run.” Durant shoved her from behind to get her moving as he braced himself to fend off the intruders.

  Something was hauntingly familiar about the figure in front, and she hesitated, grabbing his arm. “Wait.”

  Twenty feet.

  “Taggert?”

  The man in the lead altered course slightly, not changing speed, still barreling toward them. Within seconds dirt pelted her as he skidded to a stop. The kid was lean, his chest billowing with each breath, the thin shirt he wore plastered to him. His shaggy sun-streaked hair was sweaty, darkening it to a sandy brown.

  He looked remarkably well for someone who’d nearly died just a day ago. The damage inflicted when he’d used his body to protect her should have killed him, but she’d used her alpha ability and every scrape of power to bring him back from the brink of death. The torturous process had saved him, but not without a lot of pain.

  What surprised her was he appeared perfectly healthy.

  No side effects.

  But Raven didn’t get her hopes up yet. She was never that lucky.

  “What are you doing here?” She glanced behind him, expecting to find trouble on his heels, and spotted nothing but a tawny gold and black wolf picking his way toward them. The animal was tightly packed with muscles and easily twice the size of a normal wolf.

  “Jackson.”

  The two hundred pound wolf melted down into the form of a man. She heard no muscles popping, no bones snapping. No ripping fur or blood as his body reformed. His gift allowed him to pack on extra weight and transform faster than the normal ten minutes. The man slowly stood, his brown hair in disarray, his chest heaving. There was something too masculine, too purposeful about him to make him classically handsome, but she was drawn to him just the same.

  She scanned him for possible injuries, blushing at his nakedness and the fact he made no effort to cover himself. A smattering of hair arrowed down his chest, and her naked fingers tingled with the urge to touch what was so blatantly displayed. She had to force her eyes up to meet his gaze before they wandered any lower. “What’s wrong?”

  Of course, he noticed her predicament. He didn’t smile, but his neon eyes faded to an enticing whisky brown that invited her closer to investigate.

  “He’s been unconscious. The instant he woke, he insisted we track you down.” Jackson scowled at the younger wolf. “I wasn’t able to talk sense into him. The only way to stop him would have been to lock him down. As soon as my back was turned, he took off.”

  “How did you get here?”

  Jackson grimaced. “We ran.”

  Ran.

  They must have traveled all day. They didn’t have to use the roads, so the miles were cut in half, but it meant they had charged straight up the mountain. Their stamina was remarkable. Her eyes sharpened as she took in their appearance. Both men appeared a little ragged, Jackson’s ribs more pronounced, the angles of Taggert’s face sharper. Their beasts hunger pounded at her. Then the reality of them being there struck her.

  If the witches caught them, they would be treated like intruders.

  “You can’t be here. It’s too dangerous.” She glanced over her shoulder, expecting to be caught any second. She refused to lose these men, not when the pack was almost safe. All she had to do was find the killer and Taggert would no longer be a slave. He would officially belong to her. “You have to leave now before they find you.”

  Jackson scowled at Taggert. “Good luck convincing him of that. He won’t budge.”

  Taggert had yet to speak, didn’t react to anything, but continued to stare at her in an unnerving way. Something off
about him had the hairs on the back of her neck rising. She found herself wandering closer. “Taggert?”

  Fear tightened its grip on her throat. She closed the distance between them and ripped off the tinted glasses he wore. A gasp of devastating pain tore from her throat. There was nothing of her gentle Taggert remaining. His beautiful chocolate eyes had gone feral, splintering with the green of his wolf.

  “I did this to you.” To save his life, she had unleashed every ounce of her power. It had changed him on a cellular level. She stumbled away from him, horrified by her actions, and the irrefutable proof that she damaged whatever she touched.

  He reached out lightning fast to touch her, and she grabbed his wrist, terrified the contact would only cause more damage. He shuddered at the contact, his eyes softened, and she realized she was touching the bite mark on his wrist that claimed him as hers. Even the slightest touch from her would give him pleasure.

  Not the least bit afraid, he moved until his fingers grazed her cheek in a caress. “Raven.”

  The rasp of her name sent a shiver down her spine, and she found herself brushing her fingers against his wrist. The scent of woods curled around her, luring her closer.

  “Let me stay.”

  The fantasy that everything was fine shattered, and she backed away, shaking her head, almost whimpering at the loss of contact. “I’m not strong enough to protect you without access to my power.”

  Taggert leaned forward and inhaled. “It’s still there. Once you come to terms with your beast, you’ll be fine.”

  Raven blinked at his matter-of-fact comment, so close to what Durant had just said, it gave her pause. She wasn’t sure is she was relieved or not. That they could sense her beast sent a shiver of dread through her, but no one else seemed at all concerned about the changes happening.

  They should be.

  They just didn’t know better yet.

  Taggert sniffed again, a growl vibrating up his chest. “You were in danger.”

  “We’re hunting down a killer. Both Durant and Rylan are here to protect me. I need you and Jackson to go back and keep the pack safe while we’re gone.”

  Denial burned his eyes a harsh green. Aggression poured off him, so potent that her heart gave an instinctive leap of fear. “What the hell have I done to you?”