Into the Rift

by Cynthia Garner

  “It’s not like it’s going to be the end of the world,” Nix said slowly. She wasn’t sure how she felt about the next Influx. She was part demon, so the fact that more prets were going to come through the rift didn’t frighten her. If anything, she felt a little sad for all the humans who were going to be possessed by strangers, completely unable to do anything to prevent or avoid it. Thousands of families would become dysfunctional overnight. “We’ll adapt.” She hoped that was true.

  “Yeah, I suppose.” He took a few steps away from the body and began moving around the crime scene, following in the footsteps the criminalists had already taken.

  Nix pulled a small but powerful flashlight out of her purse and followed him, looking closely at the ground, at the adobe walls of the nearby building. Except for the body, there didn’t seem to be any other evidence of a crime, which supported their conclusion that Amarinda had been dumped here.

  “Something this brutal tells me it was personal.” Dante circled back toward the body. “You just don’t do this kind of damage to someone you don’t know.”

  “You don’t think so? Remember, if it was prets that killed her…” Nix gave a quick shrug. At his questioning glance, she reminded him, “Werewolves eat people. And the internal organs are the yummiest.”

  “Oh, hell.” He grimaced. “I really didn’t need to be reminded of that. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing stuff like this.” He hooked his thumbs in his belt, fingers framing the large silver buckle. “I wonder what’s keeping Knox?”

  “I don’t know.” Nix looked around the crime scene for any sight of the quadrant vampire liaison. It was unusual that he wasn’t here yet. She stared down at the tarp, her heart beating like bongo drums in her chest. Amarinda was the second vamp to be killed, and Knox was late. What if… She drew in a breath and held it, trying to calm her fears. She hoped he was all right.

  Dante gazed toward the edge of the scene where the techs were beginning to pack up their cases. “Hey, Marks!” When the man looked up from the computer tablet he was jotting notes on, Dante asked, “Did you get word to the council dispatch that the vic is a vamp?”

  The man nodded.

  Dante glanced at Nix. “Then they should’ve called him by now.” He brought up his wrist to look at his watch. “Wonder what’s keeping him.” He dropped his hand, hooking his thumb over his belt again. “So, what can you tell me about your friend here?” He gave a quick nod toward Amarinda’s tarp-covered body.

  Nix wet her lips. She realized she was thirsty and reached into her bag for a bottle of water. She usually carried at least one bottle with her because in the low humidity of the desert it was easy to become dehydrated. “She came through the rift somewhere around 330 BC, give or take. There are vamps older than her, but not many.” Being immortal, like a vampire, didn’t mean you couldn’t be killed. It just meant it took a lot to do it, especially the older a vampire was. “She works…” Nix broke off and swallowed, surprised at how much this hurt. She twisted off the cap of the bottle and took a swig of water, using the few seconds to recap and replace the bottle to get her emotions under control. “Worked with Maldonado.”

  “The quadrant’s vamp leader?” Dante gave a low whistle. “Someone must have a death wish, to take out one of Byron Maldonado’s people.”

  “They may not have known. Or cared,” Nix said.

  “Who didn’t know or care about what?” The raspy bass voice with a flavor of South Carolina came from behind her.

  That deep voice stopped her heart. She turned, and when she saw Tobias Caine duck under the crime scene tape her stomach lurched. He was pulling on latex gloves as he walked. His thick black hair was in its usual rakish mess with a few strands falling over his forehead. He straightened and loped toward them with an easy long-legged stride that belied his underlying intensity.

  Five years. It had been five years since he’d walked out on her. Five years since he’d thrown away her love.

  It was like a dagger to the heart, seeing him again. He looked the same as ever, tall, lean, handsome as sin. His gray shirt matched his eyes and his leather coat fell to midthigh, drawing attention to those long legs encased in dark blue denim. He looked damned fine. His presence revved up her pulse and that made her mad. There should have been some sort of sign that he’d suffered as much as she had, the bastard.

  Nix stiffened her legs, telling herself it wasn’t seeing him again that made her weak in the knees. There was no denying that lust surged through her body in tune to her quickened heartbeat. It didn’t seem to matter he wasn’t hers anymore.

  Some people used meth. Others drank themselves into a stupor. Her drug of choice was Tobias Caine. And it seemed that even after five years of sobriety, she was still as addicted as ever. Her eyes began to burn, signaling the rise of her demon. Tobias had always had that effect on her, as if his darkness called to her own. When they’d been in the middle of making love it hadn’t been a problem, it had even enhanced the experience. But now, while she was on the job… She gritted her teeth and forced the demon back.

  Dante shifted, his right hand sliding over to unsnap the safety strap on his gun holster. He let his hand rest on the butt of his weapon. She could see how tense he was, his shoulders taut, hand ready to draw his pistol.

  Nix didn’t blame him. She was tempted to draw her gun, too, but for an entirely different reason. Battling back the urge to tear into Tobias, she asked him, “What’re you doing here?”

  His hard, stormy gaze locked on hers. “Nix. It’s good to see you.”

  She ignored the throb between her thighs as her body reacted to his voice and those damned pheromones that spilled from him. Vampires had the ability to influence the behavior of others through these pheromones, excreted colorless chemicals that human senses were too dull to detect but pret senses could identify just fine. Some vamps were better at using them than others. Tobias was one of the best she’d seen. Or, more accurately, felt. “I asked you a question,” she stated with a glare.

  Tobias reached into the inner pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out a wallet. He flipped it open and showed ID that looked suspiciously like hers—that of a council liaison. “I’m your vampire liaison.”

  “You’re not my anything.” She folded her arms over her breasts. “What happened to Knox?”

  Tobias shrugged. “He’s been temporarily reassigned.”

  “Mr. Caine.” Nix heard Dante’s hard swallow but his voice held steady as he said, “I’m Detective MacMillan.”

  “No need for formality. Call me Tobias.” Tobias reached out and the two men shook hands in greeting. Tobias tucked his ID away. “It’s Dante, right?” Upon receiving a nod of affirmation from Dante, Tobias looked at Nix again.

  As he took a step forward, she raised a hand to ward him off before he thought to come any closer. The pheromones still rolled off him in a steady stream, making it hard to breathe through the sensual fog they created. She ground her teeth to keep from leaping into his arms. Or baring her throat. Or both. “You need to ramp it down, Caine,” she muttered.

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he returned blandly.

  She glanced at Dante. His hand rested once again on the butt of his gun but he didn’t seem to be overly affected by the pheromones. While it was true he wouldn’t sense them, he would still be influenced by them if that was what Tobias wanted. Since he wasn’t, that meant Tobias was deliberately directing them her way. Her human DNA made her more susceptible to the effects than a full-blooded demon would be, and he knew it.

  “Caine!” she bit out, taking a step backward, putting more distance between them and ignoring the confused look Dante sent her way. “Just what the hell are you doing here? Since when are you a council liaison? And why was Knox reassigned?”

  Tobias gave her a cocky grin, making her heart flutter in unwanted longing, though his stare remained as penetrating as ever. “I arrived in town early this morning. As soon as word of this came to the cou
ncil, they asked me to be a special liaison because of my background and the spate of murders that’s happened recently.”

  She scowled and ignored, for the moment, the fact that they’d be working together. “Since when are two deaths a ‘spate’?”

  “Since today.” His gaze snagged on the body. “Let me take a look at the victim.”

  Oh, crap. Amarinda and Tobias went way back. She was the one who had introduced Tobias and Nix. When he had left town, Nix had gone out of her way to avoid Amarinda after that, effectively ending their relationship. Something she would never be able to fix.

  As he started forward, she put her hand on his arm. “Tobias…” There was no easy way to say it. “It’s Rinda.”

  Tobias’s face became drawn and the spill of vamp pheromones increased, though now they vibrated with building rage and sorrow. “Damn it.” He breathed out a sigh and crouched beside the body. He folded back the tarp to reveal her face.

  Nix noticed a slight tremble in those long fingers and couldn’t deny the sympathy she felt for him. Despite his meeting Amarinda more than a hundred years ago, the two had managed to maintain a close friendship. Before he’d left Scottsdale, they’d both worked for Maldonado—Tobias as one of Maldonado’s enforcers and Rinda as a kind of jill-of-all-trades. Nix had never really been sure exactly what the female vampire’s job had been.

  Nix moved to the other side of the body so she could see Tobias’s face better. His expression was controlled, placid even, but she could detect the stirrings of rage in the way his pupils dilated until there was only the smallest circle of gray rimming them.

  She pushed aside the feelings Tobias’s reappearance in her life engendered and focused on the job. She could get through anything if she just kept things on an impersonal level. Just forget you know what he tastes like, how his skin feels against yours, how full you feel when he’s deep inside you. She tried to ignore the eager thump her clit gave and drew in a steadying breath. “Can you smell anything?”

  He closed his eyes and inhaled. After a few seconds he grimaced and opened his eyes. “There’s a little bit of shape-shifter and some vamp other than Rinda’s scent. That could be odors here at the scene and not necessarily on her body. And then, there’s you.” The look he gave her suggested he could sense her physical reaction to his presence, probably even smell the involuntary stirring of arousal within her. “But there’s something more, something beyond this overpowering odor of all these humans.” He glanced at Dante with a mumbled, “No offense.”

  Dante scowled. “Offense taken.”

  Nix pressed her lips together while the two men sized each other up. Even as alpha as he could be, Dante was one of the most easygoing guys she knew, yet she wouldn’t be surprised if Tobias managed to rub him the wrong way. When he wanted to be, Tobias could be a real charmer. Most of the time he didn’t bother to put forth the effort.

  Tobias cocked an eyebrow but didn’t respond. With slow deliberateness, almost as if he were taking the time to say good-bye, he drew the tarp back over Amarinda’s face and stood. He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, drawing Nix’s gaze there. The material pulled taut across his groin, showing the outline of his cock. She jerked her gaze away and glanced at his face. Thankfully he hadn’t seemed to notice where she’d just been looking.

  “There is something… It’s familiar, yet not. I don’t know what it is.” Frustration colored his voice, made the low tones tight and even raspier. “Who the hell did this?” His gaze caught Nix’s. “Humans? Or someone trying to make it look like humans?”

  She didn’t have an answer. Not yet. “Since she wasn’t killed here, it’s hard to say. But the strongest scent is human, not pret.”

  “That might be technically accurate,” Tobias murmured. He pressed his lips together and drew in another slow, deep breath. “That other smell. It smells like… demon.” All demons had an underlying scent of burned wood or paper that was undetectable to humans. From the scent you couldn’t tell one demon from another, but you could separate demons from other prets. Vamps and shape-shifters had no trouble picking it up. He looked at her, a hint of accusation in his eyes that immediately made her mad.

  Not back in her life five minutes and already he was pointing fingers. She couldn’t help being part demon, damn it. “Not every unexplained murder has a demon behind it, you know.” She darted a glance around, making sure the police officers and assorted crime scene specialists weren’t within earshot, then looked back at Tobias in silent warning. He should know better than to bait her about her lineage in front of the cops.

  Of course, he probably figured there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot she could, or would, do about it. And he’d be right. If he really did want to “out” her, he could. But she didn’t think that was what he was after.

  “It’s not demons,” Nix muttered, glaring at him. So, yeah, she’d caught a whiff of the same scent, but it was too faint to mean anything. She was about to say more when activity from beyond the yellow crime scene tape caught her attention. Two tall, slender men in dark blue one-piece uniforms stood on either side of a gurney upon which lay a folded crimson body bag. Council-appointed corpse retrievers, though they generally called themselves body snatchers, were there to collect Amarinda’s body.

  Tobias waved his hand at the cop at the perimeter. “Let them in.” Since the victim was a vampire, authority in this case fell to Tobias. He took a few steps back from the body, making room for the two men.

  Nix stepped back, too, and watched in silence as they unfolded the body bag and stretched it on the ground next to Amarinda. They picked her up and placed her with great care in the open bag, then pulled the top portion over her, zipping it until she was completely covered.

  It wasn’t until the men had wheeled the laden gurney to the other side of the yellow tape that Tobias, his gaze on the departing body of his friend, said, “There’s really not much else you can do, Nix. The crime scene techs will gather enough evidence so that equal measure can be tested by human forensics as well as turned over to the council for testing by our lab. You don’t need to stay.”

  Werewolf Tori Joseph, council liaison, knows more about a recent spate of attacks on humans than she can ever let on. But as she gets closer to her human colleague, Detective Dante MacMillan, her attraction to him becomes the secret she must hide…

  See the next page for a preview of

  Secret of the Wolf

  Chapter One

  Hard muscles rippled beneath skin and fur. Sharp teeth reformed themselves. Bones crunched, shifted, and realigned. Glossy brown fur receded, leaving behind only silken, tanned skin as wolf became human.

  Became woman.

  Hugging her knees to her chest, Victoria Joseph took several shuddering breaths and fought her way back from the mind of the wolf. Perspiration dotted her skin. Her body ached, muscles flexed and quivered, recovering from the shock and pain of transformation. As the last of the wolf retreated inside, giving her one final slash of pain through her midsection, a soft moan escaped her. She took another deep breath, the humidity of the August morning traveling deep into her lungs. The rain overnight had cleared out, but not before it had tamped down the pollen and dust that ordinarily floated in the air. It was monsoon season in the Sonoran Desert. Even with the rise in humidity, unbearable with the hundred degree temperatures, she loved this time of year. Monsoon storms were wild, swift, and deadly yet they spoke to her soul.

  She skirted a large saguaro and, with arms that still trembled, shoved aside a large rock to retrieve the plastic bag she’d stashed there earlier. She pulled out a bottle of water and took a long drink, then another and another until she’d downed it all. She’d learned a long time ago to rehydrate as soon as possible after a shift. Otherwise she’d be in real danger of passing out from the strain of the metamorphosis.

  Dropping the bottle back into the bag, Tori drew out clean clothing and shoes. Once dressed, she tucked her cell phone into the front pocket of her
jeans and plaited her long hair in a French braid. She hiked the mile back through the desert to the trailhead where she’d left her car. Whenever she went wolf, she wanted to get out where she’d have some degree of solitude, and the McDowell Sonoran Preserve afforded that, especially at night.

  As she steered the Mini Cooper into her driveway, the sun began to rise over the eastern mountains, sending alternating shafts of light and shadow across the valley floor. She shut off the engine and sat there a moment, enjoying the stillness of the dawn, and wondered if her brother was awake yet. Randall had shown up four days prior without warning. The last time she’d seen him had been just before they were stripped of their bodies and put in a holding cell for decades. Their souls had then been sent through a rift between dimensions as punishment for a horrific crime committed by their cousin. As incorporeal entities they’d been drawn to Earth, to the bounty of human bodies available for the taking, for instinctively they’d known if they didn’t take a host they’d die. She’d ended up in London in the body of a woman making her living on the streets of the East End. Through the years, she’d managed to get away from that kind of lifestyle, and the new Victoria Joseph had made her way to the United States at the turn of the twentieth century.

  Rand, she’d found out just recently, had gone into a man in a small village outside of Manchester. It might as well have been the other side of the world. In 1866, it had been impossible to even begin to try to find him. She’d been alone, a stranger in a borrowed body, overcoming the guilt at displacing the rightful owner while trying to find her way in a primitive world. Staying alive was about all she could do for a long time.

  She and her brother hadn’t seen each other in nearly a hundred and fifty years until he’d shown up on her doorstep, a familiar spirit in a stranger’s body. She’d known him instantly. He was the same sweet brother she remembered, yet he was different in some ways. More withdrawn and evasive with a chaser of surly. But even with the newfound secrecy, she would take what she could get. He was family. She was willing to overlook a few eccentricities and irritating behaviors to have him with her again.