“Sometimes I get tired of being like a paranorm version of Wonder Woman.” I sighed. “Sometimes I just want to be a girl. I feel like I have to do everything on my own, that it’s weak to ask for help.” I tilted my head up. “I can’t believe I’m telling you all of this.”
“I like that you can admit the things you struggle with.” He ran his fingers through the length of my hair and I shivered. “I like this vulnerable side of you.”
I met his eyes. “I grew up in a world where any sign of weakness would have made me lose all credibility, everything I fought for. I still feel that I have to constantly prove myself.
“Sometimes I want a hug when things are tough,” I went on. “Just a hug before I go back to being Nyx, PI and Night Tracker.”
“What you do for an occupation does not define who you are.” Adam continued stroking my hair. “You’re good at being a Tracker because you’re doing something you believe in. You’re making a difference by protecting those who can’t protect themselves.
“But there’s more to you than that. Who you are is a wonderful person who is brave, sensitive, intelligent, strong, funny, fun, crazy, sweet, tough, beautiful inside and out, and caring. Those are the qualities I think that define you. Those are the qualities I love.”
“I’ve never had anyone say something so wonderful to me.” I suddenly felt shy, something that was almost an alien feeling. “I don’t know what to say.”
Adam hugged me then tickled me under my arm as he held me close. He surprised me, catching me so completely off guard that I started to giggle.
“Ticklish, huh?” he said as he did it to me even more.
“Don’t.” I couldn’t stop laughing as I tried to get out of his hold. “Please.”
“Since you said please.” He stopped and I sank against him, exhausted from laughing so hard. “Now I know exactly what to do to get you to do what I want.”
“Ha.” I gave a pretend frown as I looked up at him. “I have handcuffs and I’m not afraid to use them.”
“Promises,” he said and heat eased through me, hot and liquid.
I cleared my throat. “I’d better put Kali’s food down before I get in serious trouble with Her Highness.”
Adam released me long enough to set the crystal dish on the floor beside the refrigerator.
I led Adam back out into the living room. My interior designer had furnished the room in white with cobalt blue accents.
Thoughts of the Vampire’s penthouse and its white sofas and splashes of red came to my mind.
“What are you supposed to tell me, Nyx?” Adam brought me down with him on the couch and we faced each other.
Oh. I’d managed to forget that little topic.
Here goes. “I haven’t been totally up front with you and Olivia.” I felt like squirming in my seat when he tilted his head. I hoped he wasn’t thinking about the major mistake I’d made right before we started dating.
He propped his elbow on the back of the sofa. It was hard to read anything in his brown eyes. “Tell me.”
It wasn’t a demand, just a request for me to continue. Having grown up with dominant Drow warriors and subservient Drow females, I know the difference quite well.
One of the reasons I hadn’t fit into the world of the Dark Elves was because I was raised by my human mother to never bow down to any male. My father, the king, indulged mother. Despite the fact his age was over two thousand years old, he was too much in love to care about centuries-old conventions.
And he spoiled me, indulging me in everything I wanted to do. I am the only female Drow warrior from the world I grew up in. I wasn’t ready to share all of that with Adam. Yet.
“Come on.” Adam’s voice coaxed my attention back to him. “It’s nothing I can’t handle.”
“You can handle it.” I rubbed one of his hands with mine. “You just might not like it.”
When he frowned, I decided to let everything fly. I shared with him about the Paranorm Center, the Paranorm Council, and my oath. Then I told him what the Sprites had stolen and what we believed was given to the Vampires, and everything in between.
Adam took my hands in his when I was finished. “You were doing what you thought was right by following the council request.”
“You’re sure taking it better than Olivia did.” I shook my head. “I think she was right, though, that after an almost two-year partnership I should have told her a long time before now.”
“Like I said, everyone has their secrets,” Adam said. “Everyone is entitled to them.”
“Have any secrets you’d like to share?” I gave him a teasing smile. “Detective Boyd is bound to have a few tucked away.”
“I have a few fantasies.” He leaned close to me. “They all involve you in one way or another.”
“Are those secrets you want to share with me?” I whispered before Adam encircled me in his strong arms and settled me in his lap.
His answer was a kiss. Soft and sweet again, then a little more intense. “One day,” he murmured against my lips, “I’ll tell you everything.
“Remember the waterfall and the pool in the Catskills?” He moved his mouth to my ear.
I shivered from the contact and from the memory. “It was amazing.”
“You were so beautiful in the moonlight.” Adam brought his mouth to mine and bit my lip. “But then you’re always so beautiful.”
A moan rose up in me as he kissed his way down my neck and brushed his lips over the hollow of my throat. “I—oh…” A pool of honey was what it felt like. I was drowning in a pool of sweetness and desire.
He kissed his way down the V of my blouse to the button between my breasts, causing me to gasp. I caught my breath and moaned as he ran his tongue in slow circles around one of my nipples, then gasped as he sucked my other nipple through my shirt.
Adam pulled my blouse out of my slacks and I slid my hands into his hair as he unbuttoned my blouse and revealed my belly. My heart was pounding faster and faster. His fingers felt strong and masterful as he moved his hands down my legs to my feet. He slipped off one of my heels and then the next, leaving my feet bare.
When he circled my belly button with his tongue I clenched my fists tighter in his hair. He nipped my belly, a playful bite that set me on an erotic edge that I knew I might just tumble over.
“What happened to mild-mannered Detective Boyd?” My voice was strained from trying not to give into this desire that on some level scared me.
“He just left the building.” Adam’s warm brown eyes met mine as he knelt on a rug on the hardwood floor. He reached for the button of my slacks and the button easily came undone. He unzipped my slacks slow enough to drive me crazy.
Adam grasped the waistband of my slacks and I moved so that he could slide them down my thighs. He tossed them to the side and gave me his adorable sexy grin when he looked at my panties. I was wearing his favorite leopard print panties and a matching bra.
Most Drow females don’t wear anything beneath their clothes—well, they often don’t even wear clothing. But I love the sensual feel of satins and silks against my skin and I love the way they make me feel sexy beneath whatever I might be wearing.
He pushed my blouse over my shoulders and it dropped to the crooks of my elbows before he helped me take it off the rest of the way.
“You know how much I love these.” He tossed my blouse over his shoulder before bringing his hands to my breasts and rubbed his thumbs over my nipples.
I tilted my head back and rested my upper body on the couch on my elbows and forearms. He pulled my bra beneath my breasts and I closed my eyes. A moan rolled out from me as his warm mouth settled on one of my nipples. He moved his lips to my other nipple and sucked it, too.
He rose to his feet and looked down at me with intensity and desire. More than that was in his brown eyes, but I wasn’t sure of the depths of his feelings for me. I knew how I felt about him.
Adam shrugged off his bomber jacket and let it drop on the floor, f
ollowed by his T-shirt. I loved to see him like this. Muscular, toned, sexy.
When he unzipped his Levi’s I saw his Looney Tunes boxers, this time Bugs Bunny.
“It’s hard to be serious when you show me your cartoon characters first.” I had to try really hard not to giggle again. He had me on a roll tonight.
He kicked off one of his shoes, then the next, before taking off his socks. He smiled and started to push his jeans and boxers down. “I have more to show you.”
“Nice.” I said. “It’s been too long.” Twenty-four hours without him was too long as far as I was concerned.
Adam hooked his thumbs in the sides of his Levi’s and pushed them down past his knees before kicking them off.
When he had settled me on the couch he positioned me and moved between my thighs. I cried out at the wonderful feel of him inside me. He kept his pace slow, steady.
The feel of him alone could have made me climax. The combination of him taking me and sucking my nipples pushed me to an orgasm that was so wonderful I couldn’t have made sense of anything right then.
I just felt, didn’t think.
Adam murmured something but my mind was fuzzy from my orgasm, warmth making its way through me from the very roots of my hair down to my toes.
Adam continued to thrust inside me. My orgasm continued and I didn’t want it to stop. He had braced his hands on the couch to either side of me and stared into my eyes as he pumped his hips harder and harder.
I borrowed a little static from the air with my command of the fire element, then sent it through him.
Adam raised his head and shouted before he pressed himself to me. I smiled. I loved to hear him when he climaxed, loved the throb of him coming inside me.
He was trying to catch his breath as he looked down at me. His dark hair was damp from sweat and his body coated in perspiration. Then he adjusted himself so that we were now facing one another on the couch.
Adam hooked his leg over my thigh and I loved the closeness we shared. I was still amazed at everything I shared with him in the kitchen, how I had opened up.
A feeling of peace yet exhilaration filled me. How wonderful it was to have someone who cared for me just for me. Not as a freak, not as a sex object. But someone who I opened up to and who cared about me.
I brushed strands of sweaty hair from Adam’s brow, then kissed him, before he wrapped his arms around me and held me tightly to him.
TWELVE
“Why are we meeting with Rodán tonight?” Nadia set her plate on the surface of what made do as a coffee table. She’d eaten some kind of fish as usual, being a Siren and all of that. “Do you know what’s up?”
Like every night, most of the Trackers gathered in the corner of the Pit where we hung out before leaving to track down the bad guys.
I’d finally come to the point where I could sit with all of the other Trackers and not feel overwhelmingly sad because Caprice was gone. One of our fellow Trackers and one of my closest friends, Caprice had been murdered by Demons not that long ago.
I took my last bite of my favorite meal—a char-grilled hamburger. “Rodán is going to fill everyone in on the latest developments in the Sprite case.”
“So what are the new developments?” Lawan, a Siamese cat Doppler from Thailand, scooted next to me on the overstuffed black leather sofa I was sitting on. “Can you give us a hint?”
I brandished my tiny red sword with one green olive left on it from my dry martini. “You expect me to steal Rodán’s spotlight?” I ate the last olive and tossed the mini sword onto a cocktail napkin. “No way.”
“Let’s go.” Angel stopped behind our sofa and braced her hands on the back of it. “We’re being summoned.”
I wiped my hands on a paper napkin and left it on the plate for one of Hector’s busboys to pick up with the rest of the empty plates and glasses in our corner.
When I got to my feet to head to the conference room, Mandisa brushed by me in a wake of spices and pepper. Mandisa was a new Tracker, an Abatwa Fae from South Africa. She hadn’t been friendly to any one of us since coming to Manhattan.
I really didn’t know if I wanted to be the one to invite her for a girls’ day at the spa. The quiver of poison-tipped arrows and the bow slung across her back was intimidating enough, much less her height and presence.
Ice made one of his smartass remarks to Mandisa as she passed him and entered the conference room. It was a wonder she didn’t skewer him with one of her poisonous arrows.
Olivia came up beside me. She had no love for Ice, but the jury was still out concerning the Abatwa Fae as far as she was concerned. I checked out tonight’s T-shirt and grimaced.
MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB
I ATE IT WITH MINT SAUCE
“Don’t let Tracey see your T-shirt.” I nudged Olivia with my elbow as I nodded toward the Romanian Fae, a Sânziană. Sânziene were known for their gentle sides and that included a love for animals.
Too late. Tracey had already glanced at Olivia’s shirt. The Sânziană put her hands on her hips. “That’s not funny, human.”
Olivia was clearly holding back a laugh. “Then I won’t tell you about the time—”
I jerked Olivia by the arm and just about dragged her into the conference room while giving Tracey an apologetic look. Polished Dryad wood gleamed in the low lighting. The room was huge, able to accommodate all of the Peacekeepers—including Healers, Gatekeepers, and Soothsayers—at standing room only.
It had been a very long time since that had come to pass, all of the Manhattan Peacekeepers together at once, and I really didn’t want to see everyone forced to be there again. It would mean something really bad was about to go down.
Twenty-three Trackers, which included Olivia, along with Ondrej—the Were from Beketov’s pack—seated ourselves around a huge Dryad-wood oval conference table big enough to seat twenty-six. We always left the chair at the head of the table for Rodán even though he rarely, if ever, sat.
Our group included four Dopplers: Angel, Kelly, Robert, and Lawan. We had five Shifters: Meryl, Hades, Ice, Gentry, and Nakano. Five Weres were Trackers: Phyllis, Max, Dave, Carlos, and Rich. Joshua was our only Shadow Shifter, and Olivia the only norm.
Where it got fun was the six different types of Fae who helped make up the rest of the Night Trackers: Mandisa, an Abatwa Fae; Tracey, Romanian Fae—a Sânziană; Fere, Tuatha—winged Fae warrior; Nancy, a Pixie; Bronwyn, a Nymph; Nadia, a Siren.
I of course was the only representative of the Elves, unless you counted Rodán, but he was our Proctor, not a Tracker. He was also over all of the Healers, Soothsayers, and Gatekeepers.
Murmurs came from the Trackers, everything from speculation about tonight’s meeting to who was going to win the women’s paranorm ice skating competition to the paranorm biathlon.
The room went silent as Rodán made his entrance. His white-blond hair fell around his shoulders like cream silk, striking against his golden features and grass-green robe. Rodán was beyond classically handsome. He was in a class all by himself.
“Nyx, Joshua, Angel, Ice, and Olivia have taken on the Sprite case,” Rodán said. “It goes far deeper than anyone expected.”
“If the word ‘deep’ can be associated with Vampires,” Angel said. “With the exception of them going to ground when the sun comes up.”
Lawan frowned. “I thought we were talking about Sprites. What do Vampires have to do with them?”
“Everything,” I said. “Vampires have been putting the Sprites up to all the chaos and mischief they’ve been doing.”
“Vampires have never been a threat,” Tracey said. “They’re nothing but creeps.”
“They’ve just allowed us become complacent.” Angel twirled one of her curls around her finger in an absent motion. “And it’s worked. We haven’t seen them as a threat since the late eighteen hundreds when most of the Vampire clans were wiped out in the Paranorm Rebellion.”
“Volod, the New York Master Vampire, is furious that
Vampires have been again denied a seat on the Paranorm Council,” I said.
“The Vampires are not true paranorms.” Ice snorted. “They don’t belong on the council or in any position of leadership.”
Born human but with paranormal abilities, Witches, Necromancers, and Vampires were considered to not be true paranorms. At least by all other paranorms.
Rodán met and held the gaze of each Tracker in the room, one at a time, as he spoke. He shared with the Trackers everything I had relayed to him earlier, plus information he’d learned from his various sources.
“Rodán’s voice was low as always and as soothing as still water. Beneath that calmness laid a fierceness that I believed few had experienced.
But I sensed something I’d never felt from Rodán before. Almost as if he felt … fear. Fear for all the paranorm world.
Maybe that scared me more than anything, because Rodán never showed fear of any kind. It fired me up to respond with how ominous this situation could get.
“Everyone here needs to understand something,” I said. “Volod is evil and he appears to be out for revenge.” I looked to each Tracker as I spoke. “He has a lust for power. History has told us repeatedly, both in the paranorm world and the world of the norms, how dangerous one crazed leader with a lust for power can be if he actually has it.”
The thought of the kind of crazed leader Volod could be made my gut tighten. “We have some indication that Volod might be that type. Right now he does not have the power. Our concern and mission is to recover something which might give it to him.”
“Nyx is right,” Rodán said. “Let’s focus on our mission and our plan as a team. “We have the Sprite in the detaining room. Nyx and her special team will follow the Sprite.”
He looked to each one of the other Trackers he wanted to add to my team as he named them. “Mandisa, Kelly, Nadia, and Lawan, you will join the team tonight. Nyx is your leader and you will follow her instruction.”
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