Secrets in the Shadows

by Jenna Black

  She couldn’t help laughing, despite the tension that radiated through her every fiber. “Okay. Obviously, you know me too well.” She grabbed the ties. “Lie down.”

  He was still grinning when she tied his left hand to the bedpost, but he tensed up when she tied his right. She smoothed a hand over his chest, feeling the quickened beats of his heart. His hands clenched and unclenched in his bonds, and a thin sheen of sweat coated his brow. For all his bravado, this really did make him feel vulnerable. She ran her tongue over her lips, then smiled to see how his eyes darkened.

  He pulled his lips away from his teeth, displaying his fangs. A shiver passed down her spine.

  She might be in control now, might have tied his hands, but only because he’d let her. He would always be stronger than her, always more powerful. Hell, even if she wanted to keep him tied against his will, she wouldn’t be able to. A little touch of glamour, and she’d do anything he wanted.

  She forcibly wrenched her mind away from that line of thought. Counterproductive, to say the least. It was time to get down to business. She bent down and ran her tongue over his lips, dipping inside to brush lightly against his fangs. He moaned and strained upward, trying to take charge of the kiss, but she drew back. She drew her hands up and down the broad expanse of his chest, enjoying the softness of the expensive fabric of his shirt, but her libido urged her to hurry up. She plucked open the buttons one by one, then stroked his chest. His eyes slid closed and he made a little hum of contentment somewhere deep in his throat.

  She smiled. Perhaps she was being too soothing. She brushed her fingers over his nipples, feeling them harden at her touch. Then she pinched them.

  Jules hissed and his eyes popped open. With any other lover, she might have taken that as a protest, but not with him. Watching his face from beneath her lashes, she lowered her head until she could reach one pebbled nipple with the tip of her tongue. He hissed again, his hips thrusting upward. She raised herself so there was only the slightest of contacts, drawing a groan of pure frustration from Jules.

  She tasted one nipple, then the other, licking, sucking, and occasionally nipping. His breath grew more ragged, and the bedposts groaned as he strained against the ties. With a little shiver, she realized he was probably strong enough to splinter those bedposts if he wanted to. The awareness that she was playing with fire only heightened her pleasure.

  She slid downward, making sure their bodies rubbed the whole way down. Jules considerately made room for her between his legs, and she settled in, her elbows propped on either side of his hips as she regarded his impressive, straining erection.

  “You’re not about to blast off already, are you?” she asked.

  His only answer was a low growl. She’d just have to trust to his self-control. Otherwise; this would be over far sooner than either of them wanted. Her hands shook a little as she opened his belt. Okay, maybe it was her self-control that was in question. There was no denying the almost unbearable heat between her thighs.

  A deep, steadying breath quelled the shaking—for the moment—and she managed to get his pants open. He raised his hips and allowed her to draw his pants and briefs off. Now he lay tied on the bed, naked from the waist down while she was fully clothed. A thrill coursed through her entire body. The heat between her legs intensified. She reached out and drew the tip of one finger across the silky skin of his erection, and his groan sounded like pleasure and pain combined.

  “Please,” he panted, “no more teasing. Can’t bear it.”

  She nudged his legs apart, then resumed her former position, elbows braced beside his hips as she breathed in the musky scent of him. She didn’t know how much more teasing she could take herself, but she was game to find out. Her tongue brushed lightly over his crown, and he made a sound rather like a muted howl. The bedposts creaked ominously, but the ties held.

  “Please,” he said again, his voice low and rough.

  Loving the sense of power, spurious though it might be, she opened her mouth wide and took him in. His legs jerked, and his hips thrust upward desperately. His gasping breaths told her just how much he liked what she was doing as she savored him with lips and tongue. Her pulse drummed in her ears and between her legs, her own desire so strong she squirmed.

  “Hannah.” It was a choked, breathless sound, like nothing she’d ever heard from his throat before. And suddenly, the desire was too much to bear.

  He cried out in protest when she released him, but subsided when she started frantically undressing. She was in too much of a hurry to get naked, so when she straddled him, she was still wearing her shirt and bra. She sank onto him, and they both groaned with the rightness of it.

  Moving slowly, squeezing with her out-of-practice inner muscles, she rose again, feeling the delicious glide of him inside her, skin on skin. His hips rose with her as he tried to stay buried. She meant to lower herself with the same excruciating slowness she had the first time, but her body could no longer stand the teasing any more than his could. When he thrust, she matched his rhythm, to hell with her being in total control!

  Her eyelids heavy, she glanced up through her lashes to see the rapture on his face. Her breaths were as ragged as his. With a little shock of recognition, she realized that not only were they thrusting in time with each other, they were breathing in time. Never in her life had she felt this in tune with another person. She wasn’t controlling the pace anymore, but then neither was he. She strained forward until she could reach the ties, jerking the knots loose.

  He didn’t roll her beneath him. She’d known he wouldn’t. Instead, his hands rose to her breasts, kneading them, pinching her nipples through shirt and bra, the touch so welcome there might as well have been nothing between them. Pressure mounted between her legs. Her eyes locked with his.

  Almost there. So was he. She could see it in his eyes, hear it in his breaths. She made no attempt to time her climax to his, just let herself come when her body said it was ready. His cry of release came at the very same moment as hers, their voices blending eerily into one. She collapsed onto his chest, into his open arms, and felt the beat of his heart, exactly synchronized with hers.

  Later, she would wonder about this. Later, she might even be a little freaked out. But not now. Now she lay still and quiet in Jules’s arms and thought about nothing except how very right it felt.

  17

  EXHAUSTION URGED HANNAH TO get into bed and go to sleep. Unease told her she had to do something, make herself useful. Unease won.

  Jules lay sleeping under the covers, the light of day stronger than any sleeping pill. She almost wished she were a vampire so she could get some sleep. She yawned and poured another cup of coffee, then booted up her computer. At least the hotel Gabriel had sent them to had wireless access so she didn’t have to fight through a pokey dial-up connection.

  If she wasn’t going to sleep, she had to do something to keep her mind occupied or she’d start thinking about how good the sex had been.

  No. That wasn’t it. She’d had good sex before. She’d just never had great sex. Never had sex that made her feel changed inside. She’d fallen asleep in Jules’s arms, then awakened to a new world. She had an awful, sneaking suspicion she might finally be learning firsthand what it meant to be in love.

  She shook her head violently. Hadn’t she just told herself she had to keep her mind occupied? With something other than Jules?

  Drawing on every scrap of her willpower, she logged on to the Internet and started doing some searches. She’d learned from Carolyn how the Guardians went about finding Killers. It was a strangely mundane process of checking newspapers for suspicious-sounding murders and unexplained disappearances and finding patterns.

  If Ian Squires had had a dozen fledgling Killers camped out somewhere, it seemed likely she ought to be able to find some evidence. It couldn’t be in the city itself, or Camille and Gabriel would have known, but it had to be conveniently nearby. Trusting that Jules would be safe for a few minutes, she went
downstairs to the concierge’s desk to get a map of the state of Maryland, then started marking the locations of suspicious murders and missing persons.

  It was a tedious business, to say the least. And she knew that the vast majority of the murders and missing persons reports had nothing to do with vampires. Still, after hours of staring at the screen, giving herself eye strain, she thought she might be detecting a pattern that looked interesting.

  The Baltimore vampires were apparently very good at covering their kills. Other than the cluster of murders that had drawn Jules’s attention, she’d been able to find no pattern in Baltimore itself. Probably the kills Jules had found were Ian’s, a part of his plan to lure Jules here.

  The suburbs, however, were a different story altogether. No murders that looked like they could be vamp kills, but a lot of disappearances.

  They’d started about two years ago and spanned a number of small towns in Baltimore’s rural outskirts—easy driving distance. To a mortal who was blissfully ignorant about vampires, most of the disappearances would look to be unrelated. The victims varied in age, sex, and social status, and the circumstances varied just as much. Some disappeared from their homes, some from their cars, some from grocery store parking lots. But most of them were last seen at night, and the number of disappearances had increased drastically in the last six months, which made sense if Ian’s vampire “family” was growing. Hell, the pattern was beginning to look so obvious that even the mortal authorities would soon have to consider that the cases were related, no matter how widely disparate the MO’s.

  Hannah circled the area on the map, feeling relatively certain Ian and his nest of fledglings lived somewhere within the boundaries of that circle. Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure how much help that information would be. It was a lot of ground to cover, and it wasn’t like he’d put up a sign saying “Vampires R Us.”

  By two o’clock in the afternoon, she was too tired to keep her eyes open another minute. She climbed onto the bed beside Jules, making sure he was safely tucked in. Then she snuggled close to his warmth, her head resting on his shoulder, and promptly fell asleep.

  SHE WOKE UP TO the sound of a door closing. At first, she assumed Jules must have gotten up and that was the sound of the bathroom door. Then she realized she was still snuggled up against his body.

  She sat up, rubbing her sleep-crusted eyes and yawning. “How did you get past the deadbolt and the safety latch?” she asked, without opening her eyes. She wanted nothing more than to collapse back onto the bed and sleep for a week. Instead, she forced her eyes open and squinted at Gabriel, who stood in the entryway.

  “I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said.

  She shook her head to clear some more cobwebs. “How did you get in?” she asked again.

  “One of the advantages of age. Telekinesis. Had you never wondered how my dear mother managed to throw me across the room without touching me?”

  She yawned again, sure she should be more alarmed at seeing him but unable to muster the energy to worry. “Just how old are you, anyway?”

  He laughed. “Older than sin.”

  She rolled her eyes and climbed out of bed, glancing at the clock. It was after five, which meant Jules would rise soon. Hopefully, that meant Gabe wasn’t planning any more demonstrations of his power.

  Mechanically, she crossed the room to the coffee pot, then cursed when she realized she’d made the last of the coffee this afternoon. She scrubbed her eyes again, but it didn’t make her feel any more awake.

  “Why is your age a deep, dark secret?” she asked.

  “It isn’t, I suppose. On Christmas Day next year, I shall turn five hundred.”

  Yikes! She picked up her glasses, which she had left by the computer, and put them on, giving Gabriel the once-over. “You don’t look a day over two-fifty.”

  He grinned, a hint of genuine humor in his usually flat eyes. “You’re too kind.”

  When he lightened up like that, he was actually a pretty good-looking guy, never mind the scar on his face. Too young-looking for her tastes, but she imagined her oldest nieces would just drool over him.

  Too bad he was a five-hundred-year-old serial murderer who wouldn’t hesitate to torture Jules into betraying the Guardians.

  Reflexively, she reached for the wound in her neck, fingers brushing over the scabs. The wound had never hurt, despite the purplish bruise that surrounded it, but she was very much aware it was there.

  Gabriel’s grin faded. “I’m sorry about that. It was a … miscalculation on my part.”

  “You’re only sorry because you didn’t really want to know that Jules can escape your mind control.”

  He didn’t bother to deny it. “I’ve gone berserk like that once or twice in my life,” Gabriel continued, “but I never realized it made one immune to glamour. An interesting phenomenon.”

  Gee, Gabe was a regular font of information today! Before she could formulate a carefully phrased question to learn more about this “interesting phenomenon,” a rustling sound from the bed indicated that Jules was waking. They both turned to him.

  Jules made one of those growling noises in the back of his throat when he caught sight of Gabriel. He sat up abruptly. The blankets fell away from his bare chest, reminding him that he was naked. Hannah gave Gabriel a sidelong glance. He grinned, but refrained from comment. Which, considering the look in Jules’s eyes, was a good thing for everyone involved.

  “What are you doing here?” Jules asked, tucking the covers around his hips.

  Gabriel lifted one shoulder. “Just checking in.” He turned to look at Hannah, an expression of intense calculation on his face. “Last I knew, you were on your way back to Philadelphia to warn them I was coming.”

  Oops. She’d forgotten about last night’s little crisis of faith. Problem being, she couldn’t exactly tell Gabriel why she’d come back, even though it was possible he already knew Jules had no intention of giving him any information. If he could help it.

  “I guess I’m just in too deep to run away now,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant. “Besides, I don’t work for the Guardians, and my personal opinion of Eli is that he’s a life form slightly below pond scum. Hell, I might even volunteer to help you kick his ass.”

  Once again, Gabriel laughed, as he seemed to do so often when she spoke. She figured that was probably a good thing. Jules was scowling darkly but didn’t say a word to contradict her.

  Gabe made himself at home, wandering around the room, eyes roving. When he caught sight of the map Hannah had left out, she wanted to slap herself silly. The only thing they’d had on their side had been time, and she would have preferred Gabriel have no idea she’d been researching Ian’s location on her own. Unfortunately, there was approximately zero chance he’d believe any cover story she could think of to explain the markings on that map.

  “You’ve been busy,” he said, picking up the map and examining it.

  Jules muttered something under his breath and shook his head.

  “Sorry,” she mouthed at him.

  “You seem to have narrowed the search down to this area,” Gabriel said, tracing the circle with the tip of his finger. “How?”

  She supposed there was no point in lying. “I looked for clusters of unexplained disappearances. I figured twelve fledgling Killers would leave a pretty recognizable footprint.”

  The corners of Gabriel’s mouth tightened. “How true. Squires is the worst kind of fool. No one with an iota of sense would create that many fledglings at one time even in the shelter of a big city. Out in the country like that …” He shook his head in evident disgust. “He’s sure to draw attention to himself from mortal authorities. There’s a reason my mother doesn’t keep a legion of fledglings at her beck and call. The last thing we need is to have mortals believing in vampires.”

  Hannah didn’t like the sound of that, and from the expression on Jules’s face, neither did he.

  Gabriel dismissed their concerns with a wave of his hand.
“I didn’t mean that as a threat to you,” he told Hannah. “You are one mortal out of millions. But if those millions should start believing in us, we would be extinct in no time.”

  Despite her growing fondness for Jules, Hannah wasn’t sure that would be such a bad thing. She suspected that for every Jules in this world, there were a hundred or more Gabriels.

  “This is good work,” he continued, nodding approvingly at the map. “We’ll have to take a drive out into the country. If we cover the area methodically, I ought to be able to sense Ian and his fledglings.” He smiled one of his especially chilling smiles. “I so look forward to seeing my old friend again.”

  “You promised me a clean kill, remember?” Jules said, though, sitting on the bed with the covers wrapped around his hips, he didn’t convey much of a sense of authority.

  Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “Why this insistence on a clean kill? Why would you not want Ian to suffer after all that he’s done? It would only be justice.” He locked gazes with Jules, and a silent battle of wills ensued.

  Afraid of what Jules might decide to say—and of how Gabriel might react to it—Hannah decided to answer for him.

  “Because he’s not a sadist.” Like you. The unspoken words hung in the air between them as Jules and Gabriel broke off their staring contest.

  Gabriel looked amused by the silent accusation. Certainly, he saw no need to contradict it.

  “I must feed so that I’ll be at top strength,” he said. “Be ready to leave within the hour.”

  Hannah’s stomach flip-flopped as she realized someone was going to die soon at Gabriel’s hands. And there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to stop it.

  “If you have any silly notions about running away while I’m gone,” Gabriel continued, “I should point out that when I retrieved your car from the impound lot, I fitted it with a GPS tracking device.” He smiled smugly. “That’s how I found you at the Roach Motel. You can search for it, but by the time you find it it’ll be too late.” He looked at Jules. “If I have to come chasing after you, I’ll have Hannah for dessert while you watch.”