Angel Seduced (28 page)

K
ade drove south, through the city and toward the marshlands known as the Fringe. Normally, adrenaline would be shooting through his veins like a thousand Red Bulls on his way to a kill. This time he was having a hard time working up the excitement to do his job.

As he reached the edge of the Fringe, he felt a tightening in his gut. Finally. Except it wasn't eagerness or adrenaline. It was…dread? Because he didn't want to kill her. There it was.

Keep your focus. It's a job.

Each clan had a large parcel of land that was divvied up between the various subfamilies. Many had different businesses, nice legal ones like vineyards and farms. But sometimes their farms consisted of marijuana plants, one of Arlo's transgressions. The Guard cared more about the possibility of attracting the Muds' attention than the illegality of the farms.

Centuries of living as they saw fit gave the Fringers the impression that they were outside the bounds of the law. Centuries of living with the threat of being extinguished by your nearest neighbor made them skilled at fighting. Violet was no delicate flower. She'd held back at Headquarters. He knew her ferocity well enough. And yeah, he knew the feel of her breast, and her body wrapped around his…though not in the good way.

Not that you want
her
wrapped around you like that. Because that would make this assignment much more complicated.

His cock had different ideas, thickening at the memory. Hell, he wasn't even experiencing physical contact and there it was, waving to get his attention. He really needed to get laid.

Violet's faced flashed in front of him.

But not with her.

Earlier, he experienced that bizarre moment of spotting someone you knew but not recognizing them. She'd cleaned up nice, dressed in white pants that made her legs go on forever and a dark blue shirt that molded to her upper body. Though he would have definitely recognized her once she gave him the
go screw yourself
look.

Kade drove down a weed-overgrown gravel road and parked his car behind a stand of Brazilian pepper bushes. Between Arlo's drug running, some assault charges, and the old coot who'd seen a gator ape, Kade had been to Castanega property enough to know his way around. There was plenty of acreage for the family's enterprises; most centered around alligators. Demons were no big deal, but those scaly, toothy creatures with perpetual grins gave him the creeps.

Kade walked the boundary between Castanega land and the long-vacant Garza land. This was not the cultivated, trimmed, and polished South Florida most people imagined. While the pepper bushes with the red berries took over open stretches of land, the tall, feathery Australian pines created dense forests elsewhere. In places where the non-native plants hadn't invaded, slash pine trees with their long needles offered more sap than shade.

A wet summer had left the ground muddy and created large marshes in some places. It was hard to walk quietly in muck. His black boots sucked free of the moist earth with every step. The smell of earth, mud, and decay filled his nostrils. Sweat trickled down his back. Even in the hot, muggy summers, Vega attire consisted of long sleeves. The black rayon allowed for movement and ventilation, but neither helped when trekking through the woods in September—a month that, in South Florida, typically was as steamy as the one before it.

Mosquitoes buzzed all around him, but none dared land on him. They seemed to sense the magick in Crescents, largely leaving them alone. But they
wanted
to suck his blood and hovered annoyingly all around. A startled hawk screeched and alighted from a branch. If he hadn't seen the hawk, he'd have suspected it was the Fringe “language,” whistles and nature sounds they used to communicate over distances. Like warning of an intruder.

Two things the uniform designer did allow for were quick-drying material and ease in extracting Deuce weapons. Kade ran his fingers from wrist to inner elbow, feeling the spark of magick. The dagger “tattoo” thrummed with magick, courtesy of a specially commissioned Guard tattoo artist.

He suspected Violet's home was a cabin in the western edge. Her face dominated his mind, the smell of her, the tingle he'd felt when her wrists were clamped in his hands, her body against the wall. A part of him had wanted her to dart off again, craving the chase. Because he knew he'd catch her.

He shook the thought away. Now he
would
catch her. And kill her. He didn't have to like or agree with the order; he simply had to carry it out. It wouldn't be the first time. Or the last.

He paralleled a gravel road, barely visible in the distance, until he spotted a burgundy Infiniti parked in the driveway. Synthetic pop music floated from somewhere beyond the house. He surveyed the area. The house was small but quaint, painted a soft yellow with white shutters and gingerbread trim. The recently mowed grass that surrounded the house in a tidy square was lush and green. Plants and flowers overran the planting beds, a wild mess. Except it wasn't, he realized, seeing a loose but deliberate arrangement of the various plants. Somehow the undisciplined aspect intrigued him more than the sculpted bushes and trimmed trees in his yard in Coral Gables.

He recognized the music now: Berlin, from the eighties. “The Metro.” It fit Violet, tough and in your face. Odd, since Violet seemed too young to have been more than a child in the eighties.

Who cared what she liked to listen to? The knife tattoo came to life, filling his hand with the heavy feel of metal. He clutched the dagger as he rounded the rear corner of the house. Farther back sat a large workshop with several long tables in the center of the space and shelves that lined the walls. She was doing something at one of the tables.

He cut back into the woods and came up behind the metal building. As he sidled up along the side, he nearly gave himself away when his shoe bumped an alligator in the bushes. He slapped his hand over his mouth as he stumbled back. The alligator leered at him with glassy eyes.
Wait a minute.
Kade tapped the gator with his shoe. It was hard. Hell, the thing was stuffed. He crouched near the edge of the open bay and watched Violet.

Hopefully she was planning the next murder, doing something to prove her guilt. He tried to see inside the many clear boxes on the shelves. They looked like they were filled with colorful stones. She worked a pair of pliers on a leather strap with jerky movements, cursing when a string of beads fell and scattered all over. Damn. It wasn't destructive; it was jewelry. She bent and picked them up, her pants stretching tight over her ass. One bead bounced and landed within a few feet of him. She hadn't seen it, but a big, dopey-looking dog did. Then the dog saw him.

Uh-oh.

Its tail thumped on the floor, which was covered in outdoor carpet. Okay, not a guard dog but still problematic. He stepped out of view and heard Violet throw the beads and issue a guttural expletive.

She darted out of the workshop, her face buried in her hands, and passed within three feet of him. The dog followed, glancing back at him. Kade remained in place, watching her heaving shoulders as she reached the thicket of cypress and pine trees and fell to her knees.

The dog flopped down beside her and rested its head on her thighs. She buried her face in its fur, her fingers curling into the folds of skin. Her muffled sobs clawed right through him. These were not the cries of a woman putting on a show or upset over something that didn't go her way. This was grief, raw and keening. She said one word over and over, and finally he was able to make it out: Arlo.

She presented him with the perfect opportunity, too grief-stricken to notice if her Dragon warned of a presence coming up behind her. He scanned the surroundings as he readied his dagger for a quick, merciful kill. His pulse throbbed at the side of his throat as it did in these situations, and his fingers tightened on the hilt.

Except his body wouldn't move. Every preconceived notion he had about Violet—unkempt, untamed, violent—fled his mind, replaced by vulnerable, fiery, and innocent.

Innocent.

Former fellow Vega Cyntag Valeron had just come to him that morning, out of the blue, to decipher a magick book. He'd been cryptic about both it and the woman with him but clear about the advice he'd imparted: “Trust your gut above all else. If it doesn't feel right, it's probably not.”

Kade's gut screamed,
Don't kill her.

The oaths he'd taken as a Vega to uphold the law at any cost fell away, replaced by a conviction that Violet was not guilty of some murderous conspiracy.

One moment he stood frozen in his inner turmoil, and the next, a Dragon's gaping mouth was lunging for his throat. He twisted but still got knocked on his ass twenty feet away. He landed in a marshy area, sending a wave of muddy water spraying. His breath escaped in a hard gasp, and he hardly had time to breathe before the Dragon moved into view.

Dappled sunlight shimmered off her maroon scales. She lunged down at him, fangs stopping half an inch from eviscerating him. Inside her open mouth, magick flares capable of inflicting any type of pain fired to life. Her cat-like eyes shrank. “You!” The fierce flames in her eyes didn't soften one bit. “How dare you sneak up on me!”

Her voice as Dragon was low and rumbly, but every bit of her anger projected through loud and clear. He rolled, coming to his feet in one swift movement. What to say? He knew she was embarrassed at being caught in such a vulnerable moment, and being Amethyst, she was all emotion, not to mention unpredictable and high-strung.

“Violet, I—”

“Idjit! People are killing each other by sneaking onto our land. So either you're here to arrest me or you've got a death wish. And if it's the latter, I'm more than happy to grant it.” She charged at him again.

He pressed his hand to her forehead and “shot” her. She Catalyzed to human in the same instant that she flew backward. Her body hit with a hard thud, her arms out at her sides.

He ran toward her, calling his dagger, which had been thrown, too. It burned back into his skin as he reached her. “You okay?”

She was sprawled out, mud streaking her naked body, her eyes wide and stunned. She looked…good.

Good and mad. “What the hell was
that
?”

“Magick taser, a new Guard weapon. It sucks out your magick, which in a Dragon's case, makes you human again.” He held out his hand to help her up.

She gripped it, jerking him forward and off balance. He held on to her hand and took her with him. They landed together in the mud, a tangle of bodies. His fingers slid across her skin as he got to his feet. She slugged him, catching his jaw because he was a bit too distracted by the feel of her to be as quick as he should be. She still looked as though she'd kill him.

“Why can't I Catalyze? What'd you do to me?” she screamed, gripping his shirt and shaking him.

Damn, she was strong. She reared back to hit him again, and he caught her fist. Their hands collided with a loud
slap.
She slammed him in the chest with her other hand.

He shoved her into the puddle again, trying to immobilize her. “I'm not here to hurt you. Look, I have no weapon.” He held out his hands, showing her his dagger tucked away.

She kicked him in the stomach and tried to crawl away. Which left her sweet, mud-slicked ass in full view. A groan started climbing his throat but he stifled it.

“Assaulting an officer,” he muttered, grabbing her around the waist. “Again.”

“So it is a death wish then?” She jerked her head around, pinning him with a glare as sharp as his dagger. “Since you have no reason to arrest me.”

“Settle down now, darling.”

She let out a growl worthy of her Dragon and jumped on top of him, her hands around his collarbone. “Don't you dare call me ‘darling.'”

“It slipped out,” he grunted as she ground him into the mud. “It doesn't mean anything.” But damn, that word never slipped out while on duty. She was firing up his wild side big-time. Her thighs squeezed his hips; her hands pinned his shoulders. He tried to gain control but she wouldn't budge. “Damn, woman, you an alligator wrestler?”

“Champion in the local division four years running, umpteen years ago.” Her smile reeked of pride and challenge. And he always accepted a challenge. With a heave, he rolled her so he was on top. She kept the roll going, besting him again.

“Will you listen?” he said.

She grabbed a handful of his hair and jerked his head back. “I would have listened if you'd called the number on all that damned paperwork they made me fill out. While you were all inside laughing at me, I'm sure.”

How to gain control of the situation without grabbing her somewhere inappropriate—somewhere that wouldn't piss her off even more? Damned tricky when she was naked. And muddy. Plus the fact that he
wanted
to touch her somewhere inappropriate. “I wasn't laughing at you.”

“Sure you were. Inside. Outside you were giving me that smug smile you probably think…is…gorgeous.” She fought as he tried to wrap his arms around her upper arms. “While you looked down your nose at me.”

“Actually, I was looking at your tight shirt.”

She slugged him in the jaw again, not really hard enough to do any damage. He threw his weight toward her, pushing her backward and coming down on top of her. Now he straddled her thighs, leaning down to hover above her.

“I was kidding,” he said, his mouth only an inch from hers. “I was taking all of you in. I couldn't believe you were the same Violet Castanega I saw in muddy clothes and a tangled braid.” He couldn't help the smile as he let his gaze drift from her neck down to her chest that rose and fell with deep breaths. The mud didn't cover the curve of her breasts or the hardened nipples that made him wonder if she was enjoying this on some deep level, too. “Then again, you do look extraordinary in mud.”