Back From Hell (6 page)

Right now, it spoke of death. They should have sensed that before now. Death was like a hurricane, building and building while others stared in awe at its power.

There was no reason they shouldn’t have felt it.

“Shit,” Jenai muttered, casting around them with a mental net.

That was when they did feel it—an inaudible pop as a shield fell down around them. And Jenai understood why. Somebody was casting a low-level spell to keep them from feeling a damn thing. Neither of them were witches, and neither were psychic enough to feel such a low-level spell.

But the one that fell down around them at Jenai’s touch was anything but low level.

It was a cage, falling in place around their house, locking them inside. Jenai had been on the receiving end of spells before and she liked it about as much now as she had then.

They were fucking trapped.

Steph’s eyes widened, a nervous growl trickling from her lips as she spun in a circle, her gaze on the ceiling. Jenai rose slowly, her eyes closed. Ronan was scowling, muttering to himself.

“Be quiet,” Jenai snapped.

Steph smelled it first, the acrid stink of smoke. Her eyes flew open and she leaped over the table, going for Ronan and taking him down to the ground. “What the fuck have you done?”

But Stephanie had no more than closed her hands over the cloth of his shirt, straddling him with one knee on either side of his hips, then Ronan McAdams moved, and when he moved, it was like lightning, a blur of movement too fast for even her eyes to track.

No. No fucking way was he mortal. No mortal could flip and pin a struggling werewolf the way he did.

But there was also no way Ronan McAdams had anything to do with this. Jenai knew it as well as she knew her own name.

Before he could speak, Jenai was at his back, resting one hand on his shoulder. “Get up, Ronan.” He flicked her a glance and then rose, sliding away from Stephanie with silent, eerie grace.

“Stephanie, Ronan had nothing to do with this,” she whispered as she lifted her head, scenting the smoke that was drifting down from upstairs.

They, whoever
they
were, had set fire to the upstairs, a small one, for now. Trying to flush them out?

Enraged, terrified, Stephanie flipped up off the floor and glared at Jenai. “How in the fuck do you know?”

Jenai said shortly, “He’s going to have reason to hate fire just as much as we do.” Then she slid her gaze to Ronan, staring at his face for a moment. “And I know him. He wouldn’t do this.”

Stephanie planted her hands on her hips. “How in the hell do you know him?
I’ve
never fucking seen him before.”

Looking back at her sister, Jenai lifted a hand, shaking her head. “We don’t have time for this right now.” Before Stephanie could say another word, she looked at Ronan and asked, “What’s going on?”

His mouth set in a firm, grim line, and he shook his head. “I don’t know, but suddenly, I’ve got the distinct impression that somebody wants me dead, as well as you two.”

“Who wants us dead?” Jenai asked, curling her hands into fists to keep from reaching out for him. Damn it, the need to touch him was powerful—even the danger breathing down their necks from the fire above and the people without wasn’t enough to cool her hunger.

The scent of his blood was calling to her, the scent of his body… Her cleft started to ache and weep, hunger rising within her.
No!
she thought furiously.
This isn’t the time.

Hell, she didn’t know if there’d ever be a good time for what she wanted to do with him—to him. Sex and feeding didn’t mix, not with her. She fed when the hunger threatened to spiral out of control, and she fucked when the itch in her belly got too strong.

They didn’t mix.

But damn, she’d never felt lust like this, never had the hunger grab her by the throat so hard before. Even those hot, wet dreams hadn’t had her aching quite this badly.

“Any ideas?” she asked, moving just enough so that she could see out the window, without anybody outside being able to see her. Nothing…she didn’t see a damn thing.

But she could smell them now—men, several of them.

Behind her, Ronan spoke, his voice cold and flat as he said, “I suspect my boss is behind this. If you didn’t join us, he wanted you two dead. Don’t rightly know the why of it—and to be honest, I didn’t take time to try and figure out why. I was too worried about getting to you before he decided to send another in to talk to you.”

“You were going to kill us,” Steph said, and Jenai sensed the disappointment in her sister.

“No, he wasn’t,” Jenai said softly, shaking her head. “He doesn’t kill without a reason…and he doesn’t want me dead.”

“No, love, I don’t,” he agreed. She heard him move behind her and when she whirled around, he was standing so close—too close.

Steph’s voice was low and rough as she interrupted them. “You know, this is all fascinating. I’d really like to know why you two keep making goo-goo eyes at each other but perhaps you two haven’t smelled the smoke. And where there’s smoke…there’s fire. I don’t like fire, Jenai.”

Steph’s fearful voice pierced the fog like nothing else could. Jenai’s mouth twitched and she turned away from Ronan.
Goo-goo eyes?
“I don’t like fire either, girl. Get your things. We’re gone.”

Ronan snorted. “Ladies, perhaps you two didn’t feel the spell. We’re locked in here. It would be impossible to get out of here.”

Jenai laughed. “I don’t believe in relying on doors to get out. I felt the spell, all right. We’re going under it. Witches usually can only bespell what they can see, or what they can touch, and there’s a good possibility they missed something. We’ll find it.”

She said nothing else until Steph and she had rounded up the things they refused to part with. It didn’t take long—less than five minutes. Living the way they did, they were always prepared to run at any given moment, so materialistic stuff was kept to a minimum, and the important stuff was always kept close together. A few pieces of jewelry that had belonged to her mother, an ancient book, spelled to be protected against the ravages of time, her mother’s journal, their weapons and some clothes. Jenai slid into a pair of jeans and tugged her leather coat on over the fishnet tee and swimsuit on her way back to the kitchen.

But, still… By the time they had grabbed what they needed, smoke was starting to billow down from upstairs, and Jenai’s sensitive flesh could feel the change in temperature as the house started to heat. The small fire the witches had set was taking on a life of its own, building and growing and spreading.

Just as the ceiling overhead started to blacken as the fire began to burn through it, they were moving down the basement stairs.

Jenai crossed the basement and started grabbing the boxes that stood in front of the old coal chute. As she tossed box after box aside, the grate was slowly revealed. The grate, and their way out. That was the cool thing about old farmhouses. Some of them still had the coal chute, which served as an excellent means of retreat. This wasn’t the first time she had been forced to flee under fire—literally. The chute was hidden by the low-lying hedges that surrounded the house, and
if
they were lucky…

Steph and Ronan joined her, shoving boxes, lifting forty-pound bags of dog food that had been left by the previous owner, hurling them through the air like pillows. Finally, they cleared the coal chute and Jenai wrapped her hands around the metal grate, taking a deep breath and tensing her muscles. Another set of hands joined hers and she flicked him a glance before muttering, “On three.”

Steph waved the dust out of her face as they ripped the metal bars out of the foundation wall, forcing out a fake cough. “I don’t think we’re going to get that security deposit back, sis,” she said dryly as she shouldered her packs and climbed through the hole.

Jenai was at her heels. Behind her, Jenai could feel Ronan’s warm breath on her neck. A tingle raced down her spine and she fought the urge to shiver.
Just my luck
. She was running for her life again, but this time she was more turned on than she had ever been in her life.

Ahead of her, Steph had paused, lifting her face to the open air just above her as she scented the wind. Her eyes glowed eerily in the dark as she said over her shoulder, “They are still out there…many of them. At the doors, though. They either didn’t notice the chute, or don’t think we can escape through it.” She slid her eyes to Ronan and asked, “Can you run?”

He chuckled. “Aye. I can run. And very well,” he replied.

Jenai felt the same subtle tensing in his muscles that she saw go through Steph. “I hope you know what we mean by run, McAdams. We won’t come back for you.”

* * * * *

He had to go back for Steph.

Jenai smothered the scream that rose in her throat as she felt the bullet rip through her sister’s flesh almost as if it were her own. She knew Steph had gone down even before the younger sister realized it.

Spinning around, she stared for one long moment at Steph where she lay, unmoving. Time slowed to a crawl and her heart stuttered to a stop.

“Go!” Ronan shouted in her ear, the fire reflecting gold on his skin. He shoved at her shoulder before he tore across the clearing after Steph. The woman lay on her side, staring up at him with pain-filled eyes.

“Get outta here,” she gasped. “Jenai…”

His heart squeezed in his chest. “No. I’m getting both of you out of here,” he said thickly. Damn it, why hadn’t he seen it coming?

His worry about Jenai had kept him from seeing the real reason behind this fool’s quest. They hadn’t ever cared about Jenai or her sister.

They just wanted an out-of-the-way place to kill him.

And because he had seen everything through tunnel vision, desperate to get to Jenai’s side, he hadn’t seen the trap as it had closed around him.

A growl trickled out of his throat as he eased Steph over his shoulder. Her blood was hot on his shoulder, seeping through the layers of her clothes and his. Tainted. The bullets the bastards had used had some sort of silver in them. Poison to so many of the
autre
.

They were going to pay for this. Austin Brunich would die. Ronan would see to that. After he solved the puzzle of why Austin wanted these women dead…and him, as well. The ground blurred under his feet as he ran. Jenai was just ahead at the tree line—or she had been, when he yelled at her to go.

Turning, he saw the white-gold cap of her hair as she ran over the ground so fast that her legs blurred as she launched herself toward the men who had hurt her sister.

He should have known—the woman he knew wouldn’t stay out of harm’s way, even if there were silver bullets flying and the threat of death imminent.

Not when these bastards had just attacked her and her sister without cause, not when her sister had the poison of silver pumping through her system.

The need to hunt, to kill, to protect pumped through him, almost overtaking his mind, and he wanted, badly, to join her.

But joining her
now
, when they were so badly outnumbered, and Stephanie seriously wounded—they would be digging their own graves.

“Jenai.”

She heard him across the distance, even though he spoke softly. Her head moved in his direction for the quickest of seconds before she took down one of the men holding a rifle. In that moment, as he watched her sink fangs into the man’s neck, one burning question was at least partially answered.

She wasn’t wholly vampire, but vampiric blood and hunger ran through her. Whatever else she was, he didn’t know.

His own hunger tore through him as he scented the blood and the flesh, but he battled it down.

“Jenai. Your sister is alive…for now. Do you want her to stay that way? Or die before we can help her?”

He had known his words would enrage her, but still, it was rather disturbing to see the effects of that rage. Blood still stained her lips, and the very fires of hell seemed to burn in her eyes as she ran back to them.

“They will die,” she whispered, touching her fingers lightly to Steph’s brow.

“Yes. But if we try to make it happen tonight, so will she,” Ronan said, shaking his head. Glancing over her shoulder, he saw that they had been spotted by more of the men who surrounded the blazing house. “C’mon.”

Chapter Four

The hotel was as anonymous as they were going to get.

Ronan lay Steph on the bed, feeling something in his gut clench. Damn it. It was his fault she was lying there, the poison of the silver bullet leeching through her system.

Rising, he turned to Jenai and said, “Open a vein. Feed her.”

The way her silver eyes widened was almost comical. “Okay, you obviously know a little more about us than I like. But I’m the vampire, not Steph.”

He shook his head. “Part vampire,” Ronan said, surprising a gasp out of her. He moved up to her, reaching out, trailing his fingers along the length of her slender neck. The way she trembled under that light touch had him fighting the urge to snatch her against him—taste her mouth, in the flesh, for the first time.

The need to feel her body against his was driving him insane. Instead of grabbing her though, he ran his finger up her neck, skimmed it along the bow of her lips, pressing lightly, just there, where her fangs would show if she was angry.

“Only part vampire—I’ve been driving myself insane wondering that about you. Of course, you’d never tell me. You tried so hard not to tell me anything.”

Her lips parted and he could almost hear the angry words she’d use to push him away.
Sorry, sweetheart, that’s not going to happen. I’m not going anywhere.

Pressing his fingers against her lips, he silenced the words before she could voice them. “But a vamp’s blood, to any paranormal creature, is damn near miraculous. It will help her fight the poison in her system. Plus, since you aren’t wholly vampire, it won’t make her addicted the way a full vampire’s would.”

Her eyes narrowed and Ronan saw the questions, the disbelief in her eyes. There was no time to answer them though—even now he could smell the way the silver was poisoning her sister’s blood.