Blind Destiny: Grimm's Circle, Book 7 [retail mobi] (7 page)

His hands tangled in my hair. My breath exploded out of me in the few seconds I had as he slammed against me, his mouth coming down on mine with an intensity that might have frightened me…if I hadn’t lived with the hunger that had haunted me for years.

“Open, damn it,” he growled against my lips. “Open your mouth.”

But he didn’t even wait for that. His hand cupped my face, squeezing lightly as he licked the seam of my lips and then pushed inside, taking the very thing he’d been demanding.

Where in the hell had Prince Charming gone?

He hoisted me in one arm while the other tore at the opening to his jeans.

Our breath labored out, coming in harsh, heavy gasps.

Our hearts hammered.

And then…

A growl.

Low, at first, getting louder by the second until we broke apart. At that very second, Krell started to bark. I’d been around the dog enough to recognize the sound of those barks.

Warnings for his master.

I could have cried.

No
—

The screams…I’d forgotten about the screams. Eerie, carrying wails even now. For a while I hadn’t heard them, but now, even the dead should hear those screams…

“Somebody’s screaming,” Luc said.

I looked up at him, startled.

He eyed the house, his face remote.

“You hear her now?”

He shook his head. “This is new. It’s not one of your ghosts. And it’s a man.”

Chapter Six

That sticky, oily evil woke.

And it pulled him.

He tried to get to it and pull it to him. But there was no success.

All he could do was watch.

There was a man who was doing more than watching.

Part of him wondered at it. Part of him was curious.

He followed for a while.

But then…drifted.

It was so easy to fade away from here. So terribly, terribly easy.

Natasha woke up with a bad taste in her mouth.

It wasn’t anything new.

Sometimes it happened before a job like this. This job was a love/hate thing for her. She loved it. She hated it. It exhilarated her. It terrified her. Sometimes she’d have a fit of the screaming meemies for days before she went into a big one—this one had been such a whirlwind of activity, she hadn’t had the time she normally would have had, so maybe that was the problem.

Delayed reaction.

Pacing through the villa where they were staying, she avoided the rooms where the others were, not wanting to wake them. In the end, she ended up outside on the back patio or whatever they called it, gazing up at what looked like a thousand, maybe even a million stars.

It was pretty here.

Very pretty.

Didn’t make sense why she felt such a heavy, oppressive weight, unless it had to do with the vibe this place was giving off.

Distantly, she heard a door open and close. Somebody must have gone to the bathroom or something. She wasn’t in the mood for company, so she stayed where she was, staring out into the night.

Right up until she saw the shadow heading down the road.

They were someplace rather secluded. The only ones on the set-apart little strip of land.

So who was that…?

Squinting, she tried to make it out, but it was so dark she couldn’t.

Rising, she went inside, checking the rooms. Fiona and Lee were both sleeping soundly. Shutting the door to the room she shared with the other women, she headed to the room where the two men were sleeping.

And when she saw one of the beds empty, for some reason, her heart jumped into her throat.

In under a minute, they were dressed.

Luc caught Krell in his arms as Sina fought with the window. They were on the second floor and there wasn’t any time to waste just then, so fuck the stairs.

“It’s clear,” she told him.

He nodded and jumped out, merging his mind with the dog’s so he could see what was rushing up at them.

Krell was tense, his body trembling minutely, and deep inside his big, muscled body, the dog was still growling.

Something had him very unhappy.

Luc was a bit put out himself, although he doubted his reasoning was quite the same as the dog’s. He’d just had a hungry, needy woman in his arms…
Sina
, for fuck’s sake, and where was he going? Out to deal with demons. Damn his luck.

Catching Krell’s harness, he looked at the house.

He had grabbed his black jacket just in case, and the sturdy weight of his weapons was reassuring, but somehow, he didn’t think he’d need them.

Death was already a stain in the air.

That scream he’d heard had lasted for just a second and then it had gone silent.

“It didn’t come from inside,” he said as Sina landed behind him.

Vaguely, he was aware of voices inside the buildings around him. Others had woken, heard the scream. They needed to be careful now, avoid the mortals.

Sina laid a hand on his arm and he felt the prickle of her power roll over him.

Now they’d been unseen by mortal eyes. Well, unless they decided to go and start chatting up whatever law enforcement made an appearance.

“Where to?”

She waved off to the side. “There’s an alley, there. Might as well go see who died.”

It was, indeed, a man. Sina kept watch as Luc and Krell studied the body. Krell sniffed and Luc, hovering in the back of the malamute’s mind, assessed the scents. There was something wrong there…the dog couldn’t quite understand it. It wasn’t drugs, illness or madness.

But the dog couldn’t quite place it and as smart as Krell was, he wasn’t human. If he couldn’t understand what he was smelling, Luc couldn’t place it for him. Luc took a few more minutes to examine the body with his companion and then they fell back, let Sina take a turn.

“No injuries,” she murmured. “It’s…odd. He’s too young to just have a heart attack.”

“Mortals do awful things to their bodies these days.”

She rested a hand on the man’s chest, still warm. “Mortals have always done awful things to their bodies. But yes, I know what you mean…” Through Krell’s eyes, he saw her shoot him a narrow glance. “I’ve seen how you eat, after all. It’s a good thing you’re not mortal.”

He gave her an unrepentant smile. “I’m in the mood for French fries.”

“Hmmm.” She bent closer, studying the face. “The vessels in his eyes have ruptured. And the look on his face…”

Luc had noted that.

“He looks terrified.”

As one, they looked at the house.

Krell growled.

Luc patted the dog’s head. “We need to go.”

As they started to walk, she looked back at the house. “I wonder who he was. Do you think he’d been inside?”

Natasha sat at the table and hovered over a cup of coffee that was strong enough to get up and walk.

It was hot, potent, sweet enough to give her ten new cavities and she was on her second cup.

Jake was dead.

She’d gotten there just as the police showed up…and
none
of them had been in time.

Jake was dead.

How in the hell am I going to tell Neil
…

That thought hit her out of the blue and she started to cry. Neil was Jake’s partner and this was just going to gut him.

She cried, and cried, and cried, until she thought she just might be cried out.

Then she cried more. Burying her face in her arms, she let the sobs come, not bothering to fight them. What was the point? Jake had been with her from the first, and he’d been one of her best friends. Funny as hell, the kind of guy who didn’t take shit from anybody, and he’d used some of his own money to help fund this trip.

And now he was dead…

The door opened.

Jerking her head up, she looked into the dark eyes of an unsmiling woman.

Her hair was pulled back into a neat queue at the nape of her neck and she wore one of those tidy little powerhouse skirt suits. As she came over to the table, her heels clicked on the floor.

Swallowing, Natasha opened her mouth and managed to mumble out a mangled
hello
in Greek.

The woman smiled and sat down. “I speak English,” she said. And she did—perfect, unaccented English.

“Oh, thank God.”

The woman made a small little humming sound under her breath, leaned forward. Absently, she reached up, toying with a silver chain she wore at her neck. “I understand the man who died was a friend of yours.”

“Yes. He—”

“Boyfriend?”

“No. He was just a friend. What happened to him?”

The woman flicked her a quick look. Her dark eyes revealed nothing. She smiled a little, her lips lush and red against her skin—like blood, Natasha thought out of the blue.

A chill broke out over her skin.

Shivering, she wrapped her arms around herself and started to rock.

“We’re still trying to understand that, Ms.…” She flipped through the file she’d brought into the room.

“Curry,” Natasha whispered numbly. “Natasha Curry.”

“Ms. Curry, then. What brings you to Greece?” She leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest and pinning Natasha with a look that seemed to skewer her straight through.

Natasha swallowed and looked away from those eyes. She didn’t like this cop’s eyes. Dark and deep, like she could see straight through to a person’s soul.

“I…ah, we’re here to film a documentary.” She rubbed her palms down her arms, desperate to get warm. The short sleeves of her shirt seemed so flimsy and she wished she’d grabbed a jacket.

The woman glanced down, studying Natasha’s arms for a minute.

Natasha thought she might ask about the tatts. She didn’t. She just looked back into her eyes, and continued, smiling that eerie, unworldly little smile.

“Oh? On what?”

“What on wh…oh. The documentary. We’re doing a documentary on the Christou house.”

The woman wrinkled her nose. “That old place? Why bother? It needs to be torn down. It’s a ruin.”

“It’s history. It’s priceless.” Some of her fear bled away, replaced by anger as she sat up.

“Why?” The woman tilted her head, a smile dancing on her blood-red lips. “Because you think there are ghosts there and you can make a pretty penny telling your stories? There are other places, less dangerous. In towns that haven’t seen such hardship. Go
there
.”

“That
house
is why this place has seen such hardship. If people would understand what really happened, maybe things would get better,” Natasha snapped, slamming a fist on the table.

“And how do you propose to make it all better with some silly ghost-busting tricks, child?” She shook her head as she stood up. “Natasha…go home.”

“Hey!”

The woman started toward the door.

“Wait, damn it. I want to go,” she demanded, shoving back from the chair.

“Then go.” The woman continued to walk.

“But…”

The cop didn’t stop.

Staring after her, Natasha stood there, a little confused.

And for reasons she couldn’t define, a little freaked.

“I can’t believe you walked into a police station,” Luc muttered as they headed back down the street.

It was only the fifth time since he’d said it. If he said it another five times, maybe he’d be done, I thought. “Well, we needed some answers. And I got them.”

“What answers did you get?”

“She’s freaked out by something. I can’t tell if it’s me or something else, because she doesn’t understand. She had a very strong urge to come here, and that bothers me—she feels an unusual connection to the house, and she thinks she can do something to break the darkness that surrounds this place,” I said, pausing to assimilate all of that. That made no sense. Unless of course…

Nah.

Brushing that aside, I continued, “She’s very upset about the boy who died.”

“Were they lovers?”

“No.” I gave him a narrow look, irritated. What did it matter? Then I made myself shove the question aside. Why did I
care
what it mattered? “What in the hell does it matter if they were lovers?”

One hand held Krell’s harness easily. The other rested solicitously on my back. With a scowl, I stepped away, out of his reach. His hand fell away. “There you go, angry with me again.” He sighed. “And is it a sin to be concerned with another’s suffering, Sina? She’s here, far from her home and she lost a friend. Hard to do that. Harder still to lose a lover.”

“So it’s innocent concern then.”