Enemy Lover (14 page)

Marcus. Come to me, now.

The order ricocheted inside his head, angry and ominous, just as it had since he’d left his car to confront the woman. As blind rage and bloodlust fought a colossal battle inside him, Marcus continued to ignore Lazarus. Even worse, he hesitated and glanced behind him, tempted to finish what he and the woman had started.

With a curse, he strode away.

He’d chosen retreat because he’d been afraid of losing control.

It didn’t set easily with him, but he had greater matters to attend to. That meant keeping his sights on the big picture and forgetting what was trivial.

Forget that little minx had bested him!

Forget that she had his money and that she had made him look like an amateur when it had come to taking Tuturo out.

Forget his own foolishness for leaving his car and walking into her little trap just as she’d planned. And it had been foolishness. He’d ignored Lazarus’s call in a vain attempt to get answers.

Who was she?

Why did she make his blood boil?

What the hell did she want with him?

’ Cause he sure as hell knew what he wanted from her.

He touched his lip even as his dick throbbed. Jesus Christ, her blood was more addictive than heroin. Worse, when she’d bitten him, he’d crossed a self-imposed line. He had sex because it made him feel human, but he’d
never exchanged blood with a human and allowed them to live. Until her.

He had tasted her, wanted her and let her go. But God help him, he wanted more.

That had settled it for him.

She could have his money. She could keep her contacts. No way was he going back to that pond. She’d bring him to his knees. He knew it as instinctively as he knew he was going to kill that night. He continued his mad stride down Michigan Avenue knowing that if he didn’t indulge his hunger soon, he’d lose all control. And when he lost control nothing good ever came of it. He turned down an alley. As he rounded the corner, he slammed shoulders with a local hood.

“Motherfucker!” the piece of trash yelled and pulled a semiauto pistol from his duster. Just as he leveled it at Marcus’s chest, Marcus snapped. He grabbed the thug by the throat and shook him so violently that bones snapped. The pistol clattered to the ground. Marcus raised his arm over his shoulders, lifting the criminal off the ground. Violently, he slammed the thug against the brick wall of the building. Rage, spurred by passion for a woman he could not have, viciously ate at him.

Ignoring the thug’s screams for mercy, Marcus let the beast inside of him take over. He sunk his teeth into the pulsing jugular of the man who’d had the misfortune of tangling with Marcus Cross. It would be his last tango.

Minutes later, he dropped the carcass to the ground, swiped the back of his hand across his mouth, licked the last vestiges of blood from his lips, and stepped over the dead man. He was sated, for the moment.

As the night turned to black, Marcus prowled the treacherous streets of south Chicago. No one dared cross his path. Tonight he was death to anyone who dared to look him in the eye.

And still, the vision, the scent, the taste of the woman permeated every part of him, reminding him of the promise he’d made her. Despite his best intentions, he knew they weren’t through with each other.

Not by a long shot. Not for long.

Godfather, we have a problem,” Jax said when his face materialized on the computer screen. Behind her, Dante, Shane and Gage shifted, and one of them bumped into her. She threw an annoyed glance over her shoulder, but it was more out of habit than anything else. Nonetheless, they backed off.

She and her team had beat it back to their hotel room to figure out whether what they’d thought had happened had actually happened. All they’d confirmed was that they all thought the same thing but none of them was willing to verbalize what Marcus Cross was.

Perhaps Godfather could help them out here.

“Go ahead, Cassidy,” he said. She knew by the sharp, tight lines on his face that he was not happy. She swallowed hard.

“It seems Cross is more than we believed.”

When she didn’t continue, Godfather frowned. “And by that you mean what exactly?”

Jax swallowed again and looked to Gage, Dante and Shane for help. Each of them looked away. They weren’t going to voice the absurd. They were all too happy to make her look the fool. Fine.

“He’s not human, sir.” There, she’d said it.

The silence was so deafening that Jax struggled to
breathe. Godfather stared at her as if she had just asked him to cut off his right nut.

“I mean, he’s human, of course he’s human! But some kind of superhuman.”

“Cassidy,” Godfather said in a warning tone. “Keep it real.”

Jax smoothed her hands along her leather skirt and took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. Every instinct she possessed told her there was something very different about Cross. Something that she refused to admit scared her in that she knew he possessed power she had no clue of, but was keenly aware that it lurked dark and deadly just beneath the surface. “After the initial contact on the street, he disappeared. Like a vapor into thin air. Then just as we’ re about to give up and regroup, he turns up all dark and sinister right behind me in the café. Creeped me the hell out.”

“It was nighttime; with all the commotion, he could have slipped in,” Godfather countered.

“He didn’ t,” Dante staunchly said. “After the initial impact of the collision, he exited the car with the sole intent of following Cassidy into the café. He never entered through the front door or the back door. He just materialized inside.”

“So he got past you and found another way in,” Godfather insisted.

Gage moved to stand behind Dante and Jax. He leaned over her back and added his support. “I was at the back door—only way in or out except the front door, sir. He never came or went.”

“Sir,” Shane started, “when Cross was done with Cassidy and headed for the front door of the café we were
on our way in. I saw him coming at us through the glass of the door. When I opened the door, fully expecting to collide into him, he was gone.”

“And he didn’t come back past me,” Jax injected.

“Okay, let’s for the sake of argument say he found a way past you. I hardly think that is reason—”

“He bit me, sir!” Jax pointed to her ravaged lip. “He sucked my blood and then he picked me up by
one
hand and held me a foot off the floor for almost five minutes! Who does that?”

Godfather’s face grew darker as blood infused his face. He did not blink. “So he likes rough play and he works out,” Godfather finally commented, but he seemed more hesitant now.

Jax rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes and rubbed hard. Dante was so close to her she could feel the rumble in his chest. She put her hand on his and looked directly into the screen.

“Sir, with all due respect, Marcus Cross is different. He’s superhuman strong, can disappear into thin air and likes blood.” Godfather began to speak, but Jax held up her hand. “You weren’t there. I was. He’s different. He’s on a whole other playing field. Which makes him a lot more dangerous than we were led to believe.” She sat back. “And that’s a lot. Cuz he was pretty badass already without being a fucking superhuman on steroids or whatever crazy ass dope the army has him hooked on!”

Godfather steepled his fingers and pursed his lips. As he contemplated her words, Jax realized he was trying to find a way out of her absurd conclusion. When he couldn’ t, he asked, “So what now?”

Now they needed more intel. On The Solution. On Lazarus. And on Cross. They also needed to know exactly who Rowland had been talking to.

“Sir, everything went according to plan. He was easy. Too easy in fact to jack up. I’m wondering now who was set up, us or him?”

The implication of her words weighed heavily in the air. She waited, but when Godfather finally spoke, the words weren’t what she’d expected.

“I’m pulling the four of you off this mission,” God-father slowly said.

Jax blanched, the force of his statement startling her like a slap to the face. How could he do this to her, to all of them now when they had made progress? “The hell you are!” Jax erupted.

“I take full responsibility for this, Cassidy. Perhaps I pushed you too far too fast,” Godfather started to explained.

“That’s a bullshit excuse if I ever heard one, and you know it! I got to him whatever
he
is. If you pull us, me specifically, you’ ll never see him again.”

“We have other ways of infiltrating The Solution.”

“What if they’ re all like Cross? The colonel looks like a poster child for a freak show!”

Godfather shook his head, then looked pointedly at her. “What if what you say is true? What if they are all hyped up army experiments? How the hell are we supposed to fight them?”

“With fire, sir. Look, Cross might be some kind of science experiment, but he’s still a man. And he wants me.” She held up the wad of hundred-dollar bills she’d stolen
from him. “And he wants his money back. I’m the key to drawing him out. Let me do my job.”

“What if he makes you what he is? Whatever that is. Would you risk your life to become his science experiment?”

Jax shivered at the thought but sat back and considered it. “I guess then L.O.S.T. will have a superoperative,” she flippantly said. The thought of being like Cross terrified and sickened her.

“I’m not willing to jeopardize your life, Cassidy. We’ ll find another way.”

Jax stood. “No. The clock is ticking. I’m the only one to get close enough to him to find out what the hell is going on, and I’m also the only one who has a chance of getting to Lazarus.”

“Too risky.”

“She’s right, sir,” Dante said, stepping into camera view. Grudgingly, Gage and Shane nodded in agreement. “Cassidy has her hooks in him. Let her reel him in. We’ ll be close by in case she needs help.”

“What if you can’t help her?” Godfather tersely bit off.

“Then I die and you send in the next round,” Jax said. And she meant it. “Too much is at stake here to pick up our toys and go home. I’m in. All the way.”

“I’m in,” Shane said.

“I’m in,” Dante dittoed.

Jax looked up to Gage who eyed her with more than professional concern. “I’m in,” he softly said.

The next evening, Marcus casually strolled into Lazarus’s richly appointed Lake Avenue penthouse. It swam
with the seductive aroma of blood, fine tobacco and the scents of recent visitors. Marcus stopped halfway into the room. He raised his nose and sniffed the air. A distinct scent, one he felt some sense of familiarity with but could not recall to whom it belonged, toyed with his senses.

“Is there something wrong, Marcus?” Lazarus casually asked.

Marcus shook his head and dismissed the scent. It could belong to someone he’d passed on the street. “Looks like there are new players in town,” he said to his commanding officer, who was also his maker. Not only was Lazarus Marcus’s maker but the colonel was also the undisputed leader of
Ny Verden,
or New World coven, the most powerful vampire coven on Earth. As a member of the governing Grand Counsel, Lazarus answered only to Rurik, his creator and father of all vampires.

Joseph Lazarus nodded and handed Marcus a cigar. Marcus took it, put it to his nose and inhaled deeply. The scent of the fragrant
habana
reminded him that while he might have lost his mortal life in the hills of Afghanistan, he still desired the creature comforts of a man. Heat flared in his loins as his thoughts once more focused on the dark-haired beauty who had pushed him to the brink of his iron self-control.

His fingers flexed, snapping the
robusto
in half.

“I see the thought of them bothers you,” Lazarus said, handing Marcus another
robusto.
He took it, cut the end and this time took his time lighting it.

Marcus blew deep blue smoke rings as he relaxed back into the overstuffed wingback chair. “They’ re pros. Lots of money behind them. And buried deep.”

“I’m aware. I suspect they are the ones or associated with the organization Rowland cried to after you eliminated Blalock.”

Marcus looked sharply up at his maker. He should have known. Lazarus knew everything.

“Do not think this latest act of defiance will go unanswered. Find out who the new players are and if they are directly connected to Rowland’s plan to thwart The Solution, eliminate them.”

Of course. There was no other way for Joseph Lazarus. Track down the enemy and eliminate them. No gray areas.

Marcus blew several large smoke rings. He watched them intercept the others, breaking the fragile rings. “I’ ve run prints and DNA. Nothing.”

“Then you’ re going to have to work a little harder on that front
and
keep tabs on the senator. You are up to the task?” Lazarus asked.

Marcus grunted and blew several more smoke rings. Lazarus never asked, he ordered. “I’m insulted, sir, you imply I cannot multitask.”

“Hardly. Eliminate Rowland’s Hail Mary and we have him in our pocket.” Lazarus took a long puff of his cigar. “I trust you to see to the matter however you see fit.” Marcus gave a curt nod. “But do it promptly. My patience is at an all-time low. When I give an order, I expect it to be followed.”