Half in Love [Willie Krenshaw] (Siren Publishing Classic) (12 page)

She opened her eyes and gasped at the raw desire in his. With their bodies touching, she could feel his heat wrap around her. Her body was flushed and achy. Her breasts were pressed between their bodies, rubbing enticingly against the shirt she wore. She could feel tingles shooting down to her pussy, making her hot and wet. So far her mountain lion hadn’t come out to force the union, but Willie was sure it wouldn’t be long before her purring counterpart was trying to participate. Her heat started to cool without his lips on her body. Her confusion in his hesitation increased when he put a few inches between their bodies with a gentle tug.

“Why?” It was the only question that really meant anything to her at the moment. She finally admitted to herself that she wanted Nick. She was ready and willing to let him have his way with her, or better yet she’d have her way with him. Her body craved his with a single-minded compulsion. She watched the lust cool in his face and felt the first twinges of rejection tickle through her heart. She looked down and tried to turn from him, dropping her arms and pushing against his chest.

“No, Willie, don’t. It has nothing to do with me not wanting you. This is about you not wanting this. I don’t want you kissing me because of the adrenaline coursing through your body, or the reaction of your kitty to me. I want you, Willie, to want me.” He gently tipped her head back so she was forced to look at him. His eyes held nothing but truth, and she sighed. Fine. If he wanted to play that way.

“Okay, look. I can’t say that I’m ready to take you as a mate, but I really, really want to fuck you. Me. Not my cougar, not the adrenaline.” A sigh escaped her lips. With a shaky step away from his body, reality crept in. A soft breeze reminded her that she was mostly naked and standing in a parking lot dotted with dead vampires. “But, now that I’m more aware that I’ve got nothing but a shirt on and we are surrounded by dead vamps, perhaps we should go back to my place and get cleaned up. Thanks for thinking of me in this situation, but next time you stop me while I am mauling you, I will hurt you.” She grinned and turned, sauntering barefooted to the Hummer, and climbed into the passenger seat. She giggled as she flashed him a look at her naked ass and pussy as she stepped up into the truck. The growl he let loose made her shiver. It was going to be a long drive back to her place, she thought.

* * * *

She was going to be the death of him. The flash of flesh and dark curls that peeked from under the shirt as she got in his truck just about made his brain explode. Between her reaction to their kiss and that perfect ass, he was barely holding onto his control. He jabbed his nails into his palm, letting the pain bleed some of his desire out. He would have her, if not tonight then very soon, but taking her in a parking lot surrounded by decaying corpses wasn’t how he would allow their first time to be. He’d been honest with her earlier. He wanted Willie to want him and respond to him, not the reaction to a fight or the cat inside.

With a few quick strides, he made it to the driver’s side. With a silent prayer for control, he opened his door and climbed in. Her arousal perfumed the air inside, making his cock harden again. He hadn’t been completely soft all night. He sighed and shut his door.

“So, explain to me who Alex is, and why he is coming to my house.” Willie turned in her seat to look at him. She still smelled faintly of arousal, but it had cooled. That allowed him to think as he put together his answer.

“Alex is ancient. He’s far older than anyone I know, and I’m not sure anyone really knows his age. He and I have been friends for a long time, and usually he is the one vampire I can turn to for help.”

“Okay, so again, why is he coming to my house? We could meet him at a coffee shop or a vacant lot. I don’t like the idea of more vampires knowing where I live.”

Nick sighed. “Alex is above the Council. I don’t know how that is, or what he has over the members of the Council, but when he is involved in decisions they always go his way. We want him on your side. If anyone can save you, he can.”

“Huh. So, I probably should be nice to him?” She grinned at him and he couldn’t help chuckling at the impish smile.

“Yes. Be nice to him. I do have to warn you, though. He is quite pompous at times. He’s seen more in his lifetime than fifty vampires put together. Most things are entertaining to him. Just try to not let him get to you.”

He watched her ponder the information, and saw the instant she was going to fight. He rolled his eyes. It couldn’t be easy, could it? She was head strong and easily riled. Alex, being Alex, was irritating and loved to push people’s buttons. This wasn’t going to go well. He could feel it in his bones.

To stem her argument, he started talking again. “Look. I know you don’t like taking orders, but in this please listen to me. Alex is powerful. Not just in age and control over others. He can read minds, delve into your inner thoughts. I’ve seen him reduce others to piles of blubbering idiots. Don’t cross him. You don’t want him angry.”

She sat in silence for a moment before nodding. He let out the breath he’d been holding.

“Fine. But I can’t promise to like him.”

“Fair enough. There are few alive that can actually say that they do like him. You either get him or you don’t.”

“And you do?” She grinned.

“Yes, smart ass, I do. He’s saved my life more times than I can count. That means something to me. I just ignore his insults and overlook his attitude. Once you get to know him you realize that he just doesn’t feel the same way we do about life. It’s all just amusement to him.”

She sat back against the seat and he could almost hear the wheels turning in her mind. He hoped that she could keep it together around Alex. That vampire really could drive people to drink, or commit murder. At the moment, though, there wasn’t another person Nick wanted around. If anyone could save Willie it was Alex. He just needed to make sure his friend saw the same benefit in having her alive as Nick did.

* * * *

“Who is Stephen?” Willie had seen the recognition on his face when the whiny vamp was talking. She’d chewed on the information about Alex long enough. Now she wanted more answers.

“Stephen was an enforcer for the Council about fifty years ago. He went a little crazy when the Council killed one of his spawn after a lengthy investigation. The female had taken it in her head that she wanted a baby, so started changing children and then releasing them on the populous. She was taken down, and he was forced to witness her execution. He walked out on the Council that day and swore vengeance.” Nick turned to study her. “He is old, crazy, and powerful. He holds grudges like no one else I know.”

“What happened to the children? Were they executed, too?”

“Yes. It was horrible, but had to be done. Children are impossible to control and so easily tip to the berserker side.”

“So, why does this dude think you’re the one that will take him down? Are you assigned to bring him in or something?” Pieces of the puzzle were finally falling into place for her. The wrecked house, the pursuit this night. All of it made more sense, and added a new fold to her worries.

“My duties do indeed require me to find and investigate issues with the vampire world. Stephen is rumored to have created some new vampires without bringing them to the Council. For this he needs to be investigated and perhaps brought in for punishment.” He sighed. “Knowing now what we know causes some issues, though. The Council will assign a few enforcers and perhaps an assassin to assist me. They will need to be in constant contact with me, and will undoubtedly be in contact with you.”

“Now you lost me. Why would they be around me? I mean, I get that we have to go in front of the Council tomorrow, and as long as they don’t require my head on a platter, I figured I’d go back to my job and life like nothing happened.” A niggling concern tickled her mind. Did she really want to walk away from Nick? Could she? Her cougar was pretty insistent that they would be a mated pair. After only a couple of days, could she place her life in the hands of this handsome vampire? God, she wanted to. She wanted to give in and just surrender to the pull of her shifter side. The consuming need to have someone else in her life that was tied to her was so great it almost drew a gasp from her. She had been so lonely, living life as a specter haunting the spaces she filled. Never was she able to trust someone completely other than Robert. No one knew her, really knew her and her sides. Not a single other being on the Earth understood her or accepted her for her real self.

“Willie. I won’t let you walk away from me. Even if everything goes fine tomorrow night, I’m not leaving. You and I’ve got unfinished business, and at some point we’re going to deal with the mating thing. I have your scent engrained in my system, so even if you try to run, I’ll track you down.” He cleared his throat and turned to look at her. “You and I are fated to be together, and we both know it. As soon as you can get that through your thick skull, we can move on to the fun stuff.”

Her heart beat a little faster as the thrill of those words worked through her system. He wanted her as his mate. It wasn’t a question anymore. Tears tried to spill as the thought of never being alone again burned through her. She huffed in response so he couldn’t hear her feelings. She turned to stare out the window and contemplate her possible future with the man sitting next to her. Her cougar did what equated to the happy dance in her mind. Yep, fate was a freaking irritating bitch, but she knew what she was doing.

Warm water streamed down Willie’s face, washing away the dirt and blood from their fight. It did more than that for her thoughts. The pain, anger, and fear from the past dripped off her body and swirled down the drain. She felt lighter and almost healed from her battle with her maker. He couldn’t hurt her, or anyone else, ever again. A toothy grin played across her lips as she replayed the fight. The look of surprise in his eyes as the blade separated his head from his body would warm her for years to come.

The ride back to her house had been heavy with tension. Her thoughts had gotten on the fear roller coaster and stayed there. What would the Council do to her? Would Nick be able to save her from them if they decided she needed to be killed? What would this Alex guy do when he showed up?

The water cooled before she could come to grips with what she would face in the next twenty-four hours. Between Nick and everything that he embodied, Alex and the unknown there, and the Council, she felt everything in her life was going to come to a head with deadly consequences. A shiver of foreboding slithered down her spine just as a knock sounded at the bathroom door.

“Alex is here. Come down and meet him when you’re ready.” Nick’s voice was muffled by the door, but she could still hear the strain in it. She sighed. If something was going to happen, she would meet it head-on and not hide. She had spent enough time hiding.

She threw on her last pair of clean jeans and an old T-shirt before trudging down the stairs. A new vampire scent permeated the air in her house. Her nose wrinkled of its own volition, and her heart raced. Her body was programmed to fear that smell, to run the other way and escape or to attack. Neither response was allowed this time, and it set her mountain lion prowling. It took every ounce of control to walk down the stairs and calmly enter the living room.

“Well, aren’t you extraordinary?” the new vampire male said as he stood from his seat on the couch and filled the space with his power. Tall and blond were the first impressions that slammed into Willie’s brain. Sensual, powerful, and dangerous were the next thoughts. Alex looked like a Roman God carved from pale flesh-colored marble. Every plane of his face was perfect, hard, chiseled. His presence radiated power and age. Willie had met many old vampires, but this male was very old, far older than any she’d come across so far in her life. Nick wasn’t kidding about how powerful Alex was. Her breath was sucked out of her lungs in a whoosh when he turned penetrating black eyes on her, capturing her gaze. She could feel him studying her, boring into her thoughts, digging through her memories and feelings. Panic coursed through her, but she couldn’t pull herself from his perusal.

“Stop now, Alex.” Nick’s voice sounded far away, reverberating in Willie’s mind. She wanted to turn her attention from the overwhelmingly intimidating vamp standing in front of her, but she couldn’t. Her thoughts were not her own. Images from her life flickered through her thoughts. Fuzzily, she recognized that Alex was in control, digging through her brain like it was a filing cabinet. She closed her eyes to break the connection. God, what the hell was that?

“Nickola, I was just tasting her thoughts. You can’t deny that I need to make sure that she isn’t hiding something from us. She is an absolutely intriguing creature, isn’t she?”

Willie opened her eyes and scowled at the vampire that had just rifled through her thoughts. Anger helped dispel the fog still floating through her thoughts. She swallowed the growl that threatened to vibrate up her chest.
You will not provoke the vampire
. She clenched her fists at her side to keep herself from doing something really stupid like trying to kill this male.

“You will not do that again.” Nick growled and stalked toward Alex with anger and something close to fear in his eyes.

“You’re fond of this female?” A perfect blond eyebrow arched questioningly. “Fond enough to take me on?”

“Alex, I warn you now. Don’t push me on this.” Nick turned his attention to Willie, and his face relaxed. He extended a hand to her and motioned to the seat next to him. “Come, Willie. There’s much we must discuss.”

She hesitantly walked through the room and sat on her favorite chair. Anger simmered low and kept the fear at bay. A thick silence fell on the three, weighing down Willie with heavy emotions. She cleared her throat to speak. Might as well get the ball rolling.

“Okay, so let’s hear it. The Council wants to meet us, right? What am I to expect when I go in front of them? Instant death? Pet status?” She focused on Alex and ignored the scowl of warning from Nick. She couldn’t play this game like a scared little girl. If she was going to be sentenced to die, she would face it head-on and deal with it the same way she dealt with everything.