Authors: Marie Harte
He glanced around him in concern. Where the hell was Logan?
Jesse left Kate still sleeping soundly and showered and
dressed. When he rejoined her in the bedroom again, he saw her stirring.
“Morning.” She looked so cute, sleepy-eyed as she yawned and
sat up. Then the covers slid off her, exposing her beautiful body, and
cute
became
sexy
.
“Good morning,” he murmured, wishing he hadn’t dressed yet.
He was hard from just the sight of her. A feminine hum sounded deep inside him,
and he shifted, uncomfortable. Especially when his hard-on throbbed. He did his
best to mute the connection.
“That’s me making you nervous,” Kate offered and stood, not
at all modest about her nudity. Another plus to having a Ravager mate. They had
no problems with their bodies.
“Not nervous, hard.” He cupped his erection, pleased when
her gaze narrowed on it and she smiled. “I’m always hard around you, Kate.”
“Good.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Ah, no it’s not. Remember who’s in heat?”
“Oh, right.” He coughed to distract himself. Because the
thought of her heat turned his thoughts from Logan to impregnating Kate. And
the last thing he wanted in his life right now was a kid. Thank God she
wouldn’t be fertile during this first heat. “I want you again, believe me,” he
said with feeling. “But Logan’s not back. Something’s not right.”
“Let me get dressed.”
“Hurry.” He waited while she took a quick shower and dressed
in a rumpled shirt and jeans.
“Don’t worry about the room. I rented it for a few days.”
He frowned.
She huffed. “Give me a break, Jesse. I was horny, hurt and
not happy that two dickheads ruined my Monday morning.”
“We didn’t run into you until last night.”
She blinked then choked on laughter. “Um, I wasn’t calling
you and Logan dickheads. I meant the two Ravagers I ran into near the Voids.”
He tensed. “What?”
“Nothing. It’s not important.”
He grabbed her by the arm and halted her in her place. “It’s
not nothing. What the hell are you talking about?” The urge to hunt down and
kill anyone who’d threatened Kate shadowed his need to find Logan.
Before she could answer, they both heard a scream from
several floors below. Jesse and Kate shared a glance then raced for the door.
They cleared the hallway and stairwell in under a minute, then exited on the
fourth floor, where Jesse could scent faint traces of blood and Logan.
His senses flared, his hearing, sight and sense of smell on
overdrive as he sought his missing mate.
Instead of Logan, he ran into a crowd milling around a dozen
Salinas near the open door of a room down the hall. At the edge of the crowd,
he and Kate stopped. He kept his hand on her, not willing to chance her running
or being pulled from him, not with Logan already absent.
“Do you see anything?” she asked.
He shook his head. Taller than most of the people around
him, he could only see the backs of several Salinas. A few paramedics suddenly
left the room rolling a gurney. He blanched seeing the bloody sheet covering a
body being wheeled away.
“It’s not him. Too small,” he whispered to Kate, almost weak
with relief. But their worries weren’t over, because he scented Logan on that
sheet, and that couldn’t be good.
One of the Salinas met his stare and nodded to his friends.
“You, there. Come here.”
Shit.
Jesse couldn’t ignore him. Everyone turned to
look at him, suspicion, fear and tension thick in the suddenly quiet
atmosphere. He turned to Kate and ordered in a low voice, “Go back to our room
and stay there.”
“Hell no. I’m not leaving you.”
Proud she wanted to stand by him, he was torn between
wanting to keep her by his side, where he could keep an eye on her, and wanting
her far away from this mess. Then the choice was taken out of his hands.
“Jesse and Kate Savage?”
“Yeah?” Jesse put himself between the Salinas and Kate.
“Come with us.”
They didn’t say he was under arrest, but the way they
surrounded him and Kate spoke volumes.
“Come on.”
Jesse held Kate’s hand and pulled her protectively into his
side while they walked quickly from the crowd for the elevator.
He turned to one of the Salinas and asked, “What the hell’s
going on?”
No one answered. They rode the elevator to the first floor
in silence. Jesse growled when one of the men stepped too close to Kate. At the
sound, the cop took a healthy step back and put his hand on the butt of his
weapon. Smart guy.
Still, no one spoke. Not even when they exited the back of
the hotel and neared one of several squad cars.
“We’ll take them with us for questioning. Keep the crowd
quiet,” one of the older cops told the group.
“What the fuck is going on?” Jesse demanded to know.
A younger cop with attitude answered in a cold voice, “A
Ravager tore apart a young woman who had the bad luck to be working the night
shift on the hotel’s wait staff. Her throat was ripped out, her guts tossed
around the room like a fucking salad and blood thrown everywhere. And what do
you know, the only three Ravagers on the premises are you, her and our suspect,
Logan Savage.”
“Suspect?” Kate’s voice was strong despite the shock he
could feel in her
guer
.
Their new tie gave him insights into his mate that might
prove invaluable to their future after all. He asked the cop, “What does Logan
have to do with this?”
The older Salina with them sighed. “We found him in the
room, covered in her blood.”
“The hell you did. He was with us last night.” Until he’d
left, angry and hurt. But Logan would never hurt an innocent. It just wasn’t in
his make-up.
“Which is why you two are coming with us to the station for
questioning.” The older cop held open the back door to his vehicle.
Jesse glanced at Kate. They could easily escape with their
speed and strength, but Jesse wanted to see what the Salinas were talking
about. And he needed to talk to Logan.
She nodded and they entered the vehicle.
Two Salinas jumped in the front seat and they hurried away.
But Jesse noticed the direction they took didn’t head
anywhere near the station. He knocked on the flame-retardant partition between
the backseat and the front. “Where the hell are we going?”
Officer Attitude sat in the front passenger seat. He turned
and answered. “Mr. Chen wants a word.”
Jesse didn’t understand. “Mr. Chen? Are you talking about
Tommy Chen?”
The only Chen he knew of ran Cross Step’s underground—a
criminal network made up of Voiders and those unlucky enough to cross Chen’s
path. The rumors that Chen had his fingers deep in the Salinas’ pockets were
apparently true.
“What the hell does Chen have to do with this?”
Kate gripped his hand tight, looking as confused as he felt.
“Just sit back and shut up. We’ll be there soon enough. And
before you even think about making a run for it, we’re taking you to your
buddy. You want to see Logan Savage, sit tight.”
Jesse swallowed what he wanted to say and sat back with
Kate.
“Jesse, what is going on?”
He kissed her forehead. “I don’t know, but I’m going to find
out.”
He hugged her tight, not surprised when they eventually
turned into an abandoned section of town. They called it the Tombs. Emptied
warehouses, ravaged graveyards and derelict lots were interspersed with the
slums of the poor and neglected.
“Nice.” Kate wrinkled her nose. “Chen has quite the empire.”
“You’ll keep your pretty mouth shut if you want to make it
out of here alive,” one of the Salinas warned. “Mr. Chen is pretty particular
about manners.”
Kate snorted. “By all means, let’s not offend Mr. Chen.” She
squirmed, and Jesse caught the delicious scent of sexual need. Shit. That’s all
they didn’t need. Kate’s heat returning full force.
“Try to keep a lid on it, baby,” he whispered. “This is
going to be hard enough to handle without…that.”
“Like I have any control over this.” She sighed. “I’ll do my
best.”
He could see the outline of her nipples under her thin
shirt, and he wanted nothing more than to suck her through the material. Hell,
he had to keep his own hormones in check.
Jesse glanced away from Kate at the area around them. They
drove through what looked like mostly empty buildings, except he kept seeing
flashes of movement and color all around him. Ravagers were attuned to the
hunt, and he felt his blood stirring to track down those who would hide from
him.
“Easy.” Kate stroked his forearm, soothing the tight muscle,
surprising him that he hadn’t felt himself clench his fists, readying for
attack.
“I just want to find Logan and get the hell out of here. We
have unfinished business.”
“Trust me, I know,” she said in a thick voice.
“Right.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
The car came to a halt just inside a large industrial
building. But this one showed more movement in it. They exited the car and
Jesse took a swift, hard look around.
Broken windows and doors dotted a landscape of steel
scaffolding and mostly empty space. A storage warehouse with a central office,
as well as a few extra rooms up the steps to his left. Two flights above the
office had sections of steel flooring around the perimeter of the warehouse,
leaving the middle wide open. Broken-down cranes and pulleys lingered above
them, bound by steel wires and bolted to an X-brace just under the roof.
The Salinas nodded to the open metal stairway leading to a
half-dozen armed guards on the second floor.
Jesse counted two Ravagers, what looked like three or four
humans, and a Valk. The pointed ears, sharp nails and almost fey-beauty gave
him away. Jesse made a note to watch him closely. Valks did most of their
damage with their powerful voices. Jesse had no intention of letting some
pointy-eared asshole shatter his eardrums.
None of Chen’s muscle talked. They didn’t need to. Their
muscles, weapons and ready stances spoke for them. Unfortunately, Kate shifted
beside him, and the Ravagers locked onto her like a piece of meat.
“Hell.”
He tucked her next to him and they walked together to the
second landing. Behind them, the Salinas left in their car.
Before Jesse could warn the interested Ravagers back, Kate
took charge.
“You two don’t back off, I’ll geld you before you can even
think of getting it up.”
The males looked to him and he shrugged. “She’s in heat. I
wouldn’t push it.”
The males wisely stepped back, letting the Valk lead the
procession toward the office. Jesse nudged Kate in front of him while they
walked, conscious of the Ravagers and humans at his back.
The Valk stopped before a steel door with a tiny window at
eye level. “In there.”
Jesse peered through the window at a large man sitting
behind a desk, his feet propped on it, his hands behind his head as he rocked
back in his chair. On his forearms distinctive black tattoos shimmered with
glints of color when the light hit them just so.
Had to be Tommy Chen.
Then another man paced in front of him.
“Logan.” Jesse yanked open the door and dragged Kate with
him. “Where the hell have you been? What happened to you?”
“Finally.” Logan sighed with relief. “I was getting
worried.”
Kate launched herself at Logan and kissed him before Logan
could say any more. The door closed behind them and Jesse kept his back against
it, prepared for anything while Logan lost his mind in Kate’s embrace. Not that
he could blame him, but Logan had picked the mother of all times for sex.
To make matters worse, Kate’s heat tugged at his own, their
guers
uncomfortably connected. If he didn’t work hard at it, Jesse could sense everything
she did. Disconcerting, not to mention a bit awkward walking around with a
hard-on all the time. Kate had sex on the brain in a big way, and he had
trouble remembering his own name when she turned her smile on him.
Chen dropped his feet to the floor. “Wow. Potent
pheromones.”
Logan broke the kiss, panting, and draped his arm around
Kate, hugging her tight. “I told you. No way I left my mates to maul some poor
girl.”
Chen argued, “Yet you were wandering the hotel at three a.m.
Alone.”
“I pissed him off,” Kate said, defensive. Her eyes shot
sparks at Chen. “He’s mine.”
“Kate.” Jesse shook his head. They had enough to worry about
without aggravating a murderous crime boss. “Would someone please explain what
the fuck is going on?”
Chen sighed. “As much as I’d love to stay and watch, I
really do have work to do. Logan, tell Vicki this squares my debt. And
congratulations on the claiming. Finally,” he added with a sly wink and stood.
“You’ve got four hours, as requested. Make the most of it.”
Then the most dangerous Voider in Cross Step bowed to Kate,
nodded to Jesse and Logan, and left the room. The door
snicked
closed
behind them.
Logan wouldn’t let go of Kate, and she liked it. Jesse could
feel her enthusiasm for her mate. Then she turned her attention to him and
smiled.
His cock rose in seconds. Damn, the woman was lethal, and
she knew it.
Logan sighed. “Man, I needed that. Now before you two start
on me about what’s been going on, let’s go into the other room and I’ll
explain.”
They walked through a side door into a surprisingly clean
bedroom. A large bed in simple white sheets sat in the middle of a cement
floor. A few chairs occupied the corner around a scarred wooden table. A
television had been mounted to one wall, and a soft light lit the space with warmth.
There were no windows, only the door through which they’d come and another that
led to a small lavatory.
“Chen’s home away from home,” Logan quipped. He dragged Kate
with him to the bed and sat.