Authors: Loribelle Hunt
“Well?” Luke asked. Marcus shook his head, unwilling to discuss Winter even with his brother.
“If you claim the woman, our little deception will be revealed,” Luke said, no inflection in his voice. Luke often took the head of the table at Alliance meetings and though never introduced, outsiders assumed he was the nightwalker Lord. It wasn’t the kind of secret Marcus could keep from his mate, though, and Winter would feel duty bound to share the information with her people.
He hadn’t made an effort to conceal his interest in Winter so he shouldn’t be surprised Luke picked up on it. After centuries together, they knew each other better than anyone else and usually worked as a flawless team. He turned from the bar and sat behind his desk, wondering what Luke thought of his bringing someone else into the equation. His grip tightened on the glass. Luke was dangerous and unpredictable; he didn’t suffer strangers or fools. The corners of his brother’s mouth turned up in a bare smile.
“Don’t worry, brother. I won’t harm your woman.” He paused. “Perhaps you’d like to share her.”
The growl welled, deep and instinctive in his chest, and he leveled a furious gaze at Luke. His brother laughed in response and lifted his free hand in surrender.
“Or not.” He swallowed the last of the whiskey and stood for a refill. “I’m the love-’em-and-leave-’em type anyway, remember?”
Marcus snorted and got a grip on his temper. “One day, Luke, some woman is going to turn your life inside out.” Winter had certainly done so to him.
Luke returned to the sofa with a refreshed glass and grinned. “Nope. Not me. Don’t want to be tied down.” He shuddered. “I don’t need that kind of responsibility. Not to mention tedium. One woman forever? I don’t think so.”
Marcus tipped his glass back, savored the cool slide of the liquid down his throat. “I seem to recall saying the same thing.”
Luke grinned again. “Says the celibate one. There’re too many beautiful women out there. How could I limit myself to just one? Someone has to make up for your lack of a sex life.” He paused for a drink before continuing softly, “Don’t you ever miss the old days?”
Marcus leaned his head back against the chair and lifted an eyebrow. Did he miss the old days? There was a time he’d been a willing participant in his brother’s endless string of debauchery. He wasn’t sure when it had begun to lose its appeal. Sometime in the last century he’d started thinking about companionship more than sex. He hadn’t even missed the sex really.
Not until he’d first seen Winter and he’d almost been flattened by the lust that bowled through him. His eyes slid closed as he conjured her image. Sleek and muscled, she had a classically beautiful face and white blond hair she’d worn in a single long braid the night they’d met. His hands itched to twist in its length and slowly draw her to him. Her incredible mind and killer body were a combination guaranteed to drive him to the brink of insanity. Cursing his body’s response to her, he discreetly shifted his sudden erection. Luke noticed his discomfort and laughed.
“You should claim her and get it over with. I don’t know why you’ve waited. You’ve been prowling around for weeks ready to pounce on everyone who whispers a wrong word. You need to get laid, brother.”
Marcus lurched from his chair and stalked to the bar to refill his glass. It was that or punch Luke in the face. He wasn’t about to explain to his brother why he held back, that she wasn’t ready yet and he was loath to push her too fast too soon. Wasn’t about to explain that her feelings were more important to him than relieving the torture in his body, or his fear of hurting her.
Then there was the other thing, the concern he didn’t let himself dwell on. He’d always imagined his mate would be another nightwalker, a woman gently bred who would, if not welcome, then at least accept his possessiveness. What he got was far from that and he wasn’t sure how to reconcile her warrior spirit with his need to protect her. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to discuss it with his reprobate brother.
He returned to his seat, staring coolly at Luke, hoping he would take the order and drop it. “She is not a topic up for discussion.”
Luke shrugged one shoulder, looking bored as if it were every day one of them found a mate, but he didn’t pursue the conversation. “I got reports from some of the soldiers tonight. It definitely looks like this new demon surge is organized. And the numbers are much higher than we’ve ever seen.” The one-sided shrug again. “We suspected that already.”
The increased numbers could be dealt with. He’d just put more soldiers out on patrol and damn the council’s stubbornness in refusing to see the rising danger. The organization was disconcerting though.
The Alukah had been created in ancient Samaria by the old gods to fight demons escaping from the Underworld and protect mankind. In all the centuries since there was no record of the demons working together in any kind of organized fashion. What had changed?
“Increase the patrols. See if we can capture one to question. We need to know who’s behind it to effectively fight them.”
Luke stood to refill his glass. When he turned back to face Marcus, all the ease was gone from his expression. Slowly, he lifted the glass to his lips, took a long drink.
“I don’t think that’s going to be enough. Just increasing the patrols. I think there’s a lot more going on here than we know. They’re going into areas that have always been safe before.” He took another drink. “I killed a couple only two miles from here tonight.”
He held his brother’s gaze a long moment, knew exactly where he was leading the conversation. They’d discussed the possibility after Winter was poisoned. Taking real advantage of the existence of the Alliance. Marcus wasn’t sure if it would work. He counted the mere existence of the association as a minor miracle. Getting them to all work together would fall into the major category.
The hybrids weren’t the issue so much, though his people were definitely suspicious of the humans who’d willingly combined their souls with the souls of demons. No, the real problem would be getting nightwalkers and lupines to work together. The divisions that had split the Alukah into two races were ancient and clouded in myth, but the distrust was still there.
No one had expected the three groups to work together and go on to a mythical happy-ever-after, though surprisingly the hybrids and lupines seemed to hit it off. He’d even heard there were some mixed matings between the two groups.
His people remained standoffish, stuck in an irrelevant past in an ever-changing world, but if the speculation was correct and someone was pulling the strings behind the scenes in the demon world that would have to change.
Marcus could make it work. He was the final and absolute authority in the nightwalker world. The council was nothing more than an advisory board. No one would dare disobey his orders, but the situation might be better handled with a little finesse and solve two of his problems at one time. If the Alliance could be convinced to set up a special force made up of members from all three races, he could maneuver Winter where he wanted her. He smiled and Luke, catching it, arched a questioning eyebrow.
“Call an emergency Alliance meeting for this evening.”
“Sure,” Luke answered.
Marcus left it in his brother’s hands and jogged up the stairs back to his room, determined to get a few hours’ sleep. Tonight he’d force Winter to deal with him and get on with forging the bond that should already be firmly in place.
Chapter Eight
Sighing, Luke rose slowly from the couch feeling every one of his three hundred years. Physically he was the same, young and strong, but mentally he was bored. Tired of the same old existence. The only time that was different these days was when he was fighting or in bed with his newest conquest. Gia. Unfortunately, he was beginning to realize she’d made the conquest, not him.
He frowned, went to the sidebar and, wrapping two fingers around the neck of a whiskey bottle, carried it and his glass upstairs. He set both down on his nightstand and pulled his clothes off, dropping them to the floor as he went into the shower. Turning the knobs to scorching hot, he stepped in and threw his head back as the water sluiced over him.
He put off reaching for the soap. Her scent was still on his skin, her taste still on his tongue. Her essence, the psychic energy all living creatures expended and nightwalkers needed for survival, was still a heady seductive fog in his mind. It wasn’t necessary to have sex to feed. He just preferred it and couldn’t have resisted if he tried. She was becoming an essential part of his survival. And it was mutual. They’d discovered over the past weeks that when he fed from her, he relieved the stress her demon half put her under. It worked as well for her as taking a bonded mate.
He ducked his head under the water and breathed her name, conjured her image. Tall, sleek curves, impossibly long hair he could easily wrap around his hands. Blue eyes that occasionally went red especially when he played her body like the fine instrument it was as she tried to hold back.
Gia.
He reached for her but didn’t get a response, knew better than to expect one. Where was she? She’d never allowed him access to her mind and while denying what she meant to him, what she was to him, he hadn’t insisted. Hadn’t believed he was in a position to insist. Tonight he’d discovered differently.
They’d been lounging back in bed, warm and satisfied and just getting started, when her phone rang. It had been daylight by then and he couldn’t follow, couldn’t order her not to go when she’d curtly answered his question about her destination that there might be trouble at one of their compounds. Without a further word she was gone. He’d been filled with such protective fury it stunned him, left him leaning over, gripping his knees and sucking in big gulps of air until his stomach stopped roiling and his hands quit shaking.
She didn’t answer when he called her and her blocks were too good for him to breach. He had every intention of rectifying that situation at the earliest possibility. Frowning, he stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist. Except, she was his mate. After having sex with him and letting him feed from her, she shouldn’t be able to block him out.
How was that possible? There’d never been a nightwalker hybrid mating so he had nothing to compare it to. He was pretty sure Marcus wasn’t in the same boat; he had access to his woman’s mind. Luke snorted and prowled the room some more. Marcus was an idiot. He knew weeks ago the woman was his yet waited to claim her.
Not that Luke had ever been in a big hurry to claim a woman of his own. He hadn’t been joking about being the love-’em-and-leave-’em type. Had believed up until a few hours ago Gia would just be another name added to a long list of names.
Why wasn’t she feeling the bond? The urge to join with him as he felt with her? Was an ability to turn it off part of the hybrid make-up? He snarled. Like hell. He wanted her, craved her. He was keeping her. The very idea of her being able to resist left him in a cold fury. He vibrated with the knowledge he couldn’t seek her out yet. Couldn’t shake some sense into her. Stake his claim.
He glared at the clock. Not even noon yet. It would be hours before the sun went down. He could teleport back to their hidden meeting place. It was completely enclosed. Safe. But he knew she wouldn’t be there, wouldn’t go there unless she was expecting to meet him. They’d made no such arrangements before she’d left him earlier.
The door opened, a whisper of air the only warning and he whirled around ready, wanting to face a serious threat, though he knew better than to expect one inside his home. Marcus leaned against the frame, arms crossed over his chest, and frowned.
“Jesus. Could you dial it down a notch?” Marcus asked.
“What?” More a growl than a question.
Marcus nodded at the far wall and Luke turned to see the undulation, the way his uncontrolled telekinetic power buffeted the walls, pushing them in and out like they had breath of their own. With a deep inhalation he pulled his power back, let it gently seep away instead of battering away with it like he’d been close to doing.
“Bit of a strong reaction to an unusual demon incursion, isn’t it?” Marcus asked casually, but his eyes were anything but. He knew something was up, but Luke wasn’t ready to share yet. He latched on to it as an excuse.
“I’ve lost too many soldiers in the last few months. I don’t like unanswered questions.” He shrugged. He was in charge of their army; all deployment and training was under his command. It was as good an excuse as any.
“If everyone agrees to work together, those answers should be more forthcoming.”
Yeah right. Altruism all the way. “And getting closer to Winter has nothing to do with that plan, eh?”
Marcus smiled, shrugged. “Can’t hurt. Get some sleep. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long night.”
He pulled the door shut behind him, leaving Luke thinking Marcus might be on to something. If they could cobble together a task force to investigate the unusual new activity in the area, he might be able to get closer to Gia. And he wanted to be close. Way under the skin close.
Chapter Nine
“No. Absolutely not.” Shock racing through her like a shot of pure adrenalin, Winter braced her hands on the edge of her desk and leaned closer to the phone’s speaker, wanting to be clear—irrevocably, no-mistakes-possible clear. No fucking way. With her history of ignoring authority how could they possibly promote her? Whose crazy idea was that?
“Sorry, Winter. That’s our decision.”
“Look, Gray.” Gray was the Order’s Grand Master. Their ultimate authority. That didn’t mean she couldn’t protest. She paused, glancing up to meet Gia’s then Dupree’s gaze. She hated to bring up mating but knew it was irresponsible not to. “I merged in fifty-five. I’m not bonded. I’m not sure how long I’ll continue to be…stable.”
Something dark and guilty flickered across Gia’s face before she could hide it, and Winter frowned. It went on her mental
deal with later
list while she waited for the council to respond. There was a brief pause, a murmuring of voices in the background as the council consulted each other. “Then take care of it, Commander. ASAP.”