already in hand.
Cole lifted an eyebrow, searching the empty shadows behind the agent with discerning eyes.
“Where’s your crew?”
Crispin paused in his writing for a split second, though he didn’t lift his eyes from the page.
His answer was terse, enigmatic.
“They’re…elsewhere tonight. Been here long?”
“Not long enough,” Styx offered, bristling at the agent’s tone, and the unspoken implication that went with it.
“He’s escalating,” the agent murmured, his hand moving with swift efficiency as he jotted his notes.
“Escalating?” Styx moved closer to the agent, peering over his shoulder, then moved away, frowning, frustrated.
“He’s getting closer to the edge,” Cole replied, remaining motionless beside the door. His eyes, all of his senses reached out, blanketing the crime scene, noting every detail. “He’s becoming more violent, doesn’t display the same control with this kill that he did with the others.” Crispin paused in his scribbling to glance over at Cole, his eyes unreadable. Then, with a slight shrug, he pulled a camera from the pocket of his dark trench coat and began snapping photos from various angles. “That’s typical of a killer like this. The agency profiler said we should expect this aberration in his MO. They expected him to reach this stage much sooner.”
“Thanks for warning us,” Styx sniped.
The agent blinked once at Styx before burying his nose in his notes once more.
Undeterred, Styx pressed, “What else did your profiler have to say?”
Without looking up, his voice dull and unimpressed, Crispin offered, “He thinks, given 165
the wasted blood, the Party Crasher is making a statement with these murders.”
“Ya think?”
Crispin shot Styx an irritated glance now, the first sign of emotion they’d seen from the unflappable agent yet. “He’s killing these Human females to prove that he can. But the broken neck, the swiftness of death, suggests he doesn’t want them to suffer.”
“Much more humane…kill them quickly, before they can suffer.”
The three males stared down for a moment at the wide-eyed, open-mouthed horror on the once beautiful face. It didn’t take a coroner to tell Cole this one did not have a broken neck, and she most definitely
had
suffered.
“He’s getting careless.” Cole’s comment had the agent’s head snapping up and around. Cole pointed to the female’s handbag, haphazardly tossed a few feet away. “He’s never left one of those behind before, has he?”
“No,” Crispin remark
ed, moving to snap a few shots of the discarded
purse.
“No, he
hasn’t…assuming it’s hers. With the others, we’ve had to identify them using Human data banks.” When he was done with his camera, Crispin knelt beside the purse. He snapped on a set of rubber gloves and opened the bag, dumping the contents out. The agent shot another round of photos, then stowed the camera as he reached for the feminine wallet.
His eyes drifted from the victim’s face to the ID and back. “It’s hers, all right. Madelyn Abigail Kinney, age thirty-three.” He thumbed through the wallet and extracted a laminated badge. “Well, what do you know? Miss Kinney was an employee of KEZI.”
Cole and Styx remained silent, absorbing the 166
news, absorbing the crime scene. Crispin made a quick phone call, then examined the body more closely before walking the scene. When he finished, he joined them beside the door.
“Pretty routine,” Crispin murmured, nose buried in his notepad. “Same MO though he’s grown more violent. I’d say, from the amount of blood covering the crime scene, it doesn’t appear he consumed much, if any. Body temp of the vic suggests we missed the killer by minutes.” He lifted his puppy-dog eyes to Cole, adding, “If you’d have made it out here a few minutes earlier, you might have caught him in the act.” Cole’s gaze lowered to the lifeless female lying in a pool of her own blood, only a few feet from a rusty, filthy dumpster. A twinge of guilt flickered just beneath his breastbone. A few minutes earlier, he’d been so consumed with emotions too volatile to name. He’d been giving Alex a dance neither of them was likely to forget in this or any other lifetime.
And once more, it bothered him to no small degree that the agent seemed more concerned with details than the actual victim. The Vampyre behind those soulful eyes was remarkably cold and unfeeling. While he supposed the male was attractive enough, with a face some would even call handsome, Cole could only feel pity for Crispin’s lovers. He possessed the compassion and sensitivity of a computer, coldly analytical and detached. More concerned with facts than feelings. Then again, maybe that’s how the TFRA had earned their titles as
Enforcers
.
At Crispin’s cue, Cole shrugged off his unsettling thoughts and did a quick sweep of the alley for himself. As with before, the Rogue had been meticulous, leaving not one shred of evidence to implicate himself or a clue to his 167
identity. With a mounting sense of frustration, Cole gave up and, having agreed to call Crispin in a few hours, followed Styx back inside the club.
His troubled gaze searched for and found Alex.
He was weary, more exhausted than he’d ever been in his long, long existence. His face was grim, his body tense as he approached her. He could already see the questions forming in her all-too-discerning, beautiful eyes. His shoulders sagged a little, weighed down by guilt and deceit, as he began concocting a story for his abrupt departure.
When had it become so difficult to lie to a female?
168
All the way to the estate, she’d examined and re-examined her hormone-charged exchange with Cole in the garage, and the erotic dance they’d shared at the nightclub, and chalked it all up to impulse and treacherous curiosity. His odd departure after their dance had completely baffled her, his explanation no explanation at all. Then again, she hadn’t been operating on all eight cylinders at that point either. She could have misunderstood something along the way. On the other hand, how was one to misinterpret a mind-blowing orgasm?
Heat climbed to her cheeks at the mere memory. At least she’d had the drive back to the estate tonight, alone, to try to reassemble some semblance of composure. The things he’d done to her body tonight…things no one else in their right mind would have ever dared…still left her reeling.
She couldn’t believe she, who’d always gone above and beyond to be circumspect in her actions, had allowed him to touch her like that.
In public, of all places. Not only had she allowed it, she’d gotten punch-drunk on his boldness, savored every stroke, surrendering herself to his masterful touch.
She couldn’t blame it on the alcohol she’d consumed. She’d barely had more than a drink and a half. She couldn’t blame it on the music, or the atmosphere, or the damned full moon. She might be spiteful enough to blame a little of it on Cole. But the truth was, she had no one to blame 169
but herself. Herself and her raging goddamned hormones.
Regardless of her resolve to put it all from her mind, sleep proved elusive. She tried a long, lavish shower, and that too had been an exercise in futility. The slip of water over her skin reminding her too much of Cole’s hands as they’d cruised over her body while they’d danced. She’d paced, edgy and frustrated for close to half an hour. Now she sat, staring blindly at the screen on her laptop. Nothing. The words wouldn’t come.
Reaching up, she wrapped the length of her damp hair into a knot at the back of her head, jamming a pencil into the thick mass to hold it in place.
Thanks to her new do, a slight wisp dropped down across her brow, tickling her nose.
Snagging the offending lock, she shoved it behind her ear.
Her stomach growled, and her neck ached.
The song wasn’t coming along as she’d imagined it would, the mood continuing to elude her.
Everything she’d written tonight had been so trite, so—used up. Removing the ear buds, she set Cole’s IPod aside. Heaving a sigh, Alex saved the file, useless as it was, and powered down her laptop.
She stood, stretched the stiff muscles in her back, and glanced at the clock. It was shortly after four in the morning, and she was starving.
She glanced down at the over-sized, soft v-neck T-shirt she’d donned after her shower, nothing more than a pair of lacy, black panties beneath it, and gave a slight shrug, figuring the chance of running into anyone in the kitchen at this hour while she raided Cole’s fridge was slim to none.
Cole
had
told her to make herself at home, after all.
Even so, she cautiously stuck her head out 170
her door and glanced first right and then left.
When she found the hallway vacant, she eased the door open and slipped out into the dim corridor. The marble floor beneath her bare feet was chilly, but the growl in her stomach was much more uncomfortable, driving her onward.
She padded down the hall, heading toward the back of the house, praying she wouldn’t run into anyone.
She heaved a grateful sigh when she pushed her way inside the kitchen undetected. Not bothering to flip on the lights, relying instead on the pale green night light near the sink, she went to the refrigerator first. Standing in the pool of glaring light pouring from inside the fridge, she pursed her lips. Heaving a sigh, she wandered to the pantry and gazed at the shelves.
Nothing even looked remotely appealing. She was just about to close the door and settle for a piece of fruit from the bowl on the table, when her eyes came to rest on a box of cereal. A bowl full of empty calories sounded divine. She gave in with a guilty smile and reached for the box. Alex walked back to the counter, set the box down, and began opening drawers and doors in search of bowl and spoon.
****
Cole reclined on the sofa in his study, relaxing in the dark after a useless foray into the night shadows looking for nonexistent clues to the identity of the Rogue. The murder at Déjà Vu tonight had gotten to him. This time, Alex had been at the scene. She could so easily have been the victim. She fit the criteria. Right age, right occupation. Right place, right time. A soft whisper of movement in the hall snared his attention. The illusive phantom preying on innocent females immediately came to mind.
171
Although the intruder was moving in the wrong direction, Cole was all too aware Alex was alone in her room. He moved through the study and out into the hallway, silent as a wraith. The moment he opened the door, the soft, alluring scent of Alex hit him with the force of a category-five hurricane.
No Rogue tonight, only temptation incarnate.
He told himself to turn around and go back into his study, to close the door and forget she was inside the house. He knew pursuing her was tantamount to playing with fire—something no self-respecting Vampyre would even consider—
and yet he could no more turn away from her than he could stop his primal thirst for blood.
He silently pushed the door to the kitchen open, and couldn’t believe his eyes. There, standing in the middle of the room, softly humming the refrain from the song they’d been working on earlier, was the most delicious picture he’d seen since Alex’s first night in his home.
His system, already revved by the feel of his fingers
inside
her, damned near overheated right then and there. He tensed, using every ounce of his extraordinary control to keep himself from pouncing on her, from dragging her down onto the floor and burying his throbbing erection between her luscious thighs, and his aching fangs in her sweet throat.
Her back was to him as she riffled through a drawer, blissfully unaware of the dangerous predator that had entered the room behind her.
His eyes followed her as she pulled something from the drawer. Was that a spoon? His hungry gaze dropped to her bare feet, and very slowly, very leisurely traveled upward. Her smooth, golden calves flexed as she stepped sideways. His hands itched to skim over her soft skin—skin 172
he’d been aching to touch again since he’d laid hands on her that first time.
Then, miracle of miracles, she went up on tiptoe, stretching up to a shelf high above her head. The hem of her shirt, which only barely fell below her hips to begin with, was steadily working its way up, riding impossibly high. His gut clenched, the muscles on his abdomen rippled, as her black silk panties became visible, and then, as the shirt rose higher still, her tattoo peeked at him.
For a breathless moment, the complete image was clearly visible…the
Odhroerir
.
His
mark
. His body went rigid at the sight of it. The itch in his hands turned to a fiercely burning, shaking need.
His eyes devoured her exposed flesh.
Before Cole even realized he’d moved, he found himself directly behind her, his long arm extended alongside hers, his luminous, dilated eyes glued to the back of her neck. His gums ached as his fangs stretched. His fingers snagged on the bowl she’d been reaching for, and he slowly lowered it as she whirled on a gasp of surprise to face him. Cole stood, rooted to the spot, unable to move back, spare inches from pressing full length against her. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, spellbound.
Her eyes rounded, her mouth formed a tiny, silent gasp. Tentatively, as if she feared his reaction…as if she feared he wasn’t real, she lifted a hand to his chest. His gaze dropped to her fingers where they trailed their way down the defined double ridge of muscles covering his abdomen, down the smooth skin that ran below his navel. Odin’s teeth, how he wanted those fingers to trail lower, to caress the bulge of his erection through the soft material of his comfortable old sweatpants, or better still…to dip 173
inside the waistband. Then again, he feared he just might burst into flames if she did.
She gasped again, louder then, as if she’d only just realized what she’d done, snatching her hand back. Cole held no such reservations about touching her. With mesmerizing, exquisitely languid movements, he reached a hand up and wordlessly drew the pencil from Alex’s hair, greedily watching the silken mass tumble and cascade down around her shoulders in damp, honeyed waves.
The scent of her shampoo ripped through him, sinking the talons of lust into him even deeper. His left hand came up to rest lightly on the curve of her hip, slipping just beneath the hem of her shirt. The fingers of his right hand sank deep into her hair,
savouring
the warmth of her scalp. He edged closer, until the softness of her T-shirt clad breasts brushed at his lean stomach, teasing him.
“Don’t,” she croaked. “Don’t do that.” She swallowed, sucking in a sharp breath. “I can’t think when you’re so close.”
Cole’s eyes narrowed—need intensified—at the power she’d just unwittingly handed him.
Tired of the distance between them, the proverbial arm’s length she’d insisted on, his hand tightened on her hip. “You don’t need to think, Alex, just feel. Feel
me
.” At last, she succumbed to his plea for contact, physical and otherwise. With a soft, muffled whimper, she lifted her hands and laid them against his chest, tentative, her elegant, slim fingers splayed. She didn’t push him away; instead, she feathered her hands over his chest, as though learning the texture of his skin and
savouring
the tensile, steely strength of the muscles beneath. Her wide eyes lifted to his once 174
more, and her breath snagged in her throat.
Cole’s gaze was riveted on her lips, leaving no doubt as to his intentions. He slipped his hand from her hip around behind her, claiming the upper curve of her bottom. With deliberate, sensual intent, he hauled her against him, pressing his rigid erection against her flat stomach, surging against her, telling her without words exactly how much he craved her. She caught her lower lip in her teeth, then exhaled a tiny burst of air when he rocked his hips against her. Unadulterated longing lanced through his system, and tiny shock waves of need swelled deep in his very core.
Cole lowered his head until his breath fluttered soft against her lips. He waited the space of a heartbeat, two heartbeats…drawing out the anticipation…then he skated his lips across hers. Once, twice. He nipped at her lower lip, suckling it between his, lapping at it with his tongue.
His hand slid down her nape, and his fingers trailed over her spine sending shivers rippling through her system, like the shockwaves after an earthquake. The flat of his hand pressed against her back, directly between her shoulder blades.
He could barely breathe for the delicious thrill coursing through him as her soft breasts crushed against his chest, nothing more than whisper-thin cotton between them.
A small moan of pleasure gurgled in the back of her throat, and her fingers tangled in his hair.
She pressed against him, drawing his head down, tilting hers in invitation. That was all the encouragement Cole needed. He slanted his mouth over hers. His tongue thrust between her parted lips, plunging deeply,
savouring
the taste of her. Erotic. Suggestive. Rubbing against hers 175
with unbridled need.
His hands, pressing firmly against her, cruised over the wrinkled shirt that had somehow bunched around her waist, and down the sleek curve of her hip. Then he grasped the tight globes of her bottom in fierce hands. He lifted her, pressed her against him, and ground his arousal aggressively against her silk-shielded curls. She wound her arms around his neck and gave herself over to his seductive embrace with a whimper of surrender.
On a loud groan, Cole lifted her higher and sat her on the counter. His lips never left hers.
His splayed hands ran down the length of her thighs, from hip to knee as he swept her away with the passion in his kiss. Cole hooked his hands around her knees and spread them, wide.
Tugging at her knees, he
dragged Alex to teeter at the very edge of the
counter.
Stepping
purposefully between her thighs, masterfully guiding her legs around his waist, he pushed himself against her heat. The soft fabric of his sweats sagged low on his waist, giving him the delicious sensation of skin on skin.
Alex obliged by wiggling closer and locking her ankles over his ass, trapping him between her thighs. Right where he wanted to be. She groaned when his hands slid back up her thighs to fasten on her hips once more. He pulled her tighter still.
His throbbing member pressed hard against that hot, damp spot, rubbing intimately—grinding mercilessly, pulsating with need.
Cole broke the kiss and leaned back, staring deep into her eyes, desperate to make her cognizant of his actions. His hand slipped beneath her shirt, the hem snagging on his wrist.
His palm, hot and questing, fingers rough and callused, moved over her hip and waist, up her 176
ribs, cupping and kneading the luscious swell of her naked breast.
Alex stared up at him from beneath lowered lids, moaned, and arched her back, pressing her breast against his palm. His fingers curled reflexively. He alternately kneaded the soft globe and drew at her puckered nipple. She moaned and his lips seized hers again. Her hands fisted roughly in his hair, pulling him closer still.
His hand slid intently up her back, pulling the offending material up and over her head. She released him long enough to remove her shirt, but then her hands went back to his shoulders, gripping, touching, pulling at him. Her breathing was as erratic as his. When Cole’s lips skated down the length of her neck, Alex drew in a ragged breath. His tongue lapped at the skidding pulse at the base of her throat, and the ache in his loins grew to painful proportions.
His mouth branded its way over her collarbone, and down the curve of her breast, closing over a pebbled nipple, drawing it into his mouth, suckling hard. The rough scrape of his teeth on the delicate skin of her breast sent gooseflesh racing across her skin, and she bucked against him. His lips worshiped her skin as he trailed reverent kisses back up the graceful column of her neck, but when his lips sealed over hers, there wasn’t an ounce of gentleness left in him anymore.
His hands were hard and strong—rough and impatient—as he crushed her to him. Desire rode roughshod over him, raw and insatiable, pushing him to ravish, driving him to ravage. The deep, dark voice in the back of his mind urged him onward, urged him to take all she offered, and give her more in return then she’d bargained for.
That voice of midnight urged him to give her 177
forever.
Cole wrestled with the very idea, torn for the first time in his long life by the one thing he’d never before considered doing to another living creature. He hadn’t been given a choice when he’d been turned. He’d never sired another Vampyre, and always swore he never would.
Yet right now, the very thought of spending the rest of eternity i
n this woman’s arms was enough to render his personal morals
inconsequential…enough to render her own wishes on the matter—her very ability to make the choice for herself—insignificant.
Fated mate or Vampyre. Either way, he’d be able to keep her forever.
His Bride
.
His lips fastened on her throat. His fangs scraped her delicate skin. She moaned, the sound of his name on her lips drove all thought—what little of reason he’d managed to retain—from his mind. His fingers fisted in her hair, ruthlessly pulling her head back to expose the sweet flesh of her neck. His eyes glowed, dilated, focusing on the erratic throb of her pulse. His mouth opened wide in anticipation of the ambrosia he’d soon be
savouring
. His fangs stretched, long and lethal, demanding as they descended toward her flesh.
“
Madre de Dios
!”
The surprised hiss from the doorway broke through the haze of his need. His head reared back, whipped around to glare over his shoulder at the owner of the voice. His deadly fangs gleamed with dangerous menace and he snarled.
Styx blinked, clearly astonished, staring at them in shock for a startled moment, a gaping Zack peering over his shoulder. Then a wide, devilish grin spread over Styx’s lips. He elbowed Zack back out of sight and pivoted on his heel, beating a hasty retreat himself.
178
Alex froze in Cole’s arms, and Cole echoed Styx’s sentiment, albeit silently. He couldn’t believe what he’d been about to do. He snapped his mouth closed, concealing his fangs, and turned to face her,
watching from beneath lowered lashes as her cheeks
flamed.
Disappointment stabbed at him when she unlocked her ankles and pushed against his chest, muffling a whimper.
Reluctant, his hand loosened and untangled from her hair, the other fell away from her breast and he let her go. Already he missed the weight and the texture of them both against his palms.
She swore beneath her breath, her voice breaking as she leaped from the counter, her eyes glued to the floor in mortification. She snatched her shirt up and tugged it over her head, hiding her beautiful body from his hungry stare.
He’d never been more lost, more desperate, than he was at that moment. Cole took a step toward her, stretching out a hand, but she brushed past him and fled the room before he could say a word. Instead of chasing after her, as he longed to do, he leaned back against the counter, dropping his chin to his chest, heaving a sigh that sounded remarkably like regret.