Primal Instincts (21 page)

“Why is everything always homework?” she complained. “Dragomir is suspected to have had ties to some mortal terrorist groups in the nineties. But taking sides in politics turned out not to be profitable
and he dropped that hobby. His Tribe is probably still involved with dealing arms to any mortal groups that want to fight each other.”

“Probably?”

“The Tribes have started making much better use of mortal front people than in the old days. It’s getting harder to follow their movements.” She gave him a curious look.

“Very good,” Gregor said, praising her. “I think I’ll keep you around.”

“Thanks. What’s that up ahead?”

“That” was the whirling red lights atop a police vehicle parked sideways across the narrow road. They were almost to the nearest town with an entrance to a main highway, and now this.

Gregor considered barreling through the roadblock, but that wasn’t the sort of thing a Dark Angel would do. Besides, with the road so slippery there was no telling what could happen.

As it was, Gregor was barely able to stop the SUV before he hit the other vehicle.

An officer dressed in a heavy quilted coat got out and approached through the storm. Gregor reluctantly lowered his window, letting in the biting cold.

“Yes, officer?” Gregor asked, speaking loudly over the wind. He prepared to catch the cop’s gaze to manipulate his thoughts as necessary.

He turned out to be a she. “All the roads are
closed,” she shouted back. “You’ll have to remain in the area.”

“But we have a plane to catch,” Gregor said in protest. “We’re trying to get home for the holidays.”

“Not tonight, sir. The blizzard has the whole state closed down, including the airports.”

“I was planning on taking a train,” Saffron muttered beside him.

“The roads are closed,” the police officer repeated. “Power’s out too. But the motels by the interchange outside of town are taking people in. Follow me, I’ll take you to the turnoff.”

Gregor watched the cop make her way back to her vehicle. He only remembered to put the window back up when he heard Saffron’s teeth begin to chatter. The weather wasn’t fit for mortals to be out in, that was certain.

“What are we going to do?” Saffron asked.

“We’re following the officer to the nearest motel,” he answered.

“But—how am I going to tell my dad where I am if the power’s out?” There was a trace of panic in the girl’s tone.

“Don’t worry.” He touched his temple. “Remember that Uncle Greg’s a telepath.”

He took his foot off the brake and eased the SUV forward, following the flashing red lights of the cop car down the dangerous road.

T
his is a bad idea.

You’re only thinking that because it’s not your idea, Commander Control Junkie
, Francesca replied.

I did think of it, princess mine, and I knew it was bad. Necessary, but bad.

Francesca smiled, sending the emotion of it through the connection between them. He was on guard outside the building. She was inside Orion’s Belt with the other women from the clinic.

Then she consciously stopped paying complete attention to the presence of Tobias in her mind, built up the barriers that were trying to dissolve and make them one. She reminded herself that the connection was harder on Tobias’s ability to remain rational than
it was on hers.

Like every vampire, she’d been trained since she was a baby to wrap a barrier around her private self while still being aware of every other telepath around her. Bonding put a strain on that barrier, made it fade and blend.

She’d never been convinced bonding was a good thing, and now that she was experiencing it she still wasn’t sure. Hormones and endorphins and orgasms and psychic highs made the victims crave it. Clan and Family vampires were convinced bonding was the pinnacle of all they were. Tribe vampires considered it a perverted evil and used perverted, evil practices to fight it. Francesca acknowledged the instinct was implacable and impossible to deny, but impossible to ignore? Maybe not.

Weren’t Rose and Crowe’s years of living apart evidence that it was possible to . . . cope?

“Are you all right?” Rose asked. “You seem distracted.”

Rose had just stepped out of the dressing room in the back of the shop. She was wearing a sage-green cocktail sheath from the early sixties.

“I was thinking about you, actually,” Francesca answered. “That suits you.”

“It ought to; I used to own one just like it.” She ran a hand down the heavy matte silk of the bodice. “In fact, I think this might be mine.” She smiled
wistfully. “I keep reliving my past, apparently.”

“Well, if you like your past, why not?”

Rose turned away from the full-length mirror she’d been gazing into. “I can see my past on TCM anytime. It’s the future I’m looking forward to. Aren’t you?” she added. “After all, that big Prime of yours is something else.”

“That he is. But then, so am I.”

“I thought it was Primes who were so . . .”

“
Arrogant
is the word you want, Rose. And no, vampire females are worse than the Primes.” She chuckled. “We have to be considering the way the Primes are. Tobias is nicknamed the Über-Prime, by the way.”

She heard the pride in her voice and tried to be at least a little annoyed with this reaction to Tobias.

Rose gave her an understanding smile. “How long have you been together?”

“Two days.”

Francesca waited for shock, but the mortal laughed instead. “Maybe being in danger speeds up the bonding process,” she said speculatively. “After all, people were shooting at us when Anthony and I met and our connection was . . . amazing.”

Francesca asked quietly, “Do you mind if I ask a question about that connection?”

“Celibacy—that’s how I handled it,” Rose answered before Francesca could ask. “You were going
to ask how I managed to live away from Anthony for so many years, weren’t you?”

“Uh, yes.”

“Why?” Rose gave her a sharply assessing look. “You aren’t simply curious, are you? Why would you want to be separated from your bondmate?”

“There are lots of reasons, although the only one that counts is that I want to do what’s best for Tobias—for the Dark Angels. For the defense of our people.”

“That’s very noble.”

“It sounds that way, doesn’t it? Noble enough to make one gag.” Francesca’s lips twisted into an ironic smile, which faded into a pained sigh. “I am so conflicted, Rose.”

Rose touched her arm. “Please don’t even think about doing what I did. It’s a lonely life.”

Francesca knew that well enough. She’d been celibate herself since Patrick’s death—until Tobias came along. Now the spark of life he’d lit inside her threatened to flare up all the time.

Flare.
She hated that word.

“Anthony didn’t remain celibate,” she said to Rose.

Francesca knew that he’d sired her best friend, Sidonie Wolfe, and he’d certainly hit on her, just like every other Prime, at Convocations. Of course, he was an old-school gentleman Prime who’d likely
seen trying to seduce her as being polite.

“I know Anthony was with other women,” Rose said. “He and I will probably have some discussions about that. But I suppose it’s very difficult for Primes to go without.”

“Probably impossible,” Francesca said in agreement. Even the thought of Tobias with another female caused her to burn with jealousy.

Rose added to her distress when she said, “I always
suspected
when Anthony was making love to another woman, and it hurt like hell. You are far more telepathic than I’ll ever be; you’d surely feel it deeper than I could.”

These words cut so deeply into Francesca she had to turn sharply away from the mortal. When she did she almost tripped over their shopping companions.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, and wondered how much they’d overheard.

Kea and Chiana had drifted through the racks of expensive old clothes to join them during this conversation and she hadn’t been aware of them until now.

Telepathic suggestion had made certain that the four of them were the only ones here despite it being the height of the holiday shopping season. The clerks and cashier were taking an extended break in the back room.

Kea held up a strapless black dress. “Do you think Ali would like me in this?”

Are you going to be much longer?
Tobias’s thought intruded as Francesca began to answer Kea.

You told me to take my time so everything and everyone could be in place.

Chiana spoke up. “I’m thinking about buying a bathing suit.”

Francesca and Kea looked at her in utter surprise.

“That is the strangest thing you have ever said,” Kea told her friend.

“Why?” Rose asked.

“Because she’s a selkie,” Kea replied. “Why would a seal need a bathing suit?”

“I was joking,” Chiana said.

Francesca didn’t think the wereseal was capable of joking at the moment. Chiana was pale, thin, and nervous. She definitely needed more than an evening out with the girls for what was ailing her.

“It’s that boyfriend of yours, isn’t it?” Kea asked Chiana. “He’s put another crazy notion in your head.”

“You have no idea,” Chiana answered, her voice barely a whisper.

“I’ve been keeping my mouth shut, hon,” Kea said. “But you have got to dump this guy. He bullies you. Things always have to be his way. We’d all like for interspecies dating to work, but both sides have to make compromises and he—”

“Interspecies dating?” Francesca asked.

“She’s been living with a mortal for months now. I
don’t even think the guy knows she’s a selkie.”

“He knows,” Chiana whispered.

Tobias’s thought filled Francesca’s mind before she could ask any more questions.
We’re ready for your close-up now.

It wasn’t nerves that suddenly tightened Francesca’s muscles, it was the anticipation of coming combat. She slid her tongue over her throbbing fangs.

These feelings were so wrong. She was going to get herself locked up in a tower someplace if she kept it up.

She could hardly wait to get into a fight. That was what Tobias Strahan did to her. It was going to bring the Matri Council’s wrath down on him if she didn’t remove herself from the dangerous life he lived. But in the meantime . . .

Lordy, sir, but you do bring out the vampire in a girl
, she thought back at Tobias, and tried to transmit the image of her fluttering her eyelashes at him.

His laugh filled her with champagne sparkles.
Move it, and bring the ladies with you
, he thought.

“They must know that this is a trap,” Crowe said.

“But they’re here anyway,” Tobias answered. “And someone from the clinic called our visitors to this spot.”

“I concede the point,” Crowe said.

They were sitting by the window inside a coffee shop, cups in front of them, attention on the movements on the street outside. They watched all of it with eyes adapted for night vision.

“Why would anyone walk into a trap?” Tobias asked.

“Desperation,” Crowe said.

“Precisely. Desperation, and dissension. I’ve got a feeling they’ve reached the point of trying to impress each other to mask the fact that they plan to betray each other.
They
meaning the mortal commanding the Purists and the vampire commanding the overall operation. They don’t trust each other and are trying to
prove that they do to each other.”

Crowe took a sip of coffee. “None of that makes any sense, you know.”

“Probably not,” Tobias said. “Their hidden intentions aren’t important; only what they’re up to at this moment matters.”

He finished his own coffee and turned his attention to the Angels strategically stationed in the area. He had a werecougar on a roof, a pair of vampires in a small park opposite the clothes shop, and a shifted werewolf curled at the feet of a fae sipping tea at a table outside the coffee shop. Other Crew members were in parked cars at either end of the block. The Dark Angels had waited patiently and let their prey drift into the area while telepathically shooing anyone not involved away from this part of the street.

He spoke into his headset. “What do we have?”

“Three mortal lifeglows in the alley behind me,” the fae reported. “Side door to the store there.”

“Truck engine idling behind the shop,” another Angel reported.

“Primes inside the truck,” the werewolf reported. “Can’t tell how many.” Vampires tended to fracture werewolves’ psychic senses.

“Three Prime heartbeats in the truck,” the werecougar said, filling in the information for the werewolf.

“I think they’re running out of Primes,” Tobias said.

“Let’s help them get rid of some more,” Crowe said.

“In a moment.” He’d already given Francesca a telepathic heads-up; now he thought to her,
Move it, and bring the ladies with you.
He stood. “Places, ladies and gentlemen,” he told his team. He left the coffee shop and crossed the street to the entrance of Orion’s Belt.

Francesca brought the other females out of the shop. “Now what?” she asked him.

“Now you stay out of the way and let me work,” he answered, and watched the explosion of temper flare in her green eyes. Fury made her even more beautiful.

Crowe shepherded the other women away while Francesca stood her ground in front of him, squarely blocking the entrance to the store.

“Oh, no you don’t,” she told him.

“That’s the plan.” He had several types of psychically gifted folk working to make the Purists and Primes believe the women were still inside. He had to get his people in while this window lasted.

“I can help,” she said insistently.

“You already have. You aren’t allowed to do any more.”

“But—there are still mortals in there. I could get them out while you—”

“Already planned for. They won’t get hurt.”

“They better not.”

He picked her up and set her aside, kissing her forehead while he did so. He managed to avoid her fangs when she snapped at him.

Ali, Ed, and Crowe went through the shop door. Tobias went in behind them.