“WHAT THE HELL were you doing in San Francisco?”
Gabe stood impassively at the thick-paned window, his back to the man pacing furiously behind him. It was late morning and the grounds of the Ferrar compound were quiet beyond the window of his father’s office. Most of the inhabitants were still sleeping and would stay abed until well after noon when the harshest rays of the sun had passed.
Everyone except his family. They prepared his cousin’s body for the burning ceremony. Despite the crossbreed’s assurances, he’d demanded a meeting with the Incog director just after dawn that morning. It had taken a supreme act of will to get the body released to him and even then it was only after the autopsy. His great-aunt would be devastated by the perceived desecration of her son’s body. According to their culture, the body was a sacred vessel for the life-giving blood the males of his species needed for survival. It was taboo to disturb the sanctity of the body at all; even piercing and tattoos were forbidden. After death, blood was carefully drained respectfully from the body by the women of the family before the body was burned in an age-old ceremony. Yet even Gabe was curious about what Pryor had been taking. No designer blood gave its user that kind of strength.
Kyeros Forestor had agreed to a full disclosure of the autopsy. He was the founder and director of Incog, the organization the crossbreed woman worked for. His bloodmate.
A crossbreed.
He still couldn’t believe his actions the night before. What had driven him to blood a crossbreed and then offer his own blood? It was considered a depravity according to the principles of his House. Yet even now the memory of the delicious heat of her blood melting over his tongue created a throbbing in his gums where his fangs ached to descend. The act hadn’t felt depraved. Her blood had brought out a dark and compelling drive in him to bind her to him, to claim her. During the past hours he’d played the scene over and over in his mind, trying to rationally isolate the moment he’d lost control and why. He’d only succeeded in getting a pounding headache.
And one hell of an erection.
And it still left him with a crossbreed for a bloodmate. As a son of his House, that was more trouble than he needed.
Dealing with crossbreeds was a very volatile issue for most species of the Arcane, all except the Guardians. Guardians didn’t suffer from any of the genetic or reproductive disorders that the other species did. Most of the other species didn’t even accept the mixed bloods among them. Almost all were struggling to save their species from extinction. To allow the crossbreeding was counterproductive. Most Sanguen Houses prohibited crossbreeding altogether. Especially Gabe’s. Within his House, crossbreeds were viewed as a direct threat to the purity of their species, an abomination.
Gabe thoughtfully watched the reflections of his father and uncle in the window, who were ignorant of the magnitude of his action last night. His father’s blond hair was pulled back in the queue common to his people, a braid that hung halfway down his back. Silver was just beginning to invade at his temples and his traditional goatee – the result of having Gabe as his only son, or so he claimed. He wore the customary loose-fitting garments. Gabe’s uncle Maxim, his father’s brother, was dressed similarly, his own garments draping over his gaunt body where he sat in the large leather chair. They were the epitome of hundreds of years of tradition.
Gabe turned his focus passively back to his own image. Much to his father’s chagrin he was not as traditional. He did not wear the traditional clothing and had cut his queue off long ago while at university. The House elders and his grandfather, who had been doyen at the time, sent him to a human college to better understand the human world in order to better protect their own ways. During those years he had conceived of a very different future for his House. It produced serious friction between his methods as marshal and the elders’ concept of what he should be doing.
The Ferrar House was very purist. They followed the old ways and allowed little to no contact with the outside world. Their laws were very black-and-white and extremely antiquated. Those that did not adhere were exiled from the House, a fact that had caused more than one disagreement between him and his father since he’d begun enforcing their House laws as marshal.
“Gabrial. I demand an answer. What were you doing in the city after the elders had expressly forbidden it?”
Gabe blinked and turned to face them with a sigh. Crossing his arms over his chest, he leaned his shoulders against the warmth of the window to level a look at his father. Now was not the time to confess to a bonding he was not yet willing to accept himself.
“Following Karl, Father. I was following Karl.”
“For all that is sacred, Gabrial, do you want to have yourself exiled?” Gabe didn’t betray his reaction to that question. If his father only knew how close he really was to just that, but for an entirely different reason.
Liam Ferrar inhaled sharply before turning away. A Sanguen valued emotional control above all things. He was well past one hundred years old and had served as marshal for more than half of his life before he’d ascended as doyen last year.
“Liam, perhaps we should hear the boy out.”
Gabe’s father turned to level a look at his older brother and unofficial counsel. Maxim Ferrar’s hunched form lounged in one of the overstuffed leather chairs that adorned his father’s personal office. Maxim should have become the House marshal and eventually doyen instead of Gabe’s father. He was the elder son and, by rights, the true heir to the line, but he’d been born with a genetic blood disorder that was becoming increasingly common among their kind. House law forbade any Sanguen with the disease from becoming doyen or even from taking a bloodmate and having children. Until they could discover what caused the disease, they were attempting to prevent those that carried it from spreading it further. They’d even sent his uncle away to a special medical clinic while Gabe was away at college, but Gabe’s father had fought the elders as soon as he had ascended to bring Uncle Maxim home.
Liam loved his older brother and valued his opinion. More than once Gabe had been grateful to his uncle’s calming influence on his father.
“Thank you, brother.” Liam spun to face his son; anger still tightened his features. “And your findings?”
A hot little crossbreed whose blood was so sweet that he’d been distracted from his job for the first time in the thirteen years he’d been doing it. And most likely his bloodmate.
Gabe merely blinked, his face betraying none of his thoughts.
“Karl was there buying from a blood dealer. He was displaying signs of dementia, most likely from the use of tainted blood.”
“We are sure he was drinking human blood?” Maxim asked carefully, stroking his dark goatee.
“I’ve never seen human blood give its user this type of strength. He was very aggressive and strong. Incog is testing his blood to determine what he was using,” Gabe reported with a thoughtful frown.
Liam shared a look with his brother. “How did Incog get involved?”
“There were two field agents there investigating the dealer Karl was meeting. An altercation occurred and my impression was that Karl intended to kill the dealer. He forcefully blooded a female that stumbled” – dropped three stories – “onto the scene.”
Liam reached up to stroke his golden goatee. “The female is alive?”
Oh yeah. The female was very much alive. And posing a serious, if not delicious, threat to his future in this House.
“Yes. She was safely returned.” With a drop of his blood in her veins, forever changing her. And him. Not for the first time he wondered how his bonding to a crossbreed would be received by his House. Could they accept the next line of marshals, doyens, and eventual House elders being part crossbreed?
Not fucking likely. Most likely the elders would press for his exile from the House. Despite his resistance to the more radical aspects of his House traditions, he had been born and raised to protect the Ferrar House and to eventually lead it. How could he have let his cock lead him to an action that threatened everything he believed in? Yet even as the thought surfaced, he knew it for the lie it was. His craving for that crossbreed had been more elemental that a mere sexual attraction. She had brought out a side to his character that he wasn’t altogether comfortable with, a dark and dangerous instinct that seemed to be beyond his ability to control.
Fuck, what a mess.
“What of the blood?” Maxim asked. “And the dealer?”
Gabe turned his attention to his uncle, giving away none of his churning thoughts. “The dealer escaped and I do not think the blood was recovered.” He wasn’t sure he would have noticed if the blood was still on the scene, not after having that crossbreed on his tongue.
“Does this satisfy your suspicions of his involvement? Can the matter rest?” Liam asked.
Gabe met his father’s eyes. “No. Karl’s body was…processed by Incog. I have been guaranteed the results of that examination and assured full disclosure on the ongoing case involving Karl. I ask for leave to join the investigation with Incog.”
Even as the words left his mouth he wondered at them. He’d intended to finish this investigation, but did he really need Incog to do so?
She
worked for Incog. It definitely wasn’t wise to tempt himself, especially when he wasn’t sure he could control the darkness in him that she roused. He silently assured himself it was the information that Incog had and not the promised heat of one little crossbreed that drew him, but somehow he couldn’t completely convince himself of it.
Liam stroked his goatee again, turning his back to stare into the flames of a large stone fireplace for a long moment. “And if your request is denied?”
Gabe straightened up from the window and pulled his broad shoulders back. He had known this moment would eventually come. “I intend to move forward on my own authority.”
His father drew in a hissing breath and spun to face him. Matching green eyes sparred for long moments before his father’s shoulders dropped on a sigh.
“Brother, perhaps it would be beneficial for our marshal to have inside knowledge of what Incog discovers. This may affect our House,” Maxim reasoned. “We will want to be prepared.”
Liam seemed to consider this and then nodded. “Follow your instincts; finish this to your satisfaction. I will handle the elders. Sustenance has been provided in your suite. You
will
be at Karl’s burning ritual at sundown.”
Gabe felt a protest rise in him, but he carefully controlled his reaction. There was absolutely no reason to return any sooner.
“Your presence would greatly ease your aunt,” Maxim added more rationally, struggling to his feet.
Gabe gave one terse nod. “Of course. Father. Uncle Maxim.”
He shimmered to his suite of rooms and just stood there, his green eyes scanning the shadowed corners with a dark frown. It all seemed different somehow. Almost inadequate.
A soft whisper of sound behind him made him turn, and his eyes tracked coldly down the figure of the young woman his father had sent him. She bowed shortly, a long brown braid falling down her back, golden brown eyes carefully blank. The thought came unbidden that the color of her hair and eyes were not quite right. They were lighter than
hers
. On the heels of that thought was a frustrated anger at the fact that he could not seem to bar her from his thoughts.
“You wish to feed, Marshal?”
Gabe’s initial reaction was to turn her away, but he felt a perverse need to prove that the crossbreed did not truly have any influence over him. And he hadn’t fed in more than two days. He would soon begin to feel the effects of the lack if he did not. With a tightening of his jaw he beckoned the young woman forward and carefully grabbed the hand she extended, wrist up. He could easily see the tiny flicker of blood beneath her pale, thin flesh. Yet the usual indifference that usually accompanied the necessary feeding was absent. Filling its space was a sense of near disgust, the scent of the blood pulsing so close to her skin making his stomach clench.
What the fuck?
With determination he swallowed down the bile that seemed to rise in his throat and willed his fangs to descend.
Nothing.
With a sense of betrayal, he concentrated on his hunger, calling on his canines to lengthen. Unbidden, the image of dark chocolate eyes and the defiant little sparkle of a nose piercing rose in his mind. His body responded but, for the first time since puberty, his fangs did not. With a low sound of self-disgust, Gabe dropped the hand he held and spun away.
“Thank you for your offer but I will decline. You may go.” With a calm he did not feel, he walked the few steps to the balcony doors until he could see the light of day through the dark tint of the glass. Reaching out, he pressed his hand against the pane, feeling the slight tingle of sun-warmed glass against his palm. His other hand reached up for the stone medallion beneath his shirt; his thumb traced the outline of the Ferrar House crest.
Beyond the security of the glass the sun beckoned, so alluring yet so dangerous.
Like her. Her blood was a dark craving that had the potential to destroy him.
Gabe turned away. Tonight he would attend his cousin’s ritual but once the ritual was over he would return to San Francisco and Incog. But was it this case that drew him so strongly or was it the dark brown eyes of one little crossbreed?
“How do you feel this evening?”
Kel frowned at the red-headed woman in the lab coat. Dr. Mahoney was the head of Incog’s medical department and oversaw a small group of brilliant scientists. She was also the personal physician for the crossbreeds that worked for Incog, aptly determining their unique medical needs.
“Like I’ve been hit by a Mack truck,” Kel groused as she sipped one of the steaming cups of coffee she held. She and Raife were meeting up at the lab to work on the case of crazy Karl and his superhuman strength. She desperately needed the caffeine to deal with all of this tonight. By the time she’d finished her paperwork and getting her ass chewed by her boss it had been late morning. When she made it back to her apartment, she fell into a restless sleep that was plagued by dreams about the sexy stranger. Very explicit dreams. Dreams that left her feeling edgy and frustrated.