Primal Instincts (3 page)

“More imperative than the safety of our females?” He shook his head. “I don’t think so, ma’am.”

“Of course you shouldn’t think so, Prime. Your rightful concern is the security of our females and your mission. A Matri’s concerns must take in a broader outlook.” She gestured. “Join me on the ride to the clinic. I believe you’re planning on going there anyway.”

He was. But he’d had a few other things he’d planned on doing first. He didn’t like this, but if his riding along to Dr. Casmerek’s helped get one more Matri on her way to safety, he’d bite down on his annoyance and do as she asked.

“Thank you, Lady Anjelica.” He would have handed the Matri in beside her daughter, but she gestured for him to take the center seat.

Seated so close to Flare, he couldn’t help but come into contact with her; the way their thighs
brushed drove him crazy. Her warmth flooded into his body. Once again her scent enveloped him. And despite the fact that they were both fully clothed, he could feel skin sleek as satin against him. The whole trip was delightful agony. He gave no sign. He’d been commanding a mixed bunch of species and raising a mortal daughter, and this had caused him to develop different habits about privacy and propriety.

When the car arrived at the clinic, Tobias and Flare entered and went their own ways. He was disciplined enough to control himself despite the distracting temptation she presented, but he did take one last appreciative glance at her magnificent backside before she disappeared behind an office door.

Francesca leaned against the door, closed her eyes, and gritted her teeth, even though that forced her slightly extended fangs into her bottom lip. She was quivering with arousal as well as anger, and the anger just made her more aroused. That last hot look he’d given her when he didn’t think she was looking had just about done her in.

She didn’t blame Strahan. He hadn’t made a move, said a thing, or let his shields down one little bit. She didn’t blame herself, either.

Her mother had done that to them on purpose!

Francesca didn’t even blame the Reynard Matri
for her unsubtle attempt at matchmaking. It was what Matris did, what she’d likely do if she ever took over the job.

But it’s not going to work on me, Ma.

Would the mating-receptive chemicals roaring around in her body have any effect on the fertility tests she’d come in for? She didn’t want to waste her time or anyone else’s. Well, there was only one way to find out. She took one more calming breath and walked to the examination room where the lab techs were waiting for her.

“Hi, Chiana, hi, Kea.” She’d gotten to know and like both women during her visits to the clinic. “I know you’re ready to get started, but I’m not quite myself. Are you up for a few minutes of gossip while I calm down?”

Chiana was a small woman, supple and slender with gloriously thick dark brown hair. She was a wereseal—
selkie
was the old-fashioned term. She didn’t talk much, but she was incredibly easy to talk to. This made her popular with nervous vampires afraid of needles and other medical procedures.

Kea was far more outgoing; a tall redhead, she was the daughter of a Prime and a mortal woman. She’d provocatively informed Francesca of this the first time they met, expecting the wicked Flare to sneer at her lineage and prepared to sneer back at vampire shortcomings.

“Nice to meet you,” Francesca had said. “Do you want to go out to lunch when we’re done?”

They’d gone out together for lunch and shopping several times, and Francesca had introduced Kea to her book club.

“You look all hot and bothered,” Kea said now. “Did one of the new boys in town catch your fancy?”

“Unfortunately,” Francesca answered. “Caught my libido, at any rate.”

She sat on the exam table and crossed her legs, then quickly uncrossed them because that just made the ache worse.

“Which Dark Angel caught your fancy?” Kea asked.

Francesca gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Strahan himself.”

“That makes sense.” Kea looked relieved to hear that information, then blushed.

“Oh, no,” Francesca said. “Don’t tell me
you’re
interested in one of the Angels? They’re all so ridiculously macho, they make regular Primes question their masculinity.”

Kea’s eyes sparkled with amusement. “That’s rather the point, isn’t it? I’m used to fending off the local boys, but . . .” She fanned her face with her hand. “There are a couple of Primes among the Dark Angel guards around the place who have my attention.”

“I thought you had a crush on Tony Crowe,” Francesca said.

“Yeah, but now that he’s bonded I’m out of the running.”

Chiana spoke up quietly. “You were never in the running. None of us ever were.” She sighed romantically. “I wish all of us could have a love story like that.”

Francesca had seen Crowe with his mortal bondmate at the Shagal Citadel but didn’t know the details of the romance.

Before she could ask, Kea said, “Dr. Casmerek has issued a need-to-know order on the medical details, but apparently Tony’s lady was experimented on by the bad guys and Tony saved her.”

“Very romantic,” Francesca said. “Very Prime.” She turned a teasing look on Chiana. “Please tell me you aren’t longing to be rescued from a horrible fate by a big, bad vampire boy.” She didn’t know if vampires and selkies would be compatible, but her best friend Sidonie had just hooked up with a werewolf. Who knew what combinations were possible?

“Chiana’s already got a boyfriend,” Kea said.

Chiana looked uncomfortable. “I don’t like to talk about him.”

“That’s because he’s a mortal,” Kea said. “She’s been seeing him for a couple of months now. They
met on a beach when she was on vacation.”

The shy selkie was blushing. “I wish I’d never mentioned him to you.”

Francesca decided it was time to change the subject. “I think you should stick some needles in me now,” she said.

After examining damage from the attack on the clinic, Tobias’s next task was to interview a witness. Since Tony Crowe was cooperating with the Dark Angels taking over security for every immortal outpost in the city, Tobias was surprised to find Tony waiting for him outside Rose Cameron’s room with his arms crossed and an attitude that said there was no way anyone was getting past him to talk to his lady.

“Rose is taking a nap,” Tony informed him before Tobias could ask. “And she will be taking a nap or otherwise occupied any time you or your Angels show up. She’s been through hell and I’m not letting you make her relive it.”

“I need to ask her a few questions.”

Tony shook his head. “You want to ask those questions telepathically, don’t you?”

“That would be the most efficient way.”

“You have prisoners from the house where she was held before we rescued her.”

“It’s never good to send a werewolf in when you want to take prisoners,” Tobias said.

“Sidonie was in on the rescue, too. I know for a fact she tied up some of the bad guys. Too bad,” he added. “I would have loved to rip out the throats of the people who hurt my Rose.”

“I’d be happy to give you the chance. You can help hunt down the ones really responsible.”

“I intend to.”

“Crowe, the Matris have agreed to conduct this war my way. You’d be great working with the Angels. But I won’t let you go off on your own. You will not get in my way. May I see your lady for a few minutes? Please?”

Tony smiled again, a bit of fang showing. “I’ll consider the Angels’ offer, Tobias. But you can’t see my Rose.”

“You’re being—”

“A Prime protecting his new bondmate.”

Tobias automatically took a step back. Of course Crowe would oppose another Prime going near his mate, especially one who wanted to make telepathic contact. He was going to have to think of a way
around this development. Biology and culture got in the way of doing things sensibly far too often.

Tobias nodded gravely. “Your point is taken, Prime. My apologies.”

Crowe clapped him on the shoulder. “Glad you see it my way. You’re a good kid, Tobias.”

Tobias couldn’t take offense; compared to Crowe he
was
a kid. He walked back down the hall, saying over his shoulder, “Just don’t let any of my people hear you call me that.”

When Tobias reached the clinic reception area, he came to an abrupt halt. “What are you doing here?”

It was no way to address a Matri, and Lady Anjelica’s haughty expression told him so.

He bowed. “Pardon my rudeness. But why aren’t you on a plane for Idaho?”

“I will be.” She gestured toward an office door. “Come with me. I want a private word with you.”

Tobias never expected anything to go exactly as planned, so he always had contingencies worked out. Only this time he hadn’t foreseen problems involving females popping up to disrupt his strategy. Between his daughter, Rose Cameron, and a couple of Reynard women, the day was spiraling out of his control—which both amused and annoyed him. How typical for a Prime that it was women who were the
distraction.

He showed no emotion as he followed Lady Anjelica into the private room, then stood in front the closed door and waited for her to tell him what she wanted. The slight nod she gave told him she appreciated his protective gesture, even if it was as automatic as breathing.

“Of course you know I tricked you into coming here with us,” she said. It wasn’t an apology.

Tobias answered with a slight shrug.

“I’ve been observing you and my daughter and wanted the chance for closer observations.”

“She’s hot. I want her. Nothing surprising in that.”

“Every Prime wants her, and she doesn’t generally give a damn, but she responds to you.” Lady Anjelica gave the kind of dangerous smile only vampires could give.

He
so
did not like where he suspected this was going.

“Attraction isn’t relevant.”

Her smile only got wider. “You said
attraction.
”

“I meant arousal.”

“Nope, you can’t take it back. You are attracted to my daughter. I can see that the two of you are an obvious match. I’ve been waiting for this for a long time. So has our entire Clan.”

Her mentioning Clan ties upped the stakes of this game from personal to political.
Damn! What is Flare
Reynard getting me into?
“Flare’s a pleasure to look at. A pleasure to touch. It would be a pleasure to have her. But I can forgo that pleasure.”

Anjelica was totally unimpressed by his stern tone. “Are you sure? Think about her, Prime, and tell me what you feel.”

He didn’t intend to go there, but his blood suddenly sang with fiery hunger. He swore to himself and pushed away the knowledge, the need.

“What do you want from me?” he asked the Matri.

“Don’t pretend to naïveté. You know very well what I want.”

He looked at her, his thoughts guarded and his features totally blank.
Maybe she won’t say it outright.

“I want you to sire my grandchild.”

Arranging stud services was perfectly natural for a Matri, so the proposal should have sounded perfectly natural to him. Maybe it would have if she’d been talking about anyone but Flare. He found himself wanting to defend the female. Flare might not have been likable, but he admired her spirit.

“Flare’s already made her choice. You approved it.”

“I’ve never liked it. Until a few hours ago I didn’t believe there was any other way to get her to do her duty.”

She looked him up and down in the carefully assessing, appreciative way of a vampire female
scrutinizing a Prime, making him more embarrassed than pleased. It was a bad sign when a Prime didn’t respond to every female out there. It came at a point in a Prime’s life when he responded to only one woman. Wanted only one woman.

Please, goddess
, he prayed.
Not now. Not her.

He wondered if he should inform Lady Anjelica that there was a one in three chance he would sire Flare’s child without their having any physical contact. The sperm donors for the fertility clinic had to come from somewhere, and the Dark Angels’ Primes were forward-thinking enough to offer their services when the Clan and Family Primes Casmerek dare to approach had been outraged. But telling Anjelica this would be a violation of Flare’s privacy, his own, and that of the other volunteers, and he couldn’t do that.

He said, “Lady Anjelica, there’s a war on. We don’t have time for this.”

She just kept smiling. “A war. I’m glad you mentioned it.”

Uh-oh.
There was an unmistakable threat in her eyes.

He gave her a narrow-eyed glare. “What are you up to?”

“Not everyone shares your paranoid outlook. Quite a few don’t believe the Dark Angels are a good idea, either. I can help you with that.”

He waited. She waited, still smiling.

He broke the silence. “So you could help—or you could hurt.”

“I was thinking more like destroy.”

A Matri as wealthy and influential as the Reynard Clan leader opposing him? Destroying everything he’d built to protect all supernatural groups? Oh, yeah, she could do it.

“Now I know where Flare got her personality.”

“I’m far more of a harridan than that sentimental child could ever be.”

“You would actually jeopardize our future for the sake of getting your daughter knocked up?”

“What future do we have if the younger generation refuses to find bondmates? What’s next? Cloning? What future do we have if more and more of us depend on the daylight drugs? Aren’t we going to lose ourselves by blending in more and more with the mortals?”

“That blending in is for our own safety.”

“We’re vampires! We don’t need to be safe, we need to be—” Lady Anjelica caught herself, and her lips curved into a serene smile once again. “There’s no need to argue over it. My point is this, Prime: Sire a Reynard child and have my full support, politically and financially, for the Dark Angels. Refuse and I’ll destroy you.”

“That’s quite plain, lady.”

“Decide. Now.”

Tobias held up his hands in front of him. “I’ll do it!”

She gave an imperious nod. “Good.”

He’d do it. He’d have a great deal of pleasure doing it, and he’d thought of a couple of other reasons to keep Flare at his side that had nothing to do with saving his team. Reasons that might just help save his world. Even though having her around was going to be a pain in the ass.