Touch of Temptation (9 page)

“I think Olivia mentioned that her father had a heart attack?”

Chloe nodded again. “And my mother died the week after. Monica believed it was the pain of losing him.” She paused for a moment, breathing in his tantalizing scent, then slowly added, “I guess I kind of believe that, too.”

Her admission stunned her, and she slipped off the cot, walking to the far front corner of the cell. She rested her forehead against the cold iron bars, shocked by everything she’d just revealed. At the honesty she kept giving this guy, when she was usually so guarded and private.

Then again, maybe honesty was exactly what they needed here. God only knew she couldn’t trust herself to stay away from him. She had to take action. Implement defensive measures.

“Speaking of the curse,” she murmured, keeping her back to him. “I need to tell you that I…I think that’s what’s happening between us. You need to stay away from me, because you’re being affected by it.”

Another heavy, breath-filled silence, and then, “You’re joking, right?”

Looking over her shoulder, she said, “I’m dead serious, Kellan.”

He made a kind of cocky snorting sound. “Bullshit.”

Chloe frowned. “You can’t just say
bullshit,
” she
argued. “I’m right. I’ve been taking advantage of you!”

“Like hell you have.”

“Oh, God.” She drew her brows together. “You’re not one of those knuckle-dragger types who always thinks he knows more than everyone else, are you?”

He looked like he was trying hard to hold back his laughter. “Knuckle-dragger types?”

Ignoring him, she turned and propped her back against the bars, arms crossed tightly over her chest as she said, “Just hear me out, Kellan. You need sex, and the curse is going to magnify that. And because of the Merrick, I need it, too. What I’ve said makes sense. There’s some kind of wicked mojo going on between us, playing with our bodies, and none of it’s real. It’s just an illusion.”

“And what about good ol’ fashioned lust?”

“Between a guy like you and someone like me? Come on,” she snapped. “Open your freaking eyes.”

The corner of his mouth curled with another of those slow, lazy smiles. “You’re cute as hell when you get riled up. You know that?”

A sharp sound of frustration shook her throat. “That’s the thing. I’m
cute
. And you’re…well, you’ve seen a mirror. You know what you are. It doesn’t add up, no matter how badly I might wish it did. Which means you need to stay away from me and stop coming over here.”

“And you just need to take a deep breath and calm down,” he countered in an easy drawl.

Her eyes narrowed. “What makes you think I’m not calm?”

“Would you listen to yourself?” He angled his head to
the side, the firelight catching at the crimson highlights in the thick, wine-dark strands of his hair as he stared at her through his lashes. “One second you’re begging me to feed you. The next, you’re screaming at me—”

“I have
not
screamed,” she protested. “Not even once.”

He continued as if she hadn’t just interrupted him. “—and bitching at me to leave you alone, because you don’t wanna take advantage of me.” In a deep, whiskey-rough rumble, he added, “You’re working yourself into knots, Chloe, and there’s no need.”

Pulling her lower lip through her teeth, she lowered her gaze. “Between the Merrick and the curse, it’s too much. I just…I need you to stay away from me,” she said thickly, “because I don’t like feeling this way or being this out of control.”

“Then I’ll go,” he said in a low voice.

She blew out a rough breath of air. “Thank you.”

“But before I do, there’s something I need to tell you.”

“What is it?” she asked, lifting her head just in time to watch him getting to his feet, hard muscles coiling and flexing beneath all that golden skin in a jaw-dropping display of power, the cuts and bruises only adding to his raw masculinity.

Pushing his hands into his pockets, he propped a shoulder against the metal wall, and said, “Your sister and some of the others in our unit are starting to think the curse might finally be coming to an end.”

Of all the things he could have said, that was the last one she expected. “What? Why?”

“Because of Jamie.”

Shaking her head, she said, “Jamie? I don’t understand.”

“Did Raine tell you about the attack that was made on our group when we were trying to reach Harrow House?”

“No.”

He nodded as if that was the answer he’d expected. “She probably didn’t want to worry you.”

“Why would it worry me?” Her voice was rising. “What happened?”

“We were outnumbered, and things were looking pretty grim. Then your niece went all
X-Files
and started glowing with this strange light, power arcing from her like a generator. Next thing we knew, she’d turned the bad guys against each other, and we were able to escape.”

Shock roughened her voice. “She saved you?”

The corner of his mouth kicked up with a wry grin. “Believe it or not, we all owe our lives to the little runt. She is one serious little badass.”

“But…why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I didn’t want you to worry about her,” he said in a low voice, rubbing the back of his neck. “She’s been fine since that night.”

“And you think this means the curse might be ending?” she asked, her heartbeat roaring in her ears.

“That’s what the others have speculated. And then there’s your awakening.”

“I don’t understand,” she repeated.

“Chloe, if Westmore took you to get at Gregory, then that means his return started your awakening months ago. I know you’re in rough shape, but you’re still sane. Still breathing. I don’t see how that could be possible,
unless your true Mallory powers, the ones the curse would have bound, weren’t somehow working to keep you alive. They might not be very strong yet, but they’ve kept you from fading away.”

She didn’t say anything at first. Just stared at a distant point on the cold gray floor, thinking over everything that he’d said, her chest rising and falling with the slow, deep cadence of her breathing. When she finally forced her gaze back to his, she asked, “Are you attracted to me, Kellan?”

The heat in his eyes should have melted her on the spot. “I’d think that’s fairly obvious, considering how I can’t stay away from you.”

“Then it’s still working. It
has
to be.”

He pushed away from the wall, frustration riding him hard. “Christ, Chloe. Why are you being so fucking stubborn about this? Is it so hard for you to believe I could want you for
you
alone, without the influence of that bloody curse screwing with my mind?”

“To be honest, yes. It is,” she told him, lifting her chin. “And I don’t feel any different. If what you’ve said is true, I think I would have felt the curse weakening, and I haven’t.”

The thick, ropy muscles across his shoulders and in his arms bunched with tension. “You’re also under a lot of stress,” he argued, shoving his hands deeper into his pockets. “And the Merrick’s giving you so much shit, I doubt you’d be aware of any changes that could be caused by the curse fading.”

Refusing to agree with him, she said, “I still say it’s the curse.”

“Yeah?” His brows lifted with an arrogant arch. “Well, I still say that you’re full of it.”

“Weren’t you leaving?” she snapped.

“Yeah, I’ll go, for now—” he moved toward her “—if you give me a kiss.”

“You’re mad,” she said hoarsely, holding her hands up in front of her, while desire settled like a molten flame in the core of her belly. “And I don’t mean angry, Kellan. I’m talking off your rocker. One egg short of a dozen!”

Though the corner of his mouth twitched, he didn’t laugh, his voice a dark, sexy rumble as he said, “Just a kiss, Chloe.”

“Why?” she whispered, forced to crane her head back as he came even closer, her hands flattening against the hot skin stretched over all those rock-hard, breathtaking abs.

The smoldering heat in his eyes stole her breath. “Because I can’t stop thinking about how you felt. How sweet you tasted. Because touching you yesterday felt better than anything has felt in…hell, since as far back as I can remember.”

She wouldn’t have thought it was possible to feel this miserable and excited all at the same time. “That’s what I mean, Kellan. It’s the curse. It’s drawing you to me.
Making
you do things.”

He covered the last few inches that separated them, trapping her against the iron bars of the cell, his hands wrapping around the cold metal on either side of her head, caging her in. “If it was making me do things,” he said in a rough voice, staring deep into her eyes, “then we both know that I’d be inside you right now, little witch. Because that’s where you want me. And it’s where I wanna be. But I’m
forcing
myself to settle for a kiss.”

“Do you enjoy torturing me?” Hoarse words, almost too soft to hear.

Lust hardened his features, and she felt the tremor that pulsed through all those deliciously hard, ripped muscles. “Trust me, kitten. I’m hurting a helluva lot worse than you are.”

“Spark called me
kitten.
”

“I know.” A low laugh slid lazily from his lips as he pressed them to the apple of her cheek. “I think it’s kinda cute.”

Chloe started to argue, but he stopped her with his mouth, the kiss raw and deliciously explicit, his tongue rubbing against hers in a way that made some kind of purring noise crawl up the back of her throat, his answering growl the sexiest thing she’d ever heard. It melted her bones, her brain, pulling rough cries up from the core of her body. He ate at the husky sounds, the heavy ridge of his cock pressed hard against her belly. The iron bars dug into her back as the kiss turned rougher…rawer, biting and wet and utterly devastating. Just when she could tell he was on the verge of completely losing it, he tore his mouth from hers.

“See?” he rasped, working hard to catch his breath as he rested his cheek against the top of her head, his hands still wrapped around the bars so tightly, she was surprised they hadn’t snapped. “No harm, no foul.”

“Do you know what I’ve never been able to stand?” she asked unsteadily, shaking with hunger and lust and a mass of confusion. “Men who think they know everything. Who get off on making a woman feel weak.”

He snorted as he pulled his head back enough that he could look down into her face. “I don’t think there’s anything weak about you,” he murmured, his thumb rubbing
the kiss-swollen corner of her mouth as he cupped the side of her face with his hand. “Hell, you terrify me every time you open your mouth. I never know what’s going to come out. Another insult? Another demand to fuck you? To leave you alone? You keep my head spinning, lady.”

The words suggested frustration, as well as a wealth of irritation.

But the sin-tipped smile on the Lycan’s face as he turned to leave almost looked as if he was actually enjoying the ride.

The Auvergne province, France
Monday, 10:00 p.m.

P
ARTNERED UP WITH TWO
bloodsucking vampires.

Friggin’ unbelievable.

Six months ago, if anyone had tried to tell him that this was what his future held, Seth McConnell would have told them they needed to get their heads checked. Because six months ago, if he’d come face-to-face with two male vampires in the middle of the night, he’d have done his best to separate their heads from their shoulders, considering that was the only foolproof way to kill a Deschanel. If you got a blade across a Lycanthrope’s gut, that would usually do them in—but vamps could more often than not heal from any knife wound. And while burning a witch usually insured they would no longer be around, vamps could survive the flames.

No, if you wanted to kill a bloodsucker, it had to be a swift, clean severing of their head from their shoulders. As a former Lieutenant Colonel in the Collective Army, Seth had made such kills more than once—and he’d have probably kept on making them, if it hadn’t been for the return of the Casus.

Though Seth should have been the enemy of those he was now working with, fate had other plans. In an
ironic twist, Seth, along with a small group of Collective soldiers who’d remained loyal to him, were now fighting alongside the Watchmen and the Merrick. The disillusioned officer had broken ranks with the Army when he learned that the Collective Generals had made a deal with the Casus and their allies. Because of that deal, Seth’s eyes had finally been opened to the ugly truth about the beliefs he’d devoted his entire adult life to—and now he was here, collaborating with two men who drank blood to survive.

It was a surreal situation for the soldier to find himself in, and yet, he’d have been lying if he said he didn’t feel more at peace with his actions than he had in years.

After spending the past week in the States, Seth and his second-in-command, Tyler Garrick, had just flown into Brussels that morning, where they’d met up with Michael Quinn, a Watchman Seth inherently trusted despite their complicated history together. While most of the other men in Quinn’s unit had headed directly into the Wasteland to meet up with Kierland Scott, who was running surveillance on the compound where his brother was imprisoned, Quinn had stayed behind to help the Granger brothers investigate an important lead. Once they were done, they’d all be heading into the Wasteland together, hurrying to meet up with the others.

When Quinn had met Seth and Garrick at the airport, the tall, dark-eyed Watchman had expressed concern about Seth working with the Grangers, knowing that he’d long held a personal hatred against the Deschanel, since it was a rogue nest of vampires who had slaughtered Seth’s family when he was only fifteen—which had been his impetus for joining the Collective. As
Förmyndares,
or Protectors of the Deschanel clan, the Grangers were
some serious badasses, but they’d proven their loyalty to the Watchmen’s cause in the past weeks, and so Seth had promised Quinn that he would get along with the vampires and wouldn’t cause any trouble. A good thing, too, since it looked as if there was already more than enough trouble to go around.

While Ashe Granger, the older brother, had spent the past week helping Kierland Scott and a female Watchman named Morgan Cantrell search for Kierland’s brother in the Wasteland, Gideon had been following a disturbing lead on the Death-Walkers.

As if this screwed-up conflict actually needed another element of the bizarre, the Watchmen had discovered the existence of the Death-Walkers back in December, when Aiden Shrader had been trying to protect little Jamie Harcourt from being kidnapped by the Casus. Thanks to Gideon Granger, who’d tapped his connections within the Deschanel Court, they’d learned that when a Casus was killed with a Dark Marker, a portal opened into the part of hell that held the tainted souls of the ancient clans. As Gideon had apparently put it, “Whenever a door opens, there’s always the chance that something else might leak out.” In this case, those “somethings” were the Death-Walkers, and they were causing a hell of a lot of trouble.

Seth had yet to face off against the vile bastards since they were specifically targeting the Watchmen at the moment, their plan to remove the shape-shifters who kept peace among the various clans and create a time of chaos…then eventually spread that chaos through the world, simply because it sounded like fun to their warped psyches. Their time in hell had demented their minds, and Seth didn’t doubt the danger they posed.
A danger that was mounting, now that they’d followed Gideon’s lead to this remote human village in the French countryside.

Just before Kierland and Morgan had set off into the Wasteland, Gideon had left word for them that he’d stumbled onto something
big
, saying that he needed to check it out. After following his lead for the past week, he’d finally discovered where some of the Death-Walkers could be found, and so he’d brought Seth and the others to the village with the intent of finding out just what the deranged creatures were up to.

They’d already found forty or so dead bodies strewn along the cobblestone road that led into the rustic village that was buried within acres of farmland, the corpses drained and mutilated with savage bite marks, reminding Seth of rogue Deschanel kills. The village itself, however, appeared to be barren, not a soul in sight, and Seth didn’t have a good feeling about what they were going to find. They needed to do a sweep of the streets, but at the moment they were gathered on a small hill that rose at the outskirts of the village, trying to gather more intel before rushing into God-only-knew what kind of situation.

While Seth, Garrick and Quinn waited in the freezing shadows of a gnarled oak tree, the Grangers had climbed up into its sprawling limbs, trying to get a better view into the heart of the moonlit village. The two brothers were similar in appearance, attractive in that cold, deadly way that only a vampire could be, and Seth had no doubt they were popular with females of every species. He could hear them talking as they surveyed the village buildings and streets through high-tech binoculars, searching for any signs of life.

“So,” Gideon murmured. “You doing okay, man?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Ashe replied, his offhand tone suggesting that his focus was clearly on what he was doing and not the conversation.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because the woman you’ve been hung up on for the past decade is now mated to a guy you used to say was the biggest prick you’d ever met? I know you’re tough, but hell, Ashe, that has to sting.”

Seth inwardly cringed at Gideon’s blunt words. The others had filled him in on the turbulent history between Ashe and Morgan Cantrell, as well as Kierland Scott, who had wanted Morgan for himself. Though Ashe and Morgan had been a couple, they’d broken up and remained close friends, and it was actually Ashe who had helped Morgan and Kierland make their way into the Wasteland so that they could track Kierland’s brother. During the trip, Kierland had finally admitted his feelings and claimed Morgan as his mate—a fact that Gideon obviously thought was going to have an effect on his older brother.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ashe muttered, sounding as if he’d rather have bamboo shoots jabbed under his fingernails than discuss what had happened.

“Yeah?” Gideon murmured. “Then enlighten me.”

“I love Morgan as a friend.” Ashe’s words were thick with irritation. “And I’m happy as hell that she’s got what she always wanted. So drop it, Gid.”

With a sharp sigh, the vampire said, “If that’s true, then you’re a better guy than I am.”

His brother snorted. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“So, I guess you’re just going to keep sleeping your way through—”

“Not to be rude,” Quinn barked at them, cutting Gideon off, “but what the hell are we waiting for?”

With that same deceptively lazy, animal-like grace inherent in all the Deschanel, Gideon dropped out of the tree, landing effortlessly on the balls of his feet beside Quinn. “Remember when I told you we were coming here to confirm a rumor I’d heard?”

“Yeah. But you still haven’t shared that rumor.” It was clear from the Watchman’s tone that he was losing his patience.

Holding Quinn’s dark stare, the gray-eyed vampire said, “While I was slumming through the Deschanel Court, hunting down info on the Death-Walkers, I heard something that creeped the hell out of me. Rumors that the Death-Walkers were going to start making their own little army. And down in that village is the proof that what I heard was true.” He handed over the binoculars. “Look for yourself.”

A handful of seconds later, with the binoculars still plastered to his eyes, Quinn sounded surprised as he demanded, “What in the hell are those things?”

Ashe dropped out of the tree near Seth, his expression as grim as his tone. “Our newest nightmare.”

“They look like some kind of…zombie.”

“Oh hell.” The milky wash of moonlight revealed Garrick’s scowl as he lowered his own binoculars. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. I’ve seen a lot of strange things in my life, but this kind of shit’s just not right.”

Grabbing Garrick’s binoculars, Seth focused the lenses on the village down below, and felt his heart drop into his stomach. Nearly twenty human males were
shuffling down the center of the main road, their skin waxen in the moonlight, mottled with what looked like yellowish bruises. Dark eyes appeared sunken within their gaunt faces, the surrounding skin blackened, almost as if it’d been burned. Their lips were surrounded by similar black markings, their mouths hanging open like gaping maws, lips and chins covered with blood, as if they’d eaten something raw. Instead of struggling to escape, they appeared to be following whatever orders were given, their bodies moving with a slow, sluggish rhythm, their hands bound behind their backs.

The humans were being herded by two Death-Walkers who flanked the group, the spectral beings every bit as grotesque as the Watchmen had described them. The creatures had cadaverously pale, hairless bodies, with small horns protruding from their temples and sinister-looking claws and fangs, their long, unclothed forms floating eerily over the ground. Since the Death-Walkers consisted of all hell-bound clansmen, their original species varied. From what Seth could tell, the two creatures down in the village had once been Deuchar, one of the most violent of the ancient clans, and a mortal enemy of the Shaevan. But while stabbing a knife through their temple could kill the Deuchar, these assholes had been to hell and back, which changed the rules. Though Gideon had been working hard to come up with the answer, they still didn’t know how to kill a Death-Walker. They did, however, know that a combination of salt and holy water gave them a bitch of a burn, sending them scurrying for cover, which was why all of his companions were carrying flasks of the solution.

“I hate to say it,” Quinn said, still staring through the
binoculars, “but those Death-Walkers look meatier than the last ones I saw.”

“What’s the plan?”

“We get down there,” Gideon replied, “and find out what’s going on.”

“I was afraid he was going to say that.” Garrick’s wry tone jerked a grim, breathless bark of laughter from Seth.

Ten minutes later, the group had made their way into the village, keeping to the shadows to avoid detection, though they knew it was only a matter of time before the Death-Walkers scented their presence. As Deschanel, the Grangers could mask their scent, but it was going to be easy for the bastards to pick up on Seth, Garrick and Quinn. As they made their way down a side alley, drawing closer to the place where they’d seen the villagers, Seth caught his first whiff of the Death-Walkers’ rotting flesh and almost gagged. He wasn’t weak stomached, but their stench was like something left to rot in the bright sun.

“Keep your flasks at the ready.” Quinn spoke from Seth’s left, while Garrick had taken up position on his right, the vampires having gone around to the other side of the road, so that they could trap the group between them.

“You think they’ve made us?” Garrick asked in a low voice, and a second later, he had his answer.

“Mmm. I smell company,” one of the creatures lisped, lifting its flattened nose to the air.

“Three, at least.” The other one’s yellow gaze burned with malice as it peered into the shadows that lined the road.

“Have you come to see our handiwork, then?” the
first one called out, motioning for the villagers to come to a stop.

Though he knew it wouldn’t do any good against the Death-Walkers, Seth moved the flask to his left hand and drew his gun, not certain what to expect from the grim-looking villagers who clearly had something wrong with them.

“Be ready,” Quinn muttered, and in the next instant, the Death-Walkers attacked. Moving more quickly than Seth would have thought possible, they dashed into the alley. Wind rushed against Seth’s face as a blurred shape sped past and left his thigh burning from the razor-sharp claws that had slashed clear through his jeans.

“Son of a bitch,” he hissed under his breath, tossing the contents of the flask when he felt another blast of wind rushing toward him. He knew he’d hit one of the Death-Walkers when an enraged screech rang out through the darkness and the smell of burned flesh filled his nose. Quinn and Garrick were close by, cursing and snarling as the Death-Walkers kept coming at them, all three working to make their way into the moonlit street, where they could get the creatures into the open. As he moved toward the road, Seth tossed his empty flask aside, switched his gun to his left hand, and used his right to punch one of the creatures in the face as it sped toward him, the moonlight glinting off its pale skin. Satisfaction burned in his veins as his fist connected, cracking its nose, and a thick, black liquid poured down its face.

When the Watchmen had first faced off against the Death-Walkers back in December, they’d said it’d been like striking a gooey mist, their punches and kicks having little effect. But the bastards had substance
now
,
even though they were still able to speed through the air like a vapor, and Seth intended to inflict as much damage as he could.