Wild Fever (9 page)

Her eyes grew wide as understanding dawned, just as Vincent and Lincoln walked into the kitchen.

CHAPTER NINE

Vincent saw the shocked look on Olivia’s face and was at her side in an instant. “What is it?”

She held the phone out to him. “My grandmother wants to talk to you.”

He took the receiver and put it to his ear. “Maria?”

“My granddaughter is in your hands,” Maria said. “You’ve always watched over her. Don’t stop now. I can’t lose her as I lost my son and daughter-in-law. Do I have your word, Vincent Chiasson?”

“You do,” he answered without hesitation.

“I knew I could count on you. Olivia called looking for information. I think you’re going to be interested. All I’ll tell you is to be careful, and try your best to keep Olivia out of it.”

The line went dead before he could respond. Vincent replaced the receiver in its holder.

“Did she give you an earful?” Lincoln asked with a smirk.

Vincent looked from his brother to Olivia. Beau and Christian were still patrolling the edge of their property. He ran a hand over his jaw as he thought of Maria’s words. “Linc, get Beau and Christian. They need to be here.”

Lincoln immediately turned on his heel and opened the back door where he let out a shrill whistle to get their brothers back to the house.

Olivia looked everywhere but at Vincent, and yet he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He knew the taste of her kiss, her skin, her essence. He knew what it felt like to have her come apart around him, to be buried deep within her.

He thought he could be content with what he had been given, but he wanted so much more.
 

Beau and Christian came through the doorway together. “What’s going on,” Christian asked.

Vincent nodded to Olivia. “It seems she may have discovered something.”

“I didn’t do anything,” she hurried to say. “Since Maman knows everyone, I thought she might have an idea of who would want to hurt y’all. So I asked her.”

Vincent’s heart missed a beat. The only way Olivia would know that was if she had been listening to his conversation with Lincoln. Which meant...she had heard everything.

No wonder she couldn’t look at him.

Lincoln threw him a nasty look before he turned to Olivia. “I gather Miss Maria had an answer.”

Olivia woodenly nodded. Whoever Maria said it was shocked her. Vincent wasn’t surprised. She didn’t know the darker side of people. She had seen only the light, only the good. It’s where she belonged.

She blinked her large eyes and fiddled with a broken nail. “Did any of you know that your father had been seeing another woman along with your mother before he finally chose her?”

“This is the first I’ve heard of that,” Beau said.

Lincoln shrugged when Olivia looked at him.

As soon as Olivia’s gaze touched him, Vincent shook his head. “I never heard either of my parents mention it.”

“It seems that the woman wasn’t at all happy when she wasn’t chosen. She made it her mission to try and lure your father away from your mother, and when that didn’t work, she spread rumors that he was unfaithful. Your parents remained together through it all.”

Christian’s rage was palpable as he stood with his hands fisted by his side. “Who is this woman, and why did she wait until after we were grown to take our parents?”

“You’d have to ask her,” Olivia said.

Vincent walked to her side and squatted beside her. “Who is it, Olivia? Who killed my parents and the three girls? Who is trying to kill you?”

“She’s trying to hurt all of you as well,” Olivia said.

He took her hands in his and felt how icy they were. He rubbed his hands over hers to try and warm her. “The sooner we know who it is, the sooner we can confront her.”

“I don’t want you to. Maman believes she’s used a mixture of Voodoo and witchcraft to summon a golem.”

“Fuck!” Lincoln said as he slammed his hand on the table. “A damn golem? Is that what we’ve been chasing?”

Beau pulled their family book over and flipped through the pages. “There was only a vague reference to a golem in here. It’s rare, Vin, and requires a tremendous amount of power, just as Olivia said.”

“Do we even have anything to kill it?” Christian asked.

Lincoln grunted. “You can’t kill a golem. Don’t you ever read, Christian? We have to kill the one who summoned it, the one who controls it.”

Beau nodded as he ran his hand along the passage he was reading. “That’s right. That’s what our great-great-great-great-great grandfather says, anyway.”

Vincent and Olivia didn’t look away from each other all the while his brothers were talking. It was just a short time ago that he had Olivia’s body bared before him, as he learned her curves and kissed her silky skin.

“Who is it?” he asked again.

She licked her lips. “If I tell you, you’ll go after her. You didn’t hear Maman’s voice. There was a thread of fear in it that I’ve never heard before.”

“Olivia. This is what we do. Can’t you understand now why there can’t be anything between us? You wouldn’t want me to do my job, and I would be too worried about protecting you to do what I need to.”

Her shoulders drooped as if all hope had left her. “Patricia Hebert.”

Vincent thought he had been prepared for whatever name Olivia would give him, but he was stunned. Pat had always gone out of her way to speak to the Chiassons when others wouldn’t. She’d had a rough life after Sean’s father died when he was just two.
 

Pat had never remarried, preferring to remain in the parish alone and dedicated to Sean.
 

“We’d know if she was practicing Voodoo or witchcraft,” Beau said into the deafening silence of the kitchen. “That kind of magic calls to the most evil of paranormal creatures.”

Lincoln cracked his knuckles. “I say we go have a little chat with her and clear up a few things. Namely that she call off the golem.”

Vincent looked down at his and Olivia’s hands as his brothers filed out of the house. He stood, and was surprised when Olivia threw herself against him. His arms wrapped around her of their own accord. For several seconds he simply held her, feeling the tremors running through her body.

It was Olivia who pulled back and looked up at him with a solemn black gaze. “I respect what you and your family do. It’s true I don’t want you to go because Patricia and the golem will try to kill you. I can’t live without you in this world, Vincent Chiasson. So, I don’t care what you have to do, but you come back to me.”

His heart pounded in his chest. Never had he dared to hope that she might care for him. He might have planned to live his life alone, but he couldn’t now. “Only if you promise not to leave this house.”

When she eagerly nodded in acceptance, Vincent bent his head for a quick, hard kiss. It was all that he would allow himself.

He started for the door when Olivia called, “Hurry back. We’ve got some talking to do.”

Vincent stepped out of the house and joined his brothers. They knew what they were hunting, and they knew who controlled it.

Christian rested his crossbow on his shoulder. “Let’s get this over with. I’m starving, and Beau promised to cook crawfish etouffee.”

“Yum,” Lincoln said with a lick of his lips. “Incentive enough for me.”

Beau finished loading his gun and snapped it closed. “Consider it done.”

Vincent looked at all three of them. “This is the thing that killed our parents. This is the woman whose jealousy made her take our parents from us too soon. We all want a piece of her for that. We weren’t the only family affected by Patricia’s delusions. Let’s remember that when it comes time to kill her.”

~ ~ ~

Olivia found a deck of cards and began to play solitaire. She went through several games before she put the cards away and explored the house.

It was huge, but the brothers had made it theirs. What was once a back parlor was now a media room complete with theatre seating and a 72” flat screen.

On the other side of the house, Olivia found a workout room with all sorts of training equipment. One of the walls was covered by glass that protected a selection of weapons any military would be impressed by.

Besides the kitchen and study, she also found a formal dining room, and a room off the front of the house that was so feminine and formal that it must have been their mother’s.

Olivia made her way back upstairs and discovered eight bedrooms in all. Four were used by the guys, and there was another set the farthest away from their rooms that was covered with posters from movies, TV shows, and bands.

“Riley’s,” Olivia said with a smile.

The other three bedrooms were empty, as if they were waiting to find their occupants.

Olivia was on her way back downstairs when she heard the telephone ringing. She ran to the kitchen, skidding on the rug as she dove for the receiver.

“Hello?” she answered breathlessly.

“Olivia? Olivia, is that you?” said a male voice.

She couldn’t quite place where she knew the voice, but the fact that he was calling from her grandmother’s phone made her heart pound against her ribs. “Yes? Who is this?”

“It’s Sean Hebert, Olivia. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but there’s been an accident. Your grandmother was on her way home when a drunk driver hit her.”

The room tilted around Olivia. No. She had lost too much. “Is she all right?”

“They’ve taken her to the hospital in Crowley.”

She needed to get to her grandmother, regardless of the promise she gave Vincent. He would understand. “I’ll be there shortly,” she said and hung up the phone.

Olivia grabbed her keys that Vincent had tossed onto the counter earlier and rushed from the house. Her hands were shaking so bad that it took three tries just to get the keys in the ignition.

As soon as the car roared to life, Olivia threw it in drive. All she could think about was her grandmother being hurt and alone and confused at the hospital. That only made her drive faster over the bumpy terrain.

With her hands squeezing the wheel, she sped over the worn path Vincent had called a road. She could see the lights up ahead on the main road. Once she reached that, then she could really fly.

One moment she was driving, and the next, something slammed into her car shattering the glass. She screamed as the vehicle began to roll.

She had no idea how many times her car turned over until it finally came to a stop upside down. Her head pounded from when it slammed against her door during the roll.

Olivia moaned and tried to unbuckle her seatbelt, but the glass had caused several cuts on her hand, and she couldn’t press the lever because the blood made her fingers too slippery. Tears welled, not for her injuries, but because of her grandmother.

It was the low growl that took her breath. She looked around, trying to find the source when she caught sight of thick, hairy legs right next to her.

She bit back a scream and turned her head away when the driver’s side door was ripped off and tossed aside like a kid would toss a toy.

A massive hand with long claws reached for her. Olivia leaned as far away as she could, her tears falling freely now. If only she would have done as Vincent asked.

The golem’s hand latched onto her seatbelt and ripped. Olivia screamed as she fell.

CHAPTER TEN

Olivia opened her eyes to see a fire. Grass itched her cheek, and a mosquito was happily sucking on her shoulder. She tried to swat the mosquito away, but found her hands tied.

“A precaution. I’m sure you understand.”

She stilled, her blood turning to ice as she recognized Sean Hebert’s voice. Olivia lifted her head to find him sitting on the opposite side of the fire making what looked like a doll out of straw.

“What are you doing, Sean? You’re a sheriff’s deputy.” Maybe if she could reason with him he would let her go. It was a long shot, but what did she have to lose.

He ignored her and focused on the doll. “I was so excited when you came back to town. You were cute in school, but damn, you turned into a fine looking woman, Olivia.”

A glance around showed a house about a hundred yards away. The bayou was behind her. She tugged at her bindings, hopeful that she might get a hand free.

“You came here once,” Sean said as he looked up at her with an overly bright smile. “Our senior year I had the party at Christmas.”