It never failed to leave her feeling incredibly conflicted. Safe in the knowledge of the education he gave to her. Unsafe in the way he gave her that education. But he was in Pennsylvania. She was in Nevada. So, why did the sudden sound of his voice scare her so badly?
“I’m sorry, Reese. There was no time – ”
“You know I don’t accept excuses, Charlie.” There was a pause on the other end and all Charlie could hear was the blood rushing through her ear drums. “You owe me a session, sweetheart. I intend to collect.”
The line went dead.
Charlie stood still in that hallway for what seemed like forever. She slowly lowered her phone and stared at it. She blinked a few times. And then she closed the phone, re-pocketing it.
When she seemed to have found her breath again, she let out a shaky sigh and closed her eyes, running a hand through her long, strawberry-blonde hair.
“Too much,” she muttered. “Just… too much.”
She opened her eyes and continued down the hall, forcing thoughts of David Reese to a back burner. He was miles away. She could deal with him later.
She found her door, inserted her key card, and went inside. The accommodations beyond were cool and dark and, admittedly inviting. Charlie pulled off her jacket and hung it on the side of the chair that was tucked under a round table beside the front entrance.
Then she made her way straight to the lavishly made bed in the adjoining bedroom of the massive suite. She pulled off her shirt half way there and left it on the carpet. Next came her bra and then, as she stood directly beside the king-sized mattress, she unbuttoned her jeans and slid out of them, leaving them in a pile beside the bed, along with her underwear and shoes.
The cool air in the room made Charlie immediately aware of how wet she still was. The moisture between her legs served as a cruel and unwanted reminder of the man who had brought it there. An image of Cole’s green eyes flashed in her mind. She saw his fangs and shivered, hugging herself.
But then her stomach tightened and warmth rushed across her belly as she imagined those fangs scraping gently across the skin on her neck. Her collar bone. The top of her breast.
Charlie looked down to find that she was running her fingers along her skin, as if blazing the trail that she imagined him following with his mouth. With his hands…. At once, she felt vulnerable, but deliciously so. She couldn’t help it when she leaned luxuriously, across the bed and took her time crawling across it to un-tuck the covers. As she did so, she stretched like a cat and felt the cool air brush enticingly against every inch of her bare flesh.
Finally, she pulled the covers aside and slid beneath them. The sheets were so incredibly soft, she actually let out a low moan as she settled in between them and pulled them up to her shoulders.
What’s wrong with me, she found herself thinking.
None of the night’s events made any sense. Everything was insane. It was like she’d stepped through some crack in reality and wound up in Bizarro world. The Twilight Zone.
But, despite it all, the only thing she could really think about right now – all she could truly concentrate on – was the need that was growing within her. The material of the sheet on her skin was too soft, too enticing. It felt like a caress. She felt heated and wanton. She needed….
Beneath the covers, Charlie spread her legs, bending her knees so that she was exposed beneath the sheets. Her fingers trailed down her chest to her stomach and then slowed. She closed her eyes and, instantly, Cole was there, filling the darkness with his presence. Distractedly, she noticed that her right arm felt warm. It tingled in a pleasant way.
The fingers of her right hand were warmer than usual when she parted the downy hair on her mound and continued to glide downward. Another moan escaped her lips. She felt her long eyelashes against her cheeks as she squeezed her eyes shut tight and brushed her fingers against her opening.
A moist warmth coated her fingertips. She bit her lip.
Oh God, she thought. I need….
She needed something. Something she couldn’t give to herself.
The mark on her arm heated up a little more and her eyes opened. Everything in the room had come into stark contrast. She blinked a few times, wondering at the sudden change. She couldn’t normally see this well in the dark.
But another strong wave of desire rolled over her and her eyes shut once more, her body trembling as she shuddered beneath the hunger awakening within her. Before she could attempt to once more take matters into her own hands and lessen the need coursing through her heated body, Charlie began to feel strangely sleepy.
Sluggish.
The heat was still there. It still demanded and she still hopelessly yearned. But her eyelids were so heavy. She let them fall and allowed her arms to rest against the mattress. Within a matter of several short seconds, her head lolled to one side, her body having been shoved ruthlessly into a wholly unnatural sleep.
A few moments later, the door to her suite opened and Vincent Cromwell walked in. His tall, dark frame filled the doorway for a minute as he scanned the room. Then he stepped aside and another man followed him into the foyer.
This man was just as tall as Cromwell, but more massively built. His long, blonde hair fell slightly past his broad shoulders in silken waves. His blue eyes burned like cold-fire sapphires as they scanned the room just as Cromwell’s had.
He looked like an angel. But the unforgiving lines of his coldly beautiful face and the cruel set of his sensual mouth marked him as…. Fallen.
“She’s in the bed,” Cromwell spoke softly. His amber eyes glowed in the room’s darkness. His voice sounded slightly hoarse. The man beside him nodded and moved through the apartment, allowing the door to swing shut behind them. Cromwell followed him.
The two men paused in the entrance to her private bedroom. The blonde man’s blue eyes began to glow, his pupils expanding slightly as he took in Charlie’s unconscious, lithe form sprawled across her bed. The sheets and covers bunched up around her as if she had been writhing beneath them. Her long, silken locks spilled across the pillows like a shimmering rose gold waterfall. One long leg had freed itself from the tangle and it enticed with its lean line and slightly shimmering, golden skin.
“Keep her under.” The man spoke, his tone low and commanding. Cromwell nodded once and moved into the room to take up station at one corner beside the tall windows that overlooked the city’s ever-bright lights below.
The blonde man moved to the bed until he stood beside it, his tall frame towering over the sleeping goddess.
“She is exquisite, isn’t she?”
There was no answer. The question had been rhetorical.
“She always has been,” the man finished. He bent slightly, grasping the covers in one strong hand. Slowly, he pulled them down until they fell over the foot of the bed, leaving Charlie fully exposed and vulnerable.
The man’s eyes went from blue to black in the space of a nanosecond. Charlie’s sleeping formed shivered and her brow furrowed in a frown. Slowly, languidly, she moved on the mattress, her skin flushed with goose bumps in the cold night air. One of her hands fisted in the sheet over the mattress, clutching it tight. Her full, pink lips parted as she sighed… and then moaned. Her legs drew up, bending at the knees. And then she straightened again, her hand gliding in sleep across her stomach.
The blonde man sat on the edge of the bed beside her. Across the room, Vincent Cromwell turned toward the windows and closed his eyes, focusing his concentration on the spell he desperately needed to maintain.
“Do you hear me, Charlie?” The fallen angel had lowered his lips to her ear and was speaking softly to her, his strong arms pinned on either side of her slim form. He lowered his voice to a whisper and asked, “Can you recognize my voice?” He chuckled then, an utterly cruel sound, and Charlie gasped in her sleep.
“I know what you want, Charlie,” he told her, still whispering. His fingers found her right wrist and wrapped around it, grasping it gently i
n order to turn it over. His gaze flitted to the mark on the inside of her arm. “I know what you need,” he continued, his gaze darkening slightly as the emerald mark shimmered in the moonlight streaming in through the windows.
When he looked back up at Charlie’s face, his lips parted, his merciless smile exposing the long, sharp fangs behind them. She would have screamed in her magical slumber if not for the kiss he then forced upon her, silencing her outcry.
By the windows, Cromwell nearly cried out himself as Charlie’s mark went from emerald green to a deep, burning, ruby red and the magic he had to force over her to keep her asleep beneath such an attack became nearly impossible to command. His palms were splayed against the glass, his head bowed, his eyes shut tight. He was shaking hard with the effort of keeping her under.
But Gabriel was merciless. He always had been.
Phelan parted her teeth with his tongue and tasted the Dormant beneath him. She was sweet – unbelievably so. She was cinnamon and alcohol and something like strawberries. His cock jumped in his pants, straining for release. He’d wanted it for so long. He’d wanted her for so long.
He could not take her this night. It was the one thing Cole’s mark absolutely forbade. However, he could have a part of her, nonetheless. And he would have a part of her. This part of her. The rest, he swore he would have later.
He broke the kiss slowly and sat back on the bed, allowing his inhuman gaze to burn down her body, taking her in. As he watched Charlie settle down into a deeper, more peaceful slumber, he came to a decision. “I want the mark off of her by tomorrow night, Cromwell.”
Across the room, the wizard Vincent Cromwell swallowed slowly. He nodded. He was spent and exhausted. But he would not let it show. Instead he said, “As you wish.” His low voice was a mere whisper in the new silence of the room.
Gabriel Phelan stood then, his gaze still boring into Charlie’s sleeping form. Then, without another word and without looking at the mage, he left the room.
Vincent heard his master leave the suite, the door shutting softly behind him.
Slowly, the mage ran a shaking hand through his long blue-black hair. And then, with something like regret in his glowing, amber eyes, he made his way to the bed and pulled the blankets up so that Charlie was once more covered.
On the bed, Charlie smiled. It was a grateful smile. Small, and sweet.
Cromwell straightened and wondered what the hell he was going to do next. He did not possess the kind of magic that could remove an alpha’s mark from his mate. That was a dark magic, indeed. It would take a warlock, and he was not one.
He would have to find one. And within twenty-four hours.
Or his life would be forfeit.
Chapter Seven, The Raise
Malcolm hurriedly began to shove furniture up against the walls. Jake and Lucas helped, and then, when the center of the hotel room was completely cleared, Lucas backed up to take station by the tall windows along one wall. Jake moved to guard the front door, bolting it tight.
Cole stood motionless in the middle of the room. He glanced down at the glowing red marks on his wrists, and then his hands curled into tight fists at his sides.
“God speed,” Jake said softly. Malcolm glanced at him and their eyes met. Then he dropped his head and closed his eyes, waiting for the curse to once more disturb his already disturbed existence.
It didn’t disappoint.
Within seconds, the pain he’d come to know so well was arcing through his body, riding along his spine to send sparks of agony into his inhuman brain. This time, he refused to give it voice, swallowing the anguished bellow that threatened to rise from his throat and erupt behind his extending fangs.
Another few tortured heartbeats passed and the flash overtook him, ripping him from one reality and sending him reeling into another.
He forced his eyes open and took in the scene around him.
A young woman lay on a dirty hotel mattress. Her corpse was pale, despite the flickering red light emanating from a dying neon sign beyond the hotel room window. She had been drained of blood – gashes marked both of her wrists and were carved into the insides of her naked thighs.
The scent of blood here was overwhelming, even though the mattress beneath the woman was dry. Whoever had done this had painstakingly collected her blood – and then painted the walls with it.
This is my fault, Malcolm thought. She’s dead because of me.
It was the second time the killer had struck in as little as twelve hours. Same technique. Same kind of victim.
If Malcolm had gone after the killer the first time, the woman on the bed in front of him would still be alive.
But Cole had been snowed under by Charlie’s appearance and utterly preoccupied with the prospect of claiming her. And he had truly thought that there would be more time before the murderer would strike again. A few days, at least.
But the man who had done this was on a rampage. He was not a patient, systematic serial killer. He was angry and frightened and wanted to do as much damage in as little time as possible.
Malcolm bit back the bile that churned in his stomach and allowed himself to change. A quick burst of light filled the room, like the sudden flare of a camera’s flash, and a wolf was standing where a man had stood only moments before.
The room’s furniture focused into quick, sharp contrast. The smells in the room separated themselves and became like hard, tangible objects, almost with colors and shapes of their own.
He found the scent he wanted and committed it to memory.
And then the pain was back and he hunkered down in his wolf form, gritting his teeth against the physical torture of being torn from the here and now and sent into the then and there.
When he flashed back to the hotel room, Lucas Caige and Jakob Samson were still standing where he had left them. They took one look at him in his wolf form and prepared to fight. It was natural for their kind. If the alpha was in fighting mode, the others followed suit.
But he switched back into his human form before they could unleash their own wolves, and ran a shaky hand through his thick black hair.
“I’m going hunting,” he said, his tone low, his voice hoarse with pent up emotion.
Jake’s head raised in understanding. “We’re going with you, then.”
Cole didn’t object. It was as much their right to hunt as it was his. And it would have been stupid to refuse the help. Cole was incredibly capable and strong – perhaps the strongest werewolf in the clan, save James Valentine. But no wolf was an island, and Phelan’s men were out there. The night was long and dark. Anything could happen.
So, he nodded once and made his way to the door. Samson and Caige silently fell in behind him.
* * * *
By the time the trio of wolves returned to the Bellagio an hour later, they’d purchased new clothes and washed their faces and hands with a hose borrowed from someone’s yard. It had been a long time since they’d gone hunting in this manner; on the spur of the moment and without backup supplies. In a way, it felt good.
At least, Malcolm could tell that his companions felt good. Caige was fairly swaggering with satisfaction as they entered the luxurious lobby and made their way to the elevators. And Jake didn’t look too disappointed either.
Malcolm, however, felt tired. Unnaturally so.
His thoughts kept returning to Charlie. He wanted to visit The August and find her room. He wanted to make certain that she’d made it back all right. But Jake had assured him that the taxi driver dropped her off at the hotel’s entrance and that Charlie had made it safely inside.
And he was so tired.
When the elevator doors closed in front of them, Cole leaned against the far wall and shook his head to clear it. His thoughts were becoming fuzzy. Something was wrong.
“Boss?” Jake’s voice sounded suddenly concerned.
“I’m fine,” Malcolm said, softly. But his tone lied. His speech sounded slurred and drawled past his lips a little too slow
ly.
“Did he get hurt?” Caige asked softly, obviously speaking to Jake, beside him.
There was no answer and, from behind Malcolm’s closed lids, he could feel the other wolf shrugging his uncertainty.
“I’m not bloody injured,” Cole stated. But, again his words were slurred and unconvincing. His legs felt weak. He was too heavy. He felt as if he’d been poisoned. Maybe drugged.
His thoughts flashed to Charlie again. Sudden concern for her flooded his mind.
Magic! This was the work of magic – and he smelled no mages anywhere near him. Which meant they were using it on Charlie. He knew that they were linked now. Whether she wanted it or not, Cole’s blood ran through her veins. If someone was using magic on her, there was every possibility that he would be affected by it as well.
Before he could warn his men and send them out after her, his tall, strong form swayed in the elevator and began to fall. Lucas and Jake were instantly on either side of him, holding him up. He sensed them vaguely, as if at a distance. Consciousness was slipping from his grasp.
From afar, he heard the elevator doors ding open. A voice miles away said, “Get him to the couch.” And then there was darkness… but it didn’t last. Malcolm had not had a dream in decades. It had been so very long, he’d forgotten that he had ever dreamt at all.
He was familiar with the concept of dreams, of course. The mind empties itself during sleep. However, since he had been cursed, he had been denied that luxury. What his mind absorbed, his mind retained. He was never rid of it.
The only reprieve he could find was in the spilling of a pen’s ink upon a paper. Or the words that he typed onto a screen. They were a smattering of soul-stuff forced somewhere else – somewhere other than his own brain, his own weary spirit.
There was brief, however slight, liberation in writing. At times, he felt that if he did not write, he would explode. The thick, bulbous, inky-black plague of his memories would spill over, weakening the seams that barely seemed to hold him together. Already, he felt fractured. Each time the marks on his arms heated up, the miniscule cracks in his psyche split a little further and rode a little higher in the weathered pottery of his core.