Chapter 6 #3
“She puts up a fight, Onchú,” Epoc continued, glowing golden eyes flaring brighter.
“Every night she fights. What my pack does to her. What I do to her… in my lab. Such ferocious spirit. If it weren’t for the blood in her veins, I’d consider letting her live.
But of course, I can’t do that. She is, after all, a filthy Onchú bitch.
She doesn’t deserve to live.” Epoc’s teeth glinted as he gave a wide, reassuring smile.
“But don’t worry. I’ll let you watch McCoy fuck her before I gouge out your eyes.
Then it’ll only be her screams you have to listen to as I drain her very essence from her worthless body. ”
It was too much. Declan couldn’t bear it anymore.
Blood scalding with indescribable rage, he leapt, teeth bared. And landed on…soft cushions.
Declan snapped awake, chest heaving, heart hammering, images of Maggie crashing through his pounding head—a tsunami of torturous memories. He stared at the sparkling chandelier hanging above him, totally disorientated. Where the fuck was he? When the fuck was he?
He struggled up to his elbows, the blood in his veins feeling like boiling acid.
Fuck. His body was on fire, the wound in his side an inferno of agony.
Gingerly, he moved his hand to the rupture, its poisonous heat baking his fingertips.
He traced the fused knot of angry flesh, wincing at the hot pain stabbing into his gut with the delicate contact.
The epidermal layer was healing, but the flesh and sinews and muscles beneath… Damn it, he was in trouble.
Slumping back to the cushions, black pain folding over him in a greedy wave, he rolled his head to the side, trying to remember where he was through the dark fog reaching out for him.
Luxury. An expansive room. White marble and gold…
A woman walked into the room, pulling his blurring vision. A woman with long, firmly toned legs, and long, thick brown hair the color of burnished chestnuts. A woman with a torn tank top knotted between high, full breasts, a flat stomach and a phone in her hand.
A woman he should know…
Regan.
Arresting light-green eyes fell on him and she froze. “Declan?”
Worry etching her beautiful face, she dropped the phone and ran toward him.
He tried to smile, to tell her everything was fine, not to worry, he was fine, but before his lips parted dark, hideous fingers of pain curled around his being and pulled him under.
Into the fog. The dark. Into the hideous memories of Maggie and Epoc and McCoy. Into Hell.
The caller ID came up “private.” Whoever had called him had done so from an unlisted number. Peter frowned at his cell’s screen. No message, no voice. Just a connection cut before a word was exchanged.
Something to do with Reggie?
Perhaps. Could also be his ex-wife. He still hadn’t returned her earlier call, a fact she would be psychotic about by now.
No. It was Reggie. Peter’s gut clenched and he stared harder at the silent cell phone in his hand.
“Who was that?”
Yolanda’s voice—like smoke and honey—jerked Peter’s head up and he shoved his cell into his jacket pocket.
She stood in the doorway of her bedroom, the black linen she’d worn previously replaced by a snug white t-shirt and faded denim jeans.
Jeans, he couldn’t help but notice, still unzipped.
He saw a flash of a tattoo low on her belly, just below her navel—a full moon?
Silvery clouds?—before lifting his gaze to her face. “No one,” he answered. “Wrong number.”
A knowing smile curled her lips and she leisurely zipped up her fly. “Really?”
He scowled. “Yes. Really. You doubting me?”
One finely arched, blonde eyebrow rose. “No. But you are playing things very close to your chest which makes it hard to help you find your sister.” She tilted her head to the side, her hair cascading over her shoulder in a shimmering curtain, her blue eyes direct. “You do not trust me yet, yes?”
Peter crossed his arms, studying her. Did he trust her?
Trust was not easy to earn. Just because she was a cop, his new partner, didn’t mean he automatically trusted her.
And her appointment coming on the day Reggie disappeared?
It raised too many questions in his head for him to be comfortable, let alone the elemental way she made his body act. “No,” he answered. “I don’t.”
“Is there anything I can do to change that?”
“Stop trying to distract me.”
The eyebrow cocked again. “Distract you?” Her glossy red lips twitched. “Is that what I am trying to do?”
“Aren’t you? Every time I get my head focused on Reggie, you touch me, or look at me…”
“And I am not supposed to look at you, yes?”
Peter stared at her, confusion eating at him.
He should be out looking for his sister, not having a conversation with a woman who made his baser male responses come to life.
He shook his head. Maybe he was reading her all wrong?
Maybe Yolanda was just a woman extremely confident with her sexuality?
Maybe he was more fucked up than his ex-wife accused him of being?
Or more sex-deprived than he realized? An angry thump sounded in his temple and he swallowed down a sudden bad taste in his mouth.
“I need to get over to Forensics. The results have come in for the urine swabs conducted on Regan’s furniture. ”
An ambiguous light flashed in Yolanda’s eyes. Eager but reluctant at once. “I will come with you.”
“No.”
An irritated frown pulled at Yolanda’s eyebrows and for a moment Peter thought he heard a low growl rumble somewhere in the room. “I am your partner, Detective, whether you like it or not. Stop treating me like an annoyance.”
You are an annoyance, Yolanda, he almost snapped. I don’t trust you, I don’t know you but you make my body react in ways it never has. And that makes me all the more suspicious of you.
She crossed the room, placing her hand on his arm, gazing into his eyes as her fingertips brushed his biceps through his jacket. “I believe partners should have no secrets. Secrets are not conducive to trust. I want to help you find your sister, Peter. Let me.”
He closed his hand around her wrist, feeling her palm on his arm like a brand, even through his clothes. “Is this the way you break in all your new partners, Vischka?”
Her eyes stayed locked on his. “No.”
“Why am I different, then?”
She studied him, and for a still moment, he saw a hint of vulnerability shimmer in her eyes again. She’s been hurt. And she’s trying to hide it.
But by whom? And why?
He brushed a strand of her hair from her forehead, the slight contact of fingertips and skin sending a ripple up his spine. Tell me your secrets, Yolanda. Self-contempt gnawed at him and he dropped his hand, glaring at her. “What aren’t you telling me, Detective?”
Her face grew still, and the vulnerability in her face grew haunting. Stronger. Before, with a curl of her lips, her haughty expression returned and she scored a line up his torso with her nail. “I like to be in control.”
The smoldering sensuality in her words, the mass of contradictions she presented…everything about her, about the moment, made his pulse quicken and his mouth dry. “So do I.”
But you’re not now! You’re thinking with your dick when you should be thinking of Reggie.
He jerked away from Yolanda, so on fire he could barely draw breath. “What are you doing to me, Vischka?”
Another one of those ambiguous flashes gleamed in her eyes and she pulled a soft breath. “I do not know.”
He turned and stormed across the room, needing to distance himself from her. If he didn’t…“It’s time to go,” he threw over his shoulder, confusion, irritation and—damn it, lust—boiling in his gut. “I’ve wasted too much time already.”
Yolanda studied him. “Go where? Did your wrong number tell you that?”
He ground his teeth and flung open the door. It hadn’t. But he needed to move. Out of Yolanda’s home. Away from the confusing temptation she presented.