Waking to pleasure. Grégoire’s tongue on me, sliding up my body. Slowly. The faint scrape of long canines, teasing. My hands reaching for him. The feel of his hair, like warm silk. The smell of his body like flowers and spring rain and desire. My need growing. Strength filling me. Tracing his face with my fingertips. Firelight reflected in wide, black pupils. The taste of him.
“Drink from me.” Whispered words.
“No. I won’t belong to you.”
Blackness.
The sound of drums. Echoing through a cave. The feel of stone at my back, my pelt and spine pressed into it. The ledge high up, above the families below, around the curve of the cave wall, their fire glowing on the damp stone. Tsaligi, hiding from yunega. Hiding in Beast’s cave. Out of sight of cave opening. Hiding from yunega aniyowisgi, white soldiers who would make them go west, as the others had gone west in the cold moons.
Tsaligi had not seen Beast. Four days and four nights the family had hidden here. Soon they would go back out, into the light, leaving Beast her den. Until then, Beast hunted only late at night. Returned to den, to hiding place, away from white men and guns and long-distance death. Away from Tsaligi and human kits. Closed eyes, listening to drums. Blackness.
I woke at dusk, warm, pain free, an arm across my waist, a head pillowed on my shoulder. I stiffened. My heartbeat raced. I felt his mouth curve into a smile. “Mon Amazon. George said you would be angry to find me here, in your bed. Please say that you are delighted instead.” I moved my hand. I was naked. So was he. Oh crap. Crap in a bucket. Crapcrapcrap!
He sighed. I felt his breath exhale across my breasts. My naked breasts. He slid from the covers with that boneless grace the really old ones have. I pulled the covers over me. What had I done? I slid a hand down my stomach. Healed. Around my waist. Healed. Panties? No. Crap. He stood over me, patient. I wasn’t going to look to him. Couldn’t look at him.
Minutes passed. He was still standing there. He was hundreds of years old; time was different for old vamps; he could stand like that for hours, waiting, and not get tired. Heart not beating, not breathing, unmoving as a stone angel in a graveyard. I blew out a breath. “What?”
“You are healed.” There was just a hint of irritation in his voice. A hint of steel.
After a moment I said, “Thank you?”
“I did not drink from you. You are not my Enforcer. And . . . we did not make love.” His words were carefully precise. Relief washed through me so hot I broke out into a sweat. “According to your provincial American standards,” he added.
And with a little pop of displaced air, he was gone. According to your provincial American standards? What did that mean? I remembered his hands all over me. His tongue . . . I pulled the covers over my head and burrowed into the pillows. Oh crap. I was so going to hell.
And Beast was still absent. No snarky comment. No pad of paws across my mind, or prick of claw on my conscience or sly, sated happiness. Just a welling emptiness. But there had been the dream. I remembered the dream of the cave. Beast? She didn’t answer.
After I checked in with Molly about the whereabouts of Evangelina—still unknown—and about the health of her injured sisters—improving quickly—and with Derek about the security status of everything else, I stayed in bed the rest of the day, regaining strength, ordering room service, the TV on in the corner—mindless game shows, mindless talk shows, trying to stay mindless, so I didn’t have to remember that Beast was gone, or buried so deeply I couldn’t feel her. So I didn’t have to remember Grégoire and his talented mouth. Difficult to do, as his scent was in my sheets and my body was hypersensitive, every nerve twanging like a violin string. If Beast had been with me, she would have been purring. But she wasn’t. The need for Beast and the memory of desire flickered through me with every heartbeat, every nerve ending sparking, so sensitive it was like riding a blade edge between pain and pleasure. To keep from calling Grégoire, I ordered room service—every meat and seafood dish on the menu and several they prepared just for me, and four pots of tea. Each delivery was brought up by a happy Hispanic guy whom I tipped really well. He was making a week’s tips today as I regained my strength. Nearly dying when I couldn’t shift to heal was debilitating.
At seven p.m., the sun setting late in the early fall, my cell rang. It was Rick. Guilt zinged through me like lightning. I opened the cell, “Rick.”
“Help,” a voice panted, groaning. Rick. In pain.
I swung my legs to the floor. “What’s happened?” I heard a voice in the background and the sound of the cell hitting something. I started to call his name, but over the open airwaves I heard Kemnebi’s voice, smug and satisfied. “The moon is full. It calls to your beast-nature.”
Tonight? No wonder I’d been so . . . whatever I’d been with Grégoire. The full moon and sex went together for Beast like— Beast . . . ? She didn’t answer.
“You will continue trying to shift but will not succeed. You will not survive. Not without my assistance.” Rick screamed. The phone went dead.
Beast had been right, that Kemnebi would not honor his submission, that he was a human in cat skin. Kem-cat wanted Rick dead. He’d be in the woods somewhere. Lotta help that was.
I threw on clothes, taking care with hiking shoes, backpack, weapons. Someone had retrieved and cleaned my gear—had polished the blood out of and off of my guns and silvered blades. I dialed as I dressed. Bruiser answered, warmth in his voice. “Jane! How are—”
“Fine,” I interrupted. “Three things. One, there won’t be a parley tonight. Shaddock is on the run with the witch who spelled him, so Grégoire can take the night off. Again. Two, I need GPS positioning on the number I’m sending you, assuming it’s in Big Creek National Park above the Pigeon River. Three, I need Leo to order Grégoire to send me there in the helicopter.”
“One moment.” I heard keys tapping and he said, “Yes, the call originated from that mountain. Sending you a topo map of the area. You’ll be there in half an hour. Meet the helo at the hotel’s pad. Parley is canceled, and all participants notified.”
I clicked the cell shut and burst through the door into the common area just as Brandon answered his cell. “She wants to go where?” he said. Pushing the B-Twins to speed, talking as we raced to the helo pad, I dialed Derek and put him in charge of security for the night.
Brandon powered up Grégoire’s helo. Over the engine’s high-pitched whine, I was informed that Brian and he were both qualified pilots, and their master, Grégoire, loved to fly. A vamp with a death wish. Go figure. Even the undead had to be crazy to fly in a flimsy glass, air (and maybe a half pound of steel) contraption with no wings and no glide power. If it broke, it would fall like a rock. Beast had refused to ride in the helo. My heart clenched. She wasn’t fighting me.
According to the B-Twins, chattering while they powered up and completed a checklist, the helo was a refurbished Vietnam Era Bell Huey. It had four permanent seats and gear for more, with heavy armament and black-out windows suitable for vampire travel. Like I cared. All I was interested in was its jet engine, functional weaponry slung under the carriage, and infrared tracker and laser-detection signalers. In case I had to track Kem and shoot him with a missile. The engine whine grew and I gritted my teeth, nodding where appropriate and finishing my texts.
At the last moment, a shrouded form leaped into the helicopter and slid the side door shut. The helo’s whine went up in volume as I stared at the dark shape, my phone forgotten, one hand on a weapon. I sniffed. Vamp-scent. Grégoire. Dressed in vamp traveling clothes—layers of robes, tightly woven, gloves and boots and a full-face toboggan with black glass sewn into the eyeholes. I nodded to him. He nodded back regally, or as regally as a vamp can in that getup. He set a wicker picnic basket on the floor. I let go my vamp-killer and went back to work, texting requests to everyone on my list. I sent Derek a terse note that Grégoire was with me.