A Cursed Embrace (WG 2) (5 page)

I crossed my arms defensively. “I don’t
consort
with the undead.” He tightened his jaw. “Much.”

We glared at each other.
He’s really sexy when he broods,
my tigress sighed.
Shut up and focus,
I hissed back.

I cleared my throat. More than once. My beast had a point. “Aric, if the wereraccoon is somehow related to this thing consuming humans, it knows where I live. It knows where my family lives. I get that you don’t want me fighting alongside you. Except you need to understand that I have to keep my sisters safe. So if you don’t want me with you, that’s fine. But you can’t stop me from protecting my family.”

Aric growled, more with frustration than anger, knowing I’d stomped his argument with my mighty, if not stubborn, logic.
Take that, big shot.

Aric rubbed his forehead and swore under his breath. “You have to promise to stay with me at all times. You are not to hunt this thing on your own—that includes going off alone with your sisters. I’m not sure what we’re up against, or what it can do. If my Warriors or I are not with you, you are not to engage it. And if anything else wanders onto your property, I should be the first call you make.”

I probably shouldn’t have smiled considering I just willingly volunteered to go after yet another scary monster . . . who also likely slithered in from hell.

Aric shook his head. “Don’t look at me that way, Celia. It would destroy me if you were hurt.”

“How could a little kitty like me get hurt with a pack of supermacho wolves on my side?”

Aric didn’t find my attempt at humor funny. “Shit. What did I just get you into?”

“You didn’t ‘get me into’ anything. I think the wereraccoon managed that on his own.” I sighed. “Look, Aric, I also hate being the source of your problems. If helping you kill Tahoe’s latest superbeastie alleviates your situation with your Elders, let me.”

“Don’t for a moment think you’re the cause of my problems.” Aric leaned forward, sweeping his lips across my crown line. “What goes on between you and me is none of their damn business. But if eliminating this threat will shut them up, it’s more motivation for me to hunt and kill it.”

Aric wanted to mean what he said, except distress swept around his aura like a noose. Had I been of his kind, would his Elders have been as upset? Probably not.

“The purebloods are plentiful,” Aric continued as if trying to convince us both. “My Elders need to stop demanding that I associate with
were
-only females.”

Demand? Aric had practically growled his last statement. As one of the strongest
weres
in history, he didn’t like being told what to do. Even by those considered above him. I didn’t know much about wolves, or
weres
in general, and feared what the consequences his decision to pursue me might bring. So it only seemed right for me to help him hunt. Maybe he was right. In killing this
monster
, perhaps he’d prove he hadn’t lost his focus or abandoned his duties.

Stress further tightened Aric’s muscles. My tigress convinced me to comfort him through touch. I rubbed my face against his. “What will happen if they continue to insist that you do?”

Aric groaned, low and deep. His reaction had nothing to do with his Elders and everything to do with our contact. “Let me worry about it.” He cupped my face in his hands. “You and me, we can take things slow and see where it leads us.”

Aric tilted his head toward mine. This time I didn’t deny him. I think he only meant to give me a small peck. But when my lips parted, and the tip of my tongue met his, his beast growled with need. And so did mine.

So much for taking things slow.

Aric’s taste sent my tigress into a frenzy, craving more of him in my mouth. The clicking sound of the seat belt release sounded miles away. Aric struggled to free himself from its hold, all the while keeping his mouth hard against mine.

The steering wheel dug into his hip as he lurched his body across the center console, pressing his T-build firmly against me. If it were up to my wild side, I would have ripped his clothes from his body in pieces. But my inexperienced half took over, unsure what to do, and dumbstruck by Aric’s immediate effect on my delicate areas.

Holy . . .

Body parts I barely acknowledged pounded; the tips of my breasts tightened. I slumped back against the side window, moaning, my lips pleading for Aric to explore. My hands swept over his back. His hard muscles tensed beneath my fingertips, and his arms beckoned me closer. I wanted Aric. Then. Now. Fast. Especially when his mouth moved to my neck and found a spot behind my—

“
Celia Wird!
You unhand that boy this instant!”

And that’s when the devil in support hose appeared.
Sweet God in heaven . . . no!

Aric’s head snapped up. His face heated. “What the hell?”

I wrenched my neck to face my neighbor, Mrs. Mancuso. Her penciled-in brows angled in a permanent state of pissed-offness, her curlers tightened hard enough to make her scalp bleed, and her neck skin flapped in the wind. “This is a family neighborhood!”

And because having an eighty-plus woman catching me in a major tongue-hockey moment wasn’t humiliating enough, my lovely sister Taran came to the rescue. She didn’t have supernatural hearing, but she could spot a Mancuso attack a mile away. Taran threw open the front door and stormed down the steps. “Goddamn it, woman, aren’t you dead yet? Get back in the house and mind your own freaking business!”

“Whore.” Mrs. Mancuso dragged out the word as if she were teaching it to a bunch of preschoolers, accentuating it with two stiff ones. “Trollops, sluts, tramps!” she screamed, waving her middle fingers like flags.

I scrambled out of the car when Aric lifted his weight. Taran’s face was inches from Mancuso’s, her blue eyes firing with rage. “I am sick and tired of you calling us whores. It’s not like we parade shirtless men around here.”

As if on cue, Liam jogged around to the front of the house. Naked.

Mrs. Mancuso’s jaw dropped down to her Depends at the sight of Liam’s overly developed man parts. Fortunately the sight of Liam’s studly physique was too much for the old terror. She backed up abruptly and ran indoors, crossing herself to protect herself against the likes of us.

Liam stopped near Aric, oblivious of my own alarm at seeing him naked. “Hey, Aric.”

Aric pinched the bridge of his nose. “Liam. Why did you let Mrs. Mancuso see you naked?”

“I was trying to hide my wolf form,” he said like it was obvious. God forbid he’d hide his naked form. He shrugged. “Anyway, I tracked the raccoon’s blood and pus back into the woods. Looks like he’d been hiding out just below the ridge. Whoever attacked him caught him off guard. There’s blood at his campsite and bullets lodged into the trees leading down to the house.” He regarded me closely before handing Aric a wrinkled piece of office paper.

Aric unfolded it carefully. Liam’s fang marks pierced the top. He’d obviously searched the woods in his beast form. My breath caught at the image printed in gray scale. It was a picture of me and Aric, standing outside my back deck. Dry blood splattered across our faces.

Aric growled with fury. Liam nodded. “He was watching you, Celia.”

C
HAPTER 3

“What could that wereraccoon possibly want with you,
dude?” Shayna sat in the front passenger seat. It was the closest to the driver’s side we’d allow her to get. Hell hath no fury like Shayna behind the wheel.

I adjusted my turtleneck. Originally I’d planned to wear a button-down blouse with my jeans, until Aric left quite the memory of our time together just below my jawline. “I don’t know, but he was watching me for a while. That picture was from the day the wolves came over for a barbecue.”

Emme clasped her hand over her mouth. “Oh my goodness. That was several weeks ago.”

“I know. Aric thinks he may have started watching the house even before I first caught him riffling through our garbage. There’s no way to tell for sure, I suppose.”

Emme’s eyes widened. “I suppose not. Did Aric say whose blood was on the photo?”

I shook my head. “He didn’t have to. I could smell the
were
’s blood all over it. It must have splattered when the first bullet hit . . . or when they’d tried to slit his throat.”

“He must have had the picture open when he was attacked.” Taran shuddered. “Shit. You don’t think he was doing something funny while staring at your—”

“Can we please not go there?” I growled. “Taran, it’s bad enough he’d come around. I’d prefer not to ponder what he did in his alone time.”

“Sorry, Ceel. Look, this whole thing sucks. But at least he’s not around to hurt you anymore.”

“No. But whoever killed him is still out there. So is whatever murdered those men.” I adjusted my position. Blood and death made my inner beast restless to protect. I barely managed to keep her still. “I called Bren and Danny. Danny offered his science and research expertise should we need him. Bren wants to help us track. With his nose, maybe he can help us find something.”

“Sounds like an awesome plan.” Shayna finished pulling up her hair into a ponytail. Spending the afternoon with Koda hadn’t given her much time to get ready for dinner with Misha. A little tidbit she failed to share with Koda. “Hey, Ceel. Does Aric think the murders are related to this weredude?”

“He didn’t say. But I can’t see how. The men were drained of their blood. The
were
was shot and somehow booby-trapped.” What he did tell me was not to leave the house unescorted and not to do anything dangerous.

So I didn’t. Sort of.

I left the house with my sisters as backup . . . and so I wouldn’t be alone in a master vampire’s estate. Misha and I had made plans for dinner earlier in the week. Dinner and the diamond earrings he’d given me previously were the only thank-yous I’d allowed. Yes, I’d saved his life. Yes, I’d inadvertently returned his soul. But I didn’t want him feeling like he owed me. And I sure as hell didn’t ever want to owe him.

Taran tuned the satellite radio to a classic rock station as we pulled into the mile-long drive leading up to Misha’s front gates. We chuckled when “Werewolves of London” was the first song to play. We stopped laughing when an über-size vampire tackled another in front of our car.

Taran slammed on the brakes. It didn’t help. Our velocity was so fast that we ran over them like beached whales. The car rattled and our bodies bounced off the seats. “Son of a
bitch
! Are they dead?”

I jerked my head backward. The bigger of the two Plymouth-size giants grabbed the other by the throat and drove his protruding five-inch nails into the other’s heart. I recognized him as Hank, one of Misha’s bodyguard’s, before blood and ash splattered across the back window and plastered our view. Taran flipped on the rear wipers. Hank waved a nasty hand at me. “Hey, Celia. The master is expecting you.”

Emme buried her face in her hands. “Do you think we’ve come at a bad time?”

“They’re fighting for dominance,” I muttered. It wasn’t easy being BFF with the undead.

Taran scowled.
“What?”

“In killing the other master, Misha took his power and inherited the evil bastard’s minions.” I pushed my long hair out of my eyes. “Misha’s vamps want to stay top dogs and the others want to move up in position. The fighting has been going on all week. Misha assured me it would stop during dinner.”

Taran rolled her eyes and started forward again. Shayna’s gaze remained glued to the rear windshield. “Dude! That’s, like, totally barbaric.”

I’d come to accept that the rules among preternaturals had existed for centuries and for their kind’s own well-being. As outsiders, my family and I couldn’t say or do anything to change that. Still, that didn’t mean I liked or encouraged their behavior. “I know. But it’s the way of the vampires. They could just concede and accept their new ranks, except vampires are all about prestige and status. Those higher up remain closer to Misha. No way are any of them going to back down.”

The wrought-iron gates opened before Taran could hit the intercom system. The cameras hidden within the gargoyle heads lining the stone wall must have alerted Misha’s keep of our arrival. Since he’d named himself as our protector, we’d been elevated to our own status within the vampire world. In other words, mess with us, mess with Misha. And no sane vampire messed with Misha. As a rare vampire with a soul, he essentially juggled life and death, granting him unrivaled power.

Taran crossed over the stone bridge and circled the enormous fountain to park in front of the three-story mansion. When we first caught a gander at Chateau Misha, Shayna tried to convince us we’d inadvertently wandered onto a posh ski resort and spa. Misha’s home could only be described as a colossal mountain Craftsman surrounded by well-manicured botanical masterpieces. The essence of calm and tranquility surrounded the thirty-thousand-square-foot house overlooking Lake Tahoe.

Usually.

A cluster of vampires spread out in an arch near the man-made river filled with carp the size of alley cats. Two vampires in Catholic schoolgirl uniforms circled each other, their clothes ripped to shreds, their pigtails askew, their fangs out. A few yards away, beneath a white fir tree, two other vampires attacked each other like rabid rats while the fist-pumping crowd chanted, “Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!”

In the middle of the chaos stood our werewolf buddy, Bren, taking bets and playing referee. “Hey, Mary Catherine! I told you, no axes allowed! Put the axe down. Down, Mary Catherine.
Down!
” He shook his head like a frustrated camp counselor. “Fuckin’ vampires.”

I leapt out of our SUV. “What the
hell
are you doing here?”

“Hey, babes.” Bren shrugged. “Heard about the smack-down. Thought I’d make a few bucks.”

Taran quirked an eyebrow. “And they let you—a wolf—inside Misha’s compound?”

“Only after I told them I was with the little missus.” Bren winked my way. He whistled through his fingers, ignoring my growls not to call me that. “Agnes Concepción. Let go of his nuts! Fangs and claws, peeps. Fangs and claws.”