Chosen by Sin (3 page)

She momentarily paused as he glared at her, but she tilted up her chin
and strode toward them. “Dex, I told you she was just trying to help me. Help
us! You shouldn’t have come after her.”

Dex closed his eyes in disbelief. “Goddess help me,” he muttered.

Lucy punched him in the arm. His eyes popped open just as she muttered,
“Oh stop it.”

Things certainly had changed. A few weeks ago, no one, let alone a
small feline mage, would have had the nerve to punch him so casually. He’d
obviously given Lucy the wrong impression about him. Still, as he stared at
her, several uncomfortable feelings washed over him. He actually had to catch
himself from shuffling his feet like a kid.

He suddenly felt like a guy whose ex-girlfriend had just caught him
with his current girlfriend. No, worse than that. Like a guy whose wife had
just caught him in the sack with the mistress he was about to leave said wife
for. In other words, he felt crappy. Nervous. Guilty and unsure.

And that was bullshit.

Forget the fact that he didn’t do nervous or guilty, let alone
uncertainty.

Lucy was his part-feline teammate and temporary lover until she found
someone else to help ease her sexual heat. She wasn’t his ex, his current
girlfriend, or his wife. Their arrangement was for practical purposes only and
no feelings or promises had been exchanged—well, except for his promise
“to be there” for her sexually when she needed him, which wasn’t a vow of
fidelity or love.

And the vampire? He barely knew her. Yes, he’d been instantly attracted
to her, but he’d been attracted to a lot of vamps, and by the way she’d so
easily manipulated Lucy, this one obviously equaled trouble.

So why did the idea of the two of them seeing each other just now have
him so freaked? Why did the fact they’d previously double-teamed him, and not
in a good way, make him want to alternately shake Lucy and fuck Jesmina
senseless?

Rather than dwell on questions he didn’t want to answer or feelings he
didn’t want to feel, he bent down, getting right in Lucy’s face, and gritted
out, “What the hell are you doing here? I told you to stay at the hotel.”

“Since when do you order me around, Dex?” she asked quietly. If their
teammate Wraith, the once blue-skinned, hazy-eyed ghost, had asked the
question, it would have sounded bitchy. From Lucy, however, the question seemed
merely…quizzical. But despite the modulation of her tone, Dex saw her tremble.
Some small part of her was having to force herself to keep eye contact with
him.

Something perilously close to betrayal squeezed his heart. Was she
simply feeling guilty because she’d sneaked out of their hotel room to meet the
vamp, or did she actually believe he could hurt her? Both, he realized.
Immediately, he straightened and took several steps back. It was as if the
newfound distance between them alerted Lucy to his thoughts, for she followed
him and laid a hand on his arm.

Dex moved away again, forcing Lucy’s hand to drop. Normally, he hated
the idea of Lucy suffering, but right now he didn’t care.

The others were right. He needed to stop treating Lucy like a child.
Only, in so many ways, that’s what she reminded him of. She was so small and
kind and innocent. Hell, she’d been a virgin the first time they’d done it. But
she wasn’t as helpless as he’d thought.

She was just like everyone else. She’d played him for a fool. And not
just within the team, like O’Flare had once fooled Wraith, but with a vamp
she’d just met. “This doesn’t concern you, Lucy. This is between me and Jesmina
Martin. Jes,” he emphasized. “The stranger you decided to trust. The vampire
you went off with alone, despite what happened to Wraith at that bar.
Remember?”

With each word he spoke, his tone got harsher and harsher. He knew he
had to get control of himself. Despite his better judgment, he’d ended up
caring about Lucy, but she wasn’t his to protect. And of course he didn’t care
about Jesmina, so why give anyone the impression that he did?

Yet his body was itching to get into the elevator and go after her.

Get the hell out of here, his mind urged.

No fucking way, the rest of him shouted.

One part of him was being especially vocal.

Lucy stepped right in front of him and placed her hand on his arm, her
gaze comfortably steady now. “You like Jesmina, don’t you?”

Well, shit. Lucy really did have some balls on her. “I want to fuck
her, Lucy. I don’t have to like her to do that.”

Her mouth quirked. “But you’re fucking me, and something tells me
that’s going to get in the way of you fucking her. I thought you just wanted to
yell at her, but it’s more than that, isn’t it? If you want her, Dex, talk to
her. I can take care of the heat myself—”

Dex shook his head. “I made you a promise, Lucy. I’ll be here for you
as long as you need me. No matter how pissed off you’ve made me, that hasn’t
changed.”

“It doesn’t matter what you promised, Dex. If there’s something between
you and Jes… If she’s someone you can care about, even love…”

Yes, he’d definitely given her the wrong idea about him.

He covered the hand she still had on his shoulder with one of his, then
gently lowered it to her side. “You don’t get it, Lucy,” he said, his voice
serious. “I like you enough to help you. To sleep with you. It’s certainly no
hardship for me. But I don’t do love. I don’t love anyone. I never have and I
never will. As long as you understand that—as long as you don’t interfere
with me and Jes again—we’ll be okay.”

FBI Director Kyle Mahone stared at Special Agent Leonard Walker, the
new head of the Bureau’s Los Angeles office. He wasn’t sure why the President
had promoted Walker over Mahone’s objection, but he’d tried to look at the
bright side of things. At least the belligerent agent wouldn’t be knocking on
Mahone’s office door anymore—not from across the nation. It was the first
time in years Mahone had left Washington, D.C. for Los Angeles, but he’d had to
take his newly formed concerns to this man. Granted, he still outranked Walker,
but given the President’s faith in him, Mahone had to give Walker considerable
leeway when it came to running his own office—no matter how much it
pissed him off.

“Let me get this straight,” he said. “You don’t see anything remotely
disturbing about the fact that three shape-shifters have been killed in the
last month, each murdered by other shape-shifters who’ve immediately confessed
with clearly prefabricated accounts of self-defense?”

“A rash of murders isn’t evidence of whole scale fratricide, Mahone,
which is what you’re implying.”

“Except for felines, shape-shifters are the most unified Otherborn.
Shape-shifters killing other shape-shifters have been virtually unheard of, yet
the national incidence of such murders has tripled in the past month. According
to my sources overseas, it’s nearly quadrupled in France, with London coming in
a close second. Plus, in at least half of the killings, there’s been evidence
of dark magic and satanic rituals involved.”

“Shape-shifters have always been the hardest Otherborn for us to track,
especially when it comes to mortality rates and criminality. As they integrate
themselves more and more into society, it’s reasonable we’re discovering more
about them, not all of it pretty. In any case, confessions, even ones claiming
justification, mean less backlog for us. As for the other, maybe they’re just
getting sloppy about hiding their true religious leanings.”

And maybe you’re just being lazy, an idiot, or a bigot, Mahone thought,
none of which were anything new. But he refrained from saying so. He had more
important things to do than try to talk sense into Walker. The first thing on
his list was to make sure the debacle that had been the Para-Ops team’s last
mission was wrapped up as neatly as possible. Then he’d be able to deal with
the situation with the shape-shifters and, oh yeah, the Goddess still
threatening to bring forth Armageddon. 

“Have all the
requisite reports been filed with the various local agencies?”

“Not yet, but
soon. Damn shame about how that last op ended up,” Walker said slyly. “The
Para-Ops team wasted time in L.A. when they could have been doing real good
somewhere else.”

“Real good” meaning something that benefited humans, not vamps or
felines. “Somewhere else” meaning anywhere away from Walker’s jurisdiction.
Mahone recognized the subtle taunts and smiled tightly. “Don’t worry about my
team, Walker. The President is pleased with the work they’ve already
accomplished. When the time is right, each and every one of the Para-Ops team
members is going to get the recognition he or she deserves.”

“Of that, I have no doubt.” Walker’s tone was so smug it made Mahone
bristle.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“With all due respect, Director Mahone, it means your so-called team
is getting smaller and smaller as we speak. Knox Devereaux and Felicia Locke
are too busy protecting themselves. From what I hear, the wraith and her human
boyfriend are also on hiatus. Your team is proving what I’ve always known to be
true—ultimately, everyone looks out for the people who matter
most—themselves. It’s why the War started in the first place, and it’s
why peace can never last. I know it. You will, too, eventually.”

Mahone stiffened. Fed up with Walker’s threats, he leaned in close to
him. “My team is committed to keeping peace, with each other and within this
nation. If you interfere, I don’t care how well you’ve fooled the
President—I’ll take you out of the equation myself.” Before Walker could
do more than bluster, Mahone whirled and stalked into the office he was using
as his temporary headquarters. He slammed the door shut, then raked his hands
through his hair.

Damn, he was getting soft. That someone like Walker could get to him so
quickly proved it. He knew it was because Walker’s taunts had hit home—it
didn’t look good for him or the team that they’d wasted so many days chasing
after Natia’s phantom suspects. The falsification of feline rapes also hadn’t
helped their cause to promote peace between humans and Otherborn—already
there were a growing number of humans ready to believe the worst about
Otherborn again. Pockets of protestors were organizing, and Mahone knew they’d
soon be sought out by the Quorum.

Despite the progress he and his team had made, the fragile peace that
had ended the Second Civil War and given the nation hope was beginning to
splinter.

It was bad enough that each Otherborn race fought against each other
and with humans. What more if shape-shifters—creatures that could
disguise themselves to look like any individual, human or Otherborn—were
fighting among themselves and methodically killing each other off? Even worse,
Mahone knew shape-shifters didn’t worship Satan as a general rule, yet the
murders seemed linked to rituals designed to channel spirits from the Otherworld
back to earth. When he’d first got wind of the rituals, Mahone had actually
tried getting in touch with Essenia. For once, however, the Goddess had
remained stubbornly quiet. He was trying to take that as a good sign.       

One thing was certain. If Walker wasn’t going to look into the matter,
Mahone would. He needed to get the Para-Ops team assembled. He also needed to
get Knox and Felicia back on board. That meant somehow alleviating Knox’s very
real and understandable concerns about the threat the Quorum posed to Felicia.
As impossible as this latter task seemed, he needed to accomplish it fast.

His phone rang. Automatically, he thought about the Goddess, which was
ridiculous. Essenia liked to throw down her threats in person so she could see
and not just hear how freaked out he got.

Bitch, he thought as he sat in his desk chair and answered the phone.
But even he recognized he felt more exasperated than hostile. “This is Kyle
Mahone.”

“I was told you’re in charge of the Para-Ops team. Is that true?”

The feminine voice on the other line was low and smooth. Cultured. He
could tell the speaker wasn’t American. She sounded vaguely European. French?

“Who am I talking to?” he asked.

“I’ll take that as a yes. I’ve met your team and I have the highest
respect for them. However, based on our interaction, it’s apparent you could
use some help with Otherborn intel. That happens to be a specialty of mine.”

Mahone leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. The female’s voice
sounded slightly like Bianca, Knox Devereaux’s royal vampire mother, the
vampire queen Mahone had once loved and lost.
C’est la vie
, right? “And what makes you think we need your
help?” he asked.

“I gave your team several leads. Information about wraiths, as well as
the felines.”

Ah, Mahone, thought, sitting back in his chair. This must be the
mysterious vampire O’Flare had told him about. Knox had never heard of her, and
Mahone’s people were at this very moment trying to find out everything they
could about her but having little luck. Obviously, she was right. He did need
better intel about Otherborn if he couldn’t even get a handle on one vampire.
“Too bad you didn’t get in touch with us before I flew my team to L.A. You
could have saved us a lot of trouble,” he said lightly.

“I’m happy to save you trouble in the future,” she replied. “In fact,
I’m hoping we can help each other.”

Of course you are. “So you’re willing to barter information for—”
Recalling his recent conversation with Walker, he sat up straight. “Tell me,”
he said, “Do you know much about the shape-shifter race? Those in Europe,
perhaps?” Technically, the FBI didn’t have jurisdiction overseas. His special
agents had absolutely no authority to work over there. But that didn’t mean
certain independent contractors—like those on the Para-Ops team, for
example—couldn’t decide to do a little work on their own. He suspected
none of his team members would balk at the concept of plausible deniability. It
was one reason he’d chosen them.