Only After Dark The Boxed Set Books 1 - 4: Shifters Forever Worlds (16 page)

A
lexa exhaled
and leaned against the wall in her bedroom. She’d performed some emergency repair to her makeup and dress. Shifting was such a bitch to clothing.

Thank goodness Callie had been in labor and no one paid attention to the way she looked. But things weren’t completely settled. Now her concerns were back. Alexa ticked them off on her fingertips.

She touched her index finger.
Now Lézare was gone. Again.
This was so unlike him.
She was beginning to worry about him.

Middle finger
. And Theo had vanished. Probably sent somewhere by Lézare.

Ring finger.
And Evie hadn’t been heard from since she’d told Veila she’d go on the bus tour.

Pinkie.
No word from Valencia.

What the hell was going on with her?

Everything was falling to pieces. Except that Callie had the baby. A healthy baby boy that they’d named Elias Rafael after Gavin’s and Vax’s brothers. They’d decided they’d call him Eli.

The music from downstairs thumped a beat, reminding her a party was still raging. Shifter hearing was sometimes overrated.

I wonder what Reese is doing.

Was he waiting for her? Had he found someone else to dance with? Had another curvy shifter turned courtesan and wooed him away? Though a twinge of jealousy ate at her gut, Alexa knew better. There was some type of bond between them. And Reese was not like the other men she’d known. Not like any of them.

She’d find him at the ball, somewhere.

She opened the door to her bedroom.

—and damned near ran into a wall of a man. Before she could slam into him, she placed her palms on a broad chest, rippling with muscles. Alexa stepped back slightly, but her hands remained on that chest. She looked into a pair of glittering eyes.

A tiny smile played on the curve of his sensuous lips. “Going somewhere?”

“Reese.” His name slipped out with a tiny breath of air.

“In the flesh.” His gaze traveled to her hands on his chest. “We have unfinished business.”

Boy, do we ever.

Her body refused to cooperate. Or maybe it was cooperating, just not in the way she’d thought it would. It had to be the way he said the word
flesh
. It was like sin wrapped in melted chocolate.

Her entire breathing system felt like it was freeze-dried. She couldn’t draw a breath. What this man did to her… She gulped a swallow of the dust that seemed to fill her mouth.

—and almost choked on nothing.

Trying to swallow was pointless.

Mind numb, senses reeling, and a body raging between throbbing and pulsing while her core flexed muscles.

I’ve got to get better control of myself.

“You feel it too.” His statement was in no way a question.

The tiniest nod moved her head, as if a puppet master controlled her motions. “You do?”

“Powerfully so. From the moment you walked away, my body was in tune with yours, I didn’t have to scent you to find you. Some sort of radar drew me here.”

“I’ve never—”

“Me either.”

It seemed natural that he was able to finish her thoughts.

“Leandra.” The moment she said Leandra’s name, she knew Lézare would be furious for what she planned. It was one thing to disappoint him by talking to Leandra so much more than he’d wanted her to. But since they’d been small, they’d been forbidden from going to the swamps at night; more than shifters were in the marshlands that surrounded Arceneaux Point.

“She’d have the answers.” He agreed.

“She has to.” Alexa looked down at her dress. “Shifting’s not so kind to ball gowns.” She looked at his suit—on the dusty side and rumpled.

“Or suits,” he added. “Do you need to change?”

“No. I wouldn’t have an occasion to wear this again anyway. Not until next year’s ball, and it’s not likely I’d wear the same one in back-to-back years. Hope you’re not afraid of things that go bump in the night.”

He raised a brow, opened the French doors that led to her room’s balcony. “Ready to shift?”

Her energy level wasn’t accustomed to this much consecutive shifting. She didn’t want to tell him that if she shifted again so soon, she probably wouldn’t be able to return to her tigress form for a few days, at the very least. “Sure.” Would have been better if she’d told him no—

Too late.

With startling swiftness, he’d shifted into his wolf and slipped through the doors.

Here we go.

Alexa shifted, grunting at the discomfort and pain of morphing into her tigress’s form.

Once she’d padded to his side, he pushed for a sync.

“You know where to go?”

“I’ve been there a few times.”
She didn’t elaborate on the most recent visit and what had transpired.

His wolf eyes slimmed into a thin line in the night’s dimness.
“What if we don’t like what Leandra has to say?”

Alexa hadn’t been prepared for that. What if they didn’t?
“We’ll deal with whatever comes our way.”

She was eager to find out how she had history with him, and why Leandra was hiding something.

Another thought occurred to her. One she pushed away. What if what they felt for each other wasn’t the same away from Arceneaux Point? What if there was a spell on them?

R
eese kept
pace with Alexa’s lope. She seemed in a hurry to get to their destination. He understood her motivation, but didn’t see the need to rush. They trotted through paths and brush, avoiding the areas where the ground was too soft—quicksand, she explained in their sync.

More than thirty minutes into their sojourn, his nerve endings twitched with warning. The fur on his back rose and he slowed his pace.

“Let’s go,”
Alexa insisted.

“Wait.”
He drew to a full stop.

She took a few paces then turned back toward him.
“What is it?”

“There’s something out there.”
He looked toward the dark cluster of trees and the glimmer of water touched by moonlight.

Alexa’s dark eyes gleamed as emeralds. She closed them into slits. Her body tensed, her muscles bunched in her haunches and shoulders.
“It’s not surprising.”

He gave her a double take.
“What do you mean?”

“The swamps. There are other creatures. Not just shifters.”

“Anything you think we can’t handle?”
He refused to believe there was something he couldn’t handle. There never had been.

“Shifters have been known to lose.”
Her tigress’s voice was a low whisper in his head.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Reese could deal with putting himself in danger. But now he’d put Alexa in peril.

“Let’s go back to Arceneaux Point.”

“No, Reese. I want answers.”

He did too, but not at any cost.
“Leandra can come to Arceneaux Point. We can talk to her there.”

Alexa laughed in their sync.
“That’ll never happen. We have to—”
Her eyes narrowed, focused on something behind him then widened.

Reese whirled around.

It took only seconds to process the next few thoughts, but it felt like an eternity passed while he studied the sight before him.

Six beings. Males. Humans—but not. Their faces in otherworldly lines, their features stark in faces that were handsome, but…

Reese couldn’t peg what it was, but something was off about the creatures.

They snarled, revealing white fangs against crimson lips in poreless faces.

He took in the air, heavy and thick with swamp scents, but no scent to give away the newly arrived interlopers.

“Vampires,”
Alexa hissed in their sync.

Reese’s eyes narrowed. Vampires. He’d yet to encounter any. They never crossed into the Houston territory, as far as he knew. And if they ever had, they’d hid their presence well enough not to be found by the Nielsen security patrollers.

“Shifters,” one of the males mocked.

Reese wondered if he could enter their sync the way Leandra had. But she was a witch… and they were vampires.

“You’re trespassing,” another vampire sneered, his features aristocratic, though his attire was no different than one would expect to find on the streets of New Orleans. Khaki pants, a collared white shirt.

Each of the vampires was dressed the same, as if they’d walked out of one of the clubs, just another group of humans, regular joes, out for the night.

Except for the fangs. And the skin. Perfect skin, flawless, as if airbrushed or photo-shopped.

Should he shift? Did they think he and Alexa were food?

Alexa snarled, her teeth bared, her eyes gleaming danger.

“She’s a wicked one, isn’t she?” The first vampire said. “I want to be the first to feast on her blood. Another Arceneaux.”

“It’s been a long time since we’ve tasted Arceneaux blood,” a third vampire said. “Since Étienne.”

“Not that long,” a fourth one added. “I lucked out.”

The other vampires turned their attention to the fourth.

“What?”

“No.”

“Lies.”

They denied the veracity of his statement.

“It’s true,” he added, his smile wicked.

“Then you get none this time,” the first vampire said. “This one’s ours.”

“I’ll take from the wolf, then,” the vampire said.

“They’ll kill us if they can,”
Alexa said in their sync.

Reese studied the tall, lean, but muscular beings.
“We’ll take them,”
he assured them.

“Fine. But be careful. There can be no bloodsharing,”
Alexa’s words bounced in their sync, echoing as if in a large chamber.

The vampires advanced, splitting off as if to flank Reese and Alexa.

Bloodsharing? What the hell is that? He never got a chance to ask her because then she communicated with him again.

“There’s someone in our sync,”
she added.

Reese studied the beings to see if they’d given away that they’d overheard.
“The vampires?”

“Take the wolf out then the tigress,” the first vampire said, indicating toward two of the vampires to veer to the right.

Shifters moved fast, but Reese was stunned to see the speed with which the vampires swarmed. He’d dropped to his haunches, next to Alexa, but at an angle so as to not leave them open to attack from the side, but before he could even think of leaping toward their attackers, a vampire had lunged for him, fangs bared, clawed fingers extended.

The vampire swiped at Reese. Reese jumped back, then leapt for the male’s throat.

A howl from and a grunt made him stop mid-leap, swiveling his torso to check on Alexa.

She had a vampire by the throat, but another had sunk his fangs into her neck.

Reese’s body slammed into the vampire he’d been lunging for, the vampire collapsed with a thud. Reese pounced toward the vampire with his fangs deep in Alexa.

“Kill her. Now,” one of the vampires screeched.

“I think not,” a voice came from the right.

All activity froze. The vampire released Alexa, her blood on his lips.

Alexa let the vampire go. He hurried toward his companions.

Reese glanced to the right, already recognizing the voice he’d heard twice before. Leandra stood before them, emerging from the shadows of the trees that led to the swamp.

Reese hastened toward Alexa, blood trickled from the wound in her neck. Her jaws were soaked with the other vampire’s blood.

“Are you okay?”
he asked Alexa in their sync.

God, I’m an idiot. She’s far from okay. She’s got blood dripping from her neck.

“Witch… Go… Leave us…” The vampires glared at Leandra, their eyes turning to a red so dark as to be black.

“Go. Before I make you wish you had.” Leandra’s already light eyes picked up the full moon’s beam and shone almost white. Black stripes emanated from her pupils, lining her silver-white irises like the spokes of a bicycle.

Reese stared at her eyes. He’d never seen eyes do that. He didn’t have time to dwell on the oddness because the vampires were hissing and drawing back.

“Don’t be afraid. There are six of us. We can take her,” said the second vampire.

“Fool. You should know better. We cannot take her kind,” the first vampire took a step back.

“We can,” the second vampire insisted.

“Fine.” The second vampire flashed, moving quickly, stopping in front of Leandra. His fangs bared, his eyes turned from brown to a deep red, he reached for her with claw-tipped fingers.

He stopped. Blood began to flow from his eyes as if he were crying crimson tears. His mouth opened in a silent scream, his fangs shattered into tiny white shards, scattering about him.

His mouth still open, his Adam’s apple worked furiously, but no sound escaped the open orifice.

His hands reached for his face, but immediately were yanked to his sides as if being pinned by an invisible force.

Leandra’s hand was raised toward the moon, as if in supplication. Her face was immobile.

“Go.” Leandra pointed to the vampires. “Go now.”

Four vampires turned to leave.

The soundlessly screaming, fangless one collapsed to the ground.

The sixth vampire turned to leave, then looked back at his fallen clan member. He leaned down, pulled the wounded vampire to his feet, threw him over his shoulder, and with a backward red glare at Leandra, he followed the other vampires into the dark mist that had begun to settle in over the water.

Alexa released a sound that was more like a groan than a growl.

Reese turned his attention away from the departing vampires.

Alexa’s vibrant green tigress eyes had glazed over to a dull finish.

He shifted immediately, ignoring the discomfort, shoving through the shift with a haste that made his wolf snarl. “She’s—something’s wrong with Alexa.”

“She needs an antidote.”

“For what?”

Alexa’s tigress collapsed onto the dirt road, not much wider than a large path.

Reese kneeled next to her, feeling for her pulse. “She’s weak.”
I can’t lose her. I can’t.
“Alexa.” He stroked the luxurious fur.

“Alexa. You need to shift now. We need to get you to the cabin, before the bloodshare takes over.”

A low grumble came from deep within Alexa’s tigress chest.

“You can do it, my love.” He leaned close to her, his lips near fur-tipped ears. “Do it. Shift. I’ll carry you to the cabin. Shift for me.” His words were choked, his throat stuffed with a lump of despair. “Do it, now. Damn it.”

Alexa’s body began to make slight creaking and stretching sounds, then seconds later, she lay on her side, on the road, laying on a rumpled cream-colored ball gown. Her face was pale, dark lashes lay on ivory skin. Her lips were coated with dried vampire blood and two puncture wounds dotted her neck where the being had sunk his fangs in.

Reese tried to wipe the blood from her lips.

“Get her up, now. We have to hurry.” The black spokes had vanished from Leandra’s eyes, leaving her with that eerie silvery blue color.

Reese picked Alexa up, lay her against his chest. “Lead the way.” He followed a running Leandra down the path, careful not to jar Alexa.

The path became narrower, yielding to a ramp that opened up to a porch-wrapped dilapidated cabin on stilts.

Running quietly up the ramp, Leandra opened the door and let him in. She indicated a tiny cot in the corner. “Give us privacy.”

“But I—” He was about to protest. He didn’t want to leave Alexa alone. Then he remembered how much Leandra had done to help them. “I’ll be on the porch, keeping an eye out.”

Her eyes gleamed in the cabin’s dimness. “They won’t be back.”

Alexa moaned and squirmed on the cot.

Leandra reached for a vial on the shelf.

Reese slipped out the front door and studied the swamp’s foggy darkness, but he couldn’t help from keeping his shifter hearing tuned into what was happening in the cabin.