Unleashed (4 page)

But it was his pleasure in tasting me that amazed me and heightened the enjoyment I was feeling. It was as if our individual emotions were feeding each other, ping-ponging back and forth in a spiraling twist of arousal, need, and unadulterated sensuality.

I thought you said you weren't hungry.

I wasn't then. I am now.

So you are . . . Hey! That's not hunger
, I answered, my mind filled with the most erotic thoughts it had ever been my (extreme) pleasure to entertain.
Good Lord, man, that last one has to be illegal.

It isn't. But it should be,
he said with languid sensuality.

I squirmed and moaned into his mouth as one of his hands continued to stroke the back of my neck, a suddenly highly erogenous zone, while the other slid down my arm to my rib cage, his fingers spreading to cup my left breast.

This is unbelievable.

I know. I had no idea this is what men felt when they kissed me. What happens if I do this?

I laid my hand on his thigh, gently kneading the heavy muscles. A jolt of electricity shot through him, pushing his arousal—and subsequently mine—to new peaks.

Dear God, don't do that
, he groaned in my mind. I moved my hand off his leg, pausing when he asked,
What are you doing?

Moving my hand. You asked me to.

Don't listen to me! I'm clearly too caught up in amazement to know what I'm saying.

I didn't know it was possible to laugh in someone's head, but that was what I did as I replaced my hand on his thigh, massaging the muscle there as he thoroughly examined every part of my mouth.
I'm caught up in amazement as well. You really do know how to kiss.

That's not what I meant—oh, hell, I'll just have to show you. Do you mind feeding me?

I was turning that thought over in my mind, weighing the building desire that was claiming his sole attention with my own reticence to become someone's snack, when his mouth moved off mine, and he said something in a language I didn't understand, his lips burning a path down my chin, to my neck.

This is a bit cliché, but I doubt if you would appreciate my doing it anywhere else in front of your sister. . . .
His words were still echoing in my head when a sharp, hot pain flared to life and was instantly gone, replaced by the most incredible sensation I'd ever felt.

Oh my God, you're doing it, aren't you? You're drinking my blood!

He moaned into my brain again.
Christ, yes.

I was simultaneously shocked and thrilled. That he was feeding off me was a concept that should have been repugnant, but it was so far from that, my head spun.
This is wild! I can feel you drinking it. I can feel it sliding down your throat. I can feel . . . oh, my. You, too, huh?

I just wanted to see if it was true.

If what was true?
I asked.

He ignored my question, his arousal and mine so tangled together, I knew we were both close to burning up with desire.
We have to stop. If I go on . . .

Yeah, I know. I'm really close, as well. Avery, don't.

Don't?

Don't stop. . . .

Just as I was about to throw self-control to the wind and rip off his clothes to have my carnal way with him, a familiar noise pierced the dense cloud of sex that seemed to hold us in its velvet grip. It was a sharp noise, one that tickled the fringes of my awareness, reminding me of something. I was just about to examine it closer when Avery stiffened in my arms and pulled his mouth off my neck. I caught a flash of his startled blue eyes before they rolled up and he fell forward across my lap, smacking his forehead loudly on the window.

Cora sat at the other side of the truck, my tranquilizing gun still leveled at Avery, a smile on her lips.

“Got him,” she said with grim satisfaction, her gaze rising to meet mine. “No evil undead bloodsucker makes
my
sister dinner!”

“Oh, Cora,” I said, my entire body quivering on the edge of an orgasm. “You have the worst timing of anyone I know.”

Chapter 4

“So now what do we do?” Cora asked, prodding the bed with the toe of her boot. “How long is Vlad going to stay that way?”

“I don't know, and most likely about four hours.” I frowned down at the man who lay on the bed of the cheap motel just outside the town to which Avery had asked to be taken. “I'm not sure because I've never used the tranquilizer on a person. And you shouldn't have—it's dangerous, since the dose for animals is much different than for people. You might have killed him.”

“Yeah, right. He's the evil undead, remember?”

“Oh, he is not,” I snapped, tired of the way Cora constantly harped on the fact that Avery just happened to be a vampire—one that could turn into a melanistic jaguar.

Dear God, what had I gotten myself involved in?

“You've fallen for all that Beloved talk, haven't you? Don't deny it—I can tell you have.”

“I haven't done any such thing,” I objected.

“I know you, Jas. You're the most romantic person I know, constantly watching those sappy old romance movies, mooning about wishing you had some guy from the cover of a romance novel, and waiting for a dashing knight to roll up on a white horse and whisk you away.”

“You are being obnoxiously rude. Just because you don't have an ounce of romance in your soul doesn't mean I'm some sap waiting for a man to complete her life. I do just fine on my own, thank you.”

“Uh-huh.” She waved toward the figure on the bed. “So you don't want to jump his bones?”

I opened my mouth to tell her I would never even think anything so crass, but the words refused to come. I let my gaze linger on Avery for a moment, feeling my cheeks heat up as I met her eyes. “Attraction between two consenting adults is not a shameful thing, Miss Prude. Yes, I happen to find Avery . . . interesting. He's different from any other man I've known.”

“I'll say he is.”

“There's no need to be snide. You know what I mean. I like him. He's fascinating. I mean, think about it, Cora—he's a vampire jaguar! That's just so amazing!”

She rolled her eyes and kicked at the bed again. “You're nuts, that's what you are. I can't imagine finding a bloodsucker sexy. And if you think I'm going to sit around this dump for four hours waiting for Sleeping Beauty there to wake up, you're even nuttier than I think you are.” Scorn dripped from every word.

“He wouldn't be asleep if you hadn't tranquilized him,” I hastened to point out.

“Yeah, yeah, move past that,” she answered, blithely unaware of my sharp glance. “You would have done the same for me.”

“No, I wouldn't have.”

“I say we—” She paused and shot me a curious look. “You really would not have saved me from a bloodsucker?”

“No. Not if you mean someone like Avery.”

“But . . . he's bad!” she said, waving her hand toward the comatose man. “Despite your thinking he's Mr. Sexy Pants, he's evil, Jas! Evil!”

“How do you know that? You don't, do you? No, you don't. But because you had some bizarre past-life experience—the idea of which, I have to admit, I think is totally unrealistic and hard to believe—you're a vampiphobe.”

“You don't have any problem with a jaguar-shaped Scottish vampire, but you mock my very frightening and absolutely real past-life regression?” Cora asked, her arms crossed.

I glanced away and cleared my throat. “Point taken. I will accept that you believe you underwent a past-life regression—”

She coughed meaningfully.

“That you experienced a past-life regression wherein you saw a vampire chomp on some woman who lopped off your head with an ox cart, but that doesn't give you any right to assume that all vampires are the chomping sort. Avery seems perfectly nice, perfectly civilized, and, frankly, sexy as hell.”

“Keys,” Cora said, holding out her hand.

“What?”

“Give me the keys to your truck. Clearly you are under that thrall thing he mentioned, and you're not thinking straight. I need to go find the nearest hardware store to pick up a stake and a shovel and maybe an ax or a chain saw, just in case Drac here gets uppity when he wakes up.”

I was about to protest such a ridiculous idea when two things struck me: The first was that there were no hardware stores within an hour's drive, and the second was that I would much rather be alone with Avery than have my somewhat truculent sister present to put a damper on everything.

Just what constituted “everything” was something I wasn't willing to examine at the moment, but I had to admit the idea of a few hours in Avery's company held a great attraction.

“All right, you can borrow the truck for a bit, but just you remember it belongs to the state, and I'm responsible for it, so be careful.”

“Call me if he wakes up. And don't let him have any more of your blood. Maybe that's how he maintains control of you.” She marched off, shoulders twitching with irritation, her head high with determination.

I waited until I saw her drive off down the highway—in the direction that led deeper into the mountains, and away from populated areas—before turning back to examine Avery's pulse and breathing again.

Judging by the slow, steady pulse, I knew I had nothing but time until he came around. “Time,” I mused to myself, tapping my fingers on the cheaply laminated table. “Hmm. What I would really like to do is to go see the Leshies. If you're sure Albert and his group are the ones who turned you into a jaguar, then I need to talk to them. I mean, what's to stop them from doing it again? I can't have the area flooded with exotic cats—there would be no end of trouble explaining that, not even if I knew how to do so. No, Albert has to be made to stop, and he and I have always had a pretty good relationship. Not like his weird sons, but that doesn't really matter, does it?”

Avery snorted in his sleep.

I waffled for a few minutes, but there was really no choice between staying in the dim, mildewy, tacky motel for hours watching him sleep, or taking a brisk hike through the woods to confront the man who may or may not be out changing innocent vampires into exotic cats.

“The question now is whether or not I should tell Cora where I'm going,” I said to Avery's back. He snored softly in response. “I agree completely. If I tell her, she'll just insist on turning around and accompanying me, and while Albert knows and trusts me, he doesn't know Cora. And his whole group is rather skittish where people are concerned, so really, the best idea is to just leave a note and go from there. Right? Right. I'm so glad you see things my way.”

I scribbled a brief note and taped it to the spotted mirror that grimly reflected images with a sense of futility and hopelessness that was beginning to get on my nerves. I blew a saucy kiss to the blond man snoring gently on the bed, and I escaped the depressing confines of the room.

The motel was made up of twelve little cabins spread out in a drunken line on either side of an equally squalid office, all of which clung to the side of the highway that ran up into the mountains, through to the eastern side of the state. I took stock of my surroundings, pulled up a map on my cell phone, and scurried around behind our cabin to the dense alpine growth. I knew from times tramping through the region that there was a narrow dirt road about a mile away used by utility officials to maintain the large power lines that ran up and over the mountain pass. If I remembered correctly, the western edge of Albert Baum's land wasn't more than another mile east of that track. It wouldn't take me more than an hour to hike across the Baum land to Albert's compound, have a quick chat with him, and be back before Avery woke up.

Twenty minutes later, as I ignored a weathered No Trespassing—Private Wildlife Preserve sign that hung from one corner on a listing fence pole to climb a rotting wooden fence (no barbed wire for the animal-oriented Leshy group), I congratulated myself on my smart thinking. “I'll have Albert Baum all taken care of by the time Avery wakes up. Maybe Albert can even remove whatever it is he did to Avery.”

A thought occurred to me in a voice that sounded almost identical to that of my sister. “I'm not compelled to help him,” I argued with what I knew she'd say if she was with me. “He's a nice man, no matter what you think. And don't ask me how I know; I just do—I could see into his mind, and although he's very full of himself, he's . . .” My voice trailed off as I trudged across a small open meadow, and I struggled for a word to define what I felt inside of Avery.

A female Roosevelt elk and her calf, no doubt one of Albert's transplants from the Olympic National Park, emerged from the dense growth of trees and watched me warily as I followed a game trail through the knee-high grass. I made an abstracted mental note to check my clothing over carefully for deer ticks before I entered Albert's compound.

“Honorable, that's the word,” I said finally as I left the meadow and struggled up a short, sharp incline. “He's honorable.”

“Aye, but you're not,” a man's voice said from behind me. I spun around, out of sheer instinct my hand on my tranquilizing gun, only to find a tall, lanky man with long brown hair scowling at me.

“Oh, hello. You're Franz Baum, aren't you?”

“Dieter,” he corrected me, taking a step toward me that was filled with enough menace to have me scrambling backward up the hill. “Franz is my brother.”

“That's right. I don't know if you remember me or not. My name is Jacintha Ferreira and I'm—”

“You're the female from the government. The one who's always after Da.” He continued to stalk toward me, lifting his chin to sniff the air. “You're not in heat.”

I blinked a couple of times as I crested the hill, glancing quickly behind me. In the distance, about half a mile away, I could see the earth-tone tops of the half dozen durable canvas tents that made up the Leshy compound. “What on earth does that have to do with the price of tea in China?”

“What are you doing here if it's not for breeding?” Dieter asked, sniffing the air again. Suddenly, he froze; then, before I could do so much as take a breath, he growled, “You smell like him!” and leaped toward me.

Time seemed to slow down just like something out of a movie special effect. I watched with openmouthed astonishment as Dieter's body, in midair, did that same sort of shimmering thing that Avery had done. His clothing fell to the ground as a large, slavering gray wolf slammed into my chest, knocking me backward a good two yards. Instinctively, I put up my hands to keep the wolf from snapping my neck, but before I could so much as rally a single thought, a furious scream ripped through the still afternoon air. It was the scream of a cat, a big cat, and all it took was the flash of black as a large body sailed through the air, landing on the wolf and yanking him to the side, to let me know that Avery had woken up a whole lot earlier than I imagined.

“Holy Mary and all the saints!” I yelled, scrambling out of the way of their bodies as the two predators attacked each other. “Is
everyone
around here a shape-shifter? Knock it off, both of you! Right, that's it. You want to play hardball? I can play hardball. Stop or I'll shoot!”

Avery at least glanced toward me when I took up a shooter's stance and aimed my tranquilizing gun at the twisting, snarling mass of gray and black bodies, but the Dieter-wolf paid absolutely no attention.

“Big mistake,” I told him. Narrowing my eyes, my hands following the pair as they fought while I waited for the moment when the wolf's body would be exposed long enough for me to get off a shot.

The gun popped and bucked in my hands as that moment came. Dieter didn't seem to notice it until I yelled at Avery not to kill him. Dieter, who was trying to snap his jaws on Avery's thick, heavily muscled neck, suddenly staggered. Avery would have gone for a killing blow, but I moved forward quickly, saying as I did, “It's okay. I got him. He'll be out in another couple of seconds. Please don't kill him. I have no idea how I'd explain it to his father.”

The big cat was breathing heavily, his eyes glittering with a feral desire that I had no trouble identifying.

“Calm down, Avery. It's over. Look—he's asleep now, see?” I gestured toward the wolf as he collapsed onto the ground. “Everything's okay.”

“That is not in the least bit true,” he answered as the cat's body did the shimmer into his normal human form. There was blood on his neck and shoulder.

“Are you hurt?” I pulled out a couple of tissues, my gut tight as I tried to stop the flow of blood from the deep bites.

“Yes, but not seriously. What are you doing?”

“Dabbing. I don't want to hurt you. What on earth . . . ?”

“I told you it wasn't serious.” The blood had already stopped sluggishly pulsing from his wounds, and before my amazed eyes, the puncture marks began to close and heal over.

“That's amazing!”

“Not really. Moravians have tremendous powers of recuperation.” He glanced around, then turned on his heel and stalked across the small clearing. No longer concerned about his being injured, I allowed myself to enjoy the view. I made a little effort to keep from ogling his bare butt as he walked away, but it was no good, and I knew it. I gave in and had a good, long look, admiring the length of his legs, the easy stride, the muscled calves that swept with gentle curves up to heavily muscled thighs.

You have the nicest butt I've ever seen
, I found myself telling him.

Thank you. It's all the riding we do. My mother says she fell in love with my father because he rode daily.

You have parents?
I asked, somewhat surprised as he disappeared into the trees.

Of course I do. Don't you?

Well . . . yes. But I mean, vampires . . . I thought you guys were made? That's what happens in the Anne Rice books, anyway.