Broken Heart 09 Only Lycans Need Apply (6 page)

It wasn’t like a transformation you might see on a late-night werewolf flick, with snorting and snarling and breaking and sprouting. It was sorta . . . magical, I suppose. His fur rippled into skin, his limbs stretched and plumped into human arms and legs. And long, silky black hair fell over his shoulders. He didn’t seem stressed out or in pain from the experience, but I would think that shifting from one being into another wasn’t exactly a pleasant sensation.

“I’m dreaming, right?” I asked Dove.

“Well, if you are, you have some fucked-up dreams.” Dove blinked, then said, “Whoa.”

“Whoa” was an understatement.

Werewolf man was naked.

Very, very naked.

He walked over to the guy bleeding in my tent and knelt down. He grabbed the guy’s head and twisted. An ugly snap echoed in the tent as he wrenched the head off. The fedora fell off and rolled toward Dove’s cot. The man tossed the head next to its body.

The vampire—body, head, and blood—turned to ash. All that remained were the fedora and the duster.

Dove and I shared a
holy-shit-did-that-just-really-happen
look.

While my heart tried to claw its way out of my chest, I watched the wolf—er, the man—claim one of my discarded T-shirts lying near the foot locker and rub his face. I realized he was wiping off the vampire’s blood.

“I call the duster,” said Dove in a strangled voice.

“Fuck you,” I said, my voice hoarse with disbelief. “That baby’s mine.”

“Then I want the hat.”

“Whatever, Indiana,” I muttered. Like either of us would even deign to wear the duster or hat. How was one supposed to get vampire ash out of those clothes anyway? I mean . . . OxiClean can do only so much.

“Are you all right?” The naked man walked toward us, then stopped on the other side of the cot, his expression a mask of concern as he studied our faces. He had the most amazing jade green eyes. I didn’t even know eyes could be that color.

He was gorgeous.

I probably should’ve mentioned that before, but I was distracted by all the morphing and the vampire killing. But now that he was less than a foot away, looking at us with a mixture of curiosity and empathy . . . well, I could focus on him.

He was huge, well over six feet tall. And muscled. And beautiful. Blood that streaked him from neck to. . . .

I gasped, and Dove followed my line of sight, and gasped, too.

“Is that real?” asked Dove in a reverent voice. “Because that’s the biggest dick I’ve ever seen.”

“He can hear you,” I whispered harshly. Then in a lower voice, I added, “Don’t you even think about taking dibs, you bitch.”

“Riiiiight,” she whispered back. “You want me to call ahead to the hospital, tell them to expect you and your injured vagina?”

“Then you are okay,” he said dryly. He grabbed the blanket from my cot and wrapped it around his waist. “My name is Drake.”

“Moira Jameson,” I said. “This is Dove.”

“
Just
Dove,” she said severely, as she always did to forestall any questions about a last name. Like last names were even relevant. Werewolf man didn’t seem to have one—or he hadn’t offered one.

He inclined his head, his green eyes flashing with humor. “You handle yourselves very well. Not many humans are so . . . accepting of parakind.”

“Parakind?” I asked.

“A general term. But in this case, I speak of the
droch fola
,” he said, pointing at the pile of ash that was currently messing up my new duster. “And me, of course. The werewolf.”

“I didn’t read about werewolves,” said Dove. “Damn.”

Drake cocked an eyebrow at her. “Perhaps having a conversation with a werewolf is better than reading about him, hmm?”

“Depends on how the conversation ends,” she said.

“Wow. Awesome. Just another day in the desert,” I said. I was starting to get the shakes. See, I was great at crisis-in-the-moment. But the aftershocks got me every time.

“Ah.” He tilted his head and offered a wicked grin. “It’s really too bad.”

“What is?” I asked.

“You will not remember anything that happened tonight.” He gave me a long look, one that gleamed with regret. “And you will not remember me.”

“V
ampires,” I said flatly. Dove and I sat on my cot looking up at six people who should not have existed.

“It’s weird, right?” said the brunette, who’d been introduced as Jessica. Frankly, Jessica was not a good vampire name. It made the whole undead thing highly suspect. The other vampires were Patrick, Lorcan, Eva, and then, of course, the two werewolves, Drake and Darrius, were also there.

My gaze strayed (ha,
stray
) to Drake. Unfortunately, he had left our tent and returned fully dressed, in jeans, T-shirt, and snakeskin boots. His long hair was tied back into a ponytail. His hair was longer than mine. I couldn’t help myself. I felt drawn to him, magnetized almost. Was that a werewolf thing? Or was it because I had no dating life and it was finally catching up with me? Or had I finally flipped my lid and descended into a paranormal psychotic episode?

“Those are vampires,” said Dove, waving her hand toward the four undead ones. Then she pointed at Drake and Darrius. “And those are werewolves,” she added helpfully. My impulse to pinch her was delayed by the dazed look on her face. She was trying to process the situation, same as I was, and I wasn’t sure who was doing the better job. Neither of us, it seemed.

Dove leaned near my ear and said, “You’re not crazy. This is really happening.” She bumped my shoulder. “You might want look less freaked out.”

“Hey, you’re just
meeting
us. The first time I met a vampire was after I woke up dead,” said Jessica. “Which isn’t as easy as you might think.”

“I wouldn’t think it was easy at all,” said Dove.

“Well, it’s not completely horrible,” said Jessica. “Just unnerving. Especially when the vampire’s naked and you’re facefirst between his thighs.” She flashed a grin at Patrick. “Well, anyway. You’re not dead. Bonus, right?”

Wait. What? Talking to a vampire was making me feel twitchy, so I assessed the people standing around the cot. Patrick and Lorcan were twins. So were Drake and Darrius. It was like having double paranormal vision. Okay. Yeah. I was crazy. Certified and everything. And even I didn’t believe this shit.

“The other intruders retreated after Drake killed the
droch fola
,” said Darrius.

Yeah, I remembered the part where the vampire was beheaded and then turned to ash.

“What’s the difference between that asshole and you guys?” Dove asked the vampires. “Other than the part where you haven’t tried to kill us?”

Yet. They hadn’t tried to kill us yet.

“
Droch fola
are vampires who no longer have their humanity,” said Patrick in his Irish brogue. “Soulless, if you will.”

“Ah,” said Dove. “I don’t think that was in the book.”

Patrick lifted a black eyebrow.

“Don’t go there,” I advised him. I looked at Drake. And he was looking at me. Electric pulses zapped the pit of my stomach. I felt drawn to him, but though Darrius had the same appearance . . . no tummy wiggles occurred when I looked at him. They looked very much alike, too.

“What about the rest of my team?” I asked him. My voice turned hoarse halfway through the sentence, and I cleared my throat.

“We saw his penis,” said Dove. “She’s still in awe.”

Jessica burst out laughing.

Drake offered Dove a wicked grin. “And you are not?”

“Since I’ve only seen one werewolf penis, it’s difficult to say,” she said.

“Oh, my God! Can we keep her? Please?” Jessica slapped the werewolf brothers on the shoulders. “Contest!”

“Maybe later,” I said. As in, never. I didn’t think my brain could handle the image of two naked werewolves. Two naked twin werewolves. Wait. What I was thinking? “Never mind. Now’s good.”

“You asked about your team,” said Eva hastily. She was also a brunette, and seemed a little more reserved than Jessica. “Everyone’s okay. And their memories have been adjusted.”

“Adjusted?” I asked.

“Glamoured. Well, damn. You’re going to glamour us,” said Dove. Her mouth drooped into a frown.

“What the hell does that mean?” I asked.

“‘Glamour’ is the term we use when we remove or change a human’s memory,” said Eva. She offered a gentle smile. “It protects you. And us.”

I really didn’t need anyone messing around in my brain. It was fucked up enough in there. Before I could voice a protest, Patrick spoke.

“The temple you’re lookin’ for,” he said. I squinted at him. Hmm. Maybe he was Lorcan. “You any closer to findin’ it?”

“Why on earth would you care about a temple devoted to Set?” I asked.

“Because he was king of the vampires, right?” Dove perked up. “I knew it!”

“No,” said Patrick. “The temple is a resting place for some friends of ours.”

I absorbed that information. “More vampires?”

Drake knelt down, that jade green gaze assessing me in a way that made me tingle.

And I am not a tingler.

“You found something,
ja
?”

“
Ushabtis
with fangs,” said Dove. She glanced at me. “I found two more in the items I was logging in for the day.”

“What’s a u-thingie?” asked Jessica.

“Little statues,” I said. “Made by ancient Egyptians to accompany them into the afterlife as servants.”

Drake reached out and put a hand on my knee. “Perhaps you can show us where these statues were uncovered.”

“Now?”

“It’s a few hours before dawn,” he said. “If there’s a chance you’re close to discovering the pyramid, then we need to know.”

“Yes,” said Eva in a soothing voice that reminded me of all things Zen. I looked at her, and her eyes were glowing red. But I wasn’t afraid. I felt more . . . floaty. “Show us the site, Moira. You feel it’s the right thing to do, don’t you? And you, Dove? You think so, too.”

“Absolutely,” said Dove in a dreamy voice.

Traipsing out to the dig site at two a.m. was the least weird thing to happen tonight. I wasn’t sure why I was feeling more cooperative than freaked out, though. In fact, I felt awesome. Huh. But apparently not as awesome as Dove. She had a goofy smile on her face and looked like she’d been given Thorazine. I eyed Eva. “Did you glamour us?”

She offered another gentle smile. “We need your cooperation, Moira.”

Patrick put a hand on her shoulder. “You may need to push her a little harder. She seems better able to resist than most humans.”

Eva nodded, and then she looked at me, her eyes going redder, and I felt my mind fog. “Show us where you found the statues, Moira.”

“Of course,” I said. Even though I felt good, like I was flying almost, a sense of urgency wound through me. We needed to get to the location right away. It seemed imperative that we do so . . . now. Right now.

I got up from the cot, and Dove rose, too.

It took us twenty minutes to hike to the dig site. By the time we reached it, I was feeling less strung out on vampire mind juju. That glamour was powerful stuff.

We had cordoned off squares with ropes and stakes, and in these squares grad students would toil away trying to find evidence of our temple.

“I’ve been working there,” I said, pointing to the northernmost corner. “That’s where I found the statues.”

“Was anything else uncovered?” asked Drake.

I looked at him over my shoulder. “Bits of pottery. It’s nice to find items intact, but mostly we spend our days gathering pieces and playing puzzle makers.”

We continued to the square where I had been spent nearly two weeks culling through sand to find evidence of Set’s temple. I still had hope of realizing my grandfather’s dream to make a find equivalent to King Tut’s tomb.

“Here,” said Darrius. He had gone to a depression in the corner of the lot and put his hand on it. “Patrick?”

The vampire joined the werewolf, thrust his hands into the sand, and began to shovel sand away incredibly fast. Jessica knelt beside him to help. Sand flew everywhere, as though the ground had exploded. I was impressed . . . until I realized they were screwing up my dig site.

That was when I fully emerged from Eva’s attempt at mind control.

“Hey!” I leapt forward, arms out to push the vampires away from destroying potential evidence.

Drake grabbed my shoulders and pulled me tight against his chest. “Now, now,” he murmured in my ear, “you must not get upset.”

“He’s ruining it!” Panic roared through me. All that work, all that time, all that effort, and they didn’t care. “You don’t understand! We have to be careful. It took years to get this far. My grandfather gave his entire life to this place. Please, Drake. Make them stop!”

“I am sorry, my treasure,” he said. His voice was liquid warmth, and my panic began to dissipate. He had me trapped, but it didn’t actually feel like I was imprisoned. Maybe because his face was pressed against the side of my head and he was whispering soothing sounds. With his arms around me, it felt more like . . . being held. Being comforted. The feeling was so foreign, so nice, it completely disarmed me.

“Dr. Jameson?”