Chosen by Blood (11 page)

Felicia laughed. It started as a small chuckle, then progressed to a high-pitched giggle, and then to an almost hysterical guffaw. She fumbled behind her for the doorknob and thought of her friend.

Noella.

The beautiful, sweet-natured full-blooded vampire who’d married Knox and bore him two children. The one who’d died, knowing that Knox had wanted Felicia. And that Felicia had wanted him, as well. Whoever this female was, whoever the Council had picked out for Knox, was going to walk right into the same fate. If Felicia allowed it.

“Stop,” Knox snapped. “Stop thinking of her. Them. This has nothing to do with Noella or Michelle.”

“Michelle? That’s a beautiful name—”

“This is about you and me and the hunger that won’t go away, no matter how you try to deny it.”

“It will go away,” she cried. “It did. All you have to do is stay away from me.”

He barked out an incredulous laugh. “I’ve stayed away from you long enough and that was my mistake. I let your romanticized notions about fidelity sway me, when what I should have done was fuck you. Hard. Fast. Every day until you admitted you were mine.”

Shocked, her mouth opened and closed as she struggled to respond. She’d seen him lose control before, but not like this. Or maybe it wasn’t that he was out of control, she thought. Maybe he had simply made a decision and wasn’t going to mince words letting her know that. The notion made her tremble with a hint of fear and a tidal wave of desire.

Walking up to her, he palmed her hips and lowered his head until his rough breaths stroked her ear. “ And you are mine, Felicia. Every inch of you. Your tits. Your ass. Your mouth. And your sweet, hot core. I’m going to love every single inch of you.” His teeth nipped at her again, harder than before, and his voice got even deeper. “When the time is right, I’m going to have you and I’m never going to let you go.”

“Stop!” she cried, even as she imagined it, his body taking hers in every way possible. She ached for him just as she’d always ached. Hungered as she’d always hungered. Her body was so close to orgasm that she was shaking, but still she denied herself. No matter what he said, he wasn’t hers. He couldn’t be.

Pleadingly, she whispered, “Please don’t do this to me, Knox. Please. Marry this female the Council has picked out. Marry her, have children with her, and leave me alone.”

Her desperation must have gotten through to him because he suddenly jerked back. Eyes almost completely silver, he stared at her. “Felicia . . .”

She finally managed to get the door open and slipped outside.

Thankfully, he chose to let her go.

She’d barely been able to resist him. She honestly didn’t know if she could do it again. From the moment she’d seen him, long before the kiss they’d shared two years ago, she’d wanted him. Wanted him enough to consider sharing him.

And sharing him would kill her.

It would take her love and slowly strangle it, leaving behind nothing but bitterness and regret, as well as the inescapable knowledge that she had allowed it to happen.

So no, she didn’t know if she could resist him again. But resisting was all she’d ever done and all she could ever do.

W
raith barely reached Quantico without losing it. Even with the private jet and driver that Mahone had provided, she was jittery. Out of her element. She’d long ago left the reservation and the protection of her kind to walk among the living, but she’d confined her walking to a small area of Los Angeles that she was familiar with. Here, nothing was familiar. No one had touched her—Mahone had made sure of that—but her fear of even an accidental touch had made her so tense that the stares of those around her, human and Other alike, pierced her like arrows.

Of course, she didn’t let anyone see that.

Popping her gum, Wraith walked behind her escort while readjusting her headphones and resuming the playlist on her iPod. The rousing chorus of “Dancing Queen” played softly, relaxing her without interfering with either her hearing or awareness. She might look unaware to others, even distracted, but Wraith knew exactly how many people they passed, what they were wearing, how they smelled, and whether they’d looked at her with disdain or simply avid curiosity. Most did both.

She shrugged. It was hard not to be curious about a woman with short, spiked, shockingly white hair à la Billy Idol, especially when her skin and lips had a slight blue tinge that she didn’t bother to hide with makeup anymore. The fact that she wore complementary electric blue four-inch stilettos and tight black leather wouldn’t help her meld into a crowd, either, but that wasn’t what she wanted. She’d learned to use her appearance to keep people rattled. That way, she kept them from seeing how much rattling her own knees were doing.

“Please wait in here.”

Nodding at the somber-faced man who’d silently escorted her inside the winding corridors of the FBI Academy’s lesserknown sister facility, Wraith stepped into the room. She deliberately kept her gaze off the death mark pulsing on the man’s chest, then took a deep breath when he closed the door, shutting her inside the large sterile conference room.

She’d smelled the man’s illness as soon as she’d gotten into the car. The sickly stench had almost made her gag before she’d managed to control herself, so she took the opportunity to suck in as much clean air as she could.

It wasn’t long before Mahone arrived.

“I trust everything went smoothly?”

“Not a fucking problem,” she clipped, suppressing her smile at Mahone’s instinctive wince. People, men in particular, were so predictable. Having breasts and a filthy mouth unnerved them every time.

“Devereaux is here and ready to meet the team. As you’re the first one to arrive, I thought you might want to ...”

She saw the moment Mahone stumbled.

She might want to what? Eat? Rest? He’d obviously forgotten wraiths did neither, but he recovered quickly.

“Read up on the other members.” He held out a stack of files.

Wraith took them even though she’d done her own research on the team members. She pierced Mahone with a gaze he couldn’t see behind her dark glasses.

“I’m assuming my file contains only the information we agreed upon?” Again, based on her research, she already suspected it did. She couldn’t be certain, however, that Mahone hadn’t supplemented the files he’d created on his computer, or that those files hadn’t been shadow files designed to throw her off.

Trust no one; it was her motto for a reason.

Mahone nodded. “That’s right.”

“No mention about my vision?” she clarified. “Or the . . .” She swallowed audibly as dark memories pressed at her.

“That’s right,” Mahone said softly. “No mention of what happened to you. Just the necessities we agreed to. ‘Hands off’ being the primary one.”

Still holding the files in one hand, Wraith threw her arms out and grinned. “Then let’s get the fucking show on the road, shall we? Because the sooner we get the damn antidote, the sooner I get what I want.”

What I need, she internally amended as she followed Mahone down yet another hall. First, information. Then the means to kill herself the way nature should have done in the first place.

A
week to the day after Mahone had offered him a position on Team Red, Knox realized exactly how much faith Mahone had in his abilities.

Too much.

Mahone must have thought Knox was a miracle worker in addition to a masochist. Why else would he have introduced the three Others in front of him as his team members? The fifth member of the team, Dex Hunt, hadn’t yet bothered to show, but Knox wasn’t surprised or concerned by his tardiness. From the little he knew about him, the werebeast would arrive in his own good time, but he’d be there. Knox was more surprised by the three he’d just met.

The mage, Lucy Talbot, and the human, Caleb O’Flare, each sat in a chair. Both appeared relaxed. No one looking at them would guess at the blood they had on their hands or the blood they were willing to shed in order to get what they needed.

As for the wraith who was pacing the floor? She seemed too unstable to function on her own, let alone in a group during intense combat situations. She’d removed her sunglasses over ten minutes ago, but Knox still hadn’t gotten used to her filmy eyes. They, more than anything else, announced how dead she was inside. And it had nothing to do with her lack of a pulse. This female had been through things that went beyond the horrors of war. Maybe beyond anything that Knox could imagine, which considering who he was and what he’d seen in his lifetime, was saying something.

Still, Lucy was the biggest surprise.

To cover her baldness the way most female mages did, Lucy was wearing a dark chestnut wig styled into a razor straight bob with bangs. Her face was lightly accented with makeup but she still looked younger than she had in the surveillance photos. Too young to have killed her first mark at sixteen. Too young to have studied with a Senior Mage learning the kind of magic that less than 5 percent of the mage population could master. The kind of magic most mages spoke of in whispers using words like “dark,” and “unpredictable,” and “abomination.”

“This is ridiculous!” The wraith came to an abrupt stop and braced both hands on her hips. She snapped her gum. “So what if the piece-of-shit wolf isn’t here yet? Let’s get this show on the road.”

Knox frowned and opened his mouth to reply, but Lucy beat him to it.

“What would be the point in that?” Lucy countered. “We’d just have to go through it all again when he got here. Why don’t you take a seat and relax instead of trying to show us what a badass you are.”

They all stared at the mage. She’d managed to make her jab without sounding remotely hostile. The wraith glared at her anyway, as if deciding the best way to take her down. O’Flare didn’t even try to hide his amusement.

O’Flare was another one who’d take time to understand. He gave the impression that little bothered him. With shaggy blondish-brown hair and green eyes, he’d be almost pretty but for the strong, angular bone structure he’d inherited from his Native American mother. Plus, he was tall and broadshouldered, with a long, muscular body that would look equally at home slouching in a chair or rappelling down a mountain. According to his bio, mountain climbing was a favorite hobby of his. The face would be useful for missions requiring the assistance of a swayable female, but Knox would have to trust the body to protect his life. And possibly save it. By all accounts, O’Flare had proven his skill as a medic time and again. Plus, his psychic powers had saved not just his own ass, but those of several soldiers in his previous platoons.

Knox sighed as the wraith took a step toward Lucy.

If he wasn’t careful, she was going to draw blood and give O’Flare a chance to prove how good a medic he really was.

“Ease down, Wraith,” he snapped. When she grudgingly took a step back, Knox looked at the others. “She’s right. We are wasting time. Mr. Hunt will have to play catch-up. First order of business is a warning: I need to be certain each of you is committed to this cause. I warn you, if I find out otherwise, I won’t hesitate to eliminate the threat you pose.”

Wraith smirked, but other than that, she met his stare head-on. So did the others.

Satisfied, Knox nodded. “Good. Now, we’re going to get to know each other a little better.”

The wraith snorted, but this time the others wore matching expressions of rancor.

“ Are we going to get in a circle and tell each other what our favorite color is?”

Knox didn’t acknowledge O’Flare’s joke. Once again, he reminded himself it was going to take time to earn their trust. They didn’t realize it yet, but when Knox issued an order, even one couched in friendly terms, he expected it to be carried out, no questions asked. They’d learn that soon enough. “We’ve all been briefed on the particulars,” he said, picking up a stack of files and tossing a folder to them one by one. “This is what we were all given, so of course we know everything about one another. Right?”

He nodded at the skeptical glances he received.

“Right. So who’s going to reveal their deep dark secret first? The secret that’s going to piss me off when it gives the enemy a hold over the rest of us.” He looked at each of them. “No volunteers? Okay. Then why don’t I go first?”

Instinctively, Knox hesitated. But again, if he was going to lead, he needed to lead by example. He’d been a wreck since seeing Felicia just over a week ago. Mentally, he snorted. More precisely, he’d been a wreck since he’d practically attacked her, grinding his dick against her while he’d threatened to take her, body and soul. He’d been out of control, furious at her statement that he hadn’t wanted her enough to take her.

Just once, he’d wanted her to feel the full measure of his desire for her, so she’d never dare say such a stupid thing again.

In the process, he’d not only tortured himself, but her. She’d been on the verge of coming, yet pain and desperation had rolled from her in waves. Once more, he questioned whether he had the right to push for a relationship with her. She had valid concerns, after all, and he couldn’t promise he’d never take another female. Not yet. Not before his clan’s future was secure.

But he couldn’t let himself think that way, he reminded himself. She wanted him. Hell, she needed him. Eventually, she’d come to terms with his need to produce other vamps. And he was going to do everything in his power to make sure that happened sooner than later.

Unfortunately, she was determined to make life difficult for him. Neither he nor Mahone had managed to convince her to stay at the Dome, where he’d been hoping to visit her and the children whenever there was downtime during his missions. It wasn’t that she didn’t care about the children’s safety, she’d told Mahone, who’d obediently relayed her words to Knox. Rather, according to Mahone, “She asked what kind of idiot you took her for. She knows just how secure the Dome is, so any hopes you had of making her bend to your will through guilt were feeble at best. ‘Feeble’ is a direct quote, by the way. So where does that leave us?”