Master of Fire (26 page)

“Get
off
me!” He bore down hard, clinging to his self-control like a drowning man grasping a life preserver.
He was not going to kill her, dammit.

Her only reply was a tempting little wriggle. The feel of her nipples brushing his chest, her mound rubbing his shaft—Sweet Jesu, it was pure, distilled torture. And the scent of her skin rolled over him with every breath he took, so exotic, so sweet, all sex and magic, begging him to sink his aching fangs deep.

No. I will not.
Logan began to fight his magical bonds, trying to rip free, but they held him fast when solid steel would have ripped like paper.

Maybe he could reason with her. “Giada, I dreamed about this. Twice. Both times, you were tied up and . . .”

She lifted her head and looked at him, surprise on her face. “Was I lying on my stomach with my wrists bound behind me? And the second time you had an ostrich feather, and then you . . .”

He stared at her in horror. “And then I ripped out your throat.”

Her head rocked back. “No, you didn’t. God, what a revolting idea.”

“Giada, I had the same dream, the same vision. And I killed you both times.”

“Then it obviously couldn’t have been a vision, could it? Not even a Maja can die twice. Besides, vampires don’t
have
visions. Majae have visions, and the only thing I saw was both of us having one hell of an orgasm.”

He stared up at her. “Giada, I can’t take the risk.”

“It isn’t a risk, Logan. You’re not going to kill me.” She leaned down and kissed him, softly, with breathtaking tenderness.

He didn’t dare move. Images from the dream roared through his head in blood and horror.

“Logan,” Giada breathed against his mouth. “Sweetheart, it’s all right. Somehow we linked as we dreamed, but your mind turned it into a nightmare. You won’t hurt me.”

“But what if I do?” Another minute ticked by, savage in its torment. He clamped his teeth shut. Giada squirmed against him, sweet and merciless and delightfully naked.

Another minute. Another. He lost track of time, shaking in his bonds like a man in the grip of malaria.

Another minute. “Giada,” he gasped. “Giada, please!”

She made no response other than that luscious, vicious little wiggle.

Eternity ticked by like sand in an hourglass falling in slow motion.

“I can’t help but notice,” she said at last, sounding a little hoarse, “that I’m still alive. Shouldn’t you have ripped out my throat by now?”

He said a few words he’d never used to a woman in his entire life. Dad, who had never touched him in anger, would have beaten his ass with a sword sheath. He didn’t care.

“Wow, that was inventive.” Giada sounded amused, damn her. “You do realize I dropped the spell ten minutes ago. The only thing holding you still is you.”

Giada sat up. To his shock, her face was wet with tears. She stood, turned on her heel, and started to walk away. “Do whatever the hell you want. I’m done.”

Logan was on his feet before he realized it, so fast he stumbled. He caught himself and strode after her. Grabbing her by one delicate shoulder, he spun her around and hauled her into his arms. “Why did you do that?” he demanded into her hair. “I could have hurt you!”

“No, actually you couldn’t.” Her voice sounded stuffy with tears. “That was kind of the point, jackass. You don’t have it in you to hurt a woman. Vampire or not, you’re the strongest man I know.” She laughed, sounding a little watery. “Maybe not the
smartest
man I know, but definitely the strongest.”

She was right. Including the part about him being a bit dim.

The realization rolled over him, abrupt and startling. He wasn’t going to hurt Giada when he fed. If he’d lacked that kind of strength, he’d have lost it the minute she put her throat against his teeth.

Logan wasn’t Jimmy Cordino. He’d met others like Jimmy as a cop; he should have recognized the kid’s type long ago. Jimmy had been a twenty-one-year-old idiot with a psychopathic streak the Majae really should have sensed before they authorized his receipt of the Gift.
And I’m none of those things. Not kid, not psychopath, and not out of control.

It was time to prove it. He caught Giada’s delicate chin and tilted her head up. Lowered his own. And bit, making it as fast and clean as he knew how.

She breathed a purr as his own senses exploded with the taste, the scent, the raw eroticism of possessing Giada. Blood filled his mouth, and he swallowed, shuddering at the searing intensity, the pumping, amazing pleasure. The beat of her heart was loud in his ears, a pounding throb. He realized he could monitor how much he took from the strength of the sound.

So he forced himself to slow down, spin it out, listening carefully, trying to keep his attention on the beat rather than his own rioting senses. It was hard—Merlin’s Cup, it was as hard as his cock—but after the lesson in self-control she’d just given him, he knew he was up to the job.

Feeling more confident, he cupped one exquisite breast. And began to drink in earnest.

 

 

Giada’s eyes widened
in stunned delight as his lips moved on her throat, gently reverent.

It wasn’t the first time she’d fed a vampire. There’d been the Magus who’d given her the Gift—right now she couldn’t even remember his name—but that had been nothing like this exquisite worship.

Logan’s lips moved so softly on her skin as his fingers caressed her breast, teasing pleasure from her nipple with gentle little squeezes. His other hand slipped down her belly, found her lower lips, slid between. She arched, sucking in a breath as he started tracing lazy circles over her clit. The arousal that had chilled to guilty ash as she tormented him now flared hot enough to make her quiver.

His cock pressed hard against her belly. She wrapped one hand around its demanding width, began to stroke as she let her head fall back in surrender.

God, she loved the way he filled her hand, so feverishly hot, so hard, his skin like satin over a warm steel rod. A flick of magic slicked her hand with oil as she stroked him lazily. His fingers wove their own spells—runes of arousal and pleasure drawn over nipple and clit, pausing to dip between her nether lips to find her slick, tight core.

With a helpless moan, Giada sank against him, listening to his rough breathing over the sigh of the ocean and the distant song of mermaids worshipping the moon. His fingers thrust and teased, his mouth drew, and the orgasm gathered in the pit of her belly like a burning storm. Her stroking hand moved faster in time to his busy mouth. The pleasure built, hotter, more furious with every touch and stroke, until she wanted to writhe under its delicious lash.

Then it burst free, jerking her into a bow against his hands. She screamed, her hand tightening over his cock. He stiffened, and his shaft began to pulse in long liquid jets against her belly as he growled in dark pleasure.

Her knees gave, almost dumping her to the sand, but he gathered her against him and cradled her, releasing her throat at last. They leaned against each other, both breathing hard, as he began to lick the twin wounds in her throat.

At last he stirred, lifting his head to stare once again toward the horizon. “Sun’ll be coming up soon.”

“The sun . . . ? Oh, God, I’ve got to get you home.” She straightened away from him reluctantly. “You’ll need to go into the Daysleep.” A flick of her fingers opened a gate, and they stepped through together, leaning on each other like a pair of drunks.

 

 

The car pulled
up in front of the sheriff’s office. Bill Jones grinned broadly and stepped forward to open the rear door. His grandson leaped out of the backseat and fell into an enthusiastic bear hug. Heather scooted out after her brother and gave her grandfather a hug. The kids gave their mother a good-bye wave and disappeared into the building with the sheriff.

Smoke stepped out of a gate into the shadows cast by the building’s manicured hedges. He paused just long enough to cast an invisibility shield around himself, then walked through the glass door as if it was no more substantial than mist.

This seemed like a perfect opportunity to check out what was going on at the sheriff’s office. That rogue Dire Wolf seemed to know entirely too much about the department, including such details as Logan’s work schedule. Smoke badly wanted to find out how she came by her information.

Just inside the glass doors, he stopped dead, the fur along his back bristling in alarm.

Magic. The smell of alien magic hung in the lobby, subtle but unmistakable. Not Magekind magic. Something else.

What in the name of all the gods and demons was this? And why hadn’t Giada sensed it?

Smoke realized the answer almost as soon as he thought of the question. Up until he’d eliminated the block on her magic, her powers had been weak during the day. And once they’d been strengthened, she’d returned to the Mageverse.

Which had left the Dire Wolf spy free to roam the department at will.

If Smoke could just discover who the mole was, they’d be that much closer to stopping the killer permanently.

So he put his nose to the industrial brown carpet and started working his way through the lobby, through a closed door, and down a corridor, magical senses alert.

The hallway was a soup of smells—no surprise, considering that more than three hundred officers worked for the department, plus assorted civilians. When you added witnesses, suspects, and victims to the list, teasing out who was who would be damned difficult.

What’s more, the mole had apparently been all over the building for months, laying down a variety of trails of different ages. The scent was strange—a blend of dog and human. Which wasn’t all that surprising for a Dire Wolf. As he’d thought from his glimpse during the fight, the scent was also unmistakably female.

Yet the odor wasn’t exactly the same as that of his attacker. Perhaps because the creature had assumed a different form?

Then again, itwould just about have to. Evenhumans would have noticed a seven-foot fanged monster among them.

Smoke froze in his tracks as his own power leaped within him. He hunkered down and inhaled deeply, drinking in the scent. This new trail was very, very fresh, having probably been laid within the last hour.

He slipped along after it, resisting the impulse to move too quickly. It wouldn’t do to run right into the creature. He didn’t care to precipitate a fight that could end in humans being injured—and far too many questions being raised.

He had not gotten to be as old as he was by being reckless.

The scent trail led down one corridor, then another. Smoke followed it patiently, dodging oblivious cop feet, until it led to a closed door. The trail did not emerge again.

Which meant the mole was still inside.

Smoke crouched outside the closed door, listening hard, tail twitching as voices argued on the other side.

“Sam, you can’t seriously think MacRoy would knowingly have anything to do with getting Davis killed.” The male voice sounded incredulous. “Logan’s a damn good cop.”

“Then why in the hell would he try to tender his resignation? You heard the sheriff. He had to talk MacRoy out of handing in his badge right then.” The woman’s voice rang clearly, hot with anger.

“Knowing Logan, he just feels guilty because he couldn’t swoop down like Superman and fly Davis to safety.” The man snorted. “His sense of responsibility has always been a little overdeveloped.”

Smoke laughed silently. That was putting it mildly.

“I hope you’re right,” the woman growled. “But the fact is, we both know how damned good MacRoy is with explosives.”

“So you’re suggesting, what? He planted that bomb himself so he could disarm it? And instead, Davis tripped it?”

“He wouldn’t be the first cop who got somebody killed while trying to play hero.”

“Taylor, if you really believe Logan MacRoy’s capable of something like that, you’re not thinking clearly. I think you need to go take a couple of days off and get your head back on straight.”

Silence ticked by in icy seconds. Finally: “Is that an order, Lieutenant Billings?”

“Do I have to make it one?”

She swore viciously. Smoke jolted as he heard feet stalking toward the door. He whipped around and shot off down the hall.

It wouldn’t do to let the mole realize they were on to her.

 

 

The door banged
open, and the mole froze as the scent of Mageverse magic hit her senses in a wave. She’d been concentrating so hard on the argument with the lieutenant, she hadn’t realized someone was eavesdropping.

Judging by the wild feline cast to the scent, it was the tiger creature Warlock was so interested in. She concentrated hard to penetrate the illusion the beast had cast, saw a blur of black. Except the small form disappearing around the corner didn’t belong to a tiger of any kind.

It was a house cat.

The Demigod was a shapeshifter of stunning power, if he could manage a transformation into something so small, yet still retain human-level intelligence.

Automatically, she started to lunge in pursuit, only to have a fierce jerk on her leash bring her up short.

“Cut it out, Jenny,” Deputy Samantha Taylor snapped, angry impatience ringing in her voice. “The lieutenant says we’ve got to go home for the day.”

For a moment, Amanda Devon considered sinking her fangs into her “handler’s” ass, then thought better of it. She needed to talk to her father. There had to be some way they could use this new knowledge to lure the Demigod into a trap.

And avenge her brother’s death by killing Logan MacRoy.

Giada lay in
the darkened bedroom listening to the steady sigh of Logan’s breathing. He’d gone to sleep as if clubbed the moment the sun came up. Yet though she’d been up all night, she couldn’t seem to wind down enough to drift off herself. Her mind kept skipping over the events of the night like a stone across a lake.