Possession-Blood Ties 2 (28 page)

Pervert. Furry. Furvert, he chastised himself as he boosted her onto his back. “Up you go.”

“This is humiliating,” she growled at him, her mouth so close to his ear her breath stirred

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his hair.

He hooked his elbows under her knees to help support her. Her arms around his neck didn’t choke him. She was strong enough to hold her own weight, for the most part.

“You wouldn’t have been humiliated if you’d stayed at home,” he pointed out, then corrected himself. “At the apartment.”

“Fine. You are right and I, a lowly female, am wrong. Is that better?” Was that a hint of playfulness he heard in her voice?

It buoyed his spirits some. “Much. Are we still going straight?”

She’d refused to let him drive the car while they searched for Nathan. She’d said she couldn’t get a good scent that way.

The thought turned his stomach.

She lifted up slightly, audibly sniffing the wind. “No, turn up ahead.”

Her heels dug into him and she balled the shoulders of his T-shirt in her hands and tugged. He yanked the front of his shirt flat. “Stop that, I’m not a horse.”

“Sorry,” she said in a way that implied she didn’t care what kind of animal he was. “But turn right up ahead.”

The farther she led him into the neighborhood, the more it looked familiar. Dread tightened his guts. “Are you sure we’re on the right track?”

She gave a snort of disgust. “Do you have a better way of finding him that you are not sharing with me? Using it to second-guess my sense of smell? I said turn right.”

In the guise of hoisting her higher on his back, he jostled her wounded leg. “Sorry, did that hurt?”

“You are a spiteful man. I will be glad when this is all over.” She suddenly sounded tired and even laid her head against his shoulder as he walked. Not for the first time that night, he wondered how much pain she was in and how she could put up such a strong front. Idiot. If she would just tell him she needed a rest, he would let her. Even though she didn’t deserve his pity. Maybe it was a good thing they were on the same team. If they hadn’t been, he might have killed her before now.

They walked in silence for a while, her weight surprisingly heavy at his back. Though she was slender, her body was all lean muscle, firm but not hard owing to the thin layer of feminine fat that softened her curves.

She could use a little more of it, he thought, shifting her so her bony pelvis didn’t bite into his back. He was not, he assured himself, not irritated at the fact her body being pressed so close to him would probably succeed in giving him a fatal hard-on. He was pissed off that she didn’t listen, and now he had to cart her heavy ass all over Grand Rapids . She’d gone so long without talking, he wondered if she’d fallen asleep. But then she sat up abruptly, her body completely rigid. “He is close. That way.”

“Of course he is,” Max grumbled, turning in the direction indicated by her impatient shirt tugs.

The direction of Cyrus’s old place.

Anger burned in Max. Of course he would have something to do with this. “I know where he’s going.”

“Then take us there faster,” she ordered impatiently. Max picked up the pace a little, not quite as eager to find their quarry as she seemed to be.

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“Why? You’re in no shape to fight, and I certainly can’t with you hanging on me like a diseased monkey.”

She slapped him on the top of the head, a pretty ballsy thing to do to someone she was riding on, in his opinion. “I am a wolf. Please do not make me any closer to your pathetic species than I already am.”

“Oh, sorry.” He rolled his eyes, despite the fact she wouldn’t see it. “But you seem to conveniently forget I’m not a human.”

“You were, once.” She said it like it was a bad thing. He let that slide. “If I’m right—and as we’ve established, I’m rarely wrong—he’s going to Cyrus’s mansion.”

“On Plymouth Street?” She sounded as surprised that he knew about the place as he was surprised she knew.

“That’s the one. In cozy with him, were you?” It was a cheap shot. No self-respecting werewolf would get it on with a vampire.

That bothered him more than it should.

“I read the Movement files on him during my training. He was one of the best known outlaw vampires living in this area, so it seems impossible that he would not still have connections here,” Bella insisted. “Like your girlfriend, who lives here now.”

“She’s not my…” Max shook his head. “Listen, this is Plymouth. If I go that way, we’re going to Cyrus’s house.”

“Are there no other houses on that street?” She sounded so satisfied with herself, he almost dumped her on her ass.

He picked up the pace once more. “You’re gonna feel pretty stupid when you’re wrong.”

But she wasn’t wrong, at least, not right away. They walked a few blocks and got a dirty look from an elderly couple in evening clothes.

“You should have stayed home,” Max whispered as he lifted a hand in friendly greeting to the woman, who screwed up her face in a sour glare and hugged her fur wrap tighter to her chest. “They’re going to call the cops.”

“Then I will come back and eat their housecats,” Bella said close to his ear. A completely involuntary—because he wasn’t at all attracted to her—shiver went up his back at the feeling of her lips brushing his skin.

She chuckled. “Oh, I bet you hoped I did not notice that.”

“It was from muscle fatigue, I assure you. Ever think of, like, Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig?” Another cheap shot. It was her fault. She reduced him to them. The remark didn’t phase her. “So, I suppose I could do that again. Or maybe…”

As her voice died away, something warm and wet and rough and unmistakably a wicked, pointed tongue traced the outside of his ear. His knees buckled and he nearly crashed to the sidewalk.

“Don’t do that,” he said, a little more sharply than he’d intended, as he recovered his footing.

“Why not? Do you not like it?” She was teasing him, deliberately teasing him, when they were supposed to be working.

He blew out a frustrated breath. “Because I train my dogs not to lick. It’s bad manners.”

Her laughter was surprisingly feminine. He’d expected something throaty and seductive, like her voice. If he’d thought about it at all, that is, which he hadn’t.

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She traced a fingernail down the front of his throat, then scratched beneath his chin affectionately. “You call me a dog as though you were trying to offend me. I know what I am.”

“A pain in the ass? A fat, heavy pain in the ass?” God help him, he was teasing her back. Are you high, Harrison?

No, brain. But I wish I was.

“I am not fat. I have fat, where it is needed in human form.” As if to demonstrate what she meant, she pressed her breasts more firmly against his back. Someone must have drugged her. That was the only explanation for this strange behavior. Or, dear God, did they go into heat?

“Are you coming on to me? ’ Cause if you are—” He didn’t have time to finish with his bad barking-up-the-wrong-tree pun. Up ahead, the mansion loomed before them. With startling clarity, he remembered that night. Or, more accurately, the drive over. He’d never seen Nathan so shaken. Too keyed up to drive, definitely, so Max’d had to drive Ziggy’s shitty old van, listening to Nathan mumble “faster” and “come on,” the whole time.

“I can’t lose her, Max. If I lose her, you have to do me a favor.”

And then he’d pressed a stake into Max’s hand.

Max wouldn’t have been able to do it then, and he wouldn’t be able to do it now. They’d have to take Nathan alive, and damn the consequences.

“Why did you stop?” Bella demanded, digging her heels in again as if she could spur him to movement. “He is not here!”

“Fine!” Max didn’t mean to shout it. The stress was getting to him. Calmer, though his voice was still ragged from tension, he started forward. “Where am I going?”

She sniffed the air again and tugged his shirt. “That way. And straight onto that lawn.”

Her directions led him to another sprawling home, past a baffled security man, who didn’t try and stop them until they were nearly to the back fence. There was a gate—thank God for small miracles—and it was unlocked, so they could slip out before the guard called the cops.

“Wasteful, to have such large homes,” Bella said, the flirtatious air completely disappeared from her speech.

Max thought of his own place and cleared his throat. “Well, maybe they’re inherited.”

“Then wasteful of their ancestors, to have such large homes.” There was clearly no arguing with her.

As they crossed the next lawn, she directed him back to the street. He groaned in frustration. “We could have just gone around the block.”

“The trail is fresh. Cross the street!” She sat up like a foxhunter rising in the saddle.

“You’re hard to carry when you’re squirming like that.” He ran across the street, glad for the absence of traffic on this side of town after nine. They were crossing another lawn when he caught sight of Nathan, naked and bleeding, sprinting through a hedge.

“Holy shit!” Max dropped Bella, though she tried her damndest to stay on him.

“Do not leave me here!” she yelped. “I thought you needed my help.”

“I need to lose some ballast so I can chase him down!” Max ran toward the hedge, slipping on the grass.

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“You will lose his scent!” Bella jogged beside him, her face contorted in pain.

“You’re going to hurt yourself,” he warned. Let her. She’ll have no one to blame but herself.

Her breathing turned to panting, but she kept up despite the pain he knew she felt. Her stamina was amazing as they scrambled over a high brick wall and landed on a vast lawn.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Max groaned as Nathan rounded the corner of a small shed.

“Wait. He has been here before. I can smell him.” Bella’s nostrils flared and she clamped a hand over her mouth. “And I smell death.”

They crept to the huge house, a stucco monster with Spanish tiles and creeping ivy. There were no lights, save for a candle in one of the ground-floor windows. Max motioned for Bella to follow him to the back door.

The impressive oak panel wasn’t locked. It led to a small, three-season room with a mosaic floor and a veritable arboretum of plants. He stumbled over something in the dark and swore quietly.

“What is that?” Bella covered her nose with her sleeve. Max gave the bulky shape a kick, producing a sickening, dull sound. “I’d say the former owners of this place.”

“How many?” She squatted beside him and lifted an arm with a frown. It came completely free of the pile and she dropped it with a gasp.

Max did a quick check. “Two heads.”

“That is impossible. There are more than two bodies here. There have to be more.” Her pupils dilated and her breathing sped up visibly. “We are not safe here. Let’s go.”

With his shoe, Max pushed aside another pile of something moist he’d rather not think about. “Why on earth would you say that?”

“It is not a time for jokes! There is so much death here I cannot breathe.” She stiffened, her nostrils flaring. “Someone is coming. Run! Now!”

On the heels of her statement, he heard it: several pairs of feet clomping toward them. Max ushered Bella ahead of him through the door, but with her injured leg she was too slow. He scooped her up in his arms and ran across the lawn, boosting her over the wall. He vaulted over and dropped onto the grass beside her with a thud.

“What could have done that? And who has that kind of security?” she whispered, peering up at the top of the wall as she sank into a crouch.

“The Soul Eater’s guys,” Max wheezed, his fist bunching the fabric of his shirt over his chest as he struggled for breath. “Looks like someone is keeping an eye on us.”

Bella shook her head. “Or on someone else.”

Max’s blood ran colder than it should have in a vampire. “You’re right. We’ve got to find Nathan or he’s a dead man.”

It was the second time in a week Cyrus had woken cold and naked in an unfamiliar place, and he didn’t like it. A foul, chemical stench stung his nose, and he swiped at it with the back of his hand. His head throbbed and his vision swam. The only thing clear was the feeling of rough carpet at his back and the unmistakable sound of asphalt passing beneath him.

“Where am I?” He sat up, the motion of whatever vehicle he was in setting him

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temporarily off his balance. A nagging sense that something was wrong, beyond the fact that he’d been kidnapped naked again, plagued him.

“You’re in the back of Ziggy’s van.”

He recognized the voice in an instant of raw pain.

“Do you remember who he was?”

“Honestly, I don’t.” Cyrus rubbed his eyes and looked around the space for something to cover himself with. “No, wait. The boy. He was Nolen’s son.”

And you’re my fledgling, he added silently. Or, you were.

“Good. Glad to see you retained your memory. I worried you had forgotten.” She sounded distracted. The van lurched around a corner.

“Where are you taking me?” The feeling that he was forgetting something, something very important, crept up again.

“Back to Michigan. You’re going to help us fix what’s happened to Nathan.”

The unmistakable sensation of motion sickness overwhelmed Cyrus. “Stop the car. I’m going to be ill.”

To his surprise, the van lurched to a halt and the driver’s door ground open on rusty hinges. Seconds later, the back doors opened, revealing a dark, desert highway and endless night sky.

And Carrie.

Fear, embarrassment, pain and relief cascaded in a wave over him. Disoriented, he reached for her, but she stepped back, cold and unyielding as ever. She still wore her fair hair scraped back from her face in a severe ponytail, still glared at him with her cold, blue eyes. He’d looked into those eyes once and prayed to see a bit of warmth, some sign of loving acceptance.