Primal Instincts (23 page)

Francesca turned Tobias to face her. “The Tribe vampire—Stone—he’s brainwashed her, hasn’t he? I don’t know where the mortal boyfriend comes in, but only a vampire could mess her up like this.”

“The mortal will be her controller,” Tobias told Francesca. “The one she reported to, the one gave her orders.”

“The one I’m going to kill,” Francesca said,
looking at the suffering Chiana.

“That’s my job.” He put a hand on Francesca’s shoulder. “Your job is to help her.”

Surprise flashed through her, and fear. “I—”

“We don’t have time to discuss this.” Tobias settled on the floor next to the selkie and brought Francesca down with him. “You want to be useful, my love. I’ve never met anyone who needs to be useful more than you do. A Matri’s heiress has plenty of telepathic training. Here’s your chance to use it.”

Francesca looked in horror between him and Chiana. “I don’t want to hurt her.”

“I’ll hurt her if I try,” he said. “You told me to be gentle with her, and this is the only way. Do it.”

Francesca glared at him for a moment, but at the same time he watched her get her temper and nerves in check. “Get out of my way,” she said when she was under control.

Chiana tried to lunge away when Francesca approached. “Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!”

Kea managed to hang on to the struggling selkie until Francesca could take her place. Francesca had never probed an unwilling mind before. How to do it?

Chiana begged not to be touched by a vampire. The best Francesca could do was let Chiana go.

“I’ll do as you ask. You have rights, Chiana. You’re not a prisoner.”

“I am! I am!” Chiana pounded her small fists on the floor as tears streamed down her face.

Francesca waited to see if the selkie would bolt, but Chiana curled into a tight ball under the table. Her breathing was ragged, her sobs growing weaker.

Francesca twined her fingers tightly together, refraining from physical contact. She closed her eyes and concentrated all her psychic attention on Chiana. She let her shielding down, moved her consciousness
toward—

Darkness. Pain. Angry shadows writhing . . .

Francesca pulled back. She fought through a fierce pain pounding in her head to find herself.

Desperation. It was a sharp pain howling and clawing inside Chiana’s mind. Fear was a second beast that guarded Chiana’s hell.

Francesca went with these monstrous images conjured by her own thoughts to define Chiana’s suffering. She was Clan, right? Monster fighting was the family business.

Come and get me!
she shouted, and threw her being at the creatures stalking the gates of the selkie’s prison. The beasts could not withstand the violent, thirsting, hungry, domineering vampire nature Francesca wielded against them. She used her natural weapons to tear through the barrier with barely a thought.

Fog swirled around her. Turned to darkness. Turned to water.

Cold, salty, wonderful water.

Rising to the surface, flowing toward the rocky shore.

Last day of vacation. I want to go home, but I don’t want to leave. The sea here is cleaner, more alive. But I have to leave. The bachelor seal who’s been courting me is going to be disappointed . . .

Laughter fresh as the water rippled through her.

Her body found the beach. Water flowed off her fur. She lifted her muzzle to sniff the—

Who? What?

“Hello, little girl. You’re mine now.”

Claws. Ripping. Raping.

Pain, pain, and ever more pain.

“You took my skin from me! My skin! Please, no! I can’t shift without my skin!”

“You’ll get your skin back if you do what you’re told.”

“Whatever you say. I must do whatever you say.”

“Not me, little girl. Look at this mortal. Obey him. He’s as close as your lover now. Closer. Obey him. You have no choice.”

No choice.

You have a choice
, Francesca told Chiana. She hunted for the spark of rebellion that found ways to give hints of her imprisonment.
They didn’t take all of you away. You don’t really believe the myth. You don’t need a sealskin to change—the ability is there. He lied. Deep down, past all the pain, you have to go there. You can shift again. It’s in your blood, bones, heart, deep down in your DNA.

That’s right. Down the spiral path. Scream as much as you need to. Don’t stop. You have to find the way. Feel the softness of the sealskin. See the beauty of it. Wrap it around you. That’s right. That’s good. You’re beautiful. Whole.

“Francesca? Francesca, come back to me. Chiana’s okay. I need you to come back to me. Now!”

She was being shaken and she didn’t like it.

“Ow! Damn it, woman, keep your claws out of me!”

“Tobias?”

“Of course it’s Tobias! Are you going to open your eyes and look at me?”

She liked looking at him. “All right. You need a shave,” she added when her eyes were open. They were face-to-face. He was a lot taller than she was. “Why am I dangling off the floor?”

“It seemed safer that way.” He slowly lowered her and let go of her arms when her feet were on the ground.

She rubbed bruised upper arms and vaguely remembered her claws sinking into skin. The smell of a drop of his blood sent heat through her. Tobias had only been defending himself. “Sorry about that.”

He kissed her forehead.
You did good, kid.
Tobias turned his attention away from her, but his arm came around her shoulder. “Ali, get that poor selkie into the ocean ASAP. Take a couple of Angels along on guard duty.”

“Right, boss. Can Kea come too?”

“Fine. Make a party of it. I owe Kea a good time for suspecting her.”

Francesca snuggled beside Tobias, securing her
shielding while admiring the way Tobias so decisively gave orders. She loved the way he was making up for mistreating Kea.

Get over it
, she told herself.
He manipulated you and he’s happy to pack you off to Idaho.

But Francesca couldn’t keep up her cynicism for more than a moment. Besides, running off to Idaho—for his sake—had been her idea.

If she could only stop touching him, she could think clearly about him, but she didn’t want to move. She wanted to turn her head into his shoulder, breathe in the scent and warmth of Tobias’s hard body, put her arms around him, and . . .

Bite me and I’ll take you on top of the kitchen counter.

Lust shot through her. She ran an extended fang against the inside of his arm, thrilling as blood heated his skin.
There’s a spare bedroom. If Rose and Crowe aren’t using it at the moment.

They’re on the back porch
, Tobias answered.
Billing and cooing.
His frustrated groan was a subliminal sound only she could hear as he eased away from her. “Hold all your naughty thoughts, for now. I have to go to work.” He spoke into his headset. “Let’s go get the Purist hiding at Chiana’s. I’m considering
skinning him alive. And no, you can’t come with me,” he added to her.

“Maybe I’ll catch a plane while you’re gone,” she answered, trying to assert herself now that she was free of his embrace.

“You won’t.”

“I might.”

Once he was gone, she murmured, “I won’t.”

“You failed me. Hardly unexpected.”

He listened to the snide, sneering voice of the vampire and considered tossing the cell phone off the edge of the balcony where he stood. The wind off the water was cold and salty, and noisy Christmas parties spilled out onto the terrace below and onto the sidewalk in front of the bar across the street. Bright lights strung on every building and wrapped around tree trunks added to the festive air. Everybody was happy—because they didn’t know the truth.

He had no wish to join the merriment or to be talking to the vampire. But some conversations could not be escaped.

“The failure was not only mine. My people didn’t have enough backup from your mercenaries to defeat the Dark Angels.”

“Mercenaries are expensive. And their numbers have dwindled a bit in the last few days.” The vampire
gave an exaggerated sigh. “I wish I could trust in the effectiveness of you weak mortals until replacements arrive.”

“My people are depending on yours for rescue. They’ll continue the fight.”

“My auxiliaries would rather wait for a full moon to attack, but losing so many Purists so quickly forces me to change that plan. We don’t want Strahan looking too deeply into their shallow little minds, do we?”

What difference did it make if he and the monster wanted the captured humans freed for different reasons? As long as they were rescued he’d be grateful to the Tribe Prime—who would someday pay.

“My people at least fight for what they believe in,” he said.

“Don’t be so prissy,” the vampire said. “You haven’t succeeded in a single attempt to roust your enemies from their lairs. You promised me the females and couldn’t follow through.”

“Bickering about that is pointless. The selkie hasn’t returned to me,” he confessed.

“She won’t,” the monster answered. “My control’s been stripped from her. I’ve got a bitch of a headache from that.”

He’d suspected as much and now he knew. Fear twisted in his gut. “They’ll be coming for me.”

“Better you than me. Time for you to make the ultimate sacrifice to protect me. Ultimate sacrifice,”
he repeated. Then Stone hung up.

Ultimate sacrifice.

The words rang through his head until they became a painful shout that drove him to his knees. He fought it for a while, fought the will imposing itself over his. Then it all became clear. He raised his head, full of purpose. The ultimate sacrifice it would be.

It was time to die.

But not before the world knew the truth.

Circling helicopters sweeping searchlights over the buildings up ahead were the first bad sign.

The second was Tsuke’s voice in his headset. “There’s one police copter up there and all the rest are TV news teams.”

“Damn.”

And he wasn’t swearing about the police involvement. Nor did he think for a moment that the excitement ahead wasn’t connected with his Purist prey.

“Patching through a news report,” Tsuke said.

“. . . at least twenty hostages held at the Surfview Bar and Grill . . . We have a report that several hostages managed to escape from the building . . .”

“. . . the guy kept yelling that vampires are real and the world needs to know,” a man said. He spoke between ragged breaths, like he’d been running. And he sounded scared. “He shot someone when he
walked in. Said that was to show he’s serious. He was holding a gun to a girl’s head when I got out. I heard him telling her he was going to kill her if she didn’t admit that monsters are real.”

“That’s a witness interview on a police channel,” Tsuke explained.

“I know what it is,” Tobias said. “That’s trouble.”

“L.A. SWAT reports their perimeter is set up,” Tsuke said. “Snipers working their way into place across the street from the bar.”

Hell.

Tobias wove in and out of traffic, accelerator pressed to the floor, heading for the nearest exit. He could get to the scene faster if he got out of the SUV and ran. He gave the order for all the other cars converging on the Purist to do the same. Never mind doing anything to avoid media attention. It was time for all the vampires and shifters to run free.

Even then they might be too late.

This was not how it was supposed to go down. The Angels had been so successful in blocking the Purists’ efforts up until now, and they were so close to wrapping it up. . . . Now this.

They’d missed the chance to keep the media from
being alerted this time. There were cops. There were hostages. The Purist had taken his crusade into the mortal world—where there were always some people willing to listen to warnings of monsters, doom, and conspiracies.

And the last thing he wanted was to get the police involved. Memories could be adjusted, but the curious, suspicious, tenacious nature that produced a good cop made it harder to keep those changes permanent. These practical-minded types were the last to believe in supernatural beings, but they were the most likely to discover the reality.

Too late now. But maybe there was a way to work with them. Not everyone on the police force was what he or she seemed.

“Here’s the plan.” He spoke into his headset while sending the information telepathically at the same time.

There were two bodies on the floor. The scent of blood was in the air, calling the monsters to feed.

The crowd he’d herded against the bar was terrified, each one fearing they’d be the next to die. He couldn’t kill them all; he had to save at least one bullet for himself. For the ultimate sacrifice.

He didn’t want to kill
any
of them. They were his
kind. Humans weren’t the enemy, and he mourned their loss. He’d let some of them escape. To spread the truth.

“The world has to know.”

The police were outside, red lights whirling on their vehicles. White lights stabbed down and circled from overhead. Television news crews were gathering. The cell phones he’d made the hostages pile on the bar kept ringing in a myriad of different musical ringtones. All the lights and noise were really very festive, very in tune with the season.