“She was hopped up on liquor and narcotics,” Rafe reminded him. “While you went off to have your fun with the twins, I was in a bathroom stall with Speedball Sally, sobering her up and healing her long-term drug addiction.”
Like all of the Breed, Rafe had been born with a unique ability passed down from his Breedmate mother. In his case, he’d inherited Tess’s healing touch. He could mend wounds, repair cellular disease or weakness, and, in one case recently—after a former warrior, Kellan Archer, had been mortally wounded by gunfire—Rafe and Tess together had even managed to reverse death.
“See? That’s your problem, man. That gift of yours is a curse. You’ve got no shortage of female interest wherever we go—hell, even more than I do, and that’s saying something.”
“Jealous?” Rafe quipped.
“Hell, yeah. Women practically drop their panties at your feet, and yet you’ve got a look-but-don’t-touch policy going on.” Aric blew out a short breath. “I swear, you think you’ve got to save everyone. Climb down off the cross once in a while and have some fun.”
Rafe couldn’t deny there was some truth in his best friend’s accusation. All right, a lot of truth. Maybe if he’d been gifted with Aric’s ability to bend shadows, or their team captain Nathan’s talent for sonokinesis, things would be different.
But Rafe felt an obligation with the ability he’d been given.
It wasn’t as if he never got laid. He was male and he also had a warrior’s blood in his Breed veins. He had all the female company he wanted; he just preferred to be selective—with his bed partners and his blood Hosts, both of which he drew exclusively from the human population.
He slanted a flat look at Aric. “You want to keep lecturing me for a while, or are you ready to get to work?”
He turned onto a quiet road leading away from the Finglas city center. Rows of small, nearly identical red-brick duplexes and townhomes lined one side of the lumpy asphalt. On the other side of the darkened residential road, an overgrown spread of grass that might have passed for a park at one time spanned several blocks.
“This is the street Gideon gave us?”
Rafe nodded. “This is it.”
Aric’s brows rose. “Not exactly the kind of posh address I’d expect for one of Crowe’s women. If she was sleeping with him, she should’ve demanded a raise.”
“Maybe it’s modest for a reason. If not for Gideon tracking her down, we probably never would’ve thought to look in a nondescript neighborhood like this for Crowe or anyone he associated with.”
“Hide in plain sight,” Aric said. “Crowe wouldn’t be the first Atlantean to pull that stunt.”
Rafe nodded, checking house numbers as the SUV rolled past one tiny cracker box after another on the narrow residential street. “Guess she’s not hiding in plain sight anymore. Here we are.”
Aric stared out the passenger side window at the tidy little apartment building that sat quiet and dark at the end of a short slab of cracked concrete. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s home.”
Rafe peered closer and shook his head. “She’s home. There’s a light on in the back, first floor. Come on. Let’s go say hello to Miss Lynch.”
Killing the headlights and engine, Rafe stepped out of the vehicle. As soon as his boots hit the pavement, his senses went tight with alarm.
“Jesus Christ.”
Aric swung a tense look at him. “You smell it too?”
Rafe nodded, his fangs prickling in his gums.
Blood.
Human blood. A fucking river of it, based on the way the stench was hitting his nose.
They rushed the house on silent feet, Rafe motioning Aric to round the place to the back while he took the front. Aric was gone in an instant, vanishing into the shadows.
Rafe touched the latch on the front door and found it unlocked. No signs of forced entry, but there was no mistaking that something bad had occurred inside. He stepped in, nearly overpowered by the olfactory punch that slammed into him as he entered Iona Lynch’s home.
The place was silent. As soundless as a tomb.
“Hello?” he called into the darkness, unsurprised to receive no reply.
He crept through the small foyer and past a neatly furnished little living room. Despite the stench of bloodshed filling his nose and making his irises burn with amber heat, he didn’t see evidence of a struggle until he stepped toward the galley kitchen in the back of the house.
Then, the impact of what had taken place here—very recently, from the look of it—shook him to the bone. He drew up short, his boots halted in a pool of fresh blood.
Aric had just entered the kitchen from the back door now too, and his low curse echoed Rafe’s thoughts. “Holy hell.”
A young blonde woman lay crumpled and deadly still in the center of the blood-soaked kitchen tiles, a lethal gash at her throat. There was no question she was dead. She’d been cut so savagely, the wound had nearly decapitated her.
“Jesus Christ,” Aric murmured woodenly. “Guess we weren’t the only ones looking for Iona Lynch.”
Rafe clamped his teeth and fangs together on a ripe curse as he strode through the slick lake of spilled blood to reach the woman. He was fucking up a crime scene, but if there was any chance he could revive her, he had to try. Not only because it was the right thing to do, but because Iona Lynch was the Order’s best lead on Crowe and his Opus associates. They couldn’t afford to lose her.
Kneeling down in the mess, he gingerly rolled her onto her back and touched the hideous wound at her throat. She had no pulse, no breath. Her skin was cool and waxy beneath his fingertips. There was nothing for him to work with, nothing for his ability to latch on to and draw toward healing.
“Shit.” He glanced up at Aric and grimly shook his head. “I can’t help her. She’s too far gone by several minutes, at least. Goddamn it, we’re too fucking late.”
As he spoke, he heard the faintest shift of movement coming from somewhere nearby. It was muffled, but Rafe and Aric both stilled in recognition that someone else was there in the house with them.
Silently, stealthily, Rafe set Iona Lynch’s lifeless body down on the tiles and rose to his feet.
The soft rustle came again, and he followed it to the closed door of a bathroom just off the kitchen. Then he heard a low, pained moan.
He opened the door and found another woman lying in a fetal position in the corner of the cramped room. Petite as an angel, the strawberry blonde was dressed in black yoga pants and a form-fitting pink tank top rent off her shoulder from an obvious altercation. Only semiconscious now, her body was coming awake slowly from the bloodied contusion on the side of her head.
Blood spatter on the white porcelain sink indicated someone had smashed the woman’s head into the basin with enough brute force to knock her out.
Rafe stepped inside, and the woman’s lids lifted. Hazel eyes widened as soon as she saw him. Then her mouth dropped open in a terrified scream.
“It’s okay,” he assured her, moving carefully as she bolted fully alert now and scrambled as far away from him as she could get.
“Don’t touch me!” Panic and confusion filled her pretty face. “Stay away from us! Iona, run!”
“Shh.” Rafe shook his head, hands out in front of him to show her he meant no harm. “It’s okay now. You’re safe.”
She huddled deeper into the corner of the bathroom, her eyes as wild as a terrified animal’s. As she moved, Rafe spotted a small red birthmark beneath the rip in the side of her tank top.
A Breedmate.
Rafe hunkered down to her level, speaking gently. “We’re not going to hurt you. What’s your name?”
She frowned, still wary, her breast still heaving with her labored breaths. She blinked slowly, glancing down at the floor. “Siobhan.” A delicate name, spoken in a broken whisper that almost made it sound as if she’d said the word chiffon. She glanced up at him and tried again. “I’m Siobhan O’Shea.”
He nodded soberly. “
My name is Rafe. And this is my friend, Aric,” he said, gesturing to the doorway where his comrade stood. “How do you know Iona Lynch, Siobhan?”
“She’s my roommate. Where is she? What did those men want with her?” The Breedmate swallowed, her hand coming up to the bruising lump on her head. She winced at the light contact. “Is Iona… Is she okay?”
Rafe didn’t answer. This young woman would see the grisly answer for herself soon enough. With Iona Lynch murdered, Rafe’s mission priority had just switched from locating a potential lead on Opus to protecting a key witness who was also a Breedmate in potential danger now.
He glanced back at Aric. “We shouldn’t stay here for long, and neither should Siobhan. Go call this in to headquarters, let them know what we found. Tell them we have an injured Breedmate on our hands who’s in need of a safe haven.”
CHAPTER 16
Brynne didn’t leave for London. It had only been an excuse, anyway. A flimsy one that Zael had seen right through—just as he’d seen through the rest of her attempts to wound him and push him away.
After her stinging end to the incredible time she’d spent naked with him in her bed, she had soaked for nearly half an hour under a scalding shower before sequestering herself in her guest room for most of the afternoon, feeling cowardly and petty.
The urge to run back home to London—to anywhere else—was strong. She felt weak from hunger and raw from heightened emotion. Neither of those things made her fit to be around other people, least of all the ones who meant something to her.
Not if she cared for their safety.
Not if she didn’t want to see horror and fear in the eyes of everyone who mattered to her.
Including Zael.
God, perhaps him most of all.
Her punishing shower and the hours of solitude afterward did little to assuage the bone-deep gnawing of her body’s worsening hunger. It also hadn’t lessened the disgust she felt for herself after the unfair way she’d treated the one man who had only shown her kindness and understanding since she met him.
Zael had a right to be angry with her after the cutting things she’d said.
Hell, he had a right to despise her now. Although if he did, it couldn’t be with any greater intensity than she despised herself.
That feeling only worsened when she finally left the safety of her self-imposed exile in her suite to venture down to the living areas.
Zael was in the large kitchen with Dylan and Rio, the scarred Breed warrior who was her mate. Their easy conversation drifted out to the hall as Brynne descended the rear staircase to the main floor below. Dammit. There was no escaping the inevitable now. To get anywhere else in the sprawling estate from where she stood, she first had to pass the kitchen.
Against her will, her gaze sought Zael out. There he was, lounging on one of the counter stools at the large center island, listening raptly to Dylan as she regaled him with a story about how she and Rio first met. Zael’s gaze was tender on his daughter, his smile so warm and affectionate, it made Brynne’s chest squeeze.
Despite her most vigilant effort, just the sight of him made her breath catch and her pulse kick into a higher tempo.
It took concentrated effort to simply step past the broad, arched entryway of the kitchen without pausing to apologize to him and ask for his forgiveness. Nor did she have the nerve to glance at him and see if he might be aware of her too.
She had to stay strong where he was concerned. Zael had been putting cracks in the veneer of her self-control from the first moment he turned those unearthly blue eyes on her. If today’s slip in resolve was any indication, distance was the only way to avoid another mistake like the one she’d made by falling into bed with him.
If she wasn’t careful, it might not be only her resolve that crumbled around Zael, but her heart as well.
Telling herself it was a relief that he didn’t call out to her as she crisply walked by, Brynne headed for the foyer. She needed fresh air and space to think. Even more demanding, she needed to feed.
Her hunger was the one thing she could control in her life, but even that was dangerously close to snapping. She’d held it off for too long, and now it clawed at her with sharp talons, a beast gnashing at its leash.
If she needed a reminder of why relationships were impossible for her, this damned sure was it.
She was halfway across the foyer and headed for the front door when Tavia’s voice sounded from behind her. “Brynne. There you are.”
Given no choice, she pivoted to face her sister.
Tavia’s fine brows drew together over her shrewd light green eyes. “Were you able to get some rest this afternoon?”
“Um, rest?” Brynne felt her own frown crease her forehead, and at the same time a flush of heat threatened to fill her face. Oh, God. She would be mortified if her indiscretion with Zael was now public knowledge at the Order.
“I went to look for you after the meeting earlier today,” Tavia said. “Carys told me you’d gone up to your room. She thought you might need some undisturbed sleep after all you’ve been through these past couple of days.”
“Oh.” Brynne nodded, relief flooding her. “Yes, I did. Rest, I mean. Thank you.”
Tavia tilted her head. “Is everything okay? You don’t seem very rested. In fact, you look piqued.”
“I do?”
“Yes. You do.” She stared too long, too closely. “Brynne, when was the last time you fed?”
Shit. “Oh, I don’t know,” she hedged, forcing a level of nonchalance into her voice. “It’s been long enough, I suppose. I was actually just on my way out to take care of that now.”
“Alone?” Tavia’s hands went to her hips. “Things are too volatile out there, even in daylight hours. It’s nearly dusk, Brynne. At least wait until you can bring one of the warriors with you.”
“An Order escort to hold my hand while I feed?” Brynne hoped her dread didn’t show in her expression. “Please, tell me you’re joking.”
Feeding had gotten perfectly civilized—and carefully regulated—since the Breed was outed to their human neighbors twenty years ago. Where it used to be acceptable to tap any human’s vein for a few fresh red cells as long as the blood Host wasn’t harmed, now the business of feeding had become a polite, albeit paid, transaction between consenting parties.
That wasn’t to say all members of the Breed adhered to the law. Some preferred the old ways for the sport of it.
Others, like Brynne, had reasons of their own to avoid the carefully monitored environments of the blood Host parlors and clubs that catered to the Breed and their various appetites. Chief among those reasons, for her, being the fact that parlors prohibited mind-scrubs following a feeding. The law was meant to protect human Hosts from being used without their consent—something Brynne never did, no matter how savage her hunger.
No, while she preferred to obtain her Hosts from less stringent environments, the humans she paid to nourish her walked away from the transaction with no memory as a courtesy to them.
And, if she were being honest, as an act of self-preservation for her as well.
Brynne couldn’t use a Host in a monitored setting like a parlor. She certainly couldn’t do it with one of the Order’s warriors in tow.
“Even if I thought I needed an armed escort, Tavia, I doubt we’d find a reputable parlor that would even let me through the door in the company of one.”
Her sister wasn’t swayed. “You can go to the one in Georgetown that Carys used to visit when she came to D.C. before she was blood bonded with Rune. It’s the best in the city, and not only will they let you through the door with an Order escort, Lucan and Gabrielle’s son, Darion, keeps a VIP suite there that I’m sure you’ll be welcome to use.”
Brynne’s hopes sank in the face of this helpful, and undeterred, offer. “I don’t suppose you’re going to let me refuse?”
Tavia’s satisfied smile was answer enough. She looped her arm through Brynne’s, steering her away from the fron
t door while Brynne’s hunger sank its talons deeper into the fraying fabric of her soul.
CHAPTER 17
Zael knew the instant Brynne had descended the stairs outside the mansion’s kitchen.
He’d been enjoying a conversation with Dylan and Rio, glad for the time to get to know both of them a bit. But the moment Brynne’s presence stirred the air, his attention went out the window and the only thing he could focus on was her.
He had waited for her to appear in the hallway outside the kitchen, even as he nodded and smiled at the right places while Dylan spoke.
If Brynne had so much as glanced his way even for a second, nothing would have stopped him from going to her right then and there. He would have taken her aside without a care for who saw them, and he would have demanded she be honest with him, instead of hiding behind the chilly, untouchable facade she seemed to put up so quickly whenever anyone got too close to her. Especially him.
Not that he had any room to point the finger when it came to honesty or honor. She had been right about him not being the type to stick around. He couldn’t argue that, especially when Dylan was living proof of his life’s most shameful failing.
If either woman knew the truth about his cowardice where Dylan’s mother was concerned, they both might turn their backs on him. And rightly so.
But Brynne didn’t seem to need any convincing to ignore him. She’d stepped past the kitchen entry without blinking or breaking her stride. He didn’t even know if she was aware he was there.
Something told him she had been, and the fact that she sailed by without the slightest acknowledgment had burned him more than he cared to admit.
She had since disappeared with Tavia somewhere in the mansion. Zael couldn’t deny that despite his agreement to give her space, there was a part of him that refused to bow to a lie.
She wanted him, just as he wanted her.
And yes, the sex was great. Hell, it was so incredible he was of the opinion they should be doing it again as soon as possible, not trying to pretend it was some kind of mistake both of them should regret.