Blood-Bonded by Force (9 page)

“I’m never going to see her again.” Ten days without Pändra’s blood and Thomal would go into a blood-coma. Ten days… Sweat dripped from his face and fell onto the table, droplets attracting, clinging, congregating into small puddles. “I’m going to die, Arc.”

There. He’d said it out loud, and, yeah, it was too damned real.

Chapter Ten

Topside: Clairemont Mesa, San Diego, same night

Detective John Waterson cuffed up the sleeves of his denim shirt as he scanned the crime scene photographs spread over the Formica table in his kitchen. They were scattered together with sheets of notes he’d taken over the last year about the serial abductions of young, beautiful blonde women, plus the spare notes he’d made about the crime handed off to his occult crimes unit earlier today: the kidnapping of Elsa Mendoza. Even though the Spanish girl didn’t fit the serial abduction case in most ways, there had been a starburst pattern of blood on the wall of her home.

Same as in Tonĩ Parthen’s room at Scripps Memorial Hospital when she’d gone missing back in January, the first women to get kidnapped in this bizarre case.

John drew in a slow breath. Had it really been almost a year ago since Tonĩ had first disappeared? The last time he’d seen her—a little less than a year ago—she’d been in the company of a man with black eyes and hair and large black teeth tattoos along his forearms: a description that fit the perpetrators of the serial abductions. When John had tried to question Tonĩ about her miraculous reappearance in San Diego, this asshole had punched John into Sandman’s Land, then absconded with Tonĩ for good, denying John the chance to get some answers…and to date Tonĩ.

Yes, after months of chasing the gorgeous doctor of hematology—ever since they’d started working crime scenes together—he’d finally convinced her to go on a date with him. A date that was supposed to have put them on the path toward marriage, kids, a house in the ’burbs, vacations spent camping or skiing: the whole blissful enchilada. John flexed his jaw. Teeth-Tattooed Asshole had cheated John out of that, and now it was John’s main purpose in life to crush the man. And find Tonĩ.

John stared down at the photos again as, behind him, his apartment-issue refrigerator
whirred
into a higher gear and his coffee maker
grum-grum-wheezed
in the process of brewing some freshly ground Columbian. Sane people wouldn’t be drinking coffee at this hour, but the only things his finicky system seemed able to tolerate these days were nicotine and caffeine. Not exactly the diet of champions. It was amazing he hadn’t keeled over, yet.

He was betting on any day now, though.

It was probably time to go on medical leave, but the hell if he was dropping this case before he’d solved it.
Eight
women total had now been taken now: Tonĩ, the first, then two in April, four in June, and now Elsa Mendoza.

John wrote down the names of the women who’d been taken in June: Marissa Bonaventure, Hadley Wickstrum, Kendra Mawbry, and Ashling Lafferty. This group was important because two of these women had returned.

After tracking down Kendra Mawbry at her home, John had learned some interesting information. A four-man special security team had saved her from her kidnappers and then taken her to the refuge of a research institute.
Very
interesting. Because the last day John had seen Tonĩ at Scripps, Teeth-Tattooed Asshole’s friend had shoveled some dung about Tonĩ disappearing to interview at—
drumroll, please
—a top-secret research institute. Without a single word of goodbye to John before she’d left? No way. He wasn’t buying it.

But just as John was about to question Miss Mawbry further about the institute, her abductors had returned for her.

In the ensuing attack, John was shot.

John returned the favor and shot his shooter, then in the middle of their gun battle, another man had showed up: black hair, black goatee, gold earring, wielding an M4 carbine assault rifle.

John shot him, too.

The wound had landed the buttinski in the hospital, bringing to light more interesting information. The blood of the M4-wielding guy, name of Devid Nichita, had tested as
not quite human
. Same as some blood found in Tonĩ’s hospital room at Scripps when she’d originally disappeared.

All the threads were starting to intertwine, weren’t they?

Although, oddly, in the process of being treated for his own gunshot wound, John’s blood had tested as having a “not entirely human” element in it, as well. Not exactly the same inhuman as Nichita’s and the blood at Scripps, but still with an unidentifiable marker. A tight sensation pinched the back of John’s neck. Had to be a mistake.

Nevertheless, there was something about this case and blood.

To tangle the strands further, five months after her disappearance, Miss Bonaventure had returned to San Diego bearing the last name of
Nichita
.

It was getting more and more difficult to tell where one string of the web ended and the others began.

John heard the coffee maker burp to a stop, and took a cup off his mug tree. He grabbed the pot and started to pour, but midway through, one of his shaking fits overtook his hands. The pot clanked against the lip of the mug, sloshing hot coffee onto his fingers. “Ouch!” The mug slipped out of his hand and shattered on the kitchen floor. “Dammit!” That had been his Police Academy mug.

Holding his hand under cold running water, he waited for the shaking to stop, then slammed off the faucet. Snatching up the small broom and dustpan from under the sink, he swept up the shards of the mug with hard jerks. He was having these fits four or five times a day now. Soon he was going to do something in front of his partner that would give away his condition…whatever his condition was, exactly.

According to the bomb his mother had dropped on him when he was sixteen years old, John suffered from an inherited disorder called Blestem Tatălui. But when he’d looked that up on Google and in medical books, he hadn’t been able to find it.

Don’t worry, honey
, his mom had assured him when symptoms had appeared in his twenties.
You can take these pills to manage your condition
.

The pills still arrived monthly by mail, no prescription needed. Detective though he was, he chose to ignore that oddity. Whatever kept him out of a doctor’s office was worth a little feigned ignorance. He’d been gulping the little green babies, called another foreign-sounding name, Suprimarea Patrimoniu, for twelve years now with only minimal problems. It was only in the last couple of years he’d started feeling like absolute crap. More and more each month.

Something was obviously wrong. But since doctors had killed his dad, he was steering clear of letting
that
be another inherited condition. At some point he should probably talk to his mom, but he got the sense she didn’t know anything more than she’d already told him. The day she’d filled him in on his condition, it was as if she’d been reading off a script, using someone else’s words. John didn’t see any point in worrying her.

Dumping the broken remnants of his mug into the trash, he put away the dustpan and broom just as someone knocked. He crossed his living room, frowning at his watch. It was midnight. Squinting through the peephole, he saw—
Ria
? He opened the door. “Hey.”

It’d been a couple of years since Ria Mendoza had darkened his doorstep, so to speak. These days he saw her only through work. She was a prosecutor and he was a detective, so their paths crossed at the courthouse with the shared mission of trying to put away bad guys. Although even those encounters had become few and far between now that John worked exclusively night shifts.

“Hi, John,” Ria said, her voice that kind of hoarse women got after they’d been crying. “I hope it’s not too late to come by.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He stepped back. “Come on in.”

Petite, with dainty features and soulful brown eyes, Ria didn’t look at all like the Amazon warrior she actually was in the courtroom. Walking inside, she hesitated beside his couch, blinking for a moment, probably letting her vision adjust.

He kept his apartment dim these days. Maybe a sign of oncoming depression?

“I’m sorry, I…” Ria faltered. “I don’t mean to bother you, John, but I’m really worried about my sister and I heard your unit was given her case.” She glanced over his shoulder at the photos on his kitchen table. “Have you…made any progress, yet?”

“No, not much, sorry. But it’s only the first day.” He headed into his kitchen. “You want some coffee?”

“Oh.” Ria followed. “No, thanks.”

Maybe not him, either. “No news from your end? No ransom demand?” He’d planned to question her tomorrow, but…she was here now about her sister, and the first twenty-four hours of a missing person case were the most crucial, so why not?

“No.” Ria’s eyes shifted down and to the left.

He nodded noncommittally and blanked his expression in reaction to her tell. Now why would Ria lie to him?

“Do you have any wine?” she asked.

“I think so.” He went to his refrigerator and pulled out the bottle he found there. “White okay?” He didn’t drink it himself, but his partner, Pablo, liked it.

“That’s fine.”

“Can you think of anyone who might want to have leverage over you?” he asked her as he found a goblet in his cupboard. “Are you working on a case like that?”

“No.” Her tone was firm and straightforward: the truth.

He poured. “So you have
no
idea why anyone would want to take your sister?”

“No. None.” Her eyes shifted again.
Back to lying
.

Weird and weirder
. It made absolutely no sense for her to hide facts from him. Without all the information, his ability to solve this case would be impaired. Unless… “Ria, are you being threatened? Because it feels like…no offense…but I get the sense you’re not telling me the entire truth.”

Her cheeks flushed. “No, I… John, the truth is I’m also here because I don’t want to be alone right now, and… There’s no other man in my life, but…I don’t want to make things awkward between us, you know?”

He nodded again, once more putting a bunch of meaninglessness into the gesture. The history between him and Ria could account for her strange behavior. But also, maybe not. He smiled reassuringly, anyway. He knew enough about interrogating witnesses to back off; badgering a scared woman wouldn’t get him anywhere. “Well, hey, you and I are still friends, aren’t—?”

She was against his body in an instant, her arms tightly wrapped around his waist, her face buried in his chest.

He hesitated with a mental
um
for about half a second, then did the natural thing and put his arms around her. He’d meant only to give her a comforting hug, but the act of embracing her pressed her feminine body close to his, and he flooded with heat. She felt so warm and supple, and if memory served, they’d been fantastic in the sack together way back when. He also hadn’t gotten laid in over a year…since before Tonĩ had said “yes” to a date with him, her answer putting a spark of hope in his mind that soon she’d be the one gracing his sheets.

“Do you ever think about us?” Ria asked quietly.

Hmm
, the situation was getting sticky. Ria had come here tonight for reassurance, not a bootie call. “Sometimes,” he lied. “It was a good six months we had together.”

Why it hadn’t been great was still somewhat of an enigma. Ria had everything he could ever want in a woman; she was smart, beautiful, owned a passion for catching criminals equal to his, and was a dynamo in bed. He supposed it came down to some women being able to just
look
at a guy and make him feel like she’d reached inside his chest and grabbed his heart. Or between his legs and squeezed his cock. Ria hadn’t done either of those.

No, the only woman who’d ever had that effect on him was a certain hot hematologist.

As Tonĩ Parthen’s beautiful face flashed through his mind, he stepped back from Ria. “Uh…I think…I know you’re feeling vulnerable right now, Ria.”

She smiled a little. “I know how I’m feeling, John, and it’s exactly why I want to be with you. I just…with everything that’s going on with my sister, I need intimacy right now, warmth and affectionate human contact. I know I can get that with you. If…you don’t mind.”

Mind
? He almost snorted. Pulling her back into an embrace, he kissed her, their lips finding an instant, comfortable union. Her mouth opened eagerly, her tongue sliding inside to tangle with his.
Daaaamn
. She was game for sex big time. Securing her more tightly against his body with one arm, he tunneled his fingers into her hair with his other hand, holding her as he twisted his lips against hers. He explored deeply with his tongue, tasting her softness. The moist warmth of her mouth bounded his heartbeat forward and heated his blood. Nothing much was happening down below, though.

Please, no. Not tonight
.

He hadn’t seen hide nor hair of a boner in a good long while, hadn’t even tried to beat off in ages he’d been so disgusted with himself. But this was a real, live woman in his arms, pliant and sweet-smelling and raring to go. His cock should absolutely rev up with that kind of provocation. Shouldn’t it?

He pushed his hips forward, trying to get his engine going.

Ria groaned.

The hot little noise went through his ears, traveled into the super-sexual command center of his brain, and lit off a “wanna get busy” lust in flashing neon…then careened down to the southern regions of his body and fell into an abyss.
Shit
. His breathing speeded and his nerves bunched up.