Blood Instinct (12 page)

And she leaned back, her hands on his knees to let him consume her; to tempt him and taunt him further.

He caught the back of her neck, his other hand grabbing her behind, lifting her and urging her down onto him. But she wouldn’t relent.

Instead, she raked her fingers through his hair, let him relish in tasting her a little longer, his hungry kisses exploratory and unashamed.

Until she yanked his hair. Until she prised him away from her – or tried to.

Because it seemed Jask had finally lost his patience.

C
rossing to the bar
, Jask took one more mouthful from his bottle before placing it on the worn countertop.

Towel-drying a glass, the bartender kept his gaze lowered in between cautious glances at Jask.

‘I’ll make up for your lost earnings,’ Jask said, capturing the bartender’s gaze. ‘I’ll need a couple of hours. Three tops. You make yourself scarce. And you saw nothing.’

‘I never do,’ he said, dropping the towel on the counter before heading out back.

When Jask turned to face Arana, her eyes were glinting darkly in the shadows, the smile still on her lips.

‘See,’ she said, ‘that’s what I mean.’ She ran her hands down the back of her neck, fluffing up her long dark hair and languidly combing her fingers through it before trailing it over her breasts. She leaned back against the table.

‘This isn’t going to be pleasant for you,’ Jask warned.

‘I’m more than capable of being the judge of that. I think I’m going to surprise you.’

It was his turn to smile as he licked his incisor again. ‘You’ve really never been had by a lycan, have you?’

She shrugged. Smirked.

He slowly closed the gap between them. ‘You wouldn’t be coming back for more if you had.’

She licked her lower lip as she leaned back on the table, her navy eyes raking slowly down the full length of his body. ‘Now you’re just teasing.’

He’d had enough. Enough of the taunts.

Jask swiftly resumed control and switched their positions again, laying Sophia on her back beneath him. Securing her wrists above her head, he held her in place with one hand, freeing his other to grab her hip, to keep her in position as he entered her again.

He let his gaze wander down her stomach, shadowed by the weak lighting, down between her legs that he slid in and out of again with a steady fervency.

And as he grazed her breasts with his teeth, he consumed her for what she was: his.

He gritted his teeth and thrust, taking her exactly as he should: hard and deep like the alpha he was. And she his mate.

But his thoughts weren’t about love. Just as he knew the heat flowing through his veins wasn’t either. The compulsion was too great not to embrace it though. A compulsion that intensified as he watched her shudder, watched the goosebumps forming over her flesh, her breaths short and sharp, her cries intensifying, her nipples hardening further, her thighs parting so she could take him as deep as was physically possible.

Like the time he’d pushed her over the counter in that derelict building not long after killing the vampire, he could feel the same elation as a sense of inconsequence took over. And his rough penetration felt good. It felt good feeling the ripples of her satisfaction.

Except it wasn’t
her
satisfaction.

He could sense it inside her, lurking in the background, reminding him of the time in the alleyway when he found her with the vampire – when it had taken all of his resolve to stop her going down on him.

Because the loving mischief behind her eyes was gone, tainted with nothing but lust as an unsated craving rose to the surface. The craving of the serryn within that was subjugating Sophia to its needs.

And he couldn’t stop.

Like a slow free fall with his hands tied, he couldn’t stop it. He picked up pace as his own orgasm built alongside hers. He felt his incisors extend. Worse, he knew he was coming.

And it wasn’t even to do with desire anymore. It was about power; it was about control. Because he wasn’t having sex with Sophia.
It
was in control – the serryn that was pleasuring itself in its host’s pending pain.

It was trying to break her. It was trying to hurt her.

Hurt
his
Sophia.

And it was tempting Jask to be the one to inflict that hurt. To forge that gap. To betray their trust, their understanding, their love. To destroy what was precious between them.

To split them apart.

It knew that, without him, Sophia would be more open to temptation. Just as it knew Jask’s weakness. It knew the lycanthropy that would be taking over his instincts. That the lycan, once unleashed, would forget it was Sophia beneath it all.

Reality bit as keenly as the cold air.

He recoiled sharply, stumbling back a little, his nerves taut, the tension still exuding from his unsated desire, his head spinning.

Trembling, her eyes glazed, Sophia curled her legs under her as she sat up, almost gasping for breath.

She looked at him like she too had been brought back to some unsettling reality. Worse, she instantly broke from his gaze when she realised what that reality was.

He felt her embarrassment, her confusion. Hands shaking, she clumsily pulled on her dress as if, for the second time that day, she felt awkward to be naked in front of him.

And it tore through him to see her like that; his heart fractured. He needed to say something but he didn’t know where to begin.

Something inside both of them was breaking, and breaking their unity in the process. When he met her gaze again, he knew she recognised it too.

She hurriedly eased herself down off the rock.

There was a time when he would have stopped her, when he would have encouraged her to stay, to talk. But he knew as well as she did that there was nothing to say. Nothing that would make it feel better.

R
ob Doyle slipped
a strip of chewing gum into his mouth as he assessed the outside of the house.

The row was the cesspit he imagined it to be, but it wasn’t without its appeal given its dark corners and the stench of the licentiousness of the south, which the cons’ territory was notorious for.

He pushed open the door and stepped across the threshold, three of his best soldiers behind him. But none of them were in the uniforms. A van turning up with armed soldiers would have drawn too much attention – and attention in the south turned to riots they didn’t have time for. That wasn’t what this was about.

It was relatively quiet for early evening, but their presence would soon summon the one in charge.

And sure enough a few chests started to puff up in the hallway, some curious glares laced with suspicion as Rob made his way through the cast-aside bottles and discarded food packaging.

The place stank of deprivation, of abuse – of humanity at its worse.

‘I’m looking for the boss,’ Rob said.

One of the cons stepped forward – a big bulk, his veiny arms littered with the characteristic tattooed numbers that all cons wore. Numbers that told of everything from GBH to armed robbery. ‘You got an appointment?’

It seemed ludicrous coming out of the mouth of the dregs of humanity – like a sewer rat asking their guest if they’d wiped their feet before entering the drain.

‘He’ll want to see me,’ Rob said, his glare locked on the con who couldn’t control his sneer.

‘You don’t get to him without an appointment.’

‘Tell him I’ve got a car full of legit booze and smokes – of all varieties – for his cooperation.’ He held up the car keys for the con to check out. ‘I think he’d at least like the opportunity to converse.’

The con indicated for him to face the wall. Rob did as he was asked, and all four of them were frisked. He wasn’t worried – they wouldn’t find anything other than his phone.

The con raked him swiftly with his still-wary gaze before he cocked his head and led Rob further down the row of doors.

The row’s new boss looked up from his card game. He was known on the circuit as Homer, but none kept to their real names when they crossed the border – when they were
discarded
across the border.

Homer had been Pummel’s right-hand man before his row had been burned less than a few days before – with Pummel still in it from what the post-investigation remains had shown.

Usually the authorities wouldn’t have borne the expense of worrying about the blackened remains of the cons too hard to handle even in the penitentiary across the border, but Sirius Throme had insisted on the search. He had justified it because of the fourth-species rumours surrounding the event.

Rob knew that, in truth, it was because something precious to Sirius might have been caught up in that same fire.

But there had been no evidence of the girl who had answers Sirius wanted. Nor had there been evidence of the CEO he had sent in undercover: Eden Reece.

Eden Reece, who had smacked him in the face many years ago for making remarks about the sluts who inhabited Lowtown. And Rob never forgot things like that.

Rob threw the photograph down on the table, not unlike Sirius had with him less than a couple of hours before. It had been irritating being pulled off the Malloy case whilst Sirius temporarily played ball with Feinith, but Jessie was a pretty girl – and capturing what everyone else had failed to catch despite Sirius’s previous attempts was a temptation in itself.

Homer continued with his game, despite the interruption. ‘You stink of TSCD,’ he said, his full attention still on his cards.

‘I’m not TSCD.’

Homer’s cold grey eyes finally looked up. He scrutinised Rob for a moment. Then he smiled. ‘Rob Doyle.
Ex
-TSCD agent Rob Doyle. I was right about the smell.’ He leaned back. ‘I’ve seen you on the news. Everyone’s seen you on the news. You were one of the ones who fucked over Arana Malloy.’ His smiled broadened a little. ‘I have to admit – I liked your style. You sure know how to make a bitch suffer.’

Homer glanced back down at his cards, discarding one into the middle of the table before he looked back up into Rob’s eyes with a glare that many had no doubt been on the receiving end of – with frequently fatal results.

‘But that don’t mean I like
you
,’ Homer clarified. ‘Once TSCD,
always
TSCD – which means you’ve got no fucking business in my row.’

The row once owned by the con known as Cyclops, who was probably now buried face first under rubble somewhere.

‘I’m looking for that girl,’ Rob said, nodding towards the photograph.

‘Then fuck off and keep looking.’

‘I know you know who she is – she was Pummel’s favourite pet.’

‘Who was burned to ash with the rest of them.’

‘The remains beg to differ.’

Homer looked up at him again. This time his glare was laden with as much curiosity as resentment. ‘You really
do
want her, don’t you?’

‘And I’m willing to exchange.’

‘Exchange what?’

‘Depends what you want.’

Homer laughed. He threw down his winning hand before leaning back, his arms folded, his eyes locked back on Rob.

‘I’ve brought you a car full of booze and smokes,’ Rob stated. ‘It’s already yours.’

Homer smiled. ‘Whatever you’ve got to offer, you can shove it where your mother don’t like people to venture.’ He cocked his head to the side slightly. ‘Unless she’s into that. Have I met her?’

Rob laughed. Externally, at least.

He glanced over his shoulder at the three soldiers who had his back; who were already mindful of the others in the room.

Rob removed his phone – because one click of a button back to headquarters was far more effective than any weapon. On cons, at least.

He pressed the button.

Homer flipped out of his seat a second later, his jaw clenched as the charge shot directly to the chip installed in his skull. The chip that was installed into the skulls of all cons before they were abandoned into Blackthorn – the chip that stopped them crossing the border into Lowtown.

But the amount of charge Rob ploughed into it wasn’t going to implode his brain.

Not yet.

‘Any of you fucking move and you get the same treatment,’ Rob warned the cons he heard moving into a position of attack.

Homer flailed, his face reddening as he clutched his head.

For a moment, Rob took his thumb off the button. ‘You’re just my first port of call – I want you to know that. Maybe just an example for those I’m going to be chatting to next.’

‘There is no one else,’ Homer declared through gritted teeth as he struggled backwards and up against the wall.

Rob stepped over to him. ‘I don’t believe you. So tell me where she is or I’ll assume you’re useless. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six…’

‘Just stop!’ a female voice demanded from behind him. ‘I bet I got the answers you want, alright?’

Rob looked across his shoulder at the petite blonde now standing in the doorway after elbowing her way through the other cons.

‘Shut the fuck up, Mya!’ Homer hissed through clenched teeth.

‘And watch you die? I didn’t fucking drag your arse from the bottom of the stairs and resus you for nothing. Not to be left on my own in this shit hole.’ She exhaled a stream of smoke before flicking ash on the floor as she looked back at Rob. ‘So how about you let me take a look at that picture, handsome?’

One of his soldiers stepped up to stand guard over Homer as Rob headed over to Mya.

She pressed her back against the wall by the door, feigning a submissive pose – a pose betrayed by the numbers on her arm.

The murderer exhaled another stream of smoke, this time in an attempt to be sexy as she thrust her breasts towards him. She had decent-sized ones for someone so skinny, impossible to ignore in her low-cut top. Her faux leather skirt was no less revealing, stopping only an inch short of revealing the crotch of her knickers, though he felt it safe to assume she was the type to suffer neither the expense or inconvenience of wearing any. Her biker boots were too big on her matchstick-thin legs but then so was her mop of ruffled blonde hair.

He held the photograph up for her to see, all the time looking directly into her eyes. There was a flare of unmistakably genuine recognition in them.

She exhaled a terse stream of smoke. ‘Thought as much. What do you want with her?’

‘You’ve seen her?’

‘Seen her? I used to live with her.’ She blew a stream of smoke in his direction, complementing everything else that was repulsive about her.

But he wasn’t ready to believe anything she said yet.

He rested the palm of his hand flat against the wall beside her shoulder as he moved closer. ‘Then you’ll know her name.’

The woman smiled at his attempt to test her. It reminded him of a lion cub’s smile – ferocious enough but manageable.

He felt something inside him stirring at the prospect, something that had started to intensify since being on the programme.

‘I missed
your
name,’ she said.

‘Rob.’

‘And in case you missed mine, it’s Mya,’ she replied. ‘That part comes free.’

‘You’re saying information is going to cost me?’

‘Welcome to Blackthorn, sweet thing. Her name’s Jessie.’

Rob’s heart skipped a beat at striking gold.

‘That’s all she’s known as,’ she added. ‘She was some kind of witch or something. Pummel kept her under lock and key. She used to belong to him, three rows from here, before it got burned out and overrun with those freaky little kid-like fuckers.’

‘You know about that?’

‘Sure do. I was there. Are you going to flash me a photo of Eden Reece too?’

It seemed he had indeed struck gold in the cheapest of packages.

‘You
do
know a lot,’ Rob remarked.

‘You think it’s easy surviving in Blackthorn looking like this? Keeping your ear to the ground goes a long way.’

‘At a price.’

‘At a good price considering everything else I know. But a fair price for someone as easy on the eye as you.’

He knew she was the type who wouldn’t squeal no matter how much he hurt her. The fresh bruises on her cheek told him it was part of life for her. And the coldness in her eyes told him she didn’t break easily.

But she’d never come up against anyone like him before – and he felt the need, the desire, to show her that.

‘Like what?’ he asked. ‘Maybe some decent food? A wardrobe of clothes?’

She cocked her head to the side slightly, then licked her bottom lip as she ran her finger down his chest. ‘You’ll have to do better than that, Robert.’ She looked back at him from under her painted eyelashes, clumps of mascara gathering at the corners.

‘And you’ll have to have a nice hot bath,’ he said, ‘maybe even some deep orifice sterilization before I even think of going anywhere near you.’

Her smile turned to a frown, then a glare. ‘Whatever your fetish, you sick bastard.’

‘Oh, if only I had the time. But I don’t. Nor the inclination.’ He caught hold of her throat, placed his thumb perfectly over her windpipe – and pushed, just a little.

As she slapped her hand onto his wrist, drawing a scratch down his face in the process, he glanced around at the cons looking on.

‘Doesn’t look like anyone’s planning on jumping to your rescue like you did for Homer,’ he said before looking back at her. ‘Anything you want to say, Homer?’ he called over his shoulder.

But Homer remained silent, no doubt in agreement with the other cons that imparting information wasn’t an option.

‘Do you know where they are now?’ Rob asked, pressing on her windpipe.

She glared at him, but this one was smart enough to know when she was onto a loser.

‘With the lycans. They were the ones who burned my row down.’

‘What lycans?’

‘Jask Tao and Corbin Saylen,’ she said, gasping for breath. ‘They fucked Pummel up and left with her. The lycans have got Jessie.’