Bound to Shadows (7 page)

“If the sense of ecstasy is still strong enough to linger, why wouldn’t the fact that she’d had
sex been picked up?” I asked, my gaze moving back to the bed.
“I don’t know.” He stood beside me, his hands on his hips and his gaze on the bed. “But
regardless of the fact that it wasn’t, I’m quite sure she was having a damn
fine
time before she passed away—and it wasn’t just for the one night. It’s too
strong a sensation for that.”
“So maybe someone cleaned her up before her death was reported?” I spotted her purse on the
bedside table and moved around to take a look. “Or maybe she was a lesbian, which would explain
the lack of sperm.”
“It’s possible, although if she was in bed with a woman, you’d be picking up the scent, wouldn’t
you?”
“Yeah. I’m not getting any vibrations along the clairvoyant lines, either, so her soul hasn’t
hung about for a chat.”
“Meaning it
was
a natural death?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe it was a death she went to willingly.” Souls didn’t seem to hang
about in that case, either.
I opened up her purse and went through it. There was over one hundred dollars sitting in it, as
well as several credit cards. There were also half a dozen business cards, all of them for
vampire clubs—the higher-end ones, not clubs like Dante’s. I plucked one out and showed it to
Kade.
He raised an eyebrow. “The police report didn’t mention that she was a blood whore.”
“Maybe the governor hushed it up.” It certainly wouldn’t be the first time
that
had happened. “There’s been enough press about them lately to make it an
unpalatable connection for anyone in power.”
Kade snorted. “Yeah, but he also wants her death solved, and that’s hard to do if we haven’t got
all the facts.”
“So there was no mention of vampire bite marks in the report?”
“None. If she
was
a whore, she hadn’t gone to the clubs for a
while.”
“From what I’ve heard, it’s as hard for a whore to give the clubs up as it is for a drug addict
to give up substance abuse.”
“We don’t know she was an addict.”
“She’s got six business cards in her purse. That suggests a more-than-casual interest.” I put the
purse back on the bedside table. “Maybe whoever she was with found out about the addiction and
found a sneaky way to get rid of her.”
“Maybe.” His voice was lazy, but his expression was intent as he walked around the bed. I didn’t
say anything, just watched him. After a moment, he added, “There
is
something else here.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“I don’t know. It’s very faint.” He hesitated, then walked across to the dresser mirror. “It came
through here.”
“Through the mirror?”
He glanced at me. “The sensation is strongest here.”
I walked across and stopped beside him, flaring my nostrils and tasting the flavors in the air. I
couldn’t find anything that triggered either my mental or psychic alarms.
“Nothing,” I murmured. “Whatever it is you’re feeling, I’m not catching it.”
“It’s not really anything I can define.”
He shifted the mirror to look behind it. I peeked under his arm, but there was nothing more than
dust.
“Jack’s going to ask you to, so you’d better try.”
“It’s a wisp of power, a sensation of age.” His frown deepened. “What the hell sort of creature
can come through mirrors and attack a person? And why wouldn’t Renatta have been
terrified?”
“Two good questions I can’t possibly answer.”
He grinned suddenly. “And here I was thinking you had an answer for everything.”
“You’re confusing me with Jack.”
“Ah,” he said, a devilish twinkle in his warm brown eyes. “But you’re Jack’s little
protégée.”
I snorted and swiped at his arm. The blow had enough power in it to rock him back on his heels.
“Watch your mouth or I won’t go vamp hunting with you.”
“Yeah you will, because you want my help more than I want yours.”
He had a point. I trailed after him as he walked from the bedroom and checked out the other
rooms. The rest of the house was also done in neutral colors, with easy comfortable furniture. I
couldn’t feel anything out of place, and nothing seemed to have been touched or broken
into.
“I don’t think there’s anything else to find,” I commented after the last room. “What about
you?”
“The only room that has the other scent is her bedroom. I’ll snag one of the liaisons to do some
research on mirror creatures.” He glanced at me, a grin of anticipation twitching his lips. “In
the meantime, let’s go hunt us a vampire.”

T
he screams and giggles of children on rides mingled with
the blare of music and the scent of fried food and humanity, creating an ambience that was both
intriguing and oddly nauseating.
I slammed the car door and stared up at the huge face with its open mouth that was the entrance
to the park. Though the face was supposed to be laughing, I’d always thought it had a slightly
maniacal edge. But maybe that was just an adult werewolf’s natural distaste for anything that
involved being confined in a somewhat small area with too many people.
Yet humans certainly didn’t seem to have that problem. Despite the fact that it was nearly nine,
the park was packed with people. And most of them seemed to be having a good time—if you ignored
the high-pitched screams of the little ones who were obviously either tired or not getting what
they wanted from their parents.
Something I could look forward to if I agreed to Liander and Rhoan’s plans.
Depending, of course, on whether everything went according to plan and the pregnancy and birth
went off without a hitch, the disbelieving side of me felt obliged to add.
And really, when had anything in my life gone off without a hitch?
I worried lightly at my bottom lip and then thrust the concern aside as I fell in step beside
Kade. Now was
not
the time for these sorts of thoughts. Work first,
babies later.
“So when was the last attack?” I asked, watching the roller coaster roar overhead, the screams of
the people lingering in the air long after the carriages had sped by.
“Last Saturday. He seems to be active only on the weekends.” Kade showed his badge to the woman
at the ticket counter, but she basically waved him through without even looking at it. Which
didn’t mean she wasn’t looking at Kade—and the amused twitch of his lips suggested he was more
than a little aware of it.
“Don’t tell me the ticket lady is yet another conquest,” I said, voice dry. “Jack won’t be
pleased if you’ve been fooling around during investigations.”
He might be all for using sex as a tool to get information from suspects, but I very much doubted
he’d believe the ticket seller would have any information that couldn’t be gained through less
involved methods.
“There’s been no fooling around as yet,” he said cheerfully, “but she’s been most helpful during
the investigation and is definitely a possibility once this case is handled.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “How can your herd not be satisfying your sexual needs?”
“They are,” he said, a devilish glint in his eyes. “But there’s always room for a little outside
fun. Keeps the little man interested.”
I snorted. “There’s nothing little about your man.”
“Totally true.” He waggled his eyebrows at me. “Want a hot dog?”
“Nope, but you can buy me some cotton candy. The pink one, not the blue one.”
He did, and I groaned in delight as I bit into the overly sweet spun sugar. It was heaven itself.
“So,” I said, licking the sugary goodness from the side of my mouth. “What are we going to do?
Just wander around and wait for him to attack someone? Or are we going to check out the
underbelly of this place and see what we can find?”
“I’ve checked every ride, and I haven’t been able to spot anything.”
Which didn’t mean that
I
couldn’t, if only because I had the
advantage of infrared, which could pick up body heat. And, of course, vamps
did
have body heat, despite how they were often portrayed in movies and in
literature. They only got cold if they weren’t feeding enough.
But Kade knew that, so I didn’t bother pointing it out. “What makes you think he’s made the park
his home rather than simply arriving with the weekend crowds?”
“Maintenance people have reported seeing something moving around after hours, but apparently
whatever—whoever—it was disappeared before anyone could track it.”
“None of the maintenance people has been attacked?” Kade shook his head, and I frowned. “That’s
rather odd, isn’t it?”
He shrugged. “Maybe he’s an older vamp who only needs to feed a couple of times a
week.”
Quinn was about as old as they got, and while he could go long periods without feeding, he really
needed to take blood every day to keep at his optimum levels of fitness and strength. Either this
vampire was on a diet—and I couldn’t ever imagine a vampire going though
that
willingly—or he was getting his meals from something other than humans. Like
pigeons. There were certainly enough of them around—although there’d have to be a fairly high
kill ratio to satisfy a vamp. Still …
“Don’t suppose anyone has reported an increase in the number of dead pigeons, have
they?”
He blinked. “Pigeons wouldn’t have enough blood to satisfy a vampire.”
“No, but if we’re dealing with a small vampire, then a few drained pigeons might keep him going.
It might also explain why he isn’t going after adults. He might be stronger than a human, but
maybe the size difference intimidates him.”
“Good point. I’ll ask.”
I nodded. “A vampire also needs protection from the sunlight, and I would have thought the only
viable places like that here would be places maintenance would need to go on a regular basis.”
And while vampires
could
wrap themselves in shadow and effectively
vanish from human sight, they didn’t actually
become
shadows. If
someone brushed against them, they’d feel it. “Besides, you said you hadn’t been able to sense
anything that obviously felt like a nest.”
“Nope, but that doesn’t mean it’s not here. Or he might be just moving around, keeping ahead of
the maintenance people.”
That was possible. And I suppose old amusement parks like this—even if they had been updated with
newer rides and facilities—still had enough of the older rides left to provide hidey-holes for
those intent on not being found.
“So let’s walk around the older rides, and I’ll infrared the internals and see if there’s any
body heat where there shouldn’t be.”
“Sounds like a plan.” He bit into his hot dog, looking very much at ease with the noise and the
crowd.
I ate some more cotton candy and wished I could be similarly at ease. I must have been exuding
some agitation, though, because the crowd tended to part around me, giving me free space and less
of a hemmed-in feeling.
Until someone fell in step beside me.
Someone who made my skin tingle and my wolf want to howl.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Kye?” I said, not even bothering to glance at him.
Which
didn’t
mean I wasn’t aware of him. His scent wrapped around me,
musky and lush, and the heat of his body prickled mine, making the little hairs on my arms stand
on end. It was almost as if they were reaching for him.
“I’m following you,” he said, amusement in his voice. He reached across me, not touching me and
yet close enough to make no difference, and offered Kade a hand. “I’m Kye Murphy. I’m guessing
you’d be the horse-shifter, Kade.”
“You’d be correct,” Kade rumbled, glancing at me with a slightly raised eyebrow and a dangerous
glint in his eyes.
I shook my head at the unasked question. Kye’s sudden appearance might be a problem in more ways
than one, but I didn’t want Kade involved. For a start, I very much doubted that Kade, for all
his size and impressive physique, would have the strength actually to outhustle Kye, and, second,
we didn’t need a scene that might just alert our quarry.
“We’re on Directorate business,” I said, dumping the cotton candy in the nearest bin. I’d
suddenly lost my taste for sweet things. Or rather, my taste buds suddenly hungered for sweetness
of a different kind. The kind that involved heat and flesh and lust …
I wrenched my thoughts from
that
particular direction and added, “And
you’re definitely intruding.”
“I usually am,” he said, amusement so evident in his voice that it was all too easy to imagine
the flit of it across his lips. But I didn’t look. I didn’t dare. “But I happen to think you and
I might be hunting the same killer, and pairing up achieved the desired results last
time.”
I glanced at him sharply. Hunger lurked deep in the brightness of his eyes. But he wasn’t talking
about the two of us bringing down the witches. He was referring to sex.
I shivered. I might hunger for his touch, but I feared it almost as much. Feared what it could
mean to me and Quinn and everything else currently so right in my world.
“And why would anyone hire a killer with your reputation to hunt down a vamp who hasn’t even
killed yet?” I gave him a sour look. “We both know they wouldn’t, so don’t lie to me,
Kye.”
He smiled. It was a cool, hard smile that nevertheless had my insides quivering with desire. It
was the nature of the wolf to seek out the strongest mate, and Kye was certainly that. “I wasn’t
referring to the cretin attacking children. That is certainly not worth my while.”
“Then why are you here?”
I edged a little closer to Kade, hoping his sunshiny scent would swamp the allure of Kye’s
presence. But it didn’t even make a dent in the awareness that was swamping me.
“As I said, I’ve been following you. Sometimes the best way to hunt down your target is to
piggyback other investigations.” He glanced at me, eyebrow raised. “Besides, isn’t it natural to
want to be near your soul mate?”
Kade made an odd sound and started coughing. I hit him a couple of times on the back and he
nodded in thanks.
Kye glanced from me to Kade and back again. “That’s a little detail you obviously forgot to
mention to your fellow guardian.”
“She sure did,” Kade wheezed.
“It’s not like either of us is ecstatic about the fact,” I muttered. “So why the hell should I
announce it?”
“Because you’ve been waiting your whole life to find your mate?” Kye said, the sarcasm absent in
his expression very evident in his voice.
“At least I desire something more than the next kill,” I shot back.
“Oh, I desire a hell of a lot more than that,” he murmured, his gaze on mine, hard and cold and
yet somehow heated. “And I always get what I want.”
My stomach quivered. God, how was it possible to want someone so much and yet loathe them this
badly?
“Then it’s about time someone made you realize that you can’t always get what you want,” I
snapped, and yet even I couldn’t help noticing the slight tremor in my voice—a tremor that arose
from the breathlessness that surged through me.
He merely smiled. He didn’t need to say anything. We both knew my words were little more than a
flimsy facade. All he had to do was reach out and touch me, and the fight would be over. At least
until sexual satisfaction was reached.
No amount of loving from Quinn would ever ease the soul-deep hunger of my wolf for her mate, and
sooner or later that need was going to overwhelm all opposition, all common sense.
“As fascinating as I’m finding this conversation,” Kade said, voice casual and yet holding a hint
of steel, “I do believe we may have found our quarry.”
I stopped. “You’re picking up something?”
“Stirring hunger.” He pointed to the ghost train ride. “And it’s coming from there.”
“Someone’s about to get a real fright for a change,” Kye murmured. He flexed his fingers, his
excitement surging, wrapping around me as sweetly as a caress, causing my own heart to leap and
race. “Shall we go find the vamp?”
I swung around sharply, meeting his hard gaze with one of my own even as I desperately tried to
control the growing desire to press my lips against his.
“There is no ‘we.’ This is Directorate business.” I glanced across my shoulder and saw that Kade
was on the phone, then added in a softer tone, “Stay out of the way, Kye, or I’ll arrest you. I
mean it.”
Something flashed through his eyes. Something dangerous and wicked. Then he grabbed my arm,
dragged me toward him, and kissed me.
It wasn’t a nice kiss. It was as brutal and as harsh as the man could be, and yet my heart raced
and my body ached, and I found myself returning the kiss eagerly, my wolf desperate for anything
she could get.
And I hated that. I really hated it.
But he released me as suddenly as he’d grabbed me, the kiss so brief I doubted that anyone had
noticed. We stared at each other for a moment, still so close our harsh breaths mingled. I had no
doubt that the desire and anger that raged in his eyes had its echo in mine.
He smiled. It was as bitter and as cold as the kiss we’d just shared, yet still my wolf
hungered.
I forced my feet backward. The sudden distance between us didn’t help the ache.
“The manager is closing down the ride, but he’ll keep the lights off. Hopefully, the vamp won’t
realize we’re on to him,” Kade said, shoving his phone back into his pocket. He glanced from Kye
to me and raised an eyebrow. Being an empath, he’d no doubt be picking up all sorts of crazy
emotions, but all he said was “I’ll make sure the vamp doesn’t escape via the rear entrance. You
want to go through the front and flush him out?”
I nodded, spun on my heel, and stalked toward the ride. Kye remained where he was, and I wasn’t
entirely sure whether I was relieved or dismayed. I might have warned him off, but at least if
he’d remained with me, I could have kept an eye on him.
Or maybe that kiss had rattled me more than I’d thought, because wanting to keep an eye on Kye
was insane. That man was dangerous in more ways than I could count, and keeping him close was
only asking for trouble.
The ghost train ride was a stand-alone building capped by a skull wearing a top hat and holding a
megaphone to his mouth. It was easy to imagine he was inviting everyone to roll up and try the
ride, though no words came out of his skeletal mouth. There was a long line of people waiting out
the front, although one look at the many unhappy faces in the line suggested word had gone out
about the delay. I leapt over the metal railing that divided the ride from the rest of the crowds
and flashed my badge at the ride supervisor. From within the building came a series of clanks,
screams, moans, and a multitude of other spooky sounds, all accompanied by the rattle of
carriages running on a wooden track.
“The last carriage is going through now,” the supervisor said, as another carriage rattled into
the station and two teenagers climbed out, both looking somewhat bored. “When that one comes out,
you can walk through.”