Dangerous (Courting the Darkness Saga) (19 page)

Drake froze, staring
straight ahead. His hands gripped the sides of the table, the wood splintering
beneath the pressure.

Caleb leaned forward
and waved his hand in front of Drake’s face, getting no response. “What’s wrong
with him?”

Desiree snapped her
fingers in front of Drake’s face a couple of times with the same results. “I’m
not sure, but I believe that he’s having a vision.” She turned to her mate.
“Mica, do vampires have visions?”

“Only
when we’re in tune with our mates.”

“But Sherry’s supposed
to be in their chambers resting. Why would she be sending him a vision?”

Caleb smirked. “Maybe
it’s her way of summoning him to her bed.”

Mica slapped Caleb on
the backside of his head. “Get your mind out of the gutter. Our visions don’t
work like that fu—you almost had me calling you ‘fur ball’ with cracks like
that.”

Caleb smiled. “Ah, you
just reminded me of Denise, I’m gonna have to look her up. I kinda miss her
callin’ me that.”

Desiree frowned.
“Caleb, focus.”
She turned to her mate. “Mica, how do your
visions work?”

“When needed we can see
through our mate’s
eyes.
And from the look of that
grip Drake has on the edge of the table, I’m assuming he’s not too happy with
what he’s seeing.”

Desiree hopped off the
barstool. “Excuse me.”

Mica sat back. “Where
are you going?”

“To
check on Sherry.”

“The odds of her being
in their chamber are nil. Somehow, someone has gotten to her.”

“You better be wrong,
because if you’re not, we’re all in trouble. Sherry is more powerful than even
she knows. She just believes that she is a common witch. She doesn’t know that
she was born with natural powers. With the right training, she alone would be an
unstoppable force. That is one of the reasons that I have kept such close tabs
on her throughout the years. That, and I never told her, but she is my
great-great-granddaughter.”

Caleb slapped his
forehead. “Wow, Dez, you never told us you had a kid.”

“It was safer for all
those concerned not to know. The witch hunters were always after me, and if
they knew about my offspring they would be in danger too. Shortly after I cast
that spell and realized that I no longer aged, my husband died in an accident.
Caroline was only fifteen at the time. I arranged a marriage for her and told
her that I had to disappear for a while to keep her safe. I was lucky because
she happened to be in love with the boy to begin with. She agreed to keep my
secret. I watched her from afar as she had children and grew old. When she was
an old woman I came back. She introduced me to her children, my grandchildren,
as a friend and a coven leader. I’ve stayed in touch with them all in that
capacity ever since.”

Mica took her hand in
his and kissed it. “Now I understand why you were so protective of the girl.”

“Since her mother died,
she is the last of my line.”

“We will get her back,
love.”

“We better get her
back. I not only love her, but that kind of power in the wrong hands can be
deadly.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that if Sherry
and I combine our powers together we are strong enough to stop this war before
it ever begins.”

Mica lifted an eyebrow.
“That’s
impossible,
love…the enemy is over three
thousand strong.”

She nodded. “It’s a drop
in the bucket for what we’d be capable of together.”

Caleb let out a long
low whistle. “I’ve seen what you can do alone….”

Desiree gave Drake a
worried look in his frozen state. “We better pray that they don’t discover what
they have.”

Drake blinked a couple
of times and began to shake in a deep rage as he came out of the trance. The
color of his eyes change to blood red, his upper fangs elongated over his
bottom lip, the tendons in his neck bulged under the pressure, and then the
edge of the table beneath his fingers suddenly shattered. He stood, then raised
his fist in the air and slammed it on the tabletop, causing it to shatter in
pieces on the floor. “I will rip the head off that snake with my teeth and feed
it to the alligators in the bayou. Then I will eat his heart,” he roared.

Chapter Twenty-One

Desiree’s face paled.
“Who has my baby, Drake?”

In Drake’s state of
mind he was feral, seeing the entire room in an angry shade of red. He had
heard Desiree’s explanation in his frozen state, but had been unable to respond
to it until now. He backed against the wall in an effort to control his rage.
“Our baby has been kidnapped by more than one.” His voice was horse and
strained. “Justin Hargrove seems to be the one in control.”

Desiree brought her
hands up over her mouth in horror. “He’ll kill her. She doesn’t even know she
has the power within her to defeat him.”

“There are others.” He
turned and cast his gaze on Caleb. “There is one who looks remarkably like
you.” He pointed a clawed finger in Caleb’s direction. “He wants the boy.”

“
He can’t have him.
” Caleb shook his fists in anger. His eyes
shifted to panther and his voice changed to the scream of a large cat as his
body rippled and black fur covered his hands. “
I will destroy them!
”

A glass shattered as it
hit the ground. Little Mica stood in the doorway. His eyes bugged in shock as
he glanced frantically around the room. “Where’s Aunt Sher?”

Tears spilled from
Desiree’s eyes as she shook her head at the boy, unable to speak.

“
NO,
” he screamed. His head whipped back in forth in denial. “No,
no, no, no! They have taken everything from me. They can’t have her too!”
Before their eyes the boy’s new cloths ripped as he morphed into a white tiger
twice the size and muscle mass of his father. He let out a fierce scream that
had them all cover their ears.

Mica slapped Caleb on
the back. “He’s an alpha.”

Caleb, still in
mid-change, smiled. His long fangs protruded below his chin. “Yes, it appears
so.”

Desiree stepped around
Mica to approach the boy. She reached out and stroked his fur. “This is why
they wanted him. He is magnificent. They somehow knew what he would become.
They either want to destroy him or train him to be their leader.”

Caleb narrowed his
glowing green eyes. “With their hatred of me, I am assuming that they were
looking to destroy him.”

The boy ran his rough
tongue up the side of Desiree’s face. She smiled sadly and wrapped her arms
around his neck in a hug. “You will help to save her.”

Caleb charged forward.
“
NO.
”

“It is the only way.”
She looked to Drake. “They won’t know what hit them.”

***

Justin Hargrove put the
car in gear,
then
looked into the rearview mirror.
“Cedric, you and your boys need to tie her up tight. Don’t want to give her a
chance to cast a spell.”

Cedric laughed. “She’s
already tried that on me, Justin. She failed miserably.”

Justin looked up
sharply into the rearview mirror. “What exactly did she say?”

He shrugged.
“Something about multiplying and seeing.
I didn’t see
nothing
out of the ordinary.”

“You’re a fool! She
didn’t mean for
you
to see, stupid.”

Cedric growled low and
drew a claw down the side of Justin’s neck, leaving a welt of blood in its
wake. “Care to repeat yourself human?”

Justin swallowed hard.
“No. I’ve dealt with witches before. If she says something that sounds strange
it usually means something, that’s all.”

“I think you’re wrong,
witchy man.”

“Fine, believe what you
want.”

“Just drive, witchy man
and leave the witch to me.” Cedric sat back and leisurely ran his claw down the
side of Sherry’s breast, slicing the fabric, exposing a little of her pale skin.

Her fingers pulled at
her bindings behind her back as she tried to jerk away from his touch. “Keep
your filthy paws off me.”

He grabbed her breast,
wrenching it painfully, bringing tears to her eyes. “You don’t give me orders,
witch.” He then grabbed her hair by the nape of her neck, pulling her head back
as he shoved his other hand painfully between her legs. “I will touch any part
of you I wish to touch, and there ain’t a damn thing you can do about it.”

She squealed in protest
and fought with everything she had. “I will enjoy watching Drake rip your fucking
heart out!”

His eyes blazed with an
unnatural glow as he reared his fist and punched her in the stomach. “Shut up,
bitch!” He brought his fist up again.

Cedric’s friend caught
his wrist before he could deliver another blow and tugged him away. “Hey, Ced,
she’s right man. That vamp’s a big dude. He’ll kill you if he finds out that you’ve
messed with his woman. Besides, he has a thousand vampires at his disposal to
hunt us down. She ain’t worth it man. Stay focused on our goal.”

Sherry coughed and
heaved, gasping for breath as the pain consumed her. Her shoulders and arms
also burned from the tight position they had her hands tied from behind. She
silently wished she hadn’t been sick earlier so she could puke on him now. She
squeezed her eyes shut, swallowing back the bile burning her throat.

Cedric grabbed a
handful of hair and yanked her head up. “Stay with us, sweet cheeks.” Her eyes
opened, then narrowed as she clenched her jaw and scowled. He flashed
her a
smile. “Still feisty, I see. I’m sure your spirit will
break when you see your little kitten fall beneath the master. You don’t want
to miss the show now, do you? We’re here.”

Jason put the car in
park and cut the engine.

“I will kill you if it
is the last thing I do.”

He tilted his head.
“Ah, but there in lies the kicker, sweet cheeks.
You are
only here as the bait. Once I devour your precious little kitten, Justin here
has his own plans for you. I get to kill the boy and take pleasure in watching
the anguish and grief consume that sorry father of ours, and Justin here…I’m
not really sure what he has planned for you, but I rather doubt you’ll live
long enough to attempt to kill me.”

Her mouth gaped.
“Our father?”

“You look all too
surprised to find out that that little whelp’s father is my father too.”

“I’ve only met Caleb
once. He was surprised to find out Mica was his child. He said he didn’t have
any others.”

“That fucking asshole
didn’t stick around long enough after fucking my mother to find out, now did
he
?”

“I’ve heard the story.
Your pack nearly killed him for what he did to your mother.”

“They would’ve finished
the job, too, if that vamp hadn’t shown up and killed my mother’s husband, the pack’s
alpha. After I was born my mother saw the resemblance to my true father and
knew her dead mate hadn’t sired me. She cast me out of her home, cursing me as
a bastard child. She said looking at me made her feel dirty and that I came
from a bad seed. I was just a child and my own mother hated me because I looked
like my father. I was forced to live on the dirty streets and beg for whatever
scraps anyone would toss an outcast.

“I showed her though. I
grew up strong, despite her best efforts, and I formed my own pack.
I
am the alpha now, and
I
didn’t deem
her
fit to call
her
my
mother. She begged for death by the time I was through with her. Now I’m moving
on to the next ungrateful family member.”

“Mica’s not responsible
for anything Caleb did. He’s just a child. He’s your brother.”

“Yeah, a little snot
nosed kid that got everything that was denied to
me
. I took great pleasure in making sure he didn’t have a mother’s
love either. Oh, and she begged for her life and his too. That bitch gave
him
everything my mother refused to give
me—a mother’s love, plenty to eat, and a decent home. I couldn’t let her or the
little brat live. It wasn’t fair to
me
.
I
was the firstborn.
I
deserved a better life more than he
did. He was nothing but a traitor’s leftovers. What made him think he deserved
a better life than me? I am an alpha. I am a king!

“I knew what I had to
do and the deed wasn’t hard either. It just took one swipe of these babies.” He
wiggled his fingers in front of her face. “She died a little too easy. I wanted
to make her suffer like I’d suffered over the years, but she just died. My own
mama was harder to kill than that, I guess because she was a shifter too. I
don’t know, but I struck that bitch again because it pissed me off when I
realized I killed her before she gave him up. I figured he’d be hiding, so I
set fire to the place. I had assumed he died when a little birdie whispered in
my ear, telling me that he still lived. It’s taken me until now to find the little
monster.”