Edge of Desire (4 page)

Riley watched the door swing shut behind her, and just stood there, still pulling in lungfuls of that mouthwatering scent, his head in a freaking daze. In so many ways, she was a stranger—but he still wanted to go after her, lay her down, strip her bare and study the changes in her body. Not that he’d ever seen her in the raw. He’d been too bloody terrified of losing control. Even at seventeen, his physical appetites had been…
hard
. Harder than a virginal girl like Hope should have had to handle. So he’d choked them back, waiting for her to get older…

And then he’d lost her.

Shaking his head, he finally turned, surprised to find Kellan still standing there, quietly waiting for him. Silently studying his expression, no doubt seeing far more than Riley wanted to reveal. He was too stripped down at the moment. Too shocked open. Without saying anything, Riley headed back into the bustling café, where a busboy was mopping up the remnants of pie from the floor. Ignoring the curious stares sent their way as they walked out, they stepped into the rainy mist now drifting down from the sky.

“So,” Kellan said lightly, as they made their way down the path, “are we going to talk about it?”

“Talk about what?” he asked, pulling his jacket up around his ears, his heart still beating painfully hard.

“What you’re going to do about the woman,” Kellan
murmured, while the bristling wind grew stronger, whipping at their hair, the thunder rolling in hard and fast. “Who she is. Why she hates you. Why you can’t take your eyes off her. Not that the last one needs an explanation, considering she’s some serious eye candy, though she doesn’t flaunt it. And we can’t forget the way you damn near fainted when you set eyes on her.”

“I’ve never fainted in my life,” he growled. “And it’s none of your goddamn business.”

Kellan made an obnoxious buzzer sound and smiled. “Wrong answer, man. I’m on babysitting duty, remember? Everything you do right now is my business.”

“Babysitting duty my ass,” he grumbled, heading back toward Main Street. “Everyone back at Ravenswing just wanted you out of their hair.”

Shaking his head, Kellan made a low sound under his breath. “Now that’s just not nice. Especially coming from ol’ Saint Riley. What would your brother say if he heard you being so rude?”

Riley grunted in response, his lip curling at the mention of the ridiculous nickname Ian had given him. Yeah, he’d done his best to make a difference in his life—to fight for things that were good and just and pure—but that was only because he knew what lay ahead. Knew just how messed up things were going to get. Knew he needed to score some decency points while he still could, racking them up before it all went to hell.

They moved along the crowded sidewalk, Kellan
quiet at his side, while Riley’s thoughts churned around and around. “We need to head back to the truck so that I can get some clean clothes. Then we can grab some food at that sports bar near the parking lot. What was the name?”

“Shorty’s.”

“Yeah, that’s the place,” he murmured, fighting the frustrating urge to turn around and head straight back to Hope, hovering over her like a protective shield. With each step he took away from her, his agitation rose, cranking tighter, making him sweat. The back of his neck began to tingle, and Riley lifted his hand, rubbing at the odd sensation, almost as if he could feel the press of a stare against his skin. Running his gaze over the crowded street, he searched for the source, but couldn’t find anyone that snagged his attention. No one with pale, ice-blue eyes. Not that it mattered. He might spot a Casus’s icy, unusual gaze, but the Collective soldiers working with the monsters were human. They could be anywhere, anyone.

A militant organization of human mercenaries, the Collective Army was devoted to purging the world of all preternatural life. Thanks to an unlikely ally—a Collective lieutenant colonel named Seth McConnell—Riley and the others now knew that the Casus and the Collective were working together to acquire the Dark Markers. According to Seth, a mysterious man named Westmore was behind the bizarre alliance, though his motives were still unknown. But whatever Westmore’s
goal, Riley and the others knew it wasn’t going to be good.

Still feeling as if he were being watched, panic nearly had him turning and rushing back to the café, but he fought it down. He didn’t need to do anything to make Hope stand out. Though he would be searching on her land, he knew that the more distance he could keep between them, the better. Which meant that he didn’t need to be hovering over her like an overprotective lover.

At his side, Kellan suddenly said, “What’s going on?”

Riley sent him a dark, questioning look.

“You’re blasting vibes like a psychic firecracker. What gives? Are your Spidey senses tingling?”

Though he didn’t like it, Riley had to admit that it was impressive, how good Kellan was at reading him. “I have a feeling we’ve already got company,” he said in a low voice, before adding, “So I think it would be smart if we stay as close to Millie’s as we can. I don’t want to take any chances.”

“You’ll get no arguments from me,” Kellan replied, casting his own gaze out over the crowd of people filling the sidewalks. “You know, if one of them is onto us so quickly, it could be Gregory.”

Riley nodded, the panic in his gut turning to dread at the mention of the Casus who had seemed to make it his personal mission to go after Buchanan blood. The first Casus to return to this world had been Gregory’s
brother, Malcolm. Ian had killed Malcolm with a Dark Marker, and upon his own return, Gregory had gone after Saige for revenge. Though they hadn’t heard anything from him since the day they’d all rescued Saige from Westmore’s clutches, they knew he was still out there, no doubt waiting for an opportunity to strike. Because of that, Saige was all but under lockdown back at Ravenswing, her soon-to-be husband, a Watchman named Michael Quinn, unwilling to take any chances with her safety. Riley had expected his footloose sister to have been champing at the bit, but he’d been wrong. Instead, she practically glowed, her blue eyes shining with happiness…with a peace that he’d never expected to see in her. And it was the same with Ian, who was set to marry his own fiancée in just two weeks’ time back at the compound.

“So if we can’t talk about the woman, how about the other?” Kellan asked, pulling Riley from his internal thoughts as the first drops of rain finally began to fall.

“Other?”

“What you did,” Kellan said, lowering his voice, “stopping that last pie in midair. Don’t think I didn’t notice it. We’ve been wondering at Ravenswing what your weird little Buchanan gift would be. Looks like we found it.”

Riley knew exactly what Kellan was referring to. His brother and sister each had special…
talents,
though Ian was still trying to come to grips with his unusual dreams and instances of precognition. But unlike Saige, who had discovered that she could communicate with physical
objects when she was still in her teens, it seemed that his and Ian’s “gifts” had been brought on by their awakenings. Or simply unlocked, as Saige had explained it, believing the unusual powers had always been there, lying dormant because of his and Ian’s unwillingness to accept that they were anything more than human.

“I’m guessing some sort of telekinesis,” Kellan added.

“I have no idea what it is,” Riley muttered. “And I sure as hell don’t feel like talking about it. I just need some peace and quiet right now. I need to be able to think.”

“Think all you like. But it isn’t going to change anything.”

“What are you talking about?” he demanded in a gritty rasp, just as the Watchman’s cell phone began to ring.

Instead of explaining, Kellan just smiled and answered the call.

An hour later…

G
REGORY
D
E
K
REZNICK SAT
at the bar of a crowded local hangout in Wellsford, Washington, just up the coast from the quaint, cliff-side town of Purity. Despite the verdant feeding ground provided by a local college, his mood was sour. He missed Brazil, where he’d spent the first weeks of his freedom stalking little Saige Buchanan. Missed the hot, searing burn of the South American sunshine. Missed his brother, Malcolm, whose life had been taken by that son-of-a-bitch Ian Buchanan.

What he didn’t miss was Meridian, the stinking hell-pit where the Casus had been imprisoned for centuries, cursed to a fate worse than death. Where he’d slowly rotted away, year after year, until Anthony Calder had finally sent him through the gate and back to this world. The first Casus to successfully organize their race into a cohesive force, bringing rule to the anarchy, Calder was the one who’d finally offered the Casus hope, as well as the chance of freedom. But it didn’t come without a price.

Calder wanted the liberated Casus to avoid human kills. To feed only from the Merrick, so that they might bring more of their kind across the divide. To find the Dark Markers, though he still hadn’t shared why they were so important to their freedom. Yeah, Calder wanted a lot of things, not that he cared.

All Gregory wanted was power. He liked the taste of it. The smell. The way it filled his head, his body, making him feel like a god. And he would use his power to strike down the Buchanans, one by one. They’d taken his brother, and now he’d made it his mission in life to take away everything, and anything, they cared about.

Then, once his thirst for revenge had been quenched, he would set his sights on new prey. On finding a new rival. Someone to push against, to keep himself entertained. Calder was ideal, since Gregory had never cared for the sanctimonious prick, and for that reason he was already planning on keeping any Markers that happened to fall into his lap. Calder was desperate for the Dark Markers, promising significant rewards to any Casus who handed a Marker over into Westmore’s possession. Instead, Gregory thought it would be fun to collect them himself, just to screw with whatever ol’ Calder had planned for the crosses.

But first he would finish the job here, then track down his own little Merrick—the one he’d caused to awaken when he’d returned to this world—and get it out of the way. Though he wouldn’t use the power he took from the feeding to bring another Casus back from
Meridian, the idea of letting someone else take what was his grated against his pride. And now that Malcolm was gone, his pride was all that he had left.

Scrubbing his hands down his face, Gregory stared at the image reflected back at him in the mirror behind the bar. The human host he’d taken wasn’t bad for something that was no more than food. A long, well-muscled body, topped off by a chiseled face that drew women to him with ridiculous ease. The chin-length, sun-streaked brown hair worked well with his tanned complexion, but there was a gauntness to the compelling features that hadn’t been there before, and he knew he needed to feed. He’d been so busy watching, and waiting, that he hadn’t seen properly to his needs. Now he was hungry, the craving for a warm, lush body grinding him down. A male could satisfy his need for nourishment—but only a woman could give him what he really required to feel whole…
powerful.
Only a woman—spread and pinned and bleeding beneath him, screaming in terror as she saw her death reflected in his eyes—could fully slake his dark, insatiable hungers.

He still wasn’t happy about losing his chance to get at little Saige, but now that Riley Buchanan had headed off with only one Watchman for protection, things were definitely looking up.

To celebrate, he’d decided to treat himself to a good meal. The scent of warm, female flesh surrounded him, a carnal banquet of fresh-faced college girls steadily streaming in as they gathered with their friends on a lazy
Saturday afternoon. He watched them in the mirror, searching for the one who most appealed to him. The one he’d charm away from her friends, getting her alone, where he could throw off this pathetic human mask and show her what he was really made of.

The door opened for another customer, allowing the biting wind to whip through the heated interior, and he scowled.
This place is too bloody cold,
he thought, taking a drink of his beer, noting that a strange, new energy suddenly seemed to be spilling through the room. Looking over his shoulder, he had to fight down the urge to snarl as he watched the newcomer heading straight toward him.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he stormed, the instant the woman eased onto the stool at his left. She was stunningly gorgeous, but then he knew Pasha well enough to know that she’d never take an unattractive body. She was too vain. One of the most beautiful Casus females when in human form, she’d been renowned for leading unsuspecting men to their doom, taking them to the heights of sexual ecstasy, before taking them to pieces.

She was tall, probably around five-nine, her body one of provocative valleys and swells that drew every male eye in the bar. Deep, pale green eyes—the shocking color only made more striking by the dark, glossy tendrils of ink-black hair tumbling around her perfect features—stared back at him with a bold, aggressive air of confidence, which was why Casus females held so little interest to the males. Instead of screaming when
you hurt them, they just laughed…then begged for more, which ruined the mood, as far as he was concerned.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Gregory DeKreznick,” she purred, running one perfectly manicured nail down the muscled length of his arm. “Wow. You’ve finally got a little meat back on your bones. I take it freedom is sitting well with you?”

He stared, recognizing the sensual tilt of her mouth, the glittering calculation in her gaze. Even though she was wearing the body of a host, he knew precisely who she was. “What do you want, Pasha?”

“Can’t I come calling on an old friend?” she asked, leaning closer, as if she were sharing something intimate.

Forcing the words through his clenched teeth, he said, “We were never friends.”

“But we could be,” she murmured, smiling at the bartender as she gestured toward Gregory’s beer, silently asking for one of her own. “We’re all on the same side here, you know. Freedom of our kind and all that.”

A rough, husky bark of laughter jerked from his throat. “I could give a shit about our kind, and you know it. I’m in this for no one but me. As others have already discovered.”

She crossed her legs, the black miniskirt she wore rising along her slender thigh, revealing far more skin than was decent. Holding his stare, there was a knowing edge to her words as she said, “From what I hear, Gregory, you’re in it for revenge.”

“Is that right?” he asked, forcing a bored tone to
his words, though he couldn’t help but wonder what she was after.

“Mmm,” she purred. “Heard the oldest Buchanan took out Malcolm. Dear big brother is rotting in hell now, no?”

His eyes narrowed, a low, feral snarl surging up from his chest, but he fought back his temper, focusing on keeping his fangs and claws from releasing. Now wasn’t the time to rip the stupid bitch to shreds. “Last time, Pasha. What the fuck are you doing here?”

She smiled at the burly bartender as he approached with her beer, his brown eyes glazed with lust. “They’re so pathetically easy,” she murmured with a casual air, when the guy reluctantly moved away to take an order at the far end of the bar. “And in answer to your question, Gregory, I think you know exactly why I’m here.” Her smile was sly as she met his stare. “Doubt I’ll be the only competition you have coming into town.”

Yeah, he’d known that competition was on its way, simply because Riley Buchanan wasn’t
his.
Wasn’t the Merrick that Gregory’s release had caused to awaken. And then there was the issue of the Marker, which the other Casus knew the Buchanans would be going after, now that Saige was once again in possession of the maps. It was going to be a battle to get his hands on the Merrick and the Marker, but he had no intention of turning tail. No, he wanted this too badly. Wanted to take the Buchanans apart, piece by piece. But they had
the other two in lockdown. The only one to venture out of the safety of Ravenswing was the lawman, and Gregory knew exactly what the bastard was after.

“You want the Marker,” he said to Pasha. “The one he’s come here to find.”

“That would be nice,” she drawled. “But I want the sheriff, too.”

Gregory snorted. “Well, you’re not getting him. He’s
mine.
”

She ran her finger around the top of her glass, and softly said, “Actually, Gregory, he’s mine.”

“Shit,” he muttered, understanding exactly what she meant. In an effort to promote order among the newly escaped Casus, it’d been decided that since only a fully awakened Merrick could provide their kind with the “ultimate” feeding, each escaped Casus would be allowed exclusive rights to the Merrick their return to this realm had caused to awaken. It was an important rule, as only a Merrick could provide the power charge needed for the Casus to “pull” another one of his kind back from Meridian, bringing them across the divide. It was also a rule that Gregory had no intention of following.

“You knew someone would be coming for him,” she murmured. “That someone’s me. And the others, well, they know he’s here for the Marker. They’ll wait until he’s found it and reached full power before striking, but the competition is only going to get worse. If you’d listen, I can guarantee you’ll be interested in what I have to say.”

“Better yet,” he growled, “why don’t you just get the
hell away from here and forget you ever even heard the name Buchanan.”

She shook her head, which sent the dark, silky curls tumbling over her shoulders. “I can’t do that, and you know it. But,” she said, watching him carefully, “I was hoping we could make a deal.”

Shifting so that he faced her on the stool, he asked, “And what exactly did you have in mind?”

She leaned forward, keeping her voice low to ensure they weren’t overheard by the customers crowding in, some kind of college sporting event getting ready to play on the multitude of televisions situated throughout the bar. When she was done with her explanation, she straightened and took a drink from her glass. Gregory rubbed a hand over his bristled jaw, unable to deny that he was intrigued. He wanted Riley Buchanan, but Pasha’s proposal was tempting. And the conniving little bitch knew it.

It would mean waiting, but for the prize she was offering, he could stomach holding off. And in the meantime, he’d do his best to screw with the sheriff’s mind. Twist the knife until he had him jumping to his tune. It would be so easy. And, hell, maybe even a little fun.

“Just think about it,” she said, smiling as she slipped a piece of paper in front of him. She took another drink of her beer, laid a ten-dollar bill on the polished bar, then winked at the blonde who suddenly pressed up close against Gregory’s other side, the giggling girl obviously in the mood to flirt. Pasha was right, he thought. They really did make it too easy.

Slipping off her stool, the beautiful Casus leaned in close to his ear. “I’ll let you go and enjoy your meal now,” she whispered, allowing her lips to brush against the side of his throat. “But be a good boy and give me a call when you’re ready to talk.”