Edge of Desire (9 page)

“You do realize that you could end up getting the poor woman killed, don’t you? If the Casus see you with her, she’ll be an easy target. One they’ll use against us.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Kellan muttered, his laughing expression replaced by a tense scowl. “I’m not an idiot. We left the bar separately and then met up later at a motel. No one saw me enter, and no one saw me leave. I made sure of it.”

“You better hope so,” he grunted. “Because if not, you’re going to have one helluva burden on your conscience.”

“You know, Ri. Maybe you’d be a little less pissy about my sex life if you were getting some of your own.”

“Shut up, Kellan.”

“The hunger’s wearing you down, man. You can’t hold out forever.”

Slanting the redhead a look of serious warning, he said, “I’ve got it under control.”

“Like hell you do,” Kellan shot back, pushing away from the tree. “I still don’t know what the deal is between you and Hope, but I’m not blind. It’s obvious you want her. So either take care of it and ’fess up to Hope, or you’re going to have to go with option two.”

“And what the hell is option two?” he growled.

Lowering his voice, Kellan said, “We’ll find a female Watchman. Like we tried to do for Ian.”

“Oh, Christ,” he muttered, pulling his hand down the lower part of his face, the bristles of his stubble scratching against his palm. Ian had told him about how Kierland Scott, Kellan’s brother, had arranged to have a female Watchman named Morgan come down from Reno so that Ian could feed from her. But since a Merrick feeding for males consisted of taking blood
during
sex, Ian had refused, knowing that he would lose Molly, his fiancée, if he took what he needed from another woman.

Glaring at the younger man, he said, “You know, something tells me this Morgan woman isn’t going to like being offered up as the Watchman whore again.”

Something shifted in Kellan’s odd-colored eyes, like a flash of rage, hinting at a side that he rarely showed. Despite being a kick-ass fighter when the situation called for it, Kellan always played the clown. The easygoing prankster who enjoyed riling everyone around him. But in that moment, it suddenly occurred to Riley that there was more going on with the irreverent Watchman than he’d guessed, and he felt like an idiot for not seeing it earlier.

With a gruff bite to his words that Riley had never heard before, Kellan said, “Don’t talk about Morgan like that. She didn’t have to come down to Colorado to make that offer to your brother, but she did. And she damn well didn’t do it because she’s a whore. Though she’d rather die than admit it, the truth is that she’d do anything that Kierland asked her to do.”

Riley lifted his hand, rubbing at the knotted tension in the back of his neck as he thought over what Kellan had said. “Huh. So is there, like, a history between those two?”

Kellan rolled his shoulder in a frustrated gesture and pressed his lips together, obviously knowing better than to start gossiping about his brother’s private life. He muttered something foul under his breath, then shoved his water bottle beneath his arm and pushed his hands into his pockets. “At any rate, I wasn’t thinking of Morgan. But we could go to one of the other compounds, see if there’s anyone there who you’re interested in. At least a female Watchman will know what to expect from bedding down with a Merrick.”

It soured his stomach to think of it—the idea of finding some stranger and nailing her…taking her blood. But even as he thought about it, Riley knew the problem wouldn’t be the woman. No, he’d spent his life sleeping with women who didn’t touch him any deeper than his skin. The problem was with
him,
because at the end of the day, there was only one woman he could imagine doing something that intimate with. Only one woman who could truly give both the man and the Merrick what they needed.

Clearing his throat, he said, “What do you think the others are doing?”

Kellan lifted his brows, the surging wind blowing his dark red hair into his face. “What others?”

“The other Merrick,” Riley grunted, not quite meeting the Watchman’s gaze. He felt too open…too exposed, as if his longing for a woman he could never have was plastered all over his face, etched into his hot eyes like a blinding neon sign. “The ones who are awakening and need to feed the hunger.”

“Those who have wives or girlfriends are probably doing okay,” Kellan murmured, “so long as they aren’t partnered up with a bitch. But the single ones, they’re in the same boat you are. Hopefully they’ll be smart about what they’re doing, or we’re going to have a helluva time keeping the stories of bloodsuckers out of the news.”

Riley nodded, thinking that he didn’t envy the Watchmen and the Consortium—the governing body of
officials the shifters worked for—their jobs. In today’s world, it had to feel like a constantly losing battle, trying to keep the existence of the remaining ancient clans out of the media spotlight. Keeping the tales relegated to superstitious folklore. Though very few of the species actually attacked humans, there were still those who preyed upon innocent victims. If the Collective didn’t get them first, it was sometimes left to the Watchmen to take them out, under special command of the Consortium—but most often there would be a special extermination unit brought in by that specific race. The main objective of the Watchmen was to act as the Consortium’s eyes and ears.

“So, anyway, about finding you a woman,” Kellan rumbled.

“I’m fine.” Riley’s tone was hard…flat, somehow devoid of the emotion twisting him up inside.

Kellan snorted. “Fine, huh? You know, that’s one
F
word that I get damn tired of.”

“Yeah, well, here’s another one,” he sighed. “
Forget
about it. If it gets to the point that I can’t handle it, I’ll figure something out. Until then, I don’t want to talk about it. Understood?”

“Whatever you say, old man,” Kellan drawled, and with a mocking salute, the Watchman turned and headed back the way he’d come.

Riley watched Kellan’s retreating back until he was out of sight, then lifted the shovel and dug up another patch of ground. He supposed he should be thankful that
the area Saige had marked for them to search was deep in the forest, where they weren’t drawing the attention of townspeople. And while he was certain the Casus knew he was there, he figured the bastards would just keep watching them for now.

Waiting for him to find the Marker.

To feed.

To awaken.

Riley could hear the hands of the clock ticking down in his mind, slowly working their way toward destruction, and the Marker was the only thing that could stop it.

He had to find the cross. For his family’s sake. For the safety of the town.

But most of all, for Hope.

Monday evening

L
EANING HIS SHOULDER
against the rough bark of a gnarled, majestic maple, Riley stared through the thickening lavender shades of twilight, watching through the bay window as Hope sat in her living room. He supposed most would call him a Peeping Tom, or worse. What he was doing could probably even be classified as stalking, but he didn’t give a damn. He needed to be there, standing guard, assuring himself that she was okay.

She’d been sitting and reading for the past half hour, drinking from a mug that sat on the gleaming surface of an end table, the hazy wash of light from the lamp casting a golden glow over her luminous skin. She looked ethereal, surreal. Lush and womanly and warm. A sensual Madonna. The image struck a chord deep inside him, and for a moment Riley could only marvel at the fact that she’d never had any children. But then that probably had more to do with her bastard ex. He was positive Hope would have wanted a baby, and a
wrenching image of what could have been—of her swollen and round with his child—flashed through his mind, bringing a searing pain to his chest. Hissing through his teeth, he pressed one hand against the bizarre ache and breathed through the piercing sensation, wondering what in God’s name was wrong with him.

Get a grip, Buchanan. You’re slipping off the deep end.

True, but no matter how wrong it was, there didn’t seem to be anything he could do to stop it. He felt dirty watching her, as if she could be tainted by his mere presence. And yet he couldn’t just walk away. He could sit and make useless, lame-ass excuses until the end of time, claiming that he needed to stand there and watch over her…guard her, but the hardcore truth was that he
couldn’t
stay away from her.

Despite how badly it hurt, he was stuck there, subjecting himself to this internal hell. Watching her like this was perverse. Insane. Like jabbing a needle under his fingernail again and again. Pouring acid into a raw wound. Self-inflicted torture that he couldn’t protect against, simply because this was Hope. She was his ultimate weakness. Forbidden temptation that would drive him beyond reason in his final days of life, before it all came to a crashing, resounding end.

And the end
was
coming closer. His hunger was rising…mounting. If he didn’t find the Marker soon, he would have to figure something out. And despite what he’d told Kellan that morning, he still didn’t have any idea of what he would do. Of how he would handle it.

Her telephone rang, his already heightened sense of hearing allowing him to pick up the shrill sound, and he watched as she set the book aside and reached for the handset that rested in a cradle beside the lamp. She lifted the receiver to her ear, her head turned to the side, the thick fall of her hair making it impossible for him to see her expression. He marked the passage of time in his head, and no more than a minute had gone by before she slammed the phone back in the cradle. Surging to her feet, she quickly checked the lock on the back door, then walked out of the room, through the doorway that he knew led into the kitchen.

Without any conscious direction from his brain, Riley found himself moving across the damp grass that stretched out from the back of the house to the beginning of the woods, the pebbled path that curved through its center snaking into the trees, leading to the cabins that lay farther within the forest. Taking a deep breath, he climbed the shallow porch steps and lifted his hand to knock. A moment later, Hope peeked through the panes of the bay window to see who was there, her shoulders sagging with a subtle gesture of relief when she saw that it was him.

“Riley,” she murmured, opening the door, her warm, mouthwatering scent instantly filling his head, making him feel dazed.

The silence was already stretching out to uncomfortable proportions and he knew he needed to say something, but his throat was too locked up. He just stood
there, staring, feeling like a hungry dog caught begging at the back door for a scrap of attention. A bone. A friggin’ scratch behind the ears before he got kicked away.

Only, Hope didn’t kick him or slam the door in his face. Instead, her head tilted a fraction to the side as she studied him with those big, soulful eyes, her soft gaze lingering on the burning heat in his face. “Do you, um, want to come inside?” she finally asked.

He nodded, his throat working as he stepped into the warm, inviting room, while she closed the door behind him. As Riley moved farther into the quiet house, the weight of his guilt was staggering, weighing him down, until his legs felt leaden, his shoulders and chest tight with strain. He felt as if he was dragging a trail of slimy, festering destruction in his wake. One that would ruin the clean, beautiful floorboards beneath his feet, rotting the wood until there was nothing but a black, sopping maw opening beneath them, waiting to swallow them whole. And yet he couldn’t make himself leave.

Standing in the middle of the room, Riley turned to find Hope leaning back against the door, just watching him, waiting to see what he would do, what he wanted. He ran his gaze over her body in a quick, visual feast. With an inner smile, he noted the loose sand-colored pajama pants and long-sleeved baggy T-shirt, knowing it was a wasted effort, the way she tried to hide that beautiful body with the shapeless clothes. As far as he was concerned, the shadowy, fleeting glimpses of her figure that were revealed by the softly draping fabric
were as erotic as any skimpy, revealing piece of lingerie. They made you work for the details. Made you long to rip the teasing cover of cotton from her body, piece by piece, until you’d reached the warm, womanly treasures hidden beneath.

His hands flexed at his sides, as if ready to reach out and grasp hold of her, until he spotted the knife she held in her right hand, the lamplight glinting off its wicked-looking blade. Lifting his gaze, Riley stared into the flickering shadows in her eyes. “Something going on?”

“Nothing I can’t handle,” she slowly replied, casting a wry look down at the knife. “I guess I just believe in being prepared.”

“Did your ex call again? Was it him on the phone?”

She shook her head, the sharp movement sending her thick, lustrous hair tumbling over her shoulders, making his fingers itch with the need to bury themselves in that warm, burnished silk. “I’m just nervous,” she murmured. “They found a college girl up in Wellsford who’d been murdered over the weekend.”

“They what?” He went completely still, not even breathing. “When? Where did you hear about it?”

A shiver ran through her body. “It’s been all over the news tonight. They’re saying that she’d been mutilated, torn to pieces. I guess she was missing some fingers on one hand, and had been clawed up pretty badly. They’d think it was a bear attack, except that there was enough of her left to tell that she’d been raped. It’s crazy, isn’t it? I mean, who would do something like that?”

Turning away from her, Riley stared through the window into the ever-thickening shades of twilight. He should have been keeping his eye on the local news, but he’d been so wrapped up in his search for the Marker and worrying about Hope that he hadn’t even turned on a radio or a TV all day.

Shit, they were so screwed. He knew, just from the little that Hope had told him, that the kill belonged to Gregory. The twisted Casus had a thing for fingers, which they’d discovered when he’d gone after some friends of Saige’s during her awakening. And Riley himself had handled the investigations into the murders committed by Gregory’s brother, Malcolm, back in Colorado. He’d seen exactly what a Casus could do to a body. Knew exactly how evil they could be.

“Where’s Millie?” he asked, hating the cold, bleak sliver of fear in Hope’s eyes as he turned to catch her gaze. It made him want to hold her, wrap his body around her until he could shelter her from anything and anyone who ever tried to cause her harm.

“She’s in the café with Hal, a friend of hers. He’s going to do some remodeling to the front counter and she’s showing him the design she wants.”

“You need to talk to her, tell her to be careful. I can’t stress how important this is, Hope.”

Her brows drew together in a dainty
V
of surprised confusion. “You don’t actually think there’s some connection between that girl and the people you said would be coming here? The ones who will be looking for
whatever the hell it is you and Kellan are searching for out there in the woods, do you?”

Locking his jaw, he said, “All I’m saying is that whatever killed that girl is still out there. You and Millie can’t take any chances.”

Her gaze slid away from his, focused sightlessly on some unknown place on the floor. She swallowed as she wrapped her arms around her middle, the knife still clutched in her right hand.

“Promise me, Hope.” There was a guttural edge to the words that Riley could easily attribute to the Merrick, which was seething beneath his surface at the idea of another Casus kill. It wanted blood…wanted to make that son-of-a-bitch monster pay.

Hope finally nodded, straightening her shoulders as she reconnected with his gaze. “I’ll talk to her,” she rasped, “but not right now. I don’t want to interrupt her and Hal’s alone time.”

He quirked a brow, and there was the faintest shadow of a smile playing at her lips as she said, “I think something could get started between those two, if Millie would just give it a chance. I’m hoping she uses the opportunity tonight to make her move. That’s why I’ve been lying low and was getting ready to head upstairs to watch a movie.”

“I’ll get out of your hair, then,” he told her, making to move toward the door, until she stopped him with his name.

She hesitated, then made a nervous gesture toward
the kitchen. “They’ll still be a while, if…if you’d like to have a cup of coffee before you go.”

The look on his face must have been so telling, she actually laughed, the soft, husky sound like something delicious and sweet that he wanted to taste on her lips. “Just coffee, Riley. That’s all,” she teased, her topaz-colored eyes shining with mirth. “You don’t have to look as if I just asked you to strip naked and give me a lap dance.”

He grunted under his breath, the provocative image invoked by her words hitting him low in the gut. “Damn it, Hope. You didn’t use to be so open with your words.”

The mischievous fire in her eyes deepened as she said, “Am I embarrassing you?”

He gave her a stern look for asking such a ridiculous question, and she laughed again, saying, “Well, I’m a woman now, not a child. You can’t expect me to be that same girl that you used to know. I grew up, and now you have to deal with it.”

Riley held up his hands in a sign of surrender. “Hey, I’m not complaining. It just takes some getting used to.”

“Hmm,” she murmured, heading toward the kitchen. Following behind her, Riley took a seat on one of the sturdy wooden stools positioned along the edge of a massive, beautifully crafted butcher’s block, a bowl of clove-studded oranges sitting in its middle. Despite being a working kitchen, the room still had that warm, homey feeling that blended perfectly with the beautiful house.

“You must close pretty early for dinner,” he com
mented, noticing that the kitchen had already been cleaned and shut down for the night.

“The majority of our business is breakfast and lunch, so on the weekdays we only do an early dinner service,” she explained, setting the dangerous-looking knife in the sink. “The hours are perfect for me and Millie, since neither one of us has any desire to be a slave to a full-time restaurant. The café pulls in great money and gives us a creative outlet, which we both love, while still allowing us some downtime. The weekend is actually the only time we stay open a little later.”

She washed her hands, then began setting up the coffeemaker, putting in a new filter…grinding some aromatic beans. Riley sat on the stool, simply watching her move about the kitchen, wishing he could think of something to say, but casual conversation seemed impossible. Completely beyond his scope at the moment. Still, he had to admit that she eased something inside him, as if she were a cool, cleansing balm for his tainted soul. And yet, at the same time, she ignited him to a fever pitch of desire, his cock already thickening with lust just from watching her make coffee, for God’s sake.

Since she didn’t seem in any hurry to break the silence, either, he used the time to simply enjoy watching her, soaking up the details that were revealed by the recessed lighting spilling from beneath the cupboards, illuminating the room with a warm, golden glow. He could sense, on an instinctual male level, that she honestly had no concept of how beautiful she was…how
sexy. So soft and lush and endlessly feminine, it made him crazed, as if he could bruise her tender surface with nothing more than a look. And, Christ, he didn’t even want to think about the damage he could inflict if he lost control and gave in to the visceral pangs of hunger that clawed through him every time he set eyes on her…or so much as thought about her.

Riley had hoped that he’d be able to hold it together, at least long enough to enjoy a cup of coffee with her before he hightailed his ass back to safer territory—but he’d been wrong. Already, his control was slipping. Pulling in a deep breath, he choked back a groan as her mouthwatering scent filled his head, his body going hot…muscles clenching from the strain of holding himself in check.

The coffeemaker began to gurgle and hiss, and she pulled down two mugs from a cupboard, sliding him a nervous look as she moved to the fridge, and he knew that she’d finally recognized the animal in the room with them. The wild, primal beast that had risen up, and was now charging the air with a thick, warm spill of desire. One he couldn’t fight. One he didn’t even want to. Not until he’d finally gotten the taste of her in his mouth. Until he had at least that much to hold him over. That much to cling to until it just didn’t matter anymore.