Highland Son (Highland Sorcery: A New Dawn) (11 page)

The vampire blinked slowly. “There are hundreds left, yes, holed up in colonies like rodents throughout the continents.”

Anger flared through Alexander. His hands curled into fists. “Why haven’t you aided mankind? You could have stifled the tide of near extinction.”

“Do not judge, little sorcerer. We, too, are at the brink of extinction. You delude yourselves in believing those monsters have a taste that only runs to humankind.” He pushed into Alexander’s space. “We fought at first, and in a fair fight, vampire-kind would have prevailed.”

“Easy, Deverell.” Lance laid a hand on the vampire’s shoulder. “It’s a fair question.”

“But with the Sifts’ ability to create holes and reappear at will…” Alexander conceded.

The vampire nodded. “It’s true you have the means to even the battle field?”

Alexander held Deverell’s penetrating stare. “Oh, yeah.” A grin tugged at his lips at the unforeseen range of new possibilities a colony of vampires provided. “Will your kind fight again? Fight with us?”

The vampire growled deep in his throat, predatory and anxious, a lion who caught scent of a jackal. “We savor such a battle.”

“Good.” Alexander hoped his expression was just as lethal. “Good.” But first he needed a plan to get Dez and Ethan out of Sheppard’s hands. His friends first, vampires later.

He looked around the faces for Jewel, frowning when he didn’t see her. Where could she have gotten off to?

~~~

Alexander choked on the first spoonful of soup. Had he heard her right? “You aren’t going back there. No.”

Lance and the others quieted at his outburst.

“I’m the only one of us who can.” Jewel kicked at the empty tin can near her foot that he’d just emptied of water. They sat in the barn on the bench seat of an old pickup, which no longer had a truck housing it.

“It’s too dangerous. I won’t let you.”

“Won’t let me? You’re the boss of me now?” Jewel shot off the seat, eyes flashing and wonderfully gorgeous in her anger.

“Oh boy,” Lance muttered.

“Well somebody should be.” Alexander stood as well.

Lance whistled low in warning.

“Really?” Jewel spun on Alexander, jabbing a finger into his chest. “I need a boss?”

“Yes?” Alexander squeaked. “No.”

“Which is it?”

She was stunning. He knew he was saying all the wrong things and making her angrier by the second but
déithe
, angry looked good on her. How was a man supposed to think in the face of that and talk himself out of the well his tongue was digging? “No, of course I don’t think that…it’s just…going back to Sheppard…he’ll…I don’t want you hurt, all right?”

Her features softened and Alexander’s heart melted, lost in the vibrant changing expressions scrolling across her features. He’d fallen over the cliff for sure.

Jewel’s lips puckered while she chose what words would best placate him. He could see the wheels churning in her intelligent little head. “Sheppard doesn’t’ suspect me. I can go in, find out what has happened with your men, and contact you. How is that not better than rushing in half-cocked and blind?”

It wasn’t better. He just…
bluidy hell
. She wasn’t trying to do anything that he wouldn’t let anyone else do. It was a good sensible plan, but dammit, she wasn’t anybody else.

How the hell did she burrow under his skin so quickly? This was why he didn’t let himself get close to any of the women in this time.

But wasn’t that what he was fighting for? So humanity could have a chance at life again? At relationships? At love? And family? At normal?

Didn’t he want that for himself?

Some day
.

Well
some day
had waltz in beneath an ugly cap and the fragrance of cherries and punched him in the gut. Something was happening between them. Something rare and wonderful. They’d become connection somehow, upstairs while he held her hands…something else had happened between them, between their magic…something he wasn’t about to let fade away. He wanted it. Wanted her.

He sighed, knowing he had to let her go back to Sheppard. She was right and this was her choice to make, her sense of responsibility. If he was in her shoes and any one tried to stop him from doing what he had to, he’d be furious.

He shook his head, not liking it. “You go in. You find them, and you get out. We’ll do the rest.”

“Yes sir,” she drawled.

He grabbed her arm and a low current of magical electricity streaked between them. “I mean it, Jewel.”

She tilted her head, loose strands of hair falling out from beneath her ridiculous cap, and studied him. “C’mere.” Taking his hand in hers, she pulled him out of the barn through the wide doors and around the side of the building near an ancient fence of an old corral. She stopped and turned to face him, their hands still entwined.

Sunlight pooled down on them, streaking across her perk little nose and warming his skin.

“Listen…” Her tongue peeked out between her lips and Alexander’s gaze riveted on them. “I…I get it. You kind of like me and it’s twisting your stomach all up into knots. I appreciate that you care…”

Oh, he cared…

“But I can do this. You don’t need to worry…”

The hell he didn’t. He’d show her just how much he’d worry.

His hands shot to her waist, pulling her body snug against his. Heat flared between them.

She gasped. Those lips parted in surprise and the irises of her green forest eyes darkened, drawing him in.

Déithe
, he was lost.

His mouth was on hers before he took his next breath. She was cherries and silk and heat and softness. Feminine. A million sensations to explore. A lifetime to explore them.

Her back arched beneath his hands, her curves molding into him as she pressed closer, matching his kiss with a hunger of her own. Her fingers slid into his hair, pulling his head harder down to hers.

Her desire filled him, flowing into his magical essence, pushing within every hollow and crease, truly becoming a part of him. It was frightening and intoxicating.

His body was on fire, every muscle was rigid, each nerve ending alert and searing.

She pulled away, breathing hard, her soft breasts lifting and falling against his chest.

He groaned. “If this is supposed to convince me to let you go…it’s having the opposite effect.”

Her chuckle was a warm breath in the hollow of his neck. “It’s a promise that I’ll be fine, and when I get back…”

She lifted her face to his and gave him a look that was both wicked and innocent and fried every working brain cell he possessed to ash. Every muscle locked tight as she ducked out of his arms and slipped away, leaving him blowing out a ragged breath and wondering how she had gotten her way so effortlessly.

He grinned after her in admiration. Yeah, she’d be fine. Gods help anyone who stood against her.

Besides, he and Lance and the others would be right behind her.

Chapter Nine

“Where the hell have you been?” Sheppard was on her the moment she walked into the courtyard. Miles must have run ahead and told him she’d arrived.

She plunked down the canvas bag of food stores she’d stopped to retrieve. She had a large stash, taken from some farmer’s emergency stores that she’d never told anyone about. It made her story of going scavenging more credible each time she went out to visit her brother instead.

“I could ask you the same question,” she hurled at Sheppard. “I looked for you all over. You can’t just go off without telling me.”

A gray brow rose in amusement. “I can’t?”

Jewel sucked in a deep breath, her anger real though not for the reasons she was trying to sell. “You know what I mean.”

“I do.” Sheppard took her wrist within his large hand. “It goes both ways.” He tugged down the tip of her cap. She could almost believe that he did care. “I was with Hank and Trevor. While you went out alone.”

She shrugged. “You know I’m much quicker on my own.”

“And more vulnerable. I can’t—“ He swallowed. “I won’t lose you too.”

Jewel’s heart stumbled, feeling the flinch she didn’t dare show down deep. He sounded so sincere.

Her pulse was racing. He was a monster. He had no feelings, no remorse. She didn’t know how he could so skillfully play the part of a grieving father. If she didn’t know the truth, she’d buy it hook, line, and sinker.

Her stomach curdled.

Sheppard’s hand slipped onto her cheek. “You look tired. Rest up. Supper will be in a few hours.”

She nodded, but didn’t immediately turn to go. “Aren’t you going to tell me?”

His brows pushed together.

“About the canister? Did it work the way the strangers said? That’s what you went out there for, right?”

“Ah, the canisters.” The creases above his nose deepened with his frown. “No, they did not. I don’t know what game they were trying to play.” He lied so smoothly, her father.

“Oh.” Jewel frowned as well. “Maybe I can talk to them, get them to tell me what it really is.” She lied smoothly as well. She was her father’s daughter after all.

“I’m afraid not. We sent them on their way.”

Which meant finding Alexander’s friends was going to be more difficult, if they weren’t… She tamped down that direction of thought, knowing how their deaths would hurt Alexander. Her too. They were good men. They didn’t deserve what they’d stumbled into here. She feigned confusion. “You didn’t try to recruit them?”

Sheppard’s hand dropped. He shook his head. “Men like that are too unpredictable. We need people we can trust. People like us.”

“People like us,” she echoed.

Sheppard nodded, eyeing her as though he wasn’t sure she was buying it.

She smiled and gave him a quick hug. “I’m sure you’re right. I just hoped…” She shrugged.

“I’m glad you see it that way.” He hugged her back. “Now on with you before you fall asleep on your feet.”

“Yes, sir.” She chuckled, giving him a mock salute, then let her features turn serious. “I’m glad you’re back safe.”

“You too, sweetheart.”

She quickly turned away, moving toward the stairwell before he could see the tears spring to her eyes. This was so hard. He was her dad and she did love him. But he was a killer. Even if he believed he was doing what was right. That he was only killing monsters. He had tried to kill her brother, believed he had succeeded…and hadn’t lost a night of sleep over it.

She ran up the steps, pain flaring in her chest as the fragmented bits and fragments of her heart dropped, leaving a trail of heartache on the worn stairwell landing to splatter softly behind her.

~~~

She couldn’t find Dez and Ethan anywhere, though she’d scoured the motel, looking any place Sheppard might have stashed them. But she wasn’t ready to give up. She would do this for Alexander. Her skin heated just bringing him to mind. She’d never been held like that, kissed like that as through everything that made her who she was melted into him and found her true home.

Unconsciously she lifted her hand to her lips and kept going.

The entire back half of the eastern wing was not in use, off limits, too unstable in the foundation of the old building. Part of the second floor had caved in—which made it a good place to resume her search.

She walked silently through the darkened hallway, picking her way carefully over hunks of the fallen ceiling, slowing when she heard voices.

She pressed back against the wall, recognizing Hank’s deep tenor coming from inside the bathroom facilities. “They couldn’t have gotten past us.”

“Well they did!” Sheppard spat, fury seething from his tone.

“I don’t see how.” The door started opening. “You think maybe they went up, shimmied over the roof?”

Jewel reached for her magic, pausing, and searched deep inside her belly like Alexander taught her to do, her nerves tingling with magic. She couldn’t find her essence again, not without Alexander near, bringing it to burn within her so easily. She didn’t have the time to keep looking for it, so wildly, she pulled her magic about her and cloaked illusion around her. It was sloppy and as usual felt slippery enough to pull through her hold on it, but she’d been using her magic this way for the past year since she discovered what she could do, so it would have to be good enough.
She was the wall. They’d see nothing but the wall.

Hank stormed through the door first, his features a tight snarl.

Jewel held her breath, praying her illusion held. Hank and Sheppard were inches away from her. One step the wrong way and they’d feel her. She averted her gaze from them, knowing too well the sensation of being watched could give her away.

“Who was on the roof last night?” Sheppard’s fist twitched down by his side within Jewel’s peripheral vision.

“Jimmy and Trevor.”

“Have you seen either of them today?”

A shard of the ceiling crunched beneath Hank’s boot. “No. No, I haven’t.”

They started toward the outer stairwell, shoulders thrust forward.

She hadn’t seen either Trevor or Jimmy either. Nor apparently had the guys up there who had replaced their shift. If Dez and Ethan had gotten to them, they must be trust up and hidden somewhere. Maybe dumped over the roof?

Jewell waited until Sheppard’s and Hank’s footfalls faded away on the steps before she dared move to push her magic back down. She felt liquid beneath her nose and used her sleeve to wipe it away, pulling back a faint spot of red. Not so bad this time. Then again, she wasn’t creating an illusion complete with sound and smell for a handful of monsters. She’d only had to deceive two monsters this time and only for a few short minutes.

Pushing open the bathroom door, the evidence of frayed rope and blood on the dirt smudged tile condemned her father’s brutality.

But at least she knew Alexander’s friends had escaped. She only hoped they’d gotten far away enough.

Chapter Ten

“Latrine duty?” Miles wrinkled his nose.