IK3 (16 page)

hooded lids as she sucked him off. She seemed as enthusiastic about the

blow job as she always was, but he sensed a power shift within her. It was

very, very subtle, but it was there. It almost felt like she was slipping out of

his control and he didn’t like it.

The world was going to hell in the proverbial handbasket. Well, maybe not

hell, he thought as he looked up at Lucifer on his knees behind Morgan

grinding into her hard.

Lucifer hadn’t really been taking care of his responsibilities either—he was

supposed to in charge of spreading hatred and bigotry in the Christian world

since they believed him to be the devil. Balor had carefully orchestrated the

Great Recession in the United States to do just that, but the puny mortals

had managed to survive. The Europeans were hanging on too.

The damn Arab Spring hadn’t helped either. Balor had lost too many

henchmen and it would take time to work on corrupting whoever replaced

them. Time that he might not have if he didn’t find the platter before the

vampire did.

“When did you say they were leaving?” he asked after he’d shot a good wad

of semen down Morgan’s throat.

She closed her eyes, shuddering in bliss as Lucifer gave one final thrust.

Balor would wager that keeping Morgan from an immediate answer was a

little power play on his brother’s part.

“Day after tomorrow,” she said huskily, her body flushed with her climax. “I

dropped the GPS chip into Chloe’s purse yesterday.”

“Good. I’ll notify Carl to be ready.”

Lucifer pulled out of Morgan and stood, reaching for his jeans. “Are you sure

Carl understands what to do this time?”

Balor grinned and adjusted his eye patch. “I think I made myself clear.”

Actually, it had been quite enjoyable terrorizing the kid with a porn star

Balor hired who had a twelve inch dick. Carl was homophobic and the porn

guy had been featured in several sado-masochistic films. Just thinking of the

kid being reamed thoroughly with that impressive cock had made Balor

hard. In the end, though, Balor had let Carl off with just the threat of what

would happen if he failed his assignment—and a reminder that he still held

the IOU’s to the gambling debts.

And then he’d given the porn star a few lessons in real S&M. Remembering

made him grow stiff and he dragged Morgan on top of him. “Ride me.” He

plunged into her hot, dripping sheath as she straddled him and gave himself

over to her skills.

“You weren’t able to lure the reporter to Sigurd’s lair?” he asked when he’d

finished and tossed Morgan off him. He’d given Morgan explicit instructions

to tell the dragon he wanted the girl alive to use as a hostage.

She frowned, obviously not having come herself. “I tried. I told her I’d had a

photo shoot out in Palo Pinto and she might want to investigate the area.

And she did,” Morgan added defensively, “but Gavin followed her.”

Damn the vampire for his acute senses. “Did Sigurd not have time to

capture her before that? Or did he not sense her presence? What did he say

when you contacted him?”

Morgan reached for her clothes and began dressing. “He knew she was

there. He was giving her time to fall asleep.” She hesitated and then went

on, “He sensed something else too.”

“Like what?” Balor asked, suspecting Sigurd had scented the vampire, but

not wanting Morgan to know there was an immortal loose.

“It sounds crazy, but Sigurd said it was Cernunnos, the old god of the

forest.”

Balor exchanged a startled look with Lucifer. What was the god doing in

America? His territory was Britain, Wales in particular. It was bad enough

the fire god, Tanio, had gotten involved in the search for the sword. They

didn’t need another one—especially one whom that damn goddess of Avalon

favored—interfering in this hunt.

Morgan looked from one to the other. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Balor said quickly, his mind reeling with the new information. The

Celtic relics of power had been handed down to mortals from the Tuatha De

Danaan, ancestors of the Celtic gods. That Cernunnos had developed a link

to the platter must mean it was buried in a forest or the earth, since that

was part of his dominion. That was a clue that the vampire didn’t have.

On the other hand, the Pendragon had lived in Wales protected by

Cernunnos before Sigurd—with Balor’s help—had overcome him. That made

Cernunnos the white dragon’s arch enemy, not to mention Balor’s.

Across the room, Lucifer’s eyes flashed red and then returned to blue.

“Dude,” he said, “we might have to recalculate.”

That had to be worst understatement in two centuries.

Chloe yawned as they turned their car rental into the parking lot of a small

motel. They’d taken an evening flight to Sacramento and the two-and-a-half

hour drive north to Weaverville had been done in darkness so she hadn’t

even been able to take in the beautiful scenery of northern California. Gavin

hadn’t been inclined to talk either. He had been looking broodingly intense at

the wheel and she was beginning to wonder if he just didn’t like to drive.

Or maybe he was wishing Morgan was sitting beside him.

Damn it. Chloe had never claimed to be a sex kitten, but most men found

her reasonably attractive. She was not about to spend more than a week

traveling through California with a man who refused to converse beyond

‘yes’ and ‘no’.

“It won’t hurt to be pleasant,” she said as Gavin turned off the ignition. “It’s

not like I’m going to attack or try to seduce you if you’re nice.”

His eyes widened in surprise and it almost looked like he blushed, although

the pre-dawn light made it hard to tell. “I was only trying to be polite, Miss

Whitney.”

She refrained from rolling her eyes. “You made the rules quite clear. We are

business partners. Mr. Smith will be paying our expenses. There will be

separate rooms. I got the message.”

Gavin lifted an eyebrow. “What message would that be, Miss Whitney?”

“That you don’t want me here.”

He flinched. Just when she was about ready to commit mayhem because he

was so stoically Spock-ish, he actually showed an emotion.

“I did not say that.”

“You don’t have to. It’s in your body language.” Chloe felt the sick thud of

rejection settle in her stomach like a lump of coal. Why did she have to be

so damn attracted to a man who obviously did not return the feeling? Even

as her mind was telling her it didn’t matter, there were plenty of men who

did like her—and not just for sex—she had male friends too—her traitorous

body wanted to lean in and be close to Gavin, almost as though he were a

magnet and she nothing but iron filings.

“My body language? I fail to see—”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake. You all but leaned against the car door on the way up

here, like you’re afraid I’m actually going to touch you or something.” She

knew she was lying because that was exactly what she wanted to do—touch

him anywhere and everywhere, preferably naked—but she’d never admit it.

She had some pride left.

Gavin’s dark eyes held her gaze and Chloe kept her chin up, refusing to look

away. Then he slowly smiled and deliberately let his arm slide across her

ribs as he reached over to open the door on her side. His body heat

enveloped her like a warm cocoon and she caught the woodsy scent of

expensive aftershave on his now-stubbled jaw—a look that only made him

sexier, damn it. Her breath hitched as he sat back, still smiling.

She didn’t say a word, stumbling out of the car in her haste to put some

space between them before she did something she would truly regret, like

throwing her arms around him and clinging like some silly adolescent fan.

No man should have that kind of animal magnetism, but obviously her body

was not about to be persuaded that easily.

It was going to be a long week.

****

swaying as she all but ran toward the front entrance of the motel. Now why

in the hell had he reached across her like that? As if having to inhale the

slight spicy scent of her cologne all the way up here hadn’t been torture

enough. Or the fact that her skirt had hiked up above her knee just enough

to keep him thinking what the rest of her slender thigh would feel like—look

like, he corrected himself. All men were interested in women’s thighs.

Leaning over her had given him a whiff of her unique female scent as well

and he’d had to exert every ounce of Templar training not to let his fingers

brush the soft roundness of her breasts.

Damn it. He knew better than to play with fire. Hadn’t Guinevere proved

that? The hurt look in Chloe’s eyes had been more than he could take

though. She thought he was keeping his distance because he didn’t find her

attractive. Hell, the fleeting look of rejection he’d glimpsed told him she

probably thought he was repelled. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

What he wanted was to unwrap her like some precious gift and meld her

soft, nubile body against his while he tasted every centimeter of her without

his fangs…just mouth and tongue and hands, touching everywhere.

Gavin sighed. Better in the long run to let her think he didn’t care. Only

heartache came when vampires got involved with mortals.

****

temple in Joss House State Historic Park. The small house was painted pink

with a blue porch-like entrance. “The Temple of the Forest Beneath the

Clouds,” she read from the brochure she’d picked up. “I don’t think we’ll find

any golden platter here, but it’s a pretty name anyway.”

“Perhaps not,” Gavin replied as he adjusted his sunglasses, thankful that the

day was at least partly cloudy. The new meds were good, but his skin still

prickled, even with the long sleeved shirt. “However, since the relics date

back to ancient times when people worshiped the Sidhe, the platter’s

guardian may very well have aligned it to an eastern religion, rather than a

western one.”

“Because Eastern religions are older?” Chloe asked.

“Because they are based in nature,” Gavin said. “Tao is a path—or a concept

of natural order in the universe that humans strive to be in balance with—”

“Ying and yang,” Chloe interrupted, “the balance of positive and negative

energies in the body. My mother meditated a lot when I was a kid.”

“Your mother sounds like an interesting person.”

“Yeah. Well, you’ll probably meet her. She lives in Frisco.”

Meeting Chloe’s mother was exactly what he did not need to do. Why had he

even commented on that? “I don’t think—”

“Of, for Pete’s sake. I won’t introduce you like you were my boyfriend or

something. I’ll just tell her we’re working on a story.”

Relief filtered through Gavin mixed with a bit of some strange emotion that

almost felt like regret. He had never been introduced to anyone’s parents as

a suitor—in fact, he had taken great pains throughout the centuries to avoid

maidens and their mamas. So why was he feeling piqued now? Romantic ties

with Chloe were what he was desperately trying to avoid. But damn it, for a

brief second her eyes had that hurt look that made him feel like he’d just

kicked a puppy.

“That will be fine, Miss Whitney. As I was saying, since the ancient Celts also

practiced religion based on alignment with nature, this is a place where we

can start looking, especially since this was also gold-mining territory.”

Chloe placed the tip of her finger between her lips and nibbled on a nail,

contemplating. “Just so I have things straight—We’re looking for a centuries-

old platter made of gold that a guardian of a secret society brought to

former gold-mining country to hide in plain sight?”

Gavin riveted on Chloe’s pliant lips sucking softly on the tip of her fingertip,

making it glistening-wet, like another part of her body would be if only he

could—with an effort, he forced his gaze away. “It may sound strange, Miss

Whitney, but returning the gold to an area where other gold lies buried may,

indeed, be the perfect hiding place.”

She seemed unaware of the burgeoning tension he was feeling and

continued nibbling. “And supposedly this platter has some kind of special

energy or power that is aligned with the season of autumn and connected

with cardinal direction of west and ties in with Tarot cards?”

He could hear the skepticism in her voice. It did sound weird, but he was not

at liberty to divulge the true scope of the relics’ powers and the extent of

destruction that would happen if Balor found them first. “That is correct,

Miss Whitney.”

She grinned. “Cool! My mother will absolutely love this!”

Gavin blinked, not sure he understood. “Your mother?”

“Well, yeah. She reads the Tarot.”

He had the sinking feeling he was going to be seeing a lot more of Chloe’s

mother than just an introduction.

****

Gavin drove through Coloma heading toward Marshall Gold Discovery State