Lycan Unleashed (10 page)

She shrugged, and stared at her hands, looking so miserable that I almost reached out to her again. “Jake left. I guess he went to talk to the Magister, or to Nic. I’m not sure. When he came back, he was still angry. I’d never seen him like that before.” She looked up and the pain in her eyes twisted my heart. She’d cheated on her husband with a very dangerous man, had probably gotten him killed, but I couldn’t help but feel for her as the real weight of her decisions crashed onto her shoulders.

I gave her an encouraging half smile, but I didn’t speak.

“I knew Jake was a vampire when we started seeing each other. It was part of the draw…just a little taste of danger, you know?”

I nodded like I knew, but I didn’t really. Mason was the most dangerous man I’d ever had feelings for. Maybe he was dangerous. And in the right circumstances, I was certain he could be very dangerous indeed. But that didn’t draw me. It was the very human man beneath the power, and the sense that a part of him ached for something he sensed in me. And part of me saw something it needed in him.

“But Jake…” She took a shuddering breath. “Jake was a good person. A simple man who just wanted a simple life. Why couldn’t I give him that?” Her voice broke.

The very thing that had attracted Mary to her husband was the same thing Nicolas Chevalier had in spades. Danger. But the suggestion of danger in Jake hadn’t prepared Mary to deal with the real thing.

“Did Nicolas kill your husband, Mary?” I asked gently, doing everything I could to keep the fear surging within me from my voice. This was big. Huge. Bigger than my ability to deal with it on my own. And it would even be tough with Mason at my side. Why the hell was Claude out of town this week of all weeks?

Mary jumped as if a jolt of electricity shocked her. “No! I mean, I don’t know. You’re asking me to—”

“I’m not asking you to do anything but tell me the truth, Mary.”

The panic coming off her was palpable, and her eyes practically vibrated. “I don’t know who killed him. I…” She glanced around the room as if only now discovering where she was. “I’m sorry, but you have to go.”

“But—”

“Go!” she screeched.

Chapter Nine

“So
mething isn’t right. She didn’t tell me everything,” I said for at least the fifth time since we’d arrived at Mason’s house with our take-out Chinese food. Mary Stone had been impossible to reason with after she’d told me to go, and I was pretty certain that the woman had been prepared to physically toss me out despite my sidearm if I hadn’t left when I did.

Mason threw up his hands, sending a small bit of rice flying onto the table. “Then we should go back. Press her for more information.”

I sighed. “Let’s give her the night. Go back in the morning. Maybe an extra night of thinking about her husband will loosen her tongue.” I knew without a doubt that the likelihood of Mary Stone confiding anything more in me tonight was almost nonexistent. She was too emotional, too scared.

“You know it’s possible that the affair and the murder aren’t connected, right?”

My mouth dropped open. “She was cheating on one vamp with another, more powerful vampire, and he was killed by a vampire. And you think they aren’t connected?”

“I said that didn’t mean they were necessarily connected, not that they weren’t for sure. I’m just saying, Nicolas Chevalier has an ironclad alibi.”

I frowned. Much as I hated to admit it, Mason was right. “Too ironclad. Like he planned it that way,” I muttered.

Mason shrugged and dumped a small pile of honey glazed walnut shrimp on his plate.

“Does Nicolas Chevalier strike you as the kind of man who would fight his own battles?” I asked.

“Nic Chevalier strikes me as the kind of snake who hides in the shadows unless there’s a fight he’s certain to win. Even then, I think he’d cheat, just to be sure.”

My hand paused over my Mongolian beef. I hadn’t expected quite such an honest assessment from Mason, but I guessed I shouldn’t have been surprised. He wasn’t the type to pull punches or bullshit to keep people happy. “You’re right. And I think he’s the type to hire out a hit on someone like Jake to make sure he had an ironclad alibi when we came calling.”

“I suspect you’re right.”

I tapped my chopsticks together and watched Mason finish off the shrimp and a box of Kung Pao chicken. Man, lycans could eat. I laughed.

“You’re like a teenage boy.”

He flashed his teeth. “Am I?”

A shiver danced up my spine but I ignored it. “Yes. My brother used to eat like that.” A flash of my brother’s face, now vague since it had been so long since I’d seen him, touched my mind. “Of course, I think he still eats like that. But last I saw, he was developing quite the potbelly.”

Mason’s brows shot up to meet his hairline. “Are you accusing me of having a potbelly?” He leaned back and felt his stomach, as if worried he might find a new bulge.

I almost choked at the sight, and drank a gulp of soda to clear my throat.

“Don’t let the sight of my awesome abs rob you of your breath, my dear.”

I breathed in the soda I was trying to clear my throat with, and then coughed half of it into my napkin. Mason ran around the table and pounded my back, amusement and worry competing on his face.

“Stop it,” I finally gasped out. “I give!” I waved the soda-covered napkin in the air. “You and your awesome abs win.”

He chuckled and returned to his seat. When I didn’t cough or gasp for a few minutes, he resumed his mission to eliminate the chance of leftovers, and I settled in to watch him.

“So you have a brother?”

I blinked. “Yes. An older brother and a younger sister.” I kept my voice neutral, but something must have given me away.

“Not close?” His tone was as neutral as my own, but it didn’t fool me.

“No.” And I didn’t want to talk about it.

Seeming to understand, Mason nodded. “Me either.”

I wanted to drop the subject. My family was a sore spot for me—or if I was honest, a festering, bloody wound—but I couldn’t help my curiosity about his.

“You have siblings?”

He grimaced. “Yes.”

“Let me guess. All younger.” There was no way an older brother or sister had ever pushed around the man in front of me.

“How’d you know?”

I picked up a chopstick and tapped it against my plate. Talking about family was a bad idea—like opening a door to a room you know contains a beast that will chew you up if you let it. “Are you close?”

“Used to be.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin, leaving some food still on his plate. Apparently there was a subject that could rob the lycan of his voracious appetite.

“What happened?” It was wrong of me to press, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.

He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms as if deciding how best to answer me. Finally he said, “I screwed up. Someone got killed.”

I opened my mouth to ask one of a million questions that statement pushed into my mind, but he waved his hand at me.

“That’s enough about me for one night.” His eyes narrowed. “Are you close to your family, Astrid?”

Something in his expression said that he already knew the answer to that question, but I replied anyway. “No.”

“Why not?”

I took a deep breath and let it out in a
whoosh
. “Someone screwed up,” I said finally. “But no one got killed.”

He gave me a wry smile for my lame joke and I couldn’t help but smile back.

We settled in to lighter conversation and cleared the table together. Charlie came in and watched from the doorway, looking as unimpressed as only a cat could. Mason shot him the occasional frown, but didn’t try to shoo him out. A good thing, because I would have had to chill the mood by yelling at him. Despite the oddly comfortable repartee, my mind kept slipping back to think about Mason’s family. Had his family abandoned him as completely as mine had me? What could he have done to cause a death?

I wiped my hands on a dishtowel and Mason’s chest brushed my back as he reached around me to put a glass in the sink. I stiffened involuntarily, and he went still behind me, the material of his shirt softly touching mine. Heat emanated from him, and my mind spit out the fact that lycans burned hotter than humans by a few degrees.

“Astrid,” he whispered, and his breath tickled my neck.

Mind wrestling with my body, I turned around. And his arms moved to press into the counter on either side of me, trapping me within them. The humor that had ridden his expression since dinner was gone, and intensity burned in his eyes again. His nostrils flared, as if scenting me.

I opened my mouth to say something—anything—to break the sudden sharp tension between us. But his mouth took mine before I could utter a single word.

I thought I’d gotten used to Mason’s kisses, enough to know what to expect, anyway. But this was different. Despite the hard passion in his gaze, he took my mouth gently. Soft and smooth, his lips moved against mine. And then his tongue slipped in and I moaned quietly.

He enfolded me in his arms, still moving almost carefully. Wrapped up against him I suddenly felt warm—and safer than I’d felt since my world had imploded when I was a teenager.

I pulled back, fear crawling into me as I realized how comfortable I was getting in his arms.

“Wait.” My tension leaked out into my voice and he stopped, eyes fluttering open, dark gray and so full of passion I almost told him to forget about waiting.

“I can’t do this emotional rollercoaster, Mason,” I said instead, and my body cried out in frustration. “Either you like me… Like this. Or you don’t. Either you respect me and trust me—despite my lie to get onto this case—or you don’t.”

“Of course I like you.” His eyes narrowed, wrinkling his skin and revealing a bit of his age. “And I don’t think that one lie in that kind of situation makes you a bad person. I just—”

“What?” I asked.

“I lost someone, once. And because of that, I live like a damn hermit.” He turned his eyes to the tile floor and stepped back, loosening his arms from around me. I almost sighed in frustration. “And that was okay. I deserved it. I wasn’t worthy of having anyone else in my care—and didn’t want to be responsible for another life.”

“But dammit, Astrid. I’m tired of pretending that I don’t care about you. That I haven’t wanted you for years.”

A solid lump grew in my throat, and I swallowed around it. I reached out and ran my fingertips down the side of his neck and down his shoulder. I wanted to tell him that I was half in love with him, and had been since that first kiss. “So do something about it,” I said, instead.

Mason stopped moving, going as still as a statue in front of me. Then his eyes met mine, as hard and fervent as I’d ever seen them. My breath quickened, and I suddenly knew what a deer must feel like when it was stared down by a hungry wolf.

Then thinking disappeared, overrun by feeling. He was on me. Lips on mine, then sliding down my neck. He nipped at my collarbone and I clung to his shoulders. He plucked me up from the ground like I weighed nothing and carried me—toward the bedroom, I thought, but we only made it as far as the living room. As far as a plush rug made from a some sort of very soft animal fur that lay—quite stereotypically—in front of his fireplace.

I sank into the rug with Mason on top of me. His hands and mouth seemed to be everywhere, touching and tasting. I ran my hands over the muscles of his chest and shoulders, and through his soft hair. My mind whirred. Mason held me in his arms. Mason kissed me and wanted me. Mason cared about me.

I tugged at his shirt and he pulled it off, revealing a chiseled and perfect chest, not to mention the hard abs I’d teased him about earlier. Definitely no potbelly there. He tugged my scoop-neck shirt down until he reached my bra. Pushing my clothing down beneath my breast, he took a quick breath then pulled my nipple into his mouth. Sucking and nibbling and massaging, he made me cry out.

As if by magic, the rest of our clothes seemed to melt away under Mason’s skillful hands. Hot chest moving against my sensitive breasts, he kissed me again. I felt myself writhing beneath him. I had to have him. Now.

I slid my hands down his hard back to grip his butt. Mason growled, and I moaned when I felt him press against my heat.

With one quick motion of his hips, we were joined. The air rushed out of me as he filled me to the brink, too hot against me and inside me to be a normal man. And around me, my other sense could feel his lycan energy crawling over me, filling my lungs with his scent, surrounding me. Uniting us. I cried out his name, and he called something that might have been mine.

He started moving, and the effort of going slowly so I could get used to the sensation was written all over his face.

But slow wasn’t enough. I was so close. I gripped his ass hard and met his thrusts. I nipped at his shoulder.

“Fuck,” he gasped. Then as if he could no longer contain himself, he moved, hard and fast. Deeper than before. And I cried out his name again as my vision was flooded with sparks and my body overcome by sensation. Mason called out, and I felt him jerk in my arms, pushing into me faster, harder, until I almost couldn’t bear the sensation anymore. Then with a guttural moan, he stiffened above me, and then stilled.

Chapter Ten

C
harlie stretched and rolled over to peer at me upside down from where he’d made a nest of Mason’s pillow. I blinked at him dumbly for a few seconds as I got my bearings. Mason’s house. Mason’s room. Mason’s bed.

I pushed up from the plush king-sized bed and glanced around the room, clutching the sheet to my chest. Decorated in large, masculine furniture, the room felt homey, if a bit bachelorish. It fell suddenly silent, and I realized that the shower had been running and filling the air with background noise. Before I could react to that, the bathroom door opened.

Mason stepped out and my breath caught. A man should not be allowed to look like that. Skin and hair damp from the shower, with a towel wrapped lazily around his waist, he looked like sin incarnate. And when his eyes met mine, I melted.

“Morning,” he said, voice rough.

“Good morning.” I couldn’t help the heat rising up my neck to encompass my face, so I glanced down at my hands.

I sensed movement, and when I looked up, Mason stood less than a foot in front of me. He leaned down and gave me a soft kiss on the lips, and suddenly the awkwardness lifted. I touched his face softly. He stepped back and smiled at me, and I grinned.

His gaze shifted. “Is your cat on my pillow?”

I gave Charlie a sidelong glance. “He’s just…making himself comfortable?”

Mason gave Charlie a disgusted glare. A look the cat returned with more haughtiness than the lycan could compete with. “Want some breakfast?”

Remembering the fabulous omelet he’d made before, I answered without thinking. “Absolutely.”

He disappeared back into the bathroom and I trotted off to the spare bath where I’d already placed my essentials. A quick shower later, I dressed. Then I almost ran down the stairs when the smell hit me. Only my weak ankle and the tiny bit of self-control I was able to muster slowed my descent.

A small banquet greeted me. Eggs and coffee and bacon. Even pancakes. An embarrassing noise rumbled from my abdomen at the sight, and Mason grinned and handed me a plate.

“This isn’t breakfast. It’s a feast!”

He chuckled. “Well you took a while getting ready so I had some time to fill. It was either that or chase your cat.”

I managed to not stick my tongue out at him. I’d gotten ready in record time. Not that I was high maintenance or anything, but I did have a hard time getting out of a nice, hot shower. Especially with my injuries from escaping the vampire at my townhouse, and the new, more pleasant aches I’d acquired with Mason the night before.

And what a night it had been. After our passionate coupling in front of his fireplace, we had retreated to his room. We’d spent most of the night alternatively making love and talking. We didn’t touch on the subject that seemed to be a sensitive one for both of us—family—but we talked about everything else. From our shared love of Lou Malnati’s pizza, to our shared obsession with old, cheesy horror flicks.

Mason handed me a cup of coffee and I glanced at it suspiciously. “I think we should go talk to the widow again today,” I said.

Mason nodded. “Okay. But I’m coming in this time.” He waved at the cup. “Try it. If you’re not too scared, that is.”

As if. But when I took a sip, I made sure to take only a small bit into my mouth. The blend of sugar and cream swirled around the bite of the coffee. Perfect. I gave him a small smile, but kept the conversation on business.

“Okay, but no flexing until I try a nicer approach first.” Maybe he could convince her to be more helpful.

He puffed his chest out. “I don’t flex, except when absolutely necessary.”

“You keep the gun show under wraps, mister.” I snickered and he gave me a quick preview of the show.

We finished our breakfast in good spirits and headed to Mary Stone’s home. She opened the door after the third time I hit the doorbell and knocked. She wore a pissed off expression on her face.

“I don’t know anything else,” she said, hazel eyes flashing.

I shouldered past her with Mason at my back. She allowed us through and shut the door behind us. She turned to face us with her hands on her hips, and a frown cutting into her lovely face.

“It’s obvious there’s something you’re holding back. Something important. Maybe something that implicates Nicolas Chevalier.”

She glared at me, so I continued. “We will protect you, but we need to know everything that you do.”

“I told you—”

“If you don’t want to do it for your husband, then do it for the next one. The next widow. Save her from your fate.”

Her expression faltered, then hardened again. “I don’t care about some other widow. You need to get out of my house.”

I opened my mouth but Mason beat me to the punch. “Vampires like that don’t leave loose ends, sweetheart. You don’t cooperate with us then you’re as good as dead. It might not happen this week, or even this month. But it will happen. And you’ll be as dead as the husband you just buried.”

“I’ll be just fine as long as I don’t say anything to you people!”

“Is that what they told you?” Mason stepped closer to her, moving into her space. She took a step back, real fear crossing her features. “Because they lied. Let me guess. A phone call? A few hushed sentences telling you to keep your mouth shut? They won’t let you live, Mary. They’ll fucking kill you, and you know that.”

She seemed to struggle to breathe for a brief moment. Then her face crumpled into utter misery, and tears leaked down her tense cheeks. Mason had been right about the phone calls. I made a mental note to check up on that, but we were dealing with professionals. The phones would be throwaways, untraceable. And it was hardly likely that Nicolas Chevalier had made the calls himself.

“God, you’re right,” she cried. “I’m so fucking dead.”

“Not if you tell us the truth,” I said, voice as gentle as I could manage under the circumstances. Her husband was probably dead because she’d had an affair, and the only thing that prompted her to cooperate at all was the threat against her own life. I wanted to kick her, but instead I grasped her shoulder. A quick show of support before she turned and grabbed a hold of Mason, crying and blubbering into his chest.

I ground my teeth together as Mason did his best to calm her down. An unexpected spike of jealousy ran through me at the sight of the curvy succubus tucked against him. He peered at me from over her head, a look of panic on his face, and the jealousy dissipated.

Once the succubus had calmed enough to speak, Mason sat her on the couch. She took the glass of water I offered with a nod of thanks and drank half of it in one long gulp.

“Tell us what happened,” Mason said. His voice was soft, but the order was unmistakable.

“A woman came and took Jake that night. He didn’t leave on his own, like I said.”

“Did you catch her name? What did she look like?” I asked.

“I don’t know her name. She was Asian. Pretty. She doesn’t look like much, but I’d seen her before, hanging around Nicolas. He doesn’t spend time with weak vampires unless they have something he wants, so I knew she was probably pretty strong. Or…one of his girls. But she didn’t seem the type, you know? All dressed in leather and never smiling.”

Something he wanted. Like hanging around Jake to get close to his wife? I took some notes down and watched Mary Stone expectantly. The woman she described had to be the one we’d seen with Nicolas and the Magister at the casino. How many leather-clad Asian women could Nicolas hang around with on a regular basis?

“And there’s something else…”

“What is it?” Mason asked.

“Jake mentioned…well I don’t think he was going to the Magister just to complain about me. He said that he knew stuff about Nicolas. That he’d worked with Nicolas doing things that the Magister would like to know about. I think he was going to go to the Magister with some real information. Something that could have gotten Nic in serious trouble.”

“Did your husband work with Nicolas? I mean, other than at the law firm?” I asked.

She flinched. “He would help him out. Evenings and weekends. Do errands for him. I think at first it was so Nic could get me alone. But after a while he started to trust Jake enough to have him work on things he didn’t want anyone to know about. Jake started getting secretive about what he was doing for Nicolas.”

“But you don’t know what he did for him?” I pressed.

She shook her head.

“Tell us more about the woman who took Jake.” Mason’s jaw twitched. He didn’t like this one bit, and neither did I.

“Jake seemed nervous around her too, but he couldn’t talk to me without her hearing. She had him go out first, and when she was leaving…” The succubus swallowed hard, and then took a sip of water.

“Yes?” I tried to keep my impatience out of my voice, but we finally had a lead and I was eager to get out of this house and follow it.

“As she was leaving, she turned and said, ‘Nicolas sends his regards.’” She shivered and ran her hands up and down her arms.

“But you didn’t actually see Nicolas? Did he say anything to you at the funeral? Or anything since?” Mason asked.

She shook her head, and her voice was dull when she spoke. “No. He’s been treating me like a stranger. Offering his arm, condolences. Acting the perfect Magister’s son.”

“Anything else you can tell us about the woman who was here?”

She thought about that for a few tense seconds. “Like I said, she was dressed like some kind of biker. And she had this old coin that she played with while she talked. Like constantly.”

Blood rushed through my ears, so loudly I almost missed her next words.

“I half expected her to pull it out from behind my ear like some sort of cheesy magician.”