More Than Life (Arcane Crossbreeds) (2 page)

“Why don’t we get you in a better position to talk?”

The voice was smooth, measured. Unfamiliar. He reached out with his senses to touch lightly on the presence of that deceptive voice. A cold and solid mental barrier met him. The man was immune to telepathic probing, which meant he likely wasn’t human. Those poor bastards didn’t know they needed to guard against telepathy, which made most of them easy to read. Evolution at its finest there. But not this asshole. Was the man like him, a species of the Arcane?

The table he was strapped to hummed beneath him and began to tilt until it was in a vertical position. Raife lifted his head away from the table and cursed silently – his skull felt like it was cracking wide open. Nausea swamped him, flowing like a chill up over his flesh to settle in the back of his throat, and he swallowed it down. Choking on his own vomit wasn’t the honorable death he had in mind.

Without the lights glaring on him, he was able to get a better look at where the hell he was. Shiny silver everything – walls, sink, floor. No windows. He braved the pain shooting through his skull to look down over his shoulder. There was a drain in the middle of the floor. He snorted. Did they expect this to get messy?

The muted clang of metal drew his attention to the corner and the tiny female in the lab coat who was arranging some utensils on a gleaming steel tray, none of which looked pleasant. She glanced back at him with sympathy in her eyes.

Well, hell.
Maybe they did expect it to get messy.

He glanced over his body and frowned at his bare feet. They’d obviously found the knife in his boot. He was wearing his jeans and T-shirt from the night before. That was good. There was a tube leading up from his arm to a bag of clear fluids. Okay, that wasn’t so good.

“We need just a wee bit of your blood, preferably without the taint of alcohol, thus the IV.” The man’s voice and the dull tap of shoes echoed in the small room as the owner of that voice moved from around his right side. Raife cocked one brow at the man who appeared.

Hell, yeah. This bastard was definitely a species of Arcane.

The man was tall but thin, and Raife got the impression to consider the man weak would be a fatal mistake. Power hung elegantly over the other man’s frame, much like the expensive dark gray suit. His pale blond hair was combed back, and ice blue eyes appraised him coldly. His look was mocking, speculative. Raife didn’t care much for it…or the sneering lift to the asshole’s lips. Not that he cared for much of anything these days.

A side effect of fate fucking him over.

Raife narrowed his eyes and followed the man’s path until he was directly in front of him. The man’s blond head tilted, those impassive blue eyes considering him. “For a man trying so hard to be caught, you almost didn’t leave us enough to work with.”

The man was no doubt taking in Raife’s bloodshot eyes and the several days of growth shadowing his face. He’d seen the damage the last few months had wrought in him. He saw it every damn time he looked in the mirror. Something he avoided as much as possible.

It was better to look forward than back, because he would change nothing, even if he could.

Raife willed the pain away and eyed the lithe man with an equally mocking expression.
“Yeah, well, beggars can’t be choosers. If you don’t like what you see, you could always throw me back and offer your hospitality to someone else.”

The man’s smile was humorless as he cocked his head to the side, not betraying any surprise at Raife’s ability to speak telepathically.

Interesting
. Of course, if this was the asshole collecting unmated male Drachon, then it was likely he would know a thing or two about that species of Arcane. It explained the tape over his mouth. The man wouldn’t want to risk getting his hide sizzled by a roar from a Drachon. Even a sorry-ass, dying Drachon like him could still do some damage.

It had taken him too long to get here to screw it up by trying to get away so soon. Not before he got some answers for his clients. This was his last case. He’d started it before…before his life had gotten shitty. And he always finished what he started. After that… He didn’t give a damn what happened after that. Maybe he’d see how many bottles of Jack it took to give a Drachon alcohol poisoning.

Raife studied the man closely. Since his mind was closed to him, he had to use plain old-fashioned observation to get the guy’s measure. What he saw wasn’t encouraging. He had a sharp, fluid edge, like that of a blade. Carefully honed—deadly—with this aura of power. Only one species of Arcane carried themselves that way. Only one species drew power to them like magnets.

Fucking Elementals.

The man’s smile was lethal, his gaze cold and piercing as if he could see right into him.

Raife shifted his big body under the scrutiny and the sensation that this man was peeling back his every defense and looking too deeply. Seeing deeper than he allowed anyone else. Elementals weren’t typically telepathic, but there was no such thing as typical these days. And no one trusted an Elemental. Many of them were no better than power-hungry witches, even the ones in respectable covens. What would an Elemental want with an unmated Drachon? He couldn’t siphon off any useful powers, and all of the missing Drachon were late in their last heat, which meant they were close to dying. Unless it was for that reason they were useful in the first place. But then why would a weak, dying species of Arcane be useful to an Elemental?

“Ah, yes. The Drachon mind never fails to amaze me. So very quick. Too bad you cannot seem to save your sorry species from extinction with it.”

Raife held those cool, predatory eyes without flicking a glance to the woman pushing the medical cart toward his side. She could take whatever she needed from his body; it had betrayed him anyway. It had made him push away the one good thing in his life.

“Gotta go sometime. May as well be here.”
Raife cocked one brow tauntingly.
“Care to join me?”

The man crossed in front of him with slow, precise steps, each hollow click of his footfalls distinct. Eerie, like the man himself, and it put Raife on edge. Why couldn’t it have been some other species or even a psychotic human? He hated Elementals.

“Unfortunately, I don’t believe I will be able to accommodate you. I need you whole and hearty, I’m afraid. We’ve a long way to go, you and I.”

Raife snorted. “
And exactly where would that be?”

The Elemental nodded to the woman in the lab coat when she looked up at him questioningly. Raife frowned as the woman wrapped a tourniquet around his upper arm. Were the other missing Drachon
whole and hearty
as well? He seriously doubted it. They hadn’t exactly been healthy when they were taken. If the best minds in the Drachon community couldn’t figure out how to save the species, he doubted some power-mongering Elemental could do it.

The man cocked his head to the side, those icy blue eyes deepening. Raife barely concealed his surprise as the cold essence of the Elemental solidified in the room, reaching out toward him. His scalp tightened as the man’s power made contact, its presence chill and menacing as it crawled over him, seeking a break in his mental walls. With a frown, Raife reinforced his mental barriers, and his skull thudded with the pressure. He’d been exposed to too many sick supernatural fuckers in his work at Incog Investigations not to have made his barriers rock solid, and he certainly wasn’t going to let some witch go rooting around in his gray matter now.

The Elemental smiled with a strange satisfaction, but the attack on his mind didn’t ease.

“I’ve got big plans for you, Agent Merrick. You’ve been chosen for a special assignment.”

“What an honor. And here I am without an acceptance speech.”
Raife flicked a glance at a bag that was beginning to fill with his blood, his vision wavering under the pressure of the psychic onslaught. There was another bag sitting on the metal table waiting to be filled as well. “
You want to spare a few details on what I’ve been chosen for?”

What the hell were they going to do with that much blood? More damn blood magic? It was the Drachon’s refusal to play the Elemental’s damn blood magic games centuries ago that had his species teetering on the edge of extinction now. The thought made his dragon shift and rumble menacingly beneath his flesh. He pushed it below the veil-thin exterior of his humanity with a dizzying effort.

Those pale eyes narrowed on him. “Exactly how old are you, Agent Merrick?”

Raife met his frosty gaze. “
A gentleman never reveals his age.”

The Elemental turned on his heel with a short laugh and took slow, measured steps to the wall, his hands clasped behind his back. “Seventy? Seventy-five?”

“I am truly offended. Here I thought I didn’t look a day over thirty.”

“You’ve lived longer than any of the others. Have you ever wondered why that is?”

He had. Twenty years ago, he’d left the family stronghold to either find his mate or die in peace, since most unmated Drachon died around the age of fifty. He stopped waiting on the first, which left him only the latter to look forward to. Nine months ago, he’d lost the peace aspect of the whole thing.

“Okay, I give up. Tell me.”

“What is the only way a Drachon can live to old age, hmm?” The Elemental turned and met his gaze.

“What is this? A game? What do I get if I get it right?”

Drachon died shortly after their final heat if they didn’t find a mate. Judging by the smirk, he’d bet the asshole already knew that. Raife turned his head to follow the Elemental as he strolled past him to the other wall. What the hell was he driving at?

“All Drachon yearn for a mate, Agent Merrick. That one other person who can complete them spiritually and make them whole. Give them life. Even you, I would hazard, secretly harbor that desire under all that sarcasm.”

Raife dropped his head back against the table with a shrug. Those words struck too damn close to the truth, and it took most of his waning strength to mask the pain knifing through him, to conceal the overwhelming sense of loss he’d carried for too long now. He knew the crafty bastard was hovering there, waiting for a crack in his barriers.

“I gave up on that bullshit years ago. If that’s why you picked me, then you need to check your sources. I don’t have a mate.”

“Are you absolutely sure about that?”

His dragon hissed and pushed up against the unraveling veneer of civility he’d managed to maintain these past months. Barely. It had chosen a mate that couldn’t be theirs, one they would only destroy if they claimed her.

A powerless growl rattled through his chest. His vision dimmed to the hues of thermal imaging—his hunting vision—before he gained control and pushed his dragon back. After pulling in a long draught of air through his nose, he blinked.
“What are you driving at?”

The other man’s knowing smile never budged. “My sources say a mated male bears a mark.”

Raife’s chest constricted. His flesh burned with a phantom ache over the heavy beat of his heart where his shirt concealed four long slashes scored into his flesh. They were supposed to be sacred, a sign of hope for the future of their species. Except there was no future. No hope. They’d become a mockery of his blind faith in the beliefs of his people. A faith that no longer comforted him. A faith that had betrayed him. Now all he had was duty. Clenching his teeth, he caught and held the asshole’s cold eyes.

The Elemental stopped just in front of him. He lifted a long-fingered hand and tapped the smirk on his lips. “Now let me think. I believe the mark is purported to be on the chest. Let’s see how accurate my sources indeed are, shall we?” He raised his arm and flicked his hand through the air with a snap of his wrist.

Raife gritted his teeth in irritation as his T-shirt was ripped away from his body. Elementals and their telekinesis. His muscles bunched beneath the restraints. He didn’t look down when the Elemental leaned in to get a closer study of those damning marks. He knew what was there. The memory of them haunted him no matter how much he drank. It followed him into every dark hell he’d tried to climb inside the last few months.

“Over the heart, no less. How symbolic.”

His dragon seethed, searing him, blackening him from the inside out with the heat of its fury. The very air moving through his nose scorched. Yet Raife controlled it, endured the burn, slowed the rise and fall of his chest. This manipulative Elemental would never find a crack to slither through.

Raife struggled with his dragon, his hunting vision wavering as he fought for dominance. He had a job to do, and he would do it.
“Well, since we’re so into sharing, why don’t you tell me who the hell you are and why the hell you brought me here?”

The Elemental pursed his lips thoughtfully as he studied him. “You’re a powerful telepath. Resilient. Controlled. I have no doubt you will be strong. And determined. I imagine you would be ferociously protective of your mate.”

“There was no mating. No mate.”
Raife buried the image of cerulean blue eyes and white-gold hair deep into his mind, tucking it away where it couldn’t be touched. Where it couldn’t touch him. She was a continent away, safe from this asshole. Safe from him.