Pleasure Unbound (14 page)

“I’ve thought about your offer,” she said in a hushed voice, “and the answer is no. You can’t pay me enough to do what you want.”

“I’d urge you to reconsider.”

“Never.”

“Never say never, doctor.” Insane laughter crackled over the airwaves. The bastard hung up, leaving her shaking and feeling ill.

“Gemella, darling, you don’t look well.”

Startled by her mother’s voice, Gem yelped and spun around. “It’s nothing. Work issue.”

“Must be some work issue.” Her mother, whose human name was Eileen, handed Gem the margarita in her hand. “Looks like you could use this more than I can.”

Gem had practically inhaled the cocktail, even though she rarely drank alcohol. Too much liquor negated the effect of the protective spells she’d had tattooed on her body in order to control her demon half. She’d stopped after that one margarita, but now, as she searched her parents’ house, hoping they were here despite the bloody evidence to the contrary, she thought about breaking into their wet bar and drinking everything they had. Right now, letting out her inner demon might not be a bad thing.

She saved her old room for last, the one her parents kept exactly as she’d left it when she moved out almost five years ago to attend medical school—two years early, thanks to her parents’ militant homeschooling that had put her ahead of schedule in college. They’d always hoped she’d come back home to live after graduation as many Sensor demon offspring did until they’d been mated off by their parents. But Gem wasn’t a Sensor, and while she loved the family that had adopted her instead of killing her as an infant, she’d needed her own space to discover who she was and where she truly belonged.

She also had no desire to suffer an arranged mating.

Her room, decorated in black, crimson, and blue, had driven her mom nuts, which had pretty much been the point. Rebellious from the start, Gem had probably, on several occasions over the course of her twenty-four years, made her parents regret their decision to raise her. But they’d also loved her, and she had no doubts about that. Her mom never once let her go to bed without a good night hug, and her father had set aside the third Saturday of every month to take her someplace special, just the two of them. Knowing she’d need to blend in, they’d provided her with a very normal human childhood that included church, sleepovers, and camping. As long as she avoided the securely locked basement, she could almost pretend she—and they—were human.

Though she didn’t expect to find anything, she searched her bedroom and found exactly what she’d expected. Nothing. The Ghouls really had nabbed her parents, the sons of bitches. She moved toward the door. Halted as she passed the dresser.

No.

But she had to. She’d avoided this for far too long.

Heart pounding, she opened the top drawer and fumbled around until her fingers found the thin photo album duct-taped to the underside of the top. She removed it, her hands shaking so badly that she nearly dropped the small leather-bound book.

She almost didn’t open it. The thing felt heavier than it was, the phantom weight of memories that should have been but never were.

God, she was such a drama queen.

Disgusted with herself, she opened the book and flipped through the two dozen pictures. All of people who didn’t know they’d been captured on film. All taken at a distance.

All of Tayla Mancuso and the slayer’s now-dead mom.

It took three minutes to secure Eidolon to the bed. As tempting as it was to kill him, Tayla knew The Aegis might benefit more from his survival. At least, that’s what she told herself. Anything to keep from thinking too hard about the fact that he had saved her life, and she owed him.

Afterward, Tayla showered, dressed in ratty jeans and a tank top, and checked his breathing and bindings once more. She’d laid him out spread-eagled on his back, his arms stretched over his head and chained to the bed frame.

Lying there, unconscious, he was beautiful. She’d been hesitant to look too closely before, when he was awake and would know what she was doing. Now, she could spare a moment to admire a body so perfect she could only compare it to an athlete’s.

Thick layers of muscle cut valleys across his bare chest and down to ripped abs that spoke of hours of sit-ups. His caduceus pendant had slipped to the side, pointing to a thin, almost invisible scar on his shoulder. When she leaned closer, she saw more of them, so faint she doubted they could be seen in anything but the most perfect conditions, like now, with the afternoon sunlight pouring through her window.

Geez, he looked like he’d been scored by a thousand paper cuts that had healed but left shadows.

Tentatively, she trailed a finger along his shoulder and up his right arm, tracing the tribal tats, firm muscle, and pulsing ropes of vein. That arm had wrapped around her. Held her. No one had held her. Not since her mother had died.

Dammit.

Chastising herself for letting her thoughts take her in a direction she had no business going in, she darted out of the apartment.

It was cooler outside than it had been earlier—apparently Mother Nature hadn’t gotten the newsflash that it was spring and should be warm in the afternoon—but she didn’t waste time going back for a jacket. She wanted to get back before Hellboy woke up, if possible.

She took two trains and a bus, and forty-five minutes later, arrived five blocks south of Aegis HQ.

Headquarters sat on the remote outskirts of a New York City suburb, a large three-story house where the two Regents, the married heads of the New York City cell, lived and sheltered dozens of Guardians. The nearest neighbors were nearly half a mile distant, but standard operating procedure required an approach from the rear, through a secret entrance hidden in a copse of trees a quarter-mile away from HQ. An underground tunnel brought Tayla into the wooded, enclosed backyard, where two male Guardians were engaged in crossbow target practice. Trey couldn’t hit the ocean if he were in the middle of it, but the straw vampire didn’t stand a chance against Warren, a recently transferred Guardian from a London cell. Another Guardian, Cole, fiddled with something in his hand.

An explosion rattled her eardrums, Body parts whistled through the air. She ducked in time to avoid being struck in the head by a flaming foot.

Near the guest house that was home to nine male Guardians, the burning remains of a mannequin smoldered.

Tayla jammed her fists on her hips and scowled. “What are you guys doing now?”

Cole grinned. “I’m testing a new explosive that’s odorless and practically invisible. Really cool. Works with electronic devices.”

“Stephanie must have developed it,” Tayla said, and Cole nodded. Steph was their cell’s chief spellcaster, but because her specialized talents worked best—or only—with electronics, they’d had to adapt.

“We just blew the hell out of that mannequin with an MP3 player.”

“Why do we need an explosive like that?”

“In case we ever get into a situation we can’t get out of.” He shrugged. “Take out a lot of scum with us. And obviously, we can remotely detonate.”

Tayla grimaced. Sounded a little too suicide bomber to her.

“Call me old-fashioned, but I’d rather go down swinging a sword.”

She mounted the steps to the rear deck and entered the house without knocking. Laughter met her, the usual playful banter that filled the three-story house twenty-four-seven. An outsider would see a disciplined, happy group of teens and young adults living in the well-kept facility, but Tayla knew better, knew everyone here could turn into focused, deadly warriors in an instant.

As usual, someone was baking. Lori, fondly nicknamed June Cleaver, taught everyone to cook and assigned baking days to ensure healthful treats would always be available. Even now, the mouth-watering aroma of banana bread nearly had Tayla detouring to the kitchen. Instead, she cut through the living room that was as large as her entire apartment. Four Guardians looked up from playing video games, and one, a high-strung eighteen-year-old named Rosa, jumped to her feet.

“Tayla! Lori and Kynan have been worried.”

Tay strode past the TV, ignoring the curious faces. “Where are they?”

“In the library, I think.” Rosa tagged along. “Where’s Janet?”

“Dead.”

Tayla supposed she should feel bad for being so blunt, but the answer had the desired effect; Rosa stumbled to a stop in the hallway, and Tayla sped up to escape the shock and questions. She pounded down the stairs to the giant multiroom basement. It had, sometime before Tayla became a Guardian, been expanded from a small, unfinished cellar to an underground facility complete with its own security systems and escape tunnels. Should anything attack the house, Guardians could shut themselves in the basement indefinitely, and could use the two exits as well.

Two Guardians were sparring in the brightly lit workout area, their bare feet thumping softly on the padded floor, and two more lifted weights near the rock wall. She hurried past them, through the darkened lab, which was empty except for the mystical relics, weapons, and magic supplies. The door to the library was closed.

She opened it and immediately wished she hadn’t. Inside, Kynan had his wife bent over the arm of the couch. He drove into her from behind, his jeans bunched around his thick thighs, one hand playing between her legs. Lori whimpered, digging her nails into the cushions Tayla would never sit on again.

Quietly, Tayla closed the door and sagged against the wall to wait. The sounds of their lovemaking made her wince in remembrance of the noises she and Eidolon had made, though what they’d done had been anything but making love.

No, their romp had been raw and rough, sex born of anger, hormones, and wicked magic. Because what she felt for him when he was near had to be a result of some sort of incubus enchantment. Now she could sit back and be disgusted to the point of wanting to kill him, but when he touched her, heck, when he looked at her, she fell under his spell.

Yeah, he was a poster boy for hot doctors, but the memory of her mother, writhing in pain beneath the demon that raped and killed her, raked her brain like the back end of a claw hammer. She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes and shook her head, willing the memories away.

Only to have the fresher memories of being naked with Eidolon crash into her head.

Stop. She could tell herself that his incubus sorcery was still affecting her, but a tiny part of her, the part that had come closer to finding the ultimate pleasure with him than with any man, didn’t care why she kept thinking about him. In any case, she needed to be stronger.

Eidolon had to die.

When the door finally opened, Kynan stepped out, graced her with one of his killer smiles, though his blue eyes darkened with concern. He didn’t miss much, always appeared to be reading a situation about ten seconds into the future. Before she’d laid eyes on Eidolon, she’d thought Kynan was the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen.

“Sorry,” he said, his voice a gravelly mix of Afghan battlefield vocal cord damage and sexual afterglow. “We sometimes forget to lock doors.”

Sometimes? Lori had once confessed that when she and Kynan got into it, things ignited so quickly that they’d started up while people were in the room with them. Only when they’d finished and found the room empty did they realize how carried away in each other they had become.

Tay couldn’t even imagine being so into someone. Especially not someone like Eidolon, who wasn’t even a someone. He was a something.

He held the door wider and motioned for her to come in. “Where have you been? Where’s Janet?”

Tears unexpectedly stung her eyes. Guardians died all the time. But guilt over Janet’s death plagued her . . . if only Tayla had come clean months ago about her strange symptoms. If only she’d taken herself off active duty status. If only, if only, if only.

Her self-lashing was pointless, but it was a family trait, an addiction as powerful as any other. When she’d been clean, Tayla’s mom had beat herself up daily for the things she’d done while under the influence.

The self-abuse had been as damaging as the drugs.

Tayla collapsed into one of the two overstuffed chairs, glad to rest the shaky noodles that were her legs. “Janet and I ran into some problems.”

Lori hurried over, squatted at her knee. “Tell us,” she said gently, her comforting, maternal presence at odds with the warrior-woman who could wipe out a den of man-sized Croix vipers with nothing more than a hatchet.

Her nickname, June Cleaver, definitely had its roots.

Kynan ran a hand through the spiky brown hair she knew from pictures hadn’t changed since his Army days. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

“Yeah.”

“Goddammit.” He sank onto the couch and sprawled backward, legs spread, head back as he stared at the ceiling fan that spun in lazy circles. “Where? We need to retrieve what we can.”

“We went into the sewers at the Aspen entrance. She’s a few blocks north of that.”

Her stomach churned. The Guardians wouldn’t find much, if anything. Janet’s body had probably been taken or eaten by now. Every Guardian knew and accepted the risks of dying in demon territory. But it was the survivors who suffered when their comrades fell.

“We’d flushed out two Cruenti doing the nasty behind a Dumpster. We killed the female, but the male tucked tail. We gave chase, tangoed with a Croucher demon, and the Cruentus ambushed us.”

Lori and Kynan exchanged looks. It didn’t take a Velma to figure out what they were thinking. A Cruentus shouldn’t have been able to take out two experienced fighters. No way could she mention the truth of what had happened, how she’d lost the use of the right side of her body during the battle. The Aegis had doctors in their service, and Kynan, a former Army medic, performed most of the patch-up work, but despite her feelings of guilt, deep down she knew she had to keep her strange symptoms a secret. If the truth came out, she might be taken off the streets and relegated to training or paperwork. Or worse, kicked out of The Aegis altogether.

This was the only family she had left, and she wouldn’t lose it. Couldn’t. An ex-Guardian with no job prospects and without the tools and protection of The Aegis could measure her life expectancy in days. No, she’d keep her condition to herself, and she’d continue to hunt, but from now on, she was a solo act. No way would she risk another Guardian’s life.