Sanibel Surrender Vampire Werewolf Menage (Fanged Romance Series Book Five) (23 page)

Heath sensed another Vojak misting inside the closet. He knew most of them, but this one wasn’t familiar. In fact, his power trail felt like that of a youngling. Undoubtedly, they were discreetly moving Wilson’s body to the Joint Faction Facility. Eventually, in the mortal world, he would be classified as a missing person. “It was Wilson.”

“Wilson,” she repeated, the color quickly draining from her already pale face. “The same Wilson I saw just hours ago at the restaurant. The same Wilson I dated for years and then married. The same Wilson I ranted about a few minutes ago while he lay dead a few feet away.” A shiver tore through her, one that rattled her teeth. “That Wilson?”

Easily, he could send stronger compulsion her way, bending her mind to forget and go into a relaxing slumber, but they had to get to the bottom of this so they could fight their way to the top. “We have to know what’s going on with you, lass. The vampire who stalked you at your workplace is the one doin’ the killin’. We need to find out what’s going on, not just for you, but for Ail. He’s in trouble, lass, for protectin’ you.”

Her head snapped her, fire replacing her tears. “What kind of trouble?”

“Blood for Blood,” Maestru said, gliding up to them. “The widow to the Gryph he killed on the Sanibel Causeway is demanding he die. However, he is scheduled to a trial beforehand – Blood for Blood.”

“Who are you?” she asked, her eyes moving up and down Maestru. Though Maestru was striking, even for a vampire, Heath knew that his Molly wasn’t checking out the Coven Master in a sexual sense, she was summing him up.

Maestru smiled, showing his razor-sharp fangs. He was far from stupid, knew that Molly was trying him on for size. “Your sister, Renee, asked me that very question once.”

“And what did you say?”

“Ask her.”

Molly curled her lip. “Whoever you are, no one’s taking my Ail away from me.” Then, she blinked a few times, wondering at the way she phrased her statement.

“He is your Ail,” Heath whispered. “Tis good you feel protective of him, a step in the right direction.”

“Then if you feel so strongly, sister of the Alpha, you can answer a few questions, no matter how pointed they are.”

“That depends,” she said in her surliest voice, “if you’re trying to help Ail or hurt him.” Looking between Heath and Maestru, she was silently asking Heath for guidance.

“Ask your questions and we’ll see where this leads, Coven Master,” Heath directed Maestru. In turn, the vampire gave him a can-you-handle-this look. He lifted his chin. “Go ahead.”

Maestru’s obsidian eyes fixated back on Molly. “What sort of sexual relationship did you and your deceased husband have? I believe, in the mortal world, the term is open marriage or open relationship."

“How can you," she stopped and took a deep breath. "We had no such thing as an open marriage. I was faithful and Wilson cheated. There was nothing open about it because he was hiding it from me the whole time. Just for the record, I left him after I had visual proof of his cheating.”

Maestru brought his hand to his chin, tapping his bottom lip with a long finger. “You never frequented any underground clubs?”

“How can there be underground anything in Florida?” she asked.

“Not exactly what I’m asking, Molly.”
Heath didn’t like where this was going, but he pressed. “What he means is sex clubs.”

Molly stomped her foot, wincing when she remembered that she was barefoot. “What do you take me for?”

“I do not know you, at all,” Maestru explained, his head tilting to the side when Oycher returned. “You never invited anyone here to participate in what mortals would consider adventurous sex?"

"Absolutely not," she said, gritting her teeth.

Maestru asked Oycher, "What do you have, Commander?”
“A confirmation of my suspicions, Master.” Oycher held black, leather pants with Wilson’s scent all over them. Along with that of the vampire who obviously killed Wilson. And the only thought rolling around in Heath’s mind was that Wilson had gotten Molly into a nigh impossible situation.

“Where did those pants come from?” Molly’s brow furrowed, clearly, she’d never laid eyes on them. Heath scented no deception on her part.

“The small attic opening above your laundry room,” Oycher explained. “There’s more: whips, costumes, and pictures - many incriminating pictures.”

“Pictures?” She backed away, her hand hovering over her thundering heart. “Of Wilson and his…lovers?”

“Yes, though none of them are with you.”

“Of course, they aren’t with me,” she retorted.

Molly was dumbfounded, and Heath knew it. So did the vampires, for that matter. What exactly was going on here? Heath’s werewolf slammed against his skull and a growl left his chest. He gripped his head, releasing a string of blistering profanity. Though out of respect for Molly’s ears, he kept his outburst in a language she wouldn’t understand. Maestru didn’t step back, wasn’t afraid of Heath going into mid or even full transformation.

Molly had her hands in front of her, fisting them as if she wanted to take on the vampires. “For the past few days, I have seen and have heard stuff I only thought happened in movies, but I will not listen to this! I knew he was cheating on me…but you’re saying it’s much worse than I thought.”

“Yes.” Maestru susurrated, “There are two things that I believe. One is that your ex-husband attended immortal sex clubs or had secret rendezvous with a specific male vampire. Two is that whatever vampire he was having an affair with became enamored of you.” The wind went out of her sails, and Heath managed to grab her before she hit the floor. Molly never drifted into unconsciousness, though; she was sagging quite a bit.

“Did you do this?” He questioned Maestru discreetly, asking if he coerced his Molly in order to calm her. That would be an appalling action, even from a vampire. Molly was his mate to aid, not Maestru’s Bride.

“Relax, Tracker, I did not.” Maestru walked to the window, his eyes darting everywhere. “Wilson has the scent of a Dynasty Vampyr.”

“I know his smell.” Then Heath placed a kiss on Molly’s head. “I confirmed the bite was the same as was with the guard.”

“Not just that, Wilson carries the
blood
of the Dynasty Vampyr. At first, it was hard to tell, since he was nearly drained, but I think he had been ingesting vampire blood.”

“From a Dynasty Vampyr?” Heath asked in faux disbelief.

“Yes.”

“That’s impossible." Trying to coax more information out of the Coven Master, he added, "It’s very poisonous, even to an immortal. Deadly on most accounts."

“Precisely, and I think your mate is carrying that blood as well. There’s one way to confirm it.” He turned slowly, his mouth curving with a mocking smile.

“Ask Dru then,” Heath stated firmly. “Dru misted Molly here. Though he didn’t feed from her, he certainly made a point about her taste.”

“Bitter?” Oycher asked. “Spicy?”

Heath’s own blood ran cold. He’d tasted Molly himself, when he’d marked her. She was both of those things, even though he found her tantalizingly delicious. “Aye.”

Oycher said softly, “When it comes to a Blood for Blood court, do you really think Ail’s brother-n-law will be considered an unbiased witness? Yes, Dru is a respected member of our Coven; still, the defendant is a werewolf youngling.”

“Who would be an unbiased witness to her blood?” Heath asked through clenched teeth, dreading the answer.

“The Coven Master,” Oycher continued in his quiet tone, “or a Vampyr Vojak who is not co-mated with a werewolf.”

“There’s one other thing,” Maestru added, losing his strange smile. “It’s the reason that I can prove Wilson was involved in a sexual relationship with a Dynasty Vampyr, which, since he is entirely human, is completely illegal in our vampiric world. Her former husband was marked.”

Molly’s nostrils flared. “Marked, in what way?”

“A vampiric claiming mark that stays permanently on the skin,” Maestru said to Molly. “I’m thinking you are, too.”

"I'm am no such thing!"

Heath interjected, "I've seen every square inch of my lass’ body and I must agree. She has no markings besides Ail’s and mine, certainly no personal branding of a Dynasty Vampyr."

"Due to their illegal nature, they are formed in the most discreet of places," Oycher said rather reluctantly. "The mark is usually placed in the pubic area or in the crevice of the human or mixed blood’s backside." He smiled at Molly apologetically. "Forgive my bluntness."

Molly turned, her eyes meeting the closed door of her closet. "So you're saying Wilson had this mark somewhere on his body."

Maestru shook his head, his black hair sliding over his shoulders. "During investigations, the same mark has been located on several drained mortals. The blood trail started a few months ago, upon your trip to Miami."

Molly whipped her head around. "You've been following me since Miami?"

"Not at all,” Maestru explained. “Similar to your mortal police investigations, vampires investigate killings involving other vampires. They’re reported in their districts and compiled with other investigations when a definite pattern is noticed."

Heath glared at Oycher. "When you were at that Joint Faction Meeting, unofficially charging Ail, how could you keep this to yourself?"

Oycher replied, "I just took over as role of commander, Heath. Normally, my investigations only deal with Southwest Florida, which does not include Dade County. As Coven Master, Maestru deals with the North American continent. For the past thirty-six hours, we've pieced these murders together. I thought Ail was hotheaded, that he killed before he thought of the circumstances or the consequences. Now, I suspect what he claimed to be truth. So if you really want to help him, and I'm sure that you do, let's put aside these accusations and work on this serious problem. At the least, without us coming up with concrete proof, Ail could die in the Blood for Blood court. But what's worse, your newfound female could be taken by this psychotic vampire and held captive if he's in a gracious mood. But if he's not," he trailed off, not wanting to finish the sentence before Molly.

Heath insisted, "Before we go any further, tell me about the killing in Miami."

"Immortal sex clubs are in all major vampiric cities. In our world, they aren't illegal so we ignore them unless something comes up, which, by the way, usually never happens…except when Molly visited Miami."

"Molly was under Jayce Jordan's roof the entire time she visited the city, and it was a short visit at that." Heath shifted, not wanting to lay all this out in front of her.
Fucking Gryph.

Oycher checked a text and then put his phone away. "Vampires found a shape shifter half-blood drained in an alleyway." He glanced at Molly and then back to Heath. "She had long, reddish-blond hair."

Maestru’s jaw tightened. "Right before we came here, one of our soldiers found a dead human female with the same mark on her person, though her hair was bleached – nothing similar to Molly’s color. Still, that's how we found the killer’s trail to this very condominium. Like I said, he seems to be fixated on you, Molly. After all, you’re the one he hasn’t yet killed."

"So the man that came to me at my workplace was a cold-blooded killer," she asked, looking at Heath and ignoring the other two.

"Indeed, my mate,” Heath said, smiling wanly. “And he has those flying Gryphs at his disposal.”

Oycher tossed his head back, his beads rattling in his long mahogany hair. “When we prove which monarch is committing these heinous crimes, we will also prove the connection between the Gryphs from the Sanibel Causeway and Ail’s defending of Molly. From there, there's no way our court can convict him."

"In fact," Maestru interjected, "it probably won't even go to court by then. In order for us to really get started, we need a blood sample and we need to check her for the mark."

Heath bristled. "You mean
I
need to check her for the mark."

Maestru shook his head. "You haven't found it yet. Think about it, Tracker. Do you want to go on the witness stand if this goes to trial or do you want the positive testimony from the Coven Master of North America?"

Molly pulled away from his arms and crossed hers under her chest. "I will do anything for Ail or Heath. Tell me what this requires and let's get started."

"Firstly," Oycher replied, "you're going to have to get naked."

She swallowed a couple of times though she kept her chin up, refusing to look away. "And if you find this on my body, you'll do everything you can to help Ail."

Oycher qualified, "I will do everything to seek true justice."

Without another word, Molly pulled her shirt over her head. She wasn't wearing a bra and her nipples puckered against the cool air. Heath about lost his mind, his claws springing out to cover her from the vampires’ gazes, though neither Oycher nor Maestru were leering.

Maestru asked Heath, "Would you prefer to step in the corridor?"

Heath growled low in deadly, "I will not leave her with you."

Molly dropped her shorts, also not wearing panties. "Let's hurry before you go completely werewolf again." And though her voice sounded strong, her lovely body was flush with nothing but humiliation. Through his anger, he was so proud of her, for standing up against these vampires to aid her mate. "You said the mark was in the pubic area or the crevice of... Well, just look." With her trembling body, she lay back on the bed.

Blowing out an enraged breath, Heath stepped forward and parted her thighs for Maestru and Oycher’s inspections. They moved in vampiric speed, lightly touching her to part her folds.

After less than a minute, Oycher exclaimed, "I cannot locate anything."

Maestru looked almost relieved. "If it’s nowhere near her sex, this means the Dynasty Vampyr didn’t have sex with her.”

When she sat up to get dressed, Oycher clasped her ankle. “Here, between her toes.” He lifted her foot to Maestru.

Maestru shook his head. “He marked her as a subservient, the lowest class of house servants in the monarchy. We have hope of catching him so long as she stays alive and tantalizing to him."

Heath pulled her up and dressed her in werewolf speed, ignoring her frantic gasps. Then he tucked her into his side and said, “She will never be bait, so get that thought right out of your head.”