Seduction's Shift (6 page)

“There’s only one way to find out,” Nick said with a shrug, making his way up to where Yuri stood.

It was Lucas who stopped the procession.

“Você deve oferecer-lhe um presente.”

Nick sighed. This was taking too much time. He just wanted to question the guy, find out what he knew about Ary’s disappearance then move on to finding her. With a curse he rubbed a hand down the back of his head.

“I have to give him something for him to help us,” Nick said, translating Lucas’s statement.

“You’re an attorney. You should know you don’t get something for nothing,” X joked again.

“Here.” Kalina removed a gold necklace from her neck. “Give him this. He can sell it to one of the humans for cash or food or something.”

With a shrug, Nick took the necklace from her. “Thanks. I’ll replace it as soon as we get home.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she told him.

Lucas took the necklace Nick held out to him and led them up the path toward the rise where the shaman stood expectantly. Nick was right behind him; X, Rome, and Kalina followed closely. He was tense all over, ready and waiting to find Ary so he could … could what? He’d spent most of the night—after the vivid dream of his last time with her—thinking of what would happen after this.

Ary was the one woman who’d made him feel something, the only woman to ever accomplish that feat. And she’d done so unassumingly. Would he be able to walk away from her a second time?

Lucas dropped to one knee, his head bowed low enough to touch the other knee. His arm was extended, the gold chain dangling on his fingers. Yuri moved slowly, as if his bones refused to go any faster. He stood in front of Lucas, tilting his head back and whispering something to someone they couldn’t see. Then he inhaled deeply and took the necklace from Lucas’s hand. A touch to Lucas’s shoulder from the shaman signaled him to stand. He did so with an arm extended toward Nick.

Nick stepped forward, but before he could speak the shaman came to him, put his flat palm on his forehead, and began to mumble again. It wasn’t Portuguese he spoke. Nick knew the language of the Gungi well. This language was different. He had no idea what the man had said.

“Come” was the English directive he gave to Nick.

He followed without hesitation, hoping this didn’t take long. Every minute Ary was missing was like a thousand needles being driven into his temple.

“Sit,” he said when they’d come to what looked like a hole in the side of a huge boulder.

For Nick, Rome, and X, it wasn’t easy getting their bodies through the small space. Especially X, who of the three of them had the bulkiest build due to his obsession with the gym. Once inside, the opening grew wide enough for them to step onto a mud-packed floor and stand at least partially upright. A pitted fire was already burning in the center of the floor while all types of roots and ritual tools hung around the space on nails drummed into the walls.

“All sit,” Yuri indicated to them when they stood staring around the fire pit.

Lucas motioned for them all to sit in a circle around the pit, then sat behind Rome, his head bowed in allegiance to the Faction Leader.

When Yuri returned to them again, he had a handful of some type of plants. As he crossed his thin legs and sat in front of the fire, he dropped the plants in the fire. Seconds later a thick smoke rose in thin rivulets, polluting the air around them.

“Hmmmm, sage,” Kalina said inhaling deeply. “He’s burning sage.”

Behind Rome, Lucas tapped him on the shoulder.
“É para a limpeza de energia.”

“It’s for cleansing energy,” Rome translated.

“Purification,” Kalina whispered. “Magdalena, the elder female shifter, performed a similar ritual with me the night before our joining.”

Yuri made some sound and wacked his arm over the fire. Everyone assumed that meant for them to be quiet.

After a few moments of moaning and whispering, Yuri reached for Nick’s hand. Not too keen on having a man—a strange man at that—pulling his palm into his own, Nick cleared his throat and reminded himself that this was for Ary.

“Her spirit fights,” Yuri said in a whisper meant only for Nick to hear.

“Fights who? When was the last time you saw her?” Nick was running out of patience.

Yuri continued to hold Nick’s hand, tracing the lines in his palm and moving up the veins in his arm. “You were connected once and will be again. It is imperative for you both to be whole.”

Snatching his arm away, Nick rose to his feet. “Where is she?” he yelled.

Yuri went back to his smoke, leaning forward and inhaling, sitting back on his heels and closing his eyes as if he was praying. What he wasn’t doing was talking anymore, which the group figured out after about five minutes.

“This is wasting time,” Nick said, heading for the small-ass hole in the wall he needed to climb through once more to get back to the forest, where Ary could be dead somewhere.

The others were moving to follow him when Yuri began to whistle. “Follow your heart,” he said finally. “Your soul recognizes hers.”

With a curse Nick crawled through the opening. Falling out onto the moist forest floor had him swearing fluently by the time the others made their way out.

“Well, that was a waste of time,” Nick was saying. “He didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know.”

The others remained quiet. Nick didn’t know if that was because they agreed with him or if they were just letting him work off some steam. Lucas also did not speak. He did not assume the lead, either. Nick looked at him for a moment and was about to ask him where to go—then he figured fuck it, he’d find Ary on his own.

He began moving south, where the scent of the Rogues had come from. The farther he walked, the stronger the scent. Something else also grew stronger as he moved through the dimly lit forest. Desire boiled in the pit of his stomach; a raw hunger like he’d never before experienced was pressing him farther and farther. Now there were two scents guiding him—the stench of the Rogues and a stronger, sweeter scent that filtered through his body like a tonic.

Nick didn’t know what the new scent was or why he was picking it up so strongly. And he really didn’t care. All he knew for certain was that it would lead him to Ary.

Chapter 6

“She’s terrified. Her heart rate is out of control. What did you do to her?”

“You,” Sabar said, sweat beading his forehead, his fingers clamping around the other shifter’s neck, “do not get to question me!”

The man gulped, the movement of his Adam’s apple rippling against Sabar’s thumb. He jerked his hand back.

“I never wanted her hurt,” Davi Serino sobbed.

Walking across the room, stopping at the closed door, Sabar slammed his palm so hard the door almost broke free of the frame. “She’s no good to me hurt, either! Dammit! She killed him without a second thought.”

“My daughter is no killer,” Davi Serino said adamantly. “She would not willingly hurt another shifter. Something is wrong with her.”

“You bet your ass something is wrong with her. You told me the damiana would enhance my drug. That it would make my product worth even more on the street based on its potent sexual high. I’m supposed to be creating a new-age drug here, not watching after some crazed shifter.”

“I don’t know what’s going on. I just don’t know. Ary knows about the medicines of today. I don’t know.” Dropping his head in his hands, Davi sobbed louder.

“Bring her out here and if she shifts again shoot her ass,” Sabar ordered.

It had been hours since she’d killed Jose. Franco had dug a shallow grave, burying the remains. Not that Sabar gave a rat’s ass what happened to the remains of the pitiful shifter. He wasn’t going to amount to anything anyway. Hell, she’d actually saved Sabar the trouble of snapping the idiot’s neck. Then she’d run off into the forest roaring and circling back and forth like a confused house cat. Not until her father had gone out to talk to her did the feline calm down, allowing her to shift once more even though the human still appeared delirious.

She’d slept and been fed. Now Sabar wanted to know what the hell had happened.

Franco came through the door with Ary, her hands tied behind her back and her ankles shackled. Her hair had also been pulled back with a dirty band because Sabar wanted to see her face at all times. That had more to do with the stir in his dick when he looked into her sultry eyes than any of this drug business.

“Aryiola,” Davi whimpered, moving closer to his daughter as she was dragged into the room.

As the table had been destroyed, Franco just propped her against one of the walls and let her limp body slide down onto the floor. Davi fell to the floor with her, cupping her face in his hands.

“Answer me, my dear. Tell me what you are feeling,” he implored.

Ary’s head lolled back, her eyes open but not really focused. Through cracked lips she tried to speak. “Father, you are here?”

“Yes. Yes, baby. I am here. How are you?”

“My head hurts” was her reply.

From across the room Sabar stood with his legs slightly parted, arms folded over his chest.

“How did you feel when you killed Jose?” he asked.

It was a quick motion compared with her otherwise sluggish movements. Ary’s gaze shot past her father to Sabar and instantly paled. Her pupils seemed huge, dancing around as if she were overly excited even though she was sitting perfectly still.

“What? Why? Where am I?” she finally managed to ask. “How did you know where to find me?” This question was aimed at her father.

Davi paused, not sure what his response should be.

“He knew where you were because I told him where I was going to take you,” Sabar provided. “And I really don’t have the patience for the domestic issues. I have some questions about the damiana that I need you to answer, and I don’t have a lot of time.”

This fucking forest was driving him crazy. The incessant rain was making him cranky as hell and he needed some pussy and some real food, fast. Staying out here in the depths of trees and rivers and dirt didn’t afford him the lifestyle he was growing accustomed to back in the States. He drove an Audi R8, owned several Hummers, lived in a converted brownstone that he’d decked out in class A style, and had a staff that cooked and cleaned for him on command. These basic elements out here were killing his mojo.

“What’s he talking about?” she asked Davi. “Father, do you know what he’s talking about?”

“Of course he knows. It was his idea. Tell her,
Father,
” Sabar said with his signature sadistic laugh.

An eerie sort of glee slipped down Sabar’s spine as he watched her heated gaze land on her father. There was tension there, a situation clearly about to blow. Too bad he didn’t really care.

“Tell me about damiana,
curandero
. What are the effects?”

“I wouldn’t tell you the time of day,” she spat in his direction. “Father, why am I here? Did you know he was coming for me?”

Sabar growled. “Tell her, Father. And while you’re at it, teach your little bitch some manners. She’s staying alive only because I allow it. Make sure she knows that!”

“Leave us alone?” Davi asked Sabar, his voice just short of frantic. “Please. A few minutes?”

Sabar spit on the floor then laced his fingers together and cracked his knuckles. “Yeah, whatever. Five minutes then I’m coming back and she better start talking or Franco here’s gonna start shooting.”

He walked out of the room with the satisfaction of knowing he’d scared the shit out of them. The heavy scent of fear permeated his nostrils, giving him a hard-on that kind of annoyed, but was good nonetheless.

Ary swallowed hard, the effort hurting her throat, which felt raw. There was a bitter taste in her mouth, like medicine, and as she closed her eyes she remembered those idiot shifters pouring something into her mouth.

Damiana.

The salty taste and smell she remembered. But something else had been in that mixture. Another herb, possibly; whatever it was, she couldn’t figure it out at the moment. The fact that they’d drugged her was fuel enough to push her cat to the brink.

Her eyes snapped open. “They gave me damiana. Why?”

“Aryiola,” Davi began in a hushed voice. “You have to do this for us. For our people. He will kill us all if you do not.”

“Do what? I don’t understand,” she told her father.

A dreadful feeling was creeping its way around her stomach as she watched him.

He looked nervous. Sweat poured from his temple; tendrils of his hair were soaked and stuck flat to his forehead. The shirt he wore was dirty and likewise damp, probably with sweat as well. He wreaked of fear, pure and putrid.

“He will kill us, daughter. You must understand that.”

“Tell me what you did,” she said slowly, because there was no doubt in her mind that her father was involved in whatever this was. Her chest clenched at the thought, but her mind would not let go of the notion. “What did you promise him and why?”

“He gave us money and supplies and everything we needed to survive out here. All he wants in return is your help.”

Behind her back the rope cut into her wrists. She was already trying to break free, her cat prowling close to the surface once more. But Ary was afraid to let her loose again. The last time she had been uncontrollable, and that was something new for her.

“What help does he want from me?”

“He wants you to create something for him. To mix some sort of drug. I do not know everything, but he will tell you. Then he will go and we will have our lives back.”

“Are you crazy?” Ary asked her father. Or should she say the man who sat in front of her, because what he was saying made him feel like a foreigner to her.

Davi shook his head vehemently. “He has helped us all along. The money, the supplies.”

“You mean the money and the supplies that have been dwindling? If he told you they’re from him, he’s a filthy liar!”

Davi looked away from her, then back again. There were tears in his eyes. Ary opened her mouth to say something else then clapped her lips shut. She’d never seen her father cry. Ever. But it looked like he was about to, which meant this wasn’t a good situation. As if she needed proof of that.