SEDUCTIVE SUPERNATURALS: 12 Tales of Shapeshifters, Vampires & Sexy Spirits (191 page)

She’d totally forgotten about the neighbors’ golden retriever. Now that they were in custody, who was going to take care of him? He was probably famished. She speculated that anyone who would go into body-trafficking for money was probably just using the dog for a prop anyway and didn’t have the ability to form a real attachment to him. Could she possibly take home a third dog? No, that was pressing her luck. But she could take him for now until she could find him a good home.

He barked and wagged at the fence, as happy to see her as her own dogs had been. “Hold on, buddy,” she called and put Leia down so she could get everyone some nibbles. If felt good to be doing something constructive, something that didn’t revolve around her broken heart.

After dumping some food in Caesar’s and Leia’s bowls, she grabbed a leash, made the trek through the front yard, and headed toward the Spanish style home. When she got to the driveway, she had to duck under caution tape to enter. The home had been thoroughly gone over by forensics, but as she went around the back to the patio, there were still reminders of last night’s events everywhere, from tables tipped over to food spilled on the floor. She looked away when she saw the blood from where Jesse had stabbed Henry. She got the chills even being here, but then Gizmo came around the corner.

Sheesh, would he even want the kibble if he’d spent the evening eating carne asada off the ground? “Come here, buddy,” she cooed, hiding the leash just in case it spooked him.

Something was wrong with him, but he didn’t looked spooked, exactly. He wasn’t wagging anymore. He stood stock-still, staring Evelyn in the eyes, and goose bumps broke out over her arms and legs. “Gizmo,” she said, using a high, happy voice. “Don’t be scared. I brought you some food. Do you remember me?”

Before her eyes, his form shifted. One second he was a golden retriever and the next he was a man. Holy shit! He was a mutant, just like Haveland.

He was naked and his lips broke into a slow smile. “Of course I remember you, Dr. Vale. When my master discovered what you were, he knew it would be worth losing the others to have a superior vessel like you. He’s burned through so many unfortunate souls to find you.”

Evelyn started easing away from him until her back hit the French doors. She couldn’t go any further without turning her back on him to run, and she knew if she did that, he would catch her in an instant.

“Your master? Henry Foster is in a coma and he may never wake up. You don’t have to be loyal to him, Gizmo.” She cringed, realizing that probably wasn’t really his name, and the last thing she wanted to do was piss him off.

He laughed. “That imbecile isn’t my master. I serve a true prince of Abaddon, with power you can’t even imagine. Having him in you will be your greatest and final honor.”

When he stepped forward, she couldn’t help it—she ran. With a jolt, she leaped to the side and took off sprinting toward her and Jesse’s property line. Caesar and Leia were at the fence and when they saw the man chasing her, they barked wildly.

He caught her before she’d even made it a quarter of the way, his body slamming into her and sending her crashing to the stone and cement patio with an explosion of pain. She felt him grab her hair in his fist and she fought his grip, screaming for help all the while. But he was so inhumanly strong. There was nothing she could do as he yanked her head back and then shoved it down with all his might. The last thing she saw was a blur of stone rushing at her face, then the struggle was over.

* * *

A tire iron pounded the sides of his skull, and it wouldn’t stop.
Bang. Bang. Bang.

Jesse rolled over and glanced at the clock. Yeah, it might be past lunch time and heading toward dinner, but he was off the clock and that was his business. Who was stupid enough to be banging on his door like that? If it was official business, they would have buzzed his earpiece. And it wasn’t Evelyn. She was gone.

Bang. Bang. Bang.
Persistent—whoever they were.

“Go the fuck away!” he hollered, and the banging stopped.

“Open the door, I need to talk to you,” someone hollered back. It sounded like Sasha.

Shit. She’d already tried getting him out of bed this morning. Who made her team mom?

“Go away, Sasha.” He threw a pillow at the door, but it petered out halfway across the living room, like his muscles were already atrophying.

“Hurry up, you asshat!”

He heard other voices behind the door. No doubt Sasha’s dramatics were making people curious. With a deep grumble, he got to his feet and lumbered toward the door. When he opened it, Sasha was standing there, her hands on her hips. “Took you long enough.”

“What’s going on?” Jack asked. He was fully dressed in his combat fatigues like he was about to go out on a mission. Haveland stood beside him, dressed the same.

Sasha glared at Jesse. “You sleep like the dead.”

He’d felt like the dead, so maybe that figured about right. “Yeah?”

She glanced over her shoulder at Jack and Eric. “It’s all right…I think. I just need a few minutes with Jesse.”

“Okay,” Jack replied, “I gotta go. Let’s debrief later when I get back.”

Jesse just stared back at him. Jack could take it as a yes or a no. It didn’t matter. Jack shook his head and then strode down the hall.

Sasha pushed past Jesse and closed the door on Haveland, leaving him in the hall. “You need a shower,” she said.

Jesse shrugged. “I had one yesterday.”

“That was before you stabbed a body trafficker with his own kitchen knife and put him in a coma.”

Jesse rubbed a hand over his eyes.
So fucking tired
. He just wanted to go back to bed. He didn’t want to think about things. He didn’t want to wake up to a reality where Evelyn didn’t feel the same way about him as he did about her.

“The guy was trying to stab me, Sasha. Technically, he ended up accidentally stabbing himself instead.”

She gave him her no-nonsense look. “He slipped the knife into his own chest three times?”

“Yeah, he’s a clumsy mother-fu—”

“Jesse.”

He saw the worry on her face, but it wasn’t the subdued concern he’d seen when he’d refused breakfast this morning. This was different. “What’s the matter, Sasha?”

She walked to the couch and sat on the arm, suddenly quieting. “Probably nothing. I just…wasn’t sure.”

“About what?”

“Well, it’s probably stupid. I know I shouldn’t have woken you up, but…” She smashed her lips together.

“Seriously? You bang the shit out of my door and now you don’t want to tell me why? What the hell is going on?”

“It’s Evelyn.”

His stomach bungeed to somewhere below his feet and then ricocheted back up with the force of a rocket. He turned, hiding the emotion, covering the pain that burned through him just hearing her name. “Trust me, I’m the last person she wants in her business.” She’d made that abundantly clear.

“That’s not true.”

He turned on her, sure his face was the epitome of cruelty, but there was nothing he could do about controlling his expression or the hurt turning to rage. “Listen Ms. Matchmaker, you have no idea what happened between Evelyn and me. She sent me packing. No ‘let’s be friends’. No ‘maybe I’ll call you sometime’. She snuffed what we had like a cigarette under her heel. It’s finished.”

“She loves you.”

“What a crock of shit,” he muttered. Evelyn didn’t love him, and she’d told him so flat out. His anger rumbled in his chest, and he had to fight not to grab Sasha and remove her bodily from his room. Instead he shooed her toward the door. “Goodbye. Go talk to Eric. See who you can set him up with. Feed him something.”

“She told me so.”

The hand he’d clasped around the doorknob froze. Did this woman have any idea she was digging her nails into his heart and rending his arteries? “She told me the opposite.”

“She didn’t want you to leave Immortal Bounty. She loves you, Jesse. She cried the whole way to the taxi. It killed her to leave.”

The glimmer of hope trying to break through the steel wall around his heart just made him angrier. He couldn’t do “hope” anymore. He’d never known a hell like finding the woman of his dreams, of his future, just to have her throw his love back in his face like it was a watered-down drink. “But she did leave.”

“She had to. You know Clark probably wouldn’t have let her stay anyway.”

“Maybe, but she didn’t have to go alone.” He’d prostrated himself and begged her not to give up on them. What a fool he’d been. “You know what? I can’t do this. I appreciate you trying to help, but if Evelyn wanted me, I’d be with her right now.”

“She didn’t call me, Jesse.”

He shook his head. “What does that mean? Why would she call you?”

“She was going to the estate to pick up the dogs today, and she promised she would call me when she got there. She hasn’t been picking up her phone.”

No, no, no.
What was happening here? His toxic hope was quickly bleeding into fear. That’s why Sasha was worried? Not about his love life—she was worried something had happened to Evelyn. Sasha was one of the best supernatural specialists they had. She had instincts to burn. She didn’t worry over nothing.

“Give me your phone.” He knew Evelyn wouldn’t answer a call from him, and he had to see this with his own eyes. Sasha handed him her phone piece, and he stuck his thumb against the scanner.

“Permission granted,” Sasha said to her phone, preempting the volley of security questions coming his way.

“Call Evelyn Vale,” he told the phone.

A moment later, the computer-generated operator announced that Evelyn wasn’t available and told him that she already had six messages waiting from Sasha’s number, confirming that he’d like to leave a seventh. “Hey, Doc…” he answered. “Call me. Sasha is worried about you.”

He handed the phone back to Sasha and met her eyes. He knew if he could see his own expression, it would be full of fear. “Come with me. We’re going to ops control and getting this cleared up.”

They opened the door, and Eric Haveland was still reclining against the wall, waiting. He was a huge man and a good Sentinel, and Jesse didn’t mind the back up today. “What are you doing, Haveland? Interviewing for a position in my unit?”

“Nah. I just can’t handle being bored on my days off. So where are we going, and whose ass are we going to kick? ”

“That remains to be determined. Maybe it’s nothing and Sasha beating the crap out of my door is the most exciting thing you’re gonna see today.” God, he hoped so.

Jesse touched the earpiece in his ear as he walked quickly down the hall, his stride eating up the ground. “This is Commander Hayes. Who’s in charge of ops control today?”

Jesse took the stairs two at a time, navigating the hallways to get to the secure portion of the campus that housed operations control.

“Me, sir. Nick Jones.”

“Nick, I’m outside. Open the door.”

Jesse didn’t often go into the operations room, and Nick seemed surprised to the point of inaction.

“Nick…” Jesse said, when nothing happened. “Open the damn door. That’s an order.”

When Nick cracked the door open, Jesse yanked it wide and strode inside. Eric and Sasha were right behind him. It was wall to wall screens and tech gadgets. About a dozen keyboard pounders tracked Sentinel movements, monitored bounty assignments and took complaint calls coming in from the local public, much like the police force used to do.

“I need you to locate Dr. Vale for me,” Jesse said.

Nick was wearing a shirt with his favorite rock band on it and jeans that could use a dip in the washing machine, but only people who were smart as hell controlled this room.

“Dr. Vale signed out for the last time this morning.”

“Did she have her vitals scanner removed yet?” Jesse asked.

Nick shook his head. “No, she has an appointment next week to get that and her birth control chip removed. The clinic was booked solid today.”

“So you could track her?”

Nick frowned and shook his head. “Not anymore. Once she resigned and the steward signed her release, we don’t have the authority to track her unless she’s under investigation.”

Jesse glowered at the man but spoke to Sasha. “How much time off will I get for bashing this ops controller’s face into his keyboard until he doesn’t have any front teeth left?”

Sasha shrugged. “You’re under so much stress. I mean, not being able to question the man you put into a coma last night? I don’t think the steward would blame you, Commander. I’d say three days, tops.”

Eric stepped closer to the ops controller. “You can’t afford the time off. Let me do it.”

Nick turned to his keyboard and started punching keys. “Dr. Evelyn Vale… Coming right up.” He stared at the screen. “Oh, shit. I don’t think you’re going to like this.”

Jesse’s heart almost stopped beating. “What is it? How are her vitals?” Was she being possessed by some bastard spirit right this minute?

“Well, that’s the thing. She has no vitals.”

It took Jesse a minute to even comprehend the controller’s words. “What the fuck are you talking about—no vitals? What does that mean?”

Nick looked truly frightened, either of Jesse or for Evelyn. Maybe both. “It means someone either removed her chip or…she has no heartbeat to speak of.”

“Can you track it?”

“No sir. It’s not sending a signal, which means it’s either malfunctioned or it’s been destroyed.”

Everything in Jesse stilled. Instead of fear, he felt absolute clarity. The universe couldn’t be that cruel. He couldn’t learn that Evelyn really did love him just to lose her forever now. No, he would find her. He would save her. And he would never let her go again. That was the only acceptable outcome.

“I need two hovercopters ready in the next five minutes,” he said to Nick. “Sasha take two men with you to Evelyn’s parents’ place, just in case she shows up there. Collin can pilot your copter. Haveland, can you still operate a hovercopter?”

Eric nodded. Any fun he’d been having died when he’d heard the news about Evelyn’s chip. He was all business now. “Hell, yes.”

“Then what are we still standing here for?”