Seeker of Shadows (10 page)

He would have taken her right there on the floor with the slightest encouragement, without a thought to who she was, what she was, or who she belonged to, so lost to mating madness nothing mattered but finding a way inside her as quickly as possible.

Madness. No other way to describe it.

You’d think he was a rutting youth sniffing out his first female.

You’d think he’d discovered his one and only all over again.

But the fragile Chosen doctor was not his chosen mate despite what his pounding desires told him. He’d lost that treasured female when his memories were torn from him, her fate unknown to him. He’d lost his right to be content. He’d failed her and he couldn’t go forward because there was no going back to right whatever terrible mistake he’d made that had erased her from his future. There was only here and now and at the moment, he couldn’t bear the bleakness of that knowledge.

Jacques pulled a bottle from the neat lineup, carrying it without the civility of a glass to a table where he could drink without being seen through the one-way office window. The first long swallow was as harsh as his mood, burning his throat, wetting his eyes. After that, like his situation, it lost the power to hurt him.

Susanna gave up on trying to work. Her thoughts were fragmented; her emotions, rarely tested or tried, were in a knot. Fatigue and sorrow twisted about the sense of blame that refused to let her alone.

She’d done the right thing. Seven years ago, she’d done the only thing she could to save them all. There’d been no other choice, no options, and if she hadn’t let him go, instead of pacing the floor in an agony of frustration, he’d be dead. That simple.

But knowing that truth didn’t lessen her pain.

She couldn’t destroy him with the knowledge that had her heart breaking.

Damien Frost wasn’t her bonded mate. He was.

Tears burned in her eyes as she watched his restless movements, knowing he struggled against feelings he couldn’t understand. His desire for her wasn’t natural, not like the earthy affection he had for his female staff, yet it couldn’t be broken by distance or anger or the drink he finally reached for. Its power couldn’t be explained, rejected, or denied. She knew. She felt it, too.

She could still taste him, feel him, smell him. Wanting him growled through her like a hungry beast, terrifying in its strength, devastating in its potential.

And it would only get more difficult.

She had family; he had a life here. Their politics, their pursuits, their physiology, none of them were compatible. There was no hope for a future, no solution now, any more than there had been then. She’d been wrong to think so once, but she’d been young and giddy with passion. Now, she had no excuse, only a sad sense of culpability as she watched him find solace in alcohol-drenched dreams.

Resigned, she shut down the computer, unable to endure another minute of the self-destructive torture. But she did leave a note, printing neatly on a cocktail napkin, “Have gone home. S,” tucking it gingerly beneath the motionless stretch of his fingers. So he wouldn’t worry. It took every ounce of her willpower not to touch that still hand or stubbled cheek.

The misty new dawn air felt good against her skin as she walked the quiet streets. The exercise freed her
from the tension twining through her. She’d ask Nica to return the foolish purchases she’d made and to find her another place to work, one without dangers or distractions. She’d concentrate on her research and let Jacques LaRoche get back to his gumbo. She couldn’t afford to put herself in his way again lest both their wills give way.

She hadn’t come to New Orleans to relive an ill-fated past. She’d come to guarantee a future for the child she loved more than herself.

As she moved along the uneven sidewalks, Susanna’s focus returned with a renewed purpose. Her thoughts stepped free of miring emotions in pursuit of scientific avenues. As she climbed the stairs to her borrowed apartment, she was busy formulating the direction of her next twofold study to restore life in one and protect life in another. First she’d attend to her body’s need for sleep, then she’d be ready to attack her work with new vigor.

Using the key Nica had given her, she unlocked the door and stepped into the dark living area. Just enough light filtered through from the large windows on either end of the narrow shotgun apartment for her to find her way over to the café-sized table to place her satchel on the floor. She gave a slow stretch to release the tension in her shoulders.

That’s when her weary gaze caught on the glitter of broken glass on the floor beneath the windowsill.

Something moved behind her, a shift of shadows without sound.

Before Susanna could turn, a rough hand clamped over her mouth, effectively stifling her scream.

The scent of coffee cut through the heavy fog of Jacques’s dreams. Probably the same way it would eat through the table if spilled.

Nica couldn’t have made worse coffee if she used kerosene instead of water.

He slit open his eyes to see the sturdy ceramic cup next to his nose resting at an odd angle, then realized his head was lying on the tabletop. Beyond the mug, he could see the fuzzy outline of a nearly empty bottle of bourbon. If he poured the remainder into the cup, would it improve the taste?

He tried to sit up. Bad idea. With an anguished moan, he gave up on the attempt.

A light kiss brushed his throbbing temple, followed by the plop of a cold bar rag.

“Morning, boss.”

“Don’t yell,” he groaned.

Nica’s chuckle danced behind his closed eyes like shards of chipped ice.

“Want me to see if I can find a bendy straw so you can sip your coffee without moving your head?”

“That would be nice. Thank you.” He let himself drift in that dark, quiet world on the inside of his eyelids for a moment, then muttered, “Do I care what time it is?”

“Time for all good boys to be out earning a living. Don’t worry. I called you in sick.”

“Did I ever tell you hiring you was the smartest move I ever made?”

“No, but it’s nice to hear.” She rubbed his shoulder affectionately. “You’d better drink up. You’ve got company.”

Something in her tone alerted him enough to risk opening one eye all the way.

Max sat across from him, wearing one of his expensive suits and an inscrutable expression. “We need to talk,” was all he said.

Jacques dragged himself upright in the chair, brushing at his rumpled shirt and reaching for the coffee cup with a less than steady hand. After the second swallow, the taste and the caffeine struck a jarring two-fisted blow, allowing him to focus in surly humor.

“You got nothing to say to me for months and all of a sudden you want to talk,” he growled. “So talk. What’s on your mind, Savoie?”

If his tone hit a nerve, the suave clan leader never betrayed it. “Charlotte flew to California this morning. She’s bringing her friend Mary Kate Malone back with her. She seems to think the woman you’ve been harboring here can somehow repair her injuries. Where would she have gotten that idea?”

Affecting a casual shrug was worth the pain it caused him. “Not from me. I don’t go around pretending to be more than what I am.”

Max never blinked. “Who is she?”

“A doctor, that’s all I know.”

“And you didn’t notice anything different about her?”

“She’s a nice dresser and has good manners,” Jacques offered, being deliberately obtuse in hopes of provoking a response. But Max sat calm and closed off from whatever was going on behind his cool green eyes. Eyes that lifted from him to glance across the room.

Ah, the other side of the coin. Jacques scowled as MacCreedy strode toward them. He was also dressed for work: a cheap navy blue suit coat to cover his police-issue sidearm, plain tie knotted about a white collared shirt and jeans. Nica met him at the table, scooping her arms about his middle as she tipped her face up to receive his quick kiss. Hard to miss the way his steely stare warmed when it touched on her and harder not to like him for it.

“Anything?” she asked.

“Made a mess of things. Probably cost me my damage deposit.”

Jacques suddenly sobered. They were talking about MacCreedy’s apartment.

Susanna
.

His focus honed in on a damp paper square left for him on the table. A sharp punch of alarm had him staggering to his feet. “What’s going on? What are you talking about?”

Nica’s words stabbed to the heart of him. “There were a couple of guys going through Silas’s apartment when Susanna got there.” Seeing the emotion jump in
his gaze, she quickly reassured him. “She’s okay. She called me and I brought her back here.”

“When was this?”

“About a half hour ago.”

Jacques pulled his cell phone from his back pocket and there it was. Missed call at 6:45
A.M
. She’d been in danger. She’d called him and he hadn’t answered.

Max directed his question to MacCreedy. “Were they there for you or her?”

Silas’s hand stroked soothingly over Nica’s hair as her arms tightened about him, his attention on Savoie. “I don’t know, but I don’t think it would be a good idea for either of us to go back there.”

Jacques turned toward the blank office window as a terrible guilt twisted about the residuals of his fear. Again, his emotions careened wildly, way outside the normal spectrum of concern that he should have felt for a near stranger.

Forgetting the small gathering at his table, he started to move away, unable to satisfy his anxiety until he saw for himself that she was unharmed.

Max’s hand caught about his wrist.

“She’s a danger to us,” he summed up with that cold, conclusive way he had. “She needs to go.”

“You don’t get to make that decision. She’s under my protection.”

Max’s unblinking stare called him on that.
And look what a good job you’ve been doing with that so far.
Aloud, he said, “What do you know about her? Do you know why she’s here, who she works
for? She could be an infiltrator. We need to get rid of her now.”

The back of Jacques’s neck prickled and his canine teeth lengthened as he drawled, “I didn’t know anything about your agenda when I took you in. Look how well that turned out for me, for all of us. You don’t get to choose when it’s convenient to care about what goes on here, and you don’t get to play leader of the pack only when it suits you. Susanna Duchamps is with me now, and only I get to say when she comes and goes. Worry about your own female’s agenda and leave mine to me.”

He could have been mistaken but it looked as though Nica did a quick fist pump.

“Jacques,” Max began, but LaRoche cut him off angrily.

“Maybe you should keep to your own place to do your business and leave us here to take care of our own. Seems like one has nothing to do with the other anymore.”

He pulled his arm back, knowing he couldn’t break Savoie’s grip unless he chose to let him go. The tight band of fingers loosened, allowing Jacques to jerk free and continue without a backward glance toward his office and the female waiting there.

The female he’d just publicly declared was his responsibility.

One he’d failed miserably.

Seven

T
here were no lights on in the room. Susanna sat on one of the couches, her slight figure steeped in shadows. Her head lifted when she heard him come in, giving him a brief glimpse of her pale features before it lowered again, masking her face behind the curtain of her mussed hair.

“I should have listened to you.” Her words were quiet and inflectionless. “I didn’t and I’m sorry.”

She
was sorry. It took Jacques a moment to process that. She thought
she
was to blame.

When he was able to speak, his voice growled like thunder. “Get your things. You’re coming home with me.”

No argument. No hesitation. That in itself alarmed him as she shouldered the straps to her bulky purse and gathered the bags from her earlier shopping spree. She wouldn’t meet his gaze as she approached in silence, and that uncharacteristic humility added weight to his guilt. She stopped when his hand touched her shoulder but didn’t wince beneath the slight press of his fingers.

“Do you trust me, Susanna?”

She glanced up then, surprised because he hadn’t
used her first name before this. Still, no expression registered as she told him, “Not at first, but I do now.”

Something about that small admission wedged up in his throat, forcing him to clear it before he could ask, “Do you need to get anything from the apartment?”

Her shudder was slight but unmistakable. “No. I don’t want to go back there.”

“I have a toothbrush you can use.”

A very faint smile. “Then I have everything I need.”

If she’d been his as he’d boldly snarled below, Jacques would have snatched her up close and simply held her. But she wasn’t, so he didn’t. Instead, he stepped back, letting her precede him to the car parked in the rear alley. He never spared the small group down by the bar a glance or another thought.

Susanna sat still and silent while Jacques drove. Her only sign of agitation was in the quick, shaky pulls of breath that seemed unusually loud over the banging in his head. Her hands rested in a relaxed pose on her knees. He frowned at the sight of blood on one of them.

“Are you hurt?”

She blinked up at him in confusion.

“Did they hurt you?”

She shook her head, then followed his nod to her stained fingertips. Her gaze fixed there for a long moment. “I scratched one of them on the neck.”

“Did you see their faces?” He was careful to keep his tone level as fury began to boil up inside him.

“No, not really. It was dark and they surprised me. I’m afraid I’m not a very good witness.”

His jaw clenched tight as he kept his eyes on the road. “I’m sorry,” he said at last, unprepared for her startled look.

“About what? None of this was your fault. I was careless. You have every right to be angry.”