Seeker of Shadows (4 page)

But to see and experience what life could be if she dared embrace it . . . A life denied her in the rigid North. A life of emotion.

Those feelings ran rampant now, thrilling and terrifying her.

New Orleans was everything her life in Chicago was not. It exploded with sensory temptations. Standing at the open window, she let the sensations drift over her like the caress of a lover’s hands.

The warmth of the evening air seeped in to stimulate her soul. The city’s heart beat with energy, with its sultry mélange of cultures and music. Its aroma enticed her. There was nothing to smell in her clinical confines in the North. Here, every inhalation was a potent potpourri of flavors, laced with a tang of salt and an earthy sense of history. Rich, deep, beckoning odors, not all of which were pleasant. The intensity overwhelmed her as she breathed in and savored the olfactory sensation.

Only once before had she felt so alive, so eager to embrace a new awareness with all five senses as they stirred restlessly within her. She’d been young then, too naïve to know caution, to understand the power of such emotions while caught up in her desperate wonder. She hadn’t thought of consequence then. Now, she couldn’t afford not to.

She stepped away from the window, but left it open to invite in the tease of nightfall. She used the Spartan bathroom to shower away the stale drag of travel, then returned to the bedroom, determined to unwind. But how could she close her eyes and deny herself the joys that seduced her?

The circling of the ceiling fan moved the silk of her
pajamas against her skin in an unbearable ripple, creating shivers of memory.

Making Susanna think of his hands upon her.

Jacques LaRoche.

She hadn’t expected to see him here. She hadn’t wanted to know where he’d gone, fearing she couldn’t resist the need to follow. Seeing him in that doorway had shocked her system almost beyond recovery. But over these past years, she’d learned to rebound quickly without betraying any personal impact. She’d had to in order to protect those things that mattered most.

Jacques LaRoche. That wasn’t who he’d been when she’d known him.

Stretching out on the big yielding bed beneath the cool, rhythmic pulse of the fan, Susanna shut her eyes and allowed herself to picture him at the Shifter club. Big, bold, dangerously magnetic. She struggled against that fateful pull of attraction, but finally gave in, at least for this private moment. Her sigh trembled with complex longing as she superimposed the image she’d carried in her heart of the first time she’d seen him.

He was the first shape-shifter Susanna had ever met up close, and despite her outcries for equality between Chosen and Shifter kind, he’d scared her to death with his rough intensity. Chosen males were refined and gracefully made. Her Shifter bodyguard was built like a fortress instead of a cathedral, all blunt, sturdy fortifications of muscle upon a massive utilitarian frame.

The fit of his black one-piece uniform had done little to disguise his blatant power as fabric strained
to contain broad chest and wide shoulders. Even his features seemed hewn from granite by fierce, chopping blows instead of artful strokes, each line strong and squared from jaw to heavy brow. Upon that brutal facade, his full lips seemed overtly sensual even when unsmiling.

But his eyes had held her captive. From his position of servitude, they should have been kept submissively downcast. To look boldly upon her could have meant his death. But as she listened to her guardian explain how to use the remote controller as a safety measure to keep her new servant in check, he’d slipped a rebellious glance up at her. She hadn’t expected eyes so startlingly blue beneath the slash of dark brows. Or a stare so penetrating. Instead of alarm, she’d experienced a sudden tremor as forbidden as it was unwise.

Her first thrill of sexual awakening.

He’d changed little since that day. The same long legs and barrel chest, brawny arms and menacing scowl. But the thick hair she’d loved to feel between her fingers had been shaved to a dark, downy shadow like the whisker stubble that gave him such rugged ferocity. His skin was darkly tanned, even the expanse of his chest displayed by the deep veed opening of his underbuttoned shirt. Her gaze could have lingered there all night, and loitered now in her recollections.

She still found him breathtaking. That hadn’t changed.

He hadn’t recognized her, which was both relief and curse. The confident way he carried himself said he was
no longer anyone’s slave, but his own master, and she couldn’t have been more proud of him. He’d done well on his own. Better than he could have managed had he remained at her side.

That was some consolation on this lonely night, one of thousands since they’d parted.

It was foolish to indulge in such thoughts, to invite the warm curl of memories to heat her blood and stir long dormant passions. Foolish
and
dangerous, that temptation to play the
What if?
game.

What if she’d made a different choice?

Three

N
ow we’re of one mind, one heart, one soul. Nothing will ever separate us again. There’s still doubt in your eyes. Let me prove you wrong.”

Her mouth took his with a convincing fervor, tongue teasing, then plunging deep. She tasted of desire and dreams. Her hand closed possessively about him, warm, soft, determined, arousing beyond his wildest imaginings with her unskilled strokes.

As his breaths quickened, he began to believe the words she said were true.

Let them be true!

Jacques had jerked from sleep to find himself alone in the hot, sweaty tin can of his trailer, his breathing ragged, and so painfully hard it took some urgent pounding in the shower to beat out the tension. But when he stopped at the club to do some paperwork before his shift at the docks, that restlessness returned. Because the scent of the Chosen female lingered.

Jacques leaned back in his office chair and rubbed at his eyes. He hadn’t woken from one of those agitating dreams in a long while and he knew it was the outsider’s presence that brought them back to torment him.

Dreams or memories, he was never sure, but their power to disturb him lasted for hours, sometimes days. No amount of work or alcohol or companionable sex could fill the emptiness, yet he couldn’t convince himself he was free to commit to another.

Because he knew his mated female yet lived. Somewhere. He just didn’t know how to find her.

That was the hell of it. As long as that frustrating bond existed, he was stuck in an emotional limbo, unable to move on. Like being mired in the bayou up the heart with no way to pull himself out, yet unable to sink into a peaceful oblivion. Sometimes he got so weary of the struggle, he longed for that permanent surrender. Anything was better than the loneliness that constantly cut away pieces of any hope he held for happiness.

Movement caught his eye out on the floor. The exterior doors were still locked so he knew it had to be one of the staff coming in early. He smiled as he recognized Nica’s bold stride. He liked the tough female for her cleverness and swagger, and had briefly entertained the idea that maybe he and she . . . But then she’d gotten a look at Silas MacCreedy, and never glanced away again. It had been the same with Savoie and his feisty human girlfriend.

Had it been like that for him and his mate? Wondering made him scowl. It did no good to look back when he knew there was nothing for him to find. All such things, all the personal and emotional details that shaped who and what he was had been torn
from his mind at the ruthless hands of their enemies in the North, leaving only questions. Had he left family behind? Was he a good man? What had he done to deserve exile from his own past, his own memories? An endless, agonizing swirl of unknowns.

Seeing the Chosen intruder in Nica’s shadow didn’t improve Jacques’s mood.

The dainty female, Susanna, waited rather nervously out amongst the lower tier of tables while Nica strode up to the office. He met her in the hall with a growl of, “Something wrong with your hearing, Fraser?”

“Forget how to be an obliging host, LaRoche?”

He could count the number of people on one hand he’d let get away with speaking to him with such boldness. Nica was lucky to be one of them. He trusted her, considered her a friend as well as an employee, who would never do anything to harm him or his. So why was she pushing on this particular hot spot? She knew the reasons for his wary prejudices, yet still she pressed. Which made him all the surlier.

“I told you not to bring her back in here.”

“Relax, boss. It’s not like I’m going to leave her unchaperoned. We need to use your computer for a minute, then we’ll be out of your hair.”

Jacques rubbed his palm over his shorn head with a grumbled, “Very funny.”

Nica touched his forearm. “It’s important. Please.”

The unexpected humility took him off guard, making him waiver, big softy that he was. They both knew
he was going to give in, but he made a masterful effort to appear undecided as he studied the interloper.

This morning, she wore a pair of beige tailored trousers with sensible heels and a silky cream-colored blouse. Her jewelry was simple and gold, her makeup meticulous, accentuating elfin features and big, doelike eyes. Fine, straight hair of rich caramel was tucked behind her ears, barely grazing a fragile jawline. She’d have been a perfect fit in the posh spires of City Central but her appearance was totally inappropriate for this end of the Quarter. An outsider who didn’t know how to blend. Trouble he didn’t need.

Trouble that had his palms sweaty as he caught himself imagining how soft and sleek her perfect skin would feel beneath them. And that suddenly had him recalling the erotic nature of his dream with an intensity that startled, alarmed, and dismayed him all at once.

“Make it quick. Lock up behind you.”

Something about the female had gotten tangled up in the threads of his fantasies, tying them together in a manner too intimate for close quarters. So he would back away, making her Nica’s problem until he could get a better handle on his unsettled feelings.

He wasn’t leaving Nica in charge because he trusted her. He didn’t trust himself to remain.

Susanna watched them talk, noting Jacques’s obvious displeasure. He knew she was Chosen, maybe from instinct rather than recognition, and he clearly wanted
no part of her. That was good, she thought, ignoring the tiny pang of anguish as he looked away from her dismissingly, as if she were nothing more than an annoyance. She didn’t react to the longing that swelled inside, an achy desire to see something else in his eyes. Better to not tempt fate, she told herself as her gaze followed his exit down the hall and out the rear door. He still moved like a brawler wading through a crowd.

And it still excited her heart into hurried palpitations.

“C’mon, Suze,” Nica called to her. “We don’t have much time before the first shift comes on.”

As Susanna stepped into the office, she paused to take in the music piped over the interior sound system.

“That’s Yo-Yo Ma’s Bach in G Major,” she murmured in surprise.

“If you say so.” Nica didn’t glance up from the computer keyboard. “The boss calls that highbrow stuff his thinking tunes. I had him pegged for a death metal man. Who would have thought, huh?”

Susanna thought it made perfect, if unnerving, sense.

Then she pushed thoughts of Jacques away.

Questions, probabilities, consequences, and potential all jockeyed for her attention, drawing her deeper into this opportunity to explore not only the scientific avenues, but the sociological as well. This was a culture openly scorned and despised by her own kind as ruthless and barbaric. Perhaps it was. Yet perhaps there were other things within it that her people feared.
Those things they’d separated themselves from with their lofty intentions and cold ambitions. Things she could examine and, if she was brave enough, enjoy so she could form her own conclusions, that until now had been a safe hypothesis within the isolated walls of her lab.

Nica brought up the files she’d gotten from NOLA chief medical examiner Dev Dovion. Samples from two individuals showing startling properties. She dropped into the desk chair, unable to take her eyes off the screen.

“I’ve never seen patterns like this. Who do these belong to?”

“Sorry,” Nica told her. “That’s confidential until you commit. How did you sleep last night?”

“Tossed and turned,” Susanna admitted as her gaze darted about the screen in amazement. “And I probably won’t sleep tonight after seeing this. Have you any idea—?”

“Yeah, I do. I wouldn’t have sent for you otherwise.” She leaned her forearms on the back of the chair and regarded the screen without comprehension. “What do you think?”

Susanna pointed out several groupings. “That’s Shifter.” She gestured to the other graphic. “That’s human.” Then she identified similar clusters in both. “But what’s this? It’s not Chosen. Is it some kind of mutation? Some anomaly?” Excitement trembled in her voice.

“Have you ever heard of the Ancients?”

Susanna twisted to look up at her. “The origin of our species? Is that what this is? Has the strain survived? How? In who?”

“I can’t just give you this information without some kind of assurance.” Nica straightened, her expression cautious, her eyes cool. “How’s your little girl?”

The unexpected turn of conversation struck the air out of Susanna’s lungs. Had she been foolish to consider Nica an ally? “Are you threatening my daughter?” she managed to gasp.

Not a muscle moved in Nica’s stoic face. “Chosen don’t honor family. They don’t hold to any kind of sentimental familial unit or emotional tie. I thought I was like that until I came here, until I met these people. They believe in that bond and hold it sacred above their own lives. I’ve come to feel the same way. I need to know if you can understand that concept so you’ll know to what lengths I’ll go to protect them.