Tempting Gray - Untouchables 02 (5 page)

“What’s the significance of the hairbrush?” Ara
asked. She wanted to touch it. She had to curl her hands into fists to keep
from reaching out to stroke the brush. Its memories called to her like whispers
in the back of her mind.

Touch me and know my story,
the whispers said.

“There is none,” he answered, voice removed of
any inflection.

“Is this hers?” she asked.

“Yes.” It was almost a hiss of sound. Zeke
stared at the brush as if it were both the bane of his existence and his
lifeline. His eyes glowed with an eerie light as the animal inside him
struggled to surface. He fought the need to change and was making it look
simple. Most weres, once the urge to shift came over then, could not refuse the
temptation. Zeke did and he looked so scary doing it, Ara backed away a step
out of fear.

“What exactly do you need me to do?”

He took his time to answer her. “My mate has
blue eyes hair like spun gold. Her beauty makes women weep. Others only wish
they could look as lovely as my mate does.” He picked up the brush, tossing it
back and forth from hand to hand as if it were a ball and not some precious
item. “She used to brush her hair with this. It’s all I have of her.”

A spark of trepidation skittered down her spine
like an insect crawling on bare skin. “H-how long ago was this?”

His eyes and mouth twitched in unison, and his
head jerked. “Many years. Eighty-eight years. Or was it two-hundred and
eighty-eight years ago?” His wide, haunted gaze slid up to the ceiling. “Black…blonde.
No, dammit, remember,” he muttered. Pacing around the tent, he mumbled to
himself every now and then looking back up at the ceiling or over at the
hairbrush as if it was a puzzle. “Eighty…eighty-eight. One hundred years. She
has brown eyes.”

Before Ara could say a word about how his mate’s
description kept changing, Zeke spun around and held out the hairbrush.

“Take it and tell me what you see.”

Her stomach knotted. “Listen, that’s not how it
works. I’ve never tried to find anyone using an object from so long ago. I need
more information before I touch that brush.” Crescent divots were being
embedded in her palms from her fingernails digging in.

“I’ve told you enough!”

“Well, what’s her name? How old is she? Is she
a Were, too?”

“Olivia. My sweet Olivia.” He went quiet,
contemplative. “She is human. She is mine, and I cannot find her. That’s what
you need to know.”

“If she’s human then…then…” How did she ask him
how his human mate could possibly be alive after so long. Unless she’d lived to
be quite old.

“She’s human and she is alive.” He spoke as if
distracted by other more important thoughts.

“How do you know that?”

He didn’t answer.

“What’s her last name?”

No answer.

“What color hair does she have?”

Nothing.

Ara sighed. Her excitement at his assignment
had taken a nosedive into a pile of shit. “Well…I’ll touch the brush, but I can’t
guarantee anything. I’ve never tried to track a person through an object so
old. And I’ve never done it on such little information on the person I’m
looking for.”

He said nothing, merely held the brush out to her.

She took it, fingers wrapping around the warmed
metal handle. It was heavy. A few pounds at least. They certainly didn’t make
brushes like this anymore. This was meant to last a lifetime, and well, it had
in a way.

“Tell me what you see.”

Ara met his gaze and nearly jumped. Lucid eyes
stared back at her.

She ran her thumb over the soft bristles and
closed her eyes. Her ‘ability’ as others liked to call it worked in a way that
was hard to explain. She could touch certain objects and then track that person
down. As far as she knew there was nobody else like her. Her father used to say
she was one of a kind. Yeah, except she’s never wanted to be. For years, she’d
yearned to be normal, still did some days.

Never had she been given a task like this. To
find a woman without any details, who may or may not be alive seeing as she’s
human, and the object she was touching was old. None of those factors would
benefit her. Could she even receive an image off an object so old? There was
only one way to find out.

Ara’s eyes slid shut. She quieted her thoughts
into a meditative-like state. With brush in hand she stroked it, touched it
everywhere. The bristles brushed across her sensitive fingertips. The metal
warmed in her palm. Her mind quieted. Once her father had asked her how she did
it, how she could touch an object and find the person who used that item.

Ara had been young at the time and unable to
really answer her father. Most of what her abilities rested on were her
feelings and images much like a movie. Only, as she held the brush, nothing
happened. Not a stirring of feelings, not a flash of an image. It was as if the
link to the brush was broken.

She opened her eyes to find the alpha staring
intently at her. “Well?” he demanded.

“I—” It was on the verge of her tongue to lie.
To say she’d found something she hadn’t. But she couldn’t do that. “I didn’t
see anything. Listen, maybe if I have more time to focus I can pick up
something.”

Zeke snatched the brush back from her with such
force she gasped. He shoved it back into its box, and slammed the lid closed.
Then he did something that completely took Ara by surprise—he handed her the
box.

“Take it and find her. My Olivia.”

She nearly argued. To be quite frank, she had
no idea if she could get a ‘feel’ off the hairbrush at all. It’s possible it
was too old or didn’t hold a significant connection to this Olivia. Or if she
was dead then…well, there was that, Ara noted.

But she didn’t say any of those things. “I’ll
see what I can do.”

Zeke grinned. “I knew you would.”

The way he said it…like he knew all along that
she’d agree. Even before she did. But that would be impossible.

Grayson sat in his boss’s office. They might as
well be throwing a party for how many people were here for this meeting. His
brother, Vas, had come, his co-workers, Graham, Jonathan, Eric, Suzanne, and of
course his boss, TJ. TJ sat behind her desk dwarfed by her huge chair, which
was far too large for her petite frame.

“Tell me what happened.” This TJ demanded of
Grayson leaving him no choice but to rehash yesterday’s botched assignment—to keep
Winston alive. Fail, fail, fail. Fuck, it made him so mad he wanted to find a
face to beat in just to let off some steam. The idea was so tempting, Gray
found his gaze meeting his brother, Vas’s from across the room. Maybe if he
threw the first punch his brother would go with it and attack. That’s exactly
what he needed. Something physical to let out the stress and tension from that
past two days. Hell, from the last twelve years.

Vas cocked an eyebrow at Gray. His brother’s
face was scarred from a number his psycho-ex pulled on him. While the scars did
detract from Vas’s abundant physical attractiveness, it added a layer of depth
to the man that brought nothing but curiosity. The fact that he was so damn
close-mouthed about what actually happened used to drive Gray mad. Now he
understood. Some things were personal. People didn’t need to know about the
fucked up shit happening in his life, just as he didn’t need to know what
happened to Vas’s face.

Gray had
never
lost a client. Not once.
And he’d been doing this job for a very long time.

After he finished telling the group about what happened,
quiet settled in. This was one of those times Gray wanted to clam up, just
leave this place behind. He’d take it to the grave if he could. Like hell he
could get away with that.

“Since you’re the only one not up to speed, let
me catch you up,” TJ told Grayson. She wore her ginger hair cut short but
feminine. She wore power suits and high heels yet had the sex appeal of a
mouse. “You killed Domico Donato. He’s the youngest son of Vincent Donato.
Maybe that name rings a bell to you. Vincent and his sons run the largest
paranormal black market in the world.”

“Well now they have one less son,” Gray
remarked.

“We already know that Vincent has learned of
his son’s death,” Graham said. He was a favorite of Grayson’s, not that he’d
never tell the man so. Nothing like having a big, strong Were at your side on
the job. Hell, Gray could have used his services last night. Then maybe he
wouldn’t be sitting here feeling like his head was about to split open.

“Now the operation is left to Vincent and his
only remaining son, Jericho,” TJ said. “He’s known as ‘The Butcher’ amongst
enemies. It seems Jericho prefers his knife and machete for doing dirty work.”

“Oh yeah?” Gray patted his pockets until he
found his pack of smokes. Only three left. Just fucking great. Even though he
wanted nothing more than to light one up right now, he refrained himself. God knows
he’d be chain smoking after this meeting.

“Grayson, I urge you to use extreme caution. I
already upped up security at your house,” TJ said.

“Tomorrow I’m going to set up and upgrade the
security system,” Vas said. He was good with technology: computers, software,
hacking. He always had a phone or some kind of device on him. Even now he kept
glancing down at his phone like he might miss something important. Gray didn’t
get it, maybe never would. He didn’t own a computer or any of that. What was
the point?

“I tapped into some of our underground
resources. They say Domico went after Winston because he lost a bet. A big bet.
One so big his daddy would be awfully upset to hear about,” said Suzanne, their
liaison to narcs everywhere.

“How much?” TJ asked.

Suzanne answered, “Youngest boy loses
twenty-five million, gets scared and goes after the man he lost it to. Maybe he
thought he could get the money back.”

And now they were both dead. What a shit-storm.

They all talked around him, comparing and
questioning and hypothesizing about what would happen next. Grayson didn’t
care. He only half-listened as he stared at the navy blue carpet beneath his
feet. In his mind he was someplace else entirely. At the beach with warm water
lapping at his bare feet. If he thought about it hard enough he swore he could
feel the wet sand giving way beneath his weight, the coarse granules sliding
across the top of his feet. He conjured an image to mind of the ocean, standing
on the shore in the moonlight with only the water to keep him company.

But the fragile fantasy broke apart with one
intruding thought—
you’ve never been there
. He’d seen water, lots of
water. Lakes, streams, or ponds did nothing to instill tranquility. And his
fantasy would always be just that. He would never stand on a beach with his shoes
off without any worries, without stress weighing him down. This was a fantasy
because it would never come true. At least he had no false hopes about his
life. He had a sick mate, getting sicker by the day it seemed, and he’d failed
on the job letting a client be murdered.

“Also, according to my sources they know it was
Grayson who killed him,” Suzanne was still going on.

Gray stood up and headed for the door. He was
done. Nothing important was happening here. He’d killed the kid and now the
Donato family wanted justice. There wasn’t anything Gray didn’t understand
about the situation. What he didn’t want was to sit here and listen to everyone’s
thoughts about it.

“I’ll take care of it.”

Grayson’s words silenced the room bringing all
eyes to him.

“How do you plan to do that?” TJ asked.

“They will find me. And I’ll kill them.”

“Do you believe it will be that easy, Grayson?”
TJ’s expression remained unrevealing as always.

“It doesn’t matter what I believe.”

His comment only sparked more discussion. A throbbing
beat slammed against his temples. The only reprieve came when he closed his
eyes. There wouldn’t be any time for relaxing. Not anytime soon, maybe never.

The phone on TJ’s desk rang. She answered. Then
Graham’s phone went off followed by Suzanne’s. Everyone answered and stiffed in
an almost comical way. It was the way someone looked after they’d just been
told bad news.

TJ hung up the phone which clattered in the
receiver. Grayson watched pensively. Her hand trembled. As his mind took in
everyone’s reactions to the phone calls a disquieting silence filled the room.

“Grayson…” His boss, his ever stoic and
intelligent boss was the only one who could meet his gaze.

“What happened?” he asked.

“It’s Anita—”

He flew from the room. Voices shouted after him.
He didn’t slow. He made it to his SUV and sped home at dangerous speeds. Cars
narrowly moved out of the way as he honked and weaved his way in and out of
traffic. The normal thirty-odd minute drive was done in half that.

Pulling to a stop out front of his house,
Grayson didn’t think—he ran. His mouth was dry as the desert and tightness
squeezed his chest. He felt like he was suffocating.

Inside the front door he slammed to a stop as
if he’d run into an invisible barrier. The stench. Oh, god, the stench of
blood. It permeated everything. It might as well be painted on the walls. But
where was it? Where were the guards that TJ had ordered?

When he swallowed it felt like he was eating
nails. “Anita!” he roared, desperate to hear an answer. Not a sound. Not even a
whisper.

Heart pounding like a jackhammer in his
eardrums, Grayson made his way to the hallway. There, he found it. The walls
were
painted with blood. The blood of guards. Their dead bodies had been tossed
in the hallway like bags of trash. Dead Weres, dead vampires. He recognized
their faces. Every single one of them he’d worked with. They were great, the
best.

“Anita,” he said again, this time much softer.

He knew. Deep in his gut he already knew.
Stepping over the bodies, he made his way to the back of the house. To where
the nursery and their bedroom sat. The pressure in his chest became suffocating,
making his lips part just to suck in desperate breaths.

The nursery door stood ajar. Light spilled out
from the room. Grayson closed his eyes feeling wetness there, wetness he hadn’t
felt in god knows how long. With the push of his hand he sent the nursery door
open—and opened his eyes.

Oh no. Oh god.
No!
It can’t be. Not her.
Not his Anita.

His knees gave out and he collapsed. Hot tears
spilled down his cheeks. He crawled to the lifeless body lying in the center of
the nursery floor. The blood had soaked deep into the carpet staining it red
around her in a morbid halo.

“
 
’Nita?” He spoke to her as if there was
any chance of her survival when her head rested a foot away from her body,
detached.

She still wore the same white nightgown from
yesterday. Her hair was matted from where they’d grabbed her and used her hair
as leverage while they cut…

He couldn’t finish thinking the thought.

With trembling hands he pulled her head back
down to the severed skin of her neck, making her look joined once more.

“
 
’Nita!” The scream came suddenly from
his throat, from a desperate sense of hopelessness and loss. Tears came harder,
hindering his view of her. He wiped them away furiously as he cradled his dead
mate his arms. “I didn’t save you. I didn’t save you.”

Warm blood coated his fingers. She was covered
in it. He didn’t know how long he lay there holding her but it wasn’t long
enough. It would never be long enough. Using his fingers he combed and smoothed
her dark hair around her pale face. He closed her open eyelids and pressed a
kiss to her lips.

On her neck in blistering red skin was the Donato
stamp.
They’d stamped her before they killed her.
The skin was irritated
and he knew it’d hurt like a son of a bitch when they pressed the silver stamp
tight to her neck.

Below the stamp they’d sawed her head off. It
wasn’t even a clean cut. It looked ragged like they’d used a serrated blade
meant to deal the most pain. They’d wanted this to hurt. She’d died in agony.
Streaks of tears had dried in paths down her face.

He hadn’t been there to protect her. He could
have saved her.

You couldn’t even save her from the bottle. You
really think you could have saved her from the Donatos?

Ugly thoughts ate him up inside, twisting his
innards into knots.

Grayson lay next to Anita with his arm across
her waist while memorizing her face when the others showed.

Vas, Graham, the whole team had come. The rest
of the Blackmoore family soon followed. They tried to talk to him but he had
nothing to say. Not a single thing.

When they tried to touch her, to move her, he
snapped, slammed his fist into the unlucky person’s face—it was Dominic, his
older brother. Dom didn’t attack back, merely backed away, nodding. It wasn’t
time yet. They couldn’t take her away. Not his
bruid
. Not Anita. She was
the only thing he had.

Eventually they did wrest him away from her. It
was a battle. He fought until all three of his brothers had to pin him against
the wall to keep him from going after those who touched her. Only after a crew
of people wrapped Anita’s body in white gauze and took her away did Gray
finally collapse into his brothers’ embrace.