The Hunted Read online

  As promised, his power was unprecedented . . . sultry, seductive, a force of animal nature that ran all through her. Primal to his very core. Oh, yes, this was so perfect. She closed her eyes, a low purr rumbling inside her chest. Baby, come to me . . . just tell me where you are.

  That he resisted her call, left it unanswered, amused her. Another dominant female had his attention at present . . . ah, logistics. But he had indeed paused, had swept his mind through his region, intrigued, sensing for the mystery of what could have stabbed into his libido so viciously. It was a curious thing, however. Prayer lines barricaded him? How so? Mild panic arrested her amusement. She didn’t sense that he was endangered, only that there was a barrier. His location was indefinable. No matter. The point was, he existed, had not perished, and had been promised to her.

  If his presence held that much charge while cloaked to the night, that far away, then an encounter would surely be worth unraveling the shadows around him.

  “Carlos,” she whispered. “It’s only a matter of time until I find you.” She laughed low, and deep, and sexy. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

  No answer.

  Frustration would not lay claim to her; she willed it away, but sent a very graphic representation of her skills into the night air with a desirous growl. She smiled as she again sensed him pause. Yes, think about that tonight . . . and do not ignore me again.

  With a sigh of exasperation, she dismounted in one fluid flex of her spine and landed on the ground on all fours. Her attention went to the nearby village. Her shape shifted into human female form. Flimsy doors, half-hearted prayers, open windows, adulterous men in the streets. Humans were so very careless.

  Carlos closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. She was walking, her long, confident strides fluid beneath her faded jeans. He loved the way every toned muscle beneath her gorgeous, bronzed skin worked as she moved. His mind seized upon the small tattoo at the base of her spine and caressed it. He could almost feel the soft texture of the fabric of her lemon-yellow tank top. He remembered her mouth, her kiss, her smile . . . One of her guardians was with her, making her laugh. He could literally taste the taco as she bit into it.

  “You’ve been monitoring her telepathically for a month, Carlos.”

  Father Patrick’s comment made the vision evaporate. Angered by the sudden loss, Carlos set his jaw hard and kept staring out the window.

  “We’re also no closer to finding out what is going on in South America,” he pressed on. “My visions reveal the deaths themselves, but not what caused them. Is it vampire? Maybe some of the hybrid things left over from before?”

  Carlos kept his back to the priest he’d come to call Father Pat. As his gaze remained fixed on the full September moon, harvest season ran through his mind. He sent a glare over his shoulder, and watched them bristle. Only Father Pat seemed cool.

  “I’ve told you a hundred times, if once, since I got here. This ain’t my kind—we don’t eat flesh.” He returned his gaze to the moon. “We’re purists. Only do blood.”

  “The hybrids from Nuit’s colony left sloppy signatures—real brutal bites that tore out organs,” Father Patrick countered.

  Carlos thought about it hard. The twisted bastards Nuit made had kept human body parts and meat hanging in their lair refrigerators . . . he was just glad he wasn’t one of them and had been made by council. His mind went to the young girl Nuit had gutted for his brothers to feed on. His kind was capable, but that was the new regime, not the old one. Something about this wasn’t right; he could feel that it wasn’t from the empire. “Those victims in Brazil didn’t get back up and turn,” he said after a moment, trying to convince himself that it wasn’t possible for vampires to be involved—like whether the victims turned or not really made a difference. He knew better than that. These were feed kills.

  But this was so damned boring. Carlos folded his arms over his chest. Just one night out . . . “Demons possess—so they’re careful about what they do to the bodies they plan on inhabiting. I told you that! They go in before the body is declared dead, or known to be dead by the living. That way, they can walk around undetected, and they can cast illusion to keep the living from seeing the decay—that’s why they smell the way they do. They’re fucking parasites.” He turned and looked at them hard. “I don’t think it was vamps, but I need to get out of here to really investigate. I need to employ all my senses to—”

  “No,” Padre Lopez said, fast. “That’s not part of the deal. You must avoid proximate occasions of sin until your willpower is stronger.”

  “Fuck it, then,” Carlos said, his tone a low grumble as he turned back to look at the moon. “Have it your way.” He closed his eyes. Good food and a good woman—that was what was in order.

  But he could feel the team at his back grow tense with his silence. Each one of them possessed a sensory gift, and if they were picking up half of what was on his mind, then they had every right to be concerned. Just the thought of a hunt was making his gums thicken, and thinking about Damali was having the same effect on his groin.

  Fully healed and well fed, he was out. But he had to play this cool and not get staked because he hadn’t been strategic. At night, Asula, Lin, and Father Lopez were always a little standoffish when he was awake and moving about in their section of the cabin quarters. He could dig it. He made them nervous, rightfully so. He could feel it as they continued to stare at his back, waiting for him to say something.

  “She’s still partially blind,” Carlos said softly. “I wanted to give it time to wear off . . . thought maybe it was temporary shock. That way, I wouldn’t have to go to her in person. She didn’t even move her compound like we thought she would. I don’t understand.”

  “This is what we feared,” Father Patrick said sadly, allowing Carlos to change the subject without resistance. “She doesn’t care about her own safety anymore.”

  “No . . . knowing Damali, she’s taken a stand. She’s even trying to book concerts all over the place. She’s thinking about working on a new CD. She’s just stronger, and not afraid anymore.” Carlos rubbed his jaw and let out a hard breath. “My baby is all grown up. I was the one who taught her to stand her ground, to claim her territory, and not be moved. Guess I was good for something.”

  He walked away from the window and then back toward it. The night was calling him, like a siren. He couldn’t stand being cooped up like this, or having to always roll with a cleric, lest he lose himself to temptation and have dinner in the streets. Watching Damali from afar had been Hell on earth.

  “Have you eaten yet tonight?” the monk named Lin asked in an apologetic, but nervous tone.

  “I’m not hungry, yet,” Carlos said with a lopsided smile, tilting his head and appraising the cleric in a way that he knew would engender fear.

  “Compadre, you should, uh, go to the refrigerator . . . there’s been new shipments.”

  Padre Lopez’s comment made his smile broaden. It was twisted, but he enjoyed fucking with these guys. He wasn’t sure why, but maybe it was lingering resentment over being so powerful a creature, held hostage by the legal technicalities of supernatural law. Seven years living with monks was definitely incarceration. Seven years of Damali living only a few miles away, but never being able to touch her, was working on the wrong side of his brain. He decided not to bear fangs, though. That always caused them to sweat and go into defense mode. Tonight a whiff of their adrenaline-soaked blood might push him over the edge.

  “I need to go out for a few hours,” he said, studying them all hard for their reactions.

  “You know that isn’t advisable, or allowed in your current frame of mind.”

  “Yeah. I know. Can’t blame a man for trying, though,” Carlos muttered in disgust, returning his gaze to the window. To vaporize and turn into mist . . . to feel the night enter his pores and to become one with it once again, was such a seductive pull that it made him close his eyes. He could feel his incisors thickening and threatening to rip thr
ough his gums again. In the distance, wolves howled, and it was all he could do not to answer their baleful call with one of his own.

  Oh, shit, they had no idea what this was like. It wasn’t that bad while he was rehabilitating, getting his head together, and coming to terms with his existence. But now . . . How did a man ignore his basic instincts, divorce himself from his nature? To hunt was in his very DNA. It had always been there, even before he became a vampire. The clerics even told him he was designated by fate to be a tracker guardian, once an olfactory sensor. Her scent was so close . . .

  Before he had been turned, he’d had a heightened sense of smell—it had helped in his former business. But they didn’t understand that that ability had been further heightened through his new vampire status. The scent of their blood, sweat, everything in his environment was beating against his brain with its call, especially Damali’s scent. And she was out hunting again, tonight, the song of her blood filling the air. Shit.

  “In the zoo,” Carlos murmured, “sometimes the lions don’t eat because the kill is brought to them like canned dog food. They’d rather bring down a kill themselves . . . get a good run on. I watched them, as a kid, and never understood it until now. After a while, even the kings of the jungle just lie there, defeated. You can see it in their eyes.” He turned and looked at the men around him who he knew had no concept of what he was talking about. They had never been on a blood hunt, or probably never had a woman. “Have you ever looked in a lion’s eyes, or a panther’s, for that matter?”

  Each of them immediately averted their eyes, and he let his breath out hard. He would have showed them what it felt like—all of it, even what being with a woman was like—if they hadn’t turned away. He was getting stronger by the moment, by each night that his true master vampire status took root within him. Things that he never knew before had finally lodged into his awareness. Power like he’d never felt was threading through his system. Even his vocabulary was changing, making him multilingual.

  He could speak Dananu—power, or as humans called it, Vampyre, now, as well as serve Old World, if necessary. Plus he would always have the language of the streets, and the one his parents gave him. His vision was more precise. He could now actually see blue-white bands of light within each cleric’s aura, especially when they stood next to each other. It was like a filament that bound them in a prayer chain. A similar barrier barred the doors and the windows. When he’d first been turned, he had only felt it as a dangerous heat, now he could actually see it like a lit electric fence. Yet, for all this new power he was dying. He just wanted to try some of this new stuff out, but was trapped. Seven years, then what?

  Father Lopez glanced up. Carlos smiled. There was something about Lopez that drew him. Within his young aura, the glowing blue-white band linking him to the others held a hint of red . . . just a thin thread, but enough to break the line. He followed that thread into a dark space within the man’s heart. A lie was a sin, so was deception, Padre . . . Interesting.

  Carlos’s attention went back to the red within Lopez’s aura. The line was so fragile, that it was almost inconsequential. But from everything he’d learned from taking a brief seat in a power throne, nothing in the vampire world was insignificant.

  A theory developed in his mind, as willful defiance escalated within him. If Lopez’s will could be breached, he owned him.

  Carlos glanced at the others, but their auras were too bright and their wills too strong. He went back to the youngest cleric, studied him hard. Then he reached out and forced him to give up his secrets.

  The priests had lied to him. They had known where Damali was the whole time, ever since the concert. Fury coiled within Carlos. Some strange killings were going on down in Brazil and from the MO they suspected it was of the paranormal influence. So they’d planned to use Damali as bait to get him to figure out what was going on down there. Just wanted him to go as insurance protection—because they knew she’d most likely go there. These bastards had actually raised him from near extinction to use him, redemption notwithstanding? All right . . . then let the games begin.

  “Curiosity killed the cat, Padre,” Carlos said seductively, holding the younger man’s stare. Then he violated the man’s mind and sent the rest of his message telepathically. I haven’t been out hunting in a long time. Wanna go with me? You know you do. It’s in your blood. You can taste it. I can have a female at your side in seconds. Boyz’ night out—

  “Stop it, Carlos!” the elder priest warned. “Lopez—look away! Recite a psalm to mentally block his words!”

  But it was too late. From his peripheral vision Carlos watched the three clerics arm themselves around the dazed Father Lopez. His smile broadened as the mental hold he had on the junior priest tightened. “She’s beautiful,” Carlos whispered, “and feels so damned good against you. You’re a sensory tracker, too . . . thought you might appreciate my predicament. Her skin is like butter, and her—”

  “Enough!” Asula shouted.

  Carlos ignored the burly Moor. He watched, amused, as two clerics rushed to the young priest’s side and began shaking him. Father Pat had stepped between Carlos and Father Lopez, trying to stop the vision to no avail. Carlos trapped the young, curious mind within his own, sending image after image to it, bludgeoning it with sensations of power, exquisite lust, and the pure carnal knowledge of lying with a woman.

  He gave Lopez a nude taste of one of his old flames, Juanita. Damali was off-limits, even as a ploy. Juanita was fine, arched hard under his hands, her breasts smooth and full . . . yeah he remembered her. Nice ass. Gave good head. Sweet personality—just like Lopez would want. Carlos chuckled and cocked his head to the side, watching Lopez mentally drown as he focused on Juanita, deep and wet. “It’s good, hombre. We should go out . . . she lives right near my mom’s. Just drop the line by the door so I can cross, and me and you can—”

  “Taking an innocent by psychic possession will increase your sentence, Rivera! I demand that you stop this invasion now!”

  “He wanted to know. He mentally opened the door by asking the question in his mind,” Carlos murmured in a sensuous voice. A slow smirk crossed his face as he sighed with a shrug. “It’s not my fault that he wanted to know what was pulling me into the night. All men want to know. Need to know. It’s instinct.” That was no lie, and no matter what Father Patrick said, tonight, he was out.

  Carlos inhaled sharply and sent the last of his thoughts full force to Lopez. He watched with great satisfaction as the young cleric writhed and fought against a desire he’d never known until now. Beads of perspiration had formed on the young cleric’s forehead and Lopez was taking in shallow breaths. Uh-huh, it’s just like that. Carlos smiled when the junior cleric shuddered, allowing his thoughts to descend even further. From memory and the simple reflex of thinking about making love, he accidentally conjured Damali’s scent and released it into the air. Sweet, isn’t it? he thought, chuckling to himself. Bittersweet when denied. Yeah, maybe it was time to stop; his own game was messing him up.

  Lopez closed his eyes, leaned his head back, and groaned, as Father Patrick tried to break Carlos’s hold. “Compasion, por favor.”

  “All I’m asking for is a little mercy, too.”

  The sound of Carlos’s voice made Father Lopez look at him, despite the futile attempts of his brethren.

  Tears were glittering in Lopez’s eyes. “Take these vile things from my mind!”

  “You ain’t never really had none, have you? Fucking pity . . . and you got yourself locked in here with me jonesing? A virgin? Shit, I will rock your world.” Carlos laughed, his voice bitter. “Mercy is in order, all the way around.” The other clerics looked at him hard. “I’ll let him go if you let me go. Damn, man, why you let them put a collar on the poor bastard before he got his run out?” Carlos shook his head. These old bastards knew no mercy. “Me and Lopez both need a night—”

  “No,” Father Patrick said, his tone lethal. “Under no circumstances—”
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br />   “None?” Carlos leaned against the window, looking out. He then closed his eyes and sent Lopez a full-blast sensation of what it was like to be midstroke, hard-thrusting, going for broke, sweat running down your back, can’t get enough air, deep plunging, all the way to the hilt, and a woman’s voice fracturing the night.

  Lopez dropped to his knees.

  “Same reaction I had outside her compound that night, bro, when I was calling her and the guardians blocked me, then when we were together outside of Nuit’s lair—”

  “I said stop!”

  “Will bring a grown man to his knees.” Yeah, it was definitely time to stop. Carlos scowled at Father Patrick and relaxed his mental grip on Father Lopez. The line between the older clerics burned brighter and the band thickened, now shielding Lopez with it. Just seeing it made Carlos angrier.

  “You stop fucking with me, and I’ll stop fucking with him!” Carlos punched the wall, but was careful not to put his fist through it. Who knew where those crazy old bastards had prayed? It wasn’t about drawing back a nub that couldn’t regenerate.

  He could hear Lopez breathing hard, trying to recover his dignity as he stood. This was beyond bullshit. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear Lopez had vamp traces somewhere in his lineage. The way he had been able to get a lock on him, his gut-deep reaction to the images, didn’t make sense.

  Carlos watched the young priest closely from across the room. The man had lost it at the end when the vision of Juanita fused with Damali’s scent, almost as though he could detect Neteru. The fragrance had felled him like it would have blown away a male vampire . . . Now he knew he was tripping! The invasion was fucking with him just as badly. That had to be it—he had to see it, feel it, and envision it to send it. That’s the only reason he’d relented. He had to get out of there.

  “Before he judges me again, I thought it might help him, as a young man, to walk a mile in my shoes. None of you know what this is like.” Carlos turned back toward the window to ignore them all. The old men might be beyond remembering a woman, but the young blood sure wasn’t. Lopez was the weak link in their chain, and one night, he’d break him. It was only a matter of time. And it served Lopez right for acting like he was so above him.