BlindHeat (5 page)

She’d thought the greatest threats were injury or death, but
there were worse consequences than death. She couldn’t believe she’d let a
stranger fill her mind so completely that there’d been no room for common
sense. She winced at the thought of how close she might have come to throwing
her hard-won progress away over the need to please a man. The memory of his
eyes closing, that look of intense pleasure moving over his features had her
catching her breath again. The power to make herself needed was her drug of
choice. The sexual power she’d barely flirted with lit a craving so intense she
didn’t dare explore it.

Her old life had ended over pleasing a boy and failing a
man. That Jason had survived the wrath their teenaged explorations unleashed
was a miracle. That she’d escaped before Eddie could exact a similar
retribution on her was because a prostitute had taken pity on her and helped
her get away. Allie had been too frightened at the time to consider that in
saving Allie the woman had set herself up to take whatever special misery Eddie
had intended for Allie. A vague awareness that the life she’d had before Eddie
had been more horrific than life with Eddie didn’t lessen the shame. She
squeezed her eyes shut against memories, pushing every image, every spark of
color from her thoughts until only the velvet black of peace occupied the space
behind them.

She pushed up to her feet, peeled out of the shirt, letting
it fall to the scarred wood floor. Allie stepped over it and headed for the shower.

Under the hot spray she tried to wash away regrets. She
turned the water as hot as it would go and still, she shivered. She picked up a
yellow bar of cheap deodorant soap. She wished there was a soap that could
permanently scrub her mind free of old memories. With shaking hands she rubbed
the bar over her pussy and wished even more the soap could clean deep enough to
make her skin forget the feel of the stranger’s wicked fingers between her
legs.

* * * * *

“Advertising department, this is Allison.”

“I believe you have something of mine.”

Allie felt as if someone had snapped their fingers and time,
breathing, heartbeat all stopped in that instant. Him.

“Hello?”

“Wrong number.”

“Is it?” That voice trickled in her ear, down her spine,
soothing away tension like the sweet notes of a jazz piano. “Then why don’t you
hang up?”

She tried to resist its lure and stay practical. “How do you
know where I work? Are you stalking me? Watching?”

“I just want to talk to you.”

She was silent. Something about his voice left her feeling
fuzzy, intoxicated.

“Hello?”

She couldn’t decide what to say to him. What she should do
was hang up. She didn’t.

“Why me? What do you want from me? Did you plan what
happened this morning?”

“This is better explained in person.”

“Look, I don’t know you…” Her brain scrambled for an excuse.

“Don’t you?”

Cold so deep it hurt to breathe settled over her. She didn’t
know. Could he be a business acquaintance of Eddie’s? Was he just a casual
acquaintance? Did he work here at the paper, or frequent the diner? She didn’t
know. It drove her crazy that she never knew. He wasn’t familiar enough that
she recognized his voice this morning, or had she? She wasn’t sure. The paper
under her right hand crumpled as her fingers curled into a fist. She took the offense.

“So you are stalking me.”

“Sweetheart, a lamppost could stalk you.”

Hang up! Hang up
, her sensible side demanded. Her
hand tightened on the receiver. She couldn’t resist the pull of his voice.

“I did wait for you this morning,” he said. “I didn’t intend
things to get so out of control. When we go where we need to go, Allison, at
least one of us needs to be in control.”

Warmth spread through her middle, tingling resonated through
her pussy with every word that slid from his golden tongue into her ear.

“Tell me you haven’t been thinking of me. When you answered
the phone it was in your voice. A sexy purr.”

“Advertising Department? That’s a sexy greeting? You just
got out of jail, didn’t you?”

His heavy sigh had her trembling again, the image of him
with his head tipped back, throat working, floated behind her eyes. She’d wrung
a thoroughly different kind of sigh from him then. She fought to keep her voice
from sounding anything close to sexy. “I’ll take that as a yes. I’ll report you
if you keep harassing me.”

“I am not a criminal. Look, we’ll talk at lunch.”

“I don’t do lunch with strange men.” She didn’t do lunch
with anyone, but she didn’t want him to know that.

“Do you do what we did this morning?”

She chewed her lip, glanced around the office, hoped no one
could see the effect he had on her.

“Of course not.”

“We need to talk, Allie. I’ll meet you at the diner. The
usual time. I know you won’t be late.”

There was a soft click and then a dial tone.

The use of her nickname unnerved her further. He knew where
she went to lunch. He knew when. He knew she took pride in being on time. He
knew too much, possibly much more than he’d revealed so far. The situation
smacked of Eddie. He’d sent someone to find her and by the guy’s own admission
things had not gone as he intended. What did he intend? To blackmail her into
more sex if he kept her whereabouts to himself?

She didn’t want to run. She’d made a good life for herself
in Greyville. Had friends. Friends who would be in danger if this man was the
kind of trouble she suspected he was. It wouldn’t take more than ten minutes to
pack what she owned. She opened her web browser and selected Greyhound.com from
her favorites list.

Chapter Two

Marcus flipped the phone shut and before he could stow it in
Jake’s desk drawer, Oliver—a
liberated
lab rabbit—increased the pressure
to find Hella tenfold. Marcus’ guilt deepened. He was supposed to be watching
over the shop and Oliver while Jake made a quick trip to his upstairs apartment
in search of something or other he needed to fix a computer. Not that paying
better attention to Oliver, or shooing him from Jake’s laptop, would have
prevented this inevitable evolutionary milestone from occurring. Sentience
confirmed.

As much as he hated the human practice of creating parahumans
by implanting human neurons in animal brains, he had to admit that hybrids were
endearing little creatures, at least the ones he’d rescued so far.

One long ear twitched and Oliver’s paw hovered a moment,
then zeroed in on a particular key, and pressed a paw over the next letter.
Marcus was trying to convince himself what he saw on the screen was random,
coincidental. After all, it wasn’t an actual word.

bunnym

Oliver sat on his haunches, whiskers wiggling, paw hovering,
head tipped sideways as he studied the screen. Mimicry, Marcus decided. Jake
sat in front of the screen nearly every waking hour. Didn’t all young animals
mimic their caregivers? Oliver’s paw descended again. The “m” vanished. A space
appeared, followed by an “m” and an “e”.

Marcus slid a palm under the bunny’s ample middle and tucked
him firmly in the crook of his left arm. Now, how to erase the bunny’s addition
without wiping out the lines of programming code Jake had above them? Beyond
the basic letters and numbers, several keys were labeled. “Esc” and “Del” meant
nothing to him. “Enter” sounded ominous. “Backspace” sounded promising.

It was. He backspaced, erasing the statement letter by
letter. He needed a backspace key for time, something to delete Oliver’s
experiences minute by minute. He needed an undo button for the image branded in
his brain—Hella caged somewhere, her bid to free herself and her little ones
defeated. Confirmation that she might comprehend death or realize that her
offspring were tortured in unthinkable ways had his frustration level rising
like mercury in a thermometer. And now this.

bunny me

The concept itself was more of a feat than communicating
with symbols. The concept of a “me”, that “me” in Oliver’s case meant bunny,
was a level of self-awareness only attributed to Pantherians and—to a lesser
degree, of course—to humans.

Marcus stepped back. His fingers found the special spot
behind Oliver’s right ear, dipped into silky black fur and rubbed. Oliver
tipped his head to get the full effect, his eyes closed.

“Don’t do that again,” Marcus whispered.

Oliver’s teleporting siblings had caused enough trouble.

“Besides, if you mess up one of Jake’s computers we’ll be
back to finding you a new home.” Not that Jake had formally agreed to keep
Oliver. Marcus had used the old “just until I find someone to take him” line.

Oliver’s eyes opened. He looked into Marcus’ eyes, a clear
steady gaze Marcus assumed was meant to impart some knowledge, but he couldn’t
find a connection the way he had with Hella. He had to rely on the inferior
spoken words to covey his messages.

“Let’s keep this our secret. Okay?”

There was no sign of understanding, just the same steady
gaze.

The heavy thud of Jake’s boots on the stairs ended the
stare-down.

“Thanks for watching the shop, Magus. You’re not mucking
around with my laptop, are you?”

Marcus turned. “Guilty.” He tried to hand Oliver off to
Jake.

Jake backed away and folded his arms across his broad chest,
shaking his head, a rusty mane of curls bouncing to give emphasis. “Sorry,
Magus. You know I would follow you into the pits of hell. The place you found
him probably qualifies, but if you’re going to insist on stealing these lab
experiments, you can’t keep dropping them off on me.”

“It’s Marcus now, Jake.”

“I don’t see why I can’t address you with the respect you
deserve in private and don’t try changing the subject.”

“I appreciate your loyalty, my friend, but you need to make
using my first name second nature. If we’re going to avoid unwanted attention,
we need to conform to local customs, blend in rather than stand out.”

Not one to dwell on errors, Marcus moved back to the problem
in hand. He cradled the bunny and stroked its belly, watched it go limp with
pleasure. At seven feet and more than two hundred and fifty pounds, Jake’s
agitation seemed out of proportion to the size of the problem. “He’s barely as
big as a bread loaf. How much trouble can he be?”

“Obviously there was trouble. Didn’t you give him to Ben?
Why is he back with you? Or, more accurately, with me?”

Marcus shrugged, kept his tone light. “Living in a house
with a pack of Pantherian wolves made Oliver nervous.”

Jake pursed his lips, scratched at his beard. “And how did
that nervousness reveal itself?” Jake knew him too well. But Marcus knew Jake
better. The body of a giant but the heart of a marshmallow. Jake was drawn by
the innocent trust of the tiny scrap of fur. He’d moved closer. Marcus offered
again and this time Jake cupped the bunny in his palm. Oliver looked more the
size of a honey bun in Jake’s big hand.

Marcus tucked his hands in his jacket pockets and moved away
before he began his answer to Jake’s question. “He’s exceptionally bright and
gifted. I don’t think Ben quite appreciated his talents.”

Jake looked up, one eyebrow cocked, waiting for more.

“He’s not a teleporter.” Rabbits that could vanish and
reappear in a different location at will were not terribly popular as pets and
Marcus had a hard time finding homes for the litter he’d rescued. The pockets
of Pantherian males living among humans didn’t want to risk exposure, but they
were the only reasonable adoption option. Taking them back to Pantheria would
open a fierce political debate—as long as the governing council didn’t know
about his rescue missions, they couldn’t forbid them.

Marcus moved the carcass of a computer tower from a chair to
the workbench beside it and sat before sliding a glance Jake’s way. “He chewed
things, electrical cord, shoelaces.”

Of course, cord-chewing rabbits and computer shops weren’t
an ideal combination…

Instead of the rejection Marcus had expected, Jake’s hand
tightened protectively around the bunny, a sheltering curve of fingers. The
little one wriggled his ears when the movement rolled him back to his belly,
but nestled there, unafraid. “They probably didn’t give him enough attention. He
hasn’t chewed anything here.”

Jake’s shop was littered with the innards of a variety of
electronic devices. Open cases spewed cables and circuit boards. A few showed
signs of life through a spinning fan or blinking light. Marcus was tempted to
ask how Jake could tell the bunny had kicked his cable-nibbling habit, but
decided to shut up while he was ahead. Meantime, Jake was doing a fine job of
painting himself into the corner of becoming Oliver’s permanent caregiver.

“When we’re in human form the rabbits still appear to sense
our true nature. Oliver’s afraid of the wolves but not me. I can understand
that, rabbits would not have an instinctive aversion to Yeti, as they would for
a tiger. Why isn’t he afraid of you?”

Marcus shrugged and said, “I think he’s most comfortable
with you.”

He didn’t say he’d wondered the same thing himself when
Lilly, the rabbit he’d pressed on his son’s family, had been nervous around the
two males but not their mate, Marie. Marcus assumed individual personalities
had more to do with that than species. The other explanation—that Marcus’ core
nature was a bit fuzzy—wasn’t something he could share with Jake. Only one
Pantherian had known of Marcus’ ability to shift into the form of any
Pantherian subspecies—Sharizad. The female had taken Marcus, a foundling, into
the safekeeping of her nursery of newborns and raised him as hers, keeping the
secret of his true origins even from her mates.

“No one must know,” she said when she’d catch him at his
unique brand of self-expression, multi-shapeshifting, as a child. “The council
would never allow you to stay here if they knew. For your sake. For mine. No
one must know.” She’d passed from this life into the next realm centuries ago.
Unwanted memories crowded at the edge of his awareness. Marcus changed the
subject.

“I still haven’t learned what happened to Hella. If her
kittens possess any strange abilities like the rabbits, we need to find them
before those talents start manifesting.”

“Hopefully, that won’t be until they are around six months
old. We may have some time yet. Adam doesn’t think the teleporting ability is
something bred into the rabbits. He believes it is a natural outgrowth of
artificially combining the species. A genetic switch gone awry.”

Marcus wondered if there was a genetic switch for computer
skills. Apparently he lacked that. He wished Oliver did.

“Adam believes Hella might be a key, her feline genetics
might be crucial to unlocking a cure for the wasting. She’s close enough to
Marie genetically that he might be able to compare the two, find a common trait
in them that sets them apart from females with the wasting.”

Jake’s words penetrated Marcus’ dismal musings. Marcus
wasn’t a genetics expert, but his son, Adam, was. If Adam was right, Hella
could bring a twofold blessing. The wasting sickness had depleted some
Pantherian species beyond the point of recovery, others hovered at the edge of
extinction. Not that it didn’t irk that animal experimentation might benefit
the Pantherians medically, but the idea that Hella held answers and that
Pantherians as a community might get behind his efforts to rescue the hybrids
bolstered his flagging spirits. With new urgency attached to recovering Hella,
with hope that the governing council might encourage all Pantherians to join
his effort to rescue hybrids, Marcus felt for the first time that he wasn’t
trying to empty the ocean with a teacup. It also meant he had to quit dragging
out the situation with Allie.

“I’m meeting with Allison again, the woman who took Hella,
the most exasperating human. Her mind remains closed to me. I’ve tried casually
bringing animals, pets up. She just will not talk about herself. I have tried
developing enough of a relationship to raise the curtain. Nothing.”

“What do you mean, exactly, by develop a relationship?”

Marcus shrugged.

“Sex? I know you, Magus. You’re not the type who can get
involved without getting involved.”

“It’s Marcus. And I’m not discussing my sex life with you.”

Jake snorted. “Since when can a human female resist the
mesmeric pull of a Pantherian male bent on seducing her? And you, high Magus,
millennial being—”

“Shut up.”

“Millennial beings don’t lose their temper.”

“Jake!”

“You make my point, you’re involved.”

Marcus rose so fast the computer carcass at his feet fell
over with a bang. Oliver burrowed between Jake’s flannel shirt and t-shirt,
hidden but for his fuzzy tail poking out through the gap between shirt buttons.

It was time to leave. Before his mood could swing further
out of control, verifying Jake’s assessment, Marcus headed for the door.

“Wait, Marcus. It’s none of my business. I’ll drop it. You
don’t have to go.”

He didn’t turn around. “I don’t know how to reach her.”

“Humans aren’t telepathic, don’t have a need to keep anyone
from their thoughts. It doesn’t make sense that one could lock you out so
completely.”

Jake’s chair squeaked in relief as he stood. Marcus
explained as Jake closed the distance.

“If she experienced some serious, repeated trauma, most
likely as a very young child, she could have developed the ability as a way to
protect herself from her own memories. It’s not meant to keep others out of her
thoughts, but to keep her thoughts, or distressing memories, from sneaking up
on her. How do I break through that without causing harm?”

Jake had moved around to stand in front of him. Oliver had
burrowed his way to a spot just under Jake’s shirt pocket, the tip of his ear
hung out from under Jake’s shirt collar. “You have to go carefully. If her
mental state is fragile, an attachment to you won’t help.”

“She doesn’t remember my existence from one meeting to the
next, I doubt attachment will be an issue. Today she accused me of being a
criminal and a stalker.”

Jake looked Marcus directly in the eye. “Maybe it’s time to
learn more about the origins of a woman who can not only block
you
from
seeing into her mind, but is immune to your seduction.”

Marcus flinched, glanced at the computer. Learn about her
from databases encoded with ones and zeroes? Study screens of facts, gathered
dates and documents such as diplomas or licenses? The way to truly know a woman
was as he had begun, skin to skin, tasting her, breathing her scent, learning
the things that made her tremble in his arms, made her whisper his name like a
plea. And maybe, she’d learn him too, long for the sight of his face inches
from her own, smile when she saw him approach. The first way was a violation he
couldn’t condone. The second would take more time than he had.

“No. We’re not intruding on her privacy any more than we
have already.”

Jake’s eyes dropped to the rabbit and he didn’t answer.

“Promise me, Jake.”

“I wouldn’t go against your wishes, Magus.”

Marcus waited.

“Marcus.”

Marcus put a hand on Jake’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

“How will you find out what happened to Hella?”

“Trust me.” If he’d known what Marcus intended to do, Jake
wouldn’t have let him out of the door. Like all Pantherians, Jake trusted
Marcus as the spiritual leader of his race. Sometimes Marcus wished there was
just one person he could confide in, one person who realized he had no magic,
no mystical guidance from the heavens. He was just an ordinary shifter trying
hard not to let everyone down.