Captive Heart (29 page)

“The Sibyls are actively searching for thirteen men and their followers.” Andy watched the guy, thinking how much he looked like law enforcement, never mind the pointy ears and tattoos. It was something in his expression, his eyes, the way he held himself. “Sorcerers, like you said, because they pervert natural energy for their own purposes and kill innocent people. They refer to their organization as the Coven.”

Mikeal nodded. “And the leader of this Coven, he goes by the human name Samuel Griffen.”

“Yes.” Well, well. The Host had themselves some good intel. “You’re ahead on that one.”

“Does this Samuel Griffen have a charm like the ones you wear?” Mikeal pointed to the crescent moon at Andy’s neck. “Is this how he hides himself and his people from our detection?”

Andy glanced at Camille, who took the handoff smoothly. “Not exactly. Griffen crafted charms for his group out of Rakshasa demon teeth, but they have the same effect—muting elemental energy.”

The Host exchanged looks of satisfaction, then dark, hungry anger. Andy realized they must have been deeply frustrated by their fruitless pursuits, and confused and maybe even doubting their own abilities. Now they had an explanation and an understanding of why they had been failing. They’d probably be making some changes and maybe getting some results.

“If you would surrender your charms, we would consider it a favor,” Mikeal said, and Andy caught the strange tone in his voice. It sounded formal. Almost ritualistic. The juniper smell in the basement got stronger.

Camille immediately removed her necklace. When Andy and Bela and Dio hesitated, she glared at them. “I can make more. Please, don’t insult them.”

“Okay, whatever.” Andy took off her charm. Bela and Dio removed theirs, too, and they all handed them to Camille.

Camille held out her hand, dangling the four necklaces. “May I approach safely, Mikeal?”

He bowed, then gave his companions a quick look. The woman and the other four men put some distance between themselves and Mikeal, fading into the shadows of the basement so completely that Andy went back to thinking they might be made out of darkness.

Mikeal beckoned for Camille. She walked toward him and held out the charms. He took them from her, and seemed to be careful to avoid touching her skin. “Thank you,” he said. Then his dark eyes seemed to gleam with a light Andy didn’t like at all. “Our bargain is sealed. We will repay you.”

With that, the impromptu light he had created vanished, and so did he. Andy heard a few rustles, then the building’s basement door banged on its hinges.

It took Andy’s eyes a few seconds to adjust, and when she could see normally again, Camille was still standing where Mikeal left her, staring after him with her mouth slightly open. New dread bloomed in Andy’s chest, and her skin got cold as she reached out to her sister Sibyl with her water energy.

Surprise. Concern. Fear. Fascination. All of those emotions bubbled out of Camille before she realized Andy was sensing them and shut herself down.

“Don’t
do
that.” Camille shivered, rubbing her hands against her leathers. “It makes me feel like a little girl when you tap into my feelings so easily.”

Andy didn’t apologize. She pointed to the basement door where traces of the Host’s dark energy remained. “Mind telling us what you just did?”

“They owe us a favor. That’s all.” Camille glanced at the door, then back to Andy. “What Mikeal asked, it wasn’t exactly a request I could refuse given their old-fashioned views on polite cooperation and exchanges of information. They would have been deeply insulted and they might have challenged us to a battle.”

“Old-fashioned,” Bela said. “As in draconian? Sadistic? What?”

Camille shook her head. “It’s not like that. Old-school chivalry would be closer. Look, I’m sorry. I really didn’t want to put them off, not when they were talking to us so freely.”

“That was freely?” Dio’s sarcastic tone echoed Andy’s thoughts.

“Yes. And they’ll repay the favor when and how they see fit. The Host are pretty fanatical about their honor.” Camille glanced at the door again. “Let’s get back to the brownstone. I need to make us new charms—with some more adjustments to the elemental locks.”

“Yeah, those didn’t work too well against the Host, did they?” Andy asked, drawing a look of wide-eyed surprise from Camille.

“Are you kidding? We surprised them.” Camille spread her arms wide, encompassing the whole space of the basement. “We caught a full blast of their projective energy. By all rights, we should be burned to husks on the basement floor.”

“That’s good to know.” Dio blew the basement door open behind Camille, making her jump. “Lovely image and all, but I am so over this place. Going home now. Anybody joining me?”

Jack got back from booking and processing the jerks the OCU had rounded up in the raid sometime around three in the morning. The minute he got to his townhouse bedroom and saw Andy, he knew something was wrong. She was all curled up in his leather chair, pale and staring at the bedroom door when he came in, and his gut clenched.

“What?” She stood and he made it to her in three steps. He put his hands on her shoulders. “Talk to me, sweetheart. What happened?”

“I—” Her bottom lip trembled, then she closed her mouth and looked unbearably, endlessly tired.

Jack wrapped his arms around her and held her tight, wishing he could pour his strength and energy into her like she had done for him. He’d give her everything he had, if he could only find a way. As it was, the best he could offer was holding her up as she told him what happened at the warehouse after they parted company. The Coven showing up, maybe to screw up the raid or go after Andy and her group. The Host tracking them and spooking them off, then almost shriveling Andy when they got surprised.

Christ
.

Jack thought about the dead leaves and dead animals in Central Park and held Andy that much tighter. He felt huge to her small, rough to her soft. His bedroom seemed unnaturally quiet as he felt her breath ripple across his neck.

Just like that, she could have been gone. Nothing but ashes on a basement floor. That godawful image made his own breath come too short. Rage pounded through him as he tried to figure out who to kill first, but some part of his overheated brain kept hold of the fact that Andy needed him—and that he needed her to be okay. He realized he had started touching her, running his hands along her back and hips and arms just to be sure she really was whole and healthy.

“I’m fine,” she murmured as he kissed her, but he couldn’t accept that even as he savored the press of her warm lips against his, even as she bit his bottom lip and made him half insane with sudden, desperate need.

He’d almost lost her
again
, and this time, he hadn’t even been there to make a difference. A tiny bit of treated metal and a whole lot of luck had saved her life. She moved against him, unbuttoning his shirt and jeans as he unzipped her leathers. Jack pushed the stiff sleeves down from her shoulders, freeing her arms, barely stopping their kisses long enough to get the damned suit out of his way.

Crazy
.

Yeah, that word was more and more his reality. He had to have her. He had to have her right now, and he’d take her hard, make her crazy, too, make her scream, make her promise never, ever to put herself in that much danger again.

“I need you,” she whispered, blasting his body to a new level of heat and want. She gave herself up to him so easily, so completely, letting him take control and finish stripping off their clothes. Jack kissed her head, her face, her ear, her neck. He nibbled the soft flesh above her collarbone, tasting the light salt of her skin and drinking in her exquisitely feminine smell. Vanilla. Oceans. Woman. All natural. All sweet. More intoxicating than any liqueur. The sight of her bare breasts, her tight nipples, and the red triangle of hair below made him wonder if he’d gone demon himself. She made him hurt. She made him burn. He could turn into a beast like some crazed werewolf. If anything ever happened to Andy, he would transform into something other, something dark and soulless and full of murder. No question about that now.

“Beautiful,” he said into her ear, molding her body to his, stroking her everywhere he could reach. “You’re more than beautiful. You’re everything.”

“I love how you feel, Jack.”

Damn
. He was already so hard he thought he might explode, and the sound of her sexy voice nearly made him come unhinged.

Jack managed a single “I love you.” Then he lifted Andy off her feet, carried her to his bed, and spread her out beneath him, straddling her hips and gazing down at her supple muscles, at her creamy skin, at the way her eyes had gone smoky brown and her pretty lips parted with pleasure as he caressed her shoulders and arms.

When he cupped her bare breasts and closed his fingers around her hard nipples, she moaned.

“You’re mine.” His voice sounded like a harsh rumble to his own ears, but he didn’t care. “I want you now. I want you always. This almost-getting-killed shit, it has to stop.”

Andy didn’t argue with him.

Jack’s senses stayed on high, his arousal like a force of nature. When she looked him in the eyes, he could see it. Yes. She’d be his. She’d give herself up, keep giving herself up, open herself to him in every way he demanded, every way he dreamed—

Don’t screw this up
.

Jack pinched her nipples again and she lost her mind, arching her hips and rubbing her sex against him. Too much. He almost lost it, but bit his lip hard to keep himself under control. Each brush of her heat against his cock sent shocks through his body. Each moan drove him that much closer to the edge.

His.

This was how life was supposed to turn out. This was his future now: her body, her essence, her pleasure fueling his. No lines, no boundaries. No point where he stopped and she began.

Andy raised her hands to his hips and dug her nails into his waist. Then, fast as a flash, she slipped those fingers forward and caught him in a tight grip, pressing him down against her soft hairs and belly. Before Jack could form a rational thought, she stroked him from tip to balls and back again, and then he didn’t have a rational thought to form.

He groaned. “You drive me out of my mind.”

Gazing up at him, keeping her eyes locked on his, Andy caressed him another time, then another. Jack’s head snapped back, and he heard himself say her name.

“You’re mine, too, Jack.” The squeeze she gave his hard shaft melted what was left of his brain. “Don’t forget that.”

She felt like silky heat beneath him. So soft. So good. She gripped him at the base and pulled her hand along his pulsing length.

“I want you inside me,” she said. “I don’t want to wait any longer.”

Jack couldn’t speak. He answered her by moving faster and rougher than he intended. He stretched himself on top of her, holding himself just high enough to spare her his weight. His lips crushed hers as he pushed her legs apart. Too hard. Too strong. She didn’t seem to care. She kissed him back like she was starving, and when the tip of his cock rubbed against her swollen folds, he couldn’t wait.

So ready. So open for him. She really did make him crazy.

“I want you, Jack,” Andy whispered. “I want to be yours.”

Jack drove himself inside her, and she took him deep, wrapping her legs around him like she was staking her own claim.

“You feel perfect,” he told her, his chest tight, every nerve he possessed waiting to fire as he sank deeper, deeper into her warm depths.

“More.” She moaned again and he gave her more, moving himself in and out of her tight center, trying to stay slow, but going too fast, then faster as she rose to meet him.

When he looked at her, her eyes were still open and that doubled the force of his thrusts. Her lips stayed parted as he pumped harder, faster, deeper, wanting her to scream, to go as crazy as he felt. Her nipples scrubbed his chest, and Jack felt their sweat mingle as they slid together. Vanilla and ocean and sex, too, ripe in the air.

When Jack kissed Andy, she gripped him tighter, drove him harder. When he let her breathe, she moaned until the sound made his body vibrate.

Hold on. Wait. Give her more
.

“Beautiful.” He pushed her, stretched her, shoving them both toward that just-right mix of pain and ecstasy.

Andy screamed, just like he wanted to hear. Her channel clenched around his cock, forcing him over the top with her as she drained her feelings, her emotions, her pleasure into the wild sound Jack craved almost as much as he craved her. He couldn’t stop moving and neither could she. Her nails stung his back as she held on, and he rocked her, rocked her, until she went limp in his grip, until he had nothing left and she pulled him down on top of her and held him there.

Jack didn’t want to fall asleep. He didn’t want to take his eyes off Andy for a second, but as he rolled to his side and held her, her easy breathing took him with her all over again. Seconds later, darkness claimed him, and he slept with only bits and pieces of dreams he couldn’t remember.

   Sunlight nudged Jack’s eyelids, and when he woke, he instantly knew Andy wasn’t with him. He sat up fast, threw off the sheets, and got to his feet, grabbing his jeans and stepping into them before he processed that she was sitting in the leather chair again.

“Sorry,” she said. She stretched, and he realized she had on nothing but one of his white T-shirts. It fit her like a dress—and she looked too sexy for words. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You … okay?” But he knew she wasn’t. He fished through everything he’d said to her before and during their lovemaking, trying to be sure he hadn’t crossed any lines.

Andy let out a sigh. “Yes and no. I dreamed about dark water. A quiet place in the sea or some ocean I’ve never been to. Makes no sense, but it felt important. And that’s the story of my life right now. I can’t stop sensing things and I can’t stop thinking and I can’t seem to get anything sorted out.”

Ah
. Jack’s muscles relaxed a little. He knew what that felt like—not the sensing weird stuff, but the rest of it. Which helped him find a clue about what to do next.

When he got over to the chair, Andy stood. She slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him slowly, lingering over his lips and tongue like he tasted better than the coffee and breakfast he’d been about to offer her.

Jack decided to hold her for a few minutes before he suggested they leave their little sanctuary in his bedroom, and as he rubbed her shoulders and back, she sighed again.

“Something inside me—I knew we shouldn’t have raided that warehouse, but I didn’t know why.” She pulled back, staring into his face with no accusations or I-told-you-so’s. This wasn’t about who had been right and who had been wrong. “The raid itself didn’t seem like a problem, just—I don’t know. The direction. The peripherals? It worked out okay, but I think that was because luck intervened, or God or the Goddess or whoever takes care of total idiots who don’t know how to use their own instincts, or help other people understand them.”

“I’m sorry I pushed that plan.” Jack frowned as he smoothed her hair, once more stinging inside from the idea that Andy almost got dead from factors he hadn’t anticipated. “The Coven could have ambushed you. The Host could have cooked you and left you for dead, and it would have been my fault.”

Her eyes glistened immediately, and her chin drooped as she closed her eyes. “No. It would have been mine. That’s the problem.”

Jack pulled her into his arms again, then sat and eased her into his lap, cradling her and letting her cry, her face pressed into his shoulder, her fingers trailing along his chest and opposite arm.

When her shaking eased, he moved until he could see her face and run his thumb across her cheek and chin. “Put it into words if you can, sweetheart, because I’m not following how any of that was your responsibility. You tried to talk us out of it nonstop.”

“Tried, but failed.” Her shoulders flexed as she balled her fists. “I’m supposed to pay attention to flow, to understand how to make sense of my instincts and use them for the health of my fighting group, and I think for the health of our missions and purposes, too. And I don’t know how.” She thumped her fist against his bare chest once. “I’m not sure about what I’m sensing. I’m not confident about it, and half the time I can’t even tell what’s my bull-headedness and what’s my gut, you know?”

“You’re expecting too much of yourself. You haven’t been doing this Sibyl stuff since you were born.”

More tears pooled in the corner of her eyes. “Is that going to matter when I get somebody killed?”

“The bad guys do the killing, not you.” Jack brushed away her tears. “Even with all your instincts, you can’t see the future any more than I can. Any more than I could in New Jersey, when I whacked my old man and lost Mom and my sister forever—or talked you into the raid that almost got you killed.” His own words punched him in the guts. Truth was truth, but—yeah. Damn. “Sometimes you just have to take your best shot. Try to do the right thing and hope for the best.”

Andy kissed his fingertips as they slipped across her lips. “What you did in New Jersey was right. I don’t have any doubts. And now I’m pretty sure the raid itself was right. That wasn’t the problem. If I’d been tuned in enough to this flow crap, I might have been able to pinpoint the trouble spots and been more prepared.”

“Maybe we should just listen to your gut from now on. Period.”

“And if we do that, how do I get you to back off and let me do what I have to do?” Her eyes glistened, stabbing at his insides.

“I don’t know. I don’t want to lose you.” He touched her lips again. “I can’t let that happen.”

This time she bit his thumb when her pressed it to her mouth. When she turned him loose, she said, “Then we may have a few problems.”