hellcat 05 - come hell or high water (3 page)

As the final shudders of her orgasm racked her body, he watched the effects of her pleasure mark her body.  A fine sheen of sweat beaded her breasts and stomach, a rosy flush reddening her chest and neck, her eyes half-closed as the last vestiges of pleasure still rode her.  One of her hands flashed upward towards his hair, but he caught her by the wrist before she touched him, a wrist so tiny that his thumb overlapped his forefinger.  The bones so delicate, so fragile, he knew even a human man could snap them without much effort.  Julius had to remind himself constantly of that reality, keep a leash on his movements and temper every touch.  And yet she was so strong.  So able, so capable.  He knew he was one of the very few who would be allowed to wrap his large, dangerous hands around those delicate wrists, he knew it was an honour and the ultimate demonstration of her trust.

She grumbled a little, trying to pull from his grasp, using a leg to draw his body towards hers.  He released her with a smile. Tonight he would teach her patience; he wasn’t even halfway done with her yet.

“Why was the City so plagued by Rogues and fighting Werewolves when my father and Byron started the SMV?” Gabi asked, when her breathing had finally returned to normal.  They were lying entwined in a nest of torn sheets, her head on his chest as she traced patterns across the muscled ridges and dips of his torso.  The topic was one that had been bugging her for days, after a passing comment a Shape-shifter had made. “The more I learn about Vampire society, the more that confuses me.  Isn’t it the Master’s responsibility to keep order in their cities?”

Julius didn’t answer immediately, but tucked a stray curl of hair behind her ear as she tilted her face to study his expression.

“It’s not quite that black and white,” he finally said.  “There is no definitive rule book when it comes to how a Master manages their city and its inhabitants.  Other than the overriding law of not drawing unwanted attention, Masters may, within reason, do as they please within their city.  And, as with any group or race, there are those who either don’t care enough to keep on the correct side of the line or actually like to push the limits of the line, and see how far they can go before they get smacked back onto the right side.” He took her exploring hand and pressed a cool kiss to the back of her fingers.  “My predecessor was of the former variety.  He had…” Julius broke off and shifted uncomfortably.  “He had unusual tastes.” 

Gabi raised an eyebrow. 

“In the bedroom.”

“Ah.” Gabi was still confused, but at least now she understood Julius’s reticence.  He was adventurous in bed, Gabi loved that about him, he took her out of her comfort zone to places she wanted to linger forever, but he was surprisingly prudish when it came to speaking about or discussing sex.  She kept her expression neutral and gave him time to find appropriate phrases.

“Once he was given his own city, he had more than enough time and resources to play out all his fantasies and sate all his fetishes.  He became so preoccupied with satisfying his own needs that the actual running of the city eventually fell to his underlings, who weren’t powerful enough to maintain control.  It didn’t take long before the Vampire grapevine spread the news that the City was easy pickings.  The Solas Nomades who like to cause trouble or don’t like to conform and those addicted to adrenalin actively seek towns and cities without strong leadership.” 

He shrugged.  “With such a large city they would’ve migrated here in droves.  The Princeps would’ve tried to bring him in line; for that kind of transgression they would issue warnings first, giving the Master time to rectify the problems.  Unfortunately for him he had lost the respect of his Clan by then, and the turmoil in the City was too great for a simpleton like him to turn around.  Finally the Princeps removed him, and I was offered the City.  It was a troubled place by then, attractive to Rogues, as you call them, of all varieties, and no one else wanted the assignment.”  A slow grin spread across his face.  “Luckily I was a desperate fool, who decided the risk would be worthwhile.  And I was right.” 

His attempt at humour didn’t sway her from the issue that was niggling somewhere deep in her brain.  The reasoning seemed so…so inane.

She shook her head in disbelief. “So, my father died because your predecessor was a sexual pervert who was more interested in copulating than taking care of the City?” 

Julius’s fingers trailed down the back of her arm, offering quiet comfort.  “No, my Lea,” he disagreed, “your father died because he couldn’t stand by and see innocents hurt.  That kind of extreme altruism always finds a release.  If he hadn’t been fighting supernatural creatures, he might have been running into burning buildings, or had himself deployed to one of the human wars around the world, or been smuggling medicine to refugees.”  His fingers moved to trace lazy patterns over her bare shoulder.  “That personality trait is immutable; nothing would’ve held him back from it, not Byron, not your mother, not even you.” 

Gabi was quiet as she considered his words; then she sighed hugely and turned her head slightly to touch her lips to the smooth skin of his chest.  As much as she wanted to argue, she knew he was right, she knew that just as certainly as she knew she had that same trait.  It needed a name, she decided, maybe the kamikaze gene. 

And suddenly she was tired; her father had died doing what he had to do, the why of it wouldn’t bring him back to her.  She closed her eyes and for the first time in weeks just let it all go, forgot the world and everything in it, simply experiencing the moment and the man with his arms around her.  In seconds sleep had claimed her for its own.

Julius lay for a long time simply breathing in her scent and basking in the rare feeling of her unconscious serenity.  After tonight there would be little chance of peaceful sleep. 

CHAPTER 2

Razor, Gabi’s dog-sized tabby cat, wound between her legs as she made her way to her desk, coffee in one hand, chocolate croissant in the other, while a tiny squirrel attempted to nest in her hair.  She grimaced; her desk could officially be declared a war zone.  Her office was the only place her housekeeper, Rose, didn’t clean.  Gabi held firm on that one; it was the only way she ever knew where anything was.  She wasn’t what anyone would call a neat freak, but she always knew where something was when she needed it.  Well, mostly.  If Rose tidied up, Gabi would spend more time looking for stuff than she would working.  Surveying the mess, she reminded herself that she really had to keep the office door closed in future. 

It looked as though two armies of garden gnomes had battled it out for hours in the midst of her paperwork and stationery.  Recent spring rains had turned the garden into slush and Rocky the squirrel liked nothing better than to scamper outside as soon as the sun showed its face.  What she forgot was to wipe her feet on the way back inside.  Razor, being the attentive foster parent he was, would follow his charge outside, ostensibly to make sure Roman, the Rottweiler, didn’t do anything unpleasant to the tiny rodent.  Apparently he too had forgotten to clean his feet before the two of them decided to play tag in her office. 

“I should use you two as cleaning rags,” she grumbled, shoving pens and muddied scraps of paper aside to make room for her coffee mug.  Razor had the decency to look slightly embarrassed.  Rocky showed absolutely no remorse whatsoever as she disentangled the tiny squirrel from her hair and set her on the ground next to Razor.  In the greater scheme of things this mayhem was minor compared to the damage Razor could cause if he was annoyed with her.  He’d cost her several thousand in replacement furniture over the past couple of years.  Luckily he’d calmed down a little in the last few months, possibly as a result of her taking him out with her on a regular basis.  Or maybe even because she herself was calmer and more relaxed since being with Julius.  She couldn’t be sure if it was simply that being in love had changed her or if it was that her body was getting the nourishment a Dhampir needed, but she suspected it was a combination of the two.  Either way, she knew from personal experience that pets often picked up on their carer’s moods and had a tendency, much like children, to act out or shut down when their carers were unhappy or unsettled.  Despite all the danger and craziness around her in recent months, she was happier in her own skin than she’d ever been in her life. 

She pressed the start button on her desktop and waited for it to power up.  She had a tablet, but she found using the keyboard too finicky, so she still preferred to reply to emails and update her calendar on the ‘old clunker’.  As it noisily came to life, she sorted through some of the scattered papers, rescuing some bills and invoices and tossing the unsalvageable bits into the bin.  Her accountant was going to hate her more than usual this tax period.

She swept a handful of paperclips, USB cables, pens and loose sticky notes into an already overflowing drawer as her email programme opened and thirty-seven messages began downloading.  She ran her eyes over the usual assortment of spam, joke emails from Kyle, several requests for appointments to help with misbehaved pets and a couple from production assistants checking if she was free for movie work.  Only one stood out as needing immediate attention. 

The sender was Byron, her surrogate father and head honcho over at her old employer, the SMV.  At one time they’d made a point of meeting for lunch at least once a week, but recently they only saw each other at funerals or chatted on the phone.  Gabi missed their lunch dates. The email wasn’t an invitation to lunch, it had been CC’d to over a dozen others, including all of the SMV Hunters, the Werewolf Alphas, Julius’s SMV representative, and Henry, the human who was a Null, someone capable of negating magical power simply by being in proximity. 

Henry had been fully brought into the SMV fold after being abducted by the Dark Magi Elders and exposed to the reality of supernatural existence. Due to his resistance to magical and Vampiric mind-wiping, it seemed prudent to simply let him in on everything and befriend him.  Byron had taken the young man under his wing after the battle for the Source, and was working on inducting him into the SMV Council as their much-needed human representative.  Gabi was glad of that; despite the man’s incessant talkativeness, she was rather fond of him.

The distance between her eyebrows decreased dramatically as she read the contents of the email.  The tone was disturbingly formal.  It was a request to attend a combined SMV Council and Magi High Council meeting this evening.  It outlined a vague agenda to discuss recent events and developments within the City and the SMV as an organisation.  Gabi had still not returned to her official position as an SMV Hunter, after being sanctioned for an unauthorised kill, even though she was no longer on stand-down.  There were some issues she wanted resolved before she took up her official Hunter mantle again, but in the meanwhile she was still considered an integral part of the group.  She scooped Rocky off her keyboard without taking her eyes from the screen, as she typed a reply to confirm her attendance.  Then she leaned back in her chair with a sigh as she tickled Rocky’s furry belly; she would have to leave the tidying and cleaning up of her office to Rose this time; her diary, which was already full for the week, had just become a little fuller. 

********************

Gabi stopped the BMW X6 at the automated gate, rolling down the window so she could press her thumb to the scanner on the security console.  Julius had recently bought her a McLaren 12C sports car, but she’d chosen her
other
car today. The much less conspicuous, slate-grey BMW was still a luxurious car to drive, and was no slouch in the speed or looks department. Both cars boasted a very special armoured coating designed to protect her from just about anything. 

Just before her thumb hit the scanner, movement in her wing mirror caught her eye. A figure in dark clothing stood across the street and appeared to be watching her car.  She stuck her head out of the window and looked back, something about the figure had been familiar, but whoever it was had already gone.  Glancing around, she noticed a shadow disappearing around a corner into an alleyway.  She paused for a moment, considering following up, but realised she was probably overreacting, jumping at shadows.  For some reason the figure had reminded her of Caspian. 

She hadn’t seen much of the Spanish Vampire since his return to the City a few days before the Dark Magi attacked.  No one trusted the Vampire, who’d sworn fealty to Julius for reasons known only to himself, but that Gabi suspected had everything to do with the fact that he was her Dhampir Sire.  Despite their misgivings he’d actually proved useful several times when they’d been brought up on charges in front of the Princeps.  No one in the Clan truly wanted Caspian around, but unless he actually did something that warranted it, Julius was powerless to get rid of him.  As far as Gabi knew, he’d been put to work patrolling the streets for rogue Vampires.  Gabi trusted him less than just about anyone else, as she was fully aware of the fact that he knew what her blood would do for him. 

The security console blinked a red warning light at her, reminding her of what she was supposed to be doing, so she pushed thoughts of Caspian to the back of her mind as she pressed her thumb to the scanner.  The gate began to vibrate and then clunk as its release mechanism shunted into place and it began to sink into a hollow in the garage floor.  This kind of security hadn’t existed at SMV HQ until a few months ago.  Just as she eased the BMW inside, a loud revving noise made her check her rear-view mirror.  A loud honk brought a reluctant smile as Kyle pulled up in his ugly-as-sin, tricked-out van. Trish was in the passenger seat. 

They found parking bays next to each other near the back of the lot and cut their engines.  Kyle, in new jeans and a button-down shirt, and Gabi made it out first. She swung a friendly punch at his shoulder in greeting.  His attitude and bearing, as well as his outward appearance, had changed significantly in the last few weeks. It was long overdue that he embraced the mantle of Alpha Werewolf he’d been born to, and it seemed that taking on the position of responsible mate to Trish had been the kick up the butt he needed.  But while Gabi knew this was a good thing, she still missed the happy-go-lucky big brother slash best friend she’d taken for granted for so many years.  He grimaced, pretending to nurse his shoulder for a moment, but then unexpectedly whipped his arm out and caught her in a headlock.  She yelped in surprise and then burst into howls of laughter.  Trish chuckled as she caught up with them.