Savage Smoke (7 page)

“I’m a bit surprised Chance shared anything about this. I think he’s nervous about the health of the babies and me.”

“Actually, he didn’t talk about it until Damen brought it up.”

“So how did he come across, everything all right with Chance?” Neither of them had gotten much sleep, only a few hours in France and they left at seven as soon as they got out of bed, flying eight hours back and gaining six hours with the time difference. Olivia didn’t figure he needed more process time acclimating to her birthing their children, but his comment on the plane had thrown her off, which wouldn’t happen again.

Jasmine sat next to Olivia on the soft leather couch. “Chance giving up any of it was like pulling teeth. Thank the gods for Damen, on this one occasion only. You know how I feel about Damen, the shithead. But, I think he must have talked with Chance about this. They were holed up in the Ops room for about forty minutes or so before opening the door to me.”

“That’s curious. Hmmm.”

“So, you said you had a couple questions for me.”

“Yes, the gestation time makes no sense to me, considering Lycan age one year to a human’s eight years. It seems that my pregnancy term would be longer…much longer than a human’s.”

“Isn’t that crazy? But, it’s a fact. Younglings age quickly, up until they are sixteen or so. They are also born in wolf-form…aging similar to the human/wolf ratio, only the opposite. A youngling ages eight years to one human year.”

Olivia inhaled a deep breath, attempting to understand what Jasmine had just claimed so matter-of-factly. “I’m having a litter of pups?” She fanned her burning face with her hand, blood rushing, pounding in her ears. Her body trembled and prickles crawled up her spine.
This can’t be happening…like a perverse nightmare.

“You should see yourself, Olivia.” Jasmine giggled and then broke out in laughter, gulping for air, tears rolling down her face, until finally she stopped and stared at Olivia. “Calm yourself, honey. It’s going to be all right.” Jasmine moved over and hugged Olivia’s shaking body. “We all began our lives as a youngling and look at us now. Please, Olivia, you need to keep yourself relaxed…it’s essential for you to stay in as peaceful a state as you can. You don’t want to speed things along any faster than it should happen.” Jasmine rubbed the back of Olivia’s trembling hand. “You can’t shift into wolf-form until after birthing, you know that right?”

Olivia’s vision blurred as if she were looking through stagnant water as her mind continued to grasp the fact her babies were puppies. Jasmine leaned into Olivia, wrapping an arm tighter around Olivia’s shoulders.

“Shhh, it’s going to be all right.”

“Trevor, you back yet? Get over to Chance’s suite. Olivia needs your calming ability. I can’t have her going wolf in here. Hurry!”
Jasmine spoke in Lycan mind-communication.

“Give me a minute, Jasmine. Trevor doesn’t need to come.” Olivia took a couple deep breaths and laid her head back.

“Oh, I forget you can pick up on our communications.” Jasmine pulled back and smiled at Olivia.

“Not always, but when you’re hanging over the top of me…how can I miss it?” Olivia relaxed, and Jasmine rose from the couch. “Thanks for your concern and for your time answering my questions.”

“Not a problem. You’ll probably get sick of us hanging around you, I’m sure. When an Alpha’s mate is in the expectant-way, she’s pretty much under twenty-four hour surveillance, I mean care. Just letting you know you’ll never be alone.” Jasmine sighed. “Well, Trevor didn’t respond. Must be the guys are still not back. Dir and Trev had a mini mission late last night. Apparently, Jase went missing.”

Trevor

“I’ve got an SUV parked over there.” Ria pointed. “You boys up for the ride, maybe get a bit of action on the drive to my place?”

Jase tripped over himself in his attempt to walk beside her. Trevor chuckled and grabbed his friend by the shoulder, hauling him back a notch.

“Something’s feeling real wrong with this whole set-up. She’s too willing and making it too convenient for us. I don’t like it.”
Trevor lost his hold as Jase jerked away, catching up with Ria. Trevor watched the woman lick Jase’s neck, and she placed his hands over her well-endowed breasts. She arched into his palms. Trevor heard Jase’s groan and thought he’d shoot his wad right there.

“Lover-boy, did you hear a damn thing I just said? I think this woman is poison. Something’s wrong with this whole picture. Talk to me!”
Trevor stopped walking.
“Can you scent her?”
Trevor didn’t recall any kind of personal marking scent coming from her, other than some perfume fragrance, well overdone.

“Oh gods, she’s got her hand wrapped around my cock and you’re telling me we’re done with her? Oh, shit, it’s been way too long…”
Jase lost focus, making Trevor want to belt him.

“Damn it, Jase, get your head out of your ass!”

“It’s not in my ass, it’s in this lovely woman’s hot little hand and I’m…”

Trevor watched the whole thing unwind like a slow motion porn flick, walking to the side a short distance away. Thank gods for the darkness. There was no one in the parking lot to witness Jase’s performance, anyway. She dropped to her knees, pulled Jase’s cock out of his pants, shoving his jeans down his ass, and it looked like she swallowed him whole, deep-throated. And he wielded a good-sized hard-on.

Jase’s moans filled the air. His bare ass muscles tightened and released as he pumped Ria’s face. Trevor’s cock filled and throbbed behind the zipper of his jeans.

Then Trevor heard her—Ria…hiss.
Shit.
He knew why she had no scent. Jase stopped pumping, and Trevor saw the kid’s body shaking in release. Trevor moved in a flash. Blood drooled from the side of her mouth. She slurped, sucked, licked, until Jase shivered in another orgasm. Trevor expected the bitch to die as soon as Jase’s blood hit her mouth. Instead, Jase’s eyes looked glazed. He groaned as if in ecstasy, his hands gripping her head to his groin. He’d been compelled. Only she should be obliterated after ingesting Lycan blood.

What the hell is going on?
Trevor dropped to his knees beside her.

“Get your teeth out of him before I snap your head off, Vampire.” Trevor growled, his hands tightened around her slender neck. In the next moment, a blur of motion, and three men appeared, stationed around them.

“Take your hands off her, now, or your boy here will get a silver blade through the heart, and you’ll be next.”

Trevor removed his hands from the vamp and she shoved him over.

“Didn’t see that coming.”

Jase’s cock slipped out of Ria’s lips, making a slurpy pop and slapping against his belly as if spring-loaded.

“Oh, yes.” She licked her lips, smacking. “He’s exactly what I want…yummy.”

“Who the hell are these guys? What just happened?”
Jase finally came out of his sex coma the bitch sent him into.

“Good question, Ria should be dead. I’ve never known a vampire that could ingest our blood and live through it.”
Before Trevor could mind-talk another word, two guys yanked him up and tossed him like a sack of manure across the parking lot. By the time he skidded to a stop and jumped to his feet, a total of three guys, Ria, and Jase vanished.

“Damn it, Jase, talk to me. Where’d they take you? Jase! Jase?”

Trevor ran around the perimeter of the bar, but to no avail. Ria’s SUV still sat in the lot. He broke into it to see if he could find anything that might help him find Jase. Nothing. His next stop—Jeb. Maybe he could find out the location of her cabin, exactly where the vamp stayed.

Holy damn…vampires. They hadn’t been seen in the states in decades.
What in the hell do they want with a Lycan? And why didn’t she die?

Trevor strode inside the bar, people shuffling out of his way as he made a beeline for Jeb. The older bartender grinned and waggled his eyebrows at Trevor, like he expected a graphic rendition of what went down with Ria. Trevor reached across the bar and grabbed Jeb’s collar, bringing them nose to nose as Jeb’s body stretched across the counter top. A couple of good-sized bouncers Trevor didn’t recognize knocked over tables and people getting to him. In a blur of motion, Jeb’s body flew over the bar and got planted in front of Trevor like a shield.

“Call off your dogs, Jeb. You and I need to have a little talk regarding Ria. You have a nice quiet place we can go?” Trevor jerked Jeb’s arm a little higher across his back. Jeb directed his goons back to work by staring at each one and jerking his head first in the direction of the bar and then the tables, like sign language without fingers.

Trevor waited for the big guys to move off and then shoved Jeb forward. “Lead the way.”

They ended up in a small room in the back, overrun with leaning stacks of paperwork and smelling of stale cigar smoke. Trevor pushed Jeb toward a raggedy stained chair.

“Sit.”

Jeb sat, rubbing his shoulder, wincing. Trevor figured it would hurt for a while.

“What’s the big deal? Did Ria pick Jase over you?”

“Damn it, Jeb, why in the hell didn’t you tell us that bitch was a vampire?”

Jeb’s eyes blinked wide, and his deep intake of breath told Trevor the old bartender didn’t have a clue about Ria. But, maybe he could still help him locate their lair.

“Holy shit! We haven’t had one of those things in my place for years…more than I care to count.” The disbelief in his eyes vanished as he turned his attention to Trevor. “I didn’t know…honestly, I had no idea, but it explains a lot. Like why no one ever talks about their time with her…they’ve most likely been compelled to forget. Trevor, you and Jase have been coming in here for a long time…we’re friends. I never would have promoted her like I did if I had any idea she wasn’t human.”

Trevor noted the sincerity in Jeb’s tone, and he knew the old guy was honest. He’d always been genuine and kind, even his knowledge of their Lycan nature didn’t seem to matter. Jeb remained one of the few humans in the area who knew about Chance and the pack, as Chance used Jeb for a contact once in a while. Trevor stepped back and took a deep breath, hoping to calm the anxiety still fueling his adrenalin.

“I need to find out where Ria is staying. She and her three male goons took Jase…I mean instant vanish, which means at least one of the vampires is old enough to have telekinesis vanishing ability. I can only hope he or she’s not so old that the vamp no longer has distance limitations. Maybe they are still in the immediate area.”

“Let me call old man Clemmings and see which place is hers.” He jumped up and went to the desk in the far corner, pulling a drawer open and taking out a phone book. His forefinger ran down the side of a page. “Here it is.” He made the call while Trevor paced. Jeb grabbed a pen and wrote while talking, and then hung up the phone. Trevor stopped and faced him.

“Well, where are they?” He’d heard parts of Clemmings phone conversation, but was too distracted by the loss of Jase to fully engage. Trevor found it hard to concentrate on anything. His senses seemed on overload, he pinpointed his focus on physically moving to find Jase. He didn’t know if Jase even knew not to bite back. Lycan blood should have killed Ria, just like vampire blood killed Lycan.

“He doesn’t have a woman fitting Ria’s description in any of them, but he does have a few empty cabins, so he gave me some directions to find them. They’re pretty far out, down off some old fire lanes on the edge of the state land. Maybe she’s holed-up in one of the empties. Do you want me to send my guys with you?”

“No, thanks. But, I’ll take what you have there.” Trevor reached out, and Jeb handed him the piece of paper.

“Good luck, Trevor. I’d hate to see anything happen to young Jase. He does know vampires can be poisonous to Lycan, right?”

“Hopefully, but not sure. I don’t think Jase has ever come across one before today.” Trevor strode out, on a mission.

“Dir, Chance, Damen, anybody out there? I need some back-up. Jase’s gone missing, in the company of four vampires. Missing, as in vanished, poof!”

“Trevor…vampires? Are you sure?”
Jasmine answered.

“Absolutely. I have some places to check out as possible locations where they might be staying. I could use some help. Three of them are strong-ass giants, and at least one of them has the ability to teleport.”

“Damen and Chance are a couple hours away from landing. I’ll need to be on hand when they get here. Damen gave me a bump earlier saying Olivia’s carrying a big surprise for us.”

“How about Dir—can you spare him? I’d like to have at least one more to even the odds. Jase has gone smitten, not worth a shot against them, plus, he’s been bitten and the vampire walked away from it.”

“No kidding. How in the gods can that even happen?”
Dir’s voice popped in.

“I’m clueless at this point…but maybe Jasmine can find something. Her name is Victoria Russell. Goes by the name Ria.”
Trevor piled into his truck, not wanting to wait for Dir.

“I’m packin’ some vampire stompin’ goodies, enough for the three of us. I’ll be right there—don’t leave without me,”
Dir stated.

“Yeah, three of us, that is, if we can cut Jase loose from his over-sexed vamp. I hope I didn’t wait too long before calling you in, Dir. Hurry.”

Lindsey

Lindsey stood next to the blonde-furry beast. It growled at her and then melted to the floor. The shape blurred, cracked, and convulsed, the transition ending in a beautiful naked woman lying at Lindsey’s feet. Bliss stretched and stood, her emerald-greens grazing over Lindsey’s body, making her bare skin heat and nipples pebble.

Lindsey stepped closer, and Bliss smiled.

“So you’re finally awake. I’m sure your clothes are dry by now. You should get dressed and stay warm.”

Bliss turned and walked away. Lindsey’s mouth dropped open.