Chosen by Sin (9 page)

“You’re still bound and determined to kill your grandfather?”

“Of course.”

“Of course?” Knox laughed and shook his head. “It’s that much of a
no-brainer for you? Hell, Dex, you’ve got a good life now. Don’t you think you
should forget about the past? Move on?”

“That’s easy for you to say, now that you’ve discovered your traitor
father wasn’t a traitor after all. But that’s not gonna happen with me. My
grandfather is a son of a bitch who deserves everything he’s got coming.”

“Fine. Just think about what I said. And I still want your promise.”

“You’d trust my promise?”

“Yes.”

Dex hesitated for a few seconds, thinking of Lucy. Of the promise he’d
already made her. Since when had protecting women become a pastime for him?
Next thing he knew, O’Flare would be extracting a promise from him to care for
Wraith. And there was no doubt in his mind that despite his reluctance to label
his team friends, he would agree. Why waste any more time, Knox’s or his, by
denying what Knox already knew Dex would agree to? “I promise.”

They stared at each other with mutual understanding and—again, it
couldn’t be denied—respect. They’d come a long way since trying to kill
each other at the Para-Ops team’s first meeting. As Knox turned away, Dex
stopped him.

“Wait. I have a question for you. Can vampires manipulate dreams?”

Knox frowned. “I’ve heard it’s possible, though I’m not sure how.”

“Have you heard of a female vampire with scars on one arm? Like she’d
put her arm through a sheet of glass when she was young?”

“Is this about the vamp you met at the club?”

Of course Knox would have heard about Dex’s encounter with Jesmina from
the others, but Dex still didn’t like Knox knowing his business. He supposed it
was the price he paid for working on a team, but even when he’d been with the
Ferals he hadn’t let anyone that close. Not like this.

“I can put feelers out for you,” Knox offered.

“She might have something to do with a recent visit from an old friend.
One I wasn’t particularly keen on seeing.”

“I’ll take that as a yes. You want a favor from me?”

Leave it to the vamp to push the matter. “Yes,” Dex gritted out. What
he really wanted was to question Jes himself. Ask her why she’d left so
suddenly. Why she hadn’t bitten him. But anything Knox found out would be
better than what Dex knew now—zilch.

Knox chuckled. “See you soon, Dex.”

After Knox left, Dex returned to his pacing. Within minutes, however,
the surgery doors opened and a tired-looking human in scrubs walked up to him.

“Mr. Hunt?”

“Yes?”

“I was told you were waiting to question my patient. The shape-shifter
that was brought in? I’m sorry to tell you he didn’t make it. His wounds were
too serious. We tried, but…”

With a sigh and a shrug, the doctor turned away.

Dex cursed. Mahone had the police reports from the responding officers,
but Dex had been banking on getting information from the victim himself.
Obviously that wasn’t going to happen now.

He left to report to Mahone. On his way, he thought about his conversation
with Knox. Not the conversation about Felicia, but about Dex’s plan for revenge
against his grandfather.

What was it Knox had said?
Hell, Dex, you’ve got a good life now.
Don’t you think you should forget about the past? Move on?

But Knox didn’t get it. Knox’s brother Zeph might have kept secrets
from him, but that was hardly the same thing as sending your grandson off to be
abused or causing your own daughter to kill herself. Avenging himself and his
mother was the only way Dex was ever going to be able to move on. The real
problem was that he’d gotten sidetracked.

By the team. The missions. Jes.

That had to stop.

No matter what Knox found out for him, Rurik’s appearance in his dream
had been a sign that Dex needed to concentrate on his own future.

He was going to kill Bodin of Hammersham. Soon.

But first he had to keep his word to Mahone and figure out why
shape-shifters were killing each other.

Since he hadn’t been able to question the shape-shifter who’d just died
in the operating room, maybe he could question another one. Why not the
shape-shifter who’d drugged Lucy at the same bar in which he’d met Jesmina?
He’d clued them in to Maddox and his sterilizations, even as Lucy was rifling
through the guy’s safe. If Dex was lucky, the shape-shifter was still being
held in L.A. And if Dex was really lucky, the shape-shifter would know
something about these recent murders.

Failing that, Dex would go to France. Hell, maybe he’d track down Jes
while he was there. But after the time they’d spent together—after how
much she’d affected him—he knew it was the last thing he should do.

To one who felt and feared, the approach of the end of a world might be
experienced as a significant event. To Essenia, it was merely something to
stop. A task to complete based on a niggling sense of injustice. If she
succeeded, great. If she failed, so be it. Either way, the event would have
minimal, if any, effect on her. She’d simply move on to the next task, the next
compulsion, with a slightly better understanding of her place in things but no
real emotion for the creatures that had come and gone.

Emotion was a tricky concept for her. From what she knew, emotion came
with a personal stake as well as fluctuation. Degrees of sensation. For her
creatures, both human and Otherborn, anger and passion burned, joy expanded,
grief constricted. What she felt, on the other hand, was an appropriate
response to certain stimuli—responses that humans might describe as
anger, amusement, or pleasure depending on her behavior—but each was felt
equally and each was equally forgettable. Other than their ability to
effectuate action in others, the feelings were nothing personal to her.

Her beginning and her end were timeless, what happened in between
meaningless. There was only her service to drive her.

Until now.

Now she felt something she’d never felt before. Something she hadn’t
been able to anticipate with familiar detachment. Something quite unexpected.

Hesitation.

It had first hit her during her last visit with the human Kyle Mahone.
At the end of his team’s last mission, instead of showing satisfaction at the
outcome or sneering at her as he was sometimes inclined to do, Mahone had
closed his eyes and uttered, “I’m tired.” With those words, just for one brief
moment, Essenia had longed to close her eyes and whisper that she was tired,
too.

What she hadn’t known was why.

As such, she’d played the role Mahone had come to expect.

Goddess. Tyrant. Bitch.

Yet, he knew. Knew she was trying to stop something far more powerful
than herself from eradicating his world. That knowledge connected them. Made
him the one creature that knew her better than any other.

And now it was almost too late.

Just months ago, she’d given him a task. Form a team of humans and
Otherborn, and within one year prove her creatures were capable of changing
their world for the better or face annihilation. He’d done the first and the
team had made strides toward the latter. But things had changed.

Through no fault of hers, he might not get the year she’d promised.

The change of the seasons was upon them.

The gates would soon widen, allowing that flash of simultaneous
creation and destruction that had only occurred once before.

Yes, Mahone had good instincts.

He’d focused on the hotbed of activity among the shape-shifters in
France. Had put his team on the task. But that didn’t mean they had any idea
what they’d face. This time, their task wasn’t about recovering an antidote
from hostile lands or even finding out who was drugging and raping members of the
feline community. The danger, Mahone would discover, was one of unimaginable
proportions.

It would be, in human vernacular, an unfair fight.

Perhaps giving up would be in everyone’s best interest. Accept the turn
of the tides in lieu of fighting a losing battle. Once the danger was released,
if Mahone and his team failed, then starting over might not be easy.

Starting over couldn’t even be guaranteed.

But there it was again. A beat of hesitation, like a blip in a
hummingbird’s flight. The urge to turn away from what should have been an easy
decision.

The urge to mean something personal to someone, if only for a moment.

***

Mahone knew he had to be dreaming, not because he was masturbating, but
because he was actually feeling aroused while doing the deed.

He hadn’t felt true desire in years, not since the War had started. Not
since Bianca…

Release had become about physical relief or relieving stress, but
nothing more.

He hadn’t been overly concerned. He didn’t have the time or energy to
devote to any kind of sexual relationship let alone a romantic one, and he’d
long ago given up any fantasies of finding love.

All that mattered was his job. Helping his team. And appeasing the
Goddess.

If he could do that—

He hissed as fingers—his own, yes, but also another’s—wrapped
themselves around him.

Pleasure pooled in the bottom of his spine then shot outward. Down his
legs. Up his back and through his arms. Everywhere.

Then the pleasure intensified. Thickened. Until his body could barely
contain it.

It was too much, even for a dream, he thought.

This is no dream, Human
, a
feminine voice whispered in his ear, and Mahone suddenly jerked to full
awareness.

He was lying in bed, his fingers wrapped around his shaft, his seed
erupting from him in euphoric bursts in time with his jagged, almost sobbing
breaths. Sweat covered his entire body, soaking the sheets beneath him and
dripping in his eyes, nearly blinding him.

What the fuck—

He shouted as another spasm of pleasure shot through him. It was like
getting stunned by a Taser, yet like nothing he’d ever experienced.

The edges of his dream flickered in his awareness then disappeared
until he didn’t even know the source of the mind-boggling wet dream. That
wasn’t such a surprise. Ever since he’d been approached by the Goddess Essenia,
any memories of his dreams vanished instantly upon waking.

That had been fine with him. He’d been glad not to dream of Bianca
Devereaux anymore. Glad that the image of her being reunited with her husband
could no longer haunt him when his defenses were down. Tonight, as the
painfully exquisite shudders still coursed through him, he was even happier not
to know their source. Part of him couldn’t help wondering, however, if his
subconscious had been fighting to let Bianca through.

Only, he’d never felt anything like this, not in dreams about Bianca
and not even when he’d been having sex with her.

For a moment, he craved another dreamlike release, the skillful touch
of his imaginary woman’s hands—

“Human…” Essenia’s whisper in his head.

What the fuck?

He shook his head, then threw off his bed covers. Staggering a little,
he headed to the bathroom where he splashed water on his face and cleaned up
the proof of his release. He waited until the tremors faded and his breathing
regulated. Then he carefully made his way back to bed. Hands clasped behind his
head, he stared at the ceiling, waiting. Wondering.

Why had he imagined Essenia lavishing pleasure on him, when all he’d
known from her was pain?

Yet he’d heard tenderness in her voice. Once.

Just before she’d taunted him again.

After Wraith had turned back into a human, the Goddess had finally
visited him only to imply that one of his team was pregnant. So far Mahone
hadn’t confirmed whether it was true. He figured the news would come to him
when it was meant to. One thing was for sure—the pregnancy would mean
something. For her to have mentioned it, it had to.

His eyelids grew heavy. He’d been up later than usual, waiting for news
on the wounded shape-shifter. By the time Dex had called, telling him the
shape-shifter had died on the operating table, it had been nearing six a.m. Now
it was almost noon and Mahone had slept the requisite four hours he needed to
be in top form. But the dream had drained him in more ways than one, and
waiting with bated breath for Essenia to make her next appearance had him on
edge. He could use some extra rest.

He let his lids fall completely. Tried, for the first time in a long
time, to conjure memories of Bianca. To remember her as she’d been, before the
War, before the vaccine had endangered her health, before her husband had risen
from the dead. He tried to remember the way her eyes flashed when he was inside
her and the way her body clasped his as if she’d never let him go. He tried to
recall the feelings of power and pride and sheer joy she’d pulled from him.

But he couldn’t.

Instead, when he slipped into sleep, his arms held a woman he’d never
seen before. A woman with long flowing hair and a kind, angelic face. A woman
who sighed and called him “Human.”

PALADINE ABBEY

AUVERGNE REGION, FRANCE

“Dex was in good health then?”

At Amanda Hammersham’s question, Jes’s fingers hovered above her
keyboard. She was back in France, in the huge, cavernous abbey that she’d
inherited from her second Draci family. After renovating and adding much-needed
modern touches, the abbey now served as her home, laboratory, and medical
clinic. The sprawling building and grounds ensured she and her patients had
their privacy while also enabling her plenty of notice if an unwanted intruder
approached.

A few days had passed since she’d been in a position to evaluate Dex
Hunt’s health. Of course, her position had been flat on her back, and despite
her plan, the last thing she’d been doing was evaluating him—more like
trying to cling to a fraction of her sanity even as he blew her mind.