Haunted by Your Touch

tempting, had felt too damn good once he’d sunk into and made love to her. But he’d been back again three days later, hungrier than ever. Then again, and again…

“I’m not like Ronan.” He clenched his jaw so hard that he swore it would shatter.

Bram scoffed. “Exactly. He’s smarter.”

When Bram turned away to sift through the ruins, Raiden charged after him. “What the hell does that mean? I don’t have the instinct!”

“But, in theory at least, you have a brain. And a heart. You knew that woman meant something to you, but…” Bram shrugged. “Well, water under the bridge if she’s dead.”

Raiden growled, “I refuse to believe that until I have proof.”

“Chances are—”

“Finish that sentence, and I’ll wring your bloody neck. Call Shock. Find out what he knows.”

It went against everything in Raiden’s body to suggest that Bram call the Doomsday Brethren’s supposed double agent. No one liked the confrontational bastard. They trusted him even less. But he alone was close enough to Mathias. Maybe Shock knew the truth. Raiden closed his eyes and prayed.

“Are you mad? If Shock says Mathias has her, what will you do? Charge in like her white knight? You’ll be signing your own death warrant.”

If Mathias had Tabitha, Raiden would go after her. Period. No one deserved to die the way Mathias preferred to kill: shaving, branding, raping, then leaving the victim to bleed to death. She was the warmest woman, passionate beneath that shy exterior, so smart it roused him, so welcoming he’d lacked the strength to say no. She was, in a word, perfect.

Tabitha deserved a better father for her child. Her parents had insisted on it and found her a suitable mate, whom she would have joined with in mere days from now. Raiden had never imagined that finding the strength to walk away from her would lead to this.

“Call Shock,” Raiden demanded. “Now!”

With a shrug, Bram pulled his phone from his pocket. “You’re presuming the wanker will answer.”

After pressing a few buttons, Bram handed him the phone.

Shock did answer… in his usual manner.

“What the fuck do you want?”

“It’s Raiden Wolvesey. Help me.”

“We have nothing to say.”

The hell they didn’t. “I need information about the Lowery attack.”

Shock said nothing for a long moment. “Why do you think I can help you? What’s done is done.”

“You knew about this? Knew Mathias would attack Tabitha’s family?”

Shock remained silent for so long that Raiden wondered if the wizard had rung off. Finally Shock said, “If you were Mathias and you could obtain information you needed while bedding one of magickind’s most renowned beauties, what would you do?”

“So he planned to take her and—” Raiden couldn’t finish the sentence. The reality made him altogether ill. “Did he succeed? Does Mathias have her?”

“I wasn’t present for the attack. It was sudden. Mathias had this mad idea last night. Wouldn’t share it. Just said he’d solved his problem and needed information. I don’t know why. I don’t know who, if anyone, he took with him from the Lowery estate. But he’s in a foul mood now. That’s all I know.”

There was a soft click in Raiden’s ear as Shock ended the call. With a curse, Raiden thrust the phone back at Bram, trying to tamp down his growing fear and fury.

Mathias had wanted information? But was in a foul mood now? Then something had gone wrong. And Raiden prayed it was that Tabitha had escaped.

He clung to that glimmer of hope. He must continue looking for her.

“Shock knows almost nothing,” he muttered.

“Or is willing to admit almost nothing. With him, who knows the truth?”

Who, indeed? Raiden wandered into what had once been Tabitha’s bedroom. Amidst the rubble on the floor, he found the green glass heart necklace she’d been so fond of. His breath froze in his chest. She’d never taken it off, and the fact that it wasn’t around her neck now… He resisted the urge to hurl the little glass pendant across the room. Instead, he shoved it in his pocket. It might be the only thing he had left of her. The thought was another stab in the heart.

Damn it! How could he be this grief-stricken for someone to whom he hadn’t given his heart?

Chapter Two

If Mathias had Tabitha in his grip,” Bram mused, “he’d likely be taunting you with the knowledge.”

Raiden clenched his fists. “Why? As you pointed out, she’s not my mate.”

“But she is the mother of your child. Her magical signature would tell him so,” he said, referring to the aura around every witch and wizard that told others about their power and lineage. “He’d start with the idea that you’d do anything to protect your coming youngling.”

A very good assumption.

The phone in Raiden’s pocket rang. He withdrew it, peered at the display, and swore. His father. If Nathanial told him that he’d scored two sisters and to come home immediately to share them, as he had last week, Raiden swore he’d throttle the man.

“What?” he barked into the phone.

“Good evening to you, Son. Are you… busy?”

In other words, was he already shagging someone tonight? Raiden rolled his eyes. How could a grown wizard think so much like a fifteen-year-old boy? Raiden had tried more than once to explain that since he’d joined the Doomsday Brethren, finding a different woman every night no longer topped his priority list. Staying alive did. Granted, that was likely futile. Seven warriors stacked against the most evil wizard in history and his growing army? The odds weren’t good. But his twin, Ronan, was committed to this war, and the cause was noble, so Raiden wouldn’t leave his brother to fight alone.

“Yes, I’m busy, Father.” Looking for Tabitha. The lie would dissuade Nathanial from calling for a few hours at least.

“Very well, I’ll tell your encinta that.”

His encinta. The woman carrying his baby. Raiden’s heart stopped. “Tabitha is there?”

“Indeed. Unless there’s another—”

“No. Is she all right?” Raiden demanded.

“Shaken and bleeding a bit from a small wound.”

A relief stronger than he’d ever felt poured through Raiden. Something in him had died when he’d thought he might never see her again. Now it awakened with a vengeance.

“I’ll be happy to take care of her,” Nathanial said.

“Don’t touch her.” It was all Raiden could do not to crush the phone.

He’d never been possessive of a woman—until recently. Before Tabitha, females had been interchangeable. Since meeting her, Raiden had done his best to put on a good front, but he ached for her alone.

And now he might have the opportunity to hold her again.

No. Though she was alive, she was all but pledged to another. It was better that way.

“Well.” His father sounded affronted. “You needn’t yell.”

“Keep Tabitha there. I’ll be home in a moment.”

He rang off and bent to her family’s burned, bloody bodies. He lifted Tabitha’s mother. Her ending had been violent but quick. Small blessing, but better than the alternative.

The woman had despised him for impregnating her only daughter. Had said the baby had ruined her chances of mating and that a notorious playboy like Raiden didn’t deserve her. Naturally, they’d been relieved when Sean