to reach out and comfort her.
'We both have curses we have to live with,' she said softly. 'And in many ways, mine is much worse than yours.'
Nothing could be worse than losing your soul to an animal every full moon. 'What do you mean?'
She rubbed a hand across still-damp eyes. 'I'll explain later. You need to go. Right now.'
What he needed was an explanation. But the sirens were drawing closer and Benton 's blood pressure would go haywire if he found Ethan here.
'I'll see you at the beach,' he said, and walked away.
Kat waited until the rumble of the Mustang's engine had faded, then dialled the hotel. Gwen answered on the third ring.
'I'm sorry, Kat,' she said. 'I wish I could have warned you.'
No amount of warning could have helped ease the horror of what she'd felt in that room. Bile rose and she closed her eyes, fighting the need to vomit, fighting the tears pressing past closed eyelids. 'I needed to go in without any preconceptions. We both know that.'
Gwen sighed. 'So what did you feel?'
What didn't she feel? God, the room was a menagerie of the dead's emotions. 'He died a lot slower than Daniel.
The soul sucker let a werewolf play around with him for a while before she sucked his essence away.'
She tried not to think of the bits of humanity strewn across that room. Tried not to remember the blinding fear and agony that had savaged her mind and cut through her soul. She failed miserably at both. But it was what had followed those emotions that had sickened her the most.
The smells and sensations of sex. The soul sucker had mated amidst all the carnage.
'Hang on,' she said and hurriedly put the phone down, staggering away to the fence to lose the little she'd eaten for dinner.
She was wiping her mouth with her hand when the cops came in. Benton took one look at her and ordered an officer to go get a bottle of water.
'Where?' was all he said to her.
'First floor, to the left.'
He nodded and walked away. The ordered water was hurriedly brought back, and she swilled some around her mouth then spat it out. Once all the cops were inside, she went back to the bricks and picked up the phone.
'Sorry, Gran.'
'The cops are there, I gather?'
'Just arrived.'
'Then it'll be an hour or so before you get back here?'
'Probably more. I need to cleanse. I feel the dead right through me.'
'Of course you would, after walking into that room and soaking up their emotions.' Gwen sighed. 'Get us both some breakfast on the way back. I'll contact Seline and ask her to research what exactly this soul sucker is. Now that we know what this thing looks like, it should be easier to track her down.'
'It'll be nice to know what will actually kill this thing before we confront it.'
'Yes, it would.'
Kat glanced up as Benton came out of the warehouse.
'Gotta go. It's question time.'
'Make sure you bring your werewolf back with you.'
'He's not my anything,' she said flatly. 'And why do you want him back?'
'Because we're all going to need to protect each other in the near future.'
A chill ran down her spine. 'Why?'
'I'll tell you later.'
The phone went dead. Kat shoved it back into her pocket and looked up at Benton . And knew it was going to be a very long couple of hours before she could fly to freedom.
Dawn had begun to paint the sky pink and orange by the time Ethan sensed her. He sat halfway down a grassy knoll, watching the waves shimmer across the sand as he listened to her approaching steps.
She smelled like no one he'd ever met. Fresh, airy, like warm summer rains and crisp spring winds. It was an alluring, almost erotic combination.
She stopped several feet away on his left. The stiffening breeze tugged at her hair, throwing the dark strands across her face. Her hands were thrust deep into her pockets, but even from where he sat he could see the trembling.
Tiredness, or a continuing reaction to what they'd walked into?
'I have to swim.'
She was nuts. 'It's the middle of damn winter, and that's the Pacific out there, not a sheltered cove.'
'I know. And it's perfect.' Her gaze met his, as remote as her voice. 'Given your current state, I suggest you wait in the car.'
She didn't wait for a reply, just continued toward the water. When she reached the sand she began stripping.
Soon there was nothing left but flesh.
She was creamy and luscious and absolutely perfect, and he went hard just watching her. If he was any sort of gentleman, he'd go back to the car as she'd suggested, but he'd long ago given up any such pretensions. Besides, he seriously doubted whether any man could walk away right now.
She dove underwater then rose a heartbeat later and rolled onto her back. Her breasts were generous white mounds with dark thrusting peaks he suddenly ached to taste. He shifted and wished his jeans weren't so damn tight. The goddamn zipper was killing him.
It was lucky the moon had fled. At least he had control enough to simply sit there. And while he suspected she wouldn't rebuke his advances right now, he wasn't about to hit on a woman who'd been through what she'd just been through.
He watched until it became apparent she was getting ready to come out, then got up and walked stiffly to the car. His erection hadn't gone down any by the time she reappeared. Though she was fully dressed, moisture made the T-shirt almost see-through and her sweat pants clung like a second skin.
Thank God for long shirts. 'Back to the motel?'
She nodded, her teeth chattering and skin almost blue. He took off his coat and draped it across her shoulders, then settled her into the passenger's seat. After climbing into the driver's side, he started the engine and turned the heater up full. The car's interior quickly became a furnace.
The chattering eased and her skin became a more normal colour. But the T-shirt took longer to dry, and he wasn't at all sorry about that.
'Mind telling me what that was about?'
She sighed. 'I'm an empath with a difference.'
He glanced at her, but she still had her eyes closed.
'What sort of difference?'
'Instead of sensing the emotions of the living, I soak up the feelings of the dead.'
'That's not possible.'
She snorted softly. 'I wish.'
'But…' He frowned. They'd known what he was from the moment he walked up to the motel door, and that was something no one could have told them. Everything else, maybe, but not that. 'How?'
'I'm not really sure myself. But it seems the more emotional or violent the death, the more those feelings permeate a room.'
'So when you walked into that room — ' 'I felt everything that little boy had when he died.'
No wonder she'd been so cold. She'd shared head space with violence and death. 'How in hell do you keep sane?'
A smile touched her still pale lips. 'I was under the impression you thought I wasn't.'
'Well, swimming in the ocean until you were blue is pretty damn crazy.'
