Claimed by the Immortal

Caro answered. “Because I saw what it did.”

* * *

Caro wasn’t allowed in the small back room along with Damien and Alika, but she had enough to absorb from the shelves out front. She dove into a book on Louisiana voodoo and was overcome by the numbers of saints who seemed to have individual powers that practitioners could call on. Most of it seemed benign, though, a fascinating blend of animism and Catholicism.

There was nothing in the book, however, that suggested or even encouraged calling on darker forces. No help, she thought as she closed it and tucked it back onto the shelf.

Just then, Damien emerged carrying an old book. “Alika would like us to leave.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Apparently she senses we’re drawing attention her way.” He reached her and took her hand, pressing a small leather pouch into it. “Some gris-gris for you. She hopes it will help. Now let’s go before we draw her into this mess.”

Caro shoved the pouch into her jacket pocket and hurried to keep up with Damien as he sped from the store. She was now so full of questions she felt she could burst.

She saw the trouble as soon as she stepped onto the street beside Damien. A group of five youths were standing around, and they didn’t look as if they were there by accident. Their gazes immediately locked on her and Damien, and they seemed to pull together before they even took a step. Then their postures shifted, knives came out of pockets and they stepped forward as a unit. Just like a gang fight, Caro thought, and somehow they had become the target. Danger was written all over this, and ordinarily she’d have been reaching for her radio. But she didn’t have her radio.

Had the power summoned them? Were they being influenced to make something unnatural look natural? This whole scene seemed off somehow.

“I can handle them,” Damien murmured.

Caro might be on leave. She might have even fallen off the cliff of reality, but she was still a police officer. No way was she going to encourage violence and most especially from a vampire who could probably leave these guys shredded on the pavement, if what she remembered was true.

She stepped forward, throwing back her jacket, revealing her weapon and her badge clipped to her belt. “You boys have a problem?”

Behind her, she heard the door of the shop lock. She certainly couldn’t blame Alika for that.

And then something shifted. It was one of the weirdest things she’d ever seen. Usually it took time to talk down troublemakers, but this was so different. Their gazes, intense only a moment before, changed. They looked around a bit as if wondering where they were.

She took advantage of the moment. “Just go find legal fun. Okay?”

Then she heard Damien speak in a tone that sent shivers all the way to her toes. “You heard the officer.”

As if on marionette strings, the young men turned and walked away together. No hesitation, just instant obedience.

She watched them disappear down the street and around a corner, uneasiness crawling coldly along her spine. Bad enough to face some unseen force, but to see it manipulate others was scary indeed. Damien was counting on keeping her surrounded by witnesses to protect her. Had this thing figured out a way around that? By using humans as its tools?

Annoyance, a good antidote to fear, reared up and she turned to Damien. “I could have handled that.”

“I’m sure. But how much time do you want to waste?”

“All we seem to be doing is wasting time.”

“Time is never wasted in the company of a beautiful woman.” Then before she could tell him to cut the crap, he added, “Actually, I learned a few things. My place, your place or Jude’s?”

Jude’s would have probably been the safest choice, because even though he had sent Chloe home, he was probably still there himself. But all of a sudden she didn’t want to be safe. Maybe it was the result of adrenaline, affecting her sense of risk.

Regardless, she knew she needed some answers, answers to questions she should have asked years ago of her grandmother, and questions she needed answered for her own peace of mind.

Then there was curiosity. The kind that made her body shiver. The kind that pooled heavily between her legs. She wanted to know. It was as simple as that, adrenaline or not. If she could get him to promise not to drink from her, how much harm could a fling do? Maybe it could drive away this damn sexual miasma that filled the air around him.

Nothing, life had taught her, was ever as good as you anticipated it to be. With any luck, he’d turn out to be a selfish, lousy lover and she could kick him to her mental curb and get past this.

One thing for certain, she had to get her head clear to deal with this threat. She couldn’t afford the continuing distraction of wanting Damien. Not if she had to be around him so much, and considering the limited number of allies she had right now, it appeared she was going to be around him a lot.

“Your place,” she said. Then she watched his eyebrows climb in surprise and enjoyed a brief sense of pleasure at having startled him. Small consolation considering what he was doing to her mind and emotions.

God, was she really thinking about making love with a vampire?

But it wouldn’t be lovemaking, she assured herself. Damn, she hardly knew the guy. All it could be was sex. Simple and straightforward coupling. Uncomplicated. Just to get it off the table.

Caro liked to keep her tables clear. It was part of what made her such a good cop and such a good candidate for detective: problems were meant to be solved or dealt with, not allowed to linger and thus cloud one’s thoughts.

Dealing with this vampire seemed to have risen to the level of clearing the air or becoming swamped until she couldn’t see clearly. While she was distrustful of her ability to keep her emotions out of something like that, she was even more distrustful of her ability to concentrate when she kept getting drowned by the seductive presence of Damien Keller.

Just sitting beside him in the car had her aching with the anticipation of a teen about to make out in the backseat for the first time.

Vampires. Damn. Grandma had warned her. Which for some reason made her think of Red Riding Hood and the wolf concealed in granny’s clothes. She glanced at Damien as they drove toward his place and wondered if she was planning to get in bed with a wolf. Hell, he’d said flatly that he was a predator, and she was definitely on his menu.

Yet he claimed certain restraints. Well, she guessed she was going to find out. Of one thing she was absolutely certain: he had revealed something when he’d expressed concern about whether she would expose Jude. So he wanted to protect Jude. That meant he wouldn’t do anything that might cause her to hurt Jude.

And that, she reasoned, made her fairly safe. He had, after all, backed off like a scalded cat when she had rejected him. Although how she was supposed to protect herself against a creature that could move faster than her eyes could see, she wasn’t quite certain.

Somehow she imagined he wouldn’t hold still for a wooden stake through his heart—even if that might actually work.

Then the ridiculousness of her own thought processes struck her. She was thinking about having sex with Damien while also thinking about how to kill him. Maybe it was a damn good thing she was on medical leave.

“I’m losing my mind,” she said to the night.

“Want to go to Jude’s?” he asked.

“What good will that do?”

“Well, I don’t know why you think you’re losing your mind. I thought you’d decided you didn’t want to be alone with me any longer.”

“If that were my only problem....” If that were her only problem, what? There was no thought to complete. She sat staring into the yawning pit of a world she had refused to believe in all her life, and now she could no longer pretend it wasn’t so.

“Hah!” The sound escaped her sharply.