Claimed by the Immortal

As she lathered herself under the spray, she remembered how erotic it had been when Damien had scrubbed her with a soapy washcloth, making her skin tingle, touching her intimately in ways no man had ever touched her before.

Odd to think of the liberties she had never shared with anyone, but then she had to admit most of her relationships had died before they’d gone on very long. She hadn’t had a single one that had gotten to the point of sharing a shower.

It wasn’t as if she’d never heard of lovers sharing a shower or bath before. She just hadn’t wanted to do that with anyone until Damien. In fact, there were a lot of things she’d never even thought of trying until Damien.

Things like being tied up and helpless. Things like that delightful little whip of his. She could feel the sensitive tissues between her legs blossom at the memory, and she lingered a little while washing herself, reminding herself of how good it had felt.

* * *

Whole new worlds indeed.

Outside Caro found Chloe setting the table for three. “I didn’t mean to wake you,” Chloe said, “but it was time to order dinner.”

“I needed to wake up. It’s been a while since I’ve slept that long.”

“I slept a lot, too. Can you check on the coffee? Terri can’t start her day without it.”

Caro returned a minute later with her own mug in hand. She could hear Chloe down the hall, paying the deliveryman for dinner—she shortly returned with a stack of foam containers.

“Italian tonight,” Chloe announced. “I hope you like chicken marsala.”

“I love it.”

“These folks make it really well.” She allowed Caro to take some of the containers and set them on the tiny table.

Three places for five people, Caro couldn’t help but note. She was getting used to Damien not eating human food, but she wondered if it would seem odder over the long run to always be dining alone. Then she reminded herself she would probably never know. Chloe had reminded her, as if she needed reminding, that Damien intended to return home. Even if he were to ask her to join him, she doubted her willingness to give up the life she had built here. She had worked so hard to become a detective. What in the world would she do in another country?

Anticipated sorrow fluttered darkly around the edges of her mind and heart, but she forced it away. There’d be plenty of time to face that after they dealt with this bokor. Right now she had to maintain her focus. She was about to go out on a dangerous job. After all these years, she’d learned to put aside everything except the task right in front of her. This was a matter of life or death.

The women ate at the table. The two vampires drank their dinners from glasses—better, Caro supposed, than downing it directly from a bag. It at least seemed more polite, she supposed. Certainly it allowed them to join the others even if they stayed on the sofa.

Conversation remained casual until Terri left for work. Then everyone gathered around the table, while Chloe carried leftovers into the kitchen.

“What’s the plan?” Jude asked. “What do you need me to do?”

“I’m going to follow the power skeins directly to the bokor.”

Jude looked at him. “You can do that? Why didn’t you do that to begin with?”

“I didn’t have the power. Now I do.”

Jude glanced at Caro, a certain understanding in his golden gaze. “Ah. Okay. So you both have enhanced powers now.”

“Yes,” Damien answered. “And now I can follow the trail of this elemental right back to its source.”

“And then?”

“Then I’m going to use every power at my disposal to weaken the bokor and send the elemental back.”

Jude’s smile was crooked. “You make it sound so easy.”

“As I’m sure you know only too well, these things are never easy. Fighting power with power is always a touchy thing.”

“And Caro?” Jude looked at her.

“She’s going to back me up. She’s found her power, Jude. All she has to do is direct it at the bokor or the elemental. It’ll bolster what I do.”

“The two of you together should be able to match a bokor.”

“I hope we do better than match it. Otherwise we’re lost.”

Jude nodded. “And what do you want me to do?”

“Stay close with your oils and holy water. So far they’ve worked to keep the elemental back. I may need you to surround us with them when we have the elemental contained with the bokor.”

“So it can’t escape?”

“Exactly.”

“But you’ll be locked inside with it.”

That was the point at which Caro felt butterflies in her stomach again. All of a sudden the chicken marsala didn’t seem to be sitting well, and anxiety ran along her nerve endings.

“Locked inside with it?” she repeated. “That could be a mistake.”

Damien turned to her and took both her hands in his. Strong hands, cool hands. She had a flash of memory at what they were capable of doing to her.

“We have to be inside with it. If we’re outside, Jude’s wards could be as much a wall to us as to it.”

“But I can see beyond Jude’s wards now,” she reminded him.

“Seeing beyond them and casting power beyond them are two very different things.”

She supposed she could understand that. So she was about to get locked inside a circle with an elemental and a bokor. Not her everyday sort of experience. Her mouth turned a bit dry as she considered every possible thing that could go wrong, and there were a multitude of them.

Damien’s grip on her hands tightened. “I could fight them alone, Schatz.”

The offer immediately stiffened her spine. “No. I won’t have that. I’ve been tracking this thing for a week, people have been killed and it has to stop. If there’s any chance my powers might make the difference, then I’m not staying out of this fight.”

Damien searched her face and she tried to look as determined as she could. After a few seconds, he nodded.

“And I’m bringing my gun,” she announced. “If necessary, I’m going to use it against this bokor.”

Damien shook his head. “Your power is the whitest of lights, Caro. Don’t dim it by bringing a weapon of violence with you, or violence in your heart. Please.”

Everything in Caro rebelled. Going into a dangerous situation unarmed? It violated every precept of her training as a cop. On the other hand... She closed her eyes and felt for that light within her. It was still there and even seemed a little stronger now that she knew how to call upon it.

Maybe he was right. Her grandmother had always warned her about the way evil backfired. She had never thought of her gun as evil, merely as a tool to be used only in extreme circumstances, but perhaps it would have the wrong vibe for this job.

Finally she sighed, pulled the holster off her belt and laid it on the table.

Damien smiled. “Trust. It’s important. Trust me, trust your own power.”

She looked at her holstered piece and thought that was a whole lot of trust she had just put on the table.

At Damien’s direction, she bundled up warmly against the winter night. The two vampires, impervious to the cold, simply wore their usual leathers.

Outside they darted into a dark alley, then Damien lifted her on his back. She clung tightly as they climbed straight up a building. Rock climbers had nothing on a vampire, she thought. Not only did he seem to be able to cling where there was hardly a finger or toe hold, but he moved so swiftly that they reached the top of the building in an eyeblink. Even though she was getting used to the speed at which he could move, she was still astonished at how quickly he set her on her feet.