A Cursed Embrace

where it leads us.”

Aric tilted his head toward mine. This time I didn’t deny him. I think he only meant to give me a small peck. But when my lips parted, and the tip of my tongue met his, his beast growled with need. And so did mine.

So much for taking things slow.

Aric’s taste sent my tigress into a frenzy, craving more of him in my mouth. The clicking sound of the seat belt release sounded miles away. Aric struggled to free himself from its hold, all the while keeping his mouth hard against mine.

The steering wheel dug into his hip as he lurched his body across the center console, pressing his T-build firmly against me. If it were up to my wild side, I would have ripped his clothes from his body in pieces. But my inexperienced half took over, unsure what to do, and dumbstruck by Aric’s immediate effect on my delicate areas.

Holy . . .

Body parts I barely acknowledged pounded; the tips of my breasts tightened. I slumped back against the side window, moaning, my lips pleading for Aric to explore. My hands swept over his back. His hard muscles tensed beneath my fingertips, and his arms beckoned me closer. I wanted Aric. Then. Now. Fast. Especially when his mouth moved to my neck and found a spot behind my—

“Celia Wird! You unhand that boy this instant!”

And that’s when the devil in support hose appeared. Sweet God in heaven . . . no!

Aric’s head snapped up. His face heated. “What the hell?”

I wrenched my neck to face my neighbor, Mrs. Mancuso. Her penciled-in brows angled in a permanent state of pissed-offness, her curlers tightened hard enough to make her scalp bleed, and her neck skin flapped in the wind. “This is a family neighborhood!”

And because having an eighty-plus woman catching me in a major tongue-hockey moment wasn’t humiliating enough, my lovely sister Taran came to the rescue. She didn’t have supernatural hearing, but she could spot a Mancuso attack a mile away. Taran threw open the front door and stormed down the steps. “Goddamn it, woman, aren’t you dead yet? Get back in the house and mind your own freaking business!”

“Whore.” Mrs. Mancuso dragged out the word as if she were teaching it to a bunch of preschoolers, accentuating it with two stiff ones. “Trollops, sluts, tramps!” she screamed, waving her middle fingers like flags.

I scrambled out of the car when Aric lifted his weight. Taran’s face was inches from Mancuso’s, her blue eyes firing with rage. “I am sick and tired of you calling us whores. It’s not like we parade shirtless men around here.”

As if on cue, Liam jogged around to the front of the house. Naked.

Mrs. Mancuso’s jaw dropped down to her Depends at the sight of Liam’s overly developed man parts. Fortunately the sight of Liam’s studly physique was too much for the old terror. She backed up abruptly and ran indoors, crossing herself to protect herself against the likes of us.

Liam stopped near Aric, oblivious of my own alarm at seeing him naked. “Hey, Aric.”

Aric pinched the bridge of his nose. “Liam. Why did you let Mrs. Mancuso see you naked?”

“I was trying to hide my wolf form,” he said like it was obvious. God forbid he’d hide his naked form. He shrugged. “Anyway, I tracked the raccoon’s blood and pus back into the woods. Looks like he’d been hiding out just below the ridge. Whoever attacked him caught him off guard. There’s blood at his campsite and bullets lodged into the trees leading down to the house.” He regarded me closely before handing Aric a wrinkled piece of office paper.

Aric unfolded it carefully. Liam’s fang marks pierced the top. He’d obviously searched the woods in his beast form. My breath caught at the image printed in gray scale. It was a picture of me and Aric, standing outside my back deck. Dry blood splattered across our faces.

Aric growled with fury. Liam nodded. “He was watching you, Celia.”

CHAPTER 3

“What could that wereraccoon possibly want with you, dude?” Shayna sat in the front passenger seat. It was the closest to the driver’s side we’d allow her to get. Hell hath no fury like Shayna behind the wheel.

I adjusted my turtleneck. Originally I’d planned to wear a button-down blouse with my jeans, until Aric left quite the memory of our time together just below my jawline. “I don’t know, but he was watching me for a while. That picture was from the day the wolves came over for a barbecue.”

Emme clasped her hand over her mouth. “Oh my goodness. That was several weeks ago.”

“I know. Aric thinks he may have started watching the house even before I first caught him riffling through our garbage. There’s no way to tell for sure, I suppose.”

Emme’s eyes widened. “I suppose not. Did Aric say whose blood was on the photo?”

I shook my head. “He didn’t have to. I could smell the were’s blood all over it. It must have splattered when the first bullet hit . . . or when they’d tried to slit his throat.”

“He must have had the picture open when he was attacked.” Taran shuddered. “Shit. You don’t think he was doing something funny while staring at your—”

“Can we please not go there?” I growled. “Taran, it’s bad enough he’d come around. I’d prefer not to ponder what he did in his alone time.”

“Sorry, Ceel. Look, this whole thing sucks. But at least he’s not around to hurt you anymore.”

“No. But whoever killed him is still out there. So is whatever murdered those men.” I adjusted my position. Blood and death made my inner beast restless to protect. I barely managed to keep her still. “I called Bren and Danny. Danny offered his science and research expertise should we need him. Bren wants to help us track. With his nose, maybe he can help us find something.”

“Sounds like an awesome plan.” Shayna finished pulling up her hair into a ponytail. Spending the afternoon with Koda hadn’t given her much time to get ready for dinner with Misha. A little tidbit she failed to share with Koda. “Hey, Ceel. Does Aric think the murders are related to this weredude?”

“He didn’t say. But I can’t see how. The men were drained of their blood. The were was shot and somehow booby-trapped.” What he did tell me was not to leave the house unescorted and not to do anything dangerous.

So I didn’t. Sort of.

I left the house with my sisters as backup . . . and so I wouldn’t be alone in a master vampire’s estate. Misha and I had made plans for dinner earlier in the week. Dinner and the diamond earrings he’d given me previously were the only thank-yous I’d allowed. Yes, I’d saved his life. Yes, I’d inadvertently returned his soul. But I didn’t want him feeling like he owed me. And I sure as hell didn’t ever want to owe him.

Taran tuned the satellite radio to a classic rock station as we pulled into the mile-long drive leading up to Misha’s front gates. We chuckled when “Werewolves of London” was the first song to play. We stopped laughing when an uber-size vampire tackled another in front of our car.

Taran slammed on the brakes. It didn’t help. Our velocity was so fast that we ran over them like beached whales. The car rattled and our bodies bounced off the seats. “Son of a bitch! Are they dead?”

I jerked my head backward. The bigger of the two Plymouth-size giants grabbed the other by the throat and drove his protruding five-inch nails into the other’s heart. I recognized him as Hank, one of Misha’s bodyguard’s, before blood and ash splattered across the back window and plastered our view. Taran flipped on the rear wipers. Hank waved a nasty hand at me. “Hey, Celia. The master is expecting you.”

Emme buried her face in her hands. “Do you think we’ve come at a bad time?”

“They’re fighting for dominance,” I muttered. It wasn’t easy being BFF with the undead.

Taran scowled. “What?”

“In killing the other master, Misha took his power and inherited the evil bastard’s minions.” I pushed my long hair out of my eyes. “Misha’s vamps want to stay top dogs and the others want to move up in position. The fighting