Sleeper_Google, page 4
part #3 of Hunter Series
Donovan’s eyes narrowed, the tension in the room ratcheting up another notch. “I think I know exactly what kind of damage an angel can do. I’ve felt it. Marcus, if you’re merely here to discuss my shortcomings as a king, you should feel free to leave.”
Marcus sighed, his anger seeming to flee. “Daniel, I understand why you’re doing this. I understand why she’s doing what she’s doing, but I can also see that it will not work. Kelsey, I will study Nemcox with you. We must find a way he is breaking our laws and then we can have him punished. Legally, honorably. Your Highness, you must push through your own emotions and do what is best for your people. We depend on you. That is all I will say on the subject. You will make your decision and we will follow. I’m going to my rooms. If either of you needs me, I will be there studying.”
He turned but stopped at the sight of the painting. He was still for a moment.
“Marcus?” Donovan’s anger seemed to have fled as well, replaced with worry. “Are you all right?”
“It’s the painting. It calls to me. The painter was obviously a sorcerer.” Marcus seemed to force himself to turn away. “The woman in the painting moves. Very slowly, but she is moving from the forest to the field. I find her…intriguing.”
“Wow, I hadn’t noticed that.” Donovan stared at the painting for a moment. “You’re right. A few days ago, she was closer to the tree line. Interesting.”
“Like I said, the painter was a sorcerer,” Marcus repeated, his voice dull and flat. “The story he wishes to tell will play out over several weeks. The girl in the painting…she feels familiar somehow. It will be interesting to see how she fares.”
He never turned back, simply walked away.
And I was left alone with the king.
He sighed and settled back. “What am I going to do with you, Owens?”
“I’m not going to stop. Whatever you’re going to do, you should do it.” I can be stubborn when I want to, and I usually want to. It’s my default position.
But I needed a new plan because I couldn’t get Liv in trouble with her coven and I didn’t want to get Casey on Marcus’s bad side. He wasn’t a good liar. He would wilt like a hothouse flower the minute he was questioned, and he wouldn’t do well in supernatural jail. Or any jail for that matter.
Donovan groaned, his head falling back. “You’re fucking just like him. You know that, right?”
“Like who?”
His head came back up, his eyes on me. “Your father. He could be the bane of my existence at times. You know we got into a fight once. It was so bad, I had to bite his ear off to get him to let go.”
“You bit his ear off?” Of all the stories I’d heard about my father, this was one they’d avoided.
Donovan smiled as though remembering good times. “Zack found it and held it on your dad’s head until it reconnected. He was a pain in my ass and there was no one else I would rather have watch my most precious blood. I loved your father. I didn’t realize how much until he was gone. Marcus cannot understand. He wasn’t there.”
“I don’t know that it would matter,” I replied. “Sometimes I think Marcus is too practical to ever truly understand me.”
“He understands you far better than you think. Better than you understand yourself. He realizes how quickly your training is progressing and he’s not ready to give you up yet. The fact that you’re arguing with him at all is proof that your training is moving more quickly than he would like.”
I didn’t completely understand the training thing. I got that it went past learning how to fight and use weapons. Marcus’s presence could soothe me. He could feel when I was upset or frightened. So why couldn’t he understand how I felt about the demon whose selfishness had caused my father’s death?
Unless…
“He can’t feel me at all anymore, can he?” He’d had to ask a coven to locate me. I was emotional this afternoon and I hadn’t bothered to cover it up, yet it had been Trent who came after me, not Marcus. Marcus had been waiting here because he hadn’t known where I was.
“I don’t think it’s completely gone yet. I think if the two of you would stop being stubborn, the spark might flare again. You can build the connection, but the fighting doesn’t help.”
He was slipping away from me. “I love Marcus.”
“But you love Grayson Sloane more,” Donovan said.
I knew Gray wasn’t the king’s favorite person, but I couldn’t help it. I wasn’t going to lie to him about it. “I don’t know that I would say more. I need them for different reasons.”
But I often felt the distance with Marcus more. Marcus was older than me by a couple of millennia, and I think my emotions often stumped him.
“And that is why Marcus is afraid. He thinks your need for him will fade. It’s the way of Hunter and trainer.”
“Not always.” I’d heard stories of at least one Hunter and her trainer that had worked out. Sometimes I wanted that so badly because being with Marcus seemed like such a happy thing. When Marcus and I were in harmony, the world seemed like a perfect place. He was the kind of man I could count on for everything. Marcus was solid. I just couldn’t seem to hold on to him.
“Hunters tend to end up with wolves.” Donovan stared at me across his desk. “The she-wolf inside you will seek her wolf mate, and that’s a relationship that tends to be for life. When wolves aren’t impatient assholes, they tend to find their other half. The bond between two wolves can be something incredible, and I believe you’ll find it satisfies the wolf inside you. Tell me something. Have you thought about what will happen after Sloane’s contract comes due?”
It wasn’t something I liked to think about. I loved Grayson Sloane. I didn’t even lie to myself anymore about it. I didn’t lie to Marcus. But Gray had a specific expiration date. He was a legacy, and by that I mean his mother sold his soul to the Hell plane before he was even born. She’d been a witch with some natural talent, but her true power had been given to her when she’d agreed to give birth to the child of a lord of Hell. Gray had gotten the shitty end of that stick. He’d received prophecy powers he hadn’t wanted and a whole thirty-five years on the Earth plane before he was obliged to go to Hell and serve his father.
I didn’t like Papa Sloane much. I liked him even less since earlier this year I’d met the man and watched as he’d gambled his son’s life to turn him into a dark prophet. It had worked, but barely, and the incident had almost taken me out, too.
Besides, Papa Sloane had also sired my mortal enemy. Stewart, otherwise known as Nemcox, the asswipe who had killed my dad—no matter what Marcus said—was Gray’s half brother.
“I don’t know. I can’t let Gray go to Hell, but I haven’t found a way to stop it yet,” I admitted.
“You understand the trouble you’ll be in if you’re not with Marcus and Gray isn’t around.”
The trouble with my kind is we need to be grounded. Hunters can turn extremely violent if we’re not emotionally attached, and the best way to be emotionally attached is to have intimate relationships. My she-wolf liked to get her freak on in seriously physical ways. Even now, given how Marcus and I were at odds, she was twitching inside me, desperate to get what she needed. I’d ignored her up until now. I had more important things to worry about. Like revenge.
Yeah, my she-wolf liked that, too. She needed blood or sex. Either would do. Lately, I’d been placating her by running with the Dallas pack, but she wouldn’t be satisfied with that forever. And if I didn’t feed that part of my soul, I feared she would take over, and I wouldn’t like how that scenario ended.
“I’ll handle it.” I said it with way more confidence than I actually felt.
Donovan shook his head. “You won’t, and then you’ll start taking out civilians and I’ll have to put you down. I know you deserve a private life, but if you go too long without, you will literally explode and kill people.”
Sometimes it was awesome to be me. “Look, if it all goes south with Marcus, I’ll let you parade a bunch of himbos in front of me. I’ll pick the least offensive one and ride him to sweet, sweet sanity. Can we agree on that? I won’t allow inner horniness to turn me nuclear.”
Donovan shook his head, chuckling. “I think we can find a proper way to handle things. I hope you and Marcus can work it out. I think he’s worried about losing you.”
He didn’t seem worried. He seemed preoccupied. He seemed annoyed. Lately, even when we made love, he was somewhere else. Gray was definitely somewhere else. More and more, I was alone.
“I’ll try to handle it.” The last thing I wanted to do was end up in some weird sex therapy the king imposed. The therapy I was already in was embarrassing enough. I didn’t need more.
“We need to talk about the demon calling.”
Well, of course we did. That was why I’d been called to the office in the first place. “He killed my father.”
“I agree with you, but it’s obviously not working, Kelsey,” Donovan said. “Nemcox has got some kind of spell on him. In the last eight months you’ve managed to call two hell hounds, a succubus, a pissed-off satan—who is suing, by the way—and whatever hail monster came out today.”
The succubus had been hard to get rid of, but Jamie had a good time. That incident had taught me I couldn’t bleach my eyeballs and some things can’t be unseen. I also figured out why all the girls loved big brother.
“Then I need to figure out what mojo he’s working and deal with it.”
“Do some research and tell me the next time you’re going to try.” Donovan sat back. “There are plenty of rules governing us, but what’s the point of being the king if you can’t bend a few?”
Sometimes Donovan wasn’t such a bad guy. “I will. You’re not worried about what Marcus was talking about? Gray managed to get a message to me.”
A single brow rose over Donovan’s eyes. “A prophecy?”
I nodded. “Yeah. You know how those go. I’m supposed to convince you to do something that will stop a war blah, blah, blah. You’ve got two crowns or something and some dude’s trying to unite the lower planes. I’m supposed to look out for spawn of some kind.”
Donovan sighed and slid a piece of paper and a pen my way. “I fucking hate prophecies. I’ll need you to write everything down as well as you can remember it and I’ll have some experts take a look at what Sloane said. Dev knows some people who can give us clues as to what it could mean. Spawn? Someone’s having a baby and it’s going to go bad?”
I shrugged and started writing what I could remember. “No idea. Apparently Heaven also tricked someone and he’s going to be pissed about it. But I think I know what he’s talking about when he says there will be a war unlike anything this plane has seen before.”
Despite my need for vengeance, I also could see Marcus’s point. We didn’t need a war with Hell kind. I wasn’t sure it was something we could win.
Donovan’s eyes slid away from me. “I’ll deal with it when I have to. For now, lay off the demon calling. It’s giving me hell. And we’ve got other things to worry about.”
Other things seemed like a good idea. Lots of other things to worry about. Things other than my sad-sack love life and the demon I couldn’t manage to kill. Yeah, I was ready for other things. “Like what?”
“Like murder,” Donovan said with a frown. “I got a call from the DPD an hour ago. They’ve been looking into a series of what they call ‘odd crimes.’ It’s the type of thing Lieutenant Sloane would have handled, but he’s gone, so I need you to call your brother and we’ll go down and meet with the police department rep and take over the investigation. We’ll have to report to Sloane’s CO, but they’re fairly certain this is one of ours.”
It probably made me a bad person that a crazy corpse lightened up my day. I passed Donovan the prophecy as I remembered it. “Let’s go.”
My life was pretty sucky. I was ready to think about death for a while.
Chapter Three
“So you’re the experts?” A big handsome dude with golden brown hair nodded as we exited the SUV.
It was me, Donovan, and Trent, who had changed into his regulation uniform of clingy black T-shirt and jeans that molded against his every muscle. He looked around as though taking in the neighborhood for every possible threat that could come our way. He pretty much did that all the time. It was his job. I bet he was hella fun at a Chuck E. Cheese’s.
“I’m Dr. Donovan.” The King of all Vampire was dressed down for this meeting. Not that he ever dressed up. He was a casual kind of dude. But he knew how to dress for a part. He was in a pair of khakis that would be hard to get blood out of, a button down shirt, and some glasses he didn’t need because his vision was way better than twenty-twenty. “I’m with the University of North Texas. I was told you have a series of murders where the killer has left messages in ancient languages. That’s my specialty.”
Donovan was actually crazy good with languages, but he tended to need to hear them. According to all reports, the king could go into a country, surround himself with native speakers, and be one of them within a day or two. Non-spoken languages took him a bit more time, but he’d explained along the way that he’d been using his free time to learn some of the more ancient languages from Marcus and Henri. It was a vampire talent that manifested particularly well in academics. Most wolves I knew barely spoke English. Trent was way better with wolfy growls.
“Lieutenant Derek Brighton, DPD,” the hottie with golden brown hair said, holding a hand out. He was wearing a suit and his wedding ring, the gold glinting in the late afternoon light. “This is the fourth. I called the Rangers in after the last one, but they said their expert is out of the country. When I called them today, they agreed to send a team in. I was expecting someone named Atwood.”
“I’m here!” Jamie yelled as he jogged our way. My brother had changed clothes and looked fresh as a daisy. Not at all like a dude who’d recently helped call a demon. He looked over at Donovan, his head going down. “Your… Hey, Professor Donovan. Good to see you again. And your assistants.”
Donovan didn’t miss a beat. “Yes, my assistants. This is Trent Wilcox and Kelsey Owens. They’re grad students with a vast knowledge of ancient history.” He nodded back to the DPD lieutenant. “It’s exciting to get out of the lecture hall. We never get called in on murders.”
Trent shook his head. “Never, Professor. Just the occasional forgery attempt.”
I simply nodded. I’m not good at pretending.
Brighton sighed as he turned toward the house we were standing in front of. It was a lovely suburban home with mature trees and a foreign luxury car in the driveway. It would be the perfect picture of suburban harmony if not for the multitude of cop cars jamming up the road and the distinctly horrified neighbors looking on.
“I’m not going to lie to you,” Brighton said. “I’m more than happy to turn this over to the Rangers. That’s a brutal scene in there, and something about it feels off to me. I don’t know this is something my guys should handle. Let me know what you need from us. The forensics inspector the Rangers sent is already in there. She seemed excited about…well, you’ll see. I don’t understand body modification. Back when I was a kid, a tat was the height of rebellion. Whatever that dude decided to do, he was angry with his parents. Good luck. We’re heading out. Miss Ward is already on the scene. She’s told me she’ll handle things with the Rangers from here. I’m leaving a DPD contingent to surround the scene in case you have any problems. Call in if you need anything else. And good luck.”
The handsome cop strode away, looking super happy to be leaving the scene.
“Sometimes I miss Gray more than anyone can know.” Jamie looked up at the house in front of us. “He handled the glad handing with the police and all I had to do was give my opinion and help kill things. With him gone, I’ve got paperwork to do. It sucks because it’s all going to be redacted anyway. Nothing worse than writing a bunch of crap that someone’s going to mark through.”
“What do you know about this, James?” Donovan asked. “Sorry to call you on your day off. Were you relaxing at home? Watching the game, maybe?”
Jamie sighed. “Yeah, I was watching the game. Whichever one was on, Your Highness.” He rolled his eyes my way. “You’re a troublemaker, little sis.”
“Born and bred,” Trent said under his breath. He leaned toward Jamie. “It was the Cowboys. They’re playing a preseason game with the Giants. If anyone asks. Now, what are we walking into?”
Jamie put his hands on his hips, his eyes going serious. “We’ve been tracking a cluster of murders. Three so far. This would be the fourth. The first three victims were all demons, though two were highborn half-bloods. We’ve had a rise in demons living close to the king in the last decade.”
“I think it’s more about the Council,” Donovan said.
“You are the Council,” Trent replied in a big old kiss-ass voice. “They’re here to stay close to you, whether they’re petitioning you or spying on you, this is all about the king and the power you’ve brought to Dallas.”
“I’ve brought violence here, too.” Donovan stepped up the stairs that led to the porch of the pretty, Tudor-style house ahead of us.
It was a nice neighborhood. One that shouldn’t be featured on those murder shows. Still, this one wouldn’t be. This particular murder would go unheralded because the DPD knew how to not freak out the public. Despite what Brighton had said about body modification, he knew damn well there was a reason the police weren’t working this one. Law enforcement knew when to pull the shades closed and forget what they’d seen. The lieutenant would go back to his life and this case would disappear from the records.
My ex-honey had been the Mulder of the Texas Rangers. It looked like Jamie had taken on the liaison role between the Council and law enforcement. He stepped up, tucking his shirt in as he walked up to the porch.
