He cupped her cheek, tipping her face up so he could kiss her.

  “You bring us not just more power, but color. You smell good and you’re so fucking pretty it makes me feel better just looking at you. Madame makes food for everyone all the time. Genevieve, you make everyone happy just by being around. You brought this Trick back to life.

  “As for our neutrality and you making me choose,” he shook his head, “it’s not something you need to worry about. There are rules, as you know. We obey them. But we don’t have to obey rules that don’t apply. And when it comes to protecting our own, as I said, we absolutely have the right to defend ourselves. You’re a Dust Devil Priestess. You’re our conduit. You bet your very delightful French ass we will defend you.”

  Her mouth curved up into a very Genevieve smile. Mysterious. Supremely feminine and powerful. Sexy.

  Darius believed very few people in Genevieve’s life chose her. So few she found it hard to understand when someone did. He hated that.

  “Have you poked in my things enough?” he murmured against her temple.

  “No. But I can be nosy later. I will be nosy later,” she corrected with a laugh. “I’m very interested in you.” Her words were a little shy at the end.

  “How fortunate I am,” he said, meaning it. “I come to your door when I know you’re in there, clothed in something silky, your hair down. Beautiful and vulnerable and so Talented you could power a nuclear reactor.” He slid his fingertip down the front of her pajama shirt, swirling around each button. “That is to say, I’m very interested in your interest.”

  His lips met hers once more before he put his hands above her hips and lifted her. She helped, wrapping her legs around his waist while he braced an arm under her ass to balance her weight.

  He spun, stumbling to the bed where he managed to take them both to the mattress without crushing her.

  Her eyes had taken on a slumberous glaze, eyelids half shut. Her skin was flushed, hands quick as she pulled his shirt off and hummed her pleasure.

  “You speak of beauty while this is here, taunting me day and night. So handsome and strong, capable, it renders me a little weak,” she admitted.

  What a wonder it was, then, to not be alone in the face of such tremendous emotion.

  She rolled to straddle his waist, looking down at him with a smile on her mouth still swollen from his kisses.

  Sometimes age seemed to press down on him so heavily it was hard to breathe, but she made him lighter, younger.

  Still, age and experience were his gifts when it came to removing her top, tossing it somewhere in the darkness of his bedroom.

  For all her feminine ways, makeup, and pretty clothing, she was a warrior. Bare to the waist, he could imagine her on a battlefield of long ago, breasts painted, bloodlust in her gaze.

  That was what ate away at his reserve. Her inner core of strength left him helpless to do anything but fall for her.

  She bent and licked a line down his chest, shimmying farther to remove his jeans. While she perused his cock—no small compliment—he took advantage of her divided attention and divested her of her pants and the tiny scrap of lace she’d had beneath.

  Laughing, he flipped her to her back and covered her body with his own. Her laughter in response loosened something, a stopper he’d placed to bottle up his joy.

  “In me,” she whispered. An incitement. An invitation. Neither he’d pass up.

  “I can manage some actual foreplay first,” he chided before taking one of her nipples between his teeth.

  “You’re hard. I’m wet. Fuck me,” she said on an arch of her back. Her nails scored a path down his spine as she urged him upward.

  The struggle was lost completely when she shifted her weight to bring her knees up, wrapping her calves around his ass. Opening her fully.

  “Please,” she said and that was it.

  The heat and wet was irresistible as he sank into her body. Pleasure arced up his spine and then down, settling in the pit of his gut.

  Her body pulled him in, inner muscles clutching and fluttering as she accommodated his cock. He never wanted anything but this. The pleasure and the weight of it, the trust to be this laid bare by one another.

  This was worth decades of gray. This connection, heat to heat, hard to soft, this was what he’d been waiting for but had no idea. He was glad of that part. Waiting for this, knowing that someday he’d look up to find a pretty witch in a minidress stalk into his bar, order shots, and open up a parley with him would be the key, the brush to spread life into his heart again, would have been utterly miserable.

  Patience had always served him. And she was his reward. And the inspiration to never walk into the gray again.

  He’d keep her safe and ensure she’d never have any cause to leave his side.

  He’d never be a human man again. But he’d damned well be a man who was worthy of this witch.

  His witch below him, the chocolate and caramel of her hair spread out over the pillow. Her gaze settled on his, glossy with desire, and he bent to kiss her over and over as he rolled his hips, taking her in deep thrusts.

  Leaning so his weight rested on one elbow, he managed to reach between them to find her clit, circling it with the pad of his middle finger in time.

  She turned her head and sank her teeth into his shoulder as her climax began to shudder through her. That pleasure limned with pain grabbed him with claws and dragged him closer and closer. He closed his eyes, trying to hold back, but there was nothing but that headlong fall into orgasm in powerful, all-consuming waves.

  She turned onto her side and watched as he left the room and returned shortly with a warm, wet cloth, but she didn’t move once she’d cleaned up.

  He licked his lips and said what he’d wanted to say for some time now. “Stay.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Not more than an hour after sunset, Clive, Patience, and three more of his security team who could fly dropped to rooftops and tree branches at a collection of squat, single-story buildings that made up a small compound in the desert twenty minutes or so outside Goldfield, which was already fairly desolate to start with.

  They’d been able to collect satellite images to add to the flyover some of his Vampires had done the night before. Several miles away, behind some sort of obfuscation spell the Dust Devils put up, two armored prisoner transport vehicles waited to be called to the scene once the shifters had been incapacitated. Genevieve and Darius were there, along with David and Konrad, who volunteered his magic should they need it. It was a way to apologize to Rowan, Clive thought, for not informing her of the searches being conducted on the Procella property.

  Alice was back at Die Mitte with Rowan, who he’d convinced to rest in his old apartment until it was time for her to interrogate the prisoners.

  The so-called ranch sat at the top of a rise and was surrounded by barbed-wire-topped fencing. A windmill spun lazily but there was an empty lookout post near the top.

  All the Vampires had gone preternaturally still as they opened their senses fully.

  Muted conversation floated in the air, along with the sound of a television show with a laughter track. The main house had four wolf shifters in it. One of the outbuildings held a late model midsize SUV and two dirt bikes. No animals he could sense, no humans for miles.

  Silently, Clive touched down near the door to the building holding the vehicles. The space stank of shifters but no one else. He hoped that continued to hold up. Four shifters they could handle. More, they could handle. But if one added humans or animals, it complicated matters considerably.

  Patience used a small device to cut the security system so Clive popped the hood and disabled the engine thoroughly before he slashed the tires of the car and motorcycles. No one would be running, at least not that way.

  Once that was handled, they edged back outside. Two of his Vampires were on the roof of the main house, near the entry points. Via hand signals they reported no one had been outside.

  What was the purpose of having a property positioned the way it was as your hideout and not bothering with a watch or guards? Lazy. But it worked for Clive’s purposes quite well.

  He met up with the others and then fanned out and on his go, they entered the main house, sticking to the plan they’d made. Patience stayed at his back as they headed toward the living room where the television was on.

  There was a bedroom where a female had been sleeping. She was quickly subdued, gagged, and bound. Three more to go. Another male was in the kitchen and Clive watched as two of his Vampires flowed into the room, getting to the shifter before he could arm himself. In that struggle, a jar was knocked off the counter.

  The television snapped off and one of the males from the living room called out a name but didn’t wait for an answer. In a burst of speed and violence, two very large shifter males charged into the hallway where Patience stood with Clive, their hands partially shifted with deadly claws ready to rip an enemy to shreds.

  Clive didn’t have the brawn the shifters possessed, but he had better balance and speed, so he managed to jump up, making his way up the wall, using his momentum to turn and land on the back of one of the wolves. Patience had managed a similar move and when she dropped, she latched herself onto the head of the other, biting, scratching, and repeatedly boxing the shifter’s ears.

  Clive clung to the shifter’s back, digging his own claws into muscle and flesh with one hand while he managed to grab two gleaming silver stilettos with the other. Relieved he’d worn the special nitrile gloves to protect his skin, Clive climbed higher on the shifter’s back, even as the wolf tried to shake him free.

  Maneuvering, Clive drew his hands—a stiletto in each—back and then used all his strength to plunge one to either side of the shifter’s throat all the way to the hilt.

  With an agonized roar of pain, the shifter tried to buck Clive free. Clive held on, using the blades deep in the shifter’s skin as handles.

  Two more Vampires came into the hall and helped Patience securely bind the other male, but Clive didn’t want any assistance.

  “You tried to kill my wife,” he snarled in the ear of the wolf he was pretty sure was Patrick Shank. Clive tore into the back of Patrick’s neck, staying clear of the blades, blood flying everywhere, sending a red haze over his vision.

  Patrick sank to his knees, screaming in pain.

  “She was shot fourteen times. You broke more than one of her bones,” Clive said through a mouth full of blood and teeth.

  “Fuck you!” Patrick sobbed as the silver in his neck, piercing lymph nodes, began to slowly, painfully, poison him.

  Using the weight of his body and a knee, Clive rammed Patrick’s face into the wall three times and scrambled to the shifter’s back, all the while keeping the blades in place.

  With one last surprised squawk of indignation and pain, Patrick’s body hit the floor in a pool of his own blood, unconscious.

  “Do not remove the stilettos until he’s bound,” Clive ordered as the others took over.

  “Transports just pulled up,” John, one of the team, called out.

  “I’ll drive back with them,” he told Patience. “Stay here. Search every blade of grass. I want to know everything we can. There are three other shifters who escaped who aren’t here. Keep John and Amal with you. Konrad Aubert will remain as well, helping in case you find something magic related.”

  He was also a warrior, so if it came down to that, if they were attacked, he’d be useful there as well.

  Ten minutes later, they were on the road back to Las Vegas where Rowan would be getting herself ready to interrogate the prisoners.

  * * *

  Rowan had cleaned herself up, putting her hair back in a braid. She didn’t often wear a full face of makeup, but today she chose red lips. On a redhead, she found it made even more impact when she was trying to intimidate someone. Intimidating people was one of her favorite things.

  Thanks to Clive pouring his blood down her throat every time he could, she no longer had to use the sling, which made getting a shirt on and off far easier. The snowy white linen was tucked into black pants, though Elisabeth had to help her cut the bottom of the right leg so it would fit over the cast, laughing as she told Rowan Clive had already bought her a dozen pairs to replace the one she was having to destroy.

  Fucking stupid, is what the whole thing was. Without these asshole shifters, she could be up, pacing and kicking things. Now she was down a pair of pants and stuck with crutches or a wheelchair, which severely curtailed her kicking.

  She wanted to twist someone’s balls off like the stem of an apple. Filled with satisfaction, she considered how to make that happen.

  Fortunately she had great upper-body strength and could still punch. Plus, she’d been practicing all day with using her crutches as a weapon in various ways. She’d gotten very good and certainly looked forward to using her new tricks with the prisoners she was going to interrogate.

  Instead of David showing up to let her know they’d arrived—she’d known the moment her spouse had entered the building—it was Clive who came through the door looking dangerous and rather bloody in all black.

  “My. You look like you’ve had a busy day,” she said, joking to get past the knot of fear she’d just let go of when she’d seen with her own eyes he was alive and well.

  “Give me ten minutes to shower and change. They’ve been brought in and put in safe holding cells.” He lifted a hand as if to touch her and she leaned forward. But he remembered himself and closed his fingers into a fist. “Apologies. I’m a bit of a mess and I don’t want it on you. I’ll be right back.”

  She wanted to follow him, wanted to help him get clean. Shower sex always made them both feel much better. But she’d have to put her cast in a garbage bag first, even if she could stand up on her own.

  So, she waited, looking over her notes, and texted back and forth with David, who was downstairs handling the setup for her.

  “Now, then,” Clive said as he came back, dressed in a new suit, his hair perfect once more. He pulled her into his arms and held her gently. “You aren’t wearing the sling?”

  “Dr. Jenkins gave me a once-over. I even went to get X-rays. Your blood healed up all that damage. The one on my hip and on the leg that’s casted are a little slower but still doing well.”

  “I wanted to go to that appointment with you,” he said with a frown. “I don’t like that you had to go by yourself.”

  “You were busy. I knew you’d want to be sure I was up to the stress of an interrogation, and I didn’t want to have to argue and con you into it. I knew she’d be a good authority figure on the matter. I wasn’t alone. Betchamp went with me, and a guard drove.” That made her very grumpy, but she knew it was necessary, so she sucked it up.

  “And if she’d said you weren’t well enough?” he asked, dropping a kiss to her lips quickly.

  Then Rowan would have not mentioned visiting the doctor at all.

  All she said was, “But Dr. Jenkins didn’t say that. I even made her write it up so you could have official verification.”

  That made him smile. “Trust but verify? Isn’t that the saying?”

  “She emailed it to you, but I had her print it out and I handed it to Alice earlier. She said she’d have believed me without having to prove it.”

  He raised his brows and smothered a laugh. “She doesn’t know you as well as I do.” He paused, searching her features. “You’re really okay?”

  She gave him a quick kiss of reassurance. “I am. I promise. I mean, I have a broken leg. That sucks. And I couldn’t be there when you were prowling around all in black looking—and acting if the gore on your clothes was any indicator—dangerous. I couldn’t punch anyone. Not a single person. Life can really serve up some bullshit. But, on the bright side, I’m healing lightning fast and now I can terrorize some prisoners. Not as good as my usual, but better than being in a coma.” She smiled brightly.

  He made a derisive sound at the mention of comas but shook it off.

  “I fed earlier. I’m only telling you this because I promised you I’d take care of myself on that front. I’m going to ask you to take more of my blood and you’ll know I have plenty to share without it weakening me in any way.”

  She’d gotten to a point where taking his blood wasn’t something that filled her with unease and guilt. But she’d just taken some before he’d left for the ranch. And if she did it daily, she’d be...dependent on that. Maybe.

  He cocked his head and sighed softly. Reading her perfectly.

  “It would never be that between us. To do so would break our bond. Break you. My greatest, deepest love. You’re recovering from severe injuries that occurred just three days ago and my blood will ease your pain and speed your healing. You offer your strength to me all the time. Let me do the same. And really,” he added, “if it was my cock you’d have no trouble accepting.”

  “I really do love us,” she told him through laughter that wanted to be tears of sentiment too. “I trust you. It’s just sometimes my past gets in the way. I really do think it’d be cool if you could give me the benefits of Vampire blood but through your dick and sexing instead.” She took his hand and kissed his knuckles. “Thank you. I love you too.”

  After she fed and was feeling absolutely no pain, she let him push her in the wheelchair until they reached the floor where the interrogation rooms were.

  “Crutches from here on. Not because I can’t be commanding in a wheelchair, Carinna Lesva is one of the most badass Hunters I’ve ever met, and she uses her chair as an extension of herself. It’s fucking scary and I adore it. But I like the idea of having the extra reach of the crutches. I’ve practiced with them all day to hit stuff. Got used to the weight and the reach. I think the first time there’ll be a great surprise factor. Eventually I’ll break them and it’ll be fear. They’ll never see a crutch again without wetting their pants.”