From Sugar to Shifters

CHAPTER ONE

We Use DHL

I had never wanted to visit Las Vegas. I would have said You couldn’t pay me to go there, but here I was, and I was being paid.

Really well.

But no matter how much this job was enhancing my retirement fund, the cost may have become too high.

The one thing I was happy about? Staying off of the strip.

Of course, that meant I would be in the sleaziest, most dangerous parts of the city and its outskirts. Out there, things trying to kill you were always straightforward. I appreciated that.

I could blend with the mink and manure crowd and had done so on many occasions. I could ride well, and hunt seat equitation was my favorite event. Taking jumps while making it look effortless was a challenge I enjoyed. And, after a long day of riding, heading to the clubhouse with the local rich and famous was my least favorite part. They could have you on the dance floor one minute taking in the strains of Mozart and stab you in the back with a shrimp fork the next.

Besides, fighting for your life in a four-thousand-dollar gown and three-inch heels is a real bitch.

On this particular job, I had, thus far, been in under lit seedy bars that I could smell a block away, dark alleys, same smell, and was currently at an abandoned house. Different smell, still unpleasant.

It was a shack at this point. I’m sure it had been a house at one time, but now what was left of the paint was peeled and chipped. The wood that lay open to the heat and sun was rotting in too many places to count.

The thin planks that served to deter unwelcome guests, covering the mostly glassless windows and ineffectual doors, hadn’t really been doing its job.

I could scent the signs of occupation, and they had been recent.

Upon closer inspection, it was still boarded up, for the most part. That seemed odd.

Mold, mildew, and rot were the underlying notes to the fragrance that was this structure. The top notes included decomposition, death, human waste, urine, and stuff that would cling to my boots even after I cleaned them with disinfectant and worked magic through them for a half an hour.

Black leather trench coat firmly in place and my Kawasaki out of sight, I headed toward the side door.

Yea, yea. Black leather, ass-kicking boots, and a motorcycle. How much more cliché could a girl get?

Well, how about the fact that I hunt and kill vampires. Not all of them, mind you. Just the ones that the Clan Masters had deemed unstable and dangerous. There are rules and a contract and agreements and payment—payment being my favorite part.

The pay was great—if you survived. So far, so good. I hoped.

I rarely dressed in my leathers unless I was riding my bike or thought that things could go badly. Leathers protected against more than just road rash.

My partner, Marc, had disappeared three days ago, tracking a nest of unsupervised fairly young vampires that decided to stop following the rules, when all communication from him simply ended.

It scared the hell out of me. We were bound to each other through blood and sex.

It had been intentional.

Yes, that kind of shit can happen accidentally, and it rarely works out well.

We cared about each other, treasured our relationship, our friendship, but we weren’t mated and hadn’t claim each other in a soul-deep and permanent way.

I had no illusions that as a half-vampire mutt, I would never be mated.

The upside to the binding was knowing what each other was feeling, and when we had to split up, fear was a great indicator that the other one was in trouble without having to scream. Screaming tends to attract more than help.

The sex was way more intense. Enough said.

But the best part was a built-in GPS function. We could feel each others location, find each other and come running. The binding couldn’t be broken except with death, and Marc wasn’t dead.

I knew it; that I could feel.

But the GPS was down, muted somehow. I couldn’t feel him, and that low hum of his presence in the background of my heart was gone.

I had to track his movements the old-fashioned way.

Legwork and intimidation.

At nearly six foot tall and built to kill things, I could intimidate most creatures with an impassive stare or a shift of my weight from one hip to another. Yes, I cleaned up nicely and could interact in polite society, but this was my favorite way to work.

I carried nearly twelve pounds of silver-bladed items on me at all times. A few were always placed to show. Sort of like a lowlife shifting his jacket so you can see the butt of his weapon without actually drawing it.

I was not a lowlife, but I could do a handy impression of one when necessary. This had been very necessary.

Intimidation and a silver flash or two got me to the last place Marc was before he disappeared. I left my riding gloves on as I tore the boards from the structure. Tetanus wasn’t a concern, but this place was likely to be something I didn’t want to put my bare hands on.

I thought it strange that the boards were in place. They had been put in place recently. The nail heads were still glistening, no signs of weathering. If I’d had any sense, I would have stopped right there.

Marc was in charge of having sense. And he negotiated the contracts and worked all of the technical stuff in the business. So, without his intelligent input, I went in anyway.

I had to find him.

The side door was still surprisingly attached at the hinges and locked. Seemed like a waste.

I pulled power from the full moon overhead and channeled it through my body, through my hands and melted the lock. I didn’t know why my gloves didn’t melt in the process. I was just glad they didn’t. Saved on clothing expenses.

The door swung in on rusted hinges, and the full blast of the stench that was this place hit me full in the nose.

I successfully managed to keep my dinner down and slowly entered the darkened interior of the shack.

Half-vampire that I was, the lack of light didn’t create any problems for me. The scene looked like being in the shade on a cloudy day. I wasn’t as strong as a full-blooded vampire or as fast. My vision and sense of smell was less as well. I could heal fairly quickly, even from a mortal wound. I found that out firsthand. It still hurt like a bitch.

I had no real problem with being in direct sunshine. My heart beat, I breathed, and I could and did eat human food. But, if I were injured, badly injured, tapping a vein could save my life. I had fangs on demand, but I had to concentrate to get them to drop into place.

As a vampire, I didn’t rate; but what I lacked, I made up for in magic. Mom was a witch, and she rocked it like nobody’s business.

I missed her. I missed the crazy aunts who helped raise me too.

Dad? He was a vamp. Never met him; don’t care to.

So this house smelled like four dead vampires, two dead humans, three days of decay, two weres, a shifter, and Marc. All of the scents were old, except the shifter. The testosterone permeated the old Sheetrock. He had been, gone, and returned recently, very recently. I wondered if he boarded the place up.

As I made my way into the living room, I decided that it had been the dying room. The humans had likely been killed by the vamps, hence the termination order. The dead vamps were there and doing what the remains of dead, and very young vampires do best, turn to goo, and smell bad. The older ones turn to dust fairly quickly; makes cleaning up so much easier.

No Shop-Vac in the world could manage this mess.

No signs of the weres or shifter, but I spotted Marc’s kit against the far wall. Lucky me, it was on the other side of the goo. My boots were getting a workout tonight.

The shack was fairly open. I came in through the side door, into the kitchen, which opened into the living room. An opening in the far wall signaled the way to a bathroom and a bedroom or two.

I spotted the front door and picture window in the front as well and a sliding glass door to the backyard. Everything was boarded up. It felt relatively secure. I could get out quickly, and anything trying to get in would make noise.

I was safe enough for now, I figured.

The floor still felt solid enough under my boots, but the squish of the carpet being more decomposing organic matter than flooring was very clear and very nasty.

Gross. Didn’t even begin to cover this.

The kit usually consisted of swabs, vials, tissue sampling materials, tubes, a camera, and a prepaid, insulated, reinforced shipping box.

We used DHL.

The kit was open. Samples had been collected and were gone along with the camera. The box was still there along with the trashed remaining contents and the case it came in.

So Marc had taken out the vamps, collected the specimens, and maybe he took the photos, maybe not. But Marc was nothing if not methodical.

Line up the bodies. Take the pics with identifying markers. Take the samples. Mark the samples, pack the samples, pack it up. And then dispatch the bodies.

Silver to the heart paralyzes them. Removing the head makes them forever dead. Their heads were no longer attached to the rest of the bodies. Well, actually, the skulls were well away from the lake of goo that had been the bodies.

I knew Marc’s rhythms. He never varied.

He was the same in bed. That was one reason we would never claim each other as mates. We had a connection, and we had chosen to perform the binding, but we weren’t each others destined mates; we knew it. We were comfortable, not passionate.

The thought made me a little sad at times.

So I knew he had been interrupted after he had collected his samples.

I stood and closed my eyes, focusing first on sound. Marc had been taken unaware. There is little that could sneak up on a vampire, so I listened and heard nothing.

I breathed in deeply and almost gagged. Marc was better at parsing scents than me, but he worked with me, and I was getting better at it. Nothing more than what I had identified when I first came in.

I moved closer to the wall. Marc’s scent was attached to it. He had hit the wall at the point of the dent in the remaining plaster and cracked the two-by-four stud. He had hit hard.

It wasn’t enough to kill him. I knew he wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be.

My heart skipped a beat. I couldn’t lose him.

The were scents were feline. The shifter, who knew? I couldn’t tell.

Had the weres taken Marc, or the shifter?

Weres and shifters were different, and those differences in scent were subtle, but I could tell.

Weres were a product of a virus. They could be born, having acquired the virus through a parent or through a bite. The survivability from a bite was three in ten. The offspring’s chances of surviving into adulthood was fifty-fifty if both parents were weres and much better if the breeding was mixed. Human females tended to carry a were to term, so the were community was big on breeding with human females. They had their rules and regulations around that, and they had their enforcers. I was glad for that. I didn’t want to go after a law-breaking were anything.

Ever.

Shifters were born to shifters. Nobody knew where the first ones came from, and nobody fucked with them.

They were arrogant, obnoxious, rude, and more dangerous than not on any given day.

Would any of these guys interfere with a legitimate kill? A vampire hunter hunting his own?

It didn’t make sense.

Marc was really good at hunting. I had met him after stumbling into one of his jobs and got caught up in drama of it all. He kept me alive, taught me things I hadn’t known about vampires, and saw potential in me that I hadn’t seen in myself.

Patience of Job. That was five years ago.

It was then I realized that I had been standing there entirely too long, lost in the scents around me and my own thoughts, trying to put things together.

Marc had always been there to bring me back to the scene when we needed to be done.

I realized that without him, I was a hazard to myself and couldn’t be afforded that luxury. It could make me dead really quick.

I relied on Marc so much. Maybe too much. He had been there for years. I could count on him, and now he was gone.

No! Christ, no.

He was missing. I would find him. I had to.

A scent rose on the desert breeze that worked its way between the gaps in the boarded up windows.

It should have been a welcome relief from the death that would cling to my clothing after I left, but the wind brought to my nose a blend of man and animal.

A shifter, and the scent was familiar. He had been here. And I could scent the testosterone through the death and decomposing rot around me.

My sense of smell was going to be shot for hours after this.

I could only scent one out there and couldn’t place the animal. Right now, it didn’t matter. I had bigger problems at hand.

I’m pretty sure that I had decided to sneak out one of the front windows to avoid the shifter when the slender tendrils of dark magic touched my senses.

It was also touching my boots.

Something else I’d have to clean off of them when I got out of here.

The magic writhed like snakes on the putrid flooring, reaching out looking for a foothold to do its worst.

I pulled power from the moon; it was bright and just past full overhead. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t see Her directly. I knew She was there, and She knew me. We were old and good friends.

I colored the moon’s power with my will for protection. The living carpet of dark magic retreated without disappearing. I held it at bay, but barely. Whomever laid this was really talented and powerful and definitely not one of the good guys.

It was infection magic designed to go after vampires, specifically, but it would fuck with anything it could use as a host.

This magic could bend the infected persons will to the originator’s.

Had that happened to Marc? Was he somebody’s plaything? A vampire under the control of another was a dangerous thing, and…

Couldn’t think that way.

Needed to focus on the shit around me that would love to infect me.

It needed to die.

Now was good for me.

Beneath the blatant controlling aspect of this crap was a subtle set of instructions, where the infected needed to go after the infection set in. Beneath that was the caster’s signature. I didn’t recognize it, but if I found them, I’d know it. This magic had also been on sleep mode, waiting for somebody to wake it up. That would be me. Good thing I’d been paying attention, or I might have been the next victim.

If Marc had been with me, it never would have gotten this close.

Getting the location out of this mass of dark magic wasn’t going to happen, not this time. It was too much and too big for me to control for the length of time it would take to get that detail out of it.

The house was going to come down during this process. Without a Shop-Vac, this was the only way to destroy the evidence of what had happened. Humans didn’t need proof of unnatural or supernatural existences. They could hope and fear and pretend, but they didn’t need to know.

I just hoped I wouldn’t be in the structure when it came down.

The dark magic swirled, surged, and pushed at me, testing my strength and looking for a way at me.

Fuckers.

I wasn’t even going to get a sample for later. Damn.

So the only way out of this mess was to burn out the magic with magic, setting the building on fire at the same time as I held it in containment and then escape before the structure collapsed on me and land right in front of a shifter.

I was not liking this one bit.

But I couldn’t let the magic loose. I didn’t want to die in here, so I would take my chances with the shifter who knew I was in here because he was in the area I had parked my bike.

If he scratched it, I’d…

Shifters were bigger, stronger, faster, and likely meaner than I could ever be. I’d get pissy and leave. That’s what I’d do—teach him to tangle with a mongrel with an attitude.

A head-to-head fight with a shifter would only lead to bloodshed, and unfortunately, the blood would be mine and mine alone.

I felt the oppressive thickening of darkness against my shields. I had not really anticipated that. This magic was altering to meet the challenge. Was it actively being controlled, or was it on autopilot? I couldn’t tell.

It lashed out at my shields, and I felt them quiver.

Oh, hell no!

Okay, time to quit screwing around and wreck the joint.

I pulled hard on the moon and began the burn. The tricky part was containing the snakes of magic as my power began to decimate them.

They wanted to survive, and I couldn’t let them.

The containment magic encased the house and slowly pushed and herded them to my kill zone. The dark purple flames sputtered and sparked as this seemingly endless carpet of writhing darkness was slowly consumed.

The stench of death and rot was quickly replaced with the smell of burning vampire goo.

I knew my sense of smell would be shot, but I really wanted it to go now.

Burning house was the next scent. The work I did was usually fire based, so that was inevitable anyway.

And yet another joke as vampire offspring. Fire could kill vampires as well as decapitation. And my magic was decidedly borne of fire.

Did somebody plan this shit, or was it just a cosmic joke?

Whatever. I was effective in ways vamps weren’t. I’d get this job done and find Marc.

I pulled the containment energy in tighter and tighter, forcing the infection magic to its death. I really needed to get this done and quickly before I was buried under the flaming remnants of the roof.

I would raze this structure to its foundation, but again, a big preference for not being inside.

The snakes writhed, looking for a weak spot, tumbling over each other, searching for a way out, a body to infect. Mine was probably looking really good to it.

The containment magic had finally consolidated in the living room. It shimmered gently and glowed sky blue, pushing and dragging the last of my victims into the deep purple heat of destruction.

It really was a lovely sight. It never ceased to amaze me how beautiful the magic was. The sparkling light blues, and the deep variegated purples seemed like living art. But in this case, the smell really overrode the visual displays.

The structure was nearly fully involved. My one escape route would be blocked in seconds, but the magic was nearly finished. If just one of those things got out, it might multiply. I wasn’t sure, but I wasn’t going to take any chances.

Blowing up the place wouldn’t have worked either. It would have scattered them to the winds. This was the only way, and it sucked.

The smoke thickened and burned my eyes and my throat. A few more minutes, and I would be unconscious.

I wasn’t going to rely on a shifter to drag my ass out of a burning building.

My vision was shot, and I had knelt down. More of my coat would need cleaning now. I could feel my knee sink into the goo. The chaps were going to need a thorough cleaning too.

Shit!

I could feel the heat beginning to close in, and the important information regarding my environment was mostly by feel and energetic.

The floor would hold for a couple more minutes. The roof was about to collapse. I didn’t want to have to jump through the boarded window, tuck and roll, come up blind, maybe deal with a shifter all while holding on to the remnants of the dark magic in my kill zone, but that seemed to be my only plan.

Nothing too complicated.

Yea, right.

When I found Marc, I’d kick his ass, after I kissed him and fucked him senseless.

I took a hard grip on my magic. My enhanced speed made use of the few strides I could manage before hitting the flimsy boards. They shattered like glass, my body tucked. I hit the backyard, rolled into a crouching position, and held on to my magic for dear life.

The dark magic was in its death throes and rallying against me. I didn’t think about the shifter that was likely watching everything from my bike.

At a safe distance.

Bastard.

I could feel the heat against my face I was way too close, but I couldn’t afford to move and risk losing the infection.

The sweat was trickling down my face and my back. The leather around me was beginning to cook. I was hoping to remain rare after this was over.

It was almost done.

My body was beginning to shake with the amount of moon energy that had been running through me. It always took its toll on me. I would need to eat and sleep after this.

Marc would fix something to eat while I got cleaned up. He’d shower and then hunt for himself. He’d lay with me in the yard as I recharged in the moonlight. Holding me. We’d talk about the case, the leads, what did and didn’t go right. We would find our way to bed, make plans, make love…

Not tonight. Tonight, I fought alone. Tonight, I would heal alone, and I would sleep alone.

The last of the dark magic winked out.

I had won.

It felt empty.

Marc hadn’t been there.

CHAPTER TWO

The charges are set to go off in three… two…

I dropped my magic, letting it crash unceremoniously around me. I muttered a word of thanks to the moon and rose to meet my next challenge.

Well, that’s what I thought I was going to do. Except my legs were fighting the prospect of carrying my weight.

The battle I had waged and won sapped my strength and left me crouched on the ground. That’s why working with a partner had been important to me.

I hoped I didn’t look weak, just regrouping. A badass, leather-clad chic, who had just crushed some ugly magic, brought down a house, made an awesome exit, and was looking for something else to kill.

A bubble bath to get rid of the stink would be nice too, after a long, hot shower.

I could feel him at my back. Still at my bike.

You might want to move a little further back from that, he called out smoothly. His voice was rough, low and did things to my sense of self-preservation. Like kick it up a notch.

Running is never a good idea in the presence of a predator. It kicks their instincts into overdrive, and they like the chase just as much as they like the kill.

Shifters were all alphas. It was just a matter of who out-alpha’d who. I had a feeling this guy was undisputed. I just hoped to keep it together and see another sunrise. And to find Marc.

My heart pounded, but I remained crouched for the couple of breaths it took to convince my legs to do their damn job so I could bluff my happy ass out of this.

I turned as I stood and faced the asshole who was leaning against my bike. His was parked right next to mine, blocking it in at a tree. But he just had to be leaning against mine. He needed to show me he was in charge, and I wouldn’t leave until he let me.

Again. Asshole.

Seriously, he started, you are way too close. His whole body relaxed against the seat of my bike. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he casually checked his watch. The charges will go off in three… two…

I took that hint and ran.

One.

The explosion was sizable and effectively would finish the job I started with nothing left to indicate that a structure once stood there except for a pipe remnant. The foundation itself would be gone.

I dove and rolled. I planned to come up on my feet, but the pain that tore through my side threw me back to the ground. If I was lucky, I’d been hit with debris, and maybe a couple ribs were busted, some bruising would happen, but I could blow it off.

I didn’t seem to be having a whole lot of luck tonight.

The desert breeze caught me under the coat, and I could feel the cooling of my blood, and the catch of the coat on whatever had punctured me.

Bluffing was going to get really tricky.

I made it to my feet and took a good look at the shifter still leaning against my Kawasaki. I glowered my best at the six and a half feet of prime shifter male.

The flames of the structure reflected in his blue eyes. The golden shimmer of firelight played across his features. He looked like a model for outdoor magazine—rough and rugged. A gaze that could see right through you, lips that could make you forget what planet you are on, and a body built for killing and sex—in that order.

His spiky blonde hair was the perfect finish to a face that could make a lesser woman wet herself.

Okay, call me lesser. My body responded to his sheer male presence, but I’ll call myself lucky that I was steeped in so much goo, smoke, and blood I didn’t want to think about that there was no way he could scent my arousal.

Besides, he had just done something really, really stupid, which went a long way to me not really being fond of him. I was now injured, energetically drained, and getting out of here in one piece was more important than being a notch on this guy’s bedpost.

He could get anyone to warm his sheets. With a look from the incendiary blue eyes and a crook of his finger, and he would have himself a little something in bed.

No argument. No negotiation.

You, ten o’clock. You ten thirty and bring a friend, said the sheriff of Nottingham. That was this guy without the anger or frustration.

I glanced down and saw the slender shard of glass protruding from my side. It was going to difficult to get it out. The angle was bad and toward the back. It was three inches wide at the entry point and got wider the further out it went. I just didn’t know how deep it was.

It didn’t matter. It had to come out. I had to get my medical kit from my saddlebag and wrap this with the magically enhanced dressing and bandage I had for just such an emergency. It would stop the bleeding and draw out any debris still in there. It would also take the top off of the pain, and that would be a real bonus about now.

The true healing would take time, but I’d make it to the house Marc and I had rented for the job, get the injury and me really cleaned up, and make it to bed before I passed out.

Marc would have stayed awake while I slept. Even with the wards I’d set to keep us safe, he would watch over me. I would be helpless, unconscious, and now, alone.

I told you. You were too close, he remarked casually. He leaned a bit and got a look at the shard glistening in the fire’s light. Wow, that’s going to leave a mark.

The blood seeped from the wound and down the side of my chaps. Getting blood out of the zipper was going to be a bitch.

I was beginning to really dislike this guy. I probably had a better chance of getting what I wanted if I played beta to his alpha.

Yea, ya think? I started. Look, shit for brains. What the fuck were you thinking blowing up that place? I couldn’t stroll over to him, but I walked, trying not to favor my side. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t succeeding.