Hot Blooded (Jessica McClain)

chapter 28

“What the—” Tyler slammed on the brakes. The ridiculous canary-yellow Humvee skidded to a stop right in front of my office building, tires jacked halfway up the curb, rocking us all on our seats.

It was three a.m.

Every light in my office building was ablaze.

My head shot off Rourke’s lap, his growl of displeasure reverberating around the truck. I squinted out the window, rubbing my eyes. “Damn, what’s going on? Did anyone call us?”

We’d left Selene’s lair, tired and bedraggled, without Naomi or Ray. I had no idea if Ray would survive the transformation into a vamp or not, but there was nothing more we could do. We’d been in the truck for eighteen hours straight, stopping only for gas and a shower at a local YMCA at my insistence.

“My phone is dead,” Danny said. “I didn’t remember to pack the bloody charger.”

I sat up straighter while Tyler evened out the beast. I reached for my cell phone in my backpack. I’d spoken briefly with my father on the sat phone once we’d emerged from the mountain, and told him we were on our way home. “I don’t have any messages and nobody’s called since I talked to Dad.”

“This looks like it happened recently,” Tyler said as he shut off the engine. “Likely no one knows what’s happening yet. It’s the middle of the night. I’m going to look around. Stay here.” I was tired enough to let him figure it out.

“There are no other visual disturbances,” Danny said, scanning the building. “Does Nick usually work this late?”

“No,” I said. “Something’s definitely happening. Every light is on. In the entire building. To do that, someone had to access the main housing. Or they spelled the entire thing. Looks like they were trying to find something. Or someone.” Likely me—who was I kidding?

Rourke opened the door. “I’ll go too,” he called to my brother, who had gotten out already. As he got out, he leaned over to kiss me first, lingering for a long moment.

“Bloody hell, do we have to stand witness to every single kiss?” Danny grumbled. “I’m surprised your lips haven’t melded together yet with all that snogging.”

I broke first, chuckling.

Rourke’s eyes seared me, sparking emerald. He gave me a wicked grin before slamming the door. I was starved for him. As in, if I-didn’t-get-him-soon-I-might-die kind of starved. But we hadn’t had two seconds of freedom since we’d all trudged out of the mountains. By the look in Rourke’s eyes, if we didn’t find some privacy soon things were going to happen whether anyone liked it or not. My wolf licked her lips. We are ladies; we can wait. She growled. In all honesty, I was with Jezebel on this one. My wolf wasn’t the only one who wasn’t going to care if anyone was around.

“Danny, if you’d had a chance, you would’ve ridden horizontal on top of the coolers in the back with Naomi. Don’t even pretend you wouldn’t have. I saw all the flirting going on. You don’t offer to save a woman’s life if you’re not interested.” Wolves had very little modesty when it came to sexuality. They liked sex. End of story.

“Damn right I would’ve, but that’s not the blasted point.” His tone held a note of remorse. A vamp and a wolf would be a hard pairing, even if their personalities seemed well suited for each other. “I still don’t want to witness all your lovemaking. I’m of a delicate nature, and seeing it makes me cranky.”

I chuckled as I turned back to the window and focused on Rourke, watching him move around my building wearing Tyler’s T-shirt, which was stretched to a comical degree over his huge body. He moved gracefully, like a predator. My wolf growled. Yes, we get to taste him soon. “We’re going to see Naomi soon, you know,” I said, glancing at Danny. “Maybe you can ask her on a date.”

Danny let out a strangled sound before he answered. “Yes, I just might just do that.”

I peered at him, curious about the reaction, but he had turned away from me.

We’d arranged to meet Naomi at Rourke’s cabin in the Ozarks in a week’s time, it being the only secluded place to rendezvous that we could come up with on short notice. If Ray survived the transition, Naomi said he would need space away from any humans. It might be risky to return there, but it’s where they least expected us to be, so it was a unanimous decision.

I leaned forward in my seat. “Look, someone just walked into my office.” My office was situated on the corner nearest to where we were parked. The figure started rummaging through my desk. “Hey! What is she doing?” I peered closer. “At least I think that’s a woman.” I edged up to the window. “Seems too delicate for a guy, right? Could be a kid.” It was hard to tell because the figure was short, no more than five feet tall, and had a black skull cap pulled down low over their face. “There’s Nick!” Before I knew it, I’d opened the door and shot out of the truck so fast I couldn’t hear any protests. The brief thought skittered through my brain that I really shouldn’t be racing through the night toward an obvious problem not knowing who or what this threat was, but my body didn’t seem to care. That was my best friend in there. My wolf growled in agreement, urging me on.

I skidded to a stop just outside the building door, an arm catching me around the middle before I bounded inside. “Jess,” Rourke purred into my ears. “Taking it a tiny bit slower might be a good idea. Wouldn’t hurt to use a little more caution.” I turned around in his arms. He was grinning and his scent washed over me for the millionth time. My wolf yipped in delight.

“Someone’s in my office with Nick and we need to get in there,” I argued, facing him. “Whoever’s in there is having a party with my files. There can’t be that much danger if Nick’s up walking around and not tied up in the back room.”

“Whoever’s in there with him is extremely powerful. I smell witch and a very strong one at that.”

“Witch?” I inhaled, forcing air over my tongue. It prickled with the residual power left in the air from a recent spell, likely the one that had opened all the locks and blasted on all the lights. I also scented heavy rosemary and herbs, similar to Marcy’s signature, but not exact. I tilted my head up at him, since he was almost a foot taller than I was. “I think we might have a problem. Nothing feels very dangerous to me. I taste the power, but it doesn’t seem to register. I feel no urgency and very little fear.” My wolf yawned to accentuate the point. “I’m sure the witch in there is extremely powerful, but it’s not sparking my warning bells.”

Rourke growled. “It doesn’t matter if you don’t feel a threat. You still can’t take risks that could get you killed. I rarely feel any real threat from any supe, but you learn to be cautious all the time no matter what. They can still be tricky.”

Tyler and Danny rushed up behind us. “What’s going on?” Tyler asked. “There’s a big signature out here.”

“I smell a witch,” Danny said, turning in a circle. “And it smells a bit familiar.”

“It smells like Marcy,” I said grimly. “And that can mean only one thing.”

“There’s a blood relation inside,” Rourke said, releasing his arm reluctantly from around my waist.

“I think that means something’s happened to Marcy,” I said. “I’m starting to get a very bad feeling. We need to get in there.” I started to pull open the door.

Three fierce growls rent the air.

“I’m going first,” Tyler said, grabbing the door and edging in front of me. “If this is a trap or we get cut off, head to the Safe House. We rendezvous there. Clear?”

“Clear,” I said. I wasn’t going to argue. “I’m right behind you.”

In a line, with Rourke so close he was like a second skin, we all crept quietly into the building hallway and to our front door. Hannon & Michaels was painted on the front in block letters. The firm had been started under my alias, Molly Hannon, and had run successfully for the last five years.

“This is a bit ridiculous,” Danny stage-whispered from the end of the line. “If there’s a powerful witch inside, she’s spelled everything and knows we’re here, likely from the moment we drove up. We’re acting like criminals in a bad police drama.”

He was right. “That’s true,” I said. “But we don’t want to go balls out and piss off whoever’s in there either. Nick is with them. We have to act like we respect the power.”

Tyler reached for the door handle, but the door sprang open on its own.

So much for respecting the power.

“Where is my niece?” A commanding voice rang out.

Standing with her hands on her hips in front of Marcy’s desk was the tiniest woman I’d ever seen. She appeared to be in direct odds with everything Marcy was—where Marcy was tall, curvy, with gorgeous long red hair, this woman was short, had the body of a twelve-year-old boy, and the hair spilling out of her black knit cap, complete with an embroidered skull and crossbones, was white as snow.

Aunt Tally.

Tallulah Talbot, the undisputed supernatural heavy in this city, possibly in the country, stood with her hands on her hips, looking very put out. Her power was legendary and she was likely the only reason we’d slowed Selene down for those few brief moments.

I’d never come face-to-face with her until now.

I stepped forward cautiously. This woman was clearly pissed, and if something had happened to Marcy, I was going to hurt someone. “Hello. I’m Jessica McClain. This is my office and Marcy is my secretary.”

“I know who you are.” She gave me a dismissive look. “Do you honestly think I’d allow my niece to work here if I weren’t well aware of the situation?”

“Um, I guess not.” Had I ever been under the radar? “Why are you here?”

“My niece is missing; that’s why I’m here.”

“What do you mean missing?” I asked as I took a step farther into the room. On inspection, Tally’s face was surprisingly young. If it weren’t for the white hair and her small, frail stature, she would’ve look somewhere in her late thirties. But with all the other accompaniments she looked late forties, early fifties.

Her eyes were a striking hazel, just like Marcy’s, but it was truly all they had in common.

“Jess,” Nick yelled as he came around the corner. “I thought I was hearing things.”

“Nick!” I ran over and gave him a big hug. He picked me up and squeezed me back. “Why didn’t you call me?” I asked as he put him at arm’s length.

“Well, first, I didn’t think you’d be back. But honestly, I would’ve called once I had more information.” He smiled. “I just got the news that Marcy was gone an hour ago. I came to meet Tally here, at her request, but she was… er… already inside.”

“My niece was taken from here this evening, against her will,” Tally said. “At approximately seven p.m.”

“How do you know for sure?” I looked around, but there was no sign of a struggle. I took a breath in, but didn’t scent anything in the air, except for Tally. Massive amounts of powerful witch filled my senses. I turned to Nick. “Do you know what happened?”

He shook his head. “I’m just as confused as you. I got a call from”—he gestured to the small but commanding woman with her hands on her hips, not knowing how to address her—“about an hour ago. The last time I talked to Marcy, everything was fine. She was packing up to leave for the day.”

“She was not fine,” Tally said with authority. “She was worried. She called me from here. That’s the last time I heard from her. She had laced the perimeter of this building with a detection spell and it was going off. She thought it was something big, but she didn’t know what it was. I ordered her to leave immediately and go home. She called me an hour later and told me everything was fine, she was sleepy, and was going to turn in for the night.”

“That sounds normal.”

“It wasn’t normal! She called me from a strange number, and The Impossible Date is on tonight and she’d rather lose a spell finger than miss it. So I went to her house.”

“She wasn’t home.”

“Damn right she wasn’t home. So I came here. I knew immediately who had her. Their signature is all over this place like neon lights in a pig barn.”

I glanced around the room and took in another breath. Nothing. “Who has her?”

“The sorcerers.”

“Why would the sorcerers want Marcy?”

“Are you really that daft?” Tally strode over to me. Magic flowed around her, sizzling the air. “They want you, of course. They took my niece because you weren’t available. Likely to extract information, but if we’re lucky there’s still time to ransom her back.”

I looked down at this woman. She didn’t have to prove anything—she just was. She was the opposite of Selene in every way. “I’d gladly trade myself for Marcy, but how do we know they won’t kill her anyway once we arrange a swap? What we need to do is break her out before they see us coming.”

Tally cocked her head, examining me, taking in my ragged appearance and my big talk. “You think you can defeat the entire Sect of Sorcerers on your own? With your ragtag crew”—she gazed over my shoulder—“and all your powerful combat spells?” She gestured at the boys. “These aren’t games for children. This is big. The High Council of Sorcerers is heavily guarded and you can’t just waltz in undetected.” Her voice ended on an edge and things in the room vibrated with energy. I glanced down at her fingertips and they were sparking, manifesting physically, just like Selene’s had. Tally’s signature was purple.

“No, but you could,” I said.

Surprise flashed over her features. “No. Even I couldn’t walk in under the radar. My radar is too big. What I could do is blow the place up—and likely my niece in the process—but that’s only if I could find it. These are wizards, not bunny rabbits. They are highly skilled and dangerous. I can break their wards, but that doesn’t get me anywhere, because they would be waiting for me with more. They wouldn’t just kidnap my niece willy-nilly. They know what I can do. This is a well-thought-out attack, and they’ve likely taken her to a place we won’t be able to find in time. Only a ransom will work without killing everyone in the process.”

“You might not be able to find them, but we can.” I walked toward the door. “Our noses are perfectly suited for tracking.”

“That’s big talk coming from a newborn wolf.” Tally took a step toward me and power crackled in the air. Rourke growled behind me. “I don’t care if you’re the only female born to your race, it doesn’t mean you can automatically defeat an army of Sorcerers with no training.”

“No, but together we can.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What are you proposing?”

“We pick up her scent, find where they’ve taken her, and get her back.”

“And what about the wolf who already went after her?” Tally said. “If it was that easy, he would have her back already.”

“Huh?” I wasn’t expecting that. “What wolf? What are you talking about?” I took a quick breath in to see if I could smell anything, but under Tally’s large signature, my entire office smelled like a wolf den. The entire Pack had been here last week. Wolf scent lingered all over. How did Tally know who’d gone after her?

“He won’t succeed, by the way, but he might have a lead,” she said begrudgingly. “If you can get ahold of him, we might have a place to start.”

“I’m sorry, but I still don’t know who you’re talking about exactly.”

She reached out to grab my arm and three sets of snarls rent the air along with a very polite, “Ms. Tally, I’m sure we can work this all out. There’s no need to get hostile.”

She ignored every single snarl and addressed them all with a glare. “I’m not abducting her, you fools. I’m taking her outside. With your superior scent detection—things wolves love to brag about—are you all telling me that you missed the most important piece of this so far?”

She tugged me by the shirtsleeve out of the office. Everyone trailed after her. She was a remarkably strong woman for such a tiny person. I had no idea how old she was, and witches aged differently than shifters, but I was thinking old.

She yanked open the door to the parking lot, the one we’d all just tiptoed through, and marched us directly across the asphalt, coming to a stop by a large patch of bushes.

I walked a few paces closer, my fingers reaching out to touch the green leaves. I took a big breath in and inhaled, pulling the night air over my tongue. My eyebrows shot up into my hairline and I turned around, meeting a few more surprised faces. We’d all scented the same thing.

“James.”