Primal Cravings Read online

  His fist slammed against the top of her desk.

  Eden wished she wasn’t alone in the Bleythin detective agency. Her beloved bondmate Laurent and Harry Bleythin were still tying up loose ends on a case. Fortunately, they’d gotten the missing girl out of deadly danger, with the help of the Dark Angel pair she was waiting to show up.

  She wished Daniel’s cousin Sidonie Wolf was here. Maybe that was Dan’s problem.

  “I know you’re upset about Sid leaving to join the Dark Angels,” she said.

  “The hell with Sidonie,” he said. “She thinks I’m a joke. I’m sick of her. I’m sick of hearing about the Dark Angels.” He pounded a fist on her desk again. The wood shuddered. “I’m not good enough for those elite bastards!”

  Daniel adored Sidonie! Was he jealous of her new job? Maybe it would be best to get Daniel out of the office before a couple of Dark Angels showed up and aggravated his mood further.

  “Would you like something useful to do?” she asked.

  “Goddess, yes!”

  He grinned fiercely. Eden imagined a tiny flash of fangs. She was no psychic, but even she could feel the terrifying anger bubbling through him. She stood her ground as she reminded herself that she’d been raised a vampire hunter. That she could stake him before he—

  But Daniel Corbett wasn’t a vampire!

  He did have a very special psychic gift. He could discern an object’s history by touching it. Sometimes this talent could even come in handy, such as the assignment she was going to suggest to him.

  She wrote down an address and handed it to him. “This request for your services came in a couple of days ago, but since you didn’t check in, it kind of slipped my mind.”

  “What is it?”

  “You need to shave and put on a suit and go look at an egg.”

  His fist smashed into her desk again.

  “Stop that!” Eden said.

  “Stop being facetious!” Dan shouted back.

  “You’re right. Sorry. A collector wants your expertise in authenticating a gold, enamel, and jeweled egg-shaped box like the Russian Imperial family used to collect.”

  “A Faberge egg?” He gave a sharp nod. “I’ve heard of them.”

  “Well, this man has one that looks right but doesn’t have any provenance. He wants you to tell him if it’s real. He heard about you from one of your archaeologist friends who believes your gift is genuine.”

  “This gift cost me any chance at a career. Which of the bastards who laughed me out of academia threw this bone my way?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “If I know who it is, I can find him and kill him.”

  Eden believed he meant what he said. “Why don’t you go check out the egg, okay? Tell the owner whether it belonged to the Russian Tsar or not.”

  “Fine,” Daniel said.

  Eden breathed a sigh of relief as the normally sweet guy headed for the door. Which opened just before he reached it. A couple came in, a red-haired woman and a dark-haired male. Eden recognized the man as a vampire. So did Daniel. Every muscle in his body stiffened, tensed as though he were about to pounce on the strange Prime.

  The Prime saw something he didn’t like about Daniel, as well. He stepped in front of the woman.

  The tension in the room spiked instantly.

  * * *

  Jake didn’t know what the hell this blond male was, but he instinctively put himself between him and McCoy. The man, fists bunched at his sides, eyes bright with instinctive fury, took a step closer to Jake. Jake fought down the urge to show fang and claw.

  McCoy peered around him. She spoke to the woman across the office. “Piper and McCoy,” she said. “You’re expecting us. You’re Eden, yes? I remember that you helped the Angels fight the wildfire up in the mountains. Uh, Joe and Sidonie say ‘hi’. We saw your bondmate Laurent last night, helped him with the—”

  Why are you babbling, McCoy? Jake’s thought demanded.

  The mortal male continued to glare at him while Jake gave some of his attention to his partner.

  Trying to break the tension! Don’t kill him, okay? McCoy thought back.

  I didn’t start this.

  He isn’t well. There’s something wrong with him.

  “Weren’t you leaving, Dan?” Eden asked. Her tone rose sharply. “Daniel Corbett! You are leaving!”

  Corbett blinked, then his gaze slid to Eden. Some of the agitation drained from him. He nodded, and walked out.

  McCoy stepped out from behind him. Her gaze followed Corbett as he left. Despite his inevitable pang of jealousy, Jake knew her instinct was to follow Corbett, to help him. Jake wanted to put his arm around her and keep her protectively at his side.

  “We have our assignment,” he whispered to her.

  She sighed after a moment. “Yeah. Besides, I don’t think his road crosses ours again.” She added a puzzled, “Whatever that means.”

  As long as McCoy was willing to let Corbett go, Jake didn’t comment on any witchy stuff.

  * * *

  Eden came out from behind her desk and walked up to them. “I remember you.” She gestured. “There’s a desk you can use, should you need a desk.”

  “It’s somewhere to put our laptops,” Dee McCoy said.

  A familiar pleasant tingle went through Eden before she could say anything else. She turned toward the door as it opened.

  “Honey, I’m home!” her bondmate declared. Laurent Wolf came in. He was dressed in a long black leather coat, his long silver braid flung over his shoulder.

  “Making your entrance with your usual flare,” Eden said, and went into his embrace. It had been two days since she’d seen him, which was two days too long.

  Laurent kissed her, asked how their daughter was, and then looked over her head at the two newcomers, then back at Eden. “What are they doing here?”

  “You owe them a favor,” she answered. “So we’re helping them save the world, although I’m not quite sure how.”

  “Good for us.” Laurent looked around. “Something doesn’t —”, he gave his head a hard shake. He looked at the other Prime. “Does the energy reverberating around the place remind you of anything?”

  Piper nodded slowly. He took a deep breath, as though he was scenting fading energy. “Something familiar. Something I should remember.”

  “Yeah,” Laurent said. He shrugged. “Never mind, it’s almost faded. Come along, my love, let’s go make out for a while.”

  Eden let Laurent take her by the hand and through the door to the back rooms of the office building.

  “What’s up?” she asked when they were alone.

  “In a minute.”

  Laurent’s hands came up under her shirt. His lips touched her throat while his hands caressed her breasts. Eden moaned with pleasure. She leaned against the wall at her back and enjoyed his touch. Anticipation of the prick of his fangs brought her to orgasm even before the slight pain and incomparable pleasure rushed through her. Eden closed her eyes and held on tightly to Laurent. Even two days without this tangling of their two souls and bodies into one had been too much!

  Laurent lifted his head too soon for Eden’s liking. She rubbed her forehead against his as he held her close. “Come on, you have to want more than a snack,” she said.

  His lips brushed her ear as he chuckled. “I adore you when you’re greedy.” He let her go and rearranged her clothing for her. “I adore you no matter what.”

  She tugged at his thick braid. “Let’s go home, Laurent.”

  He ran a finger around her smiling lips. “We have work to do.”

  “Uh—”

  “Yes, I know, that’s your line, and I’m the one who wants to spend all the time in bed with you.” He pointed toward the main office, hidden from view by the closed door. “But today we need to help the pair out there.”

  “They’re Dark Angels. I think they can take care of themselves. Dee said she thought they could use the help of a werewolf, so Harry is the only one who has�
�”

  “My darling vampire hunter, you don’t get it, do you?”

  He ran fingers through her curly dark hair while she gave him a puzzled look.

  “I take it you don’t mean we’re going to help them save the world?”

  “In a way, we are. Check my shoulders, darling? Tell me if I’ve grown a pair of little fluffy cupid wings.”

  She peered closely at Laurent’s shoulders. “Yes. I do see wings.”

  “Pink or white?”

  “Black leather.”

  “Thank goodness—badness—I haven’t completely shed my evil ways.”

  He pressed his forehead against hers, and they shared a laugh, then a kiss.

  “What do you mean, cupid?” Eden asked when their lips parted. “I think that pair have more important things to do than have a romance at the moment.”

  “I’m sure they’re intent on doing their duty, but since they aren’t able to think straight I don’t believe they can perform that duty. What causes a Prime to go crazycuckoo, my darling?”

  “They’re bonding?”

  “You betcha.”

  “Oh, the poor things! I mean, eventually it will be wonderful, but if it’s the instant WHAM kind—“

  “Not everyone can have it as easy as we did,” Laurent agreed. “We met. I tried to con you. You tried to kill me.”

  “We fell in love, had a baby, got married, and the psychic bond itself crept up on us while life happened,” she added.

  “It’s hitting Piper and McCoy like a ton of bricks. How can they save the world in their condition? World-saving needs to be done by people with clearer heads. They are both working hard to keep it together, but psychicbiology cannot be denied after a point. I made that word up.”

  “Which they’ve reached?”

  Laurent nodded. “Last night, while undercover in a dangerous place, he tried to kill me for talking to McCoy. He totally forgot everything but her being his.”

  “Why were you talking to McCoy?”

  “It was only business,” he replied to her surge of jealousy. After all, they were bonded, too. “Business we need to keep the two away from for a little while. What can we do to keep them together but out of danger?”

  “There is one very legitimate thing I can think of to keep them from doing anything dangerous together at least until tomorrow.”

  He hugged her. “You are so clever.”

  “And why are you suddenly so interested in the romantic problems of a pair of Dark Angels?”

  “Partially because I do owe them for their help. Mostly….” He touched his forehead, indicating telepathy rather than a telephone. “Got a call from Sister Sidonie when McCoy checked in with the Dark Angels to tell them she and Piper were heading our way. Sid asked me to keep an eye on them.”

  “Then we shall,” Eden said.

  She was fond of Sidonie. Eden missed her friend who’d left the Bleythin Agency. Even though it was to be with the werewolf she loved.

  Before they returned to the main office, Laurent said, “One more thing. Piper is an adopted Family Prime. You might want to check out his genealogy.”

  Vampire hunters kept detailed records of all the vampire family trees they could find. She didn’t think Piper’s ancestry was any of her business if he was now one of the good guys. She also knew Laurent must have a reason for this suggestion about Piper, but figured he wanted her to find out for herself.

  She made sure both of their clothes and hair were in place, and they went back to join the bonding pair.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “They’re talking about us in there,” Piper said.

  “I don’t have to be psychic to figure that out,” Dee answered. She looked toward the closed door. “They’re fooling around in there, too, aren’t they?”

  “Yes,” Piper growled. The other couple’s sexual energy screamed around him. “Primes are shameless.”

  Dee cleared her throat. She couldn’t look at the Prime as she blushed. He wasn’t the only one reacting to the awareness of vampire sex. “Yeah, well.”

  She had a fleeting longing to leap over the desk and grab Piper, drag him to the floor and—

  She sat at the desk and got out her smartphone. “I’m going to check in with Leon Sacher’s family, see if they’ve picked up any energy traces from the Wizard of Oxnard.”

  Piper pulled up a chair from another empty desk. He flipped open the laptop he’d taken from his go bag. “I wonder if there’s a pattern to the earthquakes. If we can trace their origin to a central point.”

  “Good thought,” Dee said.

  “Where do I find information on earthquakes?”

  “Sorry,” Dee said. “I’m a physicist not a geologist.”

  Behind her, Eden said, “I thought you were in the Craft.”

  Dee looked at the couple who’d come back into the room. They were holding hands.

  “Even a witch needs a day job. I figure it’ll be good having an academic career to fall back on if the supernatural commando thing doesn’t work out,” Dee said.

  “I went into computers myself,” Eden said. “Perhaps I can help with the search you mentioned,” she said to Piper. “Earthquake activity, is it?”

  Dee gave the woman a back-off look, but managed not to snarl at her.

  “Thank you,” Piper answered.

  Dee’s head turned sharply toward Piper. Since when did Yakov Piper thank a female, especially a mortal one?

  Okay, that was jealousy talking, wasn’t it? Oh, good goddess! She ought to apologize to Eden, who was already bonded, making her totally unavailable.

  Piper handed over the thumb drive he’d taken from Sacher’s place. “This belongs to a wizard who is either a victim or one of the bad guys. Could you see what’s on it, Mrs. Wolf?” he added her married title ever so politely, with a glance at Laurent.

  “No problem,” Eden said. “You’re going to need to take some time off work to go shopping anyway.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Dee asked.

  “What are you talking about?” Piper demanded.

  Good. He was back to being his grumpy self.

  “You can’t present yourselves to Lady Juanita looking like that,” Eden said. “Not at her Solstice celebration tonight, certainly. You’ll need a party dress, Dee. And a suit, Jake.”

  “I have no interest in—” Piper started.

  “Eden’s right,” Laurent said. “You’re in Clan Wolf territory now. You know how strict Clans can be about who they allow in their territory. You’re going to have to present yourself to the Clan Matri and make nice. Bring a present.”

  “Oh, for—”

  “Crying out loud,” Eden finished for Piper. “I know. But Lady Juanita is very old school.”

  “And not all that certain the Dark Angels are such a good idea,” Laurent added. “It would be better to be diplomatic and pay the Matri of Clan Wolf a courtesy call.”

  Piper glared at Dee. “Whose idea was it to come here?”

  “Besides, it’ll be a great party,” Laurent said.

  Eden gestured toward the door. “Go on. The sooner you give in to the inevitable, the sooner you can get back to work.”

  Dee gave Eden a suspicious look. She didn’t argue. Clan vampires did have some pretty strict rules. “We might as well get this over with,” she told Piper.

  “You just like to shop,” he said.

  She did. He’d noticed?

  “Add some makeup. Get your hair done,” Laurent said. “You’d look hot in spike heels.”

  “I can’t run in them,” Piper said. He tossed the car keys to Dee. “You know where to find stores. Follow your instinct.”

  This was not Dee’s first time in San Diego. “Come along. I know exactly where to go.”

  * * *

  “How are we going to justify this on our expense report?” Piper asked as Dee pulled into a space in the parking lot of a Spanish-style building.

  The other cars in the lot were the expensive sorts
of rides that made their black SUV look like a piece of cheap junk. The sign over the shop door read Pret-a-Porter. The store specialized in the off-the-rack lines of all the couture designers, for men and women alike. There would be questions when they turned in the expense account, but Dee knew her own finances couldn’t handle the cost of the sort of dress needed for a party at a Clan Matri’s place.

  “We’ll follow Laurent’s advice, and call it a diplomatic meeting,” she suggested.

  He’d sulked the whole way here, and she didn’t blame him. He sat in the passenger seat with his arms crossed and a frown on his face. Except, every now and then she’d caught him sneaking a glance at her that wasn’t sulky, but— Well, lust shot through her every time she caught his gaze on her, or even when she imagined he was looking at her. Pretty much all the time, she had to admit.

  The looks she snuck at him might have caused the same reaction in him, but he wasn’t the one who needed to keep his attention on driving. If her closeness left him simmering there was nothing she could do about it with her attention—mostly—on the traffic.

  Now that they’d arrived they could at least get away from each other for a while, since the men’s and women’s sections were on different sides of the store. They got out of the car.

  “Looks like a bridal shop,” Piper said as they approached the door.

  His comment confused her for a moment, then Dee remembered. “The Houston op! When you ended up in a fire fight in a mall.”

  “I, personally, crashed through the wedding shop window. I was not responsible for the fire.”

  She laughed. “I wish I’d been there.”

  “During a hurricane?”

  “I was stuck negotiating with the Corbett twins, data mining in exchange for forgetfulness potions.”

  One of the Corbetts’ security specialties was keeping mortals from remembering supernatural incidents they’d witnessed. Not all people could have their memories altered telepathically, but a combination of telepathy and magic was more effective. Negotiating a trade of her expertise for their skills in support of the Dark Angels hadn’t been the hard part of the meeting. The partying afterwards had nearly killed Dee. She’d never known anyone who could put away the vodka like the Corbetts.