CHAPTER THREE

Spectra

 

My eyes fluttered open, and I cringed internally, waiting for the pain of breathing to hit, but it didn't. I relaxed and sat up to take in my surroundings. I lay on a big timber bed in a luxuriously designed bedroom, all but my jacket and shoes still in place. There were four doors leaving the room and two large windows with the heavy drapes closed. I moved to the windows, pulling the curtain back enough to peer outside. It was still dark, too dark to still be in the city though, and I was at least two to three stories off the ground.

I looked back around the room for my jacket. My shoes were placed neatly in front of a chair. My jacket was laid neatly across the back of it. I felt inside the pockets, the envelope with the money still bulging on one side; the other held my phone. I pulled it out, unlocked it, and called Alexander. The phone beeped at me and the call dropped.

“No, no, no!” I whispered as I realized there was no signal. I moved around the room, pausing and walking to try and find a place with enough signal strength to call. Eventually, I gave up and sent Alexander a message, hoping if the signal picked up that he would get it. I didn't know what happened, so I was honest.

 

I don't know what happened. I drank nothing. I passed out. I don't know where I am. I can't call anyone, so hoping this message will get out as soon as I find a signal.

 

Once I pressed send, I closed the phone and started looking for a way out. I considered sneaking around the house and decided that I would just hold my head high and walk out. I slipped into my shoes and jacket and opened the first door. Wardrobe. I closed the door and went to the next one. Bathroom. I moved to the two doors on the opposite side of the room, and the first led out to a landing and stairs leading down two flights. I stepped out and started across the timber floor to the stairs, walking on my toes to stop the heel from clacking. I stopped at the door directly at the top of the stairs and heard a deep voice talking inside. Not wanting to risk being caught from behind, I started the descent.

I was halfway to the first-floor landing when a woman's ear-piercing scream froze me where I stood. Seconds later, a man's malicious laugh echoed up from the room at the foot of the stairs where the door was open. A second man's sympathetic voice filtered through.

“Scream all you want, honey. No one is going to hear you here.”

The woman sobbed loudly before a ripping sound reached me and she screamed a bone-chilling scream this time. I slipped out of my shoes, leaving them behind on the stairs, breathed out entirely, and descended to the first-floor landing. I passed by the door slowly and dared to look in. I was relieved to see Bay wasn't one of the men in the room. One was one of his kind, but the other was another sort of predator. The woman screaming was on all fours on the floor, and I understood the noises I'd heard now. She was halfway through her first change.

Her animal eyes locked on me and she opened her mouth to alert those with her, but her body chose that moment to take the next step. Her scream pierced my ears, and I moved quickly to the stairs and floated down to the ground floor and out the front door. I ran across the front lawn to the driveway and just made the tree line when the front door flew open and Bay rushed out, looking around. He looked across the lawn and seemed to see exactly where I was despite me knowing he couldn't see me. Not when I turned incorporeal.

I heard a noise behind me and turned to see two lionesses approaching me cautiously. I swallowed hard. While most beings couldn't see me when incorporeal, animals were different. So, when a Changeur de Corps, a predator of flesh who could change into animal form, saw me with their animal eyes, they saw through me but knew I was there.

“Spectra, stay still!” Bay yelled from where he stood on the front porch.

I looked back to where Bay was watching the lionesses stalk towards the tree I stood behind. I resisted taking a deep breath and ran for the road. The animals turned their heads to follow my escape but didn't follow. Most animals didn't bother with ghosts, and that's what they would have taken me for. I made it to the road, and my phone started ringing. I inhaled deeply, returning to physical form, and pulled my phone out to answer it.

“Spectra, where are you?” Alexander's panicked voice came across the line.

“I don't know. Bay Ryder's place I think. He's a predator master.” I looked up the road and wondered where the closest town was.

“Yes, amongst other things. Are you away from him?”

“I just made it to the road, but he was close behind me.”

“I'll be there in a minute.” Alexander hung up and I stared at my phone, wondering how he was getting here that quickly.

A moment later, Alexander stepped out of nowhere to stand in front of me. He was just like the other night, with only his jeans on, and I knew my message woke him. He stood taller than I was used to seeing him and his power swirled around him like a tornado as he came towards me.

I hesitated moving toward him until his eyes went over my head and filled with rage. “We had an agreement.” He scowled as he put his arm around me. Alexander's power burned across my skin, and I gritted my teeth to stop from crying out.

I turned and saw Bay standing just a few meters from me on the road. “She is unharmed. I didn't take her to rouse your anger.”

“Then what is she doing here?” Alexander put me behind him, his power swirling angrily around him.

“I kissed her,” Bay sighed. “I'm attracted to her. It has been centuries since I kissed someone. I accidentally cut myself, and she ingested my blood. I couldn't leave her there to the mercy of other predators.”

Alexander looked shocked as his eyes turned to me for confirmation. I looked away, not willing to meet his eyes. “Oh, Spec!” Alexander sighed, pulling me into him. “You must have been terrified. I'm sorry.” Alexander turned his eyes towards Bay. “You should have brought her to me. Your business is done with her now, so stay away from her.” Alexander pulled me tight to him, and I felt his power sear along my skin. I closed my eyes and resisted screaming at the feel of being stretched apart before I snapped back together like an elastic band.

I opened my eyes to find me standing pressed to Alexander’s bare chest in his lounge room. He didn't release me for a long moment, which was good because my legs weren't holding me up.

When he finally did, it seemed to require all his effort. “You're in trouble, Spec. Bay Ryder hasn't met a woman who roused his interest in centuries. He's attracted to you. My telling him to stay away isn't going to have much effect.”

“My telling him to stay away didn't have much effect either.” I frowned and shrugged out of the jacket. “I'm sorry, Alexander. I didn't mean for this to happen.”

Alexander took my hand in his and led me to his bedroom. “It's late, Spec. Let's get some sleep, unless you'd rather stay up and watch that porn movie in your bag?”

I smiled. “It's for a client.” I watched Alexander drop his jeans and climb into his bed while I unzipped my dress and stripped. I walked to his chest of drawers and opened the shirt drawer, pulling out one of his t-shirts to sleep in. “Plus, I don't think nuns in habits are your thing.”

I climbed into bed, and he pulled me against him. “Sex with you is my thing, Spec.”

I smiled as his lips dropped a kiss across my collarbone. “As I hear it, sex in general is your thing, Alex.”

Alex rolled to reach the light switch, but it put him on top of me at the same time. He used his knee to nudge my thighs apart as he turned off the light. In the dark, his face came back to mine. “Say yes, Spec. It's been months.”

I grabbed the hem of the shirt I'd just put on and pulled it up my body and over my head, Alexander lifting his body enough to let the material pass before pressing against me. His kiss was gentle, kissing me thoroughly till I was gasping for breath. His mouth ventured down my throat, across my collarbones, and further to seize my nipple. I gasped at the feel of his tongue flicking across my sensitive areola. I missed Alexander. I loved him, but he'd been the one to put the brakes on, and now I kept the distance to protect my heart.

My fingers twined in Alexander's thick head of hair as he kissed over my stomach and disappeared between my legs. My back bowed, and I bit my lip at the way he made butterflies take flight in my stomach. As he kissed his way back up my abdomen, I caught a glimpse of lightening sky through the highlight window above his bed. He kissed up my exposed throat and gently used his hand to tilt my face back to his, eyes searching mine before he smiled and captured my mouth.

He slid into me with the same gentleness he kissed me. I broke from his mouth and moaned as he pushed deeper, his teeth nipping at my throat while he waited for me to recover from that first penetration, because it truly was that amazing every time he pushed into me. When I didn't bring my mouth back willingly, he turned my face to his and kissed me as he started moving inside of me. I could tell straight away we were racing the sunrise. He was angry and trying very hard not to take it out on me. I'd seen this side of him plenty of times.

I touched his face gently and pulled back from the kiss. “It's okay, Alexander. Take what you need from me.”

His pupils dilated, and I knew I'd said the right thing. He pulled away from me and flipped me onto my stomach. He pulled my hips off the bed and shoved into me with a little more force. I recognized what was happening immediately. Possession. He felt like he'd nearly lost me tonight and needed to possess me, for me to submit to his need.

My nails clawed the sheets as he pounded into me and I bit the pillow to keep my moans to a minimum as my body rose to meet his need. I wanted to be his; I wanted Alexander to own me so much that I would give him anything he asked of me if he promised to make me his entirely. And that's what scared me most.

Alexander slowed his movements as my body tightened around his engorgement. He laid his body over my back and used his fingers in my hair to turn my face to that awkward angle and kissed me hard. “I want to come inside you.”

I wanted him to, but I shook my head. “You'd have to marry me.”

“I want to do that too, Spec. As soon as you're strong enough to be my wife, I will make you mine. Please Spec, I need this tonight.”

His eyes begged for me to let him take it to that next level. I bit my lip and touched his face gently, willing him to understand. “I'm already breaking my rules letting you be inside me without protection, Alex. Until you marry me, you can't put your seed in my womb.”

He knew I always used condoms when we finally started having sex. After Alexander started sleeping around, he promised he'd use protection with everyone else and always pull out if he could have this level of intimacy with me.

His eyes looked pained by my answer, and I was so tempted to give in, to try and make up for the mess I'd made with Bay Ryder by letting Alexander have this. I kissed him gently, and he pulled out of me, his hand pulling my hip so that I rolled beneath him, and then he slid into me again. I tried to break from his mouth, but he held me there and forced me to kiss him through it. He kissed me as he brought me to orgasm and when my body contracting around his sent him over the edge, he kept kissing me as he pulled out and released his pleasure over the smooth skin of my stomach.

He kissed me for several minutes afterward until his phone rang. Alexander looked over at his bedside table before he stood, pulling me off the bed and taking me into the shower with him. The sun was rising as we washed each other clean.

Alexander hugged my back to his chest and kissed across my shoulder. “Are you any closer in your practice?” I lowered my head and shook it. Alexander didn't push it, “You'll get there, Spec. My mother was thirty before she could prove herself worthy of my father, and he met and started teaching her when she was fourteen.”

I smiled, considering. “We met when we were in primary school, Alexander.”

He smirked against my shoulder. “Yes, but I didn't realize you were a potential candidate till you turned sixteen. Once I did, I started teaching you the basics without you even realizing.”

I frowned and thought back. “The meditation you made me do before we studied together each week?”

Alexander nuzzled the back of my neck. “Remember that massage course I told you I was taking and asked you to let me practice on you?” I nodded, remembering how good he'd been with his hands. “There was no course. Mom suggested I take that approach to introduce our bodies to each other slowly, to let you get used to my power as it grew, rather than hurting you if I didn't take you till I was at full power.”

Alexander ran his hands up my body to caress my breast. I sighed, hanging my head back as his power sent sparks of electricity through me in a pleasurable way.

“I thought for sure you were done with Jeff after we spent the summer break mostly holed up in my bedroom after graduation. Did you ever tell him about us? That I was your first?” Alexander's other hand slipped between my legs. I gasped as his body grew hard against my back again.

“He didn't know it was you, though he probably suspected, but he knew I gave my virginity to someone else while he was backpacking around the world with his mates. He was screwing around, so he couldn't complain.”

Alexander turned me and pushed me against the wall, his eyes filled with sadness. “Why did you go back to him?”

I shrugged. “Our friends expected it, and you went to the capital for university. I didn't love him, but you ignited a fire in me, Alexander, and then you left me.”

“You got accepted, you could have come with me.”

“Even with the scholarship, I couldn't afford to go to an elite university. You know that, Alexander.”

“My parents would have paid for you...”

“I will not be indebted to anyone, Alexander, especially to the parents of the man I love. I made my decision.”

“Your decision got you killed, Spec!” Alexander raged. “Just like last night could have gotten you killed. Why the fuck would you allow Bay Ryder to kiss you?”

I knew it was coming after last night. He'd been holding this in for six years. I lifted my eyes to his angry, dark ones and kept my voice peaceful. “Remember the first time we were together? It was Christmas Eve. I was staying with your family for Christmas, like I did every year after Mom...” I swallowed the words and got back on topic.

“You came into your bathroom after I showered and told me I looked tense. You got me to lie on your bed still naked with just a towel to cover me while you massaged my back. You waited till I went to get up, and you took my face in your hands and kissed me with everything you felt. You kissed me till I lay back and gave you all I owned to give you.” Alexander's eyes softened as I spoke.

“He surprised me. He kissed me so intently I was blown away, Alexander. I didn't want to, trust me, the idea of being with one of his kind sickens me, but there's something about him. When I touch him, I'm not sickened, I'm curious about the way he makes me feel.” I dropped my eyes, ashamed, and Alexander took a deep breath.

“He's going to seek you out, Spec, because he feels that curiosity too. The same genetics that makes you a candidate to be my wife makes you a candidate for him as well.”

I looked at Alexander, shocked, my mouth moving to ask if I'd understood right, but my voice failed me.

Alexander smoothed a strand of hair back from my face as he took it in his hands. “He was what I am, before he was taken. And, when he realizes what you are, he's going to go to war with me for you.”

“But I love you. Shouldn't that matter?”

Alexander's eyes darkened. “Until we are married, nothing will matter. He will work to capture your heart just as hard as I have, but, where I have tried to coax you into your power gently, he will force you into it painfully if it means he can claim you.”

“Could you do that?” I asked, slightly terrified as I remembered the woman screaming in agony as she went through her first change last night. Not that I would turn into an animal, but the agony she must have felt.

Alexander gave me a wicked smile and kissed me deeply. I felt his power come alive around me, at first like a warm wind, then it picked up ferocity till I felt like I was standing in the middle of a forest fire. I tried to pull back from the kiss but Alexander held me to him, his mouth muting my whimpers. I felt a spark of something start in my chest and my eyes popped open.

Alexander’s eyes were open, watching me. I saw the question in his eyes, silently asking me permission to push further. I closed my eyes and kissed him harder.

He pushed more of his power against me, and I felt like I was being burned alive, my flesh melting away from me, falling off my bones. I screamed, and Alexander clamped his hand over my mouth. I felt that spark yawn open a little further, a soothing coolness in the center of my chest when everything else burnt with such intensity, but it wasn't enough to soothe the burn. I felt my lungs burning inside me, and I struggled against the suffocation.

All of a sudden, the firestorm disappeared. I stood hyperventilating into Alexander's shoulder as the pain still coursed through my body. That soothing coolness stayed, it didn't recede like I expected.

“That's what he will do to you, Spec, except he won't stop when you use your safe word.”

I wanted to ask how the hell he knew about safe words, but I couldn't get my breathing under control. The world grew narrow in my vision, and eventually it all disappeared as I fell into the oblivion of unconsciousness.

 

Bay

 

I walked back to the house, furious I'd lost her. There was definitely something about Spectra Michaels that allowed my guards to let her pass freely from the property. Calin was standing on the front steps, watching his newest wife roll on the grass, finally having finished her first change. Calin's brown eyes met mine, and he ran a hand through his shoulder-length blond hair.

“I'm sorry, boss. She must have passed by during one of Serena's screams. As soon as Gina and Cynthia return, I'll find out why they let her pass too.”

“You'll bring them to me. I want to hear it straight from their mouths. In the meantime, I want to speak to Bronwyn. She recommended Miss Michaels in the first place. I want to know everything she knows about her.”

“Yes, boss.” Calin bowed his head, stepping aside while I passed and then following me into the house to go to the wing that he shared with his wives.

I climbed the stairs, Luke joining me on the landing and following me up to my study. I collected Spectra's shoes from the stairs where she'd abandoned them. It was stupid of me to leave the room to deal with business while I waited for her to wake.

“She couldn't have gotten far?” Luke looked amazed that I came back empty-handed.

“She would be here now, but I underestimated her, and I'm not dealing solely with her. She has high connections within the Nachtwelt that are not happy with my interest.”

Luke's eyes widened a little as I opened my study door and stepped inside. “Did you want me to look into these connections?”

I shook my head. Calin came into the office with Bronwyn in tow. The petite blonde woman held her head high in my presence. Calin was only attracted to strong women. “Is there something wrong, boss?” she queried confidently.

“You recommended the girl named Spectra to me for the documentation. What do you know about her?”

Bronwyn paled a little. “Did she not deliver?”

“Answer the questions, don't ask them,” Calin suggested gently.

Bronwyn swallowed and nodded. “I only met her twice. My sister was in a bad marriage, and when I asked around for extraction options, her email address was passed to me by the people who would help my sister disappear. She was good, really good, and fast. She suggested we just get a license and birth certificate to start, and that a passport would be easier to apply for later using the other documents. She hacked my sister's bank accounts and changed the details so that she was money ready at the other end.”

I tilted my head with curiosity. “You failed to mention she could access banks as well.”

Bronwyn's eyes widened a little. “I figured she'd just suggest it to you like she did me. I did warn you she didn't work for our kind. She only agreed to help me because my sister was human. I wasn't meant to circulate her name, but you were obviously in a bind, time wise.”

I nodded my head, accepting that made sense. Her anger at me showing up was evident across the bar. “You know nothing about her as a person?”

Bronwyn shook her head. “I'm sorry, boss. Our interaction was rather short and to the point.”

“Did you know she frequented Ténèbres?”

Bronwyn shrugged. “When you contact her, she organizes a meet there and she'll suss you out first. I think she's pretty tight with the bartender. He watches her pretty closely.”

Luke frowned. “Are you talking about Tommy Donald? He has the Goth bar down the wharf district.” Bronwyn nodded, and Luke met my eyes. “Tommy is a watcher. That's why she's using his bar as the office. If her gig is usually to help female victims, Tommy will watch over her and even protect her if someone tried something. It's why so few predators go to that bar.”

I nodded. “That explains the welcome I got, especially when I asked for her.”

“She can't be straight human if she's able to spot watchers as well as our kind.” Calin considered. “A witch maybe?”

“Not likely. How many of the Nachtwelt can even recognize a watcher, let alone still conduct themselves in a manner that would have a watcher protecting them? I can't even think of anything. Maybe it's just exposure that's led to her being able to identify us.” Luke argued.

I shook my head. “Not straight human. Her aura fades in and out at times, like she’s struggling to stay with the living.”

Bronwyn stood straighter, and I realized she gave off heavy military vibes. “Boss, the sun is coming up. I'll go fetch Gina and Cynthia to report if you like?”

I nodded. Calin smiled at her with pride, and Bronwyn blushed before leaving the room. Calin possessed a remarkable knack with his women. He could be stern but still sympathetic and gentle so that they never felt slighted. Yet they knew not to cross him and tried hard to please him.

“I could have used your ability with women last night, Calin,” I grumbled.

“I'm sorry, boss. It was Selena's first change, and it's important I lead them through it with kindness.” Calin was very subtly telling me his wives came before my personal pleasure, and I could understand that.

Cynthia and Gina entered my study. The two women were polar opposites in appearance and personality except for their long blonde hair and that inner strength all Calin's women possessed. “You requested our presence, boss?”

“You let a human walk off the property last night. Why?” Calin questioned instead. He asked it gently, but both women immediately cringed.

“No human crossed our paths. Just the ghost, boss.” Gina quickly answered. “She was scared but determined. We thought she was just reliving her past.”

“Ghost?” Calin queried, stepping closer. “She was incorporeal?” Both women nodded. Calin turned confused eyes to me. “Explains why I didn't see her come down the stairs, but she can't both be a ghost and a human, boss. I don't know what your girl is.”

I looked to Luke. He shook his head. “I'll do some research, but if you could find out more about her, it could help.”

I nodded and moved towards my room. “I'm due at that meeting at ten o'clock. She went to school with Alexander Williams. Try looking up his senior yearbook as a starting place to identify her.”