Blood Born Read online

  What did it say about her, she wondered a while later, that with her life in turmoil and the fate of the world in jeopardy, she could put all that aside and concentrate on nothing but being skin to skin with Luca? When he touched her, there was nothing in Chloe’s world beyond the bed. In truth, there was nothing beyond Luca.

  She didn’t want to think about the fate of the world, didn’t want to think about warriors and vampires and wars she had somehow gotten herself smack dab in the middle of. Sated, happy to leave her troubles behind for another moment or two, Chloe rolled on top of Luca and took his wrists in her hands to hold him down—not that she thought she could actually restrain him. He was incredibly strong, but he was content to play along, for now, a faint smile on his face as he looked up at her.

  “The biting thing is very freaky, but I don’t suppose I can act like I don’t enjoy it.”

  “No, you can’t,” he said drily. He’d bitten her several times, very lightly, and the sensation was still like having lightning run through her veins straight to her crotch. Where he’d bitten her once had left her screaming from the force of her orgasm, and then when he’d licked her afterward to heal what was a very minor wound, well, the outcome had been much the same.

  She leaned down, placed her face close to his. Knowing he could extend his fangs at any moment, knowing he was so much stronger than her, knowing that he had an inborn need to feed on her blood … she still wasn’t afraid. It didn’t make sense. For years she’d had a hard time getting close to men, trusting, allowing herself to be even a little bit uninhibited, all because she couldn’t let herself rely on them to stay after finding out about her medical condition. Luca was practically a stranger, albeit an intimate one, and a vampire to boot—and yet she was more herself with him than she’d ever been with anyone. This wasn’t love, she understood that, but it was … something.

  His body stiffened, and she felt a rush of concern, of unpleasant anxiety. “We’re bonded, Chloe. That’s all.”

  It was very irritating that he could get into her head that way.

  In a flash Chloe was sprawled on her back, naked and satisfied and wanting nothing more than a nap and maybe some chocolate, and Luca was standing by the side of the bed, half-dressed in no more than a heartbeat.

  “Whoa!” she said, blinking at his speed. Okay, if even thinking the word “love” was enough to send him into warp speed, she wouldn’t go there.

  “Playtime’s over,” he said. “We have to go.”

  He was right, dammit.

  Dazed, Jimmy Elliott reined in his focus and listened hard, nodding now and then to show that he was paying attention while the sheriff attempted to explain what had happened to the elder Jim Elliott. If Kate hadn’t been sitting beside him, gripping his hand so hard her knuckles were white, he probably couldn’t have held it together. His emotions were on a roller coaster of despair, anger, sadness, fury, grief. Most of all, he was confused. He had a hard time believing that any of this was real.

  His mother sat at his other side, placing Jimmy in the middle of the trio. Sara Elliott had just returned home from a long trip to see her folks, and seemed more numb than angry. Like her son, she couldn’t believe any of this could be happening.

  On the night Jimmy had awakened to the echo of a voice and knowing something was wrong, his father had been murdered. He had blamed himself a hundred times since he’d heard the news. If only he’d called someone, if he’d realized precisely where the danger was, maybe he could’ve done something to save his dad. Though according to the sheriff’s timeline, Jim Elliott had likely already been dead when Jimmy had been jerked awake by that call—not that Jimmy had told the sheriff, or anyone other than Kate—about his dream, or premonition, or whatever the hell it had been.

  When they’d first heard that his dad had died that night, Kate had suggested that maybe it had been the spirit of his father Jimmy had heard calling his name, the spirit’s newly dead presence that had alerted Jimmy’s sixth sense that all was not right with the world. A year ago he would’ve dismissed her as a nutcase, but now … now he had to consider that maybe she was right. How else could the timing be explained? Besides, Kate wasn’t a nutcase. She was open-minded; she was as steady as a rock; she had a good head on her shoulders.

  There was so much to do he couldn’t seem to keep it all in his head—funeral arrangements to be made, a will to sort out, and fire and water damage to be taken care of. How was he going to handle all that when he was still in shock? He couldn’t expect his mother to take care of things; she was in worse shape than he was.

  Why had things gone to hell in a handbasket so fast? He’d thought maybe his parents were going through a rough patch, but no more than that. Now he was learning that things had been much, much worse: his dad had lost his job, and his mother had basically left her husband because he’d also apparently lost his mind. She wouldn’t tell him more precisely what had happened, and because she was so obviously in shock he didn’t press the matter. But he couldn’t help but wonder if the recent changes in Jim Elliott’s life had anything to do with his death. What had the man gotten himself involved with that could tear his life apart this way?

  It wasn’t until after his mother excused herself to go to the ladies’ room—though Jimmy suspected it was nerves, more than anything else, that made it necessary for her to leave the sheriff’s office—that the sheriff truly looked at Jimmy for the first time.

  The sheriff had gained some new wrinkles since Jimmy had last seen him. He’d also lost some weight and cut his once-full gray hair close to the scalp, which only made those wrinkles more pronounced. Jimmy stared at the deepest wrinkle, a crooked one set right between close-set mud-brown eyes. The sheriff had always had a disconcerting resemblance to a possum. Now he looked like a gray-haired, wrinkled possum.

  “I didn’t want to say this in front of your mother,” he said in a lowered voice. “But there was something very odd about your dad’s murder.”

  As though there were ordinary murders happening every day in this small town. “How’s that?” Jimmy asked, as calmly as he could manage.

  The sheriff glanced toward the doorway. “I don’t want to upset Sara, but the truth is, your dad didn’t have hardly a speck of blood in his body when he was found. There wasn’t any at the scene, either. Not a drop. I swear, I think he was killed somewhere else and drained, then dumped back at home, but that doesn’t make any sense.” He wrinkled his nose, squinted hard. “None of this makes any sense at all. If a neighbor hadn’t spotted the smoke and called the volunteer fire department, the house might’ve been destroyed and we would’ve never known, but as it was the fire didn’t do a lot of damage before it was extinguished, and your dad’s remains were intact. I just don’t know how to explain his condition.”

  Kate’s grip on Jimmy’s hand grew tighter, and she leaned forward expectantly. “Sheriff, were there wounds on the body?”

  The older man looked at Kate as if he’d forgotten for a moment that she was present. Jimmy knew that in a larger town, in the city, the family would be told nothing, or next to nothing, about the details of an unsolved murder. But his dad and the sheriff had been fishing buddies for years; the sheriff had even coached Jimmy’s Little League team for a couple of years. The residents of this small Texas town were a family, and they didn’t keep secrets if they didn’t see a real need for them.

  Kate wasn’t family, though, and she wasn’t from there. On the other hand, from the way she and Jimmy had locked their hands together, it should be plain that she was as good as family, that it was just a matter of time.

  “Nothing to speak of,” the sheriff said when he finally decided to answer. “Just a couple of small puncture wounds on his throat. I assume that’s where whatever godawful device the killer used to take Jim’s blood was attached. Or maybe it was some kind of animal bite, though I can’t think of an animal that would take all the blood and not—” He stopped, as if the mental image he was conjuring up was too much for hi