Skye's Trail

The fuck against the bathroom wall had only whetted Rico's appetite for more. He wanted to bury his cock in her pussy and live there forever. When she raised her arms and bound her braid up before stepping into the shower, his thoughts expanded to latching onto her nipples and swallowing them whole.

He followed her into the shower, glad that when he'd gutted this house and rebuilt it, he'd had the foresight to put in a shower that lent itself to fucking. Just the sight of her smoothing soapy hands over her own body was enough to have him ready again.

Without a word, Rico took the soap from her hands and lathered his own. He'd intended to clean every inch of her body, but the way she watched, the way her gaze traveled over him, lingering on his erection with satisfied, half-closed eyes made him want to show off, to tempt her with his prowess.

He applied the soap to his own skin instead of hers, hesitating over the bite mark on his neck until the hot sparks of hunger shooting from the new erogenous zone had his nipples and cock so tight and hard that he couldn't keep his hand on the mark any longer.

Satisfaction whipped through him when he saw the way Syke's lips were slightly parted, the way her breath moved in and out in short pants as she watched him.

His balls felt huge and heavy. He widened his stance in response and they brushed against the bite on his thigh. His buttocks clenched as a bolt of fire ripped through his testicles.

Carajo! She made him feel like a well-hung bull.

His nipples were so sensitive that he couldn't linger over them without fear of coming. When she licked her lips as though she'd like to suckle him, he had to grab his cock to keep from spewing then and there.

Skye moved closer and placed her hand on the mark over his heart. The sound of his heartbeat roared through his head, through his cock, moving at the same rate as hers, thundering in time to the flames dancing in her eyes.

What do you want?

Rico wasn't sure whether she'd spoken out loud or in his mind. He didn't care. Along with the question came the knowledge that he could have her any way he wanted. That she wouldn't turn away from any of his desires.

The breath swooshed out of his body in pants as the fantasies flooded in.

He wanted her tied to his bed. He wanted her sucking his nipples, his cock, taking him all the way down her throat. He wanted her riding his face while he plunged his tongue into her and heard her scream above him. He wanted to mount her. To take her on her hands and knees and have her lock him into her body-a stallion on his mare, a wolf on his mate.

He tightened the grip on his penis when her eyes darkened, when she whetted her lips and leaned closer, licking at his mouth, tempting him, coaxing him to cover her body with his.

All thought left him then. He took her down to the shower floor, reveling in the way she went to her hands and knees, in the way she held her body to expose the slick, wet folds of her vulva.

The steam trapped the scent of her arousal and held it against his body. The hot water pounding against his back sharpened the need.

His. She was his mate.

He mounted her then, thrusting deep, demanding with his body that she acknowledge what he was to her. She yielded, squeezing him, teasing him to plunge deeper, harder. In a frenzy he moved in and out of her, not sparing her from the weight and power of his body.

She writhed underneath him in ecstasy, driving them both to the brink of oblivion until finally that last little bit of her opened to admit him, to lock him to her. Then there was nothing but the white-hot pleasure of orgasm after orgasm as his body jerked and shuddered above hers.

Even when he knew that they were no longer locked together, Rico couldn't bring himself to pull away. He nuzzled her, licking and kissing along her neck until he got to her ear. She shifted and he almost whimpered when his penis slipped out of her hot channel.

Skye's laugh was soft, affectionate, covering him like a warm blanket. "You must have a huge hot water heater. We'd be lying in cold water if we were at my apartment."

Rico grinned and got to his feet then helped her stand. His cock stirred when their wet flesh touched, skin sliding against skin, but for the first time since he'd been with her, the need to have her again didn't threaten to consume him.

They had a lifetime to fuck, to play, to mate, to make love, to give in to their fantasies. That knowledge settled over him, left him in control of himself again.

He let her leave the shower first. After they'd dried off, he said, "My sister leaves some of her clothes over here. You're about the same size. They're in the bedroom at the end of the hall."

Skye stilled, alarmed but curious at the same time. Except for Rico's friendship with Captain Rivera, she'd never given any thought to how his life might be connected to other people-how her life might now be tied to others.

"I didn't know you had a sister."

Rico snorted. "One sister, five brothers. All of them in law enforcement." His expression grew somber as he pulled Skye to him. She could read the question without touching his mind. She repeated the words she'd said earlier.

"I'll never force you to give up being a cop. We both want the same thing-justice. I don't need to kill to achieve that goal."

He nodded once then pushed her gently toward the doorway. "Get dressed before I decide that I can't resist your body any longer."

Skye laughed and moved toward the open doorway, feeling lighthearted, complete. With a thought she touched Gian's mind and found him in the heavy daytime sleep of a vampire, though a part of him was aware of her.

His anger at her escape had passed, though his resolve to find her had not. Do you think I'll run and hide? she chided.

You will let me find you when you're with him? he countered.

Skye's body quickened with reawakened need. Yes.

The link faded but remained like a tiny nightlight in a vast, darkened hallway. Skye got dressed, stopping only long enough to retrieve her wallet and the ID she'd taken, before returning to the living room.

Rico was talking on his phone. "Look, I'll go with you, Cia... Yeah. I know it's my day off, but I want to get this thing closed up and you're on to a good lead... Jackson would stand out like he's wearing a neon sign. He's got rookie stamped all over him and besides that, he hasn't been on this case since it started. He'd spend most of the night staring at the strippers and the freaky-looking kids... Yeah, okay... I'll meet you at the office to discuss strategy. Bye."

"The Armstrong case?" Skye asked and watched as his face closed off, as he braced himself against thinking about the case. "But I can help you. You can help me. The cases I'm working on are connected to your case."

Rico didn't know what to do with her offer. He wanted to bring whoever killed Brittany Armstrong to justice, but he knew that Rivera wouldn't want him to share any information with Skye. His chest went tight thinking about the captain. He needed to tell Rivera about this thing with Skye. It wouldn't stay hidden for very long.

"I can't tell you anything without talking to the captain first," he finally said.

Skye was warmed by his answer, by the underlying willingness to try and find a way to compromise. "Do you have a copier here?"

He blinked at the change of subject. "Yeah. In my office."

She pulled the ID of the man she'd gutted out of her jeans and handed it to Rico. The faint stink of foul, evil-cursed blood floated along her senses, more memory than reality. "His scent was in the woods along with Brittany's."

Rico's face tightened. "How did you get this?"

"We struggled and I took it."

"When?"

"Yesterday. When I got back from LA. He was waiting for me, along with another man."

"Why didn't you call me!"

"Gian found me first."

Rico's body tensed. The cop in him warred with the man.

It was like navigating through a minefield. There was more going on here than she wanted to tell him. Maybe more here than he could handle right now.

He chose to stay on safer ground. "You're sure he was in the woods with Brittany Armstrong?"

Skye's mind ranged back to the scent of two men-the witch's servants-and to the vampire fledgling that she'd killed. They smelled the same, as though the magic that controlled them also stamped out their individuality. There'd been five people with Brittany, probably the three fledglings and the two servants. The man Gian had killed hadn't smelled of tainted blood. "His scent was there," she told Rico. "Tell the captain that if you find out who this man hung out with, you might find the killers."

Rico looked down at the driver's license. The name was probably fake, but he could scan the picture in and see if he got a hit. Fuck. It was a lead. Something to bargain with. He started to put the ID in his pocket then figured he should treat it as evidence. Maybe they could even take a few prints off of it. When he headed for the kitchen to get a baggie, she said, "I want a copy of it to show around."

"No." The word was an automatic response, but as soon as he said it, he knew he meant it. If this guy had already attacked her once, there was no way he was going to make it easy for her to go against him again. Maybe this was why Gian hadn't wanted her to leave Fangs. His mind shied away from thinking about what he shared with the other man. Instead, Rico braced himself for her fury. When it didn't come he stopped and turned back to her.

She stood with a bemused expression on her face, as though she was torn between being mad and laughing. Amusement won out. She shook her head and strolled over to him, winding against his body like an affectionate cat. "Having mates is going to take some getting used to." She pulled his head down and rubbed her nose against his before biting his lip in a small warning. "I'm going to let you get away with this-for now."

The tension eased from his body. Fuck, he loved this, the feel of her body against his, the challenge of her. She made him feel alive, complete.

"I've got to get to the station. You can stay here if you want." He frowned at the thought of her going back to her apartment. Fuck. It galled him, but maybe he should take her back to Fangs. On the heels of that came a question he should have asked before this. Cop intuition tightened Rico's gut. "Where's the Harley?"

"I'm not sure." Her eyes flickered to the ID Rico was still holding. "After the scuffle, I ran. There wasn't any time to try and get to the Harley."

"You think he took it?"

"Maybe." She half-smiled. "Too early to report it stolen if that's where you're going."

Rico didn't want to agree with her, but in the end he did. He could circle back to this later, maybe take her down to the station and make sure she stayed long enough so an artist could do up a composite of whoever had been with the guy who'd attacked her.

Shit. What he really wanted was for her to stay here, safe, but he knew that wasn't going to happen.

"You can borrow my truck." His gut did a little summersault. The truck was his baby. "You can drive something other than a bike, right?"

Her eyebrows rose and he wanted to kiss the challenge right off her face. "Okay, right. Let me bag this, then I'll show you the truck."

The truck was a monster. Gleaming black metal and enough power to pull a house, but it was the bed that caught Skye's attention. Long, covered, with plenty of room to carry a couple of coffins.

* * * * *

Rico's gut tightened when he walked into the bullpen and saw the captain sitting next to Caldwell's desk. Fuck, he couldn't sit on the information Skye had given him, but he wasn't ready to talk to Rivera about her. Shit. He didn't even know what he was going to say. The captain was half older-brother, half-uncle to him. Not really family, but close enough.

Rivera and his father had grown up in the same neighborhood, gone into police work a few years apart, and still got together and played poker together once in a while. Telling the captain that he was involved with Skye was like a dress rehearsal for introducing her to his family.

Dread settled like ice in Rico's gut. He'd rather look down the barrel of a gun than face that. Even if Skye wasn't who she was, curiosity would get the better of at least one of his siblings and they'd do a background check on her. Not that they needed to go any further than the file Rivera had.

Rico took a deep breath and did what he had to do. He pulled the bagged driver's license out and dropped it on Caldwell's desk. "This is one of the people who was in the woods with Brittany Armstrong. Name's probably fake, but the picture's accurate. If we're lucky, we may pull a print."

Rivera was too good a cop not to jump immediately to the point Rico wanted to avoid. "How'd you get this?"

"Skye Delano."

Cia's mouth went tight with disapproval. The captain's hand twitched and Rico knew that Rivera was fighting the urge to cross himself. He used to do it every time Skye's name was mentioned, but after a couple of the guys started mimicking the behavior, Rivera stopped doing it.

"We'll talk later," the captain said, his voice making it clear that the discussion wasn't going to be pleasant.

Rico felt his gut twist a little tighter, but he didn't look away. It was time he faced up to this. He'd made his choice.

The captain stood and picked up the bagged ID. "I'll get the techs working on this. If something breaks, I'll have them call you. In the meanwhile, follow up on Caldwell's lead but don't get in too deep." He looked at Caldwell then. "This is your angle, but if it looks like the civilian may get hurt, do what you can to intervene. The last thing we need is another killing like Armstrong's. We got off lucky that none of the newspapers got a hold of it."

Caldwell nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Keep me posted," the captain said before striding out of the bullpen.

Caldwell's chilly disapproval washed over Rico even as she pushed a fax toward him and brought him up to date. "This is Marina, the girl I told you about. There may be others, but she's the only one I've been able to get close to online. She's from LA. Pacific Palisades to be exact. Her father is a wealthy lawyer, her mother a dedicated socialite. Probably started the Goth thing as a way to get attention." Cia grimaced.

"She's supposed to go to Fangs first, so she can see for herself that vampires exist. After that she's supposed to go to Bangers where she'll be 'tested', whatever that means. If she passes, then she'll start the initiation process. That's the same drill Brittany went through-or close enough. I talked to one of the detectives in Virginia yesterday. They were able to recover some files she'd deleted. She was supposed to go to Fangs first, then Bangers. There wasn't anything about being tested before she was initiated, but it's still close to the same MO. And the threads leading her from public chat rooms to very private chat rooms are almost exactly the same-like the same people who trolled for Brittany are trolling for someone new."

Rico didn't want to admire Caldwell. He'd rather stay pissed. The captain had saddled him with her and right from the start she'd done her best to keep him away from Skye. But fuck, this was good work, most of it probably done on her own time.

"This is a great lead," he said.

Caldwell's face lightened. "Thanks. You ready to go?"

"Yeah." Rico's chest tightened and the mark over his heart burned. Gian would be waiting at Fangs. Rico didn't know how he knew that, but his gut told him that he was going to meet Skye's other mate tonight.

* * * * *

Old vampires didn't need to sleep in coffins, but for fledglings who'd not mastered the magic necessary for survival, coffins were essential.

The knowledge came from Skye's past. From a barely remembered conversation with her mother's mate, Sabin. It made her heart ache that she was still gathering bits of information, trying to piece together her life before... Even now she didn't remember how she'd been separated from her mother and fathers.

Details that should have been engraved in her soul, a part of who was, remained illusive. But at least it was coming back. When the time was right, she would start searching for her family.

Skye parked Rico's truck and got out, her quick strides carrying her across the asphalt parking lot and to the funeral home's main entrance. She didn't need to look at the sky to know that sunset was approaching. She could feel it on her skin, in the way Gian's power was building.

As she entered the funeral home, a dark-suited man stepped forward. "May I help you?"

Skye didn't hesitate. She trapped him in her eyes. "Have any coffins left here in the last twenty-four hours?"

A struggle took place across the man's features and victory shot through Skye at the hint of compulsion that she could feel in his mind. The fledgling's touch was no match for her own.

Skye let him fall deeper into her own eyes and repeated the question. His features cleared. A movie played out in his mind and she saw Amy's glowing eyes as she'd held the man enthralled.

"Yes. Two of them." His words were matched with more images. This time of him loading the coffins into a hearse and driving them to a storage unit. Jen was waiting there. Skye paused the memory in order to examine Haley's younger sister. She was flush with a blood feeling, but nervousness poured off of her. The man slipped the coffins into the storage unit and turned to leave. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the witch, but it was just a fleeting impression.

Skye probed harder, making sure she was seeing the truth. She could sense the warmth that preceded the sun's rising along his skin, his sudden urgency to get back to the funeral home, the compulsion to forget about the coffins. She let him drop from her eyes, leaving only a vague memory that she'd been here but hadn't found what she was looking for.

* * * * *

"There she is," Caldwell said.

Rico studied the girl who'd just joined the line of black-clothed, body-pierced kids waiting to get into Fangs. How could Skye stand to hang out here?

"You know what really gets me about this?" Cia asked, but didn't wait for Rico's response. "Most of these kids have it made just by being born into families with money. All they have to do is keep their noses clean and do okay in school and their lives are set. Most of them probably were given cars at sixteen and already have a college fund set up for them. But instead they do this to themselves."

"Money's not everything. A lot of these kids wouldn't be here if they had what they needed at home," Rico said, and surprised himself by feeling a spark of compassion for the misfit kids in line. He'd gone to school with a lot of kids who had money but no family life. Not that he'd ever known hunger, but his mother had never worked outside being a homemaker, and with seven kids on a cop's salary, they'd never had a lot left over. But they'd had family, and lots of it, and he'd known growing up that he was rich in a way that most of the kids he knew envied.

Caldwell shot him a hard stare. "What's going on with you? Now you're identifying with them? Oh, right. This is one of your girlfriend's hangouts when she's not doing business with scum like Big Daddy." There was a wealth of disapproval in her voice.

Rico shifted in his seat. He'd never wanted a partner, but if Rivera was going to pair him with Caldwell, then he needed to get this out in the open. "Look, Cia, if you've got a problem with me having a private life that includes Skye, then talk to the captain and see if he'll reassign you. Otherwise, keep it to yourself."

Caldwell looked like she'd bitten into shit. "Fine. But you're a damn good cop, Rico, and I hate to see you throw it away over her."

"I'm not throwing it away."

Cia snorted and opened the car door. "That's bullshit. I'm going to go stand in line behind Marina. It's probably better to split up anyway." She started to close the door, then added. "Have it your way. I'm not going to say anything to the captain, unless you have a problem with me being your partner." She shut the door firmly and stalked over to the line.

Rico shut his eyes briefly. He'd be glad when this case was wrapped up. He had a shitload of stuff to work through and he didn't need this on top of it.

A small wave of excitement rippled through the kids waiting in line. Rico's attention turned and locked onto the man who'd just stepped out of Fangs. His gut clenched when he saw the long dark hair and aquiline features. He didn't need Skye here to tell him who he was looking at. Gian.

Goddamn. He wasn't ready for this. But when the line started moving, Rico got out of the car.

* * * * *

They hadn't chosen the storage locker for security, probably because they'd only intended to "stay" long enough to find a new place. Skye's lips tilted up in a half-smile as she used the bolt cutters she'd gotten at the hardware store to snap the lock.

The sight that greeted her when she rolled the door back turned the half-smile into a full smile. The Harley was here, waiting to be reclaimed. And wrapped in the smell of foul blood and dark magic were both coffins.

Skye set the bolt cutters aside and pulled out the knives, both purchased from a man who wouldn't remember selling them. The sun would drop in a few minutes, but she didn't intend to wait. She closed the door and plunged the locker into darkness.

Her night vision had been sharpened by Gian's blood. It took only a second for her eyes to adjust so that the inside of the storage unit was as visible as a room in daylight.

The thin wall that separated Gian's mind from hers still shimmered in place, but she could feel his power building on the other side, aware that she was hiding from him.

Skye moved to the first coffin. Preparing herself to strike fast.

The hand holding the knife began its descent even before the casket lid had completely opened.

There was only time for a startled hiss and a flash of red, glaring eyes before the knife was driven home and Amy Weldon's fate was suspended. Jen's life force was weaker and just as easily subdued.

* * * * *

Gian sent another strong summons to Skye before turning his attention to Detective Rico Santana. He didn't need the Angelini marks to know who the man in the parking lot was. He recognized him from the first night that Skye had come to Fangs-the night when he'd seen her dancing and felt the undeniable call of her blood to his.

Echoes of the pleasure Skye felt when she mated with Rico whispered in Gian's mind. His cock grew hard, his blood heated.

Unlike Brann, Gian had never been attracted to men, but tonight he would enjoy sharing blood with this man. He would enjoy the feel of another cock against his as they both mated their bodies to hers, amplifying the pleasure and closing the bond so that no other could enter it.

* * * * *

Rico didn't bother joining the line. He leaned against the car and watched as the first bunch was allowed in. When the line stopped moving, the bouncer he'd seen before began walking along the line, handpicking more people. Their excited squeals sent anger rushing down Rico's raw nerves.

What a fucking power trip. How could Skye stand this?

The bouncer got to where Marina and Caldwell stood next to each other and Rico held his breath. He wasn't worried about getting into Fangs, the badge would take care of that, but it would be less suspicious if Caldwell got in on her own.

She'd at least dressed in black. It gave her a tourist-checking-out-the-freak-show look but he wasn't sure she could pull off Goth even to follow through on her lead. When the bouncer nodded, Caldwell at least managed a credible smile. She said something to him and tilted her head toward Marina. The bouncer gave the go-ahead and it was done.

Rico straightened away from the car and headed toward the doorway-toward Gian-just as Gian began moving toward him. With each step forward, the primal instinct to fight for sole possession of a mate warred against erotic fantasies. It was too easy to picture Gian fucking Skye, too easy to imagine them both doing it.

They stopped a few inches apart and studied each other. Rico's gut tightened at the sight of the flames in Gian's eyes. But he held out his hand anyway and felt a jolt of heat through the bite marks, through his cock, when Gian's hand clasped his and skin touched skin.