Rush of Pleasure

“No.” For such a simple reply, it held a wealth of emotion. Fury. Regret. Maybe even a touch of desperation.

“Weren’t fast enough?” she murmured, clucking her tongue. She was being a total bitch, but she couldn’t help it. It was as if the sight of him had cracked the cool, calm, nothing-can-hurt-me attitude she’d been hiding behind for years. With every second that went by, a little more of that fragile veneer was crumbling, leaving her feeling small and tense. She hated it. Hated that he could reduce her to this, when she was normally so good at shielding herself and keeping men in their place.

Shaking his head, he said, “Someone decided to save him before I got the chance.”

Dread spilled through her system. “Your bad guy had a guardian angel?”

“It seems that way.” Tiny lines fanned out from the corners of his eyes as he held her stare. “Wanna know her name?”

“It was a she?” The words were so soft the wind nearly carried them away, the panic in her veins burning like acid.

He nodded, and Willow could tell from the look in his ice-blue eyes that he didn’t like what he was about to do. “It was a she,” he said quietly. “A woman that I know.”

She crossed her arms tighter and ground her jaw. “I have a feeling you know a lot of women, Noah. So why should I care?”

“Because this one,” he told her, his deep voice rough with regret, “just so happened to be your sister.”

CHAPTER TWO

“YOU’RE WRONG! There’s not a chance in hell that Sienna would help those monsters! Not. A. Chance.”

The angry words Willow had blasted at him were still ringing in Noah’s ears as the two of them neared Jessie’s cabin. Not that he blamed her. He could understand how difficult it was for her to hear that kind of news, much less believe it. Noah had seen Sienna collaborating with the Casus on two different occasions, with his own eyes, and it was still hard to accept. It was likely impossible for Willow to reconcile the image of her lovely older sister with a woman who would align herself with someone like Anthony Calder.

What could have prompted Sienna to make such a dangerous alliance? He remembered her as a sweet, beautiful young woman who had always been kind to him. His friends, however, knew her only as the witch fouling up their plans—which was why he hadn’t risked giving this job to one of them instead.

He and Willow had wasted a good ten minutes arguing before she finally demanded that he give his bullshit version of events to Jessie herself. He’d seen the surprise in her big eyes when he hadn’t balked at the idea of facing her aunt with his claim, but had simply agreed. Surprise, and a shadow of fear at the realization that he just might be telling the truth.

As they climbed the wooden steps to Jessie’s cabin, she said, “I guess you’ve got more balls than I thought you did, to come back here this way. Jessie despises you.”

“It’s either balls … or stupidity.”

She was carefully avoiding his gaze, but he could see the corner of her mouth twitch with a tight smile. “In your case, probably both.”

Though he’d expected to be sweating bullets by the time he got to this point, standing at Jessie Broussard’s door, Noah was surprised to find that he was more concerned about the woman standing beside him than the one he would soon be facing. All he had to do was look at her, and he felt that same uncomfortable, edgy sense of need that had always spiked through him whenever she was around. A bad place to find himself in, seeing as how nothing could come of it. For one, she probably hated him as much as her aunt did. And it wasn’t like he could stick around to change her mind. Once he had the information he wanted from Jessie, he’d be gone. And the odds of him coming back were … Well, they definitely weren’t good.

The maudlin thought made him frown, and he searched his mind for a diversion. “I thought you would have moved away by now. Didn’t expect you to still be around.”

She snickered. “You mean you were hoping not to run into me.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“But it’s what you were thinking,” she offered in a slow drawl, finally lifting her hand to knock on the door that was painted a bright, sunny yellow. “And I’m not still around.”

“You’re here, aren’t you?”

“Only for a visit between cases.” She turned her head a little and shot him a look from beneath her thick, golden lashes. “Guess you’re just unlucky. I’m only in town to spend a few days with Jessie. The ‘no technology’ lifestyle she’s so desperately clinging to makes it difficult to stay in touch.”

“Where do you live?” he asked, surprised that she apparently no longer adhered to Jessie’s “no technology” lifestyle. He would have thought she’d be too stubborn to change. “Are you still in Louisiana?”

She rolled her eyes. “Like I’d tell you.”

Before he could respond to her smart-ass answer, the door opened and Noah found himself caught in Jessie Broussard’s dark, “witchy” stare. That was how all the local kids had described Jessie when he was growing up. Witchy eyes, witchy hair, witchy attitude. She was considered the scariest female in the state, and while Noah figured she could help him, he couldn’t help thinking the woman was probably going to make him pay for that help in blood.

Her face was remarkably unlined for her age, her nose still covered with a sprinkling of freckles. She wore a flowing green sundress, and what looked like … well, she was wearing what looked like a rabbit. On her head. A dead one, but a rabbit all the same. Or at least the animal’s skin, complete with head and eyes made of dark glass, the rabbit’s long ears hanging down the sides of her temples like some kind of macabre hair accessory. Any hopes that this particular Chastain witch would have mellowed with age had obviously been futile. She was clearly as crazy now as she always had been.

With an odd light burning in her midnight eyes, she took her time looking between him and Willow. “Noah David Winston,” she finally murmured, settling that disturbing gaze directly on his face. “To what do I owe this surprising … pleasure?”

Willow spoke in a rush, her voice strained. “Play nice, Jessie. He has information about Sienna.”

One slim white brow arched with surprise, the pale color in sharp contrast to the darkness of her eyes and the rabbit’s fur. “Does he now?”

Noah nodded his head respectfully. “It’s true, ma’am.”

“Hmm. Then I guess you should come in out of the heat,” she said, turning and heading into the shadowy recesses of the cabin.

Noah allowed Willow to go first, then followed her inside.

“Have a seat,” Jessie told him while she settled her slim frame into a wicker-back rocking chair. With a push of her bare foot, she set the rocker in motion, the steady creak of the wood seeming strangely ominous in the sunlit sitting room, where soft beams of gold poured in through the numerous windows.

Despite the unhampered wash of sunlight, the house was wonderfully cool, thanks to what must have been a kick-ass air conditioner. Noah took a seat on the edge of a small sofa, his elbows braced on his spread knees as he leaned forward and laced his fingers together. Jessie just kept staring at him, waiting for him to begin, so he finally cleared his throat and got on with it. “For about a year now, I’ve been working with the Watchmen.”

Willow immediately interrupted him. “You keep calling them that, but rumor has it they’re not the Watchmen anymore.”

Shooting her a quick look, he said, “I guess they’re not.” Until recently, the purpose of the Watchmen had been to act as the eyes and ears for the Consortium, the group of leaders who governed over the remaining ancient clans. Disgusted by the Consortium’s refusal to take action against the Casus, many of the Watchmen units located around the world had finally decided they’d had enough. “The Watchmen I’m working with have broken with the Consortium,” he added, “along with a lot of the other units. But they still haven’t decided on a name for their new organization.”

“And what does any of this have to do with Sienna?” Jessie asked, the slight tremor in her voice the only sign that she was worried about what he had to say.

Clearing his throat again, Noah got back to telling his story. “Every time we’ve killed one of the Casus and sent them to hell, a portal has opened into that section of the pit that holds the souls of the condemned clansmen and women. These condemned souls are called the Death-Walkers, and each time the portal has opened for a Casus soul, one has escaped. Last month, we finally found Meridian, the Casus prison, and destroyed nearly all of the bastards, but that victory has led to another problem.”

Jessie nodded with understanding. “When so many of the Casuses’ souls were sent into hell at once, it allowed the Death-Walkers to escape from the pit in greater numbers. How many are we talking about?” she asked over Willow’s quiet cursing.

“We don’t know,” Noah replied. “Likely thousands. Enough to be causing more trouble than we can handle.” Holding Jessie’s dark-eyed stare, he said, “They’re attacking small towns and villages, infecting some humans, feeding on the others. At the rate they’re going, containment is nearly impossible and the loss of life catastrophic. It needs to come to an end.”

“Do you know how to kill them?” Willow asked.

“Not yet.” Noah caught Willow’s gaze as he reached into his back pocket and pulled out several folded sheets of paper. “But these are copies of a section in a journal we found a few months ago. We call it the ‘death journal,’ because it’s filled with instructions on how to kill a variety of clan species, some we’ve never even heard of.” Looking back at Jessie, he said, “We think this section contains instructions on how to kill the Death-Walkers.”

“Then what’s the problem?” Willow asked, no doubt eager to get on to the part about her sister. “Are the instructions difficult?”

“We don’t know. We can read the heading for the section, but not what’s written beneath it.” He offered the folded sheets to Jessie. “Take a look for yourself.”

Opening the folded sheets of paper, Jessie studied the passage. She spoke after a moment, but kept her gaze focused on the strange symbols that Noah and his friends had been unable to decipher. “It’s in a demonic dialect. A very rare one that I’ve seldom seen used.”

He choked back a sharp curse. “We were afraid it might be something like that.”

Jessie’s gaze lifted from the papers, trapping Noah in its grip. “So you’d like my help deciphering this.” It wasn’t a question. She knew exactly what he’d come there for.

Noah gave a sharp nod. “We’ve had specialists from all over the world look at the passage, but no one’s been able to help us. I’m hoping you’ll be able to make something of it.”

Her gaze didn’t waver. “I think that might be possible.”

“Great. So that’s settled.” Willow’s voice was sharp with impatience. “Now tell us what you know about Sienna.”

Scraping his palm over his jaw, Noah said, “When we were in Meridian, we got to Anthony Calder, the guy who’s been leading the Casus, and almost killed him. But then Sienna somehow popped into the middle of the battle. She came in through some kind of portal and grabbed him. They both disappeared, along with a few other Casus shades, and then the portal vanished.”

“There has to be some kind of reasonable explanation.” Surging to her feet, Willow began pacing from one side of the room to the other, her beautiful face pale with strain. “Maybe she means to kill him.”

“I don’t think that’s the case, because that wasn’t the first time we’d seen her.” Both women locked their troubled gazes on Noah, waiting for him to explain. “In February, I saw Sienna in the Wasteland. She was working with a particularly nasty Casus named Gregory DeKreznick. Gregory killed a good friend of mine named Jamison. The guy was only twenty-six, and Gregory gutted him.”

“That isn’t possible,” Willow whispered, shaking her head. “She wouldn’t work with someone like that. Not Sienna.”

“Tragedy changes people,” Jessie murmured in a thin voice, looking as if she’d aged fifteen years in five minutes. The chair was no longer rocking, her body held perfectly still. “It can make them … desperate.”

Noah went on saying, “According to Gregory, he and Sienna had an arrangement. Some kind of deal that they’d worked out, but I couldn’t get her to tell me what it was. He claimed that she’d sought him out because she needed something from him. When it was clear he’d been defeated, she said that she’d have to find someone else to help her. That’s all I know.”

“What did she do?” Willow asked, her golden eyes glistening with tears. “How did she help him, I mean?”

“She used some kind of spell to freeze us in place, until my buddy Kellan, who’s a shape-shifter, broke her hold and managed to go after Gregory. Then Sienna disappeared. I didn’t see her again until she popped into the middle of the battlefield in Meridian and grabbed Calder. We’re assuming she’s made a similar deal with him.”

“Oh, God.” She took a deep breath, looking as if she was trying to collect herself before she was ill. “When you talked to her, did she admit to being Sienna?”

He shook his head, and her face flushed with triumph.

“Then it wasn’t her! It could be an imposter. Someone trying to trick you.”

“I understand how badly you want to believe that, Will. But at the moment, there’s no way to know for sure.”

“I’ll get proof,” she vowed, her expression one of fierce determination.

Protective instincts rose up with surprising speed, catching him off guard. The last thing he needed was Willow running around trying to hunt down Calder. The headstrong woman would end up getting her ass killed. “Damn it, Will. This isn’t some deadbeat dad or petty criminal you’d be trying to track down. You have no idea what you’d be going up against.”

Her lip curled with a sneer. “This is my sister, Noah. I’m getting her back from that bastard, even if I have to go into hell to do it.”

“You’re going to have to find her first,” he shot back, realizing she was just as stubborn now as she’d always been. “And that’s nearly impossible.”

“Just because you haven’t been able to find her doesn’t mean I won’t!”

“He’s right,” Jessie interrupted, her quiet voice barely audible over the rushed sound of their angry breaths. “If this is our Si with those monsters, it would take some old, dark magic to make her this powerful. Shielding me from finding her. Locking warriors in place with her mind. It’s not something that comes from the light.” Jessie blew out a ragged breath, and adjusted the bizarre rabbit on her head. “If she doesn’t want you to find her, then you won’t.”

Willow spun toward her aunt. “Are you telling me she’s gone Vader?”

“Vader?” Noah muttered.

She waved her hand in the air toward him. “You know. To the dark side.”

Jessie’s voice was soft, but firm. “Pain has a way of breaking even the strongest of hearts, Will. Instead of judging her, remember how much you love her.”

“What do you mean about pain?” Noah asked. “I’ve been searching the internet for months, but there’s been nothing reported in the news. What happened to her?”

Instead of answering his question, Jessie locked her gaze with his and asked one of her own. “Why have you waited so long to bring us this news?”

Okay. This was where he needed to be careful. “Ever since I first saw Sienna, I’ve been trying to get information about her. I’ve searched newspaper articles and online sources, but haven’t been able to find anything.”

“That’s because we would never mix our family business with the police.” Jessie sounded horrified by the very idea.

Noah started to speak, but Willow cut him off. “It’s been five months, Jessie. He obviously wasn’t planning on ever telling us. We’re his last resort.”

“It’s true that we’ve exhausted all the Watchmen’s sources and no one has been able to help us with the journal,” he grated, hating the way Willow was looking at him. “But I wouldn’t have kept the information about Sienna from you.”

Her smile was sharp. “Right.”

“Damn it, I mailed letters to the bar,” he growled, moving to his feet.

“What letters?” she demanded, glaring up at him. But there was a flicker in her eyes that made him think she didn’t want to believe the worst of him.

“There were several,” he muttered, scraping a hand through his hair. “They said that I had information about Sienna. I’m assuming no one ever bothered to open them.”

Willow looked at her aunt. “Did you get his letters?” When Jessie didn’t answer, she crossed her arms over her chest and demanded, “What happened to them?”

Jessie, who’d been studying the papers in her hand again, looked up and shrugged. “I probably tossed them on the weekly bonfire.”

Willow closed her eyes, apparently counting to ten. When she opened them again, she looked at Jessie and said, “If you refuse to use modern forms of communication, then you need to take the time to open your mail.”

“But I didn’t want to read anything from Noah.”

“I get that,” she snapped. “But we could have known about Sienna months ago.”

Jessie’s eyes looked owlish as she blinked. “How was I to know that?”

“You would have known if you’d opened the bloody letters!”

“You expect me to open every piece of mail that comes to the bar?” Jessie shuddered, as if the idea were revolting. “Do you have any idea how many people send me letters?”

Willow’s nostrils flared. “You know, Jessie, if you don’t like reading mail, then get a bloody telephone. Or at least have one put in at the bar.”

Jessie sniffed, then turned her attention back to Noah. “There’s something else I want to know. Why didn’t you send one of your friends? There was no reason for you to come here yourself. One of the others could have done it just as easily.”

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he gave her the truth. “They don’t know … what Sienna used to be like. After the things she’s done, I didn’t want to take the chance that I would be putting any of you in danger.”

“You haven’t told them about her family? About us?” she asked with surprise.

He shook his head. “They’re aware that I know her, because I called her by name. But I’ve refused to tell them anything else about her.”

Willow gave a short, bitter laugh, as if the idea of him doing something honorable was funny, but Jessie simply smiled. “So you came yourself to protect Si and her family? I appreciate that. And I find that admirable, even if you are a Winston. But what about your own skin?”

CHAPTER THREE

HIS OWN SKIN?

“What about it?” Noah hedged, wondering where this was headed.

“Your family is one of the strongest Casus bloodlines,” Jessie murmured. “During the thousand years that the Casus were trapped within Meridian, they turned to shades, requiring a human host when they managed to escape and return to this world.” Jessie was clearly demonstrating just how much she knew about the Casus and their history. “If the big guy is free with his right-hand men,” she added, arching her brows, “aren’t you worried?”

His laugh was harsh. “It would be stupid not to be.”

“Very true,” she agreed. “Why do you suppose none of your family has been taken as hosts before now?”

Noah rolled a shoulder. “Who knows? Rumor has it they were saving us for last. But I don’t know what will happen now. The few shades that got away with Calder, if they still need hosts, will probably come after us. But we haven’t seen any sign of them yet.”

Thanks to the Watchmen, he had sources all over the world keeping an eye out, but so far there’d been no sightings of Calder or the Casus shades that had escaped with him—and while he wasn’t eager for a confrontation, Noah hated not knowing what the holdup was. He’d thought the bastard and those who’d followed him through that portal would strike hard and fast after the battle in Meridian, but weeks had gone by and there’d been nothing. No sign of them. No attacks. But his gut told him not to lower his guard until the monsters had been found and killed.

As if Jessie had been reading his mind, she said, “Well, whatever this Calder and his men are up to, I don’t think you and your family are off the hook. As far as the Casus leader sees it, you’re living on borrowed time. I’ve heard Calder wants you, specifically.”

Noah’s eyes narrowed. “And where did you hear that?”

The corner of Jessie’s mouth curved with a wry smile. “I listen to voices, Noah.”

Christ, any minute he expected her to spout some line like I see dead people. And why the hell hadn’t these voices told her about Sienna? If he were Jessie, he’d be having a chat about what they considered pertinent information.

Willow walked over and nudged him in the shoulder. “What does she mean about Calder wanting you?”

He ground his jaw and ignored her, refusing to answer.

“What about your brothers?” Jessie asked. “Where are Jackson and Bryce?”

“I’ve had them placed in protective custody. One of the Watchmen units has taken care of it.”

The older woman laughed, making the rabbit on her head jiggle. “I bet that went down well. When this is over, they’ll likely be on my doorstep, eager to purchase a spell for some payback against you.”

He winced, thinking she just might have it right. His brothers were probably cursing him to hell and back at the moment, but he hadn’t had any choice. Now that Calder was free, he needed to make sure they were as safe as possible.

“Actually,” Jessie said, “I’m surprised you didn’t come here on behalf of your family.”

Noah frowned. “What do you mean?”

“For my help with the Casus.”

She’d caught him off guard with that one, and he was sure that it showed. “If I thought you could help us,” he said, his voice low, “I’d have come here a long time ago. But I don’t see how you could do anything.” Which wasn’t exactly true. Jessie’s talent with spells was legendary, as was her knowledge of the occult. He just hadn’t thought she’d be willing to raise a finger to help a Winston—or that she’d actually offer to help out with Calder.

The smile she was giving him said she knew exactly what he’d thought … and she was enjoying proving him wrong. With a soft spill of laughter on her lips, Jessie moved to her feet and headed across the room toward a tall, weathered chest of drawers, the bells at her ankles tinkling as she walked. If not for the rabbit skin on her head, she would have been a beautiful woman, and Noah found himself wondering if the strange getup with the rabbit was her way of scaring off interested males. There’d been rumors when he was younger that she’d lost the love of her life in a tragic accident when she was only twenty-one, and the surge of sympathy he felt took him by surprise. He couldn’t help but wonder what Jessie had been like before her heart had been broken.

When she turned back around, she was holding something small in her right hand, the papers he’d handed her still clutched in the left. As she headed toward him, she asked, “Why aren’t you wearing the Dark Marker that you’ve brought with you to Sacred? The one you left in the truck you parked back at the bar.”

His eyes went wide again, but he didn’t ask how she knew about the Marker. If you were around Jessie long enough, you came to accept that there were just some things you couldn’t hide from her. The powerful cross he’d left in the truck was obviously one of those things.

The Dark Markers were ancient crosses that acted as talismans against the Casus. They were also the only known weapons that could destroy a Casus’s soul and send it to hell. Noah and his friends had spent the past year collecting the twelve Markers needed to break into Meridian and destroy the Casus shades. After the battle, they’d taken the crosses back to England with them, to the ancient manor house where they were currently living.