Order of Terminus Page 3

  “I don’t understand. What’s wrong with me?” she asked in a small voice, still staring down at her nakedness. She shook her head as if coming from a trance, and her face flushed a vibrant red.

  Grant turned his back to her. “Please, Detective Lewis, get dressed. We have a lot to do in the next few hours.”

  He heard the shuffling of fabric.

  When he turned around, he was pleased to find she was indeed fully dressed. He’d made the decision to get another motel room in the neighboring town of Gladsworth. She couldn’t go home right away, that was a certainty.

  “Take me home. I have to feed Sasha,” she said.

  “You can’t go home right now, Detective.”

  “I can’t very well let my cat starve. I have to go home.” She crossed her arms over her chest, a stubborn gleam flashing in her eyes.

  Using his most reasonable tone, he said, “We can’t let anyone see you in case the fire didn’t cover the scene in the kitchen. You’d be in the hospital with the blood loss you sustained.”

  That fired something within her.

  “Blood loss?” She shook her head, knitting her brows. “What are you talking about?”

  And they were back at the beginning. Grant sighed.

  “You bled out from the wound on your neck, which you may or may not remember acquiring. I couldn’t let you die, so I passed my blood to you, thus passing on a virus to you that results in vampirism.” He decided to lay it all out on the table. “The virus is one that takes over the body when it’s in a weakened state. Basically you have to be nearly dead for it to get a good hold. You crave human blood because it is the quickest and most efficient way to get nutrients to feed the virus.”

  Detective Lewis simply looked at him with an unreadable expression on her face.

  He took a deep breath. “The trade-off is the heightened abilities.” He cleared his throat before continuing. “In your current state, you are what we term a half-blood, and you can either deny your blood cravings, leaving the virus in a half-dormant state, or you can feed, which will turn you full-blood.”

  She sucked her top lip between her teeth and moved her gaze to the surrounding trees, then gave a sharp nod. “Regardless, I still have to feed my cat.”

  * * * *

  Josie watched the scenery fly by the windows of Grant’s SUV. She had made the decision to at least consider his outrageous claims and go along with him for the time being. Her strange loss of control over her hormones, along with her long, sharp teeth, had her realizing she’d have to stick to Grant to get to the bottom of things, including the arson and killings.

  A vampire?

  Those types of things didn’t exist. She eyed him from her peripheral vision, and she blushed with the fuzzy memory of her sex-crazed actions earlier. Tall, solid, athletic, with strong, masculine features, he was the type of man any woman would notice. His scent filled the cab of the vehicle, causing an almost dizzying rush in her head. Raw male musk mixed with that spicy, wild odor. Josie’s body tingled, and her pussy tightened. His thick hair was tousled, and his deep brown eyes remained decidedly fixed on the road ahead.

  He glanced in her direction before giving the hand she had clenched on the center console a gentle squeeze, and he gave her a quick grin. He was unlike most of the men Josie knew. He was unafraid to give her reassuring touches or gentle smiles that reached his eyes. She imagined he’d be one of those wearing-his-heart-on-his-sleeve type of guys. She wasn’t sure why that made her so uncomfortable.

  Probably because he’d attacked and kidnapped her, not to mention the murders, she reminded herself.

  In the end, he had agreed to sneak her back to her home during the night so she could feed Sasha. She had rescued the cat as a kitten from a storm gutter, and she’d been Josie’s companion for eight years. She might be a hard-edged detective, but she couldn’t be cruel to an animal.

  The motel room was a two-star establishment, but it would do. Grant had a hand on her lower back as they walked inside, and she eyed the single bed in the middle of the room.

  “I don’t sleep. You will as long as you’re a half-blood,” Grant said. “Feel free to use the shower.”

  A shower sounded heavenly, and she walked into the small bathroom, purposefully keeping her gaze from the mirror above the sink. She adjusted the water first to her usual preference and winced at the feel of the heat against her hand. Finally lowering the temperature to a cool setting, she locked the bathroom door, wondering stupidly if that’d really stop a vampire.

  She disrobed and stepped under the sharp spray of water. The mild-scented soap had a strange chemical odor that she didn’t particularly care for, but she scrubbed away at her skin anyway. She flinched at the scent of the shampoo as it lathered in her hair.

  Apparently, a vampire had a superhuman sense of smell.

  She pondered why she’d accepted the absurd idea that she was a vampire as she rinsed her hair with water that reeked of chlorination. She closed her eyes, letting the cool spray beat over her face. After applying conditioner to her hair, she analyzed the events of the past twenty-four hours. She hadn’t seen the figure that had attacked her, and had only a vague recollection of lying on the kitchen floor of the Montgomery house. She remembered the white flash of teeth coming at her throat and the feeling of being paralyzed.

  Then she was in the tent with Grant.

  Was he the killer?

  Something inside of her, a gut instinct she relied on, said to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  She stepped from the shower and dried her skin with a big, fuzzy, white towel. After a short pep talk, she looked into the small mirror above the sink. Her complexion had its normal, peachy glow. She pulled her lips back, baring her teeth, and gasped at the long, animal-looking canines jutting from her gums. She tried to wiggle them, but they were solid. There was a faint scar across her throat that hadn’t been there previously.

  Dressed in the borrowed clothing, she wrapped the towel around her hair and walked out of the bathroom.

  Grant was finishing a conversation on his cellphone, a hard expression shadowing his face. He tossed the phone on the dresser and gave her a broad smile, a dimple appearing in his left cheek. “I’ll run out and grab something for you to eat, if you like,” he said.

  “Like what?” she asked hesitantly.

  “I can get takeout at one of the chain restaurants in town. You’ll want to stick with proteins for the most part, like rare steak and fish.” He paused. “Or else you can accompany me when I go to feed tonight.”

  Her eyes widened, and her mouth fell open. “Feed?”

  Was he going to go out and murder some poor soul and drink their blood? As an officer of the law, she couldn’t allow that, even if he was a vampire as he claimed.

  He smiled at her shocked expression. “We could drop by your place so you can feed your cat, then go have takeout of our own.”

  An odd glow lay within the depths of his eyes.

  He was teasing her.

  She hoped.

  “Um, I need to get in touch with my office,” she said.

  Grant frowned. “You can’t contact them right now. Give it a couple of days.”

  She returned his frown. “I still don’t understand what happened, what this is all about.”

  “I found you lying in a pool of blood in the Montgomery house. You’d been attacked by a Dissenter, a feral vampire that left you for dead. I passed my blood to you to give you a second chance at life. I’m a Hunter in the Order of Terminus. It is my job to track feral vampires and destroy them so our kind isn’t exposed.”

  Why she was so accepting of all these crazy explanations, she didn’t know. She ran a finger over the sharp points of her teeth and winced as one of them nipped the inside of her cheek. Blood flowed into her mouth, and her heart quickened. The pungent, soured taste she’d awoken with flooded her mouth, but there was something else there that made a shiver run through her. She sucked her cheek in and, as more blood seepe
d out, her nostrils flared and her eyes widened.

  It was a taste that caused a craving to crash through her, knocking the breath from her lungs. Colors danced before her eyes, that strange Technicolor aura from before. Her gaze moved to Grant, whose thick eyebrows had knit together.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, his form outlined in the array of crazy colors. His heartbeat echoed in her ears, his pungent, piquant scent filling her nostrils.

  He wasn’t what she needed.

  She closed her eyes against the colors swirling in her vision and listened. Next door a television was on, and a man was speaking. A woman laughed. An instinct triggered within her.

  They were what she needed.

  * * * *

  Grant had watched her flinch as she’d bitten her cheek. Then her beautiful sapphire blue eyes were swallowed as blackened-red flooded first the pupils, then the irises, and at last the whites of her eyes. The detective must have picked up on the taste of her human blood mixed in with that of vampire after she’d bitten the inside of her mouth. Her feeding instinct had kicked in, and the way she stood motionless, her eyes closed against distraction, he knew she was stalking. He trained his ears and realized a couple was next door talking and laughing.

  What if he couldn’t control her?

  He stepped toward her, and her eyes flew open. Her teeth bared and a hiss escaped her throat. Muscles tensed, ready to lunge.

  Oh God, she was protecting her prey.

  “Detective Lewis,” he said, making his voice hard and authoritative. “I know what you’re thinking, but you’re not going to feed on those people.”

  “I’m not thinking any such thing,” she said, her voice wavering. Her body quivered, giving her away. She was definitely considering it.

  “Listen to them. They’re on their honeymoon,” he said, trying to humanize them for her. With his heightened hearing, he could hear the couple chatting about the maid of honor knocking their wedding cake onto the floor.

  “You’re crazy. I wouldn’t kill such a young couple.” Her voice had a faraway tone. He knew she fought her urges, and he was fully aware how hard that could be, especially in the beginning.

  He had to distract her.

  He only knew of one urge that could compete with the instinct to feed. In a flash of speed, he took her in his arms. Her eyes opened wide as the towel tumbled from her head, leaving her heavy, wet, sable locks tumbling down her back. Before she could react, he pressed his mouth to hers in a savage kiss.

  Chapter 5

  Josie sucked in a shocked breath as Grant’s mouth viciously attacked hers. He pulled her tightly to him in what would have been a bruising embrace if she were fully human. She wanted to object, but as she opened her mouth, his tongue thrust inside, claiming the words she’d begun to utter.

  The taste of him was the same pungent flavor as his scent, and it wiped away the thoughts of the couple next door. Intoxicated, she melded her body to his. Aggressively meeting his kiss, she curled her hands into his sandy locks, pulling at the silky strands, causing a groan of pleasure to escape his throat. She swallowed the sound.

  He backed her to the bed, stepping away long enough to tug the borrowed t-shirt over her head. She pushed the athletic shorts down her hips, and they dropped to the floor. His gaze was a dark tempest, leaving a searing trail over her skin as they roved hungrily down her body. With a hesitant movement, he stepped further back from her, and his gaze shifted to her eyes.

  What did he want?

  “Detective Lewis…” he said, his raw voice trailing off.

  “Josie,” she said huskily, reaching a hand out to him. “It’s okay. I want this. I want you, Grant.”

  His body shook as he laced his strong fingers with hers. She pulled him toward her, and this time his kiss was just a whisper of its former urgency. His lips brushed against hers as his fingertips lightly traced a trail of fire down her spine.

  Something shifted inside of her, something beyond the physical. She was accustomed to raw, mutual passion from her previous lovers. The men she went for weren’t the kind who stuck around for long. This was something she expected, and she had refused to believe that she craved anything else. But as his kiss gentled and deepened, his fingertips soft as butterfly wings over the flesh of her back, she felt puzzling sensations swirling within her gut.

  In an effort to push them aside, she ran her hands beneath his shirt, thrilling at the feel of the coarse hair sprinkled over his chest. He swiftly removed the impeding article of clothing as she moved her hands to the button of his jeans. The rough feel of the denim sent a shiver over her heated flesh as she stroked his thick cock through the material. A guttural hiss escaped his throat, and he pushed against her roaming palm. She peered up into his face, and a sound of shock escaped her own throat. His lips had pulled back, and long, sharp canines were exposed.

  Catching her look of alarm, he stroked her damp hair from her forehead.

  “It’s okay, Josie, sweetheart. It comes with over-stimulation.”

  Josie hesitated a moment longer, then moved her fingers to the zipper of his jeans. The scratching sound of the metal teeth giving way filled the room like an erotic backdrop.

  * * * *

  Grant watched in fascination as Josie pushed the fabric down his hips then placed a gentle kiss on the end of his throbbing cock. The tip of her tongue flicked out to taste the pre-cum there, and he thought his knees would buckle. He wound his hands in her damp hair as she took him fully in her hot, moist mouth. She sucked hard as she toyed with his balls.

  He was coming unglued. He pulled her back up to his waiting mouth, his kiss devouring her honeyed lips. Beneath the detective’s hard-edged exterior lay a woman whose chief concern wasn’t that of the vampire virus in her blood or that she’d been viciously attacked. It was that she had to feed a cat.

  A weight settled in his chest. He wanted to slow down and create an experience with her, not just perform an act. For too long he’d spent his nights alone. Except for a moment here and there in the company of vampiresses, he’d remained alone since the loss of his fiancée. She’d succumbed to pneumonia shortly after his mining accident, having refused to leave the scene until he’d been found. It had been late February in the Appalachians. Too terrified to pass on the virus he didn’t as yet understand, he’d simply sat at her bedside and watched her die.

  He pushed away the sorrow that tugged at the corners of his mind.

  Grant gently guided Josie onto the floral polyester coverlet, the bed groaning as he moved above her. Her eyes were liquid pools of the darkest shade of cerulean, the deadly red shade having faded away. He placed kisses behind gentle fingers that traced a trail down her neck, inhaling her intoxicating, feminine fragrance mixed with the spicy vampiric aroma. She massaged the muscles of his back, and he groaned under the effort of his restraint.

  * * * *

  “Please, Grant…” Josie’s words were a soft plea as his mouth found a hardened nipple. He nipped and teased at it as his fingers slipped down to her moist slit and he glided a finger back and forth between her wet folds. He brought the finger to her lips, and she licked her juices from it as her eyes locked with his.

  She pulled his mouth to her hungry lips and wrapped her legs around his waist. With a moan, he found her hot pussy ready for him, and he took his time as he slid his cock within her wet opening.

  She gasped then moaned as her body enveloped him, her nails raking his back. She nipped his neck as he pulled back a breathless moment before thrusting in hard to the hilt. She screamed and arched, while he continued to tease and torture her with his cock until she panted and writhed in sheer, pleasurable madness.

  He found a rhythm that rocked Josie to her very core, and she rode wave after wave of sensation, each getting higher and higher. Her orgasm crashed over her, and she screamed his name, her body shuddering under the release.

  Grant pushed himself further and harder, pounding into her, and she mounted those maddening crests of pleasure
once more until they overtook her again. Her entire body convulsed this time as the orgasm hit her, and the shock of its intensity strangled the cry that was in her throat. Grant shouted her name as he came. He collapsed on top of her, and they both drifted for several minutes, lost in a blissful paradise.

  Josie stroked along the contours of Grant’s back, his body braced on his forearms to keep his full weight off of her. They remained joined, connected in more than just a physical way. She had known physical pleasure from men, but this was beyond anything she’d experienced before. Somehow, in their act of love, he’d broken down a solid barrier she’d kept between herself and the world. It was a wall that was necessary to protect herself from the horrors of her career, but it also extended into her personal life. Having grown up in a home watching a string of father figures pass through her childhood, she had rejected permanent ties to men.

  In the process of giving her body to this man, she had also shared with him a part of her soul.

  Grant shifted his body and lengthened his long frame alongside Josie. With a sigh, she slung a leg over his thighs, laying her head on his chest. Her fingers toyed with his chest hair, and he traced lazy circles on the skin of her back.

  “So, what time do you want to leave so I can check on Sasha?”

  Grant remained silent, and she rose up to peer into his face. She pursed her lips.

  “Later,” he said simply.

  She put her hand to her mouth, stifling a yawn.

  “Why don’t you catch some sleep before we leave tonight?” Grant said after placing a kiss on the top of her head. “We’ve had a quite a workout this afternoon.” He gave her a grin filled with mischief as her face flushed bright red.

  “No, I’m…” She yawned. “…okay. Really.”

  * * * *

  In another minute, she was out cold, her breaths coming in slow, even puffs. Careful, so as not to wake her, Grant slipped from beneath her, pausing as she mumbled in protest. After she’d settled, he rose from the bed. Knowing she’d probably be out for a good long time as her body still worked to assimilate her new existence, Grant made his evening plans.