Branded by Sin Page 7

  Sean shook his head. Søren had been inside the BBE.

  He moved back into the hallway. “What else we got?” he asked.

  Cooper pointed toward Tasha’s office. “Just a mess in there but no sign of her. Have you talked to her?”

  “No. Not since last night.”

  “She was here earlier but no one has seen her since the bodies were discovered.”

  There had been a fight in her office for sure. Blood was spattered on the wall beside her desk. Her jacket was draped haphazardly over the back of her chair. The Monet lithograph that hung on the back wall was on the floor with a boot-sized hole in the canvas. The closet was open and Sean took a look inside. Nothing.

  His cell phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out. The call was coming from a blocked number. “Excuse me for a minute, you guys. Mac, go ahead and start cleaning up.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Sean walked down the hall toward Giacomo’s office. “Hello?”

  “What do you think of my handiwork?” The thick Danish accent gave him away.

  Søren.

  “It’s lovely. You’re quite the artist.”

  Søren laughed. “I would have wiped out more but I was in a hurry.”

  “Why are you calling me?”

  “I like that. Right to business.” He cleared his throat. “Giacomo has been slipping through my grasp as of late. So, I have a proposition for you, Sean.” He paused.

  “I don’t negotiate with my enemies.”

  “Who says I’m your enemy? I have no fight with you. In fact, we can work together.”

  “No.”

  “Hold on for a minute. I think this might change your mind.”

  Sean listened to dead silence—and then heavy breathing, crying.

  “Sean?” Lila’s voice trembled over the line.

  Sean pushed away from the wall and his stomach tightened. “Lila? Are you okay? Where are you?” There was a way to trace the call. Fuck. Cass had shown him once and now he wished he’d paid better attention. Putting the phone on speaker, he scrolled through the options on the touch screen.

  “Come get me. Please.” She sobbed. There was a thud and then Lila cried out, “Please! Don’t.”

  “Ready to listen?” Søren’s voice dropped an octave to a decidedly sinister tone.

  “You hurt her and I’ll end you, motherfucker.” Sean hoped his voice wasn’t as shaky as his thumb while trying to find the stupid call-tracing app.

  Bingo.

  He needed to keep this fucker on the line long enough for the GPS to find where the signal was coming from.

  “I don’t want to hurt her. She’s quite adorable. Sweet. I bet she tastes real good.”

  Sean’s body reacted. The red tint clouded his vision and his fangs ached, not for release but to kill. “What do you want?”

  The tone and volume of Sean’s voice had obviously caught the attention of the other vampires on the floor.

  Cooper, Tate and Mac were staring at Sean. Cooper mouthed the words, “What the fuck?”

  Sean held up his hand.

  “I’m interested in a little trade-off. You bring me Giacomo and I’ll give you Lila, unharmed,” Søren offered.

  Sean’s stomach turned and dropped. There was no way he could give him Giacomo, even if he was in the country. “I can’t do that.” And he wouldn’t have to if he could just find out where that bastard was holding Lila.

  “Hmm. That’s too bad. Tell me, Sean, is she a screamer? I bet she is. I have to admit just the thought of that makes my dick hard.”

  “Don’t be a pussy, Søren. You want Giacomo, come get him.”

  “I’m a pussy? I’m not the one so afraid of my master that I’d let someone else fuck my girlfriend and then maybe kill her. Who’s the pussy now?”

  Sean’s mind raced. He couldn’t let his temper get the best of him, not with so much at stake. What options did he have? He needed to say something to try to assuage Søren, to buy some time.

  “Do you want Giacomo dead or alive?”

  “That’s more like it.”

  Lila’s muffled cries in the background fueled Sean’s fire. Even if Søren didn’t hurt her, Sean would still kill him. Boundaries had been crossed.

  Søren continued, his voice now monotone. “I want him alive. Bring him to me and you get Lila back.”

  “Where?”

  “I’ll call you back in two hours with directions.” Søren disconnected the call.

  Sean scrubbed his hand over his face. He couldn’t get the sound of Lila’s voice, her cries, out of his head. She was his weakness—and that son of a bitch had somehow found out.

  Fuck.

  He turned around and punched a hole in the wall. His fist cut through the drywall like a warm knife in butter and his arm went in shoulder deep. Chunks of plaster fell to the floor as he hit it again and again. He hated admitting to himself that what was happening to Lila was his fault.

  “What the hell is going on Sean?” Tate asked.

  Before Sean could answer, his phone beeped.

  Trace Complete.

  Chapter Seven

  Sean crept up to the window of Lila’s bedroom. The curtains were drawn but he was able to see in through the crack where the two panels didn’t quite meet in the middle.

  Søren straddled Lila on the bed as she kicked her legs and swung her fists at his head. He pinned Lila’s hands to her chest and slapped her. “Fucking bitch,” Sean heard clearly through the glass separating him from the couple. Søren spit in her face and brought a knife to her throat.

  Cooper, Tate and Mac had been following behind Sean, but at some point they were separated and he’d arrived at the house alone. His blood rushed so fast he could only hear his own heartbeat in his head. He wasn’t waiting for backup.

  Sean’s rage exploded. Lightning flashed and a massive clap of thunder shook the house, knocking a lamp off the nightstand. It rolled back and forth on the floor, creating a weird moving spotlight effect. The air seemed to stand still…

  Then the windows blew inward, sending shards of glass through the room.

  Sean’s ability to manipulate inanimate objects had just crossed into a new and frightening category.

  Manipulating the weather was something new entirely.

  Søren jumped off Lila. “Fuck!” Bits of glass stuck out of his face.

  Sean smelled the fresh spill of blood and tried to block it to concentrate. His fangs dropped then retracted.

  Lila scampered across the bed and fell onto the floor. She crawled toward the corner of the room.

  Søren let out a feral cry, like a scream and a growl combined.

  Blood covered Lila’s body, dripping down her chest from her neck. In the scuffle, Søren must have cut her throat. The copper-tinged smell filled the air, igniting Sean’s need to feed and kill.

  He turned toward Søren.

  The bloody knife was still clutched in his hand and he backed slowly toward the bedroom door. His cocksure attitude dissipated. Søren’s pulse pumped furiously in his neck and weird foam formed at the corners of his mouth. Something was happening…

  Sean moved in a blur and grabbed Søren by the neck and wrist. He squeezed the latter until the bones cracked and crumbled inside his flesh. The knife dropped, stabbing into the wooden floor.

  Søren screamed and tried to pull free, which just made Sean grip his throat harder. Søren’s face contorted; his cheekbones lifted and protruded and his mouth widened. His teeth grew longer, touching his lips. His body trembled violently.

  Søren was no vampire. He was a goddamn shifter.

  Sean pushed his thumb against Søren’s carotid artery, effectively blocking blood to his brain. The man’s eyes started to bulge and turned black then back to blue. He seemed to shrink, his hair changed color and grew longer. His already feminine appearance morphed into an even softer look…

  And Sean’s hand was now gripped around Tasha’s throat.

  Sean blinked. “What the
fuck?” He released the pressure on her artery and stared at her in shock. “You?”

  She lifted a hand and touched his cheek. “Sean. Let me explain.”

  “No fucking way.” He slammed her head against the wall, cracking the plaster. Bits of white powder puffed into the air. “You set me up? And Lila…”

  Sean glanced over his shoulder. Lila was pale, bleeding, huddled in the corner. The scent of fear was like a cloud in the room. Any control he had was gone and he didn’t give a flying fuck about Tasha’s explanation. Everything tinted a deeper red now and Sean let the primal urge he’d restrained for so long run free.

  “Sean—”

  “Shut the fuck up.” He squeezed her throat, feeling her hyoid bone giving way. He wasn’t going to kill her like that, not when his bloodlust was looking for a home and she was full of what he wanted.

  A loud ringing sounded in his ears like a warning bell that he ignored. Tasha struggled to break free. Sean turned her around and used his weight to pin her against the wall. His mouth watered to empty her and leave her a mere shell. He grabbed her hair and pulled her head back, ignoring her cries. “How does it feel to know you’re about to die, you bitch?”

  He sank his fangs into her neck.

  Tasha’s blood flooded his mouth and quenched his parched throat. He sucked and sucked, knowing he didn’t have to stop because he wanted her dead. He let the venom flow into her too. It wouldn’t matter in the end.

  After he took about a third of her blood, he closed his jaw on her throat and pulled, tearing flesh. Her jugular vein slipped out of her neck and sprayed blood on the beige wall like fireworks in the sky. Fucking beautiful. The finale of spurts gave way to smaller splatters until it stopped and he spit out the chunk of flesh and muscle and dropped her lifeless body to the floor.

  He looked at his hands, covered in blood and tissue. He turned to find Lila wide eyed, her mouth hanging open. Her hand clutched the wound on her neck. He imagined what he must look like to her—nothing more than a monster.

  She was seeing what he’d been hiding from her, the real Sean.

  He approached her slowly. Although she was covered in blood, she was safe because he was sated. “Let me see your neck.” His foot slipped in the small puddle between her legs where the blood had dripped off her belly onto the hardwood floor.

  She shook her head. Her breathing sped up and her heart beat like a jackhammer. The last thing he wanted was for her to be afraid of him. What she’d just seen changed everything.

  Calming her down was the priority. The harder her heart beat, the faster she’d bleed out. He reached for her and she recoiled. “Lila, baby. It’s me. I’m not going to hurt you. I promise.”

  She blinked her blue eyes and slumped over. Her hand fell from her neck and he saw the cut. It wasn’t as bad as he thought and he could fix it easily now that she was unconscious. He pulled her onto her back and straddled her body. Leaning in, he touched his tongue to the gash. He licked her neck until the wound pulled together and the bleeding stopped.

  Sean pulled the comforter off the bed and draped it over her. Her pulse and breathing evened out. He lay beside her on the floor and battled the pain in his chest. Guilt roiled in his gut like putrid blood. This was all his fault and he wouldn’t blame her if she hated him.

  Lila moaned and rolled to her side. “I think I’m going to be sick,” she whispered. Her body hitched and she gagged and vomited.

  Sean pulled her hair back, put his arm around her waist and tried to lift her.

  “Don’t touch me.” Her voice was low and eerily calm.

  He sat back on his heels. “I’m sorry, Lila. I didn’t intend for this to happen.”

  “You need to tell me what’s going on.” She sat up gingerly and winced. “I can’t look at this room. It’s like a bad dream. I saw that man turn into some kind of monster…and then he turned into a woman. And you ripped her throat out with your teeth!” She looked up at him with bloodshot eyes, a bruise forming on her cheek. “What—what are you?”

  Sean sighed and tried to touch her hand and she recoiled. “It’s complicated.”

  She gathered the blanket around her and scooted away from him. The usual blush in her face was gone, replaced by pale skin with dark circles under her eyes. “Bullshit. You’ve been living in my home, sharing my bed, and you’ve been lying to me. I was just nearly killed because of your secrets. Tell me right now what’s going on or I’m going to pick up the phone and call the police.”

  “You can’t do that. Take a shower and let me get you out of here. I need you to trust me.”

  She laughed without humor. “Trust you? Are you fucking kidding me?” Lila got to her feet and dragged the blanket into the bathroom with her. She shut the door softly and turned on the shower.

  Sean looked out the window as a blacked-out Cadillac coasted to a stop at the curb. Three vampires crept toward the house.

  Cooper reached the window first. “Everything cool?”

  “Yeah. It’s over. Where the fuck did you guys go?”

  “We got pulled over for speeding. Just my luck.” Cooper climbed in the window and stopped short when he saw what was left of Tasha on the floor. “Holy shit, dude.”

  Mac and Tate opted to use the front door in lieu of the window and were now standing in the doorway. Mac wasted no time snapping on a pair of rubber gloves before pointing at Tasha’s remains. “What the hell is that thing?”

  Sean sighed. “It’s Tasha. Or Søren. I don’t even fucking know anymore. But whoever it was turned into this. Tasha was our fucking assassin.”

  “Seriously?” Cooper asked. He scratched his head. “How the hell…?”

  Tasha had changed after death, and her true form was hideous—large teeth and a sunken face. Her eyes lacked pupils and were stuck open from the shock of her last breath. Sean had heard of demon shifters but had never seen one. They were a myth in the vampire world, kind of like vampires in the human world. If the Immorata was behind the hit, they’d stepped up their game by hiring such a creature to do their dirty work.

  “Maybe Giacomo can explain some of this shit,” Sean said. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

  “Neither have I.” Mac leaned over the corpse and looked at it closely.

  Behind the closed bathroom door, Lila sobbed and scrubbed her skin. Sean wished his hearing wasn’t so keen at that moment. His fists balled involuntarily.

  “Is she okay?” Tate asked, motioning toward the closed door.

  “I don’t know. I mean, physically she’s alive, but she saw some crazy shit here.” Sean pulled the sheet off the bed and put it on the floor. “When I got here, Lila was naked and Søren was on top of her. I think he was going to rape her.” Sean grabbed a handful of the thing’s coarse hair and picked it up by the head. He felt nothing but disdain for Tasha now, and in fact, he almost wished he could reanimate her and kill her again, more slowly this time. “Then he turned into Tasha, and then into this thing.”

  He dropped her on top of the sheet, the weight of her body causing it to thud against the hardwood floor. He gripped the top of her skull with one hand and her shoulder with the other and pulled. The vertebrae in her neck popped and her head came off. He had to make sure she wouldn’t regenerate.

  Little was understood about shifters other than how to completely end them. Inside, they were built like humans. The brain stem had to be severed. Decapitation was easiest. Hopefully demon shifters were similar in composition or Mac might have a reenactment of a corpse coming back to life in the crematorium.

  Sean gathered the edges of the sheet and tied them together.

  Mac stepped forward. “I’ll take that. Then we’ll get this place cleaned up.”

  The water still ran in the bathroom. Sean wanted to get Tasha’s body out of sight before Lila finished her shower.

  “Thanks, man. I appreciate it. Can you guys disappear while I get Lila out of here? She’s already traumatized. Seeing three more vampires right now would pr
obably send her over the edge.”

  “No problem. We’ll take the body out to the Caddy and wait until you leave to come back in,” Tate said.

  Sean and Lila would need to spend the night at the BBE while the mess was cleaned up. He washed his face and hands in the kitchen sink and changed out of his bloody clothes, which he put into a plastic bag and left it in the bedroom for Mac to dispose of.

  Lila’s purple duffel bag was on the floor of the closet. Sean filled it with some of her clothes and went into the bathroom to get her toothbrush.

  “Lila?”

  “What?”

  He pulled back the shower curtain. “I have some clean clothes for you. After you get dressed, we need to leave.”

  Lila turned the water off but didn’t say anything. She grabbed a towel off the rack and dried herself. She put on her clothes and stood there, just looking at the floor.

  Sean reached out and touched her arm. She didn’t recoil or react at all. She was in shock, and he wasn’t surprised. He put his arm around her gently, led her out of the bathroom and quickly through the bedroom. He didn’t want her to see it all over again.

  He grabbed his keys and wallet and Lila’s bag and helped her into the 442. She remained quiet, staring out the window on the drive over. In fifteen minutes they were inside the lounge at the BBE and Sean was crouched in front of Lila. “I don’t know where to start.” He pulled at the edge of a beige couch pillow.

  Lila stared at him. Her eyes were different, sad. “I’m afraid, Sean.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I’m afraid of you. Make me understand.”

  Hearing those words brought an ache to his chest. “I’ll try.”

  “I saw things tonight that I couldn’t have imagined, that couldn’t possibly be real.”

  Sean nodded. “I know.”

  Lila grabbed his hand. “I need to know that I’m not crazy. Whoever that was got inside my head. How did he do that? He told me exactly what I was afraid of.