CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Emma fought the driving need to come
again, but her body was quickly spiraling out of her control. She’d
never felt so damned good, so satiated, so drunk on sex and
love and life. Inside her addled cells, the dark craving fed with a
vengeance on the sexual heat she and Andre created, just as it had
in the flower shop. There were still no memories, no sense of sin
or bad karma flowing from Andre into her. There was only fullness.
So much fullness. She was full to the brim with him—his passion,
his energy, his spirit. The world spun and pitched and tossed her
in the air like a doll, and she never, ever wanted it to end.
But she didn’t want to come again, either. She
couldn’t. Hell, she could, she could in a heartbeat,
but there was some good reason she shouldn’t. In the fever
Andre inspired, it was hard to remember what that reason was,
but—
Andre cried out, his cock jerking, the liquid heat
of his release flooding inside of her, sending her over the
edge.
Emma’s head fell back as she lost the battle
against bliss. She came, her back arching with the force of her
orgasm, her fingers clawing into the blanket beneath her. She
screamed—a wild, feral sound—and wiggled her hips in a shameless
attempt to force him deeper, to draw the moment of mindlessness out
a little longer, to lose herself in the magic of what he did to
her.
She’d never imagined sex could be like this. That
she could feel so subjugated, yet so powerful, at the same
time.
When Andre had shoved her pants down and taken her
without the expected foreplay, without a kiss or a caress or any of
those preliminaries she’d always heard were the best part of sex
for a woman, she’d expected pain or at least discomfort. But there
hadn’t been any pain. Only bone-deep satisfaction. It had been even
better than the first time. Hotter. Wilder. And unexpectedly ...
sweeter, somehow.
Her jeans were bunched around her knees, and her
ass presented like an animal in heat, but she’d never felt so
treasured. This moment wasn’t just about pleasure or affection.
This was about a man risking his life. For her.
A part of her truly believed that this new method
of feeding the darkness was what she’d been searching for—a way to
sustain her own life without stealing from others. It was amazing,
the miracle she’d prayed for before she’d grown too tired and angry
to pray. The way Andre had glowed in the shop was so different from
anything she’d ever seen before, as if he was as charged up by
their encounter as she was. As if the sexual energy they created
together nourished him instead of stealing his life away. It truly
hadn’t felt like she was hurting him.
But what if she was wrong? She could be. They both
knew the danger, but he’d made this decision regardless.
It boggled her mind, made her thoughts race faster
than her pounding heart as Andre collapsed on top of her, breathing
hard. Seconds later, he rolled to his back beside her, severing
their connection. The blue light vanished, but the feeling of
goodness, of satisfaction and health, remained. The poison in her
system was gone, burned away in the heat of the fire between
them.
“You are ...” His words trailed away as he brushed
her sweaty, sticky hair to one side and pressed a kiss to her neck,
sighing as if her Hamma-tainted skin was the sweetest thing he’d
ever tasted.
“I am?” she asked, voice husky.
“Yeah. You just ... are.” He sighed and rolled back
onto his back, staring at the ceiling. “And I do.”
She sucked in a shaking breath and pressed her face
into the blanket beneath her, his simple words affecting her even
more deeply than his admission of love. Surely, he couldn’t care
that much. Maybe he had a death wish she hadn’t seen in his
memories. Maybe that wild streak in him was wilder than she’d
assumed. Maybe he hadn’t truly understood the risk he was—
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Better. Good.” She lifted her head, daring a
glance at his face. He looked entirely healthy, happy, and relaxed
in a way she’d never seen him before, even in the flower shop. It
was amazing, especially considering he was half naked in the kind
of establishment that would have usually kicked his clean-freak
phobia into high gear.
“Good.” He smiled. “Me, too.”
“Good. Great. Thank god.” Emma swallowed and
considered sliding off the bed and pulling up her jeans. But she
didn’t. She stayed there beside him on her stomach, the evidence of
what they’d done sliding down her thigh. It made her want him
again, that messy bit of real life that he’d left behind. “And
you’re sure you’re okay? You’re not dizzy or—”
“No. I’m ... perfect. I can’t remember the last
time I felt this good after sex.” His eyes stayed on the ceiling,
though she could tell he was aware of her watching his emotions
play out on his face. The fact that he allowed the intimacy without
feeling the need to pin her with his usual assessing glare made her
want to kiss him. And then kiss him again. “It’s usually ... sad at
the end. The second it’s over ... it’s like ...”
“It’s like what?” she asked, wanting him to know
that she cared, that she craved his confidence as much as his body.
She’d seen inside his mind, but there were still so many things she
wanted to know about Andre Conti. “Tell me.”
“It’s like ... the emptiness comes back.” His
tongue slipped out to wet his lips, making her fingers itch to
trace the curves of his full mouth, to tease inside the sweet
hollow beneath his nose. “I can’t even enjoy the release. I’m too
busy thinking about the next time.” He turned to face her, the
vulnerability in his expression making Emma struggle to catch her
breath. “It’s not like that with you.”
“It’s not?”
“No, it’s not.”
Emma bit her lip, overwhelmed. The cynic in her
screamed that he was feeding her a line, but her heart knew better.
Andre wouldn’t lie to her, not about this. He wasn’t a liar. She’d
known that on some gut level even before she’d searched his mind in
the ruins.
Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said of his
cousin.
Shit. Now that the poison in her blood was
gone, the full weight of the mess they were in hit hard. What if
Little Francis already suspected that she and Andre knew too much?
Ginger’s behavior, her own flight from Conti headquarters, and the
fact that she and Andre were still out and about and not firmly
nestled in the family bosom would have all conspired to make him
suspicious.
But how suspicious? Enough to take steps to cover
his tracks? Or enough to make damn sure she and Andre didn’t tell
anyone that he was the man after her spell book? Did Little Francis
have it in him to order the death of a member of his own family?
Even in the name of acquiring supernatural power?
LF’s face flickered on her mental screen, full of
false confidence and suppressed anger that Jace was favored to take
over the family business. He wasn’t the smartest man, but he was
clever, ambitious, and lacking that certain thread of moral fiber
that kept the rest of the Contis from being the kind of criminals
Father Paul would have urged her to add to her feeding list.
She had her answer.
Now she needed to know why Little Francis wanted
her spell book, why he was getting in the drug business with the
Death Ministry, and how the two were related.
“Emma? You still with me?”
“I ... I am,” she said, focusing in on Andre’s
face.
She was with him, more than he knew.
Protecting the Conti family was something she wanted to do for him,
because she cared, because she ... loved him. Emma blushed, even
the thought of loving a man enough to make her cheeks heat.
She wasn’t ready for this, not by a long shot, but if she’d learned
anything in her life, it was that life didn’t wait for you to be
ready. She was simply going to have to rise to the challenge.
Because she wanted to love Andre, more than she could have imagined
even a few hours ago.
“I just ... don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything,” he said. “I know
I’m amazing in bed.”
Emma smiled. It was past time to throw the man a
bone. “You are. Completely amazing. I had no idea it could be like
that.”
He grinned so hard his dimples popped. “It
wouldn’t be like that with anyone else. So if I die of a
heart attack, don’t even think about sleeping around.”
“You’re not going to die,” she said, smile slipping
at the sobering thought.
“I know I’m not. And you’re not going to sleep
around.”
“No. I’m not.” Even if sex was the answer to her
problems, even if she could have been feeding on sexual energy
instead of evil since she was old enough to have intercourse, it
didn’t matter. She didn’t want anyone else. She wanted Andre.
Fussy, vain, loyal, brave Andre. And he seemed to want her as
well.
But would he still want her if her demon mark were
responsible for turning him into a killer? If Little Francis had
been up to the very bad things she suspected, and Andre was the one
to out his plans, then Andre would have to take care of the
problem. The Contis were a kinder, gentler breed of mobsters, but
they were still organized crime. If LF had betrayed his family, put
the lives of Conti women and children at risk, and tried to make a
deal with gang members and demons behind his father’s back, he’d
have to be dealt with. And as the senior Conti in town, that would
be Andre’s job.
Emma had seen in his memories that he’d never
killed anything before, not even the demons he’d helped hunt as a
younger man. Taking a life—especially the life of one of his
own—would destroy something inside him, that core of faith in his
own goodness that made him the man he was.
She shivered, though the air-conditioning in the
small room was hardly functioning at top capacity. She had to get
to Little Francis and have a hands-on conversation. Now. Surely she
and Andre would be safe if they went directly to the Conti family
offices. Little Francis couldn’t hurt Andre with half the family
there to witness it.
And once she had confirmation, she’d find a way to
take care of him herself.
“We should go.” She stood and reached for one of
the white towels on the table near the bed, trying not to think
about how many other people had used them to mop up various
excretions. At least the rag smelled like bleach; surely it was
clean enough.
Her thoughts made her laugh beneath her
breath.
“What’s funny?” Andre came to stand beside her as
he adjusted his clothes.
“I was wondering how clean this was.” She held up
the towel before tossing it in the linen basket near the table. “I
think you’re starting to get to me.”
“I know you’re getting to me. I don’t plunk down
four thousand dollars for just any woman.” He stared at the tray
filled with all the trappings of the antivenom. “I’m just glad we
didn’t ...” He paused, slowly reaching for the dish containing the
silver powder, tilting it to the light before letting it fall back
onto the tray with a curse. “Dr. Finch.”
“Dr. Finch?” Emma echoed as she buttoned her
jeans.
“That’s why you suspected I had something to do
with all this, isn’t it?” he asked, turning to pin her with one of
his most piercing looks. “Because of Dr. Finch. Because I was the
one who told Little Francis to call him.”
Emma’s mouth opened and closed without a sound as
she struggled to understand where Andre was going with this.
“Don’t lie to me,” Andre warned. “No more
lies.”
“I told you about Dr. Finch,” she said. “I saw him
performing some kind of back-alley surgery ... something that made
him a lot of money, but that’s all I could see for sure. I was so
out of it by the time I touched him that I couldn’t—”
Andre cursed again. “I should have realized.”
“Realized what?”
“I’d never seen anyone suffer through the antivenom
like you did this morning. I thought about how odd it was before I
went to talk to Francis, but I didn’t—Shit! He has to be in on
it.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that Dr. Finch is working with the
Death Ministry and probably my fucking cousin,” Andre said,
scooping his coat from the ground and shrugging it on. “The
antivenom he gave you this morning was silver, but not like this.
I’d forgotten the antivenom powder was so bright before it was
mixed with water. Whatever Dr. Finch gave you was something
else.”
So Finch was in on this, too. It made sense that
Little Francis had recruited other members of Conti Bounty, but how
many? Just how deep did this go? What if...
What if this went all the way to the top? What if
the Contis weren’t what she’d thought them to be? Maybe Uncle
Francis had decided it was time for the family to get in on the
lucrative drug trade and had given his son directions to get the
ball rolling in his absence. She didn’t know the exact nature of
the business that had taken the elder Francis out of town, but
she’d heard mention of “new revenue avenues.” What if one of those
avenues was running demon drugs?
Still, that didn’t explain the ransacking of her
apartment or her attempted kidnapping.
“It was probably some sort of spasm-inducing drug,”
Andre said, still thinking aloud. “If you’d gone into convulsions,
you would have been transported to his clinic uptown. From there,
it would have been easy for him to administer the antivenom and do
what he wanted with you.”
“Or let me die. Some of the spells don’t require
the demon-marked person to be living,” Emma said, pushing away the
anxiety that rose in her chest.
She couldn’t believe that the Contis were crooked.
Jace would never do anything to hurt Sam, and Andre had proven he
would risk his life for hers. This had to be something Little
Francis had cooked up on his own.
“I can’t believe this,” Andre said, his expression
darkening. “We trusted that man. He knows the Death Ministry has
terrorized half the ...” Andre froze again, his attention focused
inward before he turned back to where Emma still stood by the bed.
“You said you saw Dr. Finch cutting someone open.”
“Yeah. A man.”
“And he wasn’t wearing gloves?”
She paused a moment, searching her memory,
wondering what Andre was getting at. “No, he wasn’t. I’m positive
he wasn’t.”
“But if he were harvesting organs to sell on the
black market, he’d be wearing latex gloves. He wouldn’t want to
risk contaminating the organs or himself.”
Emma nodded. “Riiight.”
“So why wasn’t he wearing gloves?”
“I ... don’t know.” For the first time in this
conversation, she was the one who was out of the loop. Why would
Dr. Finch put himself at risk like that? It didn’t make
sense.
“He wasn’t wearing gloves because he didn’t care
about preserving the organs, and what he was pulling out of the man
would be ruined if it made contact with latex.” Andre paused again,
giving her the second she needed to catch up.
“Oh my god. Demon drug mules.” Plastics and demon
drugs didn’t mix. It was why everything on the table next to her
was in a ceramic or metal container. It was also the reason the
rate of blood-borne diseases had skyrocketed along with the
popularity of demon highs, as addicts shared expensive all-glass
needles.
Andre nodded, obviously pleased that she’d come to
the same conclusion he had. “The new police chief’s narcotics team
has been cracking down on the Death Ministry’s runs to the pleasure
islands, searching boats, confiscating any demon drugs they find.
But still, somehow the pleasure islands haven’t experienced any
dips in their supply.”
“They’ve been using drug mules.” The image she’d
seen of a weeping Stewart being handed a child’s sieve suddenly
made an entirely new—and repulsive—kind of sense.
“And Dr. Finch has been helping them retrieve their
drugs when whatever they’re using to pass them through the human
body fails. The guy that Little Francis said was found cut open—he
must have been a mule. He had the drugs inside of him. ...” Andre
trailed off, fingers coming to play along his bottom lip in a
movement that was oddly sensual. Who knew watching a man think
could be so sexy? “And we’re guessing that whatever your power does
to people drew it out of him and into you?”
“And the same thing happened with Stewart,” Emma
confirmed. “It hit about an hour and a half to two hours after I
fed both times.”
“But the first time, Dr. Finch had to go in to
fetch the drugs after Greg kicked the bucket,” Andre said. “Maybe
your power made whatever the drugs were wrapped in burst?”
Fear clutched at Emma’s throat as her certainty
that she hadn’t killed the man in the alley faded away. “So I might
have killed him.”
“If you did, it certainly wasn’t your fault. Still,
we need to know what happened to Stewart. We should—” He broke off
as his bud pulsed in his ear. She hadn’t even realized he’d turned
it back on. “Just a second—my cousin Michael’s calling. Don’t
worry, I won’t tell him anything until we know who we can
trust.”
Emma’s heart raced as Andre ordered his bud to
answer the call and the man on the other end of the line began to
speak. She knew before Andre said a word that he was getting bad
news.
“Michael? What’s wrong? What are you ...” He
trailed off, eyes going wide. “You did? You’re not? Why the hell
not? Have you contacted Francis or—Oh, he did?”
“What? What is it?” Emma asked after the tense
moment of silence stretched into three minutes, then four. She’d
never seen Andre so pale. “Andre, tell me—”
He silenced her with a gentle hand in the air. “I
understand. I’ll take care of things on this end, but we have to
talk later. Yeah. About this morning, and ... some other stuff. You
haven’t talked to Francis about—” Emma watched Andre’s shoulders
relax the slightest bit. “Good. Don’t. I’ll take care of that, too.
And Emma is going to need to talk to Ginger.” He grunted his
disapproval of Michael’s response. “Well, figure something out. Try
giving her a Xanax or something. We’ll touch base tonight.” He
tapped his bud, ending the call before Emma could say a word.
“Wait! What happened? What happened to Ginger?”
Emma asked. “Why did you hang up? I should—”
“Ginger was kidnapped,” Andre said, his dark eyes
full of a rage she didn’t understand until he spoke again. “By
people who thought she was you.”