Seeker of Shadows Read online

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  Six

  The sight of Jacques LaRoche blown up into a temper rooted Susanna to the spot.

  He was magnificent in his fury, brows lowered storm clouds over the now iridescent blue of his eyes, nostrils flaring like something wild and dangerous scenting a fight . . . or a female. His posture was all aggressive male, leaning in to intimidate, squared up to accentuate his impressive dimensions. In a moment, he’d be beating his chest and letting out a conquering roar.

  And Susanna had had enough.

  She’d been bullied and threatened and submissive for the last time. Fisted hands on her hips, she drew herself up with the added inches of her new shoes to a puny five foot four, placing her level with his sternum.

  “Who do you think you are, taking that tone with me?” she snapped with the fierceness of a terrier attacking a Rottweiler.

  If anything, her retaliation only fueled his anger. “I’ll take any tone I please. This is my place and you are a less than invited guest here. Where have you been?”

  It registered in the back of her mind that he’d been worried by her absence, but she couldn’t get past the arrogance of that snarling masculine entitlement.

  “I don’t have to check my schedule with you,” she countered. “I’m using your computer. That doesn’t make you my babysitter or master.”

  “When you’re supposed to be here and you decide to be elsewhere, you will check with me. You’re my responsibility,” he growled, “whether I want it or not.”

  And he didn’t want it, or her. That truth was a hurtful jab but still her pride rallied. “You don’t owe me anything. I don’t want your sense of obligation hanging on me like chains. I’ve had all of that I can tolerate. Now let me do the work I came here to do.” In her frustration, she put her hands flat on his chest and shoved. Set like a mountain, he didn’t budge.

  Huge hands curled about her wrists, startling a jump in her pulse. Suddenly, his hot gaze dropped, sweeping her from top to toe like the spotlight on a police cruiser. His deep voice became a gruff rumble. “What have you done to yourself?”

  Uncertain whether his tone implied approval or disgust, Susanna rebelled against it. “Nothing for the likes of you.”

  His features flushed with angry insult and a more uncontrollable emotion she feared and conversely hoped was desire. The sudden darkening of his eyes warned he’d been pushed beyond his limit, too, as he yanked her up against the unyielding wall of his body.

  The contact shocked both of them into a moment’s pause. With the breath panting from them, their gazes held and searched in a confusion of helpless attraction and dismay. And then Jacques bent inexorably down to her in a measured move that she could have avoided if she chose to. She didn’t choose to. She waited, her heart sighing urgently, Oh, yes. At last.

  His kiss was a pure glimpse of heaven, forceful at first because she’d stirred his passions into a frenzy, yet quickly softening to a yearning so sweet she ached to the soul in response. The familiar cushion of his full lips intensified by the prickly outline of facial stubble had her lost in a delirious haze. Nothing had ever felt so strong, so right as the emotions crowding up inside her.

  Before she could wake herself to take action, to touch him, hold him, to respond to the hunger surging through him into her, Jacques abruptly jumped away to regard her through wide, stricken eyes.

  Susanna lifted a shaking hand to her mouth, not to scrub away the taste of him but to marvel at the delicious bruising of her lips. She couldn’t catch her breath. How had she existed for so long without this crazy zing of feelings, her skin tingling, her blood hot and heavy, need pooling damply at the apex of her thighs? Her body cried out for more, but one look at his frozen features told her nothing else would be forthcoming, except what she didn’t want to hear.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, apparently devastated by his lack of control as she stared blankly up at him, trembling in what he had to assume was a trauma of shock. “I never . . . I would never . . . I don’t know what happened.”

  She made her words necessarily cold and concise. “You overstepped yourself, Mr. LaRoche, and it will not happen again.” Her conscience writhed as she watched him assemble his scattered thoughts behind a self-preserving wall.

  “Don’t worry, Dr. Duchamps. I’m not the kind of guy who has to force himself on females.”

  “I’m sure you’re not. You have them trailing behind you throwing beer and gumbo in your path.” He almost started to smile but she couldn’t allow him even that little bit of relief. “I am not one of those females. I have a mate and a child waiting for me at my home in Chicago. I have no interest in the kind of dalliance you might offer.”

  Finally, umbrage overtook all other emotions as he told her with a prideful stiffening, “You have no idea what I might have to offer and I’m not about to enlighten you.” Then he surprised her again with his sudden gruff admission. “I would never do anything to disrespect you or your family. Again, I apologize.”

  Her mood and tone thawed despite her intention of keeping him at arm’s length. “Accepted. I’m here to work and I appreciate the offer of your facilities. In return, I’ll do you the courtesy of letting you know when I’ll be here and when I won’t be so you won’t feel obligated to worry.”

  He gave a brief nod and after a few awkward steps back, turned to escape his office without further comment, shutting the door behind him.

  Jacques threw open the hinged pass-through at the end of the bar, gratified by the sudden startling noise it made as it slammed against the counter. The jarring sound echoed through the empty cathedral of his new life and through his equally shadowy soul.

  What the hell is wrong with me?

  He stopped before the small sink and twisted the cold tap, filling unsteady hands and splashing his face with the bracing chill. It failed to cool an overheated body or his wildly inappropriate thoughts.

  He refused to glance up toward the dark blank of his office window where she was probably still shivering in dread and disgust. Because he was exactly what she feared.

  A rude brute. An unmannered beast. An untamed animal. Growling, grabbing at what wasn’t his to take or desire. A primal, inferior species unable to harness his carnal needs.

  Jacques started to reach for one of the jewel-like bottles stacked in tempting rows, but let his hand drop away. He stared at the face in the mirror behind them that had been that of a stranger when he’d first seen it seven years ago. He’d had no idea who those features belonged to before that moment. He could have been anything, anyone. What he’d become had been born in that instant of nonrecognition.

  What he did know was that he’d belonged to them, to those pitiless users in the North, who’d obviously trained him to serve their capricious whims. The scar between his shoulder blades told him that much. Had he pleasured their females? Had he hunted and killed his own kind the way the Tracker who’d died in the hallway had? Had he been a mindless drone who went about their business with a blind obedience? Was he so conditioned to their commands that he had no self-control even now?

  Had the riotous emotions spiraling through him been programmed to be there to protect their kind from his natural impulses?

  Resentment simmered as he paced, movements dangerously predatory even as his thoughts panted in raw confusion.

  Why can’t I get a grip? This isn’t me. This isn’t what I’ve made of myself. Why am I letting her get to me? She’s one of theirs, not one of mine. She belongs to one of them, not to me. Not to me.

  So why was every primal pulse of his blood denying that fact?

  There was no explanation for the way his heart had stumbled when he’d looked into his office and discovered her gone. Instantly his mind had blanked with alarm and self-blame, thinking some harm had come to her. That crippling wave of fear had almost taken him to his knees. The response came from no place he recognized, but he’d been there before. When he’d seen that Tracker place a
gun to her head.

  He would never stand for injury to come to any female, to anyone weaker or defenseless. Not in his place, not on his job site, not in his presence. He just wouldn’t tolerate it. But these instincts, so overprotective and nearly pathological where Susanna Duchamps was concerned, defied logic or understanding.

  So he stalked behind the bar, circling from one end to the other and back again, like a wild thing in a cage, trying to outdistance the emotions churning through him. He was still shaking inside, all his senses in a heightened state pumping raw adrenaline like a crude oil leak. The need for violent action spiked, fever hot, because sex was out of the question.

  Sex was what he wanted. Sex with that maddeningly irresistible female cowering in his office. The taste of her burned through his blood like grain alcohol, frying his thought process, enflaming his lust. He’d felt her heartbeat leap beneath the press of his fingertips, and for a moment had believed it was spurred by an answering passion.

  He would have taken her right there on the floor with the slightest encouragement, without a thought to who she was, what she was, or who she belonged to, so lost to mating madness nothing mattered but finding a way inside her as quickly as possible.

  Madness. No other way to describe it.

  You’d think he was a rutting youth sniffing out his first female.

  You’d think he’d discovered his one and only all over again.

  But the fragile Chosen doctor was not his chosen mate despite what his pounding desires told him. He’d lost that treasured female when his memories were torn from him, her fate unknown to him. He’d lost his right to be content. He’d failed her and he couldn’t go forward because there was no going back to right whatever terrible mistake he’d made that had erased her from his future. There was only here and now and at the moment, he couldn’t bear the bleakness of that knowledge.

  Jacques pulled a bottle from the neat lineup, carrying it without the civility of a glass to a table where he could drink without being seen through the one-way office window. The first long swallow was as harsh as his mood, burning his throat, wetting his eyes. After that, like his situation, it lost the power to hurt him.

  Susanna gave up on trying to work. Her thoughts were fragmented; her emotions, rarely tested or tried, were in a knot. Fatigue and sorrow twisted about the sense of blame that refused to let her alone.

  She’d done the right thing. Seven years ago, she’d done the only thing she could to save them all. There’d been no other choice, no options, and if she hadn’t let him go, instead of pacing the floor in an agony of frustration, he’d be dead. That simple.

  But knowing that truth didn’t lessen her pain.

  She couldn’t destroy him with the knowledge that had her heart breaking.

  Damien Frost wasn’t her bonded mate. He was.

  Tears burned in her eyes as she watched his restless movements, knowing he struggled against feelings he couldn’t understand. His desire for her wasn’t natural, not like the earthy affection he had for his female staff, yet it couldn’t be broken by distance or anger or the drink he finally reached for. Its power couldn’t be explained, rejected, or denied. She knew. She felt it, too.

  She could still taste him, feel him, smell him. Wanting him growled through her like a hungry beast, terrifying in its strength, devastating in its potential.

  And it would only get more difficult.

  She had family; he had a life here. Their politics, their pursuits, their physiology, none of them were compatible. There was no hope for a future, no solution now, any more than there had been then. She’d been wrong to think so once, but she’d been young and giddy with passion. Now, she had no excuse, only a sad sense of culpability as she watched him find solace in alcohol-drenched dreams.

  Resigned, she shut down the computer, unable to endure another minute of the self-destructive torture. But she did leave a note, printing neatly on a cocktail napkin, “Have gone home. S,” tucking it gingerly beneath the motionless stretch of his fingers. So he wouldn’t worry. It took every ounce of her willpower not to touch that still hand or stubbled cheek.

  The misty new dawn air felt good against her skin as she walked the quiet streets. The exercise freed her from the tension twining through her. She’d ask Nica to return the foolish purchases she’d made and to find her another place to work, one without dangers or distractions. She’d concentrate on her research and let Jacques LaRoche get back to his gumbo. She couldn’t afford to put herself in his way again lest both their wills give way.

  She hadn’t come to New Orleans to relive an ill-fated past. She’d come to guarantee a future for the child she loved more than herself.

  As she moved along the uneven sidewalks, Susanna’s focus returned with a renewed purpose. Her thoughts stepped free of miring emotions in pursuit of scientific avenues. As she climbed the stairs to her borrowed apartment, she was busy formulating the direction of her next twofold study to restore life in one and protect life in another. First she’d attend to her body’s need for sleep, then she’d be ready to attack her work with new vigor.

  Using the key Nica had given her, she unlocked the door and stepped into the dark living area. Just enough light filtered through from the large windows on either end of the narrow shotgun apartment for her to find her way over to the café-sized table to place her satchel on the floor. She gave a slow stretch to release the tension in her shoulders.

  That’s when her weary gaze caught on the glitter of broken glass on the floor beneath the windowsill.

  Something moved behind her, a shift of shadows without sound.

  Before Susanna could turn, a rough hand clamped over her mouth, effectively stifling her scream.

  The scent of coffee cut through the heavy fog of Jacques’s dreams. Probably the same way it would eat through the table if spilled.

  Nica couldn’t have made worse coffee if she used kerosene instead of water.

  He slit open his eyes to see the sturdy ceramic cup next to his nose resting at an odd angle, then realized his head was lying on the tabletop. Beyond the mug, he could see the fuzzy outline of a nearly empty bottle of bourbon. If he poured the remainder into the cup, would it improve the taste?

  He tried to sit up. Bad idea. With an anguished moan, he gave up on the attempt.

  A light kiss brushed his throbbing temple, followed by the plop of a cold bar rag.

  “Morning, boss.”

  “Don’t yell,” he groaned.

  Nica’s chuckle danced behind his closed eyes like shards of chipped ice.

  “Want me to see if I can find a bendy straw so you can sip your coffee without moving your head?”

  “That would be nice. Thank you.” He let himself drift in that dark, quiet world on the inside of his eyelids for a moment, then muttered, “Do I care what time it is?”

  “Time for all good boys to be out earning a living. Don’t worry. I called you in sick.”

  “Did I ever tell you hiring you was the smartest move I ever made?”

  “No, but it’s nice to hear.” She rubbed his shoulder affectionately. “You’d better drink up. You’ve got company.”

  Something in her tone alerted him enough to risk opening one eye all the way.

  Max sat across from him, wearing one of his expensive suits and an inscrutable expression. “We need to talk,” was all he said.

  Jacques dragged himself upright in the chair, brushing at his rumpled shirt and reaching for the coffee cup with a less than steady hand. After the second swallow, the taste and the caffeine struck a jarring two-fisted blow, allowing him to focus in surly humor.

  “You got nothing to say to me for months and all of a sudden you want to talk,” he growled. “So talk. What’s on your mind, Savoie?”

  If his tone hit a nerve, the suave clan leader never betrayed it. “Charlotte flew to California this morning. She’s bringing her friend Mary Kate Malone back with her. She seems to think the woman you’ve been harboring here can somehow repair
her injuries. Where would she have gotten that idea?”

  Affecting a casual shrug was worth the pain it caused him. “Not from me. I don’t go around pretending to be more than what I am.”

  Max never blinked. “Who is she?”

  “A doctor, that’s all I know.”

  “And you didn’t notice anything different about her?”

  “She’s a nice dresser and has good manners,” Jacques offered, being deliberately obtuse in hopes of provoking a response. But Max sat calm and closed off from whatever was going on behind his cool green eyes. Eyes that lifted from him to glance across the room.

  Ah, the other side of the coin. Jacques scowled as MacCreedy strode toward them. He was also dressed for work: a cheap navy blue suit coat to cover his police-issue sidearm, plain tie knotted about a white collared shirt and jeans. Nica met him at the table, scooping her arms about his middle as she tipped her face up to receive his quick kiss. Hard to miss the way his steely stare warmed when it touched on her and harder not to like him for it.

  “Anything?” she asked.

  “Made a mess of things. Probably cost me my damage deposit.”

  Jacques suddenly sobered. They were talking about MacCreedy’s apartment.

  Susanna.

  His focus honed in on a damp paper square left for him on the table. A sharp punch of alarm had him staggering to his feet. “What’s going on? What are you talking about?”

  Nica’s words stabbed to the heart of him. “There were a couple of guys going through Silas’s apartment when Susanna got there.” Seeing the emotion jump in his gaze, she quickly reassured him. “She’s okay. She called me and I brought her back here.”