Embraced By Darkness (Riley Jenson Guardian 5)

"Meaning the island might not be the connector."

"Then there's the man."

"Human or nonhuman man?"

"Human. He works on the island, apparently."

Which wasn't much of a clue, considering over half the people working on the island were males of the human variety. "What as?"

Blake shrugged, and the movement made his image shimmer. "Adrienne said he worked as a bartender."

"Blake, there's at least five bars in this cove alone. It'd be nice if you could pin it down a little."

"I believe his name might be Jim Denton."

"So she danced with this Jim Denton?"

He hesitated and annoyance flashed in his eyes "I believe so."

I restrained a sudden smile. So Adrienne wasn't telling Daddy and Granddaddy everything. Good for her. Though I was surprised she'd gone against pack law and danced with a human. But maybe that was the whole point. "And the others?" And how would the pack feel about her dancing with a human? Add that observation in, too.

"I've talked to one other family. They also mentioned their daughter meeting a man who worked on the island."

"Meeting? What about bedding?"

"That I can't say. But probably."

"And the women were all wolves?"

He nodded.

Well, we werewolves did tend to get around - especially now it was law that employers couldn't discriminate against us because of the moon heat. Although I did find it surprising they'd bed the human males over the nonhuman. There were too many inherent risks in that sort of choice - although the mere fact that wolf-human half-breeds existed suggested there were plenty who didn't agree with my point of view.

"That doesn't mean they bedded the same man," I said. "As I've already said, there's more than one male working on this island."

"His description matches the one I have from Adrienne."

So, Adrienne wouldn't give her grandfather a name, but she did give a description? Somehow, I doubted it. There was more going on here than what Blake was saying, "If you've only talked to one other family, how do you know there are three women missing?"

"I know." His voice was grim. "Clairvoyance is a pack inheritance, remember?"

"I don't believe anyone bothered mentioning that to the half-breeds." Though it did at least explain where my no-longer-latent clairvoyance skills came from.

Amusement twinkled briefly in his cold gray eyes. "An oversight, I'm sure."

Hate swelled up, its bitter taste just about making me gag. "This isn't a Directorate problem, Blake. Go haunt someone else, because I'm not interested in helping you or your get."

I turned and walked away, as fast as I could. That prickle of awareness told me Blake hadn't moved, and yet his voice reached out across the distance as easily as if he were standing right beside me.

"You will help us, Riley."

"That impolite response I cast your way earlier still stands."

"Riley, stop."

My muscles twitched with the need to obey, but my vampire half was having none of that. It was all I could do not to break into a run to get away from his presence - thought if I thought it would do any good, I probably would have.

"Riley, I'm ordering you to stop right now, or face the consequences."