Circle of Desire (Damask Circle 3)
She rubbed a hand across still-damp eyes. “I’ll explain later. You need to go. Right now.”
What he needed was an explanation. But the sirens were drawing closer, and Benton’s blood
pressure would go haywire if he found Ethan here.
“I’ll see you at the beach,” he said, and walked away.
KAT WAITED UNTIL THE RUMBLE OF THE MUSTANG’S ENGINE had faded, then dialed the hotel. Gwen answered on the third ring.
“I’m sorry, Kat,” she said. “I wish I could have warned you.”
No amount of warning could have helped ease the horror of what she’d felt in that room. Bile rose and she closed her eyes, fighting the need to vomit, fighting the tears pressing past closed eyelids. “I needed to go in without any preconceptions. We both know that.”
Gwen sighed. “So what did you feel?”
What didn’t she feel? God, the room was a menagerie of the dead’s emotions. “He died a lot slower than Daniel. The soul-sucker let a werewolf play around with him for a while before she sucked his essence away.”
She tried not to think of the bits of humanity strewn across that room. Tried not to remember the blinding fear and agony that had savaged her mind and cut through her soul. She failed miserably at both. But it was what had followed those emotions that had sickened her most—the smells and sensations of sex. The soul-sucker had mated with the werewolf amidst all the carnage.
“Hang on,” she said and hurriedly put the phone down, staggering away to the fence to lose the little she’d eaten for dinner.
She was wiping her mouth with her hand when the cops came in. Benton took one look at her and ordered an officer to go get a bottle of water.
“Where?” was all he said to her.
“Second floor, to the left.”
He nodded and walked away. The water was hurriedly fetched, and she swilled some around her mouth, then spat it out. Once all the cops were inside, she went back to the bricks and picked up the phone.
“Sorry, Gran.”
“The cops are there, I gather?”
“Just arrived.”
“Then it’ll be an hour or so before you get back here?”
“Probably more. I need to cleanse. I feel the dead right through me.”
“Of course you would, after walking into that room.” Gwen sighed. “Get us both some breakfast on the way back. I’ll contact Seline and ask her to research what exactly this soul-sucker is. Now that we know what she looks like, it should be easier to track her down.”
“It’ll be nice to know what will actually kill her before we confront her.”
“Yes, it would.”
Kat glanced up as Benton came out of the warehouse. “Gotta go. It’s question time.”
“Make sure you bring your werewolf back with you.”
“He’s not my anything,” she repeated flatly. “And why do you want him back?”
“Because we’re all going to need to protect each other in the near future.”
A chill ran down her spine. “Why?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
The phone went dead. Kat shoved it back into her pocket and looked up at Benton. And knew it was going to be a very long couple of hours before she could fly to freedom.