Binds that Burn: A Werepanther Romance Suspense (Urban Dwellers Book 3) Read online

  “No matter what’s happened, I believe as do Tony and Kyle that we are somehow bound to Jillian. Through our blood. The blood we used to juice the spell.”

  “Like blood bonds,” Nina said.

  “Who knew this idea around blood bonds was getting out there? Humans aren’t supposed to do know about that,” Eric said with a sigh. “Yes, like blood bonds. We are linked to her, and she is linked to us. I am confident that whatever she is looking for is related to that night, and I think she still wants us to join her. I’m assuming that’s the best case scenario.”

  “So what’s worse case scenario?” Nina asked.

  “I have a theory,” Eric said hesitantly. “I don’t know if there’s anything to it, but you made me start to think about the woo woo factor.”

  Nina wanted to roll her eyes at this, but she didn’t, because if Eric was willing to admit that there might be something slightly off about this case, then she might finally be making progress overall with him. Perhaps he had changed as he said earlier.

  “You believe in the woo woo factor now?”

  Eric looked at her with a sigh. “You know all of this is new for me. But, after you told me about what Madame Rivaldi looked like, it gave me a thought.” He reached over and pulled a thick envelope off of the kitchen counter. “We have a guy who heads all of the investigative resources for us. He has eyes and ears around the city. I had him go ahead and take a look at all of the missing person cases involving mystics and psychics over the last eighteen years. And, what he’s found, is… interesting.”

  “So what do you think is happening?”

  Eric opened the file. Inside were pictures. Many were pictures of people who would probably make Nina cross to the other side of the street to stay away from. “These are the cases that I think might be related to ours. They all involve psychic mediums. The ones who we think actually had a twinkle of psychic talent are still around, and the ones that did not have disappeared.”

  “I’m not sure I get it yet,” Nina said.

  Eric lined up the pictures in front of her. Then he lined up another set underneath each one of them. Nina gasped in shock. “It’s like they’ve all dramatically aged.”

  “Exactly,” he said. “So you want to hear my theory?”

  “Yes,” Nina said. She was intrigued again. She kept looking at the pictures, wondering what could have possibly happened to these people.

  “I think that she is siphoning off their supernatural energy. I think that she has been gathering energy and mystical power for some purpose unknown.”

  “You’re right. That does sound pretty woo woo to me. Even for me,” Nina said. She picked up each picture in turn. “What could she be doing with it? How could she even be taking it?”

  “It’s complicated,” Eric said. Then he pulled out a book that Nina had never seen before. It looked old. The pages were parchment. He opened the book to a page in the middle. She saw there were stains of red across the words. She looked at Eric with a look of confusion.

  Eric tapped the middle of the book. “This was the spell that Tony read that night. He used the blood from each one of us, just a couple drops, to bind us together. I think that was what happened. And now, she is ramping up for something big. She is or has potentially tried to come after us in the past. Each one of us has experienced different kinds of trauma over the years.”

  “So what is she looking to do?”

  “I think that she wants us to join her. Possibly possess us to take what we have. The spell is supposed to grant your heart’s desire. We wanted a better world for shifters, and that’s what we’ve started to build here.”

  Nina sat back in her chair, thinking about this. Something didn’t quite feel right. “That’s what you’ve always wanted?”

  “All along our plans have always been to build a world where shifters were able to move about freely and have the same rights as humans. It was an idealistic view of a couple of teenage kids who were professing to know more about the world than they did. The truth of the matter is it’s complicated, and it takes a millennium to change people’s feelings about us. Look, we dated for three months, and you still couldn’t wrap your head around the fact of what I was.”

  That stung. But she knew it wasn’t far from the truth. “So is this a crazy take over the world kind of plot?”

  “I think we pulled Jillian into something that she didn’t want. And now, she set about destroying all of us so she can break free of it. I don’t think she cares about what we have. I think all she cares about is simply destroying any chance of happiness that we have, but for me in particular.”

  “Why you in particular?”

  “Jillian knew that I was going to break up with her. She knew, and I knew, and I just never said anything. Then, the night all of this happened, she told me that she thought she might be pregnant.”

  Nina gasped. “What?”

  Eric wiped his face with his hand. “I didn’t react very well, and I told her that it couldn’t be mine. I didn’t even know that it was possible for our two species to be able to reproduce. But Jillian was really happy about it. I thought she was lying, but I didn’t want to ruin the evening. I was going to break up with her the next day. I think when she was taken, she realized the truth. So not only was she changed in some kind of horrible way, but I didn’t want anything to do with her. I changed the course of her life. I think she blames me for all of it.”

  “It’s funny how that feeling is getting around here,” Nina said. Then she instantly felt bad. Eric was trying to make amends with her by telling her everything and finally letting her in. It was a softer side of him that she liked to see.

  “So we have to find her, and we have to stop her,” she said finally.

  “Clearly, that’s easier said than done. She’s had a long time to plan, and it seems like she’s close to executing it now.”

  Nina thought about everything that had happened. She thought about a crazy woman who had been enveloped in a psychological and supernatural phenomenon and now was reincarnated to come back to seek revenge. Revenge on the world, but most certainly revenge on Eric.

  “I can hear something in my head,” she said. The noise was getting louder and louder, and she rubbed her forehead trying to make it stop. Eric reached out to her and put his hand on her shoulder. “The sooner that you accept that there’s another voice in your head and stop fighting it, the sooner you will be able to smoothly make the transition.”

  “I do not want to transition,” Nina said. “I want all of this to stop. I want all of this to go away, and I want to go to sleep and wake up and pretend this never happened.”

  Eric didn’t seem surprised by her outburst. He moved his chair closer to hers and then pulled her into his arms. She went willingly. After all, he was being sweeter than she ever remembered, and for some crazy reason, he thought there was a connection between them that went far deeper than anything she expected. She craved the connection. She craved Eric.

  His lips found hers, but the kiss was gentle and soft. It was as if he was asking permission. Nina knew then that it was silly to keep ignoring the way that she was feeling. She was in love with Eric, and the sooner that she accepted that, the sooner she could move on with everything else that she had to do. As his lips broke away from hers, he cupped the back of her head and brought her into the crook of his neck. “I’m so sorry that this happened to you, Nina.”

  The words were heartfelt, and she could tell they came from the bottom of his soul. She knew because those were words that Eric never said, much less flippantly or lightly.

  “Please help me find her,” Nina said.

  “I will,” Eric said. Although, for the first time in recent memory, his words did not carry the same kind of vote of confidence that she wanted or expected. She needed something more.

  Nina needed to forget. She knew that Eric might balk at what she wanted to have happen. But if it was her last night as a fully-fledged human, she wanted to remember this momen
t forever. She wrapped her arms around his neck and brought her lips to his.

  “Please, Eric. Please.”

  It was as if his self-control broke. His hands gripped the sides of her body and pulled her into him. The next thing she knew, he had swiped all of the dishes onto the floor and draped her body across the table. Yes, this was what she wanted. She fumbled with his belt buckle even as he yanked her jeans down her legs. She needed to be closer to him. She pulled her shirt over her head and flung it across the room.

  Nina needed him badly. She needed to feel that connection, that rightness, that humanness that she never wanted to lose. Eric seemed to innately understand as his lips covered her face and her neck and her breasts. She sighed with contentment as his lips settled on her breast, and she arched her back, offering herself to him.

  She didn’t care if there was anybody outside the windows that could see them. This was all part of their game after all; if someone looked in, they might be able to see their lovemaking. Their little game of peekaboo had always given them a feeling of heady rush and thrill.

  Eric was not gentle as he drove into her soft folds, but she didn’t want him to be. She met every one of his thrusts with one of her own, and then she half sat up to yank his body down across hers. She wanted to feel his long hardness against her. It was what she desired. It wasn’t until she was riding the crest of her climax that she realized that Eric had sunk his teeth into the crook of her neck just above the mark where Jillian had bit her.

  She wondered what would happen then, but found she didn’t care. She knew what Eric was doing. He was making his sign of his commitment to her known.

  She knew what was required of her in return. She wanted it too. Eric might have claimed her, but he was hers too. She sank her teeth into Eric’s neck as well.

  His groan turned into a roar, and he pulled her up against him, and their bodies slammed into the wall. It was a frenzied pace of skin on skin and the need to be as close and connected as possible. They couldn’t stop touching each other. As the climax swept them away, they went together.

  As she descended from her high, Nina felt a rain of kisses along her cheekbone before Eric’s lips settled on hers again.

  “I don’t know why I did that,” she murmured against his lips. “It just felt… natural.”

  “It’s settled now,” Eric said as he pulled away and stared deeply into her eyes. “You are my mate, and I will always protect you, and I will always come for you. You can’t run away from me any longer, Nina.”

  It sent shivers down her spine, the way that he said those words. But looking into his eyes, she knew the truth. They were bound together now. Forever.

  She saw the mark on Eric’s shoulder turning red, and she realized what she might have done. “Eric, what if my bite is poisonous?”

  Eric looked at his shoulder and then shook his head. “If you go, I will go with you. I will follow you anywhere.”

  Nina didn’t know what to say. She could see in his eyes that everything had changed. They weren’t on separate sides of the fence anymore. They were on the same side, and something about this encounter was shifting her view. If she would be a shifter, she would be a shifter. And that was that. They would figure out how to make it work. She would adjust, and Eric would help her. That was what he was offering to her. A new life, and it was a life with him.

  What else could she possibly ask for?

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Eric couldn’t sleep. Even though he was completely satisfied, and his panther was finally quiet, he realized the enormity of what had just happened. He was also concerned that he had gone against his better judgment and perhaps taken advantage of the situation, considering the fact that he let things go so far with Nina.

  She was his mate now. Fully committed. As he was fully committed to her. There wasn’t any messing around, and there wasn’t any of the other things that he knew that Kyle and Tony had to go through with their human partners. They had to coax and court and be patient for the completion of the mating ritual. Now that Nina was halfway to being a shifter, it was as if she had innately understood what to do. He would find a way to save her. There was no way he could let her go now.

  He gently disentangled his limbs from hers and moved out of the bed. She was exhausted, and he didn’t blame her. Hopefully, she would sleep more as the transition fully took hold. All thoughts of being able to mitigate the effects of the transition were disappearing. The fact that she already heard the second voice of her animal self was proof of that. At some point, there was no turning back, even if there could have been a chance of a cure.

  Eric slipped downstairs and pulled out his laptop. He fired it up and started doing searches on the web. He was looking for something very specific.

  He wasn’t quite sure how or why he thought that Jillian’s strategy was to try to amass as much mystical energy as possible. But that was what he sensed she was doing. The people with actual psychic talents and magical capabilities, she siphoned their energy away and thus drained their life force. Those that were fakes and charlatans probably suffered a far more terrible fate.

  He started with the Yellow Pages. He looked up the listings for psychics and mediums in Copper City and cross-referenced them with the file that Samuel had put together. He was looking for something. He was looking for the next likely victim.

  While he was doing that, he had also asked Samuel to take a look at the same thing but on a broader scale. His inbox was already starting to fill up with different cases that Samuel continued to find over the last eighteen years. Up and down the eastern seaboard, and even in parts of the Midwest, there were reports of psychics and mediums who had disappeared. Why no one had put this together before, Eric had no idea. Perhaps it was because these were the kind of people that didn’t necessarily want to hit the official radar.

  He stopped when he ran across a name, Floyd Payton, that was vaguely familiar to him. He did a quick Google search on Floyd’s name and sure enough, as the website loaded he realized that he did know the man. It had been at a gala or benefit or some other random event several years ago.

  Floyd had been the entertainment for the evening. It had been quite a show, but Eric hadn’t been particularly impressed at the time. He figured anybody who was determined to run a con could figure out how to read body language and signals well enough to give vaguely specific answers about someone’s potential future. It was all sleight-of-hand in Eric’s opinion. Of course, recently Eric was coming around to a different perspective on the whole mystical field of study, but that was completely beside the point.

  He did a search on where Floyd lived. It wasn’t too far from the safe house. Eric figured he would go check it out. Just as he was putting his shoes on, he heard steps on the stairs that indicated he was no longer alone. He looked over and saw Nina standing there with her hair tousled, rubbing her eyes of sleep.

  “Where are you going?” she yawned. “I thought Kyle said you’re supposed to keep off the streets.”

  “Just out for a run,” Eric said. He looked at his watch. “It’s late enough that there shouldn’t be anyone out who would recognize me. The panther is feeling a little restless.” It was a reasonable enough excuse that wasn’t far from the truth.

  “I’ll go with you,” Nina said.

  “Oh no, it’s fine. Go back to bed,” Eric said. He honestly didn’t want to bother her, and he also knew that as he continued to push her physically, the transition was going to take further hold. He knew that she needed to start to come to grips with that. He wished that he knew someone who had gone through a similar situation. But he didn’t; all of Eric’s shifter buddies had been born that way.

  “I don’t want to be alone,” Nina said quietly.

  Her words ripped at Eric’s chest. There was no way that he could deny her that simple request.

  “All right, get your stuff.” He realized he was going to have to tell her exactly what they were doing sooner rather than later, but he was confident t
hat he would be able to control the situation. After all, that was what he was going to do from this point forward. Nina was his, and his alone. He would take care of her, and they were in this together.

  Less than ten minutes later, they were walking down the front steps of the safe house. Several bodyguards suddenly appeared as if out of nowhere. “We’re fine,” Eric said, motioning for them to stay put.

  He could see that the security guards were uncomfortable with this idea. “I’ll keep you guys on alert. You can turn on my geolocation on my phone if that will make you feel better.”

  “Mr. Frost specifically said that we are not supposed to let you out of our sight,” the leader of the group said.

  “Well, you can tell Mr. Frost to shove it up his ass,” Eric said.

  He motioned to Nina to walk with him toward the park. He gave the security detail a lighthearted flip of his middle finger. He could tell they wanted to follow, but they didn’t.

  “Your friends are just worried about you,” Nina said. “You can’t blame them. There’s been a lot going on.”

  “I know,” Eric said, rolling his eyes. He hated when other people made sense. “We’re going to work in a little errand while we’re out, and I didn’t want to take the big security detail with us.”

  “Where are we going?” Nina asked curiously.

  “I’m taking a page out of your book,” he said to her as he took her hand. It felt right and natural. Eric wasn’t sure what exactly had happened in the last four hours, but he felt like a completely different person. He felt whole and renewed. Nina had brought him literally back to life. He had had no idea that he had been walking around half dead without her. It was crazy how fast someone could insert themselves into your life and become someone that you could not live without.

  “I like you like this,” Nina said. Despite how she might be feeling inside, she appeared relaxed. She smiled coyly at Eric.

  “Like what?” he asked.