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  “Who loves you?” Samael asked, his face serious in the moonlight as Rachel wrapped her arms around his chest.

  “You, I hope,” she said, bringing up one hand up to twirl her hair around her finger.

  “How was work?” he asked. “Find anything useful for me?”

  There he went again. All business. Rachel rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I found out the shifter fucker is a pretty nice girl.”

  Samael returned the eye roll. “And?”

  Rachel hesitated. Something felt wrong, really wrong. She couldn’t bring herself to tell him where the shifters lived. But why?

  “You holding something back from me?” he asked gruffly, and he took her chin in his hand with more than a little force.

  “The shifters,” Rachel stammered. “They all live in those new condos on fifth. At least, Janika said most of them did.”

  “She coming out anytime soon?” he asked, his gaze darting to the back door and then back to Rachel. “I saw this little alleyway out here and the wheels just started turning.” His hands slid down and around her hips, his fingers easily finding their way between the fabric of her jeans and fondling the area.

  A sigh escaped Rachel, and she was taken again in the warmth of his kiss. All worries of Janika and the shifters rolled away into his touch. She knew what he wanted, and he proved her theory when he slid a kiss down her neck and buried it in her bosom.

  Chadwick’s hands met her jeans and she felt the button pop, the garment sliding down and around her ankles in a smooth transition. Chadwick’s lips kissed the soft curves of her hips and ass, tickling and teasing as he slid her panties off and around her ankle.

  Rachel giggled and Samael flipped her around so that he was behind her, running his tongue along her neck as Chadwick’s mouth found its way between her legs, covering her bloated nub in wet kisses and pecks. She moaned as Samael slid a finger down her backside and rested it inside her. It was only a moment before she came.

  Samael’s free hand covered her mouth as she moaned the orgasm away into his flesh. He tickled his fingers across her lips and moved aside to pull the ladder of the fire escape closer to the ground.

  Rachel bent over and gripped it, letting out a little sigh as Samael’s fingers left and Chadwick’s cock replaced them.

  Samael pulled her top down to expose her breasts, fondling the length of her nipples between his fingers as Chadwick picked up to a steady rhythm inside her.

  Chadwick slid back, done after only a few gratifying minutes, and Samael’s thick member slid inside of her wet asshole, moving around her in a circular motion.

  Rachel shuddered as the nerves inside the gently used tunnel came to life, the way they always did when she was with the vampire. If only she could get her heart to agree with her body, they would be perfect lovers. The melancholy thought was dismissed as two of Samael’s fingers slid inside of her pussy and twirled, feeling her out.

  He continued the heated circle he’d made inside her, and Rachel let her breasts fall down and into Chadwick’s waiting mouth, his tongue whirling around the nipples and further rousing her. The triple sensations in her pussy, ass, and upon her breasts were enough to make her squeal. She came with a shrill scream that worried her for all its loudness, but Samael’s hand covered her mouth and silenced her.

  Her boss pulled out and she heard him zip up his pants with a gratified sigh.

  Chadwick moved back and away, giving her a snide grin as he redressed himself.

  “Come on, Rachel,” Samael said, pulling up her panties for her.

  “Yeah.” Rachel heaved a sigh, sweaty and feeling a bit overwhelmed by the brief encounter.

  Samael crossed his arms and cocked his head. “Well?” he asked. “Was that all you found out or what?”

  Chapter Three

  “Are you ready to go or what?”

  Rachel shook her head as she threw her damp hair into a ponytail. Halfway through the night, Janika had decided to spray her down with the water dispenser behind the bar. Rachel’s white blouse had suddenly become transparent, and she’d been infuriated...until the tips started rolling in. Laughing, she had sprayed her boss back and they’d worked soaking wet all night, much to the delight of their customers.

  As Janika divvied up the tips for the evening, Rachel saw that they’d made well over two hundred dollars each. Not bad for a brand new bartender.

  “I’ll say,” Rachel said with a sigh. “I’m soaked and I can’t remember the last time I needed a drink so bad.”

  “Then you’re in luck!” Janika said, looking up from the tip pile as she finished counting the money. “I’m going over to the pack’s condo. They’re having a party and we are invited, my lady.”

  “The tigers?” Rachel said.

  “Wolves will be there, too,” Janika said, as if reading her co-worker’s mind. “Charlie and Frank. You were interested in meeting them, weren’t you?”

  Rachel froze. Yes. But the problem was, she really was interested in meeting them. How could she have a good time hanging out with a group of people she was supposed to screw over?

  “What’s wrong?” Janika asked, placing a hand on Rachel’s shoulder. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

  “Maybe I have,” Rachel muttered, examining her reflection in the mirror behind the bar.

  “How do you mean?” Janika sat down on a barstool with an all ears expression.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” Rachel tried to say dismissively, but she knew her terrible acting wasn’t covering up much. “I mean, I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s not your place to listen to my problems. You’re my boss and I hardly know you.”

  “But I sprayed your tits down with water,” Janika said. “And here I thought we’d become friends.”

  Rachel couldn’t help but laugh, and she warmed up a bit as she took a seat on the stool opposite Janika. “Well,” she said. “If you want to hear about it, I guess.”

  “I do.”

  “It’s just...” How much could she say without giving herself away? “I don’t know. I think I used to be happy, something like you. I feel like I’ve become a shell of my former self and I think I have been for awhile.”

  “How so, honey?” Janika asked, her eyes wide with concern.

  “It’s a...”

  “Guy? It’s a guy, isn’t it? Is he the one who texted you last night? Because you looked really happy and then boom. Sad Rachel.”

  “Yes,” Rachel whispered, wishing she’d kept her mouth shut. Was she really so easy to read?

  As if on cue, her cell phone buzzed at her hip. “Gotta get that,” Rachel said, almost pleased with the distraction.

  Janika offered a sympathetic nod as Rachel read the text message.

  Rachel? Where the hell are you? I’ve been waiting in the back alley for twenty minutes!

  Janika invited me to a party at the shifter’s place. She texted back, her thumbs flying over the keypad as quickly as she could manage. I should go, shouldn’t I?

  It took Samael only a moment to respond.

  No shit. Find out who their leader is. I’ll leave the door unlocked for you. Bye.

  Love you. Rachel waited for a response, but nothing came. She put on her brightest smile as she looked back up to Janika, hoping they could forget the melancholy conversation from before.

  “Well?” Janika asked.

  “Well, we’re going to a party,” Rachel said with a little smile.

  “You go, girl!” Janika said, hopping out of her chair and handing Rachel her share of the evening’s tips.

  “Just, um, one thing.”

  “What’s that?” Janika asked.

  “Please tell me you have an extra blouse in your car.”

  Chapter Four

  Rachel eyed her reflection in the darkened glass of the stores as she strolled down the street with her co-worker. Janika had given her a sleek black cocktail dress to wear to the party, which was definitely more than she had been expecting to borrow. As it turned out,
the two girls even wore the same shoe size. Rachel had traded in her black flats for a pair of leather stilettos, the likes of which she had not worn in years. Funny. She had almost forgotten how gorgeous she could be when she was dressed up. As it was around her living quarters, she spent most of her time naked and reading in bed, waiting for Samael to come back.

  “The red lips you got on, girl,” Janika said, making a smoochy face at Rachel. “Are the icing on the cake.”

  Rachel giggled. “Thanks. Is this the place?”

  “It certainly is!” Janika said cheerfully, taking Rachel by the hand and pulling her towards the stairs of the condominiums they had come upon. “You are going to have so much fun. The shifters really know how to throw a party.”

  “I hope so,” Rachel said, treading carefully up the stairs in her gigantic heels, one hand still in Janika’s. A bit of the fire vampire must have boiled up inside her, because she couldn’t help but to ask the snide question she already knew the answer to. “So, um, how did you get to know the tigers?”

  Janika turned back to look at her with a huge smile. “I’m their mate, silly.”

  “Mate?”

  “Yup.” Janika shook her golden curls down her back as she led the way to the third floor of condos. “Basically, I mate with the pack and they accept me as one of their own, human or not. I mean, Lance and I are a thing, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still have my fun with the rest of the pack. I wish I’d known about the supernatural community a long time ago. They’re much more fun than people, what, with all their stuffy rules and their so-called morality.”

  “Yeah,” Rachel said gingerly. The idea of mating a pack had appealed to her at once.

  Janika pulled a silver key from a garter around her thigh as they came to a stop in front of one if the condo doors. “Here we are.” She unlocked the door and opened it just a wee bit, looking over her shoulder at Rachel. “The wolves don’t have a pack mate, yet, Rachel.”

  Rachel felt a hot blush overcome her cheeks and Janika giggled as she pushed the door open.

  “But, um, don’t worry about it,” Janika said.

  The two women strolled in to find the tigers and the wolves gearing up to play spades on the floor of their gigantic living room. The whole place was wonderfully furbished in a jungle theme, right down to the carved statues and the tiger-skin sheet sets on each bed.

  The wolves, Charlie and Frank, appeared pleased when they looked up and saw that Rachel had accompanied Janika.

  She returned the smile they gave her with a careful shyness. She wondered if she might be playing along a little too well. After all, spies shouldn’t be genuinely excited to go to a party and meet new people. Should they?

  “Have a seat,” Charlie said to her, patting a spot beside him on the floor. “Would you care for something to drink?”

  “We’ve got Bass pale ale,” Frank said. “But you strike me as more of a vodka and cranberry type of a girl. Am I right?”

  “Actually, yes,” Rachel said, straightening up and flashing the wolves a smile as she sat beside them. “A vodka and cranberry sounds marvelous, thank you.”

  “Coming right up,” Frank said with a wide-eyed smile. “You, unfortunately, have just stepped right into what is about to be a never-ending game of spades with us and the tigers. Well, some of them...say, Antonio, what happened to the rest of you?”

  Rachel glanced over to the tigers. Janika had curled up by Lance. The only other one present was Antonio, whom Janika had told her was the tiger’s leader. Rachel had been sure there were at least five in their pack when she’d seen them before.

  “They’ll be back sooner or later,” Antonio said with a yawn and a glance at his watch. “I think they went over to the neighbors to try and get some more players. We’ll see how that works out.”

  “Hmm,” said Charlie. “Do you smoke, Rachel?”

  “As in?” she asked.

  “Cigarettes?” he said with a laugh, glancing at the sliding screen door.

  “Oh,” Rachel said. “Not really. On and off. But I don’t typically turn down an offer from a gentleman like yourself.”

  The wolves laughed as she followed them outside. Charlie shut the door behind them and the wolves lit up matching cigarettes with golden tips. Frank lit a third cigarette and passed it to her, which Rachel took with a grateful nod.

  She took a drag and blew the smoke ring into the warm, evening air. “So,” she said with a grin. “Which one of you wolves is in charge around here?”

  The men laughed.

  “I suppose that would be Clint,” Charlie said. “He doesn’t come out often, though. He’s holed up at the condo working on his Master’s Degree. But when he does come out—”

  “It’s one hell of a party,” Frank said with a laugh. He smiled at her and Rachel was immediately swept into the kindness of his gaze. She was instantly surprised. It was as though her mind had cleared for the first time in months. Her surroundings clarified, and she realized she hadn’t been able to see straight in some time.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  It was the last thing she heard before she hit the porch.

  Chapter Five

  Rachel woke up to the soft sounds of a bubbling spring. A quick glance around the room told her that the noise came from one of the many fountains set up inside the large, Native American inspired room she was in. She groaned and rubbed her forehead as she sat up on a huge bed with black sheets.

  A man spun around from the computer he was seated at and smiled. She recognized him immediately as a wolf shifter, though he appeared to be quite a bit older than Charlie and Frank. “I was wondering when you’d wake up,” he said. “I’m Clint. You took quite a fall. Probably due to all the fire vampire blood you’ve ingested.”

  “What?” Rachel tried to hop to her feet and fell back to the bed at once. Her head spun in circles and her vision went bleary again.

  “Slow down, slow down,” Clint said softly.

  “What the hell?” Rachel asked. “How did you know I was a fire vampire?”

  “You’re not.” Clint sounded shocked. “You were just jacked up on their blood.”

  “You’re crazy.” Rachel tried to sound intimidating, but her voice was meek, sapped of energy. “I’ve been a vampire since I was eighteen.”

  “So far as I can tell, you are,” Clint said. “You certainly smell like a vampire. But you’re not any kind of fire vampire. That’s for sure. And you can’t be transformed into a fire vampire, Rachel. You have to be born as one.”

  “You can’t? And I’m...I’m not?”

  Clint’s expression was soft as he leaned forward in his chair. “Did you know that you’ve been under a fire vampire’s spell?” he said. “And from the looks of it, you’ve been under it for some time. I recognized it as soon as Frank and Charlie brought you over. I could smell it. Have the fire vampires...been making you drink it? Their blood?”

  “No,” Rachel said, and then it struck her. “Just a cloaking serum. So nobody would know I was a vampire. I mean, so Janika wouldn’t know.”

  “Janika knew you were a vampire,” Clint said with a laugh. “And that you were trying to play if off. But she’s definitely been around enough of your kind to tell. And as for the so-called cloaking serum, it’s pretty obvious to me that they’ve just been making you drink it as a ruse to put you under their spell.”

  “Oh my God.” Rachel put her hand on her chest, overcome with anxiety. “Samael. He’s going to—”

  “Samael!” Clint looked taken aback.

  “You know him?” she asked weakly.

  “Oh, I know all about him,” said Clint. “He’s been a mortal enemy of the shifters and the vampires alike for as long as I can remember. Way before I was even born. He doesn’t care for anyone, you know, if that’s what he’s been pulling. You’ve been under one of his love spells. He just wants to take every city and every woman he comes across. You were with him, then, I take it?”

  Rachel nodded. �
�Could I...could I have a glass of water?” she asked.

  “Of course.”

  The door swung open as Clint returned with her water, and Charlie and Frank walked in.

  Frank rushed to her side and placed a hand on her back. “I’ve never seen a vampire pass out before,” he said. “I didn’t think it was possible.”

  “I said to him that you must not smoke much,” Charlie said with a wink, and Rachel laughed as best she could in her weak state.

  “So, I guess I wasn’t fooling anyone, huh?” she asked, feeling a fool now for the entire ordeal. Samael had all but made an ass of her.

  “Why would you need to?” Charlie asked. “Just because we don’t socialize with vampires very often doesn’t make them our enemies.”

  “Really?” Rachel asked sheepishly.

  She felt foolish at once. Foolish for believing Samael, foolish for thinking that the shifters wouldn’t have liked her simply for what she was. But she also felt less lonely. Maybe her place wasn’t with Samael and the others, after all.

  What was she thinking? Of course it wasn’t. They had tricked her, used her for years. And here she sat, so used to being under their spell that she had tried to put it back on herself. It was as if it was the only comfort she knew. The thought saddened her.

  “Not our enemies at all,” Clint said. He got out of his seat and stretched. “You get all the rest you need, Rachel. It was nice to meet you, but I think there’s a party across the way that I’m ready to get down on.”

  “No way!” said Charlie. “Not the old man. Don’t tell me you’re having a drink.”

  “Maybe two,” Clint said with a wink, and he was out the door, shutting it softly behind himself.