Free Deadly Liaisons by Terry Spear Page B

huntress with telepathic abilities could not? “Do you know how the chief came to discern his name?”
    Her brows knit in a deep frown. “You’re thinking the police chief was manipulated. That Stevens was. Maybe so. Or maybe someone he turned or someone who had once been his friend squealed on him.” She wrapped her arms around herself.
    “Krustalus said I’d find out his name soon. I’m certain he’s the one, and how the chief or Stevens knew doesn’t concern me.”
    “But it should, Tezra.” Daemon finished dressing. “You have to prove he’s committed murder. The SCU wil have no recourse but to condemn you for murder should you kil him without proving he’s committed a crime.”
    “He won’t get away with their murders or any of the others he has committed. He’s cunning, but I’m certain he’s stil kil ing. He has to be stopped. Soon, by God, he’l slip up, and I’l meet him in the flesh.”
    Daemon couched his disapproval, though another thought nagged him. What was Krustalus’s game? “You said Krustalus taunted you. How?”
    Tezra glowered at Daemon. The tension in his neck returned when he imagined what the vampire might have done to her. The notion she had to prove Krustalus had kil ed anyone quickly went out the window, and he was ready to terminate the vampire himself. “Tezra?”
    “He touches me when he’s in the form of mist.”
    Daemon’s temper grew. “How do you know this? Couldn’t it be just your imagination?”
    “Forget it! You don’t believe me anyway.”
    He couldn’t forget it. He wanted to discover just how far the bastard had pushed himself on her, but his own anger was too near the surface to deal with it objectively. “Did he bite you, Tezra?”
    She swal owed hard and shook her head again.
    “Tezra?” He touched her arm but she didn’t pul away this time. He embraced her, attempting to coax the truth out of her. “What happened?”
    She wouldn’t speak.
    “If he’s bitten you, he may believe he’s laid claim to you. At least in his sick mind. I have to know if he’s done anything to you to see where he intends to take this.”
    “He’s never bitten me! Don’t you think I’d remember something like that? I wouldn’t ever have let him get that close.”
    “He touched you in mist form,” Daemon reminded her. “And from there he could easily have become a man, touching you just as intimately, except in human form.”
    She wouldn’t look at him, and he suspected the worst. “When did he bite you?”
    She shook her head. “He didn’t.”
    Tilting her chin up, he attempted to wil her to be honest with him, but that impenetrable wal of hers blocked him. “Al right, then.”
    It wasn’t. But he’d get the truth from her hopeful y sooner than later. “What about your sister?”

    Tezra turned away, her voice fil ed with regret. “I’ve had the world’s best psychiatrists work with her with no discernable progress.”
    He knew a promising way to bring her sister out of the darkness—most likely at great sacrifice to himself and even greater to Tezra. Frankly, after his last three disastrous relationships, he wasn’t interested in repeating his mistake. Yet a strange gnawing emptiness fil ed him with an unfathomable sense of disquiet. Just the bloodlust, just the hunger, he told himself, attempting to convince himself that was al it was about her that made him yearn for intimacy with the huntress.
    She pushed her dark hair away from her face in such a sexy way, he groaned inwardly. His hard body couldn’t take much more of her sweet fragrance or her al uring actions.
    “I vow I wil help you with finding a way to connect Krustalus with the crimes. In the meantime, you wil remain here and—”
    “Absolutely not.” She crossed her arms, lifting her breasts. Her eyes narrowed with defiance.
    “I told you last night, I expect your obedience in al matters.”
    “This is not the Dark Ages, and you won’t keep me here against my wil a second