Flame Unleashed (Hell to Pay) Read online

  Was that green glint in the interloper’s hand a trick of the light? With her knife lust, she couldn’t trust her perception of reality. His weapon looked suspiciously like ... hers. That meant he was ... oh, hell.

  If he didn’t yet realize that they were both Indebted, it might give her a brief advantage.

  Oh God, what if this was Barnaby’s friend they’d come to visit? Surely not. How many Indebted could inhabit New Orleans without drawing attention? Several, right? New Orleans was a big city.

  The would-be rescuer held out a hand, and despite her best judgment, she took it, noting his broad fingers and a hint of dark hair on the back of his wrist. She needed to get out of here, but something about him fascinated her. Another Indebted. How old was he?

  With a wince, he drew her up in front of him. The small hole in his coat spoke to the gunshot wound beneath. The injury probably hurt like hell but would be well on its way to healing.

  Standing in front of him now, her gaze rested right on his shadowed mouth, where she could make out a smirk of sensual lips. For a split second, she wondered what those lips would feel like on hers. Would they be warm and sensual or demanding and hard? Would they stay turned up at the corners?

  Was he actually smiling like this ridiculous situation was some joke? She withdrew her hand from his heated grip and clamped down on her girlish thoughts. One hundred and fifty years old, and all of a sudden she felt flirty? Incredible ... and incredibly inappropriate.

  “Why the hell did you do that?” She gestured toward the hemorrhaging biker.

  Although the Indebted’s face was mostly hidden in shadow, his one visible eye widened and he reared back. Dark hair curled beneath his fedora—were those strands as soft as they appeared? He rubbed the hair on his chin, less than a full beard but more than stubble. The scratchy sound sent a quiver of desire into her belly. While the knife pulsed with sick hunger on her leg, she itched with longing to touch the rough hair on the man’s jaw.

  “I don’t understand. That man would have killed you,” he said.

  “I can take care of myself, thanks.” She needed to feed the blade. Soon.

  Voices drifted down the street, getting louder by the second. Damn it.

  “Pardonnez?” His jaw dropped open, and the dark gaze bored into her. No, through her. She shivered.

  “You ruined my evening.” Probably not the most typical human response. After all, she’d just witnessed him murder a man. Sadly, though, she had become pretty blasé about the job requirements. Dead was dead.

  Shaking with the effort to restrain the drive to kill, she clenched her hands into fists. The knife wanted her to wrap her fingers around the hilt and plunge the blade into a chest. Her hunger had risen to such a level, it would feed on anyone, including innocents and even her own kind. But this errant knight in proverbial shining armor shouldn’t suffer because of her inability to focus.

  She curbed her killing desires, just like she regulated other aspects of her life. Well, the areas she could control, that is.

  With her efforts, the knife lust slowly ebbed. Sad emptiness took its place.

  “You’re ... unhappy that I saved you?” He grimaced, revealing square, even teeth.

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try me.”

  His mellow voice soothed her raw nerves like aloe on a wound. When he stepped forward, she jerked backward. Time to get away from this guy and from this scene, fast.

  Shouts drifted into the courtyard. Citizens would be here in a matter of seconds.

  “Sir, thank you for your help, however misguided. I need to be on my way.”

  “Thank you? That’s it?” He gestured at Decker’s body, motionless and silent in the cool night.

  At the wry undertone, she pressed her lips together. Was he making fun of her?

  Anger bubbled up. What did it say about her own humanity that the corpse at her feet disappointed her? Pissed her off. Not because he was dead, but because she hadn’t been the one to kill him.

  Here she stood in her ridiculous wig and urban fantasy getup, using sex to draw in her prey, like a warped black widow. For what?

  Somewhere deep down, she wasn’t this seductress, despite her fabulous disguise. All the air and energy left her in a rush. All bravado, no substance. She was a fraud, living in a shell of an existence.

  Damn, how she wanted Decker’s criminal blood inside of her knife. What if she just swirled the knife in the pool of cold blood? Maybe that would work.

  No, it wouldn’t. Had to be blood from the heart; the knife had to be in the chest. Damn it.

  “Thank you. Goodnight, sir,” she said in her firmest tone.

  He stepped close enough that she saw his closely trimmed facial hair framing upturned lips, a mouth full enough to give a provocative smirk. A combination of cologne and Cajun spice blended perfectly around him. For a moment, she wanted to indulge, to taste, to experience a different life, to be someone else.

  What the hell was wrong with her? With a dead body cooling at her feet, a handsome but still-clueless Indebted before her, and citizens on their way, she fixated on his mouth?

  The damn blade pulsed again, again eager for someone’s—anyone’s—blood. It insisted on her complete attention, pulling her focus away from the man in front of her.

  When she tried to evade him, he snagged her arm. He was strong, but of course, she was his equal. He couldn’t budge her. At the display of her Indebted strength, shock crossed the visible part of his features. Yes, they shared the exact same secret.

  “Chèri? What the—?”

  Using his surprise to her advantage, she acted on pure instinct, stomping his instep with her spiked heel. He bit off a curse as his grip loosened. Dropping to a crouch, she rotated and swept an outstretched foot under the one leg he hopped on, and he fell hard onto the cobblestones. Unfortunately, when she rotated, her stupid wig caught on his hand, knocking it askew and covering an eye.

  Not caring if he saw, she tugged her hair back in place. In one fluid motion, she leapt to the metal fire escape ladder and vaulted to a roof. Quite a feat in heels. How did those sexy vampire chicks in the novels manage? Never mind. No time to think about silly books.

  She gritted her teeth and sprinted across the roof. Before descending the next ladder to the opposite street, she glanced back into the courtyard. She had gotten away in the nick of time. Patrons from the bar rounded the corner into the courtyard, followed by a police officer.

  Decker’s body was gone, a glistening puddle on the cobblestones all that remained.

  The mystery man, too, was gone. Although he wasn’t actually a mortal man but Indebted. Just like her.

  He must have removed the body.

  Why?

  To protect her.

  To take attention away from things in this world that could not be explained.

  What a joke. Her entire existence couldn’t be explained. Everything she did as a result of being Indebted defied logic. How would a dead criminal change that fact?

  It wouldn’t.

  But a pattern of dead criminals could bring unwanted scrutiny to the Indebted that called New Orleans their home. Where had her consideration for others gone?

  To hell, along with the greater portion of her conscience.

  Jumping from the roof to adjacent buildings, she continued to the end of the block. There was no easy fire escape. She peered down the four story building and sighed. This was going to hurt.

  She dropped off the roof, landing with an audible pop on one foot. A red wave of pain swamped her, and she gripped the edge of the brick to clear her head. Masonry disintegrated under her fingertips.

  She pressed her lips together to keep from crying out.

  Breathe.

  Another few seconds, and she’d be functional.

  With another crunch, her bones knitted back together enough for her to walk. Each step felt better than the last.

  Once she reached the French District, she ducked into a dark c
orner behind a dumpster and pressed her fingers to her forehead. So tired. In the past, she had salvaged botched kills, but tonight was different. She still needed to kill, but the control she had exerted over that biker’s mind took so much energy. Her fatigue would keep the desire to kill in check for a short period of time. The desperation no longer consumed her.

  Sick consolation. For now.

  Meeting a fellow Indebted had thrown her for a loop. True, some Indebted worked together, but Ruth operated in private, always had. She hated spectators of any kind. Ironic, then, how she’d given the man in the trench coat quite a show.

  Like most of her kind, she avoided hunting in the daytime. More potential witnesses. So she would have to endure a miserable day until tomorrow night. Even though time technically meant nothing to her, twenty-four hours from now seemed like years away.

  Maybe as a diversion she could indulge in a tiny fantasy about her hero’s sensual lips.

  Chapter 2

  The next morning, she struggled to complete the duties of her mundane job. Helping Barnaby took little effort, yet she almost didn’t pull it off thanks to her inability to focus.

  For the past several years, she’d worked as a full-time nurse for the now aging Barnaby, attending to his increasing needs for assistance. As a former Indebted, he understood her urge to slake the knife lust periodically.

  As a former Indebted, he represented everything that she wanted.

  A normal, mortal life.

  The opportunity to experience loving human companionship.

  Freedom from the all-consuming need to kill.

  She took a deep breath and blew it out. After smoothing her perfectly creased khaki pants, she patted her hair, secured in a bun at the nape of her neck. At least dressing professionally gave her a semblance of normalcy, as it had done for years.

  Normal. How laughable. Just another damn disguise, really. At least this outfit kept people at a distance. Calm, conservative, reserved Nurse Ruth. With a stiff exterior appearance, she was less likely to be hurt, and that protection was all that mattered.

  From all of the coursework at nursing schools over the decades, she had matriculated more times than she could recollect. For a time, giving solace to the sick provided her satisfaction enough. She even used her calling as a nurse to find the criminals among her patients and dispatch these evil patients to slake the knife’s hunger.

  She was pretty sure killing any patients, even bad ones, went against every word of the Florence Nightingale Pledge.

  With a sigh, she turned back to her current day’s tasks.

  She pulled back the heavy brocade drapery, trying to enjoy the fine furnishings at the luxury Windsor Court Hotel. New Orleans’s waterfront glinted in the morning light. Sunbeams streamed in the picture windows, bringing welcome brightness to the late fall day. Sunny weather normally gave her a sense of peace, but today the light annoyed her, unfocused her, like everything else this morning.

  She hated leaving a job undone; it went against her core values. Worst of all, having to attempt another kill increased the potential for attention from her disgusting and terrifying boss, Jerahmeel. It was in her kind’s best interest to avoid attracting his scrutiny whenever possible.

  Her hands shook so badly that when she tried to lay out Barnaby’s clothes, she couldn’t make her hands arrange the clothes in a perfect row like she usually did. She couldn’t think straight beneath the wave of desire to drive the blade into a criminal, combined with the fear of Jerahmeel’s attention.

  Hopefully she’d get her kill tonight without incident.

  An incident. A good way to describe the man in the trench coat with lips meant for sin.

  Recalling his voice and that sensual mouth sent a zip of excitement up her spine as she peered out the window. The thought of that man helped her forget the lingering knife urge.

  Then a jolt of dread hit her. He was Indebted. He knew that she was Indebted, too.

  The sunshine streaming into the room had turned to a harsh interrogation light. She wanted to close the blinds and hide.

  At least that Indebted guy didn’t know all of her secrets, a disastrous prospect.

  But he knew enough to expose her guarded existence—an existence she’d worked hard to conceal from everyone.

  Perhaps even herself. All those years of hiding had become second nature.

  Who the hell was she anymore?

  Barnaby shuffled out of the bathroom, his thin frame engulfed by the hotel’s Turkish cotton robe. His kind smile creased hundreds of lines on his careworn face. A remaining few strands of hair straggled out from his bald head.

  “Penny for your thoughts, my dear?” her boss asked.

  “Just woolgathering,” she said.

  “Did you complete your assignment last night?”

  Although his voice wavered, those pale blue eyes shone with sharp intelligence. His centuries-old strength and energy had waned, but his mind was as keen as when he rubbed elbows with Elizabeth, the last of the Tudors.

  Ruth would never lie to him. She loved Barnaby, her mentor and her friend. He knew precisely what her job entailed, since he’d been an Indebted for hundreds of years until he broke his contract to be with his wife. He rarely mentioned that period of time forty years ago when he changed to mortal, but it had to have been momentous. No one broke his or her contract, right?

  Not exactly. Barnaby did it, and his friends Peter and Dante attained their freedom, too. All right, so it must be possible to escape this hell, but how? By what rules? Damn it, she had no guidance, no idea of how to try to attempt her own liberation.

  Breaking their contracts nearly cost those men their lives, but they’d succeeded. All three men had achieved the Meaningful Kill. Jealousy churned in her gut.

  Maybe there was hope for her. Or maybe not, with Jerahmeel keeping closer tabs on his employees nowadays.

  “No, I didn’t get a kill.” Damn it, she snapped at the one person she’d come to love and respect over the years. The man closest to a father and a friend.

  Mean acid melted to muddy shame inside of her.

  While she wouldn’t lie, she refused to trouble Barnaby with her concerns. Ruth hadn’t been a burden to anyone since 1864. She wouldn’t start now.

  “Couldn’t find an appropriate candidate?”

  She shrugged with a nonchalance that even she didn’t believe. “It’s okay. I’ll find someone this evening.”

  “Of course you will, my dear.” When he patted her on the arm, the bones in his hands stood out stark beneath his thin skin.

  “Barnaby, how did you get the Meaningful Kill?” she blurted out. Hot guilt crawled over her chest. “I’m sorry. I realize that you can’t tell me. Forget that I asked.”

  Staring at her for so long it made her squirm, Barnaby finally sighed. Anyone who knew him for a minute could see how he’d loved his wife, Jane. Sadly, her life had been cut short by illness, and Barnaby had carried on alone for the past twenty years.

  He answered, his voice gravelly. “My dear, I would tell you if I could. Forsooth, I want for you to escape your Indebted contract. But I am bound by Jerahmeel’s rules never to speak of it.”

  “You helped Peter and Dante.”

  “Not directly, and certainly not by telling them how I did it. To be fair, as I witnessed their changes and my own, I realized that the solution to the Meaningful Kill is different for each Indebted.”

  She brushed nonexistent wrinkles from Barnaby’s clothes on the bed. “That doesn’t help me, does it?”

  His mouth pulled into a wry smile. “This existence wears on you, doesn’t it?”

  “I don’t want to burden you ...”

  “Nonsense. I think of you as the daughter I never had, Ruth.” He coughed for a few moments until he caught his breath. “I so want you to have a good life, my dear.”

  “My life is good, working for you.”

  “But not good, right?”

  “It’s not ... what I would have wanted.” />
  Emptiness weighted her shoulders every day—a black tunnel of death and murder with no end in sight. No one would want such a reality.

  “No, I want you to have your own life, on your own terms. With someone who loves you, er, differently than I do.” His grin folded his eyes into numerous wrinkles.

  She ran a hand over her neck until she caught herself. “It’s not in the stars. I had my family, years ago, and I ruined everything. But yes, it would be nice to live a life without the need to kill always pressing me.”

  “I understand.”

  Folding the remainder of his clothes, she laid them in a perfect, neat row. A useless exercise, considering he would wear these garments soon, but the precise activity and attention to detail calmed her. “Of course you do. And you did this job longer than anyone I know. What right do I have to complain?”

  “You have every right, my dear. We all do.” He cocked his head to the side. “But you are destined for great things one day. When the opportunity arises, you’ll find your own path.”

  “And you know this information ... how?” Despite herself, she smiled.

  “I’ve always had good instincts about life, my dear.”

  “Right.” She brushed her hands together. “Well, my path right now involves making you presentable for the day so you don’t lounge around like a society lady all morning.”

  He laughed. “Oh, you are good for my soul. Can’t be allowed to be a slugabed.”

  Something odd, a tug of emotion from the knowledge that his mortal body would one day fail, turned in her chest as she slipped out of the room.

  Before she could close the door, he asked, “Were you able to arrange brunch for Odilon’s arrival?”

  “I called down while you were in the shower. The food should be here soon.”

  “Very good. I can’t wait to see him again.”

  “How long has it been?”

  She peeked back in the bedroom. He stood at the bedside, staring up at the ceiling. The robe gapped at his neck, and his collarbones jutted out from beneath his skin. At the sight, her heart twisted. She’d helped many elderly patients in her nursing career but always maintained professional objectivity. With Barnaby, it was like seeing her own father aging right in front of her.