Page 19 of Bitten By Desire

Sulfur? That was associated with demons, which until yesterday, I hadn’t believed existed. Was this a portal to Gerard’s home dimension? Why the hell was I so drawn to it?

“We have to go through,” I said.

Julian grabbed hold of me the second I moved toward the portal. “We aren’t doing anything without more information.”

Anger exploded out of me from seemingly nowhere. How dare he decide what I could and couldn’t do? But Pythia’s calming voice piped into the back of my mind.

Danger.

I swallowed down my tirade and took a breath.

“What’s this?” Binx asked from directly beside the portal.

We turned in time to see him press a button on the right pillar and the color of the portal melted into a bright green. The impulse to jump through faded and Julian loosened his grip.

Before my vampire could speak, footsteps thundered down the stairs toward us.

“Don’t move, speak, or use telekinesis,” came the familiar voice of Major Marcia Honeywell, and as badly as I wanted to scream with frustration, I couldn’t.

She’d stopped on the stairs, just far enough down to see us clearly. Her eyes lit up when she focused on me, and she sauntered down the remaining steps, a group of four uniformed soldiers behind her, including one I recognized. Tomas was a vampire also working for MorningStar, and he was glaring at Julian who he blamed for the death of his bear shifter friend.

Unfairly so, since it had been Marcia that had killed him when she’d decided he was useless after a starved Julian fed on him.

“So it is you.” The Major walked right into my personal space, looking at me so closely that I could see the bits of red in the broken blood vessel in her eye. She’d been losing sleep, and I wondered if it was due to the command I’d given her. “Charlotte Devaux. I thought that was you who tried to mind bend me at the rooftop fundraiser.”

Marcia lifted a lock of my hair and twirled it between her fingers. “You’d dyed it, but your face is the same.” She dropped my hair and grabbed my cheeks, digging her nails into my flesh.

I could almost feel Julian struggling against her mind bending. How had she gotten out of it? If I found out, I might be able to do the same. That’s when I felt something come over me. If I’d been able to move, my hips would have involuntarily thrust forward. The scent of bergamot nearly overwhelmed me as my body temperature rose and visions of a male body moving against mine assaulted my mind.

It wasn’t just me, though. The major’s breath hitched, and she loosened her hold on my face. Her pupils dilated as her eyes glassed over with a faraway look and her lips parted.

Binx was working his magic. It didn’t involve him moving or talking, so it was fair game. Gods bless him. Though I wasn’t sure how helpful it would be if we couldn’t get unfrozen. A look around the room proved that not a single person was unaffected when he turned up the juice. It would have been almost impossible not to notice the bulges forming in the pants of the three male soldiers she’d brought along.

I was incredibly grateful I couldn’t moan at that moment. It would have been mortifying.

“I…” The major seemed to have lost her train of thought. She swallowed and shook her head hard. “What’s happening?”

Letting go, she looked around the room, almost panicked, as her chest rose and fell like she’d just run a marathon. When her gaze settled on Binx, she blinked hard and moved toward him, drinking him in from head to toe.

Everyone else who could took a collective step in Binx’s direction, moving past both myself and Julian.

Just before she stepped beyond my periphery, the major halted and my heart skipped a beat.

“Stop doing that,” she commanded, and the intense feelings of desire melted from my body, leaving me cold and anxious. She’d quelled our only hope for escape.

“Take them to the temporary headquarters and put them in separate cells. Silver on the vamp.”

Tomas stepped toward me and lifted a syringe in front of my face with a fangy grin. He wanted to be sure I knew they were about to suppress my powers. Then he jabbed it in my neck. I would have screamed from the sudden bruising pain, but I couldn’t. When he yanked it out, Marcia faced me.

“Sleep.”

* * *

I woke to cold stone pressing against my cheek, and when I went to sit up, I realized my wrists and ankles were bound with iron cuffs. Though I wasn’t a fairy, I supposed if all were made of silver or iron, they’d work well enough for any prisoners.

Blinking away the drowsiness, a dark room barely came into view.

“Julian?” I half-whispered into the shadowed corners of the empty cell.

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