"As a child you spent time in New Orleans and Louisiana."

"And that's relevant how?"

Her brown gaze locked with his. "Although I was born and raised here, my parents were born in Louisiana."

He remained silent, waiting for her to make her point.

She sat forward in her seat. "You were raised by Kathleen Sonnier."

"What has my mother got to do with my rea.s.signment?"

"Having been raised by a foster mother-"

"I have no memories of my birth mother. Kathleen Sonnier raised me as her son from the time I was two years old. She's my mother."

She inclined her head, a smile briefly touching her mouth. "I stand corrected. Having a mother who is a Creole ritual priestess, you must believe in the supernatural."

He shrugged. "What bearing do my beliefs have on my job?" She sighed. "I know these questions seem prying, but I'm from a similar background. You and I will be working closely together. If our partnership is going to work, I'm going to need you to trust me as I plan to trust you." He wanted to tell her he saw no reason to discuss his beliefs with her, but looking into the depths of her eyes, he suspected he looked upon a fellow Ritual Latent. Although he did not know why, he felt a need to confide in her. "Mom was only eighteen when she took me in. We were poor, but she did her best to ensure I enjoyed a happy, safe childhood. Nevertheless, I managed to see a number of things most people would consider impossible or supernatural. Those things roused my curiosity. By the time I was an adolescent, Mom said I was old enough to understand that I possessed natural abilities most people did not. She told me I was something she called a Ritual Latent. She said training could augment my natural abilities. She spent several years instructing me in the ritual arts." She nodded, tiny lights igniting in the depths of her gaze. "Which arts were you instructed in?" "The arts of detection and self-protection. And you?" "Healing and second sight." Second sight? d.a.m.n, he hoped she had no insight into what he was thinking. "Why are we discussing ritual arts no one admits to knowing about, let alone practicing?" "I'd like to discuss several cases I've been in touch with the ADA's in Camden and Claymont about." "I investigate major crimes within the city limits." "Murder is a major crime, Jordan-even when the victims are suspected vampires."

After Jordan Guidry-Sonnier left, the soft, subtle scent of his cologne lingered in Madison's office, caressing her senses and whispering of an overwhelming sensuality she found all too enticing. Alone in her office, she sank down into the seat he'd occupied.

Pressing her cheek against the back of the chair, she drew in a slow, deep breath, allowing the minute traces of his psychic essence, which remained ingrained in the leather, to invade her mind and innermost thoughts. Something she'd allowed with few men-for good reason. She couldn't do what she did, either professionally or spiritually, if she allowed herself to be sidetracked by primal urges best left unexplored.

But she'd never met any man, no matter how handsome or s.e.xy, who spoke to her inner woman as Jordan Guidry-Sonnier had. For a moment, she gave in to temptation and closed her eyes, allowing her senses to burn his image into her mind. And what a powerful, s.e.xually exciting man. Tall, extremely well-built with broad shoulders, a ma.s.sive chest, narrow waist and long legs, he was the epitome of a hunk.

She wet her lips, her mind's eye seeing again his almost too handsome face with its dimpled chin and that lecherously full, kissable bottom lip. Permitting herself a spiritual freedom she rarely tolerated, she allowed his image to crystallize in her thoughts. When it had, she ran her fingers through his short dark hair, admiring the silver at his temples. She lost herself in his magnetic, silver-blue gaze, wallowing in his I-can-f.u.c.k-you-often-and-hard sensuality that left her wet and hungry for raunchy all-her-p.u.s.s.y-could-handle s.e.x. And G.o.d almighty, that voice... low, deep, s.e.xy as h.e.l.l...and so d.a.m.ned suggestive. She marveled that she'd allowed him to leave her office without tackling him, ripping off his expensive, tailored suit and f.u.c.king herself on his c.o.c.k until she lost her mind as he filled her p.u.s.s.y with his seed.

She shuddered. How the h.e.l.l was she supposed to keep her mind on work when she couldn't keep her thoughts off s.e.x in his presence? Emotions she had not felt in a very long time buffeted her, overwhelming her senses, demanding a freedom she had never allowed. Frightened at the intense feelings his brief visit had generated, she snapped open her eyes and bolted to her feet. Legs trembling, she stumbled around her desk to resume her seat.

Her heart thudded and she was aware of a pool of moisture between her trembling thighs. She picked up a folder on her desk and fanned herself. If she were going to work with Jordan Guidry-Sonnier, she was going to have to keep a tight rein on her emotions. As her much younger friend Jalai was fond of saying, l.u.s.t was all well and good-as long as it was kept in its proper place.

Later that afternoon as Jordan went over the notes he'd made during his meeting with Madison Savoy, Shaniqua stopped by his desk. "So what did you think of Matt Savoy? Did she get you all hot and bothered?"

He gave her a cool look. "Why did you go out of your way to let me think she was male?"

She smiled. "I wanted you to be surprised. And you were, weren't you?"

He shrugged. "What brings you back here?"

"I haven't had lunch. Do you have time to grab a quick bite and tell me why Savoy asked for you personally?"

He considered her in silence. Although she knew of his background, he doubted Shaniqua was ready to believe in things that went b.u.mp in the night such as vampires and the half-human latents who killed them. "She wants me to track down and bring to justice a specific half-human taking down vampires."

She blinked and then laughed. "No. Really. What's your a.s.signment?" She tilted her head. "Or did she just want to meet you so she could ogle you?"

"I just told you what the a.s.signment was-and what makes you think she'd want to ogle me?"

She shook her head. "You know, it always amazes me how any man as drop-dead gorgeous as you are could be so totally unaware of how devastatingly handsome he- you are." She grinned. "But your lack of vanity is a large part of your charm. That and your sizable equipment."

Her mention of his c.o.c.k size sent a rush of heat up the back of his neck. Although he was by no means shy, Shaniqua had the ability to do what few women could-make him blush. He tightened his lips. "Do you mind not discussing my...equipment in public?"

"Sorry," she said, her grin widening. "So...lunch?"

He shook his head. She had a devilish gleam in her eyes, and d.a.m.n if he intended to allow her to sharpen her claws on him. "Rain check?"

"Okay. I'll see you later."

He nodded. As she walked toward the exit, he watched every male head in the room turn in her direction. Sighing, he turned his attention back to the folder on his desk. It was time he and Eric Jason Makefield met.

Chapter Three.

"You want to talk about it...him?"

Tatiana turned from the patio doors of her penthouse condo to consider the male sprawled on her custom-made, white leather sofa.

The tailor-made blue sweats he wore complimented his coloring. The product of an interracial union, his cafe au lait skin tone provided a startling contrast to what her friend Dacoda called his "make me come early and often" blue eyes. His silky dark hair, worn short in a vain effort to curb its tendency to curl, provided a perfect frame for what Tatiana fondly thought of as one of the most attractive faces she'd seen in a lifetime that spanned well over three hundred years.

Although she and her twin were close, as only vampire twins who had shared centuries of each other's good and bad times could be, sometimes, like now, she felt the need for some personal s.p.a.ce. Noting the look of concern on Drei's face, she bit back the urge to ask him to leave her alone with her thoughts. Besides, if she were going to meddle in his love life, she could hardly tell him to b.u.t.t out of hers.

She thought of the fem with whom he had been intermittently keeping company for some thirty years. Within the last five years or so, both she and Drei had been getting serious. d.a.m.n if she'd sit back and watch while the scheming she-devil who called herself Veelee sank her claws permanently into her little brother. After her talk with Katie, she knew she had to find a way to permanently separate him from Veelee. So, despite what their older brother Aleksei said about allowing Drei to choose his own woman, she was definitely going to meddle.

Besides, if Drei left, he might be inclined to go in search of Mike "Tim" Timbersmith, the former lover he held responsible for Tat's present unhappiness. Former lover? Her p.u.s.s.y pulsed as she recalled the hours they'd spent together...less than a week earlier. He'd arrived unannounced with flowers and pleas for forgiveness for having left her when she confessed she was not human.

She supposed she'd been a fool to allow him to touch her...especially since she suspected Timbersmith was no longer fully human. She frowned, recalling the unique tattoo that now adorned his shaved groin. It was a tattoo that had enraged the overprotective brother stretched out on her sofa. He hated Tim for hurting her. What would he think or feel if he knew of her brief but s.e.xually explosive interlude with Eric Jason? As a rogue vampire hunter, he was a legendary enemy of her species. Yet she had allowed him to f.u.c.k her twice and had been unable to banish wistful, l.u.s.tful thoughts of him from her mind since she'd fled from him.

She was torn between a male who she suspected was no longer fully human and one who hunted her kind. And if Katie were right, one of them would prove to be dangerous. But which one?

"Tat?"

She shook her head, turning her thoughts back to Drei. "I'm fine."

"You don't look like it."

She smiled. "Well, I am. I just need some time to adjust to all that's going on in the family."

"It's that d.a.m.ned Timbersmith, isn't it?"

She shook her head. "I don't want to talk about Tim or anything else to do with me." She tilted her head. "I want to talk about you."

She hid a smile as he stiffened and bolted into a sitting position, a wary look in his eyes. "Me? What about me? I'm fine. There's nothing to discuss."

"I'm delighted to hear you're fine."

His eyes narrowed. "Why?"

"Why? We're twins. Remember?"

"Vaguely. So what's your point?"

She laughed. "You are entirely too suspicious, Andrei."

He shrugged. "What do you expect from a vampire?"

Moving across her living room floor, she sat next to him on the sofa, slipping her arm through his. "I need a favor that only you can do for me. Will you do it?"

He pulled away from her and rose to his feet. She watched him stalk over to the patio doors, tension clear in every step he took. He turned to face her, his long, dark lashes sweeping down to conceal the look in his blue eyes. "That rather depends on what you want, doesn't it?"

"It's nothing of any great consequence."

"I'll be the judge of that. What's the favor?"

She shrugged. "A friend of mine has a very important engagement coming up and she needs an escort-" "No!" He shook his head, leveling a pointed finger in her direction. "And no again, Tatiana."

She arched a brow. "You haven't allowed me to finish."

"I don't need to. I can tell you right now that I am not escorting your plain-Jane friend anywhere. So don't waste your time or mine finishing."

"By refusing to meet Coda, you are missing out on a woman I know could be the best thing that ever happened to you!"

"If you don't mind, I'll be the one who decides what's best for me. And I can tell you here and now, that is not your plain-"

She sucked in an angry breath. "That's enough with the plain-Jane comments, Andrei! If I thought for one moment that you meant to be unkind, I'd backhand some manners into you."

He bared his incisors. "Since when do you duck the truth, Tat?"

"It's not the truth!"

"Then why the h.e.l.l can't she get her own date?"

For all his charm and innate kindness, Drei was still stuck on looks. Why else would he refuse to meet Dacoda while jumping to do the bidding of the bony, flat-a.s.sed, t.i.tless Veelee? "Okay, so she's not supermodel gorgeous, but then most women aren't. That doesn't make them any less desirable or worthy of love and affection."

"Worthy of whose love? Whose affection?" His gaze narrowed. "No matter how much you go out of your way to imply I'm fickle because I like pretty women, I will not be shamed into dating your friend. If she can't land her own dates, let her hire a professional escort. With the overblown salary you pay her, she should be able to afford it."

She tightened her lips. "Andrei, you are being totally impossible! Dacoda is executive editor of two of my most popular magazines. Do you know how much work that job demands of her? Do you know how much of herself and her time she pours into each and every issue? She earns every penny I pay her."

"Then let her use some of her well-earned salary to get herself a date for her d.a.m.ned reunion!"

She tossed her head, sending her hair cascading around her shoulders. "It's not as if I'm asking you to become her lover."

"Not yet, you're not," he shot back. "But I know you. If I give in and agree to escort her, the next thing I know, you'll be tossing her in my face every chance you get. And I am not having that, Tatiana. I will pick my own woman."

"I've given up trying to get you to stop judging women by their looks, Andrei. I'm not asking anything except that you help the person who helped me when I needed the understanding and comfort only a woman can provide. You were there for me when Tim and I broke up and I love you for that, but having never had your heart broken, you couldn't understand my pain. Even if you had... women feel things differently than men do. She crawled into my pit of despair with me and lessened my hurt by a.s.suming some of it herself. Even in hundreds of years, friendship that deep happens rarely and needs to be cherished."

She paused, taking a moment to overcome a wave of pain at the memory of being rejected by her lover of three years when she confessed that instead of being a wealthy thirty-something publishing magnet, she was an over-three-hundred-year-old fullblood vampire. Despite Tim's recent pleas for forgiveness, she was uncertain if she was prepared to entrust her heart to him again. Even if she did, the sweet memory of her encounter several weeks earlier with Eric Jason taunted and teased her. How could she want them both at the same time?

"So she's a great friend, why does that follow that I have to accompany her anywhere?"

Andrei's brusque question interrupted her morose thoughts. She blinked. "From the moment I told Coda what I was, she accepted me. Of course she was surprised..." She shrugged. "Shocked and a little disbelieving, but never disgusted. She fully accepts me. When I needed her, she was there for me. How can I not try to return the favor and help her? If you knew how much grief that family of hers gives her, you'd understand why she can't show up without a handsome man on her arm."

"If her family treats her badly, then she's better off telling them to f.u.c.k off and washing her hands of them. Why should she go out of her way to give herself grief by trying to placate a bunch of idiots?"

"Because they are her family! You, of all vampires, know the importance of family.

Remember how miserable we both were when we were trying to deny who we really were because that meant distancing ourselves from Sei and Vlad?

"When all is said and done, family is all there is. It doesn't matter if you are vampire or human, it all comes down to the importance of family."

"Really?" He gave her a long, probing look.

She steeled herself, certain he was going to come back at her with a question she'd find difficult to answer. "Yes," she said slowly, only just resisting the urge to probe his thoughts.

"Then why didn't you forgive Mother at the celebration of the birth of Sei's daughters?"

The question, totally unexpected, caused her to suck in a quick, painful breath. Days earlier, she and Drei, along with the rest of the family and close friends, had gathered at Aleksei's mansion to celebrate the birth of his twin daughters Pali and Lexi.

Because those with vampire blood, whether full, half-blood or latent, rarely had the privilege of having children, each birth was a cause for great celebration. All available family and friends gathered to watch the birthing. Afterwards, those gathered engaged in a s.e.xual fest that her younger siblings quaintly called a family f.u.c.k fest. Each person attending usually had the pleasure of f.u.c.king and ingesting the blood of their own partner as well as that of their siblings' bloodl.u.s.ts.

Although the thought of f.u.c.king her younger sister Katie's bloodl.u.s.t Mark and maybe Vlad's bloodl.u.s.t Adam had intrigued Tat, she had been in too much turmoil to remain for the s.e.xual festivities. She had recently learned her belief that her mother had deserted them, held for well over three hundred years, had been incorrect.

She gave Drei a cold look. "What's the matter, Drei, annoyed because you couldn't stay and f.u.c.k Erica and Derri until they walked bowlegged for weeks?" The women were the bloodl.u.s.ts of their younger siblings, Mikhel and Serge Dumont. Both baby vamps were fortunate enough to have a human latent father, Matthew Dumont, who showered them with all the love and protection that Tat, Drei, Aleksei and his twin Vlad had been denied when their father had been murdered some three hundred and fifty plus years earlier.

The annoyance in Andrei's blue eyes vanished. A lecherous smile touched his handsome face as he reached down to fondle the outline of his c.o.c.k lying along the inside of one leg. "Erica is a pretty, fertile young blonde honey. She got pregnant almost immediately after Mikhel f.u.c.ked her for the first time." His smile widened. "Derri doesn 't appear nearly as fertile, but d.a.m.n, she's a hot vixen. No wonder Mikhel is halfway in love with her."

She frowned. "Mikhel is in bloodl.u.s.t with Erica."

He shrugged. "Did I say he wasn't?"

"Then what are you implying?"

"Hey, you're old enough to know that love and bloodl.u.s.t are not the same creature, Tat. He's in bloodl.u.s.t with Erica, but I'll be d.a.m.ned if he's not more than a little in love with Derri. Didn't you see the way he looked at her, as if he could eat her up? I'll bet he's f.u.c.ked her almost as much as Serge has. You can just look at her and know she has some delicious p.u.s.s.y. Little brother Serge has a hot mama in his Derri."

"And Dani?" She asked, thinking of Aleksei's bloodl.u.s.t.

"Oh, I won't neglect her. Vlad tells me she's a sweet f.u.c.k.""And Adam?" Adam was Vlad's bloodl.u.s.t.He gave her an annoyed look. "I don't do men, but you haven't answered my question. If family is so important, why didn't you forgive Mother?"

Her lips quivered. "I should have. She didn't abandon us." She sighed. "But after allowing myself to almost hate her for so long... it's difficult to feel anything... real for her."

"It wouldn't be if you hadn't left so quickly.""What do you mean?"He shrugged. "She looked so small and so...hopelessly sad after you left...andsince she didn't actually abandon us, there's no reason to prolong her agony. Is there?" "No." "So I think I'll go see her...soon."