Argeneau Vampire Series
Book 20
Lynsay Sands
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Publisher: Avon
Number of pages: 384
Avon Romance | Amazon | BN
Book Description:
Take a road trip with the undead . . . in this latest in the argeneau series by New York Times bestselling author Lynsay Sands
For Basha Argeneau, anything is better than facing her estranged family. Even hiding out in sweltering southern California. But when a sexy immortal in black shows up determined to bring her back to the clan, she'll do anything to keep far, far away from the past she can't outrun.
Marcus Notte isn't here to play games—especially not with someone as crazy as the infamous blonde. Asked by Lucian Argeneau to bring her back for questioning, Marcus is determined to carry out Lucian's request—no matter how the seductive little mind-reading vamp feels about it.
Basha doesn't mind fighting fire with fire, especially with a hot immortal involved. But if he wants to take her away, he'll have to catch her first . . .
Excerpt: Chapter One
Divine saw her latest customer out, surprised to
note that there was no one outside her door waiting for a reading. It was the
first time that day that there was no line outside her RV. A glance at her
watch explained why-- it was dinnertime. That was the only time she ever had a
lull in customers. Right now the food stalls would have ridiculously long line
as everyone at the fairgrounds converged on them in search of greasy treats to
power the rest of the evening’s rides and fun. Which meant she had a few
minutes to catch her breath and relax a bit.
She’d barely had the thought when she spotted a
couple of women moving purposefully toward her trailer. After a brief
hesitation, Divine quickly flipped the “Back in five minutes!” sign, let her
screen door slide closed and descended the few steps to the ground. Ignoring
the fact that the women were looking alarmed and rushing forward, she slipped
around the side of her RV. Most customers would have stopped then, sagged with
disappointment and waited, probably impatiently, but waited just the same, so
Divine was a little surprised when her arm was grabbed from behind. She was
more surprised, however, by the strength in the hand that latched onto
her…until she turned and noted that it wasn’t one of the women at all, but a
man.
A couple inches taller than her, dark haired and
good-looking, he was built like a linebacker. He was also looming over her,
deliberately invading her space in a threatening manner as he growled, “What
the hell did you say to my wife?”
Divine rolled her eyes with exasperation, wondering
how she was supposed to know since she didn’t know who his wife was. She was
about to say as much, but then realized that there was something familiar about
the man and quickly dipped into his thoughts. A heartbeat later she was
relaxing.
“Allen Paulson,” she murmured his name, getting an
almost childish satisfaction when his eyes widened incredulously.
“How do you--?”
“I told your wife that you were having an affair
with your buxom, blonde, twenty year old secretary, Tiffany,” Divine
interrupted sharply, silencing him at once. “I told her that this Tiffany was
pushing for marriage and that you, not wanting to lose her, but unwilling to
give up your wife’s money preferred widowhood to divorce. I told her about your
plans to bring about that widowhood on your upcoming vacation. I believe it was
either her drowning or suffering a fall while camping in Yosemite National
Park?” She tilted her head. “As I recall that trip was scheduled for this week,
wasn’t it?”
When his mouth dropped open and his hold on her arm
eased, Divine added, “I’m guessing by the fact that you’re here rather than in
Yosemite, that she listened to my advice to make an appointment with her lawyer
the next morning to change her will as well as remove you as the beneficiary on
her life insurance.”
His hand dropped away, falling limply by his side.
“No doubt she also listened to my advice and hired a
private detective. I gather she sent him to get photographic proof of your
infidelity at that cheap little motel you like to take your secretary to
everyday at lunchtime?” She slipped into his thoughts briefly, read the answer
in the chaos there, and smiled with satisfaction. Not only had the wife done
that, she’d then taken the proof straight to a good divorce lawyer. The woman
was now safe and on her way to being single again. After that, though, the
woman had told her dear hubby that the fortune teller at the carnival was the
one who had given her the heads up and put her on this path and it had been the
best twenty bucks she’d ever spent. Which was why Divine now had an irate and
soon to be divorced and destitute husband on her hands.
Divine waited, braced for the man’s anger. But
instead of the explosive rage she expected, he asked in a small, frightened
voice, “How did you know? No one knew. I didn’t tell anyone what I planned. Not
even Tiffany.”
“Did you even bother to read the sign when you
walked your wife to my trailer that day two weeks ago in Pahrump?” she asked
with amusement and then reminded him, “Madame Divine. Let her do a reading and
define your future,” she reminded him.
“Yeah, but that’s just… It’s a scam,” he protested.
“You’re a carnie. You just scam people out of their money for a laugh.”
“Yes, of course ,” Divine agreed coldly, and then
tilted her head. “So why aren’t you laughing?”
Allen Paulson flinched as if she’d struck him, and
then his awe and dismay gave way to the rage she’d expected earlier. Divine saw
it roll over him, knew he was about to blow his top without the need to read
him, but slipped into his thoughts anyway. It was like cutting through soft,
half melted butter with a ceramic knife. The man was so angry his thoughts were
wide open. Divine wasn’t terribly surprised to read that he’d brought a gun
with him and planned to use it. She waited until he’d pulled the weapon from
inside his jacket and raised it, though, before reacting. In fact, she let him
get so far as to put his finger on the trigger before snapping her hand out,
latching onto his throat and lifting him off the ground. She then whirled and slammed
him against her RV.
When the gun fell from his hand and he moaned in
pain, she released him. The man fell like a rag doll. He landed on his ass with
his legs splayed, a dazed expression on his face, and Divine immediately
dropped to straddle his lap. Gravel ground painfully into her knees, but she
ignored that, caught him by the hair at the nape of his neck, pulled his head
to the side and sank her fangs into his throat.
A little shiver of pleasure slid through Divine as
thick warm blood began to gush from the wound, was collected by her teeth and
passed into her body. It gave her an immediate rush as the nanos in her body
swarmed, eager to collect this new supply of nourishment. The man had jerked in
surprise when her teeth pierced his skin, and he’d raised his hands to try to
push her off, but he never actually got around to exerting any pressure.
Instead, he froze briefly, his mind overwhelmed as hers automatically began to
transmit her own pleasure to him. In the next moment, he was moaning and tugging
at her instead, pulling her closer with one hand, clasping her head with the
other and murmuring encouragingly, “Oh, yeah, baby. Please.”
He was also arching his body under her, rubbing a
sudden hardness against her. Divine usually didn’t cause pain in her victims,
but this one deserved it. She also wasn’t terribly eager to let a man who had
planned to murder his own wife dry hump her there on the carnival grounds, so
she deliberately withdrew the pleasure that she was experiencing and had
unintentionally shared. But she also slipped into his mind to control his
reaction to prevent him from screaming out in horror and pain as his mind
cleared and he became aware of what was happening.
Divine was always careful not to kill her hosts. Why
kill the cow that gave the milk? Besides, killing was wrong, no matter how
despicable the person was, so while she drank more than she normally would
have, she pulled back and freed him at the point when he was weak and woozy,
but long before the man could come close to dying.
Smiling coldly at his horrified expression, Divine
stood, lifting him as she went. Once they were both upright, she released him,
leaving him to lean weakly against the RV rather than have to touch him
anymore.
“Listen carefully Allen Paulson,” she said grimly.
“You will not hurt your wife, or ever again consider harming or killing anyone
for profit or any other reason. If you do, I’ll find out, and then I’ll find
you…” She raised her hand to run one finger lightly over the wound on his neck.
“And then I will finish this meal, cut your head off and leave your cold dead
body somewhere no one will ever find you. Do we understand each other?”
Allen Paulson nodded weakly. The man’s face was as
white as his t-shirt, his eyes almost sunken with horror and he was sliding
slowly along her RV, obviously eager to escape, but afraid to try and be
stopped. Divine scowled. “And if you tell anyone about this, about me,” she emphasized, “I’ll do
worse.”
He began shaking his head frantically and whispered,
“I won’t. I swear.”
She narrowed her eyes, and then her nose wrinkled as
the acrid scent of urine wafted up between them. Glancing down, she saw the wet
spot growing on the front of his trousers and stepped back with disgust. “Get
out of here before I change my mind and
wipe yours.”
Allen Paulson didn’t have a clue what she meant by
that-- she could see it in his expression-- but he didn’t stick around to
ask. He simply nodded wildly and sidled
along the RV for a couple feet before finding the courage to turn his back to
her and run.
“You should have wiped his mind.”
Divine stiffened at those words from behind her, and
then turned slowly. She peered at the tall fair-haired man who had spoken. He
was a greenie, an unskilled laborer and supposedly a local who had been hired
to help out at the carnival while they were in town. The name he went by was
Marco. Divine knew this secondhand, because while she was normally in on the
hiring process, using her “special skills” to help Bob and Madge Hoskins who
owned and ran Hoskins Amusements, this time she hadn’t been here. Family issues
had kept her away and the hiring had been done by the time she’d caught up to
the carnival. Had she been here to help weed out the troublemakers in the
hiring process as she usually did, she never would have allowed Bob and Madge
to hire the man. One, she couldn’t read him, and that was usually a sign of
insanity in a mortal. This leads into the second reason she wouldn’t have hired
him; the man, like herself, was an immortal. She’d sensed that about him quite
quickly. Divine wasn’t sure how she’d known. She didn’t run into a lot of
immortals. In fact, she’d arranged her life so that she wouldn’t. But there had
been a frisson of awareness as she’d first passed him on returning to the
carnival just before noon that day, as if the nanos in her body recognized and
sent signals to those in his. She’d been avoiding him ever since.
But that hadn’t stopped her from finding out all she
could about him. Not that there had been much to learn. He went by Marco, last
name Smith of all things. The women all thought he was a hunk. The men thought
he was practically a God because he was strong and could do the work of four
men, and Bob and Madge were hoping he’d not just help out through their stay in
this town, but travel with them to the next and the next and so on. For
herself, Divine was wary. She had avoided other immortals for a reason and had
been doing so for a very long time. She didn’t like having one around. It made
her anxious and she disliked feeling anxious.
“Don’t you have something to do?” she asked, moving
past the man and toward the back of her RV. The sign she’d turned had said back
in five minutes and that time was up. Besides, she’d snacked on Allen Paulson
and felt better for it. Break time was over.
“You should have wiped his mind,” Marco repeated,
falling into step with her.
“He’ll keep his mouth shut,” Divine muttered,
annoyed, mostly because she knew he was right. The truth was she hadn’t wiped
Allen Paulson’s mind because it was slimy, and she hadn’t wanted to have to
spend any more time inside his mind than necessary. Besides, he deserved to go
through life terrified that she might someday revisit him should he set a foot
wrong.
“And if he doesn’t keep his mouth shut?” Marco asked
as they neared the end of her RV. “What if he goes to the police?”
“If he goes to the police, and if they don’t immediately lock him up as crazy but instead come
to speak to me…” She shrugged. “I’ll wipe his mind, the officer’s mind and
leave this carnival for another.”
“Is that how you landed at Hoskins’ Carnival?” Marco
asked as they rounded the end of the vehicle. “You didn’t wipe someone you
should have and had to move on?”
Divine turned on him sharply, an angry retort on her
lips, but just as quickly caught back the words that wanted to spill out and
merely said with forced calm, “You’re an inquisitive fellow, Marco. It’s not
healthy around here. Carnies mind their own business. I suggest you do the
same.”
Turning away from him, she smiled at the two women
who were waiting in front of her door. Others had joined them. In fact, Divine
now had a line up of a half a dozen people and it was growing by the minute,
but she reserved her smile for the first two only and said, “Which of you would
like to go first? Or shall I take you together?”
“Oh, me first,” one of the women said eagerly. “This
was my idea.”
Divine nodded and led the woman inside, leaving
Marco and all thought of him out on her stoop.
“Here, Mister.”
Marcus tore his gaze from the door Madame Divine had
just ushered her client through and peered down at the small boy tugging at the
top of his pant leg and holding out a half eaten ball of cotton candy on a
cardboard cone.
“Here,” the boy repeated, holding it a little
higher. “I don’t feel good. You can have the rest.”
Marcus arched an eyebrow, but took the cotton candy.
He suspected the boy didn’t feel good because he was stuffed full of cotton
candy, something drenched in mustard, powdered elephant ears and—he considered
the last stain on the boy’s shirt consideringly and then decided it had to be –
ice cream. The kid was a walking menu of everything he’d eaten that day. At
least, Marcus hoped it was all the kid had eaten that day. Otherwise he’d be
wondering if Dante and Tomasso hadn’t fathered the little tyke. They were the
only two people he knew, mortal or immortal, who could have eaten like that as
a boy.
“Danny! What are you doing? Get over here and leave
that man alone.”
Marcus glanced at the woman rushing toward them from
the midway and offered a reassuring smile even as he slipped into her thoughts
to ease her mind that he wasn’t a child molester and nothing untoward was
happening. By the time she reached them, she’d slowed to a fast walk, and was
smiling in a relaxed manner.
“I hope he wasn’t bothering you?” she said
apologetically as she took the boy’s hand.
“Not at all,” Marcus assured her.
The young mother smiled again and then nodded and
turned away with the boy, saying, “Come on, honey. Your daddy is waiting with
your sister in the Ferris wheel line. They’ll be worried.”
Marcus watched them go and then turned his gaze back
to Madame Divine’s RV. The door was closed now as were the blinds. He couldn’t
see the woman anymore, except in his mind’s eye and he was definitely seeing
her there. Madame Divine was more than memorable in her gypsy getup. A white
peasant blouse, worn off the shoulders, a crimson under skirt, a bright teal
scarf skirt, an orange sash tied at the waist with gold chains hanging from it
and tinkling merrily, a wide leather belt and a crimson scarf around her head.
Gold hoops had dangled from her ears, a gold chain hung around her neck,
several gold bracelets dangled from her wrist, and knee high black leather
boots with stiletto heels strapped up the front of her legs had finished the
outfit.
The woman looked damned sexy in the getup, so sexy
in fact that when she’d straddled the would-be wife killer, Marcus had wanted
to pull her off the man and onto his own lap. He’d been rather startled by that
urge. Marcus hadn’t been interested in women for a while. Okay, for a couple
millenia. Still, he hadn’t come across a woman like Madame Divine in quite a
while either. The woman was walking sex in her get up, and his body was waking
up and responding to it.
Obviously he had a gypsy fetish, Marcus thought
wryly. It made as much sense as anything else at the moment. Certainly more
sense than his own life presently did. It appeared at the ripe old age of 2548
he was having a midlife crisis of sorts. That was the only explanation for how
he found himself doing a favor for Lucian Argeneau.
Marcus smiled wryly at the thought. Lucian Argeneau
was not only the head of the powerful Argeneau clan, but also oversaw the Rogue
Hunters and led the North American immortal council. Rogue Hunters were the
immortal police force, they hunted down rogue immortals to be presented to the
immortal council who then passed judgment on them and sentenced them to
whatever punishment they saw fit, often death.
As the head of those two organizations, Lucian could
arguably be the most powerful immortal in North America. It was hard to imagine
him needing anyone’s help. But he did. He was searching for a family member,
his niece, Basha Argeneau, who had been thought to be dead for millennia, but
who may now be alive after all…and whom he feared had gone rogue.
Which is how Marcus had come to find himself at the
carnival, eyeballing the trailer of a woman he couldn’t read and found
incredibly sexy. Not that his not being able to read her bothered him. If this
was Basha Argeneau, she was even older than he was and younger immortals
usually couldn’t read immortals older than themselves. It wasn’t like any of
the other signs of having met a life mate were cropping up, like renewed
interest in food and such. Thank God, because if she had been a possible life mate and was Basha Argeneau…well, that would have been a doomed relationship
from the start. Because Basha Argeneau was considered rogue…and rogues were
executed. The last thing he needed at this point in his life was a rogue life
mate.
“Hey! Marco! Are you going to stand around stuffing
your face all night or help me with the pogo stall?”
Marcus glanced around with surprise to find Kevin
Morrow walking toward him. The twenty-year old carnie was tall and stick-thin,
his face a collection of freckles so thick that from a distance it looked like
a tan. Up close though you saw that his face was definitely freckled, and it
was also presently scrunched up with displeasure, reminding him that he was
only supposed to take a fifteen minute break from helping to man the food
stall.
“I was--”
“Stuffing your face,” the young carnie interrupted
dryly and then turned away, gesturing for him to follow. “Come on. If you’re
hungry you can have a corn dog while you work. It’s probably better for you
than that sugary fluff anyway.”
Marcus blinked and glanced down at the cone with the
half eaten cotton candy the boy had given him several minutes ago. Or what had
been half eaten cotton candy. There was nothing left of the sweet treat now.
Surely he hadn’t eaten it? He hadn’t eaten in more than a millennia. He didn’t
remember eating it. But he did have a sweet taste in his mouth that was rather
pleasant.
“Damn,” he muttered, tossing the cardboard cone into
a garbage bin as he headed after Kevin. He’d eaten it. Couldn’t read Madame
Divine, and was lusting after the woman. Oh, this wasn’t good.
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