were seeking to cool as much of herself as she could.
Even from across the way, he could see her sex gleaming—and the wave of lust that came over him was so great, it brought him to his knees.
As he hit the floor hard, she tried to shut the door and mumbled something.
“Oh . . . God,” he said under his breath. “The needing.”
Driven by an instinct to protect her, even though there was nothing he could do to stop the surging hormones of her fertile time, Boone dragged himself back to his feet and stumbled toward her, his legs sloppy and uncoordinated, as if he were drunk. Bumping into the couch, he threw out a hand to a wall, to a table, to the doorjamb, to whatever he could find—until he fell again and had to crawl on all fours.
“Helania—”
“Shut me in . . . shut me inside . . . leave if you can . . . I didn’t know, I swear to it . . .”
Putting out his arm, he stopped the door from hitting one of her legs, the position of which seemed to be unknown to her. Then he flopped back against the doorjamb and tried to connect to his rational side through his own nearly overpowering hormonal response.
Vampire females were only fertile about every ten years or so, and that was a blessing. When their needing hit, as Helania’s clearly had, they suffered terrible sexual cravings, the torture so great that most, if they were not trying to become pregnant, asked to be drugged. The only other solution, outside of being put out of their misery medically? A male had to service them by easing their cravings in the carnal way.
Filling them up over and over again.
“Go . . .” she mumbled through her tangled hair. “I’m so sorry, go . . .”
“I’m not leaving you.” And not just because it was daylight. “Do you want me to call the doctors?”
As a human, Manny could drive over. Bring drugs. Ease her suffering—
No, wait. Doc Jane. Yes, a female would be better.
When Boone went to get up, he didn’t have enough coordination to make it to the vertical, so he crawled back into the bedroom. Finding his slacks, he fished through the pockets. No phone. Where was his fucking phone? He’d had it when he’d come in the apartment because he’d been talking to her on it, for fuck’s sake.
On all fours, he went back out into the living area, shuffling along the floor, bunching up the throw rugs, trying to ignore the way his cock bobbed while gritting his molars against his own sexual need. He went back to the sofa. Patting around, he searched through the needlepoint cushions—
When he finally found the goddamn thing, his hands were shaking so badly, he struggled to pick it up and hold it. And then he realized he didn’t have the number to the clinic.
“Motherfucker!”
* * *
It was strange how you could miss the living sure as if they were dead.
As Butch sat by himself in one of the training center’s interrogation rooms, he was at a table that had been screwed down to the floor. The chair he’d parked his butt in, on the other hand, was moveable—although only because he’d released it from its own four-point tether with a Phillips head. There were three other ass palaces, and he was prepared to offer a similar liberation as a courtesy to anybody who came down here to join him.
The fact that he was alone in this makeshift think tank was what made him think about his former partner, José de la Cruz.
Or, like, miss his former partner. Or, fine, maybe the word was more “mourn.”
“You should be here, José,” he said out loud.
Refocusing on the opposite wall, he let his eyes wander around the gruesome display he’d made on each of the killings at Pyre. Going from left to right, he’d started with killing number one. Under that roman numeral, he’d Scotch-taped the articles that had been in the CCJ sequentially, with the most recent one at the top. No photos. No real notes.
See, if he’d still been with the Caldwell Police Department, he would have the incident report and all the attendant documentation to work with. The crime scene photographs. Evidence taken in. Names of witnesses, suspects, etc.
Hell, maybe he’d have been the one assigned to the case.
But nope.
Under roman number II, he had some details about the second killing listed: “Female, Isobel, blooded daughter of