When Jose opened his mouth to speak, he fell eerily quiet and shrugged. Seeming satisfied, Carlos returned his attention to Rider. "Jack Daniel's and cigarettes got your senses off, hombre. You need to chill."
"Jack Daniel's ain't got nothin' to do with it. I know what I know. Something ain't right."
"Maybe we're all just a little taxed," Marjorie offered. "Carlos has been - "
"Acting strange," Shabazz muttered. "Say what you want to, and my job is to groom a male Neteru, but I ain't having a potential vamp flux in here with newbies. Call it misplaced paternal instinct, but something is making the hair stand up on my arms. Dig?"
"So, now I have to sleep in the equipment shed like a dog?" Indignant, Carlos stormed down the steps. "Then at least give me a vehicle so I can drive to a motel."
His gaze went to Marlene's and then Damali's. Both women were impassive, and it totally floored him that Damali had remained silent throughout the exchange.
"Rider and Shabazz are right," Damali finally said.
"What!" Carlos was so angry that he could feel his own breath singe the hairs within his nose on each breath.
"If there's any flux happening, innocent or otherwise," Damali said, unsheathing her baby Isis, "then maybe you'd better come home with somebody who can deal with it."
Carlos almost smiled. He gave the team his back to consider, catching Berkfield's pained expression before he turned around.
"If you're injured," Berkfield said, beginning to walk down the steps. "Maybe - "
"No," Carlos yelled. "Don't touch me." He then mellowed his next response. "I'm fine. Y'all have put me out of the house, so, fine. I don't need anything from anybody." He waited, watching Berkfield remain on the step, unmoving. The last thing he needed was for a healer with sacred blood running through his veins to attempt to lay hands on him. He didn't know what the repercussions of that would be, and would make it a point not even to shake Berkfield's hand until he knew.
"Carlos," Juanita said, coming down the steps past the others. "Listen, it's not like that, okay?"
Carlos tilted his head as he watched her come closer. A thousand thoughts ran through his mind and captured it... Oh, Juanita, ya don't want none of this...
She froze in the path, just like the deer had, and then began backing up the steps one at a time. "But, uh," she said, slowly recovering, "we've got kids in the house. Try to understand."
"Yeah, man," J.L. said, placing a possessive arm around Krissy's shoulders. "That's the only reason people are tense. I mean, with the contagion, and all, who knows how bad any of us is gonna get - and you're stronger than any of us, if you flux out, or something. It ain't personal."
Dan nodded and body-shielded Bobby. "Don't take offense. They can't deal with it. That's the only reason, man."
"Oh, f**k all that," Inez said, her eyes narrowing on Carlos. "I don't like how the man looked at Juanita in front of my girl!"
Inez was practically down the steps, and were it not for Big Mike's hand on her shoulder, she would have been. Up to this point, Inez had been skittish, but was spiking a battle surge within him. He hadn't banked on Inez having the leanings of being a seer, not to mention, he forgot that she was Damali's cut-buddy. Inez was also from the 'hood, and had street sense to hone the other gift she obviously had. Right now she seemed ready to go down for her girl over a respect principle. So be it.
"Let her go," Carlos said, his tone even and lethal. "I didn't look at Juanita no kinda way, and if Jose was cool with it - "
"But I wasn't," Marlene said in a flat tone. "He stays out of the house until daylight hours."
Damali gave Marlene a knowing glance. "In the morning, we pack and move out. Everybody get some rest. We're going back to L.A."
He couldn't believe his good fortune. Carlos kept his gaze out the window of Damali's Hummer as they made their way down the road. He used an attitude as a shield to keep her from seeing his overwhelming relief. They'd be off this prayer dirt in no time. It was making him sick.
She jumped out of the Hummer without looking at him. She'd fled it so quickly that she'd practically forgotten to turn off the engine.
"Strip," she ordered, using her short blade as a pointer. "Right here in the front yard. Then I'm gonna douse your clothes, and I want you to see what happens to them when I do. Then you'll be able to understand why everybody is just a little bit nervous around you, brother."
"All right," Carlos said, allowing a half smile to tug at his mouth. "You're the boss," he added, slowly hopping down from the Hummer and pulling his shirt over his head. He held out the ripped T with two fingers and dropped it, as though providing her with a slow striptease. He bent to unlace his Tims, but steadily kept his eyes on her as he straightened and stepped out of them, then kicked them near his ruined shirt.
It was something she'd seen him do more times than she could count, but for some reason, tonight, his slow undressing was so sensual that he might as well have been doing a male version of the Dance of the Seven Veils in her front yard.
Damali's gaze traveled across his broad shoulders and the sculpted form of his chest, lingering on each bulge of defined abdominal muscle packs. His skin seemed like fired bronze in the moonlight. She couldn't help staring at his hands as they took their time unfastening the top button of his jeans. Reflex made her lick her lips as his hand slid his zipper down. Her mouth went dry, her face flushed hot. A hard shiver made her belly clench as he rolled the denim fabric away from his body as though peeling back an onionskin. Just looking at him had made her so wet that she feared the emulsion between her thighs would soak through her pants.
She couldn't move as she watched him; didn't want to move. Oh, yeah, he'd blown her mind with sexy vamp drama in the past, but she'd never almost fallen over at his antics from twenty-five feet away. Her skin felt damp and warm, and before she knew it she was breathing out of her mouth in short sips. Maybe Marlene was right, all they needed to do was sync up... and man oh man was she ready to sync and squash whatever had been between them. This was the sexiest shit he'd ever done to her.
Carlos yanked his pants down his thighs slowly, and let them slide the rest of the way to his feet. His intense gaze held her in place as he casually kicked them toward the other clothes that lay in a pile. She was not looking at his face. Her jaw went slack, her heart seemed to stopped for a few seconds, it was beating in arrhythmia for sure... It had been a while, but she didn't remember hombre being hung like that!