Read When Wicked Craves for Free Online

in both the execution and staging areas was not shadow-made. We believe that is a significant lead, sir.”
    “I see,” Dirque said. “And do you have a suspect in mind?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Dirque held up a hand, silencing his nephew. Then he turned his attention from Tariq to Tiberius. “And you, my friend? Do you have a theory as to which of your kind did this thing?”
    For a moment, he thought his rival wouldn’t answer, then he saw the slightest straightening of Tiberius’s spine, the firmness in those cold dark eyes. “Do not mock the enmity that exists between us,” he said. “But yes. I have a suspect in mind.”
    “Who?” Dirque demanded.
    “Nicholas Montegue.” He spoke the name firmly, without hesitation, but Dirque heard the somber note of deep regret that colored Tiberius’s voice.
    He glanced toward his nephew, who nodded agreement, then turned his attention back to the vampire.
    “You call Montegue friend.” It wasn’t a question.
    “I did,” Tiberius said. “I still do.”
    “And yet you condemn him here today.”
    “You know that I have no choice,” Tiberius said, andDirque had to fight not to shrink from the contempt in the vampire’s voice. “For too long we have been following the Oracle’s words. Destroying the monsters that have sought to rip apart the Alliance members. Searching out those who can create such beasts with little more than an ill-timed touch.”
    Dirque made no response. Most of the creatures had been located and terminated before their strength fully developed and before their minds formed enough to allow them a level of subtlety in their attack. In other words, the monsters had raged across the earth, and that made them easy to find and subdue.
    But centuries ago, before the Alliance fully understood the risk, one had survived long enough to catch Thurell off guard and rip the elder troll into so many pieces that even his own mate could not identify the remains. It had been hell keeping the true nature of the attack secret, and more hellish still destroying the monster. In the end, the Alliance had lost sixscore soldiers before they had killed the monster’s maker in a fit of fury and realized in doing so that her death restored the monster to a man.
    It was not a scenario that Dirque cared to see repeated, and the Alliance had suffered no qualms about terminating any female they believed possessed what had come to be known as the Touch
before
she could use such power.
    He saw the irony in the situation, of course. The females were human. And to a human, the shadowers themselves were monsters, and humans would hunt them down and kill them and believe themselves to be saving the world by doing so.
    Humans were fools. Certainly, they did not understand that which was truly monstrous.
    For more than fifty years, the Alliance members had slept soundly, believing that each of the females wielding the Touch had been swiftly and resolutely terminated. But then the Alliance had learned of one whose family line had remained hidden—and stayed hidden until the little bitch had thrust her curse upon Sergius. Sergius might be dead now—and as there was no path of destruction laid across the hills of Los Angeles, Dirque felt it was safe to accept the word of the Division 6 medical examiner, who had tested the remains and confirmed Sergius’s DNA—but the death of the monster did not remove the risk.
    “The girl doesn’t understand the full nature of her power, Dirque, and neither does Nicholas.”
    “That is no defense,” the jinn said.
    “No,” Tiberius agreed. “In fact it may even make them more dangerous. They do not fully fathom the fire with which they play.”
    “Then it is time to tell Nicholas exactly who and what he has taken on.”
    “I agree.”
    “And once he knows, will he surrender the girl?”
    “Knowing Nicholas, I fear not.”
    “What interest can he possibly have in keeping her alive?”
    “Nicholas’s interests are varied and eclectic.