Night Game (GhostWalkers #3)(51)
Author: Christine Feehan

“So low frequencies. You think the plants absorb and possibly retain low-frequency notes in their makeup?”

“As well as high acoustical sounds. Like laughter. Like screams. The low murmurs we hear and the edge of violence.”

He brought her hand up to his mouth, his teeth nibbling gently at her knuckles. He seemed unaware of his action, but she felt it all the way down to her toes. Her stomach did a series of interesting little somersaults. She tried to be analytical about the strange sensation, but all she could think about was the feel of his teeth and tongue on her skin.

“So you caught something repeating back from the past that had to do with Joy? Where? What?” His teeth nipped the end of her finger, a tiny stinging bite instantly gone when he drew her finger into the warmth of his mouth.

Her breath hitched but she couldn’t quite bring herself to pull her hand away from him. She heard her accelerated heartbeat, but it meant she was alive, living, able to experience whatever she could before time ran out. She wanted to be with Raoul Fontenot, tonight, this night, when her world had once again crashed and she’d failed vet another human being. She wanted to lie beside him and feel his heat and his solid body, to let him comfort her in the darkness.

“I heard Joy cry out. She begged someone not to hurt her. Most of what he said was very unintelligible, but I caught something about her coming to enjoy the things he would do to her. I don’t think whoever took her meant to kill her, at least not right away. I think if we work fast enough, we have a chance of finding her alive.”

“But you have no clue who the man was?”

“None. The more I tried to listen, the less I heard. The bottom line is, we have to find Joy Chiasson. I won’t be able to live with myself if we don’t. I believe she’s alive and I think she’s in the hands of a monster.”

“Then we have to search together. Where did you hear this?”

“Just outside the Hurican before I went in to sing. She was there.”

“Everyone knows that, she never made it home from the club. You’re not going back to the Hurican to try to tempt every pervert there to follow you home.”

“I wasn’t tempting perverts.”

“That’s exactly what you were doing.” His teeth nipped a little harder at her finger but before she could protest, his tongue swirled around to ease the slight ache. “You were trying to draw out whoever took Joy and make them come after you. You had no backup, no real plan, no help whatsoever.”

“So what’s your big plan? I don’t see hanging out in the clubs did you much good. You had less information than I had.”

“I found out that James Parsons lied his ass off to the cops. He isn’t the least bit broken up over Joy’s disappearance, other than the attention it’s gotten him.”

She gave a little sniff of pure disdain. “You didn’t find that out in the club. You met him and we discussed it.”

“Briefly. It was a brief discussion. I have sharp perception when it comes to readin’ people, cher.”

“Only after I said he was a good suspect,” she reminded. “Was there a fire in here? You have scorch marks on the windowsills and around the door. What happened here?”

“Dahlia was here. After the attack on the sanitarium, Nico, one of the men in the GhostWalker squad, brought her here. She has this little problem with energy although she’s working on controlling it.”

Dahlia. Flame remembered Dahlia, a rebel, so very much like herself. Whitney had despised them, even in the early ages when they were barely five years old. Dahlia had been in so much pain, rocking back and forth, the nurses begging Whitney to let her be with Flame or with Lily. Either of them could ease the pain, but Whitney had isolated her, just as he’d isolated Flame. The terrible memories crowded in, memories of unbearable loneliness, of fear arid rage. Memories of the slow realization that Peter Whitney, the man who held absolute power over her, was a monster. Worse, that one moment in her childhood when she’d become aware that a monster had begun to grow inside of her. A small sound of despair escaped. She never opened those doors, never looked back. But it was all there, reaching out with greedy claws to suck her down into a dark hole she remembered all too well.

Flame yanked her hand away from Gator and pushed at him. “Leave. You have to go.” She was going to cry again, she could feel the choking in her throat, the burning in her eyes and the weight pressing hard on her chest. “Hurry. Get out of here.” Because if she sank into that darkness, she couldn’t trust herself and she wasn’t going to take a chance on hurting Raoul.

“Maudit! Stop pushing me away. I’m not going anywhere.”

She buried her face in the pillow. “You have to. You don’t understand how dangerous it is for me to lose control. I can’t stop crying and I’m so angry with Whitney. I try never to think about him because I don’t know if I can maintain discipline. You have to leave. Please, I’m asking you to leave. You don’t know what I’ve done. What I’m capable of doing. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Do you think you’re the only dangerous person here, Flame? I’m like you. I’m worse than you. He developed me into a damn weapon and sent me into a field to test the results without having a clue what would happen. I went like a good little soldier and I did what they told me to do. I killed five people. One was a friend of mine. I injured nineteen others. Try living with that on your conscience. Whatever you’ve done is nothing, nothing compared to that.” He pulled the pillow from her face, bracing his hands on either side of her head to stare down into her eyes. “I murdered them. Men I’d sworn to protect. Don’t talk to me about discipline or danger. I smile and I swallow anger and I back away from anything that might make me lose control. Not now. Not this time. I’m here to stay. You got that? Are you hearing me? I’m not leaving this time. I’m not giving up something I want as badly as I want you because that fils de putin did this to us.”

She shook her head, her fingers brushing his face. Lightly. With tenderness. There was regret on her face. “I don’t even care if he did something to make us want to be together. You’re an incredible man, but you’re a family man, Raoul. You know you want it all. You want a wife and a house filled with children. You deserve that. Wyatt will get married and your children and his children will all be best friends. You can’t want me the way you’re looking at me. You don’t even know me.”