A. Arthur - Passion's Prey

Bianca went deep, taking his full length in her mouth and humming just the way he taught her. Spirals of pleasure soared up his spine, and Darel let out a little gasp. He might not trust this bitch but she could certainly give good head. Absently he touched a hand to the back of her head, grabbed a fistful of hair, and yanked. “Do it again!” he yelled.

She smiled, her lips still wrapped around his length, and ducked her head once more.

This was where he wanted to be … for the moment. As for tomorrow, Darel would just have to see, but his future was already looking much brighter.

One Week Later

X and Caprise walked into mayhem. After deciding that their home would be X’s apartment and they would both visit Havenway daily to do their new jobs—Caprise as a guard in training and X as commanding officer and intel supervisor—they’d slipped into a comfortable routine.

Going back to the FBI hadn’t been an option for X. Seeing the damage the Rogues could do on the streets in the last couple of months had proved to him that working from the FBI wasn’t going to stop this new war that was being waged. What they learned from Elder Alamar and Baxter proved that this battle was going to grow, and for them to stop it they’d need all hands on deck. As Rome and Nick’s firm provided the bulk of the finances to the Stateside Assembly so far, X figured his best contribution was to work full-time in developing new technology to help support their endeavors. And this way he could keep an eye on his mate, the one who was determined to become a guard even though she’d also accepted a part-time teaching position at the Dance Institute of Washington.

They’d been home for about two hours when Kalina had called Caprise. Ary was officially in labor.

So, packing an overnight bag, they’d headed back out to Havenway—and had just arrived to pure chaos.

Shifters stood to the side as Nick gave orders. Rome had been just coming down the hallway as they entered. He looked to X and shared a knowing sigh. Both men moved to Nick, clapping hands on either of his shoulders.

“Come on, let’s go get a drink,” Rome said.

“No.” Nick shook his head. “I’m going back in there. I’ve got to be with her.”

“Sure you do,” X said. “Let’s just get you calmed down a bit. We’ll let the women go make sure she’s comfortable and we’ll join them in a few.”

Over his shoulder X nodded to Caprise, who smiled as she started down the hallway toward the medical center.

“I don’t want a drink,” Nick continued to argue.

But Baxter, the Overseer who saw and knew every damn thing, had already appeared with a tray. “Have a drink, Mr. Dominick. Dr. Papplin said a couple of hours at best. You don’t want to be worried out of your mind by then.”

Nick, who knew just like the rest of them that ignoring Baxter’s request couldn’t end well, took the glass from the tray. He drank until it was empty.

“Happy now?” he asked all that were looking at him.

Rome shook his head. X chuckled.

“You’re a smooth talker in the courtroom and a definite player when you were on the prowl for women, but now you seem to be losing your cool. Where is the Nick Delgado we used to know?” X asked.

“Ha. Ha. Very funny,” Nick said snidely, turning so that they would be walking toward the medical center. “You have no idea how this feels. It’s not like anything I’ve ever expected.”

“A lot of responsibility comes with having a child,” Rome told him.

“That’s why we’ve got to get these Rogues in check, man. The world has to be safer for my daughter,” Nick said sincerely.

“I hear that,” X told him. “And we’re going to get it together. We’re not going to let anything happen to her.”

The three men walked into the medical center side by side, ready to face whatever happened next, just as they’d always done.

Two hours later Ary pushed one last time. With a scream that threatened to break the small windows in the room and any other glass item, Shya Delgado was born.

Shya echoed her mother’s sentiments by letting out a huge wail of her own.

Beside Ary, holding her hand and leaning forward to kiss her lips, was Nick. “She’s gorgeous,” he told his wife when Dr. Papplin held the baby up for them to see.

Ary, who was drenched in sweat, lifted her head, breath still heaving, and cried, “Perfect. Look at her, Nick, she’s absolutely perfect.”

“I’ll bring her right back,” Dr. Papplin said, taking the Delgado baby over to an incubator they had set up just in case they should need it. By this time they had four nursing assistants in the medical center. Gisela was their most experienced and she tended to Ary.

Although this was not a human baby, Papplin still performed the Apgar testing. He watched her activity, posture, breathing, behavior, and color. All looked normal at the first minute of evaluation. As he waited for the next recording at five minutes Papplin touched along her spine. He counted her fingers and her toes and looked at her eyes once more. They were blue, which wasn’t terribly abnormal. Lots of babies were born with blue eyes that later changed to their permanent color. He aspirated her, checking her nasal cavity and her mouth for any blockages. She was breathing just fine and had stopped crying immediately. Now she lay quietly staring directly at Papplin even though he was sure he was nothing more than a blob to her. Except her glare looked way too clear.

At the five-minute mark he recorded her results, pleased with the perfect score. He was about to take her over to her proud parents because he knew they were getting anxious and the last thing Papplin wanted was to endure Nick’s wrath. But something told him to take a blood sample—something like the fact that the Assembly had voted to store samples of every shifter’s DNA. He quickly found a needle, clamped on a vial, and pricked a tiny vein in Shya’s foot. He almost looked away since this was a normal task, but something kept his eyes riveted on that vial.

“Is everything all right?” Nick asked from behind him.

“Ah, yes. Yes,” Papplin said, sure his tired eyes were simply playing tricks on him.

He finished, labeling the sample and setting it aside. Wrapping the gorgeous little girl in a pretty pink blanket already provided by her mother, he carried her over and placed her in Ary’s arms.

“Hello, Shya,” Ary said.

Nick leaned over both his lovely ladies, kissing his daughter on the forehead. “Hello, my precious little girl.”

And as they cooed and ahhed over this joyous event, Dr. Papplin took the vial of blood and carried it back to his office.

Three Months Later

The Grand Ballroom at the Willard InterContinental in Washington, DC, was the location for the kickoff to President Wilson Reed’s reelection campaign. As staunch supporters of the current president and his administration, Reynolds & Delgado had purchased a table of ten seats to the fund-raising event that started at seven thirty on a chilly winter evening.

Priya Drake, columnist for The Washington Post, with her sights on becoming a White House correspondent in the very near future, covered the president’s first reelection fund-raiser with all the zeal of an ambitious reporter. She’d stuffed her press pass into the small beaded purse she carried, after showing it to be allowed entrance. In her palm was a small handheld recorder that she cupped expertly so when she was speaking into it—taking her notes for the column—it would appear she was only coughing or otherwise covering her mouth. Not everybody needed to know that whatever they said or did around her was subject to appearing in black-and-white print come tomorrow morning.