Lucinda Betts

Laughter and chatter filled the night, but Dr. Ann Fallon stood silently, the muscles in her neck as taut as a bowstring. She needed this job.

Speckled in silvery lights, geneticists from across the country drank champagne and ate canapés in the moonlit courtyard. The spring breeze caught the banner welcoming the conference to San Diego’s Hotel del Coronado, making the gold letters ripple.

If she landed the professorship, her life would improve a lot—but most importantly, her family would be safe. They could savor the sweet taste of freedom again.

She scanned the crowd, looking for gray hair and stooped shoulders. If she could find Dr. Stoller, charm him like she’d never charmed anyone, convince him she’d be the best biologist Harvard ever hired…

She walked toward the white-linened table covered in Camembert cheese and succulent blackberries. Lush strawberries and thin slices of Edam gleamed in the lantern light. Snippets of dialogue floated over her like flower petals at a wedding.

She allowed the conversations to register. Did anyone mention Dr. Carl Stoller? Two men argued about statistics at the far end of the patio. With hearing no human could match, she listened to an announcement of tenure from behind the open bar, and one woman told another something about panda SNPs by the waterfall. But was anyone talking about search committees? Was anyone gossiping about whom Harvard would hire?

And as she picked up a heavy china hotel plate, she watched her fingers tremble—because her dearest wishes might come true this weekend. Trying not to rely on hope, she ignored the melons and kiwi. She put several succulent blackberries on her plate instead. Turning away from the table, she picked a berry from her plate, anticipating its sweetness.

Before she could eat it though, a half-forgotten scent assaulted her, and if someone had come up and slapped her, the effect would have been the same. She froze, shock and horror icing her veins.
How could that scent be here? How could the predator have found her now, after fifteen years?
Despite her denial, the brooding fragrance inexorably swirled over her palate. Italian bergamot and jacaranda twined around cedar and a twist of vetiver root. It held something else, too, something unnatural. Its magic could ruin her, destroy her. With the slightest crook in his finger, the predator could command her body—and she would love every second of it. Then she would die.

The fragrance cast its thrall even now, even as she inhaled her second breath of it—but refusal made her choke. This couldn’t be happening. Not here. Not now! She’d worked too hard.

The black scent relentlessly permeated her blood though. Its magic crept across her skin like a spider’s feet. The brooding feeling slithered over her nipples and made them hard as sure as her lover’s tongue would have. It snaked between her thighs, over her wrists, behind her ears.

She couldn’t deny the fact. A predator watched her. It watched her as its dark fragrance assaulted her, took it hostage for its own needs. The predator expected her to drop her plate and find his arms, his bed, his hands.

She exhaled and straightened her shoulders. She didn’t have to lay down and accept this. She was no longer the weak girl child she’d been all those years ago.

Slowly, she put the berry back on the plate. Her eyes scanned the crowd as she choked back rage. How had he found her?

Again that preternatural lust heated her blood, and she turned, her ears focused. Was he there by the waterfall? She should run away, but she started toward it, inhaling the sophisticated perfume and the magic it masked. She had to see his face. She needed to see his hands. She wouldn’t imagine them on her stomach, on her breasts. She wouldn’t imagine his fingers around her neck, his cock between her thighs. If she could just get behind the person in front of her—

The sharp squeal of microphone feedback filled the courtyard, and the excited crowd thickened. The waterfall—and the predator behind it—might be on another planet for as much as she could reach it now. A news camera with a CBS emblem on the side panned toward the speaker, and Ann shrank back. Her kind always shrank from cameras.

“Welcome everyone!” A woman’s cheerful voice echoed through the mike. “Welcome to the 23rd annual meeting of the American Genetics Society.”

A smattering of applause filled the courtyard, but Ann stood silently holding her plate as she searched the faces behind the speaker. The AGC president droned, but Ann heard none of her speech. Where was the predator?

That dark sensation danced over her skin again, teasing her wrists and breasts—and someone moved near the waterfall, shifting most of his body behind the rushing water. Her nose caught the faintest whiff of bergamot. Where had he gone?

Catching a glimpse of dark hair, Ann stepped to her left, trying to see him better. He—

Cold fingers touched the back of her shoulder.