Drake Sisters 04 - Dangerous Tides

simply accepted it as being integral to his nature.

    He was all too aware of her sitting across from him. Desire spread like fire, leaping through his body, igniting every nerve ending until he was acutely aware of every breath she took. His mind captured and stored every detail, the way she turned her head, the way her hair fell like tousled silk around her shoulders so that he needed to feel it against his skin. Everything about her intrigued him—and it always had.

    He took a sip of wine and allowed his gaze to drift over her with infinite slowness. He could look at her forever. It was silly, really, how much he loved looking at her. He'd discovered the pastime in college Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    when he was bored with his classes. She was so transparent, expressions chasing across her face, her eyes lighting up when she laughed—and there was her mouth. He loved her mouth, the way her lips were full and turned up at the corners. The way she could look sexy with her hair a mess, no makeup and in jeans, like now. Who else could do that? He had a sudden impulse to lean over and kiss her. The taste of her still lingered in his mouth—and mind, making him edgy with need.

    "You're staring at me, Ty." Embarrassed, Libby lifted a hand to cover her sunburned nose. She couldn't wear dark glasses at night and not be conspicuous so he was probably staring at the white raccoon mask around her eyes.

    "Am I?" He had fantasized about her a million times, but he'd never once thought she would be sitting across the table from him looking shy and confused, a soft rose color creeping up her neck to draw attention to her soft skin. "I like looking at you."

    "That's a nice thing to say. Thank you."

    "You're welcome. How much do you know about voodoo?"

    "Voodoo?" Suddenly wary, Libby retreated, pulling back away from him. "I know a little bit. Why?"

    "I just find things interesting and voodoo is a practice with thousands of believers even today. It's total bunk, of course, but the people who practice it are so fanatical they can actually present genuine physical symptoms or even die when they believe they're cursed. It goes to show how powerful our minds are."

    She nodded her head in agreement. "I've seen women who want to be pregnant so badly that they manifest all the signs. The brain is extraordinary."

    "The witch doctor holds tremendous power over his believers and yet in the end, instead of benefiting his followers, he dupes them. When you get right down to it, he's nothing but a con artist."

    "Not all of them, Ty. Many of the witch doctors I've met actually do practice natural medicine and have an extensive knowledge of herbs."

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    "I'll bet they do. Herbs and poisons. That's how voodoo priestesses gained the reputation for raising the dead and creating zombies to use as slaves. The truth is, they gave their victims a potent cocktail consisting of neurotoxins such as the poison of an adder fish, which is one of the strongest nerve poisons known to man."

    Libby nodded. "The clinical drug Norcuron has similar effects and is used in surgery to relax the patient's muscles. The poison from the pufferfish would cause severe neurological damage primarily affecting the left side of the brain which controls the speech, memory and motor skills. The victim becomes lethargic and then seems to die. By the way, he's still awake to witness his own funeral and burial."

    "You haven't by chance performed this ceremony have you?" Ty asked.

    She smirked at him. "Along with the pufferfish poison, the potion contains gland sections from the bouga toad, which basically are the drugs bufogenin and bufotoxin. The compounds are fifty to one hundred times more potent than digitalis and are essential ingredients, for making a zombie. The secretions also contain bufotenine, which is a hallucinogen."

    "So not only do you know your drugs, but you know how to make a zombie."

    Libby smiled at him. "Like you, I find quite a few subjects fascinating."

    Tyson let his breath out slowly. She wasn't getting the correlation between the witch doctor and her family. She was extremely intelligent, but like the practitioners of voodoo, she had grown up completely brainwashed.

    "Don't you find it the least bit embarrassing as a doctor to have to explain your family to other people?"

    He asked so casually at first she