Inside my belly, my wolf pranced. She was in total agreement with any opportunity that allowed us to don our fur form and get frisky. She’d been cooped up way too long, other than short shifts inside our apartment. It wasn’t smart to take her enthusiasm as evidence I was making the rational choice.
But there were no other avenues open to me, so I took her approval at face value. Started planning a heist that seemed inclined to be easy...as long as the local alpha never heard about it.
I dropped my standards in another way also. After hitting a town I seldom visited to purchase supplies, I drove up to the Highlands campus. “Harper lost her inhaler,” I lied in the main office. “She needs a replacement.” They pulled her out of class to chat with me as I’d known they would.
“Is everything okay?” My sister was wild-eyed when she met me in the quad. She knew she didn’t use an inhaler.
“Fine. Here, take this.” I slipped her a shopping bag with everything she’d need in it. Gloves. Burner phone. “I was hoping you could help me out with a job.”
“Yes!” Harper sparkled at this evidence of my trust in her. She’d begged for years to be included in the family business. For years, I’d told her it was too dangerous for the underage.
“What do you want me to do?” she continued. “I can sneak out anytime after curfew. Hitchhike to town....”
I held up a hand before my sister could give me a heart attack. “All I need you to do is to take a call for me. Then drop the phone in the culvert at the west end of campus. Fifteen minutes, then you’re back in bed. Do we have a deal?”
Harper wanted a larger part in the project, but she could tell that was all I was offering. So she shrugged and quieted while I provided the rest of the details.
Which is how, by 9 pm, I was ready to put my plan into action. Wrapping the sparkliest collar imaginable around my throat, I shifted at the edge of the park where a muddy morass made it easy to roll soft fur into matted awfulness. My costume was now complete.
At 9:15, a sad, stray version of myself padded up to the guardroom. Security cameras caught every feature in their databanks, but who would recognize me? It’s not like facial recognition works on wolves.
Bullet-proof—or technology-proof at least—I ignored the surveillance and scratched the glass door panel. Whined. Peered up into the guard’s concerned eyes.
The door opened. The guard was even more covered with dog hairs than he had been last time. Curly, white. They belonged to a miniature poodle, if I didn’t miss my guess.
But the guard wasn’t averse to larger canines. Crouching, he held out a hand toward me—the ultimate in dog-greeting politeness. I sniffed his fingers, pretending to hesitate. Then I let him scratch behind my ears.
“You poor thing.” The guard’s hand was skilled. And in the right position so a twist of my neck tapped him with the tag dangling from my collar.
Just as I’d hoped he would, the guard pinched the metal between thumb and forefinger. Rubbed mud off the digits. “Let’s call your owner and get you cleaned up.”
So, yeah, it was going to be the easiest heist of my career. Would have been, too, if Tank hadn’t shown up.
I DIDN’T EVEN REALIZE anyone else was there until the guard sank back onto his heels. “Two strays?”
I craned my neck and took in the wolf who had padded up behind me when neither the guard nor I was looking. Tank hadn’t mudded up his fur like I had, but body language made his tremendous size inconsequential. In lupine form, his scarred face was endearing rather than wince-worthy. He whined and pinned his ears, shrinking in on himself.
The posture had worked on the testy teenagers, and it worked just as well on the museum guard. “You poor thing,” he repeated.
Invisible to our human companion, I glared at the big, burly wolf who was going to ruin my night, my financial solvency, and my sister’s safety. Then I widened my eyes and curled my lips back in silent warning.
This was my turf. Tank needed to move along.
Not that my lupine half wanted him gone. Even as my lips snarled, my body swayed toward him. I sucked up a deep breath of Tank’s aroma, strong and furry and deeply male.
And that’s what Tank chose to respond to. When I curled my lip, he took a step backward. But then he sank down onto his rump and brushed his plumy tail against the dusty concrete. Cocking his head, he whined a second time, the sound as thready as a pup’s.
No wonder the security guard took out his phone and dialed the number from my tag. Tank, of course, lacked both tag and collar.
So that part of my plan was working at least. Together, all three of us listened to ringing on the other end. Then...
“Oh, please tell me you’ve found Princess!”
I winced. Harper was overplaying it. After all, the guard hadn’t even stated his business.
But he was a dog lover. Maybe he believed that someone missing their pet could be as single-minded as my sister, answering every call from a stranger with a heartfelt plea.
“Yes, ma’am,” the guard replied. “We’re....”
“Oh, thank goodness! Can you believe she jumped a ten-foot fence? I really think she might be in heat....”
Tank’s tongue lolled out. I wanted to grab my sister and shake her. The ten-foot fence part wasn’t even in the realm of possibility. The heat part was just plain embarrassing.
“Ah, so this big mutt dogging her footsteps is looking for a date?” The guard insinuated himself between me and Tank. One boot shot out to nudge Tank sideways, as if the guard intended to protect my canine virtue. As if a dog in heat would be waiting to have sex rather than pouncing the moment a male came within range.
A pause. I hadn’t expected there to be another werewolf present, and Harper wouldn’t know what to do with that information. Hopefully she’d realize I always worked solo. Hopefully....
“Oh, no, you don’t need to worry. Cutie-Pie is neutered. But he’s devoted to Princess. He follows her everywhere. Please, can you lock both of them in then stand on the street so I can find you?”
“It won’t be hard to find me, ma’am.” The guard was reaching in his pocket now for a milk bone. He waved the doggie biscuit in front of my nose.
My stomach rumbled. Tank raised one furry eyebrow. So I’d skipped dinner. It wasn’t as amusing as Tank’s gaping grin suggested. I had a sudden impulse to bite off his tongue.
Or maybe that was an impulse to slide my tongue into his mouth and take what his body language suggested he was offering. I found myself sidling closer. One step, then another, as the guard gave my sister directions she didn’t need.
“I’m at the art museum downtown. The building has big columns out front. It’s really unmissable....”
“Oh, please.” Harper and I had rehearsed this part of her schtick together. “Princess takes her sense of direction after me. I’m really afraid I might miss the museum if you’re not outside waiting for me. And I do so want to pick up my darlings as soon as possible....”
One second before my furry flank rubbed up against his, Tank rose, stretched, and trotted up to the closed door of the museum. The milk bone wasn’t even in front of his nose now. He was terrible at subterfuge.
And...the security guard didn’t notice. Waving his ID against the sensor then pulling the door wide, he continued to soothe my sister. “I understand, ma’am. I’m taking the dogs inside now. How soon can you be here?”
“Five minutes. No, three minutes. I’ll stay on the line. Just, please, protect my fur babies!”
The milk bone descended back to nose level. From inside the guard room, Tank’s eyes twinkled.
He was in and I was out and this was my one chance to steal Marina’s bracer. The only reason not to enter? I didn’t trust Tank...and, even more, I didn’t trust my own reaction to him.
As if responding to my thoughts, Tank barked, a quick yip of impatience. “Come on, Princess,” the guard wheedled.
What could I do? I accepted the treat graciously and trotted inside
.
Chapter 9
A glance around the room made this gig seem easier and easier...as long as Tank stayed out of my way. To start with, a bank of screens broadcasting camera data from inside the museum was fully visible without the need for human fingers to scroll through it. My own lupine face stared back at me from one image...but stepping a yard away from the computer terminal shielded me from view.
Well, that will be easily avoided.
Meanwhile, the door leading from the guard room to the rest of the museum had no swipe plate beside it. So I wouldn’t need to pretend to be dying of thirst in order to get through that barrier.
Scene surveyed, I settled myself in a perfect “Stay” position while Harper gave the illusion of prattling while actually following through on phase two of our plan. “Is Princess okay? I hope she doesn’t look agitated?”
“No, ma’am. Both of your dogs are very well behaved.”
That was Harper’s cue to get the guard outside as soon as possible. So she did, diving back into her concern about a supposedly faulty direction sense. “I suppose I should just get a PGS,” she said, purposefully mangling the acronym. “But I’m so concerned about the radiation damaging my poor doggies’ brains.”
“Don’t worry about it.” The guard patted me once, did the same for Tank who had sunk down beside me, then turned back to the outside door. “I’ll be waiting for you on the front steps. I’m wearing a blue uniform and....”
His voice was cut off by the only real barrier to entrance. I was inside the museum and the guard was outside. It was hard not to be smug.
Still, I waited fifteen seconds just in case the guard remembered something. Then I sidled backwards into the small camera-free zone beside the interior door and shimmered upward into humanity.
My hands were at my throat, pulling items out of the pouch I’d attached to the inside of my collar, when warmth pressed up against my bare back. “What are we doing?”
Ripples of awareness swam through me. Tank was there, behind me. Naked just like I was, our bare skin separated by nothing but air and not much of that. I swallowed.
His voice was irresistible. Even though I knew better, I angled my chin to see what he looked like without any clothes.
Muscles. Shadows. A hint of stubble on his jaw....
He wasn’t looking at me, though. Instead, his face was partially averted. As if my nakedness held no appeal.
Annoyed by my own focus on the immaterial—or, rather, the very material—I swiveled to face my un-asked-for companion head on. “We’re doing nothing,” I snapped back. “You’re pretending to be a good dog while I visit the museum for a couple of minutes. After that, we’re parting ways and will never see each other again.”
Tank totally ignored the part of my statement I’d intended to be incendiary. Instead, he straightened his neck until his face came back into view.
I felt the moment his gaze struck my nakedness. Heat flooded my body and I smelled a surge of awareness emanating from him as powerful as my own.
Okay. Not so uninterested then.
Still, his words were flat. “You’re stealing art from a museum.”
There’d been no overt judgment in his tone, but I responded as if there had been. Fighting was safer than dealing with this whatever spinning between our wolves and our bodies.
“I’m stealing art on loan to a museum. Art belonging to a rich guy. He won’t miss it and neither will the museum.” Because, yes, I’d double-checked the ownership issue. Harper’s needs aside, I didn’t willy-nilly deposit that check.
Tank leaned in a hair closer. His heat pressed up against my chest, my throat, my stomach. We were separated by a millimeter of air space. That distance suddenly felt like far too much.
Until his words slapped me. “When the museum’s insurance premiums go up, they’ll miss whatever you take.”
His business card, I remembered now, had been succinct yet edifying. Tank Morales. Attorney-at-Law. The profession explained why he jumped straight to rising insurance rates. But I had an answer for that as well.
“The rich guy has it insured. The museum doesn’t. That fact was in the newspaper article. A quote of appreciation from a board member. The museum won’t lose out.”
As I spoke, I dropped the small block of wood from my collar pouch to the ground, kicking it close to the door and preparing to wedge the space open for easy retreat. Finally, I shook a mini pry bar out of the pouch, letting it fall onto my palm.
No fingerprints on either item. There wouldn’t be, even after I was finished. Just wolf saliva. My preparations were complete.
“Are we done with the inquisition?” I demanded, preparing to turn the door knob. I was frustrated by my own reaction to Tank’s presence. I needed to focus and the hormone storm inside me was making that difficult.
Taking a deep breath, I ran through the plan one last time. The door knob was the only part I needed human fingers for, and if I smeared as I turned there would be no prints left behind. After that, I would be an unidentifiable wolf. It would work....
“Ready,” Tank agreed, reaching around me to yank the door open. Wedging his body into the gap, he used the back of his hand to smudge away any evidence of his grip.
That solved the fingerprint problem, but a question ripped out of me anyway. “What are you doing?”
The faintest smile pulled subtly lopsided lips upward in a gesture that was almost beautiful. “Every thief needs a good lawyer. I’m coming with.”
THERE WASN’T TIME TO argue. Not when opening this door would make the first warning ping show up on the guard’s cell phone.
So I gave in. Shimmered back down to wolf form in tandem with Tank, falling through the doorway even as the door glided shut.
Or, rather, not quite shut. The wooden block stopped the metal barrier one inch shy of its frame just as I’d intended. Meanwhile, my second tool—the iron pry bar—lay cold against my tongue.
Then I was running, counting down the seconds. I had no way of dodging motion sensors, so I didn’t try to. Which meant the security guard would be getting a second alert right about now. The question was, would Harper be able to talk him into ignoring the double dose of digital caution? How long did we have before he realized notifications were more than a malfunction and alerted the police?
Despite the countdown, I was exhilarated as my nails clicked against smooth marble. The scents of old paint and new floor cleaner curled around me. Tank, at my shoulder, was a presence that felt strangely right.
Then the ancient British exhibit loomed before us. The plexiglass case that covered the bracer wasn’t alarmed or high-tech, its purpose just to shield the art from sticky fingers. My pry bar would do the trick.
I’d practiced this with wolf teeth. Tricky to hold the tool between sharp canines, but doable. Trickier, I found, to try the same while standing up on my hind legs.
The pry bar made my teeth feel brittle. The beveled end should have slid into the crack, but it refused to do so. Instead, the tool bounced off, the other end biting into the soft interior of my cheek.
Despite myself, I whined. This wasn’t going to work. Seconds were ticking by faster and faster. I couldn’t leave Harper on the phone long enough for cops to be alerted and start tracing the call to Highlands....
I huffed out frustration. I’d have to abort.
THEN TANK WAS ABOVE me. His furry body cupped mine far too intimately. As if I really was in heat and he was an animal guided only by the urge for reproduction.
I froze.
He responded by biting me. Gently, on my nose. Not an animal bite. A human bite, telling me to hurry up.
To shift. Use human fingers while his body shielded mine from the inevitable cameras.
That required trusting him. Trusting a male. Worse, a male werewolf. Something my past promised was a very bad idea.
But this wasn’t depending on a guy to watch my back for the long term. This wasn’t signing on the dotted line and giving a drunk access
to my bank account. This wasn’t agreeing to be part of a pack.
No, this was one moment of accepting assistance from a willing companion. I wasn’t so emotionally scarred that I couldn’t do that.
So I slid into humanity. Tank’s fur brushed against my bare skin, making me shiver. Ignoring the sensation, I spat the pry bar into shaking fingers, forced the narrow end into the gap between plexiglass lid and matte black pedestal, then pounded down on the other end of the lever with my fist.
The hinges snapped. The plexiglass lid toppled off. The bracer before me gleamed in the dim light of the glowing exit sign.
I tensed, waiting for Tank to snatch up the precious artifact. After all, why else had he come along? Did he intend to turn me in or take the prize for himself?
Neither. Tank nipped me again, even gentler than before as if he was well aware of the effect wolf teeth would have on the thin, human skin of my shoulder. He hovered above me, a protective presence, while I thrust the pry bar back into my collar—wouldn’t have to leave it behind after all. Then I shifted and plucked up the bracer between lupine teeth.
Only after Tank saw that I had what I’d come for did he leap down and take the lead for our retreat.
We sprinted back through the dark museum together. Retraced our footsteps past the stairs I’d hurried down yesterday in an effort to escape the Samhain Shifters, back through the staff-only hallway, all the way to the door I’d doctored with my wooden door stop.
It was still open. But my conversation with Tank plus my moment frozen by the bracer had added up. Harper must have gotten off the phone just when I told her too...which ended up being one minute too soon.
Because the security guard was coming back through the outside door just as we reached the cracked opening of the inner door. His eyes were trained on the bank of monitors, not noticing that we were mere feet away.
The external door was slowly sliding shut behind him. If we were fast, Tank and I could make it out before it clicked shut and required a shift to humanity to reopen.
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