“I’ll tell you if the time ever comes along. Right now, I’m not interested.”
“Your body chemistry says differently.” Luc arched an eyebrow at her. “But I can ignore the pheromones you’re putting out. For now.”
Was that simple chemistry making her stomach twirl or was it indeed some kind of magic he possessed? “Long enough to do the right thing?”
“The right thing?” he asked. “What would that be?”
“Find the bastard who shot your mother and killed my brother.”
His gaze shifted, and rather than enticing, he suddenly appeared dark and dangerous. “Don’t get involved, Skye. Stay out of it.”
“I am involved. I plan to stay that way.”
Are you really going to let her do this?
Skye realized Luc wasn’t talking to her anymore. He was focused on Shade/Boomer, who twitched against her leg. Standing in the shadows, Luc must have heard everything Shade had said to her psychically while she was talking to his mother.
I’m stuck here, man, and Skye is the only one I trust to help me figure out why.
Skye went speechless for a moment—a rare, rare moment for her—as she realized how swiftly the conversation had gone underground. Luc had communicated with Shade through thoughts as naturally as he spoke to her.
Keep your hands off my sister, Luc.
The way you kept your hands off mine?
I don’t remember—
“Hey, what is this?” Skye demanded. “The two of you are turning this into a testosterone match?”
Sorry.
“Right,” Luc agreed, not looking in the least repentant.
Even so, she pressed the issue. “I’ve already tried bringing Shade’s partner on board, but he’s having a little difficulty with the unusual circumstances of the case.”
“Just as you are.”
“You think? I don’t see anyone in the CPD being able to handle something so, well, woo-woo.”
Luc snickered at that. “You have a point.”
“My point is that you’ll be sorry if you do nothing and the killer comes back to finish the job with your mother.”
A blast of anger shot through her. Not her anger. His. Obviously, she had raised all his protective instincts for his mother.
“All right.”
“All right?” she echoed him.
“I’ll work with you, help you figure it out and bring the bastard to justice. All you have to do is agree to leave my mother out of this. Leave her alone.”
Skye got that they didn’t have the same definition of what justice would be. But this was a step in the right direction, a direction that could help her. Defining justice could wait a while.
“I won’t bother your mother again. Not unless it’s absolutely necessary.” When he didn’t protest the qualifier, she asked, “So who is running the shifter fights?”
His expression closed and Skye couldn’t read him when he said, “I have no idea.”
Which made her believe he did and didn’t like what he suspected. Okay, she could play along with that for the moment.
“Then how do we start?”
“At the casino.” He nodded at the dog. “Without him.”
Hey, I’m the reason for this investigation.
“He’s right, Shade. I have to take you home.”
“And I need to get a security guard over here before I leave to make sure no one gets to Mom while I’m gone.”
“Good.”
“I’ll pick you up in a couple of hours.”
A couple of hours seemed like an eternity, but she didn’t argue. She left the house with the dog at her side. She could feel Luc’s presence behind her as they left. And she sensed him watching them from one of the windows. The sensation followed her all the way to the car before it abated. She glanced back and realized Luc had given his attention elsewhere. Undoubtedly to his mother, who would be glad they were gone.
About to get in the car, she was stopped when the leash jerked out of her hand and the dog went racing off.
“Stop!” she yelled, as she saw an official CPD vehicle parking at the curb directly outside the estate.
But he didn’t stop. He made a weird sound in his throat she’d never before heard. Was that Boomer? Or Shade? What the heck? As she went after him, he stood at the curb, barking and growling at the man getting out of the car.
Skye caught up to him and got the leash.
Shade?
No answer. For the moment, Boomer had control.
The dog was still growling and making whining sounds. “It’s okay, boy, it’s okay.”
“Skye, what are you doing here? And what’s wrong with that damn dog?”
The familiar voice made her start and she looked up at the man who had been Shade’s superior. “Lieutenant Connelly? Um, I came to talk to Elizabeth Reyes. I wanted to find out what she remembered about the night Shade was murdered.”
“We have men in the department who already interviewed her.”
“But Shade was my brother. You understand, right?” Without waiting for his response, she asked, “What is a lieutenant doing working in the field anyway?”
“Seeing that my men are doing their job.”
The dog lunged toward him, and Skye did all she could do to hold him back.
“I’d better get him out of here. Boomer, come.”
Skye practically had to drag him to the car. She felt Connelly’s gaze on the back of her neck. No relief until she opened the door and herded the dog inside. Climbing behind the wheel, she sensed a shift in emotion that told her Shade was back.
“What the heck came over you?”
I don’t know. Instincts. Somehow Boomer got the best of me and I had to hold on.
“Could you tell what Connelly was thinking?”
He was wondering what the Reyes woman left out of her story.
He wasn’t the only one.
Chapter Twenty-One
Luc kept in the background while the cop grilled his mother, but he was ready to move in on the bastard any moment if the cop got out of line.
“For a woman who has a target on her back, it seems to me that you would have an idea about why someone would want to kill you,” Lieutenant Ryan Connelly said.
Luc had seen how the dog had reacted to the man. How had Shade gotten into the dog’s body? That was the question he wanted answered.
“As I told your charming detective the other day,” his mother said, “I actually don’t know that someone has anything against me personally. Maybe it was a random shooting. They happen all the time in this city.”
“But not here.”
“Not far from here,” she argued. “A few blocks west—”
“Is like another city. The most trouble we’ve had down in this neighborhood in the last few years is burglary. This isn’t gang territory.”
Luc sensed Connelly’s growing frustration, and he couldn’t help but wonder why the man had taken it on himself to question his mother.
He was thinking that undoubtedly it had something to do with the casino, when the man said, “Cezar Lazare has a lot of enemies.”
“Maybe,” his mother said.
“No maybe about it.”
Luc went on alert. How much did the CPD lieutenant remember from his most recent visit despite Luc’s effort to erase the man’s memory?
His mother’s smile didn’t falter. “I know nothing about Cezar’s business. I’m not part of his world.”
“You had his kid.” Connelly shot a look to where Luc stood in the shadows.
“More than thirty years ago.”
“And he pays the taxes on this place. Public record.”
Though his mother hid it well, her pulse was racing, and she was having trouble breathing.
“That’s enough, Connelly,” Luc said. “Time for you to leave. My mother needs her rest.”
“Is that right?” Connelly looked directly to her for an answer.
“I’m not feeling myself yet
.” She somehow forced out another smile. “But I will call if I remember anything.”
Connelly got to his feet. “I’m hoping that’ll be sooner rather than later.” He shot another look at Luc, and his tone darkened when he muttered, “Lazare.” Then he headed for the door.
How much did he remember? Though Luc had done his damnedest to wipe the man’s memory, Connelly was one of those anomalies who didn’t conform to the usual casino customer, and Luc couldn’t be sure if his work held on the man. Right now, the cop was nearly impossible to read. He put up some kind of mental barrier, undoubtedly the reason he’d been so successfully resistant.
Luc wondered if that made Connelly something else, too, only he couldn’t figure out what that might be.
“Oh, dear. Thank goodness he’s gone.”
“Mom, maybe you should go upstairs and rest.”
“I don’t need to rest. I need answers. I fear for you and your father.”
Just like her to worry about everyone else. “You know I can take care of myself.” And as she well knew, Pop could take care of anyone who got out of line even more efficiently than he could. “And I’m going to find out who is responsible.”
“With the sister?”
“With her.”
“Are you certain that’s not a mistake?”
“Not certain at all.” Considering the way Skye affected him every time she was near him, Luc should stay away from her for both their sakes. “But she may know something that’ll help me. Besides, if I don’t rein her in, she’ll get herself into even more trouble.”
“You like her.”
“I owe her.”
His mother shook her head. “It’s more than that. I know my son.”
Did she? Luc doubted it. Mom would always think the best of him. Even when he didn’t deserve it. She had no true idea of what had gone on during his time in Iraq—the monster he’d become to survive when his team had been caught in an ambush and the others had been brutally killed. He’d nearly lost his mind then and had used every bit of his Kindred inheritance to reciprocate. And he had always regretted his loss of control.
The security guard he’d called from the casino arrived via the rear door. Luc nodded to him before he hugged his mother.
“I need to get going. You’ll be well protected with Franco watching over you.”
His mother hugged him back, one-armed, holding on to him longer than usual. “Don’t take any foolish chances.”
He kissed the top of her head. “Of course not,” he lied. He would do anything, put himself in any harm’s way, to protect her.
Just as he now would protect Skye with his own life.
Leaving the house, he climbed into his black Jaguar and eased it around the circular drive and out onto the street.
He did like Skye Cross. He hadn’t wanted to admit as much, but it wasn’t only sexual. She was fierce and soft and tenacious and brave, unexpected nuances he admired. That was the problem. He shouldn’t like her. She was human. Well, mostly, anyway, and the other part that she was discovering about herself was the antithesis to everything that was his father’s heritage. Plus, she couldn’t possibly understand what he’d been through. She hadn’t been raised with questions and choices bombarding her every time she turned around. She’d at least known what she was about. Until now.
Now she knew she was something else. What was she going to do about it?
What was he going to do about his own situation?
Though he had passed puberty half a lifetime ago, though he’d been tested beyond endurance during the war, he still hadn’t chosen which world he truly belonged to, his very lack of decision keeping the Kindred at bay. The others treated him with respect because of Pop, and because instinctively they knew he could be more dangerous than they ever thought to be. But other than Pop and Nuala—and Jez, before she’d been so brutally slaughtered—they didn’t welcome him into their world. Not even his brother. Nik probably wouldn’t waste a thought for him if he simply disappeared and never came back. It hadn’t always been that way, but Luc wasn’t foolish enough to think he and Nik could go back in time and be friends again. Once Luc had wanted to do everything Nik did, wanted to be everything Nik was. But they weren’t children anymore.
Truthfully, Nik worried him. He’d asked his brother outright if he was running the shifter fights and Nik had avoided answering. Because he’d wanted to make Luc sweat or because he was guilty?
Luc still couldn’t believe Jez had been forced to fight to the death. Sweet, caring Jez, who had been Luc’s only childhood friend and staunch ally growing up in his father’s world. She’d been an anomaly, too, if in the other direction from a human predator like Connelly. She hadn’t deserved what she’d been put through.
It all had to be connected. The shifter fights. Jez. Shade. His mother.
His biggest fear was that it all led back to him somehow.
And he wouldn’t be able to stop the next death.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Skye knew it would be a couple of hours before Luc would pick her up, but she was so anxious to get started she was on her last nerve by the time he arrived. She’d changed out of that damn dress into beige cargo pants and a high-necked T-shirt that he couldn’t make a big deal over. He didn’t ring the bell or honk the horn. She simply knew he was on the street waiting for her.
Shade/Boomer pressed up against her as she looked out the window. I’m not liking this.
“Which part?” she returned, as she stuffed her cell phone in one pocket, wallet in the other. Not knowing what exactly they would be doing, she wasn’t about to encumber herself with some kind of bag she had to keep track of.
You going off with him. Alone.
She crouched down and gave him a big hug. “I know you want to protect me because you’ve been doing it all our lives. It’s my turn now.”
He gave her a doggy grunt in return. Skye kissed his head and stood, grabbed her keys, and made for the door where Phantom, Peach, and Dreamer were lined up watching her with sad faces. They’d gotten so little of her attention in the past days they didn’t want to let her out of their sight.
Patting each of the cats, she turned to Shade. “Do me a favor and keep the cats company, would you?”
Sure.
A minute later she was on the street and climbing into the black Jaguar, while trying to keep Luc from having any effect on her.
Like that was going to work. One look from his silver-gray eyes had her forcing herself to breathe normally. One look shattered every nerve. Her hand shook slightly as she futzed with the seat belt. The moment she buckled in, Luc took off and sped around a couple of corners.
“Do you really think someone at the casino will talk?”
“Maybe. To you.”
“Why would one of your people tell me anything?”
“Because you tried to save his life a few nights ago.”
Frowning, she was about to ask him to explain when it came to her. “The coyote?”
“His name is Hank. He’s in the habitat and should be fully recovered by now.”
Okay, a weird chill shot straight up her spine. A coyote named Hank. And Luc thought he would talk to her. Literally?
“Why haven’t you spoken to him?” she asked.
“Maybe he wouldn’t tell me anything.”
“Why not?”
“Good question.”
One he apparently wasn’t going to answer. But it set up a whole bunch more questions in her mind about Luc and his relationship to the people—or creatures—that were part of his father’s world. Perhaps Luc wasn’t as much a part of that world as she had previously thought.
“So, if he hadn’t made it,” she said, “what would have happened to Hank?”
“He would have died.”
“Then someone would have found a dead coyote on the street?” Or would it have been the body of yet another person torn up by a wild animal?
Again, he didn’t answer. And she realized he’d
never answered the question she’d put to his mother either, about him and Cezar being shapeshifters. He’d told her to ask him, but the conversation had taken a different turn and she never had. Being taken away from her familiar world, now she feared the answer.
Skye was still ruminating on it a short while later, though, when they entered the casino and made their way down to the tunnel and past the security guard stationed at the entrance to the private area. As they entered, several employees spoke to Luc or nodded politely, but with her bullshit antenna up, she realized it was all surface. As if no one authentically cared about what Luc thought or felt other than for their purposes.
He led her past the slot machines and along the habitat glass walls to a back corridor. “We get inside this way.”
Following him, she tried to breathe normally, but instinct made her pulse kick up and her stomach swirl. How could she forget the aftermath of that first fight, surrounded by predators who’d thought she looked like she’d make a nice snack?
“Don’t worry, they wouldn’t dare touch you.”
Great. Luc was reading her again. She made a note to self—be careful what she thought around him. “The predators that threatened me are here, too.”
“I don’t keep a log of who is on what shift, but yeah, chances are they’re around.”
And no matter what they thought of Luc, they took orders from him. They’d backed off the moment he’d ordered them to. That should make her feel better.
They were now in a corridor with glass pane walls, behind which were areas with different terrains. Luc stopped in front of what looked like a high desert area with sandy earth, rocky hills, and lots of dark-green plants. Movement immediately caught her eye when a large rattlesnake slithered over a rock and disappeared. And unless she was imaging things, a cougar lay atop a small mesa looking down on them.
Shivering despite the heat, she asked, “How big is this place?”
“How big do you want it to be?”
“I can make it change size?”
“Size. Shape. Appearance. You can create your own reality in here.”
“How does that work exactly?”
Animal Instincts (Kindred Souls Book 1) Page 12