The Supernaturals of Las Vegas Books 1-4

by Carrie Harris

  “Oh yeah? Well, if you’re so determined to protect me, then why were you trying to saw your hands off with my letter opener?” he asked. “None of this makes any sense! You don’t make sense, Citrine. I don’t understand you.”

  “I thought if you could produce my body, at least he’d go easy on you! He’d take the corpse and the wand and go away, and then at least I wouldn’t hurt anymore. And you and Hex and Jenny would be safe.”

  She couldn’t take it. After her every effort to do the right thing, Derek didn’t trust her. It hurt. It hurt almost as much as what Ilimitaine had done to her and would most likely do again. Maybe she just wasn’t destined for happiness, and the loss of that hope nearly broke her. She sank down into the chair again, staring woodenly at the desktop in front of her.

  Derek’s face cleared, and he seemed to see her clearly for the first time since they’d began arguing.

  “Citrine,” he said, the anger drained from his voice.

  “Don’t,” she snapped. “Don’t say anything. Watch me like a hawk if you want. I don’t care. I’ll be off your hands soon.”

  “I’m sorry I lost my temper. This whole situation is just so confusing, and my wolf doesn’t like it. Neither do I.”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” she said. “Nothing matters.”

  Citrine would have thought it impossible, but she drifted off with her head on the desk. Derek might have stayed, standing guard as she slept, or he might have left. She didn’t know and tried to convince herself that she didn’t care. No one bothered her. Hex didn’t try climbing in the window again. She heard quiet voices out in the office lobby, but soon those faded away and she slept.

  She awoke to darkness outside the window, a stiff neck, and voices—louder ones this time—filtering through the closed door. She was alone in the office again. Derek must have decided he could risk leaving her side after all. Or maybe he no longer cared.

  She patted her boot, strangely reassured by the continued presence of the Wand of Doors still tucked within it. Derek hadn’t taken it from her or demanded that she hand it over. It must have been an oversight. He certainly didn’t trust her enough to leave a valuable, dangerous magical object in her possession. Especially if it opened portals and he expected her to run. Although she had no intention of doing so, the fact that she could made her feel better somehow. Like she still had a choice. She would do the right thing and resist the urge to mash his nose in it, because she was a bigger person than that.

  The knob turned, and Citrine prepared herself, or tried to. She didn’t know how anyone could be prepared for the presence of the king and the palpable aura of superiority and hatred he brought with him. But when the door opened, the figure that stepped inside wasn’t impossibly tall and thin, with long locks of palest green like frozen swamp water. Instead, he was about Derek’s height, but with the familiar thin build of the fae instead of Derek’s ruggedly attractive muscles. Hair the color of dried blood floated above his shoulders, strands held aloft with invisible static.

  She leaped to her feet. “Ben?” she exclaimed, confusion overrunning her. “Is the king here yet? What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you,” he said in his melodious voice. Benveniste had been a lowly castle servant before his deadly good looks and seductive voice attracted the attention of the king. He’d been snatched from his station and thrust into the dangerous world of the court before he quite knew what had happened to him. Now he had no official title, but everyone knew he belonged to the king. “Do you mean to tell me that the king is coming here?”

  “Derek said he was.”

  Citrine looked at the werewolf in confusion. Something didn’t make sense here, and she couldn’t decide whether that worried or excited her. Derek, for his part, was looking back and forth between the two fae like he couldn’t quite believe what was happening.

  “You’re not the king?” he asked, looking at Benveniste. “I thought you were lying to me about your name. When Citrine said the king was looking for her, I just assumed…”

  He trailed off, looking a bit sheepish. Citrine almost said something biting to him, but she stopped herself at the last minute. With every moment, he looked increasingly more stricken. Maybe he realized how badly he’d messed up. The cold part of her thought that it was about damned time, and he deserved to feel like a jackass. But the rest of her knew how horrible it felt to realize that you’d screwed up so badly and to wish in vain to take it all back. She couldn’t make that worse, no matter how tempting it was.

  “I work for the king,” said Ben, smiling. He didn’t seem to pick up on the tension, or Derek’s guilt, or any of it. But that was Ben. He always seemed to walk around in a little bubble of self-delusion. The fact that he’d noticed Citrine at all had shocked her, and when he’d offered to help her escape, you could have knocked her over with a feather. “Citrine, I need the wand back. He’s realized it’s missing. I can claim I found it and keep your name out of the whole business, but only if I get it back soon.”

  Citrine took the wand out of her boot and looked at it regretfully. It did make her feel better to have it, but maybe this was the right thing to do. Ilimitaine wouldn’t realize she’d used the wand to escape Faerie. He could search for her there until his face turned green to match his hair, but he’d never find her. She could stay here in peace. And maybe, just maybe, Derek would realize that she wasn’t an untrustworthy thief, but someone who had been driven to take difficult actions because of her circumstances. She’d never wanted the power of the wand’s magic. She just wanted to get away to somewhere safe.

  Her mind was made up easily. She set the wand into Ben’s outstretched hand. He smiled at her blissfully, and she was about to let it go when a thought occurred to her.

  “Wait a minute,” she said. “How did you find me?”

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he tried to tug the wand from her hand, but she wouldn’t release it.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, tugging again.

  “How did you find me?” she persisted. “You gave me the wand and told me to escape while I could, but I never told you where I was going. I never even told you what world I planned to escape to. You could have looked for me in any of the realms, but you knew enough to come here, to the human world. To the exact city I appeared in. How did you know?” Ben’s face slowly began to draw down into an unaccustomed scowl, but she already knew the answer without him saying a word. “The almonds. When I used the wand, I kept smelling almonds, and I thought that was funny, because you always smell like them too.”

  “That’s a coincidence,” said Ben, making no pretense about the fact that he was still trying to take the wand.

  “You spelled the wand. To follow me. Why would you do that? Why would you give the wand to me and then track me here?”

  “It’s the oldest trick in the book.” Derek’s voice was lower than she’d ever heard it before, and rougher too. It was like she could hear the dire wolf inside of him, trying to work its way to the surface. “If you want a case you can absolutely solve, you set up the crime first. Then you apprehend the person who did it. You get all the glory, and your patsy takes the fall.”

  “So that’s what I am?” demanded Citrine. “A patsy?”

  “Give me the wand back!” yelled Ben, his voice rising to match hers.

  She twisted her wrist just so, forcing him to release his hold on it or dislocate his own wrist. Fury filled her. All this time, she’d thought he was her friend. He’d brought her little treats and patched her wounds when she was hurt and talked to her like she was an actual person instead of an animal. He’d claimed to hate the king as much as she did, and she’d believed him. She’d confided in him. Learning it was all for show angered and hurt her…but strangely, not as much as Derek’s mistrust had. Deep down, she’d probably always known but hadn’t wanted to admit it.

  He would pay. She launched herself at him, ready to break his body the way he had done her spirit. But the smell of almonds e
nveloped her, and mists clouded her mind. A shape emerged from them, coalescing from the vapor. A cruel face, topped off with a pointed, severe crown in worked silver.

  She knew it was illusion. Faerie magic. Ilimitaine wasn’t here; he didn’t yet know where she was. Maybe he hadn’t even realized the wand was missing. He kept so many powerful artifacts that he might not realize for a while unless he decided to use it. But even though she knew this was illusion, illusions could hurt. She knew that from experience.

  She heard a snarl, and suddenly the mists faded from her view. As the room came back into focus, she saw Derek’s familiar wolf form leaping across the desk at Benveniste. The faerie looked shocked and panicked as Derek’s massive paw swiped toward his form. He staggered backwards, but there was nowhere to go. Derek hit him and went through him, dissipating his figure into more mist.

  Ben had never been there. His figure was only an illusion too. More faerie magic that she couldn’t counter. But Derek had shrugged it off like it was nothing, and come to her rescue after all.

  Funny. The one person she’d thought was her friend had been playing her from the start. And Derek had come to her rescue even though he’d been so conflicted about her.

  Derek stood there, confusion written on his muzzle as clear as day. He obviously didn’t understand what had happened to Ben, and he looked down at his paw like he was trying to put it all together but was failing badly so far. She knew she should explain, but she just didn’t have it in her yet. After spending all day expecting to die tonight, she was too exhausted to do anything but crawl across the floor and lean against Derek’s legs in an attempt to draw some measure of peace from his presence.

  After a moment, he dropped down next to her, curling around her in the matter of animals trying to comfort their people, and allowed her to weep.

  Chapter 8

  After a few minutes curled up on the floor with Citrine, Derek could feel her sorrow ebb. She leaned against him, quiet now, her sides no longer heaving with the tears she’d pent up for so long. He waited just a little longer, hoping to give her some respite, and then extracted himself from underneath her with as much grace as a wolf-man hybrid could possibly manage. She didn’t resist and didn’t make a move to join him. Instead, she remained on the floor, limp with exhaustion.

  He shifted back into his human form with barely a thought. In the movies, werewolves always seemed to be in so much pain as their muscles and bones rearranged themselves into their new shape, but that had never been the case for Derek or the other shifters he’d known. The same magic that allowed him to take another form protected him from the physical pain of moving from one to the other. It did not, however, muffle the sounds of the change, and the gloppy, cracky cacophony made him a bit sick to his stomach if he didn’t focus on something else during the shift.

  That wasn’t difficult this time. He felt terrible about what Citrine had gone through. He’d read the entire situation wrong, and all because he was too afraid of being swayed by his attraction to her. Instead of trusting his instincts that this was a woman worth his attention, he’d convinced himself that caring about her must be a bad thing, and why? Because it made him vulnerable? That was a coward’s road, and he couldn’t deny that he’d gone down it.

  After the shift, he dressed quickly, pulling on the drawstring pants and tee that he’d discarded when he’d intervened between Citrine and Ben. As he pulled the shirt down to cover his torso, he realized that Citrine had flipped over and was watching him with frank admiration in her eyes. He’d never met anyone who was so comfortable with expressing her attraction, and it warmed him to the core. More to the point, it made his loins tighten with anticipation and eagerness no matter how hard he tried to repress the urge. This was not the time to bed her, but now that he’d finally stopped fighting his feelings, he could admit how badly he wanted to.

  She seemed to feel the same.

  “You’re gorgeous,” she said, pushing herself up to sit.

  With another woman, he would have gone the modest route, because that had always seemed like the right thing to do. He’d never been the sort of man to flaunt his physical attractiveness or find every excuse to take off his shirt and ask women to feel his muscles. But now, that seemed silly. She liked what she saw, and he liked the fact that she did. What was the sense in denying the attraction? He’d denied too much already.

  So instead of what he would have usually said, he looked her in the eyes and said, “You are too, but I’m not sure this is the right time to continue this conversation. We have other things to talk about. Sadly.”

  “Sadly,” she echoed, a small smile playing over her lips. “But later, maybe?”

  “You can count on it.”

  She went to push herself up off the ground, paused for a moment, and then deliberately held up her hands for him to help. It was such a small thing, but it felt like a gesture of trust to Derek. Because of course she could stand on her own, even after an exhausting cry-fest. Citrine was a strong woman, in all senses of the word. She didn’t need his help, but the fact that she wanted it made him feel good.

  “We should get some sleep,” he said, looking over her drawn face. “It’s been a long, exhausting day.”

  “I don’t know if I can. What if Ben comes back? What if he brings the king?”

  “Then we’ll deal with it,” he broke in gently. “I broke Ben’s magic, didn’t I?”

  She thought about this for a moment. “I think that was a sending. He wasn’t really here, which makes sense given that he doesn’t have the Wand of Doors to open a portal. But he did tag the wand with his magic, and he’s probably using it to send his illusion here.”

  “Why didn’t he send it straight to you, then?”

  “I haven’t used the wand recently. I assume he can’t figure out exactly where I am unless I activate it.”

  “So as long as you don’t use the wand, he can’t find you?” asked Derek intently.

  “Probably not,” she admitted with reluctance.

  “Okay, so here’s what we do. We get a hotel room. If he can find my office, he might be able to find my house. We sleep elsewhere tonight, and we make sure that Jenny and Hex don’t go to their homes either, just to be safe. No one comes to this office alone.”

  “Sendings are weaker during the day, so he’ll likely only come at night,” she offered.

  “Good to know. But we’ll be extra cautious. I think we’ll all sleep a lot better that way.”

  Citrine mulled this all over and finally nodded her agreement.

  “Okay,” she said. “Thank you for doing all of this. I don’t know how I’ll repay you, but I’ll find a way.”

  “Ben paid me in advance to find you,” he said, smirking. “Let’s consider ourselves even.”

  Derek slept better than he might have expected given that Citrine rested in the queen-sized hotel bed just a few feet away. Although he was no longer resisting the attraction between them, this just wasn’t the time to act on those feelings. Citrine was exhausted and dealing with a lot of stress, and he wouldn’t be the kind of man to take advantage of that. When he finally bedded her again, it would be at a time when they could both enjoy it. When he could take his time and take care of her the way she deserved.

  He awoke refreshed and ready to start the day, but there were just a few items of business he had to attend to first.

  “Citrine,” he said, looking over to where she perched on the edge of her bed like an adorably rumpled little purple bird. “Can I take you shopping?”

  “Shopping?” she asked, tilting her head.

  “I feel like an idiot for not thinking about this before, but you came here with only the things on your back. No clothes. Nothing else. You don’t even own a toothbrush, right?”

  Her expression closed in a way that he hadn’t anticipated, and he didn’t understand why until she spoke.

  “I cannot take your charity, Derek. It’s kind of you, but I’ve taken enough. Even if Benveniste did pay yo
u to find me.”

  He took a deep breath. “I was thinking about this as I was trying to fall asleep last night. See, I need a partner to work with. I used to have one, but he died. And working some of these jobs solo can be dangerous. I need someone to watch my back. Someone who is smart and dedicated. Jenny is good at her job, but she’s no help in a scuffle. Not like you would be.”

  He watched as light dawned in her eyes. Her entire face brightened, and it looked like weight fell from her shoulders as she contemplated this solution to her problems. He’d meant every word he’d said, but still—he would have said just about anything to make her look like that.

  “But…that’s…” She grasped for something to say. “I don’t even understand what you do. And I have so much to learn about the human world.”

  “You’re quick witted enough that sometimes I forget you’ve only been here for a couple of days. You’ll learn fast.”

  She fell into a pensive silence, and he gave her the time to process his offer, brushing his teeth and washing his face. When he returned, she looked up at him uncertainly.

  “Let’s say I try your job, and I’m bad at it. Could I still help you enough to cover the clothing and things you suggest we should buy?” she asked. “I could do enough for that, right?”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “If you turn out not to have any skill at investigation, you could make money simply by being hired muscle. Watching my back when I’m working in dangerous areas or hunting down shady sorts. I also do a lot of work in the supernatural community, and sometimes I’m working with creatures that can’t be reasoned with. They need hunting, and that’s been tough without a pack.”

  “Oh. In that case…” She smiled. “I think I’d be delighted. I’m sick of this dress, to be honest. Ilimitaine made me wear it so I could come to court and grovel for his amusement. I’m not really a dress sort of person.”