Risky Bargains

by J. C. Diem

“Touch me again and Yas will tear your arms off,” I said, glad to have the backup behind me.

  “You’re off limits,” Franko said, forcing a fake grin to his handsome face at my ominous threat. “I get the hint.”

  “It isn’t a hint,” Nick said. “She’s flat out telling you that you’ll be a dead man if you touch her again.”

  Crowmon had worked his way to my side. Feeling how tense he was, I glanced at him to see his pale green eyes were stony. Right now, he didn’t look like a relatively harmless clown. Instead, he seemed just as dangerous as everyone else on the team.

  “I get it, Nicky,” the alpha said, vein pulsing in his forehead in suppressed rage. “I’ve apologized to her and it won’t happen again.”

  Yas snorted out an incredulous laugh, not believing him for a second. We all felt the same way.

  “It had better not,” Liam warned him. They parted to let me through, then closed ranks around me. It was comforting to have friends and family to support me, but I knew it wouldn’t be enough. This wasn’t over yet. It was going to end in blood, but I didn’t know who would be shedding it.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  EVERYONE WATCHED FRANKO closely as we tried to settle back into our usual routines during the next few days. He was trying hard to fit in and follow Liam’s orders without complaint. He’d backed off and now ignored me completely. Frankly, it was a relief after being relentlessly stalked by him.

  Now sullen and quiet, the alpha moped around the base like a misunderstood bad boy. None of us cared that his feelings had been hurt. He’d lost any hope of ever being accepted by anyone on the team after what he’d tried to do to me. We were all waiting for him to screw up again. He’d proven that he couldn’t be trusted and no one wanted him to stick around.

  His new ploy to try to win me over was to attempt to make me jealous. Every night, he drove to Denver to hook up with the female werewolf he’d met. He was trying to rub his relationship in my face, but I couldn’t have cared less. I was glad he’d found someone to vent his sexual frustrations on.

  Heath came home early a few nights after Agent Steel had cautioned him to behave. He was scowling when he entered the main living area. I couldn’t smell the female shifter on him this time.

  “Aw, what’s the matter, Franko?” Yas taunted him. “Didn’t your girlfriend want to put out tonight?” We were all seated in the living room, watching a movie and eating popcorn.

  “She didn’t turn up,” the alpha said in annoyance. “I wasted four hours of my time for nothing.”

  “Here’s a tissue to dry your tears,” Syd said and pretended to pull a tissue out of her pocket.

  Glowering at our snickers, Franko trudged up the stairs to his bedroom and slammed the door shut.

  “The lad has a hair trigger temper,” Crowmon drawled as he stroked Emma’s furry stomach. She lay on her back on his lap, giving off waves of contentment.

  “It won’t take much to set him off,” Liam agreed, watching the coms room to see if the rookie was going to make a reappearance.

  Yas escorted me to my door when it was time to go to bed. It had become our nightly ritual. She’d been serious about staying close to me. She wanted to be handy when Franko broke down and did something stupid again. I drew the line at letting her sleep in my room with me.

  Liam received a call shortly after he rose the next morning and ambled downstairs. “This is Agent Levine-Garrett,” he said in his usual professional tone when dealing with informants.

  “Liam, a body was found in Denver an hour ago,” someone whispered. “We suspect the female is a shifter. Dr. O’Brien was notified about it and the corpse was sent to his building.”

  My eyebrows rose at that news. So did Crowmon’s and Yasmine’s. We were sitting on the couches, waiting for everyone else to get up.

  “Thanks for letting me know,” Liam said. “I’m sure I’ll get a call from Charles soon.” He hung up and his phone rang moments later. “Hi, Charles,” he said after checking the number.

  “You don’t sound surprised to hear from me,” Dr. O’Brien said. “I take it you heard about the dead woman?”

  “Yeah. What do you know so far? Is she a shifter?”

  “She is. I ran a blood test, but I haven’t examined her yet. I was just about to get started and I wanted to give you the heads up.”

  “Can you take a quick look at her and try to determine the cause of death?” our boss asked.

  “Hang on a second,” Charles replied. He was quiet for a couple of minutes, then he came back. “You need to see this,” he said grimly. “How soon can you be here?”

  “Give me a few minutes to wake the rest of the team,” Liam replied. “We’ll see you soon.”

  He hung up and texted everyone to wake them up. Nick, Syd, Brynn and Franko all appeared a couple of minutes later. They were fully dressed, but only half awake. “What’s up, bro?” Nick asked, then hid a yawn behind his hand. They’d all set their alarms to go off in another hour, but they weren’t annoyed that something had come up. It was our job to deal with problems no matter what time they arose.

  “The body of a female shifter was found dumped in Denver a short time ago,” Liam explained. “It was sent to Dr. O’Brien for examination. He just called me and wants us to see the corpse.”

  “Who’s Dr. O’Brien?” Franko asked. He hadn’t had time to shave and red stubble covered his jaw. I didn’t find it sexy on him like I did with Jax. Everything about the alpha repulsed me.

  “He works for Uncle Mark,” Syd replied coldly. “He’s a friend of the family and we’ve known him for a long time.”

  It was another reminder that he didn’t belong with us. He hunched his shoulders and sent her a wounded look that no one bought for a second.

  “Let’s go,” Liam said and motioned towards the door.

  “Do you want me to come along, lad?” Crowmon asked as we all headed for the exit.

  “Of course,” our boss replied. “You’re a member of our team, even if you’re a consultant rather than an agent.”

  Knowing the choice was up to him, the deity decided to come with us. He didn’t want to be examined by the doctor, but he was curious about the body.

  Yas put her hood and gloves on before following us outside. The herd would keep watch in our absence, so Emma took us all to the building where Charles O’Brien worked.

  It was too early for many people to be out and about. No one saw us appear on the small strip of grass next to the building. We hurried inside and took the elevator down to the basement. The door to the morgue was locked and Liam knocked for entry.

  Dr. O’Brien’s face appeared in the window. He let us in, but didn’t smile in welcome this time. While he was pudgy and had an ordinary face, Charles stood out because he was a genuinely nice guy. His brown hair was slightly messy, as if he’d been dragged out of bed to examine the body. “Agents,” he said in greeting, then lifted an eyebrow when he saw two new faces. “Where’s Agent Remington?”

  “Jax asked to be moved to another team,” Liam said. “This is Heath Franko and Crowmon.”

  Staying near the door, Franko nodded politely. Crowmon smirked when the doctor studied him. “Agent Steel mentioned you,” he said, but he didn’t say what Mark had said. It was obvious he knew the deity wasn’t human, but it seemed he’d been cautioned not to say anything. Annoyed at being ignored, the alpha scowled and looked around the bleak room.

  It was cold in the morgue, which made sense, since the bodies had to be kept cool. The corpse lay beneath a sheet on a metal examination table in the middle of the room. Six metal drawers were set into the wall across from the door. Desks, computers and other equipment were off to the left and right. A metal table stood next to the examination table. Tools to poke and prod the body lay on top of it.

  “Have you identified the victim?” Liam asked as Charles led the way to the corpse.

  “I sent her prints to the PIA and I’m waiting for them to get back to me,” the doctor repli
ed.

  “How did she die?” Yas asked. She’d removed her hood, but had left her gloves on.

  Emma craned her head, trying to see over Nick’s shoulder. I moved to stand beside him so the curious zombie could see better.

  “Her blood was drained,” Dr. O’Brien replied. He took her arm out from beneath the sheet to show us the needle marks in her veins. She’d died before the marks could heal. I noticed one of her fingers had been pricked when he’d taken a blood sample. A painful looking burn mark encircled her wrist. I wasn’t sure if she’d been naked when she’d been brought in, or if the doc had stripped her to examine her properly. I couldn’t see any cut up clothes lying around anywhere.

  Yas and Brynn both detected the same scent when they stepped closer. “It was Killion and his crew,” the wereconstrictor said as the vampire opened her mouth to say the same thing.

  “Was she sexually assaulted?” Syd asked.

  “No. There are no signs of sexual or physical assault. You can see the marks on her wrists and ankles from where she was restrained with silver shackles.”

  He gestured at the red circle on her wrist. A shudder wracked me and Yas gave my hand a squeeze. We both knew I’d have ended up exactly like the dead woman if the squad hadn’t rescued me.

  Franko was looking at a small brown birthmark on the shifter’s arm and was frowning deeply. He crossed to the table and yanked the sheet down to reveal her face. “I know her,” he said when Charles moved to stop him.

  “Who is she?” Nick asked.

  “She’s the shifter I’ve been hooking up with,” the alpha told him. “I guess I know why she didn’t show up last night.”

  “We can see how much you cared about her,” Brynn said sarcastically at his utter lack of emotion.

  “I barely knew her,” the rookie said defensively.

  “What’s her name?” Charles asked, crossing to the table to pick up a clipboard with a form on it.

  “Susan.”

  “You don’t know her surname?” the doctor asked as he wrote her name on the chart.

  “We weren’t exactly engaged, doc,” Franko said. “We were just screwing each other.”

  “Spoken like a typical douchebag,” Syd muttered in disgust. “She meant nothing to you at all, did she?” He flicked a look at her, but didn’t respond to her contemptuous question.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  SUSAN WAS UNNATURALLY pale from having her blood drained. Her lips were blue and her eyes looked sunken. She was average height and weight and had long, dark brown hair. Superficially, she looked like me. I wondered if that was why Franko had hooked up with her. Maybe she was meant to be my substitute, since he couldn’t have me.

  “If Killion is behind this, was it just a random attack, or something else?” Liam mused.

  “It seems too coincidental to me,” Nick said. The twins shared a silent conversation and came to the same conclusion. “He’s watching our base,” Nick said grimly.

  “He must be,” Liam agreed. “He’s seen Agent Franko leaving our property every night and must have followed him to Denver. Killion drained the shifter as a warning to us that he can get to us if we leave ourselves vulnerable.”

  “It’s a pity they didn’t kidnap the alpha hole and drain him instead,” Yas muttered and received a glare of pure malice from Heath.

  “We should examine the site where Susan was dumped,” Sydney suggested. “We might be able to find out where Killion’s new lair is.”

  “He wouldn’t be staying somewhere in Denver again, would he?” I asked doubtfully.

  “Maybe,” Liam said, clearly disturbed by the idea. “What better place to hide than the one location we wouldn’t think to search for him?”

  “The master vampire is wily,” Crowmon said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “He’s taunting us now, proving he can kill shifters right beneath our noses despite the restrictions the supreme alphas set.”

  The entire team was starting to get angry now. As shifters, we were territorial. The vampires had invaded our turf again. They’d openly declared war on us and we all knew it.

  “Let me know if you find anything else that might be helpful,” Liam said to Charles. The doc nodded, then saw us out.

  Yas put her hood back on as we rode the elevator back up to the ground floor. Liam checked the file his informant had sent him to find out where the body had been dumped. “She was left in an alley near Club Midnite,” he told us.

  “Yep, he’s definitely taunting us,” Yas said.

  “Emma?” Liam prompted when we were all standing on the grass.

  The squirrel waited for a pedestrian to stroll past, then took us as close as we could get to the nightclub where the vampires had once had their base. We emerged in a tiny backyard of a townhouse and quickly climbed over the fence. Crowmon was just as nimble as the rest of us, even if he couldn’t match our speed.

  We walked at a normal pace a couple of blocks to the alley, while Yas zoomed there ahead of us. “I can smell Killion and his goons all over the place,” she reported when we joined her.

  Since it had just been a supernatural creature who’d died, the cops were keeping it under wraps. No one wanted to hear about our kind anymore. They preferred to pretend we didn’t exist. There was no crime scene tape, or barriers to keep gawkers at a distance. No one cared that Susan had died, except us. If she’d been a lone wolf, then she probably didn’t even have a family to come and collect her body.

  “See how far you can follow them to their lair,” Liam requested.

  Yas snapped him a brisk salute, then took off like a rocket. There were no signs that a body had been left in the alley. Only beings with enhanced senses would be able to pick up on the faint scent of vampires.

  I watched through my bestie’s eyes as she followed the trail for a few blocks. She came to a stop at the curb and I sensed her frustration. “They must have driven away,” I told the others as a car drove past the vampire. The passenger hung his head out the window and shouted something lewd at her, referring to her head-to-toe leather outfit. She flipped him the bird, then raced back to us.

  “They’re gone,” Yas reported. “I can’t follow their trail when they travel by car.”

  “They could be anywhere,” Brynn said with a scowl. “For all we know, they could have doubled back and are sleeping the day away in one of these buildings right now.”

  Liam flicked a look at me and I knew what he wanted me to do. Casually moving to stand behind Yas, so Franko couldn’t see me concentrating hard, I sent out my necromancy. I searched for the undead, but I could only detect Yas and Emma. There were no other vampires or zombies in the city. I shook my head at our boss to indicate they really were gone. “I doubt Killion is bold enough to have his lair here,” he said, knowing he was right. “He’s playing with us now.”

  “This is a direct challenge to me,” Franko said in rising anger. “I can’t let this stand. We have to hunt the master vampire down and eradicate him and his entire nest.”

  “Going off halfcocked is exactly what Killion wants us to do,” Liam pointed out. “He’s made a deal with the witch who kidnapped Alex. She wants us to be reckless and to put ourselves in danger. I’m not going to risk my team to get vengeance for a shifter we don’t even know.”

  “You’re a cold-blooded bastard, Liam Levine-Garrett,” the alpha said in a near snarl. “This is my city now and I’m not going to let this stand!”

  This time, alpha power didn’t just ooze out of him. It burst out and slammed into us. Liam, Nick and I were almost knocked off our feet. We went into a submissive crouch, unable to withstand his alpha might.

  Franko opened his mouth to take control of the team once and for all, but Yas grabbed him by the throat. She squeezed hard enough to crack something and he was suddenly struggling to breathe. “Big mistake, douche nozzle,” the vampire said. “Now I’m going to tear your head off.”

  Syd and Brynn both had their guns pointed at the rookie. They hadn’t been as
affected by his alpha power, since neither of them were werewolves. Crowmon’s arms were crossed and he was scowling.

  “Don’t kill him!” Liam ordered as we snapped out of our momentary daze. “Not here,” he added, nodding at the increasing number of cars and pedestrians that were passing by.

  “Can I take him to the woods and dismember him?” the vampire asked as Franko desperately clawed at her arm. Her leather suit and gloves protected her from the fingernails that raked at her. She held the alpha with effortless ease, proving she was by far the strongest member of our team.

  Liam and Nick exchanged another silent conversation, then both twins shook their heads. “Agent Franko couldn’t help it this time,” Nick said wearily.

  “Sure, he could,” Sydney said in a cold, hard tone. “No one twisted his arm behind his back and forced him to try to take over as our leader.”

  “He’s an alpha,” Liam reminded her. “Killion knew exactly how to trigger this reaction. Killing an alpha’s bedmate is like waving a red cape in front of a bull. His instincts are to protect and defend what belongs to him.” At his gesture, Yas reluctantly released Heath. He staggered over to the wall of a building and leaned on it while his crushed throat healed.

  “This city doesn’t belong to you, Franko,” Brynn said as she and the werecougar holstered their weapons. “It belongs to the supreme alphas.”

  “You heard Liam,” the new recruit said hoarsely. “My instincts took over. I couldn’t control myself.”

  I rolled my eyes at his weak excuse, wondering if being lumped with him was part of the curse that seemed to plague my family. “You didn’t care about Susan,” I said. “She was just a warm body to you. Your pride has been wounded and you’re striking out like a spoiled child.” I had to admit, it was satisfying to throw that insult in his face.

  Going rigid with instant fury, he almost snarled at me, then whirled around and stormed off instead.

  “He’s trembling on the edge now,” Crowmon said gleefully. “Keep that up and he’ll crack faster than a dropped egg,” he told me.