On the Prowl

by Christine Warren

  Nicolas didn’t appear to appreciate her teasing. “You’re not going.”

  She bit back a sigh. Damn it, hadn’t they already discussed this?

  “Yes, I am.”

  “No, you’re not. Saskia, we already discussed this. I am not comfortable putting you in danger, and this meeting with so many hostile Others definitely counts as danger. You’ll stay here, and I will tell you everything Mac has to say just as soon as I get back.”

  “Nicolas, I won’t be in any danger,” she said, struggling for patience.

  Sometimes talking to him resembled talking to a mountain—both were large, obdurate, and immovable—but she couldn’t just give in and let him run roughshod over her. It would mean giving up all the progress she’d worked for over the last few days.

  “First of all, it’s the middle of the day, and we’ll be meeting somewhere in the city, which means there is absolutely no chance that there won’t be other people around.” She ticked off points on the fingers of her free hand. “Second, Mac will be there as a neutral third party. Or fourth, or seventh, for that matter. I sincerely doubt the Others would be stupid enough to try to harm either of us in the presence of a witness. And third, I will be standing right by your side. If you’re there to protect me, I can’t possibly be in any danger.”

  “Your faith in me is flattering, but I’m one man against three, if Vidâme, Winters, and De Santos all show up,” he said tightly. “The odds aren’t particularly in my favor.”

  “One against two. Remember, I saw how De Santos looked last night. Even if he’s recovered enough to come to this meeting, there’s no way he’s up to fighting weight.”

  “Still,” Nicolas growled.

  Saskia sighed. “Nicolas, I understand your concern; really I do. I appreciate that you feel protective of me and want to keep me out of harm’s way, but you can’t tuck me away in the closet whenever you leave for fear of my getting hurt. A) it would drive me insane and make me hate you, and B) … I’m a big girl. I have fangs and claws of my own. I can take care of myself.”

  “But you shouldn’t have to.”

  “And you shouldn’t have to work so hard to clear your name when anyone who knows you knows that you would never do something so despicable as to attack an enemy from behind. I don’t think ‘shouldn’t’ means a whole lot right now.”

  “It means something to me.”

  “I know.” She lifted his hand to his lips and pressed a kiss against his palm. “And this means something to me, being able to stand by your side when you’re facing an unpleasant situation. I’m your mate, Nicolas. That is where I’m supposed to be. Besides, I have a third point you haven’t let me get to yet.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. Third, if what Mac has for us to see is really as important as he seems to think it is, you should have as many eyes looking at it as possible. This could be a key to this whole big mess, but what if you miss something? What if there’s some angle of the evidence you just don’t catch? Two heads are better than one, right?”

  She could see he wanted to protest and found herself holding her breath. This was important to her, for more than one reason. Not only did she need Nicolas to become accustomed to having her at his side as his mate and his built-in support system, he also needed to accept that she had more to offer their relationship than just her body. She had been raised to understand all the nuances of Tiguri politics, to observe people and behavior, to perceive motives, and to uncover clues hidden in small details of word, action, or setting. She could really help him in this. He needed to know that, and she needed to know that he knew.

  He stared down at her for several minutes, not blinking, just watching her with troubled jade eyes. “You’re not going to budge on this, are you?”

  She shook her head. “It’s your turn to compromise.”

  “How did I know you were going to say that?”

  * * *

  Less than a week after his engagement and Nic barely recognized himself, he thought in disgust. What had happened to the man with the well-ordered life? The man who ran his family’s company with a steady hand and his streak with a powerful paw?

  Right. The woman sitting next to him had happened.

  Nic steered the car through city traffic, his eyes on the road and his gaze turned inward. What on earth had made him think that Saskia would make a quiet, comfortable mate? Clearly, he’d been under some sort of delusion. Maybe it was those distracting blue eyes, or the classic purity of her features. Hell, maybe it was the fact that they hadn’t exchanged more than a couple of dozen words with each other before binding themselves together. Whatever the explanation, Nic had found himself decidedly uncomfortable for most of the last five days.

  What really disturbed him, though, was that he could no longer imagine his life without the sweet, stubborn tigress by his side. That knowledge threatened to cut him off at the knees.

  Saskia had been right in all the points she had made during her argument to come along—two heads were better than one, especially when he had no doubt that the second head belonged to someone firmly on his side. His mate looked so sweet and feminine and fragile that at times he forgot how intelligent she was, how observant and well-informed. Not to mention how stubborn. He could well imagine that she might see something that he overlooked, or that she might be able to lend a new interpretation to evidence that he hadn’t thought of. That knowledge filled him with pride, even as he struggled with the desire to wrap her up in cotton batting and store her someplace safe where she’d never be in a moment’s danger. Already, she had become too important to him to lose. He hadn’t planned for this.

  “Are you sure we’re headed to the right place?” Saskia asked, gazing out the window at a graffiti-painted storefront, the windows obliterated and the space clearly abandoned. “This neighborhood is looking a little … dodgy.”

  If by “dodgy” she meant “like a war zone.”

  Nic glanced at the street signs and pressed his lips together. “This is the right place. The address Mac gave us should be coming up on the left.”

  Nic now regretted not using a driver to ferry them to the location. When they had left the apartment, he’d just wanted as few people involved in this situation as he could manage, since it felt as if that decision had already been taken out of his hands; but seeing their destination, he decided it couldn’t have hurt to have brought another male along to keep an eye on Saskia. Or rather, on anyone who dared lay an eye on Saskia.

  Pulling the car to a stop, Nic looked around, then eased toward the curb, almost sorry to see a parking space magically waiting for them. He would have preferred the excuse not to stay in this neighborhood, let alone to leave the sleek Mercedes here unattended.

  “Well, I’ll give Mac one thing,” Saskia said, blowing out a long breath. “He certainly knows how to keep things interesting.”

  “In the Chinese sense of the word.”

  Nic thought they might be in for a very interesting time indeed.

  “Stay close to me,” he ordered as he reached for the door latch. “Not only do I not like you being here; now I don’t like you being here. You get more than eighteen inches away from me and it’s going to make me cranky. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Her immediate agreement told Nic that his mate didn’t feel any better about this outing than he did. If he hadn’t already spotted Mac waiting for them near the mouth of an alley, Nic would have turned the car around and headed back home. Where he could keep his tigress safe.

  Saskia actually reached out and took his hand as they moved down the sidewalk toward the private investigator. Luckily, none of the three had dressed up for the meeting, but the very fact that they all wore clean, neat, obviously well-made clothing was enough to have them standing out like sore thumbs in the poverty-ravaged area. Nic felt a small measure of reassurance in seeing that Mac, though positioned casually leaning on the wall of the closest building, watched their surroundings with wary eyes, clearly aler
t to any danger.

  At least he wasn’t a complete idiot.

  “Jesus, Callahan, what the hell are we doing here?” Nic demanded, halting in front of the other man. “Is there a reason we had to have this meeting in the fifth circle of hell?”

  Mac pushed away from his wall and extended his hand. “Unfortunately, there is. I’m glad you managed to find the place.” He looked around him and grimaced. “It’s not exactly on any of the local tourism maps.”

  “That’s because the only map it belongs on is the kind that’s color coded according to the homicide statistics.” Nic set his jaw and shifted closer to his mate. “I don’t like being here, and I really don’t like Sass being here, so let’s make this quick, shall we?”

  “As soon as the others get here, we’ll get started.”

  Saskia stepped in before he could blast that idea out of the water. “Can you at least tell us why we’re here while we’re waiting?”

  “Because this is where Rafe nearly got himself torn to pieces last night.”

  Nic jerked back at that revelation. “Here? Christ, why would De Santos be wandering around this shithole after dark? Is that what he does in his spare time? Go slumming?”

  “As a matter of fact, I was looking for information to help your ungrateful ass,” a voice growled behind them.

  Nic half-turned to see two of his least favorite people in the world stroll toward them. Well, Graham Winters strolled. Rafe De Santos barely managed a limping echo of his normal graceful glide. Sympathy drew a reflexive wince from Nic. Sass had described the Felix’s injuries to him, but she hadn’t gotten a good look before the Others had whisked De Santos upstairs. If this was how he appeared the next day, even with the advantages of a shifter’s healing abilities, Nic was amazed the jaguar was still breathing.

  Curiously, even given De Santos’s obvious, if temporary, handicaps, not a single one of the watchful, greedy presences scattered here and there along the street made any move to approach the men to demand money or valuables, or just to have the satisfaction of making someone else’s day just a little more miserable. Or maybe it wasn’t curious. Any creature blessed with the slightest hint of intelligence or perception would be able to recognize the predator in the two men. It covered them like a shadow, a dark air of danger even a human would have a hard time ignoring.

  “Where’s Dmitri?” Mac asked quickly. “I know it’s daylight, but he said he’d figure out a way to make it.”

  “He’s here,” Graham said. “We recognized the address, so Rafe told him exactly where the attack happened. He’ll meet us there. He’s just taking the darker way around.”

  “Fair enough. In that case, let’s go.”

  They followed the changeling into the alley. Nic had to concentrate hard to block out the fetid odors of urine, garbage, vomit, and traces of old blood, not to mention the underlying stink of poverty and despair. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his mate swallow hard, and he squeezed her hand reassuringly. Three-quarters of the way down the dark, dead-end space, Mac headed for a doorway only half-covered by a broken green door. The cheap plywood bled through the thin layer of colored stain, and whoever had reinforced the flimsy barrier with a z-shaped configuration of two-by-fours nailed over it hadn’t even bothered to try staining those. They had weathered to a sick, silvery gray color, except where rain and other unidentifiable liquids had caused the green color to bleed into the porous wood.

  Bolted to the brick, a metal latch flapped uselessly. The other half that secured on to the door itself was missing, perhaps still attached to the equally missing section of plywood from the door’s center edge. The damage had happened so long ago that the ragged, splintered edges of the hole had also bleached gray and sickly.

  Graham made a noise of disgust as Mac pushed the door open on a pitch-black space inside the brick shell. “Christ, Rafe. You went in here willingly? What the hell were you thinking?”

  De Santos snarled but didn’t bother to answer.

  Nic tugged Saskia close to his side, keeping her shielded behind his big body as he followed Mac through the doorway. His spine itched to have the two Others he didn’t entirely trust at his back, but he calculated them to be less dangerous to his mate than whatever could potentially be waiting inside the dark building.

  Eyes designed to hunt in darkness quickly adjusted themselves to the interior space. Only two small, high windows on the near wall existed to let in any light, since this room had been created from the interior of the building. Those openings had been painted over, so only a few feeble rays managed to sneak their way into the room, doing little to provide illumination. Not that there was much to see.

  Four metal pillars appeared to be the only erect structures in the room, and probably the only things that managed to keep the ceiling of the dilapidated building from collapsing on their heads. Graffiti of the least original kind decorated the walls, spray-painted suggestions of anatomically impossible acts and faithless tributes to a darker power the artist clearly didn’t understand. Surprisingly little trash covered the floors—a few empty bottles and dented cans, some loose newspapers and a couple of discarded condoms, though how anyone could bring themselves to have sex in a place like this eluded Nic. In one corner at the far side of the room, a pile of cloth bunched up, probably contributing to the smell of the place. That odor closely resembled the one in the alley outside, with the prominent addition of dust and that musty smell of some place people used to live but had long ago deserted.

  “A charming little spot,” a new voice commented dryly. Looking up from his survey of the room, Nic got his first look at Dmitri Vidâme, vampire. The slight accent in his words allowed for no question about his identity.

  Tall, powerfully built, and hard as stone, the vampire wore an exquisitely tailored suit, minus the tie, and carried an expensive pair of sunglasses in one lean, long-fingered hand. A watch that likely cost more than the average inhabitant of this neighborhood made in a year clasped one thick wrist, and a heavy platinum band encircled his left ring finger. Yet even with all that temptation, Nic doubted this man had faced any trouble on the street, either. Again, the man looked like a predator, all steely strength and quick reflexes, ruthless purpose and finely honed instinct.

  In other circumstances, Nic realized with surprise, all of these men were ones with whom he could see himself forming friendships. They were men like him. He understood them. Unfortunately, at the moment, they all thought of him as a brutal coward.

  So much for the meet-and-greet portion of the entertainment.

  “Okay, so what are we looking at here?” Winters demanded, scanning the room impatiently.

  “Nothing yet. It’s in through there.”

  Gesturing toward another door, this one on the far side of the room, Mac led the way deeper into the building. When the second door opened, Nic could smell the difference instantly. The odor of blood was fresh here, and he could smell more of it. A lot more. He could see the others noticing it, as well, and followed his mate’s wide-eyed gaze to the wall at the front of the building.

  The interior walls in this room still bore large patches of plaster that hadn’t yet flaked or been pounded off the surfaces. The one Saskia was staring at also bore large smears of thick, dark blood.

  “Yours?” Dmitri asked quietly, arching a brow at De Santos.

  “Most of it. I like to think I got a swipe or two in.”

  Graham whistled. “Wow, no wonder you looked like so much ground beef when we found you. How big did you say this thing was?”

  The jaguar scowled. “Big. Five or six hundred pounds, easily. In my other form, I weigh more like four, on a good day.”

  “Relax, Garfield. No one is questioning your manhood. Er, cathood.”

  “Listen, Fido—”

  “Gentlemen,” the vampire cut in, his voice even, if slightly amused. “Let us save the squabbles for another time. We came here so Mac could show us something important.”

  “Right.” The change
ling stepped forward to the edge of the pool of blood that had gathered on the floor beneath the other stains. “So, you know that Nic here hired me to look into the original attack on Rafe. Nic knew that since he hadn’t done it, there was someone else out there with a grudge against Rafe, but he was afraid that the Council wouldn’t look very hard at the other possibilities because of the general bad blood between the Tiguri and other shifters.”

  Rafe stiffened and glared at Nic. “I can assure you, Preda, that I have no interest in heaping blame on an innocent man. If you were not responsible—”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “He wasn’t,” Saskia echoed, stepping forward and gripping his hand tightly. The glare she shot at De Santos dripped with venom.

  “Gentlemen,” Vidâme said again, his voice less amused this time. “And lady. Please, let Mac continue.”

  The changeling hurried to do so. “Anyway, justified or not, Nic felt that the best way to clear his name would be to find who was responsible for the attack and bring that person to justice. I thought the logical place would be to start digging into who might have some sort of grudge against Rafe.”

  Graham snorted. “Christ, don’t you want to have time for, you know, breathing?”

  Mac’s mouth quirked. “Yeah, I might have been a little naive there. Who would have thought a guy known for his diplomatic skills and his way with the ladies would have so many enemies.”

  Rafe shrugged. “As head of the Council, I am occasionally forced to make some unpopular decisions. It comes with the territory.”

  “Hm, seems like an awful lot of territory to me, but whatever you say, pal. Anyway, when I realized that would be a dead end unless I hired like a thousand assistants and set aside all my other cases for the rest of my life…”

  Rafe glared, but Mac just grinned.

  “… I decided to take another tactic. I decided to treat it like a mugging and handle it the way the police would. I canvassed the scene of the crime and tried to dig up some witnesses.”