D bristled and sat up, glaring at Constantine. “I’m not feeling sorry for myself!”
“Right, you’re just drinking this much because you’re happy.”
“Screw you, Constantine.”
“Get real, D. You need to get a grip on yourself, brother. This can’t go on forever…”
Constantine kept talking, but D didn’t hear the rest because his attention was diverted by the flat-screen television hung above the pool table across the room. It was tuned to a news station, and the picture on the screen froze his blood to ice.
Eliana. Good God, it was her.
Hands cuffed behind her back, dressed only in a man’s wrinkled white button-down shirt, she was being hauled out of a police car by a pair of uniformed gendarmes sporting enough weaponry to outfit a small army. Though her head was turned, he saw her clearly in profile, and the image instantly seared itself into his mind. The proud lift of her chin, the elegant line of her neck, the elongated limbs that lent her the look of a ballerina, pixie-like and delicate. She was exactly as he remembered, except for hair dyed the color of lapis lazuli and an ominous bloodstained bandage wrapped around one bare calf.
The television was muted, but the caption on the screen screamed, “French police apprehend notorious thief!”
Everything around him vanished.
Gone was the dim, smoky room with its rickety tables and tacky décor, gone was the humid fug of cigarettes and stale beer, gone was the flickering neon Peretti sign in the window and the empty scotch bottle on the table next to his left hand. There was only her. Every nerve, every cell and atom of his body came into brilliant, throbbing focus and began to roar: Eliana! Eliana! Eliana!
Frozen, he stared at the television and watched as the two gendarmes swiftly maneuvered her—limping—past a crush of shouting reporters and up a wide flight of marble steps toward the double glass doors of the entry to an enormous brick building. Just before she disappeared through the doors, she glanced over her shoulder and looked directly into the camera.
Wide-set doe eyes, liquid soft and black as midnight, stared at him. Through him. D’s heart stopped dead in his chest. He shot out of his chair and at the top of his lungs shouted the only word that came to mind.
“Shit!”
Despite this outburst, none of the other bar patrons chanced a glance in his direction. He came to this dive bar fairly regularly, and they’d more than once seen the huge, glowering, tattooed male beat someone to a pulp for no discernible reason and had learned to keep their eyes averted or risk a beating of their own.
“Nice,” said Constantine dryly as he drummed the fingers of one big hand on the scarred, sticky tabletop between them. His back was to the television. “Is that just a general observation, or are you experiencing some kind of emergency with your bowels?”
“It’s her! On television! It’s her!” D sputtered past numb lips.
Constantine closed his eyes for a second longer than a blink and sighed. “You’ve had about a liter of scotch, D. You’re seeing things. Why don’t you take a seat and we’ll—”
“Turn it up!” D shouted at the skinny bartender, silencing Constantine and launching the bartender into motion. He leapt over the counter and flung himself at the television as if his life depended on it. His shaking fingers found the volume knob, and as Constantine, frowning, turned in his chair to look, a female reporter’s modulated voice filled the dim, smoky room.
“…eluded authorities for the past several years in what has become the most infamous string of art thefts in France’s history. Some of the country’s wealthiest citizens and political figures have been victimized, including the prime minister himself, Francois Fillon, whose personal collection of original Picassos valued at more than five million euros was stolen from his home last year while he and his wife were sleeping.”
The picture changed to a scene of a grinning, middle-aged man standing shirtless and tanned with a glass of champagne on the glistening deck of his massive yacht.
“At this point it isn’t known if she was working alone,” the reporter continued as the picture switched back to the crowd milling around the front of the brick building, “but for now the thief known simply as La Chatte is in custody, and we imagine Paris’s beleaguered police chief is heaving a very loud sigh of relief that this protracted chase is over and the elite’s personal fortunes are, once again, safe. Reporting live from the Paris prefecture of police, this is Lisa Campbell with CNN International News. Back to you, Bob.”
D stood staring at the television long after Bob-the-balding-reporter had segued into another story. His breathing was erratic, his heartbeat was wild, and his hands twitched by his side, but all that was secondary to the storm of howling white that raged in his skull.
La Chatte. The Cat. Infamous, elusive thief.
Eliana, love of his life, source of his joy and his pain and three years’ worth of the kind of soul-searing agony he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy, was La Chatte. Now in police custody in France.
D’s big hands curled into fists at his side.
In spite of his bulk and the array of weaponry hidden beneath his long black coat, Constantine rose gracefully and soundlessly from his chair. “D,” he said sternly, reading what was plain on his face, “don’t even think about it.”
D’s gaze narrowed. Though most of their kind were beautiful to the point of being meaningless, Constantine—he of the glossy black hair and glorious cheekbones and long, feminine eyelashes—outshone them all. At the moment, D had a mind to wreck that perfect face with a devastating punch to the middle of it.
“Don’t you even think of trying to talk me out if it,” he snarled. He took a step back, and his chair skittered back across the faded checkerboard linoleum with a nerve-scraping screech.
“Celian won’t allow it,” answered Constantine. The subtle adjustments in his stance and the calculation in his eyes signaled he’d made the instant shift from brother to sparring partner. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d gone toe to toe, and it likely wouldn’t be the last. “And she’s wanted by the Council of Alphas—”
“Fuck the Council!” D bellowed. Two humans sitting at a booth in the back stood up and made their way quickly toward the back door.
Constantine set his jaw and leveled him a steely, intense look that would have drained the blood from anyone else’s face. D, however, didn’t bat an eye. Very quietly Constantine said, “Think about this for a minute. If we’ve seen her on television, they’ve seen her, too, and they’re on their way. None of us are authorized to act on this, especially not you. And you know what happens if you go rogue, brother. They’ll take you out before the Bellatorum can even blink. You saw how serious they were. You do not want to get in the way of The Hunt.”
The Hunt. A group of eight of the deadliest hunters picked from the four other Ikati colonies, tasked with one thing: find the missing principessa, her brother, and the small group of loyalists who’d vanished with her three years ago, and bring them in to face the Council.
For interrogation. For elimination.
D’s heart twisted at the thought. “You think I’m going to let them touch her,” he snarled, every inch of him bristling, “you’re crazy! I’m going. Now. With or without your blessing. So you better step back if you want to keep your head attached to your body.”
They stared at each other silently, two muscled, menacing males in black, both alike and yet so different. Same height, same breadth of shoulders, same air of danger, and those black, black eyes. Born and bred in darkness, they were warriors and had a warrior’s fearlessness and sense of pride, and also the willingness to die for what they believed in.
Constantine believed in duty. What D believed in was far more dangerous: love.
“Great Horus save us,” Constantine finally muttered, “from idiots in love.”
Though he doubted even the god of war and protection whose symbol all the Bellatorum had tattooed on their left shoulders could change D’s
mind once it was made up. He ran a hand through his hair and stared at D another moment longer until he shook his head and sighed. “And you are an idiot, you know.”
“No argument here,” D answered, still bristling with anger.
Constantine’s mouth twisted. He regarded his brother, thinking of the pain he’d been in the past few years, though of course D had never voiced it aloud. Ironically named after an ancient Greek orator, D often went days without speaking at all. As if the shaved head, multiple tattoos, eyebrow piercings, and air of murderous rage weren’t enough, his silence lent him an even more frightening aspect. A glance from him sent most people running.
Constantine saw past that, though. They’d known each other since birth, and though not brothers by Blood they were brothers in spirit, and as D lost hope, Constantine saw him slowly, surely dying, day by miserable day. He’d thought D would get over her in time, forget her, but Eliana and the memory of what could have been haunted him like a ghost.
And now that ghost had been captured by the Paris police.
“But two idiots are better than one,” Constantine decided, loyalty winning out over logic. “I’ll go with you.”
D’s body relaxed a little, and the tension went out of his shoulders. Just because they’d sparred in the past didn’t mean either one looked forward to another go-round. “No. I have to do this alone.” He paused. “You know why.”
Three years’ worth of history passed between them with a single, pointed look.
“Don’t be an asshole!” Constantine snapped.
D met his gaze head-on but didn’t respond.
“Are we really going to do this again? Here?” Constantine gestured to indicate their surroundings, the dive bar he despised but came to because he didn’t want his best friend and brother to drown his sorrows alone. “Fine, then, let’s do it! If I didn’t shoot that son of a bitch, you’d be dead. We’d all still be living like slaves. Your girl would be married to some idiot from the Optimates that you’d want to kill every time you got near him—”
“I know,” D interrupted. “You saved my life. You saved all of us. I know.”
“But you’ll never forgive me for it,” Constantine said flatly.
D paused for the barest of seconds. “I hated that bastard as much as you did. More.”
That was just an evasion, and they both knew it. A few more seconds of silence crackled between them while everyone else in the bar paid close attention to their drinks and pretended not to listen. Finally, Constantine muttered a low oath. He said, “I’ll cover for you as long as I can. Ten, twelve hours tops, then Celian will figure it out and send the Legiones after you. But The Hunt won’t wait that long, brother. They’re probably already on their way. So be careful. And be quick.”
There was a time when the two would have exchanged a quick, hard, back-pounding hug when one or the other was going off into battle. But now they only exchanged stiff nods. Too much anger, too much blame, too much unsaid left festering between them. Now, finally, the real battle would begin.
D turned and made his way toward the door.
After only a few paces, he broke into a run.
If she wasn’t injured, Eliana might have Shifted to panther and torn the police officer’s head right off his body.
Unfortunately, she was injured. The bullet had gouged an agonizing divot in her leg, and tearing off his head would have to wait. Though she’d heal quickly from a relatively clean wound like this—within a day, most likely, as fast healing was common to all her kind, but even more pronounced in her immediate family—even a much smaller injury was enough to trap her in human aspect, so Shifting was impossible. The more pressing problems were getting her leg stitched up, getting the humiliating handcuffs removed, and getting something better to wear than the button-down shirt that stank of stale sweat and fried food. When standing, it fell to mid-thigh and did a decent job of covering her nude body. When sitting, however…to put it delicately, her lady parts were about to make an appearance.
And the officer had definitely noticed. Though why he’d be so interested now was a mystery, as he’d already seen her entirely naked at the museum.
Damn it all to hell. She knew the Louvre was a bad idea.
The officer seated at the table across from her said something to her in French. She pretended not to understand him, so he switched to English. “How is the shirt for you, pigeon?”
Pigeon? Cockroach of the skies? Deeply insulted, she asked, “How was the box of donuts you managed to smear all over it, pig?”
His cheeks flushed red. She was gratified to see it. In the corner of the room, another officer leaning against the wall snorted.
There were six of them in all. Uniformed, armed, obviously feeling very pleased with themselves that they’d finally caught the infamous La Chatte. The interrogation room was small and cold, devoid of anything except a metal table, two metal chairs, and a small camera mounted high on the wall above the door. A large window covered one wall, and though it was blacked out she assumed it was two-way glass. Her own reflection mocked her there, a testament to her first failure.
No matter. It was only a question of time. Just a short while until she healed and she could Shift to Vapor and slip out the door, the window, through a ceiling vent. She had only to survive long enough—
“Our little kitty has claws, eh, gentlemen?”
It was the officer in the corner who spoke, his voice soft and amused. He spoke in French, and though she’d pretended not to understand it before, somehow she knew that he knew she actually did. She slanted him a sideways, assessing glance. He was good-looking, this one, tall and finely made with thick brown hair and penetrating green eyes that didn’t seem to miss a thing. He watched her with those avid eyes now, ignoring her bare legs and concentrating instead on her face.
She’d have to be careful with him. Human men didn’t have the keen senses her kind did, but every once in a while one of them surprised her. At the very least he was trigger-happy; he was the one who’d shot her.
And then, in a flash, she recognized him. The man from Gregor’s office that night a week ago, the one who’d threatened the subpoena—
“Let’s try again,” said the first officer seated across from her, the one whose shirt she was wearing. She turned her attention to him. He was shorter and chubbier than the rest of them, with hairy forearms and what could only be described as dead shark eyes. Black and flat, they bored into her like knives. “And for the sake of expediency, I’ll dispense with all the bullshit.” He paused, evidently for dramatic effect. “We know everything,” he said.
Eliana narrowed her eyes, waiting.
“Everything,” he repeated more forcefully, leaning forward over the table. Beneath the rolled-up cuffs of his shirt, the backs of his pudgy, pasty hands were damp with sweat. “We know exactly who you are…and exactly what you’ve been up to.”
“I see,” she said, feigning a calm she definitely didn’t feel. Her heart was beating so hard in her chest she thought they all must be able to hear it. “I must be in very deep trouble.”
His shark eyes narrowed. He didn’t like being mocked.
“As a matter of fact you are.” His tone dropped. “But if you cooperate, you may earn yourself some leniency come sentencing time.”
Eliana resisted the urge to respond with a withering comment about fat, donut-eating primates not being able to intimidate her. Goddess Bastet, she silently prayed, smiling at the officer, please send a plague for this one. Preferably involving flesh-eating bacteria.
Holding his gaze, she murmured, “Oh, I’d love to cooperate. Cooperation is one of my favorite things, especially when it’s with someone like you. Someone so smart. And so obviously…” She glanced at his doughy arms, and her smile turned faintly mocking. “Strong.”
He blinked rapidly, and the flush in his cheeks deepened to scarlet. Like a preening peacock, his chest puffed out, and she had to restrain herself again, this time from rolling her eyes.
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She’d never understand a man’s ego. It was their universal Achilles’ heel.
“But I’d like to ask a question before we get started.” She felt the lasered attention of the handsome officer in the corner as easily as she saw the chubby one in front of her lick his lips.
“Er…ah…yes,” he stammered, then cleared his throat. “What is it?”
She cocked her head left. “You don’t actually have any evidence against me, do you?”
It hung there in the following silence, reverberating like a struck drum. To their credit, the men standing around the room didn’t react, not a muscle was moved, but she tasted their sudden discomfort like a metallic tinge in the air and had all the confirmation she needed.
“No surveillance video, no fingerprints, no eyewitnesses. Nothing,” she said softly.
“We caught you red-handed in the Louvre, pigeon.” The chubby officer’s face had turned a mottled shade of burgundy. He was blinking fast again, and it made him look like a fat baby bird. “Trying to steal a famous piece of art. We have all the evidence we need to put you away for a very long time. Échec et mat.”
Checkmate? Clearly this one didn’t actually play chess. She did, however, and played it well. Her father had taught her when she was twelve years old, had told her every great general and military strategist in history had used the tools learned in chess to win a war: always keep your goal in mind; have a plan but stay flexible; think at least three moves ahead; protect your assets; and last but most importantly, don’t trust your emotions, because they lie.
She’d learned that final lesson the hard way. The very hardest way of all.
Her gaze went to the handsome, green-eyed man in the corner. He wasn’t smiling. In fact, his face had darkened, and his mouth had thinned to a grim, bloodless line.
“How do you know I was trying to steal a painting?” she challenged. “Maybe I just got locked inside the museum before it closed—”
“Naked?” Green Eyes interrupted, hard.
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