She sat up quickly. True Mates … if they were True Mates, then that meant he could give her something she’d been wanting—a baby. It wouldn’t be Joe’s, but it would be hers. All hers, to love and care for. Her inner wolf seemed to like the idea of that. A pup to cherish, to fill that void in her heart that had been there since Joe died.
“No, no!” She pushed the door open violently and wrenched herself out of the vehicle, stalking toward the elevators. Crazy. Preposterous. It wasn’t like she could ask him to give her a sample—for some reason, IVF couldn’t produce any offspring, Lycan or human. No, it would have to be done the old-fashioned way.
And would that be so bad?
“Yes, it would.” She jabbed the call button so hard, it would have left a dent were it not made of reinforced steel. “Yes, definitely. Bad idea.” Her hormones were raging like a teenager’s, but her adult mind knew sex with Delacroix would be a terrible mistake.
And yet …
A long sigh escaped her, and she stepped into the elevator. Moments later, she finally arrived home. Well, her apartment, anyway. The concept of a home seemed alien to her after she’d sold the house in Brooklyn she had owned with Joe. Though it had been over a year since she’d moved, there hadn’t really been time to decorate or even unpack all of her things. There were still two or three boxes in the living room, and all the furniture and decorations had been the same as when she moved in. This place was more like a dorm—she only slept, showered, and dressed here. But then again, her job had taken over her entire life meaning those were the only things she had time for outside of work. Every day melded into the next, same shit, different day.
But maybe a baby would be nice. She could move into a larger place and—
“All right then,” she said aloud. “How exactly am I supposed to ask him?”
Maybe she didn’t have to tell him. From what little information she’d heard, Delacroix had been a major flirt before he left for Zhobghadi. It would be easy enough to seduce him, and then she’d get pregnant. If he was her True Mate, it would only have to happen once.
“Argh!” Her hands curled into fists at her side. No, she couldn’t do that. Honesty and integrity were important to her. Besides, tricking a man into getting her pregnant was just so … icky.
But then again …
Delacroix was already an amoral bastard. Selfish. Thought only of himself. Oh, she knew that much about him. Nick had told her the entire story, including the fact that Delacroix was planning to go Lone Wolf after his five years of servitude to New York was over. It was obvious he couldn’t wait until his sentence was over.
Maybe, just maybe, if she could give him what he wanted, he could give her what she wanted. It would be a fair trade and besides, there was no risk of emotional entanglement, not with him.
Her eyes moved heavenward. Oh Lord, this was insane, right?
Chapter Four
Even though a few days had passed since the incident, the strange feeling gnawing at Delacroix didn’t go away, and he had a feeling it wasn’t going to any time soon. His wolf too, was restless, as if it wanted something.
He knew exactly what it wanted. From the moment it laid eyes on her, it wouldn’t stop hounding him. Wanting to see her. Smell her delicious, distinct scent—lavender and spice. Thinking about her made his cock twitch.
The sound of a body slamming on the ground jolted him out of his thoughts. His mind suddenly remembered where they were—in the training gym, surrounded by at least twenty other Lycans. Thank the Lord for small favors that his thoughts had been interrupted before they became too salacious.
“Martinez!” a harsh voice growled. “I keep telling you to watch your left side, it’s your weakness. Now get up off your ass and try it again.”
The young recruit got to his feet. “Sir, yes, sir!”
“This ain’t the army, Martinez,” said Cliff Forrest, the head combat trainer for the Guardian Initiative. Forrest was the tallest and largest man Delacroix had ever seen, aside from Prince Karim, which was probably why he’d had a successful career as an MMA fighter. However, it was cut short about a year ago when he’d disappeared from the fighting circuit. There were rumors flying about, something that had to do with a dirty fight, but it was obvious he had decided to use his gifts to help with the fight against the mages. The bastard was tough on his guys, but he had to be, training these men and women for life and death situations.
“How about we make this more interesting?” Forrest’s eyes zeroed in on Delacroix and Jacob. “Let’s see if Martinez can remember his training under a little more pressure.”
Martinez groaned but got into a fighting stance anyway. “Fine.”
Delacroix got up from the mat. “Allons, mon ami.” He offered his hand to Jacob, who took it. They made their way to the center of the mats, and proceeded to pummel Martinez with everything they had. To his credit, the other Lycan fought well and didn’t leave his left side open. Once Forrest was satisfied with his performance, he stopped the exercise and dismissed them for their lunch break.
Training with the other recruits wasn’t much different from what he and Jacob used to do back in Zhobghadi. In fact, if he were to live the rest of his time, here, doing this, it wouldn’t be so bad. But fighting the other night … the blood and screams had brought back too many memories. And then, when he saw Mika hurt, it nearly drove him insane. There was that urge inside him, one that propelled him forward to take her to safety, to the only place he knew she would truly be safe.
And that’s where it all changed.
When she walked into the office that morning, both he and his wolf had taken notice of her. Mika Westbrooke was an attractive woman, and he wasn’t blind. But her acrimonious manner had turned him off, even if his wolf didn’t care.
But when he took her into the shadow, it was like she turned into the brightest star in the universe. A glow surrounded her, filling the darkness with her light. And that scent. Lord, that scent of lavender and spice haunted his every waking moment since then, as well as the feel of her plush body against his. He didn’t want to let her go, but then she scampered away from him the moment they left the shadow, and he hadn’t seen her since.
It wasn’t that she wasn’t coming to HQ. Oh no. She was there, somewhere. That scent of hers lingered in the air, and he could follow her path from the garage to the elevator, sometimes even leaving traces in the cafeteria and the central operations room. But he’d never seen her. It was as if she purposefully avoided him, coming and going only during the times she knew he’d be occupied with training or other duties.
Of course, when he couldn’t find a way to bump into her, he tried to get up to the command floor, to where her office was located. But the stupid elevator computer kept telling him “access denied” when he tried to take it up there. No amount of pleading, cursing, or pounding on the controls would make it change its mind. Access denied, indeed.
There was a way up there, he knew it. The urge was getting stronger, and his wolf was on the edge. Was she all right? Was she breathing? Did she hate him? He was acting like a couillion—a crazy person. But how was he going to know all these things if he couldn’t even see her.
“Lizzie just sent me a message. She had Chinese food delivered for lunch,” Jacob said as they walked into the locker rooms. “Want some?”
“Eh, why not?” The food at the cafeteria was decent, but after living here for a week, he was beginning to get tired of it. “I hope she ordered enough. I’m starving.”
The other Lycan snorted. “She wouldn’t have invited us if she didn’t. Eats more than I do. Let’s go before she finishes it all.”
Soon they found themselves at the central command floor outside Lizzie’s office. Delacroix knocked on the door before poking his head inside. “Oh good, he’s not here.”
“Who’s not here?” Lizzie didn’t even look up from her computer screen, face scrunched up in serious concentration as her fingers flew across the keyboard with loud clickety-
clacks.
“Er, no one.” Your boyfriend, he said to himself at the same time. Well, Wyatt Creed could be her boyfriend if he ever grew some couilles and just admitted his attraction to her. Instead, the man acted like a crazy stalker, lurking outside her office and glaring and growling at any man who looked at her in the cafeteria during lunchtime. Lizzie could put him out of his misery by either going out with him or telling him to take a hike, but the female seemed oblivious to the man’s attentions. Or any man’s, for that matter, as she seemed only interested in her job and her computers.
“Ugh, when does the food get here?” Jacob grumbled as he filed in from behind. He plonked himself on the nearest chair and propped his feet on top of her desk.
“It’s on the—” Her face suddenly changed, and she bounded up from her chair. “Oh, food’s here!”
“Huh?” How did she know? “I didn’t hear a—”
A sharp ring pierced the air, and she pulled a phone from her pocket and spoke into it. “Yeah, send it up please.”
“Finally,” Jacob groaned. “I’m starving.”
With a disgusted sound, she pushed Jacob’s booted feet off the table. “I told you to stop doing that, runt.”
He stuck his tongue out at her. “And I told you to stop calling me that.”
They proceeded to call each other names and hurl creative insults at each other, which he watched with amusement. By now, he had gotten used to the siblings’ squabbles. On the outside, it may seem like they hated each other, but it was the opposite. Really, it was one of the ways they showed they cared. Some people used gifts or affirmation as a love language; Jacob and Lizzie used bickering.
“Now, now, children, please stop fighting, at least until after we finish eating.” He gave them a mock exasperated sigh. “By the way, thanks for inviting me, Lizzie,” he said as he sat opposite from Jacob.
The redhead parked her hip on the side of her desk and pulled a lollipop from her front shirt pocket. “I had an ulterior motive inviting you here.” She unwrapped the sucker and popped it into her mouth.
“Really?”
“When you arrived here, I immediately started looking into your background. And you know what I found?”
Now, this was interesting. “What did you find?”
“Absolutely nothing.” She pulled the lollipop from her mouth and waved it around. “Zip. Zilch. Nada. Everyone these days leaves some kind of digital trace. You seem to be a ghost. Now”—she leaned down and poked him in the chest—“how is that possible?”
“Perhaps you’re not as good as you think you are,” he challenged.
“Uh-oh.” Jacob shook his head. “You shouldn’t have done that. Now she won’t stop.”
Lizzie ignored her brother. “Of course I’m good. I’m the best. Even without my powers.”
Of course, she was a hybrid too, like her brother. “What are you going to do to me, then? Set my hair on fire?”
“Puh-lease.” She waved a hand dismissively. “As if I were so pedestrian.”
“Hey!” Jacob protested.
“Admit it, runt, my powers are much more elegant.”
“Talking to computers isn’t as cool as this.” Jacob snapped his fingers, and a small flame shot up from his hand. “What are you gonna do when someone attacks you? Throw a hard drive at them?”
“Wait a minute.” His gaze ping-ponged from one sibling to another. “What do you mean talk to computers?” Now his curiosity was piqued.
“She talks to them and tells them what to do,” Jacob offered. “And they talk back to her.”
“But isn’t that what a computer essentially does? Communicate?”
“Oh, you poor thing.” Lizzie sighed. “Anyone can use a keyboard or mouse or touchpad to tell a computer what commands to execute. What I do is so much more than that.” She made a grab at Jacob and swiped the phone from his hand. Ignoring his protests, she held it up and closed her eyes. A moment later, she let go of the device as if it was on fire. “Ew, gross! You’re disgusting, Jacob. I can’t believe you would watch that! What would Mom say?”
“Ha!” He picked up the phone from the floor and slipped it into the back pocket of his jeans, then fished out another phone from the inside of his jacket. “That was my dummy phone for when you try to snoop into my business. Do you think I’m an amateur? That I haven’t learned to keep a fake phone growing up around a technopath?”
A technopath. He’d never heard of such a power. Of course, he didn’t know many others who had powers, for that matter. “So, you can communicate with any computer and tell it what to do, just by touching it?”
“I don’t even have to be touching it, as long as I was connected to its network,” she said with a smug smile.
Interesting. “So, it must bother you then that you couldn’t find any information on me.”
Lizzie’s pert nose wrinkled. “Yes, but I’m also interested on how you managed to cover your digital tracks.” Wide blue eyes looked at him with manufactured guilelessness that almost made him snort. “If you could tell me, I would be grateful. It’s for you know … research.”
Hmmm, so little miss technopath needed info from me? Maybe he could use this to his advantage. “I could tell you, if you give me something in return.”
“What do you—” Lizzie recoiled, her face turning an alarming shade of red. “You pervert. I’m not going to sleep with you.”
“What the fuck?” Jacob lifted both hands, flames bursting from his fingers. “I told you if you ever tried—”
“Whoa, whoa, mes amis!” It didn’t even occur to him that that was what she would think. “I’m not talking about that.” He shuddered with disgust. Since arriving here, he had come to think of Lizzie as a sister. “I need something else.”
Lizzie placed her hands on her hips. “And what would that be?”
“I want you to help me access the elevator computer so I can get anywhere in the building.”
Jacob plopped himself back on the chair. “Oh, is that all? Why didn’t you say so?”
“Pshaw.” Lizzie waved her hand dismissively. “I can get around that easily. Why do you need access?”
“And why do you really need to know how I covered my tracks?”
She smirked at him. “Fine.” There was a knock on the door, and she yelled, “Come in!”
One of the young Lycan analysts walked in holding two large brown paper bags with “Emerald Dragon” printed on the side. The smell of fried rice, spicy chicken, and fragrant beef wafted in the air. Lizzie took the bags from him. “Thanks, Dan, you’re such a sweetheart.”
Dan blushed furiously. “Anytime, Miss Martin. If you need anything else …”
“I’ll give you call. See ya.”
Effectively dismissed, he left the office. She raised the bags. “Before we get down to business, let’s eat.”
After finishing their massive meal, Lizzie agreed to meet Delacroix by the elevators at seven o’clock that evening. Before going to meet her, he made sure to check that Mika’s car was still in the garage. As he’d observed in the last couple of days, she would usually leave early when he had afternoon training, and she left later in the evening during the time he would man the security booth while their usual guard was on dinner break. Tonight, however, he swapped with Jacob without telling anyone else.
She thought she was being sneaky, but he was sneakier.
“All right, I’m here,” Lizzie announced as she bounded up to him.
“How long will this take?”
She smirked at him, then pressed her palm against the control panel by the door. “There.”
“There?”
The door slid open, and she pointed at the car. “You now have free, unfettered access to go wherever you please.” Her gaze narrowed, and she thrust a finger at his face. “Don’t make me regret this.”
“Never, ma chouchoutte.”
“I’m gonna Google what that means later.”
He walked into the elevator car and faced
the infuriating computer. But this time, when he pressed his palm to the biometric reader and selected the floor to the command room, it replied with “access granted.” He grinned at her. “You’re a genius, Lizzie.”
“Thank you.” She shoved her hand between the metal doors as they were closing. “Wait! You haven’t told me how you managed to cover your digital tracks. Did you use a YRV64 encryption key? The Descartian-Gogol algorithm with a 865-bit modal frequency? Or was it a—”
He laughed. “Non. None of those things.”
“Really? Then what?”
She was probably going to hate him, but a deal was a deal. “No one can find information on you if it does not exist.”
“I—what?” Her brows knitted. “What do you mean?”
“My former clan lived off the grid, and members were under strict orders to keep digital activities to a minimum. We didn’t have internet connection in the bayou, and I’ve never owned a laptop, PC, or even sent an email.” Clan members kept a regular cellphone that could only call or text, but that was it. He had gotten so used to it, he didn’t bother trying to change his ways since he’d gotten this far without any of those things.
It took a while to dawn on her, but she finally understood. “Hey, that’s not fair!”
“You asked, I answered, ma chouchoutte,” he said before the elevator doors closed in front of her infuriated face.
As the elevator began to ascend, his inner wolf grew antsy, pacing impatiently. Truth be told, he was too. Maybe this was a mistake. Surely no one else would dare to hack into the elevator system and barge into the upper offices. He could be punished for that, but right now, he just couldn’t think about the consequences. That force compelling him to see her would surely drive him mad if he didn’t give in.
Luck was on his side as he reached the top floor, the place empty and dark. However, there was one source of light in the entire space—a large corner office with glass windows. He didn’t need to be psychic to know it was her, burning the midnight oil. How would she react to his presence here? Well, it was time to find out.
Shadow Wolf Page 5