Sheets cool and crisp against her skin, Derria settled beneath the blankets with a satisfied sigh.
Just as she reached for the switch on the lamp, her tablet beeped. A special tone told her that a message had arrived on a coded frequency.
Derria sat straight up in the bed, snatched the sleek piece of hardware off the nightstand and input her private code. As soon as the confirmation popped up on the screen that the encryption was in place, she attached the mini keyboard and accepted the connection.
The ID came through. It belonged to Niah Pryde.
“Well this can’t be good,” she typed.
The response was immediate. “It all depends on how you look at it considering you didn’t answer my earlier hail,” Niah responded. Derria chuckled, knowing the message had been sent with snarky, dry humor.
“I thought you and your mate were out on a hunt, Ni?”
“Tagged ‘em and bagged ‘em. Got back this morning just in time to get your intelligence request. Got to work on it right away, since it was you and all.”
Derria smiled, like she always did when she heard from any of her cousins. It had been a total fluke when Derria learned of the Prydes via an overheard phone conversation. Oh hell, who was she kidding? She’d totally been eavesdropping that day at the agency.
She’d overheard Captain Johns, the H.B.I.C.—Head Bitch in Charge—talking about the Prydes as she jogged down a private stairwell that Derria wasn’t supposed to have been in. Captain Johns had confirmed to whoever she was talking to that the Prydes had just taken down number six on the S.W.A.T. “Twenty Most Wanted” list.
That little shortcut in the stairwell that she wasn’t supposed to know about had changed Derria’s life.
After hearing her own family name, one that hadn’t been spoken in more years than she could remember, she’d done a bit of snooping through the personnel files. Sure, Derria was a fellow agent of the Prydes, but for safety’s sake, she’d always used her grandmother’s last name, Sozi.
She was typically assigned cases that required not only a competent fighting ability, but a high level of technical expertise—better known as hacking to some, snooping to others. Either way, she was good at it. Very good.
She’d learned that no one, including herself, was supposed to know about the Pryde sisters. A few discrete phone calls later, Derria had found herself in Wyoming, hugged from one end of the vast Pryde estate to the other by a group of women who looked eerily just like her.
From their caramel skin and bright amber eyes, to their shapely curves and sharp wit, there was no way they could deny they were related, even if they’d wanted to. Four months later, she’d secretly moved to Pryde Ranch.
S.W.A.T. still didn’t know the link between herself and the Prydes, and they’d all agreed to damn well keep it that way. Out in the wild, lions were the most territorially aggressive animals and tended to expand their holdings like crazy if left unchecked. Shifters were no different. For this reason, the organization took the control and, if necessary, the containment of lion shifters very seriously.
But that wasn’t a worry for her family—they owned a hundred square miles on the Medicine Bow River in Wyoming. There was plenty of room to work and run safely in their pelts on the fully self-sustaining estate.
“So what’s up?” Derria asked, typing as fast as she could, given that her eyes were trying to close without her permission. Damn she was tired. Guess a combo of adrenaline laced post-hunt energy followed by bone melting sex kind of did that to a girl. “You know I’m two hours ahead of you and you wouldn’t hit me up this late unless it were important. So lay it on me.”
“Pick up so I can tell you this bit. It’s too much to type.”
“Okay,” Derria typed back.
“One sec while I put the protocols in place.”
Derria slipped her microphoned earbuds in, and waited for the whir-clicks that told her it was safe. A moment later she was voice to voice with Niah.
“Let’s start with the first question on your list,” Niah said.
Derria waited, biting her lip as she tried to ignore the anxious flutters in her gut. Why? She already knew what Niah was going to say. Hell, ‘Kota confirmed it himself as he was laying the sexy on her.
“Well, Dare, sounds like you have yourself a mate, chick-a-dee. It would explain the whole tight skin, hot and nervous, belly jiggle thing. Oh, also the ability to scent him like no other. Does it feel like someone is burrowing into your head just so they can infuse you with sex hormone or something?”
“Uh huh.”
“Might throw you into heat, as well. As the bond forms, you’ll be able to talk with him telepathically both in and out of your pelt, just like you do with us. He will, in essence, become family, just like the rest of us,” Niah said, matter-of-factly.
Wow. She sat stunned for a moment, then she squealed, and just as quickly shut that shit down. Fast.
It was the happiest and most fucked up moment of Derria’s life. Someone all her own, in mind, body and soul. And a hot someone, at that. But what the hell was Mother Nature thinking to pair her with a mate in the middle of a hunt, damn it?
What a craptastic time to be distracted. What if something happened to him? Or to her? Or them?!
“For your second question, I discussed the issues with all my sisters. None of them have a clue about why you suddenly can scent other shifters who are not your mate. But whatever it is, we hope it hangs around. It would give us an amazing advantage on hunts, plus would help us understand why shifters outside that area have lost the ability to do what comes so easily to those from the Dragon. You’ll have to be our guinea pig for now so put a drop of blood in the scanner. Let me know the second it’s there. Koreas and Kotara can start the sequencing from here.”
Derria hopped out of bed, unzipped her bag and grabbed the med scanner and a sterilized suture kit out of the first-aid pouch Niah designed for them to carry on hunts. It was pretty cool, spaceman type shit that even sterilized itself after use.
A little prick in the finger, which hurt like hell, and she quickly dropped a single bit of blood into the little chamber and pressed the button that closed the sample slide inside of the scanner.
“Okay, it’s done.”
A second later, a bunch of numbers and scientific calculations started scrolling across the screen. But Niah wasn’t finished.
“Okay, the information is being automatically sent to K and K. Now, as for the guy ferrying you around, Lakota Phillips? He’s S.W.A.T.”
“Excuse me?” Derria snapped.
“I said, he’s S.W.A.T. I put his name and picture into the database. Smart of you to take a pic of him on the sly and send it to us because his name alone wouldn’t have done the trick. And don’t worry, I ran the search in such a way that the agency won’t notice I was digging around.”
That’s my girl. Hackers of the world unite!
“It was slower than I would have liked, but the information did finally come back. He’s definitely one of ours.”
“The warrant claims the guy I’m after killed someone in Idaho, and that’s firmly in S.W.A.T.’s jurisdiction. But he’s obviously from here. These people rejected the agreement with the agency and aren’t under our jurisdiction. Don’t they have their own law dogs?”
“Yep. And you met them earlier today. Looks like each clan has its own arm of enforcement, so to speak,” Niah said.
“And you’re right, I did meet them, but I was hoping like hell you’d have some different information for me, Ni. It’s strange that no one who should know why I’m here actually knows anything. None of the people I’ve talked to so far know anything about why S.W.A.T. was called in to apprehend Kerr Blackwood. Why didn’t they just have ‘Kota find this guy? A warrant and a kill order?”
“I agree that it doesn’t add up, Dare. Just be careful and keep your eyes open. Something stinks about this hunt.”
“No kidding.”
“Oh, and from the information I
’ve gathered, your guy is a good agent. And don’t be pissed because he didn’t tell you he’s one of ours.”
“Why not?” she asked, though it was a dumb question fueled mostly by the still-unfamiliar restlessness to hunt down Lakota and jump his bones. Again, and again. But she also had a deep care for a man she’d just met.
Sigh. Yep, definitely a mating thing.
“Well, if you hadn’t been ordered to check in with the elders and tell their emissary that you were an agent, would you have told him?”
“Oh shut up.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Niah laughed. It was a marvelous sound considering she did it so seldom. Miss Serious Pryde was more of a dry English humor kind of gal.
“Have you heard anything from Kotara and Koreas on the lack-of-babies issue?”
“They’re working on it. They said you can share the information with the alphas as they pass it to you, if you want. They only ask that the alphas keep it to themselves. They don’t want to deal with any council politics if they can help it.”
“I don’t blame them for that one. Pass something else to them, will you?”
“Sure. What’s up?”
When Derria added the fact that she’d met the alpha pair of the Comyn’s, a male wolf and a female feline, Niah’s amazed whistle filled the line. With a promise to pass the information on to the evil genius scientists, Niah disconnected the call.
Derria sat a few moments and let her thoughts run amok.
There were more mysteries in the Dragon than she cared for. And while she might be a bounty hunter trained in the arts of espionage and double-o-seven undercover type stuff, she preferred to be the one in the know. And right now, she didn’t have that assurance.
Someone was playing games. Unfortunately, in this particular business, games could get you killed.
* * * * *
As the sun began to rise, Lakota lounged on a thick limb high up in a huge old maple tree. Yesterday afternoon, he and Derria had stood up on top of the cliff that this tree overlooked and wondered what in the hell was going on. The tracker had beeped continually, but there’d been nothing and no one anywhere around. It hadn’t made sense then, and it didn’t make sense now.
Derria’s words echoed in his thoughts. “Maybe, just maybe, I’m not looking for what I originally believed?”
Hidden by branches and thick foliage, Lakota’s tail flicked in agitation as he waited for the Blackwood wolf to pass him by.
Soon enough, moving silently, a huge grey wolf with cream socks eased its way through the brush. The wolf paused, looked around and sniffed the air. Relieved that his perch wasn’t downwind, Lakota watched who he believed was Kerr Blackwood, swipe a spot on what looked like a sheer wall at the base of the limestone cliff.
Why would a wolf paw at a rock wall?
Then to his surprise, the rock moved aside just enough for the wolf to slip through the opening, then closed again.
No wonder Derria’s tech seemed to believe that the Blackwood wolf had disappeared into thin air. Because he had.
Moments later, a muscular gold and black jaguar jumped down out of its hiding place and loped away.
* * * * *
Derria had just poured herself a steaming cup of coffee when her sixth sense came fully alert. She stood at the kitchen window and stared past the grassy expanse of yard that ended where the forest began. The high humidity and cool overnight temperatures had caused a shroud of low fog to float just above the ground.
Though the mist appeared undisturbed, something was out there.
Something was out there.
Squinting into the morning sun that streamed in through the glass panes of the backdoor, she waited.
Come on, you bastard. Show yourself.
Moments later, a beautiful gold jaguar with perfect black rosettes along its body, loped out of the trees, across the yard, and up onto the back porch.
It sat on its haunches and waited. Its gorgeous green eyes were…
Green eyes?
She yanked the door open and inhaled deeply. Yep, it was him. “Lakota Phillips get your ass in here before some human driving through sees you. Crazy cat.”
His paws made no sound on the wood floor of the kitchen and she had to smile at how light he was on his feet. It was no surprise that he was a big jaguar—that subspecies was, after all, third largest feline in the world, right behind lions and tigers. Shifter genes tended to make them all just a bit larger than their natural cousins, no matter what kind of shifter they were.
With a thickly muscled body, big paws and a heavy jaw, he was a killing machine. Heavy enough to take down large prey, yet light enough to get up into trees, unlike lions who were less than stellar at those kinds of moves because they were just too damn heavy to climb well.
She poured him a cup of coffee, and followed him into the living room. She shivered, feeling the ripple of his shift float through the air and wrap around her like a caress. She hadn’t even made it all the way into the room, yet she knew she’d find him back in his beautiful human-looking skin.
The man was quite the specimen, all the way around. Hair, wild after his shift, was a lengthy riot of soft-looking, dark blonde curls all over his head and just a bit down his back. His skin was silky smooth, as gold as morning sunshine in mid-summer and eyes as beautiful as the rarest jewel. His build was muscular but not overly bulky, like he worked out every day, then ran miles and miles on top of that. Stamina. Oh yes, that’s what he made her think of. Stamina.
She handed him the mug and waited. While he sipped the black brew, she watched his strong profile as he stood in front of the blazing fireplace. Tall, dark and handsome described him perfectly. She started at his calves and made the tour up his body with her eyes. Sure, she’d seem him last night as they had hot and delicious sex, but she hadn’t taken the time to savor the package. And what a nice one it was, too.
He turned and set his cup on the mantle above the hearth.
“Derria, stop looking at me like that or I’ll be on you before I have a chance to tell you what I found.”
So, he’d picked up on her ogling, eh? She should probably be a little embarrassed, but nope.
“So, about those biceps and forearms that look like you lift weights without even trying? How can you be a fucking lumberjack and have a runner’s build at the same time?”
He laughed and shook his head at her. “Well, I’m glad you appreciate what you see.”
“Considering you’re standing naked in the living room, if you turn a bit more I can appreciate it a little better.”
“Woman, what am I going to do with you?” he asked as he moved toward her and pulled her into his arms.
“You have to ask?”
She lifted her chin and when he was a hair’s breadth from meeting her lips with his own, he rocked her world. What was this, the fourth time in just two days? Holy hell, he was a keeper.
“I found Kerr Blackwood.”
“What?” Her head tilted a hard left and a riot of curls came loose from the messy bun on top of her head, and then fell into her face.
Deadly and adorable? What a combination in a female.
“I said, I found—”
“I heard you, but how? Where?”
“I had to go out and serve a warrant at the edge of Comyn land early this morning. On the way back, I took a detour to that spot where we lost Kerr Blackwood yesterday. You were right. He was right in the spot he should have been.”
She motioned for him to talk faster.
“He was under us the whole time.”
She shot to her gear bag that was sitting near the bottom of the stairs and yanked it open. Back at his side, she pulled out her tracker and said, “Show me.”
“Right here. There’s a cliff, remember?”
“How could I forget? You kept me from flying over it.”
“At the bottom of that cliff, Blackwood has a hidey hole. You wouldn’t ever know it was there, even if you were standing ri
ght next to it.”
“So how the hell did I scent him, then?”
“I’m guessing that since his hidey hole is in the rock, there are some small holes or something for ventilation. But again, very hard to detect.
“You,” she said as she pulled him into a hard kiss, “are awesome! I’m out of here in twenty minutes. Do you think he’ll still be there?”
“I don’t know. Let me grab a bite and I’ll go with you.”
“I don’t need back up, ‘Kota. I’ve got it. You go ahead and do your liaison thing and I’ll catch up with you after I have him in custody. I have a kill order, but I’d rather question him. Where can I take him? Kitty told me that there’s a human Sherriff in Deal’s Gap, but I’d rather not use his jail in case things get bloody. Besides, he’s none the wiser to the fact that there are shifters all around him.”
“Where can you take him? You’re not taking him anywhere without me.”
“Excuse me, but I don’t need any interference. I was instructed to do my little courtesy song and dance to the councils and alphas, and I’ve done that. You were a huge help, but I’m not asking for, nor need any help for this. It’s what I do.
“And I’m still going.”
“Whoa, wait a minute.” She took a few steps back, looked him up and down with a curl to her lip that made him wonder if he smelled like shit or something. “Are you assuming that because we had sex that you’re the boss of me or some shit?”
“What? No!”
“Good. Because this task is my responsibility. And you’ve pissed me off, so screw leaving in twenty. I’m out of here now.”
“Damn it, Derria, you have no idea what you’re getting into!”
“Right now, I don’t give a shit about anything except the fact that you’re yelling at me and telling me what to do. Or in this case, what not do.”
“I don’t mean to yell, but it doesn’t change what I said. The Blackwood pack are a bunch of exiles. They owe allegiance to no one. They’re mangy ass wolves who’d sell out their own mothers for a can of fix-a-flat. They tried to kill Sienna when she first came to us. Word is they kidnapped the only doctor in the area, right out of his office on Comyn lands. They. Are. Killers, woman.”
Southern Shifters: Shiftin' Sassy: Derria Pryde (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Pryde Ranch Shifters Book 4) Page 5