by Elle Thorne
And yet he did. He’d set up his cabin. He’d even put together Lance’s cabin for him. The one he hadn’t messed with was Cross’s. Judge knew why. Oh, yeah, he knew about Cross’s communication room. He knew that Cross was a lot higher in the Compliance Unit hierarchy than he let on. But Cross was too tightlipped to disclose.
Probably why he rose so high in the ranks.
Though Judge hadn’t done too badly himself. As for their brother Lance, well, Lance was a different one altogether. Lance wasn’t too interested in rising in the CU. He went, sure, but Judge always wondered if he had an ulterior motive for joining.
He sighed at the thought of his brothers. Would they have grown up differently if they’d had their parents?
As though they were real grizzlies who needed their space, the del Cruz brothers.
I should have called Cross to begin with, not Lance.
Cross, as eldest, and with that badass communication room, could have helped Judge figure out what the hell was going on.
Might as well call Cross.
Cross picked up on the first ring. In the background, Judge could hear Cross’s mate, Ariadne’s soft voice.
Ariadne—the best thing that could have happened to Cross. She’d softened an edge his brother didn’t like to show to anyone. Yeah, Judge knew all about Cross’s softer side. He’d seen the stray animals Cross had helped when they were younger.
But Cross never showed that human side of himself. He’d always had the gruff, rough exterior. But the moment Ariadne entered Cross’s life, a little over a month ago, Judge heard the difference in his brother’s voice.
He’d heard joy. Joy—something the del Cruz brothers never had much of.
Cross picked up on the first ring and stepped right into a conversation with Judge as if they’d been in the middle of a chitchat. “What’s on your mind? Shouldn’t you be pulling in anytime soon? Looking for a dinner invite?”
There it was. That joy in Cross’s voice. There was something else too. If Judge hadn’t talked to Lance two weeks ago, he’d have never known.
Never known the old shifter he’d always known as Griz was actually their uncle.
Never known that Judge and Lance’s father had killed his half-brother, Cross’s father. Then he had been killed in retribution, leaving the boys homeless and orphaned.
All this time, Judge had thought he, Lance, and Cross had the same father. He’d have never known that his and Lance’s father wasn’t exactly a great guy either. That the third brother, Griz was the best one of the bunch.
And after the boys were left fatherless, Griz, who’d been in the Shifter Council Compliance Unit, had learned his brothers’ children were in foster homes, shuffled from one to another, kept only a short time because of their tendencies.
Cross’s bear wanted to kill Lance’s bear. Cross’s bear remembered the day his father had been killed. It wanted retribution from the time they were little and had repeatedly tried to kill Lance.
That got the three boys kicked out from home after home, until they finally ended up in Mae Forester’s care. Then Griz had shown up one day. He’d asked them to keep his existence a secret and he’d been like a father figure to them, coming to each one during rough times.
“Judge.” Cross’s voice brought him back. “I’m guessing you didn’t call for an invite to dinner, then.”
Judge cleared his throat. “Not exactly.”
On the other end of the phone, Judge felt his brother’s tension setting in. Cross had picked up on Judge’s tone.
“Remember Lani?”
“Alanna Meyers, that Lani? From the same CU squad?”
Judge took a deep breath. As far as descriptions went, that barely touched the tip of the iceberg when it came to Lani, at least when it came to Judge’s feelings about her.
“Yeah. That Lani. Got a call from a guy in our squad.” This was a stretch. Lani wasn’t in Judge’s squad anymore. She hadn’t been since that morning. “He said she’d gone AWOL.”
“You’re out, though. Right?”
Technically, yes. Judge was out. He had done his four years and was on his one-year furlough. The one year where an Enforcer of the Compliance Unit could decide if he wanted to go back or not.
Judge already knew the answer to that.
“Yeah, I’m on my leave.”
“So why would you be called about her absence without leave?”
He let out a slow exhale, pulled the truck onto the side of the road, the tiny pebbles crunching beneath the truck’s wheels. Judge slipped it into park and took his foot of the brake. Adjusting the angle of the phone against his face, he clenched the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip.
“I just would…” He didn’t feel like getting into it.
“You just would? Just like that? An Enforcer on furlough would be called because of another squad member’s AWOL?” Suspicion was very obvious in Cross’s tone.
“We were close.” That was all Judge was willing to give up on the matter.
“Close? Fraternizing close? The kind of close that gets you tossed out with a dishonorable mention on your record?”
“I’m not with the CU anymore.”
“You’re still accountable for your behavior.”
The last thing Judge was in the mood for was a damned lecture on his behavior when he was in the unit.
“Come on, Cross. What the fuck. You know I don’t break the rules.”
If one went to hell for lying, Judge knew he’d be headed straight there.
No passing GO, no collecting $200, no nothing. Just straight to jail with my ass.
Especially since I’m guilty.
As if he’d confess to that.
It was one night, for fuck’s sake. One night.
One mistake, if Lani had her say. One mistake that led her to dropping out of their squad and dropping out of sight. Permanently.
“You sure you don’t break rules?” More suspicion in Cross’s tone.
“Fuck it, bro.” Judge swiped to end the phone call with a quick jerk and tossed the damned phone onto the seat, shoved the truck into gear and took off for his cabin.
Chapter Three
Judge was getting closer.
Lani could feel it. Feel the way Intuitives felt when they’d imprinted with someone. It was like a low vibrating thrum. It was as though her body had a tuning fork and it would signal with that inaudible drumming that pulsed deeply inside.
This was the blessing and the curse of being an Intuitive.
She hated it sometimes. Maybe this was one of those times.
Lani sucked air in, her lungs burning from the effort. Big deep breaths to help her push oxygen through her body. Big deep breaths to calm her nerves.
Judge was coming. She’d see him soon. Very soon.
The thrumming grew in its intensity.
She held her hands out. Her fingers quivered.
They hadn’t spoken since that morning.
The.
Morning.
After.
The morning after one incredible night that had been the culmination of more than three years working next to the only man she’d ever loved.
The only one I’ll ever love.
She’d known better. She really had.
Just because shifters let us in their midst doesn’t mean they’d let us in their hearts.
Sure, they’d let an Intuitive into their Compliance Unit.
Sure, they’d let one in their bed.
It was for pleasure, not for mating, nor bonding.
Oh yes, Lani knew all about the shifter couplebonding. How could any Intuitive not?
Intuitives read emotions. They translated auras, feelings, impressions.
Intuitives had been used to solve crimes over the years. Not that there weren’t charlatans and fakes—of course, there had been. The Intuitive community was on a mission to reveal those charlatans.
And as such, Lani became the first Intuitive. The next year another Intuitive foll
owed in her steps, but Lani was always held as an example.
Look where that’s gotten me.
On the run, in hiding, in need of help, and reaching out to the very same man she left in a lurch one Saturday morning, with only one sentence.
“I can’t do this.”
Those had been her last words.
She’d scurried from his apartment, half her clothing on, the other half in a crumpled mess in her hands. Her skin had still been rosy from the sex they’d had—all night.
Her body smelled like the sex they’d had. Her pores, her breath, her sweat—everything exuded and reminded her of Judge del Cruz.
Judge.
With his olive skin. With his darker than sin eyes. With his wide shoulders that could block a door. With his waist that tapered to a delicious V she’d licked and kissed that night.
A heat crept to Lani’s cheeks, hiding in that cabin, up in the mountains, having memorized the things he’d shared with her over the years.
I’m such a stalker.
No, she wasn’t.
They’d been the best of friends in the last two years in their squad. He’d shared everything about his life, his brothers, the mountains and the valley he’d come to love. The foster homes he’d been shuffled in and out of.
Sure, he’d shared a lot.
That’s what people did with Intuitives—they shared. Clearly it was what shifters did, too. Which is why Lani was so good at her job.
Which was also why she felt his confusion that morning. Did his big ol’ grizzly bear ego find it too much to accept?
Or was he confused because they’d gone from a great friendship to a colossal mistake?
What else could you call a one-night stand between the two of them but a colossal mistake?
It wasn’t that she wasn’t in love with Judge.
God. She was so in love with him that she couldn’t shake the imprint of him from her soul.
But she knew shifters. She’d heard them talking. And she’d heard her own people talking.
Shifters didn’t couplebond with Intuitives. And no self-respecting Intuitive would want to be mated to a brutish shifter who had no emotions and spent his time rutting and womanizing.
Except that wasn’t how shifters were.
Her people had that so very wrong. Why would they perpetuate the myth?
She’d once asked Pepper, her best friend why she thought their own kind had that opinion of shifters.
“Because if we mated with shifters, our babies would be hybrids. Their Intuitive qualities would be diluted with shifter genes, silly.” Pepper had answered quickly and with a laugh, as though it was a given.
They didn’t know shifters the way she did, working in close proximity. They didn’t know Judge del Cruz.
The first time she’d met him all those years ago…
They’d been in New York, at the headquarters for the Shifter Council. An elder named Mikhail Romanoff had been in attendance for the swearing in of new members of the Compliance Unit squads.
There’d been six shifters of various types: bears, a lion, two tigers.
And then there’s me.
Lani had been the only non-shifter, and she’d also been the only female. She noticed there seemed to be a shortage of females in the Compliance Units. It rankled her feminist side, but she kept her mouth shut, glad they’d let her join, even though it wasn’t in the capacity of Enforcer.
As if I could be an Enforcer.
Enforcers were shifters. Enforcers killed. Enforcers captured.
An Intuitive had zero innate desires to kill and no training in killing or capturing.
Mikhail Romanoff and his underling grabbed the papers they’d all signed, all six of the shifters and Lani, then they left the room.
Lani glanced at the other occupants—all shifters, all male. She swallowed hard, resisting the urge to clear her throat, because the room was so quiet. She looked down at her hands.
Why did I sign up for this again?
Oh, yeah, to get away from my nagging mother. And to make Dad proud. That too.
One of the shifters stepped forward, a giant of a man with blond hair and hard features. “I’m James Dorsey. I’ll be your CO, commanding officer for those who don’t know. Step forward and introduce yourselves, including your position.”
One stepped forward, a lithe man with a wolfish grin. “Benedicio Tamez. You can call me Bull. Reconnaissance.”
Another stepped up, slightly larger. “Carmichael Jones,” the dark-skinned man stated. “Enforcer.” His chest swelled with pride. His smile was contagious. His aura gave away his pride.
Lani looked down to avoid smiling back. She wasn’t sure about this group, yet, and didn’t want to give away any advantages being an Intuitive would have.
“Judge del Cruz.” A deep voice rumbled through Lani, touching her senses, making her body tense with an unfamiliar impression, one she couldn’t name.
She looked up.
A striking dark-haired man joined the first two. His eyes narrowed. The man clearly meant business. “Enforcer.”
Again, his voice traveled through her body as if it were a physical entity.
With chiseled features and an intensely black gaze, the man locked eyes with Lani.
She couldn’t pull away. She couldn’t save herself from the sensation of drowning in his aura. Deeper and deeper, he pulled her under, into his being, into his essence.
It wasn’t until a fourth man stepped between them, breaking their stare that she was able to look away.
And that was the first experience Lani had with Judge four years ago.
She knew he was here. Not in the cabin, but outside. She heard a vehicle pull up. She didn’t need supernatural shifter hearing to know one had. But she wouldn’t know who it was without her own Intuitive skills. Her skills, her imprint, picked up on his essence, the thrumming so intense it made her want to shake like a leaf.
No. This isn’t normal. This isn’t what imprinting does.
This was what Judge did to her.
Each. And every. Damned. Time.
Footsteps on the porch.
A key in the lock.
The dark cabin flooded with sunlight coming in from the front door.
A silhouette stepped forward, blocking the sun.
Judge.
Keys dropped to the floor.
His eyes narrowed as he took her in.
It wasn’t lost on Lani that she’d trespassed on his territory, broken into his cabin, and now sat there, without a glimmer of guilt or fear on her face.
Of course, he’d never see or know of the emotions that swirled within her.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Chapter Four
Judge didn’t know the car in the driveway in front of his cabin, but then again, it could be anyone. Mae, or Mac, or Ariadne, or one of his brothers, if they’d decided to buy a new car. Or it could even be Griz.
He tried to take in the scent, but got nothing.
Odd. Hunter’s block was being used, clearly. But why? Why would one of his family or friends want to hide their presence?
He opened the door. Fear was the last thing on his mind. He was a grizzly shifter. He was an enforcer. Why the hell should he be scared?
He dropped his keys.
Judge stared. That’s all he could do. Lani was the last person he expected to see here. Really, she was the last person he expected to see, period.
He’d be lying if he said that seeing her didn’t affect him. He’d spent years getting to know her, working closely with her on cases. They’d saved each other’s lives on more than one occasion, she with her Intuitive skills, and he with the brute force innate to his grizzly shifter.
He hadn’t seen her since that one morning. The morning after the night they made what clearly she thought was the biggest mistake of her life.
She had to have thought that, for why else would she have said what she did? Why else would she have requested a transfer
to another unit and left before Monday morning?
The new unit had sent her deep undercover. Judge never saw her again. He’d left texts. He’d left messages.
No response.
And now she was here.
He studied Lani, sitting at his table, her eyes ringed by hollowed, dark circles. Her curvy body was hidden from him by the table’s wood surface. Her long dark hair was pulled back, from her face, reminding him only too well of the time’s he’d held it back, fisting it in a ponytail while she leaned down and took him in her mouth.
Damn her.
Damn her to hell for leaving him in a lurch, with no explanation, no decisions to be made.
In a short twenty-four-hour period, they’d gone from team members and best friends, to lovers, to nothing. Not even acquaintances.
Her throat worked, as if she were swallowing her words.
“Well?” He crossed his arms across his chest. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
He fought to keep the sarcasm and hurt from his voice.
He failed. He could see it in her face.
How the fuck could she put on a hurt look when she walked out on their friendship and their—
What the fuck would I even call it? It wasn’t like it was a relationship.
His bear bellowed in Judge’s mind.
To his bear, Lani was the one. The only one. And her disappearance put his bear into a tailspin.
For more than a week, his bear had refused to come out, refused to morph, refused to allow Judge to take his shifter form. Judge had a hell of a time explaining his poor performance away that week.
Then he’d had a come-to-Jesus moment with his bear. He’d explained to him that if they were kicked out of the Compliance Unit, there’d be no chance of ever seeing Lani again, no chance of ever finding her. The bear relented and Judge was able to return to a shadow of his former life.
Gone were the afterhours breakfasts he’d enjoyed with Lani when they’d finished an assignment.
Gone were the Friday and Saturday pizza-and-a-movie nights.
Gone were the late night phone conversations when she was having a rough time with her Intuitive mother.