by Cynthia Eden
She could just make out claw marks along the top of the old porch. They were embedded deep into the faded white wood that clung to the front of the house. “I’m going in—”
“We are,” Sully corrected softly.
She gave a tight nod and told Owen, “Keep everyone else back. We need to make sure there aren’t any surprises waiting for us.”
“Then, Agent Townsend…” Owen lifted his hand, palm up, and motioned toward the waiting house. “This show is yours.”
Sure, he was turning things over to her now. A charmer knew better than to tangle with the killer that waited.
Sadie and Sully went in fast. Guns up and ready. She didn’t shift, couldn’t, with so many people around. So, this time, she was going to use cold, hard bullets. With the right aim and the right hit, the leopard would be out, permanently.
They sidled up to the house. Swept to the left. Kept cover in the overgrown grass as much as possible. Sadie had her eyes on the second window on the left side, the one crisscrossed by two boards. One yank should have those down, then they’d be inside.
“So much blood…” Sully’s voice was a breath of sound behind her.
Her head moved in the slightest of nods. The coppery odor was even stronger now. The blood smelled very, very fresh. What if he had another victim in there? She could smell the traces of a human’s presence. The faded wisp of perfume. A woman. Was another victim inside? Or was that merely the scent memory of one of those poor women he’d killed?
No time to waste.
Sadie reached the window first. But Sully’s hands lifted before her. He ripped the boards away without so much as a sound.
Then it was her turn. Sadie dove through the window and landed in a crouch with her gun at the ready. Her eyes searched the darkness to find—
A large gold and black-spotted leopard. On the ground. Covered in blood. Barely moving. Gasping for breath.
Thud. Thud…
A weakening drum—his heart struggling to beat.
“Search the rest of the house!” Her order was given instantly.
Never let down your guard.
She’d learned that lesson long ago.
Sully moved like a shadow as he drifted soundlessly through the small rooms.
“Clear.” His gaze swept back to the leopard. “Looks like the bastard won’t be a problem much longer.” He unhooked the radio on his hip and called out to Owen.
Sadie couldn’t take her gaze off the leopard. Golden fur was matted red. She stepped forward. “We’re with the FBI…” Why was she bothering with the whole spiel? Owen would order the beast to be killed the minute he walked into the house. Not that it looked like the leopard would live much longer anyway.
A whimper rolled from his throat. A stark cry of pain and fear.
Her nose twitched. The scent of the leopard—it wasn’t quite right.
Not as musky as before.
But maybe the blood was just too strong.
Maybe.
“Fuck, the bastard’s still alive.” Owen’s voice. He’d stepped into what amounted to the den of the house. Sadie turned her head and found him glaring at the trembling leopard. He’d come in alone, for the time being. Probably wanted to keep his human agents away as long as possible. Certain humans that he employed knew the supernatural score, but when it came time to battle it out against beasts, they tended to stay in the background. The better to keep living.
As she watched, Owen pushed back his jacket and reached for his gun. “This one’s not going in—”
“No!” The cry burst from her lips. Some primitive instinct spurred that cry from her.
Owen’s eyes widened and an are-you-insane look covered his face.
This scene was wrong. The leopard’s scent should have been the same. But it wasn’t. It had been heavier and muskier before. “Don’t—don’t kill him yet.” Because something was off here.
Owen’s eyebrows shot up. “Sadie, you know what we have to do. That piece of shit has been slicing women to bits. Rehabilitation is not going to work for him.”
Yes, right, as if there were a monster rehabilitation program. No such luck. The powers that be would just rather see her kind dead.
“Why is he still in leopard form?” The fight between him and Sully had happened over fourteen hours before. The shift itself helped to speed healing for her kind. He should have transformed—
Not crawled into the house to lick his wounds and die.
“Maybe he couldn’t,” Owen groused. “Maybe he was hurt too badly from tangling with Sullivan.”
Maybe.
But shifting after injuries like this—it was second nature. No, more than that. Survival instinct.
“Sadie…” Sully’s voice was low. Worry lurked in his stare. “Don’t think because he’s one of yours that he can be saved.”
One of yours. Her spine straightened. “He’s not mine.” Her kind—her family—didn’t savage innocents. “Something feels wrong.” She shook her head. Sadie wished she could put into words why the scene made her feel so uneasy. The leopard she’d faced before had been so vicious. She’d almost smelled the evil and decay of the soul dripping from him.
This leopard was different.
Same overlying scent. Earth. Wild animal. But…not decay.
Owen aimed his gun at the leopard. Sadie put her body right in front of the gun. “Put it down.”
His jaw dropped. “Sadie, you’re stepping over the line—”
“Put. It. Down.” He wasn’t killing the leopard, not until she figured out what was happening.
Lines bracketed Owen’s mouth, but he slowly lowered his weapon. “You’ve got two minutes, and then I’m putting a bullet in his head. No more women are dying on my watch.”
Two minutes. Giving a quick nod, she spun around. She had to get closer to the shifter. The leopard’s head was turned away from her. She needed to look into his eyes.
She stepped in his blood. No way to avoid it. Blood had pooled on the floor.
He wouldn’t live much longer.
She kept her gun out and her body ready. If this was a ploy, he wouldn’t catch her off guard.
“Stop.” Sully’s voice. Vibrating with barely leashed fury. “That’s close enough. That shifter will not hurt you.”
She was less than two feet away from him. Her tongue licked over desert-dry lips. “Look at me.” She knew the leopard had heard every word spoken in that house. He’d heard, but hadn’t reacted.
As he didn’t react now.
Was he too far gone from pain?
Or part of his plan?
“If you don’t look at me now,” she raised her voice, injected steel, and added, “then you’re going to die. Owen can fire that bullet into the back of your skull and—”
The leopard’s head whipped toward her. His mouth opened in a snarl. His teeth glistened.
But his eyes were too bright. Brighter than any shifter’s she’d ever seen. It almost hurt her to look into them. Chips of emerald ice.
“Get the hell back!” Sully roared as he reached for her.
She didn’t move. Just stared into those eyes and realized that the leopard wasn’t seeing her.
Eyes as blank as glass.
He wasn’t seeing anything.
Blind.
She shook Sully off and dove to her knees. Her hands went to the wounds—so many wounds—and she tried to staunch the blood.
“Don’t touch him!” Sully grabbed her shoulders. “Sadie, what are you—”
Her head snapped toward Sully. “Help me.” She’d never asked for his help before, but she needed him now. “This isn’t the same leopard.”
“What?” Owen bellowed.
“The eyes.” She swallowed. “They’re green—but his are different.” The leopard wasn’t attacking her, damn lucky that, but his body had stiffened. Hold on. “His stare’s too bright. Sully, he’s blind.” A blind shifter. He would have been born with the vision loss, because if the problem had develop
ed later in life, the beast within would have been able to heal him. “He’s not the one who’s been killing those women.” But if they couldn’t help him soon, he would be the one to die that night.
Sully fell to his knees beside her. Buried his hands in the matted fur. “Fuck. What happened to him?”
She took a good look at his wounds. At the marks that could only have been made by claws. “The same thing—the same shifter—that happened to you last night.”
“Christ.” Owen exhaled heavily. “How many shifters are running around this city?”
Sadie didn’t answer because she didn’t think Owen actually wanted to hear the truth. Even though he couldn’t see her, she looked back into the beast’s blazing eyes. “Stay with me, okay? We’re gonna help you.” He had to shift to survive. “Owen, get him an ambulance. He’s gonna have to be sewn up at the hospital, because when he transforms, he’s not going to heal completely. One transformation won’t do it. He’s far too injured—”
Fur began to melt away. Muscled, golden flesh appeared as bones snapped and reshaped.
“Sonofabitch.” Owen’s breathless voice. Stunned. Shocked.
She guessed the guy had never seen an up-close-and-personal shift before. It was one thing to know about shifters in theory and quite another to see the bone-breaking sight for yourself.
The shifter lifted his head, no—tried to lift his head. Blond hair. Strong chin. High cheeks.
Sully tensed beside her. “Sadie…are you sure?”
She understood his doubt because the man she saw now was an exact copy of the shifter she’d seen in the bar that first night.
Same shaggy blond hair. Same strong chin. Cheeks. Nose.
An exact copy.
Except for the eyes.
If the leopard had been dead when they arrived, and those too-bright eyes had been closed, wouldn’t she have thought that she’d found her killer? Yes, yes, she would have.
Sneaky bastard.
“Get the EMTs in here!” Her voice snapped like a whip. “He needs blood, stitches, and a hell of a lot of morphine!”
Owen swore and hurried outside. She heard him shouting orders.
The blond’s lips trembled. Cracked, caked with blood. So many wounds still covered him. As she’d said, his injuries were far too severe to heal with one transformation. Maybe they were too severe to heal at all.
“In…no…cent…” So weak, but she heard him. Then his bright eyes closed.
“No!” Sadie screamed.
Chapter Twelve
“It’s the same man.” Owen paced the hospital hallway. “He fits the description. He’s a leopard shifter—he’s the same freaking man.”
Sadie glanced up at him. The special agent was almost vibrating with tension.
“Lance says the smell’s the same. Same scent, same man. Why the hell do we have doctors in there trying to save a sadistic killer when—”
“He’s innocent.” From Sully.
Sadie turned to him in surprise.
He gave her a rueful smile. “Hey, a guy doesn’t forget the man who tried to kill him.” He looked back at Owen. “It was a setup. We were supposed to find a dead body to satisfy us.”
She nodded, not the least bit surprised that Sully had come to the same conclusion she had. They’d always been in sync on their cases. One of the reasons she’d been so drawn to him.
Their minds worked alike.
And their bodies were pure fire together.
“Should have been a perfect plan,” he continued. “But the killer we’re really after didn’t count on that fellow—” Sully jerked his thumb toward the operating room “—fighting so hard to live.”
“I figure them for twins,” Sadie said. That was the only thing that made sense. A sigh escaped her as her shoulders fell.
Owen ran a shaking hand down his face. “So the killer’s still out there? Hunting on Miami streets?”
Unfortunately. Yes.
“Christ.” He reached for his phone. Swiped his finger over the screen and blasted, “Jennings, get the men back on the streets! Now!”
Sadie watched him storm away.
“You saved his life, you know.” Sully reached for her hand. “If you hadn’t been there, the shifter would be dead.”
Saved his life? They didn’t even know if he would survive. “His own brother did that to him.” What a nightmare. Jeez. What must life have been like for him?
But she knew. Hell. His life must have been hell.
Jacob would sooner bite off his own hand than ever hurt her.
Blind. She’d never met a leopard shifter who couldn’t see. The senses were so much a part of the beast. And so necessary for hunting.
“You at least gave him a chance.” Sully nodded. “Better than letting him take a bullet to the brain—which would have happened without you there. We both know Owen would have fired instantly.”
Her hand turned in his grasp so that her fingers locked with his. “Thanks for backing me up.”
Sully’s head inclined toward her. “Don’t you know yet, love, I’ll always back you?”
Yes, she knew. No, she’d thought she knew that he’d have her back. Two years ago, she’d thought everything was perfect with him. Until he’d left her all alone in a house that smelled of him. He’d been with her so much in her home and in her bed that his scent had marked everything.
As he’d marked her.
Every day—every damn day—she’d smelled him and thought that he was lost to her. She’d grieved so much. The question she’d held back finally tore from her. “Why, Sully?”
His brows pulled low. “I don’t know what makes a man cross the line and start killing—”
“No.” Sadie wet her lips and rose to stand right in front of him. She had to find out the truth because she hurt. In her heart, the one he’d touched. Then and now. “Why did you leave me?”
Understanding flashed in his eyes even as his jaw hardened. “I didn’t exactly have a choice.”
She wasn’t going to let him off that easily. Her shoulders stiffened. “There are always choices. You could have come to me—told me what happened—”
“And what?” His voice was harder, the Irish he could hide when he wanted rolling under the words. “Have you turn from me? Call me a monster? Have you forgotten that you tried to kill me when you realized I was a vampire?”
“If I’d wanted you dead, the stake would have been in your heart.” She felt like the one who’d taken a weapon to the heart. Damaged. Broken. She’d been like that for two years. “Didn’t you ever think about me?” Sadie couldn’t believe she was even asking him the question. Where was her pride?
But she had to know. She’d thought about him—
“Every night,” Sully told her flatly. “You were the last thing I thought of before sleeping and the first thing on waking.”
The hole in her heart closed a bit and her breath seemed to come easier at the absolute truth she saw on his face. “But you never came back to me.” Because, as he’d said before, he thought she was a human and wouldn’t be able to handle him? No, it just didn’t ring true, there had to be something more.
He caught her hands. Held tight to her. “Sadie, I’m not the man you remember.”
No.
“After I got out of containment, I-I did things…things I never thought I’d do.”
Her hands were still in his grasp, but her heart pounded too fast and she knew that with his enhanced vampire hearing, he heard the hard beats. “Tell me.” The darkness was within him. She’d seen it from the beginning. Maybe, if he’d stayed just a man, the shadows in his soul would have eventually disappeared. But he wasn’t just a man.
“You know the stories about the Born Masters…” No Irish lingered in his voice. Just cold, emotionless words.
And, yes, she knew about them. The vampires who’d been born, not made. The Born Masters were the ones who had the strongest psychic powers and the deadliest desires. Sadie nodded.
“Well, those tales don’t even scratch the surface.” An orderly walked down the hall and Sully paused, waiting until the man vanished. “The Borns can touch the minds of all they make—but it’s not just through the blood link. They can control, sneak inside, and steal every thought you have.”
Goosebumps covered her skin. She’d never encountered one of the Born Masters. Few had, and lived to spread the story.
“Ozur—”
Ozur. Oh, shit. Her claws sprang at the mention of his name. She’d heard of that ancient Viking killer. He was said to appear young, harmless. But he was really insane, bloodthirsty, and sadistic. He’d left a trail of bodies around the globe.
“He’s the one who turned me that night and, later, he tried to control me.”
Her heart stilled, then raced in a triple-time beat. “What did you do?” Not her Sully, he wouldn’t hurt—
“I incinerated the sonofabitch.”
Her breath left her in a startled rush. “What? How?” As far as she knew, only level-ten demons were strong enough to control fire to the degree needed to—
He laughed, but it was a harsh, cold rumble of sound. “I let the bastard think he had me. I drank from the prey he gave me, I hunted his enemies, and I got close. And when he rested, I fucking torched him.”
Silence.
Then the intercom crackled to life as a Dr. Tom Brown was paged to ICU.
Sully dropped her hands. “Don’t look at me like that.”
What? She shook her head. “No, Sully, I—”
“I did what I had to do in order to survive. I didn’t kill the prey he gave me. I let them live, Sadie, and when that prick was dead, I freed them. Yeah, I killed other vampires, I killed demons, but not innocents. Not—”
She rose onto her toes and kissed him. She wanted to shut off the tumble of his words and offer him the only comfort she could. I fucking torched him. She’d heard the agony in his voice. Knew that he’d lived through hell.
His arms swept around her and nearly crushed her with his too-strong grip. His mouth was frantic on hers. Kissing. Taking. Tongue driving between her lips.
She met him back with full passion and hunger. To know the torment he’d lived…it broke her heart.