Shifter Wars Complete Series

by Sarah J. Stone

  "That was…unexpected," Jack said, finally breaking the silence.

  "I'll say," I said.

  "You foxes…you're always something else."

  "Oh?" I asked, a playful smile on my face. "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Oh, you know," he said, rolling over onto his side and propping himself up on his thick, muscular arm. "Brainy during the day, but when it comes time for fun…that's when the animal comes out."

  "It was just the adrenaline," I said, my face heating with embarrassment.

  Was I really a sex fiend deep down? No, it had to be the events of the evening. After all, I'd never been like that with another man, though my sexual experience was pretty darn limited. Maybe it was something about Jack…

  I pushed this thought out of my head, the reality of what had just happened now dawning on me. I'd been partnered with this guy for barely a day and we'd already screwed. So much for professionalism.

  "Okay, you blame it on the adrenaline and I'll blame it on the booze," he said, flashing that same smart-ass smirk.

  I huffed and slapped his chest, the firmness of his muscles making me almost want to consider another go. Get ahold of yourself. This is no joke.

  There was that goody-goody again, ready to make sure I felt bad for not doing the exact right thing. I watched as Jack took a sip of his whiskey, lay back down, and folded his hands behind his head. His eyes closed, and soon he appeared to be out. Figuring that answered the question of whether or not I was allowed to sleep here, I placed my head on his chest and listened to his heartbeat, the slow, steady thumping lulling me to sleep as I wondered just what the hell I'd gotten myself into.

  CHAPTER 9

  NADIA

  "Wakey-wakey."

  I opened my eyes, bleariness covering my vision as I woke up. Standing over me was Jack, and I couldn't help but gasp as I realized where I was, followed by the memory of just what I'd done last night.

  Jack was wearing a silk bathrobe as black as his hair, which was wet and slicked back. He looked clean and fresh, and I realized that he'd likely taken a shower. I sat up and looked into the fold of his robe.

  "If you want to take a look, you can just ask," he said with a smirk as he walked toward the kitchen.

  "Get over yourself," I said, grabbing a nearby pillow and tossing it at him.

  The pillow went wide and sailed into the corner of the apartment.

  "I just wanted to see hodw your cuts were doing," I said, sitting up.

  "Fine," he said. "Just washed ‘em off in the shower. Should heal up fine in a week or so, maybe leave some more scars. And what's a couple more of those?"

  I could see a few off-white lines on the skin of his chest that was exposed. I wondered what kind of life he'd led that resulted in wounds like those.

  "Anyway, I'm gonna cook breakfast. We got a long day ahead of us to make up for last night. Go take a shower and run your clothes through the wash if you want. I'll make something to eat."

  Part of me wanted to go back to my place to shower and get ready there, but Jack was right. We needed to start on the day.

  "What's for breakfast?" I asked.

  "Surprise," he said, stepping into the kitchen. "Go shower."

  I wanted to throw another pillow, but there wasn't one nearby. I settled for sticking my tongue out before heading off to the bathroom. The bathroom was a spacious, sleek, stainless steel affair, the kind of you'd expect a bachelor like Jack to have. After tossing my clothes into the wash, I stepped into the shower and let myself relax, the water washing away the stress of the frenzy of activity during the last day. My evening with Jack slipped into my mind, and I realized that the best thing to do about…all that would be to set it aside for now and focus on the job at hand. After all, there was a potential war on the horizon.

  Once I was done, I moved my clothes into the drier and walked back into the main room of the apartment. The smell of cooking meat filled the air, and my stomach started to growl.

  "There you are," Jack said, looking at me over his shoulder from where he stood at the stove. "Food's ready."

  I took a seat at the kitchen table, Williamsburg sprawled out to my right through the window. Jack approached the table, a plate in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. He set the plate down and it was…steak. It was probably the biggest slab of meat that I'd ever seen in my life, sitting in a thin pool of pink liquid. I poked it with my fork, trying to figure out just how to start with this thing. Jack returned a moment later with another plate and cup of coffee. He took a seat across from me and immediately jabbed a knife into his meat.

  "Dig in," he said.

  I poked the meat again, almost feeling like it was going to take a bite of me.

  Jack ate hungrily for a minute or so, washing his large forkfuls of meat down with swigs of coffee. But soon he noticed that I hadn't made any progress on my meal.

  "Problem?" he asked, cutting off another slice of steak.

  "It's just so….um, meaty."

  "Bears are into meat, in case you haven't heard."

  "Well, I'm not a bear, in case you haven't heard."

  He wasn't affected in the slightest by my sass. "Just give it a try. That's a medium-rare ribeye. Put hair on your chest."

  "Not a good look for girls."

  "Trust me."

  Hesitantly, I picked up my knife and fork. Placing the blade on the meat, I cut into it, more watery blood leaking out onto the plate. Once I'd sliced off a piece, I jabbed it with my fork and raised it toward my mouth. Closing my eyes, I placed the pink piece of meat on my tongue and chewed it. It was tender, falling apart in my mouth. I was used to lighter fare, so it felt a little strange at first. But as I chewed, the flavors began to flood my palate. It was savory, peppery and...delicious.

  "See?" Jack asked, now nearly done with his meal. "Not bad."

  I finished chewing and swallowed, the meat already putting a damper on my hunger. Soon, Jack and I were both totally engrossed in our meals, eating our steaks and drinking our coffee, letting the food and drink replenish us. I almost began to feel…somewhat relaxed.

  But before I could get too comfortable, Jack's phone rang from the other side of the room. He sprang out of his seat and ran over to it.

  "It's Delahunt," he said, looking at the screen.

  I wondered what Ms. Delahunt could want. Always having a guilty conscience, I immediately thought that I was in trouble for one thing or another. Maybe our little incident at the club last night had already reached Sapien HQ.

  "Uh-huh," Jack said.A long silence hung in the air.

  "You're kidding. I'll check now."

  Jack grabbed the remote for his TV from the couch and flicked on the massive screen that hung in the corner of the apartment. It was a news program, breaking news by the look of it, and I stood up from my seat, taking my coffee with me as I walked over to where Jack watched.

  When I realized what the nature of the news was, I nearly dropped my cup.

  "…ongoing investigation of the tragedy in Harlem. A local man identified as Emmanuel Martin has been found dead in what police are describing as a likely murder."

  The image on the screen was that of the street in front of Emmanuelle's building. It looked familiar, aside from the cordoned off area in front of the entry and the squad of police cars and fire engines out front, their lights flashing as officers and firemen swarmed around them in an attempt to keep bystanders from interfering with their investigation.

  "Mr. Martin appears to have been thrown not just out, but through the window of his sixty-sixth-floor apartment in the exclusive Benton Building."

  The screen then switched to a zoomed-in view of the exterior of Emmanuelle's apartment. Sure enough, one of the windows of his apartment was smashed straight through.

  "Local officers on the scene have been sparse in the way of information."

  Now an officer spoke, a mustached man with a rough Brooklyn accent.

  "We got what we're thinkin' is a murder, but
we're still conducting our investigation. We'll let you know when it's an appropriate time."

  Then he left the frame, clearly eager to get away from the reporter.

  "Employees in the building that we were able to speak to expressed their shock at the alleged murder."

  Now, the front desk man that I'd spoken to was on screen. He looked worried and tired. "Those glass plates…they're a solid foot thick. If he did get thrown out, man, I don't wanna meet the guy who did it."

  Jack turned off the TV, tossed the remote onto the couch, and started off to his bedroom.

  "What now?" I asked.

  "Finish your breakfast and get ready. This day just got a hell of a lot harder."

  I grabbed my things from the laundry and threw them on, putting my hair into a simple ponytail and wincing at the sight of my un-made-up image in the mirror. By the time I returned to the main room, Jack was already ready and waiting for me. I took one last bite of my steak—what can I say? It was delicious—and hurried out the door with Jack.

  "They killed Emmanuel?" I Jack asked, still having a hard time believing what I'd seen.

  "No ‘they'," Jack said, his expression grim as he drove toward Brooklyn Bridge. "This was Mr. Ax—no doubt."

  "The dragons?"

  "I'd bet my last goddamn dollar on it."

  "But why?" I asked.

  Jack opened his mouth to speak, but stopped himself.

  "You know what? You're Miss-Perfect-Scores. why don't you lay your theory on me?"

  I thought it over. "We know that Emmanuel was in a position to join the Three."

  "Right."

  "But he's dead. So, he can't do that."

  "With you so far."

  "But as we learned at the club, Emmanuel had been made the administrator of one of the areas bordering Wolf territory."

  "Right."

  "And Emmanuel was a rich brat—not really the type to count on when you're looking to pull strings behind the curtain."

  Jack nodded.

  "So, if this Mr. Ax did it, then he must've figured that Emmanuel's new position was as far as he needed him to go, and that his next most useful role would be to…"

  "Start a war between the tigers and the wolves."

  "That's right."

  "And fat fucking chance we're going to be able to get up to his apartment again, but I'd bet next month's rent that it's done up to look like a wolf-tiger fight."

  By the time he was finished talking, we'd reached Sapien HQ. Jack slid into a spot, and a few minutes later, we were past security and on our way to Ms. Delahunt's office.

  "Jack, that better be you," Ms. Delahunt said from beyond the door.

  "The one and only," Jack said. He opened it and we stepped in.

  "Sit," Ms. Delahunt said as she stood behind her desk, file in her hands, her demeanor as stern as ever.

  We both complied. As I settled into my chair, my eyes flicked up to the stuffed owl above her desk. I think I know why that thing's there, I thought. Damn thing's there to make you feel on edge, make you think about what you're not doing that you should be.

  "So," Ms. Delahunt said, snapping me out of my mini-trance. "We've got a corpse on our hands, and it's the man you two'd been following. You got a reason why you two weren't on him when he got taken out?"

  "Almost getting killed is our reason," Jack said.

  "Oh?" Ms. Delahunt's eyebrows raised slightly.

  Jack filled her in on the previous night's events—minus a few, um, details—and she seemed satisfied with the response.

  "Not happy about you getting wounded on the job and not filing it in the system," Ms. Delahunt said.

  "That was, ah, what I was gonna do after this meeting of ours."

  "I'm sure," she said.

  "So," Jack said. "We have our theories on what's going down with Emmanuel's murder, but we're going to need to see his body."

  "His body?" Ms. Delahunt asked. "And why's that?"

  "Because this murder was set up to implicate the wolves."

  "You're right about that," Ms. Delahunt said. "Word on the street is that the tiger Three is starting the process of mobilizing their foot soldiers. They're thinking that this murder was the first casualty of a massive conflict."

  "But it might not be the wolves," Jack said.

  Ms. Delahunt sat back in her seat. "Dragons," she said, her tone grave.

  "Exactly."

  "But wait," I said, feeling like I needed to contribute something, anything, "do we really want to get involved in dragon business?"

  "Normally, no," Jack said. "But I have a good reason to think that this dragon is acting alone. And if so, I'm not going to let him start a war."

  Ms. Delahunt nodded. "I'll get the info on where the body's being held. Probably in a morgue by now. You two get in, get whatever information you need, and get out. I don't want any more complications—this situation's sticky as hell it is. Dismissed."

  And that was it. Jack and I got up and headed out, and though I was almost certainly imagining it, I could've sworn the eyes of the stuffed wolf followed me as I left the office.

  CHAPTER 10

  JACK

  An hour or so, and some paperwork about my injury, later, Nadia and I were at the hospital where Emmanuel's body was being kept.

  "This place is probably going to be locked up tight," Nadia said, her eyes tracking up along the height of the building.

  "That's why we're going to need a distraction," I said.

  "A distraction? Why kind of distraction?"

  "I'm thinking we might need to set a little critter loose in the ventilation system."

  "No way," Nadia said as I pulled into an open space. "If I got caught…"

  "You won't get caught. Get in, make a little noise, get out and shift back. Maybe set off an alarm or two while you're at it. Give ‘em something to fuss about while I go in there and check out the body."

  "I don't like this one bit," Nadia said, her voice heavy with skepticism.

  "Well, we're Sapiens—sneaking around is part of the gig."

  I popped open the glove compartment, exposing a bevy of ID badges and forged warrants. I sifted through my NYPD badges and found one that I hadn't used in a while.

  "Ready?" I asked.

  "As I'm gonna be," she said.

  We approached the hospital, splitting up before we made it to the front doors. Once there, Nadia hurried through then down one of the hallways. I went to the front desk and got the attention of the curly-haired nurse tapping away at her computer.

  "Morning," I said, flashing my badge. "Detective Ambruzzi, NYPD. Here to see the body of the man who thought he could fly."

  "Mr. Martin, you mean?" she asked. "They're sending more cops in here?"

  I watched as Nadia disappeared into an open door, her walk awkward and obvious. Girl needs to calm down. "There's something they forget to check," I answered.

  The nurse furrowed her brow and typed into the computer. She wasn't sold entirely, but I just needed to get into the room.

  "Morgue's in the basement," she said, handing me a guest pass. "They'll show you where."

  "Thanks kindly," I said with a wink.

  Soon, I was in the elevator and on my way down. A badge wasn't good enough for a fresh murder like this. If that nurse did her job, she'd be double-checking who I was right at this moment. So, if Nadia wasn't able to come up with the distraction I needed, I'd be sunk.

  The floor where the morgue was located was dimly lit, the hallways cramped and narrow. A few doctors could be found here and there, and I got the attention of one in order to find the room where Emmanuel's body was being kept. He led me down the main hall, soft blue lights leading the way. After a time we arrived at one of the rooms where the bodies were kept. It was a sterile space where white was the dominant color. One wall was covered with a neat grid of silver body storage units. And in the center was a table where a body lay. Emmanuel.

  "You're in luck," the doctor, a youngish man with thin, blo
nd hair and a bird-like face, said. "We just finished the autopsy."

  I raised an eyebrow at him as I approached the body.

  "Oh? And what did you find out?" Though I didn't really need to ask what did Emmanuel in. His slim form lay on the metal slab, the tiger who a day ago was filled to the brim with ego and arrogance was now nothing more than a stiff corpse on the table. So it goes.

  "Well, as you can see, something attacked him before he took his fall."

  No kidding. Across his chest were three deep, red carvings, all parallel. Definitely a claw swipe. "Looks like some kind of wild animal got to him," I said, making a slow circle around the body.

  "That's what we were thinking," the doctor said. "But that doesn't make a damn bit of sense. He didn't have any pets in his apartment, and even so those claw marks are way too big for a dog or something. It's bizarre. I mean, unless it's a really big dog."

  As the doctor spoke, I noticed another wound on Emmanuel's upper thigh. It was as deep goring, like someone had stabbed him with a giant spear. "And what's this here?" I asked, pointing to the wound.

  "That…we're not sure. It's definitely a puncture wound, but it's the same deal as the claw marks—nothing in the apartment that could've caused this."

  It was clearly a shifter attack, and the claw marks looked to be from a tiger. I cursed under my breath, sure that the information about this attack was already coursing its way through the veins of both wolf and tiger society. If Emmanuel was some nobody, a tiger being murdered by a wolf could've been written off as someone from one society getting on the bad side of one from another. But not now, and not with Emmanuel. Things were too tense between the wolves and the tigers, and Emmanuel wasn't just some nobody- he was the son of one of the most powerful tigers in their society. If war was as close as I thought, then this might just be the thing to set it off.

  But that other wound… I needed to take a closer look at it, but with the doctor standing here, that'd be impossible.

  "Oh, can you give me your badge number again?" the doctor asked. "I need to run you through our system. Just a formality."