by Vivi Andrews
“One of the new cougars has some bartending experience and he’s started taking a few shifts when Tarron and I both want a night off.”
“Tarron from the advisory council?” Grace put her ale down before she sprayed it across the table. “He tends bar? Stodgy old lion with a stick up his ass?”
“I like Tarron,” Patch interjected.
“The same,” Whiskey confirmed. “He makes a Manhattan to die for.”
“Huh.”
“You didn’t get me out of my nice warm bed to talk about stodgy lions with sticks up their butts, did you?” Rachel inquired, gingerly taking a shot of Lion’s Milk. She cringed and coughed at the liquor’s kick, accepting Lila’s water when she kept choking.
“Sorry,” Whiskey said. “Should have warned you about the raki.”
Rachel waved away the apology, eyes tearing.
“If it comes with a warning, I’ve got to try it,” Zoe said, reaching for the bottle and a shot glass.
Which led to all of them doing a shot together out of solidarity. Grace hissed at the familiar punch of the alcohol, feeling the warmth of the potent liquor tingling all the way to her fingertips.
“So,” Patch said, thumping her shot glass down and turning to Grace. “Dominec.”
Whiskey held up a hand. “Wait, I thought you were with Kelly.”
“No, it’s definitely Dominec,” Patch insisted.
“Dominec?” Rachel asked incredulously. “Like Dominec Dominec?”
“What happened to Kelly?” Whiskey poured another round of raki one-handed. “He’s hot.”
“He’s nice,” Grace said, the Lion’s Milk already loosening her tongue.
“Nice is bad?” Rachel’s brow furrowed with confusion.
“Bad can be fantastic,” Lila said, raising her freshly refilled shot glass in a reverent toast.
Murmurs of agreement rippled around the table as they all did a shot to the wonder of bad.
“Is that Dominec’s appeal?” Rachel asked dubiously. “The bad boy thing?”
“No. Or, well, not entirely. He…” Words wavered and failed in her mind.
“I still don’t understand how you got from Kelly to Dominec,” Whiskey said, saving her from trying to explain exactly what she and Dominec had.
Right now it seemed like all she had was confusion.
“Things with Kelly got complicated,” she explained. “He was supposed to be this wonderful no-strings fuck buddy—and he was—but then he announced that he wanted to court me and he wanted us to be exclusive and have a real relationship and I just didn’t want…that.”
“Yes,” Patch said dryly. “What woman wants a man to commit to her? The horror.”
Whiskey was frowning into her beer.
“He doesn’t know me,” Grace said flatly. “When Kelly looks at me, he doesn’t see a soldier, he sees a woman.”
“Well, you are female,” Zoe snarked.
“He wants to be my shoulder to cry on. He needs me to need him. To be that needy girl who wants to let her man carry half of her burden, but that just isn’t me. Even if I was madly in love with him—which I’m not—I wouldn’t want to become who he wants me to be. So when he said he wanted us to be forever and happily-ever-after, I just…”
“You needed a replacement fuck buddy,” Lila chirped helpfully.
“No. Well, yes, but that’s so inadequate to describe it. It’s not just sex. I don’t think Dominec is capable of a simple no-strings anything.” Though he certainly excelled at the sneaking-out-in-the-middle-of-the-night portion.
“You said he was chugging the crazy Kool-Aid,” Rachel protested.
“I know and he is, but it’s complicated. He…. I don’t know. He gets me.”
Which didn’t say positive things about her own mental state, but it was still true. Dominec understood things about her without being told, things that no amount of explanation had been able to convey to Kelly.
“So Dominec is your boyfriend?” Rachel asked, still obviously confused by the idea of the tiger who terrified her being Grace’s sugar pie.
Boyfriend? “No. That isn’t—” She tried to think of a way to explain it. “I don’t think there’s a word for what we are.”
“Grace-inec.” Patch snickered.
“Please don’t. That sounds like a chokehold,” Grace groaned.
“Sort of fitting,” Patch agreed.
“He really gets you?” Rachel prompted.
If anyone else had asked, Grace might have brushed it off with a flip remark, but Dominec had held Rachel at gunpoint not too long ago. She deserved a genuine answer.
“Kelly thought I took too much on myself. He was always trying to get me to slow down and rely on him. Dominec just accepts that I’m the kind of person who is always going to push harder than anyone else. That’s me. And I can’t give it up. I need to be the one who pushes the hardest and fights to be the strongest. Dominec would never dream of telling me to take it easy, even when he can’t stand the idea that I’m not safe.” And there it was. The crux of the problem. “It makes him nuts that he can’t protect me and I’m never going to play it safe, so…lose/lose.”
“That sucks,” Whiskey muttered and a chorus of agreement went around the table, along with another toast.
Grace raised her glass. It did suck. And she didn’t have the first idea how to fix it.
“But you have to keep trying,” Lila said with the careful, forceful enunciation of the tipsy. “If you love him, you can’t just give up.”
“I don’t know about love,” Grace said hurriedly. “We’re barely friends.”
“To perseverance and true love!”
“Here, here!” Raki shots waved in solidarity.
Lila wasn’t listening. But she did have a point. It might never be love—or anything as conventional as that—but Grace wasn’t ready to give up yet.
Provided she ever saw hide or hair of Dominec again.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Distraction was the key.
If Dominec had learned anything over the last few days it was that keeping his body so busy his brain didn’t have time to think was the only way to keep his mind off Grace. So he stayed busy.
Destroying the Organization was his only goal. He refocused on that. He’d gotten out of the habit of listening for secrets, too preoccupied with Grace. He grew restless lurking in shadows, the itch to act moving beneath his skin.
Mateo kicked him out of his bunker for annoying him, but not before Dominec learned the female prisoner who had started all the trouble a few days ago was being interrogated by Hugo in one of the other outpost cabins.
The pride was large, but the bear’s scent was distinctive and it only took a couple hours to track him out to the cabin—where he flat out refused to allow Dominec anywhere near the prisoner. The old bastard had never liked him and as soon as Dominec realized he was fighting a losing battle he changed tactics.
A quick jog back to the main compound and five bucks in the pocket of one of the kids who ran messages later, Dominec waited outside the Alpha’s mansion to intercept Kye as he ran out.
“Dominec.” The leopard jerked a nod in greeting, never breaking his stride. “I can’t talk now. Mix up in the schedules. I’m late for perimeter patrol.”
“No, you aren’t. I just needed to talk to you.”
Kye stopped, his glare conveying his irritation better than any words could.
“It’s important.” Which would only be a lie if his plan didn’t work. “I need you to get me in to see the prisoner Hugo is guarding.”
“No.” Kye had never been one to mince words.
“If she’s as high up in the Organization structure as everyone is saying she is, she’ll recognize me.”
“And?”
“And I will scare the shit out of her
. Trust me.”
Kye frowned.
“Or if you don’t trust me, ask Mateo. He’s seen my Organization file. You guys are just animals to her, but I’m Frankenstein’s monster coming home for revenge. You aren’t going to find anyone better to play bad cop.”
“I think we’re having more trouble finding people willing to play good cop,” Kye said dryly.
“Would you just talk to Hugo? What can it hurt to let me try?”
Maybe he was pessimistic, but Dominec hadn’t actually expected Kye to be successful in his effort to persuade Hugo. So it was with a certain degree of shock that he stepped through the door and crouched in front of Madison Clarke.
The cabin they were using this time was a two-room deal composed of a main room where Hugo, Kye and the guards waited—hanging on every word with their sensitive shifter hearing—and a small, windowless room that had likely once served as a larder.
Madison sat on the floor—there was no furniture in the small room—with her back wedged into the corner and her knees drawn up in front of her. She bore a vague resemblance to Rachel Russell—similar brunette coloring and facial shape—but tattoos marched across her wrists and the side of her neck.
The tattoos, more than anything, marked her as a true believer. Shifter skin tended to reject tattoo ink with the first shift, so Organization operatives would wear them as a mark of their humanity.
She smelled of shampoo and granola bars—someone had been playing good cop enough to make sure she was clean and fed. He knew she had been hiding among the other prisoners, pretending to be a low-level secretary scared out of her wits, but there was no fear in her eyes now. She gazed steadily back at him, studying him as he studied her, completely comfortable with his silence. He tipped his face so the light highlighted his scars, but she didn’t even blink.
No wonder Hugo had grown desperate enough to allow Dominec in. This was not a woman who was going to break any time soon and time was a commodity they didn’t have.
“I killed a lot of Organization personnel,” he began conversationally. “Sounds like I should have killed you.”
She raised one eyebrow.
“You’re one of the big bosses, right?”
She just looked at him, an expression of mild pity entering her eyes, as if she felt bad for him being such an idiot that he actually thought she would talk to him.
“You know who I am, don’t you? You must have heard of me. I was the Organization’s pride and joy for a while. I’ll be offended if you don’t recognize me.”
A superior little smile lifted her lips.
“I suppose the Sigma Project was need to know. Maybe you didn’t need to know.”
Shit. She wasn’t reacting at all. So much for his belief that his big bad reputation would scare her shitless. She knew him—he could see in her eyes that she did—but she still wasn’t scared. Why the hell wasn’t she scared?
“You’re on the losing side of the battle.”
Her smile didn’t waver.
“Endangered species,” he said conversationally. “Before long the Organization will be crushed beneath a tide of shifters. You’re already dead. You just don’t know you’re walking corpses. If you are going to play mute, we have no reason not to just kill you now.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” she asked him, so fucking smug, certain he would never touch her. “You’re the corpses. You think you know us, know what we’re capable of, but Russell only scraped the surface. We’re bigger and more powerful than you could even imagine. The only reason we haven’t crushed you already is because we decided you could be useful and we deigned to allow you to live. You know about that better than anyone, don’t you, Sigma Two?”
The call sign shifted jagged shards of memory against the inside of his brain, leaving bloody grooves, but he only flinched internally.
He had been their pet. A useful weapon. He did know.
They didn’t just kidnap shifters for fun. They used them. For experiments. For some ultimate agenda that was beyond even Madison Clarke’s pay grade. He should have known as soon as he saw the tattoos that she wouldn’t talk. True believers would rather martyr themselves for the cause.
He straightened and she watched him, smiling, smug. It took genuine effort not to rip her face off with his claws. He took it as a personal breakthrough that he didn’t give in to the urge to paint the walls with her blood.
A single rap on the closed door and it opened from the outside, just wide enough to allow him to slip out. Kye shut and locked the door again, a slight smile tugging at his mouth. The guards were grinning like idiots and even Hugo was smiling. Were they that fucking pleased that he’d failed?
“What?” he snarled.
“She slipped,” Kye said, soft-spoken as ever.
Dominec shook his head, uncomprehending.
“She said Russell only scratched the surface,” Hugo explained. “If the Organization thinks we only know about the locations Rachel knew of, we have a huge advantage. Rachel had a whole network of spies, gathering information across the Organization, but if they think she is the extent of the leak, they won’t be upping security and moving shifters away from the sites Rachel didn’t have personal knowledge of.”
“Unless that’s just what Madison Clarke wants us to think,” Dominec said, though nothing about her had betrayed a lie. She even smelled like she believed what she was saying. “Or unless she knew about the whole team and she’s right and the Organization is bigger than Lone Pine could ever suspect.”
Smiles around the room vanished as if they’d never existed.
“We need to talk to Rachel,” Kye said.
“It’s late,” Hugo rumbled. “We’ll catch her after the feast tomorrow.”
The feast. Thanksgiving. Dominec had never gone and he sure as hell wasn’t going to start now. Grace would be there. And he couldn’t lose himself. He’d already lost enough of his edge.
But apparently Mateo hadn’t gotten the memo that Dominec didn’t play nice with the rest of the pride. He appeared on Dominec’s doorstep an hour after the day-long feast was scheduled to start, hammering on the door incessantly until Dominec threw it open just to get him to stop.
“What?” he snarled.
He should have gone to ground until the fucking togetherness of the holiday was over, but he’d thought everyone would be busy and he could use this opportunity to pack up his limited possessions and move them to a different location. Somewhere he wouldn’t have memories of the look on Grace’s face when he’d walked out the door. Somewhere she wouldn’t be able to find him.
Mateo grinned, unaffected by Dominec’s mood. He still looked tired, but he’d been annoyingly cheerful ever since he discovered his sister was still alive—albeit missing. For once he wasn’t wearing one of his ubiquitous nerd T-shirts. Dark jeans and a crisp white button-up shirt with a dark blue sport coat hanging off one finger over his shoulder gave him a surprisingly mature look.
“You’re coming to the party with me,” Mateo told him.
“No.”
“Not up for negotiation,” Mateo said cheerfully. “Everyone is going to be manic, desperate to pretend we aren’t scared of the bogeyman and having fun like there’s no tomorrow—because there might not be. It’s a must go. Even you might get laid.”
Visions of Grace jumped to the forefront of his mind. “I don’t want to get laid.” Liar.
“That’s fine. I don’t actually care if you get laid. You’re just coming as my wingman. I figure if you’re standing next to me, I look a thousand times sexier.”
“Fuck you,” he said without heat.
“You aren’t my type. Now hurry up and splash on some cologne before all the desperate kittens are taken.”
Dominec narrowed his eyes. “Why are you doing this?”
“Honestly? We’re friends.” Mateo sobered just
enough to make the words sound sincere. “And friends don’t leave friends alone on the holidays. Even if those friends are surly loner dicks who would rather be left alone. Everyone suffers through togetherness on Thanksgiving. It’s tradition. So get over yourself and come with me. You can sneak out after five minutes if you want, but I have made it my personal mission to get your ass to the party, so you might as well give in now because I always complete my missions. I blame video games.”
“Video games?” He never knew if Mateo was serious or not.
“Compulsive need to beat the game. It’s a thing. And you’re my new game. So are you coming or am I beginning my campaign of annoyance? I have an off-tune rendition of ‘Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall’ with your name on it.”
He had a feeling Mateo might actually be serious about that. Five minutes. He could do five minutes as long as he stayed away from Grace. “Fine.”
“And my perfect streak continues.”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Too late.” Mateo grinned. And Dominec grabbed his coat.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Grace sat next to Kelly at the banquet—which of course sent her mother into paroxysms of delight that almost made her feel guilty about the fact that she wasn’t going to marry Kelly and have a dozen little lion babies.
Almost.
She’d stayed out entirely too long with the girls the night before and had enough raki that it was a minor miracle she wasn’t hung over beyond functioning today. By the end of the night, the toasts had segued into a series of drunken pep talks which ranged from Zoe telling her to jump Dominec and ride him like a bucking bronco to Lila swearing drunkenly that love will conquer all. And Patch correcting her that with men sometimes sex will conquer all was a better motto.
She’d fallen into bed at an hour she didn’t want to consider and woke up with a pounding headache and just enough time to sprint to the feast before it started. A few Advil later and she felt reasonably human, though she was sticking to water today. Patch and Lila both looked disgustingly chipper as they honored Rachel—who also looked remarkably composed. Grace was almost relieved to see Zoe looking a little green around the edges and leaning against Tyler, cringing at every cheer that went up at the rowdy celebration.