Edged Blade

by J. C. Daniels

  “What is it?” he asked quietly.

  I shook my head.

  “Don’t lie to me,” he said. “You’re worried about something.”

  I made a face at him. “I didn’t lie. I shook my head. Difference.” Shoving the tangle of my hair back, I thought about Shanelle, and the million questions that still burned inside me.

  “Kit…”

  “You have a couple of silver hairs popping up on your head. I never noticed.” I grinned at him.

  “You probably caused every one of them.” He studied me. I felt the warmth of his breath ghosting along my skin as he tugged me closer. “Come on, Kit…”

  I blew out a breath. “Look, I was…”

  There was a hard knock at the door. “Go away,” Damon shouted.

  The knock came again.

  Sighing, he let me go and I rolled away, eying the door with a mix of gratitude and sympathy. Damon didn’t like it when his orders weren’t followed.

  He had the door open before I even made it off the bed.

  “Sometimes I think you have a death wish, Chang.”

  “It’s important,” the other man said.

  Damon stepped aside, allowing his second in.

  Chang’s gaze came straight to me, his mouth tight. He looked harder and colder than I’d ever seen him. “Where did you find her?”

  “Ah…”

  Damon’s gaze cut to me as he closed the door. His eyes narrowed speculatively and I saw the very second he figured it out.

  My response was interrupted by another knock.

  Chang’s eyes narrowed, a low growl in his voice.

  “I told her to wait,” he said.

  Damon continued to stare at me for a long, long moment. Then, without saying a word, he turned and moved to the door.

  I wasn’t surprised, not really, when I heard her voice.

  “Damon…”

  From where I stood, I could see as she went to move in. I was doing the same thing—moving in to knock her away.

  It wasn’t necessary, though, because Damon had already moved out of her reach.

  Her face fell, although the expression was gone almost as quickly as it came. She smiled. “What…no hug?”

  “Shanelle.”

  He shot me a look.

  Shanelle glanced my way and then back to him. Then her head whipped back in my direction

  “You…”

  She had big, brown eyes and as she stared at me, the heat that had been in her eyes faded to ice. “So he didn’t hire you, huh?”

  “Nope.” I shrugged and dropped down on the couch. My sword was now in reach. Not that I expected I’d need it, but in a moment, she’d stop thinking about getting in Damon’s pants and connect some dots and come up with the right picture.

  One that included the fact that I was the only one who’d be getting into Damon’s pants.

  “Shanelle. You were expected over a week ago,” Damon said, drawing her attention back to him. “Where have you been?”

  “Where…” She stopped and shook her head. “What do you mean, where have I been? Didn’t you…”

  The words trailed off as Damon moved closer to me.

  “Hire her?” he offered as he settled on the couch next to me. He kicked his legs up and put his feet on the polished surface of the table. “She just said no.” He slid me a look. “We’re going to talk about this job, Kit.”

  I ignored him, my attention focused on the woman across from us.

  “You don’t know,” she said quietly, her voice tight. “You didn’t know. You didn’t send her after me?”

  Damon curled a possessive hand around the back of my neck. “Would be hard to do since I had no idea where you were.”

  She didn’t even seem to hear him. She was staring at the hand he had on my neck and the tension in the air spiked.

  “Shanelle.”

  Chang’s voice was low and the authority in it was undeniable. Still, it took the woman several moments to drag her eyes from me—and Damon—to look at the slender man across the room. “You were told to wait,” he said when she finally looked at him.

  She angled her chin up. “I was. I didn’t.”

  Something that might have been temper snapped in Chang’s gaze, but it was gone too quick to say. I was kind of surprised to see that she was getting under Chang’s skin.

  I didn’t know that was possible.

  “Chang updated me on your petition and I understand you’re in my territory, regardless of that petition, for as long as it takes you to conclude the business you have with the Assembly. But…” Damon paused and although he didn’t change position, didn’t move a muscle or even alter his expression, everything about him changed, from his demeanor to the very feel of the room. The power level punched up so high, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. “Remember…you are in my territory. You’ll follow the laws or you’ll suffer the consequences.”

  “Of course.” Shanelle made it sound as if she lived to serve.

  And she just might…if it suited her needs.

  Damon’s eyelids drooped low. “About the petition, that’s still under consideration. However, if you’re looking to return to the clan, then you better figure out a couple of things fast—and I mean really fast. Number one thing to figure out is that there’s a new way of doing things now, Shanelle. If you’re given an order, it’s followed. I don’t make allowances for old friends or bend the rules because it suits me at the time.”

  Color flooded her cheeks. “Understood.” Her gaze skittered to me and then back. She inclined her head. “If I may…Alpha?”

  Damon waved a hand. The gesture was casual. Everything about him was casual at the moment—a big cat stretching out to relax. But it was a façade. I could feel his tension even if I couldn’t see it or sense it any other way.

  “As you clearly pointed out,” she said, her voice deferential, “things in the clan have changed. Ten years is a long time. Clan business is best discussed within the clan.”

  Amused, I settled more comfortably against the couch. “Is that your subtle way of trying to get Damon to send me away?” I asked. With a restless shrug, I added, “I’m not much on being dismissed.”

  Heat burned in her dark brown gaze. “You should show more respect in the presence of the Alpha.”

  Damon skimmed his fingers along my neck and from the corner of my eye, I saw the way his mouth twitched, as if he was trying not to laugh.

  “Perhaps you should concern yourself with your actions, instead of hers,” Chang said. The words were mild.

  Shanelle went stiff as they were said. She bowed her head. “I mean no disrespect, but clan business belongs within the clan.”

  “Yeah.” Damon nodded, drawing his hand away. The absence of his heat made me sigh.

  He flicked a look at me as I shifted and curled up more comfortably on the couch. This wasn’t going to end up with either her or me bloody so I’d sit here and pretend to behave. For now.

  “Clan business belongs with the clan.” Damon moved one big shoulder in a shrug. “Outsiders have no place here, but Kit isn’t an outsider. If I wish to discuss clan business in front of her, then that’s what I’m going to do. Tuck that into that things have changed file, Shanelle. Kit’s ours.”

  He paused and slid me a look. His lids drooped, shielding his gaze. “She’s mine. Outsider rules don’t apply to her.”

  The door shut behind Shanelle as she left. She ended up being dismissed out into the hall to cool her heels while Chang and Damon spoke

  Right before she’d closed the door shut behind her, Damon had said softly. “One more thing, Shanelle. This section of the Lair is mine. Only me and my lieutenants can freely come and go down these halls. Stay out unless your presence is requested.” He paused and then added, “Kit’s the only exception. She can go wherever the hell she likes here.”

  Her eyes had gone flat and she’d given him the nice, polite subservient response, but anger tinged the air around her.
>
  Now, as the echo of her passing faded, Chang stood there, head bowed, hands folded together in front of him. He seemed to be struggling with something.

  Finally, he lifted his head and stared at us.

  “I apologize, Kit, Damon.” Chang’s eyes held as much emotion as I’d ever seen. “If I’d known she wouldn’t wait, I would have put a guard on her.”

  “It’s not on you,” Damon said, shaking his head. “She’s the one who disobeyed the order, Chang.”

  “I’m the one who didn’t realize she was so foolish.” Chang’s face was implacable.

  “You two can toss this back and forth all you want, but Damon’s got the right of it,” I said, interjecting. If I left them to it, they’d snipe until they were growling at each other. “She’s a cat—she knows how clan authority works and she chose to ignore it.”

  Chang narrowed his eyes while Damon smirked.

  “Now that we’ve got that settled…” I gave them a brilliant grin. “What are you planning on doing with her? Can you send her back? We can put a pretty little bow on her head and say she didn’t work out, request a replacement.”

  Chang covered his laugh with a polite cough.

  Damon didn’t look quite so amused. In fact, he looked outright disgusted. “No.”

  “Damn.” Leaning forward, I braced my elbows on my knees. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  “You could have just left her where she was,” Chang said.

  “No.” I looked away. “That wasn’t ever an option.”

  The weighted silence stretched out between us, shattered by the low rumble of Damon’s voice when he said, “Why don’t you tell us what happened, Kit?”

  Restless, I rose from the couch and started to pace.

  My stomach chose that moment to rumble and I eyed the food, now cold, waiting for me on the table. I picked up a cold fry and nibbled on it.

  “Kit, I’ll get you something hot,” Damon said, irritated. “Just tell me what’s going on.”

  With the taste of cold fry in my mouth, I shot him a look.

  He stood by the couch, where he’d been for the past five minutes. Chang stood closer to the fireplace, languid and relaxed, as though he were at a cocktail party. There was nothing languid about Damon, though. His gaze, his posture, everything about him was a stone wall. He was a like a bloody stone wall—unmovable, unyielding.

  He yields for you…

  The soft voice in the back of my mind had me going still.

  He did. Damon yielded for me. Everything else that came at him just crashed into him, usually stopped in their tracks or else they just submitted. But for me…

  Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath. Then I said, “Justin. It was Justin who tracked her down…but he wasn’t looking for her. It had to do with a witch he was looking for. She was just a bonus, I guess you could say.”

  “A bonus,” Chang said. “What a lovely…bonus.”

  Damon said nothing, not for a long while. But finally, he spun away and muttered, “Now why in the hell doesn’t that surprise me.”

  When I finished, the two of them shared one of those silent communions they seemed so fond of. After about sixty seconds of that, I said, “Would you like me to leave so you two can continue this in private?”

  Chang frowned. “Continue what?”

  “This…” I sketched my hands through the air. “Whatever you do. When you both say a million things to each other without saying a damn thing.”

  Damon’s brow went up while Chang gave me a bemused smile. “If we’re saying things without saying them, then why would we need you to leave?”

  “Because it’s annoying.” I enunciated the word very slowly.

  “So what you really mean to say is that you want to leave.” Damon moved to the door just as somebody knocked.

  I frowned when he opened it to reveal Scott—and a fresh tray of food. “When did you call him?”

  “I sent him a message.” Damon shrugged and stepped aside as Scott came in and put the tray down next to the other one.

  “Will you please eat it this time?” Scott asked. He looked me over from head to toe. “You’re losing weight.”

  “Women don’t like it when people comment about their weight.”

  He rubbed his jaw. “I thought that was a human thing.”

  “It’s a female thing.”

  He looked at Damon. Damon looked at me. “Eat the food and stop losing weight and it won’t be an issue.”

  “How about you both shut up and it won’t be an issue?” I suggested. If my stomach hadn’t been all but dancing because of the scents coming from the plate, I would have told Scott to shove it. But I’m not much for cutting my nose off to spite my face—or my stomach. I dropped down in front of the plate and pulled the cover off. A huge burger, a double order of fries this time and he’d included a strawberry milkshake.

  “Is the shake a bribe?”

  “It’s calories.” Scott slid his hands into his pockets. “I’d say why, but females don’t like it when people harp on it.”

  “Ha ha.” I was too hungry to care that much so I focused on the food as the three men started to talk.

  It wasn’t until I heard them say Maguire—that I looked up. Maguire. As in Shanelle Maguire.

  Damon’s gaze slid to me and the conversation went quiet.

  He ran his tongue across his teeth and then said, “We’ll finish this up another time.”

  Scott and Chang said nothing else and in seconds, we were alone.

  I popped a fry in my mouth as he prowled across the floor toward me.

  “It makes me feel all nice and secure when you shut up all because I looked up when you said her name.”

  Lids drooping low, Damon dragged a chair close to mine and sat down. He was so close, he all but surrounded me. That really made me feel all nice and secure. Well, maybe nice wasn’t the right word. Nice rarely described what I felt with Damon. Naughty. Needed. Necessary. I could probably go through the alphabet and come up with a whole slew of words, but nice wasn’t one of them.

  “It’s clan business, Kit.” He stole a fry, winking at me when I glared.

  Rolling my eyes, I muttered, “And that line makes me feel even better.”

  He stopped chewing for a moment and then resumed, swallowing and then he went to his knees in front of me.

  It was a sight that staggered me, floored me, to see him so easily do something like that and I suspected he didn’t even think about it—or the magnitude of it. Perhaps to him, it had no magnitude. Not with me.

  “Do you need to know?” he asked.

  “I…” The question startled me. Clan business was just that. It didn’t matter if Damon told others that I wasn’t an outsider. I might fall into some odd place where I wasn’t exactly clan yet still not an outsider, but that didn’t mean I had the right to know what Damon was doing within the clan. What he was doing with his people.

  He leaned in closer. “Do you need to know?”

  “It’s not my place.”

  “Your place is with me. Just like my place is with you. If you need to know to feel…better…about everything that’s going on now that Maguire is here, then tell me. I don’t want secrets between us, baby girl.” His eyes searched mine and then he pressed a kiss to my cheek, high, near my ear. “She used to be an enforcer, but she never really earned the spot. She wasn’t always fair with it. She wasn’t overly cruel, but she could be…petty. That’s why we worked together a lot. I figured I could minimize her damage if she was with me, because I outranked her. I’d be the one making the judgment calls. Since she’s claiming she wants to retake her place, she’s going to have to prove she’s capable. That means…facing Scott.”

  I blinked.

  Then I smiled.

  “Can I watch?”

  He laughed and rose to his feet, moving away.

  My gaze dropped to admire the view and then I scowled. “So when did you two start sleeping together?”

  He sti
lled. Then, over his shoulder, he said, “Kit…it was just sex.”

  “And just how long did this…just sex last?”

  He turned now, facing me from across the room. “We hooked up off and on for a few years. The last few months she was here, it was very much…off.”

  I jutted my chin up. “It’s staying off.”

  He went from the middle of the room to kneeling in front of me again in the blink of an eye, so fast, it left my head spinning. I held my breath as he caught the front of my shirt in his hand, holding me in place as he dipped his head. His lips brushed my ear and the warmth of his breath was a teasing, taunting caress. “Trust me, baby girl…not an issue.”

  He rubbed his mouth over mine. When he would have pulled away, I caught his head in my hands. Our gazes held as I captured his lower lip between my teeth and bit. His body shuddered and heat sparked inside as he laid his hands on my thighs.

  I pulled back and when he would have followed, I reached up, pressing my thumb to his lips. “You know she came for you—just as much for you as anything else.”

  “She’s wasting her time.” He pressed his brow to mine. “I’m yours. You know that.”

  “Does she know that?”

  “If she’s got a brain, she does by now.” His eyes were flat and hard.

  “Well, I don’t know her. Does she have a brain or do I need to make her a sign?”

  A short, hard laugh escaped him and then he sighed, rubbing his hands across his face. “Shit. I don’t know. She gets an idea in her head…look, I’ll make it clear that it’s over.”

  “Do that.”

  “Consider it done.” He moved back to me, all dangerous grace and deadly beauty. “But you need to understand something—I can’t wash my hands of her completely. You asked if I could send her back and if things hadn’t gotten fucked up, I’d do it. But she was kidnapped when she was coming to the clan. To me. That puts her under my protection. It happened under my watch. I’ll get to the bottom of it.”

  “It’s not just cats.” The heat of his anger danced along my skin. “It’s a lot deeper than a few of your minions going missing.”