by A. C. Arthur
“Yeah, shaking her ass for the public,” Nick chimed in.
“I’d tread lightly in that area if I were you,” X warned him. “She nearly bit my head off when I commented on her occupational choice.”
“That’s because it’s none of your damn business,” Caprise said, entering the room wearing skintight jeans and a T-shirt so tight it made X’s mouth water.
“It’s my business if you’re out there trying to get yourself killed,” Nick fired back. “What is this stripping thing you’re doing?”
Caprise made her way to the center of the room with one hand on her hip, the other pointing a finger at her brother. X could only shake his head. Whatever she was getting ready to say, she meant business. How they were all going to deal with that, X had no idea.
“I’m an adult. I can do whatever I please. And for your information it’s called exotic dancing, not stripping, you idiot.”
Rome covered his mouth and gave a fake cough to hide that he was chuckling. X stood behind Caprise.
“I don’t think they were coming after her. If I scented them it’s believable that they scented my presence as well,” he said, trying to take the heat off Caprise. He’d never defended a female like this before. Sure, he wanted to protect all females, especially shifters. But this, it was a little different.
“How long have you been dancing there?” Rome asked.
“About three weeks,” she replied evenly.
For as candid and sometimes rude as Caprise could be, she always respected Rome.
“Has any Rogue ever approached you?” the FL asked.
“She’s not on the lookout for them like we are,” X replied.
Rome stood. “But she can still scent them if they’re near. Have you ever been near a Rogue at that club?”
“I don’t think so. But he’s right, I’m not looking for them. I go there twice a week, do my dancing, collect my money, and go. I don’t hang out there on a regular basis, and I don’t socialize with anybody while I’m there.”
“They could have scented you,” Rome agreed, looking at X. “And if so, they’re damn bold to come after a commanding officer.”
“Probably figured he was alone so they had a good chance of taking him down,” Nick said.
His voice sounded deceptively calm. Then again, X doubted that Nick had put two and two together to equal that he and Caprise had actually slept together last night.
“Well, if you guys want to continue talking about your secret society crap that’s fine with me. But I’d like to go home and get changed. Is Seth here to take me?” Caprise asked.
Rome nodded. “Seth’s downstairs.”
“I’ll take you back to Havenway,” X replied.
“That’s not necessary,” she said with a toss of her hair over her shoulder.
It was the first time she’d looked at him since she came into the room. Yet it felt like she was looking right through him.
“I said I’ll take you home,” he insisted.
“And I said it’s not necessary,” she said, slower, more intensely. “Look, don’t get any fancy ideas about what happened last night. You and I are on the same terms we were before. Okay, so maybe we’re not total enemies, but I’m not into the possessive shifter crap all you guys have a habit of pulling.”
Before X could reach out to stop her Caprise headed to the door. And a strong hand on his shoulder told him he wasn’t finished with the conversation with Nick and Rome just yet.
* * *
“You fucked my sister!”
There was no escaping Nick’s fury, and X didn’t really try. It happened and it was done, just like Caprise said. Nick would have to accept that and move on.
“We’re adults, Nick,” he said with a sigh.
Rome had sat back down, shaking his head, using his cell phone to most likely alert Seth that Caprise was coming down. The guard would be in the lobby the moment she stepped off the elevator. From that point on he wouldn’t leave her side again until they hit Havenway.
“She’s my sister, X. You don’t just do your friend’s sister and think that’s okay.”
He had a point there, but X didn’t care. He wasn’t explaining himself to Nick or to anyone else. For him, explanations had died the day that dirty bastard Jeremiah had.
“Okay, Nick. I slept with your sister. Now can we move on?” He’d really wanted to be able to tell Nick about last night himself, but Caprise apparently had other ideas. He should have known she would.
“No, we cannot move on. You don’t have a mate, X. You have sex and it’s not even casual sex. You have fucking escapades that could easily leave the other person hurt. My sister is not one of your playmates. She’s not some whore for you to screw any way you like.”
And there it was, X thought with growing fury. Since he’d had his first shift at the age of fifteen, X had known he was different. He’d felt it in the air he breathed. When he began feeling the gnawing sexual urges of the Topètenia he knew that he’d be different in that respect as well. His history had already pre-ordained that fact. Finding willing partners wasn’t easy at first—young females tended to be afraid of his darker sexual urges. But as he’d grown older it seemed more doors had opened. Anal sex wasn’t taboo anymore—whips, chains, stimulators, nipple clamps, role playing, none of that was out of the question. It was the norm for him and for those who kept his company. Nick and Rome knew all this and had never said anything about his preferences. Until now.
“It was consensual, you bastard. And I’d never hurt her,” he told Nick through clenched teeth once he’d gotten right in the shifter’s face.
“She doesn’t deserve to be treated like that,” Nick retorted.
Rome stood then, moving to separate the men. “All right, let’s take it down a notch. X is right, Nick. Caprise is an adult and she looked just fine to me when she strolled out of here.”
“That’s not the point,” Nick said.
“It’s the point for now,” Rome told him. “What they do is their business.”
X didn’t back down, but he did look away. He hadn’t wanted this confrontation with Nick, hadn’t wanted to walk down this road with him. But not touching Caprise had not been an option. So he’d deal with the repercussions.
“I asked you to look into her whereabouts for the last five years. Did you do that or where you too busy thinking about how quick you could get into her pants?” Nick asked tightly.
“I’ll find out where she was and what happened,” X said. He’d already decided that would be his priority today, especially after he’d seen that text message on her phone. But that was before Wilson had made his appearance.
“And keep your hands off her,” Nick stated adamantly before walking to the door. “Don’t talk to Wilson without me present, either,” he yelled on his way out.
The door slammed again and X ran a hand down the back of his head.
“You’ve had one hell of a night,” Rome said, his voice much lighter than Nick’s had been.
“Tell me about it,” he said, sinking down onto the couch.
Rome looked down at him. “It had to be Caprise, huh?”
“Man, I couldn’t have prevented that even if I wanted to. You ever had someone that just got under your skin, instantly, like a disease?”
Rome smiled, nodding. “Yeah, I’ve had someone like that.”
“No,” X replied quickly. “Don’t get it twisted, I’m not falling into the mate and joining trap like you and Nick have. I just meant, it was like a hunger that I had to feed.”
“And are you full now? Have you had your fill?” was Rome’s question.
X didn’t reply. Something told him that whatever he said wasn’t going to be perceived the way he meant it, so he remained quiet.
“Look, you know how Nick is. And I know how you are. We’ve got some serious shit going on around us, so I’d like for you two to keep this personal thing on the down low while we figure out what to do about Sabar.”
X nodd
ed, understanding that as the FL, Rome had priorities. “Diamond died at the hands of a Rogue. Probably someone close to Sabar’s camp because she had a lot of that savior drug in her system. She didn’t look like she was carrying the type of money needed to buy it. I’ll try to talk to those other females at the club.”
“No,” Rome said quickly. “You stay away from Athena’s. That’s just ammunition for Wilson to get that warrant for your arrest. I’ll have a couple of other guards start hanging around down there, see what they can find out.”
“And I’m supposed to do what? Sit around here and wait for Wilson to make his next move?” X asked, not liking the sound of that.
Rome nodded. “I’ve got a hearing at ten, then a meeting with a client this afternoon. You call Bas and find out if his captive has started talking yet.”
“I can do that,” X told him. He’d make the call to the Mountain Faction Leader, Sebastian Perry. Afterward he’d head out to Havenway because the answer to Rome’s question was—X hadn’t gotten his fill of Caprise Delgado.
Chapter 10
The ride back to Havenway seemed ten times longer than it ever had before. Caprise sat in the back of Seth’s silver Jeep Wrangler, which had been redesigned and fitted with top-notch technology and weaponry on Nick’s orders. It wasn’t just for her safety; all the guards were now being given these vehicles complete with tracking devices and self-destruct commands in case any of the vehicles should ever fall into the wrong hands.
Nick was in charge of security for the East Coast Faction and because Rome was now the head of the Stateside Assembly, his ideas were usually implemented throughout the four zones. The Shadow Shifters were assuming a strategic role in the States, unbeknownst to the humans who believed they were the ruling species here.
Laying her head back on the seat, Caprise fought to push those thoughts from her mind. She didn’t give a damn what the shifters did. She wasn’t one of them. Or at least she’d never wanted to believe she was. It hurt too much to be different. Having your classmates hate you because you can outrun them in gym class, or because you could smell their backstabbing lies before they had a chance to catch you in their traitorous trap, wasn’t fun. The decision to stay to herself after tenth grade was one Caprise made to keep her own sanity, as well as to keep from hurting someone with the unnatural instincts she possessed.
As time progressed she realized that being different caused pain on more levels than she ever could have contemplated. Her parents, for instance, died young. In a car accident—which seemed innocent enough, but there were secrets and whispers and reasons for Caprise to believe that their differences were what had really led to their deaths. After the funeral she found herself despising her genetics even more than before.
Which was why the fact that she’d run to the Gungi was still a mystery to her.
The jeep came to a stop and she hurriedly pulled on the door handle to get out. Seth was at the door when she stumbled from the backseat.
“A lot of help you are. Leaving me with crazed shifters when you’re supposed to be my guard,” she was muttering to him as she stalked up the stone path that lead to the side entrance of Havenway.
The front of the facility looked like an old abandoned warehouse, even though it had been almost completely rebuilt from the inside. Discretion was key, so they’d opted against remodeling the outside. Nobody entered through the front door, and the place was secured by an alarm system as well as being sensor-protected. There were two side entrances and one underground entrance accessed from the back.
Most of the jeeps parked along the back side, or went underground to the garage there. But Seth had parked in the trees. Caprise knew this was for her sake, so she wouldn’t have to walk the distance to the door or take the elevators from the garage. Still, she was too pissed off to even thank the guard for that consideration.
For all intents and purposes she had no problem with Seth. He was just above six feet tall, with a strong, wiry frame and dark, intense eyes that she figured some female would find alluring one day. Right now, however, he wasn’t so alluring as he followed her up the walkway.
He didn’t reply to her remark. He never did. Which kind of irked her because Caprise loved a good argument, or even just a heated exchange at least once a day. It made her feel like her life wasn’t as out of control as it really was. When she was close to the door she heard him mumbling and figured he was speaking into the two-way communications link all guards wore in their ears 24/7. There was a loud click and then what sounded like a boulder being dropped slowly from a cliff as the heavy reinforced steel door opened.
She stepped inside and was welcomed by the cool air-conditioned environment of Havenway. Somebody said good morning; Caprise didn’t reply, just kept walking. Havenway consisted of lots of long halls, with doors everywhere. She still had no idea what was behind every door and didn’t really care. Her room was on the second floor, down another corridor. She took the stairs at the end of hallway number two and walked with quick strides. Her goal was to get inside her room without having to see or speak to anyone. As soon as she punched in the code to her own private quarters and pushed into the room she began to breathe a sigh of relief.
Too fast, too soon.
“Oh, Caprise, I’m so glad you’re back. Were you hurt? Should we go down to the medical center to have a look at you?”
Aryiola Delgado with her beautiful amber-colored eyes, long streaked hair pulled into a ponytail, and protruding belly, stood in the center of Caprise’s bedroom rattling off questions as if this was the start of some great inquisition.
Caprise dropped her bag and purse and pushed her door closed tightly. “I’m fine, Ary,” she told her sister-in-law.
In the weeks since she’d returned and moved into Havenway, she and Ary had become friends, somewhat. For Caprise, female relationships were just as hard as male ones. She’d been on her own without any ties for five years. And before that, her dealings with people not in her family were minimal. That was all due to her differences as well, and she’d refused to bond with the female shifters as her parents had suggested. It seemed, quite miserably, that Caprise was destined to be alone.
No, that wasn’t true. Not if her sister-in-law had anything to say about it.
“Are you sure? Nick didn’t want to tell me what was going on, but I got most of it out of him anyway. When the helicopter arrived and he and Rome left so quickly I knew something bad must have happened. But Kalina came to see me and said that X was fine, that he hadn’t been arrested. She said you’d stayed with him but I told her I’d find out everything from you personally.”
Caprise nodded as she passed Ary to open the wardrobe where her clothes hung. This was how most of their conversations went—Ary talked, Caprise nodded or gave one-syllable answers until Ary grew weary and gave up. Something told her today Ary wasn’t going to give up. And there was something that was bothering Caprise; maybe it wouldn’t hurt to talk about it. What if she gave this sister thing a try? No, not with Ary. Even though she didn’t like talking to her sister-in-law, she did care about her and the baby she carried. Unloading all her issues on Ary wasn’t a good idea.
Still, she didn’t really have the energy to keep dodging her questions, either. As usual, sleep hadn’t come quickly to her last night. But it had come eventually, which was still a little baffling.
“X and I had sex,” she said bluntly. Then she pulled out a dress and threw it over her shoulder. “I’m going to go in and change.”
Ary looked stunned and for a moment Caprise thought she might make a clean getaway.
“Wait, you did what with who?”
So much for the clean getaway.
Instead, Caprise figured, she might as well just get this over with. She moved to the king-size bed, which at first seemed utterly foolish for just one person, but then she’d fallen in love with its extreme comfort, even on those nights that sleep eluded her.
“X and I had sex. He showed up at the club being
all bossy and controlling as usual. Then one thing just led to the other and we did it.” She shrugged but even she realized that what she’d just said wasn’t that simple.
Ary came to sit on the other side of the bed, taking a moment to adjust herself and her growing girth. Pregnancy for Shadow Shifters was a bit different than it was among humans and full-breed jaguars. Ary would carry the baby for twelve to eighteen weeks max; then she’d deliver what would look like a human but after going through puberty would become a full-grown jaguar shifter. So right now, she looked like she was about four months along in a human pregnancy, complete with the swollen ankles and face.
“You don’t even like X” was Ary’s next comment. She’d folded her arms so they rested on top of her stomach, and Caprise resisted the urge to reach out and touch her.
In fact she turned away, looking across the room instead.
“He’s arrogant and high-handed and obnoxious.”
“Okay,” Ary said. “That may be true. I guess the next question would be what’s he like in bed?”
To that Caprise couldn’t help but chuckle. Ary was a curandero, a former healer to the Topetènia tribe and current director of the Stateside Medical Center. She was also a little bit naive about the way things were done in the states considering she’d grown up in the Gungi. So her question seemed more than a little off to Caprise.
“It wasn’t that big a deal,” she started to say. “But then he gets even more macho-man on me and tosses me into his truck, because he says Rogues are coming. We end up at his place, where—” She sighed. “—we do it again.”
“Again?” Ary asked. “Well,” she added, barely holding her own smile in, “I guess that means he was pretty good in bed.”
No matter how contrary her nature, Caprise smiled right along with her sister-in-law. “He was good. But that’s not the point. It wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“So why did it?”
That was a simple question, one Caprise had been avoiding since the moment X pulled her off that stage.