by Ann Gimpel
“Yes. Except you won’t be. You can work for our side. Bet you have a great transferrable skill set.”
He chuckled. “That was the right answer. Will you still feel that way after we’ve made love a thousand times and you’re tired of me?”
“I’ll never get tired of you.” She smiled and winked. “Was that a promise? About a thousand times?”
Devon laughed, wrapped a hand around his cock, and waggled it at her. “If you don’t wear him out before then.” He let go of himself and slapped his thigh with a hand. “I just had an idea. You obviously have some sort of shifter connections. Tell them one of the other officers on the Tracker task force approached me after the riot. He asked if I’d experienced anything unusual since the infusions.”
Kate furled her brows. “Interesting. What did you tell him?”
“Nothing. But it’s obvious he’s either shifted, or is moving in that direction. There are fifty of us. All the names and birthdates are in a database at the station. If I hack into it and get the list, do you suppose you could find out how many of us had shifter blood to start with?”
She nodded. “Sure. I can do that. Probably within a few hours.”
Devon whistled. “You guys are pretty organized.”
She snorted. “Only reason we’re still alive. Where’d you learn to be a hacker?”
He grinned wryly. “Police academy. They taught me so I could trip up the bad guys. Once I’m in the personnel system, I’ll bring the list up on my wrist computer. You can print it. Best not run it through your computer unless you have a secured network.”
“I have a secure feed.”
“Why am I not surprised? Even better.”
“You’ve got some sort of plan.” She bit her lower lip; worry hooded her eyes. “What is it?”
His jaw tightened. “I can do more damage with sabotage from the inside than a direct attack to the outer ranks would accomplish. All successful insurrections have inside people gumming up the works.”
He got up and grabbed his wrist computer. His fingers flew over the display. “I can’t believe how easy that was.” He grinned at her. “The cop shop should have put me in the IT department. There. Just sent the list to your printer. I assume it’s the one labeled Kate’s Wireless.”
She nodded. Her eyes narrowed. “This whole undercover thing sounds dangerous. You’d be safer joining us directly—”
“Not yet. Let me take advantage of what I have. Right now I’m still a trusted member of the force. I’ll pay Tanaka a visit before the day’s out.”
“Who?”
“The officer who approached me. If I can organize a few of us, we could probably take the whole force down—at least for long enough so your people can spring whoever’s left in prison. When would be a good time to see you tonight? I can get those names from you then. I’m anticipating there’re at least ten of us with new, um, abilities. Maybe more.”
“I think you should talk with Max.”
“Who’s that?”
“The head of the shifter underground in California.”
Devon considered it. Coordinated approaches were usually best. “Let me see how many men I can interest in what I have in mind.”
“Are you going to tell me what that is?”
He shook his head. “Safer for you if you don’t know any details. It’s kind of like all those questions rattling around in my head about your organization. Probably safer for both of us if I don’t know too much about it yet. What time tonight?”
“How about eight or nine?”
He thought about what Kate had online for the day. Jealousy shot a dart into his tired brain. “Do you have clients?”
She bent to kiss him. “Not sure. If I do, I’ll be cancelling them. I’m in love with you, too. My head’s spinning with it. It’s like a part of my soul that was always empty is full and it feels so damned good I want to screech it to the skies.”
“You said that way better than I could have.” He bent his head and brushed his lips against hers. “I felt drawn to you from the moment I saw you. I didn’t understand why, but you were all I could think about.” He cocked his head to one side. “All I wanted to think about.”
Kate nodded knowingly. “The mate bond is why it happened so quickly. And why the feelings are so strong. The cat part of me is head over heels. Usually, she’s the wise one. My human side overthinks things. There’s a lot you don’t know about being a shifter. One of them is once we find our mated one, it’s forever and we don’t share.”
He grinned at her. “Does that mean you’ll trust me with where your house is? Not that I don’t like it here,” he waved an arm expansively, “but I’m hoping for dinner and some cuddling.”
She took a breath and blew it out. It was apparent trust didn’t come easy, even after what had passed between them. Her forehead creased into worried lines. “Make certain you’re not followed—”
“I’ll use the bus system since they can track where my cruiser is. And I’ll leave all the electronics at my house except the wrist computer we’ve been texting on, which isn’t traceable.” Emotion swelled within him, thickening his throat. “Kate, I would lay down my life before I let anything happen to you.”
Her eyes welled. She came into his arms and clung to him. “Okay. I’m in the hills. Take the last left after…”
Chapter 9
Kate closed the back door behind Devon and activated the lock once she heard the lower door shut. Worry made her nearly ill. She felt warm and vaguely nauseous. She’d had to bite her tongue to keep from begging him not to report for duty. It just seemed too risky. She walked into the bedroom and culled through her bag for her wrist computer. A few taps brought up her calendar. Only one client today. She hadn’t been certain when Devon asked.
Is it too early to call him? She hustled to the computer in her front office and brought up the client’s personal data. Great; he preferred to be texted. That made it easy. Her fingers hesitated over the keys. If she made a blanket announcement she was closing her practice, it would be sure to arouse suspicion. Nope, probably better to say she’d caught some sort of bug and would call when she felt better.
Once she’d cleared the rest of her week of clients via a combination of texting and voice mails, Kate printed Devon’s list and tapped into the scrambled frequency for the underground. Max shimmered into life on her screen. “Up early, aren’t you, Miss Roman?”
“Not really. But I am at my office early. Mostly because I spent the night here. There are some things you need to know. And something I need, too…” She launched into an abbreviated account of Devon’s plans—what little she knew of them—and asked if she could scan and upload the list of names.
Max tugged at an earlobe. His face scrunched into a frown. “Do you know how to get hold of Devon?”
Kate’s face heated. She wished the vid feed weren’t in color.
“Oh ho, so it’s like that, is it? What, he got pretty hot after he shifted?”
She shook her head. “I know better. He’s my mated one. I tried to ignore it, but all the signs fit. For him, too. It’s why I’m so worried. I’ve been alone forever. Now I’ve found him, I don’t want to lose him.”
Max’s joking demeanor fell away. “Did you tell him he should join us?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“He’s got some harebrained scheme to gather all the Tracker task force who’ve morphed into shifters and have them sabotage the police department.”
Max steepled his fingers and rested his chin on them. “That could work—but only on a large scale. It would need to be done here and all across the nation at precisely the same time for maximum effect. I shouldn’t tell you this, Roman, but we’ve had a few hours to analyze the serum. Didn’t take our crew long. They’re all competent PhDs.
“You told me Devon had gotten half a dozen infusions.” He glanced at her for corroboration. When she nodded, he went on. “Turns out one would have done it. Like everything th
e government gets their paws into, they fucked this one up, too.”
Kate drew back. Her heartbeat sounded loud in her ears. “What does that mean? Will it kill him?”
“No. But it will amp his ability to use our magic to the nth degree. His buddies, too. Turns out even ten percent shifter blood will respond to the drug. We staged raids on every lab in the state once we were sure. We’ve begun gathering those with mixed blood and giving them the serum. By this time next week, our ranks will have swelled by several hundred percent.”
Excitement thrummed through her. “What then?”
“The same thing is happening across the country. Once we have a critical mass, we’ll take on the bastards.” Max’s normally laconic expression turned wolfish as he let his animal side show through. “Your Tracker task force angle is one I hadn’t thought of. I’ll alert my contacts throughout the country. Those elite task force guys are trained death machines. We’ll need to give them a crash course in how to focus their magic.”
Kate fell back against her chair, stunned. “How much of this can I tell Devon?”
“If he’s your mated one, he can read your mind.”
She shook her head. “He doesn’t know how to manipulate his magic yet—”
Max tossed back his head and hooted with laughter. “Well, Miss Roman, maybe you should stay out of bed long enough to teach him.” After a few more wolfish snorts, he added, “On a more serious note, once we find out which of his Tracker group has shifter blood, we’ll gather them to entrain their magic. Caution him not to do anything ahead of time that might give our plans away. No Rambo stunts.”
She thought about Devon’s initial reaction to shifting. “Er, what if some of the Tracker task force don’t want to be shifters?”
Another snort of mirth. “None of them will want to be shifters, but they’re grown men. They’ll understand they’re stuck between a rock and a dagger. Besides,” he grinned, showing long incisors, “once they get to know us, they’ll like us. We do tend to grow on people. Nothing quite like tapping into the inner beast, eh? Near immortality has quite the appeal, too. Got to run, Roman. You just gave me more to do. Upload that list. I’ll shoot it back to you once I have answers. Oh, yes. Stop by one of our clinics. We’re giving small amounts of the serum to everyone.”
Kate scanned the list and sent it on its way. She tried to wrap her mind around the implications of what Max had told her. A nationwide uprising; if they were successful, it would be like turning back the clock. Shifters could walk in the daylight again without hiding what they were.
Her stomach rumbled. She hadn’t had much to eat the previous day. Kate looked down at herself and grinned. Still naked. She sniffed. Devon’s scent—spicy and exotic—made her nostrils quiver. She ran a hand down her body, wishing it were his, and then forced herself to get moving.
She showered, dressed, and set the locks. The only thing left was waiting to hear back from Max. She checked her terminal again. The LED blinked red. She booted up and printed the list. Too dangerous to transfer it to her wrist computer. Maybe she should stop and get a black market one like Devon’s, except she didn’t have the first idea where she could find something like that.
Her gaze scanned the list; her eyes widened. Out of the fifty names, forty-three of them had enough shifter blood for the infusion to kick them over the edge. Forty-two others besides Devon. She wanted to text him. His wrist computer was safe, but hers wasn’t. It would have to wait. She wished they’d made plans to meet for lunch. Kate snapped her fingers. Perfect! She texted him using his regular wrist computer. He’d given her that number, too.
He texted back immediately with an address not far from her. Kate hurried out the door. It was early for lunch, but the raw need to see him heated her blood. She decided to walk to the café. It was only about half a mile. Maybe by the time she got there, she’d have herself under better control. Besides, even if she drove, there wouldn’t be any place to park. She loved her electric car. Roomy ones like hers were nearly impossible to find nowadays. The new ones were so small, they’d barely accommodate two adults. Children and pets were out of the question.
She settled into an easy, loping stride. The city looked different today, less like a prison. For the first time in a long time, she felt hopeful—about a lot of things.
* * * *
Kate sat next to Devon on a small bench. They were just finishing lunch. She could have sat across the rickety, metal table, but she’d wanted to feel him next to her. Plus, this way she’d been able to whisper to him once she’d made certain he’d left all his electronic toys in his car.
“Tell me about yourself,” she murmured. “I want to know everything.”
He shrugged. “It’s pretty simple, really. I grew up in San Bernardino. Two sisters. Dad’s still alive; you already know what happened to Mom. I graduated from UCLA and signed on with the San Bernardino Sheriff. I thought I could save enough money for law school, but I made the mistake of getting married—”
“Married?” Kate drew back. “What happened to her?”
He blew out a breath. “It was more what happened to us. I wasn’t home much. She took up with other men. We went our separate ways.”
“Girlfriends since then?”
He grinned at her. “Why? Are you feeling jealous?”
“Maybe a little.”
“Nah, I’ve pretty much kept to himself. Not that there haven’t been women, but none of them ever meant anything to me.”
She cuddled closer and wrapped a hand around his forearm. “I’m glad.”
“Your turn.” He laid a hand over hers.
“Um, I was born in what’s now New York.”
He furled his brows. “How long ago?” She bent close and whispered. A long, low whistle escaped him.
“Stop that. People will look at us.”
“They already are—” merriment danced behind his dark eyes, “—because we’ve been pawing at one another like a couple of randy kids.”
Kate straightened and moved so a couple of inches separated them. “There. Is that better?”
“No.” He draped an arm around her and pulled her against his body. “Are your parents still alive?” She nodded. “Where?”
“They’re still on the east coast. I have a sister and brother, too, one older, one younger.”
“How long since you’ve seen them?”
“Not since before,” she leaned close, “the, um, problems with our kind. We do talk, though. Maybe a couple times a month.”
“College?”
Kate snorted. “I went to a one-room school. College came a long time later. When I was young, women weren't allowed to go.”
“Husbands?”
“Why?” She mimicked his grin from earlier. “Jealous?”
“You bet!”
A warm place bloomed in her heart. She wanted Devon to care who she’d been with. “No husbands. You’ll be the first.”
He laughed, and then clapped a hand over his mouth. “Not that I’m opposed to the idea, but—”
“You thought I’d sit back demurely and wait for you to do the asking?”
Color stained his bronze skin, giving it a rosy cast. “Something like that.” He cocked his head to one side. “Say, I’d really like to hear what it was like when you were, er, young. Bet you have an interesting slant on history.”
Kate glanced around the restaurant. There were a few too many people for her to feel comfortable saying much more. “I’ll tell you when we’re alone.” She nuzzled his neck. “I love you. I still can’t get over that we found each other.”
“Aw, darling.” He bent and pressed his lips lightly over hers. “I feel the same way.”
Deep within, her cat purred extravagantly. “I found him for us.”
“So you did. Just don’t say I told you so.”
Devon drained his coffee and picked at some scraps of sandwich left on his plate. “On a more serious note…”
He was just beginning to question
her more closely about Max when his wrist computer vibrated. She glanced at the screen; incoming call flashed in red. She quirked a brow.
“Means it’s one of the task force. I need to take it.” He tapped a couple of keys. “Heartshorn.”
Kate leaned close to listen.
“Detective?” a female voice with a strong Asian accent asked.
“Actually, I’m a lieutenant. Who is this?”
“I am Ray Tanaka’s wife. Please, I do not know who to call. He seemed to like you—”
“Seemed? Did, ah, something happen to him?” Devon’s brows drew together.
“Yes. Please. If you could come to our house.”
Kate tapped Devon’s arm, nodding furiously.
“Sure,” Devon said. “Run the address by me.” He tapped the end call icon. “Done eating?”
“Yeah.” She folded her napkin and laid it on the table. “Let’s go.”
“Do you have your car?”
“No. Can’t we take yours?”
The skin around his eyes pinched in worry. “No. We’re not supposed to transport civilians unless it’s an emergency, plus the department has a tracking device in every police car. Even though I hate to add half an hour, we need to go back and get yours. Last thing we need is another officer nosing around.”
She set off at a jog. He paced her. “If this is what I think it is—” he began.
“Pretty much has to be,” she broke in. “He’s in his,” she glanced around to see if anyone was close enough to overhear, “um, other form and can’t get back. His wife’s probably terrified.”
“Can you help?”
“Of course, unless he’s so far gone he won’t listen to me.”
Devon gripped her hand as they ran. “What then?”
Kate thought about what Max had said about the Tracker elite being trained death machines. She frowned. “Not sure. I’d need to call Max.”
They ran around her building and up the alley. She activated the electronics from her wrist computer; the garage door slid open. “I’ll drive,” she said. “Could you program the address into the online database?”