“Some of the most skilled ones I have at my disposal,” I answered honestly. “I believe one of them may have seen Doyle and I’m searching the area, looking for signs.”
“I see.” She made an odd sound, one of those noises that was just too deep for a human throat and it made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. “Hurry up and find my nephew, precious, would you? I miss him. Now…put my boy back on the phone.”
I held the phone over my shoulder and waited for him to take it.
He did. But if I thought he was going to leave, I was in for a rude awakening.
He continued to stand there.
Inches away. Too close for comfort. For sanity.
“Yes, My Lady.”
My blood was roaring in my ears, too loudly for me to make out what the crazy bitch was saying.
And then he touched my back, stroking the tip of one finger over one of my scars. It was one of the longer ones, from the top of my back, near my right shoulder, cutting diagonally down to stop just above my left hip.
“Of course, My Lady. She is.”
He touched another scar. Shorter, this one. He rested his finger on the bottom edge of it, stroking up to where it disappeared around my side, ending just below my left breast.
“Yes. I’m aware….” A few moments of silence. “I’ll remind her. I—”
He went silent. From the corner of my eye, I saw him lay the phone on the counter by the sink. “She wants me to remind you what’s going to happen if you don’t find him,” he said, his voice flat.
And still he continued to trace the scars.
I closed my eyes. “That’s not the easiest thing to forget. Tell me, Damon…exactly who is going to be the lucky one? Is she going to do the deed?”
“The Lady doesn’t like to get her hands dirty,” he whispered, his voice a low, rough rasp. He traced another scar, one that curled around my hip. When he reached the end of it, he kept his hand there.
“I bet.” Swallowing, I turned around, holding my shirt to chest. “What exactly is your position in her pack?”
He blinked and I noticed that he had ridiculously thick black lashes. He studied me through them for a long moment before he finally said, “Pretty much an enforcer. I handle security. Problems.”
“And if I don’t find her nephew, she’ll decide I’m a problem.”
A muscle jerked in his jaw. “I can’t tell you what the Lady will decide.”
“But you know how she’s likely to think.” I reached down and closed my hand around his wrist. “I’d rather you not keep touching me.”
It was like trying to drag away a boulder.
“Stop it,” I half-shouted, shoving at his chest. “Would you get the hell away from me?”
“Not in a thousand years,” he muttered.
When he moved again, it was to pull me against him and move, spinning me around so that the bathroom door was against my back. “You’ll find the kid, Kit. That’s all there is to it.” He pressed his lips to my shoulder.
“It’s been almost two weeks.” The futility of it was getting through to me. “Two weeks, damn it. And in case you haven’t noticed…if he’s involved in what we saw yesterday? He may already be dead.”
“No. Doyle is smart. He’s determined. You’ll find him. But…” A shudder wracked his body. “If you don’t—”
I turned my head and made myself open my eyes, made myself meet that intense gaze.
I had to acknowledge this.
I wanted him.
He was bad for me, I knew this.
He was bad for me the same way too much coffee was, the same way too much chocolate was, the way everything good and sinful sweet thing was…and I wanted him anyway.
The problem was that if I failed my job, his Alpha would order him to kill me, and I didn’t have a chance in hell against him.
Nor was he going to ignore that order. I knew enough about the fucked-up hierarchy of the werepacks.
They just didn’t ignore orders. If they did, they died.
“If I don’t find him, she’s going to tell you to kill me,” I said softly. “And as…” I paused, closed my eyes and searched for the right word. How in the world did I describe the feel of his body against mine? The way I somehow felt safe around him—safe around a man who could kill me in a blink, safe around a man who’d damn near crushed my throat within a few hours of meeting me? Oh, this was insane.
“As insanely interesting as this feels? There’s no way I’m going to even think about getting horizontal with a man who may well decide to kill me in the next few days, the next few hours, the next few minutes…”
His eyes flashed.
He leaned in.
My brain damned near exploded as he caught my lower lip between his teeth and nipped me. “Pretty little kitten, we don’t have to be horizontal. Right like this is fine,” he growled against my mouth. Then he shifted and whispered against my ear. “I decided quite some time ago that I wouldn’t be killing you. It doesn’t matter what the outcome of this job is. And anybody who tries is going to have to go through me. Nobody and nothing is going to hurt you as long as I’m around. Nobody hurts you when I’m around, you got me?”
His hands glided up my sides. It was a sensation that sent all sorts of hot, trembly little sparks crashing through me and for the longest time, I couldn’t think. It got so, so much worse as the heels of his hands glided over the outer curves of my breasts. “You got awful quiet there, little kitten. Cat got your tongue?”
Dumbly, I just stared at him.
He might have been a cat, but the smile that lit his face just then looked decidedly wolfish.
“Actually…I haven’t had that pleasure…” he muttered against my mouth. “Yet.”
Seconds later, he stroked his tongue across my lips.
A gasp escaped me.
One of us shuddered. I don’t know if it was him or me.
But then he pushed his tongue into my mouth and I wrapped my arms around his neck. Bad for me or not, he tasted too damn good to deny. His groan rumbled against my breasts and it was sheer amazement, the way it felt.
A big hand cupped my butt, boosted me higher. Wrapping my ankles around his hips, I arched against him. Through the thin cotton yoga pants I’d worn to bed, I could feel a thick, heavy ridge. His jeans held him confined and it was a damn good thing, because I could already see me trying to rip away my clothes and just wrap myself around him. Desperately. Hungrily. Forgetting everything else—
No…
Something important—
Groaning, I tore my mouth away from his and shoved against the muscled wall of his chest.
“This is insane.”
His hands closed around my wrists.
“Life isn’t exactly supposed to make sense, baby girl,” Damon said quietly.
Shaking my head, I closed my eyes. I needed to think. Needed to think—
“If you don’t find him, she’ll want you dead,” Damon murmured against my temple. “So we need to focus on finding him.”
I stiffened. Well. That was a good way to throw a pall on things. Twisting away from him, I moved on clumsy legs until I had a little bit of space between us. A very little bit. I glanced around and then shivered at the cool kiss of air on my naked flesh. Scowling, I looked down and saw my shirt on the ground. I bent over and grabbed it, hauling it over my head. “I wanted a shower,” I muttered. “I just wanted a shower and I wanted to eat.”
“You just took a shower last night,” Damon pointed out.
I shrugged, absently scratching my arm. Even though there wasn’t anything on me, I still felt dirty.
He noticed.
Dropping my hand, I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at him. “Are you going to let me shower?”
He stood there for a minute, studying me. “We’re talking, baby girl. Very soon.”
“I can’t wait.” I bared my teeth at him.
His hand snaked out and he caught the front of my shirt, hauled
me against him. A kiss so hard, so quick, it left me breathless. “Keep doing that, kitten,” he whispered. “And we’ll just go complicating an already complicated mess. Now shower, so you can eat and we can talk and start trying to figure out the other options we’ve got.”
“We’ve got two,” I told him. “I find Doyle or I die.”
“There’s only one acceptable one. We find Doyle. But there are going to be other ones. We start figuring those out. Today.”
I showered down, from head to toe, washed my hair twice and felt mostly better.
Physically, at least.
Emotionally, mentally, I was still a mess. As I stood there slicking on lotion, I had to acknowledge an ugly fact—I was going to be a mess until this job was over and done, and maybe even for a while after.
Assuming I survived.
Of course, if Damon was to be believed, he didn’t want me dead.
Not thinking about that right now, I told myself. Instead, I focused on the mundane task of digging through my bag for clothes. Tan tank top, sport bra, tan BDUs. A little bit cooler version of what I’d worn yesterday. I had some shorts I could wear, but that wasn’t going to happen, not if we were going to head back into the Everglades. No way, no how was I going through there in shorts. It was stupid enough going out there in a tank top, leaving my flesh exposed for the mini-vampires also known as mosquitoes.
I grabbed the clothes I’d slept in and draped them over the shower rod. We needed to wash clothes if we were here more than another night. With my hair still wet, I left the bathroom.
Damon was standing at the window, talking in a low voice on the phone.
His conversation carried on, consisting mostly of grunts, repeated intermittent use of the words yes and no, and an occasional hmmmm thrown in for variety.
Hard to figure out who he was talking to, but I knew it wasn’t the Queen Bitch. His voice just didn’t have that blind adoration, that yes, ma’am, I’ll kill whoever you need me to kill obedience to it.
I opened the fridge and spied the box of pizza sitting there. We’d polished off two and half pizzas last night—I’d actually eaten nearly an entire one, plus some spaghetti and buffalo wings.
Pulling it out, I saw there were only two pieces left. But there was some spaghetti. He must have had some, too, because it had been half full last night and now there was just enough for me to have a bowl. That was fine. All I needed, really. Breakfast of champions: pizza and spaghetti. The carbohydrates would do me good, I figured.
I nuked the pizza, but ate the spaghetti cold, guzzling two cups of coffee while I waited for him to finish up his phone call.
By the time he had finished, I was done eating, had my socks on and was lacing my boots. “We should have ordered another pizza,” I said.
“We’ll get something from one of those fast-food joints you love so much,” he said, watching as I started slipping my weapons into place.
“Don’t bother on my account. I got enough.”
He prowled across the room and settled on the bed just a foot away from me. Too close. Too close—
Trying to ignore him, I pulled on my vest, wrinkling my nose a little. It was stiff with sweat but it had too many places to hide weapons for me to not wear it. “If we’re here past tomorrow, we have to stop long enough for me to wash my clothes.” I settled it into place and reached for my garrote, working it into the collar.
“Do you always carry that many weapons on a job?”
I shrugged. “Depends on the job. If I’d figured yesterday’s hike would turn out like it did, I would have brought more.”
He stood up, laughing a little as he reached out and hooked his hands in the front of my vest. “Kitten, just how many more weapons can you carry?”
“My bow.” Bitterness twisted my gut as I thought about the sleek, pretty carved piece I’d left at home because I hadn’t planned on needing it. Plus, I still had to abide by U.S. laws and if I was caught carrying something as conspicuous as a bow and arrow in a national park, I’d be in major trouble. The sword, I could easily convince the authorities was part of my job, and the other weapons I carried weren’t hunting weapons, but anybody who looked at the bow and arrow would think I’d gone into the ′glades to hunt—
Hunting—
“Hunting,” I murmured.
Memory flashed through my mind. The boy. The wolf who’d been found. They had him trapped somewhere…He tried to climb out. For a long, long while.
“Hunting games…”
Would they?
“What are you mumbling about?”
I turned away from him, my mind whirling. In a rush, I finished with my weapons. I didn’t strap my sword on yet. It wasn’t easy to drive with her in place and it wasn’t like I had to carry her for her to be handy. “We need to go,” I said, shoving my hands through my damp hair. “Whatever we need to talk about, we’ll do it on the road. But we have to go by the witches’ house. I need to talk to the girl.”
“She wasn’t exactly in talking shape,” Damon said, still studying my face.
“Maybe the mother and her healers worked wonders.”
Chapter Fifteen
“It’s you again.”
I smiled at Kori, although I suspected it fell something short of charming.
The other day, her brows had been…well. Normal, I thought. Today, they were intersected with bare patches, like she’d decided to either wax or shave parts of the brows, but not others.
And instead of pink and blue in her hair, it was green and orange. She really, really made my eyes hurt.
“Hi, Kori.”
She just grunted and then looked past me. “I guess I have to let your boy in, too.”
“He’s not mine,” I said, trying not to think about the way his hand rested on the small of my back. Trying not to think about the way he’d had his tongue halfway down my throat earlier.
“He’s not, huh?” Kori started to laugh. “Anybody told him that? Or you, for that matter?” She stepped aside and gestured down the hall. “Healing hall down at the end, through the mirror, on your right.”
I blinked at her. “Did you say through the mirror?”
With a blinding smile, she said, “You heard right. It’s always good to make sure we keep our weak and sick well hidden. In case somebody was lucky enough to take me out.” Then she winked. “But trust me…nobody is that lucky.”
“Okay.” I wasn’t going to challenge her in any way on that. Hell, I still had the memory of my cooked hand dancing large in my mind. Tate had done me some serious damage. Yes, it had been for a purpose, but still, damage was damage and Kori could wipe the floor with Tate.
“Hey, kid.”
I paused and looked back at Kori.
She came closer, all long, muscled limbs and coiled grace. Tightly coiled grace, like she was ready to spring to action. She caught my hand and lifted it, studied it closely. “Takes balls to face somebody like Tate the way you did,” she murmured. “She’s not…”
A sad look entered her eyes. Then she shook her head. “Not all there.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that in any way that might not piss her off so I just kept my mouth shut.
“We need fighters,” Kori said quietly. “But we don’t need cruelty.”
“Nobody needs cruelty.”
Kori shrugged. “It has its place at times in our world.” She let go of my wrist and then backed away. “Our house is here when you need it, kid. I’ll be ready.”
Again, I didn’t know how to respond. It was an offer too generous for a mere thank you, but it was all I had. With a short nod, I said, “Thank you. If you ever need a sword…well, it’s not magic like you have, but I’m damn good with it.”
“I bet you are.” She grinned and nodded. “Go find the little cat. I think the mother finally got through to her earlier, but…”
She craned her head around, studied Damon. “You might want to leave the boy elsewhere. He’ll scare her.”
“I kn
ow how to handle kids going through the spike. And just so you know? The boy has a name,” Damon said.
“Yeah. I think you growled it at me before, but I forgot,” Kori responded. “If I was at all interested, I’d ask you again what it was…but you don’t really want me knowing yet. If I take that much interest in your name, it would be because I want to fuck you or kill you.”
I managed to swallow my laugh.
Barely.
Down at the end. Through the mirror on your right.
I stared at the mirror and twitched at the massive amount of energy that hovered over it.
“It’s just a mirror,” Damon said, standing behind me.
“No, it’s not.”
“Yeah, it is. If they had the girl around here, I’d smell her and I don’t…”
I listened to his words trail off as I pushed my hand through the glass.
This was amazing…
“Son of a bitch,” Damon said from behind me.
I took a step forward. Then another.
I was halfway through the doorway when his hands closed over my shoulders. I could smell it now—it was like a sick house. A hospital. Like the healing hall back at Aneris, where I’d lived the first fifteen years of my life. Some of the healers in my mother’s family had practiced a magic that was much like a witch’s ability to heal and I could recognize the herbs just by scent alone.
All the time I spent at Colleen’s had only added to that ability.
Rosemary, mint, alder bark, cardamom, Solomon’s seal.
“Damn it, Kit.”
I glanced back and looked at Damon. “Come on, are you afraid of a mirror?”
He hadn’t been holding me as tight as he could have and I took advantage of it, twisting out of his grasp to push completely through the glass. His fingers swiped through, brushing over my hair, but I was inside the room now.
If he wanted me, he’d have to follow.
“Oh, he wants you.”
I searched the gloom for Es, moving away from the glass. I found her sitting by a narrow bed. “What?”
“He wants you, I said.” She smiled up at me. “I believe it’s already been mentioned that he’s in rut.”
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