“It’s what we call their inner animals,” Brigg explained. A fact that he shouldn’t have known, of course. Sinead could see him chewing the inside of his cheek in self-inflicted punishment.
“I told him,” she blurted out. “When we spoke yesterday. I told him that’s what I call my Lioness.”
“Ah. I see. You’ve already begun your research,” said Collins.
“Yes,” said Brigg, turning once again to look into Sinead’s eyes, “I have.”
“Well then, I’ll leave you to it. Good luck, inspector.”
When the men had left, Brigg turned to Sinead.
“Are you able to get up on your own?” he asked. “I’d rather not…” He made an awkward gesture with his hand that dictated that he didn’t want to touch her. Well, that confirmed it; he was willing to kneel on a dirty floor but not to put his hands on her. She must really have been repulsive.
“I can get up,” she said, her tone oozing a hostility that came more from embarrassment than anger.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked as she pushed herself up to her feet.
“House arrest,” he said. “My house in the country, to be precise.”
She stared blankly at him. “I’m staying with you? Where am I going to sleep?”
“Don’t worry. You will have your space. You can roam the grounds as well, so long as you promise not to run. I, in turn, promise not to touch you.”
I promise not to touch you. He spoke the words with such gentleness, such empathy, that she almost hoped they weren’t true. She would have liked to be touched by a man who had so much care in his voice, so much kindness. Every man who’d ever touched her had possessed a streak of cruelty. A sense of utter entitlement. Perhaps it was the sort that she attracted. Or maybe she was just a terrible judge of character.
Funny that it should take incarceration for her to meet a man who actually showed signs of real goodness.
“Okay, then,” she said. “Let’s go.”
With that, Brigg guided her to the door and out.
They didn’t speak another word until they’d emerged onto the street outside of the building.
8
Sinead took a long, deep breath when they stepped outside. God, the world smelled so good.
Cold, crisp air. Car fumes. A distant pizza restaurant, even. Every smell had become new again, and every sight was glorious.
But as she inhaled a second time, she remembered with horror that she was still dressed in the clothes she’d had on when they’d brought her in: jeans and a soft blue sweater that clung to her curves. On her feet was a pair of black leather ankle boots. Had the garments been clean, she might have looked pretty good. But all she could think was that her hair was stringy with grease, her clothing stained with evidence of her horrid cell.
Not to mention how bad she smelled.
“I need a bath. Or at least a shower,” she said as they made their way to Brigg’s car, taking care to keep some distance from him, for her sake even more than for his. “I seriously hope you’re taking me somewhere where I can find one.”
“Of course. You’ll have it soon. Fresh clothing, as well,” he replied, his eyes fixed straight ahead. “I had some delivered for you.”
“Thank you.”
She may have explored his scent thoroughly more than once. But she couldn’t read the man, not really. He behaved so professionally—coldly, almost—but there was a tone of hunger about him, something feral that called out to her Lioness. He seemed to fight it back in her presence, either for her sake or for his, but she craved the understanding of whatever lay under his surface. Wanted to peel away the layers of his nature until she could find the true man behind the elegant clothing and upright posture.
She wanted to meet the animal inside him, and to take the man for herself, to possess him, just for a little.
She wondered if he knew how alluring he was, if this was all very deliberate, a standoffish sort of tactic that he was using in hopes of drawing her in. Or maybe he was standoffish simply because he wasn’t interested in her. Maybe he was just that good a man.
The parts of her that suffered from chronic arousal in his presence hoped sincerely that he wasn’t quite that good.
When they got close to the car, Sinead nearly jumped when another man emerged from the passenger’s side and lay his muscular arms on the roof. He was wearing a t-shirt despite the cold, and she could see that his forearms were tattooed with a series of words in a cursive writing that she couldn’t quite make out.
Like Brigg, he was tall and handsome. His lips were curled into a funny sort of smile that managed to look both sympathetic and amused at once. Somehow, she didn’t feel that he was mocking her, but there was definitely a playfulness in his face that appealed. Immediately she could see that he was a man who didn’t take life too seriously.
Blue-grey eyes stared intently at Sinead’s face, as if he was studying every nuance of her face. He wasn’t a human; that was certain. He was too curious; too gorgeous, even. He had all the hallmarks of a powerful shifter.
Sure enough, when Sinead sniffed the air she picked up the scent of a second Dire Wolf. “Who are you?” she asked when she was close enough, confused as to whether she should feel disappointed not to find herself alone with Brigg or pleased to discover that there were two of them.
“My name’s Cillian,” he replied. “Cillian. Yes, it’s pronounced Kill, but it’s Cillian with a C, not a K.” Apparently enough people had been confused over the years that he knew to pre-emptively explain the spelling. “I’m a member of the Trekilling Pack, and like our friend here, I’m here to help you.”
“You don’t look like you work for Scotland Yard,” she said, her gaze slipping down his body.
He shook his head. “Hardly. More like a night prowler.” He winked at her before slipping into the back seat and shutting the door. It was a friendly, almost innocent gesture, but it made her head spin. I’m even more aroused now, she thought. I smell like death, I’m about to squeeze myself into a small metal box with these two gorgeous men, and all I want is a goddamned sponge bath. Then sex.
I really, really want sex.
It had to be her time in solitary confinement that had made her so desperate. Usually she was wary of attractive men. They always seemed to know that they were gorgeous; it made them seem arrogant, selfish and insufferable. She had no time for that sort of creature, whether shifter or human.
Yet she’d detected no such arrogance in Brigg. He’d risked a great deal to get her free of the task force. He’d lied and manipulated, and he might well lose his job over it. Nothing in him said “I’m a pompous, conceited arse who plans to charm your pants off.”
Cillian, on the other hand, looked like a charmer. He was definitely a man who knew he could win a woman over with his smile. But he too was apparently here to help.
Determined to figure her two companions out, Sinead took the front passenger seat, her hands clenched tightly in her lap. She’d spent her whole life wishing to meet other shifters, wanting to be around them. Wanting the company of anyone but humans. Now that she had it, she wasn’t sure what to make of it.
Their first impression of her must have been so awful. Brigg had seen her under the influence of some kind of mind-bending drug. She’d met Cillian under the bright sun, without the benefit of a mirror or makeup. She probably looked like some foul beggar out of a gothic novel. Dirty, pathetic, greasy.
Suddenly all she wanted was a large paper bag to pull over her head.
“Sinead,” said Brigg as he pulled away from the curb, “We’re going north. You need to be out of the city. I don’t want these men having easy access to you.”
“All right,” she replied, turning her head to look out the window. “Whatever you say.”
“Understand that we don’t mean to frighten you or to make you feel like you’re still in prison. Our only intention is to help. We wanted to set you free.”
“I know,” she said, pressing
her head into the seat and shutting her eyes. “I think.”
Cillian stared at the back of Sinead’s head, his mind stirring with so many thoughts that he could scarcely untangle them from one another.
The moment he’d sent eyes on the Lioness shifter, his head had begun spinning. It hadn’t stopped in the ten or so minutes since they’d begun the drive to Brigg’s country house.
Normally upon meeting a stranger, Cillian would have been a font of questions. Where are you from, what do you do, how do you like London, he’d have asked. But in her presence, for some stupid reason, he’d remained uncharacteristically quiet. Taking in her scent, eyeing her secretly in the rear-view mirror as she sat in front of him with her eyes shut. Somehow the Lioness had rendered him almost shy.
She was afraid of something, he knew; he didn’t need to be clairvoyant to feel her fear. Shifters didn’t like to acknowledge fear; it meant weakness. It meant vulnerability. A woman like her wouldn’t enjoy being vulnerable to two large men.
But where she probably saw herself as cowardly, he saw her as a survivor. He wanted to say so, too, but blurting something like that out to a woman he’d just met seemed premature at best. It didn’t seem right to voice his admiration so quickly. At least not in his human form. His Wolf would have been perfectly happy to brush his face against hers, to coat himself in her scent. To lay some sort of claim to her, however temporary.
He could feel now that Brigg had been right. Somehow, Sinead’s fate was tied up in their own. Some twist of destiny had brought them together under the most awful circumstances. It seemed premature to think that she could be their mate; they didn’t know one another at all. She didn’t know him, didn’t know if he was trustworthy or even decent.
But they’d have plenty of time to talk at Brigg’s house.
“What are we going to do with her?” he asked Brigg when Sinead looked as though she’d drifted off into a deep slumber. He immediately regretted the question. It sounded like he was asking something as banal as where they should place the new television set. Speaking of her like she was an object without agency, without power of her own. But the truth was, she wouldn’t be able make her own decisions. She was, for all intents and purposes, their unfortunate captive for the time being.
“I have to file reports,” Brigg said. “They’ll be watching me. But first, we need to ask her some questions. We need to learn more about this fucking task force.”
“What sorts of questions?” Sinead asked, her voice sleepy. Cillian hoped she hadn’t heard his oafishly insensitive question.
Brigg turned Sinead’s way for a moment before fixing his eyes back on the road. “Like how did they find you?” he asked. “We need to know what they’re looking for.”
Sinead sighed. “Oh, that. They found me because I made a mistake,” she said. “I shifted in the wrong place at the wrong time. A small park near my office, after hours. Someone spotted my déor and called it in. They’d seen the shift, so they knew what I was, I suppose. In my defence, I’d always thought humans didn’t register the shifts. I’ve heard that their vision is veiled. I’ve shifted hundreds of times over the years and never been spotted.”
“You were right,” said Cillian. “For a long time, a spell was cast over the city that kept humans from seeing what we are. It was the Dragons who gave us that power. But the Grizzlies changed all that.” He reached for her head rest to pull himself forward, and his fingers accidentally grazed her neck, sending a pulse of wild electricity surging through him like a high-speed bullet.
Holy shit. That was unexpected.
“Really? How so?” she asked. Her voice sounded strained, as though the same impulse had flooded her system, too. For a moment her dark eyes met his in the mirror, but she pulled them away quickly as if the little bit of contact was too much for her.
She had beautiful, expressive eyes, surrounded by dark lashes. Her eyebrows were arched inquisitively. Even in human form she reminded Cillian of a cat. Something about her seemed so reluctantly curious, so dangerously questioning. He could see how she was a woman who occasionally got herself into trouble.
“I’m sure you know that the Grizzlies were killing humans,” he replied. “They were doing it on purpose, to sabotage the shifter population. They destroyed the illusion the Dragons had created. Any spell of secrecy was broken, and we can’t rebuild it, not while they’re still wreaking havoc. So right now we have two enemies: humans and the bears.”
“Fucking hell,” she muttered. “I’d heard about the killings, but I didn’t know it was Grizzlies who were doing it. Those plonkers need to be punched in the face. I want my old life back.”
“Many shifters do,” said Brigg. “But I’m afraid we’ll never see our old lives again.”
“Not all of us want our old lives back,” Cillian replied. He was looking at Sinead’s reflection again, at her slightly parted pink lips. At her smooth skin, sullied by days in a dank cell. All of a sudden he couldn’t imagine a life in which he’d never seen that face.
“No,” Brigg agreed, turning to glance at Sinead then briefly at Cillian, a look of understanding in his eyes. “You’re right. Not all of us want that.”
9
Sinead could feel Cillian’s eyes stroking her flesh like the sun’s rays on a summer day.
It wasn’t an unusual sensation, not exactly. Men often approached her in public places, their eyes admiring, jaws slack with some kind of primitive, testosterone-induced wonderment. She was tall and exotic-looking, with dark hair and eyes that often prompted members of the opposite sex to move closer and inquire as to their exact colour.
When she was a child, her mother had warned her that her beauty would one day be a curse. Often it brought immediate and aggressive attention, and usually not the good kind. From girls and women, Sinead had received disdain all her life; from men, a sense of entitlement. For some reason, most human men thought that her prettiness granted them the right to touch, to gawk, to own her. They saw her as a plaything, designed for their own selfish pleasure.
Perhaps Cillian was just like the others. Then again, she’d never found herself in an enclosed space with two male shifters. Never felt the strange, nebulous tension that seemed to have been building from the moment she’d shut her door. Neither Cillian nor Brigg flirted with her, exactly. They weren’t trying to proposition her or paw her.
Though in the moment when Cillian’s fingers had accidentally slipped over her shoulder, she’d found her breath catching in her chest as though she’d been struck a hard blow. It was a feeling she’d never encountered. A lightning bolt, like people talked about in stories about love at first sight.
She’d felt something similar when her eyes had found Brigg in her cell, the moment she’d realized he was a shifter. An immediate, almost painful bond with him had formed in that instant; one that came close to frightening her with its intensity.
But perhaps all of this was nothing more than a sort of manufactured excitement. She’d been giddy to see Brigg because he was going to help her. And now she was giddy to be able to set eyes on the outside world again. It made perfect sense that she should relish every bit of sensory delight.
“Here we are,” said Brigg after they’d driven for some time.
The car pulled into a long laneway flanked by rows of beautiful aspen trees. Sinead looked out the window, enthralled. At the end of the lane stood a stately, enormous manor house that had to be at least a few centuries old. Classical statues adorned its roof, ivy crawled along its outer walls, laying claim to each stone. Surely this couldn’t be the prison where Brigg was bringing her. This couldn’t be his home. She’d heard that some shifters came from wealth, but this was Mr. Darcy wealth.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“My estate,” he replied, his tone so nonchalant as to seem ridiculous.
She looked over at him. The serious man was full-on smiling for once. “Your estate? Here I thought you were taking me to a little country place.”
&nb
sp; “This is my country place. My most sincere apologies if it doesn’t seem adequate.”
“It’s just…fine,” she laughed. “It’s pretty splendid, if I’m to be honest. And massive.”
“If you think this is big,” Cillian said in a seductive tone, leaning forward, “you should see mine.”
Sinead drew her eyes up to the mirror and stared at his reflection. “You mean to tell me that you own a house larger than this?”
Cillian shot her a mischievous smile. “Who said anything about a house?”
When they’d pulled up to a circular drive in the front, Sinead climbed out, laying her hands on top of the car to take a look at the place. “Beautiful,” she whispered, hoping that Brigg hadn’t heard her. She didn’t want him thinking she was too happy about their situation. He was still her prison warden, whether he had a beautiful house or not. As appealing as he and Cillian were, they were still two men in charge of her fate. Her life was entirely in their hands, a thought that made her tense with muted frustration.
Cillian slipped out of the back seat and lay a hand on her back. His touch was gentle, exquisite. For a moment Sinead let herself absorb the sensation, which sent a pulse of heat to the place between her legs. She wanted more of it. More Cillian. More Brigg. She shut her eyes as a quick fantasy flashed through her mind.
No, she scolded silently. Stop this. Stop enjoying them so much.
She shot him a quick sideways glare, and he jerked his hand away. “Sorry,” he said. “Just wanted to guide you in. I wasn’t trying to be cheeky.”
“Right,” she replied, her tone icy to mask her arousal. “Of course. I’m your prisoner, after all. You have every right to man-handle me and push me around.”
“You’re not my prisoner, Sinead,” he protested. “I’m only here to help. I want you to be as comfortable as possible. So does Brigg.”
She swung around to glare at him. He looked so baffled, so confused, so bloody handsome. Bastard. “Ah, but you don’t want me to leave, do you?”
Dire Wolves of London Page 5