by Dodge, Lola
What we’d done should’ve slaked my curiosity. If anything, it had grown. And he was right, wasn’t he?
The moment I gave in to that heat, I’d be a wild woman again. I should’ve been able to resist, but my resolve melted every time Panther was involved. I’d always be on the edge of breaking if I stayed close to him.
“You run and I’ll chase you.” He finally slid out of the car. “Let’s get this done.”
He’d chase me?
The goose bumps sprang back. Could he be any more provocative? Just imagining it…
Pressing my thighs together, I bit back a moan. I’d never met such a dangerous man, and I needed to get away from him before I lost myself.
By the time I was collected, Panther was chatting with a detective. “My partner,” he said as I drew even with them.
“Hope you can find something we missed.” The man lifted the ribbon of yellow tape blocking the alley.
It was my first crime scene, but hardly my first kill. I was ready for gore, dismemberment—anything, really. It couldn’t be easy to murder a super.
The body lay facedown, sprawled in a puddle. A man, middle-aged and perhaps a little chubby. Super hero wouldn’t have been my first thought, but then, appearances could lie.
The detective handed Panther a pair of rubber gloves and some forceps. When Panther crouched near the man, I followed suit. “You’ll have to have the lab confirm, but these are definitely the same stab wounds as the victims in L.A. and Houston.”
“Serial killer. With a super fetish.” Disgust dripped from the detective’s voice.
“Seems like it.” Panther shifted the man’s shirt out of the way with the tool, examining the wounds. “Same M.O. This wasn’t a knife, and there’s not enough blood. The body was dropped here.”
“Who was this man?” That had to be more important than how he’d died. Surely there was a reason he’d been chosen as a victim.
“Nicholas Harrington.” The detective shook his head. “The original Wolfman.”
“No shit?” Panther turned startled eyes the man’s way.
“I should know who that is?” I glanced between the men. Clearly, they knew.
“Probably not.” Panther bent back to the body. “Guy was a star in the ’80s on a sitcom about human shifters. Wolfman.”
“Ah.” That would explain why I didn’t know. No TV on the tundra, and I’d never been a fan of reruns. “Were any of the other victims celebrities?”
“Most supers are in the public eye. The two in L.A. were in TV and movies, but the two in Houston were heavy into their secret identities.”
The detective was jotting notes into his handheld. “So what’s the connection? Or were they randomly chosen?”
“Yes. What kind of powers did the others have?” It struck me that I was being too cooperative when I was planning to run, but I couldn’t stand over the body and not do my best to avenge the man.
“The first victim was a cosmetic chameleon. Worked Hollywood in a ton of sci-fi movies without needing makeup, but she didn’t have any firepower.” Panther ticked his fingers as he listed them off. “Charmer was next, and he had a creepy affinity for snakes. We had to wade through a swath of the bastards to get to the body. Then Houston, it was a cattle rancher with a minotaur form and a flier with bird wings.”
My stomach roiled. All of those victims plus Wolfman made a disturbing trend. “They were all animal shifters.”
“Not really,” Panther said. “Only the minotaur had an alternate form. The rest were humanoid full-time and our chameleon only did superficial changes. Charmer looked like a regular guy under all the snakes.”
“It’s the same.” However they looked, they were animal-tied. At least that was how I saw it, and if I did, so did others.
Oh, Goddess.
“Has it rained?” I’d been inside, but I should’ve felt more moisture in the air if I’d missed a shower. By the dread in my belly, I knew I hadn’t.
“Not in a few days.” Panther’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
I touched a fingertip to the tepid puddle and lifted it to my mouth. It had a sweet tang that was very out of place on a stretch of Manhattan sidewalk. “It was ice.”
“A little hot for that, don’t you think?” The detective’s eyebrows went up.
I ignored him. “The other bodies. You said you never found a murder weapon?”
“Never.” Panther pulled out his phone and started flicking through a display of crime scene photos. “But all of the bodies have had some kind of water nearby. You think….”
Ice spears left their tips in most wounds. We seldom bothered to pull them out. They melted on their own.
“Kevan.” I’d stumbled into him, and the next morning there was a murder by ice? It was too much coincidence.
With awakened eyes, I took in the wounds. They clustered in the soft flesh of the man’s torso and at the ragged hollow of his neck. I’d never thought to take down a human target, but it was exactly how I would have attacked with a pack of hunters at my back.
How many of them were in New York?
Cold fury built up from my toes to my fingertips until all I could see was static. “We need to track them.”
“Them?” The detective asked. “You got a lead you want to share, partner?”
“This is my justice.” They were my people, even if I’d abandoned them. It was mine to make right for this senseless death.
“Why?” Panther uncrouched without losing his coiled tension. “What’s the motive?”
“We’re hunters.” I’d feared that part of myself all along. The uncontrolled passion of the chase. Once we had a target, everything faded away, and we didn’t stop until we knew the rush of the kill.
But not humans. Supers or not, that was what they were, and Kevan and untold others had crossed that line.
Tracking them meant tapping into the well I’d been trying so hard to suppress. The very abilities and impulses that had likely driven my tribesmen over the edge.
I had to do it. There was no question of that.
But would I be able to bring myself back?
Chapter Eight
Panther
The morning should’ve been warm enough, but in the alley’s darkness, with the frigid wind spilling off Ivory’s skin, it felt like December. In Siberia.
I’d been trying my damnedest to focus on the crime scene instead of Ivory’s rejection, but shit. Frost climbed her arms like evening gloves and she had every sliver of my attention.
“I’ll find them.” Scary determination burned in that voice. Cold fire, but it seared just the same.
“I’ll call the team.” Tank was out of town, but as long as the other guys were around, we didn’t need to take on a pack of icemen solo. Hell, one text and Jet could join us in about ten seconds.
“No.”
“So, what? You want to send me a fax when you get there? A smoke signal?”
“No. You come. You have to bring me back.”
I turned cold as her skin. “What does that mean?”
“I can get to them.” One of those wicked ice spears stretched between her palms. In her uniform, she was a vision of the huntress that had owned me since the flight to L.A. As fearsome as she was fearless. “But it might mean the end of me.”
Okay. Maybe not fearless. “What do you—”
I needed an explanation, but she took off like she was running from the cops. After a second, she was.
“Wha—” the detective called.
Poor guy. He sprinted until the first dumpster, but he was going to need an Olympic pedigree or a jetpack if he wanted to match Ivory’s pace. Finding neither, he jogged to a stop and went for his phone.
Sticking close to her heels, I thumped the pavement. “Can’t we take the car?”
Maybe she didn’t hear me.
We ran south, weaving through some alleys but mostly in plain sight for all of New York to see. Luckily most New Yorkers were as disenchanted about supers as e
verything else. Every so often someone whipped out a camera phone, but more people glanced and got back to business.
It was a full-on sprint to Midtown. Ivory only stopped to…I didn’t even know.
She touched the sidewalk, stirred puddles or paused to let the wind breeze through her fingers. Her icy sweet scent was strong enough in my nose, but I didn’t sense anything like it. So what was she tracking?
I didn’t like it. We needed backup. And I needed her not to be suicidal, if that’s what this was. Not that I would fucking let it play like that.
She was booking fast enough that I wanted to panther out, but if I shredded my pants, I lost my cell, and the first millisecond I could I was phoning this in.
Trees loomed at our right as we hit Central Park. Park or not, it had a lot of places to hide…
Nope.
We veered off to avenues of soaring apartment buildings with million-dollar views. So not where you expected to find a ring of super serial killers.
Were Ivory’s people really behind the murders? Ice boy hadn’t given off that psycho vibe, but he’d showed his killer’s gaze when I challenged him. It wasn’t that they weren’t capable, but it didn’t make sense.
With the way Ivory was rocking her beast mode, she had no doubts who’d done it. I would not want to be on the other side of that vengeance.
She wheeled down an alley, though the address was really too upscale to call it that. More like a path between two mansions. A wrought-iron gate surrounded a micro-patio and the entrance to the high rise’s basement apartment. I ducked to try and peer through the street-level windows, but frost choked the glass.
We were in the right place.
Ivory gave a war-whoop that froze my blood, leaped the fence and kicked in the door like Jean-Claude fucking Van Damme. I hadn’t planned on knocking, but a warning would’ve been cool.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
I’d started to follow as soon as Ivory moved, but that sound would’ve frozen me if the bullets hadn’t.
I reached for my neck.
Not bullets. Three feathered darts.
Shit.
My vision blurred and my knees hit the sidewalk. Tranqs. Probably for big game if they worked this fast.
Even as the toxins worked their way into my blood, I growled fury. I couldn’t see Ivory, but if she was hurt…
When I came to, I was going to liberate some throats from their owners’ bodies.
Ivory
Gunshots rang out, but the weapon wasn’t aimed my way. Kevan and four others stood inside the apartment. He did say they’d be waiting.
I stormed among them and grabbed Kevan by his throat, lifting him onto his tiptoes. “Tell me it wasn’t you.”
“Lady…Valdís…” Kevan choked out the words. “Please…can explain—”
“Start now.” I dropped him. Kevan fell into the same deep bow he’d practiced at the press social, though it wasn’t so smooth after my treatment. The others followed his lead.
But where was…
The gunshots. Panther.
I’d been too caught in the hunt to look back, but now I did. He sprawled on the outdoor patio. No blood. I lunged for him, my pulse racing in terror.
Darts. I yanked the things from his neck. Since when would my tribesmen stoop as low as tranquilizers?
At least Panther wasn’t hurt.
I would’ve relaxed, but I was too livid. And what to do with him? I couldn’t bring him into their den, but if I left him limp on the patio, someone would call the police.
I compromised, propping him against the wall. Assuming no one recognized him as M-10, he might pass for napping. Or a bum in Citizen jeans. It would have to do until I had my vengeance.
The men hadn’t moved when I reentered the apartment and shut the door behind myself. All five pressed their foreheads to the floor.
“Lady Valdís,” they muttered in unison.
“Kneel.” For once their obedience didn’t irk me. They rose to their knees and folded their hands in front of their bodies, perfectly respectful.
“You used tranquilizers on my creature.” My first question should’ve been about the murders, but they didn’t seem as important.
“Forgive us.” Kevan ducked his head. “We feared that he would keep you from listening.”
“I’m listening.” With a ready spear. “Tell me you haven’t been murdering humans.”
“Not murdering.” Kevan’s head jerked up. “Not humans.”
“But you’ve killed.” The truth was an icy knot in my stomach. They had no idea what they’d done.
“Yes. The queen wished us to seek out worthy targets. And she bade us give you her gift.” He waved at an ornamental chest set in a place of honor, at the center of the mantel.
“My mother? Why would she…” Care? Acknowledge my existence? Not try to kill me?
“May I?” Kevan asked.
At my nod, he rose. The others hadn’t moved. They knelt, blond heads bowed, all five of them tall and close to identical. I’d craved my tribesmen’s company so much in the beginning, but I’d been gone too many years and this was nothing like a homecoming. I felt no kinship, no warmth, no connection to my people. They’d justified their inhuman actions to the point that I couldn’t recognize them as my own.
Kevan lifted the chest with care and eased open its lid. A white box sat on a velvet cushion, and I knew what it must contain.
A heart. To symbolize the one I’d ripped out of her and the rest of my people by leaving. Probably a vole or shrew or some rodent’s because I’d heaped that much more disgrace on my family by skulking away in the night like a coward. By rights I should’ve declared my intent to leave in front of the tribe and been executed for the betrayal.
Wasn’t I just a terrible daughter?
“I don’t want it.” I wasn’t squeamish, but I didn’t need to see my shame laid bare. It wouldn’t make me regret my decision, and I’d come too far to look back.
“Please.” Kevan bowed deep. “She prays for your return. It is not what you think.”
At one time, I would’ve thought it dishonorable to ask, but I’d spent too many years among humans. That, and I needed to know. “It’s not a heart?”
“Of course not.” Passion seeped into Kevan’s voice. “She has absolved you of any dishonor. You were wise to journey among the humans and learn the ways of the southlands. We’ll need your knowledge to survive these troubled times.”
“She said all of that?” My mother’s world began and ended on ice. She’d almost beaten me to death for asking about a ship, and suddenly I was wise? I couldn’t believe it. Not my mother. Not the queen.
“I would not lie to you, my lady.” Kevan thrust the box out, as if he could will me to reach for it. “She says the world has changed. The ice shrinks and there is little to hunt. We were to find you and bring you back to share your knowledge, learning the humans’ ways as we searched.”
“And you found me.” Until my run-in with the M-10, I’d been cautious about exposing myself to the media, but I’d never, never expected anyone from the tribe to come this far.
“It was fated.” The bliss in Kevan’s smile made my skin crawl. “You slew the man we were to meet in Los Angeles, and we saw your picture in the news, on the television. We flew to New York, and here we are.”
“You were meeting that horrible man?” Goddess, this was worse than I’d imagined.
“Ah.” Kevan shrugged. “He hated our people, but not as much as the other creatures called supers. His organization arranged hunting grounds and was to provide us with a longer list of worthy prey. The first made for exciting hunts. Did you obtain the names?” At the last, he leaned forward in excitement, his arms drooping with the chest they still held out to me.
“Let me see that.” I should’ve taken the whole bundle and thrown it into a fire, but I had to see what my mother deigned to send her disgraced daughter. Then, justice.
As I reached for the box, Kevan averted his eyes. Ou
t of respect? Fear?
The parcel was heavier than expected. My fingers didn’t quite tremble, but I felt very much the girl who’d never live up to her mother’s expectations as I untied the length of blood-red ribbon.
The lid fell away and a bluish white glow expanded. As it touched my skin, it sank into the depths of my soul.
So beautiful. Like the heart of a glacier.
A bright, frigid sphere of elemental ice. A true snow globe. Not like the humans’ chintzy treasures. It was pure energy, and as soon as my gaze touched its surface, I was lost to its spell. This was my home. This was who I was at my deepest core.
And my mother was as much a bitch as ever.
It was my last coherent thought before my consciousness slipped into the well of power. There could be no escape.
Panther
My neck stung like a mother and my head ached like the morning after a night in Tijuana, but I was coming back to life. Ivory needed me, and I was going to kill the icy bastards who’d done this. Claws extended from my paws—
Paws?
When did I…
I jerked fully awake. My head throbbed and a chain pulled against the collar around my neck. I fell back on four legs. Maybe I hadn’t signed off on panthering out, but it was all the better to get with the flesh-tearing.
Except for the collar. The chain ran to an iron link in the floor of some dank sub-basement.
I was alone. Where was Ivory?
This was not happening. I threw myself, but the chain wrenched me back hard. No dice.
Had to go human. The shredded remnants of my clothes were balled on the other side of my makeshift prison. My cell phone better be there. We needed the cavalry. And I wouldn’t say no to a flamethrower.
I started to shift. My muscles rippled and fur smoothed into skin, but right as my body moved from cat-shaped to humanoid, a massive jolt of electricity tore through my body.
The fire circled my neck and corded out my muscles. I fell to the ground in a twitching pile.
Fuck, that hurt.
As the electricity faded, my body bled from the doughy half-form back to full panther. When I stopped twitching enough, I touched the collar with the pad of my paw.