Shifter's Claim (The Shadow Shifters)

by A. C. Arthur

  “I was always in control, until you showed up,” he continued, as he dipped the fingers from both hands inside of her once more, until it felt as if they were both rubbing against each other deep inside of her.

  Her thighs shook as his name slipped from her lips, her eyes closing, opening, her body fighting for release.

  Her hips bucked involuntarily and he pulled his fingers out halfway until they created a rhythm. A rhythm that was making breathing harder, talking almost impossible, and hating Sebastian Perry outrageously contradictory.

  “Will you lose control with me? Will you let go and let me please you? Damn, I want to please you, Priya. I want to please every inch of you, pretty girl.”

  He’d moved so that his lips were once again at her ear, his fingers deep inside of her. His tongue snaked out, licking her lobe once, then twice, until she gasped.

  “Will you please just hurry?” was her response. “Goddammit, just hurry!”

  He pumped her faster, licked her in long, hot strokes as he did and Priya thought she was going to explode. Instead she pressed her knees against the table, coming up slightly to increase the pressure of his strokes. She was almost there, her arms even shook now, her breath coming in deep pants as he worked her thoroughly, his tongue tracing a hot path along her skin, delving deep into her ear. She felt like Bas was completely covering her, as if she were a prized instrument and he was playing the hell out of her. She strained against the pain that rippled right along the sweet edges of impending ecstasy as she remembered who he was and why she was here. The thought was so powerful, the realization of how wrong they were and how right this felt, warring inside her like true rivals, she gasped, shaking her head and closing her eyes. Lowering her head to the pillow she waited, it was coming, that fall over the cliff of ecstasy was in sight. Just a few more strokes, just another lick of his tongue, another whisper in her ear and …

  “What did you just say?”

  “Where? I’ll be right there.”

  What the hell? Priya turned back, wondering at Bas’s words, at the complete stilling of both his hands. He was talking to someone and it clearly was not her. His brow wrinkled, his lips stretching into a straight line as he listened, to what or who Priya had no idea. In the next instant he was pulling his hands away from her, cursing as he turned to grab a towel from the other table.

  “Get dressed and go straight to my room,” he told her.

  By now she was sitting up on the table, staring at him in disbelief. “What the hell are you talking about? And where are you going?” she asked, watching in complete incredulity as he moved toward the door.

  “Do what I said, Priya. Go to my room and stay there until I come get you.”

  He was gone then and Priya cursed like she’d only ever heard a drunken Levi Drake do before.

  Chapter 14

  The control room was on the level just above the bunkers, encased in cinder blocks and bulletproof steel doors on the front and around the corner on the side. Not only was a code required to obtain entrance, but there was a specially made key to fit each door. The key had been made by a shadow whose day job was as a locksmith—kudos to the shifter database that X created and routinely updated. The only persons with keys to this room were Bas, Jacques, and Syfon, the leader of the blue team.

  When Bas let himself in, Jacques was already there, seated in one of the tall control chairs, staring at the many closed-circuit monitors that climbed the wall in front of him. The monitors covered every hallway in the resort and the elevators on a regular basis. There were cameras everywhere, so with a few keystrokes the view could be switched to outside a specific suite in the spa or the storage room in the kitchen. There was nothing at Perryville that Bas could not see at any moment he desired to do so. Right now, Jacques was scanning the complete perimeter, which consisted of a three-mile radius immediately surrounding the resort, as well as the extended acreage under his ownership, going deep into the forested end of the canyon. While the building itself was kitted with an electric alarm system, there was also an underground trigger system in place for the outdoor areas. Atop the roof of the main building were sniper points for five of their best trained to take a first look.

  “Nothing,” Jacques replied to Bas’s yet unasked question.

  “Where’s the team?” Bas continued, standing beside the seat he usually took for himself when he was there. He couldn’t sit, could barely focus as two powerful entities battled for his attention—the rogues vs. Priya.

  “Five up high, four in the front, six in the back,” Jacques began, giving Bas the rundown. “Two on the humans we caught last night because I’m thinking that’s who they’re coming for.”

  Bas nodded in agreement. “We took some of their drugs, their guns, and their mules.”

  “And let’s not forget their blood,” Jacques added dryly. “I guess now they want it back.”

  “Now that’s certainly not going to happen,” Bas added with a wry chuckle. “Let’s try to take them alive. I have a feeling this is circling back to the explosion in Rome’s zone.”

  For the first time since he’d come into the room, Jacques looked away from the monitors to stare directly at Bas. “What makes you think that?”

  “A man by the name of Ralph Kensington’s body was found in that building. One of Nick’s earlier reports was that Kensington was in cahoots with Robert Slakeman who owned that building and Slakeman Enterprises. Did you get a look at the serial number on one of those guns we retrieved from the tunnel?”

  Jacques shook his head. “Not really, no. I was more concerned with how many there were in comparison to the small amount of drugs that had been left behind and those other two crates that I still can’t explain.”

  Which was also a question that needed an answer, sooner rather than later. But more urgent was that serial number. Bas had seen that combination of numbers before.

  “The serial number was UK79865 and right behind that were the initials, RSE,” Bas told him. He’d always had an eidetic memory, which totally conflicted with his laid-back, gigolo reputation. It wasn’t something he broadcasted along with other details of his life, but it came in handy, especially at times like this.

  “Robert Slakeman Enterprises,” Jacques said slowly. “Arrogant bastard wants everyone to know his handiwork.”

  “I’m not surprised. The UK5—the weapon’s nickname as it had been listed in those documents we found when we raided that truck Hernandez was traveling in—is Slakeman’s most coveted creation. The government didn’t want it because of its instability and Slakeman’s sky-high price,” Bas added with a frown. “So Rome’s theory of Slakeman and Kensington selling firearms to the rogues was dead-on, they’re not only expanding their army of dealers, they’re arming them pretty damn sophisticatedly as well.”

  “And the expansion starts here,” Jacques muttered.

  “No the hell it doesn’t,” Bas said solemnly. “The minute you get a trace on them I want to know. This is one round of questioning I plan to handle myself.” Whoever had the guts to come at Bas head-on was no mule.

  Jacques was nodding, moving his body so that the chair swiveled a bit from side to side. “Where is the reporter?” he asked.

  That question threw Bas for a moment since he’d been so focused on the guns, drugs, and bastard rogues and exacting a modicum of revenge. “She’s in my room where she’s going to stay, especially now that we may have company.”

  “You know I don’t normally question you or what you do in your personal life,” Jacques began, letting his words drift slowly.

  Bas looked at him long and hard this time, noticed the recession of his hairline just before the dreadlocks he kept bound at the base of his neck with a black band, snaked backward. He noted the concern in the corners of his eyes and the set of his shoulders, which translated to the fact the man was fully prepared to say whatever it was he wouldn’t normally say. Bas had to respect the guy for that type of honesty, and if truth be told, boldness. For all t
hat Bas liked to dress well and live lavishly, he was a cold-blooded killer and if anybody knew that, Jacques did.

  Still, the man he’d known for years continued to hold Bas’s stare as he spoke. “She’s bad news, Bas. Keeping her here is not a good idea, especially under these new circumstances. What if she sees something or hears something? Hell, she might have seen or heard something last night before you even realized she was there. And as a matter of fact, when exactly did you realize she was there?”

  “Stop!” Bas snapped, not loudly, but sternly enough that Jacques’s lips clapped shut immediately. “I know what I’m doing.”

  “Do you?” Jacques asked. “Because when Rome finds out he’s going to send the order to kill her. Does your plan include that?”

  He was asking if Bas would kill Priya when Rome ordered it. Bas had asked himself that question more than once since meeting her and still hadn’t come up with an answer.

  “It’s not going to come to that.”

  “There’s no alternate ending here, Bas,” Jacques warned.

  At that Bas growled, his cat fighting the words as vehemently as the man intended to. “I said I know what I’m doing! I’ll handle her and I’ll deal with Rome.”

  “He’s the head of the Stateside Assembly. Just how do you plan to deal with him?”

  That question was meant to leave a stinging impact on Bas. What it did in actuality was piss him off just a little more. “I said I’d deal with it and I will,” was his final retort. “What you need to do is find those rogues and let me know the moment we’re ready to head out and bring those fuckers back to the bunker. Are we clear on that?”

  Jacques turned from him then, focusing his gaze on the monitors once more. “Clear as ice, sir,” was his stony reply.

  * * *

  Bas didn’t slam the door to his office, that would have been futile. He didn’t swipe all the papers from his desk, curse a blue streak, or even growl like his kind was used to doing. As angered as he was by Jacques’s words of killing Priya, he wouldn’t let it show. He couldn’t.

  Sitting at his desk, he switched on his computer and waited. Elbows planted on the desk blotter, hands folded, he let his forehead fall into his palms. In and out, he breathed slowly, not counting down from one hundred because that tended to irritate him more than help. Instead he focused on the air around him, the intake and expulsion, his lungs inflating and deflating. Focus.

  On that last intake of breath his teeth clenched. He could still smell her. Not the jasmine or hibiscus or the simply alluring scent he’d first lifted from her that night in the hotel, but her essence. It was the barest, most primal part of her and he could still smell it on his hands even though he’d stopped to wash them after leaving her in the spa. Inhaling deeply he let the scent waft through him and closed his eyes.

  “Dammit!”

  His palms flattened on the desk loudly.

  Focus, he reminded himself. Just fucking focus.

  His fingers moved quickly over the keyboard until his e-mail box was up displaying over one hundred unread messages. The first one he clicked on was from Jacques. It was Priya’s background report. He read it word for word, twice. Then cursed again.

  None of this was news to him. She was a reporter, the youngest of four children, struggling financially, but living the life she’d always wanted to live. Or so it appeared. There had to be something, a big-ass something that would make her act recklessly enough to pursue a story that wasn’t authorized by her boss and to risk her life.

  There were three more attachments to the e-mail, one that was a list of IP addresses and locations. Another that showed an e-mail that had been sent to primetimepriya227@venicemail.net from Nedob.sonroter@urauk.org.

  They must be exposed. Deadline: 60 days

  Bas looked away from the computer to the desk calendar and counted from the date of the e-mail forward. Twenty-two days left. Now there was a rumble in his chest, his fingers curled into a fist, and his temples throbbed. Somebody was threatening her to expose them, the question was who and why.

  Just as he was about to dedicate some time to trying to figure that out there was a knock at his door.

  “Come in,” Bas said, pressing a button to clear his computer screen.

  “Got something for you, boss,” Dana Booth said as he stepped into his office.

  The massage therapist was also a shadow shifter and a damn good researcher as well.

  Bas signaled him to come in and waited until he was seated across from him before replying, “What did you find?”

  “The shipment came from the lab, just like the labels said. As far as I could trace they left the Comastaz facility one week ago; the refrigeration apparatus built into the crates was only good for seven days. The samples needed to make it to their destination by then or risk contamination.”

  “So they’re no good now?” Bas asked, not sure why but not altogether pleased by that assessment.

  Dana shook his head. “No good now. But somebody at that lab put a trace on those crates. See, at first they were shipped through UPS to an address in Mexico. Then back to the US with the drugs and guns.”

  “Why?” Bas asked immediately. “Why ship crates of blood from the US to Mexico then back to the US again?”

  “That’s where I come up short. My thought is we need to get somebody into Comastaz to get some definitive answers. Unless one of those buttheads in the bunker starts giving up some real information.”

  Bas was almost positive he’d gotten all the information he was going to get from them. They couldn’t tell what they didn’t know and it made sense that they weren’t trusted with all the pertinent information. After dismissing Dana and thanking him for the information, Bas sat back in his chair, thinking about how fucked up things were becoming on the shifter front and how one woman was once again turning him inside out. He let loose a roar that may have startled the resort guests if he hadn’t ensured that his office was soundproof and situated at the farthest end of the floor.

  Inside his cat paced impatiently and Bas, against the training he’d implemented years before, let it roam. He allowed the pushing and felt the crack of bones as the partial shift took over. It wasn’t something they did often, but his restraint and patience had taught the cat this type of obedience, this yielding to the human form that Bas had required after Mariah’s death.

  His elongated teeth pricked his bottom lip, eyes dilated until he knew they were no longer gray but golden yellow. He roared again, pushing away from his desk to go and stand at the window. It was growing dark outside even though he had no idea how long he’d been closed in here. The cat wanted to run, it wanted to hunt, to kill whoever was threatening Priya. Bas needed to find out who that was first, he needed to find that out before he did anything else, before she found proof of their existence and before Rome ordered her death.

  Chapter 15

  She was in his room, again. Locked in, even if discreetly and it was partially her fault this time. After Bas had left her naked and unfulfilled on the table in the spa she’d hurriedly dressed and opened the door to go after him. Only to run face-first into the wide, hard chest of a man with a squared jaw and a tribal tattoo wrapped around his neck.

  “I’ll take you upstairs, ma’am,” he’d said in a robotic tone.

  “No, thank you. I know my way,” she’d said, then tried to move around him. She should have known that wasn’t going to work since he almost blocked the entire doorway with his spread-leg stance and bodybuilder-like physique. A body that should have aroused her, considering the nerve-wracking point she had approached with her celibacy endeavor. But there was nothing, only the low hum of being jilted by the infamous Sebastian Perry.

  “I will take you,” he continued as he stepped to the side to let her pass, and then quickly moved to stand beside her once she was in the hallway. “Mr. Perry’s orders.”

  Of course, she thought, frowning at his words. “You follow all of Mr. Perry’s orders?” Everybody around here s
eemed to do whatever that man said.

  He nodded. “Yes, ma’am, I do.”

  “Why?” she demanded, then softened her voice a little. “I mean, do you work for the resort or Mr. Perry personally?”

  There was no immediate response and Priya thought he might not answer her at all. When she looked over to him he seemed to be contemplating what to say.

  “Does Mr. Perry dictate your answers too?”

  He did something then that shocked her. He smiled, a wide toothy grin that gave this large muscled man a mischievous little-boy look that reminded her of Malik.

  “He does not dictate anything. I just do my job,” he told her.

  “And right now your job is to escort me up to his room and lock me inside. Am I correct?” she continued when they’d walked through the reception area of the spa, out the double doors that led into the resort.

  “My job is to make sure you are safe until he returns.”

  “Oh, like a bodyguard? I’ve never had my own private bodyguard before.” Her fake exuberance did not appear to be lost on him, but it obviously did not change his course.

  He shook his head. “Then I guess I’m honored.”

  Once inside the elevator she looked the man up and down once more. He wasn’t her enemy, she thought drably. He wasn’t the man who’d driven her desire up so high and so fast she thought she might actually die when the release finally hit her, then left her there looking and feeling like a fool. He was just doing his job and she was taking her sexual frustrations out on him.

  “What’s your name?” she asked. “Or are you allowed to tell me?”

  “I’m Paolo.”

  He spoke like he wanted to say more but was maybe being forced not to. That might be taking things a little too far, she thought, since there was no one here to actually stop him from talking.

  “Nice to meet you, Paolo,” was her simple reply.

  From there Priya had chosen not to fire off any more questions about Bas or the staff. Mostly because she knew he wasn’t going to give her any of the answers she hoped for. The fact was Bas was clearly the boss here at Perryville. He was the boss and he was the only man that had ever aroused her and left her hanging, which she feared was a bigger issue than his staff refusing to give up any dirt about him.