by Virna DePaul
The shape-shifter just smiled secretively, causing her to narrow her eyes. Fine.
“How did you get my DNA to impersonate me? Did someone give it to you?”
Now the shape-shifter looked confused. “Who would give it to me? I just waited until the bartender took your empty drink. Then, when I got my chance, I grabbed the glass before it went into the kitchen. I licked the rim, and presto!”
Wraith grimaced at the visual. “Yeah. Presto, change-o. You’re a wraith. Lucky you.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. It won’t be long now. You’ll have your chance at peace.”
Whoa. Were all shape-shifters so woo-woo? “What do you know about it?”
“Only what you do. What you feel. I know you’re close to the end, though I’m not sure why you regained your wraith appearance. It’s rather exciting, if you think about it.”
“So when you take someone’s form, you also pick up their thoughts? Their feelings?”
He shook his head. “I can pick up emotions and feelings simply by touching someone. I don’t have to take the person’s form.”
“And you picked up on my ‘feeling’ that my end is near?”
“I feel your sadness. Your longing. Your regret. Major bummer.”
Well, crap. “Sorry I couldn’t be more cheery for you,” she snapped.
“Don’t be. Your emotions are what they are. They’re part of you, so they should be appreciated. Valued. Interestingly, what I picked up most from you was resignation. You’ve already given up, you know. I never would have suspected, but then most people wouldn’t, would they? That’s the bitch about being a wraith.”
Unconsciously, she took a step away from the shifter. Resigned. Was that really such a bad thing? Why fight for something when all hope was obviously lost? Wasn’t it better to die with dignity? Aware that he was distracting her, she tried to steer the conversation back on track. “Let’s get back to Lucy. You said my friend wanted an end to the heat and you wanted to help her? Have you helped others?” He glanced away, but not before she saw the confirmation in his eyes. “You have, haven’t you? You raped those felines.”
His eyes rounded. “Certainly not. I merely gave them what they asked of me. They chose how to characterize it to others for their own purposes.”
“You sterilized them, and they cried rape?”
“It’s the only way they felt they’d be accepted—by claiming that somehow the rapes were connected with their future inability to have children. I didn’t think I could pity them more, but there you have it. Dr. Maddox warned me how extreme felines could be, but I didn’t listen. Not until I saw it for myself.”
“Dr. Maddox?”
“Dr. Alton Maddox. He’s a doctor. My mentor. He does much for Otherborn. He even helped them during the War.”
“So he’s okay with helping felines report false crimes? So long as it helps them? Sounds like Dr. Maddox is an ‘ends justifies the means’ kind of guy.”
“I’d say you’re right. Just like me. So tell your friend she can come see me. After I’m out of here, of course. Just look up Dr. Maddox’s clinic, and he’ll get us in touch.”
“Oh, I will. But tell me something first.”
The shape-shifter looked at her expectantly.
“Why are you telling me all this?”
The shifter smiled. “Believe me, you don’t want to know.”
She grinned, showing her teeth. “Believe me, I do.”
“Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. It’s because I can feel your pain. You genuinely care about the girl. So do your friends.” His mouth tilted in a mocking smile. “I felt how much they cared when they were choking the life out of me.”
“And?” Wraith prompted.
“What makes you think there’s more?”
She simply stared at him.
He shrugged. “And . . . well, honey, believe it or not, I feel sorry for you. We shape-shifters look like aliens, and we spend our whole lives pretending to be someone else. You don’t get that benefit. I wouldn’t want to be you for anything on this earth. Plus, you’re dying. I guess you can look at this as a farewell gift. One outcast to another.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
Caleb and Dex were waiting just outside, nursing some coffee, when Caleb saw Wraith. He stood as Wraith approached them.
“Well?” Dex growled.
She looked shaken but tried to hide it. “We need the address for a Dr. Alton Maddox.”
“Who’s he?”
“He and the shape-shifter have apparently been sterilizing felines. Most with their consent. Some with what they assumed would be consent.”
“Sterilizing, not raping . . .” Caleb froze. “You’re saying the felines faked the rapes? We suspected Natia, but Morgana . . . A feline princess lied to the police about being raped?”
“What? You think your ex-girlfriend is capable of hiring goons to come after me, but you don’t think she’d be capable of crying rape on behalf of her sister? And in all likelihood, on behalf of herself eventually?”
“Damn it, Wraith, stop twisting my words,” he snarled.
“Who reported the rapes?” Dex snapped.
Reluctantly, Caleb turned to the were. “I assumed the victims did, but . . .” Caleb shrugged. “Let’s check it out right now.”
The three of them converged on the records clerk and had the files they needed in under five minutes. Each of the rapes had been reported by a Dr. Alton Maddox, after the felines had been brought to his clinic for sexual assault. He’d done an examination first, confirmed sexual assault, then signed off on the paperwork.
“I can’t believe we overlooked it.”
“I can. He’s the doctor who treated them. He regularly treats felines. We had no cause to be suspicious,” Wraith said. “We’ve got the address to his clinic right here. We can—”
A cell phone rang. Dex’s.
He checked the screen. “It’s Lucy.” Swiftly, he flipped the phone open. “Lucy,” he said. He looked at Wraith and Caleb and nodded. Caleb felt Wraith relax just as much as he did. “Yeah, we figured that out on our own. Is the vampire with you?” Dex scowled. “You know damn well who I’m talking about, Lucy. Is Jesmina Martin, the vampire who was at the club, with you? Oh really? All right, we’re coming to get you. Do not leave. And Lucy? I’m pissed, so I wouldn’t try anything else stupid tonight, all right? Do not warn the vampire that I’m coming.”
Dex flipped his phone shut. “She’s at Maddox’s clinic. She went there to talk to him after the vampire tipped her off about the sterilizations.”
“Why?” Wraith said. “Why wouldn’t she have come to us?”
“Who knows,” Dex growled. “Maybe she was embarrassed. Pissed off at you two for what went down in front of Mahone. Pissed off at me for . . .” He shook his head. “Hell, it could be a hundred different reasons.”
“Yeah, and that reminds me . . .” Wraith turned on Dex. “Did you know Lucy is a feline?”
“What?” Caleb exclaimed. Wraith glanced at him, then back at Dex.
“I figured it out a couple of days ago. It was the main reason I—”
“I’ll bet Mahone knew and chose to keep it from us,” Wraith said. “And Lucy let him! Here I am, giving everything I’ve got to this team and Lucy holds something like that back.”
“Everything you’ve got, huh? Like telling us you were turning human? I’m sorry, but that would’ve been nice to know before I relied on you as my backup, don’t you think?”
“Screw you, Dex! I—”
“Stop it!” Caleb yelled. “We’ve all got our secrets. Every single one of us. Lucy wanted to keep hers, fine. We need to get to her and figure out what we’re going to do about this whole damn mess.” He turned to Dex. “What else did she tell you?” Caleb asked gruffly, still reeling from the idea that the felines had made up something as serious as rape.
“When she got there, Maddox was dead. His throat slit. Lucy called on her cell from his office and is meeti
ng the vampire outside.”
Wraith cursed and Caleb immediately knew what she was thinking. “Dex, we don’t know anything about the vampire. How do we know she didn’t kill Maddox? How do we know she didn’t set Lucy up?”
Dex looked confused for a second, then fire blazed in his eyes. “No. I talked to the vamp—I would’ve known if she . . .” Dex closed his eyes. When he opened them, his expression was shuttered. On him, it was the same as deadly. “Let’s go.”
From the shadows of the clinic entrance, Lucy stared at Jesmina Martin, the vampire who’d led her to Dr. Alton Maddox’s clinic. She was standing under a streetlight several feet away, her long, silver hair gleaming. Maddox hadn’t died pretty, and Lucy couldn’t help wondering if accompanying the vampire had been a huge mistake.
Oh, she’d told the truth about Maddox. After Lucy had discovered his body inside, she’d searched through his files. She’d found the ones on the felines inside his locked safe, which she’d easily opened with an entry spell. He and his assistant, a shape-shifter, had indeed sterilized the three felines at their request, then helped them cover for the surgery with reports of rape, rape and deliberate or consequential sterilization—either one would do—so they wouldn’t be shunned by their clan. However, according to the files, Maddox had sterilized other felines. He’d called what he’d been doing feline liberation, regardless of whether his patients had sought his help or not. The ironic thing was that Maddox and his assistant had drugged those felines, but afterward, the felines hadn’t remembered enough to realize what had happened. Either that, or they’d been convinced not to talk. The only proof of what had been done to them was in Maddox’s files.
And Maddox’s suspiciously timed death was also something to consider.
After all, it was highly likely that at least one of Maddox’s so-called liberated felines had found out what he’d done and shown him just how much she hadn’t wanted his help.
The thing was, Lucy regretted bringing the vampire with her now that Dex was on his way. Despite their short acquaintance, something was going on between the two and—
Jesmina turned with a sigh and called out to her. “I can read your thoughts from here, Lucy. Stop worrying. I’m not afraid of Dex. Did you talk to Maddox?”
Lucy bit her lip, wanting to break the news gently because she knew Maddox had been Jesmina’s friend. She needn’t have bothered. Jesmina took one look at her face and smiled sadly. “Poor Alton. Was it someone he helped who killed him?”
“More likely someone he helped who didn’t want to be helped.”
That seemed to surprise Jesmina. She tried to speak but couldn’t until she’d taken several breaths. “My record’s holding firm.” She smiled at Lucy’s confused look. “I have horrible judgment when it comes to men. That’s why I try to stay away from them.”
“Dex is on his way,” Lucy said, feeling it was only fair to warn her.
“Thank you,” Jesmina said. “I’d stay and help you explain, but I’m afraid I’m a little tired. If you don’t need me, I’ll be going.”
Lucy nodded. “Thanks again for your help.”
“Sure.” She took several steps away from her, then stopped. “Lucy,” she called over her shoulder. “Always remember that who we are might not be who we want to be, but in the end, we’d better be willing to fight for what we have. Tell that to the wraith, would you? And tell Dex good-bye for me.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
What idiots we were, Elijah. Or did you know? Did you know when you died that someone you trusted with all your heart and soul had been your true executioner?
Caleb tried to harness his thoughts into something useful. Something besides the mass of shock and self-castigation that warred with regret and grief. It was as if his friend had just died—that’s how intense the sting of loss and betrayal felt. He wanted to get plastered. To drown himself in a bottle of whiskey until he floated to another world where such horrors never occurred. He wanted to reject the information he’d received, reject it all, but he couldn’t.
The papers Lucy had retrieved from Maddox’s safe told Caleb in black-and-white that he’d been a blind fool. Wraith had once accused him of not wanting to shove his dick in something dead, but truth was he’d done that a long time ago, long before he’d ever met her.
Because Princess Natia, Caleb’s former lover, had been dead inside when he’d made love to her, her outward beauty disguising her blackened, shriveled heart, fooling not only Caleb but many others.
Elijah.
Her mother and the rest of the royal family.
And Alton Maddox.
Yes, Maddox. Because lo and behold, Maddox had worked for the U.S. government as a military doctor before he’d started his own practice, and somehow Natia had convinced the doctor to pay a visit to a certain prisoner of war just before he’d died. Maddox had killed Natia’s brother, and Caleb knew he wouldn’t have done it unless Natia had given him a very good reason. But what had it been? That was a detail Maddox hadn’t included in the records spread out in front of Caleb.
Wearily, Caleb rubbed his hands over his face. He jerked when he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder. He turned and saw Dex.
“You’re not looking so hot, Romeo.”
Caleb looked away to stare once more at the mess of papers before him. “You wouldn’t either if you’d just discovered you’d dated a woman evil enough to mastermind her own brother’s murder. Not to mention let you carry the burden of guilt for his death for years.”
“From murdering bitch to dead bitch. Way to pick ’em, O’Flare.”
Fury incinerated the misery he’d been feeling. Springing out of his chair, Caleb was on the were in an instant, grabbing him by his shirt and shoving him up against a wall. “Don’t fucking talk about Wraith that way. She’s not a bitch and she’s not dead. Not really. Not—not—”
As his voice cracked, Caleb released Hunt and turned away, breathing in hard and blinking his eyes in an attempt to clear them of the sting of moisture that had collected.
“Not yet,” Hunt finished quietly.
Caleb turned and pointed an accusatory finger at him. “Don’t. Go. There. Wraith isn’t going to die. I won’t allow it.”
Hunt’s gaze didn’t waver. “I know you won’t, man. I was just shaking you out of the little pity fest you were mired in. So Natia killed her brother. You didn’t. You’re here. You can avenge him. You can save someone else.”
“Yeah, it’s so easy to say. Avenge him when I have no idea why Natia killed. Save Wraith when I don’t know how. When I don’t know when—” With a bellow edged with fury and helplessness, he swept everything off the table he’d vacated: Maddox’s files, the research he’d printed out on wraiths, the lamp that shattered into several large, jagged shards.
“Feel better now?” Hunt drawled.
Caleb glanced up and, to his surprise, managed to laugh. “Actually, I do.”
“Good. So what now? You going to pay your ex a little visit?”
He pictured Natia. How she’d looked and felt when he’d danced with her at Knox’s wedding. How she’d sounded and smelled when she’d greeted him and kissed him in the same bar where he’d found Wraith, bloodied and dying on the bathroom floor. The need to avenge his friend—to avenge himself—burned bright for a heady second, then faded. He shook his head, noting Hunt’s look of surprise.
“Maybe there’s something good that can come from all this. Something I’m meant to teach you.”
Hunt glared at him. “Enlighten me.”
“There are more important things than revenge, Hunt. I’m not going to waste any more time on the past than I already have. No matter what Natia has done, she introduced me to Elijah. A man who was my true friend. He’d understand what I need to do. He’d want me to do it.”
“And what’s that?”
“Choose. Choose hope over despair. Choose the future over the past. Choose love over revenge. And that’s what I’m gonna do. I choose Wraith. The question is, what wil
l you choose?”
Back at Wraith’s hotel room, Wraith stared at Lucy as the mage delivered the vampire’s message. “I didn’t want to tell you earlier. Not with Dex and Caleb around. Even if Dex had given me a chance to talk, which of course you know he didn’t.”
“He was worried,” Wraith said. “We all were.”
“I know. And that’s why I let him rant at me. But I had my reasons for meeting the vamp alone.”
“I know you did, Lucy. And so does he. We were worried about that, too. If you’d told us you’re part feline . . . If you’d told us about the heat . . .”
“What? You could have helped?” Lucy shook her head. “I see how you stay away from felines, Wraith. Obviously there’s something in your past that makes you suspicious of them, and I didn’t want to be stuck with that particular label. Besides, I didn’t tell you about the heat for the same reason you didn’t tell us about your momentous birthday—it wouldn’t have changed anything, and we didn’t want to be the objects of anyone’s pity.”
“You’re totally right. But now that I know, I don’t pity you, Lucy. Because the heat might be a pain right now, but when you find the man you’re meant to be with, who knows? At least you’ll get the chance to find out.”
They stared at each other, and Wraith suddenly felt foolish. Had she really talked of Lucy meeting a man with wistfulness lacing her words?
“Wraith, the vamp’s message . . .”
“Thanks for delivering it,” Wraith said with a brittle smile. “I’ll be sure to keep her wisdom in mind, right along with all the other new age stuff that shape-shifter told me. Right now, however, I need to pack.” She started to walk into the bedroom but stopped before she reached the doorway. Over her shoulder, she said, “That reminds me, the shifter had a message for you, as well. He said he can help you, if you want. If you’re still considering . . .”
Lucy hesitated, then shook her head. “No. Not right now, anyway. But Wraith . . . we never had a chance to . . . I mean, can you forgive me for what I wanted . . . with Caleb?”