by M. J. Scott
“And when do I get to make a decision?” he said quietly. “All my choices got taken away from me in that bar.”
The pain in his voice made my fingers clench around my glass. After all this time, my first instinct was still to try and make him feel better. Knowing he was hurt made me hurt. Which was exactly why I couldn’t let him back in my life. “I know. And I’m sorry. But that doesn’t change where we are.”
“It could. There are quite a few weres in the Taskforce who date humans.” He reached for the bottle, poured more tequila. The muscles in his forearm stood out and I wondered how much control he was exerting right now not to shatter the glass.
“Date. Not marry. Not have kids with.” I closed my eyes as he winced. Talking to him about this was just too damn painful. I’d wanted his children. Little dark haired boys with gray eyes and cute grins like their Dad. I still dreamed I had them sometimes.
Dan made a harsh sound in his throat. “Doesn’t mean it can’t happen.”
“It’s not going to happen. Not for us.” Not in this lifetime. Not while I had any choice about it. And despite what Dan seemed to think, I doubted the local pack would be encouraging their members to marry humans.
“Damn it, Ash. I miss you. I’ve missed you every day for years. Tell me you haven’t missed me.” His voice dropped a notch, like he was struggling to sound calm.
“I won’t lie to you.” I owed him that much. Owed him honesty.
“Then can’t we try something? Friendship?”
I laughed, not a good laugh. “You think you and I can be just friends?”
He shrugged. “Others do it. You’re friends with Jase. He’s a vampire.”
“Jase doesn’t want to date me,” I pointed out. “He and I were always friends.”
“So were we.”
“Yeah, but we were more than that. You can’t go back in time.”
“Why not?”
I shook my head in frustration. He knew as well as I did why not. Even now, when I was angry and exhausted and confused, he pulled at me.
It took all my willpower not to go to him, not to give in to the heat rising in my body and press myself against him, let him chase away all the confusing stuff. I could see the same heat in the back of his eyes. The same hyperawareness in the way he tracked my movements, in the way his eyes kept flicking to my mouth. “You know why not.”
“No, I really don’t.”
Energy rose from him, more than the general buzz of a were, an intensity that told me his wolf still prowled somewhere just below the surface. It felt good. In fact, between Dan and the Reservo, I was in danger of getting a little too buzzed. A little too reckless.
I slid my hand across the bench toward his, stopping with my fingertips maybe half an inch from his. At that distance I felt him even more strongly, like the pull of a magnet. I watched his face and knew from the way his eyes dropped to our hands that he felt the same pull.
“You really think you and I can just be friends?” I inched my hand forward slightly, saw him clench his jaw in the effort not to move, not to close the gap and touch me. “Pals? Buddies? Nothing more.”
He nodded even as his fingers trembled. “I do.”
“Really? You have no urge to touch me right now?”
“No.”
“Liar.” I knew beyond a doubt he wanted me. Still. Always. That’s how it was between us. And why we couldn’t be together.
Because, if we couldn’t be lovers, being friends wasn’t going to satisfy either of us. Even worse, being friends was going to put us in the sort of proximity that might just let our hormones forget exactly why we couldn’t be lovers.
“Ashley. . . .” It wasn’t a denial. More a plea. His eyes weren’t cool anymore. Now they were silver heat. Liquid lightning. The lightning that always flared between us.
I snatched my hand back. I’d pushed my luck far enough. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I really am. But I told you when you came to my office. Nothing has changed.”
“All work and no play make Ashley a dull girl,” he mocked. His voice held a bitter edge.
“Yeah. But dull is better than dead.”
“As a werewolf, you’d be harder to kill.”
Pain seared down my throat to my gut. The truth is always an ugly thing. A werewolf. He still wanted me to change. So much for weres dating humans and we could try to make it work. But I was glad he’d said it. It made me remember why I had to keep things between us strictly professional. “As a werewolf, I wouldn’t be me anymore.”
He jerked back, knocking his glass with his hand. His reflexes stopped it flying off the bench onto the floor and only a few drops spilled. No human could’ve made that save. Just another reminder he was no longer my Dan.
“Is that what you believe? That I’m not who I used to be?” The heat in his eyes had changed again. To anger.
I’d learned the hard way staying calm is the best way to deal with an angry werewolf. I shrugged. “You’re not the same. You can turn into a wolf.”
“And what? You think that makes me less than human? An animal?” The wild scent rose from him, stronger than ever, and his voice had a vibrating edge. There was little that was human in the sound and I backed up a step. “Not lesser, just different. And I’m not you. I can’t pretend losing my humanity is something I want.”
That drew a true snarl from him. “You think I’ve lost something? I gained something. You’re the one who’s lost something. Like your heart. What happened to you, Ash? When did you turn to stone?”
He didn’t let me answer, just snarled again and stalked from the kitchen. A few seconds later, my front door slammed so hard the windows rattled. All in all, it was the perfect ending to the worst day I’d had in quite some time.
I drained my glass and tipped what was left of Dan’s tequila out. Alcohol probably killed the virus but I wasn’t taking chances when my judgment felt so shaky. The glasses went in the dishwasher on the extra hot cycle.
As I switched off the lights and headed for bed, all I could think was Dan should’ve stuck around for an answer. Because I knew the exact moment I’d become the woman I was now. 2:08 a.m., August 17, four years ago. The moment I answered the phone and they told me Dan was hurt.
***
Turns out the Reservo wasn’t such a good plan. By the time I staggered into work the next day, I was late and cranky. Jase took one look at me, raised his eyebrows and then focused back down on the screen in front of him.
The silence was deafening
I stomped past him and wished I hadn’t. Esme sat in my visitor’s chair.
“What are you doing here?” I dumped my briefcase by my desk. Gorgeous blonde supernaturals were the last thing I wanted to deal with this morning. “Jase,” I yelled, cutting her off as she opened her mouth. “Coffee.”
I didn’t ask Amazonian were if she wanted any. She didn’t complain, just smiled slightly—more smirk than smile really—at me as I sat down carefully, not wanting to add to the pain in my head that the yelling had caused. I suppressed the urge to give her the finger. She might bite it off. “You were saying?”
“Special Agent Gibson wanted me to do the final security check before we give you the Tate files.” Despite the smirk, there was a good dose of not-happy-to-be-here in her tone.
But at least she wasn’t Dan. I could handle Esme. After last night, I had no idea if the same was true about Dan.
And, judging by the fact he’d sent Esme instead of coming over to bug me himself, he wasn’t sure either.
“I’m sure my assistant can show you everything you need,” I said as Jase glided in with coffee for two.
I narrowed my eyes at him as I flicked on my computer and he glided straight back out after depositing the mugs in front of us.
“I’m sure he can.” Esme didn’t budge from her chair.
“Something else I can do for you, Agent Walsh?”
“You should turn this job down.”
I almost choked on my coffee. Fi
rst Dan wouldn’t let me get out of the job; now one of his team members was trying to talk me out of it. “I assure you, I’m good at what I do.”
Her mouth turned down. “We shouldn’t be wasting time babysitting humans.”
Ah. One of those. Or was she? Maybe she wanted Dan for herself. Well, she could have him.
No, she can’t, a little voice inside my head protested.
I told it to shut the hell up. “Who says I need babysitting?”
“You’re using up valuable resources, resources we could use to track Tate.”
“You don’t even know if Tate’s alive.”
“Exactly why we shouldn’t be wasting time with you.”
No beating around the bush there. Frustration oozed in her voice, I figured she’d been beating her head up against the dead end of Tate’s trail for a while now. But her frustration wasn’t my problem. And I was feeling crappy enough to take a little pleasure in adding to it. “Well, I guess you’ll just have to trust Dan’s judgment, won’t you?” I said sweetly.
She frowned, started to say something, then stopped.
I wasn’t in the mood for peeved werewolves. Or whatever she was. Time for this conversation to end. “I tried to turn the job down. But Dan wouldn’t take no for an answer. You know how he gets when he wants something.” I stared at her then raised one eyebrow as color crept across that perfect skin. “Or maybe you don’t. Or you wouldn’t be here trying to get me to quit behind his back.”
Despite the blush, she didn’t blink, which was kind of creepy actually. I wondered again just what kind of were she was.
“Special Agent Gibson is in charge of this case. I’m following orders.”
“Great. In that case, why don’t you go tell Jason what you need and get to work?”
If looks could kill, I’d be one dead little human. Weres are great at the killer stare—it’s that whole predator thing. Luckily I’d had Jase practicing his vamp version of a killer stare on me for several years. He’d never tried the full on ‘you are under my power’ bit vamps can do but he could do intimidating when he tried. As could my supernatural clientele. And I’d perfected my calm under pressure act being grilled by lawyers in court. So I was able to act perfectly calm under the weight of Esme’s glare despite the hairs quivering on the back of my neck.
I took another soothing sip of coffee as Esme stalked out of my office. If she’d been in animal form, her tail would’ve been twitching and her hackles raised. Her annoyance ramped up the tingle her were energy gave me and the hairs on my arms joined the ones on my neck.
As soon as she was safely gone, I reached for the ibuprofen in my drawer and turned to my overflowing inbox. Hopefully the rest of the day would be less eventful.
Peace and quiet reigned for a few hours. I returned calls and emails, calmed one frantic client who was wigging out because of an approaching court date, ran some extra data mining routines to try and make some progress on the Anderson case and generally distracted myself from whatever Jase and Esme were doing in the other rooms.
My stomach had just started to demand something greasy to counteract the lingering effects of tequila when Jase popped his head around the door.
“All set,” he said.
“What’s all set?” I was still half focused on the spreadsheet in front of me.
“Agent Valkyrie has left the building and our security’s as good as it’s going to get.”
I laughed. “Don’t let her hear you call her that.”
He wrinkled his nose. “She’s a pussycat.”
“Literally?” Knowing would make my life easier. The different species had very different protocols and hot buttons. But I wasn’t going to give her or Dan the satisfaction of asking for the lowdown.
“Didn’t ask.”
“Some assistant you are. You were probably too busy staring at her face.” It came out snippier than I intended.
Jase shrugged. “She’s pretty, if you like that thin blonde look. I’ve always preferred brunettes. Or I would if I liked girls.” He grinned.
“Enough with the sucking up. What else did she say?”
“Something about the files being delivered later today.”
“Good. Then we have time for lunch.” I stood, trying to ease the kinks in my back and looked at my watch. It was nearly four. “Let’s hit Wash’s. I need a burger.” Wash’s sold synthetic blood and served it in frosted milk shake glasses so it didn’t look like blood. Jase would drink and I’d stuff my face and Jase would steal some of my fries. Vamps can eat human food but they don’t need to.
The information about Tate arrived about an hour after I got back from my red meat and grease fix. An unsmiling guy in a boring dark suit that practically screamed ‘government agent’ delivered a box of printouts and a small pile of gleaming data discs neatly labeled ‘Tate’. The name alone was enough to make me wish I’d taken Esme’s advice, an echo of the nausea I’d felt from the photos swirling in my stomach as I lined up the information neatly on my desk.
“Stop being a wimp, Keenan.” I muttered to myself. I’d taken the job, so now I had to suck it up and try to help catch the bastard.
Something told me it wasn’t going to be quite that simple.
An hour into it, I knew it for sure. The data was old and tangled and Tate’s accounts were slickly set up. Expressly designed to baffle the sort of investigation I was attempting. Which was a good thing. The challenge made it easier to forget about the vampire and the werewolf and focus on the purity of numbers and the data trail.
I just finished wading through the first stack of printouts when my phone rang. I hit the speaker button while I started slotting the printouts in files. “Ashley Keenan.”
“Is that any way to answer the phone? What happened to ‘hello’?”
“Hello, Aunt Bug.”
“Hello yourself,” she said tartly.
“What’s up?”
“Just letting you know I’m in town early. I got a ticket to the matinee of that play I was telling you about. Are you free for dinner tonight?”
Aunt Bug was a theatre nut. I tried to keep her away from Jase. Every time the two of them got together, the talk turned to musical numbers, composers and choreographers. It made me want to stab my eyes out and only encouraged Jase’s obsession with writing the first great vampire musical.
Given his musical talent was limited to a pleasant but not spectacular singing voice, this mainly consisted of him inserting ‘vampire’ in the title of the show and the lyrics. So far I’d suffered through renditions of Funny Vamp, My Fair Vampire and The Vampire of the Opera. Which was way above the call of duty. I didn’t want him getting inspired all over again.
Plus I was still full of burger. “Let me check.”
Aunt Bug hardly ever tried to alter our plans. I wondered if something was wrong and tried to pull my brain away from Tate to think about my calendar. Between the FBI and my usual clients, it was looking a bit chaotic. “Not really, Aunty. Work is just crazy. But tomorrow I’m all yours.”
She sniffed. “You work too hard.”
“Someone’s got to keep me in shoes.”
“You should find yourself a man—”
“I’m sorry, Aunty.” I wasn’t ready to have this conversation for the umpty-thousandth time. “I’ve got to go. There’s a client waiting.” I crossed my fingers, hoping she wouldn’t call me on my little white lie.
She made a disbelieving humph noise but said goodbye. Lucky escape. Any discussion about men I have with Bug always ends back at ‘why I was an idiot to leave Dan’. Mules have nothing on her when she makes up her mind. She’d lost the man she’d loved to illness too young. Which left her with very pointed views on not wasting love. She’d never remarried, said she’d just never met another man who made her feel the same way as her husband. I think that’s why she became a teacher—so she’d have more children than she could ever had herself to watch over and nurture. Of all those children, I was the one she cared most about.
So I got the most grief.
I replaced the phone and tried to settle back down to Tate. I had an hour before my next appointment, so I might as well dig in. Who knew? Maybe I’d get lucky and stumble across something right away that the FBI had missed. But something told me that was about as likely as Jase turning straight and Aunt Bug never bringing up Dan again.
Chapter Five
By the time I left work just after midnight, I was looking forward to spending my Saturday with Bug and not thinking about numbers at all. Tate’s accounts were convoluted in a way only a sick mind could have devised. So far I hadn’t found anything the FBI had missed.
No way was I going to Dan with nothing.
I hoped that a day of shopping, great food and good booze might give my subconscious time to work on things and shake something loose.
After a good night’s sleep, of course.
I spotted the car as soon as I turned down my street. It stuck out. I live on Mercer Island—Mercedes Island as it’s known. The residents are well off, to put it nicely. The moms drive expensive SUVs, the dads drive sports cars or even more expensive SUVs and the teens have whatever the cool car of the month is.
Nobody drives the sort of boring white sedan parked a few houses up from mine. The windows were tinted and I couldn’t see who was inside but I guessed it was one of Daniel’s agents. It should’ve made me feel safe. Instead, it pissed me off. Upgrading my security arrangements was one thing but I hadn’t agreed to be kept under constant surveillance.
Jase had already spotted two guys with earpieces in our lobby during the day. That much I could live with but I didn’t like the thought of Daniel knowing my every move. I almost pulled up next to the car then thought better of it. The agent was just doing his job.
Daniel, on the other hand, was being annoying.
I pulled into my drive in a worse mood than I’d started the day in. I needed a bath, some ice-cream and some sleep. By morning I’d be in the right frame of mind to yell at Dan before heading out to join Aunt Bug. I bumped my front door shut behind me, not bothering to turn on the hall light. Then I froze. Something about the house felt strange.