by Bianca D'Arc
She hadn’t known what to expect from Slade’s beast form. The speckled white paw she’d seen before, when they were dealing with Abrahamson, had been quite different from the black on black pattern of his leopard coat. He was dark as midnight, with those fascinating, glowing blue eyes. The same blue, blue eyes that looked back at her from his handsome, human face. The eyes she’d fallen in love with.
Oh, boy. Was she really in love with him? Sadly, for her heart’s sake, the answer was a resounding yes.
And his eyes were only the beginning of what she loved about him. He was smart and intellectually sharp in a way that challenged her. He had secrets—of that she had no doubt—but she thought she knew the goodness of his heart, the purity of his soul. His magic had shown that to her. His magic and his actions since his arrival.
Those beautiful, magnetic blue eyes, and the ruggedly handsome package they came with were only the tip of the iceberg. Inside, where it really counted, he was just as beautiful. Even more so.
But the eyes were definitely mesmerizing, regardless of his form. The past minutes—seeing the blue against his black fur—had only driven that point home beyond the shadow of a doubt.
One thing she’d come to learn about shifters—no matter what shape they took, for the most part, their eyes remained the same. Although…now that she thought about it, she’d never really gotten very good look at a hawk or eagle shifter in their bird forms. She wondered idly if their avian eyes would retain the same characteristics of their human forms. It was something to ponder. When she had time.
Right now, there was no time to waste.
Grif was on the phone again, coordinating his employees through the site manager, in order to keep them as safe as possible. He snapped the small cell phone shut and faced her.
“What have you got? Anything?”
She shook her head. “Not a lot. There’s a great deal of magic here, but most of it is from your own people. Shifters have a magical signature that leaves traces wherever they go, if you know what to look for. Since I need to open my senses completely, all the traces from your workers are creating quite a muddle of magical threads for me to poke through. So far, I haven’t been able to find the one thread that might be the sorceress, but I’m still working on it.”
“Can the leopard help?” Grif asked, narrowing his eyes.
“Slade? Oh, yeah, he can definitely help. He has a way of untangling things. When he comes back, we can join forces. Until then, I can lay the groundwork, eliminating anything I can identify as safe, and narrow down the possibilities. I will say this—” She rubbed at her temples. “I don’t see anything overtly evil. If she’s here, she’s hiding her presence really well.”
“It’s still early,” Grif said, tilting his head as he considered. “Dusk is a good time to get into position and wait until the wee, small hours to do the real dirty work.”
“Sounds like you have some experience with that sort of thing,” she ventured. For all that she’d been living among Grif’s people for a while, the cougar Alpha was still very much a mystery to her.
“Both Steve and I served in Special Forces,” Grif admitted quietly. “We’ve done our fair share of covert ops, but something tells me the leopard has us all beat.”
“Slade?” Kate looked toward the hidden door where he’d disappeared after turning into the most beautiful big cat she’d ever seen.
“There’s no prohibition against it if you want to get involved with him.” Grif’s words shocked her gaze back to his.
Kate had to smile ruefully. She’d never been very good at hiding her emotions.
“That obvious, huh?”
“Only to a shifter, probably,” Grif admitted, leaning against the hood of his truck. “We can smell him on you and vice versa. He knew we would, and he’s made no effort to hide your involvement, which means he’s serious.”
“You can infer all of that just from the way we smell and act around each other?”
Grif actually cracked a small grin. “That, and a lot more. I’m holding back in deference to your human sensibilities.”
She had to laugh. “Well, thanks for that.” She was distinctly uncomfortable with the idea. She valued her privacy and hadn’t quite realized how much of that she would be giving up by moving to live among shifters.
A slight brushing sound made Kate look toward the hidden door and sure enough, the three big cats were returning. The Redstone brothers remained in their animal form while Slade stalked forward, shifting as he moved until he was once again human, clad in his black clothing.
Grif whistled through his teeth. “That’s a neat trick. I’d give my left nut to be able to take my clothes with me into the shift. How the hell do you do that?”
“Sorry, Alpha. It’s not something that can be learned. It’s both magic and heredity. Most of my family can do it, but not a lot of other shifters I’ve known.” Slade stopped at Kate’s side, standing in front of the vehicles facing Grif and his brothers. “The perimeter hasn’t been breached anyplace we can see,” Slade reported. “I’d say there’s a ninety percent chance that we beat her to it. She’s not here yet—or at least not in position inside the site yet. I also scented a few of Moore’s guys outside the fence. They’re well hidden. I’d estimate that, given the size of this place, she’d have to be inside the perimeter to be effective. Magic has distance limitations. Even the most powerful of mages usually need to be pretty close to their targets in order to cast their spells.”
A subtle knock sounded near the large garage door. A moment later, a man in dark, dusty clothing entered through the man-door at the side of the building.
“Alpha Redstone?” The newcomer greeted Grif first, walking right up to him. “I’m Johan Hager.”
Griffon extended his hand to the other man, cocking his head in question.
“I came with the group from Wyoming,” he explained in vague terms, probably unsure of how much he could say in front of everyone, and in this location.
“The building is secure,” Grif told him. “You can speak freely in front of my brothers,” he gestured to the two cats prowling behind him. “This is Kate, our priestess, and Slade, who was sent here by the Lords.”
Johan nodded at each in turn. “It is good to meet you, though of course, not under present circumstances. I am a healer and am sometimes called upon to travel with the team in special circumstances.” He reached into his pocket and produced three small earpieces, handing them to Grif. “These are for you. I assume you know what to do with them.”
Grif took the small devices and passed one to Slade and put one on top of Steve’s jacket, hanging over the side of his truck.
“We do,” Grif agreed, already placing the small earpiece into his ear. Slade did the same.
Johan’s icy gray eyes were almost as intense as Slade’s but his blond hair and pale skin made him look completely different. He was also considerably older.
Both Slade and Grif started talking on the small radios they’d been given and Kate found herself under the older man’s scrutiny. He smiled at her and she felt pinned by the pale blueness of his gaze. It wasn’t entirely comfortable and she started to fidget.
“Fear not, young priestess, all will be well.” His comforting words and fatherly tones made her narrow her eyes.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Trust in the leopard.” With that inscrutable answer, the man left the way he had come.
He was decked out like a construction worker, so Kate assumed he was returning to his fake duties outside on the site. Something about the man’s clear, gray-blue eyes continued to haunt her even after he was gone from sight.
Kate turned back to Slade and Grif. They were both speaking, in turns, with whoever was on the other end of those little radios, finalizing plans and getting updates. After they had everything settled, Slade turned off his mic and came to her side.
“We’re going to walk the site and look for any telltale dark magic. Everybody else will be lookin
g for physical signs of the sorceress’s presence while we search for the arcane ones.” Slade turned back to Grif. “Alpha, your talents are best used in coordination and camouflage for now. Once we locate the sorceress, Kate and I will close in on her. I need you to keep everyone else back, far away from us, while we deal with her. Set up a perimeter in case we fail. Only the raptor she’s targeting should be in danger if we do this right and if we can coax her into trying for the Alpha bird, his strength of will and flying ability should help protect him even if we screw up.”
“But the right of the kill is mine.” Grif was adamant about that one, bloodthirsty fact.
“I do not dispute it,” Slade answered firmly. “But if we can capture her—if Kate can defang her the way she did Abrahamson—she could be a valuable prisoner.”
Grif seemed to struggle with that idea. He growled deep in his throat and turned away, pacing. The two cougars behind him weren’t any happier.
“I allowed that bastard Abrahamson to live, though it went against the grain. I want them both dead for what they did to our mother.”
“Could you kill Abrahamson now, in cold blood, the way he is?” Slade asked in a quiet voice. Kate found she was holding her breath, waiting for Grif’s answer.
“You bastard. You know I can’t. If I could, he’d already be dead. You left him an empty shell, Kate, and totally fucked up my revenge.”
Kate was relieved to see the barest hint of humor in Grif’s gaze as he looked at her. She didn’t mind the profanity, though it was a mark of how upset he was that he’d slipped and used such language in front of her. In her experience, though the shifters were rough and tumble, they were also gentlemen when it came to her. They treated her with respect, from the youngest cub to the roughest warrior. None of them used bad language if they thought she was within earshot.
“Sorry, Alpha,” she answered with a shrug of her shoulders. “It was the only way in that particular case. It was what the Lady led me to do.”
“I’m not chastising you, priestess,” Grif said finally, some of the tension leaving his shoulders. “And it will probably be helpful to have Abrahamson around for a while so we can pick his brain and learn everything he knows about our enemy. But the beast howls for his blood. For vengeance.”
“I think I understand,” Kate said quietly. “At the very least, if we succeed tonight, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that the pair who murdered your mother has been stopped. How they are stopped and what happens to them afterward is in the Goddess’s hands.”
“I guess I can live with that.” Grif turned away from her then and spoke in a low voice to his brothers, no doubt issuing orders. Kate turned to Slade as he put his arm around her shoulders.
“We’ll do what we can to stop her, but if it comes down to it, Grif deserves the kill.” His bald statement really drove home to Kate the fact that she wasn’t dealing with regular people here. These were shifters, with animal instincts only slightly tempered by their human sides. The animal wanted to kill, and she couldn’t blame them for that.
“All right.”
Kate’s attention was caught by Steve, who was transforming back to his human shape. She’d seen him naked before, of course, but not all of him, standing there, twisting and flexing those impressive muscles as he re-dressed in his black commando gear. She saw him slip the earpiece into his ear with practiced ease. He also had a backpack in the truck, which he removed and began rummaging through.
Mean looking weapons began to appear and then disappear just as quickly once he’d checked them over and stashed them on his person. She had to hand it to him, he certainly knew how to disguise the fact that he was armed to the teeth.
Robert stayed in his animal form and Kate realized he didn’t have the same military experience as Grif and Steve. He was probably stealthier—and deadlier—in his beast form. The older brothers though, they were equally dangerous on two legs or four.
So was Slade, for that matter. Of that, she had no doubt.
Chapter Twelve
Only minutes later, Kate found herself walking side by side with Slade, wearing a hard hat and trying her best to unravel all the magical signatures left behind by a multitude of shifters. She couldn’t illuminate the magic the way she’d done in the Redstone’s backyard. No, that would be too obvious. The sorceress would see them coming a mile away.
Slade was tamping down his magic, dampening it in a way she hadn’t known anyone could before she met him. They did a little experimentation and discovered that if she stayed close to him, he could extend his dampening field to include her too. That was handy.
The plan was to walk along the edges of the vast property. Slade had given her a clipboard and pen and from time to time they’d stop and Slade would gesture while she pretended to take notes. He’d taken on the role of site inspector with chameleon-like grace.
“Perimeter breach,” Slade whispered as they walked. He must’ve heard it over the earpiece he still wore. “Moore’s men on the southeast fence saw her come through. She was moving fast and went straight into the base of the structure. Damn.” Slade switched on the mic and began relaying orders as they changed direction, heading for the north entrance to the steel skeleton of the building. “Get everyone out of there,” Slade was saying in a low, urgent voice as they moved quickly toward their objective.
Even as they entered the building, Kate saw about fifteen workers exiting. They were evacuating, but making it look like they were just taking a break. Only a select few raptors would be left on the upper floors—enough to make it convincing, but none of them were pushovers. All were strong men with years of experience who had volunteered for this especially hazardous duty. They were part of Redstone’s group. They’d known the matriarch, and wanted to help catch her killers.
“Block the exits and set up a perimeter around the building. Box her in,” Slade said with finality as he stopped and scanned the lattice-like structure above their heads. Only a few floors had partial decking. Most of the place was still bare iron.
He turned off the mic, though she knew he could still hear as the team members reported over the radio. Kate was following his lead. They hadn’t been able to discuss every contingency, but they had touched on a few different things they could try if they ended up inside the building with the sorceress, as had just happened.
Kate had really thought the woman would target her victim from outside, but she’d done the unexpected. Thankfully, Slade and the other guys seemed more than capable of adjusting for many different contingencies. Kate was glad now that they’d discussed more than just what she’d assumed would happen.
“What now?” Kate whispered to him as he continued to scan the heights.
“We need to pinpoint her location,” he replied without looking at her. His keen blue eyes were trained on the steel above them. “We’ll try this the stealthy way first, but if we can’t find her in three minutes, we’ll light the place up with magic.”
“She’ll know we’re here,” Kate objected, though on reflection she saw the need for urgency.
“She’ll find that out sooner or later. I’m hoping for later, but we need to flush her out before she can launch her attack. I’d prefer to sneak up on her…” His voice trailed off as his gaze halted and searched one particular area.
“Do you see her?” Kate held her breath, nervous for his answer.
“I think…” Slade moved slightly, still concentrating on one spot, far above their heads. “Bingo.”
He kept his eyes trained on the woman only he could see as he ran for the nearest elevator. Kate just barely kept up with him and jumped into the metal contraption a moment before it started moving a fast clip up the side of the steel girders. It was an open cage affair, strictly for use during construction. The much fancier, permanent passenger elevators had yet to be installed, though the shafts had already been framed out in several different parts of the structure.
“I have her in sight,” Slade reported over the radio. �
��Nineteenth floor. South side. Closing in on the raptors from the floor below.”
Kate looked as they rose higher and could just make out a darker shape against the shadows of the decking. The nineteenth floor had more of the flooring on the south side than some of the other parts of the building. They seemed to be using it as a staging area for materials that would be used as they constructed the upper floors and there were pallets of supplies and the dark silhouettes of equipment dotting the area.
Work lights illuminated the area, strung every ten feet or so. They put off a stark white light that left deep shadows. It was to the shadows that they clung as they got off the elevator the floor below, then made their way up one of the staircases to the nineteenth story.
Yellow caution tape fluttered in the night breeze, the only thing guarding the open sides of the building and the areas that had no decking. Kate had never been up in a building that wasn’t even close to finished. Everything about the situation was scary—from the danger of plummeting to her death, to the idea of facing a cold-blooded murderer.
But Slade was with her. In the short time she’d known him, he’d become her lifeline. Her rock. The only man she had ever felt comfortable in leaning on when she needed a little boost, be it magical, emotional or physical. His presence gave her comfort and strength. She could face anything as long as he was by her side.
They were nearing the woman when Kate felt something very wrong. Very dark. Evil.
“She’s doing something,” Kate warned Slade in the barest whisper she could manage. The noise from machinery and the night wind would make it hard for human hearing to pick up the noise of their approach or any whispering they might need to do, but Slade would hear a lot more with his sharp, shifter senses.
“I feel it too,” he confirmed. He had positioned them behind a relatively large generator that was about fifteen yards away from the woman. The generator was off and the shadows it cast hid them well. “Get ready. I want you to light up all the magic here like you did in the backyard and I want you to do it before she has a chance to strike.”