Unexpectedly, his usually distant and taciturn orca came to his rescue. Because we must give her everything so she can heal us.
Everything meant the true-mate bond. His journey to the past. He took another small step back. “What’s your unfinished business?”
She dropped her hands from his hips, but caught one of his hands with hers. “The sales records.”
Right. Her mission. The auctioneer’s tablet that he knew she still had because he’d seen her with it in Taipei. “How did you get a copy to Brooker?”
She smiled. “I shifted in the restroom so I could retrieve the tablet. I asked the Kotoyeesinay sheriff to copy the hard drive and told him to send it anonymously to the investigation division.” Her eyes drifted a little as she frowned. “You might want to stay well shielded around him.”
“Why?” He had to admit the big man had made him wary, not his usual reaction to a pleasant stranger.
“He’s another Ice Age shifter. A teratorn. What Native Americans called a thunderbird.”
His eyes widened. “They’re still around? I heard they got wiped out by colonization.”
“Yeah, which gives me hope that your people might still be around, too.” She turned and gently tugged on his hand. “Let’s check the weather and the kids.”
He followed her to the large window. The snow had mostly stopped, but the wolf pack was still there, sprawled like lazy hounds. The young male with the distinctive blaze on his tail, the one Rayne had named Little Brother, lay recumbent near the kennel. He looked up at them through the window, then put his head back on his paws and closed his eyes.
“Do you like children?” she asked.
“Yes.” He had to remind himself the honesty policy was still in force. “But I’ve never lived with them, never hoped to have my own. Ulu can’t…” He trailed off. “I was about to say, ‘breed with outsiders,’ but that might be yet another myth.” How was it he’d always been so keen to learn hidden truths about everything and everyone but himself?
“Since I’m guessing that you’ve had plenty of sex with fertile females more than a few times in four hundred years of nomading around the globe, it might be true.”
He didn’t know how he felt about children, if he was honest with himself. “Does it bother you?”
She smirked. “What, that if we win the true-mate lottery, we might not have pups, or that you had lots of sex with lots of other people?” Her fingertips stroked the stubble of his beard. “I’m not the jealous type. If I was, I chose the wrong career.” She gave him a soft smile. “I hope you have had some loving relationships, because five hundred years is a long time to be lonely. And as to kids, I love other people’s children because I can give them back. Let’s see how we feel about it in, say, another fifty years.” Her fingers moved to the corner of his mouth. “Meanwhile, I think I’d like to take a chance and see if I can kiss you just once.”
He tilted his head toward hers, then hesitated. “What if we can’t stop?”
“Oxygen. We have to come up for air.” Her lips met his.
He settled her into his embrace and teased her with his tongue. She sent her tongue out to play, then opened and invited him in.
An involuntary moan came from him as her taste, primordial and sweet, sent lightning through his blood. She circled her hips across his rock-hard erection, nibbling gently on his bottom lip. He clutched her fantastic, muscled ass and pulled her tight against him.
Minutes or hours went by before she broke off the kiss with a deep gasp, her chest heaving. “How soon can we leave?”
He caught his own breath. “Thirty minutes, if we don’t let sleeping wolves lie”—he tilted his head toward the porch—“and we’re willing to hike through the snow in half moonlight. Why?”
“I’m about two seconds from jumping your bones.” Her palm flattened on his chest. “The sooner you find your answers, the sooner we can choreograph our own courtship, whether or not it involves a mate bond.”
Covering her hand with his own, he touched his forehead to hers. “You are a remarkable woman.”
“I’m not, but don’t tell my boss. He thinks I walk on water.” She looked up at him with a twinkle in her eye. “Can your proto-orca do that?”
He laughed. “Proto-orca? No, I’m too heavy.”
She cupped his face in her hands. “We don’t say ‘heavy’ these days. We say ‘curvy.’”
He frowned in mock outrage. “Orcas are not curvy.”
“Whatever you say.” She spun away. “Come on, hottest not-shifter-man on the planet. I’ll pack the gear we came with. You close down your cabin.”
As he put away dishes, sealed cabinets with stasis spells, filled water pouches, and shut off the heat and water, his inner animals voiced their extreme displeasure at letting her out of their sight, especially without mating her first. But like she’d said, animals only dealt in present tense. It was up to him to plan for the long game.
Twenty minutes later, he stood in the middle of the cabin and reset the last of the spells that would keep the cabin hidden and safe. His winter clothes felt too warm, but he’d be grateful for them outside. According to the satellite weather map, the autumn storm had veered east, but left howling winds in its wake.
Rayne zipped her boots and stood. She’d changed into a white hooded coat and light grey snow pants from her seemingly endless wardrobe. And arsenal. She now carried a shotgun in a holster slung across her back. Anyone who noticed them would likely take them for night hunters. It was the little details that counted.
He pulled on the gloves he’d mended with a little magic. “When we get beyond the distortion boundary, where do you want me to port you to?”
She stomped each of her feet, as if seating them in her boots. “What’s the cost to you? You’re phenomenally gifted, and you would totally get a kick out of my prodigy sister, but all magic is finite.”
He clamped his mouth shut before the usual evasions rolled off his tongue. She wasn’t the enemy, trying to probe his weak spots. “Distance is the key. I can do six or eight local ports in a day, within twenty kilometers or so. The three global ports I did after Kotoyeesinay were my limit. Left me with a scorching headache for hours, even after I shifted.”
She shrugged one shoulder. “May as well visit the mothership.” The corner of her mouth twitched teasingly. “Know any good alleys Chicago?”
He smiled, amused that she’d noticed his pattern. “One or two.”
“Any idea how long your search will take?” She held up her hand and rolled her eyes. “Sorry. Forget I asked. It takes what it takes. But don’t go Stoneface McGargoyle on me again, or I’ll find Lerro and use his oracle visions and confluence magic to hunt you down.”
Strong, confident women had always been his treasure. “I may be old and slow on the uptake, but I can learn new tricks.” They’d agreed to start with a message drop service located in Kotoyeesinay, then skip randomly to others. “You stay in touch, too.”
“Deal.” She strode up and gave him a searing kiss, as if memorizing him. “You’re not old and slow.” She patted his chest. “You’re experienced and deliberate.”
He bared his teeth in a mock snarl and allowed his wolf to shine through his eyes.
She laughed, licked his nose, and twirled away.
15
Rayne carefully placed one paw forward, then another, testing each spot for sticks or leaves that would crunch under her weight. She might look like a prize borzoi, but the illusion didn’t compensate for the extra heft of the real dire wolf underneath.
She silently cursed the clear late-November night and the full moon. She’d be too noticeable crossing the manicured front lawn, so she was forced to creep through the shrubbery between the main house behind her and her target, the cabana. It had been styled to look like a miniature Athenian acropolis standing in front of a heated three-level pool. Fortunately, the icy breeze deterred late-night swimmers.
She was back on the job as a covert agent, working
with a partner for this particular mission. They had already completed the objective of drilling a security hole through the party host’s computer network. The Shifter Tribunal cyber specialists were probably already exploiting it to track down the locations of captive shifters. The mansion owner, a witch, had acted as a buyer’s agent. His fondness for conspicuous excess, debauched parties, and pricey eternal-youth spells made him a worthy target. Cracking his records would help the Tribunal track more lost shifters.
The diamond-studded collar around her neck beeped. “The chef noticed my precious baby isn’t in the mudroom anymore. I told her I let you out to do your business and you went after a rabbit. You’ve got maybe five minutes until they get someone to help me look.”
Rayne softly yipped twice to let Myelle know she got the message.
No more time for subtlety. She bolted out of the bushes like she was flushing the rabbit and sped up the steps, past the cabana’s pillars, onto the porch.
She slowed and followed the recent scent trails that led to the set of sliding glass doors. Magic didn’t come as easily in her dire-wolf form, especially when she was wearing an extra illusion, but her sensitive nose told her plenty.
She touched a paw to the glass. Fairy magic, coming from inside. Her dark-adapted eyes detected multiple doorways.
Instinct said to move. She jumped off the porch into the bushes and ran toward the house as if she’d seen a ghost. Just as she rounded the corner, the back door opened. A stunning brown-skinned woman wearing a feather boa and a dress of connected doilies stepped out in stacked stiletto heels, followed by a large gray-suited white man brandishing a flashlight.
“Thank you for helping me.” Myelle simpered better than a Civil War southern belle, and she didn’t even need the accent. “She’s usually a very good girl, but when she’s in heat...”
The man looked annoyed as he swept the small patio and walkway with the flashlight’s beam.
Myelle shivered and crossed her arms, plumping up her cleavage. “Anastasia! Come to Mama, baby!”
Rayne barked excitedly and made a mad dash straight for Myelle. At the last second, she dodged aside, then crouched, inviting Myelle to play.
Myelle patted her thigh. “Come here, you naughty girl.”
Rayne obligingly stuck her cold nose on Myelle’s exposed skin, then snuffled wetly. It was fitting revenge for the “in heat” comment.
Myelle snapped a glittery leash on Rayne’s collar. “I think it’s time for you to go home, young lady. You’re obviously not on your best behavior tonight.”
Rayne whined and dropped her head in canine remorse.
Myelle led the way into the warm house and beamed cheerfully at the few people who were still on their feet. “We found her.”
“Tha’s good,” mumbled a human woman in red, weaving as if she stood on a rocking boat.
The vampire next to her put his arm around her waist. He didn’t look happy.
Myelle turned to the hulking man. “Can you have my car brought around?” With a gesture that bordered on theatrical, she flared magic, and her feather boa morphed into a floor-length painted velvet opera cloak. “It’s the blue SUV with big kennel in the back.”
“Yes, madam.” He sent a text message on his phone. His long-suffering expression morphed into relief. He’d likely assumed his security gig would entail battles, not bellhop duty. “The valet will deliver it to the front door in a few minutes.”
Myelle slowly worked her way through the room, chattering happily with whoever was unimpaired enough to carry on a conversation. Rayne sorted through the scents and wolfed down half the contents of an unattended tray of brie-and-salmon appetizers before Myelle caught her.
Under the porte cochere at the front of the big house, Myelle tipped and hugged the valet when he handed over the key. She opened the SUV’s back gate and the kennel so Rayne could jump in and lie down like a good dog.
Once on the road and well away from the estate’s entrance, Myelle pulled into a darkened driveway long enough to swap her outfit for comfortable exercise clothes. Rayne shifted and put on similar gear and climbed into the passenger side.
Myelle’s gold-tipped fingernails tapped on the steering wheel in time to the energetic swing-band classic coming from the speakers. “Why the cabana?”
“I heard someone say it’s a front for a fairy demesne.” Rayne unhooked the charmed diamond choker that shifted with her.
“And?”
“Not enough time to confirm.” Rayne disliked shading the truth with Myelle, but the existence of the demesne was the first bright spot in a month of frustrating disappointments. She wasn’t sharing the lead with the Tribunal until she got to use the information first.
The first two weeks after leaving the Montana mountains had gone well. She’d rented a private townhouse in Chicago, napped often, used the Tribunal’s amazing gym to work out her frustrations, and eaten everything in sight. Arvik looked equally rested on video when he called Brooker and her two days later. The shifter-purity conspirators were awaiting judgment, and the request for a live dire wolf had been withdrawn. After that, she and Arvik had exchanged short messages every other day. His appearance in her dreams helped soothe her alternately irritable and mournful dire wolf. The Tribunal had rescued nearly three hundred shifters from the two escapes and from recent buyers.
But from then on, nothing seemed to go right.
No more hot dreams of sexy Arvik. She couldn’t even feel the tiny connection thread anymore. Maybe she’d been fooling herself about that all along.
No news on her sister, except a Tribunal oracle’s vague prediction to look to the North Star. Lerro was nowhere to be found, but the shifters he’d led to freedom were all safe.
Families and clans had been ripped apart, and some would never recover. Four years of auction-house sales meant an appallingly high number of shifters were still missing.
The sales records from the auctioneer’s tablet had only covered the previous eight months. Rayne’s secret project had hit a dead end. Her discovery sense said she was missing something in the files on the tablet, but she’d practically memorized them and still couldn’t find it.
The stupidest, slightest things reminded her of her time with Arvik. A sad news story about an orca mother that wouldn’t leave her dead calf. A radio ad for a performance by Pacific Northwest aboriginal musicians. The salmon appetizers at the party tonight.
Ordering herself to quit brooding like a soap-opera diva, she turned to Myelle. “Anything interesting happen while I was upstairs or outside?”
“Define interesting.” She snorted. “The host’s ‘best-sex-ever’ talismans, which he’s selling for a thousand a piece, are glamoured tourist charms from Morocco. The chef is quitting tomorrow because she hasn’t been paid in a month. I had more hands-on propositions tonight than I had in six months as a stripper.”
“At least we got tips as strippers.” They’d met on that case six years before, taking down a syndicate that used the club as a front for smuggling immigrants. Some coyotes would do anything for money.
“And we had bouncers to eject the riff-raff.” She wiggled her shoulders, as if shaking something off. “I’ll have to take an extra-long shower tonight, or my two mates will be all territorial because I smell like other people.”
Rayne looked at her in astonishment. “You’re mated?”
Myelle laughed. “You didn’t know? You’re usually the first to know everything.” She lifted fingers from the wheel. “But I’ll cut you some slack, since we haven’t worked together in three years, and you’re allergic to being indoors.”
Rayne shook her head. “How do you handle being away from them for months at a time? And how do they handle you being in danger?”
“Roshan is a mythic shifter and firefighter, and Lee is a bird shifter and a test pilot, so they have no room to complain about danger. There’s no doubt we’re mates, but it took us some getting used to, being part of a triad. Lee is nearly six hundred, and R
osh and I came from very conservative clans—you know, ‘one mate, one bond.’ My mother still pretends I was switched at birth. And yeah, I miss them like I miss air, sometimes.”
“How do you hide the mate bonds?” Every shifter could sense mate bonds, the way humans could smell popcorn. Most of the ancient races could see them if they wanted to.
“The same way you hide your scent and your bad-ass dire wolf. Magic and misdirection.” She sighed and glanced at Rayne. “The same way I’ve been hiding my pregnancy.”
Rayne’s eyes widened. “You are? That’s wonderful!” Shifter births were uncommon and cherished events. She frowned. “And you’re still going on undercover assignments?”
Myelle growled. “Pregnant is not disabled.” It sounded like an oft-repeated phrase. She sighed. “But this is my last field trip for a couple of years, because, Goddess help me, I’m carrying twins. I already have a desk job. I’m out with you because I like you and because trafficking in shifters pisses me the fuck off.”
“I like working with you, too.” Rayne looked out the window as they passed the wide pillars and wrought-iron gate that marked an estate entrance. “Could I talk to you about what mating is like sometime?”
Myelle smiled. “Ooh, Little Wolf, do tell! You got a prospect?”
“Maybe.” Absolutely, groused her inner wolf. “It’s... fraught.”
“Fraught?” Myelle laughed. “All matings are–”
An attention-getting series of tones burst from both their Tribunal-issued communication devices.
“This is an emergency recall. Report at once to a code blue twelve portal. Repeat. This is an emergency recall…”
“Check that,” Myelle ordered.
“On it.” Rayne was already sliding her phone out of her pocket and thumbing it on.
Myelle touched a control in the steering wheel. “Bastet, stop music. Display live navigation.”
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