I frowned. “Since we know very little, identifying them would be the first step.”
“And how do you propose we do that?” Saiman arched an eyebrow and gave me a seductive smile. It failed both because he was Saiman and because he looked like a woman.
“Simple. We kill one.”
Saiman pondered this.
Talking through it was a piece of cake. Doing it would be a completely different matter.
“We know that the Reapers travel in packs, which makes them difficult to follow. We also know that they disappear into Unicorn Lane, which makes them difficult to track by scent and magic. However, we’re in possession of a tracking unit whose range covers the entire Lane. We kill a Reaper and plant a bug into his body. Once they leave, we track them to the exact spot in Unicorn and approach it at our leisure. We observe their headquarters. There are all sorts of interesting questions that can be answered. How many of them are there? How are they organized? Do they have guards? Are these guards human? How do they get food? What do they eat? Is there a crew that goes out to forage? Can we apprehend the foragers and”—tear them apart a shred at a time until the damn bastards tell me how to fix Derek—“and question them?”
“You seem sure you can kill a Reaper.” Saiman stared into his empty glass, seemingly amazed by the disappearance of his martini.
I thought of Derek dying slowly in the tub of green liquid. His bones broken, his face gone, his body hurting . . .
Saiman shifted in his love seat. “Kate, your sword seems to be emitting a vapor.”
I put a leash on myself. “Get me into the Pit. I’ll take care of the rest.”
“I would love to, but I can’t.” Saiman waved his arm in disgust. “The Reapers are scheduled for one final bout before the tournament, which is a team event. The bout has been advertised as Stone class. You don’t qualify.”
“I can do it,” Jim said.
Saiman shook his head. “As much as I would love to have the Pack’s chief of security in the Pit, you wouldn’t qualify either. Stone class means an extra-large fighter.”
True. Jim was never a heavyweight. Even in his half-form, he was lean, quick, and lethal, but not bulky.
“I do have a Stone fighter available.” Saiman smiled. “Me.”
That beating I had taken from the Pack must’ve done permanent damage to my hearing. “Me who?”
“Me as in myself.”
I squeezed my eyes shut.
“What are you doing?” Saiman asked.
“I’m counting to ten in my head.” It worked for Curran; surely it would work for me . . . Nope, not feeling any better.
I opened my eyes. “I kill on a regular basis. So please understand that I say this with the full weight of my professional expertise behind it: you’ve gone off the deep end. You’re enthusiastic but unskilled, and you lack the physical strength and reflexes needed to kill a Reaper. If you enter the Pit, you will die horribly and in great pain and I won’t be able to jump in there and pull you out.”
“You’ve never seen me fight in my original form.”
A vision of golden-haired Adonis dancing through the snow flashed before me. “Yes, but I saw you dance. Your original form, while devastating to horny women and gay men, isn’t likely to slay any Reapers. You’ll get your head bashed in and we’ll lose an opportunity to plant the bug.”
Saiman smiled, a thin stretching of lips without any humor. “That was not my original form.”
Touché. “In that case, I hope your original form is a two-headed dragon spitting fire.”
“Give me an opportunity to fail,” Saiman said. “I promise that my corpse won’t interrupt your ‘I told you so’ speech. The bout is tonight. May I count on the two of you to act as my crew?”
What choice did we have? “Fine.”
Saiman rose. “I’ll have to make a formal appearance for the first part of the evening. After the fight, provided we accomplish the actual kill, the Reapers will be grounded by the Red Guards for one hour to allow us a head start. The House doesn’t wish any friction between fighters outside the ring. That will give the two of you ample time to arrive in Unicorn and make the necessary preparations. I’ll stay the night in the Arena, in my private rooms, to recuperate.”
Or he would stay the night in the morgue. The thought hung in the air like a funeral shroud. None of us mentioned it.
CHAPTER 15
AFTER JIM AND I WERE FINISHED WITH SAIMAN, Jim dropped me and the Pack horse at my apartment. I wanted to go back with him. I wanted to be there in case Derek woke up. I had this irrational idea that my staying close would somehow fix him.
But it wouldn’t. If I had gone back with Jim, I wouldn’t have slept, and I needed sleep and food badly. The Reapers wouldn’t take kindly to having one of their own knocked out of their lineup. If Saiman managed to deliver on his promise, they might come after us. I needed to be rested and sharp. So I took a shower, scrubbing every square inch of my skin and hair with scented soap to kill the smell of Jim’s posse, ate cold beef with black bread, tomato, and a little cheese, took a much-prized and expensive aspirin, and passed out.
I awoke at eight because my phone rang. I raised my head off my pillow and stared at it. It rang and rang, filling my head with noise. The answering machine came on and a familiar voice made me sit straight up.
“Kate.”
Curran. Oy. Two hours of sleep wasn’t sufficient to deal with him.
“Call me as soon as you can.”
I picked up the phone. “I’m here.”
“You’re screening your calls?”
“Why not? It saves me from conversation with idiots.”
“Is that an insult?” His voice dropped into a deep growl.
“You’re not an idiot,” I told him. “You’re just a deadly psychopath with a god complex. What is it you want?”
“Have you seen Jim?”
“Nope.”
“He didn’t call you?”
“Nope.” But his goons beat the daylights out of me.
“What about Derek?”
“Nope. Haven’t seen him either.”
There was a momentary pause. “You’re lying.”
Shit. “Now what would make you think that?”
“You didn’t ask me if Derek is okay, Kate.”
That will teach me to have delicate diplomatic conversations first thing in the morning.
“That’s because I don’t care. You told me you’d bring me in on the investigation. You promised me full cooperation and interviews. That was Friday morning. It’s Sunday now. Forty-eight hours have passed. You blew me off, Curran. Just like always. Because you expect me to trip over my feet in a rush to help you, but the precious Pack can’t cooperate with outsiders. What you hear in my voice is apathy.” And bullshit. Lots and lots of bullshit.
“You’re rambling.”
Curran two, Kate zero.
“This is very important, Kate. Jim defied me. He’s refused a direct order to pull his crew in. I can’t let it stand. He has seventy-two hours to decide what to do. Then I’ll have to find him.”
“You’ve known Jim for years. Doesn’t he get the benefit of the doubt?”
“Not for this.” The hard shell on Curran’s voice broke. The alpha vanished for a moment, leaving a man in his place. “I don’t want to have to find him.”
I swallowed. “I’d imagine he doesn’t want you to find him either.”
“Then help me. Tell me what you know.”
“No.”
He sighed. “For one moment, forget it’s me. Put aside your ego. I’m the Beast Lord. You’re a member of the Order. You’re subordinate to me in this investigation. I order you to disclose the information. Do your job.”
It stung. I was doing my job to the best of my ability. “You’re mistaken. I’m not subordinate to you. You and I are on equal footing.”
“I see. Is Jim with you now?”
“Yes, he is. We’re having rough sex. You’re interrupting
.”
I hung up.
The phone rang again.
Answering machine. “. . . not helping, Ka . . .”
I picked up the phone, held it for a second, and hung up. I didn’t want to lie to Curran. Even if it was for his own sake. Making shit up and trading witty barbs just wasn’t in me at the moment.
My bedroom was full of comfortable gloom, except for a narrow slash of light, which snuck through the gap between my curtains to fall right on my face. I stuck a pillow on my head.
I was drifting off into dreamland, the pillow on my head blocking the annoyingly persistent ray of light, when I heard a key turn in my lock. My door swung open.
The only person with a key to my place was the super, and he would never enter unannounced.
I forced myself to lie still, my limbs loose. Some picture I presented: my butt in white cotton panties sticking out, my head under the pillow. Not the most advantageous fighting stance.
I lay, hyperaware, all my senses straining. Very soft footsteps approached the bed. Closer. Closer.
Now!
I whipped about, launching a sweeping kick. It caught the intruder in the midsection, eliciting a distinctly male groan, and he went down. I leapt off the bed and lunged for Slayer, but it wasn’t where I’d left it. I dropped and saw it far under the bed. He’d kicked it on his way down.
A steel hand grasped my ankle. I flipped on my back and hammered a kick into his shoulder that had the entire force of my body behind it.
He groaned and I saw his face. “Curran!” I would’ve preferred a homicidal lunatic. Oh, wait . . .
That second of amazement cost me: he lunged at me, knocked my arm aside as if it were nothing, and pinned me to the floor. His legs clamped mine. He held my right arm above my head, my left between our bodies, and leaned, his face only inches from mine, my side touching his chest.
He wrapped me up like a package. I couldn’t move an inch.
“I thought you were some sort of maniac!” I growled.
“I am.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Looking for Jim in your bed.”
“He isn’t here.”
“I see that.”
Little golden sparks danced in his dark gray eyes. He looked terribly pleased with himself and slightly hungry.
I squirmed away from him, but he just clamped me tighter. It felt like fighting in a straitjacket made of heated steel. There was absolutely no give in him. Pinned by his Beastly Majesty. I’d never live that down.
“You can let me go now,” I told him.
“Do I have your permission?”
“Yes, you do. I promise not to hurt you.”
A hint of a grin curved his mouth. He had no plans to let me go. And I couldn’t outmuscle him. Crap.
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
He bobbed his head up and down, the smile like a smudge of white paint across his face.
“How did you get in?”
“I have my ways.”
The light dawned on me. He was the one who had replaced my door two months ago, because I was rather busy trying not to die. “You kept a key to my apartment. You bastard. How often do you come here?”
“Once in a while.”
“Why?”
“To check on you. Saves me the trouble of sitting by the phone waiting for your ‘come and rescue me’ calls.”
“You don’t have to be troubled: there won’t be any more calls. I’d rather die than call you.”
“That’s what worries me,” he said.
His legs pinned mine, his thighs hard like they were carved of wood. His chest pressed against my breasts. If I could turn a little to the right, my butt would slide against his groin. A little to the left and my face would end up in his neck.
“I’m not one of your subjects,” I told him. He was entirely too close, too warm, and too real. “I don’t follow your orders and I sure as hell don’t need your protection.”
“Mmhm,” he said. He apparently found my face incredibly fascinating, because he kept looking at me, at my eyes, at my mouth . . .
“Do you ever come here when I’m here?”
“Occasionally.”
“I would’ve heard you.”
“You put in twelve hours and get wiped out, and I’m very quiet.” His hold eased a little. I lay limp. That was it—lure him into a false sense of security. We weren’t that far from the night table, and under the table on the bottom shelf was a dagger.
“The Beast Lord—my own personal stalker. Gee, every girl’s dream.”
“I don’t engage in stalking.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “And what do you call this?” “This I call controlling my opponent so she doesn’t injure me.”
“What else do you do while you’re here? Read my mail? Look through my underwear?”
“No. I don’t go through your things. I just come once in a while to make sure you’re in one piece. I like knowing you’re safe, asleep in your bed. I haven’t stolen anything . . .”
I ripped my left arm out of his hand and slammed my elbow into his solar plexus. He exhaled in a gasp. I lunged for the dagger and sat on top of him, my knees pinning his arms, my dagger on his throat.
He lay still. “I give up,” he said and smiled. “Your move.”
Er. I was sitting atop the Beast Lord in my underwear, holding a knife to his throat. What the hell was my next move?
Curran’s gaze fixed on a point on my shoulder. “That’s a claw mark,” he said, his voice gaining a hard edge. “Wolf. Who?”
“Nobody!” Oh, now there was a brilliant answer. He would believe that.
“One of mine?” Gold flashed in his eyes like lightning.
Well, since every shapeshifter in Atlanta was one of his, that kind of answered itself, didn’t it? “Since when do you give a crap about my welfare anyway? I think you’re confused as to the nature of our relationship. You and I, we don’t get along. You’re a psychopathic control freak. You order me around and I want to kill you. I’m a pigheaded insubordinate ass. I drive you mad and you want to strangle me.”
“Once! I did it once!”
“Once was plenty. The point is, we don’t play nice. We—”
He jerked his arms out from under my knees, pulled me to him, oblivious to the dagger, and kissed me.
His tongue brushed my lips. Heat rolled through me. His hand caught in my hair. Suddenly I wanted to know how he tasted. He’d kissed me before, just before we’d fought the Red Stalker. I’d been remembering that kiss for four months now. It couldn’t have been as good as my memory made it out to be. I should kiss him and exorcise that phantom kiss so I would never think of it again. I opened my mouth and let him in.
Oh. My. God. The Universe exploded.
He tasted intoxicating, like wild wine.
I sank against him, drunk on his taste and his scent, seduced by the feel of his hard body wrapped around mine. My head swam.
Kiss me more. Kiss me again. Kiss me, Curran.
What the hell was wrong with me?
“No!” I struggled against the stone wall of his chest. He held on a moment too long and released me with a low, hungry growl. I jumped off him and backed away, unsteady on my feet. “Are you out of your mind?”
“What’s the matter? Forgot that ‘not if you’re the last man on earth’ bit?”
“Get out!”
He just lay there on my carpet, lounging like a lazy cat with a smug smile. “How was it?”
“It was flat,” I lied. “No spark. Nothing. Like kissing a brother.”
My head was still spinning. I wanted to touch him, to run my hands up his T-shirt, to slide my fingers along his rock-hard arms . . . I wanted to feel his mouth on mine.
No! No touching. No kissing. No. Just no.
“Really? Is that why you put your arms around my neck?”
Sonovabitch. “That was temporary insanity.” I pointed to the door.
“You sure you
don’t want me to stay? I’ll make you coffee and ask you about your day.”
“Out. Now.”
He gave an exaggerated sigh and leapt to his feet without the help of his hands. Bloody show-off.
He offered me my dagger, hilt first. “Do you want this back?”
He’d made me drop the dagger. I never dropped my weapons unless it was on purpose.
I swiped the weapon from his fingers and chased him to the door, keeping a blade between us. Curran opened the door and paused in the doorway. “Seventy-two hours, Kate. That’s all Jim gets. He knows it and he knows I’m looking for him. Now you know it, too.”
“Got it,” I snarled.
“You sure you don’t want to kiss me good-bye, baby?”
“How about a good-bye kick to the throat?”
I slammed the door closed, leaned against it, and slid down to the floor to review the situation. The Beast Lord. Lion of Atlanta. Sir My Way or the Highway. A frustrating, infuriating, dangerous bastard who scared me into blind panic until all the brakes on my mouth malfunctioned.
He kissed me. No, he admitted to breaking into my apartment to watch me sleep, he pinned me down on the floor, and then he kissed me. I should have broken his nose. Instead I kissed him back. And I wanted more.
I tried to put it into perspective. I had told him I’d never sleep with him. He told me I would. For him it was a game and he was simply trying to win. Someone once explained to me that if you lined up all of Curran’s former lovers, you could have a parade. He was sizing me up for another notch on his bedpost. If I gave in, I’d be a footnote in his procession of girlfriends: Kate Daniels, Investigator for the Order, whom his Furry Majesty had banged briefly until he got bored and moved on to bigger and better things, leaving her street cred in tatters.
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