“The vault at his house.”
She tried to sit up a little and grunted in pain. Moving was a bad idea. “You’re sure?”
“Yes. I’ve seen it.”
“When you delivered the Queen of Hearts to him?” The edges of her vision were starting to dim, and the fire that had been contained in her arm was spreading. The poison was working its way through her system.
Jason stared at her, a thousand questions shining in his eyes. “How do you know about that?”
She closed her eyes, exhausted and on the verge of passing out. “I need nightshade, blessed thistle and holy salt. Crush them together in a mortar then add enough dhamphir tears to make a paste and bring it to me. If I’ve already passed out when you get back, smear the paste on the bite, then cover it back up with the bandage and get us the hell out of here.”
A strange tinny hum began to drown out all other sounds. Even her speech seemed like it was coming from a great distance. “Everything else can wait.”
Jason kicked open the doors to Sloan’s private work space, blowing out the lock and hurling shards of wood into the air. He might not have been able to protect Claude at the bar, but he sure as hell could help her now. He ransacked the shelves for the ingredients she needed. Thankfully, Sloan’s obsessive behavior meant everything was alphabetized.
Jason threw the ingredients into the mortar, crushed them like she’d told him to, then added the dhamphir tears. When it looked like swamp mud, he ran back to her side. “This stuff doesn’t smell so…Claude?”
She was out cold. He undid her bandage, slathered the stuff on her skin and bound the wound up again. Before he could get her into his arms, his phone went off. He already knew who it was. “Tennant.”
“The alarm is going off in my office,” Sloan barked. “Get the hell down there and take care of whoever is breaking into my—”
“I’m already here. I’m the one that set it off. Claudia insisted on going with me to Hellhounds, and she ended up getting bitten by the lamai demon. I got the scales you wanted, though.”
“Why in the hell did you take her?”
“She insisted on going, and you told me to keep her happy.”
Sloan went quiet for a second. “And why did this result in my private work space being broken into?”
“To get the ingredients to keep her from dying. And so she can perform in tonight’s show, which I believe you need her for.”
“A lamai bite won’t kill her. In time, she’d heal.”
“In time for your show?”
More silence. “No.” He made some kind of unhappy noise. “Whatever damage you did is coming out of your pay. And you better have kept the reason for those scales to yourself.”
Jason hung up. She’d been right about Sloan and the keystone. He lifted her into his arms. Her head lolled back, but her lids fluttered. “Claude?”
No response. Still out cold. As gently as possible, he got her downstairs, into his car and back to his house. He returned her to his bed and sat on the floor beside her with his back against the nightstand. The watery light of early dawn filtered in around the edges of the curtains.
How had she known about the Queen of Hearts? Stealing that had been one of the hardest things he’d ever done, but Sloan hadn’t given him a choice. Unless you considered having his keystone destroyed a choice. And so he’d done it, but it hadn’t been easy. Breaking a rule like stealing from another supernatural made him a candidate for Collection, not to mention a guy his size wasn’t cut out for jobs that required stealth. Sloan knew that, too, so he’d concocted a potion for Jason that had given him the brief ability to become smoke.
Using that temporary power, he’d accessed the private gallery housing the ruby, unlocked the vault from inside and made off with it.
And then he’d been so sick he’d nearly died, a side effect of the smoke potion Sloan had failed to explain ahead of time.
If Claude knew about the necklace, what else did she know? Was that why she was here? To recover the stone? To bring him to justice?
He sat up a little straighter. Was Claude a Collector?
Hard to believe she might, in essence, be the enemy. That she might have been playing him this whole time. He turned his head to look at her. She was about as vulnerable as any supernatural could be right now. Asleep and battling a vicious poison.
Enemy or not, he couldn’t change the way he’d begun to feel about her. And right now, he just wanted her healed. If that meant he had to face the consequences of what he’d done, so be it. She was just doing her job, right? He’d take Sloan down with him, too. Creating an immortality spell wasn’t illegal, but it was gray magic. The kind of thing that required a license and fees and all sorts of paperwork that Sloan would want to avoid because he couldn’t afford to make what he was doing public.
Claudia shifted, moaning softly. Her arm splayed out from her body so that her hand dangled off the bed a few inches from his face. He lifted his hand, touching his fingertips to hers. She was burning up, a sure sign her body was fighting the poison. He meshed his fingers with hers. He couldn’t believe this woman was the enemy. He just couldn’t. “Hang on, baby. You’re gonna get through this. Then you can explain everything.”
She twitched, and a guttural snarl rumbled out of her. Her nails turned into long, thick claws. They dented the skin on the back of his hand as they grew, but didn’t puncture the flesh. They couldn’t. But if he’d been human, his hand would have been a bloody rag by now.
The same kind of vulnerable he’d be if Sloan destroyed his keystone.
She twitched again, and soft stripes appeared on her skin. He knew she was about to shift—most shifters healed better in their true forms—but those stripes should be spots. He let go of her hand and got to his feet. When he turned to check on her, Claude was gone. A six-hundred-pound tiger had taken her place. Where the hell was her leopard form?
He backed up. “Good thing that bed was built for a gargoyle or you’d be buying me a new one.”
The tiger’s lip curled as it growled, and one giant paw struck out, slicing the sheets into ribbons, then the big cat lay still. After a few minutes, the beast began to snore. Jason took a seat in his desk chair. It was a safe distance away. An hour later, Claude had reappeared. She blinked and looked around, finally finding him.
He stayed where he was. “How are you feeling now?”
“Much better.” She pushed onto her elbow, staring at the tattered bedclothes. “I take it I went into my half-form?”
“Oh no, you did better than that.”
She grimaced. “Sorry about that. I’ll get you new sheets. I owe you a lot more than that anyway.”
He got to his feet. “Yes, you do. Why don’t you start with the truth?”
“I-I don’t know what you mean.”
He moved to lean against the closed bedroom door. “For starters, you told me you were a leopard shifter, but a tiger showed up in my bed, and while I wish I was talking metaphorically, I’m not. I don’t know of any feline shifter who can take on more than one species. What are you? And how did you know about the Queen of Hearts?”
She opened her mouth, but closed it again, shaking her head softly.
“Tell me the truth, Claudia. If that is your real name. Are you here to Collect me?”
The pain in her arm was gone, but a new ache had begun in her soul. “I’m not going to cause you any trouble—”
“Any more trouble, you mean?” The look on his face was so dark, so full of mistrust, she felt like she’d broken something. Something valuable.
“My name is Claudette Marchon. I really do go by Claude.”
He snorted in disgust. “So your name’s almost the same. How much did you have to study to learn all that staging?”
She untangled herself from the torn sheets and sat up. “I was a showgirl. I headlined at the Silver Slipper for four years.”
“And now you’re a Collector.”
She stared at his feet. “No. A
nd yes.”
“Which is it?”
“I was a Collector after I retired from the stage. It was a great job, but I stayed on only until I had enough money to open my own business. I own The Gem Exchange downtown. It’s a pawnshop, but I specialize in estate jewelry.” She glanced at him.
That seemed to pacify him a little. His eyes narrowed. “I didn’t think Collectors ever retired.”
“Most don’t. If you like adventure and money, it’s a sweet deal, but I’d always had other plans. Still, when I retired, it was with the stipulation that they could bring me back if they needed me for a special job.”
“And I’m a special job?” He crossed his arms.
She nodded, her gaze back on the floor. “Yes. You are.”
“If I’m supposed to be flattered, I’m not. I can see why they wanted to keep you. You’re really talented. In less than twenty-four hours, you already had me falling for you. I’ve never met a woman who could put on that kind of show.”
“It wasn’t a show.” She made eye contact with him again, hoping he’d see the sincerity in her gaze. “I really do like you. Which is why I decided to find out your whole story before I took you in. The fact that you don’t like Sloan helped me get there, too.”
“He’s made me his prisoner.” He came toward her a few steps, uncrossing his arms to clench his fists at his sides. “Did you know Sloan has my keystone?”
“No, but after knowing you for just a few hours, you didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d willingly commit Collection-worthy acts for that idiot. I knew he had to be pressuring you with something. I just had no idea how big a something.” She slid her legs out from the covers and eased her feet to the floor. “Look, I’m not the bad guy. I’m really not. In fact, I want to try to get your keystone back from Sloan.”
“Technically, that would be breaking a rule. You might end up getting Collected yourself.”
She pursed her mouth and stood to face him, still a little weak but determined to make this hulk of a man understand she was on his side. “I already broke a rule helping you get those scales from the lamai. Sloan’s the one who needs to be Collected, and that’s the honest truth, my hand to Bast. I want to take him down, not you. In fact, I think you’d make a great Collector, and I’d be willing to sponsor you if that sounds remotely interesting.”
He just stood there, staring at her, stone-faced and blocking the door with his massive body, like he had no idea how much she wanted to kiss him and say she was sorry, but clearly that wasn’t going to help the situation.
He didn’t respond, so apparently the idea of him being a Collector wasn’t such a hot one. She blew out a breath, steadying herself. “Anyway, I’ve got a plan to get your keystone and the ruby back while taking care of Sloan at the same time.” He still hadn’t said a word. She lifted her chin. “I know you’re mad, but if that’s not enough proof that I’m on your side, I don’t know what else I can do.”
He looked like he might break something. Or yell. Or—
He cupped her face, planted his mouth on hers and kissed her hard. The kiss was angry but relieved, and it softened almost instantly into the kind of heated insistence that dispelled every thought in her head except for one: She had to save this man.
Because, Bast help her, she wanted to keep him.
Jason broke the kiss, not ready to let her go, but not sure he had enough control to keep from going further. He bent his head to touch his forehead to hers. “You lied to me—”
“I had no choice,” she whispered. “Besides, you kissed that lamai demon.”
“She kissed me. And it was part of your plan, remember?” He exhaled. “Are there any more lies between us?”
“No.”
“Anything else I don’t know that I should?”
She turned away and sighed. “I’m not just a shifter.”
He hooked his thumbs in the pockets of his jeans. “I figured that out already.”
“I’m a special type of shifter. I can take on any cat form and one other.”
He waited. “Which is?”
She licked her bottom lip, almost distracting him. “Something I don’t share. It’s nothing bad or anything I’d use against you, but it’s one I prefer to keep private. I’ve already told you more than most people know. Please, trust me on this and let me keep this one piece of information to myself.”
He frowned. He didn’t like it, but he understood by the glimpse of pain in her eyes that now was not the time to push her. “For now I’ll agree to that.” He sighed. Wasn’t like he could force her to tell him. Well, he could, but he’d decided a long time ago that he’d never use his interrogation skills on a woman. “What’s your plan to get my keystone and the ruby back?”
“I need to make a call first to see if it’s even viable. If it is, then I’ll explain it all on the way to wherever Sloan is, because we’re going to need to start there. With him.”
“I suppose you want privacy for the call.” He started for the door.
“I don’t care if you hear it.”
“Really?” That was surprising.
“There’s just one thing.”
He knew there’d be a catch.
She held her hands out. “I have no idea where my purse is, and my phone’s in it. Please tell me I didn’t leave it at Hellhounds.”
He choked out a laugh. “No, I got it. Hang on.” He retrieved her clutch from where he’d dropped it with her shoes on the couch and brought the purse in to her. “Listen, I’m going to grab a shower in here.” He tipped his head toward the master bath. “Make your call. Tell me what you think I need to know when I get out. I trust you.”
She smiled. “Thanks. That means a lot, considering. I really appreciate that.”
He nodded and left her alone as he shut the bathroom door behind him. Did he trust her? She had shared a lot with him, and the circumstances being what they were, he could understand that doing so might put her in a tough spot. Based on that, extending her some trust wasn’t the hardest thing to do.
He threw a towel over the glass shower door. He couldn’t imagine her bosses would be pleased that she’d told him so much when he was the one she’d been tasked to Collect.
Damn Sloan and his immortality spell.
Jason shook his head as he leaned into the shower and cranked on the hot water. Sloan had stripped his freedom and made his life miserable. The only good thing Sloan had done lately was hire Claude. But that had probably all been orchestrated by her handlers. He yanked off his T-shirt and stepped out of his track pants, then stood beneath the steaming spray. He let it beat down on him, the heat almost washing away the stress of the evening.
What really did the trick was the thought of having his keystone back, of not only being able to shift into his true form, but of being able to take to the skies in flight again. Some supes liked a good long run, some a couple rounds of intense sparring, but gargoyles had a thing for flying. Maybe it had something to do with the dichotomy of being made of stone and yet being able to get airborne that made it so enjoyable. Whatever the reason, being earthbound for so long had seriously messed with his general happiness.
He soaped up, then rinsed. Maybe after this was all over, Claude would like to go for a little night flight. See the Strip the way it was meant to be seen. That kept him smiling as he dried off, then wrapped the towel around his hips and opened the door to the bedroom to get some clothes.
As he did, he realized she was still on the phone. Her back was to him.
“You promise you’ll get someone there? Good. Mm-hmm. Headed there shortly. If something changes, I’ll let you know. Otherwise, assume we’re a go. I’ll text specifics. Yes. Yes. No answer.” She sighed. “No answer to that either, because it’s none of your business. No, I’m not in over my head. I did you a favor by taking this job. Don’t make me regret that.”
He stayed by the door, not exactly eavesdropping, but not exactly announcing himself, either.
“Maybe I don’t ca
re if you pull my license. There’s a bigger picture here. One I’m going to make you see. Just give me this chance and—yes, I know. You can’t—that isn’t—” She sighed. “If this doesn’t work, I lose. I got that. Thanks. Way to repay my loyalty.” The sound of a beep followed, then she muttered something he couldn’t quite make out but sounded like she was disparaging someone’s maternal lineage.
He rapped his knuckle on the doorframe. “Everything okay?” But he already suspected it wasn’t.
She sat on the edge of the bed, her frustrated gaze fixed on the phone in her hand. “Bureaucracy. I guess every job has it, huh?” Then she inhaled and raised her head, her mouth bending in a little halfhearted smile that froze in place as she looked at him. Her gaze didn’t stay on his face for long. “You, uh, need some clothes, huh?” She bit her bottom lip, apparently unable to change her line of sight, which seemed to be stuck on his chest. Or maybe a hitch lower.
He grinned. “You know, you’ve already seen me in my stage costume. This isn’t that much different.” He walked halfway into the room.
She cleared her throat softly. “Oh, I’d say this is…very different.”
Grinning, he turned his back to her as he pulled open a dresser drawer.
The hiss of her breath startled him. “Is that scar from where your keystone should be?”
He lifted his head, thinking for a moment. “The one on my shoulder blade? No, that’s from a fight with my brother when I was thirteen.” He laughed at the memory. “I earned that one. Never take on a gargoyle who’s seven years older and a hundred pounds heavier than you, even if he tells the girl you like you’ve got a crush on her.”
Claude laughed. “That’s a promise I can make. So the scar on your side—is that where your keystone should be?”
“Nope. That was earned during my first tour in Afghanistan. Apparently, shrapnel from an IED at close range is one of the few things that can penetrate gargoyle skin, outside of another gargoyle.” With his back still to her, he dropped the towel, enjoying her sudden intake of breath, and tugged on his jeans.
Sin City Collectors Boxed Set: Queen of Hearts, Dead Man's Hand, Double or Nothing Page 6