Her Dark Half

by Paige Tyler

  “I’m hearing a but coming,” Alina said, taking a bite of pizza.

  “Yeah. It was definitely coming.” He waited for their server to refill their teas and leave before continuing. “Because in between my junior year and senior year of high school, I went through my first shift. In a flash, my whole life changed.”

  Alina stopped chewing and swallowed quickly. “Wait a minute. I naturally assumed you were born a shifter. It didn’t happen until you were seventeen? Did something happen to bring it on or whatever?”

  “I was born a shifter, but shifter abilities usually don’t start appearing until sometime in our late teens.”

  She nodded in interest, pizza apparently forgotten. “Did you freak out that first time?”

  He snorted. “Hell yeah, I freaked. I thought I was turning into a werewolf or something.”

  “So how did it happen?” she asked, her eyes bright with anticipation. “Did you wake up in the woods naked under a full moon, or was it something really scary like finding yourself raiding the fridge and eating raw meat in the middle of the night?”

  Trevor laughed. Those were exactly the kind of snarky questions he would have asked if she was the shifter and he was the curious normal guy.

  “You watch way too many movies,” he said.

  Her cheeks took on a slight flush, and he had to remind himself this was his partner he was talking to, not a woman he was dating. That was tough to remember, since he couldn’t help but notice how damn sexy Alina looked when she blushed.

  “It wasn’t anything that dramatic,” he finally said, taking mercy on her. “I woke up in the middle of the night dripping with sweat. Every muscle in my body was worn out like I’d just finished running a marathon in full pads and a helmet. I went into the bathroom to throw some cold water on my face. Then I looked in the mirror and…well, I guess you can imagine how seeing fangs and claws could be a little tough for a seventeen-year-old to deal with.”

  “Did you tell anyone? Your parents or brothers or sister…a friend?”

  He shook his head. “No. I thought I was turning into a monster. There was no way in hell I was going to tell anyone.”

  She frowned. “That must have been difficult to keep secret.”

  “Tell me about it.” He washed a bite of pizza down with a swig of tea. “When you first shift, it can take a while to gain control. I was on the verge of sprouting fangs and claws whenever I smelled a girl, got nervous or frustrated or angry, even when I got hungry. I hid it the best I could and tried to act like nothing was going on, but everything went to crap when I showed up for football practice and blew past the fastest cornerback on our team like he was standing still.” He shook his head, remembering it like it had been yesterday. “That’s when I knew I couldn’t play anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because someone would have figured out something was going on with me. Or assumed I was on performance-enhancing drugs. Plus, it seemed wrong playing football when there was no one who could keep up with me.”

  Alina looked at him in surprise. “Wow. That’s a mature way to look at the situation for a high school kid. There’d be a lot of seventeen-year-olds who would have tried to take advantage of those physical abilities to make themselves look good.”

  “Yeah, that was me,” he quipped, “very mature for my age.”

  “So what’d you do?”

  “What could I do?” He transferred another slice of pizza from the tray to his plate, then reached for the Parmesan cheese. “I dropped out of football and started hitting the science classes pretty hard, hoping to figure out what the hell was happening to me. When that didn’t work, I made the decision to get the hell out of town before anyone noticed how much I’d changed. I joined the army and headed to basic training the day after I graduated from high school. I signed up to be an MP, which was something of a consolation prize for my dad. My mom was a little freaked out, though. This was back when everyone thought Iraq was hiding nuclear and chemical weapons and the UN inspectors were being denied access to all kinds of suspicious facilities. Mom thought we’d be going back to war any day and was sure I’d get pulled into it. That didn’t happen, but she was a mess at the time anyway.”

  “I think it’s nice that your mother worried about you so much.” Alina’s voice took on a wistful tone. “My mom knows what I do is dangerous, but since we don’t talk about it, she treats it like a tree that falls in the forest.”

  “If there’s no one there to hear it, did it really make a sound?” Trevor finished for her.

  “Exactly.” Alina sipped her tea. “How did you manage to keep your shifter side hidden in a whole unit full of MPs?”

  “It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it’d be.” He took a bite of pizza, chewing before answering. “Being completely exhausted throughout basic training helped, but mostly, I got better at controlling both my abilities and my emotions.”

  “How long were you an MP?”

  “A few years,” he said. “As I got better with my abilities, I started getting good at figuring out when people were lying to me. They start sweating, their breathing gets all erratic, their heart rate spikes, their muscles tighten up—stuff like that. When I was assigned to Fort Carson in Colorado, I ended up catching a couple of high-vis bad guys, including a contractor who was trying to drive out the gate with a trunk full of classified documents. My commander put my name in for a transfer to CID—the army’s criminal investigative command—and the next thing I knew, I was reassigned as an investigator at Redstone Arsenal, a big R&D base in Alabama, where they had me watching for civilians and contractors trying to steal government secrets.”

  “O-kay. Don’t take this the wrong way, but that sounds boring as hell.”

  “Some of my coworkers thought it was,” he admitted. “But for me, it was always about getting into that other person’s head and trying to figure out what they were going to do before they even decided to do it. Besides, my dad was over the moon about it. He figured I’d get out of the army soon, and he’d be seeing a detective in the Maxwell family in the very near future.”

  “I hear another but coming,” she said.

  Trevor chuckled. “You’re getting good at this. Yeah, my skills got me noticed by some people in DC, and I was transferred to the Defense Intelligence Agency without ever being asked whether that was something I wanted to do. I was put on a team responsible for tracking down traitors selling military intelligence and the foreign agents trying to recruit them.”

  “So basic counterespionage and counterintelligence?”

  He nodded. “Yup, spy versus spy.”

  She continued eating. “What did your dad think of that?”

  “He wasn’t thrilled. I liked it, though. Up until that point, I’d been limited to one little base, waiting for a government employee to do something stupid. But with the DIA, I went all over the world, anywhere there was a threat against the Department of Defense. I enjoyed the freedom to pursue just about anyone I wanted. And as a shifter, I was very good at finding those people.”

  “What changed?” she asked. “How did you end up in the DCO?”

  “What changed? Nothing really. That was the issue.” He shook his head. “No matter how many criminals I caught, no matter how much good I did, I knew in the back of my mind that I could never be myself. I was a freak, and I could never let anyone know it. I was alone in a sea of people. That was a shitty thing to have to live with, and there was a part of me that was unhappy as hell. I was seriously close to saying screw it and moving back to Portland to be the cop that my parents always wanted me to be.”

  “And then?” Alina prompted.

  “And then John Loughlin found me.” Trevor tried to ignore the stab of sorrow that came with saying his boss’s name but wasn’t very successful. “He found me and helped me realize that I wasn’t a freak, that there were other people like me, a
nd that I didn’t need to keep living in secret. It was the most amazing thing anyone had ever done for me.”

  Alina’s face clouded. “And then someone killed him.”

  He swallowed hard. “Yeah. Someone killed him. The only reason I’m still at the DCO is so I can figure out exactly who did it and make sure they pay.”

  Chapter 6

  Alina fidgeted in the passenger seat of the big Suburban as Trevor waited for an opening in traffic, then changed lanes. It was well after rush hour, but I-95 was still packed.

  “Does the dress fit okay?” he asked, glancing at her.

  She fought the urge to squirm again. “Yeah. It fits fine. It’s just that this is the first time I’ve worn a dress like this on a mission. I’m so used to working in pantsuits that wearing a dress feels…odd.”

  Not that she was complaining about the dress. A shimmery, black evening gown with a sexy neckline and a little slit up the side that showed off just enough leg to be interesting without being over the top, it was probably the most gorgeous dress she’d ever seen. Normally, she would never have worn anything like it on a mission, but Trevor said she needed to look the part for the undercover role they were playing that night, so she’d agreed, even though she didn’t have a clue what the hell they were up to this evening.

  All she knew for sure was that they were heading to Baltimore and that almost no one else in the DCO—most especially their boss—knew what they were doing. Why the hell she trusted Trevor so much was a shock to her, but the shoot-house training they’d done yesterday had demonstrated they could be good together—when they trusted each other.

  Trevor looked over at her, eyeing her up and down before turning his attention back to the freeway with a shrug. “If it helps, I think you look frigging awesome.”

  She appreciated the compliment probably more than she should have, but that didn’t keep her from pointing out the obvious. “Mind telling me why you get to wear a suit and tie while I have to wear something that shows off more than it covers?”

  He glanced at her again. She didn’t miss the way his gaze lingered on the nice amount of cleavage she was displaying before he met her eyes.

  “Well, for starters, my suit would be way too big for you,” he said. “For another, I think I’d look absolutely ridiculous in that dress. Finally, there’s a good chance that a distraction will be called for during this mission.” He gave her another once-over that had her skin warming alarmingly. “And trust me—you are definitely one serious distraction.”

  She felt her face heat and was glad it was nighttime. Until she remembered Trevor could see in the dark.

  “Speaking of where we’re going,” she said, “don’t you think you might want to let me in on the big secret? Since I was nice enough to wear this dress for you and all. I’m trying to trust you here, but that’s hard if you’re going to keep me completely in the dark.”

  Trevor was silent for so long, Alina thought he wasn’t going to answer. She wouldn’t have been surprised. He’d been completely mum on the subject the whole time a behavioral scientist who worked for the DCO named Skye Durant had picked out Alina’s disguise for the mission. She’d been too busy being amazed that the DCO had a clothing and prop department that included expensive cocktail dresses to press him on the subject then, but she couldn’t contain her curiosity any longer.

  “We’re going to an out-of-the-way restaurant near the Inner Harbor called the End of the Road,” he finally said. “The place pulls in enough business to make the establishment look legit, but the restaurant is a front for a high-stakes gambling operation that they run out of the back of the place.”

  She thought about that for a moment, replaying everything she’d learned on their trip down to Bowling Green on Wednesday, then combining it with what Trevor had told her yesterday over pizza.

  “Something tells me we won’t be looking for the fugitive shifters and their teammates playing poker in this backroom joint,” she said.

  Trevor didn’t look at her. “No. We’re looking for the man I think built the bomb that killed John. My sources say he likes to gamble there.”

  Clearly, Trevor had no intention of going after his fellow shifters. Apparently, he didn’t believe they had anything to do with John’s death.

  “Any chance Skye and that nerdy guy I saw her talking to might be your sources?” Alina asked.

  Trevor didn’t answer her.

  No shock there. Trevor was obviously going behind Dick’s back on this manhunt for the bomber who’d killed John, which was almost certainly going to get him into trouble if the director ever found out. If Thomas Thorn really was behind the bombing, that trouble might just be of the fatal variety for everyone involved. If Skye and that guy—who was definitely an analyst type if Alina had ever seen one—were the ones passing Trevor his intel, her partner struck her as the kind of man who would do anything to protect them.

  The fact that Trevor didn’t want to talk to her about any of this meant he was worried she’d run off and tell Dick. After yesterday’s training, he might trust her more than he had before but apparently not enough to put anyone other than himself at risk.

  Even though she understood why he’d do that, it still hurt a little. She couldn’t help wondering if he was simply being careful out of habit or because he knew Dick had cornered her in the main building this morning.

  The director had waylaid her the moment she’d walked in the door, pulling her into his office and grilling her for over thirty minutes about what exactly she and Trevor had done down in Fredericksburg on Wednesday and why she hadn’t reported to him already.

  Since she hadn’t been able to come up with any convenient lie—and knowing he’d check up on anything she’d said anyway—Alina told him they’d gone to Bowling Green and talked to Seth Larson. She’d done a good job of downplaying the whole thing, making it seem like Trevor had simply been looking for proof that one of the shifters had been around John’s office at some point prior to the explosion. Dick had been curious about Larson, but Alina had kept her answers vague. She didn’t want to make trouble for Larson. He already had it hard enough.

  “I want to know when Trevor takes a piss,” Dick said, fixing her with a stern look. “Don’t forget why I hired you, Agent Bosch.”

  The mere thought of spying on her partner had Alina twisting anxiously in her seat again.

  “You sure that dress isn’t bothering you?” Trevor asked. “Is it chafing or something?”

  She couldn’t help but laugh. “No, it’s fine. Trust me, dresses this expensive don’t chafe.”

  He threw her an amused glance as he turned off I-95 onto 395, getting closer to the Inner Harbor. “I just figured maybe there was something under the dress that was too tight, or…I don’t know…pinching somewhere.”

  That went to show how little men knew about what women had to go through to look this good. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but with a dress this formfitting, wearing panties isn’t an option.”

  Trevor glanced her way, his eyes automatically going to the juncture of her thighs. He looked away quickly, like he didn’t want her to realize where his mind might have been, but it was a little late for that. The heat she’d seen there—and the little flash of yellow glow if she wasn’t mistaken—gave him away.

  Beside her, Trevor suddenly seemed very interested in something in his side view mirror. Knowing he was attracted to her should have pissed her off. What kind of work relationship could they build if he saw her as a woman instead of a partner? But for some reason, she couldn’t quite muster up as much outrage as she probably should have. In fact, she found his attraction to her…interesting. Definitely something she was going to have to talk to Kathy about.

  As Trevor turned off the interstate and hit the side streets a little while later, she realized he was still checking his side mirror as well as the rearview every few seconds. Then she recogni
zed the same gas station they’d already passed. Trevor was driving in circles and checking his mirrors to see if they had a tail. She checked her side mirror but didn’t see anything suspicious.

  She was about to ask if he did when he suddenly turned into the parking lot of the Horseshoe Casino and began driving up and down the rows of parking spaces. She glanced over her shoulder to look behind them but still didn’t see anyone.

  “Are you lost and refusing to ask for directions, or are you worried we picked up a tail?” she asked, turning back around.

  She wasn’t sure who the hell might be following them, but if she had to guess, she’d say it must have been someone Dick sent to keep an eye on them. That wasn’t good.

  “I don’t think anyone’s following us, but I wanted to make sure,” Trevor said, pulling out of the parking lot. “As far as getting lost, you don’t have to worry about that. As a shifter, it’s genetically impossible for me to get lost.”

  Alina was still wondering if Trevor was serious or not when he turned onto a street called Worchester and headed toward an area near the train tracks that looked a little run-down. Surprising, considering they weren’t all that far off the main thoroughfare. They kept going until the road ended in a big parking lot in front of an equally large industrial building. Looking at it, you’d never know the place was a restaurant if it hadn’t been for the glitzy lights along the front and a big neon sign proclaiming it to be The End of the Road. Looked like a dive to her.

  There were more fancy cars in the parking lot than she expected to see. Even a few limos that looked seriously out of place. As did the two big guards standing by the front door wearing suits that were working overtime in their attempt to cover up all the muscles and the handguns both men were carrying in underarm holsters.