“You’d have to ask my father.”
If she was lucky, she wouldn’t have to so much as meet his father and certainly not be obligated to ask him anything. Though she had to admit to a good deal of curiosity about Luc’s not-exactly-human parent, she could do without Cezar Lazare making her life more difficult, which she was certain he would do.
Luc indicated the area before him. “Hank’s in here.”
Skye didn’t see a door. Luc edged forward into the glass that shimmered around him as he stepped through to the other side. Her pulse rushed, sending an electrical charge through her. She couldn’t make herself move until Luc turned and gave her a look as if asking her what she was waiting for. Holding her breath and ignoring her fears, she followed. The glass seemed to swim around her like water. And then she was inside, and she could breathe again.
Luc didn’t seem to notice she was a little wonky from the experience. Every moment in the casino was a new experience. He was already headed across the desert floor, weaving through creosote and mesquite and cactus toward the sound of high-pitched yips and yelps. Not wanting to be left behind, she scurried to catch up to him.
“What now?” she asked. “Where are we headed?”
He pointed to what looked like a small woodland of piñon and juniper trees in the distance. How big was this place? If it could be as big as she wanted, could it also be as small? They were suddenly at the wood’s edge.
Hank, where are you?
If Luc called the coyote with his mind, then that was probably how they would have to communicate.
“Not necessarily,” Luc said aloud. Hank, you have a visitor.
Visitor? Me?
She saw a bit of tawny-colored fur move from behind a piñon tree.
“C’mon out,” she said. The coyote should recognize her voice from the shifter fight the other night. “I won’t hurt you.”
He sidled out, long forelegs gangly, and gave her a sideways look out of leery golden eyes. Probably about Boomer’s size, though much scrawnier.
You remember the woman who tried to help you when you were hurt the other night.
Um, yeah.
She wants to talk to you.
Hank didn’t respond and she got the idea he was considering his options. And that he wasn’t open to Luc. A frisson of something weird and uncomfortable filled the space between them. Almost as if Hank didn’t trust Luc for some reason.
Finally, she heard, A minute. The coyote slid back into the forest, his black dorsal stripe quickly blending with the shadows.
“What’s going on?” she asked Luc.
“He’s preparing himself.”
Whatever that meant. A minute turned into two and then into three. Luc stood so silent and still it was as if she were there alone. Almost.
Then from behind the curtain of trees stepped a tawny-haired, scrawny man dressed in khakis and a matching T-shirt.
“Hank?” she gasped past whatever was lodged in her throat.
He nodded.
She’d been correct. They were shapeshifters.
Even though she’d known it on some level, it was enough to knock the stuffing out of her. Again, she was speechless. She could only be glad she hadn’t had to watch. As it was, it took everything she had to get past the fact and concentrate on her reason for being here.
They sized up each other for a moment. Skye swallowed hard, then gave Luc a quick glance and was startled when she realized he’d silently moved several yards away. To give them privacy? Or because Hank wouldn’t talk with him so close? Either way, it was up to her, then. “Um, thanks for what you did, okay?” Hank mumbled.
“Okay,” she said cautiously.
“I would’ve bled out.”
“I didn’t exactly do anything—”
“You got the vet. You tried to see that I was okay and got yourself into trouble.”
He’d known, even though he’d disappeared into the night. “It was the least I could do. I can’t stand seeing an animal hurt.” Frowning, she wondered if he’d take exception at being called an animal, but he didn’t comment, so she asked, “Who hurt you?”
“Ramon. The wild dog.”
“That’s not what I meant. It wasn’t Ramon’s fault. He didn’t want to fight you. He wasn’t responsible for the fight. Who was?”
“Don’t know.”
Wishing Luc would cue her as Shade had done when interrogating Elizabeth Reyes that afternoon, she reached for something to say. “What do you know?”
Silence.
Skye took a big breath. This was her moment. If she passed it up, she might never get another chance, so she went for it. “Look, this is of utmost importance to me. And to you and others like you. My brother was murdered because he was trying to stop the shifter fights.”
Hank’s attention snapped back on her. “Stop them how?”
“The way he knew how. Legally. Shade was a cop. You’re lucky you weren’t killed like others were. Three we know of so far.”
Jez.
Skye flicked a look in Luc’s direction. She’d gotten the distinct feeling he’d meant to stay out of this, but apparently one of the victims meant enough to him he couldn’t help himself.
“Jez,” Hank murmured aloud. “No reason to kill her. She was no threat.”
“No threat to whom?” Was Hank a threat? “To what?”
“No one. Nothing. Look, I don’t know who’s running these things. I was drugged, so I have no idea of who took her or set her up. They gave her something to make her fight, but then everything happened so fast, I don’t remember anything but trying not to get ripped apart.” He put a hand to his side where he’d almost bled out. “And you trying to help me.”
He might not have names to give her, but he knew something. She sensed it in the way his body altered slightly, his limbs tightening, his head drooping lower. Tension racked him and he was trying not to show it. He was disappearing inside himself, probably where he was most comfortable. Not exactly what she’d been expecting from one of his kind.
“Please.” she caught his gaze and held it. “If you want the shifter fights to stop, you have to help me now. Believe that I’ll do everything in my power to try to get them stopped permanently.”
Hank stared at her for a moment before she felt him attempting to slide inside her head the way Luc kept trying to do. Knowing it was the only way he would truly know and trust her, she allowed it. She quieted her mind and waited for him to make a full sweep, kept telling herself not to freak out as he checked all the corners in fits and starts. Then suddenly he was out, and the force of his exit left her swaying.
Skye was rediscovering her center when Hank said, “I believe you.”
A good start. She pulled herself together. “Then tell me what you know, Hank. Anything.”
~
Having almost been killed had made Hank into one wily coyote. Determined to be a survivor, he’d called in favors all over the complex until he’d gotten the one kernel of information. The next shifter fight was to be held that night in a west side building that had been abandoned for years.
Skye didn’t know what Hank had planned to do with that intel, but it was now Luc’s and her destination.
Twilight had settled over the lakefront, and the wind picked up as they beat a path to Luc’s Jaguar. The sky overhead swarmed with dark clouds and rumbled with what seemed to be some heinous message.
Of what? Approaching danger?
No shit.
Or maybe it was going to rain despite the meteorologists’ predictions for a perfect evening, when she saw what was coming as anything but.
Luc pulled the Jag out of the lot, and she pulled out her cell. “I’m calling it in.” The question was whether to alert Ethan or simply call the Animal Crimes Unit.
“I’m not stopping you. I want these damn fights to end before—”
“Someone else you care about is killed?” she finished for him. “This Jez, who was she?”
“A childhood fri
end. She was someone I always could count on. She wasn’t like most of them.”
Of them. She got the distinction. More and more she was becoming convinced that, despite his father, Luc wasn’t like most of them, either.
After thinking about it for a moment, she called Ethan. His beliefs were teetering, and she had to get him on board now.
“Skye, what is it?”
“Another fight. Tonight. West side.” She gave Ethan the address.
“You’re calling me about a dogfight?”
She heard the hesitation in his voice. He knew she wouldn’t call him if it were that simple. “Not exactly a dogfight, no. But you’d better alert the ACU anyway to take care of any animals. I’ll meet you there.”
And before he could object or ask her to explain, she disconnected. He called her right back, but she didn’t pick up, and when she heard his text ping in, she ignored that as well.
They headed west, away from the lake, a shard of lightning crossing the road ahead. Luc asked, “Is this Ethan someone you can count on?”
“He was Shade’s partner.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Yes.” She put away her doubts. “Ethan might have trouble with some of the more unusual details of the situation, but he’ll come around when he sees for himself.” She had to believe that or this horror would never be ended. “Ethan thought of Shade as his brother, too. There’s not a better cop to have on our side.”
“If he believes you and actually shows.”
“He will.”
No more uncertainty. No more dancing around the scary. Her blood pressure might be skyrocketing, but she was in one hundred percent. She couldn’t imagine running into anything more intimidating than she’d already encountered, but if she did, she would deal with it.
Skye said, “Too bad Hank couldn’t tell us more.”
“Too bad he didn’t want to.”
“Are you saying he was lying?”
“I’m saying that it’s possible.”
“But why, when he was victimized?” she asked.
“That’s part of the problem. He could fear reprisal.”
“Hank got the information about tonight’s fight from someone in the casino. There could be reprisal about that, too.”
“Not the same as pointing a finger directly at the guilty party.”
“Okay, reprisal could be part of the problem,” she said. “What’s the other part?”
“Pop keeps sort of a scoring system. Good. Bad. Worse. He would find out.”
Another threat of lightning lit the ink-dark sky. Weird. No rain. Just a scrambled, rumbling sky, similar to the one during the shifter fight last week.
“If your father found out that Hank told us where to find the fight, what would he do?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but nothing I want you involved in.”
“Wait a minute. How did this suddenly become about me?”
“You inserted yourself into the situation. How can it not be about you?”
Her stomach roiled. “It would help if you clarified.”
He slid a hand over her knee. “I like exploring this part.”
Ignoring the sensation that went straight to her center, she squeezed her thighs together. He was trying to get her off-focus again. “You’re not exploring anything right now but a shifter fight,” she warned him.
“Right now? Does that mean later, I can—”
“Can you possibly keep your mind on tonight’s fight?”
“Doubt it.”
“Try.”
“Um, nope.”
“Try harder.”
“That’s not a problem.”
Frustration made her want to hit Luc. And do other, less violent but equally shocking things with him while he drove. She wanted to reach over and stroke his thigh, make him groan with desire. That could get them both killed, but her fertile imagination had no bounds when it came to Luc.
Was this sensual lead-on simply part of his nature or a well-cultivated attack to keep her from learning anything he didn’t want her to know?
Whatever. It was working.
Which made her wonder why. Why was his approach so effective on her? So difficult to resist?
Animal instincts.
Wait a minute. Skye wasn’t sure if she had thought that or if Luc was inserting the concept into her mind.
“I’m not responsible for your every carnal thought,” he muttered.
“My carnal thoughts?”
“Are you saying you don’t have any?” His mouth curved into a smirk.
Skye narrowed her gaze at him. “I’m saying they’re not my fault.”
“Hmm. Then that means I must have some kind of incredible power over you.”
She certainly didn’t like that idea, either. “Yes, the incredible power to be irritating.”
Clenching her jaw, she closed her mind off from him to focus on the fight. But that entailed shifters, who were animals of a sort, and that brought her back to the idea of animal instincts, which in this case went deeper than what she thought of as sex appeal. Yes, Luc had that in spades, but was it simply his human side that attracted her or the combination of human and whatever else he was?
The fact that he was a shapeshifter—not that he’d ever admitted it—certainly put a new spin on the concept.
He turned off the main artery onto a narrow road stark with the remains of what had once been a neighborhood. Thunder shook the street below them as a third lightning strike gave her a better look at what sat around them. A hollow feeling left her disjointed from her surroundings—century-old greystone and brownstone homes and multi-unit properties, many boarded up and abandoned, sprinkled through fields of nothing where buildings had long since been torn from the landscape. Some concrete footings remained, ghosts among the unruly growth that had sprouted around them.
Reminding her of the cemetery where they’d buried Shade.
Luc pulled into the nearly full parking lot of yet another abandoned building. Lightning flickered against the two-story structure so she was able to read the carved name on the lintel over the door. Campbell-Warren Elementary.
“Are you telling me this is it?”
“It’s the address Hank gave you,” Luc confirmed. “Look around you. And listen.”
She did, and shouts of glee followed by a yowled complaint sent needles shooting up her spine. Someone—something—distinctly unhappy sequestered inside the boarded-up school. She didn’t have to smell it to know blood had already been shed.
“This is a city-owned building,” she said as they left the vehicle. “Or it was.”
“Your point being?”
“How did whoever is running the shifter fights take over the place?”
“Something we’ll have to find out.”
Right. Only how?
They raced to the building, but she was looking around, looking for backup. Looking for Ethan. He had to show up. Luc might be able to stop this fight, but Ethan needed to know what exactly was what so he could get justice for her brother.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Even as Luc was about to enter the vestibule, another screeched yowl slammed into him so hard it nearly took away his breath. He recognized the voice.
“Nuala.”
“What? Your sister? Where?” Skye asked.
“Stay outside and out of trouble.”
Without waiting for Skye to agree, Luc thought himself into the gymnasium where the arena had been set up. The benches were full, and workers were running around doing final checks for the next fight. Across the floor, a man in a neon-green jumpsuit struggled to get a chained black panther into position. Nuala. Seeing red anger, Luc sifted to her side, and used every bit of that negative emotion toward the worker to mentally toss him away from his sister. The man went flying, and when he landed in the middle of the arena, his leg twisted unnaturally under him, he screamed in his human voice.
Nuala, are you all right?
Luc.
Can you shift back?
No. Too weak. Drugged.
All right, I’ve got you.
Luc lifted his sister into his arms and pressed her against his chest, arms wrapped around her to protect her. He used all the ability he had left in him to sift them back outside. But when he looked around for Skye, she wasn’t there. Still, she couldn’t have gone far.
Skye, we have to leave. Now! Meet us at the car.
But if she heard him, he couldn’t tell. All hell was breaking loose. Sirens and flashing blue strobe bars already split the night in a circle around their location as the CPD closed in from every direction. Holding Nuala close, Luc headed for the Jaguar. He had to get her out of there before the authorities stopped him with her trapped in panther form. He’d drained his limited ability to sift for the moment. No way could he transport them very far carrying her weight, not even at full charge.
As the flashing lights cut through the parking lot, two Kindred dared step before him as though they meant to prevent him from taking his sister to safety.
“Where do you think you’re going with her?” one of them asked.
“She’s tonight’s main attraction,” the other one added in a snarky voice.
“If you want to live, you’ll move, or I’ll suck those souls right out of you before I finish you.”
They looked at each other. One of them had the audacity to smirk. Luc didn’t even know how he managed considering the circumstances—his hands were hanging onto Nuala—but he whipped his head and with his thoughts slammed the smirking man into his companion. Both Kindred landed in a tangled heap.
“I’m going to put you in the back where you can rest,” he told Nuala. The seat might be narrow, but letting her stretch out seemed to be the best option.
Okay, she thought before her dark eyes fluttered closed. The baby...
There was a baby here? “What baby?”
But Nuala was already out.
What now? Nerves on fire from the effort he’d expended, Luc didn’t know what to do. Should he go back in and look for some baby? Whose baby? He hadn’t a clue.
Police cars with flashing strobes came from every direction.
Too late.
If there was a baby, surely the cops would find it.
Animal Instincts (Kindred Souls Book 1) Page 13
