by Kate Rudolph
A hint of anger bubbled, “I don’t need your pity.” She grabbed the last bit of rice and swallowed it down.
“It’s not pity,” he leaned back, his entire body lying across the small cot to rest his shoulders against the wall. “But I don’t hold to torture. Not for punishment.”
“That was punishment?” She couldn’t stop the abrasive laugh. “Never been to the Forests of Fire, I take it?”
The alpha sat right back up, his eyes narrowing. “You’re too young to make it out of there alive. No one with less than a century could do it.”
Mel grabbed the plastic container and spun it around idly. “People always try to tell me what I can’t do. It never works out for them.” She studied Torres. He didn’t pretend to be casual, didn’t pretend disinterest. She slid the container back and forth and his eyes followed her fingers. There was something deliciously wicked about holding that man’s attention. “So you’ve done your research now?” she asked. “You had no idea who I was two days ago.”
He stood and crossed the room. He leaned across the table, planting his hands beside her own. “Two days ago you didn’t matter.”
That stung, even if it shouldn’t have. “I’ve always mattered.”
Luke got three inches from her face and did the strangest thing. He smiled. “I didn’t know that before two days ago.”
She caught a whiff of his scent. The room had started to smell of him from the moment that he walked in, but now it hit her all at once. Pine, with some citrus undertone. His eyes dilated and she licked her lips. His gaze dropped and she did it once more. His mouth hung open the tiniest bit.
Oh she was in trouble. Even more than she knew.
Without thinking, she covered his hand with her own. He didn’t move away, didn’t try to grab her. Luke stayed rooted in place and Mel wanted to lean forward and steal those precious inches between them. They could be hers and then she would know if he still tasted as good has he smelled, as good as he looked.
His other hand covered hers.
What the hell.
She leaned forward and swiped her lips against his, only for a second, before leaning back into her chair. Mel was satisfied when the alpha leaned forward and tried to follow her. She licked her lips but kept the space between them. “I always thought an alpha would taste bitter.”
He froze, an expression between horror and laughter on his face. “What?” Speaking broke the spell and he took the chair opposite her, resting his elbows on the table. It took her a moment to realize that their hands were still touching.
She didn’t pull back. “I’ve never kissed an alpha before you. And that makes it twice now. You’re messing with my expectations.”
“I’ve never kissed a cat burglar. I suppose that makes us even.” He pulled his hands away.
Mel had no idea what she was doing. She was in no position to be kissing anyone, let alone her captor, but all she wanted to do was to smile and keep flirting. “I suppose it was better than a vampire, though.” What was she even saying?
Luke seemed just as confused. But his hand crept forward. She let her fingers crawl across the table to brush against his nails. He was so close that not touching him felt wrong somehow. “You kissed a vampire?” She didn’t know if his disgust was the thought of the vampire or the thought of her kissing someone else. She didn’t know what she wanted it to be.
“I was sixteen and curious.” She couldn’t help but smile. Even being held prisoner in his castle, talking to him, teasing him, was fun.
But Luke paled. “Please tell me he wasn’t... that is... how old was he?”
Mel took hold of one of his hands and traced a small scar that crossed between his thumb and forefinger. Her smile faded while remembering the vampire. “That doesn’t matter.” She didn’t expect his skin to be soft. And when she ran her fingers over his palm it wasn’t, but the top of his hand was smooth except for a little hair and that one scar. “Did you ever?”
He understood the question. “Next week will be the first time I’m around vampires for more than thirty seconds without punching anyone. I hope.”
Of course, the reason the job had to be done so quickly, so sloppily. “I suppose I’ve thrown a wrench in your plans then.” She didn’t want to upset him, but speaking whatever came to mind with this man felt natural. She liked it.
And Luke wasn’t upset. He looked up from their joined hands and she saw a small smile playing across his lips. “Yes, you have.” But in saying the words he interrupted whatever strange magic that was developing between them. The smile slid from his lips, leaving in its place a melancholy frown. “Who hired you?
Mel pulled all the way back, breaking the contact between them. “Thief/client privilege, I’m sorry.”
Luke grabbed the plastic food container and stood. “When you’re ready to talk, we’ll talk.” He left without a backward glance.
Mel felt adrift. She’d been held captive before, sometimes on purpose, sometimes not. And no matter what happened, she always had a plan, had some control of the situation. But this was something new. She wanted to talk to Luke, to tell him what was going on. She definitely wanted to kiss him all night and through the morning.
And that wasn’t normal. An idea, barely more than an intrusive thought tried to suggest what was going on, but Mel pushed it away. She didn’t have time for whatever it was.
To distract herself, she studied her new cage. In the short time that he’d been in the room with her, Luke’s scent had begun to permeate the place, blending with hers and leaving an aroma that should not have been nearly as appealing. Then again, she’d not bathed in three days and anyone’s scent might have been preferable to hers alone.
There wasn’t much to the place other than the cot, the table, and the small bathroom. The most dangerous item in the bathroom was a small bottle of shampoo. While she could squirt it in one of the guard’s eyes, the seconds it bought her wouldn’t be enough to be useful. There were towels, which was nice, but no shower rod or curtain. She wondered if it was intelligence on Luke’s part or something learned from experience that took away the easiest items to make improvised weapons. Most shapeshifters didn’t worry about it. Either he was smarter than the average alpha, or he had the experience to deal with unconventional threats.
Mel’s hand landed on the silver chain around her neck. The alloy combined with her relatively high silver tolerance meant that the necklace didn’t bother her. She twirled the chain, tracing back and forth to the pendant hanging on it. If she had to choose between Luke having experience or wisdom, she’d hope for wisdom. Because even the smartest shapeshifter wouldn’t see what she had coming.
Chapter Seven
MAYA WAS WAITING FOR Luke in his office. She leaned back against his desk with her arms crossed and raised an eyebrow when he shut the door with too much force. “So the plan changed?” she asked. If she was speaking to anyone else he would say that she was mocking. “Since when do...” It was only after she began talking that she remembered that she was speaking to her alpha. “It is not customary for you to interrogate prisoners.”
Luke sank into his chair and leaned back, drumming his fingers on the table. “It isn’t customary for your team to let women steal from my vault.” He didn’t need to put venom into the remark for Maya to flinch. “Any news on the gem?”
Maya straightened, “No.” If frustration could make electricity, that one word would have powered the house for a month. “And no sign of her partners either. No scent, nothing obvious in town. Nothing at all.” Maya gave up on standing and sank into the chair across from him. She hooked her ankle under her knee and leaned back.
Luke tried to remember anything from that first night they met, but he couldn’t beyond red hair and soft lips. Maybe that was the point of the wig. He’d meant to ask her about it, but at some point had become distracted. How soon was too soon to go back down there?
Maya’s hand waved in front of his face. Luke jerked up and swatted her away. “Wha
t?”
She quirked an eyebrow. “Do you want me to say what I’m thinking?”
“No.” His head of security had at least a century on him, though she had never stated her actual age. And she seemed to think that all of that life experience gave her leave to give Luke advice when it was neither needed nor wanted. “So you know there are partners?”
Maya nodded, but didn’t say more. In fact, it almost looked like the blood had drained from her face.
“What is it you don’t want to tell me?”
She took a deep breath. “Not yet. It’s just a stupid hunch. And it’s so far outside the realm of possibility that I don’t want to get you freaked.”
Right. Luke crossed his arms. “Are you suggesting that she’s empowered the trees to hide my emerald? Perhaps convinced a nice bird to fly it away?”
Maya rolled her eyes. “Nothing that ridiculous.”
The door opened and a familiar blonde head popped in. Luke had to keep his hand down to prevent himself from massaging a headache forming in his temple. He addressed Maya without acknowledging the new visitor. “When you’ve got something, let me know. I’ll ask Mel some more in the meantime.”
Maya looked ready to warn him off the burglar, but she thought better and left without another word to him.
Cassie took her spot. They didn’t speak until Maya closed the door.
“I’m sorry about ditching my flight,” she said. She didn’t meet his eyes. Her fingers nervously picked at the armrest. “But I’ve made the decision not to go back to school.”
Luke took a deep breath before speaking, and then another. He wasn’t her father, just her big brother. So why on Earth was he the one stuck handling this shit? “Have you talked to Mom or Scott about that?”
She shook her head.
“Cassie...” He had no idea what to say. Her name just whooshed out of him in a helpless sigh. “I get it, I really do, but—”
“No!” She stood, stepping behind the chair and grasping the back. At least she was looking at him now. “You changed when you were sixteen! You did all this practically ten minutes after college. They still talk about what you did at that frat your sophomore year back home. And then everyone looks at me, and they just—ugh! I can see how disappointed the entire pack is. And if I could shift, at least then I could go home, you know? It would be real. I wouldn’t be a failure.”
“You’re not a failure.” He didn’t yell, but only just. “Come here.” He opened his arms.
“You’ll do it?” She perked up.
Luke laughed. “No, brat. I’m giving you a hug.” He gestured for her to come towards him. And thankfully she came. He stood and wrapped his arms around her. “You’ve either got to go home or to school.” She stiffened when he spoke, but he didn’t let that stop him. “Shit is about to hit the fan here. I’ve got a prisoner and will have vampires breathing down my neck soon. It’s not safe. Not for you.”
She pulled back. Luke let her go. “I’m not dumb, you know. I can take care of myself.” She walked out of the room without a goodbye, slamming the door to his office behind her.
Brilliant.
He made it through the rest of the day without another disaster. But after a fitful night, he was no closer to solving the issue of his thief or helping his sister. He had a million things that needed doing, and only one place he wanted to be.
Mel was laying on the bed when he arrived at her room. He wanted to believe her smile was real. She quashed it so quickly that it had to be. “Clearly I’m an executive level prisoner if the Man himself keeps interrogating me.” She sat up as she spoke, scooting back so that her spine rested against the wall. She pulled her legs up and casually wrapped an arm around them. “Come on over, your majesty. There’s room for two.”
She’d taken a shower since he’d last seen her. Though even yesterday she’d looked good enough to eat. And heat pulsed through him as he remembered the delectable dreams that had been part of the restless night.
He crossed the room and sat too close. At first it hadn’t seemed so, but as her scent enveloped him he needed to muster strict control to keep her from seeing exactly how much she affected him. It shouldn’t have been so hard. In more ways than one. “There’s no need for titles,” he said by way of greeting.
He needed to ask her about the gem, about her partners. He had a legitimate reason to be in that room with her. But it wasn’t why he came.
“When did you first shift?” he asked.
Mel’s eyes widened. He studied her expression, the slight pursing of her lips that pulled into a smile, heavily tilted to one side. Her gaze seemed to drift somewhere far off for a moment before coming back to the present. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
It was a highly personal question. Akin to asking when someone lost her virginity. But he needed to talk this out with someone, and Mel was a captive audience. “I’ve heard a lot of things.”
She shrugged, “I was twelve.”
“That’s impossible.” Bile rose in Luke’s throat at the thought. The first shift felt like being ripped apart and then sewn back together with barbed wire. And for weeks after it felt like sand was sunk under your skin. Nothing felt right. To go through it as an adult was bad, but he’d never heard of anyone younger than fourteen surviving a change. And no one younger than fifteen had ever been a naturally born shapeshifter. “I didn’t realize you were bitten.”
Mel shook her head, “Nope, 100% the real deal. My parents were leopards, my grandparents were leopards. Before that, who knows?” She smiled but her eyes shone with the first hint of tears. She tilted her head back, probably to keep them from falling.
He hadn’t seen her other form yet, but he imagined a beautiful spotted beast slinking its way through the trees of his forest. He would love to run with her.
But that was beside the point, and it was never going to happen. “How did you do it, then?”
Her expression hardened, and then she grinned. It was a punch to the gut. “I was very determined.” He thought she would leave it at that. She turned to him, studying his profile. Luke had to keep utterly still to stop himself from flexing or doing something else equally embarrassing. After a moment, she continued. “They died, they were killed when I was eight.”
“Your parents?”
She nodded, “My whole family, as a matter of fact. I was the only survivor.” He wanted to ask her what did it. Not many monsters could take out a family of leopards. But some questions couldn’t be asked. She kept speaking. “The people who raised me weren’t the greatest. And there was one who was convinced that she could...” She cut herself off.
Luke waited.
“She was convinced that if I wasn’t around my kind, I wouldn’t become a shapeshifter. She thought that since I couldn’t shift yet, it could be stopped. And she tried her damnedest to make sure that it didn’t happen.” Mel looked away from him and bit her lip with a smile. “I was properly motivated to prove her wrong.”
Luke blew out a frustrated breath. He grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “But it’s not just motivation that lets us shift.”
She laced her fingers with his but didn’t look at their hands. She didn’t even look at him. “Are we speaking generally or specifically?”
He had to tread carefully. And he tried to remind himself that he was being a fool. There were a dozen people he could ask advice of, and not one of them had ever broken into his house and stolen a precious item from his vault. But he wanted to know what this woman thought, how she could help. Though he hadn’t completely lost his head. “There’s a girl in the pack, nearly nineteen, who is desperate to shift.”
He didn’t have to go any further for Mel to understand. “All her friends are doing it? She feels weak?”
Luke nodded. “And I don’t know what to tell her.” He wanted to say more, but was afraid that he’d said too much already.
Mel let out a breath. She held completely still while she thought. But he could feel the heat of he
r right next to him, coiled to strike out at any threat. Apparently she didn’t think that he was one. That satisfied him on a deep level, somewhere not even his worry about everything that was going on could penetrate.
“Is she full blooded?” she asked.
“Half, through her mother. Her father was turned later.” He tried to keep it clinical.
“That sucks.” She turned her shoulder completely towards him, placing lips just inches from his. “And I’m sorry, but I don’t know what to tell you.”
The regret on her face did something to him. It unfurled some long deadened emotion in his gut. Who he was seeing now wasn’t different than the playful thief who’d robbed him blind, but she was showing him this other side of herself. Someone who should have been impossible in light of her life.
And yet here she was.
“You’re not the only one.” He almost left right then. Whatever answers he was looking for, she didn’t have. But in the few minutes he’d been sitting with her, he felt more relaxed than he had in too long. That shouldn’t have happened in the presence of his prisoner. He didn’t care. “How many ways have you planned to escape so far?”
Mel leaned in, her breath licking against his ear. “Are you planning to forbid me from running?”
His cock twitched. He clamped a hand on the back of her neck and pulled her face to face. Their lips brushed lightly. It wasn’t a kiss, only a symptom of the closeness. With each word he spoke he got the tiniest taste of her, it only made him want more. “What would be the fun in that?”
He shouldn’t kiss her. He shouldn’t want to kiss her. But sitting so close that they couldn’t help from brushing their lips together, it wasn’t a choice. It was an imperative. While the need drove him, he forced himself to go slow. His lips pressed against hers, still for a moment, waiting for her to respond. To push him away or to let him in.
MEL DIDN’T EXPECT THE kiss. She should have. His hand was on the back of her neck and their lips were already touching. But Luke wasn’t the type to take advantage of a prisoner.
