by Lisa Childs
“Maybe I can,” he amended his comment, his sexy mouth curving into a slight grin.
“But the society isn’t the only danger she’s in,” Paige said. “What about this other creature or creatures? You’ve said there are two of them.”
Ben groaned. “I shouldn’t have told you about them.”
“We promised,” she reminded him. “No more secrets.” At least not between the two of them. But they kept secrets—the secrets of the society—from all their human friends. “Are they a danger to her?”
“The pack has the same law the society does,” Ben reminded her. “But the one she shot—he was the one who brought her here for me to treat.”
“You think he cares about her?”
Ben shrugged. “I don’t know what to think about Warrick James. The night I treated his gunshot wounds he was furious with her.”
“So he could have been the one who attacked her in the alley,” Paige said. She wanted to meet this creature who was threatening her best friend.
“I don’t know if he attacked her, or if she was attacked because of him,” Ben said. “But I feel like he might be more responsible than the society.”
Or was that only what he wanted to believe because he and Paige and the child they’d adopted were all members of the society? It could have been a vampire who’d attacked Kate. And if that was the case, she was lucky she had only taken a blow to her head instead of a fang to her throat. But if she kept investigating, Kate was too good a detective to not figure out the secret and get herself killed.
*
Goose bumps lifted on Kate’s skin as she stepped into the thick darkness of the alley. Not even her flashlight beam could chase away the shadows this late at night. The anonymous call, promising to reveal everything she wanted to know, had lured her back to the alley. She had considered that it was just a ploy to get her here—to hurt her again. Yet she hadn’t been able to ignore it. Zantrax PD made it a policy to follow up on every silent observer tip. Maybe this tip was even better since it had come into her direct line and had been traced back to a public phone near Club Underground. A real witness could have made that call. Maybe Bernie.
Or the person who’d struck her that night…
She was a detective. Whatever risk it took to learn what she wanted to know was a risk she was willing to take. Of course she wasn’t usually foolish enough to go into a potentially dangerous situation without backup. But this was the second night she had taken that risk. Third, if she counted that first night when she’d chased Warrick James into the alley. But then she hadn’t wanted to risk his killing that man.
And now, she hadn’t requested backup because she didn’t want to risk her reputation. Her “missing” body case had undone the respect she’d fought for years to gain in the department. He had ridiculed her the most. Not the man she’d shot but the man from her past, the man she wished she could leave in her past— forgotten only to surface in rare nightmares to remind her to never make that mistake again.
To never trust.
But they worked together. He worked nights, though, and she worked days. Except now when she was off the clock but not really off duty.
Tonight she was more prepared, though. Her gun wasn’t in her holster but clasped tightly in her right hand while her left grasped the flashlight. She shone the beam around the alley, illuminating only one small circle of darkness at a time. Nothing moved in the shadows, though.
Well, nothing human. Small feet scurried across the asphalt. Confident she was alone, Kate gave in to a shudder of revulsion over the nearness of the rats.
“Hello?” she called out. “Anyone here?”
Why call her if the person had no intention of showing up? He or she had gone to the trouble of disguising his or her voice so that it was unrecognizable. Maybe it was just a joke. Since that night when they had all searched for a body no one had been able to find, her coworkers had subjected her to many jokes. Like the bloody dummy left in her desk chair. And her locker and even her car…
If only she had been able to arrest Warrick the other night…to bring him in to the department and show his scars. She could have proved that she hadn’t imagined it all. That she hadn’t imagined him. He was real.
But too strong for her to have overpowered without her gun. Hell, when she’d had her gun she hadn’t been able to stop him. At least not permanently. He had survived injuries that would have killed anyone else.
Was he real?
He had disappeared from her bedroom just as quickly as he had the first night she’d discovered him there. One minute he had been there, almost as if he’d been watching over and protecting her after her concussion. Then the next minute he’d been gone…before she’d been able to find her gun or her cuffs. Before she’d been able to arrest him.
Or make love with him…
She wasn’t sure which she’d wanted more. Or at least she wasn’t willing to admit which she’d wanted more.
“Warrick?” Could he have been her caller? Somehow she doubted he would have gone to the trouble of altering his voice, though.
Who would have gone to the trouble of luring her here only to not show up? It had to be a joke. She sighed over her wasted time. But it didn’t have to be wasted. She could finish the investigation a concussion had ended those few nights ago. Instead of putting away her gun and putting down the flashlight, she leaned her shoulder against the Dumpster and shoved.
The metal creaked and squeaked as it edged slightly across the asphalt. Hell, she hadn’t entirely gained back her strength after the concussion. But the Dumpster seemed heavier tonight. It certainly smelled as if it was full since mingled putrid odors wafted out and overwhelmed her.
One scent—sweet and metallic—was new.
She rose up on tiptoe and shone the flashlight inside the Dumpster. The beam illuminated a man’s face, his skin pale but for the dirt and grease smeared across it and his beard.
“Bernie!” She recognized the homeless man from whom she had taken the statement about the people he had seen flying from the alley.
Maybe that was how Warrick disappeared so quickly from place to place. Usually she would never consider such a fantastic explanation, but at least it was an explanation. And that was more than she had managed to discover on her own.
She waved the flashlight in the homeless man’s face. “Bernie!”
The vagrant’s eyes were closed. Had he passed out drunk? She could smell the liquor, too, that saturated his clothes and oozed from his pores. The beam of light shining in his face didn’t even stir him.
Her pulse quickened and she moved the flashlight down. Horror, over what she saw, rushed up to gag her. But she choked it down just enough to scream.
*
He had already been tracking her scent, not surprised that it was leading him to the alley, when he heard her scream. The sound of the terror in her voice raised all the hair on Warrick’s body. She needed him.
But could he come to her like this?
It was after midnight, so he had taken his other form—the form he was from midnight to dawn every night. The form that might frighten her more than what was already in the alley with her. Unless…
He ran to her, legs straining to close the distance between them before she could be hurt again. Before he could hurt her…
But when he burst into the alley, he found her alone, staring into the Dumpster. What had she discovered this time that she shouldn’t have?
Then she turned and discovered…him. Fear had already drained her face of all color, leaving her skin deathly pale in the dark. Now her eyes widened, and another scream rose to her open lips. But she bit it back, as if afraid of startling him. “Stay away,” she murmured, cowering from him.
But the Dumpster was at her back, and he stood between her and the only exit. He was down on all fours, hoping to resemble more dog than werewolf. But dogs weren’t this big, this powerful, and she knew it.
“What are you…?” she asked the questio
n, but he doubted she expected an answer.
She did not know that he could speak in the same voice he used in his human form. She didn’t know anything about werewolves, and she could never learn because the rules of the pack were as strict as the rules of the Secret Vampire Society. Perhaps stricter, because no exceptions were ever made within the pack.
At least they hadn’t been when his father had been the leader. His uncle was unlikely to make exceptions, either, as his pride demanded he be as fearsome a leader as his brother had been—even though he was not nearly as ruthless.
“Get back,” she said, her voice soft but the command unmistakable. “I’m not going to let you finish him off.”
Finish him off? Who? Just what the hell was inside the Dumpster?
He moved closer, hoping to catch a glimpse. But on all fours, he could not see inside the metal bin. He wanted to talk to her, wanted to ease the fear that had her gripping her gun and flashlight tightly as if she was ready to use either as a weapon. But his speaking to her, in his present form, would only scare her more—and put her in more danger.
“Get away!” she said, her voice rising and cracking with her panic. “Leave me alone!”
If only he could…
Every time he left her, trouble found her. Usually here in this damn alley. He moved closer to the Dumpster, needing to know what she had found this time. He needed to know which secret she was at greater risk of discovering.
But in moving closer to the Dumpster, he also moved closer to her. The gun shook as she trained the barrel on him. “I know you can’t understand me,” she said, “but I’m begging you to just leave me—and him—alone.”
Just as he had that first night they’d met, he ignored her commands. And he surged up on his hind legs. With his front ones braced on the edge of the Dumpster, he peered inside. And now he understood her horror and the scream she had probably involuntarily uttered.
He didn’t recognize the man, but he recognized the wound. Someone had torn out the throat of the victim—as he had threatened to do to his enemy. But this man was not his enemy. Neither was Kate.
But she didn’t realize that. Trembling with fear, she stared at him—her eyes wide as if she was afraid to blink in case he attacked.
He wanted to say her name, wanted to soothe her fears. But she probably thought he’d done this— either in his present form or his other one. She had been there the night he’d made this threat to Reagan; that was why she’d shot him.
She looked about to shoot him again. But instead of backing away from her, of leaving her alone, he stepped closer. If only she could see that he was no threat to her…
That he wanted to soothe her fears.
But she breathed fast, in frantic pants. “Please, don’t make me do this…”
He wasn’t growling, wasn’t snarling—wasn’t doing anything to intimidate her but being. And that, with his mammoth size, was intimidating enough.
“Please…” The plea slipped through her lips with a whimper.
She didn’t want to shoot him tonight any more than she had that first night when she’d broken up his fight in this very alley. He understood that now. That he had left her no choice.
He had a choice—he could speak to her, could explain what he was. He wasn’t sure that she would understand, but he was sure that knowing the pack’s secret would put her in danger. No, he had no choice, either. He would rather endure whatever pain she might inflict on him than put Kate’s life at risk. But that urge to comfort and protect her had him moving closer to her.
“Stay back,” she yelled at him, as if raising her voice might make him understand—if he really was just the creature she thought he was.
He had moved too close to her—so close that he’d backed her right up against the Dumpster behind her—the Dumpster she thought held his last victim. And she was scared that she would be his next.
If only he could assure her…
But he had no choice. And neither did she.
She’d shot him once to protect another man. Tonight she lifted the gun and she shot him to protect herself.
The bullet seared through his pelt and then his skin, burying deep in his flesh. He dropped to the asphalt as blood gushed from his wound.
And he heard her scream again…
Chapter 5
His blood had been spilled again. Even in his human form, Reagan’s sense of smell was extrasensory. It was past dawn now, but no light shone into the alley. If his vision wasn’t extrasensory, too, he might not have noticed the crime scene tape cordoning off the entrance. He’d seen it as he’d stepped right over it.
Warrick had been hurt here. Again. Why the hell wouldn’t he just leave Zantrax? Did he realize that Reagan was still here? Or was it because of the woman that Warrick stayed?
The human detective had shot him once already. Had she shot him again? Warrick was lucky she had no silver bullets. But she wasn’t lucky. She would need at least one silver bullet. Because Reagan picked up someone else’s scent in the alley and he knew that no one was safe now.
The real danger had arrived in Zantrax.
*
“You look like hell.”
Kate flinched at the man’s voice, but she wouldn’t let him see her fear. Not anymore. She didn’t even glance up from her computer screen. Keeping her focus on the report she had to write up about the body—poor, drunk Bernie—she had found in the alley last night, she offhandedly replied, “You always did know how to sweet-talk me.”
Occasionally he had talked with his fists, too. That was why their marriage had been brief. And painful. So painful that it wasn’t a mistake she had ever dared to make again.
Detective Dwight Beckenridge was a decorated officer with Zantrax PD. He had taken a bullet meant for his partner. He had saved a teenage girl from her kidnapper. He had been everyone’s hero…but hers.
But how could she have known? How could she have seen the dark side that no one else ever had?
With his light blond hair and light blue eyes, he appeared more angel than devil. Only she knew the evil that lurked within him.
“Kate?” he called her name now with concern. Probably because they were in a public place, in the detective bull pen with only short cubicle walls separating their desks, he acted as if he actually gave a damn about her. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “Fine. Just busy.” And she wished he was, too, at his desk across the room, instead of standing next to hers.
He reached out, but she jerked her head back before he made contact with the bandage on her forehead. “You’re not fine. How’d you get this?”
She met his gaze then, hers full of the resentment she had never overcome. “Walked into a door.”
That was what she used to tell people when he’d left bruises on her. But that had only happened twice. The first time she had accepted his apologies and explanations. No one understood the stress and frustration of their job better than another officer. But the second time…
She had packed her bags and filed divorce papers. She wasn’t about to become one of the statistics whose domestic abuse reports she had taken for years. She should have reported him, too. She knew that, but other officers would have been more willing to believe that humans that weren’t human flew out of the alley than that their hero was really a monster.
“Kate, are you involved with someone?”
His image came to her mind—all that long black hair and those eerie topaz eyes. The dog—or wolf—or whatever that thing had been in the alley had reminded her of Warrick. They both had those same eerie eyes.
Maybe that was why she had called her friend Paige’s husband before she’d called the police. She’d wanted him to help that thing.
“Is he violent?” Dwight asked, his voice thick with emotion and concern that actually seemed real.
She shook her head. “I’m not involved with anyone. And if I was, I would know better than to get mixed up with another violent man.”
Dwight
flinched now, as if she’d hit him. She had tried once, but he hadn’t even felt her punch. Like Warrick, he’d seemed superhumanly strong. Invincible.
Too bad the vagrant hadn’t been.
Remembering how violently poor Bernie had died, she shuddered.
“Something’s going on, Kate,” Dwight persisted. He planted his palms on the edge of her desk and leaned close. “I know you’ll never forgive me for what happened between us. Hell, I’ll never forgive myself. But please know that I still care about you. I want to help you.”
God, he was good at spewing all those pretty lies, at inspiring confidence and admiration and forgiveness. That was why there had been a second time—because he was that good. She had never hated him more.
“I don’t need your help,” she said. “I don’t need anything from you but for you to keep your distance.” That had been their agreement. She wouldn’t report what he’d done to her as long as he didn’t contest the divorce and he stayed the hell away from her. Despite nearly ten years passing since they had made that agreement, Kate wasn’t about to let him renege on the terms of it.
“You do need my help,” he said. “You’re just too damn proud to admit it.” He sighed, his breath stirring her hair. “You’re getting mixed up in something too dangerous for you to handle alone.”
She turned to him now and studied his handsome face through narrowed eyes. “What do you know about it?”
His voice hard, he adamantly told her, “I know that you need to stay far away from Club Underground.”
She could have informed him that her best friend owned the place, but she shared nothing of her personal life with her ex. So she just asked, “Why?”
“You saw what happened to that homeless man,” he reminded her. “You don’t want to be next.”
He hadn’t come to the scene—which was good since she had been distraught after shooting that…thing. So how did he know what had happened to Bernie? Sure, someone else in the department might have said something to him. But he acted as if he had seen the horrific scene himself—not just heard about it.
“Is that a threat?” she asked.
