by A. C. Arthur
With guilt pounding at his temples Eli wanted to pull out, to get off this bed and walk the hell away. But when he tried, something held him still. Her walls gripped his length, her thighs holding him tightly. She opened her eyes and looked right at him. Eli blinked, but she did not go away. The soft curve of her lips, the high tilt of her cheekbones, her smooth brown skin and her eyes, the golden hue of her cat, held him captive.
“Nivea,” he whispered as that painful clutching in his chest centered. He didn’t think he’d be able to take his next breath.
“Come for me, Eli,” she said, lifting her hands to flatten her palms on his chest. “Let go and come for me, darling. For me, Eli, just for me.”
He couldn’t and yet, how could he not? Breath eased through his chest as the warmth from her touch spread throughout him. Inside his cat purred and Eli watched her undulating beneath him, whispering over and over again, “Come for me, darling. Come for me.”
Until that was all he could do. His hands came to her wrists and he held tightly as his body stiffened over hers, his essence being pulled from him in thick jetting pulsations that felt more like he was emptying his soul.
Later, Eli would believe that he had done just that.
* * *
He’d left her in that room asleep, moving even more quietly than he ever had before, knowing that facing her at that moment was not going to be a good thing. As he left the compound he accepted that he was being a coward, as if the word were scrawled beneath the tattoo of his cat for all to see.
Now, hours later, he was pulling up in front of an old run-down apartment building in the south side of D.C. Cutting off the engine and letting his head fall back against the seat, he inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly.
The rogue was here.
* * *
She thought about him. Even now as she stepped out of her car and walked toward the building, Nivea could not get Eli out of her mind.
Something had changed between them this morning. She’d felt it in every stroke of his hips, every thrust of his hard length inside her. It was a feeling of completeness, a full and intense feeling that fit like the missing puzzle piece in Nivea’s life. She’d fallen asleep with a smile on her face and a lightness in her heart as she realized that Eli had just accepted the fact that they were mates. He probably hadn’t liked it, but he hadn’t been able to deny it as he’d locked gazes with her and gave her his release.
Nivea hadn’t moved a muscle when he’d awakened this morning, his hand moving softly over her hair, his breathing slow and steady. For once, in all the time she’d known him, Eli had seemed content. His lips had touched her forehead in the sweetest of kisses and then the air shifted, a coolness settled over the room, and Eli had eased from the bed. She’d known he was showering and getting dressed to leave and that he would not say a word to her as long as she lay pretending to be asleep.
She did not open her eyes or speak, but watched him through partially opened lids as he slipped out the door. Rolling over onto her back just seconds afterward, she wondered what the hell she was doing. Why hadn’t she said something? Called him on this foolish resistance he insisted on continuing?
With a sigh she realized she knew very well why. She wasn’t going to tell Eli what to do with his heart or his destiny. Sure, a Shadow knew its mate and once it found its true partner, none other would suffice. But Nivea believed in free will. She believed in love and commitment and loyalty—in spite of the fact that she’d never truly experienced them. No matter what her father had done to her she’d always vowed not to let it dictate her life, her happiness. So while there were some victims of abuse who could not sustain healthy relationships, or refused to even try, she was different. She wanted the normal, the real and pure love of two people, and if she couldn’t have that honestly and truly, then she would have nothing at all.
Eli’s silence had seemed to make that choice for her.
Shake it off, Cannon. Now’s not the time.
If she didn’t tell herself to move on, she might not be able to. That alone told Nivea she was in pretty damned deep with Eli Preston. Taking a concentrated breath, she yanked open the door that almost fell off the hinges with her efforts. With a frown she thought of how she wasn’t supposed to be on this little trip alone.
The plan had been for Caprise to join her, but she’d been drafted for babysitting duty. After the kidnapping, Nick and Ary rarely left Shya alone and when they absolutely had to, they only trusted people closest to them to care for her. Today was Caprise’s turn since Ary had a very important appointment with Kalina for her first ultrasound. So the hit they’d received from the shifter database on a group of suspected rogues in the south side D.C. area was on Nivea to investigate. Caprise had asked if she wanted to wait, to go the next day, but Nivea knew what they were up against. If these rogues were going around killing then it stood to reason they were just as hell-bent on exposure as Crowe and his hybrids. She’d decided to come alone.
Taking the stairs two at a time, her adrenaline buzzing with the scent sifting surely through the air, she came through a door on the top floor. Her cat was wide awake, moving just beneath her skin so that she had to roll her shoulders to appease it.
“Just chill,” she spoke aloud to the cat inside. Nivea loved the feeling of her heritage, knowing the power that rested just beneath the human skin, but she’d always been sure to keep it under control as well, to not let that hellion of a feline get the upper hand. If she hadn’t, Richard Cannon would have been dead a long time ago.
She walked slowly and steadily, knowing exactly which apartment she was headed to without checking the address she’d programmed into her phone. The rogue scent was calling to her, and … there was something else, someone else …
Her heartbeat thumped, her cat hissing the closer she came to the door. She didn’t dare speak, but kept her gaze locked on the door, and she heard it. The thinking was over, adrenaline pumped through her veins, the cat inside taking over as Nivea kicked in the door.
This wasn’t what she’d been expecting to see. Then again, there’d been no way she could have known what was going on behind that door.
Eli stood in the middle of the messy apartment. More than six feet long, over two hundred and fifty pounds, his mouth opening wide as the second warning roar was released. In front of him, with their backs to her were two more cats—a cougar and a cheetah, poised and ready for battle.
“Shit!” she cursed just as the cheetah turned in her direction and charged.
They were fast as hell so Nivea barely had a second to drop to all fours and shift before the cheetah was on her back. She reared back quickly, not giving it a chance to sink its teeth into her, tossing the cat across the floor. Then she was charging and pouncing. The cheetah moved, jumping onto the back of the couch. Nivea was faster this time, leaping up and taking a bite out of the cheetah’s flank. It hissed and fell back off the chair. Nivea continued battering the cat until it was in a corner, hissing and swatting until finally, tired of the nonsense, Nivea jumped on the cheetah’s back, sinking her teeth into its skull and biting down until its bones cracked and the cat crumpled to the ground.
Turning quickly, blood dripping from her teeth, flanks heaving from her efforts, Nivea saw her mate battling the cougar. It was a strong and well-trained Bosinian fighting Eli with vigor and even though Nivea knew full well Eli would emerge the victor, it didn’t stop her from leaping to his defense.
She jumped in front of the cougar, distracting it momentarily while Eli leapt from the marble countertop down onto its back. That didn’t immediately stop the cougar from hurtling at Nivea. She charged back and while Eli bit into the back of its head, she attacked its underbelly, both jaguars biting to kill.
When the furniture had finished being broken and scattered about the room and the roaring and hissing came to a stop, two cats stood, breathing heavily, glaring at each other. He was a big and beautiful panther, where Nivea’s jaguar was golden with rosettes so close they
sometimes looked to be big black blurs.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Eli yelled about two seconds after he shifted.
His naked body was in the face of her cat’s, staring down at it with rage unlike any she’d ever seen in him. No, that was not true, she’d seen it before, the day he was beating the crap out of Rimas.
The cat took a step back before Nivea shifted, shaking her head because the quick action always made her a little dizzy.
“I could ask you the same thing,” she shot back.
“But you won’t because I’m the commanding officer. And goddammit! What the hell, Cannon? Why are you here shifting and attacking fucking cats?”
“Attacking rogues, you mean? Last time I checked that was my job,” she snapped back.
“Your job is to do what I say, when I say.”
“That’s bullshit, Eli! My job is the same as yours, to keep our secret safe.”
“Well, you’re doing a hell of a job, coming in here shifting like that,” he roared back. “That cat could have killed you! It could have bitten down on your neck and…” His words trailed off as he closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose as if he were in some type of pain.
“Oh, you mean after you’d already shifted? What the hell was that? I walk in on two cats about to tear another’s throat out. What did you think I was going to do?”
There was nothing else she could have done. He was her mate and there was no way she could stand by and watch him be hurt, no way she wouldn’t fight side by side with him. Pain radiated through her chest at the thought that Eli wouldn’t understand that.
When he stalked past her instead of speaking another word she called after him, “Running away again, Eli? You’re becoming a pro at that.”
“Shut up!” he yelled over his shoulder as she tried valiantly not to look at the dimples in his muscled ass, or the power of his bare thighs.
She clamped her lips shut, not because he’d told her to, but rather because he wasn’t likely to listen to a word she had to say. Instead she turned around, staring at the brutalized rogue carcasses, wondering what the hell their connection was to all that was going on around them. Seconds later her face was covered and she stumbled back as Eli roughly put a shirt that smelled like cheesesteak subs over her head.
“What the hell? Are you crazy?” she asked as he lifted her arms and stuffed them through the large openings of the shirt.
“No. But you are if you think I’m going to let anybody come in here and see your naked ass!” he yelled before moving past her. “I’m calling this in.”
He reached down on the floor to where the shreds of his jeans were, picked up his cell phone, and put it to his ear. He’d obviously found some cargo shorts that fit without falling down his hips. His chest, however, was still bare, the jaguar tat on his arm taunting her.
“Use your com link, it’ll be quicker,” she told him.
“Don’t want everyone on duty to know about this.”
Nivea shrugged, not bothering to ask why, and pulled on the hem of her shirt to make sure all her assets were in fact covered. She walked around the room, thinking these rogues weren’t cats, they were actually pigs. Dirty and disgusting pigs that didn’t know the meaning of a trash can or Pine-Sol. Moving around she looked for anything that would connect these two rogues to what was going on—either at the cabin with Agent Wilson, or the hospital with Rimas. Something that would pull all of this nonsense together.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Eli said from behind her. “I’m sure somebody heard all the noise.”
Nivea kept moving.
“The Sanchez brothers are on their way,” he said.
She turned to him then. “Did they know you were coming here?”
Instead of supplying an answer, Eli asked a question. “What are you doing here, Nivea? Did you follow me?”
Nivea rolled her eyes and moved into the kitchen area, looking over the filthy countertops. “Get over yourself, Eli. I have a job to do too.”
“And how did your job land you here?” he asked. “And don’t give me another flippant remark. Answer me, Nivea. What the hell are you doing here?”
She sighed then, figuring it didn’t make sense for both of them to try and keep a secret that was bound to come out anyway. “We’re on the same team here. Caprise, Kalina, and I pieced together the fact that a rogue was in that cabin with Agent Wilson. Why? A rogue was also in the hospital room and killed Rimas. Why again? They’re trying to get our attention,” she said finally. “Or rather trying to keep our attention diverted so we won’t focus on the true threat, Crowe and those hybrids. Or possibly someone who is controlling both Crowe and the rogues.”
Eli was already shaking his head. “Rogues would not be working with hybrids.”
“All I know is that we’re here chasing after them instead of hunting Crowe as we should be. Don’t you wonder why that is? Why were they with Agent Wilson and why kill Rimas?”
“This is not how rogues work,” Eli said, but she could tell he was thinking over her words. He was looking around now, just as she was.
They both stopped when they heard a phone ringing.
“It’s not mine,” he told her, going completely still.
“Not mine either,” she announced, moving out of the kitchen and following the sound.
She kicked it when she was about two steps away from Eli. He bent down and picked it up, gliding his finger across the screen to answer.
“Hello?” he spoke into it. “Hello?”
When there was no answer he pulled the phone away from his ear and looked down at it. With a frown he turned it so that Nivea could see the screen as well.
“Boden,” she whispered.
* * *
Nick tossed the cell phone onto the conference table. It flipped over and landed flat just a couple inches shy of the speaker console in the center.
“If Boden Estevez is alive, you can bet he’s not working alone.” Sebastian Perry’s voice sounded throughout the room.
“I knew that bastard wasn’t dead,” Jace Maybon, Pacific Zone Faction Leader, added, a string of curses following that declaration.
“How did you know?” Kalina asked.
The First Female had been seated next to her mate, a tall glass of milk centered on a blue square napkin in front of her. The milk was flavored, strawberry, because Kalina couldn’t stand the taste of white milk. Jax stood two steps to her right, and Baxter two feet behind her, hands clasped in front of him.
To say that security around Rome and Kalina would be heightened was an understatement. Eli stood directly behind Rome, while Ezra was on the left side of the table, within arm’s reach of Nick. Every high ranking leader of the Assembly would now have their first guard and a second one. Females would have four. Everyone would be armed and ready to kick ass at a moment’s notice, no questions asked. This was the state of the Assembly.
“A few months back I reported that Bianca Adani was looking for representation through my agency,” Jace began. “Now, I know I’m damned good at what I do. We represent the top A-list actors in the world so I can see why someone serious about breaking into the business would look our way. But resumes very rarely make it to my personal e-mail and they’re almost never followed up by a video delivered right to my front door.”
“You never told us about a video,” Cole Linden, Central Zone Faction Leader interrupted. “It must have had tits and ass in it for you to keep quiet.”
“Don’t be crass, Linden,” Jace shot back. “I didn’t say anything because there was nothing to report. I just found it odd that all her information was coming straight to me. When my assistant checked with others throughout the agency, none of them reported receiving the same submission. We all know there’s no such thing as coincidence.”
“How does any of that relate to Boden?” Nivea asked, receiving surprised looks from everyone in the room.
Everyone except for Caprise, who was barely hiding her knowing smi
rk. Eli frowned, because he didn’t like Nivea being the center of attention, for any reason.
Bas, Cole, and Jace were all on speakerphone so they couldn’t see who had asked the question.
“She’s right,” Kalina interjected. “That doesn’t sound like it relates to Boden at all.”
A throat was cleared but Eli couldn’t tell which one of the FLs on the other end of the speaker it was.
“My grandparents spent their later years traveling the globe, visiting all of the rain forests that had become home to Shadow tribes. During the time they were in the Sierra Leone rain forest they heard of a grand love affair, the rejoining of the tribes some had called it because it was a Topètenia and a Lormenia,” Jace told them. “When my grandmother finally had a chance to see this couple she couldn’t believe it. Boden was mated to Acacia, the daughter of the Lormenian leader, Teodoro.”
There was an audible gasp from somewhere at the other end of the room and Eli saw Ezra’s lips going thin, a muscle ticking in his jaw. He was glad to have the safety of his sunglasses. Nobody could see his surprise or possibly the anger that was growing within him, without access to his eyes. He stood with his legs slightly spread, hands fisted in front of him, a rush of emotion swirling around like a growing storm inside.
“Wait a minute.” X spoke up this time. “You’re saying that your grandmother had proof that Boden was alive years ago and never thought to tell anyone?”
“She told my mother, who assumed her mother was going senile or something, possibly suffering from some disease she’d picked up throughout her travels. She dismissed the rantings of an old woman who wanted things between the shifters to be like in the old days. My mother didn’t speak of it because she feared the Elders may have hunted down her mother, issuing the same death sentence they had to Boden.”
“That would not have happened,” Elder Alamar spoke up.
