by C. J. Barry
They stumbled along, forming a strange team as Dempsey gave the directions through the black maze of tunnels and Seneca carried the gun.
After what seemed an eternity, they turned a corner, and Seneca halted. A single Shifter stood dead ahead. Dempsey wasn’t talking much anymore, and she’d figured he was internalizing his pain and unable to battle. Which left her on her own.
She dragged him forward, gun at the ready. The shadow zoomed toward them at alarming speed.
“Stop right there,” she yelled, raising the disrupter. “Or I’ll shoot you where you stand.”
When he didn’t stop, she shoved Dempsey to the side, aimed, and shot the Shifter. He spun backward, but stayed on his feet. The disrupter was fucking useless. She’d have better luck hitting Shifters in the head with it.
“That’s one,” she said, bluffing. “The next one will kill you. I’m in no mood for games. So you let us pass, and I let you live.”
“Or I could shoot you both,” he replied.
These Shifters weren’t all stupid. She opted for a dose of reality. “Well, you could but Skinman is dead, and you aren’t getting paid to die anymore.”
“Says you.”
“Just use your nose. Smell anything familiar?”
It only took a few seconds for him to detect Skinman’s heavy scent and blood. “He’s dead?”
“Unless you guys can walk around with a steel rod through your belly. So I can kill you and you die for nothing. Or you let us pass and do something else with your life.”
There was no answer, and the shadow didn’t move. Close enough; she’d already wasted enough time. She shouldered Dempsey again, and he gave a pained groan pain as they squeezed past the Shifter. After they’d passed him, Seneca turned. He was gone.
There was a sliver of light straight ahead, and Seneca saw the glow of the moonlight beyond it. “Almost there, Dempsey.”
He was breathing hard and loud as he pulled her to stop. “Need to shift. Can’t be seen.”
His head was down, his teeth gritted in agony. She asked, “Can you do that in your condition?”
“I’ll try. If not, you have to shift me.”
Sudden panic set in, and she shook her head vehemently. “No way. You’ve seen what happens when I do that. It hurts.”
He raised his face to the ceiling, crazy with pain. “Won’t have a choice.”
“Forget it. Stay in Shifter form.”
“Too risky.”
“Well, I’m not force-shifting you,” she said, and she meant it. He needed all his strength to mend himself. “We just need to get you to the car—”
Dempsey pushed himself away from her and stood unsteadily. Before she could stop him, he shifted, and the tunnel echoed with his anguished growl.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Seneca wrestled her half-dead partner into the car without anyone seeing them. She slid into the driver’s seat and fought the crippling exhaustion that swept over her. Her night was just beginning. Dempsey had managed to shift to his human form on his own, but just as she feared, it took everything out of him.
His breathing was shallow, his coloring bad, the gaping wound in his gut had already soaked through his clothes, and she was covered in his blood. If he were a normal human, he’d be finished. With shapeshifters, who knew? She laid her throbbing head on the steering wheel to think. She had basic first aid training, but she certainly wasn’t a medic. She bit her lower lip and finally decided she had exactly one option.
She turned the ignition and headed for home. As she drove, she morbidly realized that if Dempsey died, most of her troubles would be over. She would have proven that he was no better at capturing Shifters than human agents were. No report would be filed. The Committee would abandon their prototype Shifter plan.
She stopped in traffic and looked at Dempsey. And if he died, XCEL would be in more trouble than they could handle. And that was the damn truth.
The light turned, and she jammed the gas pedal.
Noko was waiting for her when she pulled up front. They hustled Dempsey into the house and got him into the second-floor guest bedroom with major effort. If he didn’t have any broken bones before, he probably did now.
They rolled him onto the bed. There were clean towels and sheets at the foot of the bed, and a pan of water and bandages on the nightstand. But Seneca was beginning to doubt any of it would help.
As he lay in bed, Seneca watched the shadow of his Primary form hovering around him, weak and disorganized. It didn’t look right, and she was worried it meant something really bad for a Shifter.
What happened if he couldn’t hold his form together? Was it like breathing, where it just kind of took care of itself? Or would he simply fall apart at a molecular level? Would human medicine work on him? She knew shapeshifters used human DNA to form themselves a human body, but where Shifter ended and human began was unknown. If he survived this, she was going to make him give her a crash course in Shifter anatomy.
“Did he say anything before he lost consciousness?” Noko asked her as she used scissors to carefully cut away his shirt to check his wounds.
“Nothing. All I know is that he doesn’t have a Shifter doctor. I’m not sure there are any,” she said. “He sustained his injuries in Primary form, impaled on a steel pole. Then he used a lot of energy to shift himself to human.” She took a deep breath because her voice was shaking. “I told him to stay in Shifter form. He could help heal himself.”
“He didn’t want to jeopardize you or your mission,” Noko said matter-of-factly.
“I know.” Seneca was going to kick his ass for it too.
Noko checked his eyes. “Finish undressing him. Clean his wounds as well as you can. I need to make some tea.” Then she stood up and walked out.
Seneca looked after her. Undress him? By herself? She looked down at Dempsey. He outweighed her by at least fifty pounds. It was a miracle she’d gotten him this far at all. She took a deep breath. If he could shift himself when he was half-dead, she could do this.
It took her ten minutes to cut, tug, and remove his clothes. After, she sat on the side of bed and surveyed the damage. Aside from the stomach wound, he was covered in bruises and abrasions. And that was just outside. He was sure to have internal injuries that were far more serious.
The blood, flesh, and gore turned her stomach. Not that she hadn’t seen it all before, but not . . . This was personal. She stopped herself. No, Dempsey was her partner and he needed her. Seneca shoved aside her emotions and detached herself from the task at hand like she’d been trained to do.
She dipped the towel in the tub of warm water to gently remove the blood. She patted disinfectant over the cuts and pressed clean towels to the bigger wounds and bruises. There was a pile of bloody discarded towels by the time she finished. She pulled a sheet over him, but to her dismay, his shadow still wavered uncontrollably.
She sat beside him and brushed hair from his face. Damn you, Dempsey. She didn’t want to bury another partner. Didn’t want to bury him. She laid her hand flat on his sternum and closed her eyes. His skin felt much too warm. Through her palm, she felt his heartbeat, his lungs fill and empty, and something else . . . She squeezed her eyes together as the familiar connection began to form. There was pain and struggle deep inside, as if he was being torn apart in some internal battle only he waged.
Her first instinct was to pull away, leave him to do battle alone, but she couldn’t. Then he stirred and clumsily threw his hand over hers, pinning it. She looked into his face, but he didn’t seem to be waking. Her hand burned between his grip and his chest. She felt energy pass between them, sensed the desperation within him.
As the connection strengthened, the bedroom slowly faded away into the distance—the same way it had in the doorway when he’d caught her spying. She felt darkness overtake her and fought the urge to escape. He needed her.
Sounds and voices came first, and she was drawn toward them. The darkness was replaced by a blurry scene that shar
pened slowly into steel walls and floors. A low-pitched rumble resonated through her body; a hum filled her ears. She was kneeling on the floor in a darkened, still room.
Lying on the floor before her was a woman. Not a Shifter but not quite human either. Slender build, distinctly feminine features, long hair. She was facedown, but her head was turned and her eyes opened. Blood had flowed from her throat and pooled around her head. Her face had been beaten badly, and a necklace was wrapped tightly around her neck, embedded in a deep wound.
Seneca followed the woman’s dead eyes to her outstretched hand. One of her fingers rested at the edge of a symbol drawn in blood—a circle with a line through it. What did it mean?
And then pain ripped through her. Unbearable grief, intense anger, abject failure flooded every nerve ending. Seneca found herself trapped in emotional overload. Stop! she cried and lurched back, breaking the connection. She fell hard, jarring her body and mind. Her thoughts reeled and the room spun as she struggled to recover bits of reality and pieces of herself. Time ticked by before she finally shook the last remnants of images that did not belong to her.
When she opened her eyes, she was lying on the bedroom floor looking up. What just happened? She struggled to sit up, light-headed and wobbly, and checked on Dempsey. He looked exactly the same.
She sat back on the floor and rubbed her eyes. The vision was clear and felt as real as the carpet under her. She’d been with him, been in his mind, and experienced what he had. But where? It could have been the Shifter ship, that would make sense. And the woman had to be his wife. The necklace matched the one in his apartment. Seneca was sure of it.
He’d lied. His wife didn’t die in the crash. She’d been murdered, strangled with the necklace. Who would want to kill his wife? So many questions, and so much pain. She looked at Dempsey and saw his memories. Memories that were now hers. It complicated things.
Noko walked in carrying a tray, and her eyebrows rose when she saw her. Seneca couldn’t even begin to explain and stated the obvious. “I fell off the bed.”
Noko hummed. She placed the tray next to the bed and opened the bedroom closet. From it, she retrieved a two-foot-tall wooden mask and set it on top of the dresser at the end of the bed. Seneca had never seen it before. She would have remembered. One half of the crudely carved face was painted red and the other black. Long, black coarse hair hung down each side.
Seneca pulled herself to her feet. “What’s with the mask?”
“It will help to bring his two halves together,” Noko said simply.
Seneca eyed it. Yeah, and it would creep her out to no end.
Noko handed her a cup of tea. “This will help you heal.”
She glanced in the mirror. The right side of her face was bruised, and the rest was scratched and smeared with dried blood. Her T-shirt was bloody, torn at the shoulder, and her skin scraped underneath. It’d been a hell of a night.
Seneca sipped her tea while Noko took a seat on the edge of the bed, facing Dempsey. Noko placed her palms over his eyes, her fingers on his scalp. Seneca heard her murmur soft words, and the teacup froze halfway to her mouth when the skin under Noko’s hands began to glow green. Dempsey’s shadow wavered and stilled as if listening. Then it turned to a pale shade of green.
What the hell? Seneca shook her head. That was impossible. On the other hand, she could force Shifters to shift. Anything was possible.
Noko moved her hands to Dempsey’s torso and her fingers stretched over the wound. She murmured softly again and the wound glowed brightly with an unseen power. It spread out across his human form all the way to his Shifter shadow. The struggle subsided, soothed at last, as his shadow tightened around him like a thick glove.
Somewhere in the back of Seneca’s mind, an old memory surfaced of her mother touching her knee where Seneca had cut it. A green glow with healing warmth. And then just as quickly, the memory was gone.
Noko lifted her hands and looked at Seneca. “He needs rest. We will give him some tea when he awakes.”
Seneca put the cup down, completely confused, especially since Noko wasn’t the slightest bit affected by any of this. “Wait, wait. What did you just do to him?”
Noko’s eyes shone with wisdom. “I will tell you when you believe.”
“What does believing have to do with that?” she asked, pointing to the green cocoon surrounding him. “He’s green.”
“It is healing power.”
Seneca sighed. Noko wasn’t going to tell her. “Okay, whatever. Is he going to stay that way? People will notice.”
“He will return to normal when the healing is done,” Noko said. “Take a shower now. Tend to your wounds. I will wait here until you get back. You must stay with him tonight.”
Seneca closed her eyes for a moment. “Why?”
“If he becomes restless or his form begins to separate, come get me,” Noko replied, her tone firm.
Seneca sighed. Noko had great patience, but when she made up her mind, that was that.
“Fine.” Seneca set down her tea and walked past the creepy mask to the bathroom. She stripped and took an extra-long hot shower that threatened to put her to sleep for twelve hours. She checked her body in the mirror. She was a mess, but nothing major. Bumps, bruises, scrapes, and a sore shoulder. Sadly, the usual.
As soon as she’d changed into a soft T- shirt and shorts, she returned to Noko and noticed that Dempsey seemed to look better. Noko stood and walked out of the room without a word, leaving Seneca alone with a glowing green human shapeshifter and the reservations that came with him. Like where she was going to sleep. There were no chairs, her body hurt all over, and she could vouch that the floor was not at all comfy.
Screw it. She grabbed a spare blanket and threw it over him. If she didn’t touch him, she should be safe from whatever lurked in his mind. Whatever happened, happened to him, not her. She had her own nightmarish past to deal with.
Then she got another blanket for herself and crawled into bed next to him. His body heat wrapped around her in seconds, and the promise of sleep overshadowed the hellish last few hours.
She looked at the mask staring back at her in all its creepiness, and closed her eyes.
You can’t scare me. I see shapeshifters.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Max came to with a rush, followed by pain, heat, and hunger. His skin was burning, every muscle ached, and his head pounded with each heartbeat. He tried not to move and simply concentrated on holding the excruciating combination at bay. When he finally opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was a ceiling fixture that wasn’t his and a room he didn’t recognize. Light shone from outside a single door and there was a strange-looking red and black mask on a dresser beside it.
Faced with the unknown, he went on the defensive, drawing a fresh wave of hurt when he tried to move. Then he felt a warm body next to his, saw the long silky black hair and bare neck. He exhaled and calmed his racing heart.
He let Seneca’s unique scent fill his mind. Her soft bottom pressing against his thigh took care of the rest of him. He relaxed, knowing he was safe because Seneca was here. He breathed deeply and noted that her scent filled the room. This had to be her house, and she’d brought him here after . . .
The battle. The shifting—Had he done it himself or had she forced him? He couldn’t recall, but he did remember the look of horror on her face and her refusal when he’d asked her to do it. He remembered how it made him feel . . . good. Like she cared. Because one thing he’d learned about Seneca Thomas was that she didn’t pull any punches.
He had a name too. Hager, the killer of his wife. Max let the victory sink in. He’d searched for two years for that man. Now he actually had a chance to stop Ell’s murderer and rid all Shifters of the traitor who had betrayed them to the Govan government. It occurred to Max that that second reason had never been a consideration before last night. He wasn’t sure where it came from, but suddenly, everything was clear. Ell hadn’t left the symbol of the traitor in h
er blood so that Max could avenge her death. She’d left it so he could stop the traitor who’d helped Govan destroy the Shifter race. She wanted him and his race to survive here.
Max felt the lull of peace for the first time in years. As if he’d been set free from an invisible prison. Anger melted away, leaving determination. Hager wouldn’t get a chance to betray his people again.
Then Seneca sighed softly and pressed the length of her back to him, and all thought vanished. Max’s body reacted with alarming speed. Hunger swamped him, dredging up a yearning he thought he’d buried long ago. Against all better judgment, he turned on his side toward her. Her warmth penetrated his skin and bones, offering both comfort and discomfort.
He ignored the sexual edge his body hovered on and wrapped one arm around her—slowly, carefully. Just for a moment, he wanted to hold her, without any strings or any baggage or anyone standing between them. She nuzzled him, and he closed his eyes to savor it all.
This is wrong, his mind warned.
He brushed off the warning and concentrated on how good she felt. He’d had more than one sexual encounter with human women. But Seneca was different—dangerous and sexy and totally, totally off-limits. Which was why his lips brushed against her hair. It was as silky as it looked.
His free hand slid up and against Seneca’s belly. Soft but firm. At that moment, everything was okay. No past, no future to think about. He let his fingertips trace the fabric over her skin. Human touch, it was an amazing thing. More sensitive than his people’s and highly prized on this world. He could see why. The human body was the perfect vessel for tactile pleasure and worth every effort it took to replicate it.
His fingers slipped off her shirt and onto bare skin. He inhaled sharply at the rush of blood to his erection. He wanted her, all right, but there was no way she’d want him. Or was there? She’d kissed him in the tunnel, been right there with him when he went too far. She hadn’t backed down then and . . . that was when he felt Seneca’s body stiffen.
“Men.”
