“On the left, there’s a family. The right occupied, but two doors down is for rent. We could contact the agent in the morning—”
“No, I want in tonight,” Heath interrupted. “Coltrane.”
“Sir.” Deja’s companion left her side reluctantly, and Heath gritted his teeth.
“I understand you can jimmy a lock?”
The black man postured and held his hands out, palms up. “I can get in anywhere. No problem.”
Heath cut his eyes to Deja in time to see her roll hers, but her expression showed amusement. For no reason at all, jealousy rose in Heath, and he tamped it down. “I need you to get us in that house quick and quiet. I want it done yesterday.”
“Got it.” Coltrane turned. “Deja, you want to go with me, be my assistant?”
“No,” Heath snapped.
Deja strode closer to him. “He needs a lookout, Heath. Don’t be unreasonable.”
Allowing the two of them to be alone was not in his plan, but all eyes were on him. Heath hitched his shoulders. “You’ve got Joe. Move out. The rest of us will follow in ten. You’d better have the path clear for us.”
“Got it.” The word left the black man’s lips in more of a snarl than anything else. Heath wound up, ready for a challenge. Coltrane stared at him, nostrils flared, and Heath willed the man to try something so he could cut him down. At last, Coltrane spun on his heel, and he and Joe left the group. When they reached the deep shadows in the distance, all sound from them ceased as if the darkness snuffed it out.
Heath allowed everyone to pass him and started to follow when Deja grabbed his arm to hold him back. From the expression on her face, he knew he was in for a fight and sighed. She glared harder. “What’s your problem?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You know exactly what I mean, Heath Hunter!”
He made a sound of annoyance. “Keep your voice down. We don’t need to be surprised by the enemy, or anyone else for that matter.”
She ignored his warning. “Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. I could have gone with Coltrane.”
“Why? Because he’s your new lover?”
Heath just wanted to be contrary because of the mood she’d put him in. He’d know if that asshole touched Deja more than in passing. The mere thought of it set his teeth on edge and made him want to murder something.
“I could have gone with him since he asked me to, but you said no. Why, Heath?”
“It’s my call to make, and I made it.”
“Like I can’t tell you were ready to walk around fluffing your balls because Coltrane was in my face? Just admit you’re jealous.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
She put her hands on her hips and got up into his face. “You think you got swagger.”
He grunted. “I didn’t want you to come, but you insisted anyway. I needed only the best men for the job. Tell me why you’re here, Deja.”
She gasped, and her lips parted in a small O. He couldn’t help noticing how sweet they looked, good enough to kiss. Letting his anger wash over him, he forced his attention back to her eyes.
“Joe was the better choice. He knows the lay of the land already, and we won’t have delays in getting to the house.”
Her little nose curled in her rage. “Oh, please! It’s a fucking country-ass neighborhood, Heath. It’s not like we have to traverse mountains or the wilds of the jungle!”
“I don’t have time to argue with you.” He turned away and moved after the others, all the while aware of her. Deja’s scent assaulted his nose. Listening to her breathe, feeling her so close yet so far, tormented him beyond belief. His anger increased each time he thought of her encouraging Coltrane’s attentions. In fact, knowing her, and because of what he’d said, that he never wanted her there, she would go after the man all the more, just to piss him off.
A short time later, they arrived at the safe house, and Heath approached Joe. “Any sound from the house?”
“Not a peep. What do you want to do, boss?”
He started to speak, but Tina cut him off, laying a hand on his arm. From the corner of his eyes, he saw Deja’s lips tighten. “Heath, I know this house. It turns over constantly. There’s always someone new here like every month. I don’t know what they don’t like about it. Maybe it’s that the owners are so desperate they rent to anybody. My idea is that someone go over and act like they’re borrowing sugar or whatever as new neighbors. No one would be suspicious.”
Deja tsked. “At this time of night?”
“It’s only nine,” Tina insisted.
Heath thought he heard Deja mutter the word stupid, but he considered the plan anyway. “It’s all we have. Deja, you and I…” She cast him a frosty look that stopped his words cold.
Tina pressed closer. “I’ll do it. We can go over as a newlywed couple.”
With no protests from anyone else and Deja behaving as if she didn’t care if he dropped dead right there, Heath agreed. “Everyone stay alert. Joe, stick near the door. I want ears on the entire conversation. I give you the signal, move in. Any signs of Spiderweb in mass, all of you disappear. We do not want to get caught in a net.”
“But Heath—” Joe began.
“You have your orders.”
Out on the street, Heath approached John’s house with Tina clutching his arm. He thought she pressed her breast unnecessarily close, but he made no comment. “You do know his scent?” he whispered.
She smiled as if they were out for an evening stroll. “Yes, I do, and I’m picking it up, but it’s not strong, as if he was here but he’s not now.” Worry creased her brows, and he laid a hand over hers.
“It’ll be fine. Let’s confirm.”
She nodded.
At the foot of the steps leading to John’s house, he instructed her to wait while he walked up and rang the bell. Definite movement inside reached him, and he stiffened. He needed to stay calm. After a time, no sounds came from within, and he glanced back at Tina. She shrugged. A porch light went on over his head, and he reached into his jacket pocket where he kept his gun.
When the door opened, Tina moved to his side. “Hey, there,” she chirped. “We just moved in two doors down, and wouldn’t you know it, I forgot sugar when I did the groceries this afternoon. I know it’s getting late, but can we trouble you to borrow some? I’m Tina by the way, and this is my husband Heath.”
The man in blue jeans and an unbuttoned shirt with ruffled hair hadn’t said a word the entire time Tina chattered away. Heath knew he didn’t belong in this house by the fear he scented from Tina. Whoever the man was, he was not her cousin’s foster parent, and she’d never seen him before.
“We don’t have any sugar. Go away,” the man said at last and began to close the door.
Heath stepped up. “No, I don’t think we will.”
Everything from that moment seemed to happen in a flash. The man reached behind his back, but Heath took his hand from his pocket and drove a fist into the guy’s face. Another man appeared, and Tina shifted in seconds to land in the middle of his chest. Neither man appeared shocked at Tina’s change, which meant trouble.
On the street, shouts rang out, and Heath knew other houses had been compromised. Spiderweb operatives swarmed from every direction, and the house where he was crawled with them. While Heath took down man after man in his quest to search the house, more kept appearing. A door that appeared to lead into a closet opened just beside him and caught his shoulder in a hard blow. He stumbled against the wall, and a gun barrel pressed into his cheek.
“Move and I blow your heard off,” the assailant snapped.
A growl pierced the air, and the next thing Heath knew, Deja stood on top of the guy ripping into his wrist until he dropped the gun. Heath grinned. “Good girl.”
She hissed at him, which he interpreted as “bite me.”
Deja leaped from the man’s chest after she’d incapacitated him to charge down the hall into
a group of three other men. He started to call after her to wait for him when a scream from the other direction made him wince in pain. He recognized Tina, but she’d already shifted. Why had she changed back to her human form? He checked on Deja once again. She held her own with the three opponents, and he spun back the way he’d come.
Charging down the hall, he came across small fights in each room—the living room, the dining room, and a den. Even in the front doorway, his people fought operatives at least five to one. None of them had followed his orders to leave. Shifters were strong and agile, but the operatives had been trained well. They knew all their weak points, like spraying strong scents to throw off the sense of smell and balance, loud noises to disorient. Heath could not believe how ill prepared he and his men were, and his anger increased by the second.
After searching the entire first floor, he realized Tina wasn’t there and headed to the second floor. Doors were shut to each room, and he opened one at random. A young boy lay on the floor unmoving, and something told Heath this was the cousin she’d been looking for. Even from the doorway, he saw that they boy was dead, his arms covered in scars from needles. Either he’d been on drugs at his young age, or Spiderweb had already begun to experiment on him. He shut the door and checked the next room.
The master bedroom, devoid of furniture except for a single twin bed, reeked of ammonia. Heath’s stomach roiled, and he doubled over. The second he did, something heavy came down on his head. Dark spots danced before his vision, and he went to one knee. Nearby, Tina screamed again, and he forced himself to fall into a roll so he could put the man behind him in front. Heath’s claws grew out on his hands, and he coiled to spring at the enemy. Scuffling to his right caught his attention. A man holding Tina in a vise grip came into view from what appeared to be the bathroom. He held a long needle attached to a syringe to her throat, and from the looks of it, he’d already injected her with something. Tina’s body jerked, and her eyes rolled back in her head. Heath growled low in his throat.
“Give it up, shifter,” the man holding Tina said. “You can’t ignore my buddy here, and you can’t get to me before I empty this yummy concoction into her, which I assure you will make her spasm so hard, she’ll break her own back.”
The more the man threatened one of his own, the angrier Heath grew. He felt the change coming and his control slipping. He had no chance of keeping it from happening. Bones cracked and reformed all along his arms and legs. Even his torso reshaped into the sleeker, narrower build of the cat. He fell down onto all fours as the fibers of his clothing ripped apart. A roar erupted from his throat that rattled the windows. On the first floor and outside on the street, answering calls echoed his, even a piteous mewl from Tina as if she had no choice.
Heath coiled for attack.
“Uh uh uh,” the man taunted. He shoved the needle a short way into Tina’s neck, and she whimpered. His other opponent trained a gun on him, and he guessed they didn’t want to kill him, not to mention the sound would alert whatever regular humans were left in the area, and the police would be called—if they hadn’t been already.
Heath couldn’t say his decision was a conscious one. All he knew was that he needed help, and the best person to be at his side was Deja. Some sense opened up inside him. He recognized it for the same ability that called to her the night he ached to have her in his arms. Like a radio wave or maybe a mental one with a homing beacon, it went out to her and pulled her to him. He felt the connection and the tug. He knew she gave into it and heard her bounding up the stairs even though her paws made almost no noise.
Heath timed his attack on the man holding Tina with the moment Deja burst through the doorway. He didn’t have to look at her to know she’d assessed the situation immediately. He leaped into the air and sank his teeth into the man’s wrist as he pushed the needle deeper. A howl of pain curled his lips, and his hand went slack. The needle fell to the floor, and Tina sank after it, going unconscious.
Maybe it was the taste of blood in his mouth, although he’d tasted it before. Maybe it was that at that moment, Deja cried out, and when he looked over his shoulder, he caught sight of red staining the beautiful white-and-black fur on her side. He’d heard no gunshot, but the man standing over her held a knife, dripping with blood. Rage was all Heath knew from that second on.
While he’d taken down each of the men who attacked him, he hadn’t killed any. Now he slaughtered one after another—the man near the bathroom, the one over Deja. He ripped him to shreds and only let up when another man raced in the door, weapon drawn. Heath disposed of him, sinking his teeth as deep as they would go into his neck, until he heard the crunch of bone and the breath of life stopped. He moved to the next and the next, racing from room to room. His next target out on the street, he headed that way.
From a long way away, it seemed, he heard someone shout, “Stop him. He’s lost control. Heath!”
Hands grabbed at him, but he shook them off. One of the shifters—in his delirium, he couldn’t tell who—stepped in his path, and he didn’t hesitate to attack. The cat yelped in pain when Heath bit him. The animal scurried out of the way, and Heath started for the door again. This time a bigger cat moved to block the door, one that seemed blacker with stripes of white. He knew who it was. Coltrane.
They circled one another, and then Coltrane leaped at him. Heath caught him along his throat with his claws and sent the black man flying. Coltrane slammed into the wall, and Heath followed, ready to rip his throat to ribbons.
“Heath!”
Across his clouded mind, Deja’s voice stopped him cold. When he stilled, Coltrane dragged himself from the wall, unsteady on his paws, but he looked like he would attack again. Deja appeared between them and held up a hand. “Don’t you even think about it,” she snapped.
Coltrane fell back. She turned to look down at Heath, and he paced back and forth, waiting for his chance. Deja, tight-lipped and eyes narrowed, pointed a finger in Heath’s face.
“Did you forget about Tina?” she demanded.
Dread ran over him. All anger drained away, and he found the ability to shift. Someone handed him a pair of jeans. He noticed Deja had found a long shirt that looked like it had belonged to a man. While she appeared to move with care, he realized she hadn’t been hurt as badly as he’d thought. He bounded up the stairs to the second floor and found Tina somewhat coherent, leaning over her cousin’s body and sobbing.
He stepped into the room. “I’m sorry, Tina.”
She raised tear-stained eyes to him. He felt sorry for her and like a failure for promising her he’d save her cousin. Tina scrambled up from the floor and threw herself into his arms. He patted her back with an awkward stiffness. Her grief and the scent of death and dying all around them weighed down his mind.
Deja stepped into the room. He noted the anger flashing in her eyes to see Tina, naked, in his arms. Claws formed from her fingertips. Heath shifted Tina away from him. “Joe, take her. Everyone, outside the town limits. Now.”
Joe led Tina away, and after a sweep of the house, Heath followed everyone out. In silence, they slipped out of town back into the darkness. He’d arranged for them to meet at a designated location, and when he arrived, the others stood around waiting for orders. Some didn’t meet his gaze when he looked at them. He’d screwed up bad. He’d attacked his own.
Deja strolled toward him and dropped his phone in one of his hands and his gun in the other. Shame made him mute, but he got what she meant to say. He needed to report in to Ward. He dialed his dad and waited for him to pick up.
“Talk to me,” Ward grunted.
Heath sighed. He glanced over at Tina where she sat on a fallen log, shaking. Someone had given her clothes and a blanket to wrap around her shoulders. Heath turned and strolled several feet away. “The boy was dead when we got there. They’d done something to him. No sign of his foster parents. I assume they’re dead or—”
“At a lab,” Ward interjected. “Spiderweb?”
“Operatives everywhere. The place crawled with them.” For now, he couldn’t bring himself to admit how he’d lost it. “The lab might be in the area. We can sniff around.”
“No, get back here. We need to take care of this other issue. Son?”
“Yes?”
“Good work. See you soon.” Ward disconnected.
Heath’s world crashed down around his ears. He tossed the phone on the ground and followed it with the gun. With quick movements, he shed his clothing and glanced at Deja. “Get everybody moving. We’re heading back to Siberia at daybreak.”
Deja grabbed his arm. “Heath, they’re looking for guidance from you. Where are you going?”
He pulled free of her hold. “I have to get away. I’m sorry.”
After shifting, he ran with everything he had into the trees and let the darkness swallow him whole. Within seconds, their sounds, their scents faded into the background, and he was left with his own guilt and shame. Alone.
Chapter Nine
Deja didn’t have to think twice about following Heath. She knew what he felt and knew it was her mistake in letting that fool get the better of her while they fought. Her wound was superficial. A quick patch-up, and she was good as new.
She approached Joe, who sat near Tina. “Hey, Joe, we leave at daybreak. The best everyone can do is get some sleep. Is she okay?”
Joe peered at Tina. “She’s fine. Listen, no one blames him. You got hurt. That would send any of us into a rage, watching the one we love attacked.”
“You mean Tina got hurt,” Coltrane interjected. “They threatened to kill her, and Heath snapped. Deja’s not with him anymore. Tina is.”
Deja had been considering going out with Coltrane just to test the waters, but his claim pissed her off to the point that she didn’t know if she could speak to him long enough to date him. “I’m going after Heath. Joe, can you take care of everything?”
“I’ve got it.” Joe stood up. “Deja, tell him we understand, okay? Tell him I don’t hold anything against him.” She watched him pat the wound where Heath had attacked him when Joe tried to stop Heath’s rampage. She didn’t know what Ward’s reaction would be, but as far as she was concerned, Heath was still on edge. He needed her, and she’d be there for him.
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