by M. J. Scott
“His MO. Three dead vampires. Drained.”
I didn’t want to think what that meant exactly. “Why do you need me?”
“You’re still the best forensic accountant in town, aren’t you? Now that we know Tate is around and manufacturing dodgy vaccines, we’ve got a better chance of tracking him down. Plus I have to go and Ani doesn’t want you going anywhere without another wolf so she’s assigned you to me.”
“Assigned?” Man, werewolf matchmaking sucked. Subtlety apparently wasn’t big in their arrangements. I yanked up my zip given I had nothing else to take out my frustration on.
“To look after you.” Dan said as if I should know that.
“Won’t babysitting me be tricky if you’re chasing a murderer?”
“I’ll be multi-tasking,” he said, deadpan.
I smiled despite myself. He always could make me smile. And I didn’t like that he was starting to do it again. It was bad enough finding him physically tempting without falling for his mind as well. I pulled my case out from under the bed and unzipped it. “Men don’t multi-task.”
“We drink beer and watch sports at the same time.”
This time I laughed out loud. Then I got serious. “Tate’s not a baseball game.”
“I know. Are you decent?”
“Uh-huh.”
Dan turned around. He looked disappointed when he saw me fully dressed. For a moment I felt pleased then I got a grip and started packing.
“I know you’re mad about the claim thing but this hasn’t got anything to do with that,” Dan said. “I need your help tracking Tate and I also need to make sure that nothing happens to you. You and I are going to be spending lots of time together. Okay?”
I didn’t really have a choice. I wanted to bring Tate down as much as Dan did. “How much time?”
“24/7.”
Not a good idea. “I am not sleeping in the same room as you,” I said.
He shrugged, face carefully blank. “That’s fine. But you will be sleeping under the same roof. So, your place or mine?”
“Mine.” I wanted the home-field advantage. Plus my spare bedroom was way down the other end of the house from mine. Plenty of distance between Dan and me.
“Fine.” He headed for the door. “You’ve got about twenty minutes to finish packing. Meet me at the car.”
“What about breakfast?” I yelled after him.
“Jase is taking care of it,” floated back to me.
Great. Breakfast was under control. So how come I felt like nothing else was?
***
“Have you remembered anything else about the stuff they injected you with?” Dan asked when we’d been driving for about half an hour and I’d eaten all the bagels Jase had prepared. I hadn’t touched the coffee though. I was wired enough without caffeine.
I shook my head, exasperated. I’d been asked this question over and over. “It’s not like they were discussing the chemical formula with me. I’ve already told your Taskforce guys everything I remember. All I know is the label looked like Synotech’s logo.”
His mouth twisted. “I just thought something might have jogged your memory.”
“Like what? Changing? You think becoming a werewolf makes me smarter or something?” I frowned, wondering if that were even possible.
“Or something would be right,” Jase muttered from the back seat.
I twisted around to give him my best ‘not helping’ look. He grinned at me and slurped up the last of the blood he was drinking out a travel mug. The smell made my stomach rumble despite the fact it was stuffed with bagels, cream cheese and lox. Gross. I turned back to Dan.
He changed lanes and hit the accelerator, scowling at the oncoming traffic. “Changing does give people different abilities.”
“Well I’m sorry, but it hasn’t given me a photographic memory.” Mostly it seemed to have given me a raging case of hormones. Not really helpful in defeating Tate. I reached for one of the coffees. Even if I didn’t drink it all, maybe the smell of French roast would keep me from noticing Dan so much.
“The details are still kind of fuzzy.” I didn’t really want them to become any clearer. Not if it meant remembering all of what Tate had done to me.
“Marco could help you remember,” Jase said.
I jerked, almost spilling my coffee. Not in a million years. “No way. There will be no more vampires rummaging around in my head. Tate didn’t tell me much. Just that the vaccine would overcome my immunizations and that if I turned, people I bit would turn without having to drink my blood.”
“Just what we need, a vampire population explosion,” Dan said. He slurped his own coffee and I suddenly noticed he looked kind of tired.
Then told myself how Dan felt was not my problem. “We don’t even know if he’s got the vaccine in circulation,” I pointed out.
“No, but that’s what you’re going to help me find out.”
“Can I tell Lord Marco about the vaccines?” Jase said.
Dan looked at him in the rear view mirror. “Why would you want to do that?”
“He might know something useful.” Jase said
“Like what?” Dan asked.
Jase shrugged. “Who knows with Old Ones? But I keep thinking that there’s a reason vampires are turned the way they are. If Tate is messing with that, then the results could be unpleasant. Lord Marco’s network is pretty good.”
I twisted to look at Jase. “You ‘keep thinking’ or you’ve got a ‘feeling’.” I did the air quotes thing and Dan’s gaze flicked to me, puzzled. I still hadn’t had a chance to ask Jase about the voice I’d heard in my head at Tate’s but I was going to do it real soon. If my PA was psychic, I wanted to know about it.
“Does it matter?” Jase asked, looking down at his lap.
His reluctance didn’t make me feel any better about any of this. “Maybe. So which is it?”
“A feeling,” he admitted. “It just feels wrong.”
Wrong, huh? Great. Just great. My stomach twisted and I turned back to face the windshield, wishing I hadn’t eaten quite so much breakfast. “I think you should let him tell Marco,” I said to Dan. “We need all the help we can get.”
He nodded but didn’t look at me. Which was just as well. I didn’t want him to see that I was freaked out. I wanted to find out the truth about Jase’s abilities before I filled Dan in completely.
“I agree. I’ll have to get permission. But I’ll see what I can do.”
“Good. So, tell us more about these murders.”
Chapter Twenty
By the time we reached my house two hours later, I regretted both breakfast and my curiosity. Turns out I’m better suited to being an accountant than listening to Dan describe a crime scene and why the injuries the victims sustained made them think that Tate was involved.
Even vampires didn’t deserve to be drained of blood and mutilated. What sort of vampire drank another vampire’s blood, anyway? They couldn’t survive on it, so it could only for kicks.
Jase looked pale too. The garage door came down behind us, blocking out the sun so he could get out of the Jeep and he got out of the car without a word.
“Has there been anything else like this going on?” I asked him quietly as we unloaded my luggage.
“Rumors,” Jase said. “A few vamps go missing every so often. They pick the wrong victim, or something goes wrong in the dark clubs.”
“But more lately?”
He looked uneasy, flicking at the luggage tag on my suitcase. “Maybe. I don’t really hang out with that sort of crowd.”
Thank God. That was one of the reasons Jase and I were still friends. “Can you see what you can find out?”
“Sure. But Lord Marco’s the one you need to speak to.” He picked up one of the bags and I realized he was humming.
Damn. He was really nervous. Which made my palms start to sweat. I tightened my grip on the bag I held, telling myself not to overreact. “What about the other lineages?”
“Lord Marco’s the oldest. They’ll tell him what he needs to know.”
Double damn. I didn’t want to say what I was about to say but I did anyway. “In that case, I think we should pay him another visit.”
Jase’s eyebrows shot up and he glanced back over his shoulder at Dan, still in the car on his cell. “What about waiting for permission?”
“Oh, I’m willing to wait. For a little while. But the Taskforce isn’t paying our salaries, remember?”
“They’re paying us a pretty good hourly rate. And didn’t you sign some sort of confidentiality agreement? You could go to jail.” He was almost whispering.
“Better jail than dead.” I hoped I sounded more confident than I felt.
Apparently not because Jase still looked unconvinced. “You know, Lord Marco’s a good guy, for an Old One. But you shouldn’t be so quick to trust everything he says. The Old Ones have their own agendas.”
“You’re telling me this after you talked me into letting him thrall me?” I punched his arm. “Thanks a lot.”
Jase winced slightly which made me smile even though my hand hurt. Before I’d changed, my punching him would’ve made about the same impression as a fly landing on his arm. Go me.
“You needed to talk to him. He’s better than Tate, that’s for sure.”
I hoped he was right.
***
“So now what?” I asked Dan after I’d shown him the guest room. Jase’s nerves were catching, twenty minutes of lugging bags, throwing laundry into my machine and general busy-making hadn’t made me feel any better. The thought of sitting around doing nothing made me even edgier.
“Now I go to work and you go to your office.” He drained the coffee I’d made and took his mug to the sink.
Office? “I thought you wanted my help.” I stirred my own coffee with more force than necessary.
Dan came back over to me, rubbing his jaw. He hadn’t shaved and stubble darkened the lines of his face. Which only made him look more appealing. I curled my hands around my coffee.
“I do. But I’m going to the crime scene. You don’t really want to see that, do you?”
I pressed my lips together as my stomach flipped. “No, not really.” Not if you paid me, actually.
“Good. Then you go to your office and do what you do. You’ll be safe there. I’ll send Esme and another agent over.”
Safe? What was I? The good little girl who needed to be protected? Exactly, the little voice inside my head said. I sighed. I knew Dan was right but I didn’t have to like it.
“I hardly think hanging out with Esme is safe. She hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you.”
I stared at him, wondering if he was really that oblivious. But I wasn’t going to say ‘she hates me because you like me’ because that would require talking about the sorts of things Dan and I were not going to talk about.
“What about this whole you’re meant to keep an eye on me for Ani thing?”
“The other agent’s a werewolf. A married werewolf. He’ll know what to do. You don’t have any weird urges, do you?” He smiled at me and moved closer. There was a twinkle in his eye that boded no good.
I looked away. Weird urges, no. Downright suicidal lascivious urges, well, I had plenty of those.
Dan flirting with me wasn’t helping me pretend I didn’t.
Time for a change of subject. “Does that mean Esme’s not a wolf?”
Dan grinned. “You’ll have to ask her that yourself.”
Yeah, right. Me and Esme and a cozy little girl chat about shape-shifting, I could just see it now.
***
“So, you’re a werewolf now?” Esme asked as soon as Agent Stevens—the wolf Dan had sent with her—left with Jase to get food.
I almost choked on my water. I wasn’t surprised she knew. The whole Taskforce knew what had happened to me. But I was surprised she’d asked.
I studied her face but her dark blue eyes gave nothing away. “Yes. I’m a wolf.” Was it my imagination or did she look a little disappointed?
Esme crossed her long legs, sitting even straighter—if that were possible—in the chair she’d pulled round to my side of the desk. So she could watch the door apparently. Personally, I figured it was to drive me nuts.
“Dan must be happy,” she said, looking at me without blinking.
“Yes, he’s thrilled,” I deadpanned. “What do you want to know, Esme?”
She swallowed but her eyes didn’t leave mine. I knew this game, whoever looked away first was weaker. It was a dominance thing as I’d started to learn from the pack. And I’d go to hell before I’d let Esme think she was higher up the food chain than me. So I just stared back, not blinking.
My eyes were just about to start watering when she looked away.
Thank God.
“Does this mean that you and he. . . .” she trailed off, looking closer to flustered than I’d ever seen her.
Did I want to wind her up or should I tell her the truth? I considered the issue. Annoying Esme was a fringe benefit but whatever I told her was sure to spread around the Taskforce pretty quickly—I had no illusions she’d keep her mouth shut. So did I want them thinking I was going along with the whole claim thing—if only to buy myself some peace and quiet—or did I confess?
And if I confessed, would I become an object of interest for any single male werewolves in the Taskforce?
Regardless of what Ben and Natalie had told me about bonding and smelling like Dan, there’d been a few men at the Retreat who’d not so subtly let me know they were looking forward to the end of the month already. I didn’t know if there were single agents in the Taskforce but the law of averages said there had to be. I wanted to focus on Tate, not letting werewolves down gently. Of course, there might be one or two who I wouldn't want to let down.
Oh, who was I kidding? Until I got my yen for Dan safely locked away again, another man was about as likely to raise my interest as Jase was.
I leaned back in my chair, trying to look casual. “Dan called claim on me.” I said.
For once Esme’s expression was uncontrolled. She looked shocked. “And you agreed?” She sounded shocked.
Was it petty that her reaction was somehow satisfying? I slouched further into my chair, put my hands behind my head. “What can I say? He’s pretty persuasive.”
“I wouldn’t know,” she said. Her voice seemed a touch . . . sad, maybe?
Guilt twinged and I dropped my hands. The ice princess had feelings after all. It was nice to know but I still didn’t know if she’d had genuine hopes. She’d need to be a wolf to have those. Because long term, Dan wouldn’t be settling down with any who wasn’t.
“Can I ask you something?”
She nodded.
“Are you a werewolf?”
“No.” She uncrossed her legs and slumped just a little.
Ah. Then she might be upset with me but she couldn’t really hold Dan against me. It was the perfect opportunity to satisfy my curiosity about her. “Do you mind if I ask what you are?”
“Can’t you tell?”
“How would I do that?”
“My scent?”
I frowned. Then took a deep breath through my nose, trying to break down her scent. She wore perfume—something precisely floral with a sharp green undertone. But underneath the perfume there was the tang I was beginning to associate with shifters.
But Esme didn’t smell like the wolves. No. She smelled exotic. Less like earth and woods and more like lush green things that needed heat and sun. I closed my eyes took another breath, trying to see the smell.
Gold. And heat. And . . . no, I couldn’t get it.
“I can tell you’re not a wolf, now that I think about it.” I opened my eyes. “But I haven’t smelled any other species since I changed. So I don’t know what you are.”
“Do you want to take a guess?”
She looked kind of smug. I figured that meant she was something a little out of the ordinary. If
I had to go by her appearance, I’d guess something Nordic but my knowledge of Scandinavian wildlife wasn’t exactly great. And she hadn’t smelled like ice and snow.
She sat still while I looked at her. Something in the way she held herself seemed vaguely feline. So maybe a lion? Or a tiger? Those were the two most common cat breeds. But I doubted Esme was common. “I give up. Bobcat?”
It wasn’t a serious guess. I didn’t even know whether there were bobcat shifters. But I didn’t want her thinking I thought she was the Queen of the Jungle type.
Esme practically bristled, mouth pursing. “No. Do I really look like a bobcat to you?”
I hid a smile. I wouldn’t know a bobcat if one bit my ass. “Leopard?”
She looked slightly mollified. “No. But closer. I’m a jaguar.”
Ms. Tall and Blond was a jaguar? Weren’t they black? Or was that something else? Then again, maybe cat’s coloring didn’t reflect their human form like wolves’ did.
“Interesting. Are there many jaguars in Seattle?”
She shook her head. “Just me. We’re not pack animals.”
I shrugged. Not pack animals sure, but being one of a kind had to be kind of lonely. Maybe that explained the terminal snottiness.
But lonely or not, Esme wasn’t really my problem. My problem was Tate. So I really needed to turn on my computer and get to work. But I hadn’t touched it since the day Tate had snatched Bug and now I found myself highly reluctant to do so.
“Is something wrong?” Esme asked after I’d spent five minutes shuffling files around my desk.
“No. What could be wrong?” Hopefully she didn’t know what a forensic accountant did and wouldn’t catch on I was stalling.
“You haven’t turned on your computer.”
So much for stalling. “I’m thinking.”
“Thinking isn’t going to catch Tate.”
“Thinking is the only thing that’s going to catch Tate,” I retorted. “He’s smart. And he’s about fifty steps ahead of us already.”
“All the more reason for you to turn on your computer and get to work.”
