The Shifters

by Alexandra Sokoloff

  “We’re alike, Caitlin. We understand each other.” He kissed her mouth this time, and in spite of a warning voice in her head, she felt herself starting to respond, her body moving against his.

  He was so familiar. They’d known each other for years, after all.

  He’d been her teacher, her companion, her lover….

  She raised her hands weakly to push him away, and he took her wrists in a strong grip and pinned them behind her back as he moved against her, opening her mouth under his.

  His shoulders were so broad…and his thighs were thick, roped with muscle….

  Not Case…she realized. The body against hers was not Case.

  She opened her eyes and looked into his and saw not blue, but green.

  And at that moment she wrested her wrists away and shoved him savagely. “No.”

  The air around him shimmered, shifted…and the illusion was gone. Ryder stood in front of her, his shirt half open, revealing a man’s body, not a boy’s.

  “Liar. Cheat.” She practically snarled at him, fumbling to close her robe, still panting, her heart racing with desire—and fury.

  For the first time he looked flustered himself. “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend… I was… I got caught up.”

  Ryder was mortified. He’d intended only to get information from her, taking the form of the young shifter she obviously, foolishly, trusted enough that she was willing to spill any amount of information. But then she’d started to cry, and once he had her in his arms…

  She was plainly furious, flushed with anger—and desire, he noted, her skin rosy with unmistakable arousal, and that made him harden again with the desire to finish what they’d started.

  He moved toward her again, and she backed away from him.

  “I want you out.”

  “There’s one false word in that sentence,” he said, and caught her around the waist to kiss her roughly again, backing her against the wall and grinding himself slowly against her as he crushed her mouth under his…hearing her gasp and feeling her trembling under him, the fire racing through her body, meeting the fire in his.

  Then he released her abruptly. He stared down at her where she stood flushed and shaking against the wall…felt his own heart racing….

  “I think you knew that was me,” he told her. “And I think you know what you want.”

  Then he turned and walked out of her house.

  Caitlin slammed the door hard behind him. She was in a fever pitch of anger—and just plain fever. She refused to think of what he’d said to her or whether it was true. He’d used his Other skills to deceive and seduce. He was entirely in the wrong.

  And yet her face burned, remembering his quiet accusation that she had known it was him making love to her…and she felt his body against hers again, his mouth crushing hers….

  Stop it, she ordered herself. He’s a shifter. He tricked you. This is war.

  Chapter 9

  Four sleepless hours later, Caitlin dragged herself out of the shambles of the bed she’d done nothing but toss and turn in all through the last small hours of the morning. She cursed Ryder and his entire family.

  Shuffling into the bathroom, she caught a glimpse of herself in the gilt-framed mirror and groaned. She looked more hungover than the most out-of-control tourist at Mardi Gras, and she hadn’t even had the pleasure of indulgence.

  Oh, yes, you did, a traitorous voice whispered in the back of her head. There was pleasure all right. Your problem is you didn’t get indulged enough.

  She silenced the voice with a murderous hiss and stumbled into the shower.

  Dressed, aspirined and hidden behind oversized sunglasses, Caitlin emerged from her front doorway into a sadistically glaring sun. She was hoping to slip out of the compound for coffee, but as she hurried across the paving stones of the garden, she heard Fiona’s melodic voice calling down to her from the balcony.

  “Caitlin!”

  Caitlin groaned inwardly and turned. Fiona stood out on her balcony, blonde hair a halo of light, waving, beckoning her, then pointing down toward the first floor. Shauna was lounging against the door frame, drinking from a mega-mug of coffee.

  The last thing Caitlin wanted or needed this morning was Fiona’s gentle intuitiveness and Shauna’s sharp eyes. But when sisters called…

  She sighed and headed for Fiona’s wing of the house.

  Caitlin walked through Fiona’s living room, following feminine voices and the smell of what was probably a cheese and sausage omelet from the kitchen, moving past antiques and eclectic art, including several large paintings of Rodrigue’s Blue Dog. On one wall was a huge red brick fireplace with a pink marble mantel, and Caitlin slowed, as always, to look at the photos of their parents, and herself and her sisters as children, that lined the mantel.

  It’s not fair, she thought, finding herself teary. We had so little time with them. They were only trying to do something good.

  She angrily brushed tears from behind her sunglasses and forced the thoughts away. She was so emotional today; she had to get a grip.

  As she reached the kitchen, she saw Fiona at the stove, standing over, yes, an omelet pan. Shauna sat sprawled at the kitchen table in front of an artfully arranged plate of pastries and strawberries.

  “Very Gaga,” Shauna said, through a mouthful of beignet, waving the remainder of the pastry vaguely toward Caitlin’s sunglasses. “You turning vamp on us or something? Oops, sorry, Jag, no offense,” she apologized breezily.

  “None taken,” said the vampire, from where he leaned, long-legged, against the sink.

  Great, Jagger, too. That’s all I need. Caitlin reluctantly removed the sunglasses, revealing her ravaged face.

  “Ooh, girl. Tie one on last night, did we?” Shauna gloated.

  Fiona said nothing, but Caitlin could feel her older sister’s eyes on her, probing.

  “No, I didn’t,” she snapped. “I saw a man die last night, so I didn’t sleep much.”

  “Oh, kiddo,” Fiona said, and moved to her quickly, folding her into a hug. “I’m so sorry.”

  Caitlin’s instinct was to pull back, but in fact her sister’s embrace was so warm that Caitlin couldn’t help but feel comforted, and it was Fiona who finally released her.

  “Jagger’s been telling us about it.” Fiona glanced toward her man. “It sounds horrifying.”

  “Who the hell ever heard of a walk-in?” Shauna demanded, unfolding her long legs and crossing to the stove to dig into Fiona’s omelet, as usual not bothering with a plate.

  “Well, we need to find out as much as possible. I think Jagger’s right. We need to meet with this Ryder Mallory,” Fiona said.

  Jagger straightened from the sink. “I’ll be on my way,” he said casually. “You three will want to talk it over.”

  He wasn’t a Keeper, and he didn’t belong at any powwow of theirs, but Caitlin had to admit that it was tactful of him to leave them alone. Those damn sensitive vampires.

  Caitlin watched from the kitchen doorway as Fiona walked him to the front door, and of course he pulled her into a kiss, and of course, it was tender and lingering and everything a kiss should be….

  Caitlin turned her head away and stalked over to the kitchen counter, where she poured herself an oversize cup of coffee.

  “The eggs are great,” Shauna enthused, forking more into her mouth. “You should have some. You’re wasting away.”

  Caitlin, who couldn’t process a thought before coffee, much less face food, ignored her.

  “So this Ryder Mallory person,” Shauna continued, not missing a beat. “Is he hot or what? ’Cause a super natural bounty hunter—that sure sounds hot.”

  “He’s not a person,” Caitlin snapped, and gulped coffee. Oh, lifesaving. She drank more, feeling the caffeine rush into all the deprived parts of her body. When she finally raised her head from the cup, she realized her sister was studying her speculatively.

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute…is that why you look like death warmed over
this mornin’? You slept with him?”

  “Of course I didn’t,” Caitlin answered back, in a fury. “Would you have sex with a werewolf?” she snapped out at Shauna, before she realized that Fiona had stepped back into the doorway. Caitlin felt terrible, seeing her sister flinch, knowing she’d delivered the blow.

  Well, it’s how I feel, she thought. I can’t help how I feel.

  Fiona gathered herself and spoke quietly. “We need to meet with this bounty hunter. As soon as possible, I think. Jagger has had some experience with him. He’s—well, Jagger says he’s a shifter, with all the attendant…shifting, but he’s been on the job for a long time, and the suspicious deaths are real, so we need to take what he says seriously.”

  “Bring it on,” said Shauna, and reached for another pastry.

  What that girl can eat, Caitlin thought resentfully. She burns it off just breathing.

  She was about to tell Fiona she would rather swallow ground glass than talk to Ryder or see him ever again, and then she stopped, realizing.

  If the others have a meeting, that gets Ryder and Jagger out of the way. Which means I can go talk to Case—and possibly Danny—alone.

  A chill of excitement ran up her spine. This is my chance.

  Fiona was looking at her, frowning—that infuriating intuition. As best she could, Caitlin suppressed her thoughts, envisioning a solid brick wall right be hind her eyes, and a moment later Fiona looked away.

  Caitlin breathed out invisibly. Aloud she said, “You’re right. We need a meeting. What time is good?”

  They decided on eight, Caitlin maneuvering for a time after dark, to ensure Case and Danny would actually be conscious and moving.

  Fiona added, “Jagger will call if there are any incidents in the city. We should all keep all our senses open.”

  Caitlin was nodding and already easing for the door, when Fiona said, “And Cait…”

  Caitlin stopped in her tracks. Here it comes, she thought wearily.

  But typical Fiona—despite Caitlin’s jab at Jagger, she was nothing but gracious and loving—she said “We both owe you an apology.”

  Shauna looked up, with a “Who, me?” look. Caitlin was also confused—she was the one who should be apologizing.

  Fiona continued. “You were right from the be ginning—you caught the danger before anyone did, and you did what you needed to do to figure it out.”

  “Oh…” Caitlin mumbled uncomfortably. “Well, that’s our job, isn’t it?” And then she was backing to ward the door. “Look at the time. I need to get to the shop.”

  Fiona took a step toward her. “Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked, searching Caitlin’s face.

  “Of course,” Caitlin answered breezily. “Except for an imminent walk-in attack on the city, I’m just fine.”

  “We’ll take care of the shop today. You need some sleep,” Fiona said firmly.

  Caitlin was about to protest, but a second’s reflection made her realize she was dead on her feet, and she was going to need all her resources to deal with Case and Danny and whatever might unfold that night.

  “That would be great,” she said honestly. “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely positive,” Fiona said. “You sleep.”

  Back in her bedroom, Caitlin pulled all the shades and curtains, and stripped to her panties and bra. At that point she could barely move her limbs, but even through the fog, as she settled back on fluffy down pillows, she was congratulating herself on her plan. Setting up a meeting was a positively brilliant way to ditch Ryder and Jagger so that she could talk to Case and Danny alone.

  Thinking of Ryder was a mistake, though, especially thinking of him while she was in bed. Her body immediately started doing the same infuriating dance, betraying her with memories of his kiss bruising her mouth, his hands on her, stroking her between her legs, sucking her breasts…the thick, hard length of him pressing insistently against her…opening her…poised to plunge….

  She moaned in exasperation and pushed back the blankets, then threw her bare legs out of bed and stood. She stalked to a cabinet and shoved through various glass bottles of tinctures and potions until she found what she needed: a sleeping draught. She tossed back the whole thing, dropped the bottle in the sink and went back to bed.

  Ryder woke to a straining erection, with the smell of Caitlin MacDonald’s perfume a teasing memory on his skin. He felt…well, besides hard, it was difficult to say what he felt. Annoyance that he’d walked out on her, when so plainly, if he’d stayed, she would have succumbed, and he could be rolling over on top of her right now to take care of his present condition. He also felt some residual guilt for having deceived her. It was a point of honor that he never seduced a woman in anything other than his true form; using his natural talents later in bed was a different story….

  And there was something else, something less tangible…not just a desire to be satisfied, but a longing…a longing that seemed to be specifically for her.

  His erection stirred with the thought of her, and for a moment he luxuriated in the fantasy of plunging deep inside her, feeling her nails digging into his back, hearing her helpless sighs in his ear as he brought her to the brink….

  So why was he the one who felt helpless?

  He lay against the pillows of his hotel bed, frowning…and then threw back the sheet and stalked to the bathroom. There was, after all, work to be done, and he didn’t need the distraction of Caitlin MacDonald. Or anyone else, for that matter.

  There was a message on his voice mail from the vampire detective, informing him that the Keepers had requested a meeting with him at eight that evening. That worked perfectly for Ryder, as he wanted to do some investigating on his own. So, dressed and showered, he headed down to Canal Street to rent a car for the day, a much more practical option than renting a car that would only gather dust in the $30 a day lot of his hotel, while he spent day after day doing what every other resident of the Quarter did to get around: walk.

  Ever since he’d arrived back in town, Ryder had been thrilled to see that though rebuilding was ongoing, the French Quarter and the Garden District were as colorful, lively, eccentric and thriving as ever. But he was well aware that there were areas of the city that would never be the same.

  When Hurricane Katrina and the breaking of the levees had flooded and devastated the city, Ryder had been engaged in an exorcism in West Africa, but despite that distraction, he’d felt the pain of New Orleans in his own soul, a pain that surprised him, since he didn’t think of himself as attached to any one place above another.

  But the images of this beautiful, unique city underwater had tormented and enraged him.

  He had not yet been to the outer reaches of the city, the condemned areas, but on this day he felt compelled. He knew that in the Ninth Ward and other storm-ravaged districts there were miles and miles of abandoned houses, damaged beyond repair, block after block of silent, deserted streets, and in his experience, those kinds of neighborhoods were magnets for the most ravenous and degraded drug users, just the kind of human prey the walk-ins would be seeking. He wanted a good long look around.

  It was an eerie experience, driving his rental car into the post-apocalyptic landscape that was the lower Ninth Ward. New Orleans was so flat that he could see for miles down certain streets, but all he saw were derelict houses and scorched, weed-choked lawns. Every other block or so there was a FEMA trailer or two with signs of life, but there was an overall sense of devastation. The still-present code on the houses, the X’s with dates and numbers of survivors and numbers of dead, were cryptic as the voodoo symbols called vévés, and somehow called to mind the emptiness that must have spread through city streets during the Black Plague. On most of the houses there was a distinct water line imprinted on the walls, higher than a man’s head. If he had been on this street in the midst of the storm and subsequent flooding, he would have been driving completely underwater.

  Ryder abruptly pulled over to the curb, shut off the engine a
nd got out, shutting the door on silence.

  This is High Noon, he thought, staring down the empty block. Where’s the bad guy?

  He looked both ways, debating, then started to walk, feeling the hot sun on his skin. A slight wind stirred the tall dead grass in the yards, rippling an unseen left-behind wind chime. The stillness was unnerving. Ryder’s own boot steps sounded hollow on the worn asphalt.

  He didn’t know what he was looking for, didn’t know exactly why he had stopped, only that he had to be outside, to sense whatever was around him.

  Yet there was a quality in the stillness of the air that made him think that something…

  He paused in the street and shifted slightly. Not into any shape in particular, but into his subtle body, the energetic, nonmaterial life force that was part of every human being, but ten times stronger than the physical body in shapeshifters, subject to change by a simple act of the mind’s will. It was the subtle body that talented shapeshifters could alter to make those around them see a different form or a different person entirely. But the subtle body also registered heightened perceptions that the purely physical body could miss.

  In his subtle body Ryder could see the street he was on in a whole new way. He could read each house where inhabitants had died more clearly than if he had been reading the spray-painted codes; the black and wavering energy emanating from those houses was a, well, dead giveaway, a residual trace of the deaths that had occurred there.

  And up ahead, at a house two down from the corner, he saw something else entirely. Something not merely black and emanating, but red and angry and hostile, like a scream through the astral.

  In his subtle body, Ryder froze, bracing himself against the assault of angry energy. And then he felt the unmistakable agony—and release—of the death of some sentient creature.

  He shifted back into his physical form and broke into a run toward the house.

  He slammed through a rickety front gate that literally flew off the hinges when he shoved it, landing on the brown, overgrown grass of the postage-stamp yard. Ryder strode up the cracked walkway to the door.