by Dannika Dark
When they reached the main door to the building, Prince paused and traced a finger over his eyebrow. Kat watched his reflection in the glass, wondering why he was hesitant about going in. Probably having second thoughts.
“I don’t think this is him,” she said, adjusting her white tank top and then rolling up her sleeves.
“What makes you say that?” he asked as they moved through the doors.
Her voice reverberated off the beige walls of the first floor. “I know a few things about Vlad that aren’t in the records—unsavory things you don’t want to know about.” She smoothed her hand along the walls, studying how close together the apartments were. “These are tight living quarters. Too many people can hear what he’s up to. I can’t believe they don’t even lock the main doors. Anyone could walk in.”
“This is it,” he said quietly.
Kat glanced down the hall to make sure they had privacy. “Go ahead and knock; I’ll hang back.”
Prince cleared his throat and rapped his knuckles against the door. Kat went into ready mode, her heart ticking fast as she prepared for anything. Footsteps reached the other side of the door and then fell silent as he was probably looking through the peephole. She stepped out of sight and left Prince standing with his back to the door so Vlad wouldn’t recognize him.
The door opened a crack. “Yeah?” a husky voice said.
In a motion too fast to track, Prince shoved the door open.
Kat rushed inside and looked at a short man in blue pajama bottoms who was backing away from them. The apartment smelled like brownies, and her mouth instantly watered.
“What’s this about?” the bald man asked in a shaky voice.
Kat glanced at the window behind him in the living room and realized why he’d chosen to live on the first floor. A large man emerged from the shadows and approached them, one who was twice her size. His eyes were thin slivers and he looked like a man who had spent time in a boxing ring. Not just because of his build, but his nose was crooked and face misshapen. As he moved into the light, her eyes drifted down to the ominous tattoo across his chest of a warrior holding a battle-axe above his head, blood on the tip of the blade, and riding a black horse with eyes like the devil.
Prince shoved the smaller man against the wall. “I have it on good authority that you’re selling young girls. Consider this your warning. I’m one of the most powerful Packmasters in this territory, and the torturous things I could inflict on your body would frighten your ancestors. Heed my warning, coward. If you so much as jaywalk across the street, I’m coming for you.”
“Yeah?” he countered in a wavering voice. “Tell that to my friend.”
“Not a bad idea,” Kat suggested, watching Mr. Scary Tattoo with bated breath.
Prince wrenched open a closet door and shoved the pajama man in, then dragged a heavy table in front of the closed door.
“I got it,” Kat said with cool confidence, strutting toward the tatted man. She was reaching for her dagger when Prince caught her arm.
“Let me handle this.”
She peered over her shoulder. “I’ll subdue him while you make besties with the little guy.”
A look of irritation flashed in his eyes. “I’ll not have you fight this man in my stead.”
Kat’s jaw set and she stepped back, her brows arched. “Fine. When you’re done crippling peabrain over there, the damsel in distress will be in the kitchen.”
She turned away, struggling to conceal her smile. It should have insulted her, but truthfully, Kat was kind of awestruck with his chivalry. Plus, she really wanted to see how he handled himself, and if she was lucky enough, maybe she’d get a look at his wolf.
While Prince laid down his threats, Kat wandered into the kitchen and watched them through the wide entryway. The other man didn’t say a word, and she couldn’t tell his Breed but assumed he was probably a Shifter. Based on the fact he hadn’t shifted yet, odds were he wasn’t a dangerous animal. Most likely he was just a rabbit or deer. Usually the docile animals were the ones who went overboard on their tough-guy image so people wouldn’t mess with them, afraid that they might be a grizzly.
The two men exploded into action. Kat held her breath, enthralled by Prince’s raw abilities. The man could fight, and not just modern moves with punching and roundhouse kicks. His actions were fast and precise. A picture flew off the wall and the glass frame broke into two pieces. When they moved out of sight, she peered into the hall. A chair flew in her direction, and she backed away as it crashed against the front door.
Kat strolled back into the kitchen and studied the contents of the fridge while chaos erupted in the living room. “Doesn’t anyone keep leftover Chinese anymore?” She cracked open a can of ginger ale and took a sip while bodies slammed against the walls in the other room. When it got quiet, she cocked her head and listened for movement.
“Charming?” she called out.
A maniacal laugh sounded from the little weasel locked in the closet.
Kat set the can on the counter and hurried toward the hallway, just in time to see Prince barefoot in jeans, pulling his T-shirt over his head.
“Dammit,” she whispered to herself, having missed his shift.
Disappointment flared when she saw he’d already pulled his hair back. She glanced at the body but couldn’t see the gory aftermath in the dark room. It didn’t take a genius to figure out Prince had either ripped out the man’s throat or somehow asphyxiated him. Kat was thoroughly impressed with how fast Prince had taken down such an impressive fighter. She thought they would have been at it for at least five minutes.
While he put on his shoes, she returned to the kitchen and nabbed a brownie from an oversized plate on the stove. It even had the powdered sugar on top she loved so much.
“Leave town and find another profession,” Prince shouted at the closet door as he left the apartment.
Kat followed behind him, and her lips eased into a grin. “You’re pretty good at this. Sure you don’t want to be a bounty hunter? I could always use a partner. We could be Mulder and Scully. Cagney and Lacey. Scooby-Doo and—”
He snatched the brownie from her hand and tossed it into a tall trash can.
“Hey! I was going to eat that,” she protested.
Kat was sucking the powder off her finger when he suddenly grabbed her wrists and wrenched them away. She watched in astonishment as he used her plaid shirt to wipe her fingers clean.
“I’m amazed anyone would want to do this for a living, let alone a beautiful woman. And that brownie you just put in your mouth was probably laced with narcotics to sedate his next victim. He’s selling Shifters into slavery; do you think they go willingly?”
He wiped at her mouth, and a tiny bit of terror raced through her as she spat on the floor. Kat should have known better, but her appetite had gotten the best of her, along with having Prince as a distraction.
“If you start to feel dizzy, I’m taking you back to Nadia’s,” he stated.
She knocked his hand away and stormed off. “I’m fine. I barely licked off enough of that sugar to have done any serious damage. Now let’s eat some tacos and get this day over with.” Kat pushed the main door open, her faced heated with embarrassment and anger all at once. “By the way, you’re a terrible partner!”
***
“These are sooo yummy,” Kat sang, rocking back and forth in her metal chair, biting into her taco. “Spicy, spiiicy.”
Prince eyed her impatiently while finishing the last of his beef burrito. By the time they’d stopped off at the taco stand, the effects of whatever drug Kat had consumed from the brownie topping were beginning to show. She wasn’t sleepy or knocked out, but her altered behavior was similar to someone who was inebriated or stoned.
He decided that when she finished her sixth taco they were leaving. She had already been eyeing the beef nachos, and this buffet had to end or they’d never make it to the second location.
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” s
he asked, wiggling her fingers in front of her face.
“I had a brother once, but he perished long ago in a great battle.”
“Sorry. That must have been hard for you.”
Prince appreciated Kat’s sincerity, and her honesty was refreshing.
“It must be lonely not to have any family left.” Kat sucked on her straw, and it made a terrible slurping sound when the soda reached the bottom. She gave it a shake and the ice rattled. “I don’t know what I’d do without my sister.”
“What about your mother?”
“She left us for good.” Kat set down the yellow cup and a gust of wind blew some of her dark hair forward, but she didn’t make any attempt to fix it. “I checked up on her a few years ago, but she’s hard to track since she’s still with that rogue and they move around a lot. I think her pregnancy was an accident, and maybe two babies at once was too much for her to handle. I guess I’m used to her being gone since I’d only lived with her a few years of my life. But my papa is my heart, and so is Nadia. Maybe she’s Tweedledee and I’m Tweedledum, but we’re two tweedles, you know?”
The effects of the drug were beginning to wear off, although not entirely. He much preferred when she was talkative and happy to this altered version of herself that was sullen and introspective.
“My pack is my family.” Prince wadded up the empty burrito wrapper.
“Are they? Do you hang out with them and watch TV?”
“You have a fixation on television.”
She shrugged and sat back. “Everyone has their thing. Nadia loves nice clothes and those breakable figurines, my papa loves fishing, and I love reruns of Seinfeld.”
“As I recall, your father was a skilled hunter.”
She flashed a dazzling smile and looked up at the sky. “He is. More with a crossbow than a gun, but he really loves fishing. Sometimes we’d take a camping trip and spend all day on the lake in a small boat. He’s like a fish whisperer or something—you should have seen the ones he caught. Afterward, we’d cook them up and then he’d tell stories over a campfire. He tells great stories.”
Prince couldn’t help but notice how she spoke of her father in the present tense. Kat truly believed with her whole heart that Alex was still alive. “Yes, he did. Your father weaved some tall tales.”
She laughed and wadded up her wrapper, setting it next to the other five. “That’s the truth. Half the time I wasn’t sure if he was making it up.”
Prince drew a deep breath, taking in the smells and sounds of the street corner around them. Taco meat, hot concrete, summer wind, honeysuckle growing over the concrete wall behind them. “Every story your father told had some truth to it; he just happened to be a master at embellishing the boring parts.”
Kat leaned back in her chair. “How did you meet?”
“I’d wandered into his territory and fell on a steel trap. My injuries were severe, and I could have lost my leg. When he discovered me, I thought he was going to take my head for trespassing. I was an alpha, and we both knew I had intentionally ignored the territorial markings. In those days, that blatant disregard was an act of war. A Packmaster had the right to slay any alpha who crossed into his domain.”
“Why didn’t he?”
“Because Alex liked to see the good in men. He had foresight most men didn’t and chose to release me from the trap and take me in. I was looking for a fresh start, and he gave me men from his own pack. He wanted us to be allies, but we became brothers by circumstance.”
Prince could see a glimmer of Alex in Kat’s eyes, and he felt a pang of remorse for the absence of his friend.
Kat tipped her head to the side, averting her gaze. “What were the women like in those times?”
Prince thought back, uncertain of how to answer since he had lived in many different centuries. A woman’s role varied by country, time period, and Breed. Shifter women had always had some level of power. “In Russia, women were warriors. I met two who were second-in-commands. Italian women preferred to have the men go to battle, so there’s never been one rule.”
“What were you fighting over?”
He rubbed his jaw, deep in thought. “Land. Councils enforce rules and distribute land, but before they came into existence, packs were vulnerable to greedy alphas. Land meant power, and Packmasters weren’t just assembling a family; we were building an army to protect what was ours.”
She sighed wistfully and rested her chin in the palm of her hand. “I could listen to you talk for hours.”
He dwelled on her comment for a moment. “Tell me, why do you prefer television over real people?”
Kat studied one of her short fingernails. “Because I can turn it off when I’m sick of it. Most of the people I meet are on the job. I haven’t really met anyone I connect with—someone I can talk to about anything who’s actually interested in what I have to say. I guess watching TV gives me a spoonful of that life I’m missing out on. I can’t afford to make friends in this line of work; I’m always on the move.”
“Have you considered working as a private investigator? I know a man who might be able to help, and it’s local work doing essentially the same thing.”
A gust of wind lifted her hair, and she tucked it behind her ear. “I’d need a reason to stay. Nadia’s my sister, but she’s got her own life, and I’m not a huge part of it. She’s not reason enough to throw my anchor off the ship. I like the idea of working as a PI, but it’s the kind of job that keeps you rooted in one place. I’m not sure where home is.”
Prince wanted to say more, but instead he stood up and tossed their wrappers into the trash. “We should go before it gets too late. Are you feeling well enough to do this today?”
Her eyes widened comically as she tried to rouse herself from a drug-induced state of mind. “My wolf is fed, I’ve got twenty-four ounces of sugar coursing through my veins… Yep. I should be fine.”
She turned, and Prince realized he was standing on her shoelace. Before she took a step, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against him. She fit in his arms perfectly, and his blood heated when she reached up and held on to his neck. Kat had lovely eyes, the kind of shifting color he could stare at for hours. They seemed to change color, and right now the sunlight had transformed them into the most indescribable shade of gold.
Her voice relaxed to a sultry sound that a man might hear in bed. “Nadia’s a lucky woman.”
“I’m going to kiss you,” he said, inviting no argument.
She said nothing, but her lips parted as if daring him to try. He licked his own, and when her gaze settled on his mouth, it sent a spike of need through him that awakened his wolf. A desire so intense that he pulled her in tighter to feel more of her soft body against his.
Prince leaned down and pressed a chaste kiss to her lips. He moaned softly when he realized she tasted like honey, a sweet elixir on his tongue that made him grow hard with need. When he intensified the kiss, she grew limp in his arms and he drew back.
Kat’s eyes were closed—she’d passed out.
Chapter 7
“Wake up, Kat.”
A sharp voice cut through the darkness and pulled her awake. She was in the passenger seat of Prince’s Audi, seat reclined, parked in the woods, oak trees shading the windshield.
Disoriented from the time lapse, Kat took a deep breath and sat up straight. “Where are we?”
“I didn’t want to wake you since you were still under the influence of drugs. But it’s almost three in the afternoon, and we’re losing time. We need to find out if this is Vlad.”
“Give me a second to wake up. My leg’s asleep.” Kat lifted her right leg and put her foot on the dash. Her muscles were stiff, not exactly the condition she wanted to be in when going on a chase. She massaged her calf and yawned. “So suspect number two lives out here in the deep, dark woods? I don’t like this, Charming. Not one bit. There’s nowhere to corner him.”
“You said you followed him to Austin? If this is Vlad, then perhaps t
his is just a rental and he’s ill-prepared for an ambush.”
She put her foot down and studied their surroundings. “Uh-huh. But his plates are Texas, so I’m willing to bet this is home sweet home. If that’s the case, he probably has steel traps in the woods or a bunch of goons protecting his property. Why don’t we hang out by the main road and just tail him when he leaves? Slow and steady wins the race.”
Prince unbuckled his seat belt. “And where is the fun in that?”
She blinked as he got out of the car. “Great. I’m on a mission with John McClane.”
“Who?”
Oops. Kat hadn’t meant for him to hear that. Too many nights watching Die Hard.
“Never mind,” she said, quietly shutting her door. “Where’s the house?”
He pointed up the dirt road. “Just around the curve.”
“He won’t get far without his car.” Kat rolled her eyes while adjusting the strap that wrapped around her midsection, making sure her shirt concealed it. “God, I hate it when I rhyme. Anyhow, we should slash his tires before knocking to make sure he doesn’t try to escape. Although, he is a Mage and might flash to town.”
“Doubtful,” Prince said quietly, walking on her left. “Vlad doesn’t run; he attacks.”
She tried to keep her voice low, but walking made her breathe harder. “By the way, if something happens and I shift, stay away from my dagger. Obviously my wolf can’t use it, but she’ll take off your hand if you try to disarm her.”
“Duly noted.”
“Just so you know, I really don’t want to let my wolf out. She’s never met your wolf, and that could get ugly. So I’m going to do what I can to keep her in check.”
The property wasn’t paved, nor had anyone laid down gravel. Kat walked quietly on the dirt, thinking what a mess it must be when it rained. When they rounded the corner, she paused behind an overgrown bush. The one-story home worked to their advantage since it offered fewer places for someone to hide, although she would have preferred wood to brick since it was easier to set on fire. One car meant he was probably alone, and there weren’t any animals to announce their presence. The blinds were closed—every one of them. Either this guy had something to hide or he was allergic to sunlight.
