Animal Instincts (Entangled Ignite)

by Patricia Rosemoor

Luc pulled the Jag out of the lot, and I pulled out my cell. “I’m calling it in.” The question was whether to alert Ethan or simply call the Animal Crimes Unit.

  “I’m not stopping you. I want these damn fights to end before—”

  “Someone else you care about is killed?” I finished for him. “This Jez, who was she?”

  “A childhood friend. She was someone I always could count on. She wasn’t like most of them.”

  Of them. I got the distinction. More and more I was becoming convinced that despite his father, Luc wasn’t like most of them, either.

  After thinking about it for a moment, I called Ethan. His beliefs were teetering, and I had to get him on board now.

  “Skye, what is it?”

  “Another fight. Tonight. West side.” I gave Ethan the address and waited for his response.

  “You’re calling me about a dogfight?”

  I heard the hesitation in his voice. He knew I wouldn’t call him if it were that simple. “Not exactly a dogfight, no. But you’d better alert the ACU anyway to take care of any animals. I’ll meet you there.”

  And before he could object or ask me to explain, I disconnected. He called me right back, but I didn’t pick up, and when I heard his text ping in, I ignored that as well.

  We headed west, away from the lake, a shard of lightning crossing the road ahead. Luc asked, “Is this Ethan someone you can count on?”

  “He was Shade’s partner.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  “Yes.” I put away my doubts. “Ethan might have trouble with some of the more unusual details of the situation, but he’ll have to come around when he sees for himself.” I had to believe that or this horror would never be ended. “Ethan thought of Shade as his brother, too. There’s not a better cop to have on our side.”

  “If he believes you and actually shows.”

  “He will.”

  No more uncertainty. No more dancing around the scary. My blood pressure might be skyrocketing, but I was in 100 percent. I couldn’t imagine running into anything more intimidating than I’d already encountered, but if I did, I would deal with it.

  I said, “Too bad Hank couldn’t tell us more.”

  “Too bad he didn’t want to.”

  “Are you saying he was lying?”

  “I’m saying that it’s possible.”

  “But why, when he was victimized?” I asked.

  “That’s part of the problem. He could fear reprisal.”

  “Hank got the information about tonight’s fight from someone in the casino. There could be reprisal about that, too.”

  “Not the same as pointing a finger directly at the guilty party.”

  “Okay, reprisal could be part of the problem,” I said. “What’s the other part?”

  “Pop keeps sort of a scoring system. Good. Bad. Worse. He would find out.”

  Another threat of lightning lit the ink-dark sky. Weird. No rain. Just a scrambled, rumbling sky, similar to the one during the shifter fight last week.

  “So if your father found out that Hank told us where to find the fight, what would he do?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, but nothing I want you involved in.”

  “Wait a minute. How did this suddenly become about me?”

  “You inserted yourself into the situation. How can it not be about you?”

  My stomach roiled. “It would help if you clarified.”

  He slid a hand over to my knee. “I like exploring this part.”

  Ignoring the sensation that went straight to my center, I squeezed my thighs together. He was trying to get me off-focus again. “You’re not exploring anything right now but a shifter fight,” I warned him.

  “Right now? Does that mean later, I can—”

  “Can you possibly keep your mind on tonight’s fight?”

  “Doubt it.”

  “Try.”

  “Um, nope.”

  “Try harder.”

  “That’s not a problem.”

  Frustration made me want to hit Luc. And do other, less violent but equally shocking things with him while he drove. I wanted to reach over and stroke his thigh, make him groan with desire. Of course that could get us both killed, but my fertile imagination had no bounds when it came to Luc.

  Was this sensual lead-on simply part of his nature or a well-cultivated attack to keep me from learning anything he didn’t want me to know?

  Whatever. It was working.

  Which made me wonder why. Why was his approach so effective on me? So difficult to resist?

  Animal magnetism.

  Wait a minute. I wasn’t sure if I had thought that or if Luc was inserting the concept into my mind.

  “I’m not responsible for your every carnal thought,” he muttered.

  “My carnal thoughts?”

  “Are you saying you don’t have any?” His mouth curved into a smirk.

  I narrowed my gaze at him. “I’m saying they’re not my fault.”

  “Hmm. Then that means I must have some kind of incredible power over you.”

  I certainly didn’t like that idea, either. “Yes, the incredible power to be irritating.”

  I clenched my jaw and closed my mind off from him to focus on the fight. But that entailed shifters, who were animals of a sort, and that brought me back to the idea of animal magnetism, which in this case went deeper than what I thought of as sex appeal. Yes, Luc had that in spades, but was it simply his human side that attracted me or the combination of human and whatever else he was?

  The fact that he was a shape-shifter—not that he’d ever admitted it—certainly put a new spin on the concept.

  He turned off the main artery onto a narrow road stark with the remains of what had once been a neighborhood. Thunder shook the street below us as a third lightning strike gave me a better look at what sat around us. A hollow feeling left me disjointed from my surroundings—century-old graystone and brownstone homes and multi-unit properties, many boarded up and abandoned, sprinkled through fields of nothing where buildings had long since been torn from the landscape. Some concrete footings remained ghosts among the unruly growth that had sprouted around them.

  Reminding me of the cemetery where we’d buried Shade.

  Luc pulled into the nearly full parking lot of yet another abandoned building. Lightning flickered against the two-story structure so that I was able to read the carved name on the lintel over the door: Campbell-Warren Elementary.

  “Are you telling me this is it?”

  “It’s the address Hank gave you,” Luc confirmed. “Look around you. And listen.”

  I did, and shouts of glee followed by a yowled complaint sent needles shooting up my spine. Someone—something—distinctly unhappy sequestered inside the boarded-up school.

  I didn’t have to smell it to know that blood had already been shed.

  “This is a city-owned building,” I said as we left the vehicle. “Or it was.”

  “Your point being?”

  “How did whoever is running the shifter fights take over the place?”

  “Something we’ll have to find out.”

  Right. Only how?

  Luc and I raced to the building, but I was looking around, looking for backup. Looking for Ethan. He had to show up. Luc might be able to stop this fight, but Ethan needed to know what exactly was what so that he could get justice for my brother.

  …

  Even as they were about to enter the vestibule, another screeched yowl slammed into Luc so hard it nearly took away his breath. He recognized the voice.

  “Nuala.”

  “What? Your sister? Where?” Skye asked.

  “Stay outside and out of trouble.”

  Without waiting for Skye to agree, Luc thought himself into the gymnasium where the arena had been set up. The benches were full, and workers were running around doing final checks for the next fight. Across the floor, a man in a neon-green jumpsuit struggled to get a chained black panther into position.
Nuala. Seeing red anger, Luc sifted to her side, and used every bit of that negative emotion toward the worker to mentally toss him away from his sister. The man went flying, and when he landed in the middle of the arena, his leg twisted unnaturally under him, he screamed in his human voice.

  Nuala, are you all right?

  Luc.

  Can you shift back?

  No. Too weak. Drugged.

  All right, I’ve got you.

  Luc lifted his sister into his arms and pressed her against his chest, arms wrapped around her to protect her. He used all the ability he had left in him to sift them both back outside. But when he looked around for Skye, she wasn’t there. Still, she couldn’t have gone far.

  Skye, we have to leave. Now! Meet us at the car.

  But if she heard him, he couldn’t tell. All hell was breaking loose. Sirens and flashing blue strobe bars already split the night in a circle around their location as the CPD closed in from every direction. Holding Nuala close, Luc headed for the Jaguar. He had to get her out of there before the authorities stopped him with her trapped in panther form. He’d drained his limited ability to sift for the moment. No way could he transport them very far carrying her weight, not even at full charge.

  As the flashing lights cut through the parking lot, two Kindred dared step before him as though they meant to prevent him from taking his sister to safety.

  “Where do you think you’re going with her?” one of them asked.

  “She’s tonight’s main attraction,” the other one added in a snarky voice.

  “If you want to live, you’ll move, or I’ll suck those souls right out of you before I finish you.”

  They looked at each other. One of them had the audacity to smirk. Luc didn’t even know how he managed considering the circumstances—his hands were hanging onto Nuala—but he whipped his head and with his thoughts slammed the smirking man into his companion. Both Kindred landed in a tangled heap.

  “I’m going to put you in the back where you can rest,” he told Nuala. The seat might be narrow, but letting her stretch out seemed to be the best option.

  Okay, she thought before her dark eyes fluttered closed. The baby…

  There was a baby here? “What baby?”

  But Nuala was already out.

  What now? Nerves on fire from the effort he’d put out, Luc didn’t know what to do. Should he go back in and look for some baby? Whose baby? He hadn’t a clue.

  Police cars with flashing strobes came from every direction.

  Too late.

  If there was a baby, surely the cops would find it.

  Before getting behind the wheel, he took one last fast look around. Where was Skye?

  Skye, c’mon. I can’t wait. I have to leave now. He was so irritated that she’d defied him that he almost didn’t add, Sorry, before throwing himself into the Jaguar.

  He regretted abandoning her, but he had to get his sister safely out of there.

  Now.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sorry.

  I was, too. I was torn between being with Luc and helping his sister, maybe finding out more about Nuala’s relationship with Shade, and finding Ethan. I had to get him on board and make him believe the unbelievable.

  As I made my way inside, I ran into a man in black jeans and T-shirt rushing out. He gave me a quick look and I started. His eyes were dark and molten. He was young and tough-looking, with a scar that ran down one cheek. By the time I realized he was the guy who’d been in my brother’s apartment that night Shade had first appeared, he was gone.

  Around me, parents dragged the kids they’d brought to watch the most violent entertainment from the arena. How could they do that to their own children? Blocked at the entrances by uniformed police, they yelled and pushed and tried to get away.

  Maybe they could, but the supposed animals in cages outside the fight area—a wolf, a hyena, and a wild dog—weren’t going to escape. Not unless they could shift and use human hands to disable the locks and disappear. Part of me felt bad for them. It had been obvious that the coyote Hank hadn’t wanted to fight, but he’d been forced. Undoubtedly the fate of the creatures below. And it had sounded like the same had been happening to Luc’s sister. I’d rushed inside just in time to see him grab her and vanish.

  I stared at the animals, whirling in their cages. Shape-shifters? Once taken in by the ACU, they could be put down. I hadn’t thought about the fact that they were also part human, but there it was. The thought put a knot in my throat.

  And that’s when Ethan found me.

  “Skye, there you are. Thank God you’re all right.”

  I nodded. “And thankfully you got here with backup when you did.”

  He was staring across the arena at the cages. “What the hell. This isn’t some ordinary dogfight.”

  “Like I tried to tell you.”

  “How did you hear about it?” he asked before I could sell him on the real deal.

  “Remember the casino?” I asked.

  “Stay away from the Lazares.”

  “They’re not all bad,” I said. “I don’t think the Lazares are responsible for this.”

  Luc certainly wasn’t. And apparently Nuala had been an intended victim. Surely her father or other brother wouldn’t do that to her.

  “You’re dreaming. You have no idea of what Cezar Lazare might be responsible for. No idea of the kind of trouble you could be in.”

  “Shade lost his life investigating these fights. You think I don’t know that?”

  “Then what are you trying to prove?”

  Did Ethan think I could sit back and wait for results when I had an in that he didn’t?

  “I fell into something scarier than anything I’ve ever experienced. Shade and at least three others died as a result of fights like the one planned here tonight. I don’t want there to be more victims.”

  No way was I going to call them people, because they weren’t technically. Whatever they were, I mourned for them, too. For their human side. And for their animal side. They might not all be innocents, but they couldn’t be all evil. I didn’t believe Luc was evil. Nor his sister Nuala, not if Shade had cared for her. And Jez had been Luc’s only friend in that world.

  Ethan sighed. “You need to stay out of this. I’m warning you—”

  “No, I’m warning you. If you don’t listen to me and give what I’ve learned some credence and do something about it now, there will be more deaths.”

  Ethan asked, “Why bring me here rather than relying on the ACU?”

  “I know you. I saw the question in your eyes when I told you Shade heard you thinking about the human and animal blood being mixed up in the victims. You didn’t want to believe me, but I think at least a part of you did.” I swallowed hard. Would he believe what I could tell him? “What if the victims are both?”

  “Human and animal? Come on—”

  “All right.” I should have known it was too soon. I had no proof. Yet. “Let’s put that idea on hold for a minute, then. You’re already in the middle of the investigation. Maybe I can get information to you that’ll help.”

  “If you’re right, whoever is running these fights is dangerous. You get too close and you’ll get yourself killed.”

  “I hope not.” Not if I was forearmed with knowledge, something I was pretty sure Shade had been lacking until the end. “But it’s a chance I have to take. I can’t leave this alone. I have to do this for my brother.”

  Not simply to get him justice, but to do whatever it took to send him on his way. As much as I wanted to keep him with me forever, it wasn’t right or fair that my brother was trapped here on this plane of existence, unable to move on to the next.

  Looking across the arena, I was surprised to see Lieutenant Connelly standing back, watching the proceedings. Ethan must have told his superior where he was going, and Connelly must have decided to tag along. Still puzzled over Boomer’s earlier reaction to the man, I was about to tell Ethan about it when he cut into my t
houghts.

  “So what do you think I should do?”

  I’d been considering that from the moment I’d seen the Campbell-Warren Elementary sign. “This was a public school. It should have been secured by the city. How did the scum who runs these things get hold of it?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they just broke in. That’s something I can look into.”

  “Right. And the other venues.”

  He nodded. “We’ve been thinking they were convenient locations that no one would care about. An abandoned warehouse. An old train yard. A closed-down factory. That property near Wells and Roosevelt. But maybe there’s a connection. If there is, I’ll find it.”

  “Good. And when you’re ready to hear what I’ve learned—”

  “Show me proof.”

  Which might be never as far as he was concerned. But that couldn’t be. On some level, Ethan had to know that. I had to give him a little more time. Or find proof that he couldn’t refute.

  …

  Skye Cross was trouble. Look at what she’d set in motion. Flashing blue lights gave an unearthly strobe effect to the arrest scene.

  He watched from enough distance that he was practically invisible as spectators were arrested and the ACU rounded up the cages of shape-shifters and hauled them off to the vehicles. Disaster in the making. He would have to take positive steps to make certain the shifters didn’t slip back into human form and give the CPD something else to investigate. He would have to make sure the cops didn’t get onto him.

  This was a potentially explosive situation, and if it blew up on him, he didn’t want to think about the consequences. Cezar Lazare was not a forgiving man, no matter who crossed him.

  All that bitch’s fault, he was certain. Skye Cross couldn’t keep her nose out of what wasn’t her business. Bad enough that she’d learned about the Kindred. About the casino. About the fight tonight.

  Bad enough that she’d joined forces with Luc, whom he’d planned to destroy from the first. That would give him personal satisfaction in addition to being necessary to achieve his goal of taking over the organization. Another hitch in the plan. Anyone who could support the bastard needed to be taken out. So far he was one for three, since Luc’s bitch of a mother was still alive. Jez was gone, and after tonight, that traitor Nuala should have been as well. Instead, Luc had come to her rescue.