Animal Instincts (Entangled Ignite)

by Patricia Rosemoor

  If he killed his own brother in an act of vengeance, how could we ever be together?

  His expression now drawn, Luc suddenly seemed distant. “Don’t be mistaken about me. I’m a predator just like the other shifters in the habitat.”

  My pulse thudded in warning at the strange tone of his voice. Still, I said, “No, you’re nothing like them.”

  “Of course I am.” He got to his feet. “Watch me.”

  I blinked, and his features instantly changed, his jaw stretching, his cheekbones narrowing. I gasped and nearly fell off my stool. He was shifting, right in front of me.

  “Stop. Please.” My stomach knotted so tight it hurt. “You don’t have to prove anything to me.”

  But he didn’t stop.

  I tried to avert my eyes, but I couldn’t. I sat frozen, cold as ice, watching Luc shift from the seductive man who’d possessed my body all night to a frightening something else. I knew he was a shifter, but I wasn’t ready to face the reality. I certainly wasn’t ready to see his arms turn into legs, his hands into paws. His face contorted, telling me he was in pain. I swore I could feel that pain in my own body. When his back shortened, my back felt like a bolt of lightning had struck it. I jerked away from him with a muffled cry. My spine burned when a long black tail that matched the pelt encasing his body twisted out behind him.

  Pulse thundering now, I backed away. He wasn’t Luc any more. In less than a minute, a black panther stared at me through molten silver eyes.

  It tossed its head and screamed, the wild sound like a hacksaw cutting through wood. My heart began beating so hard, I thought it might explode. I was stunned, unable to move. Then the panther growled and bared its teeth, reminding me of the wolf attack in the habitat.

  Suddenly terrified, I found my legs and fled. Even as the panther stalked me, I somehow undid the lock and opened the apartment door. I slipped into the hall and slammed the door practically in the panther’s nose. If it wanted to come after me, it would have to shift back to the Luc I knew.

  But the elevator arrived, and the apartment door remained closed. Staggering into the car, I pressed “L,” then collapsed against the wall in tears.

  How could Luc have shifted without warning me? Maybe if I had been prepared…

  I was on street level in a minute.

  Wiping my eyes, I stumbled out of the building. I stood confused, unable to focus my mind. I headed east until I could clearly see The Ark gently swaying against the waves lapping at its hull, reminding me of my pledge to fight corruption. Did that mean I couldn’t stop until The Ark was no more? Until all the Kindred were gone?

  Until Luc was destroyed?

  …

  He’d known Skye wouldn’t be able to accept him, Luc thought, after shifting back to human form. He’d had to test her even as he’d known he would chase her away. He’d had to show her what he really was, and she hadn’t been able to accept it.

  Still, walking out onto the balcony, he looked for her, hoping for one last glimpse, but she was nowhere in sight.

  It was then, with the loss of her leaving him hollow inside, that he knew he’d made a mistake.

  Her terror had shattered his heart.

  For a few hours, he’d been happier than he ever remembered being. Because of Skye. Because he didn’t simply want or desire her. He was in love for the first time in his life.

  And yet, he’d had to make her see why they couldn’t be together. For her sake.

  Anguished, he needed to work off these unfamiliar emotions that warred with each other. He had to think clearly about this. About her. About them. He thought about leaping from his balcony to the ground thirteen floors below. Not that he would survive the jump. But he needed to move.

  Concentrating on The Ark, he thought himself there. And then he was. Sifting took some of the adrenaline-ladled energy out of him. Not that there wasn’t plenty left.

  The slot machines sang to him in their mechanical cadence, telling him what a fool he’d been. He headed straight for the habitat.

  “Luc. Are you all right?”

  Nuala. He turned to face her coming from the elevators. His sister appeared to have recovered from her trauma of the day before. “I will be. I just need to run.”

  He knew she understood. Running was a time-honored Lazare tradition when they needed to rid themselves of unwanted stress.

  “I’ll run with you.”

  “No. This is something I need to do for myself.”

  He walked straight past her into the hallway, where he imagined a forest that went on forever, then simply walked through the glass wall that shimmered around him. Nuala hadn’t left. She was staring at him through the window, her expression worried.

  I’ll be fine, he told her, moving into a small stand of trees where he could shift without being seen by any humans wandering by. After I run, I’ll be fine.

  I’ll wait for you.

  Don’t.

  He didn’t wait to see if she would leave or not. He simply took off running.

  His pulse thrummed and he could feel his own heartbeat as he ran like the wind. He raced through the forest on and on, running for hours until he was so exhausted and out of breath he physically couldn’t run anymore. He stopped, legs shaking. Waited to regain his breath so that he could shift back to his human self.

  Quick footsteps crunching along the pathway behind him was the only warning he got before something sharp and stinging pricked his neck.

  He tried to shift back to his human form.

  And couldn’t.

  His legs collapsed under him, and then he couldn’t move at all.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Still shaken after wandering around for hours, I stopped at Petopia on my way home. Phoebe was alone, getting ready to close up the store.

  The moment she saw me, her eyes went wide. “What happened to you?”

  I hung the closed sign on the door and locked it. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  “Try me.”

  “Let’s go into the office. I could use something cold to drink.”

  She followed me through the store. I stopped for a moment, to pet the animals in back, but I really needed to talk to someone about what had just happened, so I kept it short and headed for the office where I pulled a cola from the fridge.

  “So what’s going on?” Phoebe asked.

  I’d kept her out of it to protect her, but I couldn’t deal with this alone. Phoebe already knew about my abilities both with my brother and with animals, so I hoped she could accept the rest. I could never tell Shade about Luc, so I told her. Everything. Starting from our first encounter to the last. Her eyes stayed wide throughout.

  “Wow,” she said when I finished. “That’s a lot to take in.”

  Unable to tell if she believed me or not, I waited, my stomach whirling until Phoebe’s expression transformed from shocked to concerned.

  “Why didn’t you tell me what was going on when I stopped by your place?” she asked.

  I took a relieved breath. “I didn’t want to involve you.”

  “I’m your friend. You can always count on me.”

  “I know that. I wanted you to stay safe. And for a while, I didn’t believe any of what I told you myself. But now…oh, Phoebes, I don’t know what to do.”

  “You mean about Luc.”

  I knew I wasn’t going to stop looking for Shade’s killer, but Luc was another matter. What was I going to do about him?

  “Do you love him?” Phoebe asked.

  “I care for him.” Which was all I was willing to admit. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “If you care, that must mean you trust him. No matter what. You wouldn’t have those feelings for someone you couldn’t trust,” Phoebe said. “And I don’t believe you would have slept with him if you didn’t trust him, either.”

  “You didn’t see him when he turned into a panther.”

  “No. I’m sure it was shocking. Jeez, I would have run o
ut of there, too. But it seems to me Luc was trying to be honest with you.”

  Phoebe might have a point, but I wasn’t ready to go there. “What if he was trying to scare me?”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “I don’t know. To make me stop my investigation?”

  “If that’s true, maybe he was trying to protect you. He never tried to hurt you, right?”

  “No, of course not.”

  Of course not.

  “There you go.” Phoebe gave me a big, long hug. “Trust yourself. You’ll know what is true and what isn’t.”

  My eyes stung as I hugged Phoebe back. “I should have told you everything before.”

  “How can I help?”

  “You already have.”

  Phoebe wanted to drive me home, but I insisted on walking. Trust myself to know what was true and what wasn’t. That sounded easy, only it wasn’t.

  I tried to forget about Luc as I hurried up the stairs to my apartment. I took care of the animals, then changed into jeans and a T-shirt. The sun had set and darkness fell by the time I went downstairs to find my brother. Exhausted, I meant to catch him up on what Ethan had learned.

  I found him in the living room, Boomer at his side.

  “Where the hell were you all night and all day?” Shade demanded the moment he saw me. “I thought something happened to you.”

  I hadn’t thought about Shade worrying. “With Luc.”

  “Investigating?”

  “Not exactly.” I really didn’t want to go into it with him when I didn’t know how I felt about what had happened between us. “Sorry to make you worry. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Of course I worry.” Giving me an intent look, Shade simmered down. “Luc, huh? I don’t like it. Nuala’s kind have some power that makes them irresistible.”

  I knew that firsthand. But… “How would you know?

  “Bits and pieces have been coming back. I remember Nuala. I got close to her to get information for the case.”

  “You got a lot more than information.” I blocked him from reading me, because I was thinking of Nuala’s pregnancy.

  His smile was sad. “Yeah, I kinda remember some of that action, too.” Then he sobered. “Not that you should be getting any.”

  “Put a sock in it,” I muttered.

  Now that Shade’s memory was coming back, I thought to tell him about the baby, but still I hesitated. He’d seemed to remember having sex with Nuala, but he didn’t say anything about caring for her. Knowing that if she found that out, Nuala’s heart would be broken all over again, I clenched my jaw. Another conundrum. If I waited a while longer, chances were Shade would recapture more of his memory. Maybe even all of it. He might remember his feelings for her, assuming he had any. Then I would bring Nuala here, and she could tell him herself, which was the way it ought to be.

  “So, after you left here yesterday, did you learn anything of value?” Shade asked. “About the case?”

  I nodded. “Ethan investigated the various fight sites. They all led back to one man. Sam Hawk. Luc said that’s a comic book character, and as a kid, his brother Nik was a fan. He insisted on being called Hawk.”

  “So Luc thinks his brother is the one in charge of the shifter fights?”

  “I’m afraid so.” My pulse pounded thinking about how he’d terrified me. That wasn’t the Luc I knew. “And it’s killing him.”

  “Not to mention the shifters who lose the fights. What if he’s right about Nik, and you can get proof? Then what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Would you really want someone involved in murder—even murder of a Kindred—to go free? What if Nik killed me?”

  That would be a nightmare I didn’t want to contemplate.

  Just then, my cell phone rang. A reprieve.

  Pulling it from my pocket, I checked the caller ID. “Nuala?” What did she want? “Hang on,” I told Shade. “Let me take this.”

  I accepted the call. “Nuala, what’s going on?”

  “Skye, I’m so glad I got y-you.”

  Nuala’s voice was shaky. Had someone been on her case about the baby again?

  I wasn’t ready for her next words. “It’s Luc. He’s in trouble, and I can’t find Nik anywhere.”

  My stomach lurched. I put the call on speakerphone so Shade could hear. “What do you mean in trouble?”

  “He was in the habitat running. He’d already shifted and had been running like his life depended on it. I don’t know what happened, but something must have upset him. He was finished, but before he could shift back to himself, they got him.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “Got him? Who got him?”

  “I-I don’t know. I didn’t recognize them. Two Kindred. They darted him the same way they did me. Then they restrained him. I tuned in to their thoughts. They were talking about taking him to the arena and that the fight was fixed.”

  “A shifter fight?” I cried, my heart in my throat.

  Shade and I locked gazes. Someone was going to make Luc fight?

  “Yes, but I don’t know where. And I don’t understand why Nik won’t answer my calls. Maybe they have him, too.”

  Or maybe Nik had Luc. I prayed not. If Luc didn’t die in the fight, knowing that his brother was responsible would kill him.

  What about Cezar? Shade asked.

  I nodded and tried to keep the panic out of my voice. “What about your father?” Surely Cezar would be able to find his sons.

  “I can’t get him, either. No one knows where he is, and he’s not answering his cell. I don’t know what to do.”

  Call Ethan.

  I nodded again. “Calm down. All of the shifter fights were in properties owned by one man. Shade’s partner Ethan put a list together. He’ll help me figure out where Luc was taken and we’ll go get him.”

  “Thank you, but be careful.”

  “I promise.” I clicked off and looked to Shade.

  “Ethan will figure it out,” Shade said.

  “I pray he does.” I called Ethan immediately and told him what I’d learned. “We need to get to Luc before he’s killed. Those properties owned by Fauna—were any not used yet?”

  “A couple,” he said. “Let me get the list.”

  I was already headed out of the apartment.

  “Wait a minute!” Shade yelled. “You can’t go alone. I’ll get Boomer and we’ll come with you.”

  “Sorry, Shade. I have to do this without you.”

  Fearing what might happen to him if he melded with Boomer again and then one of those wild animals got hold of the dog, I slammed the door in his face. If Boomer died out there, killed by a descendent of the Nephilim, not only might my brother be lost to me forever, but maybe to the hereafter as well.

  I traded the building for the dark street. The wind had picked up. The trees overhead soughed as if in mourning. Nearby bushes chattered and discarded flyers and fast-food wrappers swirled down the sidewalk. The strange wind made my spine crawl. I couldn’t get to my car fast enough, and I was glad when Ethan got back to me.

  “One of those properties is an abandoned warehouse in the middle of the Stockyards Industrial Park on the south side,” he said. “The other is a piece of land on the west side between the expressway and Roosevelt Road.”

  “We can’t go together to both,” I said, getting into my car. “If we pick the wrong one first, we may not make it in time to save Luc. Where exactly is the one in the industrial park?” When he gave me the cross streets, I repeated them mentally so I wouldn’t forget. Then I said, “I’ll go south. You go west.”

  “Skye, you’re not going alone.”

  “I’m already on my way.”

  I clicked off. This time, Ethan didn’t bother calling me back to try to change my mind.

  Within minutes, I was on the expressway, speeding south. The wind blew debris against the windshield. Dry lightning split the sky ahead, as if signaling me that I was headed in the right direction. If only I cou
ld think of the place and be there the way Luc could. I couldn’t believe that he, of all his father’s people, had been taken.

  I couldn’t believe I’d run from him, either.

  That was the last memory he’d had of me before entering the habitat. Undoubtedly the reason he had gone there, to run off his disappointment. My fault he’d been off guard and had been taken.

  When he’d shifted in front of me, I should have stood my ground.

  Why had I been so terrified when I knew the kind of man Luc was? Phoebe had been right when she’d told me to trust myself, that I would know what was true and what wasn’t. Luc’s panther wouldn’t have hurt me. Now that I’d had time to calm down, I was as sure of that as I was of anything. Despite what Luc had shown me, despite my own panic, I knew who he was. It had taken me a while to figure him out because he hid himself so well.

  Now he had my heart and I would do anything to save him.

  …

  Noises filtered through his subconscious, a crack of thunder finally waking him. Luc opened his eyes, and the first thing he saw were bars. Caged. Screaming voices echoing around him made his gut clench and the fur along his spine stand straight up.

  Knowing they’d taken him to fight, he made an attempt to get to his feet. Barely halfway up, his shaky legs gave out on him.

  He was a dead man. Or a dead panther. Even if the drugs wore off completely by the time they put him in the arena, he had little chance of making it out alive. He had nothing left in him. He’d run himself to exhaustion in the habitat after staying up all night with Skye.

  He’d known sadness in life. Disappointment. He hadn’t actually known a heart could break. He’d pushed Skye to her emotional limit, and she’d run from him, and he’d known it was over. He couldn’t blame her for not loving him the way he did her. What an idiot he’d been to test her like that.

  Without her, his future had no meaning.

  He had no reason to fight for one.

  “You’d better get on your paws and walk it off, man,” came a voice from the other side of the bars. “Or your brother will end you.”

  Doyle. Since when do you care what happens to me?

  …don’t…happens to…

  What? Can’t understand you. Though Luc knew Doyle was trying to tell him something, the drugs in his system must have affected his ability to hear the man’s thoughts clearly.