by L. A. Banks
“My good faith effort was that you found your werewolf . . . all I asked for in return was to have some assurance that the information you feed me is accurate to the best of your knowledge. I’m sure you can appreciate how inconvenient it would be if I moved my clients’ portfolios to a location that suffered a man-made disaster . . . millions of dollars could be—”
Sasha held up her hand. “I know. You’ve already coached me on the finer points of global markets. I said I would come back and give you what you wanted—you didn’t have to steal my meds.”
“Borrow,” he countered with a sexy smile. “And, at the time of our earlier negotiations, we didn’t know each other this well, true? I don’t think you would have even allowed me to sit this close to you, then.” He shrugged, still grinning, and leaned on the bar on his elbows, lacing his graceful fingers together. “I vaguely recall your having a hallowed earth grenade in one hand as we discussed terms.”
Sasha couldn’t contain her smile. It slid out and lifted her cheek, encouraging another brilliant smile from him. What he’d said was true; the first time he’d rolled up on her looking to form an alliance she’d held a silver-shell-loaded Glock nine-millimeter on him. The next meeting devolved the moment she’d noticed his fangs cresting; she’d threatened to pull the pin on a grenade, and had meant it.
Much as she hated to admit it, his good faith effort made a small difference. Besides, she’d learned that her reflexes were almost as fast as his and he didn’t unnerve her any longer. Sasha took a liberal sip of her drink, releasing a sigh before she set her glass down with precision.
Alas, a deal was a deal and she’d have to make good on it since Geoff’s intel was solid.
She watched merriment shimmer in his big blue irises that were a color so intense it made one feel as if they were being swallowed by the sea. He was handsome to a flaw, she had to admit that much. He had a full, lush mouth and his strong chin was marred only by a tiny cleft that added character to his stunning profile. Silken brunette waves created an onyx fall over his shoulders.
Even in his relaxed black linen tourist suit with a collarless shirt to match, his bearing still had Old World Europe firmly stamped on it. There was no getting away from his nobleman heritage. But the more she stared at him the more his smile faded, giving way to a more intense expression of raw desire.
Without making her ask for her meds he produced them from his breast pocket and slid them beside her hand on the bar. “Not to rush, milady, but dawn approaches.”
It was her turn to smile wider when she saw a hint of fangs begin to crest again in his mouth. Sasha was certainly having an interesting effect on him. She picked up her small black medical kit and dropped it into her purse and then knocked back the rest of her drink.
“You’re right,” she murmured, watching his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed hard.
“I promise you’ll enjoy it.”
She released a little laugh but declined comment. Sometimes, it was so much easier blowing things up than doing this covert shit. Not to mention how being told in training that this entity could read surface thoughts was one thing, but to have it done in one’s face was . . . strange.
“Okay,” she said after a moment. “How does this work? We just do it right here in public?”
“Is there any other way?” he murmured, now caressing her cheek with the pad of his thumb.
Somewhat unnerved by the proposition, she studied his face again, burning it into her memory. If something foul went down, she wanted to be sure she remembered every detail of her potential attacker. Never stare into their eyes, another training axiom, but she felt no compulsion from him.
“You guys are so kinky,” she finally forced herself to say, using humor as a cover.
He simply smiled. “You have no idea.”
“All right. Do it.”
He looked dismayed. “Madame . . . there is a certain . . . flair, style, protocol to a mind blending.”
Not sure what he meant, for a second she stood before him bewildered. “Okay . . . well . . . then what? You gave me intel, now I’m supposed to let you go into my brain to better understand that we’re not really after vamps, and to find out what we consider hot spots to possibly move on—you know this is classified data, but a deal is a deal.”
For a moment he didn’t speak and just simply placed both palms against her cheeks, softly caressing them. “Don’t you feel anything?”
Her mouth had gone dry. “Yeah, but it’s not an information exchange.”
“That’s how we do it,” he said, so quietly she had to strain to hear him. “Gentle, erotic, and unforgettable. Let me go in . . .”
Then just as suddenly as he’d spoken, he took her mouth and took it hard, the impact of the kiss blotting out all sound from the club around them. What began as a slow, sensual meeting of mouths and parting of lips soon became a passionate struggle of tongues twining, long, graceful fingers threaded through her hair, her body melting against his to feel every hard contour he owned. She had gone from uninterested and slightly creeped out to combustible in less than five seconds. Patrons and bartenders became a blur; showgirls were simply flesh-toned smears as she held on to him while fighting vertigo.
He broke the kiss, panting. Sound returned. Sasha stumbled forward and kissed him again before she could stop herself. The second she did that, took the lead, something unexpected entered her with the shudder he’d released: information.
This guy was a baron? A really old, powerful moneychanger . . . not a lower-level messenger? Whoa . . . a freakin’ Vampire Cartel financial industry baron? Sasha stepped back, breathing hard. The experience of siphoning information with such clarity was disorienting. Sure, she’d had gut hunches as a kid, but this was an entirely different level of understanding that really put the term “giving head” into perspective.
“My place?” His gaze searched hers. “I know that wasn’t part of the bargain . . . but . . .”
“But damn.” She dragged her fingers through her tousled hair.
It had to be going so long without her meds that was making her feel so primal, but she was not about to shoot up in front of a vamp or people in a club. Even if she went into the ladies’ room, there was the other not so little problem; the old bait and switch. How the hell did she know if he’d tampered with her vials or not? For all she knew, he could have switched them and given her something to really make her want to spend a week locked away with a vampire.
“Sasha . . .” he murmured. “Aren’t you curious, just a little?”
She took a deep breath and told herself to pull it together. She had to remind herself that she really wasn’t attracted to the vampire. That he actually reminded her of those privileged pricks who had made her life a living hell when she was in high school. God bless Doc for finding her and taking in an orphan, and even giving her the best education money could buy—but Geoff was one of them . . . the in crowd. Soul tormentors. One of the beautiful people, alive or dead, it didn’t matter; there was a human caste system and she wasn’t anywhere near the top rungs of it. She’d been here before, desired by one of them and then humiliated, and was never going there again. Ever. So she would have to watch herself around him from now on. She was a fool for allowing herself to get cocky in the first place.
She opened her mouth to tell him that it wasn’t going to happen when Geoff let out a low snarl, jerking her attention up to his face. His gaze narrowed and he stepped in front of her in a blatant display of possession.
“Shogun,” he said between his teeth.
Sasha slipped her gun out of her purse and moved several quick steps away from the vampire, keeping it down by her side so as not to draw the attention of the humans in the bar. Her senses on guard, hair on her neck bristling, she held his arm. “Geoff, what is it?” She watched his mouth fill with fully presented fangs, obviously not caring if drunken patrons and high pole dancers saw. “Shit!” she muttered.
“Werewolf,” Geoff practically growle
d.
Sasha’s heart immediately began to pound. A werewolf? Here? Among all these people? And why hadn’t she smelled it approaching? Her senses were never off, so that little mind-mating thing with her handsome contact must have seriously messed her up. No way would she be doing that again. She scented the air. Why was a werewolf here of all places? They liked to hunt, but in dark, quiet places. “Look, Geoff,” she said, continuing to carefully glance around the club, “we can’t have a gunfight or a supernatural species brawl in a bar full of innocent humans. I’ll shoot you both, first.”
“Listen to the lady,” a voice said, and Sasha swung in its direction. A dark figure was now sitting at the far end of the bar. “She’s loaded with silver. But since your nose has been so far up your own ass tonight, I guess you didn’t notice. And for the record, the only reason you might have persuaded her to go home with one of you undeads is, you got to her under a full moon.”
Fury burned in the stranger’s dark eyes as he slung a shot glass across the polished wood so hard and with such precision that not a drop spilled until it collided with Geoff’s hand. “I forgot,” the stranger added in a low rumble as Geoff shook off the whiskey and then cleaned his hand with a handkerchief he’d produced from thin air. “Wrong vintage,” he said, referring to the fact that it wasn’t blood.
Then the dark stranger stood and stepped out of the shadows. At first glance, he was half a head taller than Geoff, oddly making her vampire contact’s six-foot-one-inch frame appear short by comparison. His shoulders were massive and strong, his arms nicely muscular, and he had a six—possibly an eight—pack under his olive T-shirt. His narrow waist drew the eye down to his powerful thighs and legs and back up again. He had flat features, dark, intense, almond-shaped eyes, and his skin had been turned a burnished bronze by the sun.
Sasha’s mind was scrambling to catch up to what her eyes were telling her. This was a werewolf? This was one of the monsters she and her pack had hunted down over the years? But it . . . couldn’t be. Werewolves were like a cross between the Tasmanian devil and Cujo. This man was . . . well, too human and too damn pretty to be one of those out-of-control animals.
Okay, she needed to stay calm and find out just what the hell was going on here.
Both males eyed each other, saying nothing, as they sized each other up. She gripped her Glock tighter, ready to shoot if this went beyond posturing, civilians or no civilians. The newcomer gave the impression of a casual stance, but from her training, she knew it to be a relaxed martial arts pose that could turn into deadly force within seconds. Shogun, huh . . . ?
The strength of his being was implicit. His raw grace nothing short of majestic. As they stood in diametric opposition to each other, she found it hard not to look at both males from two different species and see the exquisite beauty each possessed, predators or not.
She wondered if Shogun was his real name, or if Geoff was just needling him. It would not be beneath the vamp to go there, even if he knew better, given what she’d learned about him thus far. Then again, it could have been his name or title. He didn’t necessarily have to hail from South Korea just because he’d shown up here. In fact, he probably wasn’t from here, if he was a werewolf (which she still couldn’t wrap her mind around), and could have aegis over a wider Asian territory that had indigenous wolf populations. The endless possibilities made her brain hurt.
He appraised the vampire before dismissing him in favor of her. Sasha tensed when he turned that penetrating gaze on her.
Of all the remarkable things about him, she immediately noticed that his scalp was clean-shaven and that gave her pause . . . a werewolf, under a full moon, with not even a five o’clock shadow? He had to have some kind of serious personal restraint or Geoff was simply hurling a species slur at another vamp. But there was no mistake that this stranger was what Geoff claimed. It was all in his earthy scent and the slight amber flicker around the edges of his irises, something that she just knew despite everything she had seen and had been told. It also allowed her to scent the others who had come in with him. There were about five of them. She had picked up on them when Shogun had stepped into the light, though she still couldn’t see them. They weren’t moving, but she had been aware of them all this time.
“You’re in my territory, vampire,” the stranger said after a long, threatening pause. His eyes said it all, even though he’d spoken quietly, calmly, but with a lethal tone that was not to be ignored.
“We were just leaving,” Geoff sneered, gaze narrowed.
“Really?” Shogun looked at Sasha with a challenging half smile. Then he said, “Stay and have breakfast with me. He can’t do the sun and I’m sure what he ingests would turn your stomach.”
“Now you are poaching, wolf,” Geoff said, pointing at his competitor. But no sooner had he uttered the words, than he wisely drew back his hand and arm.
“Me? I’m poaching by protecting this lovely lady from the likes of your blood-sucking ways?” Shogun said with a snarl, beginning to circle Geoff with his palm flattened against his stone-cut chest. “You, who have lied? Your kind, which has openly hunted my kind without finding out which of us was demon-infected or not, have the nerve to now hunt in my territory and expect me not to drag your foul, dead carcass up to the highest rooftop to fry when the sun comes up?”
“Don’t you dare threaten me, you flea-ridden, rabid—”
“Hold it, boys,” Sasha said quickly, coming between the would-be combatants. “Not in here, not around all these humans.” She stared at the one called Shogun and watched righteous indignation flickering in his eyes. “I don’t understand—did you say demon-infected?”
Shogun sighed and crossed his arms. “There’s a lot your so-called vampire contact neglected to explain. For instance, before you ever let another one of them violate your mind, demand an even exchange. If you request it, they must give it—but if you don’t, they’ll cheat you every time. Send him packing and I’ll further discuss it with you over a cup of coffee under the sun.”
Sasha was deeply torn. Clearly the military had so much more to learn, and bringing home strategic information was as vital to missions as blowing things up. It might even go a long way in helping her do the least favorite part of the gig, namely, supernatural diplomacy and negotiations. Just observing this Shogun character and the way he spooked a very old, powerful vamp made her need to know a lot more than she obviously did. Her biggest challenge at the moment was absorbing all these species nuances for which there was no intel. This was learning on the fly if ever she’d seen it!
And perhaps it was all a trap . . . Damn it, she would just have to take the chance and be very, very careful.
The offer of knowledge was just too titillating to pass up, and the vampire seemed to know it.
“Seduction with information . . . I guess you wolves have finally learned something from us after all,” Geoff nearly hissed, and then glanced at the blue-gray horizon and was gone.
Sasha looked at the retreating vapor and then saw a couple of liquor-bleary patrons yawn, squint, and then rub their eyes as though they were confused.
“He thinks you stole his kill out from under him,” she said.
“That’s why we’re called wolves,” Shogun said in a deep rumble. He gave a swift nod to several corners of the room and patrons that had seemed out of it were suddenly very alert. “We always hunt in packs.”
Sasha now saw the others, standing in various positions throughout the club. Clearly they were now allowing themselves to be seen. She understood why Geoff thought better of standing his ground. It would have been a lost cause, anyway. She kept her eyes on Shogun, but now also held his men in her peripheral vision. This was definitely going to get interesting.
Shogun didn’t say another word, just turned on his heel and began to walk out of the strip joint, head held high, back straight, exuding unfailing confidence that she’d follow. While that irked her, there was little else she could do. She had to find out what he was talki
ng about. Sasha tucked her Glock into her waistband, grabbed her purse, and trailed after him.
Following him through a series of small streets and alleys, she was hyperaware of her gun pressed against her spine and hung back just far enough to keep up with him, but with space enough to fight—or run—if there was an ambush. The fact that he had an alert, attack-ready pack at his beck and call was not lost on her in the least.
Finally he made an abrupt turn and took a steep flight of apartment steps in three swift lunges. Sasha stopped. Two things immediately hit her: one, this guy had an incredible ass; two, it would be very foolish to go into a closed-in space behind a potential threat in a South Korean ghetto. There had been five of them at the bar, probably more of his pack.
“What’s wrong?” He stopped walking and turned to look at her, then folded his thick arms over his chest.
“I don’t know you.”
He shrugged. “You’re armed, packing silver. I don’t know you, either—and?”
“I don’t do closed-in spaces.”
He sighed and sat down hard on the crumbling concrete. “No restaurants are serving yet at this hour. I don’t know about you but after a full moon, I need a strong cup of green tea, at the very least. My assumption is that you’re Western-born and take coffee. I have some in the apartment.”
Sasha pulled out her Glock, studied the clip, and leaned against a building. “I’ll wait.” What the hell did “at the very least” mean? She stared up at him.
“Wish I had met you last night,” he said quietly, and then stood and turned and slipped into the building.
“No, you don’t,” she muttered, thinking about loading C-4 under a bridge. She still had some on her, if he wanted to get technical or crazy.
About the only thing worse than watching water boil was waiting for it outside on a desolate foreign street. If the guy didn’t come back soon, she’d go out of her mind with the questions that were rattling around in her skull. A significant part of her was ready to run up the steps in the direction he’d gone just to go investigate, overriding common sense, combat training, and her gut, when he appeared with a glass coffeepot in hand.
