by AE Jones
“Don’t move,” I hissed.
“Don’t shoot me!” he hollered back.
Okay, I almost shot him. The guy was crouched on the floor. When he stood up, he was tall and lanky, with the freakiest yellow eyes. He was also stark naked.
I continued to point my gun at him, amazed my arms were holding steady. I was proud of my composure until I tried to talk and my voice cracked. “What are you doing here?”
“Wait, Kyle, let me explain.”
My hands tensed. “How do you know my name?”
“I was given a profile on you when I was assigned to watch you.”
The answer threw me. “Who the hell are you?”
“My name is Matthew Johnson.”
“And why are you watching me, exactly?”
“I was contacted several months ago. There was a concern that you were in danger,” he answered.
“Not possible, I would have noticed you before now.”
He shook his head. “You wouldn’t have known what to look for.”
“Why in the hell are you naked?”
“I just shifted, I can’t exactly wear clothes when I’m in my cat form.”
Cat form? I stared at his familiar yellow eyes for a moment longer and my stomach sank. Jesus.
“Booger?”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
The room started to spin, and I focused on a picture on the wall to maintain my balance. This was way too much. All these months, and I’d had a shifter living in my house. I had been feeding and taking care of him. I snorted to myself. The one thing in my life I thought didn’t have an ulterior motive just morphed into a frickin’ male with an agenda. Perfect.
Adrenaline fueled my anger and I seriously considered going postal. “You son of a bitch.” I glared at him. “You’ve been living here with me! What about my right to privacy?”
“Don’t worry, Kyle. I didn’t see any of your naughty parts. You might want to stop singing those show tunes in the shower, though.”
My mouth fell open, but I recovered quickly. “Do you think you should be making jokes right now? I have a clear shot at all of your naughty parts.”
He gulped and backed up.
“I want to know who sent you.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
I scowled and pointed the gun lower.
He held up his hands. “I swear! I don’t know. I was given the assignment through a third party.”
“Explain.”
“I was given a file on you with instructions to watch over you and report if anything mysterious happened.”
“How do you report in?”
“I have a prepaid phone I use to call an answering machine and leave my reports.”
“And you didn’t think this setup was weird?”
“They wanted me to protect you, not kill you, so I didn’t see the harm in it.”
“Well, I won’t be needing your services any longer. Tell that to your boss.”
Surprisingly, he shook his head. “No can do.”
“What?”
“You’re in trouble. In the last few days, there have been a lot of vamps scoping out this place.”
I didn’t have to ask who they were working for. “Well, you’re not staying here.”
“No problem, but I’ll be around if you need me.”
I motioned with my gun toward the door.
“Ahhh, I have some clothes stashed in your trunk. Can I put them on before you throw me out?”
I nodded and he pulled out a pair of jeans, T-shirt and tennis shoes, putting them on quickly. He opened the door and smiled. “See you later, Kyle.”
I closed the door and threw the bolt lock in place, then slammed the window shut and latched it. Flipping the safety on, I set the gun down on the coffee table, not wanting it too far away from me at the moment. I sat down on the couch and ran my fingers through my hair, yanking at the tangles. Who would have sent him to watch me? It wouldn’t have been Jean Luc. He was worried about me, but Booger had been here for months. Griffin? Matthew was a shifter, so it made sense he would work for him, but I had just met Griffin. Why would he be watching out for me?
There was only one way to find out. I called Griffin’s office and his assistant answered. After I identified myself, she explained Griffin was tied up all day. The clan was burying Byron. I thanked her and went to my bedroom to dress in funeral attire. I had never been to a shifter funeral, so I wasn’t sure if black was appropriate, but I put on a black suit and shoes, erring for once on the side of caution.
The funeral was held at a small hall on the west side. The parking lot overflowed, and by the time I found a space the service had already begun. It was standing room only, so I stayed in the vestibule, scanning the crowd. I was shocked to see Jean Luc and Misha standing to the side. They were doing the same thing I was, watching the crowd. Maybe they were hoping to see someone who stuck out like a sore thumb—the killer maybe?
I looked toward the front of the hall. Griffin sat facing the crowd. He stared directly at me. I nodded slightly and then resumed scanning faces.
When the service ended, I stood over to the side and watched everyone file out toward the parking lot. Griffin held the elbow of a female shifter who was probably Byron’s mother. He escorted her past me and continued to the black SUV waiting at the entrance, helping her into the vehicle. He then shut the door and tapped on the car lightly, signaling for the driver to go. After they pulled away, he walked over to me.
“Thank you for coming.”
“The service was nice.”
“We’re having another ceremony for just the pack tonight. Did you see anyone suspicious in the crowd?”
He was freakishly observant. “No, unfortunately, I didn’t.” I paused, not sure how to proceed.
“Is there something else you needed?”
“I just found out a shifter has been hired to guard me, and I was wondering if you know anything about it.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “No, I do not. Who is it?”
“Matthew Johnson.”
“I know Matthew. He’s very good at what he does.”
“And what does he do, exactly?”
“Matthew is one of the rare shifters who can almost completely mask his scent. Which means he can be in a room full of supernaturals in his shifted form and they would not know what he is. And you say he has been watching you?”
I cleared my throat. “Actually, he has been living with me in his cat form for several months.”
Griffin grabbed my arm and practically growled. “If he has done anything inappropriate to you…”
“No, it’s not that. He actually was a perfect gentleman, uh…cat. Whatever. I’m trying to figure out who hired him.”
“I can speak to him if you’d like.”
“He says he doesn’t know who hired him, but if you can find out anything more for me, I’d appreciate it.”
“Of course. Are you okay otherwise?”
“Why do you ask?”
He stared intently at me for a moment, like he was trying to read my mind. “I can smell the lieutenant strongly on you now. I can tell your relationship with him has progressed, but I also smell the sharp tang of pain or anger as well.”
I shrugged away from his hand on my arm. “I’m fine.”
“I will let you go, then. Your team is waiting for you.”
I glanced over my shoulder. Jean Luc and Misha stood across the parking lot staring at me. “Thanks for your help.”
“If you need anything, Kyle, please know you can contact me at any time.” He handed me his business card, then turned and walked toward his black Audi.
I turned and walked toward an irritated vampire and a pissed-off demon.
Chapter 30
I had to hand it to both Misha and Jean Luc. They settled down quickly after leaving the funeral. I told them I had come back early and Dalton stayed to follow up on the investigation, so they didn’t push me too much. What I didn’t tell them was what had h
appened between us, but they knew it was bad. Jean Luc berated me slightly for not calling one of them to pick me up from the airport, but he finally let it drop. Their calm demeanor, however, changed when I told them about Booger.
Misha paced the office floor. “I never trusted that shifty-eyed cat. And to think I made a special trip over there last night to feed him. If I get my hands on him…”
“Calm down, Mish, he was there to protect me.”
“So he says. And it’s pretty flimsy to claim he doesn’t know who hired him. Come on!”
“Well, he gave me some information today. He said vamps have been all over Little Italy the past few days.”
Jean Luc’s jaw tightened. “Sebastian is after you now and is not hiding it.”
“So what do we do?”
“Give me a couple of minutes in my office, I will be back shortly.” He flashed from the room.
I huffed and picked up my empty mug from the table, and Misha poured a fresh cup for me. I was facing away from the door when it opened, but Misha’s tense expression told me who it was. I turned. Dalton stood in the doorway.
Misha’s voice dropped an octave. “I don’t know what happened, but do not hurt her again or you will answer to me.” Then he looked questioningly at me and I nodded. Misha backed away toward the front office. “I’m going out for a while, but Jean Luc is in the back.” He stared pointedly at Dalton before closing the door.
I sat down at the table with my cup and took a large swallow, burning my tongue in the process.
“Kyle…”
Shaking my head, I examined my cuticles. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Please, let me explain.”
I stared at him blankly although my insides were tumbling. “Did you find anything else to help with the case? That’s all I want to hear about right now.”
“We can’t leave it like this.”
“If you say one more word about it, I am out the door. Do you have any news about the case?”
He blew out a hard breath. “The law office was a bust. But Carl sent me an email with some of Jonathan’s pictures this morning. I emailed it to you since it’s hard to make them out on my phone.”
I brought my email up on the laptop on the table and clicked open the attachment. Dalton sat down next to me and I tensed for a second before turning the screen so we could both see it. It was a zipped file, and when I opened it there were hundreds of photos.
I saved the zip file on our main server and pointed to another laptop. “You start at the bottom, I’ll start at the top. With us both going through the pictures, it might go faster.”
Dalton scooted over into the other chair and opened the file. We sat in silence, clicking through the pictures. It wasn’t long before I found some pictures from Turkey. In the first one Jonathan was standing on a hill of dirt. The next photo showed a trio of students outside a tent. They were smiling and sunburned, with Jonathan standing in the middle. The third picture was a larger group photo. I zoomed in on the faces and reviewed them.
“Bingo!”
Dalton moved over. “What did you find?”
I pointed to a face in the back row. “Cowell.”
“This is definitely the connection.”
“Yeah, but to what?”
“Did Misha find anything?” Dalton asked.
“Not much. He said the dig was almost a nonevent. He’s having trouble even tracking down who was involved.”
“Well this picture might help.”
I stared at the faces on the screen. “Something must have happened to them at the site. Did they see something they shouldn’t have? What did Hampton think they knew to make him torture them with straends?”
“Maybe something was discovered at the site. Something important enough Hampton was willing to kill for it.”
“It might explain why Cowell and Jonathan were so close-mouthed about the dig.” I started to click on the next picture when Dalton laid his hand over mine and I jerked away from him.
“Sorry. Zoom in on the right hand corner.” He pointed. “There. I think it’s a U.S. soldier. Sometimes, if a dig is in a volatile area, soldiers are sent in to protect the site.”
I clicked on the intercom. “Jean Luc.”
“Yes.”
“Did Misha get any info back from our military contacts on Jason Watson?”
“Yes, it is on the server under his name.”
“Thanks.”
I did a quick search and pulled up the army record. I paged back two years and couldn’t believe it. Watson had been stationed in Europe. He had been assigned protection duty for a dig in Turkey. The stars were aligning.
“So Watson was part of this too. Now he’s trying to kill supes, and Cowell had a book about demons. What if somehow supes were exposed during this dig and these guys formed some sort of supernatural hit squad to take them out?”
“It’s a possibility.”
Jean Luc came into the room. “What did I miss?”
We filled him in.
“We are getting closer to the truth,” Jean Luc murmured.
“But not close enough to get Sebastian off my back.”
Dalton tensed. “Has something else happened?”
“Apparently, Sebastian has his minions out looking for me.”
“Damn. What’s the plan, Jean Luc?” Dalton asked.
I stared at Jean Luc. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Sebastian wants to control you. Your ability would be a powerful tool for him.”
“Well, I won’t agree to that.”
Jean Luc paused for a second before responding. “You do not have to agree to anything. He can compel you to help him.”
Dalton grabbed my hand, and I was too freaked out to yank it away this time. “What the hell do you mean he can compel her?”
“It is not like the movies. Vampires cannot look into your eyes and command you to do their bidding.”
I released the breath I had been holding. “Then I’m safe.”
“Let me finish. They cannot compel you unless they have tasted you.”
“There is no way I would let him bite me.”
“He will not ask. He could bite you at any time.”
My voice ratcheted higher. “Wait a minute. Isn’t it the number one vampire commandment? That you can’t bite a human unless they agree to it?”
Jean Luc shook his head. “Sebastian thinks of humans as cattle. Do you honestly believe he thinks you have the right to free will?”
“Great. So what do we do now?”
“He cannot touch you if you belong to another vampire.”
“Excuse me?”
“Once another vampire has tasted your blood, it cannot be overridden. You would be safe.”
I stared into Jean Luc’s sorrowful eyes. Dalton’s hand tensed over mine and he leaned forward. “You’re not suggesting you bite her, are you?”
“She would be safe. Sebastian could not touch her then, unless she wanted him to.”
Dalton pushed his chair back with a loud scrape and stood.
Jean Luc’s eyes never left my face. “What do you think, Kyle?”
I knew in my soul Jean Luc would never hurt me intentionally. “What would happen if you drank my blood?”
“Jesus!” Dalton started to pace.
“I would have to take enough blood that another vampire would sense you belonged to me.”
“You would have to bite me.”
“Yes, but just once, Kyle.”
Dalton interrupted. “What if you turn her into a vampire?”
“It does not work that way.”
I tried to swallow down the lump forming in my throat. “Would you be able to control me?”
He exhaled sharply. “Since I would only be taking your blood one time, I would not be able to fully control you. At the most, I might be able to plant some suggestions you might accept. But I would not do that to you, Kyle. Just like you would never use your power to make me forget.�
�
I nodded. “I need to think about it.”
Jean Luc stood. “I will leave you two alone.”
“Wait,” I exclaimed, turning my back on Dalton and walking over to Jean Luc. “Why are you leaving me alone with him?”
“This is a momentous decision, Kyle. You need to talk to someone besides me about it. Put whatever is going on between you and Dalton aside for the moment and discuss this.”
Before I could protest, he flashed out of the room. Dalton walked into my line of sight, glowering at me. But I wouldn’t be intimidated. “You don’t have a say in this matter.”
“Fine. Throw me out of the equation, since you’ve already written me off, but think about this. You are one of the most independent people I have ever met. Are you going to be able to handle someone having any type of control over you? Even the littlest bit?”
I bit the inside of my cheek to stop from laughing, crying, I don’t know what. He was such an idiot. He had no idea how much control he had over me now. Jean Luc didn’t scare me. Hell, Sebastian didn’t even scare me as much as my feelings for this man in front of me. What a mess.
I answered him as calmly as I could. “The alternative is worse. If Sebastian gets hold of me, he could make me use my power to hurt people. That’s something I could never live with.”
His eyes softened and he stepped toward me. “Just make sure to think this through. There will be no going back.”
“I know. Can I have a few minutes to myself?”
He nodded and walked down the hall to Jean Luc’s office. I didn’t want to know if he was going to pump him for more information on this whole blood-drinking thing or what. I paced and mentally list the pros and cons of having Jean Luc bite me. Within a few minutes, I had made a decision.
I walked down the hall and found both of them in Jean Luc’s office. Dalton took one look at my face and tensed. It was scary, how well he was starting to know me.
I swallowed hard. “Will it hurt?”
Jean Luc paused before answering. “Biting is actually pleasurable. It often releases pheromones, making the whole episode quite enjoyable.”
“What the hell!” Dalton barked and leaned forward.
“Kyle is like a daughter to me. I would never take advantage of her in such a way. Which is why you will stay to help her throughout the exchange.”
