by A. C. Arthur
“I think, in a way.” Admitting he wanted to sleep with her didn’t really seem like the politically correct thing to say. Besides, how did she explain that she thought that was all Rome wanted to do?
Taking another swallow of his beer, Stephen leaned back in his chair. “He’s an idiot if he isn’t.”
She couldn’t help but smile at the serious way in which he’d said that, as if he really saw something in her he thought another man should appreciate. The thought warmed her, just like watching the other two couples together planted the smallest seed of hope inside her.
Maybe she could be relationship material after all. Drinking her soda she laughed off that idea, because it was ridiculously stupid. Stephen was talking off his fourth beer, he could say anything and not mean a thing. What Kalina knew definitely was that the orphan who was trying to make a difference didn’t need the added stress of falling in love with the wrong man.
Instead she decided to enjoy the moment. She’d wanted badly to come to this cookout, to be included in the normalcy of friends on a Sunday afternoon, just this once.
* * *
As night settled over the deck, crowded with folding chairs and plastic-covered tables, a light breeze began to blow. Kalina sat at the table with Mel, Pete, and Stephen.
Lifting to her lips the soda she’d grabbed in exchange for the beer she couldn’t quite stomach, she took a sip. The cool liquid slid over her tongue and down her throat with a gentle motion. She let the taste of lime mingle in her mouth and was just about to say something when she heard it.
A moan, or a groan, or something akin to an animal sound. She looked around, but it didn’t appear that anyone else had heard it. Maybe one of the neighbors had a big-ass dog that could growl that deeply. Somehow Kalina really didn’t think that was the case.
Her body tensed as she sat up straighter in her chair. The sound came again, this time closer, and she wished she’d figured out a way to squeeze the 9mm in her glove compartment into her super-small purse. There was danger, that feeling she knew well as it gripped her insides, sending quick messages to her brain to be on alert. She’d always had this kind of intuition, these feelings that she knew were different from anything anyone around her felt. Right beside her the conversation between Melanie and her guests moved with casual ease, but Kalina’s ears tuned that out, pushed it to the far recesses of her mind. In return she homed in on the sound of whatever was coming, waiting so she could react.
It was the strangest thing, a sense of déjà vu so strong she felt dizzy with it. She would have to fight; her fingers tingled with the notion. But who? She was at a cookout for crying out loud, who the hell was she gonna fight? The brother-in-law who came over thinking he’d been hooked up? The dad who burned her hamburger?
It didn’t make sense.
But at the end of the yard where fat bushes lined the tall tiers of the privacy fence she saw a movement. Just a shadow, but definitely movement. Instinctively she stood, her eyes narrowing, focusing on that spot.
“Hey, you need something?” Stephen asked, already at her side.
“Ah, no. I um, I just need the bathroom,” she replied. “Be right back.”
And then she was gone, slipping through the back door into the kitchen. Walking swiftly through the rooms, Kalina searched for the basement door. It was there, along the foyer wall. She headed down the steps, hearing the blare of what she thought was the SpongeBob SquarePants theme music. At the bottom of the steps, she looked to her left into the room that was carpeted and paneled and again filled with furniture, including a big flat-screen television. Matthew was lounging on the couch and Madison sound asleep on the love seat across from him.
Tiptoeing past the doorway, she entered what was obviously the laundry room: cement floor, washer and dryer, clothes hanging or folded all about. But none of that mattered; the feeling that something was out there taunted her. There was another door and Kalina quickly opened it, grabbing a baseball bat she’d spied in the corner of the laundry room beforehand.
Slipping out into the night, she recognized that the adults were still talking and drinking just above her on the deck. She moved slowly, hoping their beer-muddled minds wouldn’t see her creeping across the elongated length of the yard. Using the cloak of darkness and the dense line of bushes, Kalina moved deeper and deeper into the yard until a sound had her stopping.
It wasn’t a groan this time, more like a chuffing she knew was animal-like because she’d heard it before. Last night and that night long ago. Still, Kalina prayed she was wrong. What she thought she’d seen didn’t exist. Moving closer to the bushes, she let that thought play in her mind.
Through the bushes there was a flash of light. Green. Two orbs of green. Eyes?
Her heart pounded in her chest as recognition beat into her brain.
She paused, unable to move another inch.
Eyes in the bushes.
There was a sound behind her and she flinched, turning quickly with the raised bat in hand. What came at her was large and moved fast. But she was faster, swinging until the bat connected with a loud thunk. She would have hit it again or at the very least moved closer to verify what “it” was, but she was grabbed from behind.
A hand went over her mouth, another around her waist, pulling her into the bushes she’d thought were her shield.
Kalina struggled, but it was futile as whoever had grabbed her moved quickly. The privacy fence gave way, probably the opening where the trash cans were lined. But there was almost no sound—or maybe they were moving too fast. She felt wind whipping over her skin as if they were traveling at a high rate of speed.
The chuffing grew louder, into a sick-sounding mewl. But her captor kept moving and moving until she was being thrown into the back of a truck.
“Go!” a man’s voice yelled.
The truck pulled off, wheels screeching along the asphalt.
Kalina rolled over on the leather-covered seat, turning until she stared into eyes that freaked her out more than the green ones she’d seen in the bushes. They were gold, like flecks of the sun dropped into the face of a man with skin the color of night.
Now she really wished she had her gun.
Chapter 14
Umberto Alamar walked slowly off the private jet to the waiting black SUV. A different type of breeze hit his exposed skin, a scent of untamed and dangerous land tickling his nostrils. Approaching the open door of the vehicle, he unbuttoned the two buttons of the suit jacket and stepped inside.
Human clothes, he thought, itched like the devil.
The interior of the vehicle was dark and he was alone, as he was most of the time. As he had been most of his adult life. Save for the three years his jaguar mother had stayed with him, Umberto had been parentless, taken in by the females of the tribe, trained by the males to become the leader he was today. One would think at fifty-two years old he would have found some sort of solace in the life that had been chosen for him before he’d taken an initial breath.
But he hadn’t.
He was where he was supposed to be, doing the job that was destined to be his. But it wasn’t enough. He knew this just as he’d known three days ago that this trip to the States was imminent.
Things were changing, long-ago rules were proving deficient in this new battle that approached. And it was on foreign ground that the first spoils of this war would lie.
With a heavy sigh he sat back on the seat, wondering how they’d come to be in this position, knowing instinctively that it would not only be up to him to bring them out.
* * *
X greeted the Elder, holding open the door to the SUV that had brought him from the private landing strip in Virginia owned by the Shadow Shifters but titled to a couple of fake stockholders in Rome and Nick’s law firm. With appropriate respect and honor he bowed and waited as the Elder stepped from the vehicle and stayed in that position until a heavy hand clapped onto his shoulder, granting permission for him to do otherwise.
He’d
received word from the Assembly just an hour ago that Elder Alamar was arriving. He’d also been told to keep the arrival time and place a secret, until otherwise notified.
X did as he was told.
Usually.
Tonight was one of those off times that he listened to one of the Elders and kept his mouth shut about the arrival of Alamar. He did this for two reasons. First, he’d been instructed to take Alamar to Rome’s house. This meant he wasn’t keeping anything from his friend and Faction Leader. And two, it was either leave his apartment to pick up the Elder or sit there and let the walls close in around him, choking the last remnants of life out of him.
Normally X liked his solitude, enjoyed the quiet that calmed the darkness raging in his soul. Tonight he’d needed something else.
Driving the almost hundred miles to Rome’s house from the airport gave him time to think, or more like not think, about the needs building inside. He was not a simple man, nor a simple beast, for that matter. No, it was not only X’s genetic makeup that was different, out of the ordinary. It was so much more. Since first realizing that deep dark desires ran thickly through his blood, he’d been careful to keep it a secret. Only one kind of shifter craved the things X did, only one branch of their species took pleasure in the darker side of sexual exploitations.
The Rogues.
But he was not one of them. Every day he arose and with every breath he took, X convinced himself he was not like those betrayers, those killers. He was different. He always had been.
Pulling up in front of Rome’s house, X got out of the truck, walked to the back, and opened the door.
“Where is Roman?” Elder Alamar asked pointedly.
“If he is not at home, I will find him, sir,” he said.
Once they approached the front door, Baxter was there holding it open.
“Welcome, Elder Alamar. Come right in, sir.”
Elder Alamar nodded and proceeded into the house. When X would have walked in behind him, Baxter put up a thin hand to stop him.
“You must go. Mr. Roman received a call and rushed out. I believe it is the woman.”
The woman whom both X and Nick were very suspicious of and whose file had been blocked when X attempted to check on her. The woman who was beginning to play an integral part in whatever was going on. “Where and how long ago?”
“West Forty-first Street. About five minutes before you pulled up.”
“Call Nick and make sure he knows.”
Baxter nodded. “Yes, Mr. Xavier.”
X headed back to the truck without any more questions. There was no need; all he needed to know was that Rome was out, possibly fighting in the night by himself for a woman they still knew nothing about.
* * *
She screamed, his name bouncing off the walls like high-pitched wails. Nick thrust his hips, pumped frantically until thick spurts of semen filled the condom he wore over his dick, which was buried deep inside her heated pussy.
His fingers were twisted in her long hair, pulling her head back as he fucked her from behind. The muscles in his arms and back bunched as he stroked, his body seeking release, his mind holding on to memories.
This was how he took his women, with fierce quick strokes, their backs turned and his eyes closed.
That way he couldn’t see her.
Not the woman he was with.
But the one he couldn’t have.
Even after all these years she still haunted him, filled his mind and his soul as if they’d never parted. As if they’d never been forced to separate.
An angry growl vibrated in his chest, pulling his lips over his teeth as he forced his body away from hers. She’d facilitated his release; that’s all he’d wanted from this other woman. From the moment she’d rubbed her voluptuous body against his while he’d been sitting in the bar, he’d known they would end up like this. She wanted to have sex with him, he needed a diversion—it was a perfect match.
He hadn’t kissed her, had applied no pretty words. This hadn’t been a seduction, more like a production of sorts. Get in and get out, that was his motto. It had to be or he’d lose more of himself than he had before.
And that was not an option.
But this woman whom he’d just met tonight hadn’t brought his release. It was the other. The dream of the other female that aroused him continuously, pushed him toward that pleasurable precipice even though she was millions of miles away.
“Wow,” the female voice said. “Let’s get a shower, baby.” She’d followed him, her hands roaming over his bare back.
His dick was still hard, his teeth clenching painfully, his mind at war with his soul. “No,” Nick replied tightly. “You can leave.”
The silence that followed said she was hurt. Nick couldn’t care. His feelings had been held tightly in check for far too long to even venture down that route.
Instead he began walking into his bathroom, alone.
When he’d finished, the hot water from the shower all but scorching every dirty molecule of the sex he’d just had away, Nick came out to an empty apartment.
She was gone. The woman whose name he could barely remember and would no doubt never see again. And he was relieved.
His cell phone rang and he cursed.
“Delgado,” he answered roughly.
A few seconds later he followed with, “I’ll be there in ten.”
Chapter 15
Rome drove like a madman, or his variation on the same, with his foot firmly planted on the gas, his nocturnal vision focused straight ahead.
Ezra’s call had him acting without thinking for a change. The words “They tried to take her” still echoed in his head. He was talking about Kalina and no doubt the same Rogues that had been gunning for her at the party. At this moment the whys didn’t matter, all that mattered was that Ezra had her and she was safe. For now.
He never should have left her, Rome berated himself as he turned down the secluded road where Ezra was to meet him. The guard wanted Rome to take Kalina while he went back to track the Rogues before the trail disappeared. It was a lot easier to track here in the city, where Rogues did not belong, than in the forest where all manner of species lived and breathed. So Rome drove and his heart pounded.
Why it was so important that she remain safe he didn’t know. It was just a fact, one that was steadily becoming embedded in his mind. She was now his responsibility. Truth be told, she had been since that night in the alley, a night she didn’t seem to remember, which was probably for the best. He hadn’t realized then that their paths would cross again. Now he couldn’t think of their lives not remaining intertwined.
Slamming on the brakes so he wouldn’t pass the truck that was just slightly off the dirt road, lights turned off, Rome jumped out of his car almost before he’d shut the damn thing off.
The driver’s-side door opened and Ezra jumped out.
“Where is she?”
“In back. Sleeping. I had to give her something, she was hysterical.”
“What?” Rome shouted. “What did you give her?”
“She’s just asleep. She should be up by the time you get her home. But when she saw me she freaked the hell out. It was like trying to tame a wildcat for a while there.”
Rome had wrenched open the back passenger-side door while Ezra talked. There she was, lying on the seat, her head tilted, fists still clenched at her side. He was lifting her out when he spoke again. “What the hell happened?”
“We were tailing her,” Ezra said, skirting around Rome to open the back door of his Mercedes. “She went to this house and it looked like they were having some kind of party. I don’t know, but as soon as we pulled into the back alley we picked up the Rogue scent. Peabo went around front to check the front of the house, and he reported Rogue scent as well. We decided to just watch and wait. The next thing I know she’s off the deck coming out of another door in the house. She’s looking for something in the yard so I get out of the truck.
“A while goes b
y, nothing big happening, then she moves off the deck. The Rogue scent’s getting thicker and I know it’s a shifter. I’m trying to get a lock on him and watch her at the same time. I found them both simultaneously.”
Rome pulled out of the car, slammed the door. “You what? Found who simultaneously?”
Ezra stood tall, his voice clear. “She was there. And the other shifter was, too. I think she might have seen him. It would explain why she was so crazy with fear when I got hold of her.”
“She was probably crazy with fear because you abducted her.”
Ezra was shaking his head. “No. She was looking at me weird, Rome. Like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. We may have to do some damage control here.”
Damage control meant killing the witness. Shifters did not have some sort of memory-erasing power. In the end, to protect the secret they would have to erase the threat.
Rome saw red and once again reacted first.
His fingers twisted in Ezra’s shirt as he pushed the guard back against the car and yelled in his face. “She does not die! Do you hear me?”
Ezra nodded, his hands remaining at his sides. He was a trained guard, he respected Rome and his position. And they were also friends.
Those facts had Rome backing off, his cat growling and scratching just beneath the surface. But the man pulled away. “She didn’t see anything,” he said tightly. “There’s no need for damage control. I’ll handle her.”
Ezra nodded again. “I’m going back to look for the shifter.”
“I want him alive,” Rome said, moving to the driver’s-side door. “Do you hear me, Ezra? Bring me that sonofabitch alive!”
* * *
“He’s on his way back to the mansion. He’s got the girl with him,” Ezra told Nick and X when they both caught up with him. He’d already repeated the story he’d given Rome and watched as the two senior officers shared the same grim thoughts as he did.
“What if she knows?” Ezra asked.
