by A. C. Arthur
But his next steps were quickly halted by two huge look-alike goons. With shaking fingers he quickly reached into his pocket, pulling out his badge. “MPD,” he said with authority.
The one guy laughed while the other landed a beefy fist against his jaw. Lights flashed before JC’s eyes as he reached for his gun, determined not to go down without a fight. But go down he did, falling with a sickening thump against the concrete.
“Leave them here. Their people are coming,” Baxter said, coming up behind Eli and Ezra.
The twins didn’t even ask where the old man had come from or what he was doing here.
“Let’s get Rome and the others. We’ve gotta move now!” Ezra said, leading the way up the steps.
Eli and Baxter were right behind him, taking the stairs until they found the room where the shifters were. In a far corner Rome was holding Kalina. Baxter immediately went to them, gathering up Rome’s clothes as he did and trying to cover them both as much as possible.
Nick and X had already put on their pants and were looking out the back windows with deadly glares.
“What happened?”
“Sabar and his man got away,” Nick said tightly.
“Kalina shot the other two,” X added.
Eli looked to the floor at the two cat bodies with blood oozing from their wounds. “We need to get rid of them and get the hell out of here. Cops are on their way.”
X nodded. “Get them out first.”
“I’m working on that, Mr. Xavier.” Baxter was trying to guide Rome and a still-dazed Kalina out of the room.
“Burn it to the ground,” Rome said as he approached the door.
“Yes sir,” Ezra said, already reaching for the can of lighter fluid he’d brought inside with him.
A shifter’s body must never be found, so with each death the corpse was burned. There could be no evidence of their species, no reason for anyone to come looking for more of their kind. It might seem inhumane to some, but for the shadows it was a survival tactic, one they’d used for years. One they hoped would continue to protect them.
Chapter 28
Kalina rolled over to look at the clock. With a moan she deduced she’d been asleep for about twelve hours. Flopping onto her back, she let an arm fall over her eyes and waited until she was fully awake.
The room was dark, the blinds and curtains closed, but she knew exactly where she was.
He’d brought her here again, to his home, his bed.
They’d arrived here after the fight in the city. Every part of her body hurt, especially her head. She felt nauseous and wanted nothing more than to curl into a ball and just lie somewhere. Instead Rome had taken care of her.
He’d stripped his shirt from her otherwise naked body and lowered her into a tub of very hot water. Climbing inside with her he’d bathed her tenderly, even washing her hair. She’d been too tired to protest and let the lovely feel of his tender touch wash over her. After the bath he’d carried her to his bed, where he’d tucked her in tightly. A few minutes later she heard Baxter’s voice; then Rome was at her side encouraging her to drink. It was hot and sweet and floated through her body like honey. She had no idea what kind of drink it was but knew that it made slipping into sleep a lot easier.
It had been a dreamless sleep, which was a welcome relief. If she’d thought her dreams of one cat were bad, just imagine what her subconscious would conjure up after seeing six of them.
But now she was alone. Her body was still sore, her mouth more than a little dry, but she was alone. The way it seemed she always ended up. With that thought she tried to roll out of the bed but came to a complete stop when she felt him.
Rome was there.
Had he stayed with her the entire time?
“Where are you going?” he asked in a gruff voice.
“I need to use the bathroom,” she said swallowing at the realization that not only was he here, he was also awake.
Again with tender hands he helped her from the bed and walked her to the bathroom. He didn’t join her, for which she was supremely grateful. But when she came out he was right there, ushering her back to the bed once more.
When she was lying beneath the covers again and he’d settled next to her but not close enough to touch, she cleared her throat.
“You knew, didn’t you? What I was, you knew all along?”
He was silent for a minute, a routine she’d become accumstomed to. Rome took his time giving his answers, thinking them completely through before speaking. Whereas she, on the other hand, tended to speak now, think later.
“I didn’t know for sure. I knew there was something about you that kept calling to me. I didn’t know it was your cat.”
“My cat,” she whispered, still astounded at the revelation. “I’m afraid of cats, or at least I used to be.”
“A defense mechanism.”
“Defense from what? Deadly house cats out to kill me because they sensed that I was bigger and badder than them?”
He chuckled, which made this really intense moment a little less intense.
“With the report X came up with, Elder Alamar traced your heritage back to two Elders within our tribe. They were joined before having you. Right after you were born they were brutally killed in the forest and you were taken. None of the tribes knew where you were. Somehow you ended up here at the orphanage. It’s not clear who dropped you off or why.”
His words moved around in her mind, filling a gaping hole that she’d fought to ignore all her life. In just a few sentences, he’d given her a past, a connection to people she’d thought lost to her forever.
“What were their names?” she asked, letting everything from being the child of Shadow Shifters to being kidnapped after their murders sink in.
“Natalia and Adao.”
“What are Elders?”
“They are the most knowledgeable of our kind, selected from our tribe to represent us in the Assembly.”
“We’re from a tribe.” It wasn’t really a question; she’d just wanted to hear the sound of it from her own lips.
“The Topètenia of the Gungi rain forest. The jaguars.”
His words seemed simple enough, but suddenly Kalina was hit with a realization. She wasn’t human. She wasn’t the woman who’d worked her way up in the ranks at the MPD. She wasn’t the woman the DEA wanted on their squad. She was something … different.
Sitting up in the bed abruptly, she struggled to breathe. Rome was there instantly, putting his arms around her. This time his tender touch wasn’t going to be enough. She pulled away from him.
“What is it, baby?”
“Don’t baby me! You did this to me,” she yelled. “You made me like this. I didn’t ask you to. I didn’t!”
“Wait a minute, Kalina. Calm down.”
“I won’t calm down. And I’m sick of you telling me what to do all the time. I can do whatever the hell I want.” She moved from the bed, leaning over the nightstand to switch on the lamp. Standing, she hugged her arms around herself, trying to absorb everything that had happened these last few days. It was so much, too much actually.
“I didn’t ask to be different,” she started. “I never wanted to be different. I just wanted what everybody else had. A family, a normal life. Was that too much to ask?”
He didn’t come to her, but he was sitting up in the bed. “No. It wasn’t.”
“Then why couldn’t I have it? Why couldn’t I be like everyone else?”
“I used to ask myself that same thing,” he admitted. “I used to want to be anything but who and what I was. Then I realized I didn’t have a choice. Somebody once told me that you can’t outrun your destiny.”
His voice sounded different, and she turned to look at him. It had always been like this between them, this fine line they walked between fury and desire. Even with that she was drawn to him, even more so now.
“I can’t be this. I mean, what you are. I don’t know how.”
He looked up at her seriously.
“You are what you are, Kalina.”
“I thought I knew who and what that was. Now I don’t.”
Rome remembered that feeling. He remembered the nights he sat alone in his bedroom as a teenager trying to figure out the very same things Kalina struggled with now. That’s how he knew there was no one answer that would make everything click into place. Learning about the Shadow Shifters was a jolt to his young system, but he’d had years to get used to it. Kalina didn’t. He’d only just told her about their species before she’d shifted. He should have told her everything at once, should have protected her. Seems he was always falling short in that area.
“When I was ten years old my parents were killed. Rogues broke into our house and killed them while I sat helplessly in a closet. I could hear their screams but I didn’t go to them, didn’t try to save them.”
She sat on the side of the bed watching him closely. He knew he had to continue, he had to give her this part of himself so that maybe she would feel more comfortable with who she was, what she meant to him.
“I wanted to, but I didn’t. For years I was angry and confused. I hated the shifters, hated what they’d done to my parents, my life. Then I began to think about my mother’s words about fate and destiny and finding your own and living the life you were meant to live no matter what.”
“Who killed them?”
The million-dollar question Rome had been trying for years to answer. Last night he’d received that answer. “The shifter that was there last night. The one you killed.”
He looked at her, watching for some reaction. But there was none. She’d killed before. In her line of work she’d had to draw her gun and shoot to kill to protect herself and others. As bad as it sounded, that was a good thing. Death didn’t frazzle or surprise her. And he owed her deeply for the kill she’d made last night, no matter how gristly it may have appeared.
“I killed the man who took your parents.”
He nodded. “Thank you.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You were saving me for a change,” he said with a half smile. “Look, Kalina, there’s so much I want to tell you. So much you need to know. I’m not used to sharing myself with anyone, not used to caring what someone else thinks of me or what I do. But with you I do care, and I want to do the right thing by you.”
She was already shaking her head. “I don’t know how to do this, how to be this person. I don’t know how to be with you.”
He moved over to her, reaching out a hand to touch her cheek. “You don’t have to be anybody but yourself with me.”
“Who or whatever that is,” she said, trying to make light of herself.
“You are a beautiful Shadow Shifter. You are my companheiro.”
“You said that before. What does it mean?”
“My mate. For life you are mine and I am yours.” He wanted to kiss her, to wrap his arms around her, pull her onto this bed and make love to her. But he waited.
“I thought I was falling in love with you. That made me both angry and a little scared. I didn’t see how we could have a relationship after all we’d been through. And now—” She shrugged. “Now I don’t know.”
“Let me teach you, baby. Let me teach you about our ways and our traditions, about the lifestyle of a Shadow Shifter.” He leaned forward then, kissed her lightly on her lips. “Let me love you,” he whispered. “Please, my sweet gato, let me love you.”
* * *
Two days later Kalina walked into a satellite office for the Drug Enforcement Agency. Agent Wilson had finally returned her call.
Eli drove her, as he usually did now. He was officially her guard. Rome had explained that as the mate of a Faction Leader, she was almost like shifter royalty; as such she had her own security detail, which consisted of the twins and a group of five other guards. Both Eli and Ezra had come to be like the brothers she’d never had. They joked with her and teased her and basically made her transition a little more comfortable. Not that she was 100 percent at ease with this new life of hers, but she was trying, even though she hadn’t shifted since that night.
She walked into the building alone wearing a pale gray pantsuit and high-heeled sandals. Her hair was a little longer and fell in waves at the top of her head; the sides had grown out as well. As she walked through the halls she felt sexy and alluring, not like the old Kalina at all.
Knocking on the door, she waited to be admitted, then casually took a seat across from the agent.
“It’s a pleasure seeing you again,” he said.
Kalina smiled at the man she’d only met one other time. He was an attractive African American with close-cropped hair and a thin mustache. His eyes, which she always looked to now to tell her about a person, were completely guarded.
“Same here,” she said not feeling nervous at all. She had no idea what he was going to say to her or what she was going to say in response, but realized it didn’t matter. As Rome had stated before, she was who she was and she wasn’t going to apologize for it. Neither was she going to sell out the species that she now belonged to.
“I’ll cut to the chase, Kalina. We have a lot of questions,” he said placing his elbows on the desk.
“So do I.”
He nodded. “What did you find on Roman Reynolds?”
“Nothing,” she answered immediately, confidently. “There was nothing in his records that supported the charge of facilitating a drug cartel.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“I’m positive that I found nothing to prove that allegation.”
“What about Ferrell?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing. I found it odd the amount of pressure he put on me to speed the case up. That’s why I was calling you—to find out what his deal was.”
“Ferrell was dirty.”
Why didn’t that surprise her?
“He’d been working with some of the lower-level dealers for years.”
“Then why did you put him on the case with me?”
“We were hoping his employers would take an interest in your investigation, maybe slip up somewhere along the line.”
“Wait a minute, you sent me to investigate Roman in an effort to reveal another drug lord and to expose a dirty cop?”
Wilson shook his head. “We wanted to know what Reynolds was doing, and we wanted Ferrell and his employers.”
Sonofabitch, she thought to herself. They’d used her and lied to her. The very people she’d wanted so desperately to work for hadn’t even had the decency to tell her what the real assignment was. Maybe being a cop wasn’t her destiny. Maybe she’d had it all wrong. It certainly felt like she did.
“Did you get what you were after?” she asked finally.
“Not everything. Ferrell’s in jail crying like a baby, but not really giving us much.”
“That’s strange. I figured a punk like him would be singing names and addresses right about now.”
“He’s giving names, but none that we know. He’s also talking strange stuff.”
Kalina felt a ruffle against her neck and sat up straighter. “Strange like what?”
“Like big cats killing and selling drugs in the city. You know anything about that?”
Kalina smiled, slow and full. “Why would I know about something so preposterous? I’m just a city cop trying to get a paycheck,” she said. “Are we finished?”
“If that’s your full report?”
“It is.”
Wilson hesitated a second. “Then we’re finished.”
Kalina stood, going to the door before turning back to him. “And just in case you were thinking of offering, I decline the opportunity to work for the Drug Enforcement Agency. I like to face the lying and deceitful criminals head-on instead of working alongside them.”
Wilson didn’t say a word as she closed the door behind her and walked out of the building.
* * *
“Sabar’s leading them, and now he’s pissed that Rome has Kalina,” X said,
rubbing his knuckles as he sat at Rome’s conference room table.
Elder Alamar nodded solemnly. “He was a problem years ago. We thought he was gone, that he had moved on to other things.”
“Apparently he was simply laying low,” Nick said. “He’s making his comeback.”
“Now he’s hiding,” Rome surmised, still not at all pleased that Sabar had been the one stalking Kalina all this time. The fact that Sabar thought she was his mate just made Rome hate the Rogue more.
The cheetah they had in custody had finally decided to talk, right about the time he realized that Sabar wasn’t planning any daring rescue for him, and that one of his cohorts was already dead: Chi, the jaguar Kalina had killed, the one who’d killed Rome’s parents years ago. Rome figured now that the hit had probably been ordered by Sabar, giving him yet another reason to hate the SOB.
Rubbing a hand over his chin, he tried valiantly to let the bitter feelings he still harbored inside go. He’d wanted his parents’ killer and Kalina had gotten him. And now he had Kalina. All should be well in his world. The operative word being should. “It won’t last,” he surmised.
“You are correct,” Alamar agreed. “He will return. It is power that drives him, and he will not stop until he attains it.”
“Or until we dispatch him,” X added.
“Kalina had some interesting information to share after her visit with the DEA,” Rome offered. His mate had come home earlier today eyes burning with fury, and only after much coaxing did Rome manage to get the story from her.
“Melanie was the other shifter in the room that night, the other one Kalina shot.”
“Melanie from work?” Nick questioned. “We’ve got to do better screening our employees, Rome.”
Nick had been in an even testier mood since that night in the city. He’d stayed behind to help Ezra and Eli burn the house, and Rome suspected that the act had brought back memories for his friend.
“Ezra figured out Melanie was a shifter after he’d picked Kalina up from her house,” Rome said.
