Alphas on the Prowl (12 page)

Joseph eyed Trey carefully. “Am I to understand you are my daughter’s mate?”

“Yes, sir.” Trey answered as he pulled Kensi close to his side. His arm wrapped around her shoulders. She was the perfect height for his affectionate gesture.

“And how do you feel about that, Kensi?” Joseph asked.

“I think it’s a wonderful thing, but I want time to get to know him.” She looked up at Trey. “I expect to be courted. Just because the fates say we’re meant to be doesn’t mean I’m going to simply roll over and say I do.”

Trey nodded with a goofy grin spreading across his lips “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“And I want to go to college,” she insisted. “I’m not a warrior like you, Tremaine. I need to find myself, and how I fit into this upcoming future, and I hope college will help me do that.”

Trey looked at his future wife as pride and happiness inflated his chest. The woman the fates had chosen for him was perfect. She was strong, beautiful, demanded respect and independence. She wanted to be his partner, his equal, by finding her own path. Tears moistened his eyes as he shook his head softly.

Fear circled around Kensi’s heart as she watched his face and shook his head. She knew he was possessive, but the fates wouldn’t partner her with someone who restricted her from being the unique individual she was meant to be, would they? They’d saddle her with her match, the man that would bring out the best in her; that would complement her strengths and weaknesses, right? “Is that going to be a problem?” She pushed her resolve forward, past the sadness that threatened to expose itself on her face and raised her eyebrow in defiance.

“No.” He claimed her lips with his own and crushed her body to his. Her knees went weak and she cursed her body for reacting like a traitor. She didn’t want to budge on her expectations. They were as important as his. He broke the kiss. “No, that’s not going to be a problem.”

A smile exploded across her face as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him in for another kiss. Right before their lips touched she said, “Then I’m all in.”

A chorus of chuckles surrounded the couple, and they barely heard, “Not that it matters, but I approve,” from Joseph.

The end

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Amy Lee Burgess

CHAPTER ONE

Ryan Campbell clicked play and maximized his laptop screen. A young man with black hair halfway down his back and vivid green eyes stared into the camera. He wore a prison jumpsuit and sat in a folding chair behind a scuffed table in a room with no windows.

“When you’re ready,” said someone off camera. The young man rolled his eyes, showing his teeth in a smug smile.

“What if I’ve changed my mind?” he asked, sounding bored, but his eyes shone with alert intelligence.

“You signed the contract,” the off-camera voice said. “You are legally bound to do this, but if you’d rather go to jail, say the word and I’ll make it happen. You could do this and walk away in a month or spend five years behind bars. Your choice, hotshot.”

The man grinned again – pure arrogance. “Fine,” he said. “Dickhead.” He shoved back the chair and rose with easy grace. Moving in front of the table, he stopped in the center of the room.

“Good thing you’re behind that wall,” he remarked, unzipping his jumpsuit. It fell to the floor, and he kicked it away contemptuously. Mesmerizing tattoos swirled across his chest and arms emphasizing washboard abs.

He stared at the camera for a long moment, then grinned. A thrill of uneasy fear snaked down Ryan’s spine even though the man was on a video. He wouldn’t want to ever be alone in the same room with this man. Fuck, no.

The tattooed man shut his eyes, his face slackening. Perfect cheekbones jutted above a sensual mouth. His brown skin shone with sweat, but Ryan could see a fan in the corner of the room circulating the air. He doubted the temperature was hot. It was the man himself and the sheer concentration and focus he maintained.

Abruptly he fell forward, cushioning his landing with the palms of his hands. His back arched in a feline slant, a hiss escaping his lips. Green bolts of energy shot from his body in all directions.

Ryan sat back in his padded office chair, wincing. What the hell was this shit? Intellectually, he knew what was about to happen, but watching it produced all sorts of atavistic emotions – the primary being fear.

The shift boiled over the man in a split second. Ryan swore he didn’t blink, but between one heartbeat and the next, the man morphed into a vicious black panther. The animal let out an inhuman scream, and chills shuddered down Ryan’s spine.

Jesus Christ. Shifters. They’d been out in the open now for nearly a decade, but Ryan had never seen one shift before. He was damn sure he never wanted to see it again, but thanks to that bastard Ed Johnson, his boss, a lot more shifter footage was bound to come Ryan’s way.

He’d been named the newest member of Emerson, Inc.’s Project Shifter, and he’d spend the next eighteen months to two years investigating the reason for the population explosion affecting both the big cat and wolf shifters. This was not what he’d envisioned doing back in college. He’d been elated to be recruited by the top environmental consulting firm in the country. Only, he’d wanted to be out in the field, not chained behind a goddamn desk. Even if that desk overlooked a breathtaking view of San Francisco and Golden Gate Bridge.

Ryan rubbed his eyes, stifling a groan. He glanced at his watch and stiffened.
Eight o’clock?
Seriously? Goddamn his boss and the directive to be up to speed on the project by Monday morning.

Christ. It was pitch black out. He could ask one of the security guards in the lobby to walk him to his car, but that would make him feel like an asshole. Still, cat shifters had attacked twice already this year – both times after dark. He had no desire to make himself more of a target than staying late already had. He’d ask Al to walk him to his car. Al had a gun. Those rogue cats moved like the wind – nobody’d yet been able to hit one. They mauled their victim and disappeared a split second later. Ryan recalled the easy grace and inhuman screech of the black panther shifter and shuddered. He didn’t want to think about shifters. Cats or wolves.

He closed his eyes as guilt pierced him. Cat shifters scared the shit out of him, but wolves were a hundred times more complicated.

Hailey Green
. Would there ever be a time he didn’t think of her? Even after five years he could still picture her heart-shaped face perfectly. Chocolate brown eyes he’d wanted to drown in. Glorious gold hair. The spray of freckles across her nose. He’d seen her around campus since freshman year, but it wasn’t until they shared a Western Civ class junior year that he’d sat up and taken notice of her. They’d met for coffee before class, studied together after, shared countless pizzas and beers, but it still had taken all his courage to ask her out.

Hailey sent him subtle signals she liked him more than a friend, but he took his time because he didn’t want to blow it. He’d never had a serious relationship before, and that was what he wanted with her.

He’d sat her down one day after class and in a faltering voice confessed he wanted to take their relationship to the next level. Boyfriend and girlfriend level. She’d agreed at once. Yet, a shadow had crossed her face, and when he asked what was wrong, she’d taken a deep breath and looked as though she wanted to tell him something but was afraid. He’d told her she could tell him anything – which, ha, in hindsight made him cringe with mortification. Because what a lie. Some things he couldn’t handle, and her being a wolf shifter was one of them.

She confessed she could turn into a wolf with a half-defiant, half-begging expression. Her big brown eyes had been so wide, so filled with hope. Wolves, she’d explained, had always protected people against anything threatening them. She’d thought at first she’d been attracted to him because she was a wolf and he was hers to protect. Only, she wanted to be more to him. Be someone he could have a romantic relationship with.

He’d frozen. Like a frigging jerk. Shifters. What an alien idea. Wolves or big cats – they all unnerved him. So, okay, wolves protected people while the cats believed themselves superior. Hailey happened to be a wolf – the friendly type. But, hell,
she could turn into a frigging wolf!
She was not really even human!

This had been two years before DNA testing confirmed wolf and cat shifters were human too – somehow able to shift in the same way as certain people heard colors and saw sound. Still no excuse for the way he’d reacted. He’d broken their date, then spent the rest of the semester sitting as far away from her in the classroom as possible. Not even acknowledging her mute appeal when she stood in front of his desk waiting for him to see her.

God, he’d been a prick. He’d never seen her again after that semester. Over the course of the summer, he’d realized what an ass he’d been and gone looking for her once back at campus in the autumn. But she’d been nowhere to be found. He’d heard she’d transferred out of state. Regret had twisted him for months afterward. Hell, who was he kidding? Years.

He’d thought about her a lot over the years. Wondered where she was, if she’d ever married. And somehow, no matter how many beautiful women he asked out, none of them ever measured up to Hailey Green.

Ryan powered down his laptop and glanced around his spacious office. He had it made at Emerson, but working on Project Shifter unnerved him. Poking and prodding at shifters, trying to figure them out. It didn’t seem humane. What if they were successful and figured out the reason for the increase in shifter population? Right now sheer numbers protected them from wide scale persecution, but if Emerson could figure out how to halt their expanding growth, what might be done with this data? Sold to governments around the world perhaps? While the wolves cooperated freely, the cats did so under bitter protest. Like the panther shifter from the video. He’d agreed to participate to avoid jail time for shifting and assaulting an Emerson employee after hours in the parking garage.

Ryan didn’t know what the governments would do with Emerson’s data, but he suspected the cats might have a point. Another reason he balked at the idea of working on the project. Shifters were people too. Hailey had proved that to him, even if he’d handled it like a dick.

He didn’t want to see shifters marginalized. He would, however, love to see the rogue cats brought to heel. A guy ought to be able to work late without feeling like a doomed cast member in a horror movie.

***

Hailey Green moved with easy grace to the back of the SUV and popped the hatch so she could stow her purse. She took a deep breath. The scents of gasoline, concrete, oil, and metal filled her lungs. No smell of big cat. Didn’t mean one of the bastards wasn’t lurking in the parking garage, just not on this floor. No matter. She’d hunt down any creature not authorized to be here. With quick and economical elegance, she shed her clothes until she stood naked on the cement floor. Last, she pulled the fabric band from her hair. She shook her head to make her hair fall right, then tossed the band into the back of the SUV and closed the hatch.

Drawing air deep into her diaphragm, she blanked her mind of all conscious thought and focused only on breathing. In. Out. In again. Hold. Out. Summoning her wolf demanded her full attention.

She fell, panting, to her hands and knees, head down, hair in her face, but didn’t notice any of it. Just breathe. In. Out. In again. Hold. Out.

The air shimmered around her naked body, green and silver, thrumming. When the energy bolts faded out, Hailey, on four legs now, trotted to the elevator banks and sniffed around a wastebasket before squatting and marking it hers. Tongue lolling between sharp teeth, she made her way to the ramp leading down from the rooftop parking and into the lower floors of the parking garage.

***

Ryan stuffed his laptop into his roller bag and paused at the door to hit the lights. His office winked into darkness. His footsteps echoed in the empty hall as he made his way to the elevator. The other offices on his floor were dark, although reception was dimly lit. Eight o’clock on a Friday night. Everyone else had a life. Ryan snorted. He’d like one of those, please.

The elevator doors slid open, and Ryan stepped inside. As the elevator sank to lobby level, he gave his stupid tie a savage yank, nearly strangling himself. God, he hated suits. What he wanted was a shower, sweat pants, and a big glass of wine.

Gus and Al, the two security guards manning the front desk, looked up when they heard the elevator door slide open. Gus looked down again immediately.

“Working late, Mr. Campbell,” said Al, a reproving glint in his eyes. One that made it clear he resented having to escort Ryan to his car and then return to the security desk alone and vulnerable.

Screw it.
Ryan didn’t need the aggravation.

“Lost track of time. See you Monday.” Ryan breezed past the reception desk. Al opened his mouth to protest but then closed it again. Gus didn’t bother to look up from his book propped on the front desk.
Lazy sonsofbitches.

The lights of San Francisco glimmered beyond the glass walls of the lobby with an eerie, shimmering beauty. Ryan paused by the garage door exit to stare out for a moment. The city at night stunned him somehow. A world apart from the small town in Massachusetts where he’d grown up.

Ryan pushed open the garage door and walked toward the bank of elevators. He parked on level four. Might be a good idea to have his keys at the ready, so he fumbled them out of his pocket. He’d at least managed a front slot by the elevators. The perks of arriving at fifty-thirty in the morning.

A huge yawn escaped him as the elevator ascended. Wine would knock him on his ass. Did he want to drink, or did he want to watch TV? It didn’t seem likely he could manage both. Jesus. He was twenty-eight, not eighty.

The elevator dinged and the door opened. Ryan’s chest tightened. Even with security, sometimes big cat shifters infiltrated the Emerson parking garage. Damn things probably leaped rooftop to rooftop. Or came in as men, then shifted to cat.

Ryan tried to shove away the images of the panther shifter. God, he’d have nightmares. Only a few more yards to his car and he’d be safe.

Ryan unlocked the BMW’s doors with his key. Popped the trunk for the roller bag. Moving quickly, he walked behind the car, senses high. Probably stupid to be worrying. The last cat attack had been in February, and it was nearly May. Still, he would be glad to slide behind the wheel and lock the doors.

The cat, big and yellow, hit him from the left, smashing him down onto the concrete, the impact jarring his spine. His roller bag flew off into a dark corner.

The cat snarled in his face, his fangs yellow and pointy. Whiskers at least six inches long sprouted from his muzzle. Flat green eyes glared. A terrible thrill shocked through Ryan’s system. Cat’s eyes, yet not. They contained human awareness. A dark mane framed the golden face of a lion, yet the eyes gave him away. Not a lion, but a cat shifter. Shit. Panic squeezed the breath from Ryan’s shriveled lungs. Easily twice the size of the panther shifter on the video, this lion towered over him, real and in the flesh.

He shoved the bastard’s chest with all his strength, sweat trickling down his forehead as he tried not to scream.
Keep your head down, neck protected.
The training instructor Emerson hired had cautioned the group of anxious employees what to do in case of cat attack.

“Bend over and kiss your ass goodbye,” Ryan’d whispered to a colleague who’d brayed nervous laughter and attracted the attention of the whole room.