Edged Blade (12 page)

“Probably too old for me.” I pretended to mull it over. “Geez, you’re like…eighteen or nineteen years older, practically.”

“Give or take, hard to say since nobody knows exactly how old I was when Chang found me.” He caught my thigh in his hand. I gasped as he settled against me. His mouth found mine. “Do I feel too old now?”

I couldn’t say anything as he drove inside me.

Instead I just wrapped my arms around him.

It wasn’t a bad way to chase away the nightmares—mine or his.

Dawn came sooner than I liked.

I drifted back into a twilight sleep, although I don’t think Damon did.

I didn’t rest much longer. As those faint rays of dawn crept up along the horizon, my body came to completely wakefulness.
Get up, Kit. No more sleep for you
.

I was warm lying there, Damon’s arm around my waist, his scent surrounding me, the heavy weight of his thigh pinning mine to the bed. Turning my face into his neck, I breathed him in, tried to remember the last time I’d felt this…whole.

It had been months. Too many months.

In a few more weeks, it would be a year. My throat tightened. Pushing that thought away, I squeezed my eyes closed and lay there another moment.

But that peaceful, easy feeling was gone.

My belly twisted into a tight, hot knot and my mind was…buzzing.
I
was buzzing, I realized. I went to twist away and Damon’s arm shifted, freeing me. I slid him a look from the corner of my eye, saw him studying me from under his lashes.

There was an intense look on his face.

He reached out and trailed a finger down my arm as he watched me.

I bent over him, pressed my mouth to his—hard and quick before I rolled out of bed. I would have liked to linger, but…

There was something nagging me, something in the back of my brain that wouldn’t let me.

Damon must have recognized the look because he rolled out of bed with feline, easy grace, a resigned expression on his face.

Unable to resist, I said, “You move pretty well for a man of your advanced years.”

“Keep it up, smart-ass, and whatever has you so twitchy just might have to wait.” There was a gleam in his eyes.

It made my belly burn and I almost went to him.

It felt…good.
I
felt good. I almost felt like me.

But I turned away, crossing the bedroom to my dresser. It was the old fashioned kind—a lot of people had gone to the built-in organizational units that took up less room, but I liked
stuff
. Came from too many years of not having
stuff
. The old dresser had been warped and needed a lot of love and work. Sanding, painting, refinishing—things I’d had to research and teach myself, but I liked the way it looked.

I wasn’t even able to drag clothes out of my dresser before the phone rang.

For a split second, the sound of the Imperial March froze my blood.

Justin
.

It wasn’t just my blood that froze, either.

It was
everything
. Damon didn’t breathe, I didn’t breathe and that odd buzzing in my head went silent.

Then life lurched back into rhythm and I had my phone in hand before I even recalled moving.

“Colbana.”

He didn’t even bother with a greeting. “You going to be ready to roll?”

I looked over at Damon. He sat on the edge of the bed, staring at me with grim intensity.

“Yeah. You figure out where we’re needing to go?”

“Bet your ass.” He paused a moment and then, voice going sly, he asked, “So how did last night go?”

“Tell him I said hi.” Damon’s voice was a low growl.

Justin’s laugh was quick and bright. Rubbing the back of my neck, I tried to decide just what had happened—what I’d
done
—in my life to have these two at odds like this. There weren’t two men that meant more to me than them and they practically looked for reasons to rip each other apart.

“Hi back, pussy-cat,” Justin said.

Damon’s hand curled into a fist.

I turned my back. “Justin, do we have a job going down or not?”

He sobered fast.

“Oh, yeah. There’s a job.”

“What’s going on?”

I gave Damon a blank stare in the mirror. I had ten minutes to shower and dress, twenty minutes to pack my gear.
No
minutes to argue with my boyfriend. “What do you mean?”

“Something’s up.” Damon stroked a thumb down his stumbled chin, his gray eyes gone to flint. “You’re worrying on something. So’s the asshole, although he’s hiding it. I heard it in his voice. Has it got anything to do with whatever you were talking to Chang about?”

I tensed. It was only for a split second, but that was about two split seconds too long, because Damon knew me far too well for that to go by unnoticed. In a casual voice, I said, “I just needed a few questions answered.”

Damon sighed, the sound heavy and drawn. “You’re dodging me.”

“No. I’m not.”
Yes, I am.

He threw his legs off the edge of the bed and strode out of the bedroom.

I caught up with him just as he dug his palm unit from the tangle of his jeans.

“What are you doing?” I asked warily.

“Calling Chang.” Unlike me, he sounded completely fine. “If you won’t talk, he will.” He gave me a sidelong look. “He might not like it, but if it’s an order…”

“Fine.” Teeth gritted, I spun on my heel. He’d hear it sooner or later anyway. If I told him, then I controlled what he learned. And maybe I could figure out more about Shanelle. “But you’ll have to listen while I shower and dress. I don’t have much time.”

Damon’s silence as I showered didn’t do a damn thing to calm the butterflies in my gut.

I stepped out and he met me, holding out a fat, fluffy towel. Slowly, I lifted my arms. As he wrapped it around me, I said, “And that’s about all I know.”

“Why didn’t you ask me instead of Chang?”

Scowling, I said, “Because I’m working a job. You worry too much about me anyway.” I jerked my shoulder in a shrug. “Besides…half the time he’s hearing stuff before
you
do.”

He stepped back and turned away. “I could have told you just as much about the cats who’ve gone missing. I want them found.”

“Would you have told me about Shanelle?”

The muscles in his shoulders went tight, rigid as a length of steel. “What’s there to tell?”

“How long were you lovers?”

He tensed. Just as quickly as the muscles in his shoulders tightened, they relaxed and if I hadn’t been
looking
for some sort of reaction, I would have missed it. But I saw it.

I’d been right.

“Well?” I asked when he didn’t respond.

“Lovers?” He shrugged, almost lazily and glanced back at me. “I don’t think you could say we were
lovers
, Kit. We had sex. We worked together. It was not a romantic relationship.”

He strode to the door.

I remembered what he’d told me once—I was the only one who’d ever had his heart.

But had he ever had anybody else’s?

Softly, I asked, “Did she feel the same?”

“What does that matter?”

“Because she’s planning on taking her former
position
back…whatever that means.” I moved up behind him and slid my arms around his waist. “She’s not getting you, Damon.”

His hands covered mine. “No. She’s not. There was nothing but sex there, Kit.”

“On your part.”

“I…” He stopped and sighed. I pressed my cheek to his back as he lifted his head to the sky. “Yeah. On my part. I can’t tell you what she thought or wanted, Kit. But you don’t need to worry.”

I snorted. “Yeah, I tell you that about Justin all the time.”

He turned then and I gasped as he caught me around the waist, lifting me up until my weight was supported by his body. “One big difference. I never loved her. You can’t say the same.”

He kissed me, hard and fast, and then put me down. “I know it’s over—or at least on your part. But he still has feelings for you and you two work together. I deal with it, but don’t expect me to like it. Now… just what is going on with this job in Georgia?”

To my surprise—and disgruntlement—I wasn’t the only backup. If we needed others, that was fine, but the woman riding in the backseat was…surprising.

On any number of levels.

I’d only met the witch a couple of times, but Tate wasn’t anybody I would have picked to watch my back.

I wasn’t going to question Justin’s decision—this job was his baby, whatever it was, and if he thought we’d need that kind of firepower—and I meant that literally—then, fine.

But I didn’t have to
like
it.

“So you going to tell me what’s going down?”

“You already know, unless you weren’t paying attention the other day.” He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Rescuing some cats and a witch or two. Maybe a vampire. Didn’t get any confirmation on that one.”

I waited a few seconds for him to elaborate. He didn’t. “Okay. You going to give me any more information than that?”

When he didn’t answer me right away, I slid him a look.

I didn’t much like the expression on his face. It was…worrisome.

There were just times when I thought life would be easier if he wasn’t in it. No, I didn’t
think
that. My life
would
be easier if he wasn’t in it. But I could say the same for all the people who mattered to me. Life was better because you had people who mattered, but they were also the reason life got messy.

Right now, though, Justin was being more complicated than I liked.

“What did you find out from Chang?” he asked.

Tongue tucked against my teeth, I stared at him. He still hadn’t answered my question. I debated a minute and then shrugged it off. He’d talk when he was ready to. He just better be ready to sometime
well
before we hit our target. Wherever that may be.

“Chang confirmed several disappearances. Damon did, too. Neither of them went into detail, but…” I hesitated and then added, “I get the feeling it’s a bigger problem than they want people to know.”

“Well, yeah. I’d assumed unexplained disappearances
are
a big problem,” he muttered.

“No. Not in that way. It’s…” I frowned, searching for the right way to explain what I meant. “I think maybe they’ve lost a lot more than they are admitting.”

Justin’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “People from the clan?”

Shaking my head, I murmured, “No. I can’t say if it’s local people or just loners. I just think there is more they know, more they haven’t told me.”

“Loners?” Tate asked from the back.

I met her gaze in the rearview mirror. “Shifters who don’t run with any pack or clan. Kind of like Justin here—he’s got independent status. It’s not as common among shifters, but sometimes you’ll have one who just doesn’t play well with others.”

Justin snorted. “I play just fine with others.”

“Yeah. It usually involves threatening to play with their entrails,” Tate said.

It startled a laugh out of me. “Wow. You know him well, don’t you?”

“They’re just threats,” Justin said, ignoring me. “And they’re effective.”

“Most people aren’t going to want to
play
with anybody who threatens to use their liver as a loofah.” Tate’s voice was wry.

“A liver as a loofah. How lyrical, Justin.” I shifted in the seat and rolled my head on the padded headrest, watching as the large
Welcome to Georgia
sign loomed closer. “You surprise me.”

“I’m full of surprises, Kitty-kitty.”

“Don’t call me that.” Watching the holographic peach flash across the welcome sign, I fought the urge of unease swelling inside me. Georgia was one of those states.

There were some places that you just don’t want to be if you’re not fully human. To be fair, if you’re fully human, there are plenty of places you probably don’t want to go—like East Orlando. You’d be safe enough, but that doesn’t mean you’d
feel
safe…or welcome.

But for a non-human, some places were an invitation to harassment, threats, imprisonment. The Middle East was a place you couldn’t
pay
me to go. I’d sooner eat my own intestines than step one foot over the border into North Korea. On the flip side, Argentina, Australia, Lithuania and Germany weren’t just
receptive
to non-humans—they had
waiting
lists for those wanting to emigrate. In time, they might have more NHs than humans.

Canada was actually becoming more tolerant, too, and there were a few cities in the US were they were struggling to become less…ass-aholic. Sadly, none of those cities were in Georgia. No, in fact, the cities in Georgia clutched tightly to their pearls and all but fainted at the
mention
of accepting those of us who weren’t human. The election this year had been a huge, ugly, mud fest, all because the woman who’d been up for re-election had recently been outed as a sympathizer to the non-humans. Apparently, her daughter had married a guy who had witches in his blood and the mom actually loved her daughter enough to
not care
.

She’d lost her seat in the Senate and her competition’s entire platform had been about how the woman had
betrayed
her own kind by accepting the unnatural relationship.

Yeah, this wasn’t the place I wanted to be.
Relax. Maybe you’re just driving through. On the way to Tennessee or the Carolinas
—

Oh, no…not a good thought, that one. In the past six months, supposedly they’d made strides on the vampire infestation that had plagued the state for several years, but who knew if they’d ever get the upper hand.

I was almost positive Justin wouldn’t attempt to go anywhere near there, not with me in the car.

Still, my hands were slick with sweat and my shoulders had turned into a hard, knotted mess.

“Where are we going?” I asked, staring at the open expanse of the marked sky road in front of us. The air traffic pattern cluttered up the clear, blue bowl of the sky, but at least there was sense to the traffic—cars weren’t shooting off in every direction.