Edged Blade (17 page)

Restless, I rose from the couch and started to pace.

My stomach chose that moment to rumble and I eyed the food, now cold, waiting for me on the table. I picked up a cold fry and nibbled on it.

“Kit, I’ll get you something hot,” Damon said, irritated. “Just tell me what’s going on.”

With the taste of cold fry in my mouth, I shot him a look.

He stood by the couch, where he’d been for the past five minutes. Chang stood closer to the fireplace, languid and relaxed, as though he were at a cocktail party. There was nothing languid about Damon, though. His gaze, his posture, everything about him was a stone wall.
He
was a like a bloody stone wall—unmovable, unyielding.

He yields for you
…

The soft voice in the back of my mind had me going still.

He did. Damon yielded for me. Everything else that came at him just crashed into him, usually stopped in their tracks or else they just submitted. But for me…

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath. Then I said, “Justin. It was Justin who tracked her down…but he wasn’t looking for her. It had to do with a witch he was looking for. She was just a bonus, I guess you could say.”

“A bonus,” Chang said. “What a lovely…bonus.”

Damon said nothing, not for a long while. But finally, he spun away and muttered, “Now why in the hell doesn’t
that
surprise me.”

When I finished, the two of them shared one of those silent communions they seemed so fond of. After about sixty seconds of that, I said, “Would you like me to leave so you two can continue this in private?”

Chang frowned. “Continue what?”

“This…” I sketched my hands through the air. “Whatever you do. When you both say a million things to each other without saying a
damn
thing.”

Damon’s brow went up while Chang gave me a bemused smile. “If we’re saying things without saying them, then why would we need you to leave?”

“Because it’s
annoying
.” I enunciated the word very slowly.

“So what you really mean to say is that
you
want to leave.” Damon moved to the door just as somebody knocked.

I frowned when he opened it to reveal Scott—and a fresh tray of food. “When did you call him?”

“I sent him a message.” Damon shrugged and stepped aside as Scott came in and put the tray down next to the other one.

“Will you please eat it this time?” Scott asked. He looked me over from head to toe. “You’re losing weight.”

“Women don’t like it when people comment about their weight.”

He rubbed his jaw. “I thought that was a human thing.”

“It’s a female thing.”

He looked at Damon. Damon looked at me. “Eat the food and stop losing weight and it won’t be an issue.”

“How about you both shut up and it won’t be an issue?” I suggested. If my stomach hadn’t been all but dancing because of the scents coming from the plate, I would have told Scott to shove it. But I’m not much for cutting my nose off to spite my face—or my stomach. I dropped down in front of the plate and pulled the cover off. A huge burger, a double order of fries this time and he’d included a strawberry milkshake.

“Is the shake a bribe?”

“It’s calories.” Scott slid his hands into his pockets. “I’d say why, but females don’t like it when people harp on it.”

“Ha ha.” I was too hungry to care that much so I focused on the food as the three men started to talk.

It wasn’t until I heard them say
Maguire
—that I looked up. Maguire. As in
Shanelle Maguire
.

Damon’s gaze slid to me and the conversation went quiet.

He ran his tongue across his teeth and then said, “We’ll finish this up another time.”

Scott and Chang said nothing else and in seconds, we were alone.

I popped a fry in my mouth as he prowled across the floor toward me.

“It makes me feel all nice and secure when you shut up all because I looked up when you said her name.”

Lids drooping low, Damon dragged a chair close to mine and sat down. He was so close, he all but surrounded me. That
really
made me feel all nice and secure. Well, maybe
nice
wasn’t the right word.
Nice
rarely described what I felt with Damon.
Naughty
.
Needed
.
Necessary
. I could probably go through the alphabet and come up with a whole slew of words, but
nice
wasn’t one of them.

“It’s clan business, Kit.” He stole a fry, winking at me when I glared.

Rolling my eyes, I muttered, “And
that
line makes me feel even
better
.”

He stopped chewing for a moment and then resumed, swallowing and then he went to his knees in front of me.

It was a sight that staggered me, floored me, to see him so easily do something like that and I suspected he didn’t even think about it—or the magnitude of it. Perhaps to him, it had no magnitude. Not with me.

“Do you need to know?” he asked.

“I…” The question startled me. Clan business was just that. It didn’t matter if Damon told others that I wasn’t an outsider. I might fall into some odd place where I wasn’t exactly
clan
yet still not an outsider, but that didn’t mean I had the right to know what Damon was doing within the clan. What he was doing with his people.

He leaned in closer. “Do you need to know?”

“It’s not my place.”

“Your place is with me. Just like my place is with you. If you need to know to feel…better…about everything that’s going on now that Maguire is here, then tell me. I don’t want secrets between us, baby girl.” His eyes searched mine and then he pressed a kiss to my cheek, high, near my ear. “She used to be an enforcer, but she never really earned the spot. She wasn’t always fair with it. She wasn’t overly cruel, but she could be…petty. That’s why we worked together a lot. I figured I could minimize her damage if she was with me, because I outranked her. I’d be the one making the judgment calls. Since she’s claiming she wants to retake her place, she’s going to have to prove she’s capable. That means…facing Scott.”

I blinked.

Then I smiled.

“Can I watch?”

He laughed and rose to his feet, moving away.

My gaze dropped to admire the view and then I scowled. “So when did you two start sleeping together?”

He stilled. Then, over his shoulder, he said, “Kit…it was just sex.”

“And just how long did this…
just sex
last?”

He turned now, facing me from across the room. “We hooked up off and on for a few years. The last few months she was here, it was very much…off.”

I jutted my chin up. “It’s staying off.”

He went from the middle of the room to kneeling in front of me again in the blink of an eye, so fast, it left my head spinning. I held my breath as he caught the front of my shirt in his hand, holding me in place as he dipped his head. His lips brushed my ear and the warmth of his breath was a teasing, taunting caress. “Trust me, baby girl…not an issue.”

He rubbed his mouth over mine. When he would have pulled away, I caught his head in my hands. Our gazes held as I captured his lower lip between my teeth and bit. His body shuddered and heat sparked inside as he laid his hands on my thighs.

I pulled back and when he would have followed, I reached up, pressing my thumb to his lips. “You know she came for
you
—just as much for
you
as anything else.”

“She’s wasting her time.” He pressed his brow to mine. “I’m yours. You know that.”

“Does
she
know that?”

“If she’s got a brain, she does by now.” His eyes were flat and hard.

“Well, I don’t know her.
Does
she have a brain or do I need to make her a sign?”

A short, hard laugh escaped him and then he sighed, rubbing his hands across his face. “Shit. I don’t know. She gets an idea in her head…look, I’ll make it clear that it’s over.”

“Do that.”

“Consider it done.” He moved back to me, all dangerous grace and deadly beauty. “But you need to understand something—I can’t wash my hands of her completely. You asked if I could send her back and if things hadn’t gotten fucked up, I’d do it. But she was kidnapped when she was coming to the clan. To me. That puts her under my protection. It happened under
my
watch. I’ll get to the bottom of it.”

“It’s not just cats.” The heat of his anger danced along my skin. “It’s a lot deeper than a few of your minions going missing.”

He was quiet a second and then he said, “Minions?”

“Yeah.” I stroked a finger down his cheek. “You growl. They scramble to obey. Sounds very minion-ish to me.” Hungry now, I nudged him back and bent over my food.

“Kit.”

“Um?” I had just taken a bite of the burger when he spoke.

“Look at me.”

I did, only half focused on what he was saying. At times like this, I understand why he and Chang and Scott and Doyle always insisted on putting food in front of me—it tasted so damn good.

“I’m going to figure this mess out.” Damon leaned against the table next to me. “With your help, preferably….but I’ll do it without your help if I have to.”

My help?

I swallowed the chunk of beef before it became lodged in throat. Swallowing, I stared at him. “My help.”

He inclined his head. “You and Justin are involved in this. You went after them in Georgia, after all, right?”

“Yyyyeeeaaaahhhhh…” I drew it out, uncertain whether I wanted to commit to anything else. I’d done the Georgia job, yes, but I hadn’t signed on for anything else.

He bent over me, one hand braced on the back of the chair, the other on the table.

“So are you going to help me or not?”

Clearing my throat, I asked softly, “Are you talking about hiring me…again?”

“Why not? It worked out pretty good the last time.” He flicked at my hair. “So…what do you say?”

“Eesh.”

I crammed another bite of burger into my mouth so I didn’t end up saying what I
really
thought:

I’m so fucked
.

I needed to talk to Justin and I knew he hadn’t left town—yet.

Since he wasn’t answering my calls, I decided I’d hit his usual haunts—the Market first, the communal hall where a lot of the freelance agents hung out next and when I struck out there, I tried Drake’s.

When I saw his bike, I couldn’t say I was surprised.

Although it was the middle of the day, the last job had been a rough one. Rough in more ways than one. First, Abraham lays out that we’d almost walked into a trap and then Justin finds out that one of his contacts is a skin-trader. I didn’t even know the bastard and I wanted to string him up. Justin had to be feeling like he’d been sucker-punched.

After all of that, the rescue gets underway and we found exactly what we’d been afraid we’d find. I guess that shouldn’t be surprising. But we’d been hoping for the best—hoping that it was all rumors and that nobody had been hunting NHs just to turn them over to the hospital.

So much for hoping.

“So. Saul.” I dropped down on the seat next to Justin. “What’s the deal there?”

Justin slid me a look. “What do you mean?”

“Abraham told you he’s a skin-trader. Guy’s been working with you for a while, seems like, and it sounds like he was trying to set us up. That pisses me off.” I jerked up a shoulder in a shrug and waved down Drake for a beer. “Seeing as how he almost put
my
ass on the line, along with yours, I want to know what’s going on. You wanted a connection to the hospital…you found it. Now what are we going to do about it?”

Justin stared straight ahead. He had a tall glass in front of him, nearly half-empty. As I sat there waiting, he reached out and picked it up. He took a healthy swig and then put it down. I continued to wait on an answer. That was fine. I wasn’t going anywhere until he talked. “Saul… is not a pleasant person. But he is… no, make that
was
useful. Now, he’s going to be a dead person.” That familiar sly grin lit his face as he glanced at me. “Problem solved.”

I wish it could be solved that easily. But if he had been setting us up, he hadn’t been doing it on his own. There were others involved. Was he connected to whoever had kidnapped Shanelle? Shaking my head, I said, “Not good enough. Not good enough by a long shot.” I gave him a hard look when he went to argue. “Look, you dragged me into this. I’m involved. You’d be the same way and don’t tell me otherwise.”

Justin muttered something low under his breath.

I chose to ignore him.

After another moment, he swiveled on the barstool to glare at me. “You know, you’re finally back with your fur-boy. Why don’t you just focus on your life and let me handle this mess?”

I was tempted to grab his glass and dump the contents onto his head. Maybe that would wash away the smug-ass attitude. But I was never one to waste good alcohol.

“As I already said, you and I are involved in this. You ensured that the second you asked me to help you on this.” When he tried to argue this time, I leaned in and jabbed him in the chest with my index finger. “And maybe this hasn’t occurred to you, but it has to me—that hotel was probably under video surveillance. So whoever showed up after we left already knows I was with you, as well as Abraham. If Saul goes missing as quick as that, we’ll be the first place they look. This is something that requires stealth. And Justin, honey, you don’t have stealth.” I gave him a brilliant smile. “That’s my domain.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it.

I knew I had won. I gave him a moment to adjust before giving him the other sucker-punch. “Now, for the really good news, Damon wants to hire us.”

He stared at me blankly. Then he shook his head, reaching up to rub his ear like he was trying to clear it. “What did you just say? Could’ve sworn…”

“I said, Damon wants to hire us,” I repeated, drawing each word out.