Passion's Prey: The Shadow Shifters (22 page)

“What’s best for me is to live the way I want. If I want to dance on a pole I should be able to dance on a pole without anybody giving me the stink eye. And if I want to sleep with your cranky-ass friend, then I’ll do just that.”

Her saying she was sleeping with X still didn’t melt like butter over Nick, but he was trying to accept the facts. “You’re an adult. You sleep with who you want and work where you want. I get it.”

He could tell his easy acceptance of what she’d just said shocked her. She’d actually opened her mouth, prepared to argue with him some more, then snapped it shut.

“Well, I’m glad you came to your senses.”

He smiled. “Yeah, well my wife has a way of bringing me around.”

“She told you to back off, didn’t she?” Caprise asked with a smile of her own.

Nick shrugged. “Yeah, something like that.”

They shared a laugh together. It felt really good, like old times. And for a minute, just this small snatch of time, Caprise looked happy.

“What if he’s your mate?” he asked, because he didn’t want his sister disillusioned about X or the man he was. No matter how loyal to his friend Nick was, he knew there was a darkness to X, a place he went where neither he nor Rome had ever been with him. He wondered if Caprise knew this.

“You know I don’t live by those Gungi laws,” she said flippantly. A little too flippantly for Nick to believe she was sincere.

“There are signs you cannot ignore, Caprise. Telltale signs that a couple has mated.”

“We did not mate, dammit! We had sex!”

“Please,” Nick said, shaking his head. “Don’t keep saying that. I’m getting a visual and its making me nauseous.”

“Then stop bringing it up,” she snapped.

“If it’s true, you can’t hide from it. Mating is a natural part of being a shifter.” Nick held up a hand when she tried to say something else. “I know you want to believe you’re not a shifter, but you are. You can’t run away from that any more than I can get away from what you and X have done. So I’m telling you to be careful. Because once you’ve crossed that line there’s no going back. No running away, because he’ll find you. He’ll track you to the ends of the earth once he’s mated you. And I don’t want to lose my sister and my best friend.”

“You don’t have to worry about that. X and I cannot mate. It’s impossible according to those laws of the
Ètica
you like to live by.”

Nick wanted to ask her why she thought it was impossible but Caprise—true to form—had already left the room. She was finished talking and way beyond her quota for listening.

He thought about going after her but axed the idea in favor of thinking harder on what she’d just said. The laws of the
Ètica
said Shadow Shifters would find their mates, and they would be joined for their entire life span. It also said that there was only one mate for every shadow, one true love, one life’s connection. He frowned with his next thought. Had Caprise already been mated?

*   *   *

It had taken too long for night to fall, too long for X to wait for Athena’s to open.

But he’d waited, and he’d used the time sitting in the front seat of his truck to research Slakeman Enterprises and all its connections a little deeper. Robert Slakeman was one corrupt individual, the trail of illegal dealings he’d made following him like a bad stench. Miraculously, he’d never been caught, never prosecuted. Which said pretty damn clearly to X that somebody with lots of money and even more clout was protecting him. First thought was Ralph Kensington, but he’d only become senator-elect on the death of Senator Baines a few months back. However, Kensington had also known Baines personally.

X tapped a finger on the steering wheel as he looked over at the laptop he’d positioned on his passenger seat.

Kensington, Baines, and now Athena’s. Baines and his daughter were mauled to death. Two strippers were killed in the same fashion just weeks after that. Diamond Turner was, too.

It was starting to add up, but X wasn’t happy about what the math was proving. The connection between these men and Sabar wasn’t coincidental.

X stopped, all thoughts of the connection and the connotations paused. His entire body went still, his senses prickling, his cat ready.

Someone was coming.

Hitting the
ESCAPE
button on his computer to instantly lock the machine and shut it down automatically after three idle minutes, X moved only his hands as he reached for the door handle. He was out of the car in a flash, standing with his booted feet planted firmly on the ground, legs spread, fists ready at his sides.

“Trespassers will be prosecuted,” the man now standing in front of him said.

It took about two seconds for X to figure him for a shifter. His scent was dull, as if something was muting it. But it was there, the scent of the cat. Only this was no
Topètenia
. His eyes were too blue, his hair too black, his stance cockier, as if he had a right to be that way. He was no cheetah, either.

“Stalkers will be beaten to death” was X’s response, finally.

The man had the audacity to feign innocence. “Excuse me?”

X was in his face in the next instant. “Don’t jerk me around, cat. I’m not in the mood. You’re the one who’s been calling Caprise.”

It was a hunch. But X’s hunches were never wrong. Ever.

And this time was no different.

The corner of the guy’s mouth lifted slightly, his eyes alight not with humor, or with disinterest—either of which would have garnered a more acceptable reaction from X. No, it was lust, pure and simple lust at the mention of her name. X wanted blood. Right here, right now, he wanted to rip this motherfucker’s throat out.

“Why would I need to call the woman who belongs to me?” he asked.

Again, wrong words, wrong time, wrong fucking shifter.

The fist that plowed into the man’s jaw was powerful, knocking him back a good couple of steps before he was able to shake it off. Almost. His next step was a little wobbly. But X didn’t care; he moved in for more.

“I told you not to call her again. Now you can take this as your final warning.” X punched him again.

The man’s head snapped back. The next hit had his head jerking, then falling forward as he spit out a mouthful of blood. X could have finished him off right then. He could have completed the human ass kicking and broken a few of his bones. Or he could shift and crack his skull. He did neither, only because he wanted the bastard looking right at him when he died.

Instead the man came to his full height, which was a couple of inches shorter than X. His eyes had changed, the blue even brighter, almost to the point of being iridescent. X didn’t need to look down at his hands to know that his claws had sprouted. The white Bengal tiger was about to emerge.

But the man held it back.

“She belongs to me. I own every inch of her magnificent body,” he told X.

“You don’t own shit! This is my town and she’s my female. We can stop with the talk and settle this once and for all if you’re still liable to believe otherwise.”

“You have no idea who she is or what she’s done,” he said clearly.

The alley was dark, the back sides of three buildings caging them in. An urban jungle prepared to host a feral battle.

“I know what I need to know” was X’s heated retort.

“Did you know she was a killer?”

The pause in X was minute. Nothing about his outward demeanor changed. The word
killer
rubbed him the wrong way, especially since it was referring to Caprise. But this shifter would never know that.

“You’re a dead man,” X said and made another move forward.

The tiger wasn’t about to take more hits without dishing some out. It lifted its head, blue eyes sparkling in the dark of night.

“Stop!”

The female voice had both males halting. Then X inhaled. His body paused. His cat stiffened.

What the hell was she doing here?

*   *   *

He was about to tell X.

Caprise hadn’t wanted to see him. She actually thought she could come down here and bring X back to Havenway without any altercation at all. She was dead wrong.

From the moment she’d admitted to Kalina and Ary that the shifter who’d killed Seth was really after her, she’d known she’d end up here. X was determined to find out who was calling her; it was logical that he’d want to come to Athena’s to see if that person worked here, since this was the only place Caprise went outside of Havenway. He would also want to look for the shifter who’d killed Seth. No matter what the FL had ordered, X would want to take care of that situation sooner, rather than later. Knowing all this did not mean she cared for this man or felt connected to him in any way. It just meant she was perceptive. She’d known him before she went away and had been forced to spend time with him in close confines these last couple of days. That was all.

So she’d waited until it was night to slip out of Havenway, which was not easy. And she hadn’t gotten far before she was caught. Luckily for her, the newest shifter captor was a female by the name of Nivea Cannon. She was a guard but she was a female first and recognized the rebellion in Caprise’s eyes. Instead of taking her back or even calling Nick or Rome to tell them where she’d gone, she’d accompanied Caprise to Athena’s.

The minute she heard Rolando’s voice, Caprise reverted to that young girl, in that foreign land, in a foreign body, doing things when she had no idea what their repercussions would be. Her body had shaken all over. All she wanted to do was run. But she was through with that; she reminded herself and the cat that lurked beneath that running was no longer an option. It was time for her to stand.

So on shaky legs she’d come around the corner, watched as X’s large form was about to pounce on Rolando’s. It would be a fight guaranteed to make the front page of the tabloids: a jaguar and a white Bengal tiger battling to the death in the alley behind a strip joint. She couldn’t let that happen. The shadows couldn’t risk the exposure, not because of her.

X found her gaze the moment he turned around and for a split second Caprise felt like there was no one else in that alley. It was just her and this man, and the restlessness that had plagued her for years dissipated.

“Shit!” she heard Nivea say from behind her.

That was about two seconds before the alley was filled with flashes of light. Nivea charged past Caprise, jumping up to kick the Dumpster that was about ten feet away from where Caprise was standing. From behind, a female and a male holding a camera emerged.

“Hey, it’s a free country,” the female quipped.

“If you don’t get your ass out of here you’re going to get a lesson in just how free this country really is,” Nivea replied. Her small frame didn’t look as if it carried a punch, but Caprise figured the way she’d kicked that Dumpster a good distance—it had almost knocked the woman and man on their asses—was a pretty accurate judgment of the damage she could do.

The twosome raced out of the alley, passing Caprise in a blur as they went.

“Go home,” X said, his voice feral as he gazed at her.

“She is home,” Rolando stated, coming from out of the shadows where he’d gone while Nivea did the kicking-trash-can thing.

Her heart tripped at the sound of his voice, and when his hot blue gaze settled on her, Caprise thought she would actually pass out. It had been years since she’d seen him, since she’d left him asleep in the forest.

“You shut the fuck up!” X yelled, pointing at Rolando then turning back to Caprise.

Caprise shook her head. “No, he’s right. I am home. I was born and raised here in DC. This is where I belong.” The words sounded strong and concise. She heard them and wanted to clap for herself, for this step ahead in life she’d taken. But now was certainly not the time.

“I want you out of here,” X said again.

His voice was lethal, his cat’s eyes glaring at her. The body she’d grown so familiar with was bunched with tension, muscles bulging, claws already released.

“She won’t leave, will you, Caprise?” Rolando moved closer. X stood between them.

“You will stay because you know you owe me at least that. You owe me your life,” he told her precisely.

“I owe you nothing,” Caprise told him.

She stood just behind X, could feel and scent his anger building.

“You lied to me and used me. In return, I left your conniving ass in the forest. I’d say that makes us even,” she told Rolando.

Rolando’s head tilted just slightly, his incisors showing as he grinned a malicious smile that almost stopped Caprise’s heart. This was the real Rolando. This was who and what she’d realized he was, only that realization had come too late. And it had come at a great cost.

“You lied to me. Then you ran like a coward. You went to those humans and together you killed my child. Buried him beneath the earth like he was nothing. For that,” he said with a chuckle, “you, my
companheiro,
must pay.”

The next actions happened in a blur but Caprise knew she’d never forget them. The sounds, the scents, the death. She would store this memory alongside that of her son, Henrique, for the rest of her life.

Rolando’s shift was quick, his cat’s heavy paws hitting the pavement with a thump that rocked the entire alley. It lunged right over X’s shoulders, pushing Caprise back onto the ground. She didn’t have a second to think, to reconsider, or to retreat. Her cat ripped free of her human body with a roar that echoed. Leaning back on its hind legs, it threw its front paws up just in time to catch the first blows from Rolando.

Behind her she heard another cat’s growl. Then Rolando’s head reared back, its mouth opened wide, teeth bared. Another ferocious roar and the tiger was out of her reach. Through her cat’s eyes she watched as X, now in cat form, sank his teeth deep into Rolando’s neck. The tiger roared and tried to swipe back, but X was on its back, jaws locked, eyes focused … on her.

The tiger writhed and roared, tumbling along the ground of the alley with the jaguar fiercely hanging on to it. It was dying. X was killing Rolando. Caprise’s cat roared so loud she thought she might actually go deaf from the sound. She stumbled back, heart thumping wildly.