Passion's Prey: The Shadow Shifters (35 page)

“For this,” he said when she’d opened her mouth to gasp at the immediate fullness.

There was nothing like this; not ever in her life had Caprise felt anyone like this man. He was so big and so stern and yet he filled her so precisely, so sweetly, all she could do was sigh. His pumps were fast, just as she liked them, and as the water slapped around them, falling and rushing in its natural rhythm, she and X made their music. Her moans coupled with his repeating of her name, his grunts to the background of her high-pitched screams, their climax came simultaneously like a practiced concerto.

Chapter 30

Dorian downed another glass of straight scotch. He’d returned to his apartment over an hour ago, after one night of pure adrenaline. Eric had delivered more details as Dorian had driven to Woodland. There was an arms deal going down; Senator-elect Ralph Kensington was involved. The address was to Slakeman Enterprises. Dorian hadn’t initially thought any of this had anything to do with the drugs he was tracking or the killings that had taken place in the last nine months, but Eric believed it did.

By the time they’d arrived, MPD were there in deep numbers. Helicopters roamed the dark evening sky, the moon hidden by ominous clouds. There had been no alarms tripped, and all seemed to be well inside the building.

Then it happened.

The explosion that killed three seasoned police officers and injured seven more. The blast had come as a complete surprise, and only by the grace of God did Dorian and Eric not get hurt. Dorian had parked outside the gates because there were so many police cars already pulled into the parking lot. He’d just phoned Eric to let him know he was there. A few seconds later Eric had come up to the car, giving Dorian more details about what seemed to be a false alarm.

It wasn’t a false alarm.

Right now they had no idea who had set the bomb. Preliminary reports indicated it was a bomb and not some sort of accidental explosion—Eric had texted him that information just before he came into the house. But who would bomb Slakeman Enterprises? That probably garnered more than one suspect, especially since Slakeman’s last government contract had been canceled about six months ago. Right now he was a free agent to any country and/or terrorist group that wanted to get their hands on some serious firepower. He could have pissed any of them off. Or he could have pissed off Ralph Kensington, whom Dorian didn’t believe had this kind of power. Then again, Dorian wasn’t past believing anything at this point.

At any rate, he didn’t have any answers about tonight’s occurrences. As for his current fixation with Xavier Santos-Markland, he would have to leave the man alone, at least for now. The MPD had ruled the deaths of Diamond Turner and the other two girls at Athena’s accidental overdoses—even though Diamond’s body had been sliced and diced, the coroner finally ruled that those injuries came after Diamond had already ingested a fatal amount of this new synthetic drug. Dorian was almost positive the labs would come back with that drug they’d taken from Athena’s as the synthetic culprit.

So Xavier Santos-Markland was off the hook. It also seemed that Roman Reynolds and his other cohort were free from scrutiny once more. Dorian threw the drink across the room, watching with muted satisfaction as the glass shattered against the wall. He scrubbed his hands down his face and took a deep breath.

It didn’t fit, none of it did. But maybe it was time he let it go. He wasn’t about to spend the rest of his life obsessing over one case. He had a life to lead, or at least he thought he did. Still single, no girlfriend or even a prospect of a girlfriend, no male friends, no nothing except work. Pathetic, that’s what he was.

He walked over to the window, pushing back the curtains with shaky hands. Maybe he’d had one too many glasses of scotch. As he looked down onto the quiet street where he lived, his vision blurred only slightly. Breathing hard enough so that he fogged the window in front of him, Dorian tried to let the memories of tonight and the previous nights wash from his mind. He was trying so hard not to concentrate on work that he almost missed it.

In a black SUV parked across the street from his building he’d seen a shadow of a person. Someone was inside, and they’d moved the moment he came to the window. On instinct—because no matter how sorry he was feeling for himself, he was still a cop—Dorian backed away from the window. He stood close to the wall, waited a beat, then leaned in slowly. Not so his body would show but so that he could still look out to see if the person in the vehicle would get out.

It was well after three in the morning. If someone in his building were expecting company, wouldn’t that company have already gotten out of the car and come inside? A drizzle of rain had just begun to come down and Dorian had to shake his head to clear his own blurriness. But the shadow was still there, sitting way back in the front seat, as if the seat had been lowered all the way down. The head of the shadow moved and Dorian gasped.

Yellow eyes.

They stared back at him, right up to his window as if they knew he was watching.

“Shit!” he cursed, falling back on his ass and rubbing his eyes. “Gotta stop drinking scotch.” He scrambled off the floor to the bathroom, where he proceeded to relieve himself of all the scotch he’d just consumed.

*   *   *

Bianca came to sit next to Darel on the couch in his apartment. Neither of them had wanted to go back to the town house in Georgetown. It had been a long night, one they’d been setting up for nearly a week, and as far as Darel could tell it had gone perfectly.

Then she opened her mouth and began to talk. Nothing good ever came from Bianca talking. Darel wondered why he hadn’t subjected her to the same fate as Sabar.

“I’m so glad that’s over,” she said, crossing her legs. The nightgown she wore had slits up both sides, easy access for anyone who wanted a taste.

Darel had tasted so much in the last weeks, he wondered if he’d start to go into withdrawal at some point.

“Now we can really take care of our business,” she continued. “We should move the headquarters in case someone still loyal to Sabar wants to try to go against us. And that chemist guy out there is the pits. We need top-notch employees.”

Darel could ignore her for hours; he’d done it before. But tonight he wanted to get some sleep, so he figured the sooner he talked to her, sucked and fucked her, the sooner he could get on with it.

“I know what I’m doing. It’s all going to be fine,” he told her.

“Oh, I don’t doubt you,” she said, leaning in closer to nibble on his ear. “I’m just throwing ideas out there, seeing what sticks.” With the last word she flattened her palm over his dick.

She was so predictable.

“Go ahead and take it,” he ordered her. “And don’t stop until I tell you to.”

Bianca smiled, her tongue licking over her lips as she eased off the couch. She went to her knees, leaning between his legs.

Darel lay his head back. He reached an arm over until he touched a remote control on the coffee table. Lifting it so he could see, he pushed the
POWER
button, then the red
RECORD
button. Putting the remote down, he closed his eyes and let Bianca do her thing. She’d be busy for about an hour, working him until he finally came. She loved when he came, or so she said. As for Darel, he loved the aftereffect. She’d fall asleep and he’d replay the tape he made of them. That was his real turn-on.

As she unbuttoned his pants and pulled out his semi-erect dick, Darel thought over the events of the night.

Bianca had been slowly poisoning Sabar with the same damiana he’d praised for making the savior drug a success. They’d thought it sort of poetic that his own creation would contribute to his demise. But they needed him out of the way while they worked the other details of the plan.

Palermo Greer was a shifter whom both Bianca and Darel knew. His appearance in DC had seemed a little strange at first; then Darel figured it out. Bianca had summoned him to take out Sabar. If Darel hadn’t fucked her that day she’d snuck into his apartment, he would have probably been on their hit list as well. Funny how things worked out in the end. He’d immediately confronted Palermo about his suspicions, and the two had found common ground—neither of them truly trusted Bianca and both of them hated Sabar. So why not team up to get the job done?

At this very moment Palermo was on a private jet headed for Albuquerque where he would deliver the weapons to their new headquarters, the one Bianca knew nothing about. Palermo was going to get things set up there while Darel continued to work the money end of the business. Now, Darel didn’t trust Palermo 100 percent, either; no one would ever get that type of trust from him. But the shifter had proved he had balls by getting into Slakeman’s good graces. That new connection was going to work out well for them.

As for Pierson, that little weasel was also going to end up working for Darel. Slakeman and other greedy motherfuckers like him would all bow to Darel sooner or later.

Bianca went deep, taking his full length in her mouth and humming just the way he taught her. Spirals of pleasure soared up his spine, and Darel let out a little gasp. He might not trust this bitch but she could certainly give good head. Absently he touched a hand to the back of her head, grabbed a fistful of hair, and yanked. “Do it again!” he yelled.

She smiled, her lips still wrapped around his length, and ducked her head once more.

This was where he wanted to be … for the moment. As for tomorrow, Darel would just have to see, but his future was already looking much brighter.

Chapter 31

One Week Later

X and Caprise walked into mayhem. After deciding that their home would be X’s apartment and they would both visit Havenway daily to do their new jobs—Caprise as a guard in training and X as commanding officer and intel supervisor—they’d slipped into a comfortable routine.

Going back to the FBI hadn’t been an option for X. Seeing the damage the Rogues could do on the streets in the last couple of months had proved to him that working from the FBI wasn’t going to stop this new war that was being waged. What they learned from Elder Alamar and Baxter proved that this battle was going to grow, and for them to stop it they’d need all hands on deck. As Rome and Nick’s firm provided the bulk of the finances to the Stateside Assembly so far, X figured his best contribution was to work full-time in developing new technology to help support their endeavors. And this way he could keep an eye on his mate, the one who was determined to become a guard even though she’d also accepted a part-time teaching position at the Dance Institute of Washington.

They’d been home for about two hours when Kalina had called Caprise. Ary was officially in labor.

So, packing an overnight bag, they’d headed back out to Havenway—and had just arrived to pure chaos.

Shifters stood to the side as Nick gave orders. Rome had been just coming down the hallway as they entered. He looked to X and shared a knowing sigh. Both men moved to Nick, clapping hands on either of his shoulders.

“Come on, let’s go get a drink,” Rome said.

“No.” Nick shook his head. “I’m going back in there. I’ve got to be with her.”

“Sure you do,” X said. “Let’s just get you calmed down a bit. We’ll let the women go make sure she’s comfortable and we’ll join them in a few.”

Over his shoulder X nodded to Caprise, who smiled as she started down the hallway toward the medical center.

“I don’t want a drink,” Nick continued to argue.

But Baxter, the Overseer who saw and knew every damn thing, had already appeared with a tray. “Have a drink, Mr. Dominick. Dr. Papplin said a couple of hours at best. You don’t want to be worried out of your mind by then.”

Nick, who knew just like the rest of them that ignoring Baxter’s request couldn’t end well, took the glass from the tray. He drank until it was empty.

“Happy now?” he asked all that were looking at him.

Rome shook his head. X chuckled.

“You’re a smooth talker in the courtroom and a definite player when you were on the prowl for women, but now you seem to be losing your cool. Where is the Nick Delgado we used to know?” X asked.

“Ha. Ha. Very funny,” Nick said snidely, turning so that they would be walking toward the medical center. “You have no idea how this feels. It’s not like anything I’ve ever expected.”

“A lot of responsibility comes with having a child,” Rome told him.

“That’s why we’ve got to get these Rogues in check, man. The world has to be safer for my daughter,” Nick said sincerely.

“I hear that,” X told him. “And we’re going to get it together. We’re not going to let anything happen to her.”

The three men walked into the medical center side by side, ready to face whatever happened next, just as they’d always done.

*   *   *

Two hours later Ary pushed one last time. With a scream that threatened to break the small windows in the room and any other glass item, Shya Delgado was born.

Shya echoed her mother’s sentiments by letting out a huge wail of her own.

Beside Ary, holding her hand and leaning forward to kiss her lips, was Nick. “She’s gorgeous,” he told his wife when Dr. Papplin held the baby up for them to see.

Ary, who was drenched in sweat, lifted her head, breath still heaving, and cried, “Perfect. Look at her, Nick, she’s absolutely perfect.”

“I’ll bring her right back,” Dr. Papplin said, taking the Delgado baby over to an incubator they had set up just in case they should need it. By this time they had four nursing assistants in the medical center. Gisela was their most experienced and she tended to Ary.

Although this was not a human baby, Papplin still performed the Apgar testing. He watched her activity, posture, breathing, behavior, and color. All looked normal at the first minute of evaluation. As he waited for the next recording at five minutes Papplin touched along her spine. He counted her fingers and her toes and looked at her eyes once more. They were blue, which wasn’t terribly abnormal. Lots of babies were born with blue eyes that later changed to their permanent color. He aspirated her, checking her nasal cavity and her mouth for any blockages. She was breathing just fine and had stopped crying immediately. Now she lay quietly staring directly at Papplin even though he was sure he was nothing more than a blob to her. Except her glare looked way too clear.