Southern Shifters: Pryde and Precious (Kindle Worlds Novella) (7 page)

“Shields are as much for our protection as they are for the comfort of others. I’ve never been especially good at it.” Though her statement held an element of self-deprecation, no sadness echoed beneath it. “I’ve been trying to discipline my mind since I was a child. I think my teachers despaired of me ever accomplishing more than keeping a lockbox on my thoughts. Since I’m not very skilled at either sending or receiving and I can barely keep people out, I made the choice to remove myself from where I would have to hear them or they me.”

“So you left your clan?” He descended the stairs with their wet things in hand. On the other side of the kitchen, he dumped all the clothes in a washing machine and got it started.

“Yes,” she said, having followed him. Standing in the doorway, her hair all straggly from the wet and the oversized shirt hitting her mid-thigh, she looked particularly small and delicate. “It sounds a great deal more difficult than it was. To be honest, I didn’t like being the butt of jokes or, worse, an object of pity.”

Disliking the last description, he approached her, but she withdrew before he could give her a comforting squeeze. The desire to touch her invaded his cells. Closing his hands into light fists, he concentrated on keeping his fingers to himself. “Why would they pity you?”

“You’re a shifter. What would the others do if you couldn’t shift? It’s as natural as breathing to you, right?” Just a fraction of hostility to remind him she was not as helpless as she appeared. His cat approved and, if John were totally honest, so did he. What would her claws feel like if she unsheathed them on him? Would her temper and passion leave him scraped and bloody or would she be able to tangle with his beast?
And why am I considering this? Protection, not seduction.
He still hadn’t worked out whether she was the enemy, the bait, or just a hapless victim.

Not that his cat seemed to give a damn. The animal rolled within him, wanting to feel her hands on him again and more…to feel her beneath his hands. “Why do you keep looking at me like that?” Worry slicked her scent or maybe it was self-preservation.

“Like what?” He lowered his eyelids, wanting to get a grip on his cat and his lust. Neither of which seemed interested in his determination to stay on the straight and narrow.

“Like you’re debating whether I would taste good or not.”

“Kitten, I know you’d taste good.” He pointed toward the living room. “We need to scan you for anything they might use to track you.”

Her cheeks flushed a bright red shade and her eyes widened. Desire, not fear, perfumed her scent and he took a deep breath of it. While scent didn’t attract him as much as others, he did love hers. “Track me?”

“Yes.” Flattening his palm to her lower back when she didn’t move swiftly enough, he nudged her along toward the living room. He had a scanner in his gear. It would at least tell him if she had anything transmitting on her.
Business first
. He reminded his recalcitrant cat. If he indulged in more hedonistic pursuits, he might put her in further danger. The sobering thought put a zip tie on his lust. “If you are the bait, your clan may be trying to lure Ashwood back or see who else is interested in their project.”

“They wouldn’t do that to me, would they?” She didn’t sound all that confident. “Bait is usually something you don’t mind sacrificing.”

Rubbing her back gently, he pulled her close when she stopped. “It depends on what you’re fishing for…in your case, they may have simply bitten off more than they can chew.”

Arianna twisted against him and his cock went rock hard at the motion. Ignoring the throb of need, he met her gaze. “But if they set the bait, doesn’t that mean you’re what they were trying to catch?”

He smiled. “Well, won’t they be surprised when they find out I have teeth and claws…”

The light-hearted remark worked. She laughed and a purr rumbled from his chest. Surprise lit her face, but he eased away before she could lure him any closer.

“Let me get the scanner. Stay put this time.”

“You do know I’m not a dog.” She’d put her hands on her hips and tapped her bare foot against the wooden floor.

“Oh, I know.” He let his cat peek out of his eyes at her, soaking in the delight rolling over her scent to chase away the stink of fear. “Neither am I.”

T
he scanner John
used beeped steadily as he passed it over her whole body, but nothing set off an alarm. She released a shaky breath she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding when he declared her tracker free. The idea of someone planting a tracker on her person—it was a disgusting invasion of privacy. Once he finished scanning her, he went through her equipment. Nothing set off his device, but he kept her items in their sealed bags.

After his admission to not being a dog, she had to assume he was a cat. He didn’t look like a bear, but then she didn’t know that much about shifters. Another gap in her education perhaps, then again, she didn’t recall much in the way of shifter studies while she’d been in school. Maybe they saved those lessons for students who could shield themselves.

“Nothing,” he growled as he set the scanner down. The thump it made on the table seemed rather anticlimactic to the crash she expected.

“I’m sorry?” His disappointment weighed on her. “Maybe.”

The
maybe
got his attention. “Maybe?”

“Well, I’m not sorry there isn’t a tracker implanted somewhere on my body.” A shudder rippled along her spine. “Really didn’t want you to come back and say yes I had one. I am sorry that you don’t have any answers though. Maybe—maybe it’s just a coincidence. Perhaps they had to give the project to someone and they gave it to a nobody because they didn’t want it to succeed any more than you did.”

“Do you know what Project Pryde really means?” He stalked over to take a seat on the coffee table, facing her and bracketing her legs with his. She couldn’t move without stepping over one of his legs, so she crossed her ankles and focused on him.

“It’s about eliminating scent in people or creating attractive scents which conversely also leads to repulsing ones. It could be for perfumes, you know, or essential oils.” There were plenty of applications where it would be useful. “Perfume companies, for instance. Think about it…you know the basic principal behind most perfumes and colognes is how they bond with an individual’s body chemistry, so what a scent might be attractive on my skin wouldn’t be in combination with yours…”

“Shifters respond to scents. We track them, recognize friend from foe, and can tell whether someone is lying or being honest.” Annoyance discolored his tone. “If there were a potion or formula which could mask scents or draw us in—can you understand how that would be a threat?”

“Troubling, yes…but perhaps the intentions are not weaponized.”

“Whenever money and resources are poured into a project, it’s not usually for humanitarian reasons.” He rested his fingertips on her knees, and she stilled at the contact.

Shivering at the light touch, she dared to place her hands atop his. “They gave it to me…a
botanist
. I understand hybridizing DNA strands in plants. Doing it in animals or people? That’s something altogether different and nowhere near my field of expertise. I still can’t figure out why Simon sent it to me in the first place.”

“Simon?”

“Simon Hampton. I probably shouldn’t give you his name, but he’s a powerful figure in my clan. He sits on the council.”

“So your clan council assigned you the task?” Guarded and careful, he narrowed his eyes.

“Simon sent it to me. Whether it was for the council or not, I don’t know. My dealings with Simon Hampton are limited to that email and his signing off on my application to move outside clan territory to live and work where you found me. I’ve never even met him.” Knew of him, knew his reputation, and understood the consequence of disappointing him? Yes. “I am not lying about not being really qualified for this or having no idea why they’d want me to do the work. I’m not Darcy Ashwood—she was a legend with scents. Based on the information I pieced together after reading her notes, this was her project. When she disappeared…”

“Left.”

“Fine, when she left, their chances of getting this completed left with her. I don’t know anyone else who did what she did.” Not for the first time since the project fell in her lap did she wish know one remembered her name or where she was. “So I suppose that leaves you with a decision. You can keep the notes and everything else, but I’m not really a help to you on this, and I don’t know that you need to protect me…”

“Have you been trained to withstand interrogation?” The abrupt shift in his line of questioning sent a wave of apprehension to sour her stomach.

“No.” Gods, she hoped that was the right answer. “I’m a botanist, how many ways can I tell you this? I’m a no one. I’m unimportant. This isn’t my area of expertise and you are spending all this time and energy on me when I can’t tell you anymore than I already have.” Why did she send those emails? Because Simon wanted results and she’d been terrified of disappointing them. Now she was distraught and trapped in this situation with John.
Which is both good and bad.

He squeezed her hands, then released her before rising and beginning to prowl the room. “You are not a specialist in scents…in animals, anyway. You are in flowers.”

Twisting, she followed his motions with her gaze. “I told you that.”

“Shh.” He waved her off, continuing to circle the perimeter of the living area. “You live outside clan territories. To complete the work you have to reach out to different companies. You have no security, and you’re helpless based on your level of Psi ability—so why choose you?”

Well, when he put it like that. She was dishearteningly a bad choice for all of the above. Chewing the inside of her lip, she waited as he made another circuit, then another. He repeated the phrases, some of it mumbling, some of it aloud, but it didn’t change.

“The only thing this whole project has gotten me is your attention.” At her statement, he stopped cold and jerked around to face her.

“Not just my attention…all of ours. We’re investigating your work, your life, pulling apart your apartment…dammit.” Fury turned his eyes almost incandescent. “Do you know anyone who would be more suited to the task than you?”

“A dozen people, but none of them are Darcy Ashwood. Science is still a relatively small community, so exceptional people stand out. They stand out even more among the Psi as they would in your community.”

“Names.” He stalked over to retrieve a pad of paper and pen, they landed on the table in front of her. “Write down all their names.”

“Why?”

“Because I think you were the bait.” His words left her mystified, but he didn’t explain himself. Instead he pulled out his phone and made a call. “It’s Brandon. Finish with her things and start sifting the intelligence reports. She was a red herring. They had her on this project so we’d waste time on her and not look for the real scientist.”

Ouch.
The words battered at her. He’d wasted his time on her and she wasn’t a real scientist. Hung out to dry by her clan and dismissed by him. The sting left her pride bleeding.
Asshole.
She picked up the pen and began to write all the names she could think of—the sooner she gave him what he needed, the sooner she could get the hell away from all of them and back to her life.

T
hey’d been played
. He set Carter and Daniel onto learning what Inferon had as well as to sifting through their information gathering tools. Someone else—or several someones—had been assigned to work on Project Pryde. Arianna Ferrars had been set up to attract their attention, something they succeeded at admirably. Using her list of names as a starting point, he provided the clan with the information they needed to begin tracking their other possible targets.

Arianna disappeared during his phone calls, but he heard her in the kitchen. When he entered to make coffee, she sat in the dining nook with her tablet. She’d inserted a thumb drive into the side of it and showed him the files being transferred. Not ending his call, he nodded at her then motioned to the coffee pot. At her nod, he added a second cup to sit next to his while his assistant reviewed the search terms he’d listed. Abby asked him no questions, just recited the different subject lines of emails and other purloined information.

When the coffee finished brewing he filled both cups, then pointed to the fridge and the sugar container for Arianna before leaving her to doctor her cup. Two hours on the phone and all he had to show for it were minimal leads plus a headache. Empty cup in hand, he checked the living room. Not finding Arianna, he returned to the kitchen. It, too, was empty.

Her abandoned coffee cup sat on the table. Pivoting, he looked in the laundry room. The dryer stood open. Crossing to it in three strides, he glanced inside. His clothes were there, alone. Hers were missing.

“Arianna?” He called, nostrils flared as he checked for her scent. It was still strong enough to indicate her recent presence, yet he didn’t hear her in the house. It took him a couple of minutes to do a sweep. She was gone, along with her clothes and her devices.

Worry ballooned into irritation. Where had she fled?
Why did she flee?
Outside, he scanned the horizon. His vehicle remained where he’d parked it, but he’d had his keys, so she couldn’t have taken it. From everything Arianna told him, she didn’t get out much and she certainly wouldn’t have much in the way of survival skills.

If she told me the truth…
The moment the thought took root, he ripped it out. Nothing about Arianna had been a lie. Not her fear. Not her panic. Not her frustration. She’d been used. No escaping the fact, she’d been used as bait to distract them all, and she knew it because he’d told her. They’d thrown her out like one would with useless chum.
But she isn’t useless.

If she were smart, she would have followed the ruts to the main road four miles down the side of the mountain. When he’d gone for isolated, he’d chosen a place he could willfully be snowed in at and where no one could reach him if they weren’t on four legs.

Checking the sun, John wanted to swear. She would never make it to the main road before dark and, if she veered from the path, she could end up hurt or worse. Disliking every eventuality playing out in his mind, he set his phone on the railing, then stripped his clothes.

The shift rippled over him, muscles and bone transforming as his cat stretched and then burst free. He lifted his head and roared, the sound would carry across the mountain warning other predators off. Few trespassed so close to his home, and fewer still would linger on the reaches if they heard him. Launching from the porch, he checked the ruts for her familiar scent.

He wasn’t a wolf. He didn’t plan to follow her, by scent alone but he needed the confirmation that she followed the path he expected. Locating a hint of her cinnamon and sugar temptation, he set off at an easy run. He knew the trail like the back of his hand. He also knew the fastest way down the mountain. Sticking to the route, he kept his eyes and ears open for any sight or sound of her.

At worst, she had a two-hour head start. Though her clothes hadn’t been dry and, if she’d waited for that, it was more like an hour. Average foot speed was about four miles per hour, and the ground was definitely uneven. He didn’t doubt her capable of hiking—she kept herself physically fit—but exercising in controlled scenarios and hiking on a mountain path were two different things.

He’d never clocked himself, but in short bursts he could run at significant speeds. Racing along the trail, he took leaps as the path fell away. Every time he landed, he picked up the pace. The sun would set in a couple of hours. However pleasant the weather had been, it turned cold at night. Too cold for the delicate little Psi considering her clothing hadn’t included a jacket.

It took him fifteen minutes to catch up to her and, when he caught sight of her trudging along, she was about a quarter of a mile from the main road itself. With another short burst of speed, he put himself between her and the road. She let out a startled scream at the sight of him and froze in place.

Staring at her, he concentrated. She said she couldn’t hear him, but he’d also been trained over the years to keep telepaths out of his thoughts. His isolationism and solitary nature contributed to that talent. What he wanted right then, however, was for her to hear him.

Arianna…

A pinched line appeared between her eyes. “John?”

He made a low sound, and her eyes widened a fraction.
Can you hear me?
If she couldn’t understand him this way, he would have to shift again and she would be more uncomfortable than he if he had to make her walk back up the mountain with him nude.

“That is you, right, John?”

If only he could sigh. He nodded his head once.

“You’re a tiger.”

Yes, he was.

“A white tiger.”

White wasn’t a breed, but a quirk of his DNA.

“You’re beautiful.” The uneven quaver in her voice didn’t detract from the compliment. He stood a little taller and prowled closer to her. “You shouldn’t have come after me, though.”

Oh, really?

“I get it, I was a distraction for your clan. You were set up to find me, and I’m not really involved, so I’m just going to go and get out of the way.”

He sneezed. No, she wasn’t.

“Did you really just sneeze at me?”

He opened his mouth in a reasonable facsimile of a smile. This close she could taste her sweetness on his tongue. The cinnamon and sugar offered him something both spicy and sweet. Narrowing the distance between them, he attempted to reach her again.
Come on, kitten. Let me in enough to hear me.

“Oh…” She wavered on her feet. For a split second, he thought she would fall, so he surged closer and her hands rested on his ruff. He steadied her, but loved the feeling of her touching him all the same.

Is my talking to you this way hurting you?

“No,” she didn’t sound altogether certain. “It’s just strange.”

Strange how?

“You’re very—clear, but I’m not used to hearing complete thoughts. It’s usually just fragments.”

I’m special.

“Are you now?” She gave him a gentle squeeze, then pushed to her feet.

Yes.

“I will take your word for it.” When she moved away by a few steps, he kept pace with her and bumped her side. If contact would keep the connection open, he would maintain it. As it was, she was going the wrong way. Circling her, he turned her around neatly, and she came to a halt and stared at him. “I am letting you off the hook, John.”