Animal Instincts (Entangled Ignite) (12 page)

You remember the woman who tried to help you when you were hurt the other night.

Um, yeah.

She wants to talk to you.

Hank didn’t respond and I got the idea he was considering his options. And that he wasn’t open to Luc. A frisson of something weird and uncomfortable filled the space between them. Almost as if Hank didn’t trust Luc for some reason.

Finally, I heard,
A minute,
after which the coyote slid back into the forest, his black dorsal stripe quickly blending with the shadows.

“What’s going on?” I asked Luc.

“He’s preparing himself.”

Whatever that meant. A minute turned into two and then into three. Luc stood so silent and still it was as if I were there alone. Almost.

Then from behind the curtain of trees stepped a tawny-haired, scrawny man dressed in khakis and a matching T-shirt.

“Hank?” I gasped past whatever was lodged in my throat.

He nodded.

So I’d been correct. They
were
shape-shifters.

Even though I’d known it on some level, it was enough to knock the stuffing out of me. Again, I was speechless. I could only be glad that I hadn’t had to watch. As it was, it took everything I had to get past the fact and concentrate on my reason for being here.

We sized up each other for a moment. I swallowed hard, then gave Luc a quick glance and was startled when I realized he’d silently moved several yards away. To give us privacy? Or because Hank wouldn’t talk with him so close? Either way, it was up to me, then. “Um, thanks for what you did, okay?” Hank mumbled.

“Okay,” I said cautiously.

“I would’ve bled out.”

“I didn’t exactly do anything—”

“You got the vet. You tried to see that I was okay and got yourself into trouble.”

So he’d known, even though he’d disappeared into the night. “It was the least I could do. I can’t stand seeing an animal hurt.” Frowning, I wondered if he’d take exception at being called an animal, but he didn’t comment, so I asked, “Who hurt you?”

“Ramon. The wild dog.”

“That’s not what I meant. It wasn’t Ramon’s fault. He didn’t want to fight you. He wasn’t responsible for the fight. Who was?”

“Don’t know.”

Wishing Luc would cue me as Shade had done when interrogating Elizabeth Reyes that afternoon, I reached for something to say. “What
do
you know?”

Silence.

I took a big breath. This was my moment. If I passed it up, I might never get another chance, so I went for it. “Look, this is of utmost importance to me. And to you and others like you. My brother was murdered because he was trying to stop the shifter fights.”

Hank’s attention snapped back on me. “Stop them how?”

“The way he knew how. Legally. Shade was a cop. You’re lucky you weren’t killed like others were. Three we know of so far.”

Jez.

I flicked a look in Luc’s direction. I’d gotten the distinct feeling he’d meant to stay out of this, but apparently one of the victims meant enough to him that he couldn’t help himself.

“Jez,” Hank murmured aloud. “No reason to kill
her
. She was no threat.”

“No threat to whom?” Was Hank a threat? “To what?”

“No one. Nothing. Look, I don’t know who’s running these things. I was drugged, so I have no idea of who took me or set me up. They gave me something to make me fight, but then everything happened so fast, I don’t remember anything but trying not to get ripped apart.” He put a hand to his side where he’d almost bled out. “And you trying to help me.”

He might not have names to give me, but he knew something. I sensed it in the way his body altered slightly, his limbs tightening, his head drooping lower. Tension racked him and he was trying not to show it. He was disappearing inside himself, probably where he was most comfortable. Not exactly what I’d been expecting from one of his kind.

“Please.” I caught his gaze and held it. “If you want the shifter fights to stop, you have to help me now. Believe that I’ll do everything in my power to try to get them stopped permanently.”

Hank stared at me for a moment before I felt him attempting to slide inside my head the way Luc kept trying to do. Knowing it was the only way he would truly know and trust me, I allowed it. I quieted my mind and waited for him to make a full sweep, kept telling myself not to freak out as he checked all the corners in fits and starts. Then suddenly he was out, and the force of his exit left me swaying.

I was rediscovering my center when Hank said, “I believe you.”

A good start. I pulled myself together. “Then tell me what you know, Hank.
Anything
.”

He glanced at Luc, and his jaw tightened for a moment as if he was trying to decide whether to trust
him
before saying, “I know where the next fight is going to be staged.”

Chapter Eighteen

Having almost been killed had made Hank into one wily coyote. Determined to be a survivor, he’d called in favors all over the complex until he’d gotten that one kernel of information: the next shifter fight was to be held that night in a west side building that had been abandoned for years.

I didn’t know what Hank had planned to do with that intel, but it was now Luc’s and my destination.

Twilight had settled over the lakefront, and the wind picked up as we beat a path to Luc’s Jaguar. The sky overhead swarmed with dark clouds and rumbled with what seemed to be some heinous message.

Of what? Approaching danger?

No shit.

Or maybe it was going to rain despite the meteorologists’ predictions for a perfect evening. I saw what was coming as anything but.

Luc pulled the Jag out of the lot, and I pulled out my cell. “I’m calling it in.” The question was whether to alert Ethan or simply call the Animal Crimes Unit.

“I’m not stopping you. I want these damn fights to end before—”

“Someone else you care about is killed?” I finished for him. “This Jez, who was she?”

“A childhood friend. She was someone I always could count on. She wasn’t like most of them.”

Of them.
I got the distinction. More and more I was becoming convinced that despite his father, Luc wasn’t like most of
them
, either.

After thinking about it for a moment, I called Ethan. His beliefs were teetering, and I had to get him on board now.

“
Skye, what is it?”

“Another fight. Tonight. West side.” I gave Ethan the address and waited for his response.

“You’re calling me about a dogfight?”

I heard the hesitation in his voice. He knew I wouldn’t call him if it were that simple. “Not exactly a dogfight, no. But you’d better alert the ACU anyway to take care of any animals. I’ll meet you there.”

And before he could object or ask me to explain, I disconnected. He called me right back, but I didn’t pick up, and when I heard his text ping in, I ignored that as well.

We headed west, away from the lake, a shard of lightning crossing the road ahead. Luc asked, “Is this Ethan someone you can count on?”

“He was Shade’s partner.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Yes.” I put away my doubts. “Ethan might have trouble with some of the more unusual details of the situation, but he’ll have to come around when he sees for himself.” I had to believe that or this horror would never be ended. “Ethan thought of Shade as
his
brother, too. There’s not a better cop to have on our side.”

“If he believes you and actually shows.”

“He will.”

No more uncertainty. No more dancing around the scary. My blood pressure might be skyrocketing, but I was in 100 percent. I couldn’t imagine running into anything more intimidating than I’d already encountered, but if I did, I would deal with it.

I said, “Too bad Hank couldn’t tell us more.”

“Too bad he didn’t want to.”

“Are you saying he was lying?”

“I’m saying that it’s possible.”

“But why, when he was victimized?” I asked.

“That’s part of the problem. He could fear reprisal.”

“Hank got the information about tonight’s fight from someone in the casino. There could be reprisal about that, too.”

“Not the same as pointing a finger directly at the guilty party.”

“Okay, reprisal could be part of the problem,” I said. “What’s the other part?”

“Pop keeps sort of a scoring system. Good. Bad. Worse. He would find out.”

Another threat of lightning lit the ink-dark sky. Weird. No rain. Just a scrambled, rumbling sky, similar to the one during the shifter fight last week.

“So if your father found out that Hank told us where to find the fight, what would he do?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but nothing I want you involved in.”

“Wait a minute. How did this suddenly become about me?”

“You inserted yourself into the situation. How can it not be about you?”

My stomach roiled. “It would help if you clarified.”

He slid a hand over to my knee. “I like exploring this part.”

Ignoring the sensation that went straight to my center, I squeezed my thighs together. He was trying to get me off-focus again. “You’re not exploring anything right now but a shifter fight,” I warned him.

“
Right now
? Does that mean later, I can—”

“Can you possibly keep your mind on tonight’s fight?”

“Doubt it.”

“Try.”

“Um, nope.”

“Try
harder
.”

“That’s not a problem.”

Frustration made me want to hit Luc. And do other, less violent but equally shocking things with him while he drove. I wanted to reach over and stroke his thigh, make him groan with desire. Of course that could get us both killed, but my fertile imagination had no bounds when it came to Luc.

Was this sensual lead-on simply part of his nature or a well-cultivated attack to keep me from learning anything he didn’t want me to know?

Whatever. It was working.

Which made me wonder why. Why was his approach so effective on me? So difficult to resist?

Animal magnetism
.

Wait a minute. I wasn’t sure if I had thought that or if Luc was inserting the concept into my mind.

“I’m not responsible for your every carnal thought,” he muttered.

“
My
carnal thoughts?”

“Are you saying you don’t have any?” His mouth curved into a smirk.

I narrowed my gaze at him. “I’m saying they’re not my fault.”

“Hmm. Then that means I must have some kind of incredible power over you.”

I certainly didn’t like
that
idea, either. “Yes, the incredible power to be irritating.”

I clenched my jaw and closed my mind off from him to focus on the fight. But that entailed shifters, who were animals of a sort, and that brought me back to the idea of animal magnetism, which in this case went deeper than what I thought of as sex appeal. Yes, Luc had that in spades, but was it simply his human side that attracted me or the combination of human and whatever else he was?

The fact that he was a shape-shifter—not that he’d ever admitted it—certainly put a new spin on the concept.

He turned off the main artery onto a narrow road stark with the remains of what had once been a neighborhood. Thunder shook the street below us as a third lightning strike gave me a better look at what sat around us. A hollow feeling left me disjointed from my surroundings—century-old graystone and brownstone homes and multi-unit properties, many boarded up and abandoned, sprinkled through fields of nothing where buildings had long since been torn from the landscape. Some concrete footings remained ghosts among the unruly growth that had sprouted around them.

Reminding me of the cemetery where we’d buried Shade.

Luc pulled into the nearly full parking lot of yet another abandoned building. Lightning flickered against the two-story structure so that I was able to read the carved name on the lintel over the door: Campbell-Warren Elementary.

“Are you telling me this is it?”

“It’s the address Hank gave you,” Luc confirmed. “Look around you. And listen.”

I did, and shouts of glee followed by a yowled complaint sent needles shooting up my spine. Someone—something—distinctly unhappy sequestered inside the boarded-up school.

I didn’t have to smell it to know that blood had already been shed.

“This is a city-owned building,” I said as we left the vehicle. “Or it was.”

“Your point being?”

“How did whoever is running the shifter fights take over the place?”

“Something we’ll have to find out.”

Right. Only how?

Luc and I raced to the building, but I was looking around, looking for backup. Looking for Ethan. He had to show up. Luc might be able to stop this fight, but Ethan needed to know what exactly was what so that he could get justice for my brother.

…

Even as they were about to enter the vestibule, another screeched yowl slammed into Luc so hard it nearly took away his breath. He recognized the voice.

“Nuala.”

“What? Your sister? Where?” Skye asked.

“Stay outside and out of trouble.”

Without waiting for Skye to agree, Luc thought himself into the gymnasium where the arena had been set up. The benches were full, and workers were running around doing final checks for the next fight. Across the floor, a man in a neon-green jumpsuit struggled to get a chained black panther into position. Nuala. Seeing red anger, Luc sifted to her side, and used every bit of that negative emotion toward the worker to mentally toss him away from his sister. The man went flying, and when he landed in the middle of the arena, his leg twisted unnaturally under him, he screamed in his human voice.

Nuala, are you all right?

Luc.

Can you shift back?

No. Too weak. Drugged.

All right, I’ve got you.

Luc lifted his sister into his arms and pressed her against his chest, arms wrapped around her to protect her. He used all the ability he had left in him to sift them both back outside. But when he looked around for Skye, she wasn’t there. Still, she couldn’t have gone far.

Skye, we have to leave. Now! Meet us at the car.

But if she heard him, he couldn’t tell. All hell was breaking loose. Sirens and flashing blue strobe bars already split the night in a circle around their location as the CPD closed in from every direction. Holding Nuala close, Luc headed for the Jaguar. He had to get her out of there before the authorities stopped him with her trapped in panther form. He’d drained his limited ability to sift for the moment. No way could he transport them very far carrying her weight, not even at full charge.

As the flashing lights cut through the parking lot, two Kindred dared step before him as though they meant to prevent him from taking his sister to safety.

“Where do you think you’re going with her?” one of them asked.

“She’s tonight’s main attraction,” the other one added in a snarky voice.

“If you want to live, you’ll move, or I’ll suck those souls right out of you before I finish you.”

They looked at each other. One of them had the audacity to smirk. Luc didn’t even know how he managed considering the circumstances—his hands were hanging onto Nuala—but he whipped his head and with his thoughts slammed the smirking man into his companion. Both Kindred landed in a tangled heap.

“I’m going to put you in the back where you can rest,” he told Nuala. The seat might be narrow, but letting her stretch out seemed to be the best option.

Okay
, she thought before her dark eyes fluttered closed.
The baby…

There was a baby here? “What baby?”

But Nuala was already out.

What now? Nerves on fire from the effort he’d put out, Luc didn’t know what to do. Should he go back in and look for some baby?
Whose
baby? He hadn’t a clue.

Police cars with flashing strobes came from every direction.

Too late.

If there was a baby, surely the cops would find it.

Before getting behind the wheel, he took one last fast look around. Where was Skye?

Skye, c’mon. I can’t wait. I have to leave now.
He was so irritated that she’d defied him that he almost didn’t add,
Sorry,
before throwing himself into the Jaguar.

He regretted abandoning her, but he had to get his sister safely out of there.

Now.