Mine to Possess (10 page)

It said something about Luc that not one of those other dominant cats had ever challenged his rule. Clay had never even considered it—he was too used to walking alone, and an alpha was the physical and emotional center of his pack. “You want me to talk to Cian about the roster?”

“I'll organize it,” Lucas offered. “Kit can do some of the easy stuff—it'll be good for his training.” He was referring to the tall, auburn-haired juvenile who held the scent of a future alpha. “I'd pair him up with Rina, but he might see having his big sister around as a sign that we don't trust him.”

Clay thought about it for a while. “If you switch my watch routes so the experienced soldiers do the outlying territory, Cian can run with Kit, show him the ropes.” The older man was both strong and patient. “He'd still be a sentinel if he hadn't decided he preferred being a trainer and advisor.”

Lucas made a sound of agreement. “Should work. Kit knows Cian's the one who trained me, so there can't be any cries of babying him.” Another silence as they listened to the rhythms of the forest, their animal halves content. “Your Talin, she's human. Fragile.”

And Clay, despite his control—control great enough that it was all most people ever saw—was brutally physical, even for a changeling. “I won't hurt her.”

“She thinks you will.”

It didn't surprise him that Lucas had picked up on Talin's skittishness. “I'm no Prince Charming. She knows that better than most.” Twenty years apart had done nothing to diminish the blood-soaked bond between them, warped though it might have become. “She'll get over it.” No other option was acceptable.

“Our animals starve without touch, Clay.” Lucas's tone was a reminder of the consequences of such starvation. “It's not healthy for you to be in a relationship with a woman who isn't willing to give it to you. Ask Vaughn if you want to know how badly that kind of thing can screw up a man.”

“You and Vaughn both courted Psy,” he said. “At least Tally doesn't try to hide her emotions.” She might make him furious but there was no doubt in his mind that her feelings for him were just as strong. “So back off.”

“Good point.” Lucas shrugged. “Your woman, your call.”

Yes, Tally was his. His to protect. His to possess. Of that the leopard was as certain now as it had been the day they'd first met. That didn't blind him to the second vicious truth—that she had run from him and into the arms of other men.

She was his. But Clay wasn't sure he could ever forgive her.

Talin looked at
Clay over the top of her coffee. Though they were in Joe's Bar again, Clay, too, had stuck to coffee as they waited for Max to arrive.

“How long have you known Max?” he asked.

The question was like all the ones he'd asked since Sascha and Lucas's departure from his lair earlier that day. Crisp, unemotional, to the point. That hadn't changed even when he'd ferried her around the city—in an untraceable vehicle—after she had told him she needed to check in with some other Shine children.

Since she had been steadily decreasing her workload in preparation for giving notice, none of those children were actually under her direct care. Jon had been the final one she'd had to place into a stable situation. The San Francisco Shine Guardian was Rangi, but due to a major family emergency back home in New Zealand, he'd had to leave his charges, and the hunt for the childrens' killer, in her hands. She'd told Clay all that as he'd driven her around, but his responses had been monosyllabic—when he'd replied at all. The cool distance was easier on her nerves than that smoldering temper of his, but she felt shut out.

If she had been an unselfish woman, she would have left it. Clay would take her eventual demise far better if he hated her. But Talin discovered she wasn't that good a person. She was horribly selfish when it came to Clay. “What's put a burr up your butt?” she said instead of answering his question.

Those beautiful forest-in-shadow eyes fixed on her with a predator's unblinking stare. “Be careful, Talin. You don't want to wake this sleeping leopard.”

“Maybe I do.” She pushed aside her coffee cup, adrenaline spiking through her bloodstream. “Maybe I want to see the real Clay.”

His laughter was derisive. “You saw him, remember? The sight of claws and blood made you run.”

“I was a child,” she said, unwilling to be silenced this time. “I was eight years old and I had my foster father's brains splattered across my face. And that was after what he'd already done to me.
Excuse me
if the whole thing left a few scars.”

He blinked and it was a lazy, quintessentially feline move. “Where did you find your spine all of a sudden?”

“You make me so mad!” She blew out a frustrated breath. “I wish I did have claws. I'd use them to scratch out your eyes.” Never in all these years had she been as close to violence as she was now.

Clay got up.

Her heart stuttered.

With a dark smile that said he knew exactly what she was feeling, he came around and got into her side of the booth, trapping her between the wall and the muscular stone of his body. “Keep talking.” It was a dare.

Fear threatened to swamp her, especially when he moved one hand behind her and closed his fingers over her nape. “Lost your voice, Tally?”

The taunt snapped through the vicious haze of memory. Putting her hand on his thigh, she dug down with her nails. Her intent had been to teach him not to goad her. Except that his muscles proved about as pliable as rock. “Shit.”

“Such language.” He crowded her even more, big, dangerous, and more than a little pissed with her. “But keep petting my thigh and maybe I'll let you use your little human claws on other parts of my anatomy.”

Red filled her cheeks as she snatched her hand from the heavy warmth of him. “Stop it.” His fingers tightened on her nape and it was such a possessive, territorial act, the feminine independence in her rebelled. “You don't want me. I'm used goods,
remember
?”

Clay's entire body
stilled and to her shock, his eyes shifted to cat right in front of her. Feral. Wild. Inhuman. As they had been that day in Orrin's bedroom. Memories of slaughter—vivid,
perfect
—crashed into her mind and suddenly she was that shell-shocked girl again, terrified her best friend would turn on her, use his claws and teeth to tear her to pieces. “C-Clay.” She hated that involuntary catch in her voice. “Clay.”

He released her without warning. “Don't worry, little bird. Fucking a woman who sees me as a monster isn't on my top ten things to do list.” Harsh words, an even harsher tone. “You want me to act human”—a pitiless renunciation, a reminder of what his mother had demanded from him—“don't try to change the status quo of this relationship. You came to me because you needed my help. I'm helping you because, hell, you were a kid I knew once. That's it.”

Talin knew she'd failed a very important test. Only hours ago, that knowledge would've turned her silent, made her cry internal tears. Now, a latent fury awoke in her. “Not fair,” she whispered. “Maybe I'm not what you wanted me to be, maybe I made some mistakes, but who went and made you God? You have no right to judge me. My Clay, the boy who was my best friend, never would have.”

“Yo!”

Whatever Clay might have said was lost as Max called out from his position by the door. Or that was what she thought until Clay leaned close, his breath hot against her ear. “We'll discuss this later. When we're alone.”

That was when she realized she very definitely had succeeded in waking the sleeping leopard. And, bravado aside, she had no idea how to deal with him.

“Nice place.” Max shook Clay's hand, then slid into the opposite side of the booth. “Guess I'd have been quietly rebuffed at the door if I hadn't been cleared by you?”

“There would've been nothing quiet about it.”

Max grinned despite the fatigue lining his face. “My kind of joint.”

A slender young male with the suggestion of future muscle about him stopped by the table and put a beer in front of Max. Though his face with its full lips and exotic Mediterranean bone structure was striking, it was his blue and black shiner that held center stage. His color faded when he met Clay's eyes. “How deep in the shit am I?”

Talin suddenly recognized that cap of black hair. He was one of the teenagers who had been hauled out of the bar two nights ago.

“We'll talk later.” Clay dismissed the boy, who winced but left without further ado.

“Isn't he already being punished by being made to serve here?” she asked, ignoring the part of her that warned it might be better to stay below Clay's radar after the way she had provoked him—it'd be a cold day in hell before she let him intimidate her into silence.

“I'm Nico's trainer.”

That just confused her, but Max nodded. “There's punishment and then there's getting reamed by your superior.” Shrugging off his coat, he took a long drink of the dark gold liquid in front of him. “Shit, that feels good. Only thing better would be to fall into bed for the next twenty-four hours.”

“Max followed the case from New York,” Talin told the leopard beside her.

“How did you swing the authorization?” Clay's tone held a possessive darkness that she knew was meant for her alone.

Max leaned back against the faux leather of the seat, smile wry. “I have friends. Good people. But you already know that—you checked me out.”

“Had to be sure.”

“Fair enough.”

“Any Psy interference in your investigation?” Clay's thigh shifted to press against hers and she had to bite back a gasp. Every time he moved, it reminded her of his strength, his predatory nature. But more than that, the contact tugged at hot, tight things in her, creating a hunger that threatened to destroy the already brittle equilibrium of their new relationship.

“No.” Max's voice broke into her wandering thoughts. “They usually don't bother unless it involves a loss or gain for their race.” He took another swig of his beer. “But someone is covertly monitoring my progress.”

“How do you know?” Talin asked, fighting her body's reaction to the rough masculinity of the man who sat crowding her as if he had every right to invade her space.

“I put in some advanced security software on my files and they show unauthorized access. I keep the real files elsewhere so no harm done.”

“Your boss?” Clay asked.

“No. He has authorized access.” The detective finished his beer and put the bottle down on a coaster advertising the warm seas of Vanuatu. “To be honest, no one has much interest in this case on the surface. But the hacking was done by an expert. I wouldn't have picked it up without the software.”

“Who supplied the software?”

Max's eyes gleamed. “Funny that. It was the Shine Foundation.”

“What!” The word escaped at high volume. Face coloring, Talin lowered her tone—though oddly, none of the other patrons had turned. “When?”

“About eight months ago.” Max shoved up his sleeves. “They're the reason I got this investigation. They made some calls and I was assigned.”

Clay shot her a sardonic look. “Maybe Shine's not the saintly outfit you think it is.”

“They haven't done anything wrong,” she retorted, though Max's revelation disturbed her enough to blunt her razor-sharp awareness of Clay's aggressive mood. “Did they ask you for something in return?”

“To keep them informed.” Max shrugged. “But I do that with all victims' families, and for Mickey, Iain, Diana, and Jon, they're it. I don't give them anything extra.”

That made her feel a little better. “The things you're going to tell us tonight…”

“Classified.” He looked around the busy bar. “Lots of sharp changeling ears here.”

Clay shook his head. “No one can eavesdrop. Speakers built into the booth are sending out a low-frequency hum designed to disrupt sound. It can come in but not get out.”

“Impressive.” Max raised an eyebrow. “Can you actually hear the frequency?”

Talin was curious about that, too. As a child, Clay's abilities had delighted her. More than once, he had turned into a leopard simply because she'd wanted to stroke him—which now that she thought about it, had exhibited an incredible amount of amused indulgence on his part. She wondered if she'd ever get to stroke him again. That quickly, the slumbering need in her belly fired to brilliant life, sexual but also deeply, intensely emotional. She didn't care how selfish it was—she wanted her Clay back.

“No,” Clay answered. “The frequency is pitched below our hearing but it works. That's why no one turned when you yelled.” That last was directed at her.

“I was surprised.” She caught the smoldering embers in his gaze—he hadn't forgotten her earlier provocation and, crazy as it was, she was glad. Being subject to that brooding temper of his was far better than being ignored.

Looking away, but with his arm now rubbing against hers, he nodded at Max. “Talin's apartment. Anything?”

“Blood was—I'm sorry, Talin. It was Mickey's.”

Even as Talin's stomach threatened to revolt, Clay's hand closed over her thigh. He squeezed hard enough to disrupt her nausea, drawing her attention to the heated power of his presence instead. Adoring him a little more, she put her hand on his. His skin burned hotter than hers, warming the cold in her bones.

“Go on,” he said to Max. “Tally can handle it.”

Max looked at her, gaze bruised by the cruelty he'd witnessed. “He right? This is going to be bad.”

Her hand clenched on Clay's. Not making a sound, he broke the contact, raised his arm, and placed it around her shoulders. Such a simple act, but one she'd never allowed any other man. It had felt too much like a cage…and none of those others had been capable of breaking her neck with a single violent move. But at this moment, the memory of the safety she'd always found in Clay's arms trumped that of tearing flesh and a monster's shrill screams. She drew his scent deep into her blood, into her very cells. “I'm ready.”

Max didn't ask again. “There wasn't much else at your apartment. What evidence we have comes from the kids themselves.” He paused, rubbed a hand over his face before continuing. “The apparent pattern until Diana and Iain was a murder every three weeks.”

“You don't think it's the actual pattern?” Clay asked.

“I'm not sure we have all the victims,” Max said. “Finding Mickey, Iain, and Diana so close together—within two weeks of each other—tends to support that theory.”

“Any geographical pattern?” Clay asked with a predator's sharp intelligence, his deep voice a rumble that vibrated in her bones, at once comforting and a warning that he was something other, something as lethal as he was beautiful.

“No,” Max answered. “I'm only in San Francisco because it's the last known body dump. Diana was taken from New York but found here with Iain. She was the last of your New York charges, right, Talin?”

“After they got Mickey, yeah.” Oh, God, it hurt to think of her kids broken and bloodied. “Officially, Di didn't need a Guardian anymore, not once she'd been accepted into the boarding school.” But she had still called to chat every so often, had still been Talin's. “She loved being on the track team.” Talin curled a hand against the hard strength of Clay's abdomen, mind filled with the sound of Diana's laughter. Clay didn't say anything but shifted his hold so that his thumb stroked over the sensitive skin of her neck.

“Four Shine kids if you count Jon,” he murmured. “I'm not buying the ‘fishing in the same pool' argument, Tally.”

Her loyalty to Shine made her want to protest, but she tried for logic. “But there were seven others, all unconnected,” she reminded him.

“That's what I have to tell you,” Max said.

Horror uncurled slow and insidious in the pit of her stomach. If Shine was evil, then what did that make her? Had she been leading the children she loved to their deaths?

Max reached for the bowl of peanuts on one side of the table. “You mind?” At the shake of their heads, he started picking out nuts and placing them on the tabletop. “We have fifteen confirmed fatalities.”

“Fifteen?” Her hand spasmed, gripped Clay's T-shirt. “So many?”

“I'm guessing there are more.” Having counted out fifteen peanuts, he pushed the bowl aside and put the saltshaker in the middle of the table. “I only found these fifteen because I went digging. Most times kids like this disappear, no one reports them missing. By the time they're found, it's often too late to see soft-tissue damage.”

“Soft-tissue, that's your link?” Clay asked what Talin couldn't force herself to.

“Yeah,” Max answered, “but one step at a time. This”—he picked up a nut—“is the first confirmed victim. Harish, age eight. Died a year ago—so this has been going on longer than we initially thought. The forensic team found the card of a Shine Foundation Guardian hidden in his shoe. The Guardian confirmed he'd approached the boy two days before the abduction.” Max put the peanut about five centimeters from the saltshaker.

Talin's sense of horror multiplied a thousand times over.

“Second confirmed victim: Miu Li, age thirteen, died eleven months ago. She was a walk-in at Shine's Oklahoma facility. Did some tests, was entered into the tracking system, and disappeared.” That peanut, he put closer to the saltshaker. “Victim number three: Hana Takuya, age fourteen, in her first year of an accelerated course funded by the Japan-Korea War Widows Trust. Its major donor is Shine.

“Victims four and five, Depe Lacroix, age ten, and Zoe Charles, age fourteen, threw me because they seemed to have no connection to Shine. Until,” he said, mouth a grim line, “I traced their families and found they both had younger siblings who had been tapped by the foundation. Seems logical that Shine must've approached the older kids, too, and been rebuffed.”

It continued like that until Max had connected all fifteen victims to Shine.

“My God.” Her mind refused to believe. “But Shine is good…they help kids. They helped me.” She rarely trusted, but she had given them a sliver of it.

“They might still be good,” Clay said, to her surprise. “You have to have considered the idea of a mole in the foundation.”

Max nodded. “Either that or Shine is a slick front for some very bad things. But I doubt that. If you're out to hunt kids, there are cheaper ways of doing it than by setting up a multimillion-dollar foundation. Whatever the truth, it's our best lead.”

“You can't attack head-on.” Talin leaned forward, desperate. “If they think you're getting too close, they might kill Jon.” Hope, she thought,
hope
. Johnny D was still alive.

“I know.” Max tapped the saltshaker. “That's where you were supposed to come in. You have a legitimate ‘in' at Shine. I was going to ask you to go in, be my eyes and ears.”