His to Claim (2 page)

"How long has she been alone and
naked?" the cop asked sounding truly horrified.

Technically the vixen had been naked all her
life. She probably didn't have a clue what clothes were for, but that wasn't
really what good cop was asking.

"I've been trying to find her for three
and a half days. Tonight is the closest I got to her."

"Why did you let her go then?" bad
cop asked aggressively. "If you had nothing to hide, why didn't you hold
onto her?"

Kyle ground his teeth together and tried to
play nice. Yeah, cops had a difficult job, but the attitude was starting to
piss him off.
So much for innocent
until
proven guilty.
He was about to say something he'd
likely regret—cops didn't really like being sworn at—when he realized the
vixen's scent had grown stronger. He looked over his shoulder to see the woman
hesitantly making her way toward them.

Fuck.

"Officer," he said in a low
whisper, "she's just inside the alley. Please don't scare her."

Kyle could smell the guy's
skepticism—especially when he glanced over his shoulder and saw nothing in the
dark. Damn useless human eyesight. Why the hell did they bother coming out at
night if they couldn't see?

"Please," Kyle said, trying again
in a low whisper. "I think she trusts you. Just don't spook her."

There must have been some wordless
communication between the two officers because good cop slowly stepped away
from Kyle at the same time bad cop raised his weapon at Kyle's head. Yeah, he
got it. No moving.

Good cop moved calmly, his voice soft and
reassuring as he coaxed the young woman out of the alleyway, treating her like
a frightened animal. If only he knew how close that was to the truth.

The young woman was dirty, her hair matted
and uncut, her delicate frame shivering from both fear and cold as she moved
closer to the cop. Her nose twitched as she caught the scent of something she
wanted. Kyle had to suppress a laugh—he was pretty sure bad cop would have shot
him for moving even that much—when the young woman buried her nose in good
cop's jacket, following the scent to its source.

Thankfully, good cop seemed to realize that
the naked woman wasn't your average lost teenager. She only looked like one.

Very carefully the guy eased his jacket off
his shoulders and slipped it over the woman's slender frame. Too preoccupied
with whatever the officer had in his pocket, the female shifter barely noticed
what the man was doing until he tried to pull the edges closed. The scream set
Kyle's ears ringing, so he was quite impressed when the officer stayed calm,
avoided the woman's snapping teeth, and continued to speak quietly.

The shifter likely had no idea what the man
was saying—it would be many years before she'd be able to function fully in her
human form—but it was clear she responded to the officer's reassuring tone. It
helped a lot when he fished what looked to be homemade beef jerky out of the
jacket's pocket and gave a piece to the woman. Like he was dressing a toddler,
the officer used her distraction to carefully ease her arms through the sleeves
and then rolled back the cuffs so that she could see her hands. She growled
when he zipped it closed and didn't seem at all happy to be restricted by
clothing, but the jacket that came down to her knees was obviously warm and
she'd stopped screaming so Kyle was happy to put it in the win column.

She eyed the officer with the gun warily as
good cop coaxed her toward the car.

"
It's
okay,
Tyler," Kyle said, even though the woman had no name yet. "No one is
going to hurt you." She was a very rare species, nearly extinct in almost
all parts of the world, so it was even more important to get her to people who
could help her adjust. Kyle tilted his head slowly, trying to get the officer's
attention. "She won't travel in the backseat." The guy gave him a
look that said Kyle was obviously crazy. Keeping his voice calm, Kyle tried to
explain. "She won't get in unless she has a way out." Her species was
very aware of hunter's traps, and that's exactly what the backseat of a cop car
would look like to her. "Trust me on this."

The cop gave him an indecipherable look,
handed the woman another piece of jerky to keep her occupied, and then gently
tried to guide her into the car. The moment she realized what was happening all
hell broke loose.

Chapter Two

Alex knew people. He'd dealt with all sorts,
including many suffering a mental illness, yet this woman seemed somehow
unique. She reminded him of the kitten he'd once rescued from a swollen creek.
Terrified, spitting mad, and ready to tear strips off anybody she could reach,
but also vulnerable and achingly alone.

"No…no….stop," he said, trying to
block the screeching woman from running away, but trying to do it without
making her feel trapped. "No one is going to hurt you."

He shook his head when he saw his partner
holster his gun and reach for the
Taser
. As usual
Terry disagreed with him and barked an order for the woman to stop. Predictably
it did nothing to calm her down. In fact, if possible, the screaming got even
louder.

Alex heard the
Taser
fire and cursed his partner's recklessness. Fuck, even Terry's aim was off.
Alex wouldn't even have time to get out of the way. If the big guy in handcuffs
really was dangerous, Terry was going to be facing him alone.

But the pain never came.

"Son of a bitch," Kyle growled as
he stepped between Alex and the
Taser
probes.
"That fucking hurts."

Alex blinked in shock when the guy easily
broke the chain between the handcuffs while ignoring the continuing pulse from
the electronic gun, and then pulled the electrodes free.

Terry suddenly looked very worried,
especially when the big guy seemed to recognize him.

"Hyena!" the man growled as he
took a step closer. Terry didn't even reach for his weapon. He simply turned
and ran. Kyle did a one-eighty spin, his nose in the air like some sort of
animal scenting the wind. He seemed very unhappy by what he smelled.

"Are you okay?" Alex's…
er
…prisoner asked. Kyle seemed to smile when he realized
the woman had burrowed into Alex's embrace.

"Umm…" It wasn't really surprising
that Alex had no clue how to answer that question.
Was
he okay? His partner—the man who was supposed to be working
with
him and watching his back—had tried
to fire a weapon in his direction before he'd run off and left him alone in a neighborhood
not know for its hospitality to cops.

"We need to get her out of here,"
Kyle said, glancing around as if he was expecting imminent attack. "They
live in clans. Your partner won't be the only one in this area."

"Huh?"

"Move now.
Explanations,
later."

Alex shook his head, trying to think
clearly. He'd had some pretty lousy partners over the years, but none of them
had abandoned him in the middle of an arrest the way Terry had just done.

"Officer," Kyle said in a soft
tone. "I know this is confusing, but we need to move."

He glanced between the woman in his arms and
the squad car several times before he remembered why the car was a bad idea.

"She'll be okay if you open the windows
and let her sit up front." As if to demonstrate what he meant, Kyle moved
to the car, leaned inside and pressed the buttons that controlled the windows,
and then he stood back to give both Alex and Tyler space to get into the car
without actually needing to go past him.

"This is…um…"

"Against regulations," Kyle said
with a half smile. "I know, and I'm sorry, but we really need to get out
of this area."

"But my partner…"

"Is not what he seems," Kyle
finished for him in a deep, soothing tone. "Please, officer, I need you to
trust me just for a little while."

Alex had no idea what to do in a situation
like this, so he went with his gut and decided to trust—for a little while—the
man who'd stepped in between him and a
Taser
gun.

~*~

Kyle wanted to swear at the residual
tingling he could feel in his fingers and toes, but it was more important to
get the shifter and the innocent cop out of the area before the hyena came back
with his buddies.

The scents on the air suggested that not
only had bad cop been trying to hurt his own partner, he'd also called his clan
for backup. Any moment now they were liable to be surrounded by animals that
should never be found in a big city.

Just like their wild cousins, hyena shifters
lived in clans, hunted together, and were most often rules by the females. They
were actually quite a good example of a paranormal species that could adapt to
human environments. Too bad most of the clans had chosen to form mafia-style
crime gangs, rather than find ways to support themselves legitimately.

Kyle had no idea why they would be pursuing
a newly turned
kitsune
, but he wasn't willing to hang
around and find out.

"Make sure she doesn't climb out the
window when I start the car," Kyle said in as calm a tone as he could
muster as he closed the passenger door with the cop and the
kitsune
inside.

By the time he made it into the driver's
seat and started the vehicle he could see their pursuers' eyes glinting in the
dark. Judging by the sheer number of hyenas stalking them, and by the fact that
bad cop had just blown his cover, whatever they wanted was quite important to
them.

"Shit," Kyle growled as he slammed
the car in reverse and floored the accelerator. The woman was already screaming
and trying to climb out the window, but considering how many hyenas had just
leapt toward the car, getting away fast was far more important than getting
away quietly.

At the end of the alley, Kyle jammed the
handbrake on, cursed when the car didn't slide and turn fully around the way he
wanted, and then quickly corrected by accelerating into a fast ninety-degree turn.
He found the siren and lights for the unmarked police car, flipped them on, and
then drove even faster.

They were on the highway, heading north
before Kyle felt safe enough to slow down and stop attracting attention.

"What the fuck is going on?" the
officer asked in a monotone that sounded like he'd just woken from some sort of
nightmare. Thankfully the
kitsune
had decided to
trust him and was currently curled safely in the man's embrace.

"Sorry," Kyle offered sincerely.
They tried to keep humans out of paranormal affairs, but sometimes that just
wasn't possible. "How long was the guy your partner?"

Kyle waited for good cop to either answer
the question or pull his gun and shoot him, and was almost grateful for the
terrified
kitsune
that was keeping the man's
concentration on her.

"Huh?" the cop asked in a very
clear "What the fuck?" tone.

"Your partner is a hyena shifter. How
long did you work with him?"

Thankfully the guy seemed to set aside the
obvious human question—what the hell have you been smoking?—and answered Kyle's
original question instead.

"Not quite a year."

Kyle nodded. Okay, so that meant this wasn't
by design. Bad cop hadn't been pretending to be a cop just to find the
kitsune
. He'd simply recognized the woman for what she was
and had decided to try and harness the opportunity. It was quite possible they
were only trying to protect a fellow shifter from humans—as part of the
Alateeka family, Kyle's scent wouldn't have identified him as paranormal—but
considering the legends surrounding
kitsunes
the
alternate theory was far more likely. Organized crime gangs would certainly try
to make use of a woman who could supposedly create illusions with her mind.

"Officer—"

"Call me Alex," the man said,
interrupting Kyle with a shake of his head. "Anything you tell me right
now is off the record."

Kyle nodded and laughed humorlessly. It was
the secrecy he needed, but he was fairly certain Alex's decision was based on
self-preservation. Who in hell was going to believe him if he filed a report
that mentioned being attacked by a hyena pack in the middle of the night in an
industrial area in the city?

"Alex," Kyle said, surprised by
how well the name suited the man, and even more surprised that he would notice
such a thing. "Is your partner particularly chummy with some of your
coworkers?"

Alex shrugged. "I suppose. He has a few
friends on the force and his father and uncle are both cops. They seem nice
enough."

 
Kyle
didn't like the sound of that. Yeah, even hyena shifters needed to earn a
living in the human world, but choosing to be cops seemed just a little too
convenient for a species most well known for their criminal activities.

He reached for his phone before he
remembered that it had been one of the things Alex had taken from his pockets
and placed on top of the car when he'd frisked him. Even if the damn thing had
smashed into a million pieces when it fell off the roof, chances were the SIM
card was undamaged. He needed to advise Adrian to erase it remotely. Damn, he
hated technology.

"I need your phone," Kyle said
without preamble or tact.

Alex raised an eyebrow and waited for an
explanation. Thankfully it was long enough for Kyle to realize that likely
wasn't his best course of action. If a hyena crime family had infiltrated a
human police force, it was very likely they'd be tapping into Alex's phone
right now and tracking their movements, perhaps even listening in to this
conversation.

It all depended on how much they wanted the
kitsune
.

And since they thought they were dealing
with two humans, they wouldn't really be expecting any resistance.

"Scratch that," Kyle said, shaking
his head as he tried to come up with some sort of plan. "Toss your phone
out the window. They're probably tracking us right now."

"Not yet," Alex said with a shake
of his head.

This time it was Kyle's turn to raise his
eyebrows and wait for an explanation.

"It takes a little while to cut through
the red tape, but we'll know as soon as the car stops."

"Huh?" It was true that Kyle
didn't particularly like or understand the modern world, but he wasn't certain
what Alex was trying to say. It didn't help that the car suddenly switched
itself off at that exact moment.

"Okay,
now
they're tracking us," Alex said as the car coasted to a
stop on the edge of the highway. "My guess it that we've got maybe three
minutes before my workmates arrive."

"Well, my night just went
downhill," Kyle said as he tried to remember why he'd disagreed with
Anaedra fifteen years ago. Would a heartfelt apology get him a little goddess
assistance about now?

"You have twenty seconds to convince me
why I shouldn't sit here and wait for my colleagues to come and arrest
you."

"The hyenas weren't enough?" Kyle
asked, even as he acknowledged that a human would likely attribute the sight
and sounds to a wild dog pack rather than a beast that was not native to this
country.

"Twelve seconds," Alex said
gravely.

"The woman in your arms is a
kitsune
. When a fox lives to be one hundred years old they
have the ability to take human form. She's barely one hundred and that's why
she's running naked and can't talk. In many ways in her human form she's like a
newborn, but
kitsunes
are so rare that she has no one
to guide her. I know people who can help."

"Why would my partner want her?"
Alex asked without any sort of emotion in his voice to give away what he was
thinking. Even his scent didn't give Kyle an indication of whose side Alex was
likely to be on.

"Legends suggest
kitsunes
have magical abilities, and since hyena shifters are most often linked to
organized crime…"

Alex nodded, opened the door and quickly
lifted the woman out of the car. "Can hyenas track by scent?"

"Not really," Kyle said even as
his heart started to pound in relief. "Their hearing and eyesight is good,
but I should be able to mask our scent trail."

"Okay," Alex said, lifting the
young
kitsune
into his arms, "let's get the hell
out of here."