Kissing Sin (22 page)

I twisted around and shifted shape, which had the added benefit of stopping my wounds from bleeding as I bolted for the ramp on the other side of the car park. No shadows were moving down there, but I could see the red of body heat, one bending over the other. It was the orsini that was down, and relief ran through me.

I shifted back to human shape and slowed as I neared them. “You okay?”

Rhoan shook free of the shadows and nodded. “They’re amazingly powerful animals, aren’t they?”

“If you can actually define them as animals.” I stared at the creature for a moment, then added, “You know, Misha promised to keep me safe from attacks like this.”

Rhoan looked up at me, eyebrow raised. “When was that?”

“In the club, today.”

“He probably wouldn’t have had time to do anything about this particular attack. If he even knew about it.”

“True.” I supposed the real test would come in a day or so, once he’d had a chance to contact his boss and make his threats. Though if the man behind it all was so all-powerful, what could Misha possibly threaten him with that would make him listen? And why wouldn’t he have used it to free himself?

The sound of an engine, accompanied by the squeal of tires, cut through the silence. I looked up. The van came screaming around the corner, with Quinn just in front of it, on foot and fully armed. His gaze met mine, the dark depths sending a shock of warm concern through me.

“You’re hurt.”

“Just scratches.” I pointed to the creature near his feet. “That one isn’t dead.”

He aimed the laser and shot it. “And the one you’re near?”

“Dead,” Rhoan said, and pushed to his feet. “Let’s get the hell out of here before any more of these things turn up.”

The van skidded to a halt. We walked over and jumped in. Quinn slid the door shut and the van took off. Silence fell until we were out of the car park and into the rush hour traffic.

“You know,” I said, to no one in particular, “I’m getting a little pissed off about all these attacks.”

“They obviously think you’re a threat to their operation,” Kade commented.

“How, when I was unconscious most of the time in that place? Even when I did wake up, it was to escape with you. What could I have possibly seen that you didn’t?”

“It might be simpler than that,” Quinn stated. “Remember, your DNA is as good to them dead as alive. And you’re a whole lot more controllable dead.”

I grinned. “Ain’t that the truth.”

“Question is, how did they find her?” Kade said. “Either we’ve got a tail, or they’re tracking us somehow.”

“We checked for body bugs,” Rhoan said. “We didn’t find anything.”

“But these people are stealing technology that isn’t released on the street yet,” Kade commented. “It could be they have something we don’t know about.”

“Well, there’s a bit of information no one told the plebes,” Rhoan commented dryly.

“All in good time,” Jack said. “And that time is not in this van. We can still be picked up by listening devices, if they feel so inclined.”

I shared an annoyed glance with Rhoan, then looked at Kade. “Misha had watchers. It’s more than likely they reported my being with him back to their base. There was certainly enough time to arrange an attack while we were holed up in the private room.”

“They couldn’t have known we’d go to the car park.”

“No, but it was a logical guess. Street parking is shit around the club, so the car park is the next best option.”

“It just doesn’t feel right,” Quinn commented. “Those creatures weren’t something that could be called up at a moment’s notice. They knew you were going to be there beforehand.”

I met his dark gaze. “It wasn’t Misha.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Why is it important to you?”

“Because I’d hate for you to be killed before I made a decision one way or another.”

“At the rate you seem to make your decisions, vampire, I’ll be old and gray and undesirable.”

He smiled, and it touched his eyes, warming the obsidian depths. Warming my soul. “Old and gray, maybe, but never undesirable.”

Amusement twitched the corners of my mouth. “So you’re telling me you don’t mind a bit of granny?”

“Only a particular type of granny.”

“You know,” Rhoan said conversationally, “this talk is straying into territory I really don’t want to think about.”

“Particularly when most grannies don’t look like Riley,” Kade muttered, then shuddered. “Old meat. Nothing worse.”

I slapped his arm. “You’ll be old meat one day, horse-boy, so watch it.”

His grin was sudden and cheeky, and sexy in a whole different way than Quinn’s. “Yeah, but I’ll be virile old horsemeat. There is a difference.”

“I bet I could find a dozen grannies who would argue
that
point.”

“And I’d be betting that those grannies ain’t ever had a horse-shifter as a lover.”

“He’s such a humble person, isn’t he?” Rhoan said dryly.

Kade’s grin grew. “Why be humble when you’ve got nothing to be humble about?”

Rhoan’s gaze shifted to me, and he raised an eyebrow in query. I grinned. “He has got a point.”

“Damn.” He contemplated Kade for a second, then added, “So, where do I find me a bit of gay horsemeat?”

Kade shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I don’t go looking for that sort of thing.”

“Pity.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Please do.”

There wasn’t much that could really be added to that, so silence fell. I stared out the window, watching the office buildings and restaurants give way to residential streets, then country, and finally began to wonder where we were headed.

It was another half hour before we stopped, and by then, night had fallen. I climbed out of the van, sniffing the air as I looked around. The scent of eucalyptus vied with the aroma of rain on the breeze, but underneath it, the smell of death and earth.

My gaze found the dirt road that led up to vast iron doors. We were back at Genoveve.

“Why here?” I asked, as Jack came around the van.

“Because there’s only one way in and out of this place, and it’s heavily guarded with Directorate personnel I know for sure I can trust.”

“And Headquarters isn’t?”

“Gautier is due back tonight.”

Gautier was only one man, and as much as I hated him, I doubt he’d be able to defeat the four of us. He was good, but not
that
good.

Jack headed toward the entrance, and, like good little sheep, we followed. Once the men at the door confirmed our identities, the laser gates lowered, the iron doors opened, and the four of us were allowed in.

We headed for the main office area. Rhoan, Quinn, and Kade plonked their butts down on the comfy leather sofas, but I continued on to the windows, keeping my back to them as I crossed my arms and stared out over the arena. Talon had once used the small stadium to test the skills of his creations, and even now, months after the event, the golden sand still bore the bloody stains where his clones and many of our guardians had fought for, and lost, their lives.

My gaze rose to the windows opposite. That’s where I’d woken to discover him using me. And while I was a wolf, and hadn’t been particularly worried about the sex angle of it, I was also a woman, and hadn’t liked being treated that way. Not for any reason.

“So,” Jack said, sitting down behind the huge, paper-strewn desk. “What happened?”

“He gave me a starting point. A name.”

Jack waited several seconds, and when I didn’t continue, said, “And?”

“And the name is one you already know.”

“Riley, stop playing games.”

“Only if you start filling the rest of us in on what the hell is going on.” I turned around to face him. “He gave me Kade’s name. Only Kade isn’t just a builder, he’s military, and obviously involved in some sort of military investigation.”

“Misha told you all that?”

“Some of it.” I hesitated, but he was going to discover I’d snitched his com-unit sooner or later, so it was better to be up front about it. “You left your com-unit in the penthouse, and I made use of it.”

His gaze narrowed. “You don’t know my codes.”

I wasn’t about to admit that I knew at least two of them—not when he had
that
look in his eyes. “Didn’t need them. I’m a liaison
and
your assistant. I have clearance to get into most departments.” I hesitated, glancing at Kade. “Even military.”

Humor touched his eyes and warmed the cold line of his lips. “You should never have been able to get into our system.”

“I didn’t. Not fully, anyways.”

“And my file has alert status.”

Something I’d guessed once I’d figured out he might be military. “Which is why I didn’t look for your personnel file.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Then how did you find out who I was?”

“Went to recruitment. They keep duplicates of all applications.” And in the end, I’d only been able to get in there because I used one of Jack’s security codes. When he discovered that, there’d be hell to pay. “You were pretty damn rangy when you joined, weren’t you?”

Kade snorted softly. “You’re good.”

“Very,” Jack intoned heavily. “Which is why I want her as a guardian.”

I gave him my standard deadpan look.

“So what, exactly, are you in the military?” Rhoan asked, his fingers drumming the arm of his chair.

Kade grimaced. “I’m military intelligence, and part of an investigation that started with the theft of a crate of laser weapons from the Landsend Military Base.”

Landsend was one of the military’s top research centers. “The same lasers those creatures attacked us with?”

His gaze met mine. “The same.”

“I’d have thought a crate would have been a little hard to conceal or steal,” Rhoan said dryly.

“This happened over several months. And they’re certainly not the only thing to go missing from Landsend.”

“Security that slack, huh?”

Kade gave him a cutting look. “No. Under normal circumstances, you can’t get an ant out of there undetected.”

“Well, someone succeeded. You checked all personnel?”

“Not me personally. By that stage, I was undercover.”

“As a builder. With your so-called brother.”

Kade’s rich gaze met mine, and the cold fury I’d glimpsed over the last few days was there for all to see. “He was my partner. And they killed him.”

“They who?” Quinn asked.

“The same people who got the guns out of Landsend.” Kade’s look became grim. “Or maybe that should be the same things.”

“Define ‘things,’” Rhoan said.

“We caught them on some special cameras the division installed. Staff thought they were infrared, and we didn’t disillusion them. In reality, they were designed to record only when motion combined with certain lower-than-normal body temperatures were sensed.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Reverse heat sensors?”

He nodded. “There are some creatures—chameleons, for example—who are not only cold-blooded, but invisible to normal and infrared cameras.”

“But it wasn’t a chameleon taking the lasers, was it?” Quinn asked.

“No. It was something we’d never seen before. It was spiderlike, and yet fluid in form, able to pour itself through the tiniest of cracks. It ingested the weapons and got them out that way.”

I propped a hip against the wall. My feet were beginning to ache, but the only available seat was between Quinn and Kade, and being squeezed between two delicious men might be a little too hard for my hormones to handle. Especially when I was trying to concentrate on what was going on.

“If they ingested them, how could the weapons be retrieved?” I asked.

“The creatures could somehow reconstruct them as they regurgitated.” He shrugged.

Weird. “So what did they want the weapons for?”

“I think the weapons were little more than a side benefit. Landsend is high security. If you can get in and out of there undetected, you could go anywhere.”

“And how does this connect with you ending up a sperm donor in that breeding center?” Rhoan asked quietly.

“My department rigged the doors and air ducts in and around the stores with special containers designed to trap the creature as it moved through in liquid form. We did tests that told us two things—that nature wasn’t responsible for its birth, and that it came from somewhere near the Blue Mountains area.”

I raised my eyebrows. “How can you tell something like that?”

Amusement touched his lips. “There were traces of soil picked up on the creature.”

“So you and your partner set up shop near Bullaburra and began investigations.” Meaning he’d known all along where we were once we’d escaped that breeding center. Most annoying.

“How did you get caught?” Rhoan asked.