Primal Heat 2 (6 page)

“Is that what you think I did? You think I flew off the handle and beat the crap out of Rimas?” Eli asked.

“I think the man was trying to kill you and when Nivea showed up his assault on her pushed a sensitive button. I’m not blaming you but I’m warning you not to put yourself in a situation you can no longer control again.”

“Because I can’t possibly control myself due to the poison that I voluntarily breathed into my body the way you can now?” The words were bitter and matched the complete distaste for everything he and Ezra had been forced to do back in the Sierra Leone rain forest.

Ezra was silent and Eli was annoyed as hell.

Ezra’s revelation that his mate, the human named Dawn, had been his savior from Dagar’s tainted smoke, was a sore subject between the two. Eli refused to believe that relinquishing control of his feelings to a female, again, was necessary to live a normal life. The last thing he needed, after Acacia and Leanne, was to let another female claim any part of him. Besides, Eli wasn’t sure the symptoms he was experiencing had anything to do with the shaman’s potion, after all, Ezra had never complained about seeing things that weren’t presently right in front of him.

Yet even as he pressed the button to end the call with his brother he knew that he’d already made a possibly deadly mistake. He’d slept with Nivea Cannon. Not only had they had sex, acting on the attraction that had been brewing between them for years, but he’d actually slept in a bed with her curled into his arms last night. He’d fallen asleep with her scent permeating his senses and awakened to the same. And dammit, it had felt fucking fantastic!

Thrusting his phone back into his pocket, he filled the Sanchez brothers in on what was going on. “I need you to be my eyes and ears down there,” he told them. “Go to the hospital and see if you can get a lead on the rogue scent. Stop by the barbershop to see who might be there. If a rogue’s responsible for Rimas’s death, the question is why? If the answer is what I think it is, then we’re all screwed!”

*   *   *

Agent Dorian Wilson sat on the back deck of his older sister Miranda’s D.C. suburb house. On this early fall afternoon, he stared out at the two trees that were barely in their prime, yet already had golden leaves falling to the ground. The swing that his niece, Jasmine, loved to go higher and higher on, sat idle, as today was a school day. Miranda and her husband, Eric McCoy, the chief of the Metropolitan Police Department’s Homicide Division, were at work. They’d graciously welcomed Dorian into their home when he’d shown up in the early morning hours two weeks ago.

He hadn’t dared go back to his apartment. Wasn’t sure who was watching him now, in addition to the tail he’d already known he had. Taking a pull off the Budweiser he held in his right hand, Dorian recalled how he’d come to be in this place at this time.

A little over two years ago he’d begun investigating a money-laundering scheme originating at the Reynolds & Delgado law firm and stretching down to South America. At the same time, Eric had the murder of Senator Baines and his daughter on his hands. The connection had not come immediately to Dorian, but eventually he’d put some of the pieces together. Kalina Harper, the ex-cop turned wife of Roman Reynolds, hadn’t been able to come up with any hard evidence against the man or his law firm—no surprise there once she began sleeping with him. But talking with his brother-in-law one day at his office, Dorian had come across some strange pictures. He’d copied them and taken them back to his house where he’d begun his own investigation.

As if it had been yesterday, the images played back through his mind. It was of a man—the body, face, legs, arms of a man—with the claws of an animal. Dorian wasn’t naïve, he knew all about Photoshopping pictures and airbrushing images. But something told him this image wasn’t a fake. Or at the very least, if the claws were fake, they’d still been used in the commission of a crime.

Months later there’d been another murder, Diamond Turner, a stripper from Club Athena’s. The business card of Xavier Santos Markland found in Diamond’s purse had given Dorian another crack at Reynolds and his gang. Unfortunately, he’d hit another dead end. At that point he may have been willing to concede that he was chasing the ghost of a story, but then he’d seen it for himself. The eerie, glowing eyes of the female that had begun watching him on a daily basis. After much thought he’d finally figured out what the eyes reminded him of—a big cat. That revelation had pushed Dorian in a whole new direction with his investigation into Reynolds and as things began to unfold throughout the States, pieces of the puzzle that had been an enigma to him for the last two years had finally begun to fall into place.

In the last two months Dorian had been in touch with other agents across the state and just two weeks ago they’d finally agreed to meet at a clandestine location, to compare notes on the cat people and the connection to Roman Reynolds. There’d been reports as far out as Sedona, Arizona, where just a month ago there was a break-in at a government lab and one of Roman’s friends’, Sebastian Perry’s, resort had been burned to the ground. All amidst reports of animal roaring and vicious deaths.

The meeting location had been brilliant, a civilian-owned cabin in the western Maryland mountains. Nobody within the Bureau would find them there, and nobody else would be looking for them.

Dorian had been wrong. And he’d almost been killed.

One of the agents had stood up just a few minutes after their meeting had begun and started shooting. His name was Kegan Charles and he was stationed in Dallas. They’d just finished introductions and were each about to pull out their own files compiled on what had been going on in their jurisdiction when the shots rang out. Dorian had quickly rolled to the floor, clutching his Redweld to his chest. He’d crawled into one of the back bedrooms and escaped through a window. But not before seeing her again.

Nivea Cannon, graduate of George Washington University and otherwise unemployed. She was the one with the cat’s eyes, the one that had been following him for months now, and she’d been at the cabin with one of Rome’s bodyguards, Eli Preston, owner of two Southside barbershops in D.C. Taking a leave of absence from the Bureau and using these past days to dig deeper into the background of these new players had been how Dorian spent his time.

This case, these people, had been Dorian’s focus for almost a year now. At first it had just been another case, but once Kalina had entered the picture it had taken on another layer. The moment he learned that Kalina was sleeping with Roman Reynolds and had subsequently married the guy, Dorian knew without a doubt he had to find out what was going on. He’d never told Kalina how he felt about her and doubted that it mattered now, but if there was something he could do to save her life and possibly the lives of others, it was his sworn duty to do it. No matter how long it took.

With that in mind, this afternoon he was mulling over the loose ends, trying to piece it all together in his head before he could formulate a plan to expose them. Because now it wasn’t only a matter of his reputation but also of his sanity.

Speaking of which, Dorian had just taken another long swallow of beer when he saw her. He lowered his arm slowly, until the glass bottle clinked onto the metal top of the table sitting beside the deck chair. He blinked, not wearing his shades and wondering if the unseasonably high summerlike temperatures they’d been having the past couple of days were causing him to hallucinate.

No, she was real and she was gorgeous. So much so, his dick twitched as he watched the sway of her hips while she came closer. The high heels of her shoes clanked on the wooden steps leading up the deck, long tanned legs bringing her closer to him as if he’d beckoned her from some long lost wet dream. She wore her skirt short enough to make his mouth water. Her top was tight, like a second skin hugging breasts he knew would spill out of his now sweaty palms. Her hair was pulled back from her face, long dark brown tresses that fell in a sexy tumble of curls down the center of her back. And when she was finally on the deck, standing right in front of him, she looked at him, bringing her hand up to slip the wide-framed shades she wore down her nose a couple of inches until he could see her eyes.

“Agent Wilson, I have something you desire. And you can help get me what I want. I’d say that makes us a perfect team,” she said boldly. Sky-blue eyes too bright to be contacts and just eerie enough to be real, glistened against her sun-kissed skin.

CHAPTER 12

First Lady Kalina Harper wasn’t one to give in to pressure or stress. She’d survived growing up in an orphanage, a sexual assault, an undercover operation that had changed her life, and the realization that she was a Shadow Shifter. To say she was resilient was an understatement. But watching her mate deal with the biggest battle to ever face the shifters was rubbing her the wrong way.

For months she’d stood by Rome’s side as he’d taken on one bad announcement regarding the shifters after another. They’d both stood shaken to the core when they found out that Shya Delgado had been kidnapped and that the damiana inadvertently slipped into her bloodstream during her mother’s pregnancy might possibly kill her. Nick was one of Rome’s best friends so Shya was like their own child, and knowing she was in danger had led to countless sleepless nights for both of them.

Today, however, in the midst of everything that was going on around them, Kalina had desired at least an hour of normalcy. She wanted to have lunch with her mate, to sit at a restaurant with him and talk about their day like two normal humans.

That apparently was not to be.

“You’re hardly eating,” Rome said, snapping Kalina out of her reverie. “Lunch was your idea, remember?”

Giving up the pretense and letting her fork fall to the side of her plate, Kalina looked at her mate. “I scheduled lunch for one thirty,” she informed him. “It’s now almost three.”

He sat back in his chair, already finished with the North Carolina mountain trout entrée he ordered each time they visited the District Commons restaurant. Kalina’s first thought was how deliciously handsome this man was, all day, every day. From the root beer tone of his skin, to the broad build of his body that wore the custom-made suits like no other man she’d ever laid eyes on, to the way his eyes grew even darker when he stared at her hungrily, her heart did a flip-flop every time she looked at him. The cat inside purred with the knowledge that he belonged to her.

“I told you the meeting ran over, I had no other choice but to push our lunch back. Now, why don’t you tell me what’s really bothering you, because I know it’s not about the lunch that you’re not eating being a couple of hours late.”

Kalina inhaled deeply, watching him with eyes that were familiar with every inch of his body. He looked at her similarly, as if there was nothing she could hide from him, ever. And yet, there was.

“There’s something I need to tell you, Rome.” She took another breath, hoping to steady herself, to gather that confidence she was known for and to get this over with.

“I know that there’s been a lot going on with getting the Assembly Headquarters ready and all that’s been happening with these hybrids and Shya. I swear it feels like I’ve been on a roller-coaster ride ever since the first moment I met you.”

“Are you regretting that?” he asked seriously. “Do you wish we’d never met?”

“No,” she replied hurriedly, shaking her head as if to solidify the answer. “Never that. I just mean that it seems like we haven’t had a moment’s peace. I keep trying to think of the last normal dinner we had when you returned from the office, but they’re usually turned into meetings with Nick and X, or with the guards. And since Elder Alamar has taken up residence at Havenway and he and Baxter have been walking around whispering like conspiracy theorists, I haven’t had a moment alone with you.” Kalina sighed this time, feeling like this wasn’t going the way she’d wanted.

“I just want to be with my mate, my husband, and have a regular day, just like any other couple.”

Rome reached across the table then, signaling for her to give him her hand. She did, and he rubbed a finger over the diamond ring that he’d given her for their joining. “There’s nothing in this world more important to me than you, Kalina. Absolutely nothing,” he told her solemnly. “With that said, I do have a responsibility. And you’ve been more than accommodating in that regard. You’ve actually been a tremendous help in developing the Assembly and the plans for our future. But at the same time, I hear what you’re saying. Tell me what I can do to make this better for you.”

Kalina had just opened her mouth to speak when a wisp of cool air floated over their table. She looked up because a scent had traveled with the breeze, a soft, yet still undeniable smell that had both her and her cat going on instant alert.

Her dress was red, like a siren’s song in silk. The halter-top dress hugged her breasts, wrapped around her waist, and lay on her toned legs until midthigh. Alabaster skin was highlighted by shiny black hair, crystalline ice-blue eyes, and a smile that went straight for the gut … or the dick, Kalina wasn’t sure. Yet, she didn’t spare her mate a glance, keeping her gaze on the female interrupting their lunch date.

“Assembly Leader,” the female said with a slow nod to Rome. “First Female,” came next when she finally spared Kalina a glance.

“Rogue,” was Kalina’s quick response.

Rome remained still, his palms flattening on the table. Eli and Jax, who had been sitting at a table across from them, nursing a glass of water, stood immediately, but were slowed by the almost imperceptible shake of Rome’s head. The guards did not sit, but they did not approach either.

“They said you were smart,” the rogue continued. “I didn’t believe them.” She shrugged. “Still don’t.”

Kalina didn’t even blink. “Not smart would be walking into a room full of Shadows alone and believing that you’ll walk out unscathed.”

“What do you want, Bianca?” Rome asked, interrupting the stare-down between the females.

She’d heard that name before, Kalina thought with interest. Rome and the other FLs had mentioned it during one of their phone conferences. Afterward, there hadn’t been a lot of talk about her, but Kalina was certain now that she’d heard Jace Maybon, the Pacific Zone FL, bring her up because she’d been on his radar as a potential client in his talent agency. Looking her up and down again, Kalina was certain what Bianca Adani’s first and most prized talent would be.