Secret of the Wolf (10 page)

He bit back a sigh. She was right. He couldn’t take the device home and put Lily in harm’s way. He dropped his hands and took a few steps away. “We’re assuming someone would know I have it.” He blew out a breath. “Do you trust him?”

“Rand?” Her brow furrowed. “He’s my brother,” she said as if that explained everything.

“That doesn’t answer my question.” He braced himself with one hand on the counter. “Do you trust him?”

Her lips thinned. Something flickered in her eyes before she responded with a soft, “Yes. I trust him.”

“All right. That’s good enough for me.” It would have to be. He’d trust her judgment until it was proven faulty. With a flick of his wrist he checked his watch again. “I really gotta go.”

They started toward the front of the house. “Thanks for the pie,” Dante said. “You’re a good cook.”

“Well, I don’t know about my cooking,” she rejoined with a smile, “but my baking skills are pretty good.”

“Damned good.” He paused by the front door. Now that it was time to go, he wasn’t sure what to say. Before he’d gotten on the Special Case squad, and before Lily’s life had fallen apart, he’d give the woman he was with a good-night kiss. Hell, he’d probably be giving her a good-morning kiss after a hotter than hell night. But he had to keep his hands off Tori for now. Get the job done and maybe in another year or two he could make some time for a relationship. He hoped she’d wait. Maybe he could shave that down to six months. “Uh, thanks for the pie,” he said again, then felt like an idiot for repeating himself.

Her smile widened. “You’re welcome.”

“I guess I’ll see you around.”

“Most likely.” Humor sparkled in her eyes, making him realize she was laughing at him.

Dante let it go. After his vacillations tonight he deserved to be laughed at. He probably deserved a slap, but what he got was humor and pie. She was a hell of a woman. As he reached the door, he heard her say, “Oh, wait a minute.” He pulled his hand back just as the door swung open and a startled young man stood in the opening.

“I heard him at the door,” she said to Dante. “This is my brother Randall.” Tori put a hand on the guy’s shoulder. “Rand, this is my colleague Dante MacMillan.”

At the word “colleague” Dante felt something—hurt? disappointment?—slash through him. But he had only himself to blame. Sure, they were just starting to really get to know each other, but he’d at least thought they could call themselves friends.

Dante eyeballed the guy. He looked like the type who would snoop through someone else’s things. Taller than Dante had expected, he had shifty eyes and a nervous quality that piqued Dante’s interest. Randall’s skin was baby smooth with a light dusting of hair on his arms. The hair on his head was as dark as Tori’s, cut in a marine style with buzzed-cut sides, and slightly longer hair on top.

“You’re human.” Randall’s voice came out flat, his British accent full of disdain.

Tori’s brother was apparently a bigoted jerk. Dante was always surprised when people showed their prejudice, whether it was over the color of someone’s skin, their religion, or species. “Yep. Sure am.” He hooked his thumbs over his belt and rocked back on his heels. “And you’re a werewolf, like your sister.”

“Sure am.” The younger man tried and failed to mimic Dante’s drawl. He crossed his arms, then uncrossed them, repeating the process a few times before he left them folded over his chest. “So you work with my sister?”

“I’m on the Special Case squad assigned to her district.” Dante could tell by his demeanor that Randall really wasn’t interested, but if he wanted to put on a good face for his sister, Dante was willing to oblige. “We work cases together when there’s a werewolf involved.”

“How nice for you.” Randall dropped his arms against his sides and drummed the fingers of one hand against his leg. “Are you a wannabe?”

“Sorry?” What the hell was the kid talking about now?

“Do you want to be a preternatural when you grow up?” A pronounced sneer lifted Randall’s upper lip.

“Rand.” Tori’s voice was hard.

Dante frowned. “Not particularly,” he said in answer to her brother’s question.

The sneer turned to a scowl and Randall’s brows drew down over darkening eyes. “So you think you’re too good to be one of us?”

“That’s not what I said.” The guy was apparently itching for a fight, and under other circumstances Dante might be willing to get into it with him. But not with Tori looking like she wanted the floor to swallow her whole. Dante glanced at his watch again and said to her, “Listen, I really have to be going.” To Randall, he said, “It was nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, nice to meet you, too,” Randall muttered, his tone suggesting he felt the exact opposite of his words. He pushed past his sister. “I’m going to bed.”

“I was surprised you weren’t here when I got home,” Tori said. Her brother stopped and turned toward her. She added, “You weren’t interested in going out earlier.”

His blue eyes narrowed slightly. “I didn’t want to go out with
you
. There’s a difference.”

Dante saw the hurt flare in Tori’s eyes while embarrassment colored her cheeks. He wasn’t going to stand by and let Randall talk to her like that, even if the little pip-squeak was her brother. “What’s your problem, buddy?”

Randall scrubbed his hand over the top of his head. With the rebellious streak the young wolf had, Dante was surprised at the military cut of his hair. He would have expected a longer style and a cigarette hanging out of one side of his mouth, especially since shapeshifters’ bodies healed too fast for them to be bothered with pesky diseases like those from which humans suffered. Lung cancer would be of no concern to him.

“My problem,
buddy
, is that you think you’re too good to be one of us, but it’s apparently all right for you to screw my sister.” Her brother’s eyes went from blue to wolf-amber in the span of a heartbeat.

“Rand!” Tori put a hand on his chest when he started toward Dante. “That’s enough. He’s not…we haven’t…” Anger was beginning to flare in her voice and on her face, but he could tell she was more embarrassed than anything. “And, anyway, it’s none of your business if we were.”

Randall’s lips curled back, revealing canines that looked remarkably long. And sharp.

Dante broadened his stance, preparing for a fight. He’d never duked it out with a werewolf so he wasn’t so sure how he’d fare, but he wasn’t going to back down just because the guy was a pret.

“Rand, stop it, right now.” Tori put herself between the two of them, her hands on their chests. When she glanced toward Dante, he saw her eyes held the same amber glow as her brother’s. “You, too, Dante.”

He raised his brows. “I’m only defendin’ myself.”

“I know what you’re doing. Stupid, macho…” Her mutters trailed off as she glared at her brother. “And
you
…you should know better.”

“I’m just trying to look out for you.”

The look on Tori’s face told Dante she knew that wasn’t exactly true. It was clear he had a thing about humans. When her brother didn’t budge, she let out a low growl that raised the hair on the back of Dante’s neck.

Randall threw up his hands. “Fine. Whatever. You do whatever the hell you want to. You always do. I can see where your loyalties lie.” With one final glower at Dante, her brother turned and went to his room, slamming the door behind him.

“What is he, fourteen?” Dante glanced at Tori, glad to see her eyes slowly return to normal. That growl she’d given had been like something out of a movie. Deep, gravelly, and a clear warning of danger. He was damned happy it hadn’t been directed at him.

She sighed and lifted her shoulders. “I’m so sorry about that. I guess it’s his way of protecting me.” Her expression lightened for a moment and she seemed pleased by her assessment. “He’s always been a little…high-strung. He’ll get over it.”

Dante could almost hear her unspoken “I hope.” He worried that he might have made things worse between the two siblings. That was the last thing he wanted to do, to make Tori choose between her brother and him.

He had a hard time believing the guy was a werewolf, as juvenile as he seemed. He came across as hostile but harmless. Plus, with all the fidgeting, Dante sensed that Randall was nervous and not at all confident like his sister. “What he said…” Dante held her gaze. “It’s not true. I don’t think I’m better than you.”

“Oh, I know that. And despite what Rand may have led you to believe, being a pret is not a be-all-to-end-all. We have issues, too.”

No kidding. Dante ran into plenty of issue-laden preternaturals on his job. All the time. But right now specifically…

“Like brothers who are ungrateful little bastards, right?” Dante looked down the hallway toward the bedrooms.

He wanted to teach the little runt a lesson. Something he’d probably never get the chance to do. Besides, Tori was a grown woman. It was her decision on the direction she wanted her relationship with her brother to go. If she wanted Randall to stay with her badly enough, which Dante suspected was the case, she’d probably end up taking more crap from him than she’d ever take from anyone else on the planet.

Including Dante.

That was a sobering thought, and yet another reason why the timing wasn’t right. For either of them.

He drew in a breath and exhaled. “So, for the third time, I’ll see you later.”

She nodded. “Drive safe.” Her green eyes were big and dark, serious.

He bent closer and whispered as low as he could, “Find a better hiding place,” and then pressed a kiss against her satiny cheek, hesitating, wanting more than anything to move his mouth just an inch or so to those luscious lips. But he restrained himself and instead drew in a breath, holding her scent in his lungs for a brief moment. “Good night,” he murmured and turned away.

As he walked to his truck he thought about her brother and that hot temper he had. Little shit. Tori was a saint to put up with all of that snark. The guy needed an attitude adjustment and Dante wished he was able to give it to him, but he knew once Randall brought out the fangs and claws, Dante’s chances of adjusting anything would be slim to none. Even having a gun loaded with silver bullets.

Not that he wanted to shoot Tori’s brother. Doing that would ruin the friendship they had built and do a hell of a job putting the brakes on anything romantic between them.

Damn it. Things got complicated way too fast around here.

T
ori felt like she’d just gotten to sleep when her cell phone rang. She grabbed it from the nightstand and peered at the screen, her vision blurry. The time display read five thirty. “Hello,” she answered.

“It’s Ash.” The gravelly voice of the werewolf liaison from District Four came over the line. “Sorry to wake you, I thought you’d be up already.”

“It’s okay. What’s going on?” She rubbed her eyes, trying to wipe away the remnants of slumber.

“There’s been another attack up here. I thought you’d want to know.”

She struggled to a sitting position. “When?”

“The ME estimates TOD around midnight. The crime scene techs just opened the scene, so I’m doing my initial walk-through.”

“He killed this one instead of turning him?” That didn’t make sense. “Maybe it’s a different attacker.”

“How likely is it that we have two rogue werewolves attacking people?” His voice went dry. “Besides, there were two victims. The man was killed; the woman survived and most likely was turned. We’ll know for sure in another couple of hours.”

“Any clues at the scene?”

He sighed. She could picture the frustrated look on his face. “No, damn it. He’s a clever bastard. Same MO, bleach used on the bodies so there’s no DNA. There were a couple tufts of fur left at the scene, but they’re soaked in bleach and ammonia, too, so no help there. It’s like he’s a fucking ghost. Pardon my language.”

“That’s okay,” she responded absently. She’d heard worse every day on the job. Hell, she’d
used
worse. “Are you any closer to figuring out why he’s doing this?”

“Uh-uh. It could be that he’s just a crazy son of a bitch.”

“Could be, but most people, including the crazy ones, have a reason for what they’re doing…even if that reason doesn’t make sense to the rest of us.” Tori plumped the pillow behind her back. “Tell me what I can do to help.”

“That’s what I like about you, kid. Always willing to jump in and lend a hand.” He sighed. “There’s nothing, really, other than keeping your ear to the ground. Let me know if you hear anything that seems pertinent.”

“Will do.” She ended the call and pondered for a second whether she should call Dante, but decided against it. There wasn’t anything he could do and, besides, the man himself had said he needed his beauty sleep. She’d call him later and let him know there’d been another attack. He might want to consult with his counterpart in District Four.

Dante. She shook her head and put the phone back on the nightstand. Sliding down into bed with a yawn, she couldn’t keep her thoughts off him. He’d been so ready to come to her defense with Rand. It had made something inside of her melt. She’d never really had someone, a man, stand up for her like that before. It made him all the more attractive to Tori.

Her mind bounced back to the kisses they’d shared. God, that man was a good kisser. A great kisser. She got stirred up just thinking about it.

He was smart
and
funny. A lethal combination. She could kind of understand his reluctance for a relationship, to a point. She got that he put in a lot of hours on the job—so did she. She got that he had obligations to his family—so did she. Or, at least, she was trying to. And she got that he had a hobby, his horses, that also demanded time from him.

There they differed. She could never focus her attention on something long enough for it to become a hobby, unless you considered working off the clock to be one. And she didn’t do pets, because she was all the animal she cared to look after.

For the next hour she tossed and turned, trying to get her mind to shut down long enough to fall asleep. It didn’t happen.

Finally, she got up and put together a big breakfast of pancakes, hash browns, and lots of sausage. She got Rand out of bed, smiling when his grousing stopped as soon as he found out what she’d fixed. As they sat down at the dining room table she tried to get him to talk to her about the night before, but he remained reticent and noncommittal about his impressions of Dante, except for a snarly “The cop’s human.”

When had he become such a bigot? He hadn’t acted this way in the other dimension. It seemed as if this planet had changed him, and not for the better. “Since when do you care if someone’s human or pret?”

Rand sent her a look over his coffee mug. “You don’t know me, Tori. Not really. I’m not the same person I was back on our home planet. Neither are you.”

He was right about that. The personality and life experiences of her human host had changed her. For the better, she’d like to think. She wasn’t so sure about Rand. “So tell me about yourself. Let me get to know you.”

He forked pancake and a bit of sausage into his mouth. “Nothing to tell,” he said as he chewed.

Apparently he wasn’t ready. Tori could give him time. She hoped so, anyway. She never knew when she might wake up to find he’d left without saying good-bye. Thinking she could get a topic going that he would want to talk about, she said, “So, I ran into Stefan last night at the club.”

Rand’s face brightened. “You did? Why didn’t he come over?” He squirmed like an eager puppy that had just heard its master’s voice.

“I asked him to,” she replied. “I guess he had other things to do. But he said he’d see us soon,” she added at Rand’s look of distress. “I’m sure he’ll make sure he sees you while he’s in town.”

Using his knife and fork, her brother pushed bits of sausage around on his plate, grouping them together in neat little rows. “Well, I’d like to see him.” Rand chuckled before saying, “He’s so clever.”

“He is.” Tori drew in a breath and held it a moment. “Don’t you feel even the slightest resentment toward him?”

Rand lifted startled eyes to hers. “Why should I?”

She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. “He killed someone. He’s the reason we got sent through the rift, Rand. We lost everything.” She pressed her lips together. “I should have called the council right away and let them know he was here.”

“No! You can’t!” Rand shoved to his feet, his chair skittering across the tile floor, banging against the wall. “Everyone agrees that being here on Earth is our second chance. Stefan deserves the same.”

Tori fiddled with her fork. “I know, Rand. That’s why I haven’t turned him in yet.” She sighed and searched his eyes. “But what if he hasn’t changed? What if he’s still a criminal?”

“He’s not. I won’t believe…” Her brother grabbed his chair and sat back down. “He’s just passionate about what he believes, that’s all.”

Passionate. That was one way to look at it. Insane would be another. Only time would tell which way he went with his second chance.

Rand speared several small pieces of sausage and forked them into his mouth. “What do you know about the werewolf attacks up north?” He stared down at his plate as he cut into his pile of pancakes. “I think the investigators are clueless. I mean, they aren’t any closer to catching the guy now than they were after the first attack, right?” He lifted his gaze to hers.

At the admiration she saw shining in his eyes, Tori’s appetite fled. She put her fork down. “He’s attacking innocent people.” She took a sip of orange juice. “Anyway, it could be a woman, you know.”

“Well, whoever it is, he or she is making more of
us
. That’s not a bad thing, in my opinion.” Rand finished his meal and pushed his plate forward. “Don’t you ever feel outnumbered? Outgunned? Or are you so fond of humans that you don’t care that they might enact laws to put us in communes or, worse, behind bars?”

She frowned. “No one’s even talking about doing that, Rand.” Where was he coming up with all this crap?

“Really? What about the senator who’s trying to microchip us? He says it’s so they can have an accurate count, but the chips could have a GPS function and track us.”

She shook her head. “People wouldn’t let that happen.”

“Are you sure? How would we know if it did?”

“We’d know. They couldn’t keep something like that a secret.”

“Right.” He shot her a glower. “You are so naïve sometimes.”

Tori clasped her hands. “Rand, think about it. The government’s too disconnected and there’d be way too many people involved for something like that to be kept under wraps. We’d know. The council would know,” she stressed.

“And if they knew, would they tell?” His expression turned sly.

Now there was the million-dollar question. Some of them knew about the rift device and hadn’t shared that knowledge, so it was possible, even probable, that they had other secrets they were keeping. Hell, prets were all about secrets. Up until about four years ago their very existence was a secret.

“Well, I don’t think there’s any kind of conspiracy going on, and you shouldn’t either,” she finally said. What else could she say?

“Don’t tell me what to think.” Rand leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest, then repeated the action several times. “I’m allowed to have my own thoughts. Just because you’re older than me doesn’t mean you can tell me what to think.”

“I never said that.” She reached out a hand as if to touch him even knowing she was too far away. “I just don’t want you worried about something that probably isn’t happening.”

He shrugged. “But it’s my worry, right?”

She lifted her hands in surrender and sat back. He was right. It was his worry. He’d also been right when he’d said he wasn’t the same man. He
had
changed, and she was afraid it wasn’t for the better.

Rand got up and carried his plate to the sink. “So, tell me about your new lover. The human cop.”

“He’s not my—”

“Maybe not physically, yet, but I saw how you looked at him. How he looked at you.”

She couldn’t see his face, and the tone of his voice was neutral, like they were discussing the weather.

However, that last piece of information sparked her curiosity. “How did he look at me?”

“Like he wanted to lay you out and feast on you.” He rinsed off his plate and put it in the dishwasher, then dropped his fork and knife in the utensil container.

Tori took her plate into the kitchen and scraped the leftovers into the wastebasket. When Rand held out his hand, she gave him the plate and watched while he rinsed it off. “It feels so strange talking to my brother about this,” she muttered. She was heartened that he seemed interested, but she couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling she had that he seemed also to be aligning himself with radicals in the preternatural community.

“But you like him.”

“I like him. We’re just friends, though.” If she didn’t think about those kisses maybe she could make herself believe they were co-workers and nothing more. It had really been that almost-kiss there right before he’d left that had her most bothered. To have him so close, to feel the rasp of his stubbled cheek against hers, his warm breath on her skin, the heat of his body radiating to hers…She fought back a shiver. “He’s my co-worker.”

“You’ve never had any of your other co-workers over for pie at one o’clock in the morning.” A teasing note entered Rand’s voice.

“We ran into each other at Devil’s Domain.” She leaned one hip on the counter. “You could have met him there if you’d gone with me. Where’d you end up going, anyway?”

He shrugged. “Just…out. Went for a run. Stopped off at a gym to shower, then came on home.”

She’d thought last night that his hair looked a little wet. It was hard to tell; he kept it cut so short. “That doesn’t make sense. Why didn’t you wait and shower here?”

“I just didn’t. Jeez, I’m not one of your suspects for you to interrogate.” He leaned down and rearranged the silverware in the dishwasher basket and then pushed the rack into the machine and closed the door.

Tori noticed he started tapping his foot. One-two-three-four-five-six. Pause. One-two-three-four-five-six. Pause. Repeat.

“Honey, are you okay?” She walked forward and took his hands in hers. She stared into his eyes. “You seem…” While she searched for the right word he jerked away from her.

“I seem what? Sick and tired of you always being a council liaison? Never my sister?”

She frowned. This wasn’t the first time she’d caught this attitude from him. How could he be tired of her doing her job when he hadn’t even been here a week yet? “I’m worried about you. I noticed you’ve been acting a little…” She sighed. “I think your OCD is getting worse. Maybe you should see someone.”

“See someone? Like a shrink, you mean?” He shrugged off the placating hand she tried to put on his shoulder. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“I didn’t say there was, but sometimes talking about a problem can help. Maybe there’s a medication that could alleviate some of the symptoms.” She hated to see him like this.

“I’m fine,” he insisted, his eyes amber with anger.

“Okay.” She’d let it go for now. “You know I’m here for you.”

“Right. Yay me.” He scowled and turned on his heel to head toward the front of the house. “I’ll see you later.”

“Where are you going?”

“Out.” The door slammed behind him.

Tori sighed and leaned over the counter, letting her head hang. The muscles in her neck and shoulders ached in protest as they lengthened, loosening from the stress that had tightened them. When had things gotten so strained between her and her brother? Had they always been, in the other dimension, and she hadn’t recognized it? Or had she chosen not to see it?

Dante gave Lily a boost onto her horse and then rechecked the cinch, making sure it was properly fastened.

“Stop motherin’ me,” his sister said. “You’ve already checked it three times.”

“And now I’ve checked it a fourth. You can never be too safe when it comes to riding horses.”

She pressed her lips together, but not before a dimple flashed, telling him she was fighting a smile. “Okay there, Ranger Rob.” She gave him a two-fingered salute.

“Lily.”

“What?” She shot an innocent look his way. “Oh, just stop it, Dante. Muffin’s such a sweet boy. He would never do anything to make me fall off, would you?” She leaned forward and patted his neck.

The quarter horse turned his head and shook it a couple of times, nickering low in his throat.