Collector's Item (3 page)

He focused on her skeptical expression and tried not to remember his last images of his best friend. “Lance’s body was found in the Shenandoah National Park. He’d been beaten, starved, and pushed to the limits.”

A softer emotion flickered across her face. “I remember that case.” Then her eyes narrowed as she crossed her arms. “Collectors.”

He nodded. “Collectors. The case was never solved. Officially, investigators couldn’t find enough evidence to satisfy the DA.”

The sound of knuckles popping caught him by surprise. Peyton forced his fists to uncurl. Even now, remembering the arguments over jurisdiction and probable cause, the outright stupidity of it, made him want to bash something. He walked back to her end of the room.

“Mr. Thompson, Lance’s father, had a stroke shortly after. Mrs. Thompson swears it was Lance’s death that brought it on. I promised them I’d find his killer and took leave from the Protectorate to find out what happened. I’ve been tracking leads and pursuing suspects ever since.”

He stopped there. He didn’t know how she’d react to the rest. If she was as smart as she seemed, she’d figure it out pretty quickly. She’d almost gotten there a few moments ago with that lurking comment.

To delay the inevitable, he tilted his head. “So, can I have that towel now? This is one of my favorite coats.”

She started to turn and then just gestured to the short hallway. “Bathroom’s down there, second door on the left.”

“Thanks.”

Peyton gave the unconscious Massey a quick glance before he walked around the end of the couch. She tracked him, keeping her body squared to his. He pretended not to notice and kept going.

In the tiny bathroom, Peyton inspected his face in the mirror. Busted lip, cut above his right eye, assorted bruises, and the beginnings of a nice shiner—nothing major. He pulled a rolled up hand towel from the basket under the pedestal sink and soaked it with cold water. He winced as he pressed it to the torn flesh. Massey had quite a right hook on him. He’d have to remember that.

He’d also never forget seeing KT Marant swing that laptop. For a split second, he thought she meant to hit him and then it connected with Massey’s head. Perfectly controlled, despite her probable panic and paranormal strength. She could have crushed Massey’s skull, but, based on Peyton’s basic examination, Massey’d only have a sizeable goose-egg, maybe a concussion. Quick thinking, nearly flawless execution, she’d been well trained. He winced as his tight smile pulled his split lip.

Blood circled the drain as Peyton rinsed the hand towel. His face began a serious protest so he flipped open the medicine cabinet. Helping himself to four aspirin, he sloshed some water into the faux marble cup, and downed them in one gulp.

He needed to get some ice on that black eye, so he carried the hand towel with him into the living room. Just short of the threshold, he paused.

KT had moved from behind the couch to a chair and sat staring down at Massey. From across the room, he could sense her growing agitation. His earlier concern about hysterics returned. She had held it together pretty well, but it looked like events were catching up with her.

Anticipating the worst, he shucked his coat and tossed it onto one of the hooks near the door. He noticed she’d also snagged his hat from the hall. Observant. Good. He started to go into the kitchen to get her a glass of water. Hell, he could use some himself, but then she slumped forward, elbows on knees, hands over her face.

He crossed the room in two steps, folding the hand towel as he went. Lifting the hair from the back of her neck with one hand, he pressed the towel to the exposed skin. The midnight-colored strands wrapped around his fingers as if they were alive and her scent, a light floral mixed with a hint of fur, rose from her skin. The tightening in his groin and the desire to run his fingers through those curls startled him.

Max rumbled in anticipation.
Alpha female
.

Peyton smashed that thought into oblivion.

Not happening.

Never happening again.

Chapter Three

The shock of damp cloth on her skin brought KT back from the brink of panic. Peyton’s voice, a smooth baritone with a touch of western burr, reverberated in her ears. “Breathe slowly. Deep breaths.”

She reached up to steady the cloth and her fingers brushed against his. Her senses jumped at the warmth of his skin, warmer than human, were-warm. His hand slipped away and she pressed the cloth against her neck, welcoming the cold.

What was wrong with her? She glared at the pattern in the rug beneath her shoes. She let a perfect stranger, a Collector, no less, get the drop on her. If Peyton Allers hadn’t been there, she’d be the one lying unconscious on that rug, or more likely on the floor of a Collector’s cage.

Maybe her father was right after all. Maybe she did need a bodyguard, a Protector. She’d lived her entire life under the weight of watchful eyes. The cost of being one of the few paranormal clans to live openly in the limelight was the constant state of vigilance. As she knew too well, being “other” often meant being a target.

She took a deep breath and blinked away a traitorous misting of tears. She was a Marant. She could not, would not succumb to panic or self-pity. She sat up and dragged the washcloth off her neck.

Peyton leaned against the wall, positioned where he could watch her and Massey, his light brown gaze steady under hooded eyelids. Dressed in a dark-grey button-down shirt, black jeans and black, round-toed working boots, no wonder he faded into the shadows outside her doorway.

Now, though, with his hair smoothed down and his arms crossed over his chest, muscles straining the fabric, he reminded her of a drill sergeant. The square jaw and uncompromising line of his mouth, marred though it was by the ragged tear, radiated a no-nonsense attitude that stiffened her back.

Alpha
, Andi purred in the back of KT’s mind.

Arrogant,
KT snapped back, though she had to admit that the man had been built for business. Those arms, that chest. She clenched her teeth and pushed that train off the track.

Irritated, she stood up and stalked to the window overlooking the street. Rain streaked the panes, warping the street scene outside into a runny abstract. Living in the tiny walk-up apartment had given her a hard-won, intoxicating sense of freedom. Now, suddenly, it felt terribly vulnerable.

A Collector had attacked her outside her own door.

Her thoughts reeled, and then stopped on a dime. A Collector? They always worked in pairs or more, owing to the superior strength of paranormals. She stopped just short of the window and spun to stare at Peyton.

“Do you think he has a partner out there?”

A muscle at one corner of his mouth might have moved, but he shook his head. “Not out there.”

Her pulse spiked again. What the hell did that mean? “Not out there?”

Peyton lowered his arms. “
I’m
his partner.”

“Shit!” Out the corner of her eye, KT judged the distance to the desk and sprang. She cleared the couch and grabbed at the handle of the drawer on her way to the floor. Her fingers never reached it.

Peyton’s hand clamped on her wrist, then pushed it and her down. She just managed to turn her head before she hit the floor with a grunt. Jagged light shot across her vision as her cheek smashed into the bare wood. Somehow, his knee ended up pressed between her shoulders while he pulled her arm around into an agonizing angle. She tried to push to her feet, but he had her pinned.

“Calm down and let me explain,” he said, his voice almost conversational. “I’d hate to have to break your arm, princess.”

“Quit calling me princess,” KT snarled, the coppery taste of blood in her mouth. Furious, Andi clawed against KT’s control.

Something pressed against the side of her neck and the sharp sting of a needle shattered the last of KT’s control. It had to be a salipen, an auto-injector for salison!

“Damn it!” She tried to buck him off her back while Andi leaped forward in her consciousness. The familiar burn of transformation ignited in KT’s chest—ignited and died.

Thanks to the salison, KT’d be unable to shift for hours, Andi’s consciousness sent into a sleep state. All paranormals carried a salipen, nicknamed “Sally,” to keep from shifting if injured. She’d never thought of one being used against her.

KT’s feet scrabbled on the floor, wet rubber squeaking against the bare wood. “So that’s the plan, eh? Gain my confidence and then shoot me full of salison to keep me from shifting?”

“Right now, I’m just trying to keep you from doing something we’ll both regret.” Peyton sighed. “I told you already. I’m undercover, trying to infiltrate the Collectors. Or I was. Massey was my first real break. He’s connected. Highly connected. The Alliance has got a traitor somewhere inside. They’re hoping I can smoke him out.”

“Or maybe
you’re
the traitor!” KT tried to reach around to grab his knee with her free hand. Salison might keep KT in human form, but a lifetime of martial arts training ensured she did not to rely on her jag alone.

Peyton sat down on her back, hard, his knees to either side of her ribcage, flattening her against the floor.

“If I
am
the traitor, why aren’t you the one on that rug right now, huh?” Peyton’s reasonable tone grated on her nerves, but he had a point.

She refused to give him the satisfaction. “No, instead, I’m the one lying on the floor of my apartment with a 500 pound gorilla on my back.”

“Princess, I’m hurt. I don’t weigh over 225.” She heard the smile in Peyton’s voice and her palms itched to smack it right off his face. His chuckle only added insult to injury. “But, if you promise to be a good little girl, and not go for whatever you’ve got in that desk drawer, I’ll let you up.”

“K. T. I’m KT, not princess,” she grunted. He was pressing all the air out of her chest. Before she ran out completely, she gasped, “Okay, I promise. Now, get the hell off my back.”

He chuckled again. “Tut tut, such language, princess.”

Darkness fluttered at the edges of her vision. “Screw you. Now. Get. Off!”

His weight disappeared and he released her arm. She sucked in a deep breath. The relief was exquisite.

KT pushed herself up. Her strained shoulder muscle screamed, but she ignored it. She scooted backward until the low sill of the window jabbed into her shoulder blades.

Glaring at him, she massaged the injection site on the side of her neck. She didn’t know which hurt more, the throbbing of her cheek and shoulder or the loss of Andi’s familiar presence. The salipen gleamed in Peyton’s left hand. Andi was going to be down for several hours.

When KT took a deep breath to blast Peyton for it, Massey’s cologne drifted over her and she paused, considering. She’d met few men who would challenge her this way, fearing her father’s retaliation, but she sensed Peyton didn’t kowtow to anyone. Andi had already identified him as Alpha. She began to lean forward, sniffing out the woodsy scent of Peyton from Massey’s, and then her heightened senses identified the mysterious underlying scent. She froze, her nose crinkled, her eyes narrowed.

Pheromones. Massey’s cologne was loaded with pheromones!

Bile pushed into her throat and she swallowed hard. She spun onto her knees, fumbled with the window lock, and yanked the window up. A light drizzle chilled her skin as she dragged fresh air into her lungs. Her head cleared and she slumped onto her knees, one arm on the windowsill. She raked her fingers back through her hair then wiped the moisture from her face.

A clatter behind her sounded like a salipen three-pointer into her trash basket. “Finally caught on, eh?” Peyton’s patronizing tone fired her temper and helped burn off a bit more of the pheromones’ effect.

KT turned to look at him where he waited, squatting, balanced on his toes. Despite the slight tone of superiority in his voice, his expression remained neutral as a sphinx. He pulled a rubber band out of his shirt pocket and gathered his hair into a short ponytail at the nape of his neck.

“Is that how the Collectors do it? Pheromones?” Her skin crawled at the thought.

“Not usually.” Peyton lowered his hands and looked aside for a second. A flicker of something like discomfort danced across his face before he turned back. “Massey’s idea.”

He unbuttoned his shirt pocket and pulled out a cell phone. “Listen, where do you want me to take you? Your father’s penthouse? A friend’s place?”

KT’s thoughts spun. Something kept nagging at her. She had almost become, what had Peyton called it, a Collector’s Item? She hadn’t heard that term used for it, but it was exactly what she feared had happened to Aunt Patricia.

She clutched at the thought, the shell of an idea forming in her head, but she needed more information. “So, what was the plan?”

Peyton frowned. His finger paused over the surface of his cell. “The plan?”

“Yeah. The plan?” She waved her hand to include the door and the apartment. “After all this, I think I deserve to know. What were you guys going to do after you pumped me full of sedatives?”

His gaze locked with hers. She could practically see the calculations behind his golden brown eyes. When he caught up to her, his jaw tightened and he shook his head.

“Oh no you don’t, princess.”

KT clenched her teeth. For what she had in mind, she needed him. She slid across the floor on her knees, pushing herself into his personal space. “Listen, you said it yourself. He was your big break. What were you guys going to do next?”