Dangerous Games (20 page)

Charming.

Humans were still trying to legislate a rule that would outlaw the “no-human” rule in the werewolf clubs, but it was just fine and dandy for them to outlaw
us
willy-nilly. The sooner we got some nonhuman representation in the government ranks, the better.

The doors swished open as I approached, and in that instant, I saw the sensors lining the doorframe. They really
were
serious about the club being humans only.

And it meant if I went through, I would be outed as something other than human.

I swore under my breath and glanced at the blonde manning the reception desk. She was one of those sexy athletic types guaranteed to set on edge the teeth of any normally built woman, but more important, she hadn’t appeared to notice that I’d stopped short of the doorway and was just standing there. She wasn’t wearing a nanowire—unless they were now making them in designer earrings—and there didn’t look to be any other psychic deadeners in the room. Not that they could actually stop me anymore.

I blew out a breath, then opened several shields and let my mind sweep into hers, taking control in an instant. I might not be able to “sense” humans, but I sure as hell could control them. I made her turn off the alarm, figuring the club would be safe for the few hours I was here. And just in case someone higher up noticed, I had her pull the plug out of the wall. That was the trouble with sensor units installed after the building had been completed—a careless movement could very easily break their connection. Which is why many of them were now being directly wired into power mains.

I released my hold on her, then went through the door and approached the desk. I still had a telepathic finger on the pulse, so to speak, just to hear her thoughts and ensure there were no lingering doubts about what had just happened.

She blinked, like a dreamer waking from a dream, then gave me a bright smile.

“Well, hello there,” she said, her welcoming tone as fake as her tan. “New to the club, are we?”

“We are.” I showed her the pass. “I’m a guest of Jin Lu’s.”

Something flickered in her eyes—an emotion too fast to pin down—though the smile never dimmed. But her thoughts gave away what her eyes only hinted at—that her opinion of Jin was low. Indeed, she thought he was an arrogant pig who got altogether too rough during sex. She’d even had to lie to her boyfriend because the bruises had taken
forever
to fade.

Obviously, she wasn’t a big believer in monogamy while in a relationship. I restrained my smile and accepted the pen she gave me, signing in a second time.

“I’ll just call him,” she said, handing over a locker key. “If you’d like to wait on the sofa.”

I glanced at the sofa, then at the wall of glass beyond it, noting with some pleasure it looked out over the main gym area. There were lots of men inside, working out on various machines, skin gleaming with sweat and muscles rippling. As views went, it was pretty damn fine, and I walked over to make the most of it.

Jin’s name was announced over the speaker system. Five minutes later, awareness raced across my skin. Though I couldn’t hear any footsteps—probably because of the thick carpet—I knew it was Jin. The heat and scent of him called to the wildness within, even from a distance.

I glanced over my shoulder. He strode toward me, wearing black gym pants and a black tank top. His skin gleamed with sweat and heat, and he looked sexier than any man had a right to. Desire surged, but my gaze caught his and it fled as quickly as it had risen. His dark eyes gleamed with a ferocity I’d never seen before—a ferocity that was both ancient and inhuman. As if, in that one brief moment, I was viewing his soul and it was nothing that belonged in this time.

Nothing that belonged on this earth.

Then he blinked and smiled, and the strangeness was gone, leaving me wondering if communicating with the dead woman had shaken me more than I’d presumed. I mean, Jin mightn’t be human, per se, but he had to be at least a subspecies or some sort of nonhuman. Didn’t he? What else was there?

A comment Quinn had made a few months ago floated through my thoughts. He’d said that while he was raised as a human, technically he was only partially so. That the other half of his being was something that no longer existed.

If a half-breed from a race that no longer roamed this earth could survive through the ages, then other, darker things surely could.

The chill that raced through my soul this time was one of foreboding. I didn’t want to know about those other darker things. I really didn’t. But I had a bad, bad feeling that not only was I fucking one of them, I was stepping deeper into their world the longer I stayed by Jin’s side.

He stopped and leaned forward to kiss me, and it was all I could do not to recoil. His mouth was cool and quick against mine and, for that, I was grateful. Right then, anything more passionate would have been too much.

“Hi,” he said softly. “Nice to see you again.”

He smelled of musk and man and dark spices—all scents normally guaranteed to set my hormones a-dancing. And admittedly, despite the chills and foreboding, desire did stir. I was a wolf, after all, and danger was an aphrodisiac.

But running underneath his lust-worthy scent was a trace of sex and blood, mixed in with a hint of jasmine. I couldn’t help wondering if his exertion had been more the rough horizontal kind—involving straps, whips, and naked, perfumed flesh—rather than mere gym work.

“Looks like I’ve come here at a bad time.”

He shrugged. “There’s a gym and spa special running at the moment, so we’ve a bigger crowd than normal tonight. I’m afraid I can’t give you that massage I promised, but I’ll get Terri to start you off with the treatments, and I’ll see if I can grab a break in the next twenty minutes or so.”

“Look, if you’d rather I leave and come back—”

“No.”

His grip tightened on my arm and the alien light gleamed briefly, starkly, in his dark eyes.

“I have no idea how long I’ll be,” he continued, “but I’d rather you wait.”

“Then I’ll wait.”

He nodded and pulled me forward, kissing me hard. It was very much a signal of intent and part of me quailed—if only because it suggested that last night was only a teaser. That tonight I’d get a more in-depth introduction to his darker needs and desires.

How far was I willing to go for the sake of the Directorate and tracking down a killer?

I didn’t really know anymore, and that was perhaps the scariest thing of all. If my determination
not
to do what the Directorate and Jack wanted me to do had slipped so much in a matter of months, what would I be like a year down the track? Would I become the willing fighting and fucking machine Jack wanted me to be? Was it as inevitable as the cycle of the moon?

A tremor ran through me. Jin broke off the kiss, and smiled. “I shall try to hurry,” he said, trailing one hot fingertip down my neck. His touch paused near the pulse point, and his smile widened. “I’d hate to waste such delicious excitement.”

“Then don’t.” I stepped back. “The sooner you go, the sooner you can be back.”

He laughed, then turned and walked away. I repressed another shiver and tried to ignore the humming of hormones that just
loved
the danger Jin represented. Sometimes being a werewolf was a pain in the ass.

I looked across to the receptionist. Her face was carefully neutral, but her distaste rode the air. Resisting the urge to tell her I actually sympathized, I said, “Where do I go for my treatments, then?”

“Just follow the door to your right. Terri will take care of you.”

I followed the directions and pushed through a set of swinging doors. A meaty-looking black woman possessing slick, tied-back hair and hands big enough to snap a bus in two approached from the opposite end of the hall. She stopped when she saw me, well-shaped eyebrows rising almost in alarm. It wasn’t hard to guess why. She knew what I was, simply because she wasn’t human herself.

I stopped several feet in front of her, and looked her up and down. I’d only ever met one bear-shifter before, but this woman left Berna for dead when it came to sheer muscles and size.

“How did you get past the monitors at the door?” she asked, her voice a low growl that was more curious than antagonistic.

I met her dark gaze with a raised eyebrow of my own. “Probably the same way you do.”

“You’re a half-breed?”

“Yep.”

She nodded. “The sensors read us half-breeds as humans. Kinda handy in a situation like this.”

It would have been if I’d actually been half-human. “When we want to go where the rules say we can’t go?”

She grinned. “The club rules say no nonhumans. Doesn’t say anything about us half-breeds.” She motioned me down the hall. “I’ve set you up in cubicle three. I’ll give you the massage, then Raj will show you to the spa. There’s a twenty-minute limit, unfortunately, because we’re full tonight.”

“Can I be nosy and ask why you’re working here? It’s a bit of a risk, isn’t it?”

She shrugged. “The worst they can do is fire me. And the pay here is better than other clubs. Gotta go with the money when you’ve got a family to feed, you know?”

I nodded, taking in the scents and sounds as we walked down the hall. Hints of sweet oils and feminine musk rode the air, mingling with the tangy spice of male and the faint scent of chlorine. No jasmine, though. No hint of sex.

Whatever Jin was doing, he wasn’t doing it in this section.

“Are you the only nonhuman working here?”

“Yep. All employees have to present a birth certificate as evidence of humanity, but mine says human, so I’m okay.”

I raised my eyebrows. DNA tests at birth had been mandatory for at least thirty years, and Terri looked a lot younger than that. “And how did you manage to achieve that?”

She grinned. “My old man worked in the labs and fudged the evidence.”

“Dangerous stuff.” And worthy of at least ten years’ jail time if it ever came to light.

She shrugged. “He’s dead now, so what can they do to him?” She opened the next to last door on the left. “You want to strip down and place all your valuables in the locker? I’ll wait out here.”

“And am I supposed to walk around in nothing but my skin?”

She grinned. “I’ve heard tell you wolves make a habit of it.”

“Well, yeah, but humans get quite antsy about it.”

“Which is why you put on the robe hanging next to the locker you’ve been assigned.”

“Ah. Thank you.”

The changing room was on the small side, and smelled faintly of lemon and ginger. There weren’t many other lockers in use, meaning there weren’t a whole lot of women in tonight. After quickly stripping down and putting everything in the locker, I grabbed the robe and walked around the room, sniffing the air lightly. And found the scent of jasmine coming from a locker on the far side of the room.

I glanced at the door, wondering if I should take the chance of breaking into the locker. I needed to find out who the woman behind that scent was, if only because she might be one of Jin’s regulars, and therefore might know something more about him. Like what he really was.

I checked out the ceiling, but couldn’t see any cameras. Not that cameras were usually found in changing rooms but I couldn’t take the risk of security seeing I was up to no good.

I slipped my locker key in between the locker door and the frame, and jimmied the door out enough to grab it with my fingers. Then I gave it a quick, hard tug. Locker doors just weren’t designed to withstand the strength of a werewolf, let alone one who also had the might of a vampire behind her as well.

With the door open, the scent of jasmine was more powerful. The woman had stacked her clothes in a neat pile, and had hung her handbag over the single hook on the side. I opened it, then searched through the mess of tissues, makeup, and keys until I found the holder containing her credit cards and photo ID. Her name was Jan Tait, and she was a pretty woman with green eyes and blond-highlighted brown hair. I memorized her Carlton address, then flicked through the rest of the holder, seeing more credit cards, a gold card for the cinemas, and a picture of a black-and-white cat. Which probably meant she was single. Attached or married women usually had pics of their other half or kids.

I shoved everything back into the bag, then closed the door and gave it a light thump to force the lock back in place. After doing up the robe, I headed for the door and the waiting Terri. We only walked another four doors down before she stopped and opened another door, this time revealing a small cubicle with a lone table sitting in the middle.

“Here you go. Just strip down and lay on the table. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

“Thanks, Terri.”

She nodded and closed the door. I took off the robe and threw it over the end of the table before lying down as directed. After about five minutes, Terri came in and got down to work. I have to say, she was damn good. By the time she’d finished, my muscles were all fluid and relaxed. Like the aftermath of fantastic sex, only without the effort and fun.

“Okay,” she said, doing up the massage oil bottle lid, “I’ll just buzz Raj and he can take you down to the spas.”

“They’re not on this floor?”