Kissing Sin (30 page)

Jack would have a fit if he heard either of the threats, but hell, Jack didn’t have his life on the goddamn line.

“You’re bugged.”

“Rhoan checked for bugs. We didn’t find any.”

“You wouldn’t find these. They’re new.”

“Stolen from the Landsend Military Base, perhaps?”

He smiled. “Perhaps.”

“I want you to find it and take it out.”

He nodded. “I don’t want you dead, Riley. Believe that, if nothing else.”

Oh, I believed it. He wanted a kid out of me first. “So, tell me, why was Martin Hunt shot?”

“Not here. Wait until we’re upstairs.”

“Upstairs might not be any safer.”

“But they have voice screens active up there. At least what we say can’t be overheard once we’re in one of the zones.”

“Unless people can read lips.”

A smile touched his thin mouth. “I think it’d be a bit obvious if someone was up there simply to read lips.”

True. The Rocker wasn’t like the Blue Moon. The dancing on this level was actual dancing, not the wolf kind, simply because the Rocker had a wall of windows that looked out onto the main street. And while werewolves didn’t mind doing it in public, humankind sure did get upset about seeing it.

Nor did it have private rooms. Here at the Rocker, the choice on the upper floor was a communal one, the options as simple as beds, sofas, or beanbags. “I thought you said your followers had given up watching you here?”

“As far as I know, they have. But I’m not taking chances.”

Nor would I. Liander’s improvements might be worth keeping for a while yet. I took a long swig of my beer, then said, “Shall we get down to business?”

His eyes glimmered with amusement and hunger. “Eager to please, huh?”

“Oh, dying for it.”

“The end result will be worth it—for both of us.”

I surely hoped so. “There’s no guarantee I’ll get pregnant. If you’ve read my files, you’ll know that.”

He pressed a hand against my spine as he guided me toward the back stairs. Desire stirred sluggishly. Misha wasn’t my choice of partner anymore, and he certainly didn’t deserve any eagerness, but he was the one I had to be with. That being the case, I might as well enjoy my time with him.

“You’re not the only wolf I’m trying to impregnate right now,” he said, as we climbed the stairs. “I have two other women who have agreed to bear my child.”

It was the first statement he’d made that I truly believed. The first statement that actually had me thinking he
was
telling the truth—at least some of the time. “The blondes you mentioned earlier?”

He nodded.

“I bet they’re doing it for a tidy sum.”

He glanced at me, eyes cold. “Everyone has their price, Riley.”

He knew mine. Knew it was the only reason I was here. And he didn’t care. What would he do if he knew he would never get the one thing he
really
wanted? Not from me, anyway.

The upstairs room was long and narrow, and looked like one of those old-fashioned barns often seen in westerns. The only thing that was missing was the hay—though I knew that had been here in the early years.

The room was semi-filled with wolves in various stages of mating, and the air was thick with the smell of sex and lust. My blood quickened, aroused by the aromas as much as the sounds and sights of mating.

Misha’s hunger flicked around me, a living thing that stole my breath and made the ache even fiercer. His aura, switched to full intensity, drowned me in desire, making sure my body would be ready for him when the time came. Not that he really needed to do it, because after Quinn’s kiss and subsequent departure, I was more than ready to play.

And though I could have negated the force of his aura easily enough, I didn’t. It was better to let him think I needed his aura, that I was still unwilling to be here. Besides, tonight might be about getting answers, but I sure as hell intended to enjoy it as well.

By the time we reached the first free sofa midway down the room, my skin burned, as did the need to feel him inside. Not waiting for him to make the first move, I pushed him back against the wall and kissed him like my life depended on it. Kissed him until my skin burned and the need to feel him inside was all-consuming. And then I fucked him, hard and fast and furiously. He growled deep in his throat, a warning of God knows what, but I ignored it, riding him hard. As his body convulsed and his seed poured into me, my orgasm hit. The intensity of it stole my breath and my sanity for too many seconds.

But it wasn’t over yet. Not by a long shot.

He was still hard inside, but that wasn’t really surprising. The need to create life was on him, and the moon that forced the change each month granted us the strength to mate long and frequently, especially when the need to reproduce was on us.

“My turn to ride rough,” he growled, his eyes burning with desire and anger.

I’d hit a nerve. Misha hated being second. Hated not being in charge. Interesting. Maybe it was something I could use later on, when we were somewhere security wasn’t likely to intervene should things get a little rough.

He spun me around, pressed me against the back of the sofa, then kicked my legs apart and thrust into me so hard and fast I wasn’t sure whether my groan was one of pleasure or pain. Then he began to move, and I let thought slide away, concentrating on sensation and simply enjoying.

That was the pattern for the next two hours—we mated on the sofa, the bed, and the beanbags. The first hour was as hard and furious as I’d expected, but after that, he took more time, seducing rather than simply taking. I appreciated the effort, and in the end, thoroughly enjoyed myself. I’d always liked Misha, and I guess I still did—even if I no longer trusted him. And whatever else his faults, he was usually a good lover.

It was close to three when we ordered a couple of beers, then made our way over toward a secluded corner. Misha flicked on the voice screen as I flopped back into a beanbag.

“Give me your feet,” he said.

I raised them both and plonked them in his lap. He studied the underside of both for a moment, then grunted and dropped my right foot back to the floor. He bent my left leg around so I could see my foot, and pointed to the slight spot of discoloration right in the middle. “See that?”

I frowned. “Looks like a freckle.”

“That it does. Only, if you run your finger over it, you feel a slight hardness around the edges compared to the rest of your foot.”

I did. “It’s the tracker?”

“Yep.”

“Landsend can make trackers that small?”

“Not only small, but untraceable to current finders.”

“And you know this because you have one in you?” It was a guess, but not much of one.

He smiled. “Yes, I have one. But they don’t entirely trust it, so I have followers as well.”

“Why don’t they trust it on you? It obviously works.”

“Because I know how to remove it, and do so when it suits me not to be found. He thinks the signal is faulty, hence the followers.”

“You play a dangerous game, Misha.”

“Extremely.” He reached over to our pile of clothes, and pulled a knife from the pocket of his jeans. “Hold still,” he said.

He cut into my foot. Not deeply, so the pain wasn’t really that sharp. After a few seconds, he grunted, then held up the spot on a fingertip so I could see. Now it looked like a freckle with four fine, wiry legs. He dropped it to the floor and smashed it under his heel.

“He will of course know you’ve found the bug.”

“As long as he can no longer track me, I couldn’t care less.” I studied Misha for a moment. “He
can’t
track me now, can he?”

“As far as I know, that was the only bug he placed. You can’t use more than one on a person—stuffs up the signal or something like that.”

“And I presume Kade has one, as well?”

“Everyone of importance to the project had one. Just in case.”

“Then excuse me while I make a quick phone call.”

He shrugged. I pulled the cell from the pocket of my jeans and quickly dialed Jack’s number. It was busy, so I left a message giving details about the bug and how to remove it.

That done, I shoved the phone back into my pocket, and said, “So tell me why Hunt was killed.”

Misha relaxed back into the opposite bag. “He’d reached the end of his usefulness.”

“And the fact that you’re now talking about him means he wasn’t a player, let alone a major player.”

“Yes.”

“So why not simply tell me his name in the first place?”

“He’s dead, so the restrictions on my mentioning his name have gone.” His smile was cold. “Besides, it was never part of the agreement that I make things easy for you.”

True. But it was occasionally nice to think things
could
be easy. Stupid, I know. “Then Hunt was simply a means of gathering information?”

“Yes.”

“To top-secret military bases.”

“And what they were doing. But also a means of keeping an eye on the various investigations, both military and civilian.”

“I’m gathering the Directorate wasn’t one of those—you already have a man in there.”

He smiled. “And here I was thinking no one was aware Gautier was one of us.”

“Jack’s known about him for ages.” Which wasn’t exactly the truth, but it couldn’t hurt having Misha think we were more aware of the situation than we truly were. “Tell me about Mrs. Hunt.”

He simply smiled. Meaning he couldn’t, or wouldn’t.

“What pack does the woman impersonating Mrs. Hunt come from?”

Again with the silence. Obviously, Mrs. Hunt—or whoever she truly was—was someone we had to keep following.

“What about Kade, then? Why was his partner killed and he kept alive?”

“His partner was killed because they were getting too close to a source. Kade was kept alive simply because he had interesting skills.”

He
certainly
did. “What pack has brown eyes, ringed by blue and amber?”

“The Helki pack, who live around Bendigo.” His eyes were chips of glittery ice in the hazy light filling the room. “It’s simply a matter of asking the right questions, Riley.”

I sipped my beer. “What can you tell me about the Helki pack?”

“They’re shifters.”

I gave him a deadpan sort of look. “We’re all shifters.” Even if most shapeshifters actually denied the fact they came from the same base stock as weres.

“Yes, but not all weres are shapeshifters in the same way the Helki pack are.”

I frowned. “Meaning?”

“Meaning, some can take different animal shapes, other than just a wolf. And some can take on other human shapes.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No.”

This had implications I didn’t even
want
to contemplate. “I’m surprised the Helki pack haven’t disappeared into the dark recesses of hidden labs.”

His smile was grim. “Who’s saying many of them haven’t?”

We
had
to find this other damn lab! Had to stop them. “Is the woman I saw tonight a member of the Helki pack?”

His eyes gleamed with amusement. “I think you’re beginning to catch on. She’s a clone made using the genes of the Helki pack.”

More damn clones. Was there a never-ending supply of these bastards? “So was the original Mrs. Hunt human, and did she have the same weirdly colored eyes? If not, how did the replacement explain the sudden difference in eye color?”

“The original was human, and her eyes were very similar to a Helki’s in color—brown ringed by blue. And the new Mrs. Hunt retreated from her friends and charities for three weeks. The only person who might have noticed the slight difference would have been her husband—except the two of them have been sexually alienated for some time. They still share a room, but not the same bed.”

“So the original is dead?”

“Yes.”

I took a swig of beer, then changed tack. “You said once before that the answer lies in my past. In lovers from my past.”

“Yes.”

“Did you mean long-term or short-term lovers?”

“Very short-term, I believe.”

Gee, that was going to make it easy. Particularly if he meant “short-term” as in one-night stand. “How far back in the past?”

He hesitated. “Three and a half years ago.”

Great.
That
was going to be a cinch to remember—particularly if it had happened during the moon phase. I rubbed a hand across my eyes. “How connected is that man to the woman I met tonight?”

“
Very
connected.”

“Sister?”

“No.”

“Lover?”

“No.”

“What then?”

“That I cannot say.”

Could not, or would not? Given the smile touching his lips, I suspected the latter. “Is the man we’re talking about from the Helki pack?”