Shifter's Claim (The Shadow Shifters) (12 page)

He’d wrapped a towel around his waist, his shoulders still glistening with beads of moisture.

“I’m not afraid of heights, Mr. Perry, and I’m definitely not afraid of you,” she retorted.

To her dismay he sighed. “No. You’re not afraid of me. And you’re not afraid to fly across the country and jump into one of my trucks to follow me to god knows where. You weren’t afraid of trying to break into Rome’s room and you’re not afraid to stand in this room with me totally alone, trying to ignore what I want to do to you.”

“All you have to do is answer my questions,” she said, realizing his words were true and that she should be afraid.

Bas shook his head. “You’re in my bedroom and I’m wearing a towel. I think you can call me Bas now. Mr. Perry is my father.”

He moved to another one of those panels in the wall, touching it with the tips of his fingers then waiting as it shifted to the side and he could pull out a drawer. With his back to her he pulled a black tank top over his head. The towel hit the floor, tight buttocks flexed as he bent slightly, pulling black boxer briefs up until they were covered. When he faced her again all Priya could do was gulp. Even not-so-naked the sight of him was attempting its own brand of torture on her libido.

“I just need to know what’s going on, Bas,” she said quietly. The trip cross-country, the adrenaline of hiding in the back of that truck going who knew where, then finding a small army of men in the dark desert, was beginning to take its toll.

She wouldn’t let kissing-the-naked-as-a-jaybird-sexy-guy take precedence in her exhaustion, even though the memory was still punctuated in her mind.

He moved to stand beside his bed then, reaching to pull the duvet down. Red sheets, more like the dark crimson of blood were beneath the fancy silver material. He fluffed a pillow before looking back up at her.

“It’s a story, that’s all. My guess is that someone has you working on this story for whatever reason. That someone is not your boss, which puts you in a precarious situation. But you don’t seem to mind putting yourself in that same predicament more than once. I offered you my help before. The offer still stands.” Before she could reply he held up a hand. “It’s not answers from me you need, Priya. That’s not going to completely fix your situation and I think you know that.”

She refused to believe that.

“Tonight, Bas, tell me what I saw tonight,” she insisted.

Priya moved to stand directly across from him on the other side of the bed.

He raised a brow. “You’re tenacious enough to chase this story, no matter what I say. I’m guessing that’s why you were chosen over any other reporter at the
Post.
Tenacious and ambitious, two traits that could easily get you killed.”

“Don’t waste your time threatening me. If you were going to kill me you would have done it already, or had one of your goons do it for you.” She sighed with exasperation because this was getting her nowhere and she was tired of running in circles with him. “You don’t think we have a right to know if something else is out there? If we need to protect ourselves?” she asked.

“There were men out there tonight, just like you saw before. You flew all the way out here to see more men, when you could have stayed in D.C. and seen the same thing.”

“Men with yellow eyes?”

“Ever heard of contact lenses, Priya? Your big story is riding on the sighting of a man wearing yellow contacts just like Michael Jackson wore in his music video and vampires wear on television and in the movies. I really don’t see you making big headlines with that.”

He climbed into bed then, reaching over to touch a tablet that had been sitting beside the telephone. When they’d been cast into darkness his voice sounded once more. “You can finish your searching in the other room and come to bed when you’re finished. Unless you’d like to take the couch.”

“I’m not staying here with you. I’m leaving,” she announced, turning and extending her arms in front of herself to keep from bumping into anything as she made her way to the door.

She was just about to step out of his room when his words, spoken so quietly she almost missed them, stopped her. “I can’t let you go.”

*   *   *

No matter how much Bas hated it, his words had been absolutely true.

He couldn’t let Priya Drake out of his suite, or out of Perryville for that matter, because she wasn’t going to stop digging for this story. She wasn’t going to stop trying to prove that cat people existed. The really bad part about the situation was that she was absolutely correct. Shifters did exist, which meant if she continued to dig she would eventually find exactly what she was looking for.

And when that happened, Bas would have only one choice.

He lay on his back, eyes closed, feeling her presence still in his suite and wondering what was going through her mind. He’d given her permission to look around and he knew she would do precisely that. But she wouldn’t find anything, primarily because she didn’t know where to look. Not only were the walls designed to give a sleek look to his private rooms, they were specially equipped to hide what Bas didn’t want anyone walking inside to see. His safe, his file cabinets, his private computer with all the files regarding the Mountain Zone’s laws and progress reports and anything at all that connected him to the Gungi. All she was going to find out there was a desk with a computer that she would never hack into and even if she did, it had nothing but Perryville information on it. X had even installed an encrypting backup system to all the FLs’ computers that wiped out the entire history of searched Web sites each time the computer was shut down. Hell, Bas didn’t even have pictures of his family in there.

Inhaling deeply, Bas tried desperately to clear the last couple of days from his mind. At this moment he wanted anything other than to have spotted her watching him at that fund-raiser and then attempting to get into Rome’s room. He wanted to have never met Priya Drake and he damn sure wanted to never have tasted her.

Her lips were soft and gave just a hint of the sweetness that dwelled within her. Sweetness he was sure had been hidden beneath her stubborn and prickly exterior. But it was there, banked beneath the fiery heat of her gaze, the soft whimper of her voice when his tongue had stroked along hers. And when she’d touched him … damn! His hands clenched into fists.

“It makes sense to send me into the other room when you know there’s nothing for me to find,” she stated from the doorway a short while after she’d left.

“It was your choice to look anyway,” Bas replied, lifting his fingers to squeeze the bridge of his nose. He didn’t want to inhale too deeply now, she was entirely too close. Any more of her scent in his lungs and he was going to pick her up and fuck her where she stood.

“Then why not offer me the choice to leave?” she pressed.

How could he tell her that wasn’t possible, without explaining why and without admitting to himself that the “why” was beyond even the threat of the shifters’ exposure?

“Then you really would have come all this way for nothing.” When she didn’t reply he continued. “Are you going to sleep here or in the living room?”

Living room. Living room.
Please, if there was a high deity and it was likely to grant wishes to even the shifter species, he prayed for her to sleep in the living room.

“I didn’t come all the way here to become another notch on your sexual-conquest post,” she replied tartly.

“And I’m not asking you for sex.” No matter how much he and the cat waiting impatiently within wanted exactly that from her. “Sleep is high on my itinerary right now,” he continued. Sleep or another shower where he would no doubt ease himself of the pounding ache his erection had become.

She didn’t speak again until she was lying on the bed, stiff as a board and making absolutely sure to stay as far away from him as possible. Her clothes remained on, he knew, even though he didn’t turn to verify. He’d heard her shoes hit the floor and the exhale of the breath that meant she was making this decision under duress.

“If you wanted a female in your bed I doubt seriously that you had to resort to kidnapping,” she whispered into the darkness.

“You came to Perryville of your own accord. You followed me and my men on a business trip and then you accompanied me up here to my suite. Not sure how that translates to kidnapping but remind me to give Nick a call in the morning to check the law on this issue.”

“How can we protect ourselves if we don’t know what we’re up against?”

Bas didn’t reply. For once in his life, he didn’t know how to.

She sighed and the room grew silent once more.

Bas heard each breath she took, he imagined the rise and fall of her breasts as she did so and slipped his hand beneath the sheet, cupping his length in his own hand this time, jerking hard before cursing himself. There was no way he was going to jerk off while lying right next to her, no goddamned way.

“If they exist, the truth will come out. Now, or later, it will come out,” she said quietly.

It was his turn to go still, his teeth gritting so hard his temples throbbed, because she was absolutely right.

Chapter 11

The dream had come again, like a thief to steal his night’s rest. Six shifters had circled her, moving each time she did, growling each time she screamed. It was a standoff, one they knew they would win. As for her, she had no idea what she was looking at or how they would hurt her. All she knew was fear, instinctive and so potent it pounded against her chest. Tears blurred her eyes but didn’t fall.

He thought that maybe she’d cried out louder before, maybe her face had been streaked with tears, but no, not this time.

She didn’t cry and she did not try to run, probably knew it was futile. Instead she squared her shoulders and shouted something to one of them. The shifter lunged forward as if to take her right then, but it was stopped by a bigger cat, a stronger jaguar with more years of hunting experience. This one moved closer to her and she watched it in anticipation. He could see the moment she resigned herself to her fate and the exact second she decided to fight instead of succumb. She jumped at the cat, knife in hand, bringing it down with an aim to the Shifter’s head. Unfortunately, the cat was faster and it moved so that the knife slid almost painlessly down its flanks. Then it came up on its hind legs and wrapped its powerful jaws around her neck.

She didn’t have a moment to scream and no tear ever fell from her eyes—her brown eyes.

It wasn’t Mariah, Bas thought with a start, his eyes jerking open while the rest of his body remained still in his bed. It was still night—early morning he guessed—and her eyes still flashed in front of him, now along with the rest of her face being pelted by the rain as he’d had to bury her body once more. How many times would he have to do this, would he have to relive this? But this time was different, he reminded himself. This time it had been Priya’s body.

As if somehow aware that he was thinking so intently about her, she turned over onto her side, hands cradling her face so that she looked innocent against the pillows of his bed. She was here, in his bed, Bas thought momentarily, trying to play catch-up from the real world to the dream then back to reality once more.

He touched a finger to her cheek, let it slide down to the line of her jaw, watched it shake as it moved and he sighed heavily. She couldn’t stay here, he thought to himself. And he couldn’t let her leave. Rome would have her killed because she was a threat to them, and whoever it was that had put her up to this would probably do the same if she didn’t deliver. He had no other choice.

It felt good to have a reason behind his actions, an excuse to do what was becoming all too natural where she was concerned. Bas moved closer to her, being as careful as possible as he scooped her body into his, wrapping his arms tightly around her. She made a noise and he held his breath, knowing that in about two seconds she might hurl some sarcastic remark at him. Instead, to his shock and pleasure, she snuggled closer into him, her palms flattening on his bare chest, her cheek following as she rested her head against him. Bas kissed the top of her head, inhaled her scent deeply and actually felt it permeate his bloodstream.

She would not leave Perryville and nobody would hurt her, not even his Assembly Leader.

*   *   *

Later that morning, Bas sat quietly at the head of the conference table. He’d turned his chair so he could look out the window while he waited for the early morning meeting to get underway. In the chair to his right, where he always sat during meetings was Jacques, looking contemplative and mildly concerned.

Jacques was a quiet shifter; he kept his opinions to himself and generally dealt only with the facts. Jacques had stayed in the Marines longer than Bas had, completing two tours of duty including Desert Storm. He’d come from a large family where both parents were still alive and strong in the shifter community. And yet Jacques hadn’t left Sedona in the ten years he’d been there with Bas. He was a six-foot-three-and-a-half-inch-tall man with mixed heritage as his father was French and had migrated to the U.S. a few years after World War II. Armil Germain had met and married Renee Jones, a beautiful African-American shifter after meeting her during a protest in Washington, D.C. Now, the Germains resided in Maryland while Armil worked with the Department of Justice. Armil and Rome were working very closely together to help shape the Stateside Assembly. But Jacques preferred to keep himself separate from his parents’ endeavors. Actually, there were times when Bas thought Jacques was keeping himself separate from the entire world.

“What are you going to do with her?” Jacques asked in his monotone manner, interrupting Bas’s thoughts.

Bas didn’t immediately respond because he didn’t have an answer to that question. Or rather he did but wasn’t quite ready to discuss it, even with his second in command. “For now she stays here,” was his reply. “And nobody needs to know that she’s here.”

The last was said as Bas turned, meeting Jacques’s gaze.

Jacques didn’t even blink. “Is that wise?”