Slade (3 page)

Kate blinked first, breaking the spell. She let go of his hand and he had no choice but to let her go
as well. The magic between them unraveled and retracted, each to its owner.

“I’m Kate. Human, but a consecrated priestess of the Lady. Allie and Betina know I live here. You can check with them if you need someone to vouch for me.”

“Your magic speaks for itself, milady.” He dipped his head slightly, in respect, holding her gaze. “I’m Slade.”

“S
lade,” she repeated his name as if tasting it, as their eyes held a beat too long. She shook herself and started back toward the archway. “We don’t have time to waste,” she said, changing tacks. “Come on. You need to see the garden.”

“There’s nothing out there—” Grif began in a tired voice but Kate cut him off.

“Nothing you can see. I think Slade will see a lot more. Accept his help, Alpha. The Lords sent him here for a reason. He’s more than you know.” Kate didn’t wait but headed for the back of the house on light feet.

Slade made to follow her, but Grif held one arm out to bar his way.

“What does she mean? You’re a cat, aren’t you? You smell feline, but not cougar.” Grif sniffed, testing the scent only another shifter could discern.

“Black leopard,” Slade confirmed. Usually that was enough to satisfy other shifters. Leopards were scarce in this country, though they were beginning to make a bit of a resurgence.

“And more,” Valerie stepped forward, as if daring Slade to deny what the magic users could sense in him. “Mage, but not. I’ve never encountered anything like you before, Slade. I admit, you’re a puzzle.”

Slade sighed. “I’m not a mage. I’m one hundred percent shifter. Mostly leopard but
a few generations back in my ancestry there’s something a bit rarer.”

“What?” Grif demanded. “What are you that I should trust you?”

When he put it that way, Slade felt it only fair to answer honestly. Alpha to Alpha, he would give this man an answer to the question he never deigned to answer when asked by Others. This time, though, with this man, in this dire situation, he needed to be honest.

“I am snowcat,” he admitted in a quiet voice.

“The most magical of shifters in the known world,” Keith supplied in a low voice. “No wonder you light up our magesight like a firecracker. “And the way you sparked off the priestess…” Keith seemed to be thinking out loud. “Aren’t snowcats holy men?”

“Tibetan mystics,” Slade clarified. “They like to cultivate the myth that they’re all the next best thing to a deity, but I’m proof they’re merely mortal. More magical than most, but definitely mortal. My great-grandmother left Tibet centuries ago to travel the world with my great-grandfather. Theirs was a true mating.”
Slade looked down at the arm that still barred his path. “And now you know something about me that even the Lords don’t know. I trust you’ll keep it to yourselves. Anonymity is helpful in my line of work.”

“You help me find the bastard that murdered my mother and I’ll give you any damn thing you want. I’ll keep your secret, as will my cousins. Right?” Grif looked at Keith and Valerie who both nodded solemnly.

“I’ll find those who killed your matriarch and you will have justice for her death. This I vow,” Slade replied.

“Then we have an accord.”
Grif moved his arm, offering his hand to seal the deal.

They shook hands and then all four of them walked out of the living room, heading down the hall toward the back of the house. They were following the young priestess who had missed their meeting of the minds. She waited for them in the backyard, chanting softly.

Slade felt the power of her magic the moment he stepped out of the house. She had lit up the area with magical energy.

Even from this distance, Slade could see the dark, roiling miasma of evil
forces in one spot of the otherwise peaceful garden. He walked directly to it, knowing that was the spot where the matriarch had been slain.

“Stay here,” Slade requested. “I’d like my first pass to be without your influence.”

The cougars let him go while they watched from the deck.

“How does he know?” Grif asked his cousin. Slade could still hear them, but he was already on the trail.

“Kate lit the scene,” Keith explained. “To someone with magesight, your backyard is filled with magical information. The spot where your mother… well… it’s very obvious to me and my mate. To the leopard as well. And the priestess.”

“Magic,” Grif cursed. “It fouled the physical trail. None of us could find anything to follow.”

“My money’s on the leopard,” Keith answered. “My magesight is good. Valerie’s is better. But neither of us have the kind of skills the Lords hinted at this guy having. They sent him here for a reason. Our best bet is to let him do his thing, Grif.”

Slade heard the answering growl of frustration from the Clan Alpha. He didn’t blame the man. Slade would feel the same way if the roles were reversed. Shifters needed action. Sitting around letting someone else do the work went against the grain, but in this case, was necessary. Slade had the skills needed to unravel the magical trail that fouled the entire backyard. He’d done it before. He’d do it again.

Slade set to work, aware of the priestess, but she was good at keeping out of his way.

“You can see this, right?” Slade asked as he passed her in a neat row of tomatoes that had withstood the violence of the day before surprisingly well.

“I see it,” she answered in a grim voice. This delicate woman had a core of steel, if he didn’t miss his guess. She was holding up a lot better than he would have imagined, not shying away from the distasteful residual energies that littered the yard.

Slade stepped carefully, unraveling the energy trails left by the cougars who had taken away their matriarch’s body and then scoured the yard looking for a physical trail. It was there, but there was no way the cougars could have seen it. Not without substantial magical help.

Even Keith and his mage mate would have trouble figuring this one out. Slade had seldom seen a more convoluted trail. He had no doubt it had been set up deliberately to foil pursuit. Whoever killed the matriarch had been concerned about shifters following them, but they’d also been aware of the magical friends the cougars could call on for help.

“Two of them did the deed,” Kate whispered, her hands held aloft, using her magic to brighten the trails in a way Slade could not.
But while she could enlighten, she didn’t appear to be able to unravel them the way Slade could.

Her help was making this job easier than it would have been had Slade been attempting to read the energy trails on his own. For that reason—and to placate the restless cougars on the deck—he decided to humor her
and speak his findings aloud.

“A man and a woman. The woman did the knife work,” he confirmed, trying not to allow his disgust and anger rise too close to the surface. He needed to cultivate calm to do his work.
That was often the hardest part of being who and what he was. The leopard wanted to rend and tear. The snowcat in him counseled for reason and measured justice. It was hard to reconcile.

“She follows the blood path,” Kate confirmed, an ever-so-slight tremble in her voice. “They both do, but
the male is the master in magic.”

“The woman
is the master in all other things. Killing, most of all,” Slade confirmed, tasting the grass near the murder scene. It held the flavor of evil from the energies of those who had walked over it. The plants would recover with time as the magic dissipated and was cleansed by the innate energies of the earth, but for now, every living thing potentially held a trail he could follow.

“A deadly pair,” Kate observed.

“I am deadlier.” Slade stood and took a long look around the yard. Kate, wisely, made no comment to his soft-spoken statement.

Chapter Two

“When will you begin the hunt?” Kate asked in a whisper as the most intimidating man she’d ever met stood so close, she could feel his body’s heat.

“I already have.” His haunting blue eyes shifted to her and she detected the faintest bit of humor behind his resolute gaze.

She admired that resolution and the deadly abilities she sensed in him. This was a man who had not lived a quiet life. No, even for a shifter, this Slade had lived a life of adventure,
followed by purpose. She was able to sense that much about him.

That, and he was the absolute most devastating male she’d ever encountered. His magic tickled hers and had felt decidedly naughty when he’d let it out to twine up her arm during that handshake. One or two magic users had tried that trick in the past, but the feel of their power had always sickened her. Not so with Slade. No, with him, she wanted another t
aste, another tickle of his beguiling power.

Dangerous.

The man—shifter—was very dangerous to her both personally and in general. He was a killer, like most of his shifter brethren. A predator with a man’s mind. A serious combination. But he was more. So much more. Magical and wild. Attractive and scary. A man of contrasts that drew her in as no man had ever done before. Not even that one, ill-fated relationship that had led her to where she was now.

Recalling that past mistake, she knew s
he would have to be careful around Slade.

But she also had a job to do. Like him, she’d promised her aid to the Cougar Clan and justice for the matriarch, a woman she’d both loved and respected. The matriarch had invited Kate into the community and made her welcome there, more than any other. Her death caused a deep pain of grief, but also the burning desire for justice. Maybe the shifter mentality was rubbing off on her, but Kate wouldn’t rest until the killers had been dealt with. Only then would she allow herself to grieve for her lost friend.

“I can help,” Kate offered, wanting to be part of the hunt as much as possible.

“You
’ve done your part, Priestess. Thanks,” Slade answered, already moving off toward the edge of the property, where it backed up onto scrub land that led into the desert. Kate followed, undeterred.

“I need to
do more,” she said stubbornly, putting her hand on his arm, stopping him in his tracks. “I’ve explored a lot since I got here. I know the desert around the housing development and how to navigate it safely.” She knew she was daring greatly, but she had to be part of this. With that much magic at the killers’ disposal, even this very magical werecat probably didn’t stand a chance alone. “And I have experience with offensive magic. I’ve battled mages before.”

One of his dark eyebrows rose in amusement at that last statement.

“All right,” he conceded finally.

“I’m going with you,” Griffon Redstone put in as he jogged silently across the big backyard.

Slade’s gaze went to the big Alpha and then back to Kate. It was hard to tell his mood, but she saw definite amusement along with a hint of resignation in his glowing eyes.

“Now see what you’ve done?” he whispered in a low voice only the two of them could hear as he turned to face the approaching cougar.

“He would’ve followed you no matter what, and you know it,” she whispered back, pleased to see an answering sparkle of amusement in his expression.

She would have said more but Grif stopped in front of them.

“What did you find?” the cougar asked in an almost angry tone. It was clear the Alpha didn’t like not knowing.

Kate knew his moods well and decided to intervene. Sometimes cats liked to be smart asses for no apparent reason and she didn’t want to chance this strange cat pushing Grif’s buttons when he’d only just calmed down.

“Two killers,” she said softly, in as calm a voice as she could muster, despite the anger and grief burning a hole in her gut. “A man and a woman. Both magic users following the blood path. The woman took the piece of your mother’s pelt. I vow to you, Grif, I will get it back and lay your mother to rest with all the honor her bright spirit deserves.” Kate stepped forward, tears held at bay through sheer force of will. “I will not rest until her spirit can be at peace.”

“Thank you, P
riestess,” Grif said formally, though anger burned through the grief in his bloodshot eyes. “But the hunt is my right, as is the kill.”

Slade held up his hands, palms outward, as Grif’s steely gaze moved to him.

“You’ll get no argument from me, Alpha. Yours is the kill, but in this case—with so much magic flying about—you definitely need my help to run them to ground.”

“Mine too,” Kate put in, not wanting to be excluded. “I can’t
kill, but I can damn well find them and hold them for you. Plus, depending on how far they’ve sunk into the blood magic, you may need me to purify them before they can actually die.”

That was her ace in the hole. Without her abilities as a priestess of the Lady, they might not be
able
to kill their prey, even after they found it. Enabling the Alpha to get justice for his mother wasn’t totally incompatible with her calling as a priestess, though she’d have to tread carefully. If the mages repented, the punishment for their crime would have to be less severe. But in her experience, once someone turned down the blood path, they didn’t easily turn back to the Light.