Buch lesen: «Taming The Shifter»

Taming the Shifter

Lisa Childs

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Contents

Cover

Introduction

About the Author

Title Page

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

The sweet, metallic scent of blood hung heavy in the air, and chimes rang out from the clock tower in the town square. Warrick James didn’t need to know what time it was. He was already too late. He was always too late.

He pushed open the door and stepped into his father’s den. He had known what he would find; he’d been warned. But still the scene struck him like a body blow.

His father lay back in his chair, blood gushed from a hole blown in his chest. Even with the bullet—that special bullet—in it, his heart continued to pump.

And his father’s eyes stared—not up at the man who had taken his life. But at the man who had failed to save him. Warrick was used to the disappointment in his father’s pale brown gaze. For thirty years, he had seen it every time the man had looked at him.

The chimes continued to ring out. Was that the eighth or the ninth? Just a few more chimes before midnight arrived...

Warrick reeled; his heart feeling as if a shot had been fired into it, as well. Maybe a bullet would pierce it next. Reagan—the man he’d known he would find standing over the body—held the gun yet, his finger against the trigger. And the barrel of that gun was pointed at Warrick.

“What kind of monster are you?” Warrick asked even as he felt his own body beginning to turn from man to beast. “How could you do this?”

“You don’t understand,” Reagan replied. “Let me explain...”

Warrick shook his head. He was beyond listening. He didn’t even care that that gun—loaded with those special bullets—was pointed directly at his heart. Just as the clock chimed for the twelfth time, he launched himself at his father’s killer.

* * *

Detective Kate Wever intimately knew the city she protected. Before being promoted to the major case squad, she had patrolled these streets. She knew the metropolis of Zantrax, Michigan, as well as she knew herself. As she knew her friends...

Or so she’d once believed. Now she wasn’t certain what, or who, to believe. Except for Bernie...

She knew not to believe the vagrant. Yet she followed him into the dead-end alley between some of the tallest buildings in the city. The sun hadn’t set, but it was dark in the alley. The air hung still and putrid above the asphalt.

Kate, following too close to Bernie, held her breath—unwilling to breathe for fear of gagging. The man should have gone to the shelter instead of the police station. He could have used a shower. And probably a meal. Or at least some coffee. She held out a cup to him and pulled a sandwich from her pocket. “Here,” she said. “You need to eat.”

He needed to sober up. The stench wasn’t just because he hadn’t showered for weeks—maybe months. He also smelled strongly of alcohol. Or of strong alcohol...

She hadn’t brought enough coffee. He reached for it, his hand shaking. The cover came off and the hot liquid spilled over the rim and splashed onto the front of his long trench coat. “Bernie, are you all right?”

His gray-haired head jerked up and down in quick, nervous nods. His dark eyes were wild. With fear or drunkenness?

“It’s this place,” he said with a shudder of revulsion.

“We didn’t have to come here.” She wasn’t sure why he had insisted on her following him from the station to the alley. With no sun between the buildings, the air wasn’t just still—it was cold.

She shivered. But not just from the cold.

One of those buildings had a bar in its basement—Club Underground. A bar where strange things happened...like Bernie had claimed happened here. Too bad her friend owned the place...

“This was my home first,” he said, gesturing toward a Dumpster shoved against one of the buildings. “Then all of them started coming around—making trouble.”

“All of them?” she asked. “Who are you talking about?”

“What,” he corrected her, the word sharp. “They’re not human. They can fly.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked. And exactly how much had he had to drink?

“Those things,” he said. “I’ve seen ’em fly out of the alley—straight up in the night sky like big, human-looking bats.”

He had definitely gotten into some strong alcohol, but his words weren’t slurred. So maybe he’d just been drinking so long that the alcohol had damaged his brain. Over her years on the streets, she had seen a lot of vagrants develop alcohol dementia. She wouldn’t be able to reason with him; he was probably beyond that.

So she simply asked, “What do you want me to do about them, Bernie? Flying isn’t a crime.”

“They’re killers,” he said. “They kill humans and each other. If you’re not careful, Detective Wever, they might kill you.”

Kate smiled and opened her mouth to assure him that she would be fine. But the alley suddenly grew darker and colder. Along with a chill, a sense of foreboding rushed through her, and for a moment she believed Bernie. There was something out there—something not quite human—and it was coming.

For her.

Chapter 1

The murderous intent gleaming in the man’s topaz eyes chilled Kate’s blood. He was going to kill someone.

His hands, with wide palms and long, strong fingers, grasped her shoulders. Then he moved her aside and continued his pursuit of the man he had been chasing down the street before Kate had stepped into his path. But instead of knocking her down, he had caught and steadied her. Her skin tingled from his touch despite the layers of jacket and sweater that had separated his palms from her bare flesh.

She shook off the eerie feeling and forced herself to move, running after him. And as she ran, she reached for her phone and her gun. She wasn’t on duty, but it was her job to stop him from killing.

In a metropolis like Zantrax, Michigan, a detective was never truly off duty—no matter that her real shift had ended hours ago. Or that she wanted nothing more than a stiff drink and a soft bed and sweet oblivion.

“Where the hell did he go?” she murmured, unable to catch a glimpse of him ahead of her. This close to midnight the sidewalk wasn’t as crowded as during the day—especially since this area consisted mostly of office buildings and warehouses.

Except for the underground nightclub in the basement of one of those buildings.

Club Underground was always busy, always full of people who were too beautiful to be real. She shook off the doubts Bernie had put in her head a few weeks ago.

He was crazy, she reminded herself.

And maybe so was she for not calling for backup before chasing after a man as big as the one who had nearly run her down. But she couldn’t call in a crime in progress until she knew he was actually committing one. It was possible he’d just been running, albeit in jeans and a white sweater, and she’d just imagined that murderous gleam in his eyes.

Damn Bernie and his wild stories. But if she was being honest, she had to admit she’d had doubts about her city even before Bernie had warned her about flying nonhumans.

The man who’d nearly run her over had been human, though. And he had definitely been angry as hell. She couldn’t see him now, but she couldn’t get that brief image she’d had of him out of her mind. He was so tall and broad-shouldered, with a long mane of thick black hair that he would have been impossible to miss had he still been on the street ahead of her. But he couldn’t have just disappeared.

She stopped and glanced around, peering into the shadows gathering outside the circles of light from the streetlamps on the sidewalk. A rage like his wouldn’t have been easily suppressed or controlled so that he could hide silently in the shadows, though.

She cocked her head and listened. Grunts and groans and an almost inhuman cry shattered the quiet of the nearly deserted street and confirmed that her instinct to pursue the man had been right. Her pulse leaping, she tracked the sounds of the fight to the narrow opening of that alley between the building with Club Underground in the basement and the deserted furniture warehouses.

Lifting her cell phone, she reported the assault in progress. A unit would be dispatched for backup. But, remembering the gleam in those unusual topaz eyes, she doubted backup would arrive in time to prevent a murder. So she pulled her gun from her holster and, adrenaline and nerves coursing through her, stepped into the alley.

The two men grappled on the ground, rolling across the asphalt as they locked in mortal combat. The man with whom she’d collided swung his fists over and over into the face of another man. They were closely matched in size—tall and muscular. But one was clearly the attacker, the other the victim. The victim kicked and pushed, trying to get away. “Stop!” she yelled. “Zantrax PD. Break it up!”

The man on the ground murmured something, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

“Shut up. Just shut up! Or I’ll tear your damn throat out,” the attacker growled, his hand reaching for the other man’s neck.

“Stop!” Kate shouted now, panic rising. “I’m Lieutenant Wever, a detective with Zantrax Police Department, and I’m placing you under arrest for assault.”

But he ignored her as if she had not spoken at all. She couldn’t just stand there and do nothing while one man killed another—as she watched. So she fired. The bullet struck the man’s shoulder and propelled him back. He shook his head and shrugged, as if shaking off a muscle twinge and glanced at the blood spreading down his sleeve and across his white sweater.

The victim struggled beneath the man she’d shot, but before he could get out of reach, his attacker caught him again. His hands, his long fingers stiff like claws, closed around the man’s throat. Despite the bullet in his shoulder, he had lost none of his strength.

Was he on something? Drugged suspects were sometimes harder to subdue and apprehend because they tended to be more violent. And superhumanly strong.

So Kate fired again.

This bullet propelled him back farther, his hands slipping from his victim’s throat. Finally, he turned toward her, as if just noticing that she’d joined them in the alley. With that murderous intent directed at her, he lurched to his feet, and she noticed the gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans.

He was armed and he was heading straight toward her.

Heart hammering with fear, Kate fired again. This bullet struck him directly in the chest—in his heart. He pressed his hand to it as if pledging allegiance. Then he pulled it away and looked down at his bloody palm—seeming surprised to see the blood.

Had he thought she was firing blanks? Couldn’t he feel the wounds in his shoulder? Blood saturated the sleeve of his white sweater and spread like a red wave across his chest. Finally, his legs buckled beneath him, and he dropped to his knees on the asphalt.

While he fell to the ground, another man rose from it—albeit with a lurch and a groan. The man he’d been pummeling stumbled forward.

Instinct had Kate swinging her gun toward him. But he had no weapon at his waistband and was in no physical shape to assault her or his attacker.

“Stay back,” she said. She wasn’t sure who she was protecting—herself or the man she’d shot. She stepped between them.

“He needs medical help,” the beat-up man murmured, his voice weak—probably from nearly having his throat ripped out.

She’d had no choice. She’d had to shoot.

But even with three bullets in him, he was reaching out as if trying to grab for his victim again. “No...”

She put her hand on his shoulder. “I’ll get you help,” she said. She’d had to shoot him, but she felt guilt hanging heavily over her like the night sky. “Save your strength...”

However, he must have used his last because he slumped forward, his chest and head hitting the asphalt.

“Oh, God!” she exclaimed in horror. What had she done? She hadn’t wanted to kill him. She’d just wanted him to stop. During her career, she’d had to shoot other suspects—had even killed a couple of them. But she hadn’t felt like this then. She hadn’t felt any doubt and certainly not any guilt.

Her hand shaking, she reached for her cell. Where the hell was the backup she’d called? If she hadn’t shot him, she might have been the one lying in the alley bleeding out if he’d grabbed for his gun. He still had his weapon on him, but he hadn’t pulled it. He wouldn’t have needed the gun to kill her, though; he could have used his bare hands like he had on his victim.

She gripped her gun tighter in one hand while she used her other to press the call button on her cell. Before anyone answered, she heard the sirens. Help had arrived.

But was it too late? Was he already dead? There was so much blood, pooling like tar beneath his body. She dropped down next to him. His face was to the side, his strange topaz eyes staring up at her. She couldn’t help him. Her only medical training was CPR, and he was breathing. His heart was beating. She couldn’t help him.

“You let a killer get away,” he said.

She glanced around the alley. Even in daylight it was dark between these buildings. Now, close to midnight, the blackness was thick and impenetrable. The other man could have been standing beside her and she might not have seen him. But she knew he was gone. While she’d been distracted, he’d slipped away.

“A killer?” Had she shot the wrong man and let the real perp escape?

“Yes,” he murmured, and blood gurgled from his mouth now. It was amazing he was still alive—given where she’d hit him. But he wouldn’t last much longer.

“Hang in there,” she implored him. “Help’s coming...” Would they be able to find the narrow entrance to the alley? “I’ll get them...”

She moved to stand up, but he caught her wrist in his hand. His incredibly large, strong hand. He could have easily snapped her wrist—if he’d wanted, if he wasn’t near death.

“I’ll get you medical help,” she promised.

“You made a mistake,” he said, his voice a low growl. “A fatal mistake...” He seemed less concerned about his wounds than the fact that the other man had slipped away.

His words—his last words—chilled her. His eyes had closed, and he was no longer breathing. She could administer CPR now, but it wouldn’t be enough to save him. He needed the paramedics and a fast trip to an operating room. She pulled her wrist from his weak grasp and ran from the alley.

It wasn’t until she returned with the EMTs and patrol officers that she realized her mistake.

He was gone.

“No!” As frustration and anger and shock rioted within her, she screamed the word. “No!”

The scream burned her throat and jerked her awake. Her heart pounded furiously, hammering at her ribs. She gasped for breath and clawed at the sheets that had tangled around her thrashing body.

No matter how many times in the past couple of months that she dreamed about that night, the intensity of that encounter never lessened. She relived every emotion as well as every action. But still, she could not figure out exactly what had happened to his dead body.

She had seen the blood gurgling from his mouth to join the dark pool of it lying beneath him on the asphalt. He had stopped breathing and closed his eyes.

He had died.

He hadn’t walked out of that alley. But somehow in the short time that she’d gone to the sidewalk and led the uniforms back to the alley, his body had disappeared. Maybe the other man, the one he’d been beating, hadn’t left the alley when she’d thought. Maybe he’d waited until she’d left.

And done what? Killed a man who was already dead? Dragged off his body? He hadn’t been in any shape to do that.

But how had the body disappeared? The alley dead-ended into a third building; none of the doors opening onto it had been unlocked. There was nowhere he could have gone even had he been alive. But dead...

She had even tracked down the homeless man who’d admitted to living in the alley. Bernie had claimed to not have been there that night. In fact, he’d said that he didn’t often stay in the alley anymore because he was scared that the humans—that weren’t really human—would kill him. Like he’d warned her that they might kill her, too.

Hell, maybe Bernie’s warning hadn’t been so outlandish. Maybe there were humans—that weren’t really human—that could fly. And that man had been one of them. That was about the only explanation for how he’d disappeared.

She shook her head, disgusted with herself for wanting to believe Bernie’s wild, alcoholic dementia-influenced story. But what was the alternative? Angels? If she was spiritual enough to believe in them, they flew. But she doubted the man she’d shot—who had been so intent on killing his victim—was an angel.

“So where did you go?” she mused, pushing her sweat-dampened hair from her forehead. She had gone back to that alley nearly every night since it had happened, but she had yet to figure out how he could have just disappeared. “I looked for you everywhere...”

“Not everywhere,” a deep voice murmured.

Kate jerked upright in bed, one hand clutching the tangled sheets to her chest—the other sliding under the pillow next to hers for her gun. She pulled out the Glock and directed the barrel toward the shadows in the corner of her bedroom.

He stepped away from the wall and moved into the glow of the moonlight streaking through the partially open blinds. His mouth curved into a mocking grin. “What are you going to do, Kate? Shoot me again?”

She shivered and tightened her grasp on her gun. She was too shocked over his appearance to ask any of the questions she should have. Who the hell are you? How the hell did you get in? All she could do was murmur, “I did shoot you.”

Sometimes she had wondered if she’d missed. But that wouldn’t have explained the blood. The crime techs hadn’t been able to explain it, either—except to say that some animal must have been killed in the alley.

The man lifted a hand to his chest and patted it. “Did you?”

“I know I did. I saw you bleeding.” Blood had gushed from the bullet wound in his heart. She swallowed the lump that had risen up the back of her throat.

She hadn’t just shot him; she’d killed him.

“I saw you die.”

So how was he in her room, stepping closer to her bed?

“Then I must be a ghost,” he said. As totally unconcerned about the gun as he had been the night she’d shot him, he settled onto the mattress next to her, his muscular thigh rubbing against her hip.

“I don’t believe in ghosts.” But she couldn’t deny that he was haunting her. With the glimpses of him she had been catching in crowds. With these strangely erotic dreams...

But she was awake. Wasn’t she? So she couldn’t be dreaming.

“Maybe I’m your conscience,” he suggested.

“My conscience isn’t bothering me,” she said. But he was. He had been ever since she’d bumped into him on the street and looked up into those eerie topaz eyes. She had lost herself in that intense gaze of his, and she had yet to find her way back.

She should have already placed him under arrest for his older crimes—assault and leaving the scene of that crime—and his latest crime: breaking and entering. He must have come through her window; she felt the breeze blowing through it and she hadn’t left it open—not this late in autumn.

But if she tried arresting him, he would undoubtedly resist. And she’d have to shoot him. For some reason she didn’t want to shoot him again—because then he might disappear again, like he had that night.

Even now she wasn’t certain that he was real, that she wasn’t dreaming. Thoughts of him and that night had kept her awake for so many nights that she was beyond exhausted. She was probably just dreaming...

* * *

Heat flashed through Warrick James, radiating from where his thigh rubbed against her hip. Only denim and a thin satin sheet separated his skin from hers. The sheet was so thin that it was obvious she wore nothing beneath it. The dark areolae of her full breasts were visible beneath the champagne-colored satin, her nipples peaked on the shapely mounds—probably from the cool breeze blowing through her open window. She couldn’t want him...as much as he wanted her.

His body hardened as blood rushed through his veins, hot and heavy. He would have to be crazy to be attracted to her—the woman who had tried to kill him and obviously felt no remorse. “Don’t you have a conscience?” he asked. He shouldn’t have been surprised that she didn’t. Apparently nobody he knew had one.

“Yes, but there’s no reason for it to bother me,” she murmured, her brow furrowing with genuine confusion. A lock of silky-looking black hair fell across her forehead and skimmed her jaw. Her hair was dark, her skin pale and her eyes a sharp, clear blue.

Hell, maybe he would be crazy if he wasn’t attracted to her. But this attraction did nothing to cool his anger with her.

He barely resisted the urge to reach out and shake her. But she was still holding that damn gun. And while she couldn’t kill him with it—permanently—the bullets still hurt. He grimaced in remembrance of the pain that had burned so fiercely in his chest that he had actually lost consciousness. “Because you shot me.”

“And if the situation was the same, I’d do it again,” she replied. “Shooting you was the only way to stop you from killing that man. Even after I identified myself, you wouldn’t listen to my commands to let him go. And you had this look on your face...” She shuddered.

“You didn’t understand what was going on,” he said. “You should have given me a chance to explain.” That he had been doing her job for her. He had been protecting and serving all the citizens of Zantrax—both human and superhuman—as well as his home village of St. James.

“You were too busy strangling the life from that man,” she reminded him.

“Yes,” he said, frustration gnawing at him that she had stopped him from doing what had to be done, what apparently should have been done years ago so that other lives wouldn’t have been lost and destroyed. Now the bastard, Reagan, had gone underground. He hadn’t been easy to find the night Warrick had chased him into that dead-end alley; he would be even harder to track down now. Thanks to Detective Kate Wever.

“Why?” she asked. “I fired the first two shots into your shoulder, but you wouldn’t stop. You were in such a murderous rage.”

He couldn’t deny that he had been. “I had a damn good reason.”

“You should have stopped beating him when I told you to,” she said, “then I would have taken a report and you could have explained your actions.”

But he had been beyond explanations. Beyond reason. All he’d known was his hunger for vengeance, the exact same hunger he should be feeling for her—just for vengeance. But, despite the gun she held on him, another kind of hunger gnawed at him—and only that thin sheet separated her naked body from his gaze, from his touch. His fingers itched to reach for the sheet, to tug it off. But she would undoubtedly shoot him again.

“Explain the situation to me now. Why were you trying to kill that man?” she asked. “You called him a killer.”

Reagan was. But Warrick shouldn’t have told her that; it was none of her business. It couldn’t be. He couldn’t share his story without disclosing secrets he would really die if he revealed. That story haunted him, like he had tried to haunt her. Since she kept staring at him as though he were a ghost, he must have been successful haunting her. But he didn’t bother correcting her misconception; it was better that she think him a ghost than what he really was. He lifted his shoulders in a shrug, but he couldn’t shake off the pain any more than he could the hunger. “Some people just need killing.”

She sucked in an audible breath and adjusted her grip on her gun, steadying the barrel that was still pointing directly at his chest. “That’s not for you to decide.”

“It wasn’t for you to decide that he should live and I should die.” Because she had let that bastard live, more would likely die. Maybe even her...

She drew in a shuddery breath. “You gave me no choice. I couldn’t just stand there and let you kill him.”

“So instead you killed me.”

“But you’re not dead,” she murmured, reaching out the hand not holding the gun toward his face. And as she did, her sheet slipped a little lower and revealed the deep cleft between her breasts.

He sure as hell wasn’t dead, not with the way his heart pounded frantically as desire coursed through him. Then her fingers brushed across his face, scraping over the stubble on his cheek until her fingertips covered his lips. Heat sizzled between them. He uttered a gasp of breath, and she shivered.

“You’re not a ghost, either.”

“No,” he admitted, moving his lips against her fingertips.

She shivered again, and her nipples hardened even more, pushing taut against that thin sheet. “If you’re not a ghost, what are you?”

“Well, I’m no angel.” But if he was, Warrick would be an avenging one. Or he would have been had she not interfered. Because she had, he had lost his chance for vengeance...against his enemy.

Her interference should have made her his enemy, too. He’d told himself that she was. And that was why he couldn’t leave her alone even though he no longer had any reason to stay in Zantrax. Except vengeance. Against her.

Liar.

His tense, aching body called him on his lie. He didn’t want vengeance on her. He just wanted her. Her fingers still pressed against his lips, he didn’t have to speak—to explain. All he had to do was lean closer...to her.

* * *

Kate’s heart hammered against her ribs. He was staring at her mouth with that intense, eerie topaz gaze. He was going to kiss her. And just like she hadn’t wanted to shoot him in the alley, she didn’t want to stop him.

He had broken into her apartment and had been watching her sleep. And instead of shooting him, she was going to let him kiss her? After all of those sleepless nights, she had totally lost her mind. She had no doubt anymore.

Only desire.

She had touched him to see if he was real or if her fingers would pass right through him like mist. But she couldn’t stop touching him, skimming her fingers along his jaw to his lips—which were surprisingly soft and warm. She wanted to taste them, too. She slid her hand to the nape of his neck and tugged him closer so that only a breath separated his lips from hers.

He was breathing. Fast and ragged. And his heart was beating. She could feel the vibrations of it despite the small space that separated his body from hers. His skin radiated warmth to hers, making her tingle in reaction.

He was no ghost. No dream.

“What the hell are you?” she murmured again. “Indestructible?”

“I’m destructible,” he replied with a heavy sigh that teased her lips.

“You weren’t wearing a bulletproof vest,” she said. “I saw the gunshot wound, saw you bleeding.” Her trembling fingers skimmed down his neck to the buttons on his shirt. She needed to see the scar, needed to understand how a man could have survived such an injury. If he was a man...

He caught her fingers in his hand. “If you see my scars, I’m going to have to see yours.”

Goose bumps lifted along her bare shoulders and arms. She had scars, but hardly anyone knew about them. How could he know? The fear she should have been feeling the minute she’d discovered him in the shadows finally coursed through her. The hand holding the gun tightened on the grip.