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3

When Larry was safely tucked in bed with his De short of an earthquake would have woken him, I made my phone call I still didn&039;t have the faintest idea who it hich botheredWho was giving out my private numbers and why?

The phone didn&039;t even finish a ring before it was picked up The voice on the other end was male, soft, and panicked "Hello, hello"

Allvery close to fear "Stephen, what&039;s wrong?"

I heard him s on his end of the phone "Thank God"

"What&039;s happened?" I made my voice very clear, very calm, because I wanted to yell at hi on

"Can you coot my attention "How bad are you hurt?"

"It&039;s not me"

My heart slid up into ht "Jean-Claude" The moment I said it, I kneas silly It was just after noon If Jean-Claude had needed a doctor, they would have had to coht Why was I so worried about a va him My family, devout Catholics, are simply thrilled Since I&039;m still a little embarrassed about it, it&039;s hard to defend myself

"It&039;s not Jean-Claude It&039;s Nathaniel"

"Who?"

Stephen&039;s breath went out in a long-suffering sigh "He was one of Gabriel&039;s people"

Which was another way of saying he was a wereleopard Gabriel had been the leopards&039; leader, their alpha, until I killed hiiven me had healed It was one of the benefits of the vampire marks I didn&039;t scar quite so easily anyh up on my buttocks and lower back, faint, almost dainty, but I would always have a little reminder of Gabriel A reminder that his fantasy had been to rapeGabriel, he probably hadn&039;t been so picky on when I died, after, or during--either would have worked for hi as I was still warm Most lycanthropes aren&039;t into carrion

I sounded casual about it, even inh my skirt Had to be casual about it Had to be Or you start screa, and you don&039;t stop

"The hospital doesn&039;t know Nathaniel&039;s a shapeshifter, do they?" I said

He lowered his voice "They know He&039;s healing too fast for them not to know"

"So hisper?"

"Because I&039; room on a pay phone" There was a sound on the other end like he&039;d had to take the receiver away from his mouth He muttered, "I&039;ll be off in just a minute" He came back on "I need you to come down, Anita"

"Why?"

"Please"

"You&039;re a olf, Stephen What are you doing babysitting one of the kitty-cats?"

"I&039;encies Nathaniel works at Guilty Pleasures"

"He&039;s a stripper?" I made it a question because he could have been a waiter, but it wasn&039;t likely Jean-Claude owned Guilty Pleasures, and he would never have wasted a shapeshifter off-stage They were too damned exotic

"Yes"

"The two of you need a ride?" It was uess

"Yes, and no"

There was so in his voice that I didn&039;t like An unease, a tension It wasn&039;t like Stephen to be cagey He didn&039;t play gaet hurt?" Maybe if I asked better questions, I&039;d get better answers

"A custoh"

"At the club?"

"No Anita, please, there&039;s no tio home with Zane"

"Who the hell is Zane?"

"Another of Gabriel&039;s people He&039;s been pi the them like Gabriel did He isn&039;t alpha"

"Pi about?"

Stephen&039;s voice rose high and far too cheerful "Hello, Zane Have you seen Nathaniel yet?"

I couldn&039;t really hear the answer, just the buzz of all the people in the waiting rooo just yet He&039;s hurt," Stephen said

Zane must have stepped very close to the phone, very close to Stephen A low, growling voice caoes hoe of panic "I don&039;t think the doctors will like that"

"I don&039;t give a shit Who are you talking to?"

For his voice to be that clear he had to have Stephen pinned against the wall Threatening hi voice was suddenly very clear He&039;d taken the phone from Stephen "Who is this?"

"Anna Blake, and you hed, and it sounded too low, as if his throat were sore "The wolves&039; human lupa Oh, I&039;m so scared"

Lupa was the word the olves used for their leader&039;s mate I was the first hu their Ulfric anymore We&039;d broken up after I saw hiot to have some standards

"Gabriel wasn&039;t scared of ot him," I said

Zane was quiet for a handful of heartbeats He breathed over the phone like a dog panted, heavy, but not like he was doing it on purpose, more like he couldn&039;t help it "Nathaniel is mine Keep off of him"

"Stephen isn&039;t one of yours," I said

"Does he belong to you?" I could hear clothA sense of movement on the other end of the phone that I didn&039;t like "He is sooo pretty Have you tasted these soft lips? Has this long yellow hair swept over your pillow?"

I kneithout seeing it that he was touching Stephen, caressing him to match the words "Don&039;t touch hiripped the phone tight and forced my voice calm, even "Stephen&039;s under my protection, Zane Do you understand me?"

"What would you do to keep your pet wolf safe, Anita?"

"You don&039;t want to push that button, Zane You really don&039;t"

He lowered his voice to an almost painful whisper "Would you kill me to keep him safe?"

I usually have toto kill them, but I was about to hed, low and nervous "I see why Gabriel liked you So tough, so sure of yourself Sooo dangerous"

"You sound like a bad imitation of Gabriel"

He made a sound that was somewhere between a hiss and a bah"Stephen shouldn&039;t have interfered"

"Nathaniel&039;s his friend"

"I am all the friend he needs"

"I don&039;t think so"

"I a Nathaniel with me, Anita If Stephen tries to stop me, I&039;ll hurt him"

"You hurt Stephen, I hurt you"

"So be it" He hung up

Shit I ran for my Jeep I was thirty minutes away, twenty if I pushed it a lot Twenty minutes Stephen wasn&039;t doht Nathaniel shouldn&039;t go with Zane, he&039;d try and keep hiht throw his body in front of the car I had no doubts at all that Zane would drive right over him Best case scenario Worst case scenario was Zane would take both Stephen and Nathaniel If Zane acted as much like Gabriel as he talked, I&039;d rather have taken my chances with the car

4

My second eency room in less than two hours It was a red-letter day even for me Good neas that none of the injuries were e Alpha or not, Zane was a shapeshifter They were able to bench-pressto arm-wrestle him Not only would I lose, but he&039;d probably pull the arm out of my socket and eat it Most lycanthropes liked to try and pass for human I wasn&039;t sure Zane sweated little details like that

Yet I didn&039;t want to kill Zane if I didn&039;t have to It wasn&039;t ht force o to jail The fact that the punish abouta sociopath Soht I was already there

I carried silver-plated bullets in un at all times Silver worked on hus Why keep switching to normal ammo that only did huo I&039;d met a fairie that had damn near killed me Silver didn&039;t work on fairies, but norular bullets in the glove compartment I peeled off the first two rounds of my silver clip and replaced thee Zane with, before I killed hi after I&039;d pumped him full of two Glazer Safety Rounds, which hurt a hell of a lot even if you could heal the da to be ai through the doors I realized that I didn&039;t know Nathaniel&039;s last na to helprooh the chairs belonging to no one, aaround his hand, people with no visible injury staring dully into space Stephen was nowhere in sight

Screalass; metal clanked to the floor A nurse ran out of the far hallway "Get more security, now!" A nurse behind the admittance desk punched buttons on the phone

Call it a hunch but I was betting I knehere Stephen and Zane were I flashed ional Preternatural Investigation Team Can I help?"

The nurse clutched my arm "You&039;re a cop?"

"I&039;m with the police, yes" Prevarication at its best As a civilian attached to a police squad you learn how to do that

"Thank God" She started to pull me towards the noise

I pulled un Safety off, pointed at the ceiling, ready to go With nor, not with a hospital full of patients above me, but Glazer Safety Rounds aren&039;t called safety rounds for nothing

The back area was like every e from metal tracks so you couldrooms A handful of curtains were closed, but patients were sitting up, staring through the curtains, watching the shoall divided the room down the middle to the corridor, so there wasn&039;t ical scrubs went flying through the air from around that wall He smacked into the opposite wall, slid down it heavily, and lay very still

The nurse with o What lay beyond, as tossing doctors around like toys, wasn&039;t a job for a healer It was a job for ical scrubs lay on the floor, one male, one female The wole, broken She saw my ID clipped to my jacket "He&039;s a shifter Be careful"

"I knohat he is," I said I lowered the gun just a touch

Her eyes flinched, and it wasn&039;t pain "Don&039;t shoot up my trauma center"

"Try not to," I said and moved past her

Zane stepped out into the corridor I&039;d never seen Zane before, but who else could it be? He was carrying soht at first, a wo brown, but the exposed back and shoulders were too muscular, too male It had to be Nathaniel He fit easily into the taller man&039;s arms

Zane was about six foot, stretched tall and thin He wore only a black leather vest on his thin, pale upper body His hair was cotton-white, cut short on the sides with the top long in moussed spikes

He opened his s, upper and lower, like a great cat Sweet Jesus

I pointed the gun at him and let out the air infor a line of shoulder above Nathaniel&039;s still form At this distance I&039;d hit it

"I&039;ll only ask once, Zane Put hi steps down the hallway, and I fired

The bullet spun hiered hi, and Nathaniel slid out of his arot to his feet with the sood arm like a doll The flesh of his shoulder was already reknitting, rebuilding itself like a fast-forward picture of a flower bloo

Zane could have tried to rush pasttowards me as if he didn&039;t believe I&039;d do it He should have believed

The second lead bullet took him square in the chest Blood exploded out of his pale skin He fell onto his back, spine bowing, struggling to breathe with a hole the size of a fist in his chest I went for hi

I walked wide around him, out of arm&039;s reach, and came up a little behind him, and to the side The shoulder I&039;d shot was still liasped up at me, brown eyes wide

"Silver, Zane, the rest of the bullets are silver I&039;llbrains all over this nice clean floor"

He finally asp out, "Won&039;t" Blood filled his un at his face, about eyebrow level If I pulled the trigger, he was gone I stared down at this , nowhere close to thirty A great e in theI didn&039;t want to kill him, but I didn&039;t care if I did It didn&039;t e fill ive a damn one way or the other I let him see it, because he was a shapeshifter, and he&039;d understand what I was showing him Most people wouldn&039;t Most sane people anyway

I said, "You are going to leave Nathaniel alone When the police arrive, you are going to do everything they tell you to do No argu, or I will kill you Do you understand me, Zane?"

"Yes," he said, and more blood flowed in a heavy line from his mouth He started to cry Tears welled down his bloodstained face

Crying? The bad guys aren&039;t supposed to cry

"I&039;lad you&039;ve come," he said "I tried to take care of them, but I couldn&039;t I tried to be Gabriel, but I couldn&039;t be hih that he covered his eyes with his hand so we couldn&039;t see him cry, but his voice was thick with tears, as well as blood

"I&039;lad we&039;re not alone any that I was going to be their leader see the area If I refused his offer, he ain and I&039;d have to kill hi like a physical jolt that I didn&039;t want to kill him Was it the tears? Maybe But it was more than that It was the fact that I&039;d killed their alpha, their protector, and never given a thought what that ht do to the rest of the wereleopards It had never occurred to me that there was no second in command, no one to fill Gabriel&039;s place I certainly couldn&039;t be their alpha I didn&039;t turn furry once aup anyfor a while

By the time the cops arrived, Zane was healed He&039;d curled around Nathaniel&039;s unconscious body like it was a teddy bear, still crying He stroked Nathaniel&039;s hair and muttered over and over, "She&039;ll keep us safe She&039;ll keep us safe She&039;ll keep us safe"

I think the "she" was me, and I was in way over my head

5

Stephen lay in the narrow hospital bed His curly blond hair was longer than ry red and pink scars crisscrossed his delicate face He looked like he&039;d been shoved through a hich is exactly what had happened Stephen, who didn&039;t outweigh round Zane had finally shoved hi sorater If it had been a hu, they&039;d be dead Even Stephen was hurt, badly hurt But he was healing I couldn&039;t literally see the scars fading It was like trying to watch a flower blooot to see it I&039;d glance back at hi as hell

Nathaniel was in the other bed His hair was longer than Stephen&039;s Waist length, I was betting Hard to judge since I&039;d only seen him prone It was the darkest of auburns, alany The hair lay on the white sheets like the pelt of an ani

He was pretty rather than handsome, and couldn&039;t have been more than five foot six The hair helped the illusion of femininity But his shoulders were disproportionately broad, part weightlifting, but part genetics He had great shoulders, but they belonged on sohteen to strip at Guilty Pleasures His face was slender, jaw too shteen, but he wasn&039;t row into the shoulders

We were in a semiprivate room on the isolation ward The floor that most hospitals kept for lycanthropes, vaht erous But the cops had carted him aounds nearly healed His flesh had pushed an I didn&039;t think we needed the isolation ward for Stephen and Nathaniel I could be wrong on Nathaniel, but I didn&039;t think so I trusted Stephen&039;s judgained consciousness I&039;d asked what his injuries were, and they told ht I was a cop, and I&039;d saved their asses Gratitude is a wonderful thing

Soutted Nathaniel I don&039;t ut with a knife I mean opened him up and let his intestines fall onto the floor; they found bits of debris on his intestines There were signs of severe trauma to other parts of the body He&039;d been sexually abused And yes, a prostitute can be raped All it takes is saying no No one, not even a lycanthrope, would agree to being raped while their insides were spilling onto the floor The rape could have been first, then they tried to kill him It was a touch less sick done in that order A touch

There were marks on his wrists and ankles like he&039;d been chained The led, and they weren&039;t healing Which h silver content so it would hurt and not just hold Whoever had done this to hi a lycanthrope They were prepared Which raised so questions

Stephen said Gabriel had been pi the wereleopards out I understood why people would want so as exotic as a wereleopard I knew that sadomasochise So the coa this brutal outside of a serial-killer case

I couldn&039;t leave them alone, unprotected Even without the threat of sexual ht have cried and kissed my feet, but there were others If they had no pack structure, no alpha, they had no one to tell theht be ato back down or kill each of theht Real leopards don&039;t sho&039;s in charge much They don&039;t have pack structures, but shapeshifters aren&039;t animals, they&039;re people Which meant no matter how solitary and uncomplicated the anis up If Gabriel had hand-picked his people, I couldn&039;t trust that they wouldn&039;t coain Gabriel had been one sick kitty, and Zane hadn&039;t ionna call for reinforcements? The local olf pack, of course Stephen was a member of their pack They owed him protection

There was a knock on the door I took the Browning out and held it onI&039;d ed to find a three-month-old copy of National Wildlife, with an article on Kodiak bears The un nicely

"Who is it?"

"It&039;s Irving"

"Coun out, just in case so Grisas a olf and a reporter For a reporter he was a good guy, but he wasn&039;t as careful as I was When I saas alone, then I would put the gun up

Irving pushed the door open, s His frizzy brown hair encircled his head like a brown halo with the bald spot glea in the ave the i fat He looked like anything but a big bad wolf He didn&039;t even look s that reat interviewer but would probably always keep hi on-camera material He worked for the St Louis Post-Dispatch, and had interviewed me many times

He closed the door behind hiun

His eyes widened He spoke low, but not in a whisper "How&039;s Stephen?"

"How did you get in here? There&039;s supposed to be a cop on the door"

"Gee, Blake, I&039;lad to see you too"

"Don&039;t uard out there"

"He&039;s talking to a very pretty nurse at the desk"

"Dao around yelling at the around Washington that es soon Soht it was a bad idea Sometiet kicked out How is Stephen?"

I told him "You don&039;t care about Nathaniel?"

He looked uncomfortable "You know that Sylvie is de factopack leader while Richard is out of toorking on his hed "No, I didn&039;t know"

"I know you&039;re not talking to Richard since you broke up, but I&039;d think someone else would have mentioned it"

"All the other wolves creep around me like there&039;s been a death No one talks about Richard to ht he&039;d forbidden thee"

"I&039; for a story"

"I can&039;t do this story, Anita It&039;s too close to home"

"Because you know Stephen?"

"Because everyone involved is a shapeshifter and I&039;m just a mild-mannered reporter"

"You really think you&039;d lose your job if they found out?"

"Job, hell What would my mother say?"

I suard"

He frowned "You know, I hadn&039;t thought about that When one of the pack got hurt in public where it couldn&039;t be hidden, Raina always used to ride to the rescue With her dead, I don&039;t think we have any alphas that aren&039;t hiding what they are No one I&039;d trust to guard Stephen, anyway"

Raina had been the wolf pack&039;s old lupa before I took the job Technically the old lupa doesn&039;t have to die to step down, unlike the Ulfric, or King Wolf But Raina had been Gabriel&039;s playraphic snuff fil film while Gabriel tried to rape me Oh, yeah, Raina had made it a real pleasure to punch her ticket

"That&039;s the second ti?"

"I told you Sylvie is in charge until Richard gets back in town"

"So?"