Wild Cat

maybe apply his tongue to the rest of her body.

Diego broke into a sweat, despite the cool wind wafting from below, and made himself haul her to her feet. The Shifter woman’s look was still defiant, but he couldn’t help himself imagining crushing her against him to kiss that wide, enticing mouth.

Diego made himself steer her to the lift.

Not until they were rapidly descending did Diego realize that since Cassidy in her human form had come into his view, he’d not once thought about how far he might have fallen had she not caught him, and the spectacular splat he’d have made when he hit the ground.

CHAPTER TWO

The hunter watched from his safe perch, tranq gun on the girder beside him. He seethed in frustration as Cassidy Warden was led off and stuffed into the back of the patrol car, the damn cops ruining what he needed to do. He’d been so close.

Nothing personal, Shifter bitch, but I need your blood. All of it. It’s the only thing that’s going to open the gate for me.

The hunter hated himself for what he’d become, someone who would hunt another for something more than basic survival.

It is survival! part of him screamed.

No, it was the perversion of what was natural. It was something they would do. They’d made him become like them-cruel, obsessive, ignoring the pain of others-and for that they’d pay.

He had to get Cassidy first. It was the spring equinox, a year after he’d first tried the spell, failing because the human hunters he’d hired made such a mess of it. Cassidy’s mate had died for nothing. The Shifter male had been sacrificed needlessly, and the hunter hated that.

This time, he’d work alone, trusting no one. But he had to hurry. The spell had to be worked at the equinox or the few days on either side of it. Time was running out. Cassidy was the best candidate-she was strong, powerfully strong, and besides, she was still grieving her mate, and Shifters were barely alive when they grieved. He’d be doing her a favor, he’d convinced himself.

His self-loathing filled him again, but his need to work the spell overrode it. He needed to get home. He could taste it. Exile was bitter. This time, he’d succeed, no matter what.

They gave Cassidy a blue coverall to wear and made her sit alone in the interrogation room, her hands on the table. At least they’d let her out of the cuffs.

The room smelled like something rotten, the walls dirty yellow and puke green. Shifters liked warm colors, clean paint, and places that didn’t stink of human sweat. Humans considered Shifters to be wild and dangerous, but Shifters had much better taste in decor.

The door opened, and Cassidy tensed. She’d been sitting in here for hours, no one coming to her, no one offering to let her call a lawyer, or even her brother. But that, she’d heard, was what they did with Shifters.

The man who came in was the cop she’d saved up in the building. Lieutenant Escobar, she’d heard the others call him.

He’d been the one to usher her into the back of the patrol car, after he’d draped a blanket around her naked body. His movements had been quick, efficient, his large hands warm.

She hadn’t realized that humans could be so warm. His voice was dark, sliding around her in liquid syllables, though he hadn’t spoken directly to her since telling Cassidy her rights.

Which he should have known wasn’t required for Shifters. The man must not know much about Shifters or human laws for Shifters. So why had they sent him in here?

Lieutenant Escobar gave her a dark-eyed look as he shut the door. Without saying a word, he moved to the table and placed a file folder on it. He took off his suit coat-again, his movements economical-and draped the coat over the back of a chair.

His white button-down shirt hugged powerful muscles, his black holster and butt of his gun stark against his left side. If he removed the shirt, she knew she’d see an undershirt pasted against hard abs, muscles solid under dark skin.

Escobar’s black hair was cut short, almost buzzed, which emphasized the sharp lines of his face and a scar that cut across his temple to his forehead. His dark, almost black eyes held intelligence and something even an alpha Shifter would acknowledge.

I’m not taking shit from you, those eyes told her. If I like what you say, I might play square with you. Try to fuck with me, and you’ll regret it.

He sat down, smoothing his tie so it wouldn’t be caught by the table’s edge. Escobar opened the file folder and flicked a switch next to the small microphone on the table.

Without looking at her, he said, “Interview with Cassidy Warden, Shifter from the Southern Nevada Shiftertown, by Lieutenant Diego Escobar, arresting officer.” Diego looked up at Cassidy with those bottomless eyes. “Tell me, Ms. Warden, what you were doing at a closed construction site forty miles west of your Shiftertown.”

Cassidy felt a strange impulse to blurt out the whole story-tell me everything, and it will be all right, he seemed to say. But Escobar was human, and Cassidy had to be careful. Going out to make her peace with the place her mate had died was only half the story.

“Shiftertowns aren’t prisons, Lieutenant,” she said, pinning him with her gaze. “I’m allowed to come and go as I please.”

He didn’t seem impressed. Diego Escobar either didn’t understand that her looking straight into his eyes was a challenge to his authority, or maybe he just didn’t give a rat’s ass.

“You broke into a fenced-off property on a shut-down, private construction site,” he said. “Plus you endangered the lives of three police officers, one of which happened to be me. So, tell me what you were doing there.”

Cassidy folded her arms. “None of your business.”

Diego eyed her for a moment longer, then he flicked off the microphone, stood up, and came to her side of the table.

He was angry; she could scent that and tell from every tense line on his body. He’d shown deep rage at the construction site too, not necessarily at Cassidy. A man like him shouldn’t fear anything, and yet, in the unfinished skyscraper, he’d been afraid, with a deep gut-wrenching fear, and that was before he’d fallen.

Diego looked at Cassidy for a while, then he leaned one hip on the table, arms folded across his chest. The movement made his muscles play, but it also let him keep his hand near his gun.

“Shifter Division had a cage in their SUV,” he said in a flat voice. “They wanted to subdue you with shock sticks, lock you in that cage, and haul you back here. Without the blanket.”

Cassidy flinched but she didn’t break eye contact. “Typical human fear response,” she said, trying to sound bored.

“You know why they didn’t, mi ja?” He pinned her with eyes like pieces of night. “Because I told them not to. I’m the only reason you’re not downstairs, naked in an animal cage, with the shits in Shifter Division walking around you deciding what they want to do to you.”

How did he want her to respond? She didn’t know how to react to humans, especially not to one like him. Humans she danced with at the clubs were different-but those were Shifter groupies who would do anything even to stand next to a Shifter. Diego Escobar was a human who didn’t care that she responded to the warmth and scent of him, that she was a female Shifter without a mate.

Diego leaned to her. “You cooperate with me and tell me what I want to know, or by regulation, I have to let Shifter Division have you.”

Cassidy looked right back at him. “Are you playing good cop, bad cop?” she asked tightly. “I’ve heard about that.”

“I’m playing you tell me what I want to know or I escort you downstairs. There’s no choice, no games. They only let me talk to you because I claimed you saved my life up there.” Diego sat back, holding her with eyes so dark. “Why did you?”