Moonlight

likely knew my room number since he’d called again so quickly. He could already be inside by now. It rang again. Shit. Now, he also knew I was in my room. I glanced at the door and slid the pepper spray from my pocket. If I could keep him on the phone, it might keep him out of my room.

I snatched the receiver. “How did you find me?”

“I am a tracker, Little One. I watched you leave the hotel after me, but you returned again later. With the proper encouragement, the concierge was very helpful.”

“You murdered a man and tried to pin it on me. I have nothing to say to you.”

“I killed a wolf who would have killed me first if he had the chance. I need to talk to you.”

“Tough. Goodnight.”

“It’s about the Nero Organization. I cannot talk over the phone.”

I closed my eyes. I knew I should hang up. I shouldn’t meet with my stalker in the middle of the night. I could almost hear Adam screaming in my head telling me it was too reckless. But what came out of my mouth was, “I’ll meet you in the twenty-four-hour cafe downstairs in five minutes.”

I hung up the phone and shook my head. I knew I shouldn’t do it, but what choice did I have? Sebastian had my room number, he’d come up if I didn’t go down. At least this way we’d be in a public place. At this hour the cafe wouldn’t have many people inside, but there would be staff, so we could talk quickly, and then I’d get a security guard to walk me back up to my room. Simple.

I ran my fingers back through my hair, trying to tame it a little, and then opened the deadbolt and started to turn the knob when the door slammed into me, knocking me backwards into the room.

Sebastian was inside with the deadbolt set behind him before I could scream. I reached in my pocket for my cell phone, but he anticipated my movement and grabbed my wrist. Hard.

“Let go,” I gasped.

Instead of releasing his iron grip, he yanked me in closer to him, burrowing his face into my hair. He shoved me away just as suddenly. I fell onto the bed. My cell phone flew from my grip and slipped off the other side.

He looked disgusted as he surveyed me. “His scent is all over you.” Suddenly his eyes narrowed, lips pressed in a tight line as he approached me. I scrambled to get back onto my feet. “Did he hurt you?”

Now it was my turn to look disgusted. “You broke into my hotel room, jerked my wrist, and now you’re worried about me?”

“I am sorry for my entrance, but you are in danger, and I need to speak with you.”

“I think danger just walked through my door.”

Concern drained from his eyes and his expression hardened. “If I wanted to kill you, you would be dead.”

A chill shot down my spine and all my adrenaline-laced bravado drained from my bloodstream. “Can’t get much more dangerous than that, right?”

He shook off my comment. “I work for the Nero Organization. They raised me and trained me, and I do what must be done. Tracking is my specialty. They send me out to locate and eliminate targets.”

“Eliminate?” My heart was pounding again. If I could just get to my phone I could… I could what? Sebastian wasn’t going to let me dial 911, or anyone else for that matter. Instead I slipped a couple fingers in my pocket, praying I could reach my pepper spray.

“Yes,” he said. “But my instructions were to bring you back to our headquarters unharmed. Bring you back. They made it sound as if you had escaped. Since our recent meetings, I have come to realize that you have no memory of the Organization.”

He said our “meetings” like they were friendly lunches instead of the confrontational abduction and subsequent questioning sessions we’d been having.

“I don’t have any memories because I’ve never been there. I’ve never even heard of them. As far as I can tell no one has. It’s like the Nero Organization doesn’t exist.”

“We would be less effective if the Organization was a public entity. This way we can work under the cloak of anonymity. In fact, the employees of the Nero Organization are the only humans who know our kind exist.”

“You mean jaguars, right?” I was relieved when he sat in a chair across from me. Now, if I just happened to have a length of rope I could tie him to the chair. Sadly, I didn’t have rope and never learned to tie any knots that would hold him anyway. My self-defense training and enhanced reflexes usually protected me from dirtbags, but this one was a jaguar like me. Every bit as strong. I didn’t have an upper hand here. I gnawed at my lower lip, trying to think of a way to buy time.

“The werewolves already know about us.” It felt odd associating myself with Sebastian, but the reality was, he was the only other person like me that I knew.

He frowned, his mouth pinching like he’d just caught a whiff of dirty sweat socks. “Yes, the wolves know, but they are of no consequence.”

“Why do you do that?”

“What?”

“Make a face like they’re gum on your brand new shoes.”

His brow creased. “Gum?”

“The werewolves,” I sighed. “Why do you treat them like a lower species? I know they don’t think highly of us either. I just wonder why this feud is even going on.”

“I don’t have time to go into our race histories, but suffice it to say, the Nero Organization experimented with both races and determined that jaguars made better assassins. We’re able to work alone. The wolves have a Pack mentality. When they were separated from their Pack they weakened in mind and spirit. Without his Pack, a wolf loses his strength.”

“So that’s why you think you’re better than they are?”

“That is why I know we are better. It is also why one as precious as you has no business being near a wolf.”

“Precious? What are you smoking?” Never in my life had I ever felt precious. Adam’s smile after we made love popped in my head, warming me unexpectedly. Okay, so maybe he had made me feel special, but Sebastian didn’t know anything about me. And his judgment of Adam as lesser dug at that chip on my shoulder.

I shook my head. “Bottom line: you don’t have any right to tell me who I should be hanging out with. You killed a man and left me to take the blame.”

His jaw clenched. “I did what was necessary. You are a female born into your power. You should not be with wolves.”

“What do you mean born into my power?” I crossed my arms, remembering what Adam had said about wolves only being born in sets of male twins. “Maybe one of these nights I was bitten and I just don’t remember?”

“You would still have awakened with a wound.” He gestured toward me. “You would bear a scar when it healed.”

I had never woken up after a new moon with a bite of any kind, and definitely not a scar.

He got up from the chair, pacing as he spoke. “Only the Y chromosome carries the shifter gene. Women must be converted by a jaguar before she can shift her form and embrace our power.” Every move from him was fluid, powerful. He reminded me of the mobsters from old Godfather movies. Slick, smart, all business, and dangerous. He came to a stop and met my eyes. “And you haven’t been claimed.”

“How would you know without searching me for scars? I’d have to be bitten, right?” My fear started mutating into a journalistic curiosity.

“Because a converted female has a slightly different scent. There is still an undercurrent of humanity combined with the jaguar.” He recommenced his pacing of the hotel room like a jungle cat in a zoo. “There is only jaguar in your scent. You were born into your power. A treasure among our kind.”

“So I should be locked away in some top secret organization and experimented on?”

“That is why I needed to speak with you.”

Now we were getting somewhere. I waited for him to continue. He moved closer to me and reached for my hand with unheard-of speed. I tried not to look repulsed, but I’m pretty sure I was leaning away from him anyway. I guess looking scared was less likely to piss him off than looking disgusted. I hoped so anyway.

“Females who are born into their power are unheard of among our kind. If females could be born into their power instead of bitten and converted, it would eliminate many…issues for my race and our Organization.” Before