“Yeah!” she said without formality. “What?”
“Uhmmm… we’re outside?” Clarissa said, measuring her response.
“Be right out,” Sasha muttered and clicked off the phone. What the hell was wrong with her?
“But what if we’ve missed something in here,” Hunter suddenly said, beginning to walk down the hall, his gaze sweeping.
When he spotted the back staircase, he headed up, taking three steps at a time. Sasha was on his heels, but there was nothing to be found except storage space, a spare office, excess furniture, and old files. Above that was the attic, and Hunter stood in the middle of the floor staring up at the ceiling, sweat pouring off him.
Right now it felt like the walls of Ethan’s Fair Lady were closing in on her and she could tell Hunter also felt it- but male pride refused to let it best him. Heat in the building had risen to the upper floors that lacked the benefit of air-conditioning. To make matters worse, now she had to deal with the fact that her human crew, along with Hunter’s men, had tracked them down and were waiting outside, and still Hunter refused to relent.
“This is not going anywhere,” Sasha finally said, throwing up her hands. “Give it up, dude. whatever was here is gone. We’ve asked everybody we can ask. Look around-there are no hair fibers, not even any Were scent or blood scent up here… can we go?”
Hunter looked at her and growled. She pushed past him and headed for the stairs. The close confines and the heat were wearing her down, grinding her nerves to a fine dust.
By the time they’d reached the sidewalk, Hunter was almost panting and she could barely catch her breath. The interior air was damp but not as oppressive as the June humidity and midday heat on the streets of New Orleans. Looking at her bored, uncomfortable squad, she felt bad that she’d had to leave the rest of their team outside-but Ethan had insisted. It was also what Sir Rodney had requested, to keep as much of this as possible on a need-to-know basis only. Both Ethan and Sir Rodney wanted only her and Hunter to witness what had happened and she’d given her word.
Good thing they hadn’t needed to stay inside The Fair Lady for too much longer, because she and Hunter might have come to blows. But as the thought crossed her mind, Sasha became still… Why was she thinking of doing battle with Hunter? They’d been getting on each other’s nerves ever since they found the Phoenix, but prior to that they’d been making love and going at it like a couple of college kids. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye, noting how distressed his entire vibration seemed to be. What the hell…
Sweat had created a deep V on Hunter’s army green t-shirt, starting at his heavy silver and amber amulet, and her tank top and jeans clung to her like she’d been poured into them. The thick silver chain around her neck with the etched amber piece dangling from it now felt like it weighed a ton. They’d only been inside about an hour and their guys that had been waiting double-parked in open jeeps looked like they’d been drenched in a sudden downpour.
Clarissa’s plump face was red and damp, and her blond hair was practically plastered to her scalp. Woods, who was behind the wheel of the second vehicle, had a steady stream of sweat rolling down his temples, matting down his normally immaculate brunet hair, while poor Bradley, the eldest on the team and in his forties, had his head back with his eyes closed, apparently deciding to tough out the heat by going semiconscious. Right behind them in another haphazardly parked jeep, Fisher bopped to the radio like a lanky golden retriever that enjoyed the wetness-simply having the time of his life because it involved another adventure. Seeing him in the backseat joking with the baby of the group, Mark Winters, brought a smile to her face despite the circumstances or uncomfortable heat.
However, Hunter’s main enforcer Bear Shadow, a three-hundred-pound Native-American double for an NFL linebacker, as well as Sasha’s half brother Crow Shadow, a shorter, more sinewy, defensive tight-end version of “the Bear,” seemed anything but relaxed and jovial. Sasha held her brother’s gaze for a moment. Looking into Crow Shadow’s face was like looking into a darker version of her own. His expression was tense but unreadable and only offered her a reflection of his exotic biracial elements of Native-American and African-American ancestry.
Still, there was a level of quiet anxiety in both Hunter’s men’s eyes that concerned her. Those two were normally laid back; they didn’t do high anxiety unless something serious had raised their DEFCON levels. What had the two male Shadow Wolves locked in on that she hadn’t seen or that her human squad hadn’t detected?
Clarissa should have picked up something psychically wrong now, just like her Shadow Wolf familiars, Woods and Fisher, should have instinctively detected if something wasn’t right. Their entire system was designed to preempt a threat. Plus, Bradley, their dark arts specialist, was always on guard, just like Winters’s techno-gadgets should have sounded if there was something dangerous closing in on them. But everybody in the Paranormal Containment Unit squad seemed okay and only heat fatigued, except the Shadows…
She glanced at Hunter and then watched him take two more steps toward their vehicle, weave, and then catch his balance by grabbing on to a lamppost. Then he slowly turned around, his gaze pure wolf.
“You okay?” she asked, ruffling her hair up off her neck, seeking a breeze from any direction in the still air.
Hunter shook his head slowly. “No. Not at all.”
For a moment she held his gaze and then looked around, stepping in closer. “What’s wrong? What did you see in there that I didn’t?”
Hunter’s hands covered her bare arms, sending searing heat into her flesh. Confusion tore at her mind; was what he had to say so awful that he had to steady her with a touch?
When he angled his face and moved in, the strange action startled her and she pulled back, eyes wide. A kiss? Out in public? In front of their squad?
Oh yeah, something was definitely wrong. They didn’t do public displays of affection-ever.
“You okay?” she whispered, staring at him and then nervously glancing at her squad from the corner of her eye.
“I told you before. No,” he said between his teeth, his canines beginning to crest.
“Then
“You.” His grip tightened on her arms. “I can’t explain it… but do I need to right now?”
“Yeah…
The kiss was so sudden and feral that it knocked the wind out of her. One moment there was at least a half a foot between them, and the next she was wrapped in a viselike grip, her body crushed against Hunter’s stone-cut chest. Her amulet was pressing into her breasts from the force of its collision with the heavy amber and silver piece he wore. Winters’s joking comments about them getting a room sounded so far away as Hunter’s fingers threaded through her hair and within seconds splayed across her back. She swallowed Hunter’s moan while trying to wrest herself from his grasp, but her legs were becoming rubbery as he devoured her mouth. The second he broke the kiss to gasp in a breath, she pushed his chest with both hands.
“Yo! Time out!” Sasha tried to step back as she wiped her palms down her face. “What just happened in there?”
Woods started up the motor of his jeep. “We’ll catch you guys later tonight,” he called out and put the vehicle in reverse.
Bear Shadow nodded and started his engine.
Fisher jumped out of the backseat of the third jeep and headed toward the jeep Hunter had been driving. “I’ve got you covered, man. Leave it here and you’ll get towed for sure. Throw me your keys.”
Hunter never answered, just dug in his pocket and threw his keys in the direction of Fisher’s voice.
“No, no, no!” Sasha yelled, pure humiliation burning her cheeks. “This isn’t what it looks like!”
Hunter stared at her. “
It all happened so quickly that it seemed like a blur. One moment Hunter was staring at her, his eyes transformed to betray his inner wolf, the next second he’d spied the shadow cast by the lamppost, pulling them both into it to tumble into the shadow lands.
He’d landed them in the twilight place, the shadow lands where spirits walked and Shadow Wolves traveled, but that fact seemed completely lost on Hunter. Wide, hot palms covered her backside, pulling her in close as he aggressively sought her mouth with a moan. No matter how fantastic what he was doing felt, his entire demeanor
