Darkness Unbound

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do, and I’m sorry, but I’ve already arranged for a friend to pick me up.” I hesitated, and gave him a slow, sexy smile. The furnace in his eyes flamed even brighter, burning me with the scent of his desire. “But I’d love to see you again.”

  “Then call me,” he said, pulling his wallet out of his pocket. He dumped a wad of notes onto the table to pay for the meal, then handed me a business card. All it had on it were his name and a cell phone number. “This friend who’s picking you up—male or female?”

  My smile grew. “Male. Is that a problem?”

  “To repeat your rather emphatic statement, no.” The heat still burned in his eyes, but there was something else—something that made me quiver in anticipation and perhaps a little fear as he added, “Although I do prefer to know whether I have competition or not.”

  “Tao’s not competition. As I said, he’s just a friend.” I smiled and picked up my purse. “Thank you for the lovely evening.”

  “Indeed.” He waved a hand to the front door. “Allow me to escort you out.”

  He did so, his fingers pressed lightly against my spine, causing all sorts of havoc to my pulse rate. The maître d’ opened the door as we approached, and a blast of wintry air hit my skin. I shivered and crossed my arms as we left the restaurant, half wishing I’d brought Kiera’s coat with me. But that was a risk given that, at the time, I’d had no idea if this man was safe or not.

  I still wasn’t sure, but for entirely different reasons.

  “Here,” he said, stripping off his jacket and resting it over my shoulders. My nostrils flared, taking in the scent of him, feeling it wrap all around me as securely as his jacket. “Take this. You can return it on our next date.”

  I smiled. “Thereby ensuring I do have to see you again.”

  “Of course.”

  He was still holding the lapels of the coat and he tugged on them lightly, pulling me closer. My chest brushed the silk of his shirt, and my already erect nipples reacted as if we were both naked.

  “Call me tomorrow,” he added, voice little more than a murmur. Then he kissed me.

  It was like no kiss I’d ever felt before. It was heat and passion and desire, but it also transcended all that, becoming as tumultuous as the fiercest storm. Electricity surged between us, swirling around our flesh, through our flesh, until it felt as if we were nothing more than night and air and energy.

  When we finally parted, I could barely breathe and my legs felt like water.

  “Is it always like that?” I muttered, touching his forearm to hold myself upright.

  He smiled and ran his finger lightly from my cheek to my kiss-swollen lips. “Kissing another Aedh is like flirting with the sun. There isn’t another sensation quite like it.”

  He could say that again. And what the hell would making love to the man be like if a mere kiss had this effect?

  Part of me wasn’t entirely sure I was up for it, but the long frustrated rest of me howled those doubts down.

  “So why have you guys got the reputation for being such cold and clinical beings?”

  “Because it is true. It is only the brief breeding urge that hits near the end of our life span that causes such a dramatic turnaround.”

  I said, “Meaning you’re near the end of your life span?”

  And if so, maybe I’d better rethink the whole sex thing. I might be chipped to prevent conception—all wolves of breeding age were—but that didn’t mean accidents couldn’t happen. Especially around someone who’d been born energy rather than flesh.

  He smiled and shook his head. “I am nowhere near the end of my span, but I have been in this form for a long time now, and have come to appreciate its more—shall we say—earthy peculiarities?”

  “Peculiarities?” I said, releasing his arm and stepping away on still-unsteady legs. “I’ve never heard sex described that way before. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “Do,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets—as if to stop himself from reaching for me again.

  I turned and walked away. His gaze followed me, burning into my spine long after I’d turned the corner and he was no longer in sight.

  Rocky’s beat-up SUV was parked three cars down. Tao leaned across the passenger seat and opened the door for me. His nostrils flared as he retreated, and a wry smile touched his lips.

  “Don’t you smell unbearably frustrated.”

  “And you smell unbelievably satisfied.” I tossed my purse into the back and climbed in. “If you say one more word about my condition, I shall beat you to a living pulp.”

  He laughed, threw the car into gear, and took off. “I’m always available for a little light relief. All you have to do is say the word and I’m there.”

  “We agreed six months ago we were not going to cross that line anymore.” Because it was easy, because it was safe. Because it wasn’t forcing me to step out into the dating scene and risk my heart again.

  “Yeah, but that was before your current level of frustration.” He gave me an amused glance. “You’re going to cause a riot at the Phoenix.”

  “Only if there are other werewolves in the club. And if there are and they try to hit on me, you can beat them up.”

  He laughed again. “So, are you meeting with the man who got you into this state again?”

  “Tomorrow.” The sooner the better.

  “Then he checked out?”

  “As much as anyone can check out on a first date, yes.”

  “Good.” He glanced in the mirror, then said, “The road is fairly empty, so it’s safe to face-shift.”

  I did, imagining a face that was broader than either mine or Kiera’s, with fuller lips, blue eyes, and jet-black hair. Once the magic had done its work, I waited for the trembling to ease, then stripped off, changing into the jeans, baggy sweater, and boots I’d brought along.

  “You do realize,” Tao commented, “that you smelling like you do, and stripping so blatantly like that, would test the control of any other wolf?”

  I leaned across the car and kissed his cheek. “That’s why I love you.”

  He snorted softly. “Love teasing me, that is.”

  “That too.” I gathered my belongings and threw them all into the big bag. I’d need them later to change back into—I couldn’t go home wearing jeans, just in case Ilianna was wrong and those men were still watching.

  We arrived at Stane’s fifteen minutes later. Tao parked several doors down from the shop—away from the club, not closer to it. The heavy beat of music vibrated through the car even from this distance, and underneath it ran the sound of raucous voices. Men and women.

  I reached around and grabbed Kiera’s coat from the backseat then climbed out of the car, trying to ignore the noise emanating from the club as I dragged on the coat and studied the shop. As on every other building nearby, the brickwork was grimy and graffiti-covered. Thick grates barred the windows, but a lot of the bars were bent. Given the thickness of the metal, it had to be the work of drunken nonhumans. Short of using power tools, humans wouldn’t have been able to do that sort of damage.

  I glanced at Tao as he walked around the rear of the car, a bottle of Bollinger in one hand. “Did you warn Stane that we won’t be looking like ourselves?”

  “Yep.”

  I grunted, and glanced down the street at the sound of more laughter. A man in blue jeans had fallen into the gutter, and his friends seemed to find it hysterical. “Why doesn’t he shift his shop? This area has to be bad for business.”

  “He’s somewhat stubborn, and refuses to be driven out.” He touched a hand to my back, guiding me toward the front door.

  “Meaning others have?”

  He nodded. “Most of the shops between here and the club have been empty for a while. Apparently someone is in the process of buying them out.”

  “That someone being the club?”

  “Actually, no. Stane reckons it’s some corporation intent on re-energizing t
he area.”

  I snorted. Re-energizing was another way of saying building heaps of tiny apartments, adding a small shopping precinct, and charging a fortune to live there.

  “So who else is holding out?”

  He shrugged and pushed the front door open. A tiny bell rang cheerily and a camera buzzed into action, tracking our movements into the shop. Light shimmered briefly around the small entrance then flickered out, and I realized Stane had a containment field around his doorway. People might be able to walk freely into the shop, but they couldn’t get any farther unless he let them.

  “Besides the club?” Tao said, catching my hand and tugging me forward. “A milliner and a general store.”

  The shop was small and smelled of dust and mold, which was weird considering neither was good for computers. There were shelves everywhere, all packed with boxes, old and new computer parts, and ancient-looking monitors of varying sizes. Organized it wasn’t.

  I shook my head, wondering how he found anything as I said, “Why the hell would a milliner want to work in an area like this?”

  “Because,” a voice said as a figure appeared out of the gloom, “we are all fools. And you have the Bollinger. Well done, you.”

  I smiled. Stane, like his shop, was an unholy mess. Given the cobwebbed brown hair, thick gray cardigan, and wrinkled, ill-fitting jeans, he resembled something the cat had coughed up and forgotten. He certainly didn’t look like someone who’d put up any sort of fight—until you actually gazed into his honey-colored eyes. Stane, like Tao, was smarter and harder than he looked.

  Tao handed him the champagne. Stane thanked him, but his gaze was on me. “You know, if Tao was any sort of friend, he’d help you out with that ache.”

  “The whole friends-with-benefits deal is off,” Tao said, before I could answer. “It’s heartbreaking, I tell you.”

  I slapped his arm, then gave Stane a steely look. “One more smart remark about my state and I really am going to hit someone. Hard.”

  He grinned. “Warning heeded.”

  “Good. Did you manage to find anything out about Marcus Handberry?”

  “Yeah. He’s a nastier piece of work than even I realized.” His grin grew, but the amusement that had been crinkling the corners of his eyes faded as he added, “And he apparently didn’t exist until a year ago.”

  “NO ONE CAN JUST POP UP OUT OF NOWHERE fully formed,” I commented. “He had to exist somewhere, even if it wasn’t in this incarnation.”

  He smiled and glanced at Tao. “She’s smarter than she looks.”

  “I keep telling you to look deeper than the skin,” Tao said drily.

  “But the skin is so pretty—even when it’s not her usual one. This way, my friends.”

  We followed Stane as he weaved through the shelves and dust, then climbed the set of stairs at the back of the store and entered another world. A world that was clean, dust-free, and bristling with all sorts of shiny electronic equipment.

  “God, it looks like the bridge of the Enterprise,” I commented.

  Stane spun around. “You know about Star Trek?”

  “Watched every series, old and new.”

  “Favorite?”

  “The latest incarnation.” I grinned. Tao and I had this argument all the time. “Better beefcake.”

  Stane groaned. “And I had such hope for you, too.”

  “I like my men less cobwebbed, I’m afraid.”

  He snorted softly, but didn’t bother removing said webs as he parked his butt in the plush chair of his “bridge.” There were several light screens to the left that were showing images of the building, both outside and inside, and others to the right running everything from games to websites. He touched the nearest screen, and on one of the others a blue shimmer flared up around the entrance downstairs. The containment field was once again active.

  “Marcus Handberry, as we know and love him today,” he said, touching another screen.

  A picture of a pockmarked, thin-framed, dark-haired man came into view, and something within me shivered. The picture had been taken from a side angle, but he was looking at the camera and there was nothing resembling humanity in the muddy depths of his eyes. Even if Marcus Handberry was human, he’d left any semblance of it behind long ago.

  “According to his driver’s license,” Stane continued, “he was born in Ireland and came here ten years ago. He holds dual citizenship, but travels on an Australian passport.”

  “How can he have all that if he only popped into existence a year ago?” Tao asked.

  I glanced at him. “It’s easy enough to do if you know the right people and have enough money.”

  He gave me a long look. “And you know this because …?”

  I smiled. “I have an aunt and uncle who were or are guardians.”

  Stane glanced at me. “Then why are you the one investigating this creep and not them?”

  “Oh, they are. I just refuse to sit back and twiddle my thumbs.”

  “It would undoubtedly be safer.”

  “Undoubtedly.” I flicked a hand toward the screen, and he took the hint.

  “I did a search using his photo as a reference, but I can’t find anything so far. Either he’s had work done, or he really did pop up fully formed a year ago.” He glanced at us. “If you could get a fingerprint, that might help.”

  “Unless he’s been re-fingerprinted as well.”

  “That would be a costly procedure, would it not?” Tao asked. “And surely if he had that sort of money, he wouldn’t own a dump like the Phoenix.”

  “Unless the Phoenix is a cover for something else.”

  Stane smiled. “That was my thought as well, but I can’t find anything that suggests he’s involved in anything nefarious. Nor does the club seem to be anything more than a rowdy bar catering to less-than-savory types.”

  If he wasn’t involved in anything nefarious, he wouldn’t have taken on the job of kidnapping and killing me. “Any idea what Handberry actually is?”

  “According to his records, human, but I’ve walked past the man and whatever he is, it isn’t human.”

  “But you couldn’t tell what else he might be?” The men who’d attacked me hadn’t smelled of any race, either—even though several of them had half changed. And I suppose it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that Handberry had the same no-species scent, given that he was apparently the man in charge. But why would he put a human in charge of his nonhuman thugs? Unless that so-called human was something else, and I just hadn’t picked up on it.

  “He smelled vaguely of cat,” Stane said, “but the scent of a cat shifter is usually far stronger and more acidic. If I hadn’t almost run into the man, I wouldn’t have even smelled it.”

  “And why would you be running into him if you’re always on the bridge?”

  He grinned. “Even I am forced to obey the needs of my body during the full-moon phase.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “So why are you here rather than at a club?”

  “Because the moon heat has been temporarily sated, and besides, my baby misses me if I’m away too long.”

  He patted his bridge affectionately, and I snorted softly. “Have you found anything else?”

  Stane shook his head. “But,” he said, rising to walk across to the neatly stacked shelving unit lining the rear wall of his main room, “if you’d like to plant this little electronic gadget, I’ll be able to hack into their security system and keep an eye on him for you.”

  He came back with something that looked like a little black beetle. It even moved like one.

  “What is it?” I asked, leaning closer but not actually touching it. Bugs, like spiders, weren’t really my favorite things to play with.

  “This, my friends, is a semi-intelligent spybot, and the latest in nanotechnology.”

  “It’s a robot?” I said, touching it lightly. What looked like bug-skin was actually cold metal. “How does it work?”

  “I give it basic commands from here, and it go
es to work. In this case, you drop it inside the Phoenix, and I’ll program it to go into the office area and hide in some corner. It’ll then send through everything that goes on in that office.”

  “And what if someone spots it?” Tao asked. “You couldn’t afford to get something like this squashed by a well-placed boot.”

  “That’s where the intelligence comes in. If it senses a threat, it scuttles.”

  “Amazing,” I murmured. And scary. No one would ever suspect that an everyday-looking bug could be a spy camera. It made me wonder just what else was out there. I glanced at him. “How the hell did you get hold of it?”

  “Ask no secrets and you’ll be told no lies.” He grinned and dropped it into my palm. “I’ll program it as you’re heading to the bar. Just be sure to place it near the office. Otherwise the walk will drain it and it won’t be able to transmit immediately.”

  “So it recharges itself?”

  He nodded. “With whatever is the closest power source—in this case it’ll be either body heat or heat from the lights.”

  I wrapped my fingers around it. Its little legs made my skin itch, and it felt for all the world like I was holding a real bug. I shuddered and carefully dropped it into the unused coin section of my purse. At least it wouldn’t get lost there.

  Tao glanced at his watch, then said, “We’d better get going. You’ve got the morning shift tomorrow, remember?” When I groaned, he slapped me lightly on the back, adding with a smile, “It’s Wednesday. Wednesdays are always slow.”

  For him maybe. I was the one who did all the paperwork, and Wednesday was paperwork day. But I was betting that all the little numbers were not going to make sense after tonight.

  “Thanks for all this, Stane. I really appreciate it.”

  “Thank you for the Bollinger. I shall enjoy it at my leisure. Or swap it for something shiny.” He nodded toward the screen. “I’ll switch off the shield when you get down there.”

  Tao touched a hand to my back and guided me down the stairs. The night air seemed fresher after the mustiness of the shop, but it was no less noisy. The heavy beat of music seemed to vibrate through my body, and the sheer loudness hurt my ears. It was going to be hell inside but if it helped get some answers, then it’d be worth it.