The bristles of his whiskers were rough on Jazz’s fingertips. Moonlight sparkled in his eyes, which were again fixed on her, a flush on his face.
“There’s Guardian ancestry in my family,” Mason said quietly, deliberately sitting back to put himself out of her reach. “It’s why a broken piece of sword talked to my brother, probably why I can understand your house. But I’m beat. I’ll see what I can do with this in your shop then turn in. We’ll look for Shifter healers in the morning.”
He scraped back his chair and stood up, lifting the broken guitar.
Jazz gaped at him in surprise. A moment ago, he’d been impatient for her to put away the divining tools, look into the air, and pull out the name of the man, his exact address, and how to get to him. Now he looked down at her, waiting for her to show him the way to the shop.
Jazz rose quickly, unnerved by him standing over her. She’d have to go past him to fetch the keys from the table in the hall, and he stood like a barrier, his bulk filling the gazebo.
But he stepped back as Jazz ducked by with a quick, “Excuse me,” making sure she didn’t touch him at all. Jazz snatched up the keys from the drawer in the table, turned on the yard lights with switches inside the back door, and walked outside again.
Mason had already left the veranda via the back steps and waited for her on the path that led to the outbuildings. Jazz held out the keys, and Mason took them.
Jazz snatched her hand back and pointed into the darkness. “It’s along this path and then to the left, behind another clump of trees. There are no lights down there until you get inside. If you wait a sec, I’ll find you a flashlight.”
Mason closed his hand around the keys with a clank. “Shifters can see in the dark.” He started to turn away then he swung around again and took two steps forward, closing the small distance between them.
His eyes had gone Shifter white. They were sharp in the night, fixing on her with an intensity she’d never encountered before. Even the Shifter Jazz had gone out with years ago had never looked at her like this.
Mason abruptly snaked his arm around her waist, pulled her against him, and brought his mouth down on hers.
The kiss was hard, thorough. Jazz went rigid even as her body caught fire. She lost track of all sensation but his mouth on hers, his hand hard on her neck, the full length of his body, the press of his fingers on her skin. She wanted to stand in the darkness, her house lit behind her, and kiss him forever, his body solidly against hers, his strength holding her up.
Cold struck her as Mason pulled back, his breath touching her lips, making them tingle. He stared down at her for a few heartbeats, then as suddenly as he’d seized her, he released her.
Jazz staggered but caught herself as Mason stepped away.
“I wanted to kiss you that time too,” he said in a low voice. He studied her a moment longer, then he turned around without a word and strode into the shadows, his boots crunching on the graveled path.
He faded from Jazz’s sight between one step and the next. He was there, and then gone. A faint wolf snarl came out of the darkness, then she heard the shop door slam.
Jazz let out her breath, the sound loud in the darkness. Goddess defend her, he was a damn good kisser.
But he was Shifter, Jazz reminded herself. Shifters were compelling and drew you in before you could stop yourself. Later they broke your heart, and you ended up eating way too much ice cream, and drinking at Mardi Gras with your friends until you woke up with no memory of how you came to be in the back of a pickup missing your bra and one of your stockings. To this day, Jazz had no idea why only the one.
But Jazz couldn’t deny, as she turned her steps to the house, that the late spring night was far colder and emptier without Mason in it.
* * *
Mason spent a long time standing in the middle of the workshop after he turned on its lights, growling and cursing.
Damn it, why did she have to be warm and arousing? Alluring and sensual? Why did she have dark blue eyes and a smile that lit up the world the few times she’d flashed it?
His brief taste of Jasmine hadn’t been enough. Mason wanted to lace his fingers through her hair, finding every lock of brown among the black. He wanted to learn the satisfaction of sliding off her clothes, touching her skin, lifting the weight of her breasts while he kissed her. He wanted to discover whether her tattoo really did encircle her breast and then to follow its path with his tongue.
It had taken every bit of strength he’d had to walk away from her tonight. She’d told him she sensed strength in his aura, in the cards she’d turned over for him. Well, that strength was the only thing that had kept him from carrying her into the house and upstairs and nestling down with her.
He surprised himself. While Shifters instinctively craved sex, Mason hadn’t had much experience with it yet. He’d never looked at a woman, especially a human one, and pictured being with her so vividly—in blood-pounding detail.
Didn’t matter, though. Jasmine didn’t like Shifters. She hadn’t said that in so many words, but Mason could tell—her body language had shouted her discomfort with him as soon as he’d seen her standing on the porch. Jasmine had enjoyed the kisses but she’d taken the blame on herself for that first kiss, believing her own weakness had let her down.
There was nothing weak about her. Jasmine had then looked at Mason and told him all about himself. Sure, she could have learned much of his history from Bree or anyone in the Austin Shiftertown—everyone in a Shiftertown knew everyone else’s business. But Jasmine had revealed things that Mason had never told anyone in his life.
He remembered the horrible day his father had died, when he’d gone from innocent cub to messed-up Shifter in one second. Jasmine had understood—he’d seen that in her. Woo-woo magic or not, she drew forth what Mason had felt and knew exactly what he’d gone through. She’d said she’d lost her parents as well, but it had been more than that.
Her compassion made Mason want to draw her to him, hold her in the night, wake to her in the morning. But if he walked into the house and up to her bedroom, she might become angry and take that compassion back. Her mistrust of Shifters might kick in, and Mason needed her help.
Plus, Mason knew he wouldn’t be able to take it if Jasmine looked at him with the disgust groupies got when he suggested they go out somewhere and get to know each other, not just have quick sex in the parking lot. To groupies, Shifters carried the excitement of the forbidden. They weren’t guys they actually wanted to be with.
Mason continued to snarl as he prepared himself for the night. He left the shop and went around the house to walk his motorcycle into the back, checking the place over for any danger as he did so. He parked it in front of the shop and removed his small duffel bag of clothes.
Inside the workshop again, he dropped the bag on the small bed in the corner then turned to the guitar.
Criminal. This Lucas guy was a total asshole. What kind of person would damage a guitar like this? A work of art?
Mason ground his teeth as he laid out the parts. The neck was in pretty good shape, but the body was a wreck. The rim was all right, which was good, but the bottom and top pieces would have to be replaced. Mason could do it, and it would be good as new, but never again have the personality of a fifty-year-old Martin.
He couldn’t do much here, though. This was a decent shop—he looked with admiration at the lathe, belt sander, and several different types of scroll saws. But Mason needed his own place with its collection of exotic woods that he could plane to just the right thickness, and his hand tools he knew like old friends. And—he had to admit it—he wanted Broderick, who was a little more experienced than Mason and could give advice on how to put the guitar back together.
Mason found a couple of boxes and bubble wrap and started packing up the guitar—the body in one box, neck in another. He’d take the pieces back to Austin and fix the guitar after he found the healer.
Mason stripped off as he packed it up. It was hot h
ere, no air flowing in the small shop, the bright lights not helping. Mason took everything off except his boxer-briefs, sweat dripping down his torso. He should have risked asking Jasmine to find him a room in the main house, where she might have air conditioning, or at least a big fan.
No, no, if he went to the house, Mason would want to climb the stairs, find Jasmine’s bedroom, and snuggle in with her. He wondered if the house would let him do that. Would it simply throw him down the stairs? Or encourage him to stay with her?
Creepy place.
He must have been way too focused on the guitar and Jasmine, because he didn’t hear the step until the door was already wide open. Mason hadn’t locked it, not worried about any intruder he couldn’t handle.
Until he looked into the enraged eyes of Lucas, Jasmine’s now ex-boyfriend, and at the semiautomatic pistol he held. Mason had the presence of mind to shove the guitar to the back of the table and dive for the floor just as Lucas opened fire.
Chapter Six
Jasmine’s psychic instincts alerted her to the intruder well before she heard the shots. She jolted out of a sound sleep, perspiring and hot from a very erotic dream that involved Mason, a bathtub, and a lot of scented oils, to hear silence.
Something was wrong. The house was tense, and Jasmine’s body was coiled and rigid, her mind straining to pick out the real from the imagined.
Mason was out there alone in the wood shop, a relatively new building that had nothing to do with the house. The house’s protection extended to the old kitchens and slave quarters and that was it. Anything built after 1920 was on its own.
Jazz scrambled out of bed, pulled on shorts¸ top, and sneakers, and hurried down the stairs. She’d reached the bottom when she heard the gunshots.
Mason.
She rushed down the hall, lifted the baseball bat she kept inside the cellar door, and ran out the back.
She’d lived in this part of Louisiana long enough to not dash outside and look around every time she heard gunfire—she’d learned to wait and see whether her neighbors were shooting at snakes or gators or each other. But Mason was out here, alone and vulnerable. She should have let him stay in the house, Jazz knew, but she hadn’t trusted herself to keep away from him. Shifters were her kryptonite.
As she started down the veranda stairs, keeping to the shadows, a figure sprinted toward her from the direction of the wood shop. Jazz stared, her mouth open. Lucas.
Behind him came a huge wolf, a creature born of shadows and moonlight. He charged after Lucas, silver light brushing his gray fur and Shifter eyes.
Jazz backed up the stairs. Lucas, on the path, turned and fired wildly, completely missing the wolf. Bullets pinged into the ground, and deafening gunfire filled the air.
The wolf came on, sparks around his neck like a ring of fire. Lucas dashed for the veranda, not even noticing Jazz.
Jazz swung the baseball bat. It contacted, not with Lucas, but the gun, which went skittering across the porch. It went off as it fell, and Jazz screamed.
Lucas’s eyes widened as he finally became aware of her standing there but he ran on into the house, not bothering to stop to pick up the gun. The wolf leapt after him, barreling through the back door on Lucas’s heels. Jazz, clutching the bat, hurried after them.
Lucas was in the staircase hall, which had obligingly lit up when Jazz had run down from her bedroom. He was clutching a newel post, trapped in the hall by the wolf, who blocked the way out. Lucas gave the wolf a look of sheer panic then he turned and dashed up the stairs.
There was no doubt about the house’s involvement this time. With a vast yawning sound, the staircase parted in the middle. Lucas fell, screaming, to the space between it, then the stairs rushed together, and the wooden steps closed with a snap.
Jazz and the wolf were left blinking at the staircase, which lay smooth and seamless before them as though nothing had happened.
Lucas wasn’t dead, though. Jazz heard him shouting, his terrified cries muffled. There was a tiny room under the stairs—a hidden door behind the staircase that Jazz always kept it locked, so a tourist wouldn’t get stuck in there.
She turned to the wolf, who eyed her, growling, his nose wrinkling with his snarl. He was a beautiful animal, the darker gray fur on his back swirling to light gray across his broad chest. A black V pointed down his forehead and faded out on his nose.
From this face, hard eyes fixed on Jazz and didn’t release her. The Collar had stopped sparking, but it was obvious on his neck, encircling his throat. Jazz’s Shifter ex-boyfriend had told her that Fae magic ensured the Collar expanded and contracted as they shifted.
“Mason?” Jazz said, taking a tighter grip on the bat. “Is that you? Nice wolfie.”
The expression on the wolf’s face turned to one of annoyance. He shook himself, a doglike movement, then the wolf began to distort and change.
The fur receded, smooth human skin taking its place at the same time claws and paws changed to hands and feet. Mason rose as his hind legs became human, his front legs, muscular arms. His nose shrank until the wolf face was Mason’s handsome one, touched with dark whiskers.
His eyes changed last. They remained focused on Jazz, the very light gray slowly darkening to the raincloud gray of Mason in human form.
“Wolfie?” he asked with a Shifter snarl.
Only the voice and his eyes reminded Jazz he was animal inside. The rest of him was pure human male. Naked and hard-bodied, in her hallway.
Whatever clothes he’d worn were gone. Mason was bare and unashamed, resting his hands on his hips as he caught his breath.
“You okay?” he asked her. His gaze moved pointedly to the baseball bat, which she still hefted.
“Yeah, I—” Jazz broke off as she caught sight of what Mason’s shifting body had distracted her from seeing. He had blood all over his shoulder, as well as smeared down his arm and side. “Are you all right?” She dropped the bat with a clatter and hurried forward. “Did he get you?”
“Grazed me,” Mason said without worry as Jazz reached him. “I’ll be fine. Shifters heal fast.”
So he said, but at the same time, he swayed. Jazz put her hand on his arm and found his skin hot and damp.
“You’re not all right,” she said with conviction. “You sit down.”
Mason turned away from her and headed to the back hall. “I’ll get over it. I just need a little rest.”
Jazz watched him go, her mouth open, the view of his tight back and smooth backside well worth looking at.
But he was going to walk away, back to bed, like nothing had happened. I was shot and your house ate your boyfriend, but oh well. Time for some shuteye.
Jazz went out right after him. She had to run, and only caught up to him when he was halfway to the shop. Mason could move.
“You’re not all right,” Jazz repeated. “What’s going on? Is there a bullet still in you?”
Mason turned and looked down at her. Under the filter of the trees, the moonlight made his skin variegated, dark and light. “My Collar went off,” he said. “It makes me sick. But like I said, I’ll get over it.”
Jazz stepped to him in concern and put her hand on his forearm. His skin was already cooler, but clammy. “I know you’re all-powerful and mighty, but you lost blood and were shocked. You need to stop.”
Mason’s gaze lowered, his body stilling. He took a long breath, chest rising, his lashes brushing his cheeks as he focused on her hand.
Jazz felt his pulse, strong and steady but rapid. The skin of his wrist was cool, the wiry hair on his forearm catching her fingertips. Dark hair brushed his chest as well, another arrow of it below his navel, leading to shadow.
Jazz lightened her touch, giving Mason’s arm a soft stroke. Again, she couldn’t stop herself. She for some reason wanted to be near him, in his warmth. Personal space had gone out the window.
Mason’s fingers latched over hers. He carefully lifted her hand away, flicking his gaze to her face.
Jazz
pulled back, self-conscious. “Sorry,” she said. “I told you, I can’t be trusted. I throw myself at a guy, and the next thing I know, he’s shooting people in my house or running off with another Shifter he swore up and down he’d never noticed before, leaving me in broken little pieces.”
Mason’s brows drew down, and Jazz snapped her mouth shut. She hadn’t meant to tell him that.
He continued to frown at her, as though trying to figure out what she was all about. Then he jerked his head up and swung around to scan the darkness.
Jazz came alert too, her psychic shields once again indicating danger.
“Cops,” Mason said. He cocked his head, listening hard. Jazz heard nothing, but Shifter hearing was superior to a humans’.
Mason was already turning away, moving swiftly to the wood shop. By the time Jazz made it in behind him, he had donned a pair of underwear and was reaching for his jeans and shirt. Jazz got a nice view of his backside cupped by tight boxers before he pulled up and zipped the jeans and jerked the shirt down his torso.
He shrugged on his jacket, covering his Collar once more, then grabbed the duffel and two wooden boxes.
He was leaving. Mason moved past Jazz and out the door. She leaned against the doorframe, watching as he shoved the duffel and boxes into his motorcycle’s saddlebags.
Of course he was leaving. Either Lucas had called the cops on Mason before he’d come, or the neighbors had heard the gunfire and called the police. Jazz’s neighbors were trigger-happy themselves, but they’d have been alarmed to hear shots at her house and want to make sure she was all right.
Jazz could now hear the sirens on the wind. The police would find Lucas penned in her house, he’d babble an incoherent and terrified story, and Mason would be blamed. Mason was Shifter. He’d be taken in, and probably terminated. That’s what happened to Shifters who harmed humans.
Mason straightened up after securing the saddlebags and looked straight at her.
“Come with me,” he said.
Jazz blinked. “What?”