Wild Cat

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 décor.

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?”

Cassidy shrugged. She was still wound up from her run from the hunter who’d chased her up into the tower, the edge barely off her fighting instincts.

The hunter had been stalking her, she realized that now, and must have been waiting for her in the place Donovan had died. She’d picked up the hunter’s scent before she’d gotten the candles lit, and she’d slipped into the woods to shift, but he’d found her before she could get away from him.

Cassidy had led the hunter back down into the desert, thinking she could lose a human in the giant, half-finished building on the outskirts of town, but damned if he hadn’t followed her right up into it. His seeming defiance of gravity proved that he wasn’t human, nor was he Shifter. He’d terrified her.

The chase, the cops’ arrival, saving Diego from falling, and then the feel of Diego’s hands as he cuffed her-all had Cassidy’s Shifter adrenaline soaring. Sitting here waiting had increased her tension, not eased it. She needed the comfort of physical contact, to be held and stroked until she calmed down.

She looked up at Diego and wanted to touch him. No, she needed to touch him. To brush his skin, to feel the rough of whiskers on his face. He’d shaved-she smelled the faint odor of aftershave lotion-but his dark skin was already touched by new growth. A man who had to shave religiously or have a permanent five o’clock shadow.

Most humans seemed uncomfortable with their own bodies, but Diego Escobar leaned against the table with ease, knowing he controlled the room. His eyes were hard but had little crinkles in the corners, which meant he smiled sometimes.

Cassidy reached out her hand, slowly so she wouldn’t startle him, and rested it, softly, on his thigh.

Steel hard muscles met her touch, and Cassidy closed her eyes. Diego’s flesh was warm beneath the fabric of his pants, and oh, Goddess, wouldn’t it be heaven to touch his bare skin? His skin would be hot and smooth, tight against the strength beneath it.

Cassidy’s rising need surprised her, but she didn’t move her hand. She hadn’t touched a male since Donovan’s death, hadn’t had a sensual thought until Diego Escobar had looked at her with sin-dark eyes fifty stories above the ground.

Cassidy opened her eyes. Diego held himself so still, watching her, not making a move to touch her in return.

“You’re supposed to keep your hands on the table,” he said.

Cassidy curled her fingers into her palm and drew her hand away. A shudder of pain went through her. She was never going to calm down.

“Please,” she said. Goddess, now she was begging. Second in command of Shiftertown, Cassidy Warden was begging a human for sympathy.

“All you have to do is tell me what you were doing up there.”

“No, I mean. I need…”

She couldn’t explain. Cassidy got out of the chair. Diego watched her come, not pulling his weapon, but not moving his hand from near it, as though curious to see what she’d do. Cassidy read in his eyes that he’d let her do only what he wanted her to, nothing more.

Cassidy put her hands on his folded arms. Diego remained still. She slid her palms up his arms, the female in her responding to the firm strength of biceps under the shirt. On up to his shoulders, which held even more power, while Diego simply watched her.

His warmth was calming, amazingly so. Cassidy had never touched a human before, not like this. She’d had no idea that touching one would be so comforting, so satisfying. It eased something in her that had been tight for a long time.

Diego still didn’t move as Cassidy stroked her hands up his neck to his close-cut dark hair. She liked how the ends of his hair felt, soft yet prickly. Cassidy cupped his face, his whiskers like fine sandpaper against her fingertips. She read rigid anger in dark eyes, vast pain and guilt. Unhappiness she didn’t understand.

Diego’s voice, when he finally spoke, was completely steady. “You need to sit back down, Ms. Warden.”

“Wait. Not yet.”

Diego put one hand on her wrist. She noticed that he kept his other hand over his gun, snapped inside the holster, keeping her away from it.

“You need to obey the rules.”

He wasn’t afraid of her; he was stating facts. Cassidy’s adrenaline wouldn’t let her obey any rules but Shifter instinct. She twined her fingers through the backs of his and raised his hand to her face.

“Please, just a little while,” she said. “I’m so scared.”

Diego’s eyes flickered, and Cassidy couldn’t believe she’d said that. Admitting fear was the last thing she should do.

“You’ll be all right,” Diego said. “I’ve got you.”

I’ve got you. Three simple words, but Cassidy felt a blanket of safety wrap around her. She knew damn well it was a false blanket and that she needed to get the hell out of here, but the basic need inside her responded to the firm strength of his voice.

Cassidy let go of Diego’s hand, wrapped her arms around him, and pulled him close.

Diego found himself with his arms full of tall, beautiful Shifter woman, her naked body obvious beneath the baggy coverall. Dios mio.

He thanked all the saints that no one was in the observation room-at least that he knew of. Diego had spent two hours persuading Shifter Division and his captain to let him interrogate Cassidy Warden alone. Cassidy could have let Diego die up there in that tower, and she hadn’t. Diego wanted to find out why.

But it was against all procedure-Shifter Division viewed Shifters as deadly, unstable animals, no matter what form they were in, no matter that their Collars were supposed to keep them tamed. Diego had won a few minutes alone with Cassidy only because his captain sided with him-reluctantly. Diego hadn’t lied when he’d said that if he couldn’t persuade Cassidy to talk, he’d have to give her to Shifter Division. He sure as hell didn’t want to.

Now, Diego felt Cassidy Warden’s long body against his, the sleek warmth of her hair on his cheek. He inhaled the scent of her, which, considering she’d been running around naked in the desert plus sitting in here for hours, was sweet and good.

Diego’s body responded. He’d kept himself celibate too long, and this woman was beautiful.

No, she was damn hot. He remembered her fine ass when he’d locked the cuffs on her wrists, her beautiful breasts when she’d stood over him on the catwalk.

He felt those breasts now, still unfettered, against him, her strong thighs along the length of his. She had one sweet, gorgeous body, and her face was strong and lovely. A man would have to be dead not to respond to her.

More than that, Diego wanted to lean her back over the interrogation table, open those coveralls, and explore everything he found inside the package. Beautiful, warm woman. Sex with Cassidy would be… explosive.

But Diego also felt her fear. He’d heard truth ring when she’d said, I’m so scared. It had cost this woman a lot to say the words.

Cassidy wasn’t afraid of Diego. Or of being arrested, he sensed, as though she didn’t truly believe the bad shit that could happen to her here. Diego needed to figure out what the hell was going on. It killed Diego to push her away, but he had to do it. Spreading her across the interrogation table, as fulfilling as that might be, would be the end of him.

“Sit down, Ms. Warden,” he said into her ear, liking how the softness of her hair tickled his lips. “And tell me about the man with the tranquilizer gun.”

Cassidy lifted her head. Her eyes were white green as she stared into his, her breath coming fast. The silver Collar around her throat was so damn sexy, though Diego knew it was a controlling device, which would pump shocks and pain into her if she turned violent.

Diego wanted to stroke her hair, to tell her that he’d take care of her and she’d be all right. He wouldn’t let anyone, or anything, hurt her.

He deliberately did not touch her.

Cassidy looked at him for a moment longer, drew a breath, and very slowly sat down again. Diego flicked on the microphone, looked at her, and waited.

“I don’t know who the man up there was,” Cassidy said. “I never saw him before, and I didn’t get a good look at him.”

Diego nodded, encouraging her. “Why were you chasing him?”

Fear flickered through her eyes again. “He was chasing me. That’s why I ran into the building. The two cops saw us and came up, and he shot them.”

“Why was he after you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he wanted a Shifter pelt to hang on his wall. Hunters are allowed to shoot Collarless Shifters, you know. Sometimes they don’t bother to check whether they have a Collar or not.”

Her tone was bitter, grief and rage tainting it. Diego had read the file on Cassidy Warden, so he thought he knew what she meant.

“Another reason you shouldn’t have been running out there on your own,” Diego said. “What happened to your clothes?”

Cassidy touched the top button of the coverall just below her Collar. Diego couldn’t stop his gaze from going there, down into the shadow between her breasts. “I chucked my clothes. I needed to strip to shift.”

And wouldn’t Diego have loved to have seen that? “Leaving behind your money or any ID…”

“I hadn’t brought it with me,” Cassidy said quickly.

“Which is illegal for a Shifter. Why did you leave everything at home?”

Cassidy’s gaze flicked sideways. She was trying to decide what to tell him. She was a bad liar, but Diego sensed that she lied out of fear, not cunning. He was very familiar with lies born of fear. He’d told them for years.

Cassidy wet her lips and shrugged again. “I wanted a run. I’d been cooped up too long. I needed to get away, out of Shiftertown, be somewhere else…”

Diego snapped off the microphone. “Stop.”

She jumped. “What?”

Diego leaned his fists on the table to look into her face. Her green eyes were so near his own, and he could feel her breath on his face.

“Listen to me, chiquita. Trespassing isn’t a misdemeanor for Shifters. It’s a crime with a prison sentence attached. I know you didn’t hurt Hooper and Jemez, because that guy with the gun shot at me too, and I watched you chase him off. But there’s no evidence, only my word, and yours, and you have to know by now that the word of a Shifter isn’t worth shit. If you admit you were running around in the desert for the hell of it, and some crazy Shifter hunter started chasing you, I can help you. You start talking about running away from your Shiftertown, and I can’t help you anymore. They’ll tranq you and lock you up. I’m your best shot at freedom, mi ja, so shut up.”

No Shifter, besides her brother Eric, would look at Cassidy like this or get in her face and talk to her in that stern, obey-me voice. Not unless he wanted to be knocked across the room or go up against her pissed-off brother. But Diego Escobar wasn’t asking for submission or fealty. He was trying to get Cassidy to understand, to obey because it was necessary. To trust him, because he knew the rules of this place, and Cassidy didn’t.

Diego turned the microphone back on. Cassidy’s heart beat in slow, thick beats as she leaned toward it. “I needed a run for the hell of it,” she said carefully. “To let off steam.”

Diego gave her a look that said she’d finally got it. “Good. Now tell me why.”

“Because I lost my mate. It’s the anniversary of his death, and I was going to the place he died to make my peace with it. All right?” That part was the truth.

Cassidy blinked back angry tears. Diego was human-he’d never understand. Donovan had been her mate. You didn’t just say a eulogy and get over it.

Diego looked at the file on the table but not because he was conceding ground. He was giving her a moment to collect herself.

“Donavan Grady,” he read. “The Feline Shifter who was living with you. Died a year ago.”

“He was my mate, not just living with me. The union was blessed under sun and moon. Not that humans understand what that means.”

One year ago, Donovan’s mother and Cassidy had burned photos and mementos of Donovan under the moonlight, while their clans moved in solemn circles around them, easing Donovan into the Summerland. The Guardian-the Shifter whose sword turned a Shifter’s dead body to dust-had done his job, and Eric had held Cassidy as she’d wept.

Donovan the fun-loving any-excuse-for-a-party-baby Shifter had been killed, before his time and for nothing. Cassidy had avoided the place of his passing for a long, long while, but tonight, something had drawn her there. Tomorrow, on the exact night of his death, they’d have his remembrance ceremony at home, but she’d wanted to burn an offering, alone, in the place of his dying. But someone had been there, waiting for her…

“I’m sorry,” Diego was saying. “I know it’s rough, losing someone.”

Cassidy looked up to find his gaze on her again. He’d turned off the microphone, and understanding lingered behind his no-nonsense stare. He knew.

Because, Cassidy realized in shock, he’d lost someone too.

“Was it someone close to you?” she asked.

Diego gave her a surprised look, then he cleared his throat. “My partner. Jobe Sanderson. My best friend.”

“I’m sorry,” Cassidy said, heartfelt. “I’ll say a blessing for you.” A lit candle, a prayer to the Goddess for the human Jobe now in the Summerland.

Diego said nothing, but hurt and grief screamed for touch. Drawn to his pain, Cassidy slid her hand over his, giving him a touch to soothe and ease, like a cat might curl into another for comfort.

Diego’s gaze flicked to their hands as Cassidy drew her fingers along the curve between his thumb and forefinger. He looked up at her, and they watched each other for a while, Cassidy’s heart pounding like crazy, Diego never moving.

After a long time, Diego lifted her hand, placed it back on the table, and turned on the microphone.

“Cassidy Warden,” he said. “Because you have no police record, and because I saw the third person with a tranquilizer gun fire at me, I’m not going to charge you for the trespassing. I’ll record that I gave you a warning, and that you swear to stay out of restricted areas. Also, I’m confining you to your Shiftertown for a period of two weeks, so you’ll have time to calm down and think about it. Interview ended at twenty-one hundred hours.”

Cassidy opened her mouth in outrage, but Diego held up his hand, stopping her as he turned off the microphone again.

“I can’t stay in Shiftertown for two weeks!”

Diego closed the file and lifted his coat, his movements brusque and no longer warm. “I can’t let you go without some kind of punishment. I’ll be checking up on you to make sure you do it. This is my call, Cassidy. I’m putting my ass on the line for you. Don’t make me regret it.”

She stared at him. Diego looked back at her, that same unfathomable gaze locking her in place.

“Why would you put your ass on the line for me?” Cassidy asked. Your very fine ass.

Diego slid his strong arms into his coat. “I don’t know, mi ja. Maybe because you could have let me fall but you helped me instead; maybe because I like your face. Whatever reason, you got lucky. Now go. I called your brother before I came in here. He should be waiting for you downstairs.”

Eric. The relief that her brother had come made Cassidy want to spring up and run to him, but she forced herself to rise calmly. She liked how tall Diego was when they stood toe-to-toe. He was almost the same height as Eric, and he smelled good, like dust and sunshine.

Diego opened the door of the interrogation room and gestured her to leave in front of him. The human-style courtesy betrayed how different their worlds were-a Shifter male would walk out first, checking the hall for danger before beckoning the female out the door. How humans had survived this long, Cassidy had no idea.

Cassidy passed Diego in the doorway, keeping her gaze on him. “You’re a shithead, Lieutenant Escobar.”

His answering smile erased every hard line on his face and made his eyes sparkle. His eyes were so dark, so deep, an entire world within them.

“I do my best, mi ja,” he said. “Go home.”

Diego walked away from her, leaving her to the uniformed policewoman who waited outside in the hall.

His backside moved nicely under his coat. Cassidy thought about the feel of his body against hers, and a shiver went through her as she continued to watch Diego walk away. No doubt about it-despite being human, despite him placing a curfew on her, Diego Escobar was hot.

Eric waited for Cassidy downstairs, all six and a half feet of him, his jade green eyes holding concern. Jace, Eric’s full-grown son, waited with him, eyes just as green but holding more restlessness.

As the policewoman let her out through the locked door, Cassidy ran to her brother and nephew, and they closed arms around her in a strong, soul-healing hug.

Diego’s captain grabbed him before Diego had the chance to return to his desk and start his report. Beckoning Diego to follow him into his office, Captain Maxwell went inside and snapped at Diego to close the door.

Captain John Maxwell stood five feet six and looked thin enough to be taken out in one blow. But the man could outshoot every person in his command and pin a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound biker to the wall and cuff him in five seconds flat. A reminder that looks could be deceiving.

Captain Max now turned a look of fury on Diego. “You are damn lucky I was the only one in the observation room, Escobar. What the hell were you doing?”

“I didn’t touch her,” Diego said.

“No, you let her crawl all over you instead. I thought she was going to lick you.”

Diego had thought so too, and the visual that came with the thought was hot and satisfying. “She stopped when I told her to.”

Captain Max gave him a don’t-bullshit-me-I’m-not-in-the-mood look. “Confining her to Shiftertown for all of two weeks? That’s it? Shifter Division is going to shit a brick.”

“If I charged her with trespassing, they’d lock her up,” Diego said. “You know that. A judge can give her a death sentence for trespassing, if that judge is asshole enough to do it. Cassidy didn’t do anything. Who cares about a building rusting in the desert?”

“And she’s gorgeous,” Captain Max said.

Diego couldn’t stop his grin. “OK, so that didn’t hurt.”

“Damn you, Escobar. I thought your brother was the maverick. You’re supposed to be the steady one, the responsible one.” Captain Max shoved some file folders around his desk, which he did when trying to relieve his temper. “I’m holding you responsible for this Shifter woman, Escobar. I want you checking on her every day. Every day, do you understand? Whether you’re on duty or off, weekdays and weekends. Got it?”

So much for the cabin on Charleston. “Yes, sir.”

“She so much as sets her toe outside Shiftertown, Shifter Division gets her. If she screws up, I’m putting the blame entirely on you. It’s your ass that will get kicked, not mine. Understand?”

Diego nodded. He knew that Captain Max would do his best to save Diego if things went wrong, as he had done before, but Diego didn’t want to put Captain Max in that position ever again.

“Yes, sir,” Diego said, and left the office, dismissed.