Authors: Catherine Vale
“Commander,
I know I fucked up by not paying closer attention to Raina – ”
“You
didn’t do anything wrong,” the Commander said gruffly, surprising Angela.
Scowling, he crossed over to the mahogany cupboard standing against the wall to
his right and pulled out a crystal glass and a decanter of dark liquid that
Angela’s nose identified as brandy when he popped the stopper off it. He poured
himself a generous measure before returning to the desk with it. “My daughter
has always been strong-willed, and now she is paying the price for her
carelessness. If she’d taken the proper precautions the way that I
taught
her
and constantly remind her of, this wouldn’t have happened to her.”
Well
then.
Angela shut her gaping mouth, knowing that now was not the right time
to say anything to the Commander. Part of her was outraged on Raina’s behalf that
her father’s first instinct was to blame, but Angela knew that was just his way
– he truly did love his daughter and would do anything to get her back.
“Captain
Fitzsimons tells me that you gleaned more specific information from the interview
regarding the kidnappers’ identities?”
Angela
took another deep breath, knowing that if she imparted this information the
wrong way the Commander would bar her from this case. “I recognized one of the
assailants as belonging to the Black Moon Clan.”
“The
Black Moon Clan?” The Commander frowned. “They’re a bear shifter clan, aren’t
they? One that has a particularly intense hatred toward mages?”
Angela
nodded, and the Captain chose this moment to interject. “She told me that her
brother is the clan Chieftain, which is how she recognized them.”
“Excuse
me?” The Commander’s eyes widened angrily. “Are you saying that the clan who
kidnapped my daughter is your
kin
?”
“No!”
Angela barely managed to keep from shooting out of her chair. “No,” she said
more quietly, but her denial was just as stringent. “I didn’t grow up in the
Black Moon Clan – my father is the Chieftain of the Redstone Clan.”
“Oh.”
The Commander relaxed a bit. “That’s right – I seem to remember reading
that in your file when I was reviewing your last promotion.” He frowned. “If
you’re from the Redstone Clan, then why is it that your brother is the Chieftain
of a different clan, especially one so radical?”
Angela
sighed. “My father adopted Garrison because his parents were killed by a mage
for their pelts when he was just a cub.” Evil mages went after shifters on a
regular basis as they could use their pelts, and other body parts in a number
of spells and rituals. “He grew up hating mages and wanting to seek revenge
against the mage community, and when it became clear he wasn’t going to get
what he wanted from us, he found a clan that better… served his needs.” The
pain and disappointment of that night rose up in her chest, threatening to
choke her, and she shoved it back down. “I haven’t spoken to him in years, but
I visited him once to try and persuade him to come back and I remember seeing
the shifter from Darian’s memories from that time. I know my brother is
involved.”
The
Commander leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his stomach, his expression
completely impassive. He stared at her for such a long time that Angela’s palms
broke out into another sweat, and she began to wonder whether or not he was
fantasizing about all the different ways he could murder her – ways in
which no one would ever be able to find out.
“
Do
you love your brother?”
“What?”
Angela blinked. She’d been in the middle of imagining how it would feel if the
Commander took her to an abandoned warehouse and incinerated her using magical
fire.
Commander
Madison scowled. “I asked you whether or not you hold any affinity for the
shifter bear you spent the majority of your childhood with. I want to know
whether or not that love is going to compromise your ability to help retrieve
my daughter.”
Angela’s
heart grew heavy as she thought about how best to answer that question. It was
true that, despite all Garrison had done, she still loved the serious yet
charming bear cub she’d grown up with, but… “Garrison is highly intelligent and
does nothing without a purpose. He chose to kidnap Raina for a very specific
reason, and he would have known that she’s my partner.” She set her jaw. “I
can’t forgive him for that, no matter the reason. I’ll do whatever it takes to
get Raina back.”
“That’s
exactly what I want to hear,” the Commander said. He was about to say more, but
the phone on his desk rang, and he picked it up. “Yes? Oh, that’s great. Yes,
please send him in. Thank you.”
As
he hung up the phone, Angela
really
wished that the phones around here
weren’t spelled to prevent beings like her with sensitive hearing from
listening to the conversation. “Who’s coming in?”
“Someone
who I want you to work with,” the Commander said. “He’s a freelancer, but he’s
one of the best – though his methods are a bit unconventional,” he added.
“You may have heard of him, his name is – ”
“Cole
Avery,” she said flatly as the door opened and the very man who’d come to her
rescue when she’d needed backup stepped into the room.
Chapter Three
Cole
sucked in a breath of air as he walked into the Commander’s office, his eyes
alighting on the same Protector from the Crazy Horse sitting in one of the
chairs in front of the Commander’s desk. He gritted his teeth as the same
wicked heat he’d felt earlier when she’d touched him, began to unfurl deep in
his belly, not at all happy at the reaction she was stirring up in him. And, if
the way her gemlike green eyes were narrowed on him were any indication, she
wasn’t entirely happy to see him either. Twisted around in her chair with a
glare on her heart-shaped face, she looked as though she’d swallowed something
particularly sour.
“Nice
to see you again.” He inclined his head to the female shifter, trying not to
glare at her even though it was entirely her fault that his hormones had
decided to go into overdrive.
“You
two know each other?” Commander Madison asked, surprised. He’d already stood
from his chair – at least
someone
around here was showing some
respect – though his shock had stopped him from making it more than
halfway around his enormous desk.
Cole
nodded, his lips curving into a small smirk. “I gave her a bit of a helping
hand at the Crazy Horse earlier tonight. She was trying to break up a fight
between a vampire and a shifter single-handedly.”
Not that I got any thanks
for that,
he thought to himself silently, conveying the thought with a
pointed look.
The
shifter female’s back stiffened as she received the message loud and clear. “I
do appreciate your assistance in that matter,” she said. “But I don’t see why
– ”
“I
called Cole in to help the moment Captain Fitzsimons informed me of the
situation,” the Commander wisely interrupted, likely stopping the female
shifter from saying something insulting that would chase Cole away. “He was
already in town finishing up an assignment so I secured his cooperation to
assist in retrieving Raina.”
For a fee, of course, but Cole imagined the
Commander wasn’t prepared to share that information with the room.
The
Commander turned away from the now sputtering female and closed the distance so
he could shake Cole’s hand. “I appreciate you coming on such short notice.”
“Of
course. This is an urgent matter.” More than that, though, Commander Madison
was one of the few mages that didn’t look down on Cole with some measure of
disdain. He supposed that tolerance was a necessary trait for a commander whose
employees were a hodgepodge of races that dealt with an even wider pool of
supernaturals on a regular basis, but still – it was refreshing.
“Yes,
it is.” The Commander turned and gestured to the shifter female, who reluctantly
rose to her feet. “This is Detective Angela Mason. She’ll be working with you
on the case.”
Cole
stiffened, suddenly understanding why Angela was so displeased to see him. As a
purebred shifter female, she would naturally be prejudiced against working with
him, and that was definitely
not
something he wanted to deal with. “I
work alone.”
The
Commander scowled. “Not on this one you don’t. Angela’s brother happens to be
the mastermind behind my daughter’s kidnapping, and because of her close connection
to both him and Raina, I want her working on this case. Her knowledge is
invaluable.”
Cole’s
mouth snapped shut, knowing that the Commander was right though he didn’t like
it one bit. Angela apparently decided to take that as a cue for her to speak
up. “I don’t understand why we need him,” she told the Commander. “We have a
houseful of well-trained, dedicated Protectors right under this roof who are
more than capable of retrieving Raina. We don’t need to hire a mercenary.”
Cole
knew he should be offended, but part of him admired that the woman had the
balls to say what was on her mind when he was standing right here in the room.
“I hate to break it to you, sweetheart,” he said before the Commander tore a strip
off her hide, “but you need me, more than you know.” He raked a hot stare over
her curvy body, which nicely displayed by the form-fitting red leather bomber
jacket and skin-tight jeans she wore.
Angela’s
face flushed as she caught his stare, and she tossed her coppery curls
defiantly. “And just why is that?”
“I
think you’d better show her the ransom letter,” the Captain said quietly.
“What
ransom letter?” Angela’s head whipped around to look at Captain Fitzsimons.
The
Captain picked up a file on his desk and withdrew a letter. He handed it off to
Angela to read, and Cole looked over her shoulder, wanting to get a look at it
in person though he knew the contents of the missive already.
“This
is a ransom demand,” Angela said after a long moment. “Raina’s life, in
exchange for Commander Madison’s. It says here that if he doesn’t turn himself
in, they’re going to kill her... and that she’ll be the first of many.” She
looked up at the Commander, aghast. “When did you receive this?”
“Not
twenty minutes ago.” The Commander pressed his lips into a thin line. “Your
brother’s people work fast.”
Cole
watched as a muscle flexed in Angela’s jaw. Clearly she wasn’t happy about the
fact that a member of her own family was responsible for her partner’s
kidnapping. “The fact of the matter is,” he said, drawing her attention back to
him, “your Commander could order a manhunt for Raina’s kidnappers and involve
the whole precinct, but that’s going to create a hell of a lot of mess and
publicity that he wants to avoid. Since the Commander’s running for office next
year, I imagine he wants to avoid all that.”
Barely
leashed fury flared in Angela’s green eyes as she rounded on the Commander. “So
you’re hiring a mercenary to rescue your daughter instead of relying on the
proper channels because you want to improve your chances of getting a seat on
the
council
?” she hissed, balling her fists at her sides in a way that
Cole knew meant she was itching to deck the Commander in the face. He felt his
respect for her go up another notch – though he was getting paid for the
job, he too found the Commander’s choice of priorities to be just a hair away
from despicable.
Commander
Madison’s face reddened. “There is absolutely no reason why you and Cole won’t
be just as capable of retrieving Raina as a task force would,” he growled.
“That’s why I hired Cole – because he’s the best, and my daughter
deserves the best. Now if you want to have any part in finding her, I suggest
you stop arguing with me and get on it. Unless you’d rather I find someone else
to help Cole?”
Angela
face blanched with fury, and for a moment Cole really did think she was going
to deck her Commander. But then the moment passed, and she nodded stiffly.
“We’ll find her. You have my word.”
“Good.
Now get out of my sight, and don’t come back until you have something to
report.”
* * *
Angela
stormed out of the building, with Cole just a few paces behind her. If she’d
been a mage, the air around her would have been crackling with magic, her hair
whipping around her face as her entire body glowed with the need for
retribution. As it was, she settled for the stiff wind pushing her hair out
behind her, which in turn cooled some of the heat that was scalding her from
the inside out.
“Hey
there,” Cole called from behind her. “Why don’t you slow down for a second and
tell me where exactly we’re going?”
Angela
took a deep breath as anger sparked from within her, then waited for it to
fizzle out before she turned to speak to him. It infuriated her even more that
he was standing there so calmly with his hands in his pockets, as if he didn’t
have a care in the world, and part of her wondered if maybe he
hadn’t
felt
that same spark of desire she had back in the bar.
Can we focus, please?
A voice in her head urged, and
she sighed. The truth was that, as much as she didn’t like it, she needed to
work with Cole in order to find Raina. Focusing attention on these sudden
feelings
that may or may not have been between them, wasn’t going to further that
goal. “We’re headed back to the precinct so I can have access to my files and
my desk while we work.”
Cole
frowned, gesturing to the building behind them. “You mean you don’t work here?”
Angela
shook her head. “This is the central precinct,” she explained. “I work at the
eastern precinct, over by the Golden Gate Bridge.”
Cole
raised an eyebrow. “That’s a lot of precincts for one city.”
“Yeah,
well there are a lot of supernaturals around here, too.” She cocked her head,
some of her ire fading away to curiosity. “I’d think as a mercenary you would
know more about this.”
Cole
shrugged. “I travel way too often to keep track of every police station and order
precinct around.” He shoved his hands into his pockets, looking off into the
distance at the Bay Bridge twinkling over the San Francisco Bay in the
darkness. The wind ruffled his curls, but somehow didn’t detract from his
rugged masculinity. The silvery moonlight shining down on him really brought
out the glow of his violet eyes, and made him look, well, otherworldly.
I
think the word you’re looking for is sexy,
a playful voice purred in her
head.
Stop
that. Whether or not he’s sexy has absolutely nothing to do with anything.
You’ve got a job to do.
No,
not sexy. More like smoking Hot with a capital H. Yeah, that sounds about
right.
“Soooo… are you going to stand
there staring at me all night, or are we going back to your precinct?”
Angela
blushed furiously as she tore her gaze away from him, annoyed that she’d gotten
so caught up in her lust that she’d forgotten herself. She chalked it up to
needing to get laid in the worst way possible, and filed it away at the top of
her to-do-list of
Things to Get Done Once I Rescue Raina.
“Let’s
go,” she said, turning away from him before she could embarrass herself
further. “I’ve got a motorcycle, so you can go ahead and follow me back to the
precinct as long as you can keep up.”
“That
sounds like a challenge,” Cole remarked, his lips curling up at the corners in
a way that was far too charming for his own good.
“It’s
a promise.”
I don’t have any more time to fuck around
, she decided as
the anxiety started to take hold again. She needed to find her partner before
something truly bad happened to her… and knowing her brother, they didn’t have
very long at all if she wanted to get Raina back whole and healthy again.
* * *
Raina
was shocked abruptly back to consciousness as someone dumped a bucket of icy
water over her head. Spluttering, she blinked open her eyes to find herself
chained hand and foot on a cot in a large concrete cell with no windows or
additional furnishings. Panic expanded her chest as she shot upright, a wild
scream from her vocal chords impending.
“Ah,
good. You’re finally awake.”
Choking
back the scream, Raina turned toward the doorway to find a male shifter
standing there, flanked by two other shifters who seemed to act as bodyguards.
“Who the hell are you?” she snapped, hating that her voice trembled.
Really,
what the hell kind of Protector was she that she was ready to fall apart at the
first sign of trouble?
“My
name is Garrison Hendricks,” the shifter male said, stepping into the room
within striking distance. Raina tried to conjure a ball of flame to throw at
him, but the chains around her hands hummed, enforcing some kind of magical
pressure on her that prevented the energy from getting out. “I’m the Chieftain of
the Black Moon Clan, and it’s my hospitality you’re enjoying tonight.” He
smiled, glancing down at her hands. “I wouldn’t push your luck on conjuring any
kind of spell,” he told her. “If you try to hard the chains will simply
backlash the energy into your own body, which has devastating effects, or so
I’m told.” He shrugged, leaning against the wall.
Raina
narrowed her eyes as she studied him. Dressed in a white button-up shirt and
linen slacks, he presented a rather unassuming presence with his sandy brown
hair and lean frame, and she found it hard to believe he was a Chieftain of
anything, much less a bear clan. But as she looked into his pale blue eyes, she
felt a chill run down her spine, and instinct told her that here was a man full
of cold and ruthlessness who would not hesitate to mow down anyone in his way
to get what he wanted, even if it meant his friends.
And
Raina was definitely not his friend.
“The
Black Moon Clan?” she said carefully, racking her fuzzy brain to try and dredge
up the niggling memory the name evoked. Whatever funk they’d given her earlier
to knock her out had really done a number on her – she had a
lightning-fast memory that was practically photogenic and usually had no
trouble recalling anything. “Aren’t you that radical clan who hates mages of
any and all kinds?”