Hidden Crimes (26 page)

She flexed the hand she was holding behind
her back. “Maybe you should go.”

Beaumont smiled more deeply and began
whispering.

He didn’t get past the first two words of his
chant. Evina lashed out hard, raking four long tiger claws down his
face. She gouged him deeper than she ever had a human being, actual
bone scraping her claw tips. Beaumont cried out as blood flew.

He didn’t cry out loud enough for her. The
wounds she’d made were filling with light so thick it resembled
glowing gelatin. Evina gaped in dismay as the rips sealed
themselves.

“That,” he said coldly, touching fingertips
to his cheek, “wasn’t a smart thing to do.”

She wouldn’t allow herself to run; she had
too much to stand and fight for. She leaped at him, growling for
courage, her left hand clawed now as well. Beaumont didn’t crash
over like she expected. To her amazement, he braced and shoved and
she went flying through the air instead.

She landed on a collection of bentwood
chairs, their legs snapping like kindling under her. Mostly unhurt,
she jumped upward onto her feet. Beaumont was already on her, his
speed as fast as a shifter’s, though his energy signature wasn’t
animal. She tried slashing his face again, but he caught her swing
with his arm.

Hitting something so unmoving sent a reverb
along her bones.

Wishing she had more training, she kicked out
as hard as she could with her sneakered foot. He went sailing this
time, the front display case shattering under him as he fell.
Shards of glass bristled from his face and neck like a horror
movie, bleeding some but not much. Also like a horror movie, she
hadn’t knocked him out. At least his movements were sluggish as he
began yanking out slivers.

More glowing light filled the injuries.

Knowing she’d fight better in tiger form,
Evina closed her eyes and ordered her fear to settle. She needed to
change fast, or she’d lose her advantage.

She didn’t calm fast enough. The energy of
her beast had just begun to brighten when Beaumont started up his
blasted chanting again. Her eyes snapped open. He was up, attacking
her too fast to evade. He slapped his left hand around her wrist.
His right—the one she’d refused to shake because he’d pumped it
full of magic—took hold of her clawed middle finger. Evina panted
as he whispered faster, her inner tigress beginning to panic right
along with her. She wasn’t an expert, but she thought he was
speaking High Fae. She struggled to get away, but his grip was
iron. He pulled her finger like he meant to wrench it off, his
clear gray eyes blazing white fire at her.

In the end, it wasn’t her finger he ripped
free; it was her tiger claw.

Her tiger’s power ran out of her like water,
her hands immediately reverting to human. The finger whose claw
he’d yanked off dripped blood from its bare nail bed. It throbbed
like a mother, thought that didn’t especially matter.

Beaumont curled his fist around his grisly
prize. “Thank you,” he said, only a bit breathless. “I could have
done without the fight, but this is exactly what I needed.”

Clearly, he’d stolen more from her than a
claw. Evina was almost too weak to stand, as dizzy as if she were
about to faint. He pulled a pair of electrum-plated handcuffs from
the jacket of his bloodied Brooks Brothers suit, the metal spelled
so that a shifter—no matter how strong—wouldn’t be able to break
them. Her strength was hardly an issue. When she tried to tug from
his hold, her knees gave way and she fell over.

“Now, now,” Beaumont said, crouching down to
snap on the cuffs. “You have to know there’s no point in
resisting.”

~

Nate didn’t know how long he was out. He woke
groggy and stark naked in some kind of metal container. There was
enough room for him to sit up but not to stretch his legs. As he
pushed onto his butt, he recognized the enclosure as a dangerous
animal crate, the sort Shifter Control used to transport weres who,
for whatever reason, weren’t mastering themselves. The front of the
crate was an electrum-plated grill, very likely enchanted to
prevent him from busting out. The view through the bars was of a
quiet forest. The trunks were as tall as redwoods, isolated
splashes of scarlet declaring autumn was on its way. Muted sunbeams
angled through the leaves, adding to the sacred feel. Nate had been
set down on mossy ground in a glade of trees. Wind whispered
through the branches, and somewhere not far away a stream clattered
over stones.

He wished the stream were closer. He was
thirsty. Unable to do anything about that, he sniffed at his
surroundings. Though he couldn’t see them in his restricted field
of view, people were around, their scents mingling too much to pick
out individuals. The composition of the earth smelled familiar—the
minerals that were in it, the plants it supported. He thought this
might be Wolf Woods, a game preserve outside the city limits that
had been established for werewolves to hunt in. If this was true,
it was good news for him. Years of running here with his pack when
the moon was full had acquainted him with the terrain.

More because he had to try than because he
believed it would do any good, Nate braced his back against the
rear of the crate and kicked out at the grating. Pain shot up his
legs at the force he used, but the charmed metal didn’t budge.

“Well,” said a female voice he didn’t
recognize. “Our special guest is up.”

A young woman crouched in front of his crate,
joined a moment later by two very familiar men. All three had the
same pale red hair and creamy skin, all the same jewel green eyes.
They might only be part fae, but seen together, in this naturally
magical setting, they rather stole his breath. None of them seemed
put off by his nakedness.

“Ellen Owen,” he said huskily.

“On the nose,” she agreed, tapping her
delicate proboscis. “And these are my cousins Blue and Brone, whom
you’ve already met.”

“I’d offer to shake,” Nate said. “But you’d
have to open this door.”

Ellen Owen’s smile bared small and twinkling
snow-white teeth. “I’m glad you’ve kept your sense of humor. You’ve
no idea how amused I was when you showed up at their shop, trying
to lure me into the open. How is your cousin Tad, by the way? Still
mooning over me from high school?”

“Ellen,” the voice of Vasili Galina
interrupted. “Come away from there. It isn’t safe to tease
him.”

The annoyance that simultaneously crossed the
trio’s faces, as if scorn could be synchronized, didn’t bode well
for Vasili’s future happiness. Ellen rose, leaving her cousins
where they were. Light as a feather, she pattered across the mossy
ground to Vasili, twining her slender arms behind his neck. The
invitation to kiss her was clear. Vasili accepted with an
enthusiasm that made Nate uncomfortable. As if he couldn’t get
enough of her, the Russian’s hands slid down her back to pull her
hips up and against him.

His girlfriend wore a white silk kaftan—not
exactly stylish but pretty enough on her. The shimmery cloth was
embroidered with woodland flowers and belted at her waist by the
sort of girdle princesses wore in fairytales. Hers was fashioned
from fine chainmail links, its three dangling tassels finished off
by pink pearls. As Vasili groped her and groaned, it became
apparent she wasn’t wearing underwear.

Ellen pushed back from him before he seemed
remotely ready to let go. She touched his lips with her fingertips.
“You’re sweet to be protective of me,” she said.

Nate half believed she meant it—and he knew
better. Vasili had no problem at all. “You’re my most precious
treasure. You gave me the courage to dream bigger.”

If Nate had ever doubted Vasili killed his
brother, he gave up doubting then. He also stopped wondering why
Vasili’s minders at the safe house had conveniently slept through
his departure. The bank teller had demonstrated how easily Ellen
and her cohorts arranged such things.

Vasili must have decided he could fill that
alpha throne after all.

Blue and Brone were smirking at Vasili’s
declaration of devotion to their cousin. They stopped, wiping their
faces clean, when Ellen turned to them. Nate assumed she wasn’t
jailbait, but she looked like a teenage sprite. She had her hands
on Vasili’s shoulders and hovered on tiptoe. “Have we heard from
Clarence and the others yet?”

Her cousins stood. Though Ellen seemed
younger, it was clear—at least to Nate—that she was in charge of
them. “On their way,” Blue said. “Clarence completed his job
without a hitch.”

A groan jerked Nate’s head to the left.
Another crate like his sat there.

“Fuck,” grated a voice he recognized as
Paul’s. As big as the tiger was, he had to be squished in the
carrier. His body bumped its walls as he squirmed around to sit up.
“What the hell is going on?”

Nate supposed this settled the issue of
whether Evina’s ex was involved.

“Lovely.” Ellen Owen beamed, ignoring his
question. “All our ducklings are lining up.”

Her face was so beautiful with happiness
shining from it that Vasili’s eyes weren’t the only ones to
blink.

“She doesn’t mean you well,” Nate said
calmly, pitching his words to carry to the besotted man. “If you
think she does, you’re a bigger fool than you look.”

Vasili gawped like he was speaking an
extremely foreign tongue.

“Oh, tut,” Ellen scolded sweetly. She waved
toward her tall redheaded relatives. “Give Detective Rivera a shock
with the cattle prod. In fact, give both of our guests one.”

Neither Nate nor Paul enjoyed that much.

“You’re her stalking horse,” he panted once
he’d recovered. “You’re going to take the fall for killing your
brother so that her crew can step into the power vacuum his death
left.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Vasili said down his nose.
“Ellen is just a girl. She doesn’t have a crew. She’s helping me
take over from Ivan.”

“Really? Didn’t that girl’s people remove the
evidence of you killing your brother and the accountant? Don’t you
think they’ll put it back if you being blamed becomes convenient?
Wasn’t it her idea to embezzle from Ivan in the first place?”

Nate’s guesses would hardly hold up in court.
They were, however, accurate enough to narrow Vasili’s eyes.
Observing this, Ellen grabbed the cattle prod from Blue—he of the
longer hair and the surfer drawl—and poked the business end into
Nate herself.

The zap she gave him was twice what the
others had. He was lucky he was a shifter and resilient. Otherwise,
she would have stopped his heart.

When she pulled the prod back, she tossed her
head loftily. “Dogs like you don’t understand true love.”

Nate saw that her using
dog
as an
insult startled Vasili, considering he was a wolf himself. “I
understand that being part fae doesn’t make you any less of a
two-faced ho.”

Ellen’s growl of rage gurgled in her
throat.

“Uh,” Paul said from his neighboring crate.
“Maybe you should shut up.”

His comment gave Ellen a chance to pull
herself together, sparing her from betraying more of her character.
“Yes,” she said coolly, satisfying her temper by rapping his cage’s
grill. “Maybe you should shut up.”

Since his heart was still skipping beats,
Nate decided to comply. Convincing Vasili to switch sides had been
a long shot at best anyway.

Brone and Blue went motionless—listening, he
thought. “The others are near,” Brone said.

Focusing his own ears, Nate heard the sound
of approaching feet. They were too noisy to belong to weres,
snapping twigs and scuffing leaves as they went. An energy that was
almost fae preceded them. The current wasn’t steady, seeming to
surge and ebb unpredictably. Despite the danger from the cattle
prod, Nate pressed his face to the grate to get a better look.

Perhaps a dozen people tramped into the
beautiful dappled glade. Mr. White and the bank teller, whom Nate
hadn’t noticed there before, greeted them. The newcomers were
strangers. If he hadn’t sensed their group power, he’d have sworn
they were human. They looked like any suburban dweller’s neighbors.
One wore a postman’s uniform, another a waitress’s stereotypical
white shirt and black trousers. They weren’t ugly, by any means,
but none displayed a tenth of Ellen Owen’s beauty or glamour.

Interestingly, though not surprisingly, they
inclined their heads to her.

Nate saw Vasili notice. The Russian gangster
gave a little start. Maybe Nate’s accusations hadn’t fallen on
totally deaf ears. Ellen must have marked the reaction too, because
her manner turned sugary again.

“How kind of you to come!” she exclaimed,
clapping her hands girlishly. “Vasili and I really appreciate your
help. Now we only need the last two.”

Nate’s chest grew very tight. He suspected he
wouldn’t enjoy discovering who the last two were.

He smelled Evina before he heard her: that
beloved scent like Indian spices and woman. A man in a
blood-spattered suit led her by the elbow into the clearing. One of
her fingers bled, which increased his uneasiness. The injury didn’t
seem to be healing. When she shoved a few errant curls from her
face, he couldn’t help noticing how shaken and tired she was.
Though not as gory as her captor, her yellow shirt had spots of
blood on it.

“Beaumont,” Ellen said in a lower, richer
voice to the new arrival.
Sleeping together
, Nate thought
immediately. “Congratulations and welcome.”

Beaumont grinned. “Tigress put up a fight.
Happily, thanks to some excellent spellwork, I set her straight
about who’s in charge.”

Ellen’s part-fae suburban groupies—Nate
wasn’t sure what else to call them—chuckled in appreciation of
Beaumont’s wit. The trick the teller had pulled on Nate at the bank
had been impressive. He could be wrong, but none of these folks
gave off a sense of being on that level. So why would they laugh
with Beaumont as if they were equal powers?