Roman's Gold (Underground Heat, Book 1) (8 page)

An idea took root. “Maybe you could work for our side—” she began.

He shook his head. His hair flew around his face. “I can’t talk about this anymore. None of it.” He lurched to his feet and stumbled into his clothes. His eyes looked haunted. “Is there a back way out of here? I don’t want to see any more people than I absolutely have to. Not the shape I’m in.”

She nodded, got to her feet, and wrapped herself in a robe. “This way.” She wanted to talk to him, to reassure him, but he had such a closed look on his face, she thought it best not to try. He wouldn’t hear her anyway.

She led him into her small, personal room behind the bedroom and ran her hand over the electronic lock. “It’s just down the stairs. The door at the bottom unlocks along with this one.”

Devon turned to her. He pulled her roughly against him. “This is my own fault.” His voice rumbled against her hair. “I wanted you so much, I broke all the rules.” His arms tightened. “Don’t worry, Kate. No matter what happens, I won’t turn you in.”

He kissed her forehead, turned, and ran down the steps. Once she heard the bottom door close, she activated the lock and walked slowly back to the bedroom. It smelled like sex, shifter sex. Raw and musky. Her eyes welled. He was the best, the most perfect shifter she’d met in several human lifetimes.

“He’s our mated one!”
her cat crowed.
“Let’s go after him and bring him back.”

“No, it can’t be. You’re just lonely—like me.”

“I’m right,”
the cat insisted.
“That’s why you shifted spontaneously.”

Kate ignored her. Shifter mates were scarce as hen’s teeth. It was why so many of them married humans. Besides, Devon didn’t want her, not anymore. He had when he’d shown up on her front porch, and pretty badly. If the price for sex with her was shifting, though, all bets were off. She’d seen it in his eyes: horror and disgust with what he’d become. No, if he were truly her shifter mate, he’d have welcomed her with open arms.

“You’re wrong,”
the cat insisted.
“You caught him at a bad moment. Give him some time to get used to the idea—”

“Stop. Just stop. How could my mated one be a cop? They’re the enemy. Or haven’t you been paying attention?”

The cat subsided into a grumbling snarl.

Kate went on autopilot and stripped the bed. It was either that or curl in a ball on the floor and howl her misery. With her arms full of bedding, she started for the small washer and dryer. His scent filled her nostrils. She buried her nose in the sheets and changed her mind about washing them—at least for now. If his smell was all she had left of him, she wanted to hang onto it. Her heart ached. So did her pussy, but it was a sweet pain.

Kate did a slipshod job making the bed. A few minutes later, she stood in the shower. An idea shot through her as hot water sluiced down her body. She didn’t understand all the ramifications, but there had to be some. Once she was dry and dressed, she settled at her computer terminal and called the underground on their secure frequency. Max’s face appeared on her screen.

She sketched out what had happened with Devon. It wasn’t easy because Max kept interrupting. A tall, lean man with Germanic features and shoulder-length blonde hair, Maximillian Sigayev gestured with his hands while he talked. His blue eyes were intent, gaze never leaving her. In his animal form, he was a Russian wolf with an almost white coat and the same sky-blue eyes. He steepled his fingers. “So there is a drug which could make us stronger. And make more of us from those with weak mixed blood.”

Kate nodded. “That’s what it looks like. I’m not certain how old Devon is since I wiped his data off my computer, but he has to be somewhere between his mid-thirties and forty. A first shift at that age is unheard of.”

“I agree.” He eyed her. “So long as you called me, how is everything else? Food supplies holding up?”

Kate snaked her tongue out of her mouth and licked her lips. She hadn’t told the underground that Tara, Joe, and Mike were gone. Apparently the three had done a good job of hiding if Max still assumed they were with her. “There have been a few, er, changes.”

A corner of his mouth turned down. “Spill it, Roman. I don’t have all day.”

“…so, I left them in the woods with most of the food. It wasn’t like I had much of a choice. They would have left anyway.”

Max nodded. “I understand. Don’t blame yourself. They haven’t hit my radar screen, so they must be all right, at least for now. I have to run. Your intel about the drug may prove to be our salvation.”

“How so?”

“Not sure just yet, but you might have struck gold, Miss Roman. I need to run it past a couple of our biological scientists.”

The screen flickered and grayed out. Kate sat and stared at it for a while before she got to her feet. She did her usual cursory check that her office was ready for her next client before letting herself out the door. It was dark outside. She glanced at her wrist computer.
Sheesh. How’d it get to be eight o’clock?
There were several unopened messages, but she’d tend to them later. If she tarried, she’d miss the last bus. Taxis were ridiculously expensive. Kate dropped her wrist computer into a pocket and lengthened her stride.

As she jogged toward the bus stop, she thought about Devon. He’d been even dishier in the flesh than in her dreams. His shifter status was like icing on an already toothsome cake. She felt torn. The attraction between them was strong. On his side as well or he wouldn’t have bent his standards to buy time with her.

She sighed.
I’ve got to stop living in Never-Never Land. He doesn’t want me anymore. Couldn’t wait to get away… And even if he did, it would be foolish for me to link my star to a cop.

“I tell you,”
the cat growled,
“he is our mated one. Stop fighting it.”

“Be quiet. You’ll get us killed. He’s a cop. His job is to capture us.”

Kate waited for some pushback, but the cat was apparently done talking. Her thoughts returned to Devon. His professional life was all about following orders. As law enforcement, it would almost have to be. Despite his assurance he’d never turn her in, she wasn’t certain his ingrained sense of duty wouldn’t trip him up—and snare her right along with him.

She waved her arms at the bus and ran hard. The doors swooshed open. The attendant gave her a dirty look. The buses didn’t need drivers. The city had run them without any human assistance until homeless had taken up residence in the public transportation system. Between crapping in the busses and heckling people who simply wanted a ride from Point A to Point B, bums had practically disabled the bus system. It took a while, but the powers that be decided it was cheaper to assign a person to each bus.

She flashed her wrist computer app at the attendant and ran her screen over the glass. It beeped and debited ten credits from her account. Kate glanced up the aisle. Not so many people tonight. She worked her way to a window seat, fell into it, and tried to empty her mind of Devon. Just when she thought she’d succeeded, her cat piped up,
“He’s only a cop because he didn’t understand he was one of us.”

Chapter 7

Devon felt like someone had kicked him in the stomach. He tried to ignore the pain, but it had done nothing but get worse since he’d left Kate. His mouth flooded with saliva.

He doubled over and vomited into a trash can on a street corner. Spasms wracked his body. He heaved again and again until the only thing left was bile. Feeling shaky, he drew the back of a hand across his mouth and shambled toward his flat. Passersby gave him a wide berth while he hurled his guts out. Probably thought he had some horrible disease. Or he was a junkie.

He tried not to think about anything, but images of mountain lions rose to taunt him. He saw himself mounted behind Kate, also in her cat form, thrusting into her. Ill and shaky as he was, damn if his cock didn’t twitch.
What kind of sick son of a bitch am I?

He glanced around him. Thank God it was only another half block home. It had taken nearly two hours to travel what should have taken half that time. He wanted to lock the door and never come out. Never.

He dragged his body up the steps, dredged the key out of a pocket, and let himself inside. Feeling hollow and out of control, Devon bent over the kitchen sink to rinse the taste of sickness from his mouth. He fell into a kitchen chair, peeled a banana, and ate it. Maybe it wouldn’t come right back up. He had to eat something; he was dizzy.

He stared at his hands. His vision blurred; they turned into paws with tawny fur and long, lethal, curved claws. He blinked and they were just hands again. He thought about trying to shift so he could develop some sort of control over what it felt like, but discarded the idea. What if he screwed up and couldn’t get back? His heartbeat sounded loud in his ears, telling him how rattled he was.

“No.” He spoke aloud to try to calm himself. “If I try to shift, I should be in the hills. At least there are other mountain lions there. If I couldn’t find my human form again, there’d be game to hunt.”

The banana seemed to be staying put. He ate another and put water on the stove to heat for coffee. He hated microwaves. He’d found the stove in a falling-down second hand store and wired the electrical lines in tandem to accept its two hundred twenty volt plug.

Devon massaged his temples. There was so much he didn’t understand. He couldn’t look up the sort of things he needed to know about being a shifter on the vid feed. No privacy. Anyone could track his browsing history. His mother had two sisters, shifters like her. And his grandmother was still alive. Her shifter blood was pure. Somewhere in the back of his mind he recalled shifters lived a long time. He didn’t know exactly how long since they never talked about things like that—at least not with him.

He spooned instant coffee and sugar into a cup and poured water over it, stirring. He pulled the anonymous wrist computer he’d purchased earlier from his vest. Lots of minutes left on it. He wondered if any of his mother’s people would talk with him—assuming he could even find them. They’d gone into hiding and moved frequently. He hadn’t seen any of them, except at his mother’s funeral, since the edict went into effect.

Devon drank some more coffee and grimaced. Even if he could reach his aunts or grandmother, they’d probably laugh and tell him it was divine justice he’d turned into one of them. He thought about calling Kate, even tapped in her number before chickening out. He sent her a text message instead. It was easier that way. If she ignored it, he’d know…

Well, what would I know?

That she doesn’t want anything to do with me,
he answered himself.

Devon stared at the computer’s blank display for several minutes. His heart ached. He’d hoped she’d text back. All he’d asked was if they could talk, that he had questions.

“Guess that answers that,” he muttered and slugged back half the cup of coffee. Caffeine would help. He waited for it to jolt him out of his funk. It didn’t happen fast enough, so he drained the rest of the cup.

He grappled for his other wrist computer to find his aunts’ and grandmother’s numbers. He thought about who was least likely to be judgmental. It occurred to him they might not believe him, might think he was playing some sort of underhanded cop trick to gather classified information. He laid both computers on the table.

No time for a trip to San Bernardino. He’d didn’t have any vacation or sick time on the books. That took six months to accrue. He considered quitting—again. It would be the kiss of death for his law enforcement career.
What career?
He asked himself bitterly.
I won’t have a career once they find out what I am.

The implications of that sank in and bit deep. What he’d told Kate was true. His life had altered radically in the seconds it took for fur to sprout from his sides. Never mind the tail and claws and lengthened incisors.

Devon clapped a hand over his mouth and bolted for the bathroom mirror. He skinned back his upper lip and inspected his eyeteeth. His eyes narrowed. They were longer, but it wasn’t that noticeable. Still, he couldn’t be a cop anymore. It would only be a matter of time before they found him out.

His gaze roved down his body. It felt alien. Strange. Had anything else changed? With his jaw set in a hard line, he stripped off his clothes and examined himself, using the wall mirror and a handheld one for his backside. He exhaled sharply, not realizing he’d been holding his breath. Nothing else was different. Not yet, anyway.

He flipped on the taps in the shower.
May as well clean up.
Some shreds of condom were stuck in his foreskin; he peeled it back to loosen them. Kate’s scent filled his nose. A wave of longing so intense it undid him made his cock spring to attention. He ignored it and stepped into the shower.

His dick was still hard, curved against his stomach, when he turned the water off. He dried himself, hands lingering at his crotch. Finally, he gave in and leaned against the bathroom wall. He saw his reflection in the mirror as his hand closed over his shaft. He knew what he needed. His hand pumped, slowly at first, and then his grip tightened and he worked himself harder. His muscles tensed.

Kate with all her splendid hair unbound appeared before him. She straddled him and thrust her hips against him. His breathing quickened. He was close. He imagined closing his mouth over Kate’s nipple and sucking hard. Her body writhed under him. She pushed his head lower. He strung kisses down her flat stomach and sucked on her clit. Kate’s lusty abandon unfolding behind his closed lids intensified his desire. Just a few more strokes…

His balls tightened; his cock bucked in his hand. Semen arced out of him, splattering the floor. He came hard. It surprised him since he’d just come a few hours before. After all, at thirty-eight he was well past the age when he’d gone around with a perpetual hard-on and could come half a dozen times a day.

Panting hard, he opened his eyes and grabbed a towel to clean up the mess. It slipped out of his hand. He bent to retrieve it and glanced downward.
Shit!
No wonder he’d dropped the towel. He didn’t have hands anymore. Paws with fur and claws mocked him. He looked at his belly; a line of fur gathered at his groin. It moved upward as he stared at himself.