5
Deus, she was beautiful.
Flushed with satisfaction, her lips swollen from his kisses, her sex hot and slick around his. Kienan held on to his control by the thinnest thread of mercurite.
Trailing kisses down her neck, he pressed her backward until she was spread out like a feast before him on her desk. He liked that thought and couldn’t stop the wicked grin that formed on his lips. He leaned back a bit, wanting to see all of her, every naked centimeter. Yes, beautiful. Her pale hair fanned around her, a sharp contrast to the dark wood. He palmed the roundness of her hips, moved to her waist, slid his fingers up her soft, soft skin, and cupped her breasts in his hands.
She moaned, arched her torso, and forced his cock deeper inside of her. Lust pounded through him and he shuddered. It took every ounce of his restraint not to fuck her hard and fast until he came inside her. He wanted more from her, wanted to wring another orgasm or two out of her before he let her up. He squeezed her breasts, rubbing his thumbs over her nipples. They tightened for him, stabbing into his hands. He pinched them, flicking his talons over the beaded crests, and he watched her lust reawaken. The scent of her desire filled his nostrils, made his dick throb.
She writhed against the desktop, her tight sheath slick around his cock. “Kienan.”
He shuddered. “I like it when you say my name.”
“Why’s that?” A little grin curled her full lips, but her breath caught when he surged inside her. “Kienan.”
Deus, he loved the way she moaned his name. His hips rocked, and he reached between them to stroke a fingertip over her clit. “I haven’t told anyone my real name in a long time. Only my bosses knew it. I never used it when I was working.”
Her brows drew together as she struggled to focus, and he liked that she had to struggle, that he could make a woman as focused as she was lose it. “Really?”
“Yes, I got tired of the lies.” He teased her wet flesh, the lips of her pussy, stretched around his cock. “Got tired of never knowing anyone or having them know me. I want to know you, Gea. You and Quill.”
The words spilled from his mouth, stupid, weak words that were like speaking a foreign language to him, but he didn’t care. There was some part deep inside him that hated the thought of losing either of them now. He wanted this, wanted to see where it went with both his mates. Doubts shadowed her gaze, and she opened her mouth to speak, but he pinched her clit hard before she could protest. He rolled it under his thumb, flicking it with the tip of one talon. Hard.
Her back arched and she cried out. He felt the squeeze of her inner muscles around his cock as she came. And his control broke. He bracketed her hips in his hands and hammered inside of her sweet pussy. Grabbing for his arms, she held on for the ride, there with him the whole way. Her fangs bared and the feral display only made him drive his cock into her harder, forging their bodies together until he couldn’t tell where he ended and she began.
Just the way he wanted it.
“Kienan, Kienan, Kienan,” she chanted, and he groaned, thrusting deeper into her pussy. She screamed his name, her sheath locking tight around his cock again as she came for him.
It was more than he could resist. He exploded inside of her, shuddering and groaning as he jetted come deep into her pussy. The feel of her fisting around him while he came made him choke and sink his softening dick into her, craving the connection that he knew would end the second she came down from the climactic high. Collapsing forward, he rested his head between the mounds of her breasts, her scent dragging into his lungs while he sucked in oxygen. His muscles shook and burned from the workout, but it felt damn good anyway. He had no regrets about hunting her down today.
She stirred beneath him and he reluctantly straightened. “You all right?”
A sigh slid out of her. “Yeah. You?”
“Me?” He lifted an eyebrow. “I’m prime right now, thanks to you.”
Chuckling, she pushed herself upright, winced a bit, and rubbed a hand over her back. She felt around the desk behind her and came up with her palmtop computer. “That explains the backache.”
“Sorry, I was more focused on you than what you were lying on.”
She set the palmtop aside and slipped off the desk to stand before him. “I’m really not trying to rush you out, but I got a message before you arrived and I have a contact to meet. It might be the break in the case I’m working on.”
“Looking for Felicia Tamryn. Quill mentioned it, in case I heard anything at Tail.” Surprise flickered across her expression, but he could see the barriers sliding back into place. He sighed but knew he couldn’t let her walk away from him now. She was still flush with passion and wet with his seed. His cock jerked at the thought, and a shudder ran through him. “Let’s shower before you go. We smell like sex.”
“Probably not the most professional perfume.” She flashed a smile and led the way through her main space to a wash closet with a small shower. “Unless you’re a jade and it is your profession.”
They kept it quick, and he waited until they were back in her office and sorting their clothes out before he spoke again. He hoped this was a gamble that would pay off. “I understand the case is important to you and you have to go now, but I want to come with you to watch your back.”
“I’m working.” She stuffed herself into her pants and boots, sealing both. “That means I’m dealing with sensitive information for my client and going places you probably don’t want to be.”
He snorted, pulling his shirt on. “I worked covert ops for a national intelligence agency. Do you think I can’t keep a secret? Do you think I can’t handle myself anytime, anywhere?”
Her jaw clenched. “That isn’t the point.”
“I can follow you. Do you really want me tailing you while you try to do your work?” Everything in him said if he let her shut him out now, he might never get her to talk about why she had such a deep aversion to mating. He needed to press his advantage now. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just let me come this one time?”
She growled, the fox in her ready to snap at him. “This one time, you swear it?”
“You trust me to keep my promise?”
“Yes,” she barked.
“You don’t know me.” He bent down until they were eye to eye, until he was close enough to see the gold flecks in her irises. “Could it be that pesky mating instinct telling you that you can trust me?”
“Go fuck yourself.”
Putting on his boots, he shot back at her. “Fucking you is so much better, but your suggestion is noted.”
She threw a few things into her ever-present bag, spun on a heel, and walked away. He sealed his pants and followed her out. The silence was chilly, and she refused to even glance at him as she jogged down the street to catch a public transport.
“Was it your parents who were mates?”
She stumbled, catching herself against the side of a building to keep from falling. She shrugged away from his touch when he tried to help her and pushed herself to a standing position. Not looking at him, she kept walking. “Leave it alone, Vaughn.”
“You know I can’t do that. I’m your—”
“Stop saying it. Deus!” She hurried to clamor onto a transport headed toward the Vermilion. No one else was on board, but he sat close enough that their thighs brushed anyway.
“So it was your parents.” He drew in a breath, pushing her and hoping it didn’t push her away. “Was it your mother who lied to your father or your father who lied to your mother?”
“My parents were never married.” She stared out the window at the passing scenery.
He narrowed his gaze, noting the way she held herself, the inflection of her tone. It didn’t ring true. She was lying about something. “They weren’t married. Were they mates?”
She sighed, closing her eyes briefly. “Yes.”
“And who was the liar?” He kept his voice low and undemanding, knowing he could only press her for information so much before it backfired on him.
“My father.”
He bumped her leg with his. “What did he lie about?”
“Everything. And nothing.” Her shoulder twitched in a shrug, and she eased away from him subtly. “It doesn’t matter now. He’s dead. They both are.”
“Why didn’t they marry?” Some people didn’t, but she’d been the one to point out a lack of matrimony, and he suspected it meant something deeper.
Her mouth worked for a moment before she spoke. “Because he was already married when he met my mother.”
That surprised him. “He didn’t divorce to be with his mate?”
“No, his wife was a wealthy, influential woman. If he’d left her, she would have ruined him.” There was an inflection to her words, as if reciting something she’d been told by someone else. Often.
“So, you were the result of an affair between them?”
She snorted but still didn’t meet his gaze. “Something like that.”
“Tell me. Please. Give me this, if nothing else.” He covered her hand with his, and she balled her fingers under his touch. He brought her fist to his lips and kissed it. “Let me understand why you don’t want us to be together.”
Her defiance crumpled, her head bowing. She tugged her hand away from him. “He kept her as his mistress until he died.”
Deus, the man had turned his mate into a whore. The very idea was outlandish to Kienan. “How did she deal with that?”
“She didn’t.” She folded her arms over her chest and hunched her shoulders. “She spent her life waiting for him. We both did. Everything revolved around him and whether or not he was coming to visit. She was the happiest person alive, joyful when he was around. But then he left again. He always left. There was always something more important than his family. Like his wife, his business associates. We were always last place. That’s what mating means to me.”
Mated to one woman, married to another for power and prestige. What a fucking prick. He wanted to go back and punch the bastard in the face, if for no other reason than the man had hurt Gea. Protectiveness bristled through Kienan. “That’s not mating, that was just him. He sounds like a selfish person. I’m not.”
“Maybe, but what if I come to depend on you like she did on him?” She turned to look at him squarely, her gaze troubled. “What if I buy into this whole whacked-out mating thing and invest myself in it heart and soul?”
Deus, he wanted that. He wanted this woman’s heart and soul. He wanted everything she had to offer and more.
She shook her head, pressing shaking lips together. “And then what happens when you die and I’m alone again? Only I don’t have a life without you. I’m just a weak shadow of a person, and I’ll wither up without you.”
That didn’t sound like her at all, this fearsome female. What he knew of her so far was that she was tough and redefined obstinate. Talking to Quill this past week had only confirmed his suspicions about her. “Is that what your mother did?”
“Yes.” She dashed away a tear as if it shamed her to have shed it. “I decided as a kid that that would never be me. I would never be in so deep with someone that there was no me without him. That’s what mating is, that’s what it means, and I am not going there. Not for you or Quill or anyone else. I can’t, Kienan. I just can’t. I hope the two of you are happy together, I really do, but I can’t be part of it.”
“You already are.” His gut clenched at the sight of her tears, and he reached over to squeeze her leg.
“No.” Her gaze was stormy, her face paling. “I may not have any say in whether or not a mate or two exists out there in the world for me, but I can decide whether or not to do anything about it. I’ve made my choice.”
“You can’t blame me for wanting to change your mind. I’m nothing like your father, Gea. Neither is Quill. We both protect what’s ours; we value what we have.” He pitched his voice low as a ragged-looking woman boarded the transport and shuffled to the opposite end. As far away as possible, but still within earshot. However, the noise of the moving transport should cover his quiet words. “If we had you as a mate, openly and honestly, then that would apply to you, too. Neither of us is like your father.”
She sniffed, ignoring the personal comments to focus on her parent. Her stubbornness was intact. “He valued his wealth and comfort more than he valued his mate.”
“Or his daughter.” And she valued her independence more than her mates. He didn’t say it aloud. He doubted it would win him any favors from her to compare her with her father. Even less if he said anything about her mother. What kind of woman stood by and allowed her mate to treat her that way? Why hadn’t she come out fighting, claws bared, at the mere mention that he’d remain with his wife and treat her like a cheap jade he’d picked up on a street corner? Hell, why hadn’t she walked away rather than take that shit from anyone? It showed a lack of respect. She hadn’t had any kind of self-respect, and her mate hadn’t respected her as a person or a mate. Neither of them had respected what a mate was. Kienan shook his head.
The line of his thoughts was appallingly idealistic, which wasn’t like him at all. He knew the world was a mean, dirty place. He’d spent enough years in the gutter cleaning up the trash in the world to know. The one person he knew he could trust was himself and his instincts. His instincts said his mates were his, and he took care of what was his. That was what mating meant to him.
“After my father died, I watched my mother just . . . fade away. She lost touch with reality, stopped caring about anything, especially me. All I became was a painful reminder of what she’d lost.” Her shoulder brushed against his when she shrugged. “His death ate at her until there was nothing left. And then she went, too. Gratefully, I think.”
The pain in her tone made him ache. It had been such a long time since he’d bothered with sympathy for another person that he shied away from it, asking another question instead. “How old were you when they died?”
“Fifteen when my father kicked, and sixteen when my mother followed him.” She leaned her head against the seatback, looking tired.
He rubbed a hand up and down her thigh, hoping it was comforting, but what the hell did he know about comforting anyone? Genuine comfort and not some manipulation he was using for the sake of a mission? Not a damn thing. “So you were still a minor. How did you get by? Did someone take you in? A relative?”
“No relatives.” She rolled her head on the seat to look at him. “Any family they had died before I was even born. And his wife certainly wasn’t going to help me.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Did she know about you?”
“Yes, but acknowledging that wouldn’t be keeping up appearances for their friends.” She assumed a haughty expression, staring down her nose at him.
“How did you get by?” he repeated, ignoring her attempt at humor. Another person he’d like to hunt down for being a selfish ass and abandoning a young girl in the name of their own interests. Irresponsible. There were a lot of people like that in the world, but he hated to see the scars it had left on a woman who was coming to mean far too much to him, far too quickly. He couldn’t help it. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to.
She rolled her eyes at him. “I got a job working in the office at Prime Investigations. My boss taught me everything I know about PI work.”
“So someone did look after you.” The statement was aimed at Gea, but he kept an eye on the old woman as she stumped off the transport at the next stop.
“Don’t make it prettier than it was. Mickey was nobody’s role model.” Gea huffed out a short laugh. “He wasn’t a good man, let alone a kind or loving one. He needed someone to look after the office work, and he could tell I was desperate and would do anything he wanted while he paid me next to nothing and worked me like a slave. But I paid attention and I learned the ropes, so when he got too old to do the fieldwork, I took over and he handled the office. After he died, I kept his clients.”
Kienan angled a glance at her, let his incredulity seep into his tone. “He left his business to you?”
“More like he had no heirs to care that I just took it over and made it mine.” She gave him a little salute. “Prime Investigations, at your service.”
He gestured as they pulled into the last stop. “This is where we get off?”
This was as close to the Vermilion as most normal people ever wanted to get, which wasn’t all that close. They had quite a walk ahead of them.
She nodded and rose to disembark. “So, we talked about me. What’s your story, Vaughn? You owe me.”
As they walked, he told her. Anything she wanted to know that wasn’t classified intel. A week ago, it would have been inconceivable to him to reveal anything real or personal, but he’d told her the truth—he was tired of the lies. It was a risk, exposing himself to her and to Quill, but he figured if he was going to take the chance with anyone, it should be his mates. All he could do was hope they didn’t use the information to damage him later.
Hope. Not an emotion he had any experience with, but the last week had been so far outside his comfort zone that he was in foreign territory. He’d have to play it by ear and brace himself for the worst, knowing it was always an option. With as skittish as his mates were, it wasn’t even an unlikely option. Still, he had to try.
The demarcation to the Vermilion was a subtle decay into filth and poverty. Skyrises gave way to multiplexes, which degraded in cleanliness and quality until they hit the shanty towns that marked the east side of the crime-ridden district. The deeper into the quagmire they went, the more eyes he felt on them, watching for weakness, debating whether to attack.
His battle instincts sharpened the way they always did on an assignment, his awareness expanding, every detail of his surroundings seeping into his consciousness. But this was different. Then, he’d been a tool, a weapon to be aimed and fired. This time, the mission was of his choosing. He answered to no one except himself. And Gea. He doubted she’d appreciate being left out of that equation.
No one told him to do this. He did it because he wanted to, because he’d decided it was the best course of action. It was liberating. He’d chosen to follow orders before, but that wasn’t the same as being the master of his own fate. He wasn’t sure he agreed with Quill’s need to control everything, but there was something to having a bit more say in where he went and when.
He liked it.
Tucking those thoughts away as something to consider later, he focused on the task at hand—helping his mate dig up information. He’d done this before, just under different circumstances. An ironic smile touched his lips. It had been decades since he’d needed to prove himself to anyone, but he felt the need to impress her, to make her believe there was one part of her life where she could trust him, where there was nothing to fear.
Perhaps that one area would bleed over into other areas.
She nodded to a derelict building across the road from where they stood. “This is the place. You can wait out here, if you want.”
“And spend the time being propositioned because people think only jades hang out on street corners in this district?” Or maybe he’d be attacked by friendly locals like Niso and his thugs. It was a toss-up which sounded less appealing.
“You’d be worth every cred.” She slapped his ass before she darted to the other side of the street.
Chuckling, he followed a step behind her, but his longer stride caught up to her before they reached the entryway. She tapped a vidpad with a wavy screen by the door. He smoothed his face to impassivity, waiting for her cues to see if she needed him to play good cop or bad cop.
“Who’s that?” A man’s voice growled from the vidpad, though no image appeared. The accent was thick—German, Kienan thought—but there was too much static crackling to tell which country the man hailed from.
“Ison sent me,” Gea replied cryptically. “He said you’d have what I’m looking for.”
The door creaked open, rust making the ancient iron squeal. Kienan scanned the area to see if anyone was taking too much interest in their actions. No.
A large man appeared on the threshold, his dark hair slicked back, his eyebrows growing into a single line across his forehead. Beyond him, the interior of the building was far too plush for this area of town. Whatever the man dealt in was lucrative.
“What you want to buy?” The man’s face was flushed, as if he’d had a few too many synthbrews, his heavy jowls weighing down his heavier features.
“Are you Meier?” Gea’s nostrils flared at that same time the stench of alcohol hit Kienan.
The big guy arched his unibrow at her. “Depends on who wants to know.”
“Your new best friends, Meier.” Kienan figured this might go faster if he made their recalcitrant German think Gea was the reasonable one. He lounged against the entry as if he hadn’t a care in the world, offering up his most charming smile. “How are you this fine evening? Mind if we come in and chat awhile, friend?”
“No.” Annoyance crossed Meier’s features. “Crazy fool. Who are you and what do you want?”
“I’m Gea Crevan. I’m not looking for your normal merchandise.” Gea rushed into speech. “I want to buy information.”
Suspicion flashed in his gaze. “What information?”
“I’m looking for a woman named Tam.” She held up her palmtop to show an image of the dark-haired female. “Do you know her?”
“Ja, I know her,” Meier barked. “Why? She owe you money?”
“Maybe she does. Maybe she doesn’t.” Kienan made his smile more ingratiating, which seemed to irritate Meier further. Distract and confuse, then hopefully Gea gets her answers.
She cast him a disbelieving glance but focused on the German. “When was the last time you saw her?”
He grunted, his gaze narrowing. “Why do you care?”
“Please, it’s not like the brigade is going to come breaking down your door for making time with a grifter. We’re just looking for the lady.” Kienan waggled his eyebrows but gave a quick glance over his shoulder to check the street. Empty. He met Meier’s gaze and winked. “She’s a prime piece. Wouldn’t mind bending her over.”
The German looked between Gea and Kienan, confusion contorting his face.
Gea jumped in. “Look, I don’t care why you were talking to her, or how legal or not legal your business with her was. I just need to know where she went after. Do you know?”
The hinges on the door squeaked as Meier started to swing it shut, but Kienan held up a mercurite chip that gleamed in the fading sunlight. He winked at the German when he froze, staring at the chip. “There’s enough creds on here to make it worth your while. Try to remember, friend.”
He licked his lips, considering. “Ja, I know. She went wiz a man.”
“Do you know him?” Gea pressed. “Can you describe him?”
“English, like her. Dark hair, like her. But older. Skinny. Smelled like a rodent.” His chin jutted. “Don’t know her man’s name. Don’t want to know it.”
Kienan flipped the chip at him and he caught it, moving faster than a man of his bulk should be able to. Gea pushed a holopic into his hand as well. “My card. Call me if you hear any more about where Tam might be.”
“You leave me to my bizness now.” He grunted, slamming the door in their faces.
Kienan straightened from his nonchalant slouch. “Nice guy.”
“He was somewhat helpful at least.” Gea shrugged and turned to face him. “But what was that, friend? You just feeling sassy and a little chatty today?”
He had talked more in the last week than he had in years, but how else was he supposed to make this mating thing happen? Not that he knew shit about what a good mating was like, but he’d give it his best shot. Shrugging, he lifted his hands. “Just making sure Meier wanted us gone, and that he wasn’t thinking too long or too deeply about whether or not he really wanted to answer your questions.”
She chuckled, shook her head. “I figured you’d just stand back and be a silent, scary enforcer type.”
“I can do that, too. I didn’t think it was the best approach here.”
“Apparently.” Her eyes glinted with amusement. “But thanks, that went about as well as it was going to. I’ll repay you the creds you gave him.”
He was going to protest that, but something wavered at the edges of his senses. Danger lurked. Not unusual in this district, but this was aimed at them. He glanced around and saw a group of four people at the end of the street coming toward them a little too casually. “We have company.”
Gea’s nostrils flared; then her expression tightened. “Aw, shit.”
“Friends of yours?” He glanced between her and the approaching trouble.
“Not exactly.” She pulled in another breath. “But by the reptilian stench of him, the one on the left is the Komodo dragon-shifter who jacked up my leg the other day.”
“Want me to kill him?” He was only partially joking, his muscles tensing with the need to defend his mate.
She hummed in her throat, shook her head, and started down the cracked and crumbling sidewalk in the opposite direction. “Broken bones can be explained to the police. Concussions. Bruises. Dead bodies? Not so much. And I’d rather stay on their good side.”
“You like the police?” He kept pace with her but didn’t touch her, keeping his hands free in case of attack.
She shrugged and picked up speed until she was not-quite-jogging. “I scratch their back, they scratch mine. It’s business.”
“Ah.” Then he sighed. “Ah, shit.”
A trio of men turned the corner, blocking their exit. Men he recognized.
She glanced back at him, pulling to a stop. “Friends of yours?”
Adrenaline flooded his veins as he realized they wouldn’t get out of here without a fight. He sensed the two groups weren’t working together, but that made the situation even more dangerous. Every group for itself, all fighting each other over the prey. “The short one is called Niso. I didn’t catch the names of the other two, but they were hoping to be close, personal friends. I declined, and they took the rejection badly.”
“I see.” Her gaze darted around as if looking for an exit strategy, and the fox-shifter snarled in frustration. “I had my vidcam earlier, so no room for the grappler gun. I don’t have it with me. Up isn’t an option.”
Whatever that meant. “We may not escape the need for dead bodies.”
She blew out a frustrated breath, watching the two gangs close in on them. “Do you have a weapon on you?”
“No, you?”
“Yeah.”
“Use it.”
Reaching behind her, she slipped a nasty-looking blade out of some hidden pocket on the underside of her bag. “What about you?”
“I don’t need it.” Not with the training and experience he’d had. His talons slid out of his fingertips as he watched a cruel smile twist up the corners of Niso’s lips. Bruises stood in dark contrast against his skin, a reminder of their first meeting.
Kienan should have ended the bastard when he had the chance.
Gea and Kienan backed up into a building, each facing one of the gangs, making their position as defensible as possible. He had no idea how good his mate was in a fight, and he didn’t care for being in a situation where he had to find out, but such was life. No one gave a shit what he wanted.
A hiss came out of Niso’s throat as he looked at the competition. “We claim them. Our pretties.”
A growl was the reply to that. “Girlie there’s been ours for days now. Just needed to catch up with her. You can’t have her.”
Kienan felt Gea vibrate against his back, and he reached over to hold her in place. With any luck the two gangs would start fighting with each other, giving them a chance to bolt. Or a better chance at fighting their way out if the gangs were more occupied with besting each other than claiming Gea and Kienan.
A deep roar sounded through the street, silencing the arguing thugs. A leopard leaped toward them, stretching into a full sprint. Quill. He was on them in seconds, fangs bared, claws slashing.
All hell broke loose; the gangs didn’t know which direction to turn.
Kienan grabbed one of Niso’s henchmen and shoved him into one of the other gang members. The two went down howling, shifting into their animal forms, clawing and tearing at each other. Quill sliced his claws through another gangster’s calf and he squealed, swinging a fist to slam into the leopard’s skull. Niso’s other thug drew a gun, aiming it at Quill’s head, and Gea screamed, her knife winging through the air with deadly accuracy. Her blade embedded in the man’s throat and he gurgled, slumping to the ground, his gun trapped underneath him.
Niso took down Gea’s dragon-shifter just in time for her to put a boot in his chest, knocking him backward. Kienan jammed the tips of his fingers into Niso’s temple and the man crumpled. Dead. There was no way Kienan would risk the bastard coming after his mates or him again. It ended now.
A gorilla-shifter came at him, screaming, huge fangs bared. Adrenaline exploded through Kienan’s system, and he welcomed the rush, channeled it. Ducking a massive fist, he brought his knee up to connect with the gorilla’s stomach. Air whooshed out of the gangster’s lungs, and Kienan wrapped an arm around the gorilla’s neck from behind. He used his other arm to lock it into place. Bucking and twisting, the gorilla clawed at Kienan’s arms, trying to dislodge them. The stench of his own blood singed Kienan’s nose, but he gritted his teeth and held fast. The gorilla slammed them backward into a building, and the breath was forced from Kienan’s lungs. He gagged, dark spots swimming in front of his vision. Agony ricocheted up and down his body each time he was battered against the wall. He blinked, tried to hang on, tried to keep from blacking out. Just a little longer. The gorilla began to sag from the lack of oxygen, dropping to his knees so Kienan’s feet hit the floor, giving him the leverage he needed. With a swift wrench, he heard the neck bones crack and the fight was over. The gorilla hit the ground with a heavy thud.
When Kienan looked around, he saw only his mates standing. Thank Deus. One gang member shifted into a bird and took flight, but Quill launched himself upward with feline precision and the bird was dragged from the sky in a hail of feathers and squawking. One sickening crunch and the bird was no more.
“Okay, these two gangs clearly killed each other. If anyone asks, we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Self-defense, etcetera. But I’d rather not stand around long enough for anyone to ask.” Gea grabbed her knife from where it protruded from the thug’s neck, then wiped it off on his shirt. The blade disappeared into her hidden pocket, and her chin lifted in the defiant gesture Kienan was coming to associate with her. “Time to go. Now.”
Quill dipped his head, turning to pad down the street in the direction he’d come. Gea hopped over a couple of bodies and hurried after him, and Kienan followed behind, watching his mates’ backs.
A painfully skinny man stood at the intersection at the end of the road, clutching an armload of clothes. “I kept your stuff, Mr. North.”
The leopard twisted into the shape of a tall man and Quill stood there naked, his skin missing the black slashing nanotats that Kienan had grown used to. Had he had them reconfigured to look like regular skin? “Where are your tats?”
Quill grunted, shoving himself into his clothing as quickly as possible. “I have a program on my palmtop that can turn them on and off if I need to be more respectable for certain partners. I had a meeting in the Lakeshore District this morning.”
Interesting. Kienan’s superiors would have preferred he had a program like that as well. They hadn’t approved of the tats he’d collected over the years, but he’d reconfigured them often enough that he hadn’t had the same distinguishing marks from one job to the next. It had placated them. Of course, they hadn’t seemed to mind the distinguishing marks he’d gotten working for them. Multiple knife wounds, a few bullet holes, an acid burn from a spitting cobra-shifter. Figures.
Now that he was out of that line of work, maybe he should have the nanotat on his back configured to its original form: two wolves baying at the moon. One red for his mother, the other gray for his father.
Quill glanced at the skinny man. “Thanks for making sure my things weren’t stolen, Janus.”
“No problem.” He flashed a gap-toothed smile, his face congenial, but his gaze was assessing as he looked over Gea and Kienan. There was a keen intelligence there that Kienan wasn’t willing to overlook.
“We can finish our discussion at a later date, Janus. I’m sure you’re very busy.” The dismissal was clear, but Quill covered any rudeness with a charming grin. “I apologize for keeping you so long.”
“Later.” Janus nodded and split down a winding side street that curved sharply out of sight.
“Let’s get out of here. As Gea said, law enforcement might get curious.” Kienan sighed, checking his mates over for injuries. Nothing major, that he could sense anyway. Gea fished around in her pack for a moment and then handed him a large nanopatch to put over the gorilla claw gouges on his arms. He nodded his thanks and slapped the patch in place. It could have been a lot worse. He didn’t care for how close they’d come to disaster, but death was only a misstep away around here.
It probably wasn’t a good sign that he enjoyed how it kept him on his toes, but he still couldn’t say that he craved his old lifestyle. His mates had kept him more than occupied during his short retirement.
Quill made a face as he finished sealing his clothes. “Law enforcement doesn’t spend much time here unless they’re collecting kickbacks, but you never know when they might feel the sudden need to be dutiful.”