NICKY GOT OUT of the SUV. I had a moment of looking up into his face and seeing the newly shortened hair, the strong, oh-so-masculine line of his jaw, the sunglasses that hid why he’d worn his hair long for years, and then we were kissing, all lips and tongues, and then he bit my lower lip just a little. It made me make a small eager noise, and that made him tighten his hands against my body so that his fingers dug in, and that earned him another noise from my mouth to his. He swept me up into his arms and because he was nine inches taller than me, he literally swept me off my feet. If we’d both been wearing fewer weapons, I’d have wrapped my legs around his waist, but the best I could do was bend my knees as if I was kneeling in midair. I thought about kneeling for real later if we could find the time, and that brought another eager sound from me. The pain got too much on my lip, and I tapped out, literally the same way I would have in the dojo to let someone know that they needed to ease up or they might hurt me for real. It was our signal when he rendered me speechless in one way or another.
He set me back on the ground, but kept his arms around me, because he knew he’d made my knees weak. It was exactly what I’d needed to wash away the feel of that other, unwanted kiss. It was ironic that Olaf’s kiss had been so much gentler than the one I’d just gotten, and yet the gentle one had spooked me and this one had helped me come back to the center of myself.
I could hear the murmur of voices on the other side of the cars. Ethan and whoever else they’d brought with them were trying to help Edward run interference for me with the other police officers. This wasn’t exactly the best way to introduce the Coalition to Sheriff Leduc. He was going to hate them all interfering in his case without me playing kissy face with one of them. It wasn’t like me to be so uncontrolled in public while wearing my badge.
Edward came around the front of the SUV. “We need you out here, Anita. Hi, Nicky.”
“Ted,” Nicky said with a nod of his head. Edward had paid Nicky the ultimate compliment of being willing to take him as backup even if I couldn’t come.
“Your new guys have ex–special teams written all over them.”
“Former SEALs,” I said.
“Then get out here and help me back Duke off them before they do something we’ll all regret. Also, I don’t like the way that Otto is looking at the women you brought.”
“What women?” I asked, glancing up at Nicky.
“Angel is one of the best at helping inexperienced shapeshifters keep human form,” he said.
“You don’t have to justify Angel. She’s really good at helping newbie Therianthropes stay in human form. Who’s the second woman?”
“Petra,” he said.
I stared at him for a second, because he had to be joking. Petra’s real name was Pierette. Petra was her Clark Kent alias, like Edward’s was Ted or Olaf’s Otto. And just like theirs, Petra was a law-abiding and government-worthy identity, but Pierette had been a spy and assassin for centuries. She was somewhere between Edward and Olaf on stability when she flipped from upstanding citizen to merciless killer, so not my choice for a traveling companion. She was also only a little taller than me with short dark hair and brown eyes. She fit Olaf’s vic profile as well as I did.
“Why the fuck would you bring her here? You know what he is.”
Nicky nodded. “We all do.”
“I don’t even know what that means, Nicky, but fuck, just fuck.”
“Argue later, Anita. I need you policing your men and your women now,” Edward said.
“Shit,” I said, and started moving toward the problems.
The sooner I got things straightened out and maybe even apologized for the public display of affection (PDA), the better. It had been indulgent of me, but I still felt better, clearer-headed even. I walked around the cars with Nicky and Edward at my back. With them as backup, I could do anything if violence was the answer, so not great for Leduc, but potentially perfect for Olaf.
Leduc was literally up in the faces of Milligan and Custer, his big belly shoving at them aggressively almost the way he’d gone after Rico at the first crime scene. Ethan and Newman were trying to calm things down, which left Angel and Petra standing off to themselves with Olaf. Angel’s shoulder-length hair was almost back to natural white blond; only the last few inches were still the raven black that she’d dyed it. Her hair was very straight, but she’d styled it into a faux-1940s hairdo.
Her clothes matched the hairstyle. Chunky black-and-white heels, with a black pencil skirt that hugged the generous swell of her hips and painted its way down the fullness of her thighs, making her look even curvier than I knew she was. A little white blouse with black lace tracing the short puff sleeves made her look like a retro sexy secretary from a soft-core porn. She was five-eleven; in the heels she had to be at least six-one. She glanced back at me, at us, and the makeup was the dark Goth makeup I knew she’d be wearing once I saw the clothes. It wasn’t what she usually wore when she was going out of town on Coalition business, but it was one of her favorite fashions for date nights. I’d discuss with her why she’d dress for a date on Coalition business later.
At least Pierette was dressed for work, in black stretch jeans fitting into tactical boots identical to mine. They looked cuter with jeans than with my tac pants, but the tac pants had more pockets. She’d put on a short jacket that left her lower body with just the curve-hugging jeans. I had a second of realizing that I liked her ass in the jeans better than Angel’s in the pencil skirt. Dating women was still so new to me, it still startled me when I noticed women at all. The fact that I was comparing the two of them the way I thought only men did bothered me, but not half as much as the look on Olaf’s face. Angel was inches too tall for his preferences, even if she hadn’t been wearing heels. With the hair color and the blue eyes, she wasn’t his ideal victim, but she’d said or done something, or maybe Pierette had. Whatever the case, the look on his face was aimed at both of them. I wasn’t even sure how I knew that, but I knew.
He’d turned so that no one else could see him but the two women. He’d dropped the mask so that they were staring into a face that wasn’t just stripping them naked in his mind, but flaying the skin off their bodies, or maybe he was thinking things about them that I couldn’t even imagine thinking. The look on his face was alien, other, in-fucking-comprehensible to anyone who wasn’t a sexually sadistic lust killer.
My instinct was to go straight to the two women and mark territory hard, but Olaf wouldn’t attack them here in front of witnesses. We’d established that in the woods earlier. He liked having his secret identity intact, so they were safe for now.
The energy coming off the two SEALs was so angry, their beasts were beginning to boil under the surface of their skin like water that was almost hot enough for coffee, tea, or third-degree burns. My beasts stirred wolf and hyena because Milligan and Custer were one of each, respectively. My inner wolf and hyena weren’t the exact species as theirs, so the call was never as strong, but their energy still echoed through the cousin beasts I carried. If they started a fight with Leduc, then he’d never let anyone from the Coalition into his jail, so I started with the men. I’d leave the beast and the beauties for second.
I tried to step between Leduc and the two men, but the sheriff was literally pressed against them, so I stepped into him. I didn’t hit him, didn’t use force, just literally walked so that the front of my body touched the side of his, and the two SEALs moved back as I moved forward. Their energy prickled along my skin, raising the hair on my arms as I stepped into Leduc. He stumbled back, though I had done nothing to make it happen. It was like I’d startled him.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, Blake?” Leduc yelled it, but his voice didn’t have the force it had had a moment ago. The stumble and me just walking into him had caught him off balance. If I’d been another man, the maneuver might have caused him to take a swing at me, but I was small and female, and sometimes that helped defuse situations.
“You don’t get to treat my people the way you do your deputies, Duke,” I said. “They aren’t your whipping boys.”
“Whipping boys? What the fuck does that even mean? You’re over there playing kissy face with the big one and you lecture me on unprofessional conduct?”
“You’re right on that. I’m sorry for the over-the-top PDA. I won’t even try to excuse it.”
The apology seemed to catch him off guard, too. “Well, I appreciate the apology and you admitting you were wrong.”
“But please, from now on, don’t take my bad behavior out on my people.”
“I thought they were the Coalition’s people.”
“I asked Micah Callahan to send his people here. They are all at least work friends for me, so since Micah isn’t here, they’re my people, like your deputies are yours. I wouldn’t disrespect your people the way you just did mine.”
Duke seemed to think about that for a minute and then he nodded. “Fair enough, Blake.”
I held out a hand, and after a moment’s hesitation, he shook it, a little tentatively because his hand was so much bigger than mine. A lot of men have trouble with smaller hands like mine, so I didn’t take it personally.
“This case has us all shook,” he said.
I nodded. “It does me, too.”
We said a few more pleasantries, and then the pleasantries were over. I turned toward Olaf and the other women off to the side of the porch. I flashed one of my best professional smiles at Newman and Edward. “How about you guys all go inside, and Duke can make some of that wonderful coffee so we can discuss how we can all help one another deal with this fucking case?”
Newman started trying to herd everyone inside. He’d believed the smile. Edward knew better.
“I’ll stay out here,” he said.
“No, Ted. You go help introduce everybody. I’ve got Nicky and Ethan with me.”
“Us, too, boss,” Custer said.
I shook my head and stepped close enough to them that everyone else wouldn’t overhear. “You almost let the local LEO goad you into a fight. That’s not the kind of backup I need right now.”
“Anita . . .” Milligan said.
“Boss,” I said.
He blinked at me, and I watched the ego fight inside of him. Milligan was usually more reasonable than Custer, but I didn’t have time to worry about what Leduc had said to bring out the full special team’s ego issues. I did not have time to babysit that kind of ego right now, so I just looked at him. Not aggressive, just steady, which some people think is aggressive, but they would be wrong, because there’s a difference between direct and aggressive. Milligan would know the difference; all the Team’s guys did.
“Yes, ma’am,” Milligan said as if he were back in uniform.
“That’ll do, too. Now, both of you go inside and remember that you are here to make things better, not worse.”
“If we said that the LEO started it, would you get mad?” Custer asked with one of his usual grins.
I didn’t smile back. “He started, you started—I don’t care who started it. If it starts again, I will finish it for everyone.”
They both had a moment of looking at me, of doing that guy math. Physically they could totally take me—we all knew it—but it wasn’t about physical prowess. It was about other kinds of power.
“You are endangering our mission,” I said, “so your superior skills mean shit to me right now. You are making me babysit your egos while Otto is over there looking at Angel and Pierette like they’re fucking steaks. Get your priorities in order, gentlemen, or get the fuck off my team.”
“You heard her,” Nicky said. “Go make coffee.”
Custer and Milligan had been calming down, but suddenly I felt their hackles rise. I pointed a finger at Nicky. “Don’t you start. We are not going to play ‘Who has the biggest dick?’ right now.”
“Sorry,” he said, but not like he meant it, and there was the problem with this many big, dominant men working together. Until dominance was established, and sometimes even after, they’d push at one another. Add that they were all wereanimals, and it was just worse.
I walked toward Olaf and the women. I did not look back to see if everyone was doing what I’d told them to do. I was either the boss of them, or I wasn’t. Looking back to double-check made me appear weak, and it wouldn’t change a damn thing. Micah had already established his leadership over the new guys. I thought I had, but apparently I hadn’t in the field. When I’d told Micah to stay home, I hadn’t thought what that might mean with the rest of his crew. Ethan wasn’t dominant enough to be the boss of these guys, and sometimes Nicky and the Team’s guys clashed, which left me to be boss. Damn it, you fix one problem and then cause another. Fuck unintended consequences all to hell.