CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Dimitri held the omelet pan like a weapon, a drop of hot oil falling to singe his foot, but he barely noticed. He was already halfway across the room to the man who lounged in the doorway, but Jaycee beat him to Ben, the leopard in her making her fast.

“How the hell did you get in here?” she demanded.

Ben stood about five foot seven, had a body full of muscles, black hair, and black eyes like windows to nothing. He had tatts up and down his arms and across his fingers, one flowing up his neck and onto his cheek. He regarded Jaycee without worry.

“The back door was unlocked. I heard you talking up here, so I came to say hi.”

“What I mean is,” Jaycee said tensely, “how did we not hear you or smell you? You have a distinctive odor.” She sniffed at him.

True, Ben did carry the faint brimstone scent associated with the Fae. Not the guy’s fault. He was from Faerie, but as he’d told them repeatedly, with heat, he was not Fae. In any case, Ben was old, powerful, and had a vast storehouse of knowledge behind those dark eyes.

“Hey, I took a shower,” Ben returned, unoffended. “And I’ve learned to elude people, including Shifters who try to kill me for smelling like a Fae. Also didn’t want to alert anyone who might be watching you that I came to see you. Cool house, by the way.”

“Belongs to a friend,” Jaycee said.

“Yeah, Jasmine. We’ve met. She and Mason are steaming up the sheets, from what I hear—she’ll bring another cub soon, I’d guess.”

Jaycee relaxed. “You might have called first,” she growled at Ben. “You ruined my breakfast.”

“There’s p-plenty more,” Dimitri said. “Someone s-stocked the fridge. Sit down, B-ben. I’ll m-m . . .” He turned back to the stove, his powers of speech failing him. He could talk to Jaycee for a long time without worry—Kendrick and Seamus almost as much—but speaking to people he didn’t know well could exhaust him.

“I’m not cleaning that up,” Jaycee said, waving her hand at the eggs all over the carpet and sending Ben a glare.

“It’s all right; I’ll do it.” Ben grabbed a roll of paper towels from the counter and started scooping the ruined omelet from the floor. “Even though you dropped it.”

“Because you scared me.” Jaycee watched him, hands on her hips, then sighed, grabbed more paper towels, and helped.

Dimitri kept cooking, determined not to laugh. “S-so,” he said as Jaycee and Ben cleaned, “wh-what did you think of B-Brice?” If he kept his sentences short he’d be all right.

Ben continued to wipe up the floor, tearing off dry towels to finish the job. “I’m not sure what to make of him. His little band of followers likes him. Respects him—they don’t fear him. I mean, they bend to his dominance, but they’re not terrified. They joke with him, disagree with him, banter with him. The vibe I get isn’t bad, but I’m not sure exactly what it is.”

Jaycee nodded in agreement. “We need more dirt on him. Why did he let you join?”

Ben shrugged. “I explained who I am. What I am. You know, ancient being, screwed over by the Fae. I’m always looking for a place I can belong.”

The last sentence had a ring of truth. Dimitri had felt the same way for a long time.

Jaycee laid a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “You’re always welcome at Kendrick’s.”

Ben’s dark eyes softened. “Aw, you’re so sweet. I’d hug you but I’m hungry, and Dimitri might throw that pan at me.”

Dimitri, watching them, absently overstirred the eggs, which started to scramble instead of cook evenly. Screw it. He threw in some salt, pepper, and cheese and crumbled everything together.

Jaycee unfolded herself to her feet, keeping her hand on Ben’s shoulder. He made a show of helping her up, then threw the paper towels away in the garbage can in the corner.

“You didn’t explain how you got in here,” Jaycee said. “We didn’t see you coming, or hear you, or scent you.” Her eyes narrowed. “Can you teleport?”

Ben barked a laugh. “I wish. Shit, what I wouldn’t be able to do if I could pop from place to place? No, I used stealth. When you hide out from the Fae for a thousand years, you get good at it.”

“If they exiled you to this world, they should leave you alone,” Jaycee said indignantly. She approached the stove and looked at the mess in the frying pan. “Are you making that for yourself?”

Dimitri gave her an irritated look, dumped the scrambled eggs onto a plate, where they steamed, and wiped out the pan.

“I’ll take those.” Ben’s broad hand snaked in and snatched the plate. He grabbed a fork from the counter and dug in. “Like I said, I’m hungry. Mmm. Not bad.”

Dimitri set the pan down, cracked more eggs into a bowl, and quickly stirred them into a froth. He was mean with a whisk. Maybe he could introduce it as a weapon at the fight club. He spread out the eggs, which lapped to the edges of the pan. Perfect.

“The Fae exiled me,” Ben said as he ate. “But that’s never good enough for them. The vendetta against me and my people was passed down from generation to generation. I’m the last of my kind now, but they won’t be happy until we’re all gone. Bastards.”

Dimitri’s sympathy for Ben went up a notch. They’d all had to put up with shit from the Fae, but Ben had a long history of struggling to survive.

He flipped the omelet once it was set, slid it to a plate, and presented it to Jaycee with a flourish. Jaycee smiled up at him, and suddenly nothing else in the world mattered.

He thought of sleeping against her last night, her lush body cradled into his, and dancing with her this morning. She’d laughed at him singing and dancing like a fool, and he hadn’t been able to stop himself pulling her close and kissing her.

Dimitri almost did it now. Jaycee’s smile was genuine and full of impish good humor. Her eyes sparkled, her red lips curving.

Ben looked over at the omelet. “What, no parsley?”

Dimitri handed Jaycee the plate. “B-bite me.”

Ben grinned at him, and Dimitri returned to the stove.

By the time Dimitri had made himself an omelet, filling it with cheese and ham, both Jaycee and Ben had seated themselves at the table and were finishing the last of their eggs. As Dimitri ate, the other two talked about what they’d observed at Brice’s party—Ben hadn’t found out much more than they had, and he hadn’t been taken down to the private bar in the basement.

Ben looked around the kitchen once they’d exhausted the conversation. “This house is interesting. Mind if I look around?”

“I’ll come with you,” Jaycee said, rising. “I haven’t explored it much myself.”

Dimitri bolted the rest of his omelet, wiped his mouth on a paper towel, and joined them.

Jaycee and Ben were already down the main staircase by the time Dimitri caught up to them. The chandelier that hung far overhead tinkled.

“Nice.” Ben looked admiringly along the hall at the polished paneled wood and the doors that led to the large, lavishly furnished rooms. “I ran an old hotel back in North Carolina for a while. Left to me by the family who lived there. It’s still nice. Haunted, of course.”

“So is this house,” Jaycee said. “I haven’t seen any ghosts though, only doors opening and closing.”

Dimitri clamped his mouth shut. He hadn’t told Jaycee about the flying furniture in his room, because she apparently had heard and seen nothing. He put his hand on the staircase railing and felt a faint shudder move through it. No, not a shudder. More like laughter.

That feeling was confirmed as he stepped off the last stair. Jaycee and Ben were already out of sight. A whisper of laughter drifted past him, and far above him, the chandelier swayed.

Smart-ass, Dimitri growled silently and then hurried to catch up to Ben and Jaycee.

He reached them when Jaycee was unlocking the door that led to a small stair leading downward. Why Ben wanted to explore the dark recesses of the house, Dimitri didn’t know, but the man seemed intrigued.

Dimitri peered into the square of blackness that the door revealed. He didn’t scent anything dangerous, smelling only dust and mildew, which would be expected in an old root cellar.

Ben led the way down. Dimitri insisted on going ahead of Jaycee, and she let him after giving him an exasperated look.

The cellar was not so much a basement as a space under the house that had been enclosed. They were too near the river to dig down, too close to the water table.

The ceiling was about six feet high, forcing Dimitri to stoop. A breeze wafted through the space, keeping the air from being too dank.

“What d-do you think you’ll f-find down here?” Dimitri asked Ben. “Dead b-bodies?”

“You never know,” Ben said philosophically.

The cellar spread out in all directions, no walls dividing it off. Dimitri sniffed the air. “N-no death here.”

“No,” Jaycee agreed. “Only vegetables. And rodents. Snakes.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Ben said absently.

Jaycee and Dimitri exchanged a look.

It was weird that, while Brice acted like a fairly normal Shifter—all bears were full of themselves—Dimitri was highly suspicious of him. Ben, on the other hand, was as far from normal as a being could be, and yet Dimitri knew he could trust Ben with his life. Had trusted him. Something to think about.

Ben turned abruptly back to them. “I was wondering if the house was on a ley line,” he said. “That might account for the weirdness.”

Dimitri shook his head. “No one p-popping in and out of F-Faerie here that I can tell.”

Jaycee had moved close to Dimitri, her body warmth touching him. “I don’t think this house would let Fae in.”

“It let B-Ben in,” Dimitri pointed out.

“Who isn’t Fae,” Jaycee said.

“But most supernatural beings get a whiff of me and think I am,” Ben said, sounding unworried. “However, my friends, a ley line isn’t simply an entrance to Faerie. It’s a way to get to Faerie if you have the right means, like a Fae artifact. But ley lines are more than gateways. They contain magic, a flow of power connecting to other power around the world. They’re concentrations of raw energy that both carry magic and enhance magic used around it.”

Dimitri hadn’t known that. But then, he didn’t have much chance to be around magic, other than the Sword of the Guardian Kendrick carried. Dimitri made sure he rarely had anything to do with magic at all.

“I’m a f-fighter,” he said. “Not a sp-spell-c-c-c . . .”

“Neither am I,” Jaycee said. “A spell-caster. I wouldn’t know a ley line if it hit me in the face.”

Ben circled the area, peering into dim corners. “Well, I would. They hit me in the face a lot.” He shook his head. “But if one is here, it’s subtle.”

He glanced around one more time, a puzzled look on his face, before he shrugged and led the way out.

Dimitri made for the veranda, Jaycee a step behind him. The stuffiness of the basement had bothered him—he wanted open air, a breeze.

The humidity of the August day smacked him as he walked out the door, the heat stifling. Dimitri peeled off his T-shirt and plumped down on a bench in the gazebo. He was outside, in the shade—this was fine. The rose vines that covered the house, yellow roses everywhere, cut the bright sunshine and some of the heat.

Jaycee sat down next to him. “Feels like it might rain.”

Clouds were building in the south, the top of the thunderheads brilliant white in the sunshine, their undersides black.

“Good. Might c-cool things off.”

“What do you want to do?” Jaycee was close to him on the bench, her thigh touching his. “Try to find out more about Brice before we see him again? Wait for him to call? I have the feeling those other Shifters wait by the phone for him to get in touch.”

Dimitri’s curiosity stirred beneath the heat and the heaviness of the air. “I wonder how they all c-communicate. Internet forum? Social m-media group?”

“We should have asked to join,” Jaycee mused.

“W-we probably have to be invited.” Dimitri leaned back, lacing his fingers behind his head. “W-we could t-try to search. But I’m n-not good with c-computers.”

“Neither am I,” Jaycee answered. “But I know someone who is. Broderick’s mate Joanne. She used to be a hacker.”

“T-true.” The quiet-spoken young woman was a frigging genius, according to Broderick. Plus she had the fortitude to put up with Broderick, which made her a saint, in Dimitri’s opinion.

“I’ll call her,” Jaycee said. She leapt to her feet, eager and energetic. “Better than just sitting here.”

“I don’t know.” Dimitri ran his gaze down her body, lingering on her full breasts in her V-necked shirt, then moving to her beautiful face and shining eyes. “It’s nice to s-sit once in a while. We do t-too much running around.”

Jaycee put one hand on her hip. “We’re trackers. It’s our job to run around.”

“But s-sometimes”—Dimitri traced Jaycee’s fingers where they rested on the tight leggings she wore—“it’s g-good to s-stop.”

Jaycee’s face softened. “I know.” She scissored her fingers together, catching his larger ones. “We’re not alone though. We were alone, but now there’s company.”

Ben hadn’t followed them to the veranda. From inside came the banging of a door, and Ben’s voice. “Well, cool.”

Jaycee rolled her eyes. Dimitri shot her a smile. “Should we see what he’s up t-to?”

“Probably.” Jaycee didn’t move. “I like it here—in this house, I mean. I feel like we’re out of the way—distanced might be a better word. Distanced from all the worries about being caught outside a Shiftertown, without Collars; worry what other Shifters are up to. Here, I feel like all that’s far away. Unimportant.”

“A good place to stop.” Dimitri firmed his hand on hers. “And sit.” He tugged her to him. She started to sink down next to him again, but he caught her around the waist and pulled her onto his lap.

Jaycee relaxed against him, her restlessness fleeing. The humid air made her face bead with perspiration, a drop of it on her lips. Dimitri kissed it away.

Be my mate, Jase, he wanted to say. We’ll have every day like this, to hell with the world while we hold each other.

Jaycee was looking at him, Dimitri very aware of her focus on him. Her breasts rested against his chest, every intake of her breath sinking her closer to him.

Jaycee’s eyes drifted closed as she softly kissed him. Her lips were warm, damp from the heat, the flick of her tongue through his mouth enough to ignite him.

Ben had very bad timing. If he hadn’t arrived, Dimitri would carry Jaycee back upstairs to her bed for the day. They couldn’t do much investigating until dark anyway, when the clubs opened and they could look for Brice and his followers. Once they got closer to Brice’s group, if they could, or invited in to stay with them, he and Jaycee wouldn’t have much opportunity to be alone together. They’d have to be alert for danger at all times, with no time to sit in quiet intimacy, letting the world go by.

This house, for all its strangeness, felt safe. They could remain within its walls and make love all day, and it would take care of them.

Dimitri shut out his thoughts and concentrated on kissing Jaycee. He felt her strong hands on his back, her mouth on his, her soft backside on his thighs, making his already hard cock harder still. Her hair in its ponytail was sleek against his fingers, her breath hot on his cheek.

This woman was the only one for him. Had always been. They’d been friends for years, always looked out for each other. Dimitri wanted that camaraderie to last forever, and he wanted this woman in his bed. He wouldn’t mind cubs too, little leopards gamboling all over the place.

Jaycee drew back from the kiss and cupped Dimitri’s cheek. Her eyes were half closed, the brown of them touched with gold. Leopards purred, and Jaycee was doing it now.

The last time Dimitri had made love to her, it had been quick and fierce, both of them grappling each other. Dimitri wanted the next time to be like this, the two of them lying in slow, sultry heat, making love as the day went by.

The only reason to get up would be to bring food back to the bed, maybe a run in animal form if they got too restless. A run would wind them up again, and they’d be making love with even more fervor.

Do it. Ignore Ben.

The words whispering through his brain seemed to come from outside him. Jaycee smiled at him, no more hesitation.

A crash came from inside the house. “Oops.” Ben’s voice drifted to them.

At the same time, a stiff breeze swept down the veranda, dancing through the row of wind chimes. A rumble of thunder followed.

Then Ben said abruptly, “Okay, that’s just wrong.”

Jaycee jumped, her alertness returning. She and Dimitri exchanged a glance, then they both scrambled up at the same time and made for the house. Wind and thunder poured after them, as well as the first spattering of rain. The door, left open, slammed itself behind them, and the bolts clicked closed.