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  Braced for another attack, Silas was stunned by the sweetness of her assault. She took his mouth with hers, engaging his tongue in a tangling flash of desire and cool mint.

  “Thanks for the rescue, even though it was bad timing.”

  Then she was gone, leaving MacCreedy lying between two bodies, with the taste of her on his breath and her heat burning in his blood.

  One

  A QUICK GLANCE AT the clock over the bar told Monica Fraser she was twenty minutes late. Not a good start for her first week on the job.

  She slipped into the small server’s galley and stuffed her jacket into a cubby next to the cash register so no one would notice any bloodstains. A quick brush of her palms smoothed her hastily braided hair, then she snatched up her change pouch to secure it about her waist.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she began as another woman came in to ring up some drinks.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Amber James reassured her. “We haven’t been busy and I covered for you. Told Jacques you were in the back taking care of female things.” She grinned. “That shut him up.”

  Not sure how to respond, Nica returned the smile. She wasn’t used to kindnesses with no strings attached. “Thanks.”

  Amber shrugged it off. “That’s what friends are for.”

  To the softhearted waitress, it was that simple. Amber had enthusiastically scooped her into that huge category titled Friends without knowing a thing about her, without first weighing and negotiating terms for their association. She had no idea what a foreign concept that was to Nica.

  Nica should have thought her foolish for having such uncomplicated views, yet part of her was reluctantly envious. While her coworker’s vision was carefree and rose-colored, Nica’s was as fiercely narrowed as a sniper scope. But then, Amber’s life expectancy was measured in decades, not by seconds. There was no real comparison.

  “I owe you one,” Nica insisted, feeling the need to pay her way.

  “If you insist, I’ll let you take care of table four. They’re loud and seem to have no control over their hands.”

  “Maybe I’ll have to teach them some manners.” She winked with an aggressive confidence that had Amber chuckling.

  Cheveux du Chien was just starting to fill up with the evening’s patrons; an exclusive clientele gathering under the unsuspecting nose of New Orleans. For a city proud of its diverse cultures, discovery of this hidden pocket of preternatural citizens would have been far from welcome news. In much the same way, Nica knew she’d be ostracized and feared if these clannish souls recognized her for what she was. The four she’d met in the alley had. Two of them wouldn’t be repeating what they’d seen; that left a pair of loose ends to deal with when her shift was over.

  Blending in was how she’d managed to survive for so long in her dangerous profession. Though she chafed with urgency, Nica forced an outward calm. Draw no attention. Break no patterns. Even if it meant a nerve-taunting delay. The pair would go to ground like frightened rabbits, but she’d find them again. They’d been easy to lure into that alleyway, where her secret would have been successfully laid to rest if not for her misguided savior.

  Suppressing a growl of irritation, she efficiently cleared the glasses and empties off the nearest table, then gave it a polish with the cloth tucked in the back pocket of her tight black jeans. Hero? Meddler was more like it. Bursting onto her scene with a cop’s unerring instinct to be just where they weren’t wanted. A cop who also wore the brand of the powerful Terriot shape-shifter clan. Interesting, but none of her concern as long as he didn’t interfere in her business.

  Interesting and a damned good kisser, she thought as her tongue touched her lower lip.

  It was careless not to kill him, especially when the stakes were so high—not only professionally but personally as well. She was so close to obtaining her freedom, she could taste it.

  “Leave no witnesses” was a cold but necessary practice that could mean life or death for her. But what an unfair reward for a good deed that would have been, for a stranger willing to risk all on her behalf. She stacked more glasses until her tray teetered as precariously as her reasoning . . . a tall, rugged reason clad in a dark suit coat, blue chambray shirt and tie, over snug jeans.

  There was something about a man in a tie and jeans . . . She sighed. Something best left alone. A male bearing a clan mark wasn’t someone to be taken lightly.

  Nica slid her tray across the bar so owner Jacques LaRoche could unload it.

  “Is, umm, everything okay?” he asked with the squeamish distaste males had for female matters.

  She liked Jacques LaRoche, and lying to him wasn’t a necessity. “I was late for work,” she confessed. “No excuses. It won’t happen again. I didn’t ask Amber to cover for me.”

  LaRoche’s brow lifted at her honesty. “She was being a friend.”

  Nica nodded. “I’m taking table four for her.”

  Jacques watched her walk away with a smile. Monica Fraser had saved a friend of his with her quick thinking, and he wouldn’t forget that. He’d given her a job as a way to thank her, and he’d been thanking his lucky stars ever since.

  It took a special kind of female to work his crowd. They had to be easy on the eye without being easy in other areas. They had to have a sense of humor to handle bawdy talk without offense, and enough sense of self to know when to say enough was enough. Nica managed both things. She wasn’t beautiful or swimsuit-issue curvy like the rest of his girls, but she had her own kind of appeal, with her long, lean tomboyish shape hugged by a white knit tank top and skinny jeans. The fact that she didn’t bother with a padded bra in the air-conditioned room also appealed to the customers’ base instincts. The quick flash of her wide smile said she could give as good as she got, and that mass of glossy black hair made every male dream of sinking his fingers into it. She’d come out of nowhere, made his life easier, and he had no complaints.

  He watched her handling the difficult customers at table four. They worked for him on the docks and would behave themselves if he stepped in. He let her take care of it in her own way, though he was ready to intercede if necessary. No one disrespected his staff, on the docks or in his bar.

  She exchanged tart comments with a friendly smile, just the right balance of sass and flirtation. Two of the fellas grinned and enjoyed the teasing, but the third placed his big hand on her ass for an uninvited squeeze. Without spilling a drop from pitcher to glasses, she caught his hand with her free one, gripping his thumb for an almost casual twist that brought him to his knees on the floor in an instant. After she let go without a glance or a word of reproof, he slipped back into his seat to the demoralizing chuckles of his friends.

  Jacques grinned and went back to clearing the bar.

  Just then, a slight prickle of sensation disturbed him; a signal from his checker at the door that possible trouble had entered the club. His gaze lifted casually to the stranger at the edge of the room. A tall male with conservatively short brown hair and a five-o’clock stubble, wearing a suit coat and tie, and an attitude that said he could handle himself. He locked stares with Jacques, then started across the room with a purposeful stride. Maybe not trouble, but definitely something. LaRoche made a subtle gesture to stay his men, letting the visitor approach.

  “Are you LaRoche?” His voice was deep and smooth, betraying no hint of his intentions.

  “I am. And you?”

  “Let’s say I’m an interested party.”

  “And what are you interested in, friend?”

  “I didn’t say I was a friend.” Very smooth.

  Jacques smiled thinly. “Guess you didn’t. Best state your business, then.”

  He stood straight and sure, with no posturing or aggression, maintaining eye contact. His manner said, I could kick your ass, but I choose not to. Maybe he could, maybe he couldn’t. Jacques relaxed, knowing he wasn’t going to have to prove anything one way or the other. At least not yet.

  “I was told you take care of t
hings around here,” the man continued.

  “By whom?”

  He didn’t answer that. “I happened upon an awkward situation a few minutes ago that needs cleaning up before questions get asked. I don’t have the resources.”

  Now he had Jacques attention. “Explain.”

  “Two of our kind got themselves dead, not by my hand.” He gave the location. “Maybe you know them, maybe you don’t care. Just thought I’d give you a neighborly heads-up before the police get wind of it and start poking around.”

  Jacques signaled a couple of his crew over and gave them the necessary details, along with brusque instructions to tidy the scene. Then he put a glass on the bar. “Thanks for the tip. Drink on the house?”

  Silas shook his head. “Gotta be going. Have a nice evening.”

  As he stepped away from the bar, Silas hoped it wasn’t a mistake to make himself known to the local clan. He’d been aware of this spot since his arrival in New Orleans, and had made it a point to stay away so they wouldn’t sense him. The success of his plans demanded he conceal what he was and what he was after. He thought of that drink with a brief wistfulness. How long had it been since he’d shared a companionable glass with one of his own? Too long to even remember. Too dangerous to even consider.

  His mission was completed. He’d alerted them so they could protect the secrecy by which they all lived. Police involvement meant unnecessary attention. Let the clan of outcasts take care of their own, and he’d take care of himself. No need to get involved.

  And then Silas caught her scent.

  Just that hint, teasing like a whisper across his senses, sent a jolt through his system. His skin sizzled, his blood grew thick and hot, and his breath raspy. The instinctual response came from some unknown place deep inside.

  His gaze swept the room, not pausing when it caught her tucked back in the shadows. Hiding from his notice? Perhaps.

  The fact that his mysterious and fierce lone wolf chose to conceal herself amongst trusting sheep wasn’t his concern, so he continued out into the sultry night. There he rubbed his arms restlessly until the staticlike sensations eased.

  This female was nothing to him. Nothing but trouble.

  He remembered his younger sister Brigit teasing him that someday he’d be brought to his knees by fated sexual chemistry, by an irresistible pheromone drawing him to his mate. Then he remembered how he’d laughed at her, calling her a foolish romantic.

  He wasn’t laughing now. But he was unbearably and probably unwisely curious.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Prologue

  Chapter One