Taming The Shifter. Lisa Childs

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СКАЧАТЬ hurt when I called her.” And Paige hadn’t been able to bring it up for fear that Kate would remember who had treated her injury and where.

      “She has to know she was hurt,” Ben said. “She has stitches and a bandage.”

      “Then why didn’t she mention it?” Maybe Kate had remembered more than she was willing to admit to Paige.

      “Because she’s Kate,” Ben replied. “She’s proud and independent. And she wouldn’t want you to worry. And she especially wouldn’t want you to fuss over her.”

      “Or she didn’t want me to know what she remembered and warn you,” Paige said.

      Ben glanced at the security monitor that showed the video feed from the cameras outside both reinforced steel doors. One led to the hallway to the club; the other to the sewer. Both had been reinforced so that vampires—or other creatures—couldn’t get inside unless Ben let them in. It wasn’t just for his protection but for the protection of whatever patient he was treating. She looked at the monitor, too, and breathed a sigh of relief that both the hallway and the sewer were empty.

      “She’s not out there,” Ben said. “And she would be if she had any suspicions about this place.”

      “She has suspicions,” Paige reminded him. Kate had wanted inside this room back when somebody had been stalking Paige. But Sebastian had convinced her that the entrance to the sewer had been sealed off and the door led to nowhere.

      If Kate ever found this room, Paige would lose her best friend. The society would order the human’s death.

      As if he’d read her mind, Ben reached out and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. But because he knew her so well he offered her no false assurances. He only offered his love as he held her closely.

      “I don’t want to lose her,” Paige said.

      “Maybe we can talk to the society,” Ben said.

      She looked up at him and arched a brow. As if the society would listen to her. She had no way to negotiate—not the way the society’s special surgeon could.

      “Maybe I can,” he amended his comment, his sexy mouth curving into a slight grin.

      “But the society isn’t the only danger she’s in,” Paige said. “What about this other creature or creatures? You’ve said there are two of them.”

      Ben groaned. “I shouldn’t have told you about them.”

      “We promised,” she reminded him. “No more secrets.” At least not between the two of them. But they kept secrets—the secrets of the society—from all their human friends. “Are they a danger to her?”

      “The pack has the same law the society does,” Ben reminded her. “But the one she shot—he was the one who brought her here for me to treat.”

      “You think he cares about her?”

      Ben shrugged. “I don’t know what to think about Warrick James. The night I treated his gunshot wounds he was furious with her.”

      “So he could have been the one who attacked her in the alley,” Paige said. She wanted to meet this creature who was threatening her best friend.

      “I don’t know if he attacked her, or if she was attacked because of him,” Ben said. “But I feel like he might be more responsible than the society.”

      Or was that only what he wanted to believe because he and Paige and the child they’d adopted were all members of the society? It could have been a vampire who’d attacked Kate. And if that was the case, she was lucky she had only taken a blow to her head instead of a fang to her throat. But if she kept investigating, Kate was too good a detective to not figure out the secret and get herself killed.

      * * *

      Goose bumps lifted on Kate’s skin as she stepped into the thick darkness of the alley. Not even her flashlight beam could chase away the shadows this late at night. The anonymous call, promising to reveal everything she wanted to know, had lured her back to the alley. She had considered that it was just a ploy to get her here—to hurt her again. Yet she hadn’t been able to ignore it. Zantrax PD made it a policy to follow up on every silent observer tip. Maybe this tip was even better since it had come into her direct line and had been traced back to a public phone near Club Underground. A real witness could have made that call. Maybe Bernie.

      Or the person who’d struck her that night...

      She was a detective. Whatever risk it took to learn what she wanted to know was a risk she was willing to take. Of course she wasn’t usually foolish enough to go into a potentially dangerous situation without backup. But this was the second night she had taken that risk. Third, if she counted that first night when she’d chased Warrick James into the alley. But then she hadn’t wanted to risk his killing that man.

      And now, she hadn’t requested backup because she didn’t want to risk her reputation. Her “missing” body case had undone the respect she’d fought for years to gain in the department. He had ridiculed her the most. Not the man she’d shot but the man from her past, the man she wished she could leave in her past— forgotten only to surface in rare nightmares to remind her to never make that mistake again.

      To never trust.

      But they worked together. He worked nights, though, and she worked days. Except now when she was off the clock but not really off duty.

      Tonight she was more prepared, though. Her gun wasn’t in her holster but clasped tightly in her right hand while her left grasped the flashlight. She shone the beam around the alley, illuminating only one small circle of darkness at a time. Nothing moved in the shadows, though.

      Well, nothing human. Small feet scurried across the asphalt. Confident she was alone, Kate gave in to a shudder of revulsion over the nearness of the rats.

      “Hello?” she called out. “Anyone here?”

      Why call her if the person had no intention of showing up? He or she had gone to the trouble of disguising his or her voice so that it was unrecognizable. Maybe it was just a joke. Since that night when they had all searched for a body no one had been able to find, her coworkers had subjected her to many jokes. Like the bloody dummy left in her desk chair. And her locker and even her car...

      If only she had been able to arrest Warrick the other night...to bring him in to the department and show his scars. She could have proved that she hadn’t imagined it all. That she hadn’t imagined him. He was real.

      But too strong for her to have overpowered without her gun. Hell, when she’d had her gun she hadn’t been able to stop him. At least not permanently. He had survived injuries that would have killed anyone else.

      Was he real?

      He had disappeared from her bedroom just as quickly as he had the first night she’d discovered him there. One minute he had been there, almost as if he’d been watching over and protecting her after her concussion. Then the next minute he’d been gone...before she’d been able to find her gun or her cuffs. Before she’d been able to arrest him.

      Or make love with him...

      She wasn’t sure СКАЧАТЬ