The Shifters. Alexandra Sokoloff

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СКАЧАТЬ fixed her with a look that set her insides on fire. “Some things are obvious without the cards, Keeper.”

      “Who hired you?” she demanded, trying to get back on track.

      His face suddenly closed off. “That’s confidential.”

      “And why should I believe anything a shifter says?”

      “That’s your job, isn’t it? To determine these things? You said you were good.” He held her gaze, and it was intimate in the small room, more intimate than she wanted it to be, enough to make her breath short.

      She forced herself to focus, to keep her voice steady. “Thanks for the warning. I’ll be sure to look out for… entities. Do you have a number where I can reach you?”

      “I’m at the Marie Claire.” It was a small, older hotel, just a few blocks away.

      “And you know where to find me, obviously,” she said.

      “I do.” There was a sensual promise in his voice that she didn’t want to acknowledge, so she just stared coldly.

      “Then I think we’re done, here,” she said, and hoped it would be enough of a hint to get him out.

      “It’s been a pleasure.” He rose to leave, and was about to exit through the velvet curtain, when he turned. “Good reading, by the way—in case I didn’t say.” He paused, with a slight smile. “Did I tell you I read cards, too?”

      He reached for the deck still facedown on the table, fanned out the cards, and his hand hovered briefly before he reached casually and turned one over.

      Caitlin stared down at it. The Lovers.

      Ryder Mallory smiled into her eyes, a slow, infuriating smile.

      “I’ll be in touch—Keeper.”

      He brushed out through the purple curtain, and Caitlin stood, frozen, not breathing, until she heard the outer door open and close.

      Then she jerked forward and swept the cards up into their silk wrapper, slammed the cupboard door on them and pushed out through the curtain.

      The daylight of the shop was nearly blinding after the candlelit cocoon of the reading room, and Caitlin blinked to adjust. Her brain was roiling with confusion and anger.

      She stalked behind the counter and grabbed for her cell phone, started punching the speed-dial for Fiona.

      Then stopped, and forced herself to breathe. They didn’t believe you this morning, so what makes you think they would believe you now? She set the phone down, thinking. This time I’m going to do it right. Then she turned and walked to the front window, turned the Open sign to Closed, and hurried out the door.

       Chapter 3

      Caitlin hurried down the uneven cobblestone sidewalks of Royal. Air-conditioning blasted from the open doors, cooling the sidewalks enough to entice shoppers inside.

      The wind, which had been quiet for most of the day, was picking up again, warm and gusting, swirling flurries of glittering dust up from the streets.

      Bad wind, Caitlin thought again, and then was angry at herself for using the shapeshifter’s words, even though she’d said them first.

      The Eighth District New Orleans Police Department was located in the heart of the Quarter, just four blocks away from the shop, and it and the courthouse took up two square city blocks all on their own. It was, Caitlin thought, probably the most magnificent police station in the country: a massive three-tiered white-and-gray-veined marble wedding cake of a building, with grand old magnolia trees in the yard and tall black wrought-iron fences. Even in such a formal setting, the mysterious beauty of New Orleans carried the day.

      Tourists and locals alike were drawn to take rest on its sweeping marble steps, and could be found day and night, lounging back on their elbows, under the shade of blossoming magnolias, as street musicians and singers played to their captive and willing audience from the sidewalk on the other side of the street.

      Caitlin hurried up the steps, past a group of Goth teenagers watching a couple of the boys on skateboards do whatever they called those flip things on the stairs.

      Across the street, a saxophonist played a sultry version of “Georgia,” the notes enticingly full and sexy. Caitlin turned and glanced at him. The well-muscled Jamaican tipped his head to her as he played.

      She turned and hurried up the stairs.

      And on the sidewalk, concealed in his musician body, Ryder watched her, his lips wrapped around the mouthpiece of the horn.

      This is interesting, he thought, as he lowered the sax, staring at the police station. He’d known back at the shop that the indifference the Keeper had been demonstrating to his story was completely feigned. She might be distrustful of him, but she certainly believed that there was danger in the city; that had come through loud and clear in her thoughts. The focus of her concern had also been clear—her sisters above all else, which was also interesting. Ryder wondered if there had already been some kind of attack, or if she’d sensed some sort of menace, that would make her so instantly jumpy.

      But she hadn’t done the obvious thing, which would have been to run to her sisters, the other Keepers, who were, in Ryder’s experience and at least in other parts of the world, notoriously clannish. He had been counting on taking on some sweet, innocent form to make it easier to eavesdrop. A cat was always good for women—and he wouldn’t have minded curling up in Caitlin MacDonald’s lap, either.

      Instead, here she was, going straight to the police, which was not necessarily in Ryder’s best interests, not by a long shot—but it meant she knew something. And he intended to find out what.

      Beautiful as this Caitlin was—those silver eyes—she was only a means to an end. He would follow where she led only as long as it was useful, and no longer.

      He stepped into the stairwell where he’d left the unconscious street musician while he stole his form and his sax, gently deposited the sax on the step beside him, and let his own face change again.

      Inside the police department, Caitlin passed impatiently through security, gathered the belongings she’d had to send through the X-ray machine—shoes, belt, jewelry—and pulled them back on, then raced down the hall toward the Homicide Division.

      She forced herself to slow down, then stopped, hovering outside in the doorway. Seated at a prime desk in the detectives’ bullpen was her future brother-in-law, homicide detective Jagger DeFarge.

      Jagger looked like a rugged, exceptionally attractive man. In reality he was not a man at all. Caitlin had been horrified when Fiona—who had always been the steady one, the most rational sister, the one who’d fought to keep the family together ever since their parents’ deaths ten years ago—fell in love with the vampire. There was no outright ban against Keepers intermarrying with Others, but separation was part of a long tradition, and to Caitlin the idea would have seemed unnatural even if such an intermarriage hadn’t led to the long and bloody battle that had cost her parents their lives. While Others fought in the streets of New Orleans, ripping each other apart with claw and fang, Liam and Jen MacDonald had summoned all the powers they possessed to cast a circle of СКАЧАТЬ