True Colors

Elder Races - 3.5

by

Thea Harrison

To Heather and Amy and my family for making this possible.

Chapter One

Death

Don’t move. Stay perfectly still.

The enormous monster plunged through the apartment with the lethal speed of a stealth bomber. A Molotov cocktail of pheromones and Power spewed through the blood-tainted air, the classic signs of a strong male Wyr in a rage. Alice clung to her perch, her heart knocking so hard she thought it was going to burst out of her chest. Had the murderer returned?

Then the monster slowed. Alice heard him utter vicious curses under his breath as he came upon Haley’s still-warm body. Alice took the New York subway daily to work, and thought she had heard it all, but she learned a few things as she listened to him. Did he curse because he saw the murdered woman for the first time, or because he realized he had made some kind of mistake?

Alice had only just arrived at Haley’s apartment herself. She had found the door open and rushed inside to discover that her friend’s body had been laid out on her bed. Haley’s torso had been cut open, organs lying across the flowered bedspread like a child’s abandoned toys.

Alice had gone numb at the sight, the normal cool, gentle logic of her mind seizing in shock. Then she had heard someone running up the stairs. She had barely gotten to her hiding place before the monster appeared. If he was the murderer and he had returned to clean up some clue he had left behind, neither Alice nor the police would know what it was now.

He prowled through Haley’s home in complete silence. Alice couldn’t even hear the soft pad of footsteps. Her awareness of him was excruciating, as though someone had stroked the flat of a razor blade along her bare skin with the smiling promise of a cut. His presence was a violation of Haley’s private space. He paused not two feet away from Alice, so close she could see the pocket of his worn leather jacket out of the corner of her eye and hear the almost imperceptible sound of his steady breathing.

She wanted to scream and strike at him. She wanted to run away and dial 9-1-1. The shadowed apartment hallway was a million miles long, the open front door too far away for her to make a run for it and hope she wouldn’t be noticed. She didn’t dare move, did not dare even shift her gaze for fear a glancing light might reflect off her eyes and give her position away. She hardly dared to breathe. The only thing she could do was taste the air and know that, if nothing else, she could recognize this man again by his scent. Underneath the scent of violence, he smelled warm and clean. If they were in any other kind of situation, she would have found his scent sexy. She fought the sudden urge to vomit.

Wait. If she could scent him, then what kind of trail had she left behind? Could he scent her as well? Would he be able to recognize her again, too? Oh gods.

Riehl struggled with his rage and got it under control. His body settled out of the partial shapeshift. He couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching him. He kept one hand close to his holstered SIG P226, and an invisible six-pack of whoop-ass ready in the other.

Dead body with the same M.O., evisceration of the abdominal cavity. The killer never took the organs. He only set them out in a distinct pattern, like stars in a dark constellation. The average human body held 10 pints of blood. This woman’s once-pretty bedspread was drenched with hers. It dripped onto the carpeted bedroom floor in a thick, heavy pool. He wouldn’t be surprised if it had already soaked through the floor to the apartment below. Someone was going to have a bitch of a time cleaning that out.

Goddammit, the body was still warm. Her keys and half-opened purse were on the floor, and the ruins of a business outfit pillowed her mutilated body. It looked like the killer had surprised her as she arrived home from work. There was no sign of forced entry, which meant she had thought she had reason to trust him. Had the killer posed as a utility or maintenance worker, or was he an acquaintance?

If Riehl didn’t find anybody else to open the whoop-ass on, he could always save it for himself. If he had made the connections a little faster, if he had heard back from the Jacksonville PD a little sooner, if he had run the internet database searches right away instead of jawing over ideas with his new boss, Wyr sentinel and gryphon Bayne, this pretty lady might still be alive.

Goddammit, this was partly his fault.

He needed to call HQ, but… Riehl did a slow swivel, his sharp eyes noting every detail of the place. The vic’s home was a tiny, postage stamp-sized one-bedroom on the top floor of a four-story walk-up. It was furnished with space-saving IKEA décor. To Riehl, the vic had kept the apartment so warm it felt stifling. A flat screen TV was mounted on one wall. Every small-apartment dweller in New York must have cheered when that innovation came out. There were plants and books and shit, such as a tangle of female frippery on a bedroom dresser. He nudged closets open and they were full of normal stuff—clothes, shoes, coats and a few umbrellas, and small boxes. A Thursday paper was folded on a Barbie doll-sized dinette table, alongside an open box of holiday decorations with an elegant feathered and sequined half-mask perched on top.

Christians had Christmas, Jews had Hanukkah, and the universal African holiday celebration was Kwanzaa. For the Elder Races, winter solstice was the time to celebrate the seven Primal Powers in the Masque of the Gods. The vic had been in the middle of decorating her home for next week’s Festival of the Masque. Maybe she had planned on attending one of the many balls that were held throughout the city. The mask was a nice one, the kind one wore and passed down to one’s kids. It had set someone back a paycheck or two. Maybe she had looked at it with happy memories and anticipation.

All in all, the apartment was pretty typical for the city, and a perfectly charming place for a petite, 135-pound single female like the vic. Riehl stood six-foot-five and topped 263. He had only recently decided to domesticate himself from ninety-six roaming years spent as a captain in the Wyr lord Dragos Cuelebre’s army. He was used to a rugged lifestyle and spending a lot of time outdoors, often in inclement weather. To him the small overheated place felt claustrophobic.

There was no doubt in his mind the killing itself was the reason for the invasion. Her jewelry still lay scattered on the dresser and the corner of a wallet was visible in her open purse. It looked like nothing had been taken, unless the killer had snipped off a little something from one of the organs to keep as a souvenir, which would have to be determined by an autopsy.

He just couldn’t shake the sense of someone else being present. He was looking for some kind of fricking giveaway. Someone’s eye peering out from behind a closet door, or a webcam stuffed in a cute pink bunny. He even scoped the snow-covered scene outside the window to see if someone was watching from another building.

As he searched he took in deep, even, deliberate breaths. The heavy copper scent of blood pervaded everything. It all but buried the vic’s normal scent. There were other odors that he classified as normal and dismissed, like the faint lingering scent of fried fish and some floral stink that came from a bowl of potpourri. If Riehl had been in his Wyr form, his wolf would have had a sneezing fit at the potpourri and looked for the fish to roll in.

He noted two other very interesting things. He could taste faintly at the back of his throat a chemical tinge that hung in the air around the vic, along with the smell of rubber. He would bet his next week’s paycheck that the killer had worn rubber gloves, and that the chemical taint was KO Odorless Odor Eliminator, handy tool of deer hunters and Wyr criminals everywhere.

He would have expected the gloves, but using the KO meant the killer was either Wyr himself or at least he was familiar with Wyr investigative capabilities. The killer was organized, knew how to hide his scent, and planned ahead. That all fit with the deliberate care with which he had set out the victim’s organs, which was an exact match with the Jacksonville slaughter from seven years ago.

The second, very interesting thing Riehl noticed was another scent in the apartment. It was a light, delicate, feminine scent that tantalized his senses. Haunting and delectable, it hinted at an unforeseen, mysterious reality he wanted to dive into headfirst, except that the scent had turned jagged with stress pheromones that set his teeth on edge and had his hand inching closer to his weapon. The scent hadn’t had time to sink very deeply into the surroundings and was already fading.

The body was still warm, and a woman had been in the apartment before him. Well, how about that.

If the stubborn prickle at the back of Riehl’s neck was anything to go by, the woman might even still be around, although if she was, he didn’t have the first clue where she could be hiding.

He came to a sudden decision and strode out of the apartment.

Last week’s snowfall had turned to dark sludge in the streets and on the sidewalks, but the chill, wet December wind brought the promise of more. Fluffy flakes of white were just beginning to drift down. They looked innocuous and fairy-tale pretty, but they were the precursor of a major winter storm that would smother the city by the early morning hours. Snowplows had already begun working the streets. The wind tasted of exhaust fumes, fried food, salt and grit.

Riehl did a fast recon when he hit the street. No sign of a lingering perp, but then he didn’t expect anything else. Dude might be killer whack-job nuts but he was not stupid. Riehl was not going to get that lucky tonight.

The dead woman’s apartment was located in the melting pot of North Brooklyn, where a variety of Elder Races mingled with an ethnic hodgepodge of humanity. The gray smear of early evening was dotted with bright holiday decorations in storefront windows. The nearby street corner had a delicatessen/grocery store that was run by a Wyr family. They were some kind of grazing animal that liked to cluster in groups. The grocery store was across the street from a liquor store run by an older Armenian couple. The open-air newsstand had the strong earthy scent of a dwarf lingering around the edges of the door and hatch.

The newsstand had already closed for the day, and so had a dry cleaner’s half a block away. The dry cleaner’s shadowed doorway was far too shallow a nook to hide his broad-shouldered physique. Actually there weren’t any good hiding places where he could hope to watch the apartment building and remain undisturbed.

Riehl moved fast, dodging vehicles to reach the delicatessen. He thrust through the doors and stopped in front of the cashier station by the street window. The cashier was a lanky, middle-aged male who gave him a nervous smile that vanished as Riehl pulled out his badge and showed it to the guy.

“Ignore me,” Riehl said. The male nodded, his eyes wide.

Riehl went to the edge of the plate-glass window and flattened himself against the wall. At that angle he was hidden from the apartment building entrance. He tilted his head until he could see the front door. Then he waited. Riehl made people nervous at the best of times and if a woman had been hiding in the apartment, she was going to be skittish.

He considered. Could she have witnessed the murder? Even participated? The Jacksonville PD records made no mention of a possible partner. Had they missed something, or could it be a recent development? Would a killer that ritualistic make such a drastic change in his methodology?

Nah, he was trying to put too many curlicues on the whole scenario. If the woman had been an active participant, she would have been gloved and her identifying scent cloaked, and she probably would have left with the killer. And if she had witnessed the murder, she would have had plenty of time to escape the scene before Riehl arrived. And what sort of person could remain still and silent while watching someone get butchered with such precision? Riehl’s already black mood darkened further.

As he watched, he pulled out his cell and hit speed dial.

Bayne answered. “Yeah.”

“He got her,” Riehl said. “It’s our boy and the body’s still warm. She couldn’t have been dead more than an hour, hour and a half.” He listened to the sentinel swearing.

Bayne asked, “What do you think, is it the Jacksonville killer or a copycat?”

“If you’re asking me to guess, I’d say yeah, it’s the Jacksonville killer. You have to eyeball for yourself the meticulous butchery he did here. A guy like that could have the self-control to wait seven years, if the wait had some kind of special meaning for him.” He gave Bayne the address and said, “Listen, I gotta go. I’m following up on a possible witness.”

“I’m heading over to the scene myself. Call me back when you can,” Bayne said. The sentinel disconnected without saying goodbye.

Riehl started to pocket his cell just as the apartment building door opened and a woman stepped outside.

He froze. Everything froze. Body, mind, spirit. The world tilted on its axis and repolarized.

Though the woman’s torso was hidden in a thigh-length black woolen coat, it was clear she had a slender, elegant frame. An abundance of gold-tipped, dark brown corkscrew curls sprang out from her head. She wore straight-cut jeans, boots, and wire-rim glasses, and her complexion was the rich, warm color of cocoa and cream. She carried herself with the tense fragility of someone suffering from deep shock. Even from across the street, her thin intelligent face looked strained. She reached the sidewalk and paused, one narrow, fine-boned hand holding the high collar of her coat together in a defensive gesture as she scanned the street.

It was her, the woman from the apartment. He knew it. He didn’t have to catch her scent. Horror and tragedy still lingered in her eyes.

Another kind of knowing settled into his bones, a strange, deep pool of certainty that he had undergone an undefined, irrevocable shift that he didn’t understand or have the time to explore. The woman turned and began to walk in the direction of the nearby subway station. Riehl pushed through the delicatessen door and moved to cross the street, the whole of his attention laser-locked on her retreating figure.

Alice’s feet started carrying her automatically on her normal route home after visiting Haley, toward the Bedford Avenue subway station. First Peter was killed. Then yesterday they found out David had gone missing, and now Haley was dead.

David was dead as well. She knew he was, even though the police had not yet released any official word. Three of her friends, gone in as many days.

The street looked innocuous but a hint of the monster’s scent still lingered, warm and sensual in the cold wet air. Alice couldn’t stop shaking. The image of Haley’s poor mutilated body was frozen in her mind. What was she supposed to do next? Oh yes, call 9-1-1.

She dug in her pocket for her cell phone as her gaze darted around her surroundings. She glanced over her shoulder.

A man in black jeans and a battered leather jacket was crossing the street. He was immense, as tall as a tree, built like a linebacker, and he moved like a killer. His white-blond hair was cut military short, and the sharp, ruthless lines of his face were weathered and harsh. His piercing eyes were some kind of pale color, either gray or blue, and they reflected the light as he looked straight at her.

The bottom dropped out of Alice’s world as recognition slammed into her. Too many nightmarish epiphanies happened at once. They nearly knocked her to the ground.

It was the monster. He was no longer caught in a Wyr’s partial shapeshift, but she knew him. She knew him.

He’d found her, just as she’d been afraid he would. He had caught her scent, and now he had seen her face.

And she had seen his. He might be the one who had killed her friends. He was the most terrifying male she had ever seen.

And he was her mate.

Oh gods. Oh gods.

A hot wash of horror licked invisible flames along her skin. She had heard of such a thing before, two Wyr recognizing each other as mates at first sight. She had thought it was an urban legend. Deeper than love, more dangerous than lust, Wyr mated for life. This couldn’t be happening. It wouldn’t happen, not if she had anything to say about it.

She whirled. Terror whited out her thinking and lent wings to her feet.

Riehl lunged into a sprint after the woman.

Holy hell, that chick could move. Riehl was fast but he was big. She darted lickety-split between cars and people like nothing he’d ever seen, her slight, slender body able to take sharp turns and squeeze through tight spaces in a way he couldn’t hope to match.

Then in a hopscotch skip straight into the land of weird, as she ran she faded into her surroundings. She didn’t quite disappear, not totally. Her clothing was too solid for that, but somehow it was harder to track her just by vision alone.

Huh. That was fascinating as shit.

Good thing he could track her with more than just his vision. He could catch her if he changed. If they had been anywhere but the city, he would have. He was faster in his wolf form, and he could run literally for days. But if he changed into the wolf, he couldn’t speak unless they were close enough for telepathy, and he could already taste her panic on the wind. Besides, NYC might be the seat of the Wyr demesne, but it was also home to millions of others as well. He didn’t trust how people might react to the sight of a two-hundred-pound wolf hurtling down a city street.

He took a deep breath and bellowed, “NYPD! Stop!”

Of course she didn’t stop. He wouldn’t have stopped either just because some dumbass stranger yelled at him. Damn it, was she headed for the subway?

She was. In a move that was so suicidal it took his breath away, she plunged almost directly under the wheels of an oncoming truck as she raced across the street. Riehl didn’t think the driver even saw her because the truck never slowed.

Riehl had no choice but to pull up for a few vital moments, which gave her an even greater lead. After the truck he kicked it in gear, kicked it as hard as he could. He blazed down the sidewalk like a heat-seeking missile, scattering pedestrians in his wake like so many squawking chickens. He listened to the sounds of his breathing, the sharp wind whistling in his ears. At the subway station, he didn’t bother with taking the stairs at a run. Instead he gathered himself and spanned the flight in one massive leap, but it wasn’t enough.

Several yards ahead, the woman darted across the station platform and on to a train just as the doors closed. It was like something out of a goddamn made-for-TV movie. Unbelievable. Riehl spat out a curse as he came up to the closed doors.

They stared at each other through the barrier. The woman was panting and her eyes were dilated black in a face that was chalky white except for two hectic flags of color in her cheeks. As she took in his expression, she stepped back from the door, only stopping when she bumped into people behind her.

The train lurched. He raised his eyebrows, pulled out his badge and showed it to her. She stared at it and her eyes widened. As the train pulled away, she stepped forward again and put her hand to the glass, her gaze rising to his.

He pointed to her. “Nearest police station,” he mouthed. “Go there.”

The last sight he had of her was her peering at him as the train rattled away. He wondered if showing her the badge would get a better result than yelling at her in the street had.

He had better go locate the nearest police station and find out.

Chapter Two

Law

Alice got off the subway at the next stop and ran up the stairs to street level. She was a total wreck, spooking at the slightest thing while she tried to think past the incredulous shout still echoing in her head.

Had he experienced the same epiphany when he looked at her?

Mate. Killer.

Police?

Be smart, be safe now. Could the badge have been fake? Rattled though she was, that seemed like an awfully unlikely stretch—unless impersonating a police officer was how he had gotten inside Haley’s apartment in the first place. Haley’s door had been open, not broken. Many crimes had been committed by people posing as police officers, including one of the most famous in the twentieth century, the St. Valentine’s Day massacre in the 1920s.

But he’d told her to go to the nearest police station. That sounded authentic—unless he hoped to grab her before she actually got inside. Why would he do that? Now she was sounding paranoid and irrational—except she had left the normal boundaries of reality behind two days ago when she heard that Peter had been killed.

Their group was small and tight-knit for a reason. The shock waves of Peter’s death had barely begun to reverberate through the circle when Alex Schaffer, the group’s leader, had emailed everyone yesterday to tell them he couldn’t get in touch with David and had anybody else heard from him?

Nobody had. Alice and Haley had planned that very evening to huddle together and grieve for Peter and fret over David’s disappearance. Alice had been ready to coax Haley into packing a bag and coming to stay with her for at least the weekend, and not fifteen minutes ago she had realized that the dark red hollow at the midsection of Haley’s sprawled body was in fact the inside of Haley’s body.

If that man was the killer and he had come back to Haley’s apartment to clean up something, if he thought she could identify him and tie him to the crime, he would want to do anything he could, even risk proximity to the police station, in order to get rid of her.

She ran into a small piece of luck as a taxi drove down the street with its light on. She waved at it and when it stopped, she jumped in and locked the doors. “Drive around,” she told the cabby.

“Okay,” said the cabby. He was an intelligent, anemic-looking Wyr in his mid-forties, with a dry, dusty scent and fingernails bitten to the quick. He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Anywhere in particular you want to go?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute,” she said. “Just get moving.”

“Fabulous,” the cabby said with a shrug. “It’s your dime.”

Alice pulled out her cell phone and finally dialed 9-1-1. For a wonder, an operator picked up after only a few rings. “I need to report a murder,” Alice said.

The cab slowed, and her driver gave her a sudden sharp look in the rearview mirror. She glared at him and he ducked his head. The cab picked up speed again.

The snowfall had thickened. Alice watched the passing streets through the windshield wipers while she gave the operator Haley’s address, and what details she knew. “When I left the building, a man chased me,” she said. “He had been in the apartment. I managed to get on to a subway train as the doors closed so I got away from him, but he had time to show me a badge through the window. He said he was a police officer and he ordered me to go to the nearest station. I need to verify his identity if I can.”

“Ma’am, I can’t do that for you over the phone,” said the operator. “You need to go to the nearest police station.”

“Look, I’m a teacher,” Alice said. Her voice unraveled along with her composure. “I’m not some tough soldier or cop-type that deals with crime scenes and death every day—I teach first-grade kids, okay? Usually the worst part of my day is trying to get the glue and glitter off my jeans after craft-time and preparing for parent-teacher conferences. Now I’ve had three friends killed in the last three days. Today it was one of my best friends, and her body is in pieces. I’m shaken and I’m really scared. What if this man’s waiting for me outside the station and he’s not actually the police?”

“All right,” said the operator, her voice gentling. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You said you’re in a cab, correct?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Have your driver pull over and give me your location. I’m going to get a unit dispatched to you. Make sure you wait in the cab with the driver until they arrive. Then you’ll have a police escort to the station. Okay?”

Alice’s world stopped spinning just a little. She whispered, “Yes, okay.”

Less than ten minutes later, a cruiser pulled up behind the cab, lights flashing, but siren off. Alice paid the cab driver as one of the officers, a policewoman, walked up to them. Alice climbed out of the cab.

The policewoman said, “Alice Clark?”

“Yes,” Alice said.

“I’m Sergeant Rizzo. My partner is Officer Garcia. We’re here to escort you to the 94th Precinct.”

“Thank you,” Alice said. She had cooled down after her headlong run through the streets, but her clothes were still clammy with sweat and the temperature was plummeting fast. The winter storm had definitely arrived. She wrapped her coat tight around her as she started to shiver.

“You’re welcome.” The policewoman walked with her to the cruiser.

“I’m sorry to trouble you,” Alice said. “I don’t even know if this was necessary.”

“Not at all,” said Rizzo. The Sergeant opened the back door and gestured for her to climb in. “From what I understand, you might have been facing a smart, violent killer. You can’t be too careful.”

As Alice settled gingerly into the backseat, Garcia twisted around to smile at her through the protective grille. “We’ve got a message for you that might set your mind at ease. We just heard from the WDVC—the Wyr Division of Violent Crime. Detective Gideon Riehl has arrived at the 94th and is waiting for you there. He says to tell you he’s big and blond, and he’s sorry he scared you.”

Alice sagged as Garcia’s words sank in. “Oh gods, thank you.”

Reaction set in as Garcia drove through the thickening storm. Alice huddled in her coat and shook so hard she felt like she might fly apart at the joints. A succession of images from the past hour flashed through her mind with silent urgency.

Haley’s expression had been blank, as if she had died overcome with surprise. Or perhaps her expression was blank only because she was dead, and she had suffered unimaginable fear and pain in her last moments. Had she looked into her killer’s face and known she was going to die?

Had she looked into her killer’s face and known him?

Alice wiped her face with the end of her scarf. Haley worked—had worked—at the same elementary school as she did. Someone was going to have to call Alex, who was not only the leader of their group but the principal of Broadway Elementary. Someone was going to have to contact Haley’s parents. She supposed the police had an established protocol for such things, but Haley was—had been—an only child. The news of her loss was going to be a crippling blow. Maybe the police would let Alice help.

And Peter. They hadn’t released the details of his death, only that he had been attacked and killed. They might not have found David yet. But as early as two days ago, when Alice and Haley had talked of Peter in hushed voices in the teacher’s lounge, Alice had known.

The nightmare had returned.

Though the Friday evening was still young, traffic had thinned to a trickle as visibility was reduced to yards. A winter storm advisory urged emergency travel only and even the most determined holiday shoppers abandoned their pursuits.

The world had turned barren and so treacherous it leached away the electric welcome of lights shining in the dark. The wind howled as though it was populated with invisible wolves on the hunt. It drove the snow with such force tiny needles of ice attacked any exposed skin.

There were two kinds of storms, Alice thought. One was a friendly kind that you could enjoy watching out the window with a cup of tea. It crashed around in the sky with theatricality but no real malice.

This storm was the other, the killing kind. There are horrors that exist in the night, the bitter wind said, horrors that only children and demons can see. There are horrors that exist in the mind as well, that only the individual can bear witness to. The winter wind sang of things that the mind did not quite remember but that fear never forgot, filled as people are with the haunts and tragedies that make up the shadows of their lives. We can’t endure them, the wind whispered, for when the light and warmth are truly taken we are left shivering naked in the dark. Then we hear a nearby husky chuckle that tells us we are prey.

Not even the lights of the 94th Precinct could offer Alice any comfort as the square brick-and-stone building appeared suddenly, a great, hulking, shadowed mass in the gray-and-black night. Faceless evil destroyed her friends and stalked her community. The grief and fear were crushing.

Then there was this, a different kind of reason to shake, an impossible sense of knowing about someone she didn’t know at all. The conviction invaded her bones and assaulted her skeptical, resisting soul.

She didn’t want a mate. She didn’t even like to date. All of those questions everybody asked, the same ones, over and over. What do you do for a living? What do you do for fun? What do you like to eat? Are you seeing anybody else?

Did anybody ever answer those questions truthfully on the first date?

Alice’s tendencies followed her shy Wyr nature. She was a quiet person who liked solitary pursuits. She enjoyed reading, quilting, long walks and biking in parks, camping and books on tape. Her idea of going renegade was to make a radical departure from a food recipe. While she adored all fifteen of the quirky, rambunctious children in her classroom, she often spent her evenings at home recovering from the intense social interactions of the day. She got her social needs met by the routine get-togethers of her group, other teachers at lunch, periodic phone calls and letters to her parents and, oh gods, Haley.

The gigantic menacing stranger—what had Garcia called him? Detective Gideon Riehl. He couldn’t be who she thought he was. She had to be suffering from some kind of internal system malfunction, a strange by-product from all the stress of the last few days.

Wyr were deadly when they turned criminal. By definition, anyone who worked in the New York Police Department’s elite WDVC lived a violent, dangerous life. In order to bring down criminal Wyr, the members of the WDVC had to be better, more efficient killers than the Wyr they hunted. Alice couldn’t imagine anyone more unlike her. No wonder he had terrified her.

Had he felt something when he’d first laid eyes on her? Did he share the same, insane conviction that she was his mate? If he hadn’t, she had to worry about herself. If he had, then she had a whole lot of other things to worry about.

She caught sight of Detective Riehl’s unmistakable, immense figure as he paced in front of the precinct’s doors. He was bare-headed, his battered leather jacket unzipped. Apparently he was immune to the brutal blizzard shrieking around him. Riehl turned as Garcia pulled the patrol car over to the curb. He was already striding forward as the cruiser slowed to a smooth stop.

A powerful insanity took over Alice as she watched him approach. He moved his massive body with athletic, sure fluidity, those impossibly long legs of his making short work of the distance between them. His light-colored gaze fixed on her with the same unnerving intensity as earlier, but instead of filling her with panic, this time she knew that he was her only shelter from the killing storm.

Her gaze clung to him, her breath sawing in her throat as she groped for a handle, only belatedly remembering there weren’t handles in the back of a police car when Riehl reached out and gently opened the door for her. His icy gaze steady, he held out both powerful hands to her.

Maybe she meant to run. The part of her that continued to be appalled wanted to. The greater part of her, the insane part, reached for his outstretched hands with both of hers. His palms were hot and calloused under her fingers. He supported her weight as she somehow got her trembling muscles to work and climbed out of the car. Her teeth were audibly clacking, her pride nowhere to be found. He gave her face one keen, searching glance then he simply enfolded her in his arms. His warmth and scent surrounded her, and the relief and comfort were indescribable.

“Everything’s going to be all right now,” he rumbled quietly in her ear. “You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

She gave up all thought of running, abandoned every sense of pride and propriety, and leaned against his broad, muscled chest. It felt like a strong and sturdy home.

Now that they were up close and personal, Riehl found Alice Clark such a wee little thing, he could almost pick her up and put her in his pocket. He rubbed her slender back as she huddled against him. For some reason his heart had decided to do a jackhammer tempo. The wolf in him growled as she trembled, but he kept a stern hold on his beast. Now was not the time to go all Cujo on anybody and run the risk of freaking her out even further. But he angled his head and bared his teeth in silent warning as the two uniforms stepped out of the police car and approached a little too close.

The male uniform held up his hands in a placating gesture. The female narrowed her eyes on him and said deliberately, “Ms. Clark, do you need anything else from us?”

Riehl’s snarl deepened as Alice’s arms fell away from his waist. She would have turned away from him too except he refused to let her go. She turned her head instead. Her wild, adorable, gold-tipped corkscrew curls tickled his chin, and he wanted to rub his face all over her as she said, “No. Thank you for everything.”

“You’re welcome,” said the female. She gave him an extra glare before turning away with her partner as they went back to their shift.

Alice tilted her head to look up at him. He assessed her strained expression. Thin, gold, wire-rim glasses framed large hazel eyes, brilliant with flecks of blue and green, against cocoa-and-cream skin so lustrous it made his mouth water with the urge to lick her everywhere. Her delicate, somewhat ascetic features were smudged with tearstains and lingering traces of fear. Standing out in the frigid cold, her shivering had increased.

Those beautiful eyes of hers were stark with too much emotion and remembered horror. He came to another one of his quick decisions and told her, “I’m taking you home.”

Surprise bloomed like an unfurling flower in her tense, closed-down face. She asked, “You’re not going to question me?”

“Yes, but you’ve been through one hell of a shock. Anything we have to say to each other can be done in the comfort of your own place,” he said.

He put an arm around her shoulders and steered her toward his vehicle, a black, unmarked, late-model Jeep Cherokee. She didn’t protest but moved at his side like an automaton. He unlocked the doors with the key fob and opened the passenger door for her. Once she was settled, he moved swiftly around to the driver’s side.

With a quick sidelong glance, he made sure she had fastened her seat belt before starting the Jeep and pulling out. He could feel through the steering wheel how treacherously slick the road had become. The engine was still warm, so he turned the heater on full blast for her. If he had been by himself, he wouldn’t have bothered. In most instances, he generated enough body heat for his own comfort.

Riehl had come to realize just how used he had gotten to roughing it since he had taken the new job. A recruit at age twenty, he had been in the army for longer than most human life spans. His wolf was still not comfortable with the decision to retire. Whenever he was in compact living quarters like the vic’s—like Haley Moore’s place—he often felt as if he might knock things over if he moved too quickly.

In fact, these last several months he had been entertaining serious doubts about his decision to leave army life and settle in the city. He hadn’t been sure he could make the adjustment. The wolf had been satisfied with a roaming lifestyle, and the army had given him the sense of pack that he needed. It was the man who had gotten restless and decided it was time to make a change, but the restlessness hadn’t subsided when he had relocated and changed jobs.

In fact, it hadn’t subsided until just now.

He sent another thoughtful sidelong glance at his passenger. The storm was really dumping it outside, and white snowflakes had caught in her hair. They were melting in the warmth of the car. The remaining moisture sparkled on her like a net of tiny jewels. The line of her profile was sad, even stern, her delicate mouth straight and unsmiling. She was grieving, and he was the hind end of a donkey because he couldn’t stop staring at her, and all he could think about was what it might take for him to get her naked.

He felt it again, the shift of the world’s axis, the conviction that true north had moved and nothing would ever be the same again.

He felt it. He just had no idea what it meant.

The drive to her apartment should have been a short one but the weather made it much longer. Alice glanced at Riehl a few times when he took the correct route without asking. Her hands tightened as she clasped them together in her lap but she remained silent. He hadn’t had time to do much when dispatch had contacted him, but he’d done a quick search on her name. Alice Clark, age thirty-five. Hell, he’d been in the army for longer than she’d been alive, for over twice her lifetime. DMV records stated she owned a Prius. He wondered if, like a lot of city dwellers who were car owners, she was a weekend driver.

Her address turned out to be a garden apartment in a brownstone near Prospect Park. After they parked, he followed her down the shallow, ice-slick steps to her front door. The decorative wrought iron security grille on the front window was coated in ice. Heat blasted him in the face as they stepped inside. He was already stripping off his jacket as she locked and bolted the front door.

Her pretty hazel gaze rose to his face and skittered away as her hands moved to unfasten the buttons of her black wool coat. Christ almighty, watching her disrobe even that small amount hit him like a mule kick. He sucked air and pivoted away to stare at the wall.

“If you don’t mind,” she said, “I would like to change into some dry clothes.” She sounded breathless, her voice barely over a whisper, and it was so sexy it was as if she had run a finger lightly down his bare spine.

He shuddered, made a herculean effort and managed to articulate a few words. “You do that.”

She switched on every light as she left. In her absence the room seemed too empty. As Riehl waited, he prowled through her living room and stood in the doorway to peer into the kitchen/dining area. The apartment was too hot, of course, but he knew it would be. Alice’s home was larger than Haley Moore’s apartment. It looked like it might actually have two bedrooms, and there was a back door. The spacious room was decorated with a few colorful sunflowers strategically placed to accent sage green cabinets. A stacked washer and dryer sat in an alcove that could be hidden by a wooden folding door cover. A sturdy, plain oak table with four chairs sat in the dining area.

He moved to look out the back door’s window, noting with approval that it was covered with a security grille as well. What he could see through the storm’s white-out was a small back garden surrounded by a privacy fence, now shadowed and covered with a thick blanket of snow. That tiny piece of real estate would be a refreshing haven in the spring, summer and fall.

So she didn’t flaunt it, but she had more money than her friend. She could afford a bigger place with a garden, and to keep a car in the city.

Riehl moved back into the living room. Plain, comfortable furniture in earth tones, a couch, a rocker and one of those long chair thingies—what were they called? A chaise lounge. Lots of bookcases filled with a variety of hardcover books and paperbacks, potted plants all over the place, truly beautiful handmade quilts folded and laid along the backs of the couch and chairs, and in one corner another half-finished quilt was in a round hoop set in a floor stand. Several pieces of original artwork hung on the walls, lush jungle scenes filled with rich greens and the occasional spray of exotic flowers. Riehl wasn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, an art aficionado, but they all had a similar style and seemed to be from the same artist. A glass-paned gas fireplace was set against one wall.

Alice had used the dimensions of the room well to create an oasis. It looked comfortable while also conveying a sense of space, brightness and a touch of outdoors. He turned on the gas fireplace and stood back. Strategically placed area lamps helped to create a quieter evening mood. With the flickering gas flames, he could almost imagine lounging at a fire ring outside surrounded by living greenery. Both wolf and man heartily approved.

Gentle sparks of her Power dotted the home, more like soft glows than anything else. The place smelled like her, that delicate, evocative, tantalizing scent. He took deep breaths and felt the tension between his shoulder blades ease. Her place was attractive and welcoming, but not fussy or pretentious. He didn’t feel claustrophobic here. He felt good.

He heard her moving around in her bedroom and imagined her taking the rest of her clothes off. Instantly his cock hardened and strained against the confines of his zipper.

He was such a guy. Could he get more reprehensible?

She’d just had one of the worst days a body could have, and it wasn’t over yet because, much as he wanted to let her rest and recover, Riehl was going to have to question her. He should be thinking about what he could do to help her out, not how she would taste, how she would feel writhing under him as he drove into her elegant body.

Speaking of what he could do to help. He moved to the kitchen. A tea kettle sat on a gas stove. He filled it with water and set the burner to high, then opened and shut cabinets until he found her tea supplies. That was where he got lost—she had so many weird teas he had no idea what to pick out. They were sitting in her cupboard, so she had to like all of them, right? He grabbed a box at random and prepared a mug, and when the kettle emitted a piercing whistle, he poured boiling water into it.

He knew the moment she stepped into the doorway to watch him, but he made himself take his time as he turned to look at her. She wore soft gray flannel pants, a loose, blue cable-knit sweater with the edge of an old white t-shirt peeking at the neckline, and house slippers. He was glad to see she had decided to get comfortable and knew he had made the right decision to bring her home. She looked calmer but still so sad, it wrung at his old battle-hardened heart.

He said, his voice gruff, “You were so chilled, I put the fire on and thought you might like something hot to drink.”

She glanced at the mug and the kettle warming on the stove, and her expression softened into a gentle gratitude of such sweetness, it slipped past every cynical barrier he had ever constructed to keep the world separate from himself.

“Thank you,” she said.

He gave her a curt nod as he fought to keep his feet in a world that had gone reeling.

The world had tilted on its axis.

And she was his true north.

Chapter Three

Hearth

Alice stared at the powerfully built man in her kitchen and fought the urge to twist her fingers together. His face was marked with rough lines and stamped with an edged maturity that could, from one moment to the next, turn dangerous. There was no softness anywhere in his features. They showed he had gone to many places and seen unimaginable things, and faced them all with intelligent, competent composure, and he didn’t know what it meant to give up.

His presence spiced the air with exoticism and turned her familiar surroundings strange. She had thought her peaceful two-bedroom apartment was spacious, but somehow he filled the entire place up with his strong male energy. It bathed her tired senses with vitality and a renewed sense of purpose.

He had worn just a faded black t-shirt under the leather jacket. The cotton stretched taut at the bulging biceps and deltoids in his upper arms, and strained across the heavy width of his pectorals. He wore a gun in a shoulder holster. Her gaze snagged on it. For long moments she couldn’t look away from the weapon.

As she had left her bedroom, she had noted with disconcertment that he certainly knew how to make himself at home without being invited. He had turned on the fireplace and was making tea.

Then he had looked up at her, and his icy blue gaze speared right through her. She would have said it was impossible, but that frighteningly ruthless face of his gentled, and she felt all her insides turn to mush. When he told her the fire and the tea were for her, it was the last thing in the world she expected to hear him say. She had to press her lips together hard to keep her mouth from quivering.

“Are you feeling better?” he asked. “More comfortable, at least?”

The sound of his deep, rough-and-tumble voice rubbed along her skin. The tiny hairs along her arms rose. She nodded wordlessly.

He continued. “Where do you want to sit, in the living room in front of the fire, or at your table?”

Still wordless, she indicated the dining table. He carried the mug over, set it on the table and held a chair out for her. She eased gingerly into it as she asked, “You’re not having any?”

He gave her a sideways glance that revealed a hint of roguish charm so potent it hit her point-blank between the eyes. “I’m not a tea drinker.”

Devastated at the intensity of her reaction to him, she swiveled her gaze downward in the direction of the mug and blinked at it blindly. She wrapped cold fingers around its welcome warmth and cleared her throat. “I have beer and soft drinks in the fridge, if you’d like something to drink.”

“I’m good for now, thanks.” He took the chair opposite hers and leaned his elbows on the table. He said quietly, “You do realize I’ve got to ask you some tough questions now, don’t you?”

She nodded. “Ask me anything you need to, Detective.”

“Hey.” He ducked his head, trying to catch her gaze, and she let him. He gave her a quick, coaxing smile. “Please call me Gideon.”

A small sliver of warmth worked its way into her constricted heart. She managed a small, brief smile back. “And I’m Alice.”

“Alice, I’m not going to make any secret about this—I’m very glad to meet you, but I’m sorry it had to be under such terrible circumstances. I’m sorry about the loss of your friend,” Gideon said, holding her gaze with his own pale blue eyes. They had seemed so icy not that long ago. Now they were filled with grave compassion. A dark understanding lay at the back of the expression. Alice thought, he knows what it’s like to lose people close to him.

“Friends,” she whispered.

“Friends,” he amended. “I wish you hadn’t had to see Haley that way. I would have protected you from that if I could have.”

Somehow he said the exact right things. His simple words acknowledged his awareness that something lay between them, but the condolences placed the emphasis on what they needed to focus on at the moment. It steadied her as nothing else could have done. “Thank you,” she said, sitting straighter in her chair.

“I want you to tell me everything that’s happened to you over the last couple of days,” Gideon said. “Take your time, and don’t worry about whether you think it’s important or not. I’ll decide if it is.”

“Everything?” She regarded him in puzzlement. “You’re not going to ask me questions?”

“You mean like in a TV show, where the cops get what they need to know in three or four minutes of directed dialogue?” Warmth touched her cheeks and she lifted one shoulder sheepishly. He gave her a faint smile. “I’ll ask questions later. Right now, I don’t want to lead you or impose my agenda or opinions on you. There’s always the possibility that you know more than you think you do, and things that I can’t know to ask about yet.”

“Okay.” She sipped her tea to take a moment and collect her thoughts. Not half an hour ago she had been a terrified, all but incoherent wreck. Now she was certainly grieving, but she felt calmer, supported, no longer alone and vulnerable in the dark.

She felt safe.

She thought back a few days ago to how different life had been when she had gone blithely to work without a clue what horrors the week would hold. “I’m a teacher,” she said. “I work at a private elementary school, Broadway Elementary. Haley worked at the same school. The principal, Alex Schaffer, is a friend of ours. At lunchtime he came to tell us that a mutual friend of ours, Peter Brunswick, was dead.”

At first the words came slow and halting. Then they sped up and came fast and hard. Gideon remained a silent listener, his steady gaze and strong, sure presence a lifeline she could hold on to when she hit the rough bits.

She cried. She didn’t want to but she couldn’t help it. When she reached the point where she had looked on Haley’s poor, violated body for the first time, she took off her glasses and covered her eyes with one hand as tears streaked down her face.

Gideon’s chair scraped the floor. He came around the table, knelt beside her and pulled her into his arms. It felt like it had the first time, a sense of not just being hugged but enfolded.

Neither one of them remarked on the fact that, as a police officer questioning a potential witness, many people would say his actions were inappropriate. He had crossed that line already outside the precinct.

Alice gave herself a gift—she let herself do what she needed to. She wrapped her arms around him, tucked her face into his sturdy neck, and sobbed her heart out.

He rubbed her back and held her with immaculate patience, only loosening his hold when she had calmed and made as if to straighten. He asked in a quiet voice, “Better?”

She nodded and touched the back of his hand in thanks. Then she collected her glasses and stood to splash her face off at the kitchen sink. The cool water felt good against her over-hot, puffy skin. She patted her face dry on a towel and slipped her glasses back on her nose. As the world came back into focus, she noticed the clock built into her stove read 9:05 pm.

She looked at Gideon who had risen to his feet. Every time she laid eyes on him, the sheer size of him came as shock. Neither of them had had any chance to get supper that evening. He hadn’t even started to ask her questions, so he wouldn’t be leaving any time soon. She didn’t think she could handle food, but large male Wyr, especially those with his kind of intense physicality, needed to eat.

“Are you hungry?” she asked.

He froze. She could tell he was trying to decide what would be the right thing to say and, unbelievably on such a horrible night, her lips curved into a real smile.

“Of course you’re hungry,” she said. “I’ll fix something to eat.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Gideon told her.

“I know, but I want to,” she replied. “I like to cook when I’m stressed.” His eyebrows rose. She chuckled a little. “I guess that might sound strange, but cooking calms me down. I find it comforting.”

“As long as you’re sure,” he said cautiously. “I could eat something.”

Given the care with which he was treating her, no doubt that meant he was famished, so whatever she made would have to be hearty. She was glad she had gone to the store to stock up on supplies when she heard the forecast for the winter storm.

She opened the fridge, pulled out a Corona and handed it to him. He took it, his eyes lit with a tentative gratitude. Good heavens, he looked like nobody had offered to feed him before. She turned back to assess the contents of her fridge as she tried to decide what to make. “You’re a canine of some sort, aren’t you?” she murmured. He would want a lot of protein.

“I’m a wolf,” he said.

She paused as she absorbed that. A wolf, not a dog, which meant he was not quite tame or domesticated. Yes, that fit. He would be breathtaking as a wolf if his fur was the same white-blond as his hair.

“And you’re a rainbow chameleon, right?” he asked.

The handle of the fridge door slipped out of her nerveless fingers. The door swung wide as she turned to face him and backed against a counter.

Gideon’s expression changed. He said in a calm voice, “Alice, it’s all right. Remember, you’re quite safe.”

Again, he played it to perfection. He didn’t physically advance but instead leaned back against the dining table, his massive body relaxed, one foot kicked over the other. He regarded her with the same steady calm he had shown her all evening.

She relaxed with a self-conscious laugh. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That felt like it came out of nowhere, and—we don’t like to talk about ourselves or advertise what kind of Wyr we are, you know. Some of that’s instinctive behavior, and some of it’s… Well…” She made an all-encompassing gesture.

He nodded and rubbed the back of his head, looking thoughtful. “History has not been kind to the chameleon Wyr.”

Like most of the Elder Races, Wyrkind were not only from earth. Some of the stranger species were native to the Other lands, those magic-filled places that had been formed when time and space buckled at the earth’s formation. Rainbow chameleons were such Wyr. Rare, shy creatures, they came from a remote Other land connected to the Amazon rainforest.

Rainbow chameleons had no non-Wyr counterpart. They were also unique among other, mundane species of chameleons that typically could make only a few changes in color. Rainbow chameleons had the ability to change into any color and could do so at will to blend into their surroundings.

One of the earliest explorers of the Amazon inland, Spanish conquistador Francisco de Orellana, made the first known European contact with rainbow chameleon Wyr in early 1542 as he traveled the length of the Amazon River and searched for the mythical city of El Dorado. Upon discovering the rainbow chameleon’s unique ability to undergo radical and complex changes in color, Orellana proceeded to commit some of the greatest atrocities in either Spanish or Elder Races history. He systematically hunted chameleon Wyr and had them dissected in an attempt to discover the source of their ability. The exact number of Wyr he murdered was unknown, but historians estimated the total to be anywhere from 3,000 to as many as 5,000, which were catastrophic numbers for such a rare species.

In his experiments, Orellana discovered the chameleon Wyr had a gland similar to the human pituitary gland. Extractions produced a fluid that, when it was used to treat textiles, could produce an arresting effect on items of clothing. Orellana never found El Dorado, but he brought vials of the chameleon extract back to Spain that he sold for a king’s ransom while keeping secret its origins. Spanish royalty and a few certain wealthy nobles flaunted elaborate court attire made of fabulous cloths that changed colors with liquid fluidity to match their surroundings.

The secret of the chameleon extract was discovered in Orellana’s papers after his death, whereupon King Carlos I and his mother, the mentally unstable Queen Joanna, outlawed the wearing of chameleon-dyed clothes upon pain of death. The Spanish monarchy made a great play at being morally outraged, but the political reality was, whatever their real reaction might have been, they had to make some gesture of public repudiation or run the risk of being destroyed by the infuriated rulers of the Elder Races.

However, rumors of the existence of such clothing had whispered through the succeeding centuries, in particular when connected to famous unsolved acts of theft. Whether those historical rumors were true or not, chameleon Wyr remained rare—Alice knew of only fifty or so currently living in the continental U.S.

The critically low numbers of chameleon Wyr made the crimes that had been committed seven years ago even more terrible. A small colony of chameleon Wyr had lived in Jacksonville, Florida, where seven of them had been found murdered the week before that December’s Festival of the Masque. Despite a much-televised, nationwide manhunt by several cooperating agencies, the chameleon killer had never been caught.

The silence was broken by the wind that drove ice shards against the building, like a nightmare tapping the windows with skeletal fingers, looking for a way in.

Alice shuddered at the dark fancy and shoved it away. She was surrounded with light and warmth, about to be nourished with good food and drink, and she had been given the unforeseen gift of comfort and companionship during a time that would have been terrible to endure alone. She gave Gideon another apologetic glance and turned back to the open fridge to begin pulling things out at random. She said again, “We don’t like to talk about our Wyr nature to outsiders. Does this have anything to do with our history?”

“You mean the conquistador massacre? We’ve found no evidence that links the present-day crimes to that.” Gideon straightened suddenly. “That’s how you hid from me, isn’t it? In Haley’s apartment. You changed into your Wyr form.”

Alice looked over her shoulder at him, chagrined. “You knew I was there? You didn’t just identify me by my scent when I got to the street?”

He corrected her, “I had the instinct you were there. I didn’t know for sure. I went across the street to the deli and watched the building entrance from there. Where were you hiding?”

“Do you remember the braided ficus?”

He gave her a blank look. “The what?”

“The potted plant that sat on the floor in the corner of the front hallway and the living room.” She fluffed the curls at the back of her neck self-consciously. “I was hiding in the leaves.”

A grin broke across his hard features. “Damn, you were right there. Well done. I remember brushing against that tree when I went into the living room. How big are you in your Wyr form?”

She felt a ridiculous burst of pleasure from his praise. “I’m about the length of your forearm. Maybe smaller if I curl my tail up around my body.”

“Is that why you have so many potted trees in your living room?” He regarded her with such pleasure that warmth touched her cheeks again.

She nodded and confessed, “Sometimes I like to hang out in the trees while I watch TV.”

He burst out laughing. “Of course, why not?” Startled, she felt even more self-conscious.  He told her, “Sometimes my wolf likes to hang out and chew on a bone. There are these really tasty beef-basted ones you can get at Wyr Foods.”

She smiled. Wyr Foods was a specialty spin-off of the Whole Foods grocery chain. She shopped there, too. She looked at the items she had pulled out of the fridge. A carton of eggs, a package of bacon, veggies, cheese. All right. It looked like she was making an omelet. Wait, she had a couple packages of hash browns in the freezer. She guessed he could eat the full dozen eggs, plenty of bacon, both packages of hash browns, and have room to enjoy toast as well.

She pulled out an omelet pan, a skillet for the bacon, and a sauté pan with deeper sides for the hash browns. Then she rinsed vegetables for the omelet and began to chop them—onion, green bell pepper, mushrooms, and tomatoes.

Gideon watched her work. She looked calmer and more peaceful already as she moved with confidence around her kitchen. Come to think of it, he felt calmer and more peaceful just watching her. She was a beautiful woman in a wholly understated way. It showed in the graceful movements of her slim hands and the delicate bones of her wrists, in the quiet dignity in her intelligent face and that wholly incongruous, wild thing going on with her rich dark hair.

He loved that hair. He had an insane desire, akin to the wolf’s running fits—he wanted to pull every one of those corkscrew curls out and watch them spring back into place, to bury his face in it and tickle her until her sadness and dignity broke apart and she laughed herself breathless.

His cock had stiffened again. Donkey’s round hairy ass. He took a deep breath and flipped one of the chairs around so he could sit in it backward. It had the benefit of hiding the bulge in his jeans. He crossed his arms across the back of the chair and dangled his bottle of Corona from the fingers of one hand. He took a pull from his drink and drop-kicked his mind back to work.

He said, “Ready to continue?”

Alice didn’t look up from her vegetable chopping. She nodded.

“Do you know about what happened in Florida seven years ago?”

Her mouth tightened. “Every rainbow chameleon Wyr knows what happened in Florida. They were our friends and family.”

Gideon closed his eyes briefly and kicked himself some more. “Of course they were,” he said gently.

She scooped the chopped vegetables from the cutting board into a warmed skillet. They sizzled and the aroma of cooking food filled the kitchen. She said, “Do you think it’s the same killer?”

Why prevaricate? He said, “Yeah, I do. Since the Jacksonville killer was never caught, a lot of the details from those murders were never released but whoever killed Haley used the same methodology.”

She sent him a wide-eyed glance. “Methodology?”

“The killer was very methodical. He masked his scent with a chemical agent that hunters use, and while we don’t have a crime scene report yet on Haley, I’m betting he didn’t leave any fingerprints behind. The Jacksonville killer didn’t either. Each victim died by a stab wound to the heart. It’s very neatly done, then their abdominal cavities are excavated. The organs are always placed outside their bodies in the same pattern.”

Her hand, still holding the spatula, dropped to her side as her face worked. He moved across the room fast to hold her from behind in a firm grip. She whispered, “H-Haley was dead before he did that to her?”

“Yes,” he said in a strong voice. “The killer has some other agenda besides torture. I promise you, Alice. She didn’t suffer.”

She breathed hard, fighting for control. She said, “Thank you for that. I’m all right.”

He released her and stepped back. Not too far, just a couple of steps. Then he stood out of her line of sight, watching her jerky movements as she cooked with his hands fisted at his sides. There was only so much he could do to help, and it was making him a little bat-shit. “Ready for a break?” he asked, hoping she would say yes.

“No.” She looked over her shoulder at him. “Please continue.”

“You said your principal, Alex Schaffer, was the one who broke the news of Peter Baines’ death to you and Haley, and he’s also the one who spread the news that David Brunswick had gone missing, correct?” He waited for her nod then continued. “Why Schaffer?”

“After Jacksonville, Alex started a support group for chameleon Wyr. First it was to help process the grief, but over time the group has turned more social. Now we have a potluck on the first Sunday of every month, and some of us get together for brunch on the third Sunday. Sometimes some of us arrange to go hiking, or to go out to dinner or see a movie.”

“True Colors,” Gideon said.

She looked at him in surprise. “You know the group? We keep its existence pretty quiet. There’s a website where everybody can log in and post news, email each other, or invite people on an outing, but it’s privately maintained. It doesn’t even come up on Google searches.”

He told her, “The FBI keeps a file on chameleon Wyr social activities, which includes information on the website. I had a look at it earlier today, but I haven’t had time to read through everything. I didn’t know Schaffer was the founder of the group.”

“Yes, and as far as I know, every chameleon Wyr in New York is a member.”

“Twenty-three,” Gideon murmured.

“I beg your pardon?” Alice handed him plates, cutlery and napkins.

He set the table. “The website has a list of all your names. The group has twenty-three members.” Well, technically the total was now twenty, but he wasn’t going to be pedantic about that when it might cause her more pain. “What brought you to Haley’s earlier?”

“We had planned to spend the evening together. I was going to try to coax her into coming to stay at my place for a while.” He came back toward her, and she handed him the salt and pepper shakers, a bottle of ketchup, and a freshly opened bottle of Corona.

“Did anybody else know you two had planned to get together this evening?” He carried the beer and the condiments to the table.

“No.” She frowned up at him. “Does that matter?”

“Maybe, maybe not. Let’s keep that private for now, okay?” Could withholding the information be useful? He tucked the thought away for further consideration.

“All right.” She slid the last of the bacon out of the skillet, clearly deep in thought. “How did you know to show up at Haley’s?”

He smiled at her. “Why don’t I tell you that later? You may not need a break, but I do. Just until we’ve had a chance to eat.”

She sighed. “Okay.”

He’d lied, but she didn’t appear to notice. He could have talked details about the case and autopsy results throughout the meal and never turned a hair, but he wanted her to relax enough to eat a bite or two. A fresh shock wasn’t going to help her do that.

Because the police had already found David Brunswick’s body in the basement garage of his brownstone, and the killer was in fact exceedingly methodical.

Even though all of the Jacksonville murders were found at the same time, one of the details suppressed by the authorities was that the group had been held prisoner for a while at their enclave. At first the scene indicated a mass murder, but it soon became apparent that serial tendencies were involved, as the killer had ritually dissected one person each day until all seven were dead. The autopsy results confirmed the succession of murders. The report listed the victims by the date of their deaths, and the names were in alphabetical order.

That afternoon, Gideon had looked at the list of group members on the True Colors website. Peter Baines, David Brunswick. The third on the list was Haley Cannes. He had called the school but Haley had already left work.

He thought he might have dreams about moving as fast and as hard as he could to her Brooklyn address only to arrive too late. If only he had pieced it together a few hours earlier, Alice’s friend would still be alive. Maybe Haley would even be sitting down to supper with them.

He helped Alice carry the food to the table. She had cooked a dozen eggs with the sautéed vegetables. The intended omelet became a scramble upon which she had heaped scoops of sour cream and cheese. The hash browns were a delectable brown, and the bacon was so aromatic and crispy, his stomach emitted a loud rumble.

He gave her a sheepish grin and Alice laughed. Then she said suddenly, “Oh, I forgot to make toast!”

He snagged her by putting an arm around her shoulders and redirecting her back to the table. “Please sit and relax. This is more than perfect.”

She frowned at him over the delicate wire-rims perched on her slender nose. “As long as you’re sure.”

He clenched down on an almost uncontrollable urge to kiss her. It wasn’t time.

Not yet, at any rate.

He said, “I’m sure.”

He held Alice’s chair for her. She smiled at him as he sat. “Don’t be shy,” she said. “Eat up. As you can see, I cooked portions relative to your size.”

So she had. He inhaled deeply as he looked at the fragrant meal. Gods above, he didn’t even have to taste any of it to know she was a superb cook. He told her, “This is more heaven than I can remember seeing in one place for quite some time. Please serve yourself something before I get started.”

Her gorgeous cocoa-and-cream skin turned pink with pleasure. “I’m not very hungry but, well, okay.”

She took a little of the scrambled eggs, a slice of bacon, and a spoonful of the hash browns. It was not nearly enough to his critical gaze, but on a night that was so hard for her, it probably would have to do.

She might lose her appetite for even that small amount if she were to realize hers was the fourth name on that website list.

Not that anything was going to happen to her. Not on Gideon’s watch. He would die before he let that happen.

Chapter Four

The Depths

True north.

What the hell did it mean?

Gideon could wish for a little time to contemplate it. For now, though, he shoveled half the contents of each skillet on to his plate, helped himself to a generous squirt of ketchup on the hash browns and set to with enthusiasm.

Those first quick bites were indescribably delicious. Salty meat, rich melted cheese and sour cream on eggs and veggies, and crunchy filling potatoes, all with a beautiful, gentle woman in a warm kitchen on a cold winter’s night. Suddenly Gideon felt happier than he ever thought possible, happier than was even comfortable. The emotion shuddered through him with such fierce intensity his fingers shook as he gripped his knife and fork. He clenched his hands, willing the unsteadiness to stop.

Gideon had been one of Cuelebre’s deadliest dogs of war, the alpha captain that led the wolves, the mastiffs and the mongrels. His brigade had been the most gifted and volatile, the troops on the extreme edge. They had hurtled first into any conflict, not baying, but racing to the battle in an eager, murderous silence. They were the advance scouts, the rangers sent in to places too dangerous for the regular troops, the sentries that patrolled the shadowed corners and slipped past enemy lines to take down their opponents from behind.

Gideon had risen in the ranks when he still had the thoughtless athleticism of youth and a strong body that could go on forever just because he asked it to. Now that boundless, youthful energy had turned to disciplined maturity, and his blond hair had faded like an aging golden retriever’s pelt. He exercised and trained hard to maintain his muscled physique, stamina and quick reflexes. Each battle he fought and won, he did so knowing that his youth might have gone but he was still at peak condition, and it was not yet time for the alpha to lose his place at the head of the pack.

He was not one of the strange, immortal Wyr who had come into existence in the dawn of the world. Wolf Wyr had a life span of around two hundred years. If something didn’t bring him down first he expected to see another good eighty, eight-five years. With discipline and constant training, he could have spent another fifty years in active combat duty before age would have forced him to consider other options.

Here in the gentle sanctuary of Alice’s kitchen decorated with pretty sunflowers and sage green cabinets, with her sensitive, bright hazel gaze resting on him thoughtfully, and the kindest, most generous and delicious meal anybody had ever cooked for him spread out before him, he could finally admit the truth to himself about why he had quit—he had grown tired.

The tips of her slender fingers touched the back of one of his hands. “Are you all right?”

Riehl ducked his head. “Yeah,” he said, his voice gruff. “Thank you for supper.”

“You’re welcome.” The tip of her tongue touched her lower lip. She looked as if she wanted to say something else, but she lowered her head instead.

They ate supper in a silence that was surprisingly comfortable. When Alice finished the food on her plate, Gideon took the serving spoon and offered her another helping of the scrambled egg dish. She raised her eyebrows but nodded with a smile. He watched with deep pleasure as she ate it.

His cell rang with Bayne’s ringtone, the Bee Gee’s “Stayin’ Alive”. He ducked his head further to shovel the last of the hash browns into his mouth even as he dug into his pocket for his phone. “Sorry,” he muttered. “It’s my boss. I’ve got to get this.”

The shadows came back into her face. He hated to see that. She said, “Of course you do.”

Gideon strode into the living room and clicked on the phone. “Yeah.”

“Heard you found your witness,” said Bayne.

“Yeah, I’m still with her,” Gideon said. He started to pace. “We’re at her place. What’s up?”

“We’re wrapping up at Haley Cannes’ apartment.” The gryphon said to someone else, “Pack it up. I want someone to comb through every file on the hard drive, and check out every contact on her email list.” Then his voice came back stronger, “You find out anything from Alice Clark?”

Hell yeah, a whole slew of new things, but most of them weren’t any of the sentinel’s business. Gideon turned to pace another lap. Alice was cleaning up the kitchen. She had carried the dishes to the sink. Even though she had a dishwasher, she was running a sink full of soapy water. It looked like she felt the need to do something as well.

Gideon said, “We’re still talking.”

“Call or text if you find out something new. In the meantime, we’ve got a lock on the whereabouts of all the chameleon Wyr who live in NYC. Now that schools have let out for winter break, some are traveling for the holidays. A family of four has left for Arizona, a single parent, her boyfriend and her kid have gone to L.A., and a couple are headed for Miami. We’re checking with the airports to confirm their flights left before the storm shut things down, but assuming they did, that leaves us eleven chameleons still in the city.”

“Right.” He looked at Alice again. She had finished the dishes and was wiping off the table. She had just started winter break? On the one hand, he liked that she had personal time right now. She needed it. On the other, he didn’t like the thought of her possible isolation. He growled, “Eleven is more than enough if he’s looking to do a repeat of seven years ago.”

“He’d only need four more, wouldn’t he?” Bayne said. “Something bothers me about all this. If this is the Jacksonville guy, last time he took advantage of a situation that was very comfortable for him. All of his victims lived together in one place, and they tended to isolate so nobody knew something might be wrong when the group disappeared for a week. They were only found after acquaintances missed them at the Masque they had scheduled to attend. That’s not the case with these murders.”

Gideon rubbed the back of his neck. “He plots things out carefully ahead of time,” he said. “He’s got a plan and he thinks it’s going to work.”

“Yeah,” Bayne growled. “That bothers me a hell of a lot.”

That also bothered Gideon. He asked, “What about protection?” The NYPD wouldn’t have the funding to provide police protection for eleven people, but the Wyr Division of Violent Crime was supported by a separate funding stream that came from the demesne’s coffers. As the sentinel heading the WDVC, Bayne could authorize such an expenditure of manpower and money if he deemed it appropriate.

“I’ll be setting up a task force when I get back to the office,” said Bayne. “Protection’s at the top of the agenda. It should be in place for everyone by morning. I want you to head it up.”

Gideon stopped pacing at the instant surge of denial. He looked at Alice again, and said to Bayne, “No can do. You’ll have to find someone else.”

Bayne said, “I assume you have a compelling reason for turning down this urgent assignment, and you are willing to share that reason with your new boss.”

“I do indeed,” said Gideon. “But it’s difficult to go into detail right now. I’ll have to get back to you.”

“Is that some kind of secret code for she can hear everything you say?”

“Yeah, something like that. In the meantime, I need to get back to questioning Alice.”

“Has she figured out she’s next on the list?”

“I don’t know,” Gideon said. “Maybe. But it’s all right, since I will be spending the night.”

Alice lifted her head and turned to look at him, her eyes wide and startled.

“I was going to tell you to hang with her until I got a guard detail sent over,” Bayne grunted. “At least that’s one thing to cross off my list tonight.”

“You can take it one step further,” Gideon told him. “I’ll stay the point person on this assignment.”

There was a long pause on the other end. “Are there implications in that?” Bayne asked. “I don’t like implications. I can’t figure them out on my own very often.”

Gideon smiled at Alice reassuringly. He said to Bayne. “Talk to you soon.”

“You’d better, son. You’ve got a lot to tell me,” said Bayne, who then hung up.

Alice’s pulse roared in her ears as she watched Gideon pocket his cell phone. She looked down and realized she was twisting the dish towel in her hands. She fought to breathe evenly as she hung the towel on the stove handle. Clothing whispered as Gideon moved into the kitchen doorway. There had to be something sane and sensible she could say, if only she could think of it. Her rabbiting mind hopped through a series of statements and discarded each one in rapid-fire succession.

That’s pretty presumptuous of you there, Detective. Did I say I’d let you spend the night?

Of course you’ve got to stay the night. It’s too dangerous out for anyone to try to drive.

How about that storm, eh?

We haven’t even kissed yet. (NOOO. Don’t say that.)

She croaked, “Do you want coffee?”

“Alice,” said Gideon.

Her head jerked up.

Watching her, Gideon felt such a powerful surge of tenderness at the disturbed confusion on her face, he couldn’t even smile, and for once the inappropriate lust stayed subjugated to his will. He wanted to take her in his arms again, just to hold her and tell her that everything would be all right.

He told her in a gentle voice, “I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to talk things over with you first, but my boss and I would like for me to crash on your couch tonight.”

Her unsteady fingers smoothed the towel. “You think that’s best?”

“We do,” he said. “There are too many indications that the killer feels the compulsion to follow certain patterns of order.”

“What do you mean?” Her fingers stilled. “Do you think he has obsessive-compulsive tendencies?”

“He might. He’s undeniably bright and capable of a great deal of organization, so he also might be able to hide his true nature under an appearance of normality. The ability of concealment that some psychopaths have is what psychiatrist Hervey Cleckley referred to when he first coined the term ‘mask of sanity’ in 1941.” Gideon took a deep breath and forced himself to continue. “A lot of details from Jacksonville have never been released because the killer hasn’t yet been caught. He held the group prisoner and executed one a day. They were killed in alphabetical order.”

He noted the moment that realization struck. She sucked in a harsh, shaking breath and looked up again. Then he couldn’t hold back any further. He strode over to take hold of her slender shoulders in a firm, reassuring grip.

“Which is not going to happen this time,” he said strongly into her whitened face. “It’s also quite apparent that the number seven has a great deal of significance for him.”

“It’s significant to all the Elder Races,” Alice murmured. “Seven demesnes in the U.S., seven Primal Powers or gods.”

“The previous murders occurred in the days leading up to the Festival of the Masque,” Gideon continued. “So we think that the seven gods have some particular meaning for him. He murdered seven people in seven days. Now, seven years later, the murders have started again. He excavates seven organs from his victims—the liver, gall bladder, pancreas, the two kidneys, the spleen, and he goes up under the rib cage to remove the heart. And he places the organs in a distinct pattern, although we haven’t figured out what the significance of that is yet.”

His hands on her shoulders were massive and warm. She gripped his forearms, and the feeling of his warm skin over solid muscle steadied her again. Her mind arrowed back to that terrible stillness in Haley’s apartment, but when she recalled the gaping dark red hole in Haley’s midsection she froze and couldn’t force herself to go any further.

She said through gritted teeth, “I can’t see it. I don’t remember. Does he always use the same pattern?”

He hesitated and his striking pale eyes searched her face. He said heavily, “Yeah. The heart is in the center, with the other organs set around it.”

She frowned up at him, her mouth held so tight her lips were bloodless. “How are they positioned?”

She could see him warring with the impulse to protect her from the details. Finally he said, “He puts the liver at twelve o’clock, spleen at six, and the gall bladder and pancreas at three and nine o’clock respectively.”

“The four directions,” she said.

“Excuse me?” he asked, taken aback. Her gaze was still trained on him but he didn’t think she saw him.

“Seven gods. Seven. Four. Two.” She asked, “Where does he place the two kidneys?”

His expression grew intent. “On either side of the liver, at the top of the circle.”

“I know that pattern,” Alice said. “I use it all the time.”

He stared at her. His grip on her shoulders tightened. Then he let her go and stepped back. “Show me.”

She rushed from the kitchen. Gideon strode after her, watching her mutter to herself. She moved down the short hall and flipped on a light to the front bedroom. She had turned it into a home office, with a computer desk and chair against one wall, and a futon set in a couch position against another wall. Like Haley, Alice had pulled out boxes of Masque decorations. They were set in the middle of the floor. She dropped to her knees in front of one box and dug through it.

“It’s a silly hobby of mine,” she said over her shoulder. “I don’t really know a lot about it. I just dabble, not like some people. Every year we hold a Winter Solstice Masque as a fundraiser for the school. I give Tarot readings—I use the Primal Tarot, of course, not any of the European decks. Those came later, around the fifteenth century, I think. The Primal Tarot is much, much older. I only know half a dozen of the most used card spreads.”

He rubbed the back of his neck as he listened to her rapid speech. “You’re talking about fortune telling?”

She emerged from the cardboard box with a smaller hand-painted wooden box clutched in one hand. Her cheeks flushed. “Actually, historically it was used for divination and considered a serious religious matter. If it was done in a prayerful manner, it was supposed to be a way for the gods to speak to us,” she said. “It was only in the nineteenth century that it became more like the fortune telling one might find at a carnival. I don’t have any Power for real divination nor do I practice it as a religion. I just do a carnival-like show. I can make twenty-five bucks for a fifteen-minute reading. It’s very popular at school. Usually I end up with several hundred dollars at the end of the night.”

“Okay,” he said. He squatted in front of her. “Why don’t you show me what you’re talking about?”

She sat cross-legged on the carpet, opened the box and pulled out an old deck of cards. Gideon settled on the floor opposite her. He picked up the box that she had put to one side. It was made of cedar and a faint Power thrummed gently in his hands, old Power that had saturated the aged wood. He considered the painting on the top. It was white and royal blue and gold, with outlines of black and a small highlight of crimson. The colors must have been brilliant once, but they had faded over time. The painting was of a stylized face. One side was male and the other side female.

“This is Taliesin, right?” he asked. He wasn’t very religious, but he knew at least that much. To the Elder Races, the seven Primal Powers were the linchpins of the universe. Each Power had a persona, or a mask of personality. Both male and female, Taliesin was the first among the gods of the Elder Races, the Supreme Power to which all others bowed.

“Yes,” Alice said. “Isn’t it amazing? The whole deck is hand-painted. I found it in an antique store about twelve years ago.” She touched the corner of the box as he held it. “I fell in love and ended up paying far too much for it. I ate a lot of macaroni and cheese that year.”

He set the box aside with care and turned his attention to Alice.

“The Primal Tarot has forty-nine cards in the deck,” she said. “The Major Arcana in this Tarot are the seven gods in their prime aspects—or how most people know of them.” She set the first card on floor between them and named it. “Taliesin, the god of the Dance, is first among the Primal Powers because everything dances, the planets and all the stars, other gods, ourselves. Dance is change, and the universe is constantly in motion. Then there’s Azrael, the god of Death; Inanna, the goddess of Love; Nadir, the goddess of the depths or the Oracle—legend has it that Nadir is the one who gave the Primal Tarot to the Elder Races.”

“When was that supposed to have happened?” he asked.

“Around the third century, or at least that’s the age of the earliest known Primal Tarot. Then there is Will, the god of the Gift; Camael, the goddess of the Hearth; and Hyperion, the god of Law.”

He studied each card as she laid them out, the famous green eyes of Death, the seven royal lions that pulled Inanna’s chariot, the dark sense of vastness captured in the stars in Nadir’s gaze. The cards were arresting but not quite beautiful. They were too uncomfortable for that.

He murmured, “Someone with real Power used these once.”

“I think it’s the person who created them,” Alice said. “The rest of the cards are the Minor Arcana. The gods have their major aspects, and then they have all their minor aspects. Take Azrael. Death is his major aspect, but in the Tarot deck, he has six other minor aspects. He’s also the god of regeneration and green growing things, and he’s known as the Hunter, and he’s also the Gateway or passage. See?”

“Yes,” Gideon said. He was growing fascinated despite himself.

“Inanna’s easy, her minor aspects are Love in its manifestations—romantic, platonic, etc.—and also love’s opposite, which is apathy. Taliesin’s major aspect is the dance, or change, but there’s also stasis, or the pauses between measures in the dance. Some of Will’s other aspects are the wanderer or sacred stranger, and sacrifice, and also greed.” As she talked, she laid out the Minor Arcana in lateral rows underneath the Major cards, six under each, until all forty-nine were placed on the floor. “Camael has both the sacred fool and old wisdom, and Hyperion may be law, but he’s also the trickster.”

“So where do the four and the two come in?” he asked.

“They come in the spreads.” She gathered the cards up and shuffled them swiftly. “There are three classical card spreads used in Primal Tarot readings, but really it’s just one original spread with more detail added in the other two. All the other card spreads were created or invented some time after the original three. The person who gets the reading is supposed to be the one to shuffle the cards and lay them out. The first card is called the Primus, or the primary force or influence in one’s life at the time of the reading. Sometimes it’s called the keystone card of the spread. The interpretation of all the other cards is always based on this one.”

She pulled out a card and laid it on the floor. They gazed down at Azrael’s emerald green painted eyes.

Lord Death.

“Well, that’s more apropos today than I would have liked,” she muttered. “There are three layers to a spread—the Primus, Secondus and Tertius—and it matters if a card is right-side up, or reversed. The top part is what you’re working toward, either a goal or some unforeseen event. The bottom is where you’re coming from. The right side has negative influences, and the left is positive. The last two cards at the top actually have to do with the future.” She set down the last card and looked at Gideon. “Is that the pattern you were talking about?”

He stared down at the cards. “Hell yeah,” he said. “That’s it. He’s attempting divination. That’s why he does it in the days leading up to the Masque. The bastard’s trying to talk with the gods.”

Chapter Five

The Dance

Gideon shocked her when he leaned forward and planted a swift kiss on her forehead. “You’re miraculous,” he said. He smiled, nose-to-nose with her, and she smiled back. “Do you know how many fancy PhDs and profilers have studied the Jacksonville case and never got that? I’ve got to call Bayne.”

He strode out of the room. Full of warmth from his praise, Alice looked down at the full card spread for the first time. Her smile slipped away and she went numb.

All seven of the Death cards were laid out. It was a pure spread.

She had never seen a pure spread before, just as she had never seen a royal flush in poker. Today seemed to be a day of rare firsts. Normally she would have contemplated the spread and let her mind roam free to let the whisper of Power in the cards tell her what they would. While she had told Gideon the truth and she didn’t have much Power, the cards sometimes had a mind of their own.

But she couldn’t handle the implications of this kind of reading tonight. Her mind felt bruised and dull, incapable of hearing the still, small voice in the cards. If they had anything to say to her, it was going to have to wait. She scooped up the deck, tucked it away in the silk-lined box, and pushed to her feet with the slow, awkward movements of the emotionally and physically exhausted.

Gideon had moved to the kitchen. She could hear him pacing and talking. He had frightened her so much just hours earlier. How had his huge, energetic presence become such a comfort so quickly? She knew if he wasn’t already planning to spend the night, she would ask him to stay.

She went to the living room and lay down on the couch. She curled on her side to watch the gas flames and listen to the sound of his deep, gravelly voice.

Death and death and death. Death in the past, Peter and David. Death in the present, Haley. Death as the overriding force in her life, and death in her future. She had a killer on her side, and the Hunter as her challenge. She closed her eyes. She wanted so very much to turn her mind off.

She had the sense of something massive looming over her. She opened her eyes. Gideon bent over her. His hard face was softened into an expression of such kindness that her eyes watered. He stroked a curl at her temple. “What can I do for you?”

“Nothing, thanks. I’m just tired,” she told him. She pushed to a sitting position.

“And sad. I would like to see you happy, someday soon.” He cupped her cheek with long calloused fingers. “It’s almost one o’clock, and we’re done. Do you think you could sleep?”

She nodded. “I’ll get you some things, some bedding—”

“Don’t worry about me,” he said. The tough line of his sexy mouth pulled into a smile. “I have a toiletry kit in the Jeep that I’m going to get and then, if you don’t mind, I thought I might let my wolf out. He has a hankering to snooze by your fire if you’ll let him.”

She had no idea where her barriers had gone. They had simply vanished like morning mist. She put a hand over his and let her feelings show in her gaze. “I’d love to meet your wolf. I’m so sorry that we met the way we did, but I’m very glad we did.”

“That’s good to hear, sweetheart,” he said. He bent forward that little bit further and put his mouth over hers. It was a warm, tender, chaste kiss, and so utterly perfect for who and where she was at that moment.

She gave herself another gift: she leaned forward and kissed him back, touching his lean cheek with light, tentative fingers, and let herself trust in him.

He pulled back and growled softly, “Okay, Alice, fair warning. That’s as good as I’m ever going to get. You should know, most of the time I’m actually a bit of a shit.”

She shocked herself by bursting out laughing.

He gave her a lopsided grin. “Go get ready for bed,” he told her. “I’m going to get my kit. I’ll be right back.”

She watched him walk to the door. When he unlocked it and made as if to walk out just in his t-shirt, she asked, “Aren’t you going to put on your coat?” The temperature outside had to be subzero by now.

The glance he shot at her was icy pale but burning hot. “I could use a blast of cold air right now.”

Her breath shuddered in her throat.

Me, she thought. He means because of me.

He pulled open the door. As he went out a sword-like thrust of wind screamed into the apartment. She shot off the couch and retreated to the relative warmth and privacy of her bathroom.

After inspecting her hollow-eyed face in the bathroom mirror, she brushed her teeth and took a quick five-minute shower to wash away the grime of the city. Her lemon-yellow, thigh-length nightgown and dark blue robe hung from a hook on the bathroom door. She slipped them on and walked out of the bathroom.

Fifteen feet away in the living room, a white-blond wolf lay facing the bathroom door with his head on his paws.

She lost her breath.

He was enormous, easily twice the size of a mundane wolf, heavily muscled across the chest and rib cage with long, strong, powerful-looking legs. His eyes were the same icy pale blue as they were when he was in his human form. As she stared at the wolf, his tail waved gently. Despite his ferocious appearance and intimidating size, somehow he managed to seem diffident.

Gideon said in her head, I thought it might be a good idea for you to meet the wolf this way before you went to bed. I don’t want to scare you if you get up in the middle of the night. I don’t have to stay this way if it’s not all right.

All right? He was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, and the most dangerous. She fell to her knees and held out a hand. “You’re gorgeous,” she told the wolf. “You couldn’t be more perfect.”

The wolf’s eyes brightened. He stood—good night, he kept going up and up—and padded over slowly. She realized he was giving her time to change her mind.

She didn’t change her mind. As soon as he came close enough to touch, she ran a light hand over his thick pelt. It felt soft and luxuriant, even springy under her palm. He side-stepped closer, nosed at her hand and licked her fingers with such open affection, she laughed again in surprised delight.

She gave herself another gift, threw caution out the window and hugged him. She felt the careful shift in his body as he leaned against her just a little, not too much, and he put his head on her shoulder. She rubbed her face in his fur. He threw off heat like a radiator. His big, warm presence filled places inside of her she hadn’t known were empty.

“Thank you for staying,” she whispered.

I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, he said quietly. He nuzzled her. Go to bed now. You’re safe.

Something coiled tight inside of her unwound. She sagged against his powerful, sturdy body and nodded. Then she climbed to her feet, passed her hand over the wolf’s head in one last caress, and went into her shadowed room to climb into bed.

Exhaustion swirled around her as her head hit the pillow. She heard quiet sounds as Gideon moved through the apartment, and she knew he was checking the windows and doors.

She thought the wolf might have padded into her room to touch the index finger of her out-flung hand with his cold nose, but she might have been dreaming at that point. In her dream, the wolf rested his head on the edge of the bed and gazed at her with a devotion she would have believed impossible before that day. Then someone turned out all the lights in her head, and she slept.

Waking wasn’t a good experience. It came hard and fast. She surfaced out of a nightmare with the chill of clammy skin and the wicked whiplash of wind snapping just outside her bedroom window.

She had kicked off all her covers and curled into a tight ball. She forced her muscles to unclench. She rolled to look over the edge of the bed at the floor. No wolf. Of course he wasn’t there. He would be in front of the fire, where he said he would be.

The blurry letters on her bedside clock read 3:23 am. The room felt empty and cold, the shelter from the storm all too insubstantial. Her nightmare had been full of dark, wet knives, and she missed him. She just missed him.

She didn’t give herself time to fight the impulse. She slipped her glasses on her nose, grabbed the top blanket as she climbed out of bed and walked into the living room.

There she found everything in the world. Warmth and light from the fire flickered over the massive body of the wolf that lay on the floor stretched out on his side. His clothes were folded in a neat pile nearby, his holstered gun resting on top. His half-closed eyes shifted but he held still as she lay down on the floor behind him. She set her glasses on the nearby coffee table, dragged the blanket around her and curled shivering against the wolf’s broad, warm back.

Gideon’s mental voice rumbled quietly in her head. Bad dream?

“Yeah,” she whispered. She rubbed her face in his fur.

The powerful muscles in his back tensed. Is it all right if I change?

She nodded. “I can’t remember the last nightmare I had,” she said. “I’m not usually a needy person—”

Hush, sweetheart.

The wolf rolled on to his stomach. He shimmered into the change. Whatever else she had meant to say flew out of her head as Gideon’s massive, nude human body lay stretched out before her. Gold light played over the broad muscles of his long back and spilled into the graceful hollow of his lower spine, his buttocks and strong, heavy thighs. He was lean everywhere, the taut covering of his tanned skin rippling over the flex of thick muscle and fluid shift of bone as he came up on his elbows to look at her.

The expression on his hard, lean face was serious, concerned. Her throat closed on a lump as he rolled over and gathered her against his chest. “I’m glad you’re not a needy person,” he murmured. His voice rumbled against her cheek. “But I want you to need me. Don’t apologize or prevaricate. Just need me.”

“It’s so scary,” she breathed. “When I ate lunch yesterday, I didn’t know you existed.”

He cradled her head in one hand and leaned over her. His pale gaze glittered like aquamarines. “Yesterday is gone. Who we are to each other today and who we will be tomorrow—those are the things that matter.”

She read the lines and marks on his harsh face with the tips of her fingers, and stroked down the long, strong column of his throat. A heavy, hard length grew against her thigh, and it felt strange and new, but at the same time so familiar and necessary.

She looked at him in naked bewilderment. “I don’t understand how any of this happened,” she said, through trembling lips. “We haven’t even kissed yet. I mean, we have, but not really.”

A fine tremor ran through the big hand that cradled her head and his face flushed with raw, sensual hunger. He closed his eyes and growled, “Your last few days have been so hellish. I’m trying to be so goddamn careful and give you what you need—”

She touched his mouth in wonder. She thought, I dreamed that a wolf came to my bed and watched over me while I slept. There was an epic story in those silent eyes, of mountains that had been crossed and a world that had been fought, and countless years that had been spent in service and in solitude. And there was a promise in that wolf’s eyes, a promise from an old warrior soul that knew what it meant to dig down deep and hold true to what he claimed no matter what.

She heard herself ask, “Did you come into my bedroom earlier?”

I dreamed a dream of passion, devotion and loyalty, and a promise that meant everything—

The shaking in his hands increased. He whispered against her fingers, “Just to make sure you were okay. Whatever you want, whatever you need. Tell me and I’ll give it to you.”

Everything.

And for one shining moment, her world became simple and clean and good again.

“I need you,” she said.

She felt the breath leave his body. His eyes opened, and the expression in them blazed. How she could have ever thought those pale blue eyes were icy, she would never know. They burned with a pure, steady flame.

Her hands slipped away from his face as he brought his mouth down on hers, and the warm impact of his lips caused her eyes to flutter shut. She was cradled from behind and caressed from above, and all the while she knew that the heavy, hard weight of him hovered over her, balanced for the moment but ready to fall. Her hands landed on the heavy, wide arc of his collarbones and slipped down the expanse of his pectorals, while her mouth formed a soft ‘o’ of surprise for how good it was, how incredibly good—

—and he took that as his invitation to slip inside. He curled his tongue between her lips with a sensual gentleness that spoke of infinite care and deep emotion.

She learned something from his kiss and took it to heart. This man felt things he never spoke of verbally. Instead he said them with his body and his eyes, his mouth and his hands, and in that moment as she kissed him back, she made a silent promise to him to learn the language he spoke so that she heard everything he had to say to her.

Then his language changed and became harder, more demanding. He spoke of need too, as he drove his hardened tongue into her mouth and shoved a heavy thigh between her legs. His massive body became a silent shout of urgency. He rocked his hips against hers, massaging the hot length of his cock against the arc of her pelvis, and the shudder of his breath blasted against her cheek as he cupped one of her breasts and fingered her erect, aching nipple through the thin nightgown.

She caught fire. It ran shining like liquid mercury through her veins. She arched into his touch and groaned as she gripped the back of his head. Her hands slipped against the short corn silk of his pale hair.

“Tell me to stop, sweetheart,” he muttered against her cheek. “Just say the word if we’re going too fast.”

His body said something else though, as he ground harder against her.

It said, please, please.

She stroked the wide arc of his back as she whispered in his ear, “You are my mate. I could never say no to you.”

His head reared back. He stared at her in astonishment.

For one terrible moment, dread darkened her vision and her heart gave a sickened lurch. She thought, I cannot be so wrong. I cannot live with it if I am so deluded.

The joy that came over his face was so incandescent, it blinded her. “That’s what it means,” he said. “True north.”

She broke into a bout of reactive shivering. “What?”

He leaned on one elbow to caress her face. “When I looked at you for the first time, the world changed. It all but knocked me off my feet. I’ve been thinking it was like true north had shifted, the magnetic pull from the one direction you use in navigation, but it’s more like the primary force from your card spread. I’ve been trying to figure out what it meant. All I knew was that it was you—you had become my true north, my primary force. Just like that, from one moment to the next.”

She closed her eyes and swallowed hard as the world came back into focus. “Yes, that’s what happened to me too.”

He bent down to nuzzle her neck. “It reminds me of a quote from a French philosopher. ‘The heart has reasons that reason cannot know.’ Do you know it?”

She wound her arms around his neck, and she let her frightened heart find ease and grow full of him. “I do now.”

I dreamed a dream of incomparable rarity and loveliness.

Then I woke to find it true.

Chapter Six

Sacrifice

Gideon stared at the woman in his arms. She was so gorgeous it took his breath. He had thought her beauty was understated and intelligent, but right at that moment she was so flagrant with color and voluptuousness he could only gaze at her in passionate awe.

Her cocoa-and-cream skin turned a deep rich gold in the light of the fire, and her vivid eyes shone blue and green. Those fabulous gold-tipped corkscrew curls spilled extravagantly over his hands, and her pale yellow nightgown moved like silk against his overheated skin. Her breasts were full and generous, and the dark areola of her erect nipples pushed against the thin material.

He imagined watching her grow older, a pale sprinkling of frost touching those curls, the laugh lines growing at the corners of her eyes and that delicate, sensitive mouth. The images in his imagination drew him at a fundamental level. She could only become lovelier to him as he grew to know her with the intimacy of the passing years.

He bent his head and caressed the slender arc of her golden neck with his lips. He felt the sigh of pleasure that shuddered through her, the sexy shift of her body molding to fit his, and oh holy gods, he was the one who did that to her, great hulking brute that he was. The wonder of it closed his throat.

He knew too much about how to kill and hardly anything about how to live in peace. Hell, he hardly knew how to stay indoors for any length of time. She was too good for him, too refined. She put cloth napkins on her table, read books of poetry, and taught small children. The quilts she created were works of art that nurtured the soul.

He put bullets in clips to load his guns, and read files on unsolved crimes and treatises on war. He taught recruits how to wait, how to obey orders, and how to kill, and he played chess because it was a battle of wits that kept his mind sharp.

He put his forehead to her breast. His hands fisted in her nightgown.

He needed to come home but he didn’t know how. He hadn’t even known where home was until he looked in her face for the first time. He needed to be welcomed, but he wasn’t sure he deserved it.

She had fled her bedroom and her nightmare with a look of surprised horror. But he knew the nightmare she’d had. That nightmare was an old acquaintance of his. The details might change, along with the faces of the victims, but the story remained the same. It was a tale of a fire so dark it burned the soul black.

He was that nightmare for some people.

She stroked his hair. “Gideon?”

Christ, now he was responsible for putting that uncertainty in her voice, right at the time when she should be drenched in the knowledge of how lovely, how desirable he found her. He struggled to tell her something, anything, to let her know it could never be anything wrong with her. It was all about what was wrong with him.

He whispered, “I want to be a good man.”

Her hands stilled. Then she brought them under his jaw to coax his head up. She searched his expression, her beautiful gaze troubled. “Why would you think you’re not a good man?” she asked in a gentle voice.

“I’ve spent almost a hundred years in the army,” he said, his voice strangled. “I’ve seen things. I’ve done things you can’t imagine. I don’t ever want you to be able to imagine them. You deserve someone so much better than me, someone finer who knows how to live your life.”

“How do you know you’re not that man?” she asked. She reached up to kiss him, the delicate curve of her lips caressing his. “The heart has its reasons, remember?”

A tremor ran through his body. “You don’t know, you don’t understand.”

“You’re right, I don’t,” she told him.

Alice stroked his face and passed a hand down the broad expanse of his back, trying to soothe him. This was the same distress that shook through him earlier at the dining table. It was hard to watch him suffer, especially when she wasn’t sure he realized how much he was hurting. “I can’t possibly understand.”

“I chose it,” he said. “I thrived in the army. I was good at it.”

He would have been. She could see it. Strong, responsible, stable, reliable as the earth. He would have been the first in battle and the last to pull out, and the need for all of that would have been so self-evident to him, he never would have seen it as sacrifice. True nobility never recognized itself.

She might have acknowledged him as her mate yesterday, but it was in that moment that she fell in love with him.

She said, “I am a person of faith, Gideon. It got rocked a little yesterday, but it is back on solid ground now. I do not believe that we would be mates without also being right for each other. The fates or the gods, or whomever it was that created the Wyr to be what we are, would not have been so cruel.”

He muttered, “I don’t have your faith.  Not after all the atrocities and ugliness I’ve seen. Wickedness and inequities exist; nightmares are real. And the gods allow all of it.”  He met her gaze.  “But I do know one thing—you’re the purest gift I’ve ever been given, and I’ll do anything to keep you safe and be worthy of you.” He closed his eyes and turned his face into her palm.

She bit her lip. She could almost see the barrier that surrounded him. He wanted and needed to be with her, but somehow he was still closed off, and she knew she had not quite gotten through to him, not all the way, not yet.

Maybe it would just take time to let the reality of what had happened to them sink in. But maybe…

“You’ve got to remember, we met when I was having a really off day,” she told him. “Because most of the time I’m actually a bit of a shit, too.”

His startled gaze snapped up to hers, twin aquamarines frozen in the firelight. She flicked a finger at his nose and rolled her hips at him.

The corners of his sexy mouth began to curl up. He came on top of her more fully, and she parted her legs, knees bent to cradle him with her whole body. It was so good to feel him grip her by one thigh and anchor her down that she moistened for him in a liquid gush. The heavy length of his cock lay against her entrance. He pressed at the place where she was so sensitive she could feel his erection pulse, and she knew in that moment the invisible barrier was gone and he was right there with her, body and soul.

“Care to expound on that statement?” he murmured.

They had so much to learn about each other. The barrier would probably come back. It might take a long time for it to go completely. But for now, she opened her mouth to lick at his lips. “Nah,” she said, as she gave him a small grin. “I think you’ll see for yourself soon enough.”

The crow’s feet lines at the corners of his eyes deepened. He bent his head and ran his lips lightly along the skin of her neck, as he whispered, “I can hardly wait.”

The warm, moist exhalation of his breath on her sensitized skin was a caress all its own. It had the same effect as touching a match to kindling. Her body flashed hot as if a sheet of flame had doused her, and the hunger she felt for him was so ravening she shook from it. Oh gods, it was stronger than anything she had ever felt before. This feeling was so huge it threatened to swallow her whole.

She’d had lovers. Only a few, but they were enough that she thought she knew what she was about. She tried to brace herself, to hold on to some kind of rational thought or expectation. The first time with a new lover was never all that great. She’d always had to urge them to slow down. They needed time to get to know each other’s likes and dislikes before their lovemaking would get really good, and it wouldn’t matter in the slightest if he—if he wasn’t all that sensually gifted because he was so very fine, just so damn perfect in every other—

He took her nightgown by the neckline and tore it off her. Then he fell on her like a starving man on a feast. His entire tremendous body was ridged with all the heavy muscles held taut, and the look on his face was so desperate and raw that tears sprang to her eyes. His head arrowed down to her breasts, and he licked and suckled at her nipples until they jutted wet and distended, unbearably sensitive nubs of flesh. He moved from one to the other, as he stroked a big hand along the inside of her thighs and teased the private opening of her cleft with shaking fingers. She felt herself moisten further for him until his hand was soaked with her pleasure.

She touched him everywhere she could reach, with her mouth and her hands, arching up to rub her torso along the muscled length of his. He was breathing hard and whining low at the back of his throat, a barely discernible sound that nevertheless caught at her and pulled her outside of herself. When she groped between them to grip the heavy, hard shaft of his penis, he froze with a groan.

She looked into his pale, burning gaze as she fingered his erection, learning him by touch. His skin was flushed dark, the bones of his face clenched. Her hands were shaking, too. He felt huge to her, the length of his cock thick, ridged with veins and capped with a broad head with velvet soft skin. They both looked down the space between their bodies. Her slender legs were splayed wide for him, her delicate flesh plump, moist and inviting.

The emptiness at that juncture became a spike of need. She tugged on him gently, letting her hand stroke along the length of him. “Come inside,” she whispered. “We can go slow some other time.”

He shook his head, his breath coming in short hard pants, even as his hips pumped a slow grind that thrust his cock into her fist. “Not too fast. Not— God!”

The agonized pleasure that crossed his face as she massaged him was the most exquisite thing she’d ever seen. Her need spiked higher, hotter. She was so empty she hurt. She sucked air and struggled to articulate. “Gideon, please.”

He met her gaze quickly. “Does it ache, sweetheart?”

His desperation had not gone. He held it in check, and the tenderness and heat in his eyes made the easy swell of her tears spill over. She nodded jerkily.

He bent and nuzzled at her breast, and whispered, “I’ll make it better.”

He pulled his penis out of her hand. “No,” she said, and she twisted to try to take hold of him again.

He avoided her grasp and moved down to settle between her legs. She propped herself on one elbow and took him by the arm, trying to urge him up again. He bit the heel of her hand in a quick stinging nip. “Stop that.”

“You won’t listen,” she gasped. “Get back here already.”

He growled. “Don’t make me pin you down.”

Wait, did she hear that right?

They both froze. He looked unutterably gorgeous, unapologetic, mischievous and half feral, poised as he was with his broad shoulders between her thighs. Stunned passion pulsed and she blazed with heat all over again.

She said, “You better not.”

His eyes narrowed.  He looked down her body and licked his lips. “Or what?”

It could have been a fun game to play but then her hungry clitoris throbbed so hard her knees drew up in reaction, and she lost all composure. She whimpered, “I don’t know.”

His hands snaked out, faster than sight. He gripped her by the insides of her knees and yanked her legs as wide as they could go. The shock of the movement, the sense of extreme vulnerability, was such that she emitted a shaking groan.

Then his head dove down. He put his mouth on her and she went downright nuclear. He licked and suckled at the stiff little nubbin cloaked by the folds of her private flesh. His mouth was so sure and confident, so urgent yet gentle, that her knees tried to draw up again, but those big hard hands of his encompassed her knees and held her wide open for his ravishment.

The pleasure was insane. It was too much to take. She flung out her hands in a blind search for something, anything to hold on to as he drove her body into a sharp crescendo. She felt the climax roaring toward her and then it slammed into her body with such intensity her torso arched off the floor and noise broke out of her, a high, thin, out-of-control scream of incredulity.

He held his mouth on her, steady and hot, his pale gaze drinking her in as his tongue massaged every last pulse of pleasure out of her, and the sight of him working her with such patient, sensual intent hurtled her into another one. She flew into it, hotter and harder than before, and the tendons in her neck distended as she tried to scream again but she had flown so high the air was too thin, and she couldn’t get in a breath to make any noise.

And all the time, he was whispering inside her head. Beautiful, sweetheart. You’re so beautiful. God, you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I want to see you do it again.

I can’t! I-it’s too much—Gideon, PLEASE—

Then she lost the words for even telepathy. She held out both hands to him in mute entreaty. And his control broke.

He lunged up to her, guiding the head of his thick penis to her entrance with one hand even as he kissed her, his lips hard and urgent. His mouth was slick with her pleasure. She tasted him, tasted herself. An animal sound came out of her.

She was already climaxing again, her interior muscles rippling, as he slid into her all the way to the hilt, and it was so fucking perfect, she was so fucking perfect, he went on a hopscotch skip straight into the land of crazy.

He poured his own climax into her welcoming body, a helpless shuddering gush. But it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t even close to enough, it only fed his hunger. A deep growl broke from his chest. He took her by the wrists and pinned her down, and he drove into her in hard, pounding strokes, as she ate eagerly at his mouth and met every thrust of his hips with hers. He came again, and again, and each time she came with him, until at last she lay limp underneath him and he had no more to spend.

He might have slept, hands loosely clasped on her wrists. He wasn’t sure. At some point he roused to awareness enough to mutter, “Too heavy?”

His penis had softened but he was still inside her, and it was so gorgeous she didn’t want to lose the sensation. His head was pillowed in her hair. She couldn’t move her head. She couldn’t even open her eyes. She made a herculean effort to respond and managed, “Huh uh.”

His body moved in a big sigh. She could feel his pulse, strong and slow, against her breastbone. There was another time of formless drifting. Then he said, his voice gravelly with sleep, “Soon as the weather clears, I’m moving in.”

He didn’t ask, he stated. She probably should have a problem with that. Nah, she was too tired. But she did notice he held very still, as he listened for her response.

She thought she might have rug burn, and her nose itched. She slipped one of her wrists out of his lax hold so she could scratch it as she yawned. “You’d better. But we’re going to have to have a talk about how chatty you get after sex.”

Torso to torso as they were, she felt his stomach muscles clench as he burst out laughing. The husky, low sound was as gorgeous as the rest of him. He lifted his head off her hair enough so she could turn to nuzzle at him, and he covered her mouth with his in a quick, physical response. She adored how affectionate he was with her. She adored everything about him. They were going to fight and discover each other’s less attractive traits, and the thought of him moving in was frankly rather scary, but there was simply no other alternative. There hadn’t been from the moment they both acknowledged the mating shift, so she thought she might as well just go ahead and accept the changes and enjoy the ride, because it was going to be wonderful to wake up in the mornings with him in her bed, to go to sleep at night with him in her body.

Something buzzed nearby.

What was that? She didn’t have anything in the living room that buzzed. It buzzed again and Gideon lifted himself away from her body. His expression was still heavy lidded with sensuality but his gaze had turned sharp and alert. He twisted to reach for his cell phone.

He clicked it on. “Yeah.”

She watched his face grow cold and still as he listened to the deep, growly voice on the other end. Her sleepy, wondering pleasure vanished in a clench of dread.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked. “I can bring Alice in. She would be safe at HQ and I could help with the search.”

She concentrated on the voice on the other end. A male said, “No point in doing that, son. I got plenty of people on the hunt. Just wanted to give you an update. If he’s got ’em, all he needs is one more now.”

“What about protection on the others?” Gideon asked.

The voice said, “I dispatched the first detail soon after we last talked and told them to keep a low profile so they didn’t freak anybody out any more than they already were. We’re working as goddamn fast as we can.”

She felt sickened. Oh no. No.

She had turned cold without his body heat and she felt vulnerable without her glasses on. She put them on and reached for the tangled pile of blanket to pull it around her as Gideon set the phone aside. He turned to her, the expression in his eyes grave.

“What’s happened?”

“Bayne got confirmation from the airlines,” Gideon told her. He reached out and picked her up, blanket and all, and cradled her against his chest. “The three chameleons scheduled to fly to L.A. never made it to check-in. Their seats were given last minute to three people waiting to fly standby. I know you know them, sweetheart. They’re—”

“Stewart Rogers. His mom, Leigh. Her fiancé, Jim Welch,” she whispered. She thought of the delicately boned boy, his sweet little earnest face, those serious eyes behind Coke-bottle-thick spectacles and his shy, rare smile. He took after his mother, a gentle, kind woman. Something roared in her ears. “Stewie’s in my class, Gideon. Not Stewie. Please don’t tell me that.”

He held her with his entire big body. He threw off heat like a furnace but it still wasn’t enough to drive away the killing cold.

“Sweetheart, I would give anything in the world,” Gideon said, “to be able to not tell you that.”

Somewhere outside, she could have sworn she heard the wicked wind laugh.

Chapter Seven

Love

She got to her feet, anxious to do something, anything, to push the news away. Gideon rose to stand beside her. He rubbed her back as he asked, “Can you think of anything Stewart or his mother might have said in the last few days that might have seemed different or out of place?”

He sounded so calm she wanted to scream at him. Stewart and Leigh might have been murdered in the most horrible way even as she and Gideon had been making love. She put both hands over her mouth, shaking with the effort to find some kind of control.

“Remember, Alice, we don’t know what happened to them,” he said. Rogers and Welch were pretty far down on the alphabet. If the killer had taken them, he might hold on to them until he had his seventh sacrifice. “The only thing we know is that they’re missing. They may not be dead.”

She looked up to find Gideon watching her closely. There was pain in his eyes. Even though he didn’t know any of the people, he was hurting too, hurting for her. The sight clicked her back into balance. “Give me a minute,” she said, “I need to calm down so I can concentrate.”

He nodded. “I’ll make us some coffee.”

He walked into the kitchen, and some other time she was going to remember with relish the sight of his nude figure moving around her apartment with total confidence. For now she simply scooped up the blanket and her shredded nightgown and took them to her bedroom to dump on the bed. Even though it was still full dark outside, the illuminated clock on her bedside table read 7:08 am. She felt she was marking the time’s passing with each dark event and she would never forget the numbers. Nightmare, 3:23. Missing friends, 7:08.

She took a quick two-minute shower to sluice off the evidence of their mating, ran her toothbrush over her teeth, then she dressed in the soft, comfortable clothes she had worn the night before. By the time she had finished, she was able to think again.

She walked into the kitchen. Gideon had slipped on his jeans but remained barefoot and bare-chested. The coffee had finished brewing, and he had already poured two cups. He handed one to her with a quick kiss, the short stubble from his unshaven face scraping her chin. “I make it strong,” he warned.

“That’s okay, I need strong right now,” she said. She brought the cup to her lips and sipped. The black, pungent brew was like a kick in the teeth. That was a good thing. She cleared her throat. “I’m just going to talk, like I did last night. Okay?”

“Okay,” he said. He leaned back against the counter, drank coffee and watched her.

“Stewie was so excited to be going to see his grandma and grandpa. They can’t afford to make the trip very often, so this visit was a big deal. He had his backpack packed by Wednesday. His mom lets him carry whatever toys and books he wants in his carry-on so he has things to keep him busy on the flight. Leigh and Jim had just gotten engaged. They were going to break the news to Leigh’s parents once they got to California.”

“They’re on a tight budget?” Gideon asked. She nodded. “How does Leigh afford private schooling for Stewart? Or is that why their budget is so tight?”

“I think Leigh said once that her parents help with the tuition,” she said. She drank more of the bitter brew and kept going. Now that she had started talking, she didn’t seem able to stop. “And I’m sure they qualify for a hardship scholarship, which would reduce the fees. In the group we all help each other out as we can, you know, according to the situation and what the other person will accept. Free babysitting or whatever. Sometimes we barter. Leigh was pretty thrilled to get a ride to JFK airport instead of having to pay for a shuttle…”

Her voice trailed away. Gideon’s coffee cup came down on the counter. He asked calmly, “Do you know who was supposed to give them a ride?”

She shook her head. “I know Alex offered,” she said. “I did too. I don’t know if anybody else did or whose offer they accepted.”

“Okay,” he said. “We need to talk to Schaffer and everybody else to see if we can pinpoint who saw them last.” He spoke over his shoulder as he turned away. “I’m going to jump in the shower really quick. Sweetheart, do you mind going to the station with me for a while?”

“Not at all,” she said. She stared after him as he strode out of the room. As they had talked, his Power had spiked, sharp and sulfurous, even as his face and demeanor remained soldier-calm. She had said something that interested him, maybe interested him a lot, but he hadn’t seen fit to share whatever it was with her.

Her feelings weren’t hurt. She was willing to wait and find out why he had shut down.

She just wanted to know what it was she had said.

Gideon scooped up his pile of stuff—gun, clothes, toiletry bag and phone. Moving fast, he hit the bathroom, shut the door and turned on the shower. Soon as the sound of the water filled the room, he hit Bayne on speed dial.

Bayne answered on the first ring. “What’s up?”

Gideon asked, “Where’s Schaffer?”

“Alex Schaffer? Last I heard, his guards reported him moving around inside his townhouse, safe and sound. All the chameleons are at home, except for the three missing and the ones who we’ve confirmed have made it to Arizona. Why?”

“I don’t know,” he growled. “He just keeps coming up in conversation. It’s piqued my interest.” He told Bayne rapidly about the conversation with Alice. “All the chameleons need to be questioned again. Alice said Schaffer offered Welch and the Rogers a ride to the airport. She did too, but we know she didn’t take them.”

Bayne swore. “We’ve been calling all the limo services to see if the Rogers had booked a trip with one of them.”

Holding his cell to his ear with one hand, Gideon unfastened his jeans with the other and jerked them off. Sixty-second shower, no shave. He and Alice could hit the door in under five minutes. He said to Bayne, “We’ve been focused on the chameleons as the victims. Thing is, one of them might also be the killer.”

Alice pushed the living room furniture back into place. She straightened the coffee table in front of the couch. Someone knocked on the front door, a quiet, tentative tap that had her nearly leaping out of her skin.

Her heart still knocking hard, she moved to flip on the outside light and peer through the keyhole.

Alex stood outside in a black wool coat and muffler, hands under his arms and his shoulders hunched against the whip of wind, snow and ice. He was a quiet, unassuming-looking man in his early sixties, with receding gray hair. Usually he was meticulously groomed, but now he looked haggard and so miserable, she found herself unlocking and opening the door.

She said, “Alex, what on earth are you doing here?”

He gave her a sad look as he said, “I didn’t wake you, did I? I have been fretting about you all night. I finally had to come see if you were all right.”

“For heaven’s sake, come in.” She stepped back and opened the door wide.

Alex ducked his head and stepped forward. The wind blasted down the steps and into the opening. It brought with it a whip of snow and outside scent—

—and a faint chemical taint…but no scent at all from Alex.

All her thoughts flatlined as she stumbled back. Stupidly, she tried to close the door again.

And Alex’s step turned into a lunge as he brought his gloved hands out from underneath his arms. A glint of light came off a long, thin knife he gripped in one hand, while he slammed the door wide open with the other.

“Oh gods,” she said.

Alex’s sad gaze had turned bright with a fanatical light. He said, “Yes, Alice, oh gods. And Abraham said to the Lord, ‘Behold, here I am.’ It is the most holy sacrifice to give the gods those you love. And the Lord said, ‘In blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven’…”

She flung out a hand, grabbed hold of something, screamed, “You crazy murdering bastard!”

Nearby, there was a smash of splintering wood.

Alex had brought his knife hand back for a killing blow. “Only show me your will, gods, as I give to you another one of my own…”

She flung what she had grabbed at him. It was a small potted plant. The pot hit Alex in the chest with a spray of dirt. He flinched and grabbed for her throat. The knife arched—

A silent behemoth hit Alex with a body slam that sent the smaller man crashing to the ground. At the same time, Alice was knocked back with a flattened hand shoved into her chest. She lost her balance, fell and scuttled away from the doorway with her head ducked.

Everything went still. She dared to look behind her.

Alex lay on his back. His throat was torn out, his knife hand crushed beyond recognition.

The monster from Haley’s apartment crouched over the body. The planes and angles of his face and body were all wrong. There was one difference: this time he was quite nude and dripping wet.

He bared his teeth, icy gaze alight with incredulous fury. “You opened your front door to him?”

Alice threw up her hands and cried, “He was my boss!”

Her cry turned into a sob, and suddenly the monster became Gideon again. He dove forward, grabbed her and clenched her to his chest. She buried her face in his hot, wet skin. He was breathing hard, a fine tremor rippling through his muscles.

Gideon said grimly, “Well, he’s not anymore.”

The time came around again for the annual Festival of the Masque, where all creatures, Elder Races or gods, pay homage to the dance that drives and sustains the universe. Planets swirl around their suns, galaxies spin in space. Even tiny atoms joined in the movement.

Every winter solstice, Cuelebre Tower put on one of the most lavish spectacles in the world, complete with a horde of paparazzi and a red carpet. Celebrities and dignitaries from humankind and all the Elder Races attended. A crowd of two thousand attendees wore extraordinary, designer jeweled costumes and masks that glittered with onyx and diamonds. Cuelebre’s public hall was decorated with great swathes of ivory and gold cloth, towering ice sculptures, and champagne flowed like water.

A traditional Masque officially began with a procession of the gods and ended with everyone unmasking at midnight, although most of the parties continued till dawn. Most gatherings had volunteers dress up to play the part of the gods. Usually at the school fundraiser, the gods were played by the school trustees. Here, she had no doubt that the procession of the gods would be an elaborate affair played by professional actors.

Alice stared at everything and everyone with wide eyes. Now and then, she caught glimpses across the hall of Dragos Cuelebre, Lord of the Wyr, and his beautiful new mate. In that striking way that mated Wyr had, they moved in sync together, always aware of where the other one was. Alice and Gideon would develop the same ability over time.

At first Alice had been reluctant to come to the Tower Masque. Along with the rest of her community, she was grieving for her friends who had died the week before, and still in shock from discovering Alex Schaffer had been responsible for the murder of ten chameleons. In light of recent events, Broadway Elementary had canceled its annual fundraiser as the school trustees struggled to regroup and look for new leadership.

But Gideon had gotten two tickets to the Tower Masque at a time when no one could beg, borrow or steal them. He had coaxed, and she had capitulated, and now she was glad she had come just to witness the sheer spectacle of the event. They had made a pact to stay until the unmasking at midnight. It was their first official date.

After catching a glimpse of all the extravagant finery in the hall, she felt self-conscious, having worn a simple black sheath dress, high-heeled, peep-toed black patent leather pumps, and a plain black satin half-mask. She had bought contact lenses just for the occasion.

She tugged at her slim skirt. She hoped she didn’t look too plain. As if he had read her mind, Gideon bent his head to say in her ear, “You are the most elegant and stunning woman present.”

She turned to give him a startled grin. His icy pale gaze met and held hers with a private smile. Clad in a sleek black tux and a plain black half-mask that matched hers, he was so lethally sexy she could hardly believe he was hers. “I just hope I’m doing my handsome escort justice.”

Her escort, her mate. The wonder of it stilled her breath.

He tugged at one of her corkscrew curls and released it, watching as it sprang back into place. He never seemed to tire of doing that. She didn’t have the heart to tell him how much it irritated her. He whispered, “I couldn’t be more proud to be your mate.”

The crowd fell away, and it was just the two of them. She reached up to touch the corner of his straight, sexy mouth, and whispered back, “Me, too.”

Then suddenly they were no longer alone. A brawny, tanned giant of a male had joined them. It was Gideon’s boss, Bayne. As Alice turned with Gideon to face the newcomer, she drew in a deep breath to brace herself against the impact of his presence. Like all immortal Wyr, Bayne radiated a ferocious energy. He hadn’t bothered with a mask, had already removed his tie, and his dress shirt was open at the throat.

Bayne said to Gideon, “The hell’s the matter with you, son? Go grab your mate a glass of champagne and some of those fancy-ass hors d’oeuvres before they’re all gone. “

Gideon met her gaze. He smiled. “I’ll be right back.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“My pleasure, sweetheart.”

He turned to Bayne, who said, “You better hurry. The procession is about to start. I’ll stay with her while you’re gone.”

They both watched Gideon wind his way through the crowd toward the refreshments. Then Bayne turned to her. “Good to see you, Alice. I’m glad you two decided to use the tickets. How are you doing?”

Bayne had given the tickets to Gideon? “It was a lovely gift,” she said. “I’m doing much better, thanks.”

To say she had not been at her best when she first met the gryphon was putting it mildly. She had held it together when she had really looked at Alex, the knife lying on the floor beside his sprawled form. After holding her so tightly he left bruises, Gideon had covered Alex’s face and shoulders with his bath towel, gone to dress and made phone calls. Alice had taken a seat at one end of her couch and remained calm and still when Bayne had arrived shortly after, questioned them both, and supervised the removal of the body. Then she had taken one look at the deep red pool of blood that had soaked into the carpet by her front door and slid into a complete meltdown.

Gideon had snatched her up and carried her out of the room, his face tight. She wasn’t sure who was responsible, but despite the blizzard and it being a Saturday before a major holiday, she’d had new carpet installed within the hour.

Now her cheeks darkened at the memory. She said to the sentinel towering beside her, “I’m sorry about how we first met.”

“I am, too,” Bayne said. He glanced down at her, regret in his rugged features. “I wish we had been able to catch the fucker before he got to you.”

She sent him a sidelong glance. “That wasn’t what I meant.”

The gryphon stood at ease. As he rested his hands on his hips, his jacket parted to reveal a glimpse of his two gun holsters. In the last week, with Gideon moving in, and his friends from both the WDVC and the army dropping by with the casual air of those hoping to be fed, Alice was growing used to the sight of large muscular people wandering around armed. She and Gideon had also bought a larger fridge and a larger dish set.

“I know what you meant,” said Bayne. “You found your friend murdered, discovered your mate and caught a killer, all in less than eighteen hours. To top it all off, the killer was someone you knew and had trusted for years. You think you weren’t entitled to throw a little bit of a fit?”

She chuckled. “Well, when you put it like that.” Then she sobered. “I keep trying to make sense of what Alex was saying at the end, and I can’t. I think he was quoting the Bible, of all things.”

“Don’t waste your energy on trying to make sense of it,” said Bayne. “If you’ll excuse my language, the dude was effing nuts. You wouldn’t believe what we found in the basement of his townhouse. He had made plans to start up the True Colors support group before he ever took that first trip down to Jacksonville seven years ago. He had books and scribblings from all the major religions, and prayers painted on the walls and ceilings. He’d added up and subtracted all kinds of numbers that told him the pope was the fricking antichrist. He had this whole messianic delusion going on, about repopulating the Earth with chameleon Wyr after he had sacrificed what he most loved to the gods—his people. He planned to keep on killing until he had gotten some kind of divine sign. I’m telling you—Whack. O.”

They had found more than books and scribbling in the basement. Stewart, his mother Leigh, and Jim Welch had been found bound and gagged, but alive. Alex’s guards had been looking to keep a killer out of his house, not to keep Alex inside. He had given them the slip by going out his back gate when he had come after Alice. If he had not been quite so obsessed with form and ritual, Stewie and his family wouldn’t have survived. As it was, he had told them once he had sacrificed Alice, he would be able to kill the rest of them over the next several days. Leigh told Alice, in a phone call several days later, that Alex had seemed astonished at their distress. He couldn’t understand why they weren’t aware of the honor he was bestowing upon them.

“It’s all so hard to believe,” Alice whispered. She shuddered and rubbed her bare arms. Alex had always been a little tight-assed, a little too buttoned up, but no one had ever conceived of him as being anything other than normal.

“Well, hell,” said the gryphon. He regarded her with chagrin. “Gideon’s gonna shoot me. This was supposed to be your night out for fun, and here I’ve got you looking like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“It’s all right,” she told him. “Talking it through is much better than trying to ignore it. It’s just going to take a while to process.”

She spotted Gideon’s light blond head over the crowd. He was working his way back to them. The joy she felt as she watched him approach was almost too much for her body to contain.

Bayne had also turned and caught sight of Gideon. The gryphon told her in a quiet voice, “We all think very highly of him. He’s one of the finest men I know.”

Her eyes fixed on her mate, Alice said, “He’s one of the finest men I know, too.”

At last Gideon reached them. He presented her with a plate piled high with delicacies and petit fours. In his other hand he cradled two glasses of champagne. “Sorry,” he said to Bayne as Alice took one of the glasses from him. “I didn’t think I could juggle three glasses without dropping something.”

“S’all right,” said Bayne. “Champagne’s not my drink.”

Gideon gave Alice a swift kiss. “What were you two talking about while I was gone?”

She and the gryphon looked at each other. “Mating,” she said. “And how fast it can hit.”

“I blame it on the air,” said Gideon. He winked at her. “There’s an awful lot of Wyr mating pheromones floating around these days.”

“Well, you both look very happy, so good on you,” said Bayne, with a hearty clap to Gideon’s shoulders that threatened the plate of food. “As for me, I just might start wearing a gas mask.”

At that moment, the crowd parted and the procession of the gods started. They were led by the god Taliesin who was portrayed this year by a slender male. Taliesin was followed in short order by the other gods, each sumptuously costumed, and the crowd in the hall swept into a low bow as they passed.

Alice couldn’t help but shiver as Azrael, the god of death, drew near. Old legends told that a god attended every Masque. If there were ever a time when death might appear, she thought, it would be at this Masque.

The elegant, glittering figure passed by. She sucked in a breath and called herself silly. The last in the procession was the goddess of love, Inanna. The tall, striking woman moved with regal sinuousness, a wild mane of waist-length blonde hair flowing back from a feline mask. Her gown had seven embroidered lions pulling seven chariots. As Inanna drew level, the goddess turned to look at them, almost as if she had heard Bayne speak. Alice thought she caught a glimpse of something vast and amused gazing at the gryphon out of the mask’s eyeholes. Alice shook her head sharply, and the strange vision passed.

Then the orchestra struck the first notes, all the participants took their places, and the dance began.

About the Author

Thea Harrison resides in northern California. She wrote her first book, a romance, when she was nineteen and had sixteen romances published under the name Amanda Carpenter.

She took a break from writing to collect a couple of graduate degrees and a grown child. Her graduate degrees are in Philanthropic Studies and Library Information Science, but her first love has always been writing fiction. She's back with her paranormal Elder Races series. You can check out her website at: www.theaharrison.com, and also follow her on Twitter @TheaHarrison and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/TheaHarrison.

Content

True Colors
Elder Races - 3.5
by
Thea Harrison

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

About the Author