“This is so not a good idea,” she said, slipping the key into the lock and clicking it. She had to back up to pull the door open. Rome moved with her, remaining close enough to keep both their body temperatures elevated.
“I thought that myself a couple of times with you being my employee and us barely knowing each other. But you cannot honestly tell me you don’t feel what’s between us.”
She turned then, so that her back was to the open door and her front facing him.
“I feel the lust, Mr. Reynolds. I’m not a corpse and I’m not crazy enough to deny it. But acting on it’s a whole other can of worms I’d rather not open.”
Kalina lifted her palms to Rome’s chest, the contact sending an electric charge through his system that almost had him gasping for breath. Then she pushed him back, far enough so that he was now a full arm’s length away from her.
“I know a man whose mother trained him to be so chivalrous as to walk a lady to her car also knows how to take no for an answer.”
She dropped her arms, sliding into the front seat without hesitation. Rome held the door to keep her from closing it on him. Leaning forward, he got close enough to touch his lips lightly to her ear.
“I didn’t hear you say no, Kalina.”
Her body tightened; the only movement was the rise and fall of her chest. She thought he was going to kiss her or at least try to. But he didn’t. He simply stayed right there, inhaling her scent, letting every nuance of her filter through him. She hadn’t said no and wasn’t saying it now. He doubted she could any more than he.
Finally, she sighed. “Good night, Mr. Reynolds.”
Rome pulled back, closed her door, and watched as she pulled off. “A very good night to you, too, Ms. Harper.”
“Where’d you find this?” Nick asked the minute Rome slipped into the backseat of the limousine.
Tapping the glass, Rome gave the signal for Eli to drive. “The collar of my jacket.”
“Tonight?”
He nodded tightly, remembering the moment he’d slid his hands over the lapels and under the back collar. The device was small, intricate, designed to be missed upon inspection. For a minute he’d thought it was a pin left in by the cleaners until tiny hairs on the back of his neck had stood on end.
“It’s tracking you. Why didn’t you destroy it?” Nick asked, still fingering the small diamond-like piece.
“Because whoever’s bold enough to get close to my clothes wants to get close to me. I figure it only makes sense to oblige.” Rome might be calm in his approach, but when pushed he definitely pushed back. If somebody wanted to know where he was, he wasn’t going to make it hard to find him.
“Let the games begin,” Nick added, pushing the left side of his jacket back just enough to reveal the gun he had holstered there.
Rome rarely carried a weapon to functions like this, but Nick was always strapped. So there was no surprise seeing the gun and there was no doubt his friend would use it the minute he felt it was necessary. “We’re keeping a low profile tonight. Ralph Kensington needs this fund-raiser to go well.”
“And I know how much you like Ralph Kensington.”
Rome hated the man, hated the stench of his lies and duplicity like a kid hated visits to the dentist. Still, it helped to keep up pretenses. Besides, Jace Maybon—the Pacific Faction Leader—had picked up a Rogue scent when Kensington visited LA last year. They were positive Kensington wasn’t a shifter, but he’d obviously been in contact with one. Whether the well-known legislator knew that or not had yet to be proven. With that piece of information, Rome made a point to keep in close contact with the man who tonight would announce his run for the US Senate.
“Kensington’s up to something. He knew Baines personally—they gave a dinner together earlier this year.”
“You think he may know something about Baines’s murder?” Nick’s normally cultured tone was slipping, the wild edge to his voice revealing the animal within. It was a subtle change but one Rome knew well.
Rome shook his head, his fingers tapping on the door handle. “I’m not going on what I think right now. I know that Baines and his daughter had their skulls crushed then were ripped to pieces by something the medical examiner could only describe as a vicious, sharp weapon. That’s not a normal murder technique. Jace picked up the Rogue scent on Kensington last summer. When I saw Kensington a few weeks ago, I picked it up as well.”
Nick slammed a fist on the seat. “You should have said something then. We could have defused the situation sooner.”
“I’m not killing Kensington. I want answers.”
“If he’s in cahoots with Rogues he’s not likely to give you answers, Rome.”
Rome’s head snapped toward Nick, sharp canines pricking his lower lip. “He won’t have a choice.”
The Faction Leaders were scheduled to meet next weekend, the senator’s murder bringing all of them here. The need to rein in whatever evil was brewing among the shifters was imperative. Their goal was to live quietly among the purebred humans, to not be discovered for fear of being considered natural-born killers. But every time Rome thought of the grueling way in which the senator and his innocent daughter were killed, he cringed. There was a small element of truth in calling them natural-born killers. He felt it rippling up his spine even now as he thought about it. If faced with the Rogue who did the killings, Rome wasn’t 100 percent positive that he wouldn’t snap the shifter’s neck himself. But that was his animal half, the part of himself he tried to suppress as much as possible while living in this world. He was beginning to think the suppression approach wasn’t going to last for long.
The Linden Hotel was midway to opulent. Pulling up in front, Eli—one of Rome’s shifter guards—was out of the car first. His twin brother, Ezra, also a guard working under Rome’s leadership, had parked the Tahoe he drove to the party and was already standing curbside waiting for them. As the Faction Leader and commanding officer, both Rome and Nick warranted guards whenever they traveled. Eli and Ezra were shifters who grew up in the Gungi but had come to the States as teenagers. Their large builds, death stares, and simple lethal aura cast them in the positions of bodyguards almost immediately. They’d been with Rome for almost ten years now. Besides Nick, Baxter, and his other shifter friend, Xavier, he didn’t trust anyone with his life but the jaguar brothers.
Stepping out of the car, Rome immediately began scanning the area. People seemed to be everywhere, stepping out of limos, walking up the stone stairs to the front entry, coming out of the doors heading down the steps. It looked like a star-studded Hollywood event. The air was still, almost sticky, but not quite. Night air should have been cooler, but this was DC in the summertime. The fact that he wasn’t sweating through his suit said it was probably as cool as it was going to get.
He’d lived in the city long enough to know that with the heat came trouble. Violence always seemed to escalate in the summer months, bringing the most notorious criminal element into an already volatile place infested with drugs and other unsavory addictions. Simply put, this was a breeding ground for the Rogues, a virtual cesspool of situations to exploit in their quest for dominance.
How they, the Shadow Shifters—as they were called by the human tribes living outside the Gungi—had gotten to this place, Rome still wondered. Even tribesmen did not know for sure that the shifters existed, which was why they called them shadows. All they knew was the report of glimpses of humans shifting into animals deep within the rain forest. But most of the tribesmen were afraid to venture into the rain forest, scared of unknown animals and eventual death. About half the humans believed the so-called myth; the other half strongly objected to the theory, and without any real proof the believers just looked more like weirdos to their people. So the secret was still safe. For now.