“Yeah, you’re for me,” he said wiping the back of his hand over his mouth. “An evil ruthless bitch just like me. We’re gonna rule this world together.”
“Go to hell!” she spat.
Sabar threw his head back and laughed. “Only with you right beside me.”
He reached for the buckle of his pants and began undoing them, all the while keeping his gaze on her.
Kalina felt sick, then she felt hot, and then … she felt something else.
It moved inside her, slinking around as if it had been just awakened. Rising slowly it filled her; from her feet to her fingertips it was being reborn inside her. The feeling was eerie, and she thought instinctively she should have rejected it. Then she paused, recognized this other part of her, and welcomed the reunion. It had been there all along, revealing itself in the extra-sensitive senses she possessed, in the instincts she’d called on following her gut. Suddenly the memories came flooding back: the way she always felt as if she didn’t belong, no matter how hard she tried; the feeling of something itching just beneath her skin. It all made sense now, illogical and unheard-of sense.
Now whatever had loomed just beneath the surface all her life was standing tall, making its grand entrance. And it was mad as hell.
The meeting place wasn’t what Rome or the other shifters had expected, but then this entire situation was way beyond the norm. Rogues didn’t give a shit who they killed, or when, or where, so calling them to an abandoned house on the end of one of the dirtiest streets in the city—literally and figuratively—was not their MO.
Eli had driven the Tahoe, with Rome, Nick, and X riding in the back. Ezra was parked right around the corner in the Hummer with three more guards, should reinforcements be necessary. The message said for Rome to arrive alone. Yeah, like hell was that happening. Not only were Nick and X never going to allow it, Rome didn’t take orders from anybody, especially not a group of backstabbing Rogues.
There were no words to describe the rage that ripped through him the moment he found out Kalina was gone. Eli looked as if he were about ready to shoot himself when Rome walked into the house and he had to deliver the news. At that exact moment Rome wanted to kill. Not Eli, because he was a friend and Rome knew he’d done his best. Although when this was all said and done the guard was definitely going to feel Rome’s wrath.
But right now, at this second, Rome knew Kalina was in trouble. If she wasn’t here with him, she was in danger, and that was unacceptable. It had only taken about fifteen minutes for his house to fill with Shadow Shifters ready to comb the DC streets in search of her.
“He will not hurt her,” Alamar said, coming into the hallway where they’d all aligned like an army about to move out.
“How do you know that for sure?” X asked, probably because he knew words weren’t coming easily for Rome.
Alamar held up a note. “He believes she is his companheiro. He will not hurt her.”
Rome snatched the note, read it, and wanted to roar his fury. Instead Nick took the paper from Rome’s hands. “So he wants Rome to know he has her. To know he’s taken her away from him. Dumb fuck!”
“Let’s go,” Rome said through clenched teeth.
“Remember the Ètica,” Alamar said as they began to move out.
Rome was already shaking his head. “No. Not this time. This time I’ve got my own code to go by.”
As they filed out of the house, Nick and X right behind Rome, the Elder looked to Baxter.
“He will do the right thing,” Baxter said.
The Elder nodded glumly. “For all our sakes I hope that you are right.”
Now, half an hour later, they were here. And Rome’s cat was ready to break free, to rip the throat from the Rogue who threatened what was his.
Again.
It was the same one, Rome thought with disgust. He’d recognized the scent at Kalina’s apartment. Remembered it from years ago when he’d been just a little boy. It had been mixed with another Rogue scent, but Rome knew that specific one and as he stepped out of the truck walking toward the corner house he smelled it again.
Rage rippled, his cat roared inside clawing at the surface to be set free, but Rome, the man, walked purposely up the steps.
“What’s the plan?” X said from behind him.
“I’m going to get Kalina. When she’s safe I’m killing every sonofabitch Rogue in there then burning this fucking house down,” Rome said, reaching for the doorknob.
Nick shrugged. “Sounds like a plan to me.”
A plain unmarked slate-gray Buick pulled onto the street about five minutes after Rome, Nick, and X walked into the row house. Pulling into an open parking space about five houses up from the end unit, which was his target, he stopped the car. Switching off the engine, Special Agent Dorian Wilson sat back against the leather seat, his eyes examining the SUV not too far in front of him. All the windows were tinted—and even if they weren’t, it was well after midnight. This street had obviously not been on the city’s cleanup list in a long while, because in addition to the majority of the windows on these houses being broken out, the lampposts had suffered the same fate. Saying it was dark as shit was an understatement.
But Dorian knew it didn’t matter who drove the Tahoe. He knew who it was registered to. Roman Reynolds. He did wonder which one of Reynolds’s bodyguards was driving it tonight. The man never traveled alone. That was part of the reason Dorian and his team had begun looking at Reynolds and his law firm in the first place. The other part was still on a disk carefully hidden in a safe in Dorian’s apartment.
Jack “JC” Ferrell of the MPD took a long swig from the bottle of vodka he’d lifted from the liquor store around the corner. All he’d had to do was flash his police badge and the tiny little Asian woman minding the cash register had looked the other way. They knew him around here, knew what he liked and what he wouldn’t tolerate. After tonight they might know things JC didn’t want them to know.
He was meeting with Sabar and his henchmen tonight, supposedly to give them the money from the stash he was assigned to sell. But JC didn’t have their money. He’d smoked half of it then put the other half in an account for his two sons. That’s the least he could do for them, since being Father of the Year wasn’t in the cards for him. But he wasn’t running; that wasn’t something he’d ever done in his life. After thirty-two years on the police force, two wives with dollar signs in their eyes and other cops’ cocks in their mouths, he’d given up the scared-and-begging sort of lifestyle he’d once lived. Now it was all about him. He lived for the moment, didn’t answer to anybody, and didn’t give a damn what anybody thought of him. Especially not now. Not tonight.
This business with these crazy-ass animal people was coming to an end. JC had done a lot of shady crap in the past ten years of his life, but working alongside some half-breed animals was not going to be listed in his obituary. They were crass motherfuckers that didn’t care about anything or anybody; whatever they wanted they got, and it didn’t do any good to try to stop them. Living like that, JC figured, was sure to get those weirdos sliced and diced fast, and that he wasn’t willing to be a part of. He’d figured out a long time ago that with all the death and self-destruction he’d seen, his demise would probably come about the same way. But again, he wasn’t scared.
He was shit-tired, though, ready to go someplace and lay the hell down for a while. A long while, he thought, as he entered the house and took the first steps to the upper rooms where the lead hairy bastard liked to stay. But as he took those steps a sound unlike any he’d ever heard stopped him.