Collector's Item (4 page)

“That’s something you’ll never find out.” Peyton shook his head as he tapped his fingertips on his cell. “I’m getting you out of here and back where you belong.”

KT snatched the cell out of his hand, pressed the power button, disconnecting any call he might have begun, and shutting it down. She stuck out her hand when he lunged for the phone.

“Wait. Hear me out.” She locked her elbow when her palm impacted his chest. Muscles flexed against her palm, but he stopped.

She held the phone behind her at arm’s length. “Listen to me. I think the Collectors kidnapped my aunt, but I haven’t found a damn thing. Now, you show up on my doorstep and
you
are
my
best lead.” She stared up at him. “When’s the exchange?”

“Midnight,” Peyton replied, the word so slow she might have been pulling each syllable out of him with pliers. The vibration of his voice through his chest sent minute shivers down her back. Shivers she worked hard to ignore.

She nodded encouragingly. “And I’m betting that while you’ve been playing Big Bad Collector, you’ve got a back-up system for your victims, something to help them escape?”

Peyton pressed against her hand just a little and she shoved him back as hard as she could. He didn’t move at first and then rocked back onto his heels.

“I inject them with a micro-transmitter that the Protectorate tracks to the Collector’s private reserve. Then, the Protectorate and the Feds free the victims and take down the operation.”

She kept her hand with the cell phone behind her back. Deep down, she knew this had to happen. She just had to make Peyton come to the same conclusion.

He leaned forward, his gaze intent. “But I won’t let you take that risk, princess. Not Marant’s Alpha Female.”

KT stiffened. “
You
won’t let me?”

Peyton’s glare matched hers. “
They
won’t let you.”

He had a point, but she lifted one eyebrow. “Then
we
won’t tell them.” To close the deal, she needed to get him to tell her how to convince him. “What made this assignment, mission, whatever you call it, such a big break for you?”

A muscle in Peyton’s jaw twitched and he waited so long to respond she thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then he said the only name that made sense. “Douglas Torne.”

Legendary big game hunter and vocal opponent to the Paranormal Rights Act, Douglas Torne had been a thorn in the Alliance’s side for years. He and his cronies financed a powerful anti-paranormal lobby whose annual attempts to overthrow the Act nibbled around the edges of the protections granted to paranormals. The Alliance suspected him to be a linchpin of the Collector’s organization, but nothing solid had ever been found. Yet.

A thrill coursed down KT’s back. She tensed, scenting a weakness. “Douglas Torne? Mr. Untouchable?”

Peyton nodded. “Massey let it drop by accident that we would be taking you to a private hanger at the airport. I did some digging. The hanger belongs to Eddington Industries, a solely-owned subsidiary of Torne Enterprises.”

A cold grin eased across his face and raised the hairs on the back of KT’s neck. “Every lead in Lance’s case winds back to Torne. If he didn’t actually do it, he knows who did.”

KT tilted her head. “We’ve been trying to link him to the Collectors for years. What makes you think this’ll do it?”

He laughed. “Even Mr. Untouchable couldn’t talk or buy his way out of being caught red-handed with a captured paranormal in his possession.”

Bingo! KT kept her smile to herself.

“Good point.” KT jerked her chin toward her front door. “So, you two planned to ambush me outside my door, dose me, and then carry me off. There you’d turn the tables on them and finally get your chance at Torne.”

Peyton’s jaw clenched and his words emerged sharp as razors. “It doesn’t matter. You’re going to your father’s penthouse or some other safe place.”

KT finally lost her temper. She slammed her hands onto the floor and leaned forward to thrust her face toward his. “And just like that, you let your best chance at catching Douglas Torne slip right through your fingers? As well as my best chance to find out who has my aunt? Not happening. I won’t allow it.”

“You won’t allow it?” Peyton’s hands shot out to grip her arms and he yanked her to her feet as if she weighed nothing. She gasped as he spun her around to face Massey’s unconscious form.

“Look at that! See those plastic ties? See how defenseless he is? That would be you! You’ll be at the mercy of people who think you’re nothing but an animal that walks on two legs.”

She braced herself when he spun her back around to face him, his fury hot and fierce on her skin. Her racing heartbeat ratcheted up the pain in her cheek. Out of nowhere, another of her grandmother’s truisms rushed to mind,
lose your temper, make mistakes
.

KT let her knees buckle, her dead weight dragging his hands down. His grip shifted a tiny bit. She raised her hands inside his arms and thrust her forearms outward to break his hold. Something crunched under her foot when she kicked herself upward but she was already in motion. She twisted while she arched over the couch and Massey’s unconscious form into a tumbling roll to her feet. Teeth bared, hands up, fingers curled as if clawed, she spun into a crouch.

Peyton remained behind the couch. The primal urge for supremacy turned his eyes a brilliant gold. Power poured off him, muscles flexed beneath the fabric of his shirt. Her eyes followed the rise and fall of his chest, up the curve of his neck to the inflexible line of his jaw. His sheer masculine power called to her, making her nerves zing with sexual tension.

Alpha, Andi named him and alpha he clearly was, as he faced her across the room. KT yanked her focus back. A man like this would be hard to sway. She couldn’t, wouldn’t lose what she feared was her best chance to find Patricia.

“Nice move.” His voice sounded grudging though she could see the respect in his eyes.

KT took a shaky breath. “Thanks.” Straightening up, she smoothed her clothing, the stroking motion calming her even further. She held up her hand. “Okay, I get it. But hear me out.”

Peyton took his own deep breath. The gleam in his eyes dimmed, returning them to light brown. He glanced down behind the couch, bent to the floor, and straightened up. The pieces of his cell phone lay in his palm.

“You owe me a new phone, princess.” His gaze dropped to Massey and then back. “You’d have to be crazy to even consider what I think you’re thinking.”

KT gave a tiny sigh of relief. She could sell this, him. “That’s why it just might work. That little scene in the hall might take some explaining, but, if we let this play out like Massey scripted it, we should both get what we want.”

She glanced down at Massey. The white plastic ties on his ankles and wrists glowed in the light, and her pulse climbed. That could be what happened to Aunt Patricia,
was
about to happen to
her
—helpless, trapped. KT’s breath caught and then she forced the images away. Focus.

She looked at Peyton. “You’ve got some kind of back-up team, right?”

Peyton shook his head. “I cancelled them when I found out Marant’s princess was our Collector’s Item.”

She glared at him. His insistence on treating her like a pampered socialite was infuriating. She stepped around Massey’s unconscious form and went to her backpack. She pulled out her cell phone, and held it out. “You’ll have to get them back. Just keep my name out of it.”

“They’ve already got your name,” he pointed out.

She shook the phone like a rattle. “Tell them, Massey had an alternative target you didn’t know about. I dunno. Make something up, just get them to back you up and we can take down Douglas Torne.”

Peyton stepped over to take the phone. “And the rest of your brilliant plan?”

“You tell Massey that you overshot me and then kept the fight going to keep me from suspecting anything. After I conked him, you knocked me out and hauled us both into my apartment before anyone noticed.”

She touched the side of her face where it had hit the floor. The lightest touch sent a lancing pain from her chin to her eye. She turned to look at her reflection in a glass picture frame. A reddish bruise extended from her jaw line and up toward her cheekbone, the skin swollen. “Based on how this feels, this is going to be pretty spectacular. Just what we need to clinch the deal. With me down for the count, he just might buy it.”

KT held her silence while Peyton stared at her. He had to buy it. It was a win-win. He got his friend’s murderer and Torne was bound to know who had Patricia.

“It’s chancy, but it might work,” Peyton said at last. “You’re taking a hell of a risk, being drugged. If this goes sideways, you’ll never know until you wake up in a cage somewhere.”

“You’ll have to make sure it doesn’t,” KT countered. “Believe me, the thought of being drugged has me spooked, but I don’t see us getting out of that one. I’m not a good enough actress to pretend to be unconscious while I’m dragged all over New York.”

Peyton rubbed his chin and looked her up and down. “If I adjust the injection, it should wear off before we get to the hangar.”

KT took a deep breath to try and calm the clenching of her stomach. So much could go wrong. If she thought about it too long or too hard, she’d back out and she’d never forgive herself. This was her best chance to find out who had Patricia.

She looked at Peyton and smiled. “Then, I think we’ve got a plan.”

Chapter Four

Peyton watched as KT’s eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks and her breath evened out. An ugly reddish bruise covered her left jaw and extended up to her cheekbone. In his experience, a bruise that size hurt, hurt a lot, but she’d only commented on its usefulness for her plan.

He shook his head. Stephanie, the original “princess,” would have raced to the mirror to inspect her face as soon as he let her up. No, check that. She would have stood in that doorway and started screaming like a banshee. He’d have had to beat Massey to a pulp and then haul her whining high-blood ass out of the building. End of story, end of operation.

Instead, Katarina, no, KT sized up the situation and turned his expectations upside down. Rather than demanding to be protected, she had insisted on placing herself in greater danger.

Brave and loyal
. Max’s comment bit like a gadfly.

Okay, but for what? For her missing aunt. Now, there was a princess! A woman who used her Unadapted condition like a “get out jail free” pass. From what he’d heard, the woman didn’t care for anything or anyone, but herself. Hell, he wouldn’t put it past her to be on a yacht or shacked up somewhere.

Peyton checked the plastic ties on KT’s wrists and ankles. Tight, but not going to cut off circulation. Lying on her side, with her arms behind her back, she looked nothing like the furious alpha female he’d faced off with earlier. Her black hair spread out across her shoulders in a swirling tangle, one section like a black gash across her cheek. His fingers itched to push it aside, but he resisted.

Not princess
, Max asserted, his approval a warm purr in the back of Peyton’s brain.
Alpha, a truly worthy alpha.

Enough.
Peyton pushed to his feet and looked at Massey, lying on the couch. Massey would expect Peyton to give him the couch over their victim, and KT had accepted that without argument.

Just like she’d rolled up her sleeve and held out her arm for the sedative shot, as if it were nothing. Only the rapid rise and fall of her chest, and the racing pulse in her neck, betrayed her fear.

Her dark eyes had met and held his over the syringe. “Only enough to get me to the hangar, and no more, right?”

He’d nodded with a confidence he secretly questioned. “With your metabolism, a half injection will wear off just about the time we’re heading for the hangar.” He paused, worried that for a “package” this high-profile, a little insurance might be a good idea. “Are you sure about the microchip?”

Her gaze steadied. “I won’t need it, right?” The corner of her mouth quirked into a charmingly lopsided smile and caused a jolt in his groin. “I’ll have my own personal Protector.”

He shoved down his reaction and nodded. “Me, and an entire squad of Alliance Rangers.”

Her smile broadened into a grin. “Okay, then let’s do this.” And just like that, she let him shoot her with enough sedative to stop a raging elephant dead in its tracks.

Peyton approached Massey and slapped the other man’s face. “Wake up, damn it, Massey! She didn’t hit you that hard.”

Massey’s head lolled before he opened his eyes, blinking against the lamplight. “What?”

Peyton crossed his arms over his chest and frowned. “Shit, man. You’ve gotta lay off the fries. You weigh a fuckin’ ton.”

Massey blinked a few times, and then recognition as well as memory returned. He shoved himself off the couch and swung at Peyton.

Peyton dodged the wild swing and held up his hands. “Hey! What’s your problem?”

“My problem? My problem?” Massey shouted. “You were supposed to tackle her, not me. And then you try to beat the shit out of me. What the hell?”

Peyton motioned downward with his hands. “Keep it down. Her neighbors should be heading home soon.” He glared at the unconscious KT. “She moved at the last second. I had to do something to keep her from guessing. Then, when she hit you, I nailed her.”