His Purrfect Mate (10 page)

“No, it won’t, because half of the amusement park patrons will be dead.
Live ammunition? Seriously.”

“
Dreamkiller,” Pixie muttered. “The cars would all be bulletproof.”

They arrived at the El-
Debar’s ten minutes later, still arguing over Pixie’s amusement park idea. Bobbi made a quick satellite phone call to Tyler to tell him about the men from Hammersmith Security who’d been tailing them, and then she and Pixie climbed out. Mayameen waved at them jauntily.

“Nice driving, by the way,” Bobbi said. They turned to look at the walled compound before them.

The El-Debar family had apparently operated an antique dealership for many generations. They ran the dealership out of their family compound, which was surrounded by high concrete walls.  The compound had seen better days; the walls were riddled with bullet holes, and large chunks had been bitten out of them in several sections, probably by mortars. The entrance to the compound was two large, metal doors, also pocked with bullet holes. 

Bobbi pressed her finger against the doorbell and leaned on it for a good thirty seconds.

A short time later a male servant, a human, came to the gate. He wore an ankle length white dishdasha, the traditional robe worn by Middle Eastern men, and black sandals, and he carried an AK-47 slung over his shoulder.

W
hen Bobbi passed her message along to him, he frowned and walked away, speaking on a walkie talkie, and then came back several minutes later.

“The master of the house regrets that they do not have any information for you, and will not be able to speak to you. You are asked to leave at once,” he said.

Bobbi felt anger flaring up inside her, but tamped it down.

Diplomacy, she reminded herself. 

“Please tell the master of the house that even if we leave, others will come asking the same questions,” she said.  “We know that members of this family approached the Chamberlin family several times offering to buy certain works of art, and we urgently need information about those works of art. We are prepared to offer the El-Debar family safe passage out of the city if they will speak to us; we can fly everyone here to America, and obtain visas for you.”

The servant just looked at her, impassively
, fingers tightening on the scarred wooden stock of the AK-47. Oh, blow me, Bobbi thought irritably. I’ve flossed my fangs with bigger men than you.

“I know that the artwork was of great interest to the El-Debar family.  We have information about its
whereabouts,” she lied. His eyes widened. Now he was interested.

He walked away again, and after a brief conversation on the
walkie talkie, came back to let her in.

“Very well,” he said. “Come this way.”

She and Pixie followed him in to the courtyard, where tomato vines curled around wooden stakes and chickens pecked at the dirt.  A great round bowl of a fountain covered in blue tile sat forlorn and dry as a bone.  The servant closed the gate behind them.

There were craters in t
he earth, and a hole in the domed roof of the main house, which was a peach-colored stucco with blue and gold tile inlaid along the top.

Inside, the
battered house was still beautiful, with thick plush carpets the color of jewels, maroon and blue.  The air was warm and languid.  Bobbi had seen air conditioning units on the windows, but she heard no hum, and the interior of the house was dim and lit by flickering kerosene lanterns.  The electricity in this part of town had clearly been knocked out.

They were le
d into a living room and invited to sit at a wooden table.  After a few minutes, a servant carried out a tray of tea and pastries of flaky dough and honey.

The servant poured tea for each of them.  Bobbi shook her head. “Thank you, but we just had tea,” she said.

He frowned at them. “It is considered an insult in Turak to refuse to drink the host’s tea,” he said reprovingly.

Pixie started to raise her cup to drink it.

“Hold it,” Bobbi said.   She leaned forward and sniffed at it, and then slapped it out of Pixie’s hand so hard that it flew across the room and bounced off the wall, shattering.

Bobbi leaped to her feet, and Pixie followed suit. 
“Sleeping potion? Really?” Bobbi snapped. “I’m a coyote shifter, of course I could scent that.  Good luck finding your statues.”

“Don’t go,” a voice said from behind her.

She turned to see a tall, handsome, bearded man in his sixties, dressed in the traditional loose baggy pants, loose long sleeved shirt, and vest.  A woman who appeared to be in her fifties, wearing an ankle-length gown and a white and blue patterned headscarf stood by his side. Two other young men stood behind him.

“I am Abdul,
this is my wife Sarai, and these are my sons Saheed and Karesh,” he said.  He walked over to the table and they all sat down.

“We apologize for our…error,”
Karesh said, shooting his father a reproving look.

“What, the sleeping potion accidentally fell into the tea?”
Bobbi snapped. “I bet you don’t get a lot of repeat guests at your dinner parties.  You know, we have someone waiting for us outside, and she has a family who knows where we all are.  That was a pretty stupid move.”

Abdul frowned. “You are pushing us into a corner. You could not possibly understand how important those statues are. They have great cultural value to our people. It is very bad luck for them to have been removed from our country.  Do you see what is happening to our city?”

He gestured towards the window. Mortars whined in the distance.

“Bull,” Bobbi said. “My boss’s grandfather purchased those statues in the 1960s. This war started a few months ago.” She folded her arms across her chest and fixed him with a steely glare.

“
So you admit that he purchased them.  They have always denied it in the past.  Are they being guarded?” Abdul asked anxiously. “Where are they?”

“
No, I’m asking the questions now.  We know that you have approached my boss’s family several times over the years, asking to buy the statues.”

“Yes.  We were always told that they did not possess any statues of the type that
we described to them,” he said reproachfully. “We know this is a lie, because they purchased the statues from a criminal who broke into a tomb and looted its contents. The criminal was finally arrested, and made to talk, and he revealed who he sold the statues to.”

“The same way that you would have made us talk, if we’d drunk that sleeping potion?” Bobbi bit the words out.

“We are not monsters,” Abdul muttered. “We would not have used such methods. We just wanted to gain some…leverage.”

Karesh
rolled his eyes and sighed with exasperation, and his father shot him a dirty look. Clearly the two men didn’t see eye to eye on matters.

“
My boss’s family did not know they had the statues until recently.   Shortly after Barrett Chamberlin purchased the statues, he hid them away from everyone.   He literally sealed them away in a room, and didn’t tell anyone about their existence, and nobody discovered them until the house was damaged by an earthquake recently and the room where he’d hidden the statues was revealed.  You may or may not know, he died in a plane crash in this region.”

Bobbi caught the faintest flicker of a glance that drifted across Abdul’s face
.

“Do you know anything about Barrett’s death?” she asked, watching him closely.

He shrugged, not meeting her eyes.  Karesh moved impatiently in his chair, and he looked as if he were about to say something, but Abdul cut him off with a raised eyebrow.

Clearly they knew something
. Bobbi would have to pass that along to Kenneth and see what he wanted to do with it.

“I know that he was
flying through a dangerous area,” Abdul said. “Those mountains are notorious. There are harsh weather conditions and sudden storms that appear from nowhere, there are always guerillas…who knows what may have happened to him.”

“You do,” Bobbi said coolly.

Abdul slapped the table in front of him.  “I do not like your implications! What are you accusing me of?”

Karesh
was looking away now, nervously tapping his fingers on the table top.

“
You know exactly what I’m accusing you of,” Bobbi said scornfully.  “Listen, let’s cut to the chase here.   You have information that we need. My boss is a very wealthy man, and in exchange for this information, we can get you safely out of the country. We can get you political asylum in the United States.”

They were all shaking their heads.

“It wouldn’t have to be forever, just until the war ends.  You’re not safe here,” she argued. “You have families. Wives. Children.  You have no idea which regime will win, and what will happen to the city. You all could die here.”

“Some things are worth dying for,”
Abdul said. His family nodded solemnly, their expression resigned.

“Your artwork?
You could bring most of it with you,” she said. “Money? Kenneth will help you financially.”

They stared silently, not saying a word.

Well, this was going nowhere fast, she thought, annoyed. Had she and Pixie come here for nothing, endangering not just their own lives but the little prince’s?

“Did you know that there was a magazine spread recently, which featured two of the statues, on display at Kenneth’s houses?”
she asked.

“No, we have been cut off from the outside world for months, because of th
e war. There is no internet, no mail, and television works only sporadically,” Abdul said. “He has these statues on display?” His eyes gleamed with interest.

Bobbi suspected he was telling the truth.  She didn’t think it was likely that the El-Debar family had been responsible for the two break-ins.

“He had them on display, past tense. Shortly after the magazine came out, both statues were stolen by very professional, high tech thieves. The thieves stole two of the statues, and oddly enough, left behind a smaller statue.”

Abdul and his family exchanged significant glances, and she wanted to scream at
them with frustration. They knew the mystery of the statues, and they weren’t going to say a damned word.

“So you do not know where the stolen statues are now?” Abdul asked.

“Maybe we do, maybe we don’t.  That’s all the information that you’re getting from us.  We’re at an impasse.  We will be staying at the Crescent Moon hotel, for six more days.  If you decide you want to speak to us before then, send us a message. Once we leave the country, it will be very difficult for us to get back in.”

“You must find those statues, and you must keep them under lock and key,” Abdul said.
“You don’t understand the forces that you are dealing with.  If you find them, then perhaps we can share some information about them.”

“Father, perhaps if they understood
what –“ Karesh started.

“No!” Abdul s
ilenced him with an angry glare. “I am in charge here! I make the decisions!”

The sound of gunfire in the distance seemed to be growing closer now.

Bobbi stood up. “We had better get back to the hotel while we still can,” she said. She turned to Abdul. “For your family’s sake, I hope you make the right decision and leave the country with us. Your time is running out.”

A great weariness seemed to settle over Abdul.  “Time is ru
nning out for all of us,” he told her. “Faster than you think.”

Italy

The limousine glided between twin rows of cypress trees towards the towering villa. On the right side of the road were acres and acres of olive trees, hunched over with their gnarled brown trunks and gray-green leaves.  To the left were rolling hills draped in a carpet of vineyards.

“Seventeenth century?” Chloe guessed, looking at
the massive building.

“Very good,” Kenneth nodded approvingly.

He was sitting next to her, too close for comfort, as relaxed as if they were heading for a family vacation.  She was a bundle of nerves. 

“Lovely example of Roman Baroque architecture,” she said.

“I had no idea you were an expert on architecture throughout the ages.” Was it her imagination, or had he moved closer to her?

“I’m far from an expert,” she said, “although my mind is a storehouse of useless trivia.”
His aroma grew stronger, so tantalizing that she fought the urge to bury her face in his hair and breathe him in.  She tried to scoot over a little further from him, but her seatbelt held her in place.

“Quit that!” she told him, scowling.

“Quit what?”

“Moving closer to me.”

They were pulling up in front of the magnificent villa now.  The building was huge and stunning, glorying in its asymmetry, with massive curling adornments and great arched windows the height of several tall men.

“I haven’t moved.” Kenneth smiled politely, raising an eyebrow at her.

She was sure he had.  Otherwise, why did she feel his presence overwhelming her, making it hard for her to breathe? 

The car had pulled to a halt.  Chloe turned away from him and quickly opened, the door, climbing out of the car.  The limousine driver also climbed out, heading for the trunk of the car to fetch her bags.

In front of the house,
a half dozen shifters stood at attention.  Kenneth had brought in extra security because of the attacks on his other houses.  She could see more shifters roaming the perimeter.

“Lunch is waiting for us,” he said. “I thought you might like to go for a run after lunch, and then we’d move on to the statues. Or, we could go for a swim.”

Of course, he was implying that they’d shift, and then go for a run or a swim. And they’d have to strip naked to do that.  She’d have to stand next to Kenneth, naked, not looking at his magnificent body. She felt a strange throbbing between her legs, as she tried very hard not to picture that.

“Some other time,” she said. “I’m anxious to get to work.
Lunch can wait.”

She followed him inside, struggling not to gawk at first, and then she just gave in. 
S She openly gaped at the 17
th
century frescoes on the domed ceilings, and the light pouring in through the massive windows.

“You know
, I could probably keep a woman like you busy for the rest of your life,” Kenneth said.

“Is that some kind of double entendre?” she asked suspiciously.

“Good heavens, Chloe, I didn’t realize that academics had such dirty minds. Note to self, make friends with more academics. I meant that there is enough cataloguing work here and at my other houses to occupy your time forever,” he said.

“
Hmmph. I’m sure that’s what you meant.  I’d like to be shown to my room now.” She felt herself blushing again.

Damn the man.
She was sure he was subtly flirting with her, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. If only he’d openly flirt with her, she could slap him down – instead of perpetually embarrassing herself, which seemed to amuse him no end.

A
male servant grabbed her luggage from her and led her up a circular stairway, and down a hallway long enough to serve as an airplane’s landing strip.

Her room was enormous
, the floor was marble and the ceiling bore an astonishing fresco of cupids and angels against the most beautiful painted blue sky.  The bed, with its hand-painted wooden frame, was big enough to host its own orgy; spread across it was a cream colored comforter that looked as soft as clouds.  Looking out past the double doors that led to the balcony, she could see the vineyard sweeping out into infinity.

If
that pompous, arrogant, stuck-up, self-satisfied playboy jerk is trying to impress me…it’s working, she thought. But she also knew that he wasn’t really trying to impress her; this was a house he’d owned forever, not something that he’d picked out just for her, the artwork had been displayed here before she’d ever met him, and all that he’d done was invite her to assess that artwork.

If he was really interested, wouldn’t he have genuinely made a move by now, instead of joking around? He probably flirted as a reflex, as naturally as breathing. 

There was a discreet knock on the door, and she called out “Come in!” The door swung open; she’d been expecting one of the servants, but Kenneth stood there.

Heat flared through her. Kenneth was standin
g in the doorway of the bedroom, looking slightly rumpled and lickably hot.  She could smell his earthy male scent, and a woodsy cologne; what was it about his scent that was so perfectly intoxicating?

Kenneth ha
d taken off his jacket and undone the first few buttons of his blue silk shirt.  She could feel her nipples harden into swollen, sensitive nubs, and the juices of arousal soaking through her panties.

“Getting settled in?” he asked, his blue eyes boring into her.

“I like how you color-coordinate your shirt with your eye color,” she said snippily.

“Thank you, I spend hours ensuring that the shade matches perfectly.” He grinned, refusing to be offended.

“Can you show me the artwork now?” She needed to get out of this place as fast as she could.  There wasn’t enough oxygen in Italy, apparently, because she was finding it hard to breathe and if Kenneth saw her chest heaving and mistook it for desire, she would die of humiliation.

“
I do admire your work ethic.  My chef has prepared some snacks for us.  She’d be insulted if you don’t at least sample them,” Kenneth said.

“Why are you trying
continually trying to fatten me up? I want to look at the collection first,” she insisted as she followed him out of the room. She knew she wasn’t being a very gracious guest. That’s what Kenneth got for oozing sex out of his pores and making her ladybits quiver every time he got close to her.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go for a swim first?” he asked, as they walked down the hallway, on a carpet that she suspected should be in a museum.  “The river that runs by the vineyard is as clear as glass.”

Of course she wanted to go for a swim.
   She loved swimming in her panther form. The cool rush of water was a sensual delight, and lying on a riverbank afterwards, with the sun drying her fur, was pure ecstasy.  It was so cold in upstate New York that she hardly ever got to swim. And the thought of sprawling in the grass with Kenneth beside her, blinking his great panther eyes lazily in the sunlight, a purr rumbling in his chest…

“No!” she said, too sharply.

He moved in front of her in one swift, fluid step, blocking her path. Startled, she tripped over a wrinkle in the carpet, and fell into his arms, slamming against him. His fingers started to close on her arms, the blue of his eyes grew even more luminous, and her heart was slamming against her chest so hard that she knew he could feel it reverberating through his own body.

She quickly pushed back away from him, stumbling several steps before she regain
ed her balance.

He moved towards her, stopping just a foot away. She had to tip her head up to look at him.

“What are you afraid of?” he asked.

“You,” she
admitted, breathing hard.

“Why? I don’t bite. Well, not unless you ask nicely…”

“Other than the fact that you’re a notorious playboy, and I’ve been raised to mistrust the Chamberlin family my entire life…”

“Why don’t you get to know me before you pass final
judgement on me?”

“Why would you even suggest that? I’m far from your type.”

“And you would know this how?” he raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“All those pictures of you on the society pages
, with all those women…it’s like you’re running the girlfriend of the month club,” she said indignantly.

He grinned at her. “So you’ve been
google-stalking me. I’m very flattered.”

Damn it. He had her
– as usual.  “It pays to know the enemy,” she said loftily, and turned and stalked off down the stairs.

* * *

The Sumerian artwork was now stored in a room with doors of reinforced steel, with four bear shifters standing guard.

Kenneth leaned forward to let a retina scanner shine a beam into his eyeball in order to
get the door to open.  After the two break-ins that he’d suffered earlier, he was taking no chances. 

The door unlocked, and Kenneth held it open for Chloe. “After you,” he said.

“Thank you.  She walked in slowly, reverently.

.
Everything that had been found in the sealed up room was now laid out on tables. The room was temperature and humidity controlled.

Chloe’s eyes lit up with amazement as she gazed at the contents of the room. 
“Oh, my God.  This collection…” she breathed reverently.  Her mouth was an O of astonishment,, her eyes aglow with passion. “It’s…incredible.”

Would she ever look at him like that? Kenneth wondered, his heart squeezing painfully in his chest. 
He knew she was attracted to him physically,  but would she ever look at him with sheer, utter, adoration, the way she was looking at those pieces of art? Did she even like him, for that matter?

When Kenneth had first laid eyes on her, the physical attraction had been immediate, but the rest of it had crept up on him slowly. 
The more time that he spent with her, the deeper his feelings grew. All of his life, he’d dated women who were physically stunning, but did nothing for him emotionally.  He’d accepted that he was like his parents and grandparents, that he’d never find a fated mate, and rather than settle for a loveless marriage of convenience, he’d resigned himself to a life of casual dating and meaningless sex.

When he was younger, it hadn’t mattered so much. He loved sex.  Who cared if there was no emotion attached?
But as he grew older, moving on from one beautiful, vacant face to another started to feel hollow, he had to admit to himself. He hadn’t even bothered to go on a date in several months before he met Chloe.

Watching her moving among the tables, pushing her glasses up her nose, stirred an odd feeling inside him. 
She was brilliant, she was funny, she was brave even when she was scared, and she was fiercely loyal to her family, and she didn’t fall for any of his cheesy lines.  The more she ran away from him, the more he wanted to pursue.

But what if he never captured her?

She stopped at one of the tables, peering at the shards of pottery there, utterly entranced. It was if Kenneth had vanished from the room. He’d never been ignored by a woman before; he suddenly found himself feeling fiercely jealous of a collection of old clay and stone.

He cleared his throat, loudly. She didn’t look up.

“The dates have been authenticated,” Kenneth said, feeling like he needed to contribute something.  “They were made around 3000 b.c.”

“Indeed. They are amazing.” 
She moved rapturously among the pieces, which were laid out on a table.  There were shards of pottery with scenes painted on them, and golden helmets, and statues of limestone and of clay.

Laid out on one of the
tables were large scale photographs of the stolen statues.   Although the artwork had never been examined by an expert and properly catalogued, it had all been photographed when its existence had been discovered after the earthquake.

A small statue sat next to the photograph
s; it was the statue which the thieves hadn’t bothered to steal.

A tape measure was held up next to the statues in the photographs. It wa
s clear that they were about four feet high and made of limestone, with white shells inlaid as eyes.  They had strange heads,  with horns growing from them, and wild, bulging eyes. Long forked tongues lapped from their mouths.

“That is very strange,” Chloe said. “I’ve literally never seen anything like those heads. The bodies are classic Sumerian scul
pture, right down to the style of the high-waisted goat skin skirts worn by the men, but the heads…”

The statues had a base, and on each base was writing in cuneiform, the ancient alphabet developed by the Sumerians.

She looked over the symbols, and grimaced, looking disturbed.

“What is it?” Kenneth asked.

“I don’t know
, these statues just give me a weird, creepy feeling. The writing seems to be saying that no blood must ever touch these statues…unfortunately, translating cuneiform is not a perfect science, and some of these symbols I’ve never seen before.”