Tempting the Enemy (2 page)

Kennison’s gaze darted in Pale’s direction. The captain didn’t like him much as a rule. His near-smile didn’t bode well. “Since you’re already on point for this case, Rysen, you’ll be her liaison, reporting to me directly. Understood?”

Well, fuck.
Not that he gave the captain more than a lazy shrug.

Kennison’s eyes narrowed. He hated it when Pale pulled that shit. Of course, he’d hate it a hell of a lot more Dee Tenorio

7

if Pale gave in to the urge to show him which of them was truly the dominant, so Pale didn’t bother with guilt.

“This is the Woodsman’s third victim,” Kennison continued to the room at large, still bristling. “We’ve got nothing but three unidentifiable bodies, and the bastard knows it. We need help if we’re going to stop there from being more. The Sibile might be our only chance so I don’t want to hear a goddamn word out of anyone in this unit but
please
and
thank you
when she gets here.”

Only an idiot would put being rude to the Sibile high on their to-do list. Not even shifters liked to mess with mercenaries trained to be powerful, vengeful and remorseless. Still, the guys in the VCU weren’t exactly on good terms with the formality the Sibile were so dedicated to. They could accidentally offend her just by offering to shake her hand with sticky fingers.

That alone could get Old Carter killed. Jorgensen would probably hit on her at least twice because the man was a compulsive womanizer. Graves and Henlen would probably be okay. They were married so at least had a clue how not to talk to women. The kid, Tallson, could be a tossup. For himself, Pale knew right away he’d be offensive as hell. He didn’t have it in him to kiss a Sibile’s ass.

“Anything she wants or needs, you do and you give with a smile. Pissing off the Sibile in any way is an automatic suspension, without pay. Am I clear?”

More grumbling filled the room, but the captain took it for the agreement it was and headed back into his office. Not for the first time, Pale wished he could head into a room with walls and a door too. It wouldn’t do, though.

“Hey, Rysen!”

8

Tempting the Enemy

Pale rotated his chair so he could eye the new kid silently. Victor Tallson had only been on the squad for four months. Young, fairly smart, if a little too interested in women to concentrate hard enough on his cases. He’d grow up. At least, Pale hoped he would. One could never say for sure in a place like Moonridge.

“You ever worked a case with one of the Sibile before?” the kid asked conspiratorially.

“No.” Proof that luck failed everyone eventually.

Victor made a disappointed noise.

Belatedly Pale realized the kid was probably more interested in the fact that any Sibile outside the enclave had to be female. Would it even help to warn the kid that pretty faces and red robes generally hid nothing but treacherous souls and selfish intentions?

Not likely.

After a few seconds, Victor was back. “You think she can really help?”

Probably. Pale could hate them, hate every last one of them, but even he couldn’t claim they were ineffective.

“Depends on what she can do.”

“They’re a bunch of fuckin’ gypsies,” Carter, the oldest of the squad, offered just as Pale felt a strange tingle down the back of his neck.

Not the bad kind, where his hair stood on end, but some kind of warning all the same. He turned his head toward the open double doors across from his desk, inhaling a deep breath. A new scent drifted to him, distinct from the usual grime and wear inside the department. Warm honey. Cloves. Citrus soap under the light salt of sweat.
Female
.

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9

He narrowed his eyes, forcing himself to remain still.

That scent. It grew stronger, more intoxicating. Drugging.

His body went rigid in response, a hunger he didn’t allow himself to feed roaring to life.

No, not just female. Shifter. Wolf.

A female
without
imprint.

The scent was causing the warning and not just because she wasn’t imprinted. The driving surge streaking down his spine came from something else on her scent, the musky tang so faint but hypnotizing to any male Wolf who came within a mile of her.

Good God, she was in season.

He almost preferred the thought of the Sibile. At least with one of them, he had a minute chance to avoid detection. But with Heat filling his senses, hiding his Wolf nature was practically impossible. Much longer and it would hit rock bottom on his list of priorities—

everything would come second to claiming her.

He reached for the cell phone clipped to his belt. She needed transport.
Now
. He stabbed the autodial. It only rang once before his brother picked up. “I’ve got a stray,”

he said quietly, knowing Aaron would hear it far easier than anyone in the squad room.

“I’m due in court in ten minutes.”

Shit, Pale knew that. In his haste, he’d hit the code, dialing Tate instead. Or his hands were shaking, an effect of the female moving closer. “In season.”

“I’ll call Aaron. Try not to breathe.” Tate rang off, his ridiculous advice as useless as it was sobering. A stray female without imprint should be celebrated. Protected. It was what they’d all been working toward for fifteen long years. Someplace safe, where shifters could be free, where a female had a chance. A
choice
.

10

Tempting the Enemy

What they hadn’t worked toward was the idea that one would find him in the Moonridge police station, threatening all they’d built by being a walking, talking, shape-shifting grenade. How the hell had a stray even found him
here
?

Reason finally cleared his mind, gave him room to breathe again. No way a stray was there
looking
for him.

She couldn’t even be searching for the Alpha. She might just be in custody. Or simply looking for help. In either case, she had to be young. Fourteen or fifteen at most to still be unmarked. Even inebriated by Heat, he was a better Wolf than to forget that.

Still, the scent beckoned, growing stronger. Richer.

He shuddered in his seat, fighting to keep his mind moving. She had to be coming closer. Up the stairs, maybe. All the way to the third floor. But the scent wasn’t right. Muddied. Covered by something else.

Something…
other
.

Instinct rode Pale to find her. Taste her scent right from the source and claim her as quickly as possible. As thoroughly as possible. Until neither of them could move.

His vision blurred at the thought, imagination superseding reason. Pressing deep into wet depths, losing himself in the sweat and the scent of her, silken thighs and womanly groans…

He kept his seat—and control—by the skin of his teeth, reminding himself this would be no passionate adult, eager for his touch. This would be a terrified child, fleeing from rape, who would most likely be horrified by the sight of him.

The growl from his throat escaped before he realized he’d even meant to make a sound.

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11

Carter, far enough back, didn’t hear it over his own tirade. “A Sibile ain’t no guarantee we’re gonna catch this guy. For all we know, the city just paid out the ass for some ugly bitch who has to touch the guy to tell if he’s guilty. What’s she gonna do, give a hand job to every unlucky bastard she meets?”

“Well, there goes
my
surprise for the night,” came a feminine dose of disgusted sarcasm from just outside the doors, tamping down the male chuckles like a fire extinguisher. She walked out of the shadows from the hall, dressed head to toe in black, no humor at all in her stunning face.

Pale’s senses began to ring, zeroing in on her.

That
is no child.
He sucked in a breath, the tightness of his body turning painful at the sound of her husky voice. A woman, fully grown, untainted by the scent of a male embedded in her skin. A
beautiful
woman, ripe and incensed, the room all but vibrating with her presence.

Her Heat…

In this day and age, he’d have said it wasn’t possible.

But there was no mistake on the scent. Honey, cloves and Heat. Sweet, mind-numbing Heat. But even as he separated the flavors of her, he knew there was something more. Something he hadn’t scented in years… Confusion warred with Instinct.

She smelled like a Sibile, he realized, recoiling inwardly.

His stomach clenched with irrational anger. How could
she
be the stray? Her hair, bound up in those strange braids and that weird bowl-shaped thing at the back of her neck, should have been a giveaway. But it hadn’t. Because he’d been getting drunk on her scent.

12

Tempting the Enemy

Because he’d been so busy looking for a child, expecting a flowing red cape to only interrupt his search.

How the hell was he supposed to deal with a stray who happened to be
Sibile?

“Which is really unfortunate,” she continued, oblivious to how closely she courted danger by moving any closer to him, “because I was just thinking how much I’ve been looking forward to sexually servicing an overweight, over-aged, loudmouthed fool.” Her golden gaze swept over Carter—noting his lined face, receding hairline and widely expanded middle—and clearly found him lacking. “I suppose I’ll learn to live with the disappointment.”

Someone dropped a pencil, someone else brought his dropped jaw back into place with a clap of his teeth and, unwisely, Victor Tallson began to snicker. The solid slap sound Pale attributed to Carter smacking the back of Tallson’s head in retribution. Voices started again, meaning the squad had shifted to business as usual rather than deal with the newcomer.

Her gaze darted from man to man, a frown drawing her fine brows together. She was searching for something.

Him, most likely, given the tension in her stance. Or any male Wolf she deemed worthy. He drew a deep breath, no longer concerned about the drugging effect. He’d need a hell of a lot more than Heat to consider imprinting a Sibile.

Pale eyed his phone briefly. Aaron would need to be called and rerouted. But this wasn’t the place for those instructions.

She wiped her brow with her sleeve, bringing his attention to her flushed cheeks and the fine sheen of sweat Dee Tenorio

13

on her face. She tugged at the high-necked collar of her knit sweater, nearly panting. Despite the snow outside, she looked as if she were burning alive. Was it the effect of the Heat? Or had she come from a fight to defend herself? His revulsion gave way to unwilling concern. She didn’t look damaged, no scratches or bruises. Could she have traveled here on foot? Unprotected, in this state?

Instincts he was more familiar with demanded he check the perimeter and see that she hadn’t been followed, hadn’t attracted one of the few other Wolves in the precinct. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect an ambush in place as she left, even if another male picked up on the Sibile flavor to her scent. Hell, in a Heat situation, another male might not even notice it.

This just got worse and worse.

She scanned the room as he scanned her, taking advantage of his advance knowledge. Thinking clearer now, he had no question in his mind that she was a Sibile.

Power radiated off her like a solid force. Ten feet away and he could feel it pushing against him almost as hard as the scent pulled. A scarlet in Wolf’s clothing. What would be the point? Did her precious Order even appreciate the danger she was in?

Probably not. The Sibile were too damn arrogant.

They’d learned nothing from the Cataclysm.

This one, though, tempted him to teach her a lesson she’d never forget. Snug black pants and a turtleneck hugged a small but compact frame. Lushly curved with strong lines from head to toe, including the sleek calf-length black boots. Black hair, thick as his own, slicked back into intricate braids from either side of her head, disappearing into that large bowl-shaped clamp at the back of her neck. Fair skin, light as the moon, a heart-14

Tempting the Enemy

shaped face with a pert chin and a slim nose. Brown eyes, so light they could only be called golden, glittered with intelligence. Anger.

And they’d settled on him. “Hoping for a strip search?”

Damn. Caught and he hadn’t even noticed. Pale met her gaze, arrested in a completely new way. She didn’t startle. Women always started around him, even his own kind. Especially his own kind, though they’d come to him for help. All she did was cross her arms and give him a mutinous lift of her chin in challenge. Interest flared brighter in his gut.

She definitely had no idea how precarious an edge she stood on.

Her red lips trembled as she glared at him, her eyes narrowing and her power pushing harder against his skin.

No, not a tremble. One side lifted in a feminine snarl he had to focus over the din of his heartbeat to hear. She was
growling
at him.

She probably meant to be threatening, but the effort only struck him as…cute.

Tate would never let him live it down if he found out Pale had even thought such a word, but there it was. The supposedly frightening and deadly Sibile was about as menacing as a newborn pup. He leaned his head to the side, trying to decide what to think of her beyond the instinctive desire to drop her to the ground and mark her.

Her beauty was a given, the Sibile’s stock in trade, but there was something hotblooded to her fine features that appealed far more than the perfect symmetry. Her lack of prissy decorum set her apart the way nothing else could. The color in her cheeks, the faint parting of her Dee Tenorio

15

lush lips, the flash in her eyes. Every aspect of her face expressed frustration and defiance. She’d never pull off that haughty façade the Sibile were known for.

Too much temper, he decided, surprised to note his own appreciation. Next to the tilted, glittering eyes, he liked her upper lip best, just the tiniest bit fuller than the bottom. He noticed something peculiar then. Tips of her teeth were peeking out near the corners.

“You

can’t
be talking to Saint Palentine.”