Shifters, Inc: His Purrfect Mate
Copyright 2013 by Georgette St. Clair
This book is intended for readers 18 and older only. It is a work of fiction. All
characters and locations in this book are products of the feverish imagination of the
author, a tarnished Southern belle with a very dirty mind.
License Statement
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Other books set in the same world are: The Alpha Claims A Mate, also available on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Alpha-Claims-Mate-Paranormal-Romance-
ebook/dp/B00EDCR48M/ref=pd_sim_kstore_2
And: The Alpha Meets His Match available on Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Alpha-Meets-
Each book is a standalone story.
PROLOGUE
Playa Linda, California
November
“Everyone settle down! The first monthly meeting of Shifters, Incorporated, is now in order.” Tyler
Witlocke glared at the two dozen shifter and human employees who were assembled in the meeting
room of their security firm’s new office building, an efficient-looking brick and glass structure “And
thanks for scaring off yet another secretary, people. Kenneth will be delighted to hear that when he
gets back.”
Tyler didn’t want to be in charge of the unruly, squabbling group; his specialty was computer
security, not people. Computers were predictable; people were annoying. However, Kenneth
Chamberlin, the founder of Shifters, Inc., had been called away on a personal emergency, so Tyler
was stuck with the job for at least the next week or two. The first order of business when Kenneth
returned was finding a second in command to take over the next time Kenneth left town.
“Dominick started it,” Pixie said, not looking up from her iPad. Pixie, one of the firm’s human
employees, held the title of security expert. She was a not particularly reformed thief and pickpocket
who helped the firm identify security flaws for their clients.
“I started it?” The lion shifter let out a low growl of fury and swung to face her.
“Don’t say there’s no way I can steal your wallet, unless you want me to steal your wallet,” Pixie
shrugged insolently. Pixie stood five foot four, weighed about a hundred and ten pounds, and could
not seem to stop deliberately aggravating Dominick. One of Pixie’s great strengths, and weaknesses,
was her tendency to stroll cheerfully into danger.
“Settle down, both of you.” Tyler’s felt his temper rising, and the bones in his face shifted. His snout
lengthened, and hair sprouted on his face and hands. He was a wolf shifter, usually a very even-
tempered one, except for today.
Dominick settled back in his seat with an angry growl. Cruel-looking claws shot from his fingertips,
and then retracted.
“Are we going to follow Robert’s Rules of Order?” a human bodyguard called out.
“Who’s Robert?” Pixie looked up from her iPad, puzzled. “We have somebody named Robert? Is he
new?”
Oh, God, just give me a room of my own, with a laptop and headphones, Tyler thought. Out loud, he
attempted to shape the gathering into something resembling an actual, productive meeting.
“I will now be announcing the list of new assignments, and then assigning them to teams. Your team
leader will be checking in to report on your progress. Either Darnell, Quinton or I will be available
by phone in case of emergency, at all times, day or night. CapichePixie shrugged and went back to
doodling on her iPad. She was drawing a lion with horns and a devil’s tail. Everybody else nodded
their assent.
Tyler turned his back to write on the giant white board on the wall, but out of the corner of his eye, he
saw Pixie stuck her tongue out at Dominick and cross her eyes. Dominick shifted, his clothes splitting
and falling off his massive lion body, and then he leaped from his chair and launched himself at her,
only to be intercepted by Heath, a bear shifter. Chairs flew, and broke to pieces. There were curses
and screams and shouts. Within a minute, not a single shifter in the room was still in human form, and
the human employee were huddled at the far end of the room waiting for the chaos to subside so the
meeting could resume.
Pixie turned to Karen, a human cryptographer.
“Seriously, though, who’s Robert?” she asked, as an ocelot shifter landed at her feet with an “oof”.
Chapter One
University of Upstate New York
Russettville, an hour north of Syracuse
“Not if he was the last panther shifter on Earth,” Chloe Novak said firmly, pushing her glasses up the
bridge of her nose and scribbling furiously in the margins of yet another barely literate final exam.
Had the ability to spell simply died? If she saw one more instance of someone mistaking “their” for
“there”, she might be stirred to violence.
She didn’t even bother to look up at Dean Leibovitz, who’d just come banging through her office door
without knocking. Leibovitz was a tall, skinny human with a mop of curly hair and coke bottle
glasses, and a tendency to act as if every minor crisis was an emergency. She wasn’t going to dignify
the dean’s presence by acknowledging it; what he was asking her to do was outrageous.
“Chloe.” Dean Leibovitz’s high pitched voice sounded even more agitated than usual.
“Not if he was the last man on Earth. Leave me be, Dean Leibovitz, I’m drowning in a sea of bad
spelling and worse grammar.”
“Chloe!”
“Not if he was the last vertebrate on Earth.” She was on a roll now, righteous indignation swelling
inside her. She was an academic, a respected scholar, and the dean was literally trying to pimp her
out to one of the world’s most notorious playboys – and not only that, a playboy who she was
personally obligated to loathe.
“Chloe!” The dean’s voice rose several notes and ended on a squeal, and she froze in her seat as
comprehension dawned on her.
“He’s standing right next to you, isn’t he?”
She swiveled to face her boss, Dean Leibovitz, who appeared to be close to suffering a bout of
apoplexy. Standing at his side was a tall, strikingly handsome man with thick wavy hair so black it
was almost blue, and eyes of luminous green. He wore a gray raw silk suit that clearly had been
hand-tailored, and an amused smile curled his lip. Even if she couldn’t have scented him as a fellow
panther shifter, it would have been obvious, from the raw power that rolled off him.
Strange things immediately began happening to Chloe’s body. Her heart shot into her throat, her knees
turned to tapioca pudding, and a strange pulsing sensation shivered up between her legs, leaving her
alarmingly sensitive. She suddenly felt the urge to press her legs together and squirm in her chair like
a cat in heat, but she firmly tamped down the urge and arranged her features in her best “disapproving
schoolteacher” expression.
“Chloe, I would like to introduce you to Mr. Kenneth Chamberlin. Mr. Chamberlin has heard about
the dire financial straits suffered by the Antiquities department, and has offered to help us out with a
most generous endowment. I’m sure that you’d like to personally express your gratitude.” The Dean’s
eyes were wild and pleading.
“Oh, don’t be so sure,” Chloe said, baring a crocodile smile which she sincerely hoped made it look
as if she were about to pounce.
She didn’t like one single thing about the panther shifter who was standing ten feet away from her.
She didn’t like his ridiculous good looks. He looked like he should be in a Gentleman’s Quarterly
ad. Who had cheekbones like that? Whose upper lip was shaped in such a perfect cupid’s bow? It
was positively unnatural. His skin was perfect, the Byronic wave of his silky black hair was roguish.
It was like he came pre-airbrushed.
She didn’t like the amused gleam in his eye, or the way his gaze roved over her. She wasn’t exactly
dressed to seduce – her long wavy brown hair was piled up in a messy bun which she’d stabbed with
a pencil and a ballpoint pen to hold it in place – but she knew that some men put her in the “sexy,
repressed librarian who needs help loosening up” category, and it appeared that he was one of those
men.
“So, I’ll see you tonight at the ball, then?” His voice rolled out in a sensual purr.
Her indignation rose even higher. “This is utterly outrageous. Professor Leibovitz, I will NOT be
this man’s date at the ball tonight! I’m a professor, not an escort. I don’t care how much money he’s
giving you.”
Kenneth pinned her in place with an amused smile. “Actually, I already have a date for the ball
tonight. I was hoping to get to answer your objections to my offer. It would only take a week or two,
and the benefit to your department would be substantial. I was told by your T.A. that you were far too
busy to speak to me due to your demanding academic schedule…” He managed to lace that statement
with a healthy dose of skepticism. “…but I imagine that you could find a few minutes to spare tonight
in between waltzes?”
He had a date?
Chloe felt the blood rush to her cheeks. “We’ll see. My dance card’s pretty full,” she bit out, aware
that she was now blushing so hard she must be glowing like a Christmas tree ornament.
“Around nine-ish, then. I look forward to it.” And the jerk actually did a polite half-bow kind of thing
before he turned and left. Dean Leibovitz shot her a look of pure panic, and scampered after the
handsome shifter.
Smug, annoying bastard, she thought furiously, glaring down at the paper which now seemed to be
covered by random letters and punctuation marks marching across the page. If ever a panther needed
to be declawed, it was Kenneth Chamberlin.
Moments later, her teaching assistant, Henry Bashford, rushed through the office door, aglow with
excitement, brushing a shock of bleached blond hair from his pale blue eyes. Of all the times for him
to have taken a restroom break. She could have used a little moral support a minute earlier.
“Did you see that paragon of handsomeness that just blessed these hallways?” he asked, plopping
himself into his chair. Henry shared her office, squeezing into a tiny desk in the corner on the days
that he came in to help her grade papers and meet with students.
“Do you have any idea who that was?” Chloe asked irritably.
“No, but pleeease enlighten me. Unfortunately, he did not trip my gaydar, but I still want to know his
name so I can doodle it in my notebook with a heart around it.”
“Make sure you stab that heart with an arrow until it bleeds,” Chloe muttered, scowling at the door as
if Kenneth might pop back through it at any moment. “That was Kenneth Chamberlin.”
“No! Way!” Henry sat bolt upright. “That was the man whose calls you’ve been dodging for the past
two weeks? What is wrong with you?”
He peered at her with concern. She was checking her pulse. “No, really, what’s wrong with you?” he
asked.
“I’m just checking to see if I’m currently experiencing a myocardial infarction.” At his raised
eyebrow, she added grudgingly, “Heart attack. I do seem to be suffering from excessive perspiration,
shortness of breath and an elevated pulse rate, and other odd and unexpected symptoms, but since I’m
not experiencing left-sided chest pain, I believe I’ll hold off on a trip to the emergency room for the
moment. Do stand by, though.”
“I have no choice, I’m scheduled for two more hours here. What odd symptoms?”
She didn’t like the way Henry was scrutinizing her, and she had no intention of sharing. There was
something about meeting Kenneth Chamberlin in the flesh…she pressed her legs together very, very
hard and tried to banish the lurid fantasies that were suddenly flashing through her mind. Pictures of
Kenneth naked, limbs tangled carelessly around hers, feeding her chocolate as she sucked at his
fingers…
This despite the fact that she’d loathed the Chamberlin family from afar for her entire life for their
nefarious deeds.
Of course, he was handsome, but that was no reason for such an extreme physical reaction on her
part. She’d been around handsome men before. She’d even had relationships with a couple of them –
and her body had never, ever lit up like a Las Vegas slot machine which just hit the jackpot.
She could see Henry was still staring at her intently, waiting for an answer.
“Henry, my family has had one guiding belief, for the past three generations,” she said, changing the
subject. “It has been passed down from my grandmother to my mother to me. It’s a motto that we live
by.”
“And what motto is that?”
“Never trust a Chamberlin.” And she turned back to her towering stack of final exams.
* * *
“So, how did it go, old sport?” Kenneth’s father Maxwell asked.
Kenneth settled into the heated leather seat in his limousine and glared at the cell phone. “Old sport?
Is that what they called each other back in your prep school days, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth?”
“Ahh, a childishly snappish response. So she kicked you to the curb.” His father’s voice was
unbearably smug.
“She most certainly did not,” Kenneth said, indignantly. He was just glad that he hadn’t taken his
father up on his offer to accompany him to the University of Upstate New York. Having his father
gloat in person would have made the day even more aggravating. “In fact, I’ll have you know that she
and I are going to the university’s annual fundraising ball tonight.”
“She agreed to be your date?” His father’s voice was incredulous.
Kenneth scowled. His father, unfortunately, could read him like a book. And there was no point in
lying to the man; he could smell a lie through the phone, all the way from his home in the cool, foggy
climes of Northern California. It was uncanny, really. “She will be at the ball. I will be at the ball.”
“So, she is going to the ball and you’ll be there, too. I imagine wedding bells can’t be far off.”
Amusement laced his father’s slow drawl. “And by the way, is now a good time to say I told you
so?”
“Not particularly,” Kenneth said through gritted teeth. “And why were you so sure that she’d want
nothing to do with me?” Kenneth had refused to believe his father when he told him that. A woman
who’d want nothing to do with Kenneth Chamberlin? That had never happened before. It was as
incomprehensible as finding out the moon was made of green cheese. It defied the laws of nature.
“I tried to warn you, our family has had a bit of history with her family.”
Yes, his father had tried to warn him before he headed off to New York. He’d told him that there was
no point in approaching Chloe Novak, or her mother Hilary, and most especially, definitely,
positively,, not her grandmother. Assuming that Kenneth could even find her grandmother, a notorious
recluse. They would not answer his questions, they would not help him in any way, they would
welcome him like the Ebola virus, only with less enthusiasm, and possibly gunfire.
Kenneth had completely brushed him off. Since when did a thirty- year-old man take advice from his
own father? Especially when his father was telling him something utterly ridiculous, like “That
woman will have nothing to do with you.”
“Fine. What exactly is the family history?”
“It’s rather murky and muddled, old sport. Perhaps you should ask your new girlfriend about it,” his
father said, and hung up. Kenneth grumbled several four letter words, tucking his cell phone back into
his jacket pocket. His father was miffed at Kenneth for ignoring his advice, and it would probably be
another day or two, at least, before Kenneth could coax him into giving him the information.
Kenneth had been so sure this would be a pleasant, easy trip. He’d fly out to his grandfather Barrett’s
old stomping grounds in the picturesque little town north of Syracuse, he’d get answers to his
questions, Chloe Novak would swoon at his feet…
He’d done some research before he came out here, of course. There was nothing to indicate that
Chloe Novak was completely crazy, or preferred members of her own sex, or had any other reason to
rake him with that look of contempt when her eyes had met his.
In fact, it was his research which had led him to the impulsive decision to hop on a plane yesterday
afternoon.
When he’d gone on the university website and seen the picture of Chloe Novak, Professor of Ancient
Sumerian Culture, he’d felt an odd stirring inside. It wasn’t because she was a knockout, like the
women that he usually dated – but when her faculty page popped up and he saw her wearing a slouchy
brown sweater and staring at the camera with a serious expression on her small, pretty face, a strange
sensation had shot through him. He’d suddenly felt that it would be a good idea to pay a personal
visit to Chloe, even though she’d refused to take a single phone call from him.
And now Kenneth had about six hours to find a date to attend the ball with him that evening, or he’d
look like a fool in front of Chloe. Not that it would be a problem finding a woman willing to be his
escort for the evening, but he suddenly found himself not at all enthusiastic about spending the evening
in another woman’s company.
As the limousine wove through traffic back to his hotel room, he made one more call, to the
headquarters of Shifters, Inc...
“Shifters, Incorporated – please hold!” his computer security expert Tyler Witlocke answered, and in
the background, Kenneth could swear he heard shouting, and crashing furniture, and then an angry roar
of “Give me back my wallet – now!” followed by a taunting “Make me!”
He growled with impatience. The person behind the angry roar would be Dominick. And of course it
would be Pixie taunting him. If only Dominick would figure out that the reason Pixie kept provoking
him was because Dominick always reacted with such amusing predictability. If Dominick would just
act indifferent, Pixie would get bored and stop aggravating him.
The growls and roars continued in the background.
“Tyler!” He snapped.
“Oh, Kenneth! Hold on – one sec –“
There was more swearing, angry words shouted in the background, then the sound of breaking glass.
Then there were growls, and a thud.
A minute later, Tyler answered, out of breath.
“Kenneth! How’s it going in New York?” Tyler tried, and failed, to sound cheerful and un-flustered.
“Forget New York, what the hell is happening in the office?” Frustration boiled up inside him. He’d
known that the shifters and humans he’d recruited to work for him were a mixed crew, handpicked for
their special talents, but also very, well, individualistic, would be one way to put it. When he was in
town, he was able to keep the chaos down to a dull roar. Apparently the minute he turned his back,
however, they started fighting like cats and dogs. Which wasn’t surprising, since they were actually
cats and dogs.
“What do you mean?” Tyler sounded wounded.
“Tyler, please. This is me,” Kenneth said impatiently.
“Fine. Dominick made the mistake of betting Pixie that she couldn’t steal his car keys from his
pocket,” Tyler said. “He should have known better. It was a temporary tiff.I managed to separate them
without bloodshed. Much, anyway,” he muttered. “And I should be healed by tomorrow.”
“Why are you answering the phone? Where is the new secretary?”
“She, ah-”
“Quit?”
“In our defense, we also went through three secretaries when you were in town. In less than a month.
We need to find a unique individual. More open minded. Less afraid of the occasional – ah – what’s
the word I’m looking for?’
“Free for all? Riot?”
“Yes, something like that,” Tyler admitted.
“If you’d all stop acting like animals…”Kenneth muttered irritably.
“Well, given our particular genetic makeup, that’s probably not going to happen.”
“I know. Unfortunately. How is everything going with our current assignments?”
“Excellent!”
“Jax, Heath, and Bobbi all came to an agreement?” Kenneth was skeptical. Jax and Bobbi were fated
mates, a wolf and coyote shifter, respectively. Jax had a tendency to growl and complain when Bobbi
accepted assignments that might put her in the line of danger. Heath Gallagher, a bear shifter and her
adopted older brother did the same. The notion of them all agreeing on who should be assigned to a
particular job was highly suspect.
“Of course they did. Bobbi was out for the day running errands, so I gave the information to Jax, Jax
passed along the information to Bobbi, and she was fine with it.”
“Okay.” Something about that didn’t sound right. Something was setting off warning bells in
Kenneth’s head, but he was too distracted by Chloe to try to figure out what, exactly.
No, not Chloe, he reminded himself. He was too distracted by the fact that there were mysterious
break-ins and art thefts occurring at homes he owned around the world, and Chloe’s family might
know why, and she refused to talk to him. That was all. Chloe didn’t distract him in the slightest. She
was a fairly attractive, stubborn, highly annoying panther with terrible taste in men. The fact that she
had taken an instant dislike to him was proof of that.
“Good luck, then,” he said doubtfully. “I’ll be home soon.”
“No worries,” Tyler assured him. “Dominick, put down-” As the phone clicked off, Kenneth heard
screams in the background.
Chapter Two
Chloe’s house
Russettville, New York
Chloe paced on her back porch, feet crunching on freshly fallen leaves, cell phone pressed against her
ear. There was a delicious chill in the air, and a breeze ruffled the branches of the pine and oak trees
that clustered around her small rented Colonial-style house.
Chloe’s mother picked up on the fourth ring. She’d been debating exactly how to break this to her
mother. The Chamberlin family was a touchy subject. Telling her mother that in a few short hours
she would be at a fancy dress ball which was also being attended by Kenneth Chamberlin was not
likely to go over well.
Telling her that she’d met Kenneth in person and worse, had a bizarre physical reaction to him,
almost as if he were her fated mate, although of course that couldn’t be…that would be the perfect
way to send her mother into hysterics.
“Novak Antiques,” her mother said. “Hilary speaking.” Her mother owned an antique store in
Syracuse, an hour from where Chloe lived and taught.
“Mother! Long time no speak.”
“Hello, dear, how nice to hear from you. How’s my favorite academic superstar daughter?”
“You mean you have more than one? And I’m your current favorite?”
“Current favorite, yes, but if you don’t post to your Facebook a little more often, you might lose your
favorite child standing. It’s hard to cyberstalk you if you’re never online.”
“I hate social media,” Chloe grumbled. “I can’t believe that my own mother is more social media
obsessed than I am; it’s against the natural order of things.”
“Do you know how many sales I make by having a Facebook page? And of course, Twitter,
Instagram, and Tumblr. By the way, I can’t help but notice you’re still single, unless you’ve just
forgotten to update your status. . You need to update your profile picture. I’ve met some very nice
men on the online dating sites.”
“Eek.” Chloe’s father had passed away several years earlier, and her mother had finally decided to
get back in the dating game. Chloe didn’t want to know. She just really, truly didn’t want to know.
“Eek, what? I’m a woman. I have needs.”
“Mother!” Chloe groaned, mortified. Oh, lord, she needed to rein this conversation in quickly. And
her mother wondered why she didn’t call more often?
“In fact, I’m pretty good at writing up online profiles. I was thinking-”
“Listen, mother,” Chloe interrupted quickly. Her mother could go on for ages. If Chloe didn’t cut her
off quickly, she was in serious danger of having her own mother write up a dating profile for her and
upload it herself. “I was wondering…remember how I told you Kenneth Chamberlin’s been leaving
messages and trying to call me at my office?”Her mother’s voice instantly grew wary. “Yes. I got
those messages, too. And?”
“I was just wondering if you knew why he suddenly, urgently needs to speak to us.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Who understands how people like that think?” Her mother’s light, happy toned
turned bitter. “Perhaps the Chamberlins have decided they want to ruin another generation of our
family?”
Chloe’s heart thumped painfully in her chest. That was what she was afraid of. Now that she’d met
Kenneth, she could certainly understand why her grandmother Sophronia had fallen so hard for
Kenneth’s grandfather Barrett.
Not that she was in any danger of falling for Kenneth, she reminded herself hastily, but Kenneth
clearly came from a gene pool that was unfairly blessed with dazzling good looks and fake charm.
“There’s got to be a reason,” Chloe insisted. “The only possibility that I can think of is that
collection of artwork that Barrett Maxwell stole from your mother. Perhaps there’s been some
challenge to his ownership of it? Maybe he came here to offer to pay for it?”
“Ha,” her mother said scornfully. “Shortly after he stole it, she threatened to sue to get it back.
Barrett offered to give her money for her share. It was a substantial sum, although nowhere near
what it was really worth, of course. She refused.”
“Why? Why wouldn’t she sell it to him?” That was the first time that Chloe had heard that the
Chamberlin’s had actually offered money for what they’d stolen.
“Various reasons.” Her mother’s voice had gone wary again. “Perhaps a good portion of it was
pride, after what he did to her. Hell hath no fury, et cetera.”
“What other reasons?”
“They were…private reasons. As you know, that was a very painful time for her.”
Chloe frowned, tapping her fingers on the porch rail nervously. Her mother was keeping something
from her.
“I suppose, since he won’t stop calling you, you could just ask the loathsome creature what he wants,
and then whatever it is, tell him no,” her mother continued. “And if he keeps bothering you, you could
threaten to take out a restraining order.”
Oh, he’s gone way beyond calling me, she thought, wincing. She hated to lie to her mother, but on the
other hand, she couldn’t even imagine her mother’s reaction to hearing that Kenneth had asked the
dean of the antiquities department to pressure her into some kind of strange live-in work/travel
arrangement which hadn’t been fully explained to her.
It hadn’t been fully explained to Dean Leibovitz, either, but he’d been all too eager to basically sell
her services to Kenneth Chamberlin. Worse, with the current economic crisis and the University’s
funding woes, her department literally was in danger of being closed down they if didn’t get
Kenneth’s endowment…meaning not just the loss of her job, but several other professors as well.
Chloe knew there had to be some other reason for Kenneth’s sudden appearance in her life, though.
She found it highly unlikely that he actually wanted her to come work for him – certainly not so badly
that he’d keep calling and calling after she’d repeatedly turned him down. He had to have some
secret, ulterior motive.
Why had he started out by calling her mother? And why did he want to hire Chloe, of all people? The
man was a billionaire. He could have hired an antiquities expert from anywhere in the world; why
contact the woman who was least likely to accept a job offer from him?
“You know, one thing I never really understood…after Kenneth’s grandfather stole the artwork from
her, did grandmother report it to the police? And if not, why not?” Chloe had never pushed her mother
too hard for specific details of what had happened Barrett Chamberlin and her grandmother, because
it was a subject that clearly distressed her. However, since she was going to be forced to have an
actual conversation with Kenneth, it would help her if she were armed with the facts.
“That was decades ago, Chloe. The Chamberlin family is very wealthy and powerful and has all
kinds of connections. There was nothing that she could do.”
Well, that was a non-answer if she’d ever heard one.
Something was off here. Chloe didn’t know what, but it was obvious that her mother knew more than
she was telling.
Why wouldn’t she want to tell her about something that had happened more than fifty years ago?
“All right, then,” she said uneasily. Clearly her mother wasn’t going to give her the information that
she needed. “I should go get ready for the ball.”
“Oh, that’s right! Do you have a special date?” her mother’s voice brightened.
“My gay teaching assistant. And I had to blackmail him with threats to post pictures from the
department Fourth of July party. You don’t want to know,” she added quickly. “Yes, I do!” her mother
protested.
“Okay, actually, I just don’t want to tell you. It involved the inappropriate use of a priceless Ming
Dynasty vase, and that’s all I’m going to say. I’m your daughter, for God’s sake! Boundaries. Listen,
I’ll call you soon. I’ll update my Facebook status. Gotta run.”
She hung up quickly, and then a sudden, traitorous thought struck her.
She was absolutely not ever supposed to call the only-in-dire-emergency number she had for her
grandmother. Sophronia had withdrawn from the world decades ago. Sometimes she travelled for
months or years, sometimes she stayed in her turn-of-the-century mansion deep in the woods, but
wherever she was, she had made it very clear that she did not want to talk to her family. To Chloe,
her grandmother was just an odd, almost fictional character, someone who’d unmoored herself from
her family and floated off to live as a castaway. Chloe had accepted this long ago, and never called.
But damn it, she needed answers.
Leaning on the wooden porch railing, she dialed the number.
She hadn’t spoken to her grandmother in over a decade, and then it had only been for a few minutes.
She was almost surprised when, after seven rings, her grandmother actually answered the phone.
“Hello?” she said.
“Grandmother?”
“Is my daughter dead?” Sophronia asked, in a voice that was more curious than upset.
“Ahh…no,” Chloe said, taken aback. “She’s fine.”
“How can you be sure?” The voice on the other end was so strange. It was barely human. It was
devoid of normal inflection, drained of emotion and life.
“Well, I just talked to her on the phone a couple of minutes ago. She was at her shop. Unless a meteor
hit the shop in the last 60 seconds, I’m pretty confident that she’s still among the living.” Good lord,
Chloe had forgotten just how crazy Sophronia was. And from what Chloe had been told, Sophronia
had been completely normal, a sweet, funny, charming girl…until she got engaged to Barrett
Chamberlin.
“Then why are you calling me?” her grandmother’s voice was dull and uninterested now.
Chloe felt a flare of temper. “Because Kenneth Chamberlin keeps calling me, and I don’t know why,
and my mother won’t tell me anything more about what happened between you and his grandfather.”
There. She’d broken the two biggest family taboos she could think of.
Called her grandmother…check.
Mentioned the unmentionable…check.
“What does he want?” her grandmother’s voice suddenly changed completely. She went from world
weary and a million miles away to very, very alert.
I just told you – I don’t know. He claims he wants me to come work for him to help catalogue some
art collection of his. Staying at his house with him. But why me, of all people, and why has he
suddenly started bombarding me with phone calls for the past few weeks, pestering the dean of my
department-”
“Take the job,” her grandmother’s voice was crisp and business-like now.
“What?” Chloe’s jaw dropped.
“You heard me. Take the job.”
“But…I thought the Chamberlins were terrible people. Not to be trusted. Back-stabbers. Thieves.
Breakers of promises. Ruiners of lives.”
“They are all of that, and more. And you will take the job. Listen, do you really want answers? Come
to my house tomorrow at noon.”
And then there was a click and the line went dead.
“What just happened?” Chloe’s head was in a whirl. This was crazy. Her grandmother actually
wanted to see her?
She wondered if she should call her mother back and ask her advice. No, her mother would flip.
Sophronia had left Hilary with her father when Hilary was a baby, barely speaking to her only child
over the years, and any conversation about Sophronia caused her mother pain.
A car pulled up in front of her house, and Henry parked and climbed out. Great. Her reluctant date to
the ball. Be still my beating heart, she thought, and walked around the side of the house to greet him.
At least he would be able to help her put together her outfit.
Chapter Three
Playa Linda, California
While Kenneth prepared for the ball in New York City, two of his employees in Playa Linda were in
the most decrepit neighborhood in the city, pursuing a different agenda.
Bobbi Simpson, a coyote shifter who worked for Shifters, Inc., was dressed to vanish into the
darkness. Black t-shirt, black jeans, boots, no makeup, hair pulled back in a pony-tail. When
necessary, she could easily don a five thousand dollar evening gown, pile her hair up into an elegant
updo, and accessorize right down to the jewelry, heels, and hair ornaments. Tonight, however, she
wore her preferred outfit, the clothing she put on when she was ready to kick ass and then turn tail and
run without taking any names.
Her best friend Pixie was dressed the only way she ever dressed: cheap faux black leather jacket,
multiple facial piercings, flat-ironed hair a shocking shade of pink which faded at the end to tips of
blue, combat boots, black holey leggings, t-shirt with a highly incongruous picture of a cartoon kitten
on it.
The two of them stood in front of a grimy, graffiti-splattered apartment building in the waterfront
district of Playa Linda.
Bobbi tipped her head back and sniffed the air. “Do you smell that? It smells like…betrayal.” She
could also smell vomit, urine, beer, and the sour reek of garbage piled up in a dumpster next to a
biker bar called the Hogtie, right next to the apartment building. But mostly betrayal.
Pixie nodded vigorously. “I seriously can’t wait to see how this one plays out. When will that
dumbass wolf learn he can’t outsmart us? You should hit him really hard. And while you’re hitting
him, I’ll steal his wallet.”
“Why would you bother stealing my boyfriend’s wallet? It’s not like he carries any cash with him. I
swear, you need to go to a twelve-step group for pickpockets.”
“Practice,” Pixie said. “Although it’s true, he’s way too easy.”
The sun was low on the horizon, but the fall air was still warm and humid, trapping the
neighborhood’s pungent aromas in a haze of pollution and stink.
“Let’s go get this over with,” Bobbi said, exasperated. The two of them circled around the back of the
building, jimmied the door’s lock, and dashed up the stairwell, which smelled a lot like the alley
they’d just left.
“Phew,” Bobbi said. “Has anyone here ever heard of a toilet? Welcome to the 21
st
century, for God’s
sakes.”
On each floor, Bobbi stopped, opened the doorway to the stairwell, stuck her head into the hallway,
partially shifted to enhance all of her senses, and sniffed. She could scent her fated mate easily, even
with all the sour odors of bodily waste clogging her nostrils.
Finally on the fourth floor, she smelled what she was seeking.
Pixie followed her down the hallway, and, when Bobbi paused and pointed at a doorway, she
reached inside her leather jacket to pull out her bag of lock picks. They were inside in seconds.
The apartment was dark and dingy, and the paint on the wall was peeling off in sheets. Jax
Mackenzie, the aforementioned dumbass wolf shifter, sat next to Bobbi’s brother Heath on a faded
green couch, watching a flickering black and white TV with rabbit ears.
Both of them were big, broad-shouldered men, although Heath at six five was several inches taller
than Jax. Jax had thick, glossy black hair and cheekbones that hinted at Native American heritage.
Heath had curly brown hair and caramel brown eyes. A broken, reset nose and a scar slashing
through one eyebrow hinted at Heath’s upbringing on the streets.
They both glanced up as Bobbi and Pixie burst into the room. Jax had a resigned expression on his
face. “I scented you in the hallway,” Jax said. “I guess I should have known that you’d find us.”
“Yes, idiot, you should have.” Bobbi’s breath came out in an exasperated hiss. Jax was her fated
mate, and they’d agreed that they would get married if they could make it a year together without
killing each other. Jax’s odds that evening weren’t good.
She knew what was going on. Jax trying to protect her and treat her like a fragile china doll. She
understood why he would do that, but she had also made it very clear when they started dating; she
wasn’t a hide on the sidelines kind of girl, and he would have to live with that.
She could always tell when Jax was lying to her…and something had clearly been up earlier that day
when he’d told her that Tyler wanted her to head out to an elegant hotel called The Gilded Swan to
guard an Eastern European princess.
All the signs were there, the mumbling, the way he spoke too fast and avoided her eyes…
That night, she’d pretended to head out to the address that he’d given her, but then she’d turned around
and circled back to lay low near their apartment so she and Pixie could follow him.
And here they were, not at a fancy uptown hotel, but in a stinking slum that clung to the edge of Playa
Linda’s coastline.
“I told you we couldn’t fool her,” Heath chided Jax in exasperation.
“I know. She’s too smart for us,” Jax said dolefully.
The TV turned staticy, and Heath crossed the room and wiggled the rabbit ears, looking annoyed.
“We’re both too smart for you,” Pixie added.. Pixie hated to feel left out.
“Damn straight,” Bobbi said irritably, feeling slightly mollified by his concession. “So what the hell
is the real assignment?”
“The real assignment is what we said it was. We just lied about the address. There have been
numerous assassination attempts on this young woman’s life, because she rejected the marriage
proposal of a sheikh. Her family is trying to figure out a safe place to hide her. We have word that
the people who are trying to assassinate her are in Playa Linda. Staying in a luxury hotel is too
obvious; we decided that for tonight, we would hide her out in a place that nobody would ever think
to look for her.”
“I’m not leaving.” Bobbi folded her arms across her chest and speared Jax with a glare.
Despite her anger, her body did that thing it always did when she was near Jax. It pulsed with desire.
She felt her nipples hardening, and she couldn’t help but let her eyes rove admiringly over his
incredibly body. Mine, all mine. The broad shoulders, the curving biceps, the flat, hard stomach…all
hers.
“Fine,” he shrugged said wearily. “I give. You win. She’s in there.” He nodded his head at a closed
door. “Why don’t you girls go hang out with her, and your brother and I will hang out here? We’ll
make coffee later. We have a crew coming in to relieve us at 7 a.m. She doesn’t speak any English,
I’m afraid.”
“All right,” Bobbi said. Something was bothering her, but she wasn’t sure what.
She and Pixie opened the door and walked into the next room. A pretty girl with wavy dark hair,
wearing a t-shirt and jeans, sat on an old sagging bed, listening to music on her headphones and typing
on a tablet computer. She waved at them when they walked in, then went back to her computer.
Pixie and Bobbi sat on the other side of the bed in silence for a few minutes.
“Of course, you’re not technically cleared for bodyguard duty,” Bobbi said to Pixie.
“Oh, don’t start. Tyler’s been teaching me Krav Maga. And I fight dirty. And I always have your
back.”
“Really? What’s it like wrestling on a mat with him?” Bobbi grinned wickedly. Tyler and Pixie had
been attracted to each other since they first met, but they were taking their sweet time acting on it.
“None of your beeswax.” Pixie looked flustered. “Let’s get back to that whole bodyguard thing. You
know you can’t get rid of me; I’m not going to let you have all the fun.”
“You’re supposed to be our expert on breaking and entering. On picking pockets. I feel badly,
bringing you along on assignments where there’s potential danger.”
“Well, actually, I usually just find a way to tag along, so it’s not really your fault. Besides, I know the
drill. If shit goes down, I dive behind the bed, you shift and rip their throats out.”
“Jeez! Language! We’re sitting in a room with a princess!”
“Oh, whatevs, she has her headphones on. Besides…she doesn’t look like a princess.” Pixie cast a
doubtful look over at the young woman.
Bobbi glanced over at her, and caught a glimpse of the computer screen, and suddenly it hit her like a
thunderbolt. She knew what had been troubling her ever since she and Pixie broke into the apartment.
“Those sons of bitches!” she hissed, jumping to her feet.
* * *
Jax and Heath ran for thirty blocks without stopping. As soon as Pixie and Bobbi had shut the door to
the bedroom, they’d shifted, slunk quietly out of the apartment, and run for it as soon as they hit the
sidewalk. As they ran, Heath’s jaws were firmly clamped on a bag of clothing for them to change
into.
Finally, they came to a halt. They were out of the warehouse district and in a residential
neighborhood, at Dominick’s house. The two of them trotted behind a hedge in his front yard, and
shifted back in to human form. They pulled their clothes on, glancing behind them to make sure that
Bobbi wasn’t in hot pursuit.
So far, they seemed to have pulled off their ruse.
“My sister is seriously going to kill us,” Heath said.
“I know how to distract her when she’s mad,” Jax said smugly.
“Hey. This is my sister we’re talking about,” Heath said, looking appalled. “I don’t actually want to
picture whatever it is you’re talking about.”
“Adopted sister. And you know this is for the best,” Jax said.
“Yeah, you say that now,” Heath muttered. “When we get back, even in my bear form – my sister is
seriously capable of putting the hurt on me.”
“Quit your whining and take it like a bear,” Jax said, as Dominick stepped out onto the porch, car
keys dangling from his hand. He shut and locked the front door of his small wooden bungalow house.
“Are you ready?” he asked them.
“I was born ready,” Jax said.
“Cliché, dude,” Heath said.
“Dude is cliché. Do people actually talk like that in Arizona?” Jax glanced over his shoulder one
final time to make sure that Bobbi wasn’t following them.
“Do you think that she’s figured it out yet?” Heath asked, ignoring Jax’s jab, as they climbed into
Dominick’s car.
“Oh, yeah. Figured it out, plotting her revenge…Dominick, drive fast.”
“Really? Scared of a girl? Who’s the pussy here?” Dominick snorted in contempt, as he headed for
their destination, a private airstrip an hour outside of Playa Linda.
Jax and Heath were getting ready to head out to their real assignment, the one they’d been so
desperate to prevent Bobbi from learning about.
It was a special assignment for Kenneth. Over the past few months, there had been break-ins at
several of Kenneth’s homes in Europe. At two of his homes, in Italy and in France, art had been
stolen. The break-ins had been particularly brutal; one of his employees, beaten savagely in the
attack, was in a coma.
None of the artwork had turned up in any of the usual places; nobody was trying to fence it, there
wasn’t even a whisper about it on the international black market. It wasn’t even particularly valuable
artwork, certainly not enough to warrant the risk of breaking into Kenneth’s houses to steal it. The
thieves had left behind original Van Goghs, Monets and Picassos. They’d bypassed all of Kenneth’s
security systems, overwhelmed his staff and vanished into the night. The crew that had stolen the
artwork had clearly been top notch professionals.
The only thing they’d taken from each house was a limestone statue of ancient Sumerian provenance,
believed to have originated circa 3000 B.C. And oddly, in one house, they’d removed one large
Sumerian statue, but left behind a smaller one.
While investigating the case, Kenneth had found out that the El-Debars, a family of antique dealers in
Turak, had approached his family on at least half a dozen occasions over the years, asking about the
statues. The country of Turak was located in the region of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, where the
ancient region of Sumer, birthplace of civilization, had once been.
However, the El-Debars weren’t affiliated with any museums, and all of Kenneth’s background
investigations seemed to indicate that they were honest, scrupulous folk who were unlikely to have
been behind the art thefts at his homes.
Regardless, it was the closest thing to a lead they had, so Kenneth had commissioned a private jet to
take them to Turak.
Unfortunately, Turak was in the middle of a civil war, and it was highly dangerous to travel to that
region. Jax was willing to risk Bobbi’s wrath rather than see her travel through a war zone.
* * *
Upstate New York
The fundraising ball was being held in a 19
th
century Queen Anne style mansion, the same spot it was
held every year. It was a massive building which stood on a hilltop, sprawled out over manicured
grounds, with gabled roofs and rounded towers visible from miles away.
The strains of Fur Elise drifted through the air, and Chloe tugged nervously at the bust line of her
dress. With an eye towards her nonexistent clothing budget, Henry had borrowed a red evening gown
from his sister, slapped red lipstick on Chloe, done something with an eyeliner pen, and piled her hair
up in a neat, shiny chignon at the back of her head.
She was pretty sure that she wasn’t fooling anyone.
She was clutching a Cosmopolitan in her sweaty hand, tottering around in high heeled silver pumps
and praying she didn’t break an ankle. The room was full of academics and wealthy men and women
in tuxes who flashed big Chiclet-teeth smiles for the cameras of the local media. People kept trying to
make small talk with her, and she kept stammering out the same polite answers and watching their
eyes glaze over as they drifted away. She wanted to find a closet to hide in.
“Henry, the agreement was, you would pretend to be my date until Kenneth leaves,” Chloe muttered,
elbowing Henry in the ribs.
“I am pretending to be your date! I’m standing right next to you! Ooh, canapés. Try one!” Henry
grabbed one from a tray and winked at the waiter, who winked back.
“You’re flirting with other men,” she pointed out. “Openly.”
“Well, I am gay.”
“Yes, but Kenneth doesn’t know that! So act straight for one more hour, for the love of God.”
“Fine, fine,” Henry let out a long, exasperated sigh. “I am going to go get us some of those miniature
tarts. I’ll be back shortly.”
“Don’t go far! Honey,” she added loudly, in case Kenneth was anywhere nearby.
She scanned the room anxiously. When would that jerk show up? It was five minutes to nine, and she
just wanted to get this over with.
A very handsome man in a tuxedo standing across the room met her gaze and smiled. He was broad-
shouldered, with close-cropped hair and a military bearing. She glanced behind her shoulder,
puzzled, then back at the man, who was still smiling at her.
Annoyed, she looked away. Obviously he was looking at somebody behind her. That had happened to
her three times already tonight. Somebody waved and smiled at her, she smiled and waved back,
wanting to be polite, only to realize that the person was waving at somebody else. Well, she wasn’t
going to make a fool of herself yet again. How much mortification did one person have to endure for
an evening?
“Looking for someone?” Kenneth said from right behind her, making her jump and spill half her drink
down the front of her dress. He was wearing a shiny black tuxedo with a perfectly knotted blue silk
bowtie, and clinging to his arm was a slender platinum blonde with huge blue eyes. She had a tiny
button nose and a mouth shaped like a glossy pink heart. She wore a dress that looked as if it were
made of black liquid silk, fitting her as if it had been poured over her slim body, rippling and flowing
like a river.
Looking at her clinging to Kenneth gave Chloe an odd, sickly feeling in her stomach which she had
never experienced before.
Chloe glanced down at her dress. It was loose in the bust, and tight in the hips, and now there was a
stain on the front that was shaped like a chicken, and she was regretting her decision to carry her
sweater slung over her arm. She should have handed it in at the coat check.
High society and Chloe didn’t mix.
“I’m looking for my boyfriend,” she said desperately. “We’re practically engaged, actually.” Where
the hell was Henry?
“Is that a sweater?” the blonde asked her incredulously, eyes widening.
“What does your boyfriend look like?” Kenneth asked politely, but she could sense the skepticism in
his smile. “Let me help you find him.”
“He’s got bleached blond hair, he’s wearing a plaid jacket…”
“That man over there?” He inclined his head at Henry, who was standing in a corner making out with
the waiter. The waiter was still holding the tray in his left hand, and people were walking by,
grabbing canapés off of it.
Tarts. Riiight. He’d gone to seek out tarts. She mentally added a new item to her to-do list for
tomorrow: stab Henry through the heart with a fountain pen.
“No, no…ah…another blond guy in a plaid jacket.” Right. Because the room was crawling with them.
She edged away, holding her sweater in front of the stain, blinking hard and trying not to
hyperventilate. She gave the bust of her dress another tug, holding it in place. “He’s here
somewhere.”
Kenneth turned to the blonde. “Tiffany, or whatever your name is, do you see that man over there?
Silver haired man standing by the bar? Richard Bogdanovich. Loves younger women. Just got
divorced from his fourth wife and he’s looking for a fifth. And he’s never learned to hold out for a
pre-nup.”
Chloe watched in amazement as Tiffany practically left scorch marks in her rush across the room.
“She’s fast for a human. How did you know all that about him?” Chloe asked.
“I didn’t. I have no idea who he is. Let’s get out of here quickly before she finds out I was lying.
The sculpture garden is supposed to be lovely.” He inclined his head towards the back door.
Chloe took a deep breath, and quickly downed what was left of her drink. A walk in the dark with the
devil himself? Sure, what could possibly go wrong?
I bet that’s what my grandmother thought the first time she laid eyes on Kenneth’s grandfather,
Chloe thought warily. Right before she went crazy.
“Fine. Let’s get this over with,” she said.
Chapter Four
Playa Linda
The supposed princess glanced up from her iPad, looking alarmed.
“‘She’s too smart for us?’ ” Bobbi repeated scornfully. “Does that sound like something Jax would
say?”
“Crap,” Pixie said. “Hell no. He always thinks he’s the smartest one in the room. You’re right.”
“He set this whole thing up to throw us off. That bastard. That brilliant bastard,” Bobbi said, caught
between homicidal fury and admiration. “I am going to…I don’t even know what I’m going to do to
him, that’s how pissed off I am.”
“He double-crossed us. That son of a whore.” Pixie shook her head.
“Worse. He double-double crossed us. He pretended he didn’t want us to follow him here just to
throw us off his scent.”
“So he four-crossed us! I hate being four-crossed.”
“It’s all I can do not to shift and rip someone’s throat out right now, I swear to God,” Bobbi hissed.
“Hey, don’t look at me! It was your boyfriend and your brother. And you totally fell for it.”
Bobbi leaned across the bed and grabbed the girl’s laptop. She held it up to show Pixie. The
princess who supposedly couldn’t speak English had been updating her Facebook page. In English.
“Motherfucker,” Pixie said.
The girl quickly pulled her earphones out of her ears and stood up. “So I can go home now?” she
said. “Jax said as soon as you figured it out I could go home.”
“How much did Jax pay you for this little charade?”
“Five hundred bucks.”
Pixie and Bobbi raced into the living room. Jax and Heath, of course, were gone. Sitting on the sofa
was a large manila envelope.
Bobbi grabbed it and ripped it open. Inside was a briefing on Bobbi’s real assignment. When she
saw it, Bobbi let out a stream of curses, as the “princess” sauntered past them, purse slung over her
shoulder, and left the apartment.
“Let’s go,” Bobbi said, gritting her teeth. .
“What’s our assignment?” Pixie said, following her out the door.
“Okay, you know how a lot of our bodyguard assignments are basically babysitting jobs?”
“Yeah…”
“This is literally a babysitting job. Prince Reginald the Third, an eight year old cheetah shifter, is in
town because he wanted to go to Disney Land. We are supposed to accompany him to Disney Land.
His parents, who are the monarchs of some tiny Asian country I’m not going to bother to try to
pronounce, are away attending important matters of state for the next two weeks.. He’s at a hotel with
his nanny, and the two shifter bodyguards that Jax left at the hotel have been ordered to leave at 8 p.m.
whether we show up or not. We’ve got about 20 minutes to get there.”
“Wait. Whoa. We are really going to do this?” Pixie protested, as they rushed to Bobbi’s car.
“We can’t leave an eight-year-old unprotected. We’ll go there and wait until we can get a team from
Shifters, Inc. to show up and relieve us. Then we’re going wolf and bear hunting.”
“And then?”
“When I find Jax, I am seriously going to throw down. There will be blood on the streets.”
“Goodie!” Pixie rubbed her hands together gleefully. “Just promise me we won’t be stuck with the
kid for too long. Brats and me…we don’t mix.”
“Don’t worry. We won’t be there a minute longer than we need to. Now, call Tyler and find out what
the hell’s really going on. And needless to say, we’ll never take our assignments from Jax again.”
Pixie grabbed her cell phone and dialed.
Jax and Heath, she found out, were taking a private courier plane to a small, war-torn country called
Turak, in the Middle East, to talk to a family of antique dealers who might have knowledge about a
series of art thefts at Kenneth’s homes.
They were to offer the family safe passage out of Turak, in exchange for any information that they
might be able to provide.
If Kenneth had been there, Bobbi knew, he would have discussed the assignment face to face with all
of them, and they would have worked out who would be best suited for the job.
Tyler, however, was completely frazzled by being handed control of Shifters, Inc., even temporarily.
He’d done his best, but he hadn’t followed through and verified with Bobbi and Pixie that they’d
accepted their assignment.
If he had, Jax would never have gotten away with his shenanigans.
“Now how are we going to find them? Are we going to have to wait until they get back?” Pixie
wondered.
“Hells to the no,” Bobbi said. “Leave it to me. I know people, in places. I will get us there, and steal
the assignment out from under their sorry snouts.”
Kenneth was probably going to bite her head off when he got back from New York, but she didn’t
care. She wasn’t going to be sidelined with a babysitting job while her boyfriend and her brother ran
head first into danger.
She picked up her phone and started making calls. She had worked for the National Shifter’s Council
for years as an Enforcer; she’d developed many connections worldwide, ranging from legal to highly
shady. Tonight, she was tapping in to the shady side.
They pulled up in front of the hotel minutes later, parked, and entered the lobby. They spotted the
prince immediately; he was standing in the middle of the spacious lobby, next to a middle aged
woman and two human bodyguards. The bodyguards weren’t employees of Shifters, Inc. Bobbi
realized that the prince probably travelled with his own security staff.
“There go Thom and Rafael,” Pixie said, pointing.
Bobbi spotted two big, bulky shifters in suits rushing out a side door. She suspected that Jax
wouldn’t really have told the bodyguards to leave no matter what; he’d have told them to watch out
for her, and leave as soon as she was pulling up to the front door. That way, she’d be stuck with the
safe babysitting job, while he and Heath rushed headlong into a war zone. Or so he thought.
Forcing a smile on her face, she walked up to the woman, who was pleading with Prince Reginald to
stop jumping on the leather sofa. Businessmen and women at the check-in counter were glaring at
him.
“Cut that out,” Bobbi snapped at Reginald. She turned to the nanny, a middle-aged, copper-skinned
woman with a round, creased face and hair pulled up in a bun. She was a crocodile shifter, which
actually made a strange sort of sense. Crocodiles, unlike many other reptiles, had strong maternal
instincts and were fiercely protective of their young. “I’m Bobbi Simpson, from Shifters,
Incorporated.”
“I am Gopika, nanny to Prince Reginald.” Her accent was that of an Indian woman educated in an
English school. “Thank you so much for coming. You are a coyote, yes? So you have sharp teeth and
you are very cunning. Reginald, dear, please do stop that!”
“Why should I?” Reginald folded his arms across his chest and pouted. “Who’s going to make me?”
“I will,” Pixie snapped. “And show that woman some respect, or I’ll beat your ass.”
Everybody except Bobbi gasped.
Reginald’s eyes flew open with shock. Then they filled with tears. He took a deep breath as if he
were about to let out a mighty bellow. Before he could say anything, Pixie pointed at a group of
businessmen who were standing by the check-in counter. “See that fat guy over there? Run over there,
and kick him in the shins.”
Before Bobbi could protest, before anyone could say anything, the prince leaped off the sofa, ran
over, and kicked the man in the shins, with Pixie in hot pursuit.
“I am SO sorry!” Pixie cried, grabbing Reginald up in her arms. “My little brother is out of control
these days! We need to adjust his medication. Reginald, say sorry.”
“Sorry,” he smirked.
The fat man glared at him. “He doesn’t need medication. He needs incarceration. Get that brat away
from me before I press charges.”
Pixie rushed back to Bobbi. “Up to the room, now,” Bobbi snapped.
They all trooped over to the elevator.
“All right, what did you do?” Bobbi said with resignation as the doors closed.
Pixie pulled a wallet, a Rolex watch, and a box of Tic-Tacs out of her pocket. She opened the Tic-
Tacs and popped two in her mouth.
“What?” she said to Bobbi. “The box hadn’t been opened!”
Then she handed the Rolex to the prince. “Here, since you helped me, you get half,” she said. “I’m
keeping the wallet.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Bobbi growled in disgust.
Reginald began dancing up and down in the elevator with excitement. “Show me how you did that!
Show me! Show me!”
“Only if you behave. Settle down, already, you’re giving me a headache,” Pixie instructed him as they
reached their floor, and he instantly stopped dancing around and followed her, worshipfully, down
the hallway into the luxury penthouse suite.
“These men who are with you, they’re the prince’s personal bodyguards?” Bobbi asked Gopika.
“Yes, he always travels with them. However, his parents like to have local security watching over
him, as well, since they will be more familiar with the area and any threats he might face.”
Bobbi nodded. “Thank you. There has been a little bit of a mixup with the assignments tonight, but I
am about to get you two excellent bodyguards who will provide the prince with top-notch, dedicated
protection during his visit here.”
She walked over to the window so she could speak in private, and dialed Tyler’s cell phone number
as she watched Pixie askance. Pixie was letting Reginald practice picking her pocket while Gopika
pretended not to notice.
Anything to keep the kid quiet, she thought with exasperation. I just have to get Pixie out of here
before she turns the kid into a professional felon.
“Tyler, you will have two bodyguards come to the hotel, immediately. As you know, Jax and Heath
tricked me into taking this assignment. It’s not happening. Why? Well, for one thing, Pixie’s teaching
the prince how to pickpocket. Yes, you heard me. You want his parents to come back and find out
that he’s now, literally, a cat burglar? I thought not. I have arranged for a plane to fly us to Turak. The
plane is leaving in six hours. It will drop us off outside of Turak, and then we’ll fly back with Jax and
Heath. Never mind how I found a plane. Just start getting our paperwork ready.”
It took about half an hour before the bodyguards showed up. While they waited, Pixie taught Reginald
how to cheat at cards, and Bobbi sat and planned various gruesome revenge scenarios involving her
double-dealing boyfriend.
When the two new bodyguards walked in, Reginald pouted and stamped his feet. He pointed at Pixie.
“I want her to stay!” he told Gopika, eyes filled with tears. “She can be my new nanny when you
leave next month.” Then, suddenly, he grabbed his nanny’s hand. “You can both be my nanny. I’ll
have two nannies.”
“We have to go now, or we’ll be in trouble with our boss,” Bobbi told him. “We’ll be back in one
week, and you’ll still be here. If you behave, we’ll go to Disneyland with you when we get back.”
“You promise?” he asked doubtfully.
“Yes, and think of all the pockets we can – ow! I mean, all the rides we can ride on,” Pixie said,
rubbing her arm where Bobbi had punched her.
Despite Reggie’s tearful protests, they headed out quickly.
“I don’t have a passport, by the way,” Pixie said, as they pulled away from the hotel.
“Good, because you’re not coming. Shut up!” Bobbi said, before Pixie said anything. “Take you with
me into a war torn country, when I need to concentrate on the mission and can’t get distracted by
trying to keep you alive? You, with all your piercings and rainbow hair, in a Muslim country, standing
out like a glowing beacon and drawing attention to us?”
“I can dye my hair black in like no time. I’ll take out my piercings and wear a veil and dress up like a
modest Muslim girl,” Pixie said. “It’ll be like fun. Like it’s Halloween and I’m wearing a costume.
Come on, of the two of us, I can break into buildings much faster, and nobody’s wallet is safe from
me. Nobody’s. You need my skills. We can get Tyler to make us whatever fake paperwork we need
real quick before the plane takes off.”
“This is a terrible idea.” Bobbi already knew she’d lost.
“As are all your ideas. All right, then it’s settled. Road trip!” Pixie rubbed her hands together
gleefully.
Chapter Five
The full moon glowed overhead, a giant, luminescent pearl fixed against the black velvet drapery of
the sky. A fat stone cupid in a fountain held a pitcher which poured an endless stream of water into
the fountain’s bowl. When the weather grew colder, the fountain would be shut off so the water
didn’t freeze.
Chloe shivered in the chill night air, and she quickly pulled her sweater on. Now the glamorous
ensemble was complete.
“Would you like my jacket?” Kenneth asked.
Oddly, her heart leaped in her chest at that. She realized that she desperately wanted to say yes, to
have his jacket, warm from his body heat and smelling of him, wrapped around her like big strong
arms.
But of course she couldn’t say yes to this man, the grandson of the man who’d betrayed her
grandmother in every way that a man could betray a woman…this man who was photographed with a
different woman on his arm every week, as she’d realized when he started leaving her messages
weeks ago, and she’d looked him up online.
She’d felt an odd sensation the very first time she saw his picture – a sensation which had made her
even more determined to avoid him at all costs.
Great job I’m doing with that, she thought to herself.
“Oh, no, the sweater’s plenty. My mother knitted it for me,” she added, not knowing what else to say.
“She’s very talented,” Kenneth said politely.
“Your date was stunning. I see a real love match there,”she said to Kenneth, wanting to steer the
conversation away from family, and also, wanting to needle him. He was being all gentlemanly and
charming, and she needed for him to stop it immediately.
He rose to take the bait. “I couldn’t agree more. Of course, I don’t think she and I shared as much of
a connection as you and your almost-fiance.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. That man you were pointing at? I’ve never seen him before
in my – ouch!” she tripped on the gravel path as her heel sunk in and caught on something. Kenneth
reached out to catch her, but she quickly stepped back. “I’m fine!”
“And graceful as a cat, I see.”
Actually, for a member of the cat species, Chloe was exceptionally clumsy. It was her secret shame
that once, when she’d been up a tree in panther form, and she’d leaped to the ground…she hadn’t
landed on her feet.
Well, it would have been her secret shame, if it hadn’t happened in front of all the other third graders
on the playground. “Clutzy Chloe” had stuck as a nickname until high school. Then it became “Four-
Eyes.” Most panthers didn’t wear glasses in their human form, either.
“Shut up,” she grumbled, as they kept walking. Their breath left puffs of condensation in the chill air.
“If you were a gentleman, you would have pretended not to notice.”
“Did I say that I was a gentleman?”
“Well, you dress like a gentleman, you talk like a gentleman…”
“But if I were a gentleman, would I lead a beautiful woman that I barely know out into the dark…”
she suddenly realized how far they’d wandered from the old mansion. They were alone in the dark,
cold night. “…and do this?”
And before she could say a word, he’d spun her into his arms, making her stumble again in the gravel,
and she fell into his arms, and then…he kissed her.
It was like no kiss she’d ever experienced before.
His strong arm circled around her, and he tipped her chin up with two fingers and pressed his warm
lips against hers. She was so startled that she didn’t protest…her lips parted, and she accepted as his
mouth claimed hers. He tasted like the whisky he’d been sipping earlier, smoky and intoxicating.
His tongue swept through her mouth, caressing, probing.
She felt herself melting into him, with a sense of rightness and belonging that she’d never experienced
before. She never wanted the kiss to end. He was ravishing her mouth, conquering it like a pirate,
leading her tongue in a slow, sensual dance, and it felt delicious…He was so warm, so strong…how
could she ever tear herself away from this embrace?
What was this sorcery that made her feel exactly as if this man was her fated mate? Of course he
couldn’t be. The coincidence would be too bizarre.
She pressed her hand up against his chest, against the pleated white tuxedo shirt. Beneath it, his chest
was broad and rock solid, a wall of muscle. Her entire body tingled with pleasure, and she felt a
throbbing between her legs, a deep hunger and a need to be filled by him, only by him.
His muscular arm tightened against her waist and pressed her up against him as if he wanted to meld
with her, and she let out a little whimper of pleasure deep in her throat, and heard a responding growl
rumbling up from his chest.
And suddenly it occurred to her – why her grandmother had gone crazy. To have this, and then to have
it snatched away, and worse, to find out it was all a cruel lie –
And surely this must be a lie. A man like Kenneth wouldn’t be her fated mate. His fated mate would
be like him, sleek and sophisticated and self-confident, a ruler of the jungle, not some nearsighted,
stammering cat that tripped over its own paws. If he was kissing her, it was because he wanted
something from her.
Summoning up the last reserves of her rapidly fading willpower, she wrenched herself from his arms
and stepped backward. It hurt; it was like ripping off a band-aid, and where she’d felt warm and safe
in his arms, now she felt cold and empty.
All the more reason to get this over with and get away from this dangerous man.
“Why do you keep calling me and asking me to work for you? Why me, of all the experts in the
world?” she demanded. “I know I’m very good at what I do, but there are many others who are
equally as good and who’d jump at the chance to work for you.”
He looked down at her, his eyes glazed with passion – or pretend passion. That must be it. A man
like him would be able to fake any emotion to get what he wanted.
“Are you sure you want to talk about this now?” his voice was husky with desire. Could he really be
faking it? Could he stir so much raw passion in her without feeling it himself?
His grandfather had done it, she forced herself to remember.
“Yes.” Her voice trembled in the cold night air, and she hugged herself.
“All right.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You are a world-renowned expert on the
culture of Sumer. There have been several break-ins at homes that I own in Europe, where I have
artwork displayed. There have been brutal assaults on the employees who live in my houses; one of
them is in the hospital still, unresponsive, not expect to recover.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” She stared up at him, baffled. “But what does this have to do with me?”
“All of the artwork that they took was ancient Sumerian statuary, from a time period circa 3000 B.C.
In every case.”
Her heart pounded in her chest.
That sounded very much like the artwork that Kenneth’s grandfather had stolen from her grandmother
right before he dumped her, so many years ago. Could her grandmother somehow be stealing it back
now, perhaps having hired people to do it for her?
“This particular collection of artwork has never been catalogued before. I’m not sure why; just about
everything else that my grandfather collected has very thorough documentation. I want you to come
with me to my house in Italy and catalogue the collection for me. I want to know where it’s from,
what time period, what its significance is. This might help me to figure out why thieves are suddenly
targeting it.”
“You want me to do what? School is still in session!”
“You have one more week left before Thanksgiving break, and the dean told me that he’d find another
professor to stand in for you as long as you need to.”
“I bet he did,” she muttered. Of course the dean had; he’d do anything to get the endowment that
Kenneth had promised him.
“But you still haven’t explained, why me, in particular? I would think I’d be the last person that you’d
want to hire. My family has a very unfortunate history with yours, and we have no reason to trust
you.”
“Trust me, how? I will pay for your services up front.” Kenneth looked genuinely puzzled, as if he
didn’t know. “As for our family history, that’s part of the reason I specifically wanted to hire you. I
know that your grandmother worked as an assistant to my grandfather when he brought back a
collection of Sumerian artwork in the 1960s.”
“You know…what?” the lie was so huge that it was like a slap in the face. His assistant? As if!
Kenneth’s grandfather had been Sophronia’s assistant, when she was a famous antiquities dealer and
professor at the University of Upstate New York in the 1960s. He’d seduced his way into her good
graces…and the rest was family history. Bitter, ugly family history.
Chloe fell back a step.
He kept going, unaware of the turmoil he’d stirred within her.
“Hamish Stewart, who’s worked for my family for fifty years managing our art collection, says that
your family has approached my family in the past, trying to buy that collection of Sumerian artwork.
Since your grandmother was working for – what’s wrong?” he finally noticed her horrified
expression.
“Working for him? Are you trying to tell me that you don’t know?”
“Don’t know what?” He looked genuinely puzzled.
“Your grandfather and my grandmother were fated mates, and they were engaged. He was working for
her, not the other way around, and she owned the art collection. Then he broke off the engagement,
stole the collection of Sumerian artwork, and banned her from his house. He threw her over for your
grandmother, who was wealthy and had connections. He hired security to keep her away from him;
when she showed up at his house to ask why he was doing this to her, they tossed her out on the street.
Physically. Violently.”
“Chloe, that…that doesn’t make sense. That simply doesn’t happen with fated mates.” Kenneth looked
genuinely shocked.
“I’m sure she thought that too.” Chloe was backing away from him now, heading back towards the
mansion, glaring at him furiously. “Maybe he just convinced her they were fated mates.”
“That feeling simply can’t be faked. You know that, don’t you?” He stared at her intently, as if
silently asking for an acknowledgement of how he made her feel.
“And yet, he broke it off with her and broke her heart. Would a real fated mate do that?”
“But…she got married to someone else. Obviously. She had your mother. Chloe, there’s got to be
some mistake here, none of this makes sense.”
“She remarried several times, she was widowed several times, and it doesn’t matter. She never
recovered from the loss of your grandfather. She went crazy. Went crazy, is still crazy, thanks to your
grandfather. Don’t talk to me again, Kenneth. I’m not going to work for you, or talk to you, or kiss you
again, not now, not ever.”
To her utter mortification, she realized she was choking on a sob.
She turned and ran back towards the house, ignoring him as he shouted her name. Kenneth had made
an utter fool of her. He was probably doubling over with laughter right now; she couldn’t bear to
turn and look.
She’d actually let the man kiss her. No, worse, she’d kissed him back, quite enthusiastically.
And even worse, apparently her grandmother had meant so little to her fated mate that he hadn’t even
bothered to mention the relationship to his own family. Kenneth had apparently not even known that
Barrett and Sophronia had been engaged. Sophronia had been cast aside like a used up dishrag as
soon as Barrett got what he wanted from her.
Tears burned her face as she raced around the side of the house, heading for her car.
She stumbled in the gravel, dodged around bushes, slapped at the tree branches that swatted her face
– and ran right into the handsome man who’d been eyeing her earlier at the party.
“Are you all right?” he asked her, as she staggered back. He held his hand out to her and grabbed her
arm to steady her.
Although he was every bit as handsome as Kenneth, she didn’t feel a thing when his fingers closed on
her arm. There was no delicious zing of pleasure shooting through her body, a sensation she’d never
experienced before Kenneth touched her.
“I’m fine.” She was aware of how utterly awful she must look right now. Her nose turned red when
she cried. Her mascara and eyeliner would be running done her cheeks in muddy rivers. She was
wearing a sweater over an evening gown.
Resolutely, she walked around the side of her house towards her car, and the man followed alongside
her.
“I saw you talking to that man, earlier. Kenneth Chamberlin. I just wanted to let you know…he’s not
to be trusted. Everything that he asks of you or tells you…he’s got his own agenda.”
“What? I mean, I know, but…”
Chloe realized to her shock that hearing him talk about Kenneth that way actually made her really
angry. She suddenly wanted to leap to Kenneth’s defense, to verbally lash out at the man and tell him
he was wrong and he didn’t know Kenneth at all.
Of course, neither did she, but she didn’t like hearing the man insult her fated mate like that.
What? Where had that thought come from?
Oh dear lord, help her. No. The universe was not that crazy. Kenneth’s grandfather had been her
grandmother’s fated mate – how could two people in the same family – no. Just no. That one drink
had really gone to her head, or the kiss, or both.
She kept stomping towards the car, and the man kept following her.
“Who are you, and what do you want with me? I’m not having a good night, and this is not a good
time,” she snapped.
He reached into his pocket, grabbed a business card, and handed it to her. “My name is Alfonse. My
phone number is on there. I have a business proposition for you. Will you call me tomorrow?”
“Probably not. ” She walked faster, and he stopped following her.
Chapter Six
Kenneth stood next to his chauffer, watching her rush towards her car. Her sweater caught on a bush,
and she wrestled with it for a good 30 seconds before wrenching it free. . Then she dropped her keys
underneath her car and had to drop to her hands and knees to fetch them.
He’d already noted the man who’d tried to talk to a minute earlier, fury rising in him when the man
put his hand on her arm. His claws had shot from his fingers and he’d barely been able to force
himself to sheath them. It was a good thing the man had stopped following her; he wasn’t sure he
could have contained himself much longer.
“My God, that woman is a total mess,” the limo driver said scornfully. “A walking catastrophe.
She’s”-
“The woman I’m going to marry.” Kenneth cut the limo driver off with a look.
“She – what? I mean – of course. What I meant to say- ”
“We’re good here,” Kenneth said, and, seeing that Chloe was safely driving away, climbed in the
back of the limousine and shut the door.
He saw the man who’d been following Chloe climb into a rented BMW, and quickly noted the license
plate number.
He’d been dying to rush over and free her from those bushes, to get her keys for her from under her
car, but he suspected that now was not the time. He’d try to talk to her again tomorrow when she’d
had time to calm down – and when he was armed with some facts about what had really happened
between his grandfather and Sophronia.
He knew one thing. Chloe was the kind of woman who would always be tripping over things, falling
into things – and he was going to be the one to catch her, every time. For the rest of his life. He’d find
a way to make it happen, no matter what it took.
He’d try to deny it at first, but the moment his lips met hers, the moment her lips parted sweetly to
accept his kiss…he was lost.
He closed his eyes and ran his hand wearily over his face, leaning back in his seat.
How would he make it happen?
The usual things that swept women off their feet, that made women melt into adoring puddles in his
presence, wouldn’t work on her.
She didn’t care about his money. She didn’t care that he had the looks of a movie star. His charm
bounced off her bulletproof exterior as if she were made of charm-repelling Teflon.
Oh, he could tell she was attracted to him – but as long as she believed that his family was evil and
had somehow wronged her grandmother, she’d fight that attraction fang and claw.
Well, one thing he did have going for him – he had staff. He had resources. Time to start making
phone calls.
He grabbed his telephone.
Nine thirty now in New York, so 3:30 in the morning in Italy, where Hamish lived…
The hell with it. This was an emergency, as far as he was concerned.
His fated mate despised him for something his grandfather may or may not have done, and he needed
answers now.
“Hamish,” he said. “We need to talk.”
“Sir? Is everything all right?” the bleary voice on the other end of the line mumbled.
“I just met Chloe Novak, and she made some bizarre accusations. She said that my grandfather and
her grandmother were fated mates, and he broke things off with her and married someone else. She
said that he actually hired security to keep her away from his house.”
“That’s true.”
Kenneth sat stunned. Why had his parents never told him this before?
“He broke up with Sophronia Littlefield for another woman?”
“No. He married your grandmother five years after his relationship with Sophronia ended.”
“Wait. So, he didn’t leave my grandmother for Elizabeth?”
“Good heavens, no.” Hamish paused. “Since your grandfather’s been dead all these years…I suppose
I wouldn’t be betraying a confidence.”
“Tell me.” Kenneth’s voice was low and dangerous. “Tell me about my grandfather and Sophronia.”
“Your grandfather and Sophronia Littlefield were utterly besotted. Deliriously in love. He owned a
very successful art and antiquities dealership in Russettville. Sophronia was an adjunct professor at
the University, and she started working with him as his assistant after they got engaged. She travelled
with him on his acquisitions trips. Then, they went on a trip to the country of Turak, and returned with
a large new collection, acquired from several dealers. They brought the collection to Barrett’s home.
He had a warehouse on the property where he stored artwork and had it authenticated and catalogued
before selling it. Everything seemed fine between them when they returned. I remember that it was a
Friday.” He paused again, and took a deep breath. His voice was suddenly heavy with emotion. “I
remember that because I returned to the house on a Monday and everything had changed.”
“What had changed?”
“Barrett was a wreck. He looked as if he hadn’t slept all weekend. He told me that under no uncertain
terms was Sophronia to be allowed on the property. He didn’t want her hurt, he was very clear about
that, but she was not to come on the property. He hired security to keep her off.”
He paused. “She tried to break in to the property many times. And she hired people to break on to the
property. At first Barrett refused to press charges, but finally he did. She broke in again, and ended
up doing six months in county jail. She lost her job at the university.”
Kenneth sat trying to absorb this astonishing information.
“Your grandfather was a changed man after that. Grim. Driven. He travelled the world constantly
looking for something, but he never revealed what he was searching for. I never saw a genuine smile
on his face again. Sophronia married an art dealer right after she got out of jail, and as I recall, the
man died of a heart attack shortly afterwards and she inherited everything he had. Then she married
again. Another wealthy man. He died of cancer. I know, because Barrett kept tabs on her, but still
wouldn’t go anywhere near her. It was five full years before your grandfather married your
grandmother Elizabeth, and no offense, but in all honesty, everybody knew that it wasn’t a love match
for either of them.”
“I know,” Kenneth said quietly. His grandparents tolerated each other, but their marriage was clearly
for political reasons, uniting two powerful and wealthy panther clans. They never even tried to
pretend that they were fated mates.
His father had ended up doing the same thing. His parents had never bothered to get divorced, but
took great pains to make sure that they stayed in opposite hemispheres from each other. His mother
was currently enjoying Australia and her latest boy toy.
Kenneth had thought loveless marriages were his family curse, and had vowed never to marry. He
hadn’t even believed that a Chamberlin could find a fated mate – until his lips had met Chloe’s in the
garden, and the world had tilted under his feet. .
“So Barrett never confided what he was looking for?” Kenneth said.
“The only thing that I can tell you is he became obsessed with ancient Sumerian art, and with the
country of Turak. He went back there again and again. He tried to speak to the person who’d sold
him the art collection, but the man had vanished; it turned out that authorities were looking for him
because he’d illegally looted ancient tombs and sold the contents. Barrett consulted experts in the
field, he studied ancient texts, but he never found what he was looking for. When his plane went
down over that mountain pass in Turak, he was still searching for answers.”
Barrett had died when Kenneth’s father Maxwell was ten years old. Kenneth only knew his
grandfather from the oil paintings that hung in his father’s house.
“I know that Sophronia approached my grandmother after the plane went down, wanting to buy his
collection of ancient Sumerian artwork,” Kenneth said. “I don’t know a lot of the details, but I do
know that my grandmother refused to have anything to do with her, and Sophronia continued to
approach my family over the years.”
“If I can find out anything more, I’ll let you know,” Hamish said.
“All right. Go back to sleep. My apologies for disturbing you.”
Then he called Tyler so that his computer genius friend could trace the license plate number that he’d
written down. Tyler had ways of accessing national legal databases – ways that Kenneth chose not to
question.
He was shocked when Tyler gave him the answer.
“Hammersmith Security? What could they possibly want with Chloe?” Hammersmith Security was a
rival security agency, run by humans. Their agency frequently employed shady tactics. He’d poached
several of their best employees, as well as taking in Jax Mackenzie, whom they’d fired rather than
give him is portion of a substantial reward.
Were they here to interfere with his investigation, purely out of spite? Did they have some financial
interest in this matter? Kenneth couldn’t imagine what interest that would be. He should have been
relieved that the man wasn’t pursuing Chloe romantically, but every time a picture of the man’s hand
on Chloe’s arm flashed through his mind, he wanted to shift and shred the man’s face with his claws.
Next Kenneth called his father, several times in a row, leaving increasingly irritated messages on his
answering machine.
Four hours later, Kenneth was pacing in his hotel room in panther form, which he tended to do when
frustrated, when his cell phone rang. Kenneth quickly shifted back to human form, sparing a glance at
the wall, which he’d shredded with impatient swipes of his huge paws. He was going to have one
hefty hotel bill.
It took a healthy heaping of wheedling and flattery, but finally his father told him what little he knew.
.
Maxwell knew that before Barrett married his mother, he had been engaged to Sophronia, and the
engagement had ended, quite badly. There was some kind of blow-up between the two of them, with
Sophronia accusing him of stealing artwork from her, and repeatedly breaking into his house in
Russettville.
His grandfather had eventually abandoned the house in Russettville where he’d once planned a life
with Sophronia. He boarded it up and never returned. He married Elizabeth, and the two had
moved around among his houses in Europe, a house in California, all over the world. Maxwell
remembered his father as a workaholic, grim, serious, given to locking himself up in his workshop
until late at night, when he was home at all. He seemed to spent most of his time travelling.
Maxwell remembered his father’s obsession with Turak, and also how he’d been shown a picture of
her and warned that if she ever were to approach him, he was to run away from her and tell the
nearest adult. When Maxwell took over his grandfather’s various business interests as an adult, both
Sophronia and her daughter Hilary had contacted him attempting to buy any artwork or statues of
Sumerian origin that his family owned, but Maxwell honored his late father’s wishes, which were
written into his will: never to have any business dealings of any kind with Sophronia or her family.
Kenneth finally settled in for a quick cat nap as the sun rose, frustrated and feeling no closer to the
truth about the mysterious Sophronia and her strange obsession with an obscure collection of artwork
from halfway around the world.
Chapter Seven
The country of Turak, located in modern-day Sumer
Bobbi and Pixie stood next to their luggage, watching the plane disappear into the horizon.
Bobbi had called in a major favor from an old contact of hers to find a mercenary willing to fly her
and Pixie into Turak, to the outskirts of El-Shehar, where the family of El-Debar lived. Some might
even call it blackmail; having worked as a member of the Enforcers for the National Shifters Council,
she knew where a lot of the bodies were buried. Whatever. She was in Turak, which was all that
mattered.
She didn’t even want to know what kind of cargo the plane was transporting, and she thanked her
lucky stars that the plane hadn’t been shot down out of the sky during their highly illegal landing.
They were now on their own for one week. A week from that day, Kenneth had arranged for a plane
to land several miles outside the city limits to pick up Jax and Heath; now, Bobbi and Pixie would be
on that plane as well. It was the safest day of the year to fly, because it was a national holiday, and
there would be a temporary cease-fire between the two warring factions which were tearing Turak to
pieces.
“You look so modest,” Bobbi said to Pixie. “So demure. So…law-abiding. It’s freaking me out.”
Pixie, true to her promise, was wearing an ankle-length cotton dress and a headscarf. She’d taken off
all off her makeup and taken out all of her facial piercings.
“I know, right? I kind of like this. Usually I dress like a total ho-bag, but now I’m a stealth ho-bag.”
Bobbi was dressed in similar attire. Turak was a relatively modernized country, so they wouldn’t be
forced to wear a burqa, but they still had to dress modestly, which was actually helpful in the current
circumstances. Their outfits would disguise them and allow them to blend in with the general
populace.
The El-Debar family lived in the city of El-Shahar, center of the civil war. They’d been dropped off
several miles outside of town, and a jeep was waiting for them.
They had fake passports and identification papers. And they had the address where Jax and Heath
were staying.
“Can you believe that they tried to stick us with a babysitting job?” Bobbi asked Pixie.
“Seriously.”
“I mean, I can still smell that little cheetah shifter,” Bobbi grumbled. Then she froze. “I can still smell
him. I really can. I shouldn’t still be able to smell him. His scent should have dissipated long ago.”
Bobbi’s suitcase started moving, and then began unzipping from the inside.
“No,” Bobbi said.
“Noooo,” Pixie said.
“Ta daah!” Prince Reginald stood up, triumphantly.
“Oh my God. Oh my God.” Bobbi clutched at her chest, hyperventilating. “No. This can’t be
happening.”
She had a very specific itinerary in mind when she’d commissioned the plane to take them to Turak.
Show up on the doorstep of Jax’s hotel room, punch him in the face hard enough to make him bleed,
bounce a lamp off her brother’s head, then go talk to the El-Debar family and get the information that
Kenneth needed.
Her plans did not, in any way, involve babysitting an eight year old Cheetah prince stowaway in the
middle of a war zone.
“How did you get here?” Pixie demanded.
He climbed out of the suitcase. “I followed you to your house, and then I followed you to the airport.”
“But how? Who took you there?”
“Nobody. I am a cheetah. We’re the fastest land mammal on the face of the Earth. I can accelerate
from zero to sixty miles an hour in under three seconds,” Reginald said smugly.
“He’s right,” Bobbi said to Pixie. “I remember that from grade school. Damn it.”
“In fact, I frequently had to slow down so I wouldn’t get ahead of you. You drive like my
grandmother,” he continued.
“She does, doesn’t she?” Pixie rolled her eyes.
“Hey! Don’t encourage him.” Bobbi glared at her. Then she turned back to Reginald. “I don’t
understand how nobody realized you were missing.”
“Easy. Right after you left I locked myself in my room and told everyone not to come in. They have to
obey me; I’m the prince. Then I climbed out the window and jumped from ledge to ledge until I was
close to the ground, and then I followed you.”
Bobbi fixed a dangerous scowl on her face. “Well, we do not have to obey you. We can, in fact,
spank your butt and send you to bed without supper. Keep that in mind. Now, do you understand that
you have snuck your way into an incredibly dangerous war zone?”
“Of course!” Reginald was practically dancing with delight. “I heard you talking about it. That is
why I came with you. This will be much more exciting than Disneyworld. I can help you with your
investigation. I will be a detective.”
Bobbi turned to Pixie. “Okay, we are screwed. We’re stuck with him. The plane will not be back for
a week, we have no other way to get him safely out of the country. We’re going to have to let Jax and
Heath do all the investigating, and we’re stuck on babysitting duty after all. They win, and I hate them
for it.”
She grabbed her satellite phone and walked a short distance away. Praying that the satellite signal
would cooperate, she called Tyler to update him.
“My God.” Tyler was appalled. “I can’t believe it. If Reginald’s parents find out…”
“We’re all in huge trouble, and so are the bodyguards, and the nanny, for that matter. We need to keep
this quiet. The plane will come to pick us all up in a week; we just need to keep Reggie safe, and
keep this on the q-t, until then. Unless you can think of any way to get Reginald out of here sooner.”
“In the middle of a war? No. We have to stick with the plan. Kenneth is going to kill me when he gets
back,” Tyler groaned.
“We’ll have adjoining graves. We are all so dead,” Bobbi agreed. She glanced back at Pixie and
Reginald. Pixie was pretending to pull a quarter from behind Reginald’s ear.
She walked back over to them. “We’re stuck here for the week,” she said. They tossed their suitcases
into the jeep and climbed in. Bobbi restrained her natural impulse to let loose a stream of curses;
“I can’t believe that Jax and Heath won,” Pixie grumbled as they drove into town.
An idea started to formulate in Bobbi’s mind.
“Or did they? We do know where they’re staying,” Bobbi said. She glanced speculatively at
Reginald.
“Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?” Pixie asked.
“Probably.”
Bobbi turned to Reginald. “You are now officially recruited to Team Shifter. I have part one of your
assignment,” she informed him.
* * *
“And I thought Playa Linda was hot,” Heath said, mopping the sweat from his forehead with a
handkerchief.
They were sitting by the window of their hotel room. The warm breeze drifting inside did little to
cool the thick, hot air.
“This is nothing. Try coming here in the summer,” Jax said. “I was in the region a year ago rescuing
an oil pipeline worker who’d been kidnapped by a local tribe, and it was like walking through an
oven. It’s even worse when you shift; then it’s like wearing a fur coat in an oven.”
The two of them were planning on travelling to meet the El-Debar family in the morning. If
everything went as planned, they’d have the information that they needed, and the El-Debar family
would fly out of the country with them next week.
They were staying in a half-empty hotel on the edge of town, a scarred concrete building with
boarded up windows.
The electricity at the hotel was sporadic, and the water that trickled from the tap was rusty.
Fortunately, they were next to an ancient mosque, and so far the two warring factions had respected
the venerable religious building and kept the gunfire to a minimum in their neighborhood.
“I’d love to see the look on my sister’s face right now,” Heath said.
“Yeah, me too,” Jax grinned. Then his smile faded a little bit. “I’d like to see it from here. On a
satellite TV. I have a feeling we’re not going to like it too much seeing her in person when we land on
U.S. soil.”
“Nope,” Heath agreed solemnly.
It was worth it, Jax thought. The assignment was dangerous in every possible way, and even more
dangerous for a woman in a country like Turak, where women were viewed as second-class citizens.
Yeah, Bobbi was going to be furious at him, but she’d just have to deal with it.
There was a sharp rapping on the door. Heath and Jax glanced at each other with raised eyebrows.
They weren’t expecting anyone.
The two men rose to their feet.
Could anyone be aware of their mission here? They weren’t violating any laws, but at the moment,
travel was restricted for foreigners. One of the regimes vying for control of the country was
sympathetic to Americans; the other was decidedly hostile.
Whatever the case, anyone who attempted to take on Jax and Heath would be making a very big
mistake. Jax was a werewolf shifter and a former sheriff’s deputy who’d worked in private security
for the last year. Heath was a bear shifter who’d worked as an Enforcer for the National Shifter’s
Council for several years, including a six month undercover stint in a federal prison.
“Got it,” Heath said, and he walked over and yanked open the door.
Prince Reginald stood there, grinning from ear to ear, carrying a small bag slung over his shoulder.
“Hello,” he said.
Heath pushed past him and ran down the hallway. He could see Bobbi running out the front door. By
the time he made it to the front door, all he saw was the cloud of dust kicked up by the car racing
away from them down the street…and Pixie’s hand sticking out of the passenger side window, with
her middle finger extended.
Cursing furiously, Heath ran back up the stairs.
The prince turned to look at him questioningly.
“Which one of you is Heath, and which one of you is Jax?” he demanded.
“I’m Heath. He’s Jax. We’re so screwed,” Heath groaned, burying his face in his hands.
The prince lashed out with his foot so quickly that even Heath, with his lightning quick reflexes,
didn’t have time to stop him; he landed a painful kick to Heath’s shin.
Then the prince leaped on to the table and smacked Jax upside the head, hard, with his bag. The small
bag was surprisingly heavy.
“What the hell?” Jax shouted, raising his hand.
“Ah, ah, ah,” the Prince chided, shaking his index finger at them. “You can not hit me. I am a prince,
and I will tell my parents, and then it will not go well for you. That was from Pixie and Bobbi, by the
way. Also I am supposed to bite you, but I will do that later, when you least expect it. Probably
while you are sleeping. Also, Pixie says that anything that I steal from you, I get to keep, after I give
her half. Now, I want you to read me a story.” He reached in to his small bag and pulled out a stack
of books.
“Let’s see, which one shall I have you read me first?”
Chapter Eight
“Yep, perfect house for a recluse,” Chloe muttered to herself as she parked her car in front of her
grandmother’s sprawling old Italianate mansion. The dilapidated house was tucked away deep in the
woods, at the end of a half mile long, winding driveway. Apparently Sophronia’s distaste for human
contact extended to handymen. The pale blue paint on the exterior of the house was blistered and
peeling. Bald patches were scattered like mange on the roof.
The house looked on the verge of being swallowed up by a jungle of shoulder high weeds and
rosebushes run wild. Weeds thrust through random spots in the asphalt driveway, which was forked
with cracks like lightning bolts. It was a shame; the house had clearly been beautiful once.
Chloe had an odd feeling when she climbed out of her car, a trill of alarm that ran through her.
It’s all right, she told herself, I’m just creeped out because this house looks like a horror movie
setting.
She walked up the steps and saw that the front door was ajar. Was that normal for her grandmother?
She’d never been here before, so she had no way of knowing. Nervously, she reached into her purse
and pulled out her cell phone.
No bars. No service. She was far from any cell phone tower.
“Grandmother?” she yelled from the doorway.
She was greeted by silence. The cawing of birds in the trees lent a horror-movie feeling to the
whole eerie scene.
Well, she thought uneasily, as she stepped inside the front entryway, the advantage of being a panther
shifter is that I can usually hold my own.
Unless…
The smells swirling through the air all hit her at once. She stopped where she stood, standing
perfectly still.
With each breath that she drew in came the coppery tang of blood, and the thick, heavy smell of lion.
There were wolves in the house. She might be able to take on one wolf, but multiple wolves? A wolf
pack could bring her down and rip her throat out.
Down the entry hallway that led to a massive foyer, she saw paintings had been pulled from the walls
and lay in shreds and splinters on the floor. A wooden table had been overturned and the hallway rug
had been wrinkled back. From deep inside the house, she heard growls, growing closer.
Heart pounding in her chest, she turned and ran from the house, the wolves in hot pursuit. She could
hear them thudding through the house, and their roars tore through the air.
Should she try to run for it? They could probably outrun her – odds were she’d trip over something
before she’d made it a quarter mile.
Outside the house, her heart skipped a beat when she saw a massive panther flanked by a Kodiak bear
running straight towards her - and then she scented that the panther was Kenneth, and the bear seemed
to be with him. Kenneth’s limo was parked next to her car.
She skidded to a stop, and quickly shifted to panther form.
She turned back to the house, and saw three massive gray wolves in the foyer, staring at her and
Kenneth and the bear. Apparently they decided that taking on the three of them would be more trouble
than it was worth, because they turned and raced back into the house. A minute later, she saw them
running out the back door, and into the woods.
Chloe glanced over at Kenneth to see what he’d do next. He crouched low, with an angry growl
rumbling from his chest, his tail lashing the air furiously, but he didn’t pursue. The bear, tall as a tree,
let out a threatening bellow that split the air, and the lions ran faster, vanishing over the horizon.
She couldn’t help but notice how beautiful Kenneth was in panther form, eyes glowing a luminous
blue, his massive muscles rippling beneath his glossy black fur. When his lips curled back they
revealed fangs as white as ivory, and she suppressed a small shudder; she wouldn’t want to be on
Kenneth’s bad side.
Focus, she scolded herself. Chloe shifted back, grabbing her sweater from the ground and pulling it
over her now-naked body. Fortunately, it was a big, thick sweater that hung down to her mid-thigh;
she hugged it around herself, shivering.
Kenneth and the bear also shifted back; Kenneth picked up his shirt from the ground and tied it around
his waist like a loincloth, and the bear followed suit. Neither of them seemed to feel the cold, or
maybe they thought it wasn’t manly to shiver.
“What the hell?” Chloe demanded. “What are you doing here? I mean, thank you for rescuing me, but
why are you here?”
“I followed you from your house.”
“Why?”
“I had a feeling that I should.”
Well, his feeling had obviously been accurate – unless he was somehow behind all this. She didn’t
want to believe that of him.
She glanced at the house. “I need to see if my grandmother is in there,” she said. “She didn’t answer
me when I called to her, and I smelled blood.”
Kenneth nodded. “I could smell it too, from outside. We’ll search the house. Stay behind me.”
She followed him and the bear shifter inside, catching glimpses of Kenneth’s bare butt as they walked
down the halls. It was a magnificent gluteus maximus, round, firm, perfectly sculpted. His legs were
thick as tree trunks and well muscled, the legs of a man who spent many hours at the gym every week.
She tore her mind away from his perfect body. Her grandmother’s house had just been broken into and
her grandmother was apparently missing; what was wrong with her, checking out Kenneth’s butt at a
time like this? Kenneth somehow brought out her inner pervert; she couldn’t stop thinking about sex
when she was around him, no matter how inappropriate the timing.
“Grandmother?” she called out. There was no answer; she’d had a feeling there wouldn’t be.
She saw Kenneth looking around and knew that he was thinking the same thing that she was thinking:
this is the house of a crazy person.
Thick dust coated most of the surfaces. Paintings were piled up haphazardly on tabletops, sheets
were draped over furniture. All the mirrors in the house, bizarrely, had sheets taped over them with
blue duct tape.
There were foot prints in the dust, some of them small, most likely her grandmother’s, and then larger
ones, possibly from the wolf shifters.
They raced through the house, through dozens of rooms, calling Sophronia’s name, but she was
nowhere to be found. Chloe struggled to keep up with Kenneth, stumbling over rugs and bumping into
furniture. Kenneth kept glancing back to make sure she was still with him.
The furniture smelled moldy and everywhere they ran, clouds of dust flew up from their feet and
floated in the sunbeams that shot through the windows.
They ended up in the kitchen, where a great pool of blood, already drying, spread out across the tile
floor. Chloe stared at it, judging its size, trying to decide if somebody could survive the loss of that
much blood. Flies buzzed around the pool and skated on the surface of the thick red pond.
“Is that her blood? She told me to meet her here at noon. Where is she? The lion shifters didn’t take
her, we would have seen her with them when they ran out the back.”
“There’s a lot we don’t know about your grandmother,” Kenneth said. “I need to tell you some things
I found out yesterday. My grandfather didn’t leave your grandmother for another woman. After things
ended between him and your grandmother, he waited five years before marrying again.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Chloe protested. “If he didn’t break off his engagement for a woman, why
would he break it off?”
“Very little about this makes sense,” Kenneth said. “And it’s all the more reason for you to come
work for me. Help me catalogue the artwork. There’s some mystery revolving around those specific
pieces that were stolen, something that might help us figure out what happened all those years ago.
Did you know that your grandmother repeatedly tried to break into my grandfather’s house after they
broke things off? Did you know she ended up going to jail for it, and losing her job at the
university?”
“Why would my grandmother lie to my mother about all that?”
“Well…”Kenneth said delicately, glancing around the kitchen. A teetering mountain of dirty, moldy
dishes piled in the sink, thick gray dust coating the counters like fur…”Your grandmother clearly had
some…issues.”
“She was normal before she met your grandfather. Everyone says so. You know, forget it, I don’t
have time to argue about this. Damn it, I can’t even call the police from here because my cell phone
doesn’t work,” Chloe said, frustrated.
Kenneth nodded at a phone on the kitchen counter. “Oh,” she said. “I forgot about landlines.” She
grabbed the receiver and held it up to her ear.
“No dial tone. The intruders must have cut the phone line,” she said with a shudder, imagining the
lions creeping through the grass and slashing the lines.
She was glad Kenneth and his chauffer were still there. The house felt lonely and haunted. She
wished she could turn to Kenneth for comfort, to let him wrap his arms around her – not, of course,
because she wanted him, as much as she wanted to feel his warmth and strength wrap around her.
If they found Sophronia alive somewhere, she thought, she would insist that she seek professional
help. It was horrifying that Sophronia had lived like this for as long as she had.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said, heading for the front door and glancing askance at the pool of blood.
Kenneth and the chauffer followed her. “I’ll follow you into town to make sure that you’re all right,”
Kenneth said. “Then we can-“
“There is no ‘we’,” she cut him off quickly. She had to stop him talking because she felt weak and
scared and she wanted his help more than anything, and she didn’t dare to depend on him or trust him.
How had he known to follow her? Was he really there just to help, or was Alfonse right – did he
have his own secret agenda? The last time a woman from her family had depended on a Chamberlin,
things hadn’t ended well at all. “Right now my only concern is the safety of my grandmother and my
mother. \.”
* * *
“Mother, you need to tell me the truth about Sophronia.”
The day after her grandmother’s disappearance, Chloe had done research all morning and then driven
to Syracuse, to her mother’s antique shop. They sat in the store at a Victorian drop-leaf table made of
black walnut, which had a “for sale” sign dangling from it. Hilary had brewed tea for both of them,
carefully setting it on placemats on the table. She lived in the former servant’s quarters behind the
store.
The store was a sprawling old Victorian home which was crammed with a beautiful explosion of
clutter, mostly European, 18
th
century to the present, but there was one entire section dedicated, rather
incongruously, to middle Eastern art. Chloe had never questioned it before; now she found herself
wondering if that was Sophronia’s influence. Sophronia had given the shop to her mother.
There were circles under her mother’s eyes, and her mother was twisting a cloth handkerchief and
untwisting it.
Sophronia was still missing.
She’d spent hours at the police station the day before, and they’d come up with nothing useful. The
blood in the kitchen was definitely that of a panther shifter, the police had informed her. The police
hadn’t found any sign of Sophronia. No ransom note or telephoned demand for reward money had
been received. She hadn’t checked in to any hospitals, anywhere in New York. The house was in
such a state of disorder that it was difficult to tell if anything had been stolen.
“”What makes you think I haven’t been?”Her mother wasn’t meeting her eyes.
“Because things just aren’t adding up. All those things that grandmother told you about Barrett
Chamberlin and what he did to her…how closely did you investigate what she said?”
“Well, I…I didn’t,” Hilary said hesitantly. “Why would I? I didn’t have any reason to question her.”
Her mother was staring at the table.
“Mother, there is still something that you’re not telling me. I’ve never pushed you on this, because it’s
painful for you to talk about, but grandmother is missing, and somebody is breaking into Kenneth
Chamberlin’s houses and stealing artwork that sounds very much like the artwork that Sophronia has
been seeking. And furthermore, grandmother lied to you about quite a few things.”
At her mother’s startled look, she said “I have spoken to Kenneth Chamberlin. Don’t give me that
look! He told me that Barrett didn’t get married for five years after he and Sophronia broke it off. I
went through old newspapers this morning to see if I could verify that, and it’s true. He announced his
engagement to Sophronia in 1960. He announced his engagement to Elizabeth in 1965 and married
her that year. Also, according to public records, in 1961 Sophronia broke into his house on multiple
occasions, and went to jail for it. And she was working for Barrett, not the other way around. Why
would she tell so many lies?”
Her mother grimaced, but didn’t look surprised. “I’m not surprised she lied. I was hoping to never
have to tell you about this,” she said. “It’s the curse. Or at least, Sophronia believed there was a
curse.”
“What kind of curse? Why would she be cursed?”
“It happened after Sophronia and Barrett went to Turak together. Sophronia purchased a collection of
artwork, statues, vases, ceramic shards, ceremonial vessels, all of which turned out to have been
looted from the tomb of an ancient priest, and she and Barrett brought them back here, and
immediately afterwards, that’s when everything in her life fell apart.”
“Mother. I think it’s very likely that Barrett was the one who purchased the artwork, and I don’t think
he actually stole it from her,” Chloe said, gently but firmly. “Sophronia worked for him, not the other
way around. She was an adjunct professor, living on an academic’s salary. She wasn’t wealthy. He
was. I looked through old newspaper clippings; he was a renowned art collector and adventurer from
a young age, before he met her.”
Her mother shrugged unhappily. “I have no way of knowing if that’s true or not. I do know this much.
I talked to colleagues of hers at the university. I wanted to know what my mother was like when she
was younger, if she…if she’d always hated children, or it was just me, something about me…”
Suddenly her mother was blinking away tears.
Chloe winced in sympathy and grabbed her mother’s hand. She pitied her grandmother for her
obviously disturbed mental state, but she also hated what she’d done to Hilary. Hilary had always
been such a strong, constant, presence in Chloe’s life (sometimes too present, in fact), that she
couldn’t begin to imagine the pain of being abandoned by one’s own mother at birth. “Good heavens,
mother. Of course it’s not you. You are a wonderful person who takes in stray animals and volunteers
at soup kitchens. You have friends. You have me. You had daddy, until he died. You have like a
million friends on Facebook.”
“Well, that’s true,” her mother managed a pained smile.
“Everybody loves you. Whatever reason she had for abandoning you, it’s a defect in her, not you. If
you saw the inside of her house, you’d realize how crazy she is. When I went to her house there were
sheets taped up over the mirrors, and the house is falling to pieces, it’s sinking into a jungle of weeds,
and the dishes in the stink are more mold than dish, and…anyone with a house like that needs to be
committed.”
“But here’s the thing, Chloe. All her former friends say that when they knew her, she was happy, she
was popular, she was normal, she was very much in love with Barrett Chamberlin, and he appeared
to be very much in love with her – and after they returned from that expedition to Turak, everything in
her life began falling apart. She stopped showing up at her classes, she cut off contact with all of her
friends and colleagues, she lost her job at the university.”
“That doesn’t sound like a curse,” Chloe said, shaking her head. “All of what you’re describing was
caused by her own behavior.”
“There was more, though. Her parents died of carbon monoxide poisoning shortly after she returned
from Turak. Barrett threw her out of their house. All of her husbands died of various causes, heart
attack, cancer, carbon monoxide poisoning. My own father only lived until I was fifteen. Two of her
former close friends died, one drowned and one had an aneurysm; her colleagues told me that people
actually started avoiding her, they were afraid to even talk to her. It was like a black cloud followed
her everywhere she went.”
Chloe took a sip of her rapidly cooling tea and set it carefully back on its saucer. “So tell me more
about this curse. She believes it’s somehow connected to the artwork?”
“Yes. Around 3000 B.C., in the Tigris and Euphrates area. There were seven statues; two small
ones, five large ones. She’d sketched pictures of them for me. Apparently, after all these terrible
things started happening to her, she did research and found out that the statues were the guardian of a
powerful priest’s tomb, and they were never to be separated. She and Barrett didn’t buy the entire
collection, because they couldn’t afford it. She helped to split up these statues, and that’s why she
was cursed, according to her.”
She looked at Chloe. “And according to her, that is why, as soon as I was born, she left me with my
father. She would speak to me by phone as I grew older, sometimes she would meet us for very short
periods of time, but she would never spend any time with us. I’ve never been to her house. She
thought I would die if she did. When my father died, she arranged for me to go to boarding school.
That was when she told me about the curse.”
“Why did you never tell me this before?”
“Because I don’t believe in curses, but I think that believing that you’ve been cursed can affect your
thinking, make you start believing that any bad thing that happens to you in the normal course of your
life was caused by the curse. It can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and I didn’t want you to go
through life thinking that our family was cursed.” Her mother sighed heavily. “Personally, I think
she’s suffering from some kind of mental illness that wasn’t diagnosed when she was younger.
Probably schizophrenia; frequently that isn’t diagnosed until a person is in their late teens or early
twenties.”
“Given that Barrett was the one who most likely paid for the statues, is there a possibility that he was
the one who was cursed, not her? After all, he did die in a plane crash.”
“Maybe the curse is real, and they both were cursed,” Hilary mused, frowning. “I don’t know what to
believe any more.”
“Who do you think kidnapped her?” Chloe wondered. “And why?”
“I think it was the people that she associated with. Over the years, on a number of occasions, she
hired criminals to try to find the statues on Barrett’s property and steal them.”
At Chloe’s shocked look, she added hastily “She thought that if she could get all the statues together,
and return them to where they’d been stolen from, the curse would be lifted and I would be safe, and
we could be a family again. She told me that. But maybe associating with the criminal element came
back to bite her. There’s no honor among thieves, as they say.”
“It doesn’t explain how she vanished without a trace, andwhy the wolf shifters were there waiting for
me.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Hilary set her tea down in its saucer with a clink, looking troubled.
Chloe glanced around the store. “Why do you have that room full of ancient Middle Eastern art? You
don’t even like that style of art.”
“That was there when I graduated from college and your grandmother gave me the store. She insisted
that I keep an eye out for any art from the Middle East, especially Sumerian art, obviously. I needed
to keep my hand in with dealers of Middle Eastern art, in case any of the statues ever came on the
market.” She made a face. “You’re right, I never liked the Sumerian artwork. I just felt obligated to
help her. I thought that maybe if she got all the statues together, it would somehow convince her that
the curse had been lifted.”
Chloe sat in silence, thinking. She’d grown up in that shop, run by her mother. Her earliest memories
were of playing amid the statues and paintings, hiding under old furniture, thumbing through gilt-edged
books from decades past. She’d absorbed her mother’s love of history and art until her chosen major
seemed inevitable.
It was disconcerting to realize that her career, her life’s work, was not entirely her own choice.
She’d been subtly steered into it as a hand-me-down of her grandmother’s obsession.
“We’ve had this shadow hanging over our heads for our entire lives,” she said to her mother. “We
need to get to the bottom of this. We need answers.”
“I know, but how? I don’t know what more to do at this point.”
“We need to start at the beginning, with the artwork that Kenneth’s grandfather brought back from
Turak, the collection that apparently started all of this drama and misery. Kenneth has made me an
offer; if I help him catalogue the collection, he’ll make a very generous donation to the university.
I’m going to do it.”
“No! We don’t associate with Chamberlins! I simply forbid it!” Her mother protested. It had an
automatic ring to it, as if she’d been listening to Sophronia’s party line for so long that when she
heard the word “Chamberlin” her defenses automatically snapped into place.
“Mother, I’m twenty-eight years old. You can’t forbid anything. This may be the only way to find
Sophronia. And I’m not going to have this legacy of madness hanging over our heads forever. I may
want to marry and have children some day.” Why did Kenneth’s face flash through her head when she
thought that, and why did she suddenly imagine panther cubs racing up a tree? “If my grandmother
was mentally ill, I need to know that, and if our family really is cursed, I need to know that too.”
“You can not have anything to do with that man!” Hilary said, voice rising with alarm. “Look what
associating with that family cost your grandmother!”
“Mother, do you hear yourself? You admit that Sophronia’s been acting like a crazy woman since,
basically, the 1960s. We don’t know what caused it. I’m not saying that I suddenly trust the
Chamberlins; I’m saying that I have the opportunity to solve this mystery once and for all, and I’m
going to take it. I will be fine. I’ll call you. No, even better, I’ll update my Facebook page!” And she
pushed back her chair, got up, and walked out of the shop quickly.
“Chloe! Chloe! This is a bad idea!” her mother shouted. She let the front door shut behind her with a
jingle of little metal bells.
As she walked outside, she had an uneasy feeling that somebody was watching her. She stopped and
glanced up and down the street, and then at the big picture window of the coffee shop that faced her
mother’s store.
Alfonse was sitting there in the window, not even trying to hide the fact that he was watching her.
Irritated, she stalked across the street and stomped into the shop. Alfonse calmly sipped his coffee.
He was wearing a blazer and khakis, looking as handsome as ever. He was big and broad-
shouldered; he definitely had an ex-military air about him, Chloe thought. He caught her eye and
smiled when she walked in.
“Now this is just getting creepy,” she snapped.
“Nice to see you too. You never called.” He gestured at the seat across from him. “Can I buy you a
cup of coffee?”
“I told you that I wouldn’t call. And no, I do not want to have coffee with you; this isn’t a social visit.
Why are you here?”
He set down his coffee and looked at her reprovingly. “Did I not warn you about Kenneth? I know
what happened at your grandmother’s house – how you showed up and she was gone, how those wolf
shifters were waiting for you.”
“How do you know that?” she demanded suspiciously.
“I have clients who have an interest in your grandmother, and in the stolen artwork. Do you think it’s
a coincidence that Kenneth was there waiting for you, at just the right moment? Or do you think that he
knew that the assault was going to take place – because he arranged it himself, and then showed up to
make himself look like a hero and get you to trust him? That seems much more likely.”
Now Chloe was thoroughly unnerved. “Here’s what I think. You’re following me, you’re freaking me
out, and if it doesn’t stop I’ll report you to the police.”
“I’m not the enemy here. Your grandmother didn’t disappear until Kenneth showed up on the scene,
did she? Please, have a seat.”
“Who are your clients?”
“I’m not at liberty to say at this point, but they are very interested in arranging a meeting with you.
We could make it worth your while. Word is out that Mr. Chamberlin has offered a large sum of
money to the university, to secure your services. We can offer you double whatever he is paying, and
give you the answers that you seek. We could go meet them right now.”
Chloe fixed him with a cold stare. “Get in a car with a stalker who won’t take no for an answer, to
meet mystery clients who won’t even identify themselves, assuming they even exist? I think not. I’m
leaving now, and I better not see you in my rearview mirror.” She thought that she’d injected a
suitable tone of menace in her voice, but when she turned to walked out, she tripped on the oval
braided doormat, fell into the doorframe, and dropped her purse, spilling its contents on the ground.
Red-faced, she frantically scooped her purse and makeup and tissues and pens and notepad back in,
and slunk out of the shop.
Someday, I will actually master the art of the dramatic exit, she promised herself as she pulled away.
She was back in Russettville an hour later, and decided to head straight for Kenneth’s hotel rather
than go home.
Kenneth was staying at Russetville’s finest hotel, the Rosewood Inn. When she got there, she was
surprised to find that his chauffer was waiting for her in the lobby. “Hello, Miss Novak. Mr.
Chamberlin’s been expecting you,” he told her.
“He has?” she was startled, and annoyed.
The chauffer smiled politely, but she could swear she saw a glint of amusement in the man’s eyes.
The arrogance of Kenneth, just assuming that she’d come crawling back! What made it even more
annoying was that he was right.
Well, she might be ready to help him catalogue his collection, but that was all that he was going to get
from her. She still didn’t trust the man. If nothing else, anyone who could make her heart pound and
her genitals light up the way Kenneth did was clearly dangerous.
Irritated, she followed the chauffer to Kenneth’s suite.
The suite, apparently, was an entire wing of the hotel. Kenneth was waiting for her in the penthouse
suite’s living room, which was adorned with rich woods, fluffy rugs, and overstuffed antique
furniture.
He stood at the mahogany bar, pouring himself a tumbler of Macallan whisky. He wore a bespoke suit
of deep navy blue, and a perfectly knotted maroon tie. His shoes were Italian leather, with not a scuff
on them, so polished they gleamed. Chloe tried to remember if she had any shoes that were scuff-
less. None came to mind. Today she wore a tweed men’s jacket over a wine-colored turtleneck, an
ankle length skirt, and a ten year old pair of leather Frye boots that were battered and stained. She
liked to think of the stains as proud battle scars won by surviving the long, brutal upstate New York
winters.
Kenneth smiled as she walked over to him and tossed her purse on one of the bar stools. She felt that
zing shoot through her body, all the way down to her toes.
“Ahh, there you are,” Kenneth said. “What took you so long?”
“Oh, don’t be all smug,” she grumbled. “I almost didn’t come.”
“Of course.” His polite smile indicated that he clearly thought otherwise. “What’s your pleasure?”
“Excuse me?” she gasped, looking around the room. Had he really just said that to her?
The chauffer had somehow, discreetly vanished. She hadn’t even seen him leave.
“What’s my – really! Is that what you think? I came here to discuss helping you catalogue your
artwork! Do you expect me to just start taking my clothes off on the spot? Of all the arrogant,
presumptuous-”
Kenneth held up an empty wine glass. “I was asking you what you want to drink. Unless you had
something else in mind.”
“Oh,” she choked out. She could feel her cheeks flaming with embarrassment. “Nothing. Water. I’ll
have water.” Clearly alcohol would be a bad idea at this point.
He smiled and produced a bottle of mineral water and a glass of ice cubes. She turned her back to
him and made a big show of taking off her jacket and carefully hanging it over the back of her chair,
just so she’d have something to do while he poured the water.
Why was it that she was able to wrangle a classroom of unruly students into silence with one quirk of
an eyebrow, but being around Kenneth for thirty seconds turned her into a babbling moron?
If she were forced to admit it to herself, she felt oddly deflated to realize that he was not, in fact,
propositioning her.
Of course he wasn’t. One stolen kiss in a dark, moonlit garden meant nothing to a man like him. He
probably kissed a different woman morning, noon and night.
“Anyway,” she said, desperate to change the subject, “let’s set up some ground rules. I will work for
you under the following conditions. First of all, I will not personally accept any payment from you,
but the university would greatly benefit from the endowment that you promised them.”
“Of course.”
“I will work with you because I need to figure out what happened to my grandmother. No other
reason. Don’t think I came here for anything else.”
“Certainly not.” His amused smile spoke volumes. “Of course, it’s not as if you’re here because
we’re fated mates and you know that we belong together.” He raised a questioning eyebrow.
Her cheeks heated and that strange shiver of lust pulsed through her body again. “That – that is
ridiculous! You’re not implying that’s actually the case? My grandmother and your grandfather were
fated mates. What are the odds that you and I would also be fated mates?”
“Fate is strange. And I work with facts, not odds. I have supper ready. I believe you are a fan of
Italian food?”
How did he even know that?
Before she could answer, he turned and walked away, into the dining room. The hotel room had a
living room, and a dining room. And a bedroom. She could have tucked her entire house into this
penthouse suite.
There was a massive spread on the dining room table. Bowls of pasta dripping with creamy sauce,
pasta drenched in rich red tomato sauce and sprinkled with fragrant parmesan, bowls of mussels
swimming in garlic butter, platters full of antipasti, and plates of barely singed steak, which was a
delicious delicacy for shifters.
“I’m not hungry,” she said, trying to suck the drool back into her mouth. Her stomach growled in
protest, a long, low rumble that she was sure could be heard outside on the street.
“I hate you very much,” she said, plopping herself down at the table.
“I’m sure you do. But you won’t hate this dinner.” He began ladling pasta on to her plate, and she
barely stifled a moan of pleasure. He didn’t stop until her plate was heaped high with samples of
everything from the table, and then he sat down and served himself as well.
Chloe struggled not to be horribly self-conscious as she ate. Was she chewing too loudly? Did the
women that Kenneth dated even eat, at all? From the pictures she’d seen of him online, he was
attracted to bony, glamorous skeletors with impeccably blow-dried hair.
“Enjoying the dinner?”
She chewed and swallowed a bite of garlicy bow-tie pasta.
“My compliments to the chef. By the way,” she said, “There was a man named Alfonse, at the party,
who now seems to be following me. He claims he’s representing some clients who have an interest
in my grandmother and that artwork. He also seemed to know something about you.”
“Is that a fact. Such as?” She could swear Kenneth’s eyes had suddenly taken on a green glow.
“Well, basically…he said you couldn’t be trusted. He said that everything that you do, you have your
own agenda.”
At the mention of Alfonse, Kenneth had set his fork down and now he radiated tension like a stretched
wire. “Everybody has their own agenda. What else did he say?”
“That was about it. I couldn’t help but think that it has something to do with those art thefts. Suddenly
you’re interested in me, he’s interested in me…”
Kenneth’s eyes definitely were glowing green. As if he were green with envy.
“He’s interested in you how?” he asked, with a polite smile that resembled that of a cat about to
pounce.
“Purely on a business level,” she said, irritated. He had no call to be acting jealous of her.
“I see,” he replied coolly.
“So, what news do you have for me?”
“Well, I now know why there’s the sudden interest in this artwork. It was only recently that it
resurfaced; before that, my family wasn’t even aware that it existed. About six months ago, there
was an earthquake that damaged our house in Italy, and when they were assessing the damage, they
found a sealed off and hidden room there, with a collection of artwork in it. It was the Sumerian
artwork.”
“Didn’t your grandfather originally bring it back here to his house in New York?”
“Yes, but if your grandmother was trying to steal it from him, it makes sense that he’d ship it overseas
and hide it.” Kenneth scooped up a bite of raspberry mousse from a silver bowl, and held it out to
her. “Try a bite. I insist.”
She let him slide the spoon into her mouth and swallowed the bite of mousse. Sweet raspberry heaven
caressed her tongue and slid down her throat like silk. Before she could stop herself, she let out a
little whimper of pleasure.
Kenneth had her pinned her chair with his gaze. Now his eyes were blue again.
“You like?” he purred.
A wave of heat washed over her, and her panties went damp. She felt as if jolts of electricity were
shooting down her nerve endings.
“Not bad,” she choked out.
She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak for a second.
“Artwork,” she managed, finally.
“Yes, the dessert is a work of art.”
“No. Your artwork. You were telling me about the artwork.”
“Anyway,” Kenneth continued, “There was no indication as to why the room had been sealed off or
what he was trying to hide. The artwork was taken out and put on display. It was divided up
between my house in Italy and my house in France. A magazine did a feature on my art collection,
which included pictures of those new pieces. It was after the magazine came out that the thefts of the
artwork occurred. I have a very large collection of artwork, which my family has been collecting
from all over the world for decades, and I’d barely paid any notice when this new collection
surfaced. But clearly, this artwork is very important not just to your grandmother but to many others,
and we need to find out why. Here, try another bite.”
He scooped up another bite of mousse and held the spoon to her lips. Despite herself, she found her
lips parting and she closed her mouth around the spoon and slowly pulled away, as the sweet
raspberry foam melted on to her tongue.
He watched her intently, his eyes glowing. He was reveling in the pleasure that he’d just given her.
That hot, sensual feeling jolted through her body again, and if he’d leaned forward to kiss her, she
would have been powerless to stop him. Desire sizzled through her nerves and synapses, and she felt
faint. How could she survive an entire plane ride sitting next to this man, much less spending days and
days under the same roof with him?
She pushed her chair back and stood up quickly. She needed to get out of her before she embarrassed
herself even further. If he kept spoon feeding her mousse, she was likely to orgasm right there at the
table.
“I could…I could probably just looked at photographs of the artwork, and-”
“No, this is too important. You can miss a lot if you’re just looking at a photograph. You’ll need to
come to my house in Italy; I’ve moved all of the remaining artwork in the collection there, where it’s
under guard.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “This trip will be strictly professional. You’re not blackmailing me
into having sex with you.”
“Blackmailing? My dear, when it happens, I assure you, it will be because you want it to.” He winked
at her, stood up, and walked away, chuckling at her muttered curses.
Chapter Eight
The country of Turak
Bobbi and Pixie were sitting in what was left of a little next to their hotel, drinking tea and dipping
flat pieces of bread into a bowl of unsweetened yogurt made from goat’s milk. The store front of the
café had been destroyed by a mortar, and sunlight streamed through holes in the roof. The café’s sign,
which had once read “The Date Tree”, had been mostly destroyed, and now only the letters “ee” were
left.
“Ee” indeed, Bobbi thought.
On the street, children scavenged through rubble and played in the enormous craters that had been left
behind by the shells that rained from the sky.
Bobbi and Pixie were dressed modestly, as usual, with their head scarfs and billowing, ankle length,
figure concealing dress.
“Seriously, seeing the look on Heath’s face as we pulled away…that was like Christmas morning.”
Bobbi felt a warm glow sweep over her just thinking about it.
She suspected that Heath and Jax would think long and hard before they tried to pull a fast one on her
again. She was a master at extracting revenge – and sticking them with the task of babysitting the
prince was far better revenge than just punching Jax in the face or kicking her brother in the family
jewels. She was absolutely sure Jax would have preferred a beat-down – especially after the list of
instructions they’d given the Prince.
“Better than any Christmas I ever had. Then again, the only present I ever got on Christmas was
whatever I could pick from the pockets of my mother’s latest trick. I did get some pretty decent swag,
now that I think of it.” Pixie sighed happily. “Ahh, memories. Of course, I had to be long gone by the
time they woke up. And not come home till New Year’s.”
“I’m getting all misty-eyed just thinking about it,” Bobbi said. “That story should be on a Hallmark
card.”
She glanced around. The tile on the floor was baked clay, inscribed with beautiful designs. There
were small palm trees in the corner in terra cotta planters. Outside the sun was as blue as the
Mediterranean, without a cloud in sight. “This place is like Café Apocolypse. It’s a shame, because
it’s such a beautiful city…what’s left of it.”
The café’s owner, Mamoud, walked over to them on slippered feet. He also owned the hotel, which
currently was crowded with refugees whose homes had been shelled. Pixie and Bobbi had snagged
one of the last rooms and had spent the night sharing a single narrow bed.
Mamoud was a human who looked to be in his forties, with salt and pepper hair and a neatly trimmed
beard, and a perpetually mournful, resigned air. “Would you like some more tea?” he asked them.
“No, thank you,” Bobbi said. “We’re heading out in a minute. Tell me, Mamoud, what is this war
about? I looked around online, asked all over the place, and nobody seems to know.”
“It is all about power,” Mamoud said. “The leader of our country died of old age. He had two sons.
He meant for the older son to take over. The younger son, General Zar, was sent away to Europe long
ago, to a, how do you say it, mental institution. When his father died, he returned here and now he is
fighting for power. He is a madman. It will not go well for Turak if he is the winner.” He said it in a
resigned, philosophical tone. “Still, we do what we have to do to survive.” He stood there
expectantly.
Pixie raised an eyebrow. “Like what?” she asked.
“We sell whatever there is to sell. Food. Information…” he heaved a heavy sigh.
Pixie and Bobbi glanced at each other.
“What kind of information?” Bobbi asked.
“Oh, there are many kinds of information for sale. For instance, whenever there are foreigners
appearing in town at a time like this, people become curious. They ask questions.” He paused again,
expectantly.
Bobbi sighed. Her purse lay on the table. Tyler had given them a stack of Rili, the currency of Turak,
before they left Playa Linda.
“Has anyone been asking about us?” she asked, sliding out a hundred rili bill next to the twenty she
had already laid next to their plate of bread.
“Oh, yes, of course. The local police, and several men from America who were most unpleasant.
They were very cheap and did not tip well at all. I told them that I would have to make inquiries and
get back to them.”
“They were asking about us?” Bobbi asked, sliding another hundred Rili bill out of her purse. “What
did they want to know?”
“Who you were and what you were doing here. If you were working for an organization called
Shifters, Incorporated. What your plans are during the day. I told them nothing, of course,” he said,
with a virtuous look.
If they’d tipped him better, he’d have told them everything, Bobbi thought sourly.
They had already hired Mamoud’s cousin to drive them around the city. It would be best if he didn’t
feel compelled to share their destination with whoever was following them.
Bobbi slid another bill out of her purse.
“Do you know who they work for?”
“They claim they work for a company looking to drill for oil here, but I believe that they lie,” he said.
“If they ask again, we are freelance journalists covering the war,” she told him. “Thank you for a
delicious breakfast.”
He bowed deeply, and the money vanished into the pocket of his robe. “May the sun eternally shine
on you and all your descendants,” he said, as they got up to leave.
“You’ve got to admire him,” Pixie said. “He’s quite the shakedown artist.”
Bobbi snorted her contempt. “No, you’ve got to admire him,” she said. “I’ve got to be annoyed that I
have to hand out bribes right and left in this corrupt country just to keep from being killed.”
“Yeah, that was a Rili expensive breakfast, wasn’t it?”
“Stop. Just stop.”
Pixie cackled happily. “Sorry, I know. It’s Rili annoying when I do that.”
Outside the cafe, Mamoud’s cousin, a teenaged girl named Mayameen, had just pulled up in a bullet-
pocked taxi. They’d hired her to ferry them around town for the duration of their stay. Turak was one
of the rare Middle Eastern countries which allowed women to drive.
They were headed for the El-Debar residence, which would bring them dangerously close to a
section of town where the two warring factions were going at it with a vengeance, but fortunately,
Mayameen knew the streets as intimately as the lines on her hand. They were paying her well for it.
They’d only been driving for about ten minutes when Mayameen glanced at something in her rear-
view window. “It appears that you are very popular. We have company,” she said.
“Yes, somebody does appear to be following us.” Bobbi glancing irritably behind them.
The dark car behind them had tinted windows, and slunk a few hundred feet behind them, copying
their every turn.
“Hang on,” Mayameen yelled happily. “Fasten your seatbelts! This is my favorite part of the job!”
She turned the car towards the distant sound of gunfire.
Soon, the sound of gunfire was much closer, and they were weaving through streets where guerillas
crouched behind flaming vehicles and fired at each other from doorways and across the streets.
“Are you crazy?” Bobbi shouted. “You’re taking us right through the war zone!”
“This is the best way to lose somebody! They’d have to be crazy to follow us through here!”
Mayameen banked sharply, throwing them both to the side as two wheels lifted off the ground.
Yes, they would, Bobbi thought, clinging to the seat for dear life.
“Don’t worry, the windows are bulletproof!” Mayameen called out.
“What about the rest of the car?” Pixie yelled.
“Oh, I do not know. Look, we’ve lost them! You see, this is why I am the best at my job! Tell all of
your friends!”
A few more minutes of dodging and weaving, and they shot out of the tangle of streets onto an empty
highway.
“I might puke,” Bobbi observed, as her stomach settled back into place.
“That was awesome! That should be an amusement park ride!” Pixie whooped as they accelerated
away.
“Would this amusement park ride come with real bullets?” Bobbi wondered.
“Of course! Where would be the fun, otherwise?”
“I’m thinking the liability insurance at that amusement park would be pretty high. Oh, crap.” She
looked behind her.
“What?”
“An angry mob overturned the car that was following us. Now they’re pulling them out of the car…
kicking them and beating them…god damn it. Hold on. Mayameen, go back.”
“What?” Pixie squealed indignantly. “Screw them! Let them die!”
“First we find out who they are. Then they can die.”
Mayameen made a quick u-turn and they headed back. She accelerated towards the angry crowd, who
scattered and fled, leaving two men lying curled up in the street. Then she slammed on the brakes,
screeching to a halt only feet from where the men lay.
Pixie and Bobbi jumped from the car, and dragged the men, who were moaning and clutching their
stomachs, into the car. Blood ran from their noses and their split lips. Their eyes were already
swelling, and they’d sport impressive shiners by the next day.
Mayameen turned and accelerated out of the neighborhood again, swerving as she dodged the huge
craters that had been punched in the road by mortar fire.
Bobbi Leveled a fierce glare at him. “Who the hell are you and why are you following us?”
“I don’t have to tell you anything,” he said, reaching inside his jacket for the gun that he had holstered
there. Bobbi shifted on the spot, and lunged for his throat, snarling and snapping. He fell back on the
seat, screaming.
She raked open his pocket with her claws, and pulled out his wallet with her fangs.
Then she shifted back to human form, with the shreds of her clothing dangling over her body and
barely covering her.
“We can slow down this car and I can let you out on the side of the road, or we can speed up this car
and I can boot you out at a hundred miles an hour. The ambulances in this city have stopped running
and the hospitals are on generator power, and they’re out of antibiotics and painkillers, which would
make compound fractures a joy to treat.” She smiled at them and half shifted, just her face this time,
coyote snout extending outwards, and snapped at his throat again before returning to human form.
“Pick number two! I’m begging you! I want to see if you bounce!” Pixie sang out.
“What do you want?” the man muttered sullenly.
“You assholes were the ones following us. What did you want?” Bobbi demanded.
“Maybe we were just looking for a good time. You both look like easy lays,” the man sneered.
Bobbi let out a snarl and tore a chunk of flesh from his shoulder, and spit it out on the car seat. The
man screamed, clutching at his bleeding shoulder, and his companion made a move as if to grab his
gun.
Bobbi turned towards him, lips wrinkling back from her snout to reveal her bloodied fangs, and he
froze.
“We’re with Hammersmith! We’re trying to track down some god-damned statues that your boss stole
from our client! And you’re in serious violation of international law, god damn it!” the man screamed,
pressing hard on his bleeding shoulder. “When we get back to the states, I swear to God…”
“You’ll do nothing, because whatever I do here would have to be prosecuted here, and all of the
courts are shut down. You’re going to want to get some antibiotics. Maybe a series of rabies shots. I
can’t remember the last time I was vaccinated. Mayameen, stop and let them out.”
“Do we have to?” Pixie groused. “I wanted to see if they could tuck and roll.”
“Yes, god damn it!” Bobbi barked. “They stink, and I want them out of here. And this asshole’s
bleeding all over the seat.”
Mayameen slowed down and then halted. The man closest to the car door leaped out, swearing.
“I swear, it is unbelievable how many outfits I go through,” Bobbi said, fishing through a bag of spare
clothing she’d bought with her.
“It must get expensive,” Pixie observed, as Mayameen weaved around potholes and chunks of
asphalt.
“If I were an entrepreneur, I’d design a line of clothing for shifters,” she said. “Clothing that wouldn’t
shred to pieces every damned time I shift. I’m tired of flashing my boobs all over town.”
“That could work. Shifters are what, ten percent of the overall population in the U.S.? Forty percent
in some areas? You’d have a big customer base. Me, I’m sticking with my amusement park idea. It’ll
make millions.”
“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.
When 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 the 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 led 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 the 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 silenced 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 running out for all of us,” he told her.
“Faster than you think.”
Chapter Nine
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 standing 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 had 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 regained 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 photographs; 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 was 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 sculpture, 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.”
Next to the pictures of the stolen statues lay a broad, flat ceramic plaque, which was adorned with a
painting in shades of red and black. It featured a gruesome war scene. A huge demon floated over a
field of bodies, which were immersed in an ocean of red. Its grotesquely long tongue protruded from
its mouth, lapping up blood.
There were two smaller demons in the picture, floating beneath the larger demon. One had horns that
curled like a ram, and one had horns like a bull’s.
A man floated above them, on the upper right portion of the plaque, and he held a spear in his hand,
and a lightning bolt shot from the spear towards the demons. The man was shown in profile, as was
common from art of that period. He wore a helmet and the traditional ankle-length skirt made of goat
skins.
Underneath the scene was cuneiform writing. Chloe squinted at the scene, brow wrinkling in
concentration.
Kenneth chewed on his lip. Chloe in full-on scholar mode was just about the sexiest thing he’d ever
seen. He felt the blood rushing to his crotch, straining against his pants. His heart was pounding in
his chest, so hard he feared that she could hear its echo in the huge room.
“Good lord,” Chloe said. “This is the Great Priest Garmesh. This explains so much.”
“Never heard of him.”
“He was the ruler of one of the mightiest cities of that time-period. Basically, in 3000 b.c., most of
the population of Sumer had organized into city-states clustered around the Tigris and Euphrates
rivers. The cities were perpetually warring with each other for dominance. They were organized
around religious life, with the temple at the center of each city. Garmesh was a priest and the ruler of
the largest of the cities, and he had conquered several nearby cities, all these statues and a massive
ziggurat were built in his honor, and then he and the city of Kar abruptly vanished from the historical
record.”
“Car? Like what you drive?”
“Kar with a K. Well, the cuneiform alphabet doesn’t translate literally to our alphabet, of course.”
Kenneth looked at the picture. “The picture shows him larger than the demons, and above them. It
looks as if he defeated them.”
Chloe straightened up to look at him. Her wavy brown hair flowed over her shoulders, silky as a
chocolate river. He imagined himself tangling his fingers in that hair, tipping her head back, nibbling
at her plump pink lips as if they were sugar candies…
“Very good,” she said, nodding enthusiastically. “The picture does clearly show that he triumphed
over them. If they’d won, the picture would have shown him in an inferior position, smaller than
them, probably mortally wounded. Well, there might not even have been a picture; these appear to be
some kind of demons. Demons probably weren’t big on commemorative artwork.”
Kenneth felt a warm glow wash over him at her approval.
“So do I get a gold star?” Kenneth grinned. “No, wait…I’d like to choose my own prize.”
Chloe choked back an amused laugh.
Now he felt like the dorky kid who’d just won a date with the captain of the cheerleading squad.
Then she grew serious again, looking at the picture.
“So it appears as if his city was attacked by a plague of demons, and he defeated them…but then he
vanished, and his city fell into ruins. Why, if he conquered the demons? And why would there be
statues of the demons? The Sumerians generally made statues of benevolent deities, of gods who
protected them and conferred some benefit – gods who brought rain, the sun god…I would think it
would be bad luck to create statues like this.” She shook her head, puzzled and fascinated.
“The statues do seem to bring some kind of bad luck, if what you told me about your grandmother is
true. It was after she had contact with the statues that she apparently went mad. Remember, my
grandfather acted as if he were on some kind of a mission after that. He travelled back to Turak again
and again. I think it’s pretty clear that he was seeking answers as to what happened to her.”
“Perhaps,” she agreed, looking thoughtful. “But he ended up marrying someone else.”
“After five years,” Kenneth pointed out. “And Sophronia was on her third husband by then; her
previous two husbands had died. I did the research. And I know that he was under considerable
pressure from his family to marry a respectable panther and continue his bloodline. So when the
situation with Soprhonia appeared hopeless, he entered a marriage of convenience, but he still kept
seeking answers.”
“Why would only she have gone mad, and not him, if they both handled that collection, and both were
responsible for purchasing it?” Chloe asked, rhetorically.
Kenneth shook his head. “It’s all a mystery to me,” he said, but she’d already turned back to the
statues, and he suddenly felt an odd sort of loneliness deep inside him, a sensation he’d never felt
before.
Chapter Ten
Chloe lost track of the time that she spent in the room, meticulously examining each piece, until she
could no longer ignore the rumbling in her stomach.
When she looked up, she realized that Kenneth was standing there, waiting patiently.
“Oh! What time is it?” she asked. “I’m sorry, I was a little distracted.”
He smiled patiently. “It’s three p.m. A late lunch or early dinner, depending on how you look at it, is
waiting for us outside in the garden.”
He had been extremely gracious, she thought.
“Was that terribly boring for you?” she asked. She hadn’t meant to be openly rude.
“No, not at all. I enjoy watching you work. There’s a passion that you bring to it…” there was a
gleam in his eye as he spoke. “You’re lucky that you love your work so much.”
“I am, aren’t I?” Chloe said, surprised. She hadn’t ever particularly thought of herself as lucky before.
She followed Kenneth downstairs, into a kitchen which was as oversized as the rest of the mansion.
The floor was an apricot colored terra cotta, the gleaming steel refrigerator was industrial sized.
They walked through the kitchen and out into the garden, where a plate of appetizers had been spread
out before them.
“We could eat in the dining room, if you’d prefer a more formal experience,” he suggested.
“Oh, no, this is fine. I’m not the formal type, myself.” She grabbed a plate and began piling on the
appetizers. Stuffed mushrooms, rolls of prosciutto, wrinkly black olives, shrimp drenched in spicy
tomato sauce…
She sat down and began working her way through the plate.
“I do love a woman with a healthy appetite,” Kenneth said. She looked at him suspiciously.
“No, I mean it,” he said. “I’m used to women who order lettuce with no dressing for dinner, and then
spend their meal staring hungrily at my plate, but refusing to take a bite.”
?” “That’s a shame. You do serve a delicious spread.” She bit into a little sandwich with cheese and
capers. Delicious.
Kenneth was charming and attentive as she ate, but didn’t flirt with her at all. He attacked his food
with gusto, enjoyed his wine, and made polite conversation.
That was exactly what she wanted, wasn’t it? She’d promised herself a thousand times, perhaps a
little too fervently, that she wanted nothing to do with the man.
Then why did she feel herself burning with frustration? Why did she feel as if the distance between
them across the table was much too wide, a huge gap that she wanted to bridge?
This is ridiculous, she scolded herself. I can finish up here within a couple of days. I just need to
start writing up my findings first thing tomorrow, and I could be home by week’s end.
Home. On the other side of the country from Kenneth, or maybe on another continent. She had no idea
what he’d be doing after she left, or where in the world he’d be. That thought left her feeling
strangely sad and empty.
Irritated with herself, she scooped up a piece of chocolate mousse, only to watch it slide off her
spoon and plop on to her chest. She grabbed a napkin and mopped at her chest.
Had he noticed? He had, hadn’t he, she thought, flushing red with humiliation. He was just pretending
not to notice, carrying on, sipping his wine, so as not to embarrass her.
Mortified, she pushed her chair back and rushed from the table, running through the maze of hedges.
She stopped when her dress caught on a thorny branch, wrestling desperately with the fabric.
Kenneth jogged up to her.
He didn’t say “What the hell’s the matter with you?”
He didn’t say “Why did you run off?”
He did say “here, let me get that.” Gently, he reached out and freed the fabric from the branch.
“Oh, go away…it’s hopeless!” she choked out.
“What’s hopeless?”
“I’m the clumsiest cat ever! How could you ever even like someone like me?” Her eyes swam with
tears and she blinked frantically, desperate not to cry.
“It’s actually one of the things that I like about you.”
He turned her around and gathered her in his arms.
“Why?”
“Because it’s nice to feel needed.”
“Don’t hug me. I spilled chocolate mousse on my chest.” If he made fun of her, she knew she’d burst
into tears.
But he didn’t.
“I happen to love chocolate mousse, so thank you for that,” he said with a wicked gleam in his eye,
and he bent down and lapped the smear of chocolate on her breast.
The feeling of his tongue sent a red hot thunderbolt of desire through her body. She couldn’t help
herself; she gasped aloud.
He ran his tongue over it again, and again.
She could swear he’d already lapped up all the chocolate, but he was still teasing her with his tongue.
He slid the edge of her dress’s neckline down, lower, lower, until he’d exposed her ruby red nipple.
He sucked her nipple into her mouth and she whimpered in pleasure as he scraped her tender flesh
with his teeth.
“We’re…we’re outside,” she panted, looking around. “We should…”
“We should get naked. Yes. There’s no-one on this side of the house now; I sent them all away.”
Because he’d assumed they’d be together? Part of her knew she should be furious at his
presumptuousness…a very, very small part. Mostly she was so aroused she was afraid she’d orgasm
the next time he touched her.
He shed his clothes in less than a minute. He was every bit as magnificent as she’d thought he would
be. Back at her grandmother’s house, she’d caught a brief glimpse after he shifted and his clothes
ripped off him, but now he stood there in all his glory. His cock was thick and erect, jutting upward
from a thatch of curly coal black hair.
Blushing, she pulled her dress off and dropped it on the ground.
Suddenly, a devilish thought seized her.
“If you can catch me, I’m yours,” she said, and before he could say a word, she’d shifted into panther
form. Her senses blazed to life, and the evening air was full of intoxicating smells. She could smell
the rich, loamy earth, and the fragrant rosemary hedges, and the musk of Kenneth’s arousal.
On all fours, she turned and ran through the maze, tail switching behind her.
Ha. She’d show him, Mr. Smarty-pants. She had endless stamina when she was in panther form. She
could ran all night. She’d lead him on a chase he never –
She only made it around one corner before she tripped over a root that jutted up from the ground and
landed with a thud. She scrambled to her feet again, and Kenneth landed on top of her in panther
form, sending her sprawling onto the mossy ground. His fur was silky, and the muscles sliding
underneath his pelt were massive, and his eyes were so luminous they glowed like blue candle
flames.
Instantly she shifted back, and so did he. He was lying on top of her, naked.
“Really?” he laughed. “I thought you’d at least try to pretend to play hard to get.”
She smacked his shoulder. “I was trying! Then I tripped. Stupid roots. I told you, I’m the world’s
clumsiest panther.”
“Then you’ll need me by your side at all times, so I can be there to catch you when you fall.” His eyes
twinkled wickedly. “Because I suspect that’s going to happen a lot.”
“You-” she spluttered indignantly, or tried to, but then his mouth claimed hers, and she lost the power
of speech.
He slid on top of her, and she shivered with delight at the feeling of his rock hard body pressing
against her.
He cupped her face with his hand, his tongue thrusting inside her mouth and leading her tongue in a
hot, passionate duet. He tasted sweet and smoky at the same time, and he sucked at her hungrily, with
a passion that made her shudder with desire.
His knee slipped between her legs, nudging them apart, and she felt the rigid length of his shaft
pressing against her stomach. She circled her arms around his back, pulling him against her, his
hardness against her soft flesh.
Slowly, he pulled away from the kiss, and she whimpered and tangled her fingers in his silky back
hair, trying to draw him back in.
“No, I want to taste all of you,” he husked, and began kissing his way down the tender curve of her
neck, and then nipping at it.
“Ohh,” she wailed. “Oh, God. Yes.”
With each nip of her tender flesh, he swirled his tongue around the area that he’d just teased with his
teeth. She clutched at his hair with one hand, her other hand on his shoulder, fingers squeezing him.
More. More. Don’t stop. Had she said it out loud? She couldn’t be sure.
He moved on to her breasts, sucking one ruby tip into his mouth and tugging at it gently. Liquid heat
shot through her veins, and she wrapped one leg around him, brazen and shameless.
“I love what you’re doing to me,” she gasped.
“I love doing it. I love the noises that you’re making,” he murmured into her breast.
Part of her thought, this is madness. I’m surrendering to the devil himself.
She wanted him so badly, though, every cell in her body aching for him, her nerve endings burning
with desire. She wanted to pull him inside her, wanted to melt into his body until they were one.
Whatever hell I wake up to tomorrow, she thought, it will be worth it. This one night of magic and
bliss will be worth it.
She understood now why her grandmother had fallen so hard for Kenneth’s grandfather. The
Chamberlin men were irresistible.
He cupped one breast in his hand, running his thumb over the rosy bud, while he continued his
conquest of her other breast, biting and sucking at her nipple. Her flesh was unbearably sensitive, and
she cried out as teeth rasped across the tender flesh.
Then he moved down lower, and she shivered in anticipation as he scraped his teeth across her flat
belly. When he dipped his tongue into her navel, heat pooled in her abdomen.
His tongue swirled slowly, lazily, and she couldn’t suppress a low moan of pleasure. She wanted to
writhe, to scream out loud, but she forced herself to lie perfectly still, quivering with anticipation of
what was to come.
Then he worked his way lower, lower, until he was between her legs. His strong hands spread her
thighs apart, and then his fingers slid between the wet pink petals of her pussy. He was breathing
hard.
“You smell like heaven,” he groaned. “Like honey and roses.” She was spread wide open, and he ran
his tongue lightly along the seam that he’d exposed. Little jolts of pleasure shocked her.
“Please,” she whimpered.
“You want it? You want me to kiss you? To suck you?”
“Yes! Please!” she cried, and he moved his hot mouth onto the swollen bud of her clitoris and sucked
at it, wrenching a small shriek from her throat.
She lay there helplessly, as the heat inside her grew unbearable. His suckled her sensitive flesh, and
one finger slipped inside her slick wet opening and curved inward. Tears pricked her eyes; she
wanted to weep with pleasure, at all the unbearably pleasurable sensations stabbing at her.
He moved his finger inside her until he found a sensitive spot that she didn’t even know existed, and
she let out another shriek. Could people hear her? Could anyone see them? She didn’t even care any
more, she was so desperate for release.
He sucked harder, and at the same time stroked her with the one finger. Sweat beaded on her
forehead and trickled between her breasts, and the soft mossy ground was like silk beneath her. The
heat inside her suddenly bunched up into a ball, and then exploded like a grenade, hurling jagged
shards of pleasure throughout her whole body. She cried out wordlessly as her orgasm rolled over
her in wave after wave, and blessed relief came. She felt as if a sweet, liquid fire was flowing
throughout her whole body.
Kenneth moved up, wrapping his arms around her. They were both drenched in sweat, and the cool
night air and her damp skin made her shiver.
“I’ll keep you warm,” he murmured into her ear, wrapping himself around her.
“When you hold me like that, I feel so safe,” she said, resting her head on the moss.
“You should feel safe. I’d die before I let anything happen to you.” It sounded so perfect, the words
that she yearned to here. Could she believe him? She wanted to believe him. She’d been raised on a
lifetime of mistrust of the Chamberlins, and now she was torn between wondering if it had all been
lies, and wondering if she’d just let herself be misled by pure lust.
Kenneth buried his face in her hair and breathed in deeply. “You smell so sweet…and you taste even
better,” he husked.
What had she been thinking a minute ago? Now she couldn’t remember. Desire flared up through her
again, like the coals of a dying fire that had been stoked back to life.
She moved her hands, lightly caressing his back with her fingertips, and he groaned, and moved his
hips until the head of his cock was pressed against her slick entrance. He pressed hard until her flesh
yielded to him, and then slid inside her, an inch at a time, working his way up further and further.
His girth stretched her, her tight muscles forced to accommodate his massive size. It was a strange,
heady mix of pleasure and pain, and she wrapped her legs around him, urging him in.
Kenneth began moving his hips, sliding almost all the way out until she cried out at the loss, and then
moving to fill her again, so deliciously stuffing her full to overflowing. She could feel his pubic hair
tickling against hers, and he pumped into her, testicles slapping against her buttocks every time he
plunged in to the hilt.
Her pleasure reached its peak and she could feel her muscles clamping down on his cock, and he
quickly pulled out, groaning in pleasure and spilling his seed onto the ground.
“No condom,” he gasped.
“Oh. Right. Forgot.” Yes, she had, hadn’t she? When she was around Kenneth she couldn’t think
straight.
He lay beside her, his breath coming in gasps, caressing the sweat-slicked flesh of her abdomen. The
air reeked of sex and sweat.
Finally he spoke. “Condoms are inside. Shall we?”
* * *
A fat yellow cat lay sprawled across the cobblestones of the narrow street, basking in a sunny spot.
The ancient buildings lining the town square were roofed with red barrel tile, and pots of geraniums
brightened the windows. A mix of people and shifters strolled slowly past the little shops, enjoying
the unseasonably warm fall weather.
Kenneth had woken Chloe up early and insisted that they go to town to enjoy breakfast at a little café
in the center of town. Now her stomach was full, her body ached pleasantly after a night of the hottest
sex she’d ever had, and she was ready to head back to Kenneth’s villa for another round.
“You know, they have universities in California,” Kenneth said, looping his arm around Chloe’s
waist and pulling her up against him.
“You don’t say. I didn’t even know you people could read.”
“Careful. Sassy girls get spanked.” He pressed his lips against her ear and nibbled gently.
She shivered, and lightning bolts of desire sizzled through her.
“But what will you do to punish me?” she teased him. Instead of answering, he bent down and kissed
her neck, tongue tracing the curve. Instantly her nipples swelled and hardened, rubbing against the
fabric of her blouse, and she let out a small whimper.
“Stop!” she gasped. “There are people in the café! They can see us!”
He lapped at her neck and she felt her panties grow damp with desire. If he didn’t stop, she was
going to have an orgasm right there on the spot – and when it came to Kenneth, she was not capable of
coming quietly.
“Do you give?”
“I give! Uncle, I cry uncle!”
He stepped back away from her, a self-satisfied smile on his face.
“You’re so easy,” he bragged. “I know exactly what buttons to push. I mean that in the dirty sense, by
the way. And now, as I was saying…we have a very nice university in Playa Linda, where I live. But
do you know what they’re lacking?”
“I have a feeling you’re about to tell me,” she said.
“A classics department. I’ve been thinking for some time that I should fund one. That department
would need a chairman, of course. Or chairwoman.”
“Really?” her lips curved in an amused smile. “When you say for some time, exactly how long do you
mean?”
“A week or two. All right, since yesterday. I thought, what could possibly lure Chloe away from her
job? How about the opportunity to design her own department and curriculum?”
Chloe was temporarily speechless. Was this really happening? Last night she’d been ready to accept
that the penalty for a night with Kenneth Chamberlin could easily be a lifetime of regret and sorrow.
And now, here he was asking her to – what was he asking her, exactly?’
“Where…where would I live?” she asked cautiously.
He gave her a chiding look, as if to say, “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I know a weekly motel you could stay at,” he suggested. She punched his arm, laughing.
“That is a tempting offer,” she said.
“I also know a handsome billionaire who has room in his bed for a beautiful, stubborn, smart-
mouthed, very well-educated panther.”
“Really? Could you introduce me to him?” she grinned, and then danced away from him before he
could start tormenting her with his sensuous lips and tongue again.
“You’re a funny girl.” He moved towards her, eyes gleaming, and she took a step back.
“This is…very sudden. We just met,” she said.
“Chloe, we’re fated mates. You know it. I know it. Come live with me, and get to know me, so I can
sweep you off your feet. I promise you, I am very convincing when I put my mind to it.”
“My mother lives in New York. My friends. I’d be on the opposite side of the country from them.”
“I have a private jet at your disposal any time that you get lonely.”
“Are you trying to lure me to California by flashing your big, swollen, oversized, throbbing…bank
account?” she asked suspiciously.
“Yes. Is it working?”
“Kind of,” she admitted. “I’m apparently crazy enough to think about it. Oh, don’t look so smug.”
“I am feeling very smug, especially because you admit that I’m oversized.” He grinned hugely. “Come
inside the market with me. I want to show you off.”
She felt a little glow of pleasure at that. Kenneth Chamberlin, ridiculously handsome, most eligible
bachelor on the planet, wanted to show her off.
But they’d passed the most amazing chapel a block from the market place. It dwarfed the buildings
around it with its wonderfully baroque architecture and its arched wooden doors were hand-painted
with biblical scenes; she was desperate to get a closer look.
“Do you mind if I dash off to look at that church first?”
“Nerd. Hurry back.” He kissed the top of her head, and she rushed off happily around the corner.
There was nothing she loved better than an old city. All of the buildings here were 17
th
century or
earlier; she felt like a time traveler, walking over these ancient cobblestones.
A car rumbled by, distracting her from her reverie and jerking her back into the 21
st
century. She
fought a twinge of annoyance, turning her back on the car to stare at the church, which was bathed in
sunbeams.
The car door opened and shut, and oddly, she felt a sudden trill of alarm shoot through her.
“Well, well, well. You and the playboy. Wasn’t that a touching scene,” a familiar voice said right
behind Chloe’s ear.
It was Alfonse. He had a computer tablet in his hand, which he held up to show her. A lightning bolt
of shock zapped through her as she saw the picture on its screen: it was a close up picture of her
mother’s face, looking angry and afraid.
He no longer had that fake, polite smile pasted on his face. “You could have made this much easier on
all of us,” he said reprovingly. “You could have just come with me when I asked you to.”
“You son of a bitch,” she hissed. “If you hurt her-”
“Keep your voice down,” he said. “We have your mother, and your grandmother.”
“You bastard!” she hissed. She was so furious that it was all she could do to keep from shifting and
ripping his smug face off. The only thing stopping her was fear for her family.
He gestured at the car.
“Get in now, or your mother and grandmother die.”
She looked around frantically. Kenneth was nowhere in sight. A small group of tourists was standing
across the street by the church, a family was strolling with a baby…no Kenneth.
Some of the tourists casually glanced their way.
“Act as if we’re together,” Alfonse said, and tried to put his arm around her waist. A wave of
revulsion washed over her, and she jumped back, knocking his arm away.
“Don’t touch me,” she hissed.
His eyes blazed with anger. “Get in the car now, if you ever want to see your mother again,” he
snarled at her.
She had no choice. Quickly, she slid into the car, heart sinking in her chest as he slid in next to her
and slammed the car door shut.
“From now on, do what I say, or it will go badly for your family.”
How had she ever thought he was handsome? His eyes had a maniacal gleam to them, practically
bulging from his face like a chihuahua’s. His lips were thin and white with anger.
“What is all of this about? Who is behind this?” she demanded. “Are you really working for
Hammersmith?”
“No questions.” There was a briefcase on the seat next to him, and he grabbed a pad of paper from it,
and a pen, and handed them to her.
“Now you’re going to write Kenneth a note, which we will have delivered to him. I will dictate it to
you. Write exactly what I tell you to.”
He dictated a note to Kenneth in which she told him that she and Alfonse were lovers and she’d been
playing him for a fool. She wrote down that she’d gotten all the information that she needed from
Kenneth, and mocked him for ever thinking that she could care for someone as stupid and shallow as
him. He told her to conclude it “This is payback for Sophronia,” and then sign her name.
She kept her face expressionless as she wrote the letter, stuffing her rage deep down inside.
Kenneth. Would she ever see him again? The thought of being torn away from him made her
physically ill, but she had no choice. They had her mother. As soon as she was reunited with her
mother, she’d find a way to make this bastard pay for this. She didn’t care what it cost her.
She handed him the note, picturing Kenneth’s reaction when he saw it and struggling not to vomit.
Alfonse read what she’d written, and then nodded.
“So, you know that I was at Kenneth’s villa helping him do research. You must have an inside man
there,” she said, and the thought of somebody on the inside, betraying Kenneth, made her claws shoot
from her fingertips.
“I said no questions, you stuck up shifter bitch,” he snarled, and she felt a sudden prick in her leg, and
realized he’d jabbed her with a needle.
Suddenly she was terribly, terribly sleepy and dizzy. Her mother’s face, brave and frightened, swam
before her before her, and then Kenneth’s face floated by, and then a dark cloud enveloped her and
she was gone.
Chapter Eleven
“The breeze is kind of nice,” Pixie observed, sipping her coffee and admiring the view of the alley at
the back of The Date Tree café. “The café’s got an open air feel to it.”
“That’s what I love about you, Pixie. Your ridiculous and misplaced optimism. The way you can look
at giant gaping mortar holes as a positive.” Bobbi drank sweet, hot coffee and dipped into her goat
stew with a piece of flatbread.
“Ha! You admit that you love me!”
“When I’m not fighting the temptation to kill you. It’s about 80-20.”
“Eighty percent of the time, you love me,” Pixie said smugly.
“Nope.” Bobbi shook her head and took another swig of coffee. “Hey. Is that Karesh heading our
way?”
“It sure is,” Pixie said. “I wonder if that means his family is ready to cooperate.”
“I doubt it.” Bobbi frowned. “He came here by himself. His father was clearly the one in charge; if
they were ready to work with us, they’d have come here with him.”
Karesh glanced around the shop as if making sure nobody noticed him, before sitting at the table with
them.
“Sure, pull up a chair,” Pixie said.
“I just did.” He looked puzzled.
Pixie and Bobbi exchanged a glance. “I don’t think sarcarsm translates well across cultures,” Bobbi
said. She turned to Karesh. “So, you’re here without your father’s knowledge or consent. If you have
the information that we need, my boss’s offer still holds – even if the rest of your family won’t come
with you. You do know that staying here is suicide, right?”
Karesh sighed. He nodded at Mamoud, who had bustled up to their table at the sight of a new
customer. “I’ll have coffee,” he said. He waited until Mamoud walked away before he said “It’s not
that simple. We have responsibilities that we cannot abandon.”
“What kind of responsibilities?” Bobbi asked.
“Our family was assigned to be the guardians of those statues as soon as they were created. Or rather
you could say, we were cursed to be their guardians. We have been guarding those statues for
thousands of years.”
“Huh. You don’t look that old,” Pixie said, squinting at him critically. “I mean, I’d guess maybe 900
years, tops. Not a day over a thousand. Botox, much?”
He didn’t crack a smile. “It was a task handed down from generation to generation. We guard the
statues with our lives, because of the great doom that would be visited on humanity if they fell in the
wrong hands.”
“Like whose hands?”
“Like anybody foolish enough to try to meddle with powers they don’t understand,” Karesh said
sharply. “There should not even be anybody left alive today who knows what these statues can do,
aside from my family, but clearly, if somebody stole those statues from your boss, then somebody
knows their power.”
Mamoud set down a small pot of coffee in front of Karesh, along with a cup and saucer. Karesh
poured milk from the pitcher into the cup, and they waited for Mamoud to walk away before they
started speaking again.
“You are the guardians of the statues,” Bobbi said thoughtfully. “So…you do have some of the
statues?”
Karesh appeared to consider the question for a minute, then finally he answered, hesitantly. “I am
going to have to trust you, because I have nowhere else to turn. My father’s actions are putting this
family in danger. In fact…” And then he shook his head, scowling.
“What, for heaven’s sake?” Bobbi demanded, exasperated.
“I fear that the statues have corrupted him. They are pure evil. Spending time in their presence is
dangerous. He is acting strangely these days. He is insisting that we all stay here, refusing to leave
our home, while war threatens to destroy us. If we all stay here and die, then there will be nobody left
to guard the statues.”
“If you were guarding those statues so well, why did Kenneth’s grandfather get ahold of some of
them?” Bobbi persisted.
Karesh sighed. “He did not buy the statues that we guard. There were two groups of statues. Many
thousands of years ago, after the statues were created, they were entrusted to two different families.
Time went on. There were wars, there were natural disasters, kingdoms rose and fell, and
eventually, our family lost touch with the other guardians. We believe that they were all wiped out
during a plague. Our family had no idea where the other statues were until we heard of them being
put up for sale. When we heard the description of them, we knew what they were, and we went to
buy the statues. We were too late; when we arrived, the statues had been sold to your boss’s
grandfather, but when we tried to buy them from him, he denied that they even existed.”
“What is this power that these statues possess?” Bobbi asked. “What happens if they fall in the wrong
hands?”
He grimaced. “I’m not ready to reveal that. Such knowledge is dangerous.”
Of course, Bobbi thought irritably. Why should he make this easy on her? “So why are you even here,
if you can’t give me any useful information?”
“To see what kind of help your boss might be willing to offer me, if I can’t convince my father to
reveal what you need to know. Perhaps by the end of this week my father will agree to transport the
statues back to America and we could guard over them there. If not…would your boss consider taking
the statues by force, if I were to tell him where they are? Does he have the resources to do that?”
At Bobbi’s shocked expression, he added “It may be the only way to fulfill my family’s sacred
mission. You’ve seen what my father is turning into…he tried to drug you both. And I don’t care
what he told you, if he had succeeded, you never would have seen the light of day again. Tell that to
your boss.”
He stood up, tossing a twenty Rili bill on the table, and left.
“That was Rili unexpected,” Pixie said. “Jeez. Do you think we’re going to figure out what the heck
is going on before the plane comes to get us?”
“We’ve only got a few days left. Speaking of which…are you ready?”
Pixie’s face lit up in an evil grin. “I’m ready.”
Bobbi tossed another twenty Rili bill on the table, and the two of them headed outside, where
Mayameen was waiting for them in her taxi.
* * *
Jax woke with a start. He’d been sleeping badly the last couple of days – ever since the prince had
shown up on their door step. The prince was prone to jumping on them in the middle of the night,
both in cheetah form and in human form. He’d cuff them on the head, he’d bite their arms, he’d pull
the covers off them and demand that they play cards with him or read him a story, and if they said no,
he’d threaten to scream for help.
Jax’s nerves were frayed to their breaking point. He’d radioed Tyler pleading for help, begging for
an extraction, but Tyler had remained firm. The war was heating up. It was too dangerous for them to
travel with a child. The best way to safely remove the prince from the area was to wait for the plane
to land on the national holiday; otherwise, wherever they went, they risked driving through a war zone
and getting caught in the crossfire.
So Jax and Heath had tried their best to take turns sleeping, but even then, whichever one of them was
sleeping, the prince would launch himself at like a missile.
Prince Reginald, apparently, needed very little sleep.
Jax glanced over at Heath’s bed. Heath was flat on his back, snoring.
There was a pounding on the door, and at the same moment, Jax’s senses blazed to life.
It was Bobbi. He could scent her, and he always sensed when she was near. His fated mate, the
woman who drove him absolutely crazy, the woman he’d die for.
He leaped to his feet and ran to the door.
Bobbi stood in the hallway. She wore a blousy ankle length white cotton dress, a headscarf, and a
malicious smile.
“Having fun?” she asked.
“No,” he said fervently. “But I’m very glad to see you.”
It was true. His body pulsed and throbbed with pleasure whenever she was near to him. He wanted
nothing more than to strip her clothes off and throw her down on the nearest piece of furniture. Or
hell, who even needed furniture? There were always walls. And floors. And countertops.
“Have we learned an important lesson?” she continued, raising an eyebrow at him.
“Yes. I’ll be much sneakier next time I – hey!” she threw a punch at his shoulder, which he quickly
blocked, but at the same time she lashed out at him with her foot and caught him in the shin.
“Oww,” he grumbled. “That little bastard’s already kicked me there like sixty times. If he was my
kid, I’d have put him over my knee so fast-“
“But he’s not your kid. He’s a prince, and the child of very important clients. Where is the little
darling, by the way? I’ve come to relieve you of babysitting duties. You’ve suffered enough.”
“Oh, thank God,” Jax said fervently.
He turned around and yelled “Reginald! Someone’s here to see you!”
Silence.
Sudden ice cold fear washed over him.
He realized that when he’d sat up in bed, he hadn’t seen Reginald anywhere in the room. The
bathroom? He must be in the bathroom.
“Wait here,” he choked out, and slammed the door shut.
“What’s going on?” he heard Bobbi calling outside. She began pounding on the door. “Hey! Open
up!”
Jax rushed in to the bathroom. The door gaped open. So did the window that led to an alley outside.
Jax knew he hadn’t left the window open.
“Heath, wake up! Bobbi’s here and the prince is missing!” Jax growled in a low, urgent tone, and
Heath bolted upright, eyes flying open.
“What the hell? No! She’ll kill us!” Heath leaped from the bed.
Jax fell to his knees and looked under the bed.
Nothing.
He rushed over to the room’s one closet, and yanked it open.
Empty.
Heath had already rushed in to the bathroom, and rushed back out again.
“You were supposed to be keeping an eye on him!” Heath growled, eyes wide with panic.
“No, you were! It was your turn!” Jax snapped. This could not be happening. This was a nightmare.
He and Heath were so dead. First Bobbi would kill him, then Kenneth would kill him and fire him,
not necessarily in that order, then if there was anything left of him the prince’s parents were going to
go medieval on his ass…
The doorknob rattled and the door swung open, and Bobbi marched in. i Clearly she’d been taking
lock-picking lessons from Pixie. “What is going on? Why did you shut the door?” Bobbi glanced
around the room.
“Uhhh….” Words failed him.
“Where is he?” she demanded.
“Uhhhh…”Jax mumbled. “Don’t kill me. We’ll find him. I can shift to wolf form and then I’ll be able
to pick up his trail…” he hoped, anyway.
“He’s MISSING?” Bobbi’s eyes were as huge as dinner plates. “An eight year old boy is missing in a
city where mortars are raining from the sky and battles are breaking out on every street corner? He’s
missing?”
She clutched at her chest. Tears welled in her eyes.
“Bobbi, please. We’ll find him. I swear to God, we will find him. We won’t rest until he find him.”
Heath was clearly in full panic mode.
“I’m sorry!” Jax cried frantically. He’d never seen Bobbi this upset. “We’ll find him! I’m sorry!”
Bobbi burst into tears, burying her face in her hands. “Oh no, oh no, oh no…” she sobbed. Jax rushed
over and tried to throw his arms around her, and she shoved him violently away.
“Get away from me! You’ve killed him! He’s dead, I know it!” she wailed.
“Hey.” Heath’s voice cracked across the room, and suddenly he didn’t sound panicked. He sounded
pissed. “What the hell are you pulling?’
To Jax’s astonishment, Bobbi looked up again. This time she wasn’t crying.
“Too much?” she smirked, and wiped at her cheeks with her arm, blotting her tears.
“What the…” Jax turned from Heath to her and back again, bewilderment mingling with fury.
“Come on, Jax. I know my sister.” Heath glared at her. “And you know my sister. Think. Is this how
Bobbi reacts to a crisis? Crying and wailing like a helpless little debutante? Bullshit. She’d already
be long gone, tearing down the streets looking for him, sniffing out his trail, and expecting us to do
the same.”
Pixie strolled through the door, with a grinning Reginald trailing behind her.
“Ha!” he shouted triumphantly. “You are very stupid. It was too easy to trick you.” He and Pixie
exchanged triumphant high fives.
“Assignment complete,” Bobbi informed him. “Mission accomplished.” Reggie beamed with pride,
dancing with glee where he stood.
Fury swelled inside Jax and his vision went red with rage. He took a deep breath, ready to let out a
mighty howl of anger, but Pixie snorted in contempt and flopped down on the bed.
“After what you pulled, you’re about to act all pissy with us? Don’t even,” Pixie drawled.
“Exactly,” Bobbi said. “Do not EVER try to trick me like that again, or next time the consequences
will be much, much worse. You want to be my partner? Accept me as your equal. I’m every bit as
capable as you are in these situations. I worked for the National Enforcer’s Council for five years,
you’ve seen me in action.”
“Yeah, dumbshit,” Pixie added, un-helpfully.
Jax clenched his fists and had to draw in and let out several long, slow breaths before he was able to
control himself. He was furious at them, but he reluctantly had to admit that he would have been
equally as angry with Bobbi if she’d tried to leave him behind and gone on a dangerous mission by
herself.
And he also knew he had no choice. He had to take Bobbi as she was, if he wanted to be with her.
Since he couldn’t imagine life without her, that meant he had to take her as she was.
“I assume that the Prince’s parents still have no idea that he’s here?” Jax asked Bobbi.
“Yes. I checked with Tyler. So far, mum’s the word.”
“Good, because heads are going to roll if they find out,” Jax grumbled.
Reggie gasped in horror. Suddenly, his eyes filled with tears.
“That was a figure of speech,” Jax said quickly.
“No it isn’t!” Reggie wailed. “You’re right. If they find out that I’m here, they will execute everyone
who was watching me. They will execute my nanny. I only have her for a little while more, anyway,
and now they’re going to kill her. They will. This is all my fault. I must go back!”
“They’re not going to execute her,” Bobbi said quickly. “They’ll never find out.”
Reggie was near hysteria now. “I want to go home! I want to go home!”
“Damn it, Reggie! Get ahold of yourself!” Bobbi snapped. “You should have thought about this before
you climbed into that suitcase! We are in a war zone. There is no safe way for us to get out of here
until the plane comes. It’s like a shooting gallery out there. Our taxi caught a couple of hundred
bullets the other day when we were out for a casual drive.”
“What?” Jax yelled. He swung towards Bobbi. “Is that true?”
“I don’t care!” Reggie wailed. “I must go home! I must save my nanny! This is all my fault!”
“The plane isn’t coming for several more days,” Bobbi said. “There’s nothing we can do to get out of
here faster.”
“I will pay for a new plane!”
“To get to the plane, we would have to drive through bandit territory. You would be kidnapped, and
either killed and held for ransom. If that happens, your nanny and security team most certainly would
be executed. The only safe thing to do is stay here and wait until the plane comes.”
Reggie curled up in a ball and cried so hard his whole body shook. Pixie sat down cross-legged on
the floor next to him. “You want me to show you how to pick a lock?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No, thank you,” he sniffled into his knees.
“Why do you only have your nanny for a little while more?” Bobbi asked.
“My mother has a rule. Each nanny has to leave after one year,” he mumbled at the floor.
“That’s a stupid rule,” Pixie said.
“I wish this one could stay with me,” he said miserably. “But it’s mother’s rule. There’s nothing to
be done.”
“Hmmm. Never say never,” Bobbi said. “When I set my mind to something, I can be quite
resourceful.”
Jax grabbed his satellite phone which was sitting on top of the dresser.
“I’ll call Tyler and remind him how urgent it is that we keep the prince’s little escapade quiet,” he
said.
Reggie ignored him, bent over in sorrow, crying noisily into his knees.
Chapter Twelve
“Jonathan Drake. We have a problem.” Kenneth snarled into the phone, his claws extending from his
hands. Rage ripped through his body, and he could feel his face lengthening, his fangs descending.
He’d never felt such raw fury, or such fear.
For Chloe’s sake, he forced the fear deep, deep down inside, and struggled not to let his rage
overwhelm him.
Jonathan was the owner of Hammersmith Security, and if he didn’t give Kenneth exactly what he
wanted, he was also a dead man walking.
“How did you get this number?” he demanded. Kenneth had called him on his private cell phone, and
even better, Kenneth happened to know that Jonathan was at his mistress’s house. Jonathan had
inherited Hammersmith Security from his wife’s father.
“I have my sources. I need to know the whereabouts of your employee, Alfonse Capitano. Now. He
abducted a woman named Chloe Novak. She happens to be my fated mate. Think about that for a
minute.”
Kenneth could hear silence and heavy breathing on the other end of the phone. Jonathan was human,
but he would be familiar with the concept of a fated mate. Heaven help the person who got in between
fated mates…especially if one of those fated mates was Kenneth Chamberlin.
“What makes you think that my employee had anything to do with-”
“Don’t play cagey with me, motherfucker. Don’t even try. Chloe disappeared. My men and I
questioned people who saw her getting in a car with a man who fits Alfonse’s description. He’s been
following her, and harassing her. Employees of yours have also been following my people in Turak.”
“Perhaps she got in the car with him voluntarily?” Jonathan’s voice quavered as he spoke.
“No. I happen to know otherwise. And don’t keep wasting my time.” Kenneth glanced at the note
which had been delivered to him by messenger. It was in Chloe’s handwriting, but it had several
spelling and punctuation errors. Chloe would never, ever have made those errors, even at gunpoint.
It was clearly the only way that she could send him a message that she was writing the note under
duress.
“Well, I can’t help you find him, I’m afraid. Alfonse has gone, ah, kind of, off the grid,” Jonathan
said reluctantly.
“ “How in the hell did that happen?”
“He flew to Italy to continue his surveillance of Chloe Novak, and then…vanished. His cell phone
has been turned off. He isn’t responding to emails or text messages.”
“But he’s been following her. Why?”
Jonathan’s voice came out in a nasal whine. “You must understand, that’s confidential client”-
Kenneth felt his rage flow through him like a hot tide of lava, boiling through his veins and threatening
to choke him. Chloe had been taken from him by force. He had no idea where in the world she was,
or what was being done to her, if she was suffering, if she was frightened…His face lengthened, his
mouth filled with fangs, and fur rippled over his skin.
With enormous effort, he forced himself to return to human form. He had to stay human long enough to
find Chloe, no matter how hard it was. His primal instincts rumbled under the surface, and all that he
wanted to do was shift and find someone to maul.
“If anything happens to Chloe, I will hold you personally responsible,” he snarled. “And I will
personally rip your throat out.”
“Are you threatening me?” Jonathan’s voice rose an entire octave.
“Are you a complete fucking moron? Of course I’m threatening you. There’s no security force in the
world that will stop me. If Chloe is harmed in any way, you will spend the rest of your very short
life looking over your shoulder and waiting for me to find you, which I will. You sent a man to
follow Chloe, and then that man kidnapped her. You caused this to happen, and therefore, you will
answer every question that I answer, immediately, or I will make sure that you drown in your own
blood.”
There was a brief pause, and then Jonathan said, in an aggrieved voice, “What do you want to know?”
“Who hired you to follow Chloe? Who hired you to follow my people in Turak? And why?”
“You must understand, this client originally just wanted us to follow your people and get information
about that Sumerian artwork that your grandfather stole. Then they started making additional requests,
offering my people a huge amount of money if they would kidnap Chloe and your employees. All of
my people said no – except for Alfonse, apparently.”
“And you never felt the need to warn me of this?”
“It would have violated client confidentiality. It’s very important that word never get out that I
revealed-”
“Answer the fucking question! Who is your client? This is your last chance before I go Defcon five on
your ass,” Kenneth’s voice shook with rage and ended in a snarl.
“Well, it’s actually rather odd…” Jonathan said, and then he told him.
Kenneth sank back into his chair, stunned.
That made no sense. No sense at all.
* * *
Chloe woke gradually, with a dull throbbing in her temples. Where was she? The last thing she
remembered…oh, no.
She sat bolt upright and looked around. The room wobbled several times and then settled down.
Slowly, carefully, she climbed off the bed. She was still wearing the clothes she’d had on when she
was kidnapped, even her shoes.
The room had no windows, and when she tried the doorknob, it was locked.
Her purse and cell phone had been taken from her. Even if Kenneth had figured out what she’d tried
to tell him with the note, how would he find her?
In the distance, she could hear the air cracking with scattered gunfire.
I must be in Turak, she thought.
She’d been here before, in fact, six years earlier, when the region was stable. Everyone she’d met
had been so kind and so fascinated to meet an American and she’d taken part in an archeological dig
of an ancient city-state that dated back to 3500 B.C. She’d written her thesis on it, in fact. She’d
never wanted to leave.
Now she felt homesick and alone and very frightened. She also was angry enough to kill.
Concentrate on being angry, she told herself. Someone had taken her from her fated mate. Someone
had threatened her family. It didn’t matter if she was a small, clumsy, shifter who was terribly
outnumbered, she wouldn’t go down without a fight.
A quick search of the room revealed that there was a small bathroom, the closet was empty, and her
purse was definitely gone. Of course, there was no telephone. The doorknob rattled, and then the
door swung open. Two large bear shifters stood in the hall outside the doorway, in human form. They
were the size of football linebackers, and their expressions were not friendly. “Come with us,” one
of them intoned.
There was no point in resisting – not yet, anyway.
I am so in over my head, she thought despairingly, following them down a hallway.
She was lead through several hallways, into a living room. The furniture was American style, but
dated, with ugly black lacquer and fake gold accents.
Chloe could smell death in the air. Rotting flesh, spilled blood. She sniffed, and realized that it was
coming from down yet another hallway.
A woman sat at a table, wearing a black dress and a hat with a thick, dark veil draped over her face.
“Chloe,” the woman said, in a low, strange voice. Her grandmother’s voice. And yet…there was
something off about it. She hadn’t seen her grandmother since she was a small child, and that was
only for a very brief meeting. She’d only ever heard her grandmother speak over the telephone. In
person, her grandmother sounded as if she were deliberately altering her voice.
“You came,” her grandmother said.
“What is wrong with your voice? Someone’s dead in this house, I can smell it! Where is my mother?”
If her mother was dead, so help her and everyone in this house…
“It’s the people who owned this house! These animals killed them!” her grandmother wailed. Her
voice sounded wrong – too young. Was this an imposter? Was that why she was wearing a veil?
“Tell these men everything they ask of you. Please. If you don’t, they’ll kill us all.”
One of the bear shifters turned towards Chloe. “Have you found out where the other statues are?” he
demanded, his voice heavy with menace.
“Show me my mother!” Her voice was rising with hysteria.
“You don’t get to make demands,” the man said, and slapped her grandmother on the side of the head
so hard that her grandmother rocked sideways in her chair, wailing and cringing.
The man raised his hand to slap her grandmother again.
Anger swelled inside her and pushed aside the fear.
Furious, Chloe leaped to her feet. “I don’t give a damn if you’re bears,” she snapped. “I will shift,
and you can see what happens when you corner a cat. Don’t touch my grandmother again, and bring
my mother out here, or I swear to God I’ll claw your faces off, or die trying! And then you won’t get
any information from me at all.”
The man glanced at her grandmother…as if he was waiting for a cue from her. As if she was in
charge.
And why the hell was her face veiled?
“Chloe, please, just tell them what they want! Can’t you see they’ll kill me?” her grandmother
whimpered, cringing away from the man.
Pretending to cringe.
A terrible suspicion started to swell inside Chloe.
“Why don’t you want them to bring my mother out here?” she demanded.
“She’s fine!” her grandmother wailed. “Please, Chloe! Please answer their questions!”
Before they could stop her, Chloe shifted, leaped forward, and pawed the veil off her grandmother’s
face…and fell back in shock.
This couldn’t be her grandmother. It looked exactly like the picture that her mother had of her
grandmother as a young woman. This woman was impossibly young. She should be in her seventies,
but she looked like she was in her twenties. Her heart shaped face was smooth and unlined, and her
wavy hair was a lustrous chocolate brown. She looked a great deal like Chloe and her mother.
Chloe turned human again, clutching at her shredded clothes. The bodyguards had shifted into bears,
and they loomed over her, growling, eyes blazing, but she was too stunned to be frightened.
“Who the hell are you?” Chloe gasped. “What are you?”
Impatiently, the woman pushed her chair back, standing up.
“Oh, the hell with it,” she snarled at the bear shifters. “She’s not buying it. Bring in my darling
daughter.”
They both shifted back into human form, and turned to walk out of the room. “And put some clothes
on!” the woman yelled after them as they walked out.
The men vanished down the hallway, as Chloe stared at the woman, open-mouthed.
“That’s one hell of a plastic surgeon you’ve got there,” she said finally.
The woman looked at her and her eyes glowed red. “You have no idea,” she smiled unpleasantly.
A minute later, one of the men, now wearing slacks and no shirt, was marching Chloe’s mother down
the hallway.
“Mom! Are you all right? What happened?”
Her mother looked dazed. Her face was pale, her hair was a tangled bird’s nest and her blue blouse
was torn at the shoulder.
She glanced at Sophronia despairingly.
“Oh, no. They got you, too, “ Hilary moaned. “That woman isn’t my mother. I don’t think she’s been
my mother for a very long time.”
Chloe stared at the woman, and a terrible understanding came to her. “You’re a demon,” she said.
“Or at least, you’re possessed by one. You were possessed by a demon way back when Barrett and
you found those statues. That’s why you suddenly started acting so different after you brought the
statues back here. That would explain why you never aged. Why wasn’t Barrett possessed, too?”
“I ask the questions here,” the demon-Sophronia said.
Hilary collapsed into the chair next to the table.
“I know why,” Chloe said. “I know. The inscription on the statues – it said not to bleed on the
statues. You accidentally cut yourself and bled on one of the statues, didn’t you?”
Demon-Sophronia made a bored slow clapping motion. “Aren’t you the clever one. The body that I
now occupy – yes, it cut itself on a nail and bled on one of the statues when it was unpacking them. It
set me free.”
“Why are you trying to get all the statues together?”
“Enough of this,” the demon snarled. “What have you found out? And don’t lie to me, or I’ll cut this
woman’s throat.”
Chloe looked at her. The demon-possessed Sophronia had produced a knife, with a gleaming,
wickedly curved blade. Her stomach lurched.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll tell you what you want to know. But I just want to know something first. Why
was it that you always avoided my mother when she was growing up?”
The demon threw its hands up in the air despairingly.
“Humans!” it said. “Do you know how much I despise this mortal body? Its hideous weaknesses, its
feelings, its needs…it sickens me! I long to return to the demon realm.”
“Then why don’t you?”
“We can’t,” the demon said bitterly. “None of us can. It was a one way portal; after we were
summoned, we were trapped in this human world forever. At least in the days when we were first
summoned here, there was blood everywhere. My master looked out on the field of battle, and made
the blood of the humans boil inside their bodies, until they fell to the ground screaming in their death
throes, and then we feasted. Glorious blood, beautiful, wonderful, fear and pain.”
She fixed her gaze on Chloe. “You humans enjoy your chocolate and your wine. We live off of blood,
and fear. The blood of a human dying in agony…it tastes a million times better than the sweetest
sugar, it feels a million times better than the most intense orgasm. And you pathetic humans can never
experience that joy.”
“How unfortunate for us,” Chloe murmured. “But you still haven’t explained, why did you always
avoid my mother?”
The demon-woman fixed its eyes on Hilary, despairingly. “Because I didn’t want to kill her. Oh, I had
no problem killing my husbands, my parents, sneaking out at night to find people to kill…”
Hilary let out a shocked gasp. “You killed my father!”
“Eventually, yes. I couldn’t help myself. I have to kill, you know, or I start to burn inside, with a
craving so painful you can’t imagine it,” the demon said in a conversational tone. “But Hilary…when
she was born, I felt…weakness.” The demon’s smooth brow wrinkled in frustration. “I didn’t want
her to die.” Her lips curled back in disgust. “It was horrible. Unnatural. I had banished the human
whose body I stole into an endless sleep, I should have no human feelings, but… there it was.
‘Maternal instinct’, they call it. I simply could not make myself kill that infant. This human body
pollutes me.”
“So you sent her away…”
“I would have killed her if she’d stayed close to me. I couldn’t let myself be near her for any length of
time or the urge would become too strong. It’s part of what we are. We can’t feel that loathsome
human emotion that you call love; it turns into hate, and then the urgent need to kill.” A smile drifted
across her face. “And then there’s blood. Delicious blood.”
Hilary’s eyes were huge with shock. “My father,” she whispered. Chloe grabbed her shaking hand
and squeezed it, hard.
“You kept in touch with my mother over the years so that you could use her to help you look for the
other statues. That’s why you had her take over that antique shop,” Chloe said. So much was
becoming clear now…terribly clear.
“Of course. The only reason I exist is to serve my master. I almost gave up, you know. I thought I’d
never find the statues. I thought I was condemned to roam this world alone, sneaking under cover of
darkness to feed, living a life of pointless monotony, tormented by human feelings…until that
magazine came out with the pictures of those statues.” Her face stretched in a hideous rictus which
apparently was meant to be a blissful smile.
Chloe looked at her, narrow-eyed. “You stole those two statues from Kenneth. Why did you leave the
other one behind?”
“That was my statue. My prison. Once I was released from it, I didn’t need it anymore.”
“And why did you lure me to your house and try to have lion shifters attack me? Why did you leave
your own blood there?”
“To make sure that you’d come after me. And now I tire of your stupid questions. What difference
does it make, when you’re going to die soon?”
She spun around, and the tip of her knife was pressed against Hilary’s throat. Hilary gasped in shock.
“Where are the other statues? You know! Tell me!” the demon screamed at Chloe.
“Wait!” Chloe cried. “You said that you didn’t want to kill her!”
“I resisted the urge to kill before, when I thought I was trapped in this mortal body forever. Now, I
am so close to the return of my master…so close…I would sacrifice anything for him, for his glory.”
Her eyes were glowing as red as rubies. “The sacrifice of this human body’s daughter and grand-
daughter…the master would appreciate that.”
The master? One master? Which statue held the master, Chloe wondered.
Chloe swallowed hard. This thing would kill her mother if she didn’t talk.
She thought back on what Kenneth had told her about his employees who’d gone to Turak, and what
they’d learned there.
“There is a family named El-Debar, and they live in a compound in the center of town. They run an
antique dealership. They questioned Kenneth’s family several times about the statues, asking to buy
them. Kenneth’s family thinks it is possible that they have the other statues and that now they want to
gather them all together.”
The demon’s eyes were positively blazing now.
“Yes. I have heard of them. Yes. It makes sense,” it growled happily.
Chloe turned to the bear shifter.
“You’re all right with this? You’re in service to a demon that feeds off blood, and you have no
problem with that?” she demanded. He didn’t bother to answer her.
“Humans will do anything for money,” Sophronia sneered. The shifter didn’t look the least bit
offended.
“So we kill them now?” the shifter asked. Chloe tensed. Was this it? She glanced at her mother, and a
look of understanding passed between them. They were panthers; they’d go down fighting.
Pride swelled inside her, and also sorrow, at the loss of the lifetime she should have been able to
share with Kenneth.
“Not now.” The woman who looked like her grandmother tossed them a look of contempt. “They will
be a worthy sacrifice to the Master. Lock them up.”
Chapter Thirteen
“I like this place,” Reggie said. “There is a nice breeze here, and an excellent view. I would like my
room at home to look like this.” He dug his hand into a bowl of dates and stuffed four of them in his
mouth at the same time.
“See?” Pixie said to Bobbi.
Bobbi just shook her head.
Heath, Jax, and Reggie had moved in to Bobbi’s hotel room, because it was further away from the
fighting, at least for the moment. They were eating breakfast at the café, and trying to ignore the
sound of gunfire in the distance.
Bobbi was about as frustrated as she could be. Whenever she was near Jax, she wanted to rip his
clothes off and ravage him, but they were all crammed into one tiny room, with the girls and Reggie
sleeping on the narrow bed (he slept curled up at their feet), and Jax and Heath sleeping on the floor.
Her only comfort was knowing that Jax was as frustrated as she was, and that when they got back to
their apartment in Playa Linda, they’d have a marathon sex session so epic they’d have to buy new
furniture.
“Gmmp mmph hmmp mmph mmph?” Reggie asked, around his mouthful of dates.
“What? Chew your food! You’re going to choke,” Bobbi said. And then his parents will have our
heads, she thought.
“He said, are you sure my parents still don’t know I’m here?” Pixie said. At Bobbi’s surprised look,
she added “I speak brat. Because I am one.”
“I’m absolutely sure they don’t know,” Bobbi said. She was lying. She had no idea what was
happening back in California. They hadn’t even been able to get their satellite phones to work for the
last day. Cell phone and regular phone service was nonexistent. All they could do is show up at the
place where the plane was supposed to land in a couple of days, and pray that it actually was able to
make a landing.
“This goat stew’s actually pretty good,” Heath said, scooping up a huge spoonful. “I’ll have to get the
recipe before we go.”
“Right. Because the local grocery stores in Playa Linda sell a lot of goat steak,” Bobbi said, rolling
her eyes at him. He tried to kick her under the table, but she pulled her leg out of the way and he
kicked Jax instead.
“Ha,” she said. “Serves you both right.”
“For what? Wanting to cook goat stew?” Heath demanded indignantly.
“No, jerk, for trying to ditch me back in Playa Linda. Yes, I’m still on that.”
“She holds a mean grudge,” Heath told Jax. “You sure you can handle her?”
“Hey, our friend’s back,” Pixie said before Jax could answer. She nodded at Karesh, who’d just
pulled up in front of the café in a battered car which was punctured by several bullet holes. These
days, it was rare to see a car in Turak which didn’t have at least one bullet hole.
“That’s the guy I told you about, Karesh,” Bobbi told Jax. “The one from the El-Debar family.”
Karesh gestured at them from outside of the café, waving at them to come outside. Heath sighed,
quickly crammed a huge spoonful of goat stew in his mouth, and tossed several bills on the table.
Mamoud bowed politely.
When they trooped outside, Karesh glanced at Jax and Heath with surprise. “Who are they?” he asked
Bobbi.
“They work for my company,” she said.
“All right. I want you to come back to my compound with me, and try one final time to appeal to my
family to leave the country. If this doesn’t work, I will have to take matters into my own hands. I
can’t let my father destroy us all with his stubbornness.” Bobbi could see circles under his eyes, and
a shadow of stubble on his face.
“Why would he change his mind now?” Bobbi demanded skeptically.
“A mortar landed in the yard yesterday and came very close to killing my mother and two younger
brothers while they were tending the vegetable garden and milking the goats. If every last one of us
dies, there will be no guardians left. Even a stubborn old fool like my father must understand that.”
Bobbi glanced inside the café. Mayameen was in there, helping her uncle cook. Her taxi was parked
down the block.
“We’ll follow you there in our own taxi,” she said. Karesh looked as if he might protest, but then
shrugged and nodded, and climbed into his car to wait for them.
“It’s not that I don’t trust him,” Bobbi said to Jax, “It’s that I don’t trust anybody, him included.”
“But you trust me, right, baby?” Jax slung his arm around her shoulders.
“Hmmph,” she muttered. “I’m addicted to you like an addict is addicted to crack cocaine. But trust
you? Ehh….”
“I’ll settle,” Jax said.
The fighting was exceptionally heavy that day, and Mayameen had to weave through neighborhoods
all over town to make it back to the compound.
“What was it like to drive here before the war?” Pixie asked her.
“Oh, much more boring,” Mayameen said. “But much safer, of course. I think my passengers preferred
it.”
A servant was waiting for them at the gate, along with Karesh. When they walked through the gates,
Bobbi noticed that the fountain that had been there earlier had been destroyed by mortar fire; now it
was splattered across the ground in giant, glittering shards. It made Bobbi feel oddly sad, not for the
loss of the fountain, but for the loss that people all over this city were suffering. The loss of safety, a
sense of security, of property, of lives, all over a stupid power grab between two warring brothers.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Jax said. He could always sense her moods.
Bobbi sighed. “When we leave, we’ll be leaving Mayameen and Mamoud and his whole family
behind in this hell.”
“That sucks,” Pixie agreed, as they stepped over the shards of the fountain. Reggie made a game of it,
hopping from one foot to another. “I’ll miss that blackmailing bastard. And his goat yogurt. And
Mayameen’s driving. Could we take them with us on the plane?”
“We could offer, I guess. I don’t know if they’d even agree to come. Leaving behind your home and
your friends and your country is hard. And it still doesn’t solve anything for all of the other people
who are trapped here with no way out. This bites.”
The door to the house swung open, and they were ushered in to the living room. The El-Debar family
had all gathered there, waiting for them…along with half a dozen large, armed men clutching AK-
47s.
Bobbi glanced at Jax. They hadn’t been able to reach Kenneth to let him know they were coming to
the compound. “I don’t like the looks of this,” she whispered, sliding in front of Reggie.
* * *
Chloe and her mother spent a sleepless night in their room, trying to figure out an escape plan, and
coming up with nothing. They’d been able to discern by listening at the door that there were half a
dozen shifter bodyguards in the house, working for the demon.
“I seriously can’t believe that there are that many shifters who are willing to sell out to a being of
pure evil,” Chloe groused. “Apparently I had a very sheltered upbringing. I expect people to be
decent.”
“Apparently your upbringing wasn’t sheltered enough. I spent all my life trying to keep you safe,
being the most careful mother I possibly could, and now this happens. I’ve failed as a mother.” Hilary
sighed heavily, running her fingers through her tangled hair.
“Okay, you got lured into a car by what you thought was your mother, and it turned out to be a demon.
I hardly think you could have seen that one coming,” Chloe protested.
“You know, I probably have a hundred Facebook messages right now, and I haven’t been able to
reply to any of them. Everyone must think I’m terribly rude,” Hillary said. “And think what an
amazing status update this would be. My mother turned out to be a demon!”
Well, at least her mother was focusing on what was important. Rather than, say, the fact that in a few
hours they might be demon chow.
“Kenneth will save us,” Chloe said. “He said that he’s my fated mate, and I believe him. Wouldn’t a
panther go to the ends of the earth for his fated mate? I would. I’d go to the ends of the earth for him. ”
“You really think he’ll find us in time?”
“Yes,” Chloe said fervently.
No, she thought. He’ll try to find us…but how could he?
When the sun rose, the door opened. Four bear shifters in human form strode through the door. They
made a big display of the shoulder holsters that they carried. Chloe could smell the silver coating on
their bullets. There was no point in resisting. They’d die in agony, with the silver sizzling through
their flesh.
Could this really be the end? Chloe thought despairingly. Will Kenneth think I abandoned him? Will I
watch my mother die, at the hands of a demon?
At gunpoint, their hands were cuffed behind their backs with copper handcuffs, preventing them from
shifting, and then they were quickly led outside and shepherded into a waiting stretch limousine by
half a dozen men with guns. Sophronia sat in the front seat. The windows of the car were tinted so
nobody could see inside.
Most of the men climbed into the back of the limousine with them, with one sliding into the driver’s
seat.
Gunfire crackled through the air, only blocks from where they drove, and Chloe cringed at the sound
of mortars that were much too close. It’s a toss-up what’s going to kill us first, she thought
despairingly; the war or my demonically possessed grandmother.
“I can’t believe that just days ago, my worst problem was grammatically-impaired students who
wouldn’t stop texting during my lectures,” she muttered.
They came to a large compound with high concrete walls. Gliding to a stop, they parked outside.
“This is the compound of the El-Debars, isn’t it?” Chloe guessed. Sophronia ignored her, staring
straight ahead as if she didn’t exist.
“I can’t believe that thing is my mother,” Hilary said, shaking her head indignantly. “She has no
manners.”
Two of the bear shifters climbed out of the vehicle and went to the front gate of the compound, which
was unlocked and swung open when they pushed on it.
“It’s safe inside,” one of them said to Sophronia. “They’ve been secured.”
That doesn’t sound good, Chloe thought.
They were pulled from the limousine, and marched at gunpoint through a courtyard scarred by
mortars, and into the home of the El-Debars.
They were led into a large living room. All the shutters on the windows had been closed, and the
room was lit only by the flickering light of kerosene lamps, giving it an eerie feeling.
Chloe and her mother were led over to a long wooden table, next to what must have been the El-
Debar family, all of whom were lashed to chairs. There were more than a dozen adults, and ten
children of varying ages. Also tied to the chairs were a female coyote shifter, a female human, a male
bear shifter, and a male wolf shifter. Several burly human soldiers in camouflage gear stood nearby,
holding Ak-47s.
Chloe thought she could scent a cheetah shifter somewhere nearby, but there was none in the room.
Maybe somebody had escaped capture and was hiding, she thought. Maybe it was somebody who
could run for help?
The shifters must be tied with copper wire, Chloe thought, or they’d shift into animal form, jump up,
and rip these soldiers to pieces.
Suddenly, Chloe felt an odd tug inside, almost as if Kenneth were nearby, but that was not possible. If
he were here, all these people couldn’t be tied up – unless he were mortally wounded, somewhere?
Her stomach lurched at the thought.
I must be mistaken, she thought. I feel that way because I want him to be here so badly. He’s fine; he
isn’t hurt. He can’t be hurt. He mustn’t be.
One man, a handsome young man in his thirties, stood next to the soldiers. He bore such a strong
resemblance to the people who were tied up that it was clear that he was a family member – so why
was he free? One of the men tied up at the table, an older man in his sixties, was almost certainly his
father. The other men were his brothers.
When Sophronia marched into the room, he turned to her, smiled, and bowed ironically.
Sophronia stripped off her hat and veil, and spoke to him in an ancient Semitic tongue that Chloe only
partially understood, but she understood enough. She blanched.
“What did he say?” her mother asked her.
“He is greeting her as a fellow servant of Lashkallu,” Chloe said. “Lashkallu must be their demon
master. He said that his human name is Karesh, but when he was moving the statues, he cut himself
and accidentally bled on the statue of the servant, and now he is Devora, who lives only to free their
master from his stone prisons.”
“Prisons? Plural?” Her mother looked confused.
“That’s what he said.”
She heard wheels rolling down the hallway from the front door. Sophronia’s men wheeled in what
appeared to be two large statues, wrapped in blankets.
These were the two statues that had been stolen from Kenneth’s homes in Italy and France, Chloe
suspected. Sophronia had been behind it all along. All she’d needed then was to find the rest of the
statues – and now, she clearly had.
Karesh’s eyes lit up when the statues were wheeled in. His family struggled with their bonds and
cursed in English and Arabic. “Betrayer!” his father shouted. The shifters glared at Karesh, with
murder in their eyes.
He spoke again in the ancient dialect, and Sophronia replied.
“He’s saying that at last, with the statues reunited, their glorious master will rise again. Sophronia is
saying she always stayed faithful, and soon they will all be bathing in rivers of blood,” Chloe
translated for her mother.
“That sounds horribly unsanitary. And sticky,” her mother said. “When, exactly, is your boyfriend
Kenneth going to show up and save us? Because now would be a good time.”
“Good question,” Chloe muttered. Should she just tell her mother that it was hopeless, and every last
one of them was about to be sacrificed to the demon?
“Fetch the statues,” Karesh said to the soldiers.
The family at the table struggled madly, screaming and swearing and shouting threats.
“Don’t do it! Don’t do it! You don’t know what you’re unleashing!” the older man who looked like
Karesh’s father screamed in protest. He turned to the soldiers who held the AK-47s. “Do you not
understand? The demon kills everything, human and shifter! The demon has no loyalty or gratitude!
You will die! The demon will boil your blood inside your body!”
The demon-Sophronia smiled cruelly.
“All these years enslaving my master, for nothing,” she cooed at the man. “You kept my glorious
master trapped, and you will pay the price. Your screams will echo from these halls. He will be
freed from his prison, and the first blood that he will drink will most assuredly be yours.” Her face lit
on the children at the table. “I am sure he will start with the young ones first. We will make you
watch.”
Chloe shuddered, and bile rose in her throat. There was no bargaining with these creatures, no
pleading for mercy.
The soldiers reappeared, with three large crates, which they wheeled over to stand next to the two
statues that Sophronia had brought with her.
“Which one is the master?” Chloe wondered. Despite the horror of the situation, her academic
curiousity still survived.
Sophronia tossed her a scornful glance. “My glorious master is too powerful to be contained in any
one statue. His essence was divided up and then imprisoned in those five statues. Only when they
are all together at the place of their entrapment, and anointed with the blood of the betrayers, can he
be freed.”
“Oh my God,” Chloe said. “This compound – we’re right on top of the ancient city of Kar, aren’t
we?”
“We are indeed, where we were once summoned from the demon realm, and then betrayed and
trapped in a hideous prison,” Sophronia snarled, eyes glowing like red coals.
“The two smaller statues – those were the statues of his servants,” Chloe said. “I guess one little
statue was enough to contain a puny being like you.”
The soldiers were opening the boxes.
“Puny?” Sophronia sneered. “We’ll see, won’t we?”
“Yes, we will, won’t we?” Karesh said. One of the soldiers quickly wheeled one of the crates next to
her.
“Open it!” she cried eagerly. When the soldier pried the top of the crate off, however, her eagerness
turned to confusion and dismay.
“What – this is-”
Before she could say a word, Karesh spun towards her and slashed her arm violently with a small
knife, and then splattered her blood on the statue. She gasped in shock.
It was one of the smaller statues, Chloe realized. A statue meant to contain the demon’s servants.
Karesh began chanting in the ancient Semitic language of Sumer, and the demon-possessed Sophronia
fell to the ground, screaming and thrashing.
Her security guards reached for their guns – and suddenly, the room exploded into chaos.
All of the people who’d been tied up at the table leaped to their feet. The soldiers with their AK-47s
began firing at Sophronia’s bodyguards. The shifters shifted. Animals were flying through the air.
Bullets flew, silver bullets landing in the flesh of Demon-Sophronia’s bodyguards, and they fell on
the ground, screaming in agony and then convulsing in their death throes.
The bear shifter who’d been sitting at the table rushed over to Chloe and Hilary, protecting them with
his broad body. The human woman from the table ran over to them, kneeling behind them. “One
minute!” she called out, fumbling with Chloe’s copper handcuffs. “Okay…got it!” And the handcuffs
fell to the floor, followed by Hillary’s handcuffs.
More people were pouring in from the other room, shifters, humans…one of them was a panther…
Kenneth. Kenneth was there.
There were more shots, and roars of rage as the demon-Sophronia’s bear shifters fought with wolves
and coyotes, and, bizarrely, a crocodile shifter. The crocodile lunged at one of Sophroni’as bear
shifters and ripped its intestines open. Then one of the soldiers shot the bearwith silver-colored
bullets and it fell to the ground with a mighty thud, screaming in agony.
Sophronia lay curled on her side, motionless, her arm drenched in blood. Chloe couldn’t tell if the
empty shell of her body was even breathing any more.
A little cheetah shifter ran into the room, and shifted into a human boy. “I missed all of the fun!” he
complained.
The crocodile shifted back into human form, and grabbed a folded tablecloth from the top of a
wooden bureau, neatly tucking it around herself like a sari. She grabbed another one and handed it to
the young boy. “That is quite enough, Reggie,” she said severely. “You are not to be in a room where
there is gunfire.”
“Yes, Gopika,” he sighed.
The room fell silent, as the last of Sophronia’s servants writhed in his death throes on the floor.
Kenneth shifted back to his human form, and threw his arms around Chloe. He had what looked like a
bullet wound on his arm, she noticed. It was mostly healed; shifters healed faster than humans.
“You got my message!” she cried.
“Of course I did. The day that you misspell a word – well, there will never be such a day. Are you all
right? I’ve been worried sick!” He hugged her so tightly she could barely breathe.
“Hey,” she gasped. “Oxygen. My ribs. Okay, that’s better.” She sagged against him. He always felt
so warm and comforting.
“Did they hurt you?”
“No, they were saving that for later. I am fine. I’m also thoroughly confused. I am so, so confused.
How did you get here?”
“Private jet, of course.”
“You’ve been shot.”
“The plane had to land outside of the city. There were bandits between here and the city,” Kenneth
shrugged. “We outran them.”
“And you…bought a crocodile with you? And a child? This hardly seems like the place to bring a
child.”
“That is a very long story. The child got here first; he managed to outsmart several of my
employees-” Kenneth shot a severe look at the coyote shifter, who hung her head and looked ashamed
– “and stow away on their plane when they came here. The crocodile is his nanny; she insisted on
coming here with me to make sure that he was safe. She flew out to Italy right as I was headed over
here.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, it could have happened to anyone,” the coyote shifter muttered. “I’d love to see
you outwit the little monster. It can’t be done.”
Reggie beamed with pride. His nanny shook her head with exasperation. “These shenanigans are
nothing to be proud of,” she scolded. “You could have been killed, my dear. I will be keeping a much
closer eye on you in the future.”
The female human shook her head in exasperation. “Good luck with that,” she muttered.
“Please,” Kenneth said scornfully. “You were outwitted by someone who plays with Transformer
toys.”
“Hey, the Transformers are cool. Put your clothes on, will you?” The female coyote shifter had
already pulled on a long, flowing robe, and she tossed Kenneth a pair of pants that she’d pulled out of
a black duffel bag. Clearly she’d come prepared.
“Is that man Kenneth Chamberlin?” Hilary asked.
“The one and only,” Chloe said.
“Why is he here? Why did they stage this elaborate charade? I don’t understand,” Hilary said, looking
baffled.
“I think I do,” Chloe said. “They had to lure the demon-servant here, and get her to bring the statues
here. The only way for them to do that was to pretend that one of the guardians of the statues had
become possessed by the other demon-servant, and was going to betray his family. They had to stage
this whole scene so she’d be willing to bring the statues in the house.”
A look of horror flashed across Hilary’s face.
“Chloe! It’s getting up!” Hilary shrieked, pointing at Sophronia. “The demon! It’s not dead!”
Sophronia was, indeed, sitting up, with a dazed look on her face. She looked around the room in
bewilderment, clutching at her bleeding arm.
“It’s all right,” Karesh said. “The demon is gone, trapped inside the statue. The human inside her has
re-awakened now that the demon no longer controls her body.”
“Wait. The statue – that’s the statue of the servant. Isn’t there already one demon-servant trapped in
there? The one that you were pretending to be?” Chloe asked.
“Yes. Now it contains two. No telling how they’re getting along in there.” He allowed himself a
wicked smile.
“Where am I?” Sophronia was looking around the room in a daze.
Her confusion was quite understandable.
There were dozens of humans and shifters milling about. Abdul’s family was picking up furniture and
putting it back in place, smoothing down rugs, replacing pictures on walls. There were dead bear
shifters lying on the floor. There were soldiers pushing big crates out of the room. The coyote shifter
was now hugging the wolf shifter and they were kissing very passionately.
The female human who’d freed Chloe from her handcuffs smacked the coyote shifter. “Bobbi! Tone it
down! There’s kids in here! Jeez, get a room, you freaks,” she scolded them.
Sophronia slowly climbed to her feet. A woman from the El-Debar family walked over to her with a
bowl of water, and a towel. “Let me help you,” she said, and began washing off the wound. When
she’d washed off all the blood, she made a bandage from napkins on the table.
Chloe and Hilary stood by, watching warily. It was hard to get used to Sophronia as an actual human
being, not a hell-thing that wanted to drain their blood for food.
“Barrett,” Sophronia said suddenly, looking around in bewilderment. “Where is Barrett?”
“Uhhh…” Chloe glanced at her mother.
Sophronia’s gaze lighted on Kenneth. “You…you look like Barrett…You look so much like him you
could be his brother. But he doesn’t have a brother. Who are you?”
Chloe and Hilary glanced at each other, and winced. “I…I have to tell you something, and it’s not
going to be easy for you to understand,” Hilary said.
Sophronia stared at both of them, her eyes growing huge. “Who are you people? You look just like
me. I feel as if I’ve lost my mind. How did I get in this house? I was in the storage room…”
“I’m your daughter Hilary,” Hilary said hesitantly. “And this is your granddaughter, Chloe.” Her face
brightened. “She’s very successful, you know. She’s a world-famous professor, and now she’s going
to marry a handsome panther billionaire. That one. Right there.” She pointed at Kenneth.
“Mother!” Chloe’s cheeks flamed red with embarrassment. Of all the times to brag! And who’d said
anything about marriage? Could her mother maybe let Chloe date the man first, for heaven’s sake?
“She’s right,” Kenneth said.
“I don’t have a daughter, and that wouldn’t even make sense,” Sophronia said, clutching at her
wounded arm and looking at them suspiciously. “You’re older than me.” Hilary looked hurt.
“Although you look very good for your age. Whatever that is,” Sophronia added.
“I know this is going to be difficult to believe, but when you were handling those statues, you
accidentally cut your arm and released a demon, which took over your body, and sent you into a kind
of dreamless sleep for many decades. It’s 2013,” Chloe told her. “The demon married several times,
while in your body. One of those men was Hilary’s father.”
Sophronia went pale and backed away from her. “No. That isn’t possible. Oh, God, I remember it
taking over my mind. We were staggering, falling around the room, it was controlling my body and I
was fighting it. I remember it calling out to Barrett, in my voice, and then everything went black. It
happened, didn’t it? Oh, no…Barrett? Where is Barrett? What happened to him?”
Chloe, Kenneth, and Hilary exchanged dismayed glances. Sophronia’s eyes filled with tears.
“Tell me!” she cried frantically. She grabbed Hilary’s arm. “He was my fated mate! I have to know!
What happened? Did I kill him when I was in demon form? What happened?”
“Nobody killed him. He isn’t dead,” Karesh said.
Chapter Fourteen
His words struck Kenneth like a thunderbolt, like a physical blow. His grandfather was alive?
The room fell completely silent, all eyes on Karesh. Chloe and her mother gaped with astonishment.
“What did you say?” Kenneth’s voice went ice cold. “Excuse me?”
“Karesh, you had no right!” Abdul yelled at his son. “I am the leader of this family! You have
overstepped your bounds!”
Kenneth whirled to face the man, his eyes blazing with anger. “Abdul. You son of a bitch. My
grandfather is alive, and you have knowledge of this?”
Kenneth had flown into Turak and contacted Abdul the night before, and they’d devised this plan to
lure in Sophronia. They’d talked for hours. Abdul had sat there and looked him in the face and
shared dinner with Kenneth and the bodyguards he’d brought from California, and introduced him to
his family, and never said a word about his grandfather.
Abdul took a deep breath, and appeared to be struggling to control himself as he glared daggers at
Karesh.
“There is no longer need to keep the man a prisoner,” Karesh said coldly. “All of these people know
of the statues now. The secret is out.”
“I know that,” Abdul spat out his words as if they tasted bitter. “I would have released him. But that
was my decision, not yours.”
“Would you have?” Karesh’s voice was scornful. He turned to Kenneth. “My father is no longer the
man that he once was. I think that he has been influenced by the demon.”
“Karesh!” an attractive older woman cried out, sounding shocked. He shook his head at her sadly.
“I’m sorry, mother. We all live for our duty, and we all know that it is more important than anything,
including family. Father’s actions lately have been…questionable.”
Kenneth’s arm slipped from around Chloe’s shoulders, and he whirled with fury on Abdul, grabbing
him by the throat and slamming him against the wall.
“Tell me,” he growled. “Where is my grandfather?”
“Make him tell you!” Sophronia cried out. “Where is Barrett?”
There were shouts from the soldiers, who were working for Abdul, and from Abdul’s family.
Kenneth had Bobbi, Jax, Heath, and Pixie on his side, and had bought two dozen of his own men with
him from the Shifters, Inc., firm. Within seconds, everyone in the room was bristling with anger – the
shifters, literally bristling – and pointing weapons at each other.
“You must understand,” Abdul choked out. “We are not monsters. After we tried to buy those two
statues from him, he kept coming around here, asking questions. He was asking everyone in town,
stirring up curiousity, and he would not give up. Year after year he came back to Turak. He risked
exposing us. Finally we staged the plane crash and took him prisoner.”
“Of course he kept coming back; he was trying to find out what had happened to his fated mate.
You’ve held my grandfather prisoner for fifty years. You made his family think he was dead. I can’t
think of one good reason not to kill you.” Kenneth tightened his grip and Abdul gasped for air, his
face reddening.
Kenneth was so angry that he could barely breathe. Maxwell had only been ten when Barrett
disappeared. Kenneth had never had the opportunity to meet his own grandfather. All these years, the
man had been held a prisoner, like a condemned murderer without even the right to trial? Kenneth’s
grip tightened even more, and Abdul’s face went purple.
“Don’t kill him! Please!” Abdul’s wife cried out frantically. “This is our duty, our destiny! You do
not understand what could happen if the demon were freed.”
Kenneth loosened his grip slightly. “And I don’t care. I just want my grandfather back, you son of a
bitch,” he snarled at Abdul.
“You don’t care because you don’t know what this demon is capable of,” Abdul wheezed, sucking in
air. “My ancestor, the great sorcerer-priest Garesh, made the same mistake. He was the one who
summoned the demon Lashkallu and his servants from the demon realm, thinking he could control
them and conquer all of the cities in Sumer. He found out very quickly, nobody can control the demon.
The demon laid waste to entire cities, including Garesh’s city, killing thousands of people, making
their blood boil like hot lava inside their bodies.”
“Who defeated the demon?” Chloe asked. That was Chloe, ever the academic, Kenneth thought.
“Garesh did, at the cost of his own life,” Karesh told her. “He built the statues as vessels to trap the
demon, and its two servants. The only way to summon up a spell powerful enough to trap the demon
and its servants in the statues was to sacrifice his own life by spilling all of his blood. Before he
did, he made his two oldest sons vow to split the statues up and take them to different parts of the
country, so they would never reunite. They were to be walled up in two separate tombs, where they
were to remain and be guarded forever. My house is built on top of one of the tombs.”
Kenneth turned back to Abdul, lips peeling back to reveal his fangs as they descended. Black fur
rippled over his face and hands, his ears turned rounded, and claws shot from his fingertips,
puncturing Abdul’s skin.
“Enough talk. Take me to my grandfather, now, or I swear to God I will kill you,” Kenneth rasped,
voice shaking with fury.
* * *
“Are you nervous?” Hilary asked Sophronia as their car bounced over the cratered road.
“Dazed, bewildered…I’m too stunned to be nervous. Can I look at your cellular telephone again?”
Hilary handed it to her. Sophronia stared the pictures on the phone’s screen in fascination. “So there
are hundreds of pictures inside this thing? And movies? And it makes telephone calls, but like a
radio, with no wires?”
“Wait till I teach you how to use Facebook,” Hillary said enthusiastically.
Chloe groaned aloud. Her mother was a crazy woman.
“How to use what?” Sophronia asked, puzzled, turning the phone around and examining the back. “I
don’t know what I’m going to do. The whole world has changed. I don’t have a job or a home.”
“Oh, don’t be silly. You’ll stay with me. You’ll be like my younger sister!” Hillary said
enthusiastically.
“If Barrett is alive, I should be with him. We can live right next to you, though,” Sophronia said. She
stared into Hilary’s face again. “I can’t stop looking at you. I’m so sad I didn’t get to see you grow
up.”
“You know…we don’t know what kind of condition Barrett is going to be in, and he’ll be in his 70s
now,” Chloe said. Kenneth was sitting next to her, and she felt him go rigid when she said that.
“I don’t care,” Sophronia said loyally. “I don’t care if he’s a thousand years old. He’s my fated mate,
and I will be with him for as long as he’s alive.”
“Are you all right?” Chloe asked Kenneth.
“I’ll be fine.” He grabbed her hand and squeezed it, and managed a smile, but the grim set of his jaw
gave away his anger and distress. She couldn’t blame him one bit.
Abdul was driving the vehicle. Karesh, Kenneth, the female human named Pixie, and four of Kenneth
shifter’s bodyguards had come along for the ride.
“There it is,” Abdul said.
Abdul had confessed to them that Barrett had been trapped in his panther form ever since he was
captured in the 1970s, at a private zoo owned by friends of the El-Debar family. The zoo owners
had never known that he was a panther shifter, only that he must be kept safe and treated well, Abdul
told them.
Barrett had come to Abdul’s home demanding answers, and refused to leave if he didn’t get them.
Abdul had shot him with a tranquilizer dart, and, while he was unconscious, had placed a special
collar on him – a collar that had been enchanted by a powerful sorcerer, to keep a shifter trapped in
their animal form.
Then, Abdul had arranged for the faked plane crash in the mountains, with liberal bribes to the easily
corruptible local police force to back up their story. They’d told Barrett’s family that Barrett’s body
had never been found.
The car swiftly headed past a giraffe habitat, past a giant aviary, over a small bridge that crossed a
river full of crocodiles, and on to a lush, sprawling jungle habitat where a panther paced through high
grass.
“You see? It is beautiful! He has been treated like a prince!” Abdul’s tone was pleading.
Kenneth responded with a stream of obscenities, and leaped from the car. They all scrambled to
follow him, and Sophronia raced over to a puzzled looking zookeeper who had come to meet them.
“Let him out!” she cried.
He shook his head in bewilderment. “That is what my boss told me, but you do not understand. He
will attack you,” he protested. “He is very vicious.”
Kenneth half shifted, face lengthening to a snout, and he snapped at the man’s neck, causing him to
stagger back and cry out.
“I’ll show you vicious,” Kenneth snarled. “That man is my grandfather, and you’ve been holding him
prisoner here. Let him out!”
“That is not possible!” the man cried. He glanced at Abdul, who hung his head.
“What have you done?” the zookeeper demanded. “This was a man that I kept caged here all these
years?? We never would have kept him here if we’d known! This is criminal!”
Abdul scowled sullenly and didn’t answer.
Furious, the zookeeper stormed off to the back of the enclosure, and quickly used a key to open a
series of gates, with Kenneth and everyone else hot on his heels.
The panther was waiting for them. He rushed out, snarling, and Chloe saw he was wearing a strange
jeweled collar. He immediately ran over to Sophronia, and Chloe’s heart leaped into her throat.
Would he still know her? Would he attack her?
The panther stopped in his tracks, and lay down on the ground at her feet. Sophronia fell to her
knees, threw her arms around the panther’s neck, and buried her face in its fur, crying. “Barrett,” she
sobbed. “You’re alive.”
She frantically began pulling at the collar. “Take this off him! This must be what’s entrapping him!”
Pixie ran over and began fiddling with the collar. “Nice jewels on this,” she muttered. “I could fence
this for a friggin’ fortune.” She had tiny lock picks in her hand and was expertly working the lock.
“It won’t be that easy,” Abdul said. “It’s an enchanted lock. You can’t just-”
“Can’t just what?” Pixie held the collar up, dangling from her hand.
Barrett instantly shifted to human form, and threw his arms around Sophronia. Everybody gasped. In
his enchanted form, he hadn’t aged a day. He was tall, with corded muscles and rippling black hair,
and eyes the color of the ocean.
“Oh my God,” Chloe said. “He looks exactly like you, Kenneth!” She stared at the panther’s naked,
muscular form, which was wrapped around Sophronia. Sophronia flung her arms around his neck
and buried her face in his shoulder.
Chloe looked closer. “Wow. I mean exactly like you,” she marveled.
“Hey!” Kenneth said indignantly. “That’s my grandfather you’re checking out!”
“Oh, surely you aren’t jealous of your own grandfather,” Chloe laughed. It was utterly adorable, she
thought.
“Maybe. A little,” he grumbled.
Barrett turned to stare at the group of people who were gawking at him. “Who are you?” he
demanded. He looked at Kenneth. “Are you Maxwell’s son? Where is Maxwell?”
“He’s in California. I’m his son Kenneth. Grandad,” Kenneth said emotionally. He moved forward to
hug him, then paused, took off his jacket, and handed it to Barrett, who tied it around his waist like a
loincloth. Then the two men hugged, long and hard.
Barrett swung around to glare at Abdul. “You traitorous son of a bitch,” he snarled. His fist shot out,
and Abdul’s nose shattered, blood spraying everywhere. Abdul staggered back, crying out.
“How long was I in there? It’s been decades!” Barrett roared. “You bastard.” He raised one hand
high, and it turned into a paw, claws shooting out.
“Don’t kill him!” Chloe leaped in front of Abdul. “It was the statues. I understand that you’re furious,
you’re right to be furious, but you need to know – those statues contained demons. He and his family
were desperate to keep the demons contained, and they thought that you were a threat.”
“I knew it! I knew it was demonic possession!” Barrett cried. He turned to Sophronia. “Do you
remember what happened?”
“Very little,” she said.
He threw his muscular arms around her and pulled her to him. “You went into that room to start
unpacking the collection we’d bought, and then I heard strange noises, and when you came out…you
were a different person. You were no longer my fated mate; I could sense it immediately. It was like
you had died; it was like having a limb ripped from my body. Your body was there, but you were
gone.”
“She tried to take the statues from you, didn’t she?” Chloe asked.
“She tried to kill me with a knife. She didn’t seem to know how to shift into panther form. She
repeatedly attacked me, and then fled the house, and I finally had to call the police. Then she kept
trying to break into my house, again and again. She even hired people to try to break into the house to
steal the collection of artwork from me.”
“I can’t believe I did that.” Sophronia looked dazed. “I’m so sorry.”
“It wasn’t you that did it; I always knew that. I knew you weren’t gone forever. I knew I’d find you,”
he said, voice shaking with emotion. “I never stopped searching for you.” And then they were kissing
with all the pent up passion of lovers who’d been separated for decades.
“Ewww,” Chloe said. “They’re making out! Oh, my God. I’m watching my grandmother and your
grandfather – oh God! Tongue! There’s tongue! I can’t look! Make them stop, Kenneth!”
Mortified, she turned away, hiding her face in her hands. She could hear Kenneth laughing.
Then he grew serious. “We need to go back to the El-Debar’s house and finish sorting this out,” he
said. “And the plane comes for us tomorrow.”
* * *
“What is going on?” Chloe asked nervously as they pulled up in front of the El-Debar compound.
There were several army trucks parked there.
“I’m sure everything is fine,” Karesh said, frowning.
“Why would you be sure?” Chloe asked, as they all climbed out. “We don’t know which faction is
here, or why they’re here…”
“Wait outside,” Kenneth told her. He glanced at Sophronia. “You too.”
“Heck no. I stand by your side, no matter what,” Chloe said stubbornly.
“Like they’d be any safer out here?” Pixie added. “They could be mowed down in the street. A
mortar could fall on their heads.”
“Then stay behind me,” Kenneth snapped, pushing in front, along with Barrett. The other shifter
bodyguards, Karesh, and Abdul, who held a bloodspattered rag to his swollen nose, all pushed
forward as well.
“He’s kind of a caveman,” Pixie said, as they followed him in.
“Yes. I think it’s very sexy,” Chloe said.
Inside the house were at least sixty armed soldiers. Kenneth’s employees, and Abdul’s family, were
crowded into the back of the house, looking uncomfortable. The crocodile shifter had her arm around
the cheetah shifter, and had him halfway tucked behind her.
One of the soldiers turned to face them, and Abdul gasped in shock.
“General Zar,” he said, “What is the meaning of this? Why are you in my home?”
“Here they are,” Karesh said triumphantly. “I delivered them to you as promised. Every last one of
them, everyone who knows about the statues is here, and all of the statues are here as well. Now, we
will fetch all the statues and let the sacrifice begin.”
“What?” Chloe gasped. She looked at him suspiciously. “I thought you spoke ancient Sumerian a little
too perfectly. You really are one of the demon servants, aren’t you?”
“Of course I am, you human idiot.” He grinned unpleasantly.
“Why would you entrap Sophronia then? You’re both servants to the demon.”
“Only I am worthy to serve the glorious master!” he cried out.
She glanced at Abdul, who had gone pale with shock. Abdul had been clutching the rag to his broken
nose, but now his hands dropped to his sides, his eyes wide with sorrow and anger.
“Demon servants?” one of the soldiers said. “What is this about demons?” He turned questioningly to
Zar.
“You’re all about to die,” Chloe told him. “Your boss is going to sacrifice us to a demon that brought
down entire cities several thousand years ago. Your general thinks he can control the demon, but he
can’t.”
“Shut up, American bitch, or you won’t live long enough to be sacrificed,” General Zar snarled,
raising his gun to point it at her. Kenneth shoved in front of her, his eyes blazing with rage. Chloe
flinched; she could smell the silver coating on Zar’s bullets. Karesh must have told him he’d be
dealing with shifters.
“You said nothing about a demon sacrifice!” one of Zar’s other soldiers cried out.
Zar turned to face him, pointing the gun at his head. “You have a problem with my orders?” he
demanded. “You wish to resign from my army?”
“I do,” said another of the soldiers.
“So do I,” cried another. “And I.” Suddenly there were guns pointing at Zar’s head.
“You fools!” Zar shouted, eyes bulging with fury. “Your brothers in arms are dying every day! Your
families are starving! The infidels are winning! With the power that I will gain here today, we will
be assured of victory!”
“It’s true,” one of the soldiers said, moving to stand next to Zar. “To win this war is worth any price.”
“We followed you because we are servants of God!” one of the soldiers cried. He was a young man,
with a face so smooth it looked as if he’d never shaved. “We fight only for the glory of God! If we
win a victory because of a demon, than truly we have lost!”
The soldier’s head exploded in a spray of blood and brains, and Zar began firing wildly at the
soldiers, who returned fire. Chloe and Pixie barely had time to duck behind furniture before it was
over. Zar and his one supporter lay dead on the ground. The civilians in the room had all dived for
cover, there were lions, wolves, and bear shifters in animal form crouching ready to attack.
The soldiers stood frozen in shock, staring around the room. Finally one of them bowed his head at
Abdul.
“We did not know why we were being brought here,” he said. “Is it true that this house contains a
demon?”
Abdul paused, then reluctantly nodded. “It contains a great demon who was entrapped in stone
thousands of years ago. It is in a vault below this house. It is my family’s duty to ensure that it never
escapes.”
“Then we must help you guard it,” the soldier said. “We are men of God. We will never allow a
demon in our city.” The other soldiers nodded.
“Very well,” Abdul said. “I will accept your help. This war has shown me that my family and I can
not fulfill our duties alone.”
“Holy Frijoles,” Pixie said. “Does this mean the war is over?”
“I believe so,” the soldier said. “Zar and his second in command are dead. I am Faisil, and I am now
in charge. We will take their bodies from this house, and spread the word that there is a cease fire.”
He turned to Abdul. “We will assign squadrons of men to help you guard this house.” He glanced at
Karesh, who glared at them, lips peeled back in fury.
“What will you do with this one?” Faisal asked Abdul.
“Leave him to me,” Abdul said grimly. Abdul’s wife burst into tears, as the soldiers picked up the
bodies and carried them from the house.
“So, now you will entrap me in the statue again,” Karesh said in a bored voice.
Abdul stared at him, tears glittering in his eyes. “No,” he said, shaking his head, and he pulled a
pistol from his pocket and pointed it at Karesh.
Karesh gasped and stepped back. “Are you mad? If you kill this body, you will not just kill me
forever – you will kill your son as well! Just put me back in the statue!”
“My son is already dead to me,” Abdul said. “There is no way anyone in my family could
accidentally have released the servant-demon. The statue was locked away in the vault, there was no
need to go near it, and it is against family rules to walk within one hundred feet of it; the possession
had to be deliberate. Karesh was always hungry for power, and greedy. He thought he could control
the demon, and like my ancestor before him, he was wrong.”
The demon-Karesh turned pleadingly to his mother. “Mother, this is your son’s body! Your little boy!
You cannot let this man kill your child! Put me back in the statue, and let your son repent of his
ways!”
“Too late.” There was a great sorrow in her voice, and then her hand moved quicker than a flash, and
something silvery glittered through the air, and Karesh fell to the ground, a knife embedded in his
throat. She muttered something in Arabic, and turned and walked from the room, her beautiful face
sad but resolute.
Chapter Fifteen
Playa Linda
“I can’t believe I’m not dead,” Chloe said, in wonder. She’d been saying that, and thinking that, ever
since they’d returned. She’d given herself up for dead, and now she stood in the arms of the man she
loved, on a balcony overlooking the ocean. The beach spread before them like white sugar, and
sailboats bobbed in the waves. Her mind still reeled. Kenneth had rescued her from hell and
transported her to heaven on earth.
It was so warm that she wore a lace-trimmed t-shirt and flaring skirt and sandals. Kenneth hadn’t
bothered to get dressed yet; he’d just stepped from the shower and wore a bathrobe with nothing
under it. “I told you I would die before I let anything happen to you. I meant it.” Kenneth looped his
arm around her waist and nuzzled her neck.
“Mmm,” she said.
Then a sudden thought struck her, and she went tense. “What about that bastard Alfonse? I completely
forgot about him.”
“He’s fired from Hammersmith, of course, there’s an arrest warrant out on him in Italy for
kidnapping, and he’s high on Interpol’s most wanted list. And I’ve offered a very generous reward for
his capture. There’s nowhere he can hide.”
“Thank heavens.” She relaxed and leaned back against him, feeling his swelling hardness pressing
into her back. She moved against him.
“More? You want more?” he teased. “The last two days straight weren’t enough?”
“You know who apparently can’t get enough? My grandmother. Seriously. I don’t care what she
looks like, she’s my grandmother, and she’s in her seventies! It’s horrifying!” Her grandmother and
Kenneth’s grandfather had retreated to a room in the back of Kenneth’s house and had hardly come out
in the last two days since they’d landed in Playa Linda.
Kenneth’s father had come out to meet his long lost father, who now looked bewilderingly younger
than him. Sophronia and Barrett had eaten dinner with him…and then gone back to their room.
“Don’t be silly. We’ll be like that when we’re in our seventies,” Kenneth promised her, his breath
warm on her ear.
“They’re talking about a wedding,” she murmured, distracted, as his hands moved across her body,
summoning that delicious heat that she felt only when he touched her.
“It’ll be a race then. Who’ll make it to the altar first, us or them? Or, of course, we could have a
double wedding.”
“No,” Chloe said firmly. “That would just be weird. Really, really, weird. Although she did already
ask me to be her maid of honor. And my mother too.” He scraped his teeth along the curve of her
neck. “Oh, god. Okay, you know what? In the bedroom. Now.”
Kenneth laughed, the sound rich and warm in her ear. “That’s a new side of you. Bossy. I like it.”
He quickly obeyed her, walking into the bedroom. She followed him, a wicked grin curving her lips.
“You like bossy? Good. I am very good at bossy. Up against the wall, now.”
Kenneth’s eyes gleamed with anticipation as he leaned up against the wall. She grabbed the belt
around his robe, yanked it open, and sank to her knees.
“Oh, God,” he groaned.
She pressed her lips against his taut, muscular stomach, and caressed his warm skin with her tongue.
She was pleased to hear him moan as his fingers tangled in her hair, and she slowly worked her way
down, tracing swirling kisses along the dusting of hair that led down to her final destination.
Kenneth was rock hard, the head of his shaft a dark purple, and a single pearly drop oozed on to the
tip. She swirled her tongue along it, lapping it up.
“Chloe,” he moaned. “Please.”
She traced her tongue across the slit, lapping up more pre-cum as it oozed out, and then opened her
mouth to accept him. He slid inside her and she sucked hard, moving until he’d slid down into her
throat.
His breath came out in harsh rasps of pleasure, and he began pumping into her mouth. Her cheeks
hollowed as she sucked him in deeper.
Giving him pleasure felt every bit as delightful as accepting the pleasure that he gave her. Maybe
even more delightful.
His breathing reached a crescendo and his fingers tightened in her hair, holding her head in place as
he exploded into her mouth. He flooded her throat with his hot cum, and she swallowed all of it
before she finally released him and let him pull her up to her feet, and into his arms.
A warm breeze blew through the window, and she buried his face in his neck, eyes clothed, breathing
him in.
Strangely, she didn’t miss New York at that moment, or any of the wonderful and exotic places that
she’d travelled to over the years. In his arms, she realized, it didn’t matter where in the world she
was; she’d always be at home.
* * *
Pixie and Bobbi sat in on a leather couch in an office at the Shifters, Inc., building, waiting for the
arrival of Reggie’s parents, Prince Bahi and Princess Sara. The office was decorated in low-key
tones of brown and tan, with furniture of leather and wood. A book case held hardback copies of
classic books, a globe, and small wooden animal figures.
The Prince and Princess were late.
“You sure this will work?” Pixie asked.
“Have I ever steered you wrong?” Bobbi asked.
“Uhh….”
“It’ll work. Speaking of things working out, when are you going to go out on a date with Tyler?”
“That was only the most awkward segueway ever. And he hasn’t asked me. And mind your own
beeswax.” Pixie leaned back on the couch, folding her arms across her chest.
“That’s because you never give him an opening. You know he likes you. Just let him take you out for
drinks and see how it goes. How about next week?”
“How about never o’ clock? How about oh never thirty?” Pixie held up a wallet. “How about stop
asking me questions about my personal life if you ever want to see your wallet again?”
Bobbi broke out in a grin. “Really? Open my wallet.”
Pixie shot her a suspicious glare and opened it. It was empty except for a note. The note said “Go out
on a date with Tyler, you stubborn-ass human skank.”
Pixie threw the note and the empty wallet at her. “Very funny. No!” she snapped.
“Why not?”
“Because he’s a decent guy, and no decent guy wants to be with a street rat like me for more than one
night.”
“See, there’s where your thinking is all messed up. A decent guy wouldn’t just go out with you for one
night. And you know Tyler’s not like that. Quit being such a chicken, and go for it.”
The door opened, and the Prince and Princess walked in, accompanied by several bodyguards. The
prince was a handsome man in his mid thirties, copper-skinned, with a goatee. He wore a blue turban
which looked out of place with his hand tailored silk suit. His wife had hair piled up in a big teased
black bouffant, and a pouty expression on her pretty face.
“You might want privacy for this meeting,” Bobbi said, putting her not-friendly smile on her face.
“What is the meaning of this?” the prince demanded indignantly. “I have no secrets. My staff
accompany me everywhere.”
Bobbi’s smile grew wider and even less friendly. “This is about what we saw you and your wife
doing while you were on separate vacations for the last two weeks while you dumped your only child
to go pursue your own perverted pleasures, which, apparently is what you two do most of the year. I
didn’t see any state business being conducted on those security cameras we hacked in to. In fact, what
I saw was-”
The princess gasped in dismay.
“Get out,” the prince said promptly to the bodyguards, and they obeyed him instantly, shutting the door
behind them.
The prince whirled back to glare at Bobbi. “Is this about money? How much do you want?”
“I don’t want money. I only want one thing. Believe it or not, unlike you, I actually care about the
welfare of your child.”
“How dare you?” Princess Sara demanded indignantly. “We hire the finest staff to educate him and
protect him. He has rooms full of toys and wants for nothing.”
“You two barely even see him. You spend all your time travelling, shopping, and screwing around.”
“That is not true!” she glared at Bobbi. “I make it a point to be home on his birthday, on our national
holidays…” she trailed off. Bobbi waited, and stared at her.
“What?” Princess Sara asked, puzzled.
“And? When else?”
“Well, I…” the princess mumbled. “Through my spiritual healers, I have realized that I need time to
grow into myself as a person and become self-actualized as an individual who needs to connect with
the higher planes of-”
Pixie interrupted her with a long, loud, rude raspberry noise. The princess’ eyes flew open with
shock and anger.
“How dare she!” she demanded of her husband. “She is a terrible person! Do something to her! She
must be punished!”
“You are a very bad mother,” her husband chided her. “It is true.”
“What about you? When was the last time you spent any time with your son?” the princess demanded,
and he spluttered indignantly.
“Enough!” Bobbi raised her hand. “You’re both terrible parents and by the time Reggie is a grown
man, you’ll have missed 99 percent of his childhood, and that’s your loss. I hope you actually realize
it and start spending some time with your child. I doubt you will. I only want one thing. I want his
current nanny to be able to stay with him until he reaches adulthood.”
“What? No!” the princess’ forehead wrinkled indignantly. “Then he would love her more than me. I
have a very strict rule that every nanny must leave after one year. If he is growing attached to this one,
than she must be dismissed at once!”
She turned to her husband and stamped her feet. “You will fire her immediately!”
Bobbi shot to her feet, glaring at them. “Gopika loves Reggie more than either of you ever will, you
selfish overgrown children. You will double her salary, and she will remain as his nanny until he
leaves for college.”
Prince Bahi glanced at his wife, and mumbled uncertainly “I leave my wife in charge of all the
childcare decisions…”
“You know, you come from a very conservative country, and if they saw what we’d tape-recorded,
you wouldn’t just be dethroned. You’d be beheaded if you ever tried to set foot on your native soil
again. That incredibly generous spending allowance given to the royal family? Gone. Best case
scenario, you’d be impoverished ex-royals hiding out in exile for the rest of your lives.” She shot a
nasty glance at the Princess Sara. “You’d have to work for a living if you wanted to eat. Or maybe,
Sara, one of the lovers I saw on that video would take you in – but I doubt it, if you weren’t paying
them to be with you.”
“Lovers? You are a whore!” the prince roared angrily at his wife.
“Oh, please,” Bobbi said in a bored voice. “You’re calling her names? I can’t believe you could fit
that many people on that cruise ship. You want to know what my favorite part of the video was? The
part where you-”
“All right!” the prince cried out hastily. “We will do it! Reggie can keep his nanny!”
“No! You have no right!” the princess wailed, tears running down her cheeks. She stamped both her
feet. “I won’t have it.”
“Would you like to work for a living? Or be beheaded?” he demanded. She fell silent and glared at
the floor, but said nothing.
Bobbi and Pixie walked towards the door. Bobbi’s phone rang, and she looked at it and grinned.
“Wait! I demand all copies of the video tapes!” the prince demanded angrily.
Bobbi shook her head. “No dice, because I don’t trust either of you. Be nice to Gopika now, or we
will hear about it.”
She and Pixie walked past the princes, towards the main office. “I can’t wait to see those videos. I get
to see the videos, right? We should have movie night, with popcorn!” Pixie cackled maliciously. .
Bobbi waited until they rounded the corner. “There are no videos. It was all a massive bluff.”
Pixie’s eyes widened in admiration. “Oh. My. God. You are a genius. How did you know what to say
to them?”
“Tyler did some research for me, and he did find out that the two of them are a couple of lazy
sybarites, who are well known for their sexual appetites and their neglect of royal duty. And now,
excellent news.”
“What’s that?”
“That was a phone call from Kenneth. We’ve got a new case.” Bobbi flashed a grin. “It’s in Russia.
You’ll just have time to pack. You think I should let Jax come with?”
THE END
I hope you enjoyed “His Purrfect Mate”! If you’d like me to keep you posted on upcoming releases of
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