“A statement that still stands.”
“So why the
hell
are you contacting me? Fuck off and leave me alone. Trust me, I want as little to do with you as you do with me.”
I turned on my heel and began to walk back down the beach, away from him. Part of me might have been curious as to why he was suddenly contacting me, but curiosity didn’t have a hope against old anger and hurt. None of which I wanted to relive in
any
way.
“You will listen to what I have to say, Riley.”
“Fuck off,” I said without looking at him. Even as my wolf cowered deep within at my audacity.
“You
will
stop and listen, young wolf.”
His voice was sharp and powerful, seeming to echo through the trees and ring in my ears. I stopped. I couldn’t help it. My very DNA was patterned with the need to obey my alpha. It would take a great deal of will and strength to dare disobey, and right now, it seemed I had neither.
Even so, I didn’t turn around. Didn’t look at him. “Why the hell should I listen?”
“Because I demand it.”
I snorted softly. “I was never one to listen to demands. You of all people should know that.”
“So very true. And it
was
one of the reasons you and your brother were ostracized.” Amusement laced his harsh tones. “Your grandfather feared you would challenge him.”
Surprise rippled through me. I swung around. He was still in the trees, still in the shadows. Maybe the wind meant coming out onto the beach wasn’t practical for a man who was little more than spirit. “Why would my grandfather fear that? Neither Rhoan nor I were ever allowed the illusion we were anything more than an inconvenience to our mother and the pack. And inconveniences don’t rule.” Especially if they were female. Or gay.
“You have a long pattern of doing the unexpected, Riley.”
“Yeah, and I have the scars to prove the foolishness of that.”
He grinned. It was a harsh, cruel thing to see. “You never did learn your place.”
Oh, I learned it all right. I just didn’t always cower down like I was supposed to. I thrust my hands on my hips and said impatiently, “As much as I just adore reliving old times with you, it’s fucking cold out here. Tell me what you want or just piss off and leave me alone.”
He studied me for a minute, green eyes abnormally bright in the darkness, his form waving slightly as the wind swirled through the trees.
“The pack needs your help.”
“You want
my
help?” My sudden, unbelieving laugh was a cold and ugly sound. “That has to be the joke of the century, doesn’t it?”
“There is nothing amusing about the situation, believe me.”
“So why me? There have to be hundreds of other people you could ask.”
Which
wasn’t
an overstatement. The Jenson pack might be one of the smaller red packs, and it might be the poorer cousin when it came to wealth and land status, but Jenson pack members were to be found in all avenues of government and throughout much of the legal system. I had no doubt those pack members could muster up something—someone—far more influential than anything I could manage.
Amusement flared briefly in his eyes. “We have need of your guardian skills.”
Again surprise rippled through me. “And how would you know I am a guardian? Why would you even bother keeping track of two outcast and useless pups?”
“We didn’t. It came to my attention during investigations.”
“Investigations into what?”
He shifted his weight and his form wavered, briefly becoming as insubstantial as a ghost. Which he wasn’t, so how in the hell was he projecting himself?
“My granddaughter, Adrianne, disappeared a week ago.”
He had a granddaughter? Good lord, that made me feel old. Though, in wolf terms, I was still very much a youngster. “Which of your sons was careless enough to lose a daughter?”
It was a cruel thing to say, but I just couldn’t help it. Blake and his sons had been the banes of my existence while growing up—and the reason behind many of the scars Rhoan and I now had. Of course, if I’d just shut my mouth and bowed down like I was supposed to, things might have been different.
Though I very much doubt it.
His gaze narrowed to thin slits of dangerous green. “Adrianne is Patrin’s oldest.”
The image of a red wolf with black points came to mind, and my lip curled in response. Patrin was the youngest of Blake’s get, and only a few years older than me. To say he delighted in following the family tradition of hassling the half-breeds would be the understatement of the century.
“How old is the daughter?”
“Nineteen.”
Nineteen? Meaning he’d been fifteen when he’d sired his first? Randy bastard. But I bet Daddy had been
so
proud, especially given the pack’s inherent fertility problems.
“If she’s missing, contact the police. The Directorate doesn’t do missing.”
“You do if there appears to be a pattern in the disappearances. Three people have disappeared the same way as Adrianne, Riley.”
I crossed my arms and tried to ignore the pulse of interest. I didn’t want to get involved with Blake or our pack, because it could only ever end badly—for me, not for them.
“Then contact the Directorate. Give them the information. There’s nothing I can do without the official go-ahead anyway.”
Which was only a teeny-tiny lie. If I were so inclined, I could investigate just about anything. Guardians were the super-cops, the hunter-killers, of the nonhuman world, and we had free rein to investigate where we willed. Though, if I
did
investigate and
did
find something, I’d have to report it back to my boss. A full investigation could only go ahead with his official approval.
“All I’m asking you to do is an initial investigation. If you feel there’s nothing the Directorate can do, then I’ll try other sources.”
He sounded altogether too reasonable all of a sudden, and my hackles rose. Blake and reason just didn’t sit well with my memories of the man. “You were ordering me a few moments ago.”
“Perhaps I’m seeing the error of my ways.”
“And perhaps tomorrow they’ll put a woman on Mars.” I shifted from one foot to the other. I wasn’t trusting this new and improved Blake to last more than a second, but it didn’t hurt to play along anyway. “Why do you think her disappearance is a Directorate matter?”
“There’s a pattern. For a start, they all stayed at Monitor Island for more than a week.”
“And?”
“And they all disappeared within a week of returning….”
And be sure not to miss the first three books in the Riley Jenson series
Full Moon Rising
Kissing Sin
and
Tempting Evil
All now available from Dell
DANGEROUS GAMES
A Dell Book / April 2007
Published by
Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2007 by Keri Arthur
Dell is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-440-33678-5
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