Samhain Publishing Ltd, Ebooks and Books in Print

Detective Taran Lloyd yawned with boredom as he stood by the bar and observed the patrons of Le Monde on a typical Saturday night. A pricey club, it attracted an affluent crowd, and a mixed one: humans, werewolves and other shifters, people who looked a little more than a little fae. The only thing they had in common was a willingness to pay five bucks for a bottle of domestic beer and seven for well drinks—or the ability to find someone who would do it for them.

He grimaced. He’d like a drink himself, but regulations prohibited drinking on duty.

The intimate nightclub featured wood-paneled walls, polished hardwood floors and a lot of recessed lighting. Music loud enough to dance but not too loud to talk, waitresses pretty but not too sexy, bartenders fast but friendly—if not for the fact that three women reported missing this month were last seen here, it would’ve been a great place to bring a date.

He tried to remember the last time he’d gone on a date.

“Detective?” Daniel Denardo, the HPD Shifter Investigations Unit’s rookie, interrupted Taran’s musings.

“Yeah, Danny?”

“What are we supposed to look for here?”

Taran smiled wryly. “If we get lucky, some guy will pick up a chick, throw her over his shoulder and run out, and we’ll arrest him. But I don’t think we’ll get lucky. So we hang around and watch, talk to people, ask if anyone saw the women, noticed unusual behavior, that sort of thing. I’d rather no one know we’re cops yet.”

As soon as he said it, he noticed Lark across the room at a banquette with another woman and four slimy-looking wolves in suits. Taran automatically considered any guy with Lark slimy-looking. These wolves looked like Eurotrash. Eastern European wolves ran drugs and weapons in and out of the country, and SIU suspected they’d expanded into the sex trade. Rich European werewolves frequented Le Monde. Apparently Lark did, too.

She sauntered toward the bar.

“Shit,” he muttered.

“What’s the matter?”

“I’ll be back in a second. Why don’t you mingle.”

“I can do that,” Denardo replied cheerfully.

“What are you doing here?” he growled softly.

Those words, that voice, just hours after the dream, freaked Lark right the hell out. She started so violently her perfectly chilled Cosmopolitan sloshed the front of her dress. Her nipples stood at attention. He didn’t even notice.

She grabbed a handful of napkins. “Damn it, Taran, what—”

“Quiet,” he said fiercely as he stole her breath with a smile. He never smiled at her like that. He rarely smiled at her at all. She stared up at him, dumbfounded. He clamped a meaty paw on her elbow and dragged her away from the bar toward an empty table.

The dark blue pinstriped suit, a fitted European cut, and the custom-tailored, crisp white dress shirt looked great on his long, muscular frame. Taran didn’t live on his detective salary alone.

“Act like we’re having fun.” Irritable as always, he still wore that stutter-inducing smile. It stopped short of his luminescent green eyes. “Why are you here, and who are those wolves?”

“None of your business…” she grinned gaily, “…and I don’t know.”

A few golden strands of hair drifted across his eyes. He wore it halfway to his shoulders; HPD grooming regulations exempted werewolves. She always itched to brush his hair aside. One day she’d do it, just to watch him react.

”I’m serious, Lark.”

“You’re hurting me, Taran.”

He let go instantly but continued to stare at her, knowing she’d answer him.

She heaved a dramatic sigh. “I’m here with my friend Eloise, who’s into some Euro werewolf whose name I don’t remember, and he’s with his bros, and they’re all creepy and boring, and one of them keeps trying to pick me up, and after you replace the Cosmo you made me spill, I’m going home. This just is not my night.”

“Are you driving?”

“No, I’m talking to you. Why? Do I look like I’m driving?”

He didn’t laugh. He never laughed.

“El drove. I’ll take a cab home. Where’s my cosmo?”

His sharp cheekbones and strong chin, and the pale, thin scar scoring his left cheek from his ear almost to his mouth, gave him a look of menacing power. That disappearing smile, though, made him look like a fallen angel. A hulking, six-foot-six fallen angel who could change in five minutes in broad daylight—the mark of a powerful alpha wolf.

“Don’t tell anyone you know who I am,” he ordered. “I’m working a case.”

“What kind of case?”

No reply.

“Fine, whatever. I won’t tell anyone I know you.”

He nodded and turned to go.

“Um. Hello?”

He turned back. “What is it?”

“You owe me a drink.”

He pulled a ten from his wallet and held it out, staring at her eyes as he did so. She snorted at the cheap shot power play, but it worked—a human couldn’t maintain eye contact with an alpha.

She looked at the bill in his hand. She didn’t take it. Instead, fueled with courage from her first cosmo, she put her hand on his outstretched arm and leaned in, her head grazing his cheek. Their bodies almost touched. A werewolf’s normal body temperature was one hundred five point three; for the millionth time in ten years, she fantasized about snuggling up to his warmth.

Her pulse hammered in her throat as she whispered, “Taran? If you want people to think your cousin is a hooker, you could at least pretend I’d get more than ten bucks. Otherwise, go buy me a drink, you lazy bastard.”

He growled low in his throat. She peeked up at him. Taran meant “thunder” in Welsh. It fit him when he looked like this.

“Wait here,” he snarled before stalking off to the bar. The crowd parted for him by instinct, like zebras at a watering hole when the lion drops by for a drink. He returned with her cosmo.

“Thank you, cuz,” she cooed sweetly to his shoulder. New drink in hand, she steeled herself for another excruciating twenty minutes with Eloise and the Euro cheese. Would he watch her walk away? As if.