Dept 57

A Griffin’s Treasure

By

Lynne Connolly

 

Triskelion Publishing

www.triskelionpublishing.net

 

Triskelion Publishing

15327 W. Becker Lane

Surprise, AZ 85379

 

Copyright ©  2006 Lynne Connolly

 

All rights reserved.  No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information retrieval and storage system without permission of the publisher except, where permitted by law.

 

ISBN 1-933874-77-5  

 

 

Publisher’s Note.  This is a work of  fiction.  Names, characters, and places and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination.Any resemblance to a person or persons, living or dead, business establishments, events

 

 

 

 

Chapter One

 

 

Josh stepped out of his Porsche and absently smiled at the girls waiting for him.  Half a dozen, and from the look of them, they should have been in class at school, not here, in the car park of Manchester Rovers Football Club.  Ever since David Beckham had turned into a sex symbol, girls had become interested in football, and targeted players like Josh and his brother Laurie.  Seemingly young, blond, playing for one of the most prestigious and richest teams in Europe, Josh was still vaguely surprised when girls greeted him with autograph books open, instead of the schoolboys he used to see.  They shouldn’t have been here, this car lot was private, but there were only half a dozen, so he’d sign their autographs before sending them on their way.

Some of the female fans knew a lot more about the game than their male counterparts.  Others, it was true, were attracted by his sideline modeling career and the sponsorship deals.  One, a gangly brunette, less patient than the others, shoved her book under his nose.  “To Sharon,” she commanded.

Smiling his professional welcome, Josh took her pen and signed, as she’d requested, or rather, demanded.  He signed the other books and answered their questions almost by rote, his mind elsewhere.

“When will you be well enough to play again?  Are you coming back this season?  Where are you going?”

Yes, no and San Francisco.  “I’m getting better, thanks, but I won’t be back this season.  I’ll probably help Ted with the coaching for a while, when I get back.  There aren’t any important England matches coming up, so I’m resting until I’m better.”

One girl gazed up at him, her baby blue eyes bright with speculation.  “How about a fuck?”

Josh nearly swallowed his tongue.  However often it happened, he couldn’t get over how brazen young girls were this day and age.  This girl couldn’t be much more than fourteen years old, even though she’d tried to look older, with heavy black eyeliner and carefully manicured nails.  In Manchester Rovers’ colors, he noted.  Green and white.  It took an old man like him to notice these things, but because his age didn’t show, people assumed his attitudes were those of the current generation. 

He forced a thin smile.  “I’d be arrested if I touched you.”

The girl sighed, despondently.  “I’ll wait, then.  I’ll be back!”

They tended to do that.  “I don’t doubt it.”

To a chorus of disappointed groans, he headed for the door into the main building.  They couldn’t follow him inside.  A security guard winked at him as he passed.  “Thanks for that, Mr. Friedland.  My niece is the red-haired one.”

That explained how the girls had found their way into a private compound.  “You’re welcome,” he replied.  “And the name’s Josh.”

He was getting too old for this.  Two hundred and fifty posing as twenty-five and a world-renowned footballer.  But he was having the time of his life.  Several lives, actually.  Or he had been, until recently.

Upstairs, Ted waited for him.  His inspiration, his mentor, Ted Maxwell, manager of Manchester Rovers.  His friend. 

The sight of the man warmed Josh, despite the worry tearing him apart.  After he’d closed the door and taken his seat at the other side of the massive desk, which was still littered with scraps of paper despite the laptop adorning it, he sighed heavily and let his professional expression of easy assurance drop.  It wouldn’t fool Ted for a minute anyway.  There was no point because Ted Maxwell was one of the most astute people Josh had ever met. 

He told him straight.  “Laurie’s missing, Ted.  I need some time off so I can look for him.”

Ted lifted one meaty hand and gestured.  “I ‘eard about it.  Somebody called me this morning.  A man called Cristos.  Had an accent.  American and a touch of summat else.”

A slight smile crossed Josh’s face, more relief than pleasure, but tinged with amusement, the first he’d felt in days.  The thought of the Yorkshireman accusing someone else of having an accent tickled him.  “I know him.  I’ve met him in New York.”  And the rest.  Cristos had a hold over Josh very few other people knew about.  He provided services Josh and his kind needed.  In return, Josh helped him.  Sometimes.

“We ‘ad a very interesting conversation about you, lad and it seems we’re in agreement.  I want to give you time off, as well.”

Josh frowned.  The thought of the two most formidable men he knew in league with each other chilled his blood.  “Should I run now, or later?”

Ted’s rich, fruity chuckle filled the room.  “Want some tea?”  He hit the intercom.  “Bring us some tea, will you dear?”

“Dear,” was his secretary, the stiffly correct Madeleine Otterthwaite, an officious woman with a body built for sin, which she did nothing to hide in the severe business suits that hugged her mouthwatering figure.  Thirty years old, divorced, and gorgeous.  She brought in a tray of tea so quickly, Josh knew she was merely waiting for Ted’s summons.  Although she was extremely unlikely to have made the tea herself, she always ensured it was just as Ted liked it, just as everything else she did during working hours was for him.  What she did out of working hours was anyone’s guess.  Josh wasn’t the only person to ask her for a date and be politely, but firmly refused.  Only Maddy could have turned down some of what the tabloids called ‘the most eligible men in Europe’-when they were being polite.

Her behavior towards Ted was so empathetic, Josh had suspected her of being Talented but all his efforts to gently probe her mind had met with a hard rebuff from a powerful barrier.  Whether her barrier was self made or evolved was anyone’s guess, but neither Josh nor Laurie had ever been able to breach it.  The remembrance of Laurie added another dagger to the bunch piercing his heart.  Every time he tried to contact his brother, by phone or using their strong telepathic link, he’d been rebuffed by a deafening silence.  He was worried sick.

Maddy flashed a tight smile at Josh as she put the tray down in front of Ted, on top of the scraps of paper, many of which already held circular stains from tea mugs.  They exchanged conventional greetings while Ted poured out the tea.  He liked to pour it himself, and insisted on ‘milk last.’

Anyone walking into the luxurious but untidy office would never have suspected that Ted Maxwell controlled a team of players, stars who could have bought a small country each and still have plenty of change to spare.  Men like Josh and his brother Laurie Friedland, feted everywhere in the world except one country; the USA.  Which helped to explain why they spent a lot of their free time there.  The one place in the world people didn’t stop them in the street all the time, where they could shop, eat out and go to the theater if they wanted to, without hindrance from avid fans.

Now Josh wanted to go back for an entirely different reason.

Knowing Ted would discuss his problem in his own time, Josh sipped his tea, which was, as usual, excellent, and listened to a litany about the team, who was fit, who was off his game, who needed a push, who was about to receive a ‘rollicking’ for staying out too late at too many nightclubs before a big match.

Eventually, his manager came to the point.  “And if that weren’t enough, I’ve got this damn fool owner on my back.”

Yes.  Everything clicked into place.  Cristos, Ted, Josh, they all converged at the same point.

“Bloody George Skeffington.”

There it was.  Josh put down his tea mug, following Ted’s example and using one of the bits of paper as a coaster.  He leaned back in the comfortable leather chair and waited.

“That man doesn’t understand the first thing about the game.  Maximize profits, he says.  What does he think we’ve been doing?  Giving tickets away?  If we screw much more out of the fans, the poor bastards will be ready to rebel.  In fact...”  He leaned forward, a crafty smile wreathing his features “In fact, I’d say they’re ready now.”

Josh grinned back.  “You’ve primed ‘em.”

“Oh yes.  We’re all on the same side here, lad.  This sod bought the club by foul means, and he took it out of public ownership.”

Josh stayed silent, though he knew more than Ted suspected he did.  What made this American, who knew nothing about the game, think he could do better?  But Skeffington certainly did think that.  He’d bought the team from under Ted’s consortium’s noses, paid an outrageous price for it, and nobody knew why.

Go, as they said in the States, Figure.

Ted gave Josh a broad grin.  “We’ll get it back.  Not a good season for us, is it?”  For the first time in ten years, Rovers was out of Europe, failed in the leagues that brought big money and huge prestige to the club.

Suspicions had crossed Josh’s mind recently, and his warning bells clanged even louder now.  “And you have so many injuries, too.  I could go back, Ted.  I’m pretty much better.”  Ted didn’t know how fast Josh could recover, but even by normal mortal standards, his recuperation had been leisurely.

“I want you all better, lad.  No setbacks.  Next season we’ll do better.”

“I thought that depended on the Skeffingtons.”

Ted raised a quizzical eyebrow, the thick mass lifting slightly, exposing the sharp pale blue gaze that had terrorized many a young player.  The gaze softened into Ted’s usual mild one, far more deceptive and one of the reasons Ted was so popular with the media.  The jovial, easygoing air Ted cultivated was far from the real man beneath, the man who could control a team of young men, each of whom could afford a Porsche from the change in their pockets.

Josh laughed.  “It depends on whether they’ve given up or not.  The club must be worth much less than they paid for it after a season like this one.”

Ted’s fruity chuckle filled the room.  He reached for the teapot.  Josh declined a second cup, so Ted helped himself before he spoke again.

“Mebbe so, lad, mebbe so.  But with Mr. Cristos’s help, I might be able to help it along a bit.”

“He prefers just ‘Cristos.’”

Ted sipped his tea, his mild gaze fixed on Josh.  “I don’t mind a new owner.  I’ve worked for a few in my time.  Skeffington wants to sell Rosenberg and Schmidt, two of the best players we’ve got.  He says he wants young talent instead.  Young talent my arse!”  Ted’s snort of derision eloquently expressed his opinion on Skeffington’s ability to manage a football club.  “He wants the cash.  He’s asset stripping, my son.”  At the height of their careers, Rosenberg and Schmidt were also valuable players.

“And some of your best players are off sick.”

Ted’s grin broadened.  “I want them fit for next season, so they’re stayin’ off for now.  No sense rushing them back, the way things are.”

“One more season and Skeffington will give in and sell up,” Josh observed to the room in general.  “So you could say things are going well.”

“In a way,” Ted replied in the same distant tone.  He turned in his chair and fixed Josh with a gimlet stare.  “I want him out as fast as possible.  Faster.  ‘E’s after finishing this club, takin’ what ‘e can and clearing off with the proceeds.  But I won’t see that happen.  He’s tried to get me to move on.  Ever so gently, of course, but there you are.  I want to know what he’s up to.”

Josh felt a little bewildered that Ted was opening up to him at last.  He, together with most of the team, knew this was war, but neither side had confided in anybody until now.  “What has that to do with me?”

“More than you think.”  Ted leaned back, his chair creaking under the strain of his not inconsiderable weight.  Ted wasn’t fat by any means, but he was large, bulky, fleshy.  A presence in every sense of the word.  “Especially after this call.  Cristos called about your brother.”

A flare of anger consumed Josh.  If Cristos had a lead, he should have contacted him first, not Ted.  After a week of not knowing, with no leads, Josh was ready to take off after Laurie.  Nobody had seen him for weeks.  Not his friends and not Department 57, situated in downtown Manhattan, where Laurie had been helping with a case.

Laurie’s disappearance had nothing to do with the Skeffingtons and the power games he was playing with Rovers.  Or did it?  “You could have told me when I first came in,” he growled.  “Laurie means more to me than any bloody football club.”

Ted shook his head sadly.  “You’ve never had any patience, have you, lad?  It’s all bound up in the same thing.  Or it might be.  Listen.  Cristos and me had a really interesting talk.”

The mannerisms Ted used to signpost his feelings, his moods when in public, were all absent now.  Only the real man was left, the man who knew how to traffic in power and rarely lost.  He stared directly at Josh and leaned forward again to rest his elbows on his desk.  “Cristos says he’s tracked Laurie to San Francisco.”

“San Francisco?”  What on earth made Laurie go there?

“Yep.  Cristos has no idea why.  Do you?”

Slowly, Josh shook his head.  “We’re close, you know that, but he might have taken off on a whim.  Or after a woman.”  Laurie had never lost his enthusiasm for the opposite sex.  Josh didn’t pursue anyone any more.  He seemed to have lost the edge of his appetite for dates and sex. 

“What if he’d been taken by force?”

Shock jolted through him.  How could that happen?  Laurie and Josh were shapeshifters, powerful beings rarely bested by anyone.  If someone had taken Laurie by force, it would almost definitely have been another Talent.

Fear replaced the shock, terror for his brother.  Oh God, let it be a woman!  Laurie was one of nature’s romantics, always seeing the best in his women before deep disillusionment.  Josh could cope with that; he couldn’t cope with his brother’s torture or death.

“So Cristos thinks Laurie is in San Francisco?”

He knew Ted would see his alarm; the man knew him well.  Ted’s mouth, set in a hard line, softened slightly, the only sign he’d noticed Josh’s agitation, but it was enough.  “He’s probably chasing skirt.  Not to worry lad.  But I’d already decided to send someone over to find out what Skeffington is up to.”

“A spy?”

“If you like.  You, if you want it.  I can book you a few goodwill appointments, get you out to some schools and colleges, that’s reason enough to go, and I can get Skeffington to put you up while you’re there.  He can arrange some appearances for you as well.  Nothing too much, because you’ll want to look for Laurie, but it’ll give you an excuse.  Two birds with one stone, you might say.”

Ted and Josh regarded each other in silence.  Ted would send Josh to hunt for Laurie, if Josh did a favor for him in return and scoped out Skeffington.  In characteristic fashion, Ted had struck right at Josh’s one vulnerable spot.  Laurie.  Ted got what he wanted by letting Josh have his way, because he must know nothing, not even the threat of dismissal, would stop Josh going after Laurie now.

“I’ve not been keen to let you out of my sight while you’ve been off the field.  Mainly because you’re careless with your health, and I want you well, but this changes things, Josh.  You’re almost better, and if I weren’t being careful, I’d let you on for the odd match or two, or at least put you on the bench as a substitute.”  He paused, giving Josh time to think.  Ted was extremely good at giving his players thinking time.  Every member of the Manchester Rovers squad was a perfect physical specimen at the peak of their health, but not all of them were the sharpest knives in the intellectual drawer.  Most needed time and space.  When Ted wanted something from, say, Scott Jensen, he’d push and push, not giving poor Jensen time to think, but this tactic didn’t work with Josh.  He was more likely to dig his heels in and refuse to do whatever Ted wanted until he’d thought things through.

Ted knew that, and was giving him space.  Not that he needed it.  Josh was going.  After he’d spoken to Cristos.

“Give me a few hours and I’ll be ready.  Get Maddy to sort out a flight and leave the tickets at the airport.”

Ted’s mouth flickered in the semblance of a smile.  “I’ll do that, lad.  Good luck.”

“Looks as though I’ll need it.”

*****

Chana Rafiz strode into the Skeffington mansion and hurled her car keys on the marble side table.  Disappointingly, the expensive surface didn’t crack.  She let out a shriek of pure rage, and watched the butler come at a very fast walk into the other end of the large, echoing hall.

“Miss Rafiz, are you all right?”

“Depends what you mean by ‘all right,’ Osborne.  Is Mr. Skeffington in?”

Osborne’s thin lips turned down.  “He’s in his office, though I’m not sure he’s home to visitors.”

“Well it looks like I’m not a visitor any more.  I’m back to stay for a while, and hopefully to make his life hell.  He deserves it, after what he’d done to me.”

Casting a darkling look back at the tall, cadaverous Osborne, Chana took the corridor that led to the office wing.

She had a bone to pick with Skeffington.  Several bones, in fact.  Still dressed in the uniform of a San Francisco cop, Chana was only too aware of how incongruous she must look in the marble hall, and the corridor lined with paintings.  Originals, as Mr. Skeffington was fond of telling visitors, but when they questioned further, he passed them on to Edward, his third son, the one who knew about Art.

When Skeffington’s personal assistant, the suave and sophisticated Eric Minow, stood to prevent her access to the inner office, she brushed past him and burst through the double doors.  Eric was far too refined to grab her and yank her back.

“What?”

Skeffington’s craggy face only showed startlement for a bare moment before he lifted his hands and smiled at her.  “I wondered when you’d arrive.  Come and sit down, dear.”

“Don’t you ‘dear’ me!”  she growled, beyond anger now.  She decided to stand and loom over him, except that his desk was huge and the effect largely lost.

George continued to stare at her.  Hell.  She sat down.  “So what did I do wrong?  I know you were the person who got me dragged off the street, so why?”

George Skeffington’s face relaxed, as far as that was possible, and a broad grin spread across his full lips.  “I’ll never know why you have more spunk than any of my children by blood.”  Chana growled, but said nothing.  “I had you pulled, my dear, because you were a danger.  You’re more of a liability than an asset as a cop.  Anyone could target you, take you straight off the street.  They’d have to put cops on duty to guard you.  I gave you your head, but it’s time to come home.”

Chana ground her teeth.  This was not her home.  “Then why did you let me go through the training course?  Why did you let me believe I was free of you at last?”

His smile was positively avuncular.  “Because you needed breathing space.  I even let you rent that slum of an apartment on your wages.  You wanted to be independent.  I can respect that, Kanchana.  It’s more than the boys have ever tried to do.  I was even proud of you.”

“Is that meant to make me happy?”  What gave him the right to be proud of her?  He was no relation of hers, although he’d tried to control her as he did his own children. 

“If I said that to any of my employees, it would keep them happy for a week.  Yes, Kanchana, it is supposed to make you happy.  It’s the truth.  I respect you for it.  But it couldn’t go on, you must see that.”

“No I don’t.  If you hadn’t told anyone I was your stepdaughter, they wouldn’t have known.  My mother married you for a grand total of two years, including the time it took her to divorce you.  If you hadn’t had my picture put in the paper, nobody would have known.  It was you, wasn’t it?”

“Not directly.”

She made a sound of derision.  “What does it matter?  You had it done, you had my picture put in the paper and all that God-damn speculation started.  After that, I couldn’t move for cops asking me out for a date, wanting favors, trying to partner with me.  How could you?”

“I wanted to see how far you could go.  And the training will come in useful for what I have in mind for you.”  George hit a button on his intercom.  “Bring in some coffee, will you, Eric?”  He turned back to Chana.  “You passed the exam and I didn’t interfere.  You were just a wannabe cop, and you passed.  But you couldn’t have gone on the streets, you must see that.  Someone would have broken your cover and they wouldn’t have hesitated.  They would have kidnapped you, and that would have cost me a packet.”

“Is that it?  The money?”

He hesitated before he denied it.  “No, of course not.  I want you safe, that’s all.”

“I could still try for some kind of career in the SFPD.” 

“So you could.”  He paused when Eric brought in the coffee and the scent, as usual, made her stomach contract with need.  At least she still had that much cop in her.  A craving for coffee seemed to go with the job.

It would have been childish to refuse something she wanted, so she accepted her cup.  “And your medical condition,” he continued when Eric left, George not even thanking him for the service.  “It could get worse.  You know the stress the job has.  But yes, you’re right.  If you want to pursue a career off the street in the department, I won’t stop you.  You could even be useful, one day.”

Stony faced, Chana listened to the death of all her hopes.  Oh yeah.  She could take a job in the office, progress up the administrative ladder and one day, help the Skeffington estate from her high rise in town.  Become part of the organization, a Skeffington babe.  George Skeffington would have another scalp in his belt.  If she wanted a career of her own, independent of him, she would have to move across America.  Perhaps even leave the States.  His reach was too long, he had interests everywhere.

Not even leaving the country would help her.  Skeffington’s influence crossed political barriers as though they didn’t exist.

“Before you pursue that, there’s something I’d like you to do for me.”  George’s voice, always mild, gained a sharp edge.  Only someone who knew him well, someone as sensitive as Chana would have discerned it, but it was there nevertheless.  She picked up the bone china coffee cup and took a sip.  The coffee was excellent, as always, but she would have swapped it in a minute for a chipped cup of flavored dishwater at the station house.

“What?”  she asked resignedly.

“Angelina left yesterday.”  Chana couldn’t say she was surprised.  George’s latest wife had never settled down properly, and hadn’t managed her life well.  George didn’t take infidelity lightly, especially when the story was splashed over the newspaper gossip pages.  “I haven’t a hostess and you could do the job blindfold.  A guest’s arriving tomorrow, which should give you time to get your hair done and a facial.  I want you to show him around, help him while he’s here.”

Have her hair done and a facial.  “Who is it?”

“One of the team members from that English soccer club I bought.”

“Oh yes.”  She couldn’t recall the details.  Skeffington thought this club was a big deal, but something that happened half a world away concerning a sport her little stepbrother played at school didn’t excite her one bit.

“He’s coming over here for a few goodwill visits, and to touch base.  He’s twenty-five, so there’s a few playing years in him yet and he’s a valuable commodity.  I want to get to know him, and I want him happy while he’s here.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.  “You’re pimping for me?”

George’s mouth pursed into a tight, prim button.  “You should know better than to use such language!  Of course not, I just want you to act as hostess while he’s here.  Is that too much to ask?”

“Probably.”  She smiled, feeling a modicum of relief.  “But in any case, it’s hardly likely he’ll take an interest in a thirty year old has-been cop.”

“Kanchana, you shine up a treat.  Have that surgery and you can look eighteen again.”  George took a long sip of his coffee, keeping his eyes trained on her face.  “You never took me up on that offer I made a couple of years back.  It’s still open.”

He was provoking her to a reaction, Chana saw it in the pale eyes.  So she chose not to react.  “I’m happy with a C cup, thanks.”  Having Skeffington buy her new tits wasn’t her idea of a functional relationship.  Not that she was even sure what that was.  “I’ll do a deal with you, George.  Not a family deal, but a business deal.”  George took business deals far more seriously than he did family agreements.  Not that that was any guarantee.  If George really wanted something, he tended to go for it, and to hell with ethics.

He nodded, his attention completely on her.  People thought George had a vague, watery look, but that was just because his eyes were so pale.  Anyone caught in the full beam knew different, and he had caught Chana enough times to know the full force of George Skeffington’s full attention. 

“If I look after this – boy – for you, you’ll let me go and do something for myself.  George, you started with nothing, you’re always telling us that.  Let me do the same.  Give me a bit of room!”

George sighed.  “You could be better than the others put together.”  He sighed again and reached for his coffee cup.  “I can’t let you go, Chana.  Not like that.  When my marriage to your mother broke up, I paid for your education, I took an interest, which is more than she did.  Now it’s payback time.  I want a year of your time.  Just a year, to give me back a bit of what I’ve given to you.  But I tell you what.”  He took his time finishing his coffee, at last looking away.  He flicked a glance at her.  “After that, I’ll let you go, just like you’ve always wanted.  I need you to be my hostess until I get a divorce and find somebody else.”

“Is it because of this soccer club?”

He smiled.  “Partly.  If you can give me twelve months, I’ll give you a salary.  You’ll be my hostess.  With Angelina gone, I have no one else.”  After five wives, Chana had no doubt he would find another one, if he had to.  The last wife, Angelina, had lasted barely three years and was strictly arm candy.  And bed candy.  The trouble was, her discretion left a lot to be desired, so she was out of here. 

He wanted a return for the expensive education she’d never asked for, the wardrobe, the allowance she’d refused to touch since she turned twenty-one.  “So what would you want me to do?”  She still wasn’t agreeing to anything.

He glanced at her.  “Get your hair done, get a facial.  Get a wardrobe.  All part of expenses.”  He ticked the items off on his long, thin, fingers as he spoke.  “I’ll give you a schedule and I’ll need you there when I have a business dinner, or a function.  I won’t require you to arrange the dinners, but you’ll co-ordinate with Eric for that although your input would be appreciated.  When I have guests to stay, especially when they’re from out of town, I’d want you to make yourself available to them, to show them around, take them to theaters, concerts, museums, bars, whatever they want.”

Meeting his gaze directly, she said; “And what don’t you want me to do?”

He nodded.  “I don’t want you sleeping with them, or fraternizing with them any more than socially.  If they’re unpleasant, if they hit on you too hard, you tell me and I’ll take care of it.”

She’d needed him to say it.  Out loud, so it lay between them as part of the agreement.  “And you want a year?”

He smiled.  “I’d like more, but I can draw up a contract that makes that renegotiable on both sides.  What do you say?”  His voice softened.  “I know you want a life of your own, but for now I can’t give you that.  You know why.”

She waved a dismissive hand.  “That’s nothing.  Lots of people have diabetes.”  Diabetes had struck her when she reached puberty and was, she always thought, why George had noticed her.  He’d discovered her in a coma after an almighty row about her schooling and her accomplishments, and he’d blamed himself.  The argument had upset her, made her skip a couple of meals, but that was her fault, not his.  These days  she gave herself daily injections, and watched her diet, but refused to live her life any differently than before.  So far, she’d been fine, except for a couple of episodes.  The diagnosis had affected Skeffington more than it had her.  All his money couldn’t cure it.

 A spasm of pain crossed George’s face, and Chana knew he was thinking of her mother’s death, caused by a diabetic coma.  “I still miss your mother.”  The very restraint of his response convinced her this time it was real.  George’s demonstrations of emotion could be extreme, but they were never real, always staged.  When a sports team he owned won a big prize, he would jump in the air and yell with everyone else but his eyes remained dead, empty.  He could lose his temper spectacularly, but only in public, when it was worth the effort.  George never did anything without a reason, usually several reasons, so the twinge of real sorrow Chana glimpsed in him now meant far more than any floods of tears might have done.  Chana’s mother had been his third wife, different from the others.  Almost the same age as he was, unlike the two bimbos he’d married after her, as smart as a button and the only wife who wasn’t in the least cowed by his influence, his power or his moods.  “I’ll never forgive myself for not finding her earlier after she collapsed.  At least I found you before it was too late.”

“She’s gone, George.”  Chana was beaten.  She knew it, he knew it.  “Okay, it’s a deal.  I’ll be your hostess for the next twelve months if you give me the next twelve years to myself.  But I want a proper contract with everything laid out.”  It would give her the financial backing to do what she wanted to do.  And a year to work out what exactly that was.  If she’d felt more strongly about the SFPD she’d have fought harder for it, but she didn’t.  After the training, she’d realized she wasn’t meant to be a cop.  The paperwork drove her mad, and her colleagues just didn’t understand her.  Or she didn’t understand them.

George smiled broadly.  “It’s a deal.”

Chapter Two

 

Although he expected it, Josh winced when he stepped off the plane and the full force of a California sun hit him in the eyes.  He’d already pulled his sunglasses from his pocket and he hastily put them on as he took the walkway in the airport towards the exit.

The official examining his passport and green slip didn’t glance back at him, the way he was used to, he didn’t ask for his autograph, or why he was here instead of with the team before the end of the season.  Josh felt smug.  No one knew him here, or very few people did.  He was just another person, another tourist.  A rich tourist, sure, he’d just stepped from the first class expressway, but a tourist just the same. 

Heading for the rental car stand, Josh halted by a sign with his name on it.  Very neatly printed, in black letters on white card, unlike many of the hastily scrawled ones, or conversely, the decorated ones, intimating the arrival had been sadly missed and their homecoming welcomed.

There had been someone to welcome him like that once, a long time ago.  Someone he still missed, but rarely talked about.  A shadow crossed his thoughts, and he pushed them aside.  Thinking about it didn’t help, except in the dark nights when he held yet another stranger’s body to him, sharing his bodily warmth but little else.  It helped to remember that he’d been more than a body to someone, once.

“I’m Josh Friedland.”

“Sure.”  The man was a stranger, but not the suit.  The CIA tended towards navy blue, as opposed to the FBI’s preferred black, but there was no mistaking the carefully anonymous appearance, the featureless, neatly pressed white shirt, the plain tie.  “Cristos sent me.  He arrived a few days ago and he wants to bring you up to speed.”

“My luggage—“

“Is being taken care of.  If you’ll allow us to take you to the Skeffington estate, we can arrange for your rental car to be delivered there.”

“Okay.”  Josh grimaced, but it was better he heard before he met the family.  A spark of hope lit inside him.  Perhaps they’d found Laurie already.

Outside, the heat struck him with full force.  April, and already warm.  In England, he’d shivered in the chill as he’d stepped from his car to the plane at Manchester Airport.  Here, he slipped off the light jacket he wore and felt glad he’d worn a short-sleeved cotton polo shirt.

A figure he knew well stood by a sleek, black car with smoked windows in the parking lot.  He strode forward and shook the proffered hand warmly.  “Cristos.  I haven’t seen you for a long time.  Are you keeping well?”

“Perfectly.”  Cristos, immaculate as always, motioned to the open door.  “Get in before the air conditioning goes off.”

Josh grinned and stepped into the car.  A glass screen separated the front of the car from the back.  They were completely private here.

The leather seats creaked a little when Josh sat down, and Cristos reached for a small compartment.  “A drink?”

Josh shook his head.  “I’ve done nothing but eat, drink, sleep and watch crappy films for the last twelve hours.  That’s if you don’t count worrying about Laurie, which I did more of than anything else.”

The slight bump told him someone was loading his luggage into the boot – the trunk – of the car, then the driver and the man who’d collected him walked around to the front and got in.  The car started with a barely perceptible purr and they were off.

“Isn’t a Rolls Royce a bit fancy for your taste, Cristos?”

Cristos made a face, grimacing before his patrician features settled back into their usual impassivity.  “It was the only one available with the facilities I needed.  I’ve put in for a Mercedes to replace it, but I have to be blatantly conspicuous in this thing until it arrives.”

“I like it.”  The Rolls was luxurious and comfortable.  Josh sank back into the leather cushions.  “At least it’s black.  You can get them in all kinds of colors out here.  I’m told white and pink are popular.”

“Damn Californians!”  Cristos, an East Coast man to the tips of his carefully polished shoes showed all his contempt in the words.

The odd thing was, he didn’t seem incongruous here.  Cristos, a sophisticated city man, dressed in Armani, silver hair sleekly combed back against his head, was incongruous nowhere.  He’d worked hard at it.  In his job, he needed to develop the quality, and although he was undoubtedly Talented, he could pass in the street as an average businessman if he wished.  In fact, no one knew precisely what Cristos’s Talent consisted of.  He could read minds like a Sorcerer, compel like a vampire, but no one had seen him take blood, or change his form.  Shapeshifters like Josh were compelled to change their form at the full moon, usually for three days, but people had seen Cristos at these times, and he’d never once done so.

What he was kept the Talented community rife with speculation.  What he did was clear.  Department 57, the center for the Talented, part of the CIA, was all Cristos’s.  If his bosses had ever tried to interfere, he would have taken them into private ownership, but so far, despite a few close calls, it hadn’t been necessary.  Most of the other agencies around the world were private, but the ones in the public services provided access to the records vital if Talents were to keep their secrets hidden from the world at large.

“Well I need something, even if you don’t.”  Cristos opened a flap to reveal a small refrigerated compartment, filled with various bottles.  He found a bottle of water, and opened another compartment in front of his seat to reveal a collection of cut crystal glasses, each carefully restrained by a small leather strap.  “I suppose there are some compensations to using a Rolls Royce,” he admitted with a grin, as he poured the drink into the glass.  There was even a container for the used bottles.

Josh made himself comfortable, spreading his legs a little and stretching them out in front of him.  “Tell me about Laurie,” he said, unable to wait any longer to hear what news there was.

“We haven’t found him yet.”  Trust Cristos to know exactly what Josh needed to hear.  Or didn’t.  He’d hoped that statement would be in the positive.  “We’re getting closer, though.”  He took a drink.

Josh took off his sunglasses.  He didn’t need them any more.  Cristos knew all there was to know about him and Laurie, and he must know how worried he was about his brother. 

Cristos met his gaze straight on.  “I’m sorry, Josh.  We’ll do our best to find him.”

Josh nodded, beyond words, the lump in his throat too big to talk past.

“The last time I saw him was in New York.  He brought a girl in who’d attacked him on the street.  A crack addict and a newly made vampire.  Her mental abilities were incredibly strong.  Laurie overpowered her and brought her in.  She believed all the nonsense about vampires, all the disinformation they’ve been spreading for centuries.  Anyway, we took her in and found her somewhere to stay while she acclimatized.  After that, Laurie had some advertising deal for a men’s cologne.  Then he disappeared.”

“I spoke to him just after he’d finished the cologne deal.  He called me and told me he was staying over in the States for a while.  Both of us are out of the team with injuries—“ He caught Cristos’s skeptical glance and laughed.  “Yeah, right.  Like it took us more than a day or two to recover.  But officially, we’re out so we had time to kill.  I thought he’d met someone, and I said so, but he didn’t say anything apart from “maybe.”  “

“Hmmm.  That would explain why he flew across the country.  Laurie always liked a pretty face.”

“Likes, Cristos.  He’s not dead.”

Cristos exhaled sharply.  “You sure of that?”

“Oh yeah.  I’d know.”  The void left by Laurie’s death would just about cripple him.

“Can you tell anything else?  Can you get a fix on him?”

Josh bit his lip.  “I don’t know.  I hope so.  I always used to be able to find him.  But I couldn’t do it from a distance, so I needed to come closer.”

“And you injured yourself, didn’t you?”

He grinned.  “Let’s just say I threw myself in the path of a dangerous tackler.  I riled him all match and then I gave him the chance to put me out for a while.”  He shrugged.  “No big deal.  I could have healed that night, but officially, I’m still off sick.  I’ve got rid of it now, though.”  He’d shifted form briefly the night before, just long enough to finish off the healing process.  An injury couldn’t usually survive the transformation, although sometimes it took longer than just one transformation.  Josh had let this injury take its course, because the physios at the club might have noticed his miraculous cure, but there was no point in keeping it going now.  He needed his strength for the search to come.

Cristos regarded him thoughtfully.  “Would you have done it if Ted Maxwell had needed you?”

Startled Josh sat up and then laughed ruefully.  “Probably.  But only for Laurie.  Not for anything else.  You’ve guessed, then?  That he’s deliberately – let’s say, giving the team the opportunity to lose key matches?”  Cristos nodded.  “It’s Ted’s way of moving Skeffington out.  If the man wants to maximize profits and asset-strip the club, the players and the team need to be on top form.  What I did helps him.  He leaked to the press that my injury is worse than it seemed at first.  It’ll bring my price down.”

“And you don’t care?”

Josh shook his head.  “No, why should I?  I’ll come back, if I need to.  Officially, in the eyes of the world, I’m twenty-five.  I should have another ten years, if I’m lucky.  At least eight of them at the top.  I just prove that my injury means nothing.  Preferably after Skeffington’s sold the club.”

“About that,” Cristos said, in a low, lazy drawl and Josh perked up.  When Cristos was at his most laid back, that was when it paid to listen most carefully.  “Ted Maxwell has his own plans.  He didn’t tell me, he didn’t need to, but I got the feeling he’s perplexed.  Manchester Rovers is very well managed, there doesn’t seem much room for any more maximization of profits.  His family doesn’t take the smallest interest in your sport, so that leaves a couple of things.  He could be planning to bring soccer to the States.  But people have tried that before, and it failed.  We have our own football,  yours would just get in the way.  And it would cost probably as much as he owns.  No.  Maxwell thinks he’s going to asset-strip and then get out.  But in order to strip, Skeffington needs the club at its peak.  Nobody’s going to buy players who aren’t at their best.”  Josh did nothing but nod.  Cristos didn’t need any more encouragement than that.  Some of his staff might be surprised at the taciturn and enigmatic man being so forthcoming, but when needed, Cristos could be as forthcoming as anyone.  “Have you thought it might not be the club he wants?”

Josh frowned.  “You mean the ground?”  He glanced out the window at the stretch of dusty highway.  “He wants to sell the pitch?  Rovers’ ground was built on the site of a slum, but it’s near enough to town to be sellable as real estate these days.”  He lifted his hand in a gesture of denial.  “No, that’s not possible, Skeffington wouldn’t get nearly enough from just selling the capital assets.”

“Not the club.  You.”

Shock lanced through Josh.  “Me?”

“Specifically, you and Laurie.”

“Jesus!”  In a flash of understanding, Josh saw what Cristos meant.  Laurie had disappeared from his hotel in San Francisco.  As soon as Skeffington had heard Josh was injured, he’d offered his hospitality for this ‘goodwill visit.’  “You think he knows about us?  What we are?”

“I think nothing.  It might be for his stepdaughter, Kanchana.”

“I did some reading.  I know he has four sons and several stepchildren, although he’s only ever taken an interest in one.” 

“Skeffington has a wife, Angelina, much younger than he is, four sons and his stepdaughter, who isn’t living at home.  She’s working in San Francisco, at the police department.  Kanchana Rafiz is half Indian, from her father.  Her mother’s dead, and never took a lot of interest in her when she was alive, so George Skeffington put her through school.  She was married briefly, to one Steven Collins, but went back to her maiden name after the divorce.  She has diabetes, type I.  What’s the betting he wants to find a cure?  Cure his stepdaughter and make a killing on the pharmaceutical market.”

Josh groaned.  “Using us.”

“Yes.  By using you.  He may have found something out about you, seen how fast you bounce back from injury.  So he may have Laurie, and he wants you.”

“And you’re sending me in?”

“I know you, Josh.”  Very few people saw past the easygoing sportsman to the man underneath, but Cristos took the time to study all the Talents he came into contact with.  Oh yes, he knew Josh Friedland.  “If I didn’t send you in, you’d go anyway.  I’d much rather you went in with support.”

“Support?”

“I’m calling in a team.”

Josh frowned.  “You’ve got teams now?”

Cristos picked up his glass, smoothing his fingers over the drops of condensation on the side.  He took a sip.  “It’s a new thing.  The PHR and the scientists are getting stronger, closer to the truth.  We have abilities and Talents they could make use of, and they want them.  So I’ve started building teams of Talents, mixed abilities so they can draw on each others’ strengths.  I told Laurie before he left, now I’m telling you.  You have to agree to work with the team.  You want in?”

He had no choice.  It was his best chance of locating his brother.  “Yes, I want in.”

“If I find Laurie, you’ll owe me.  I will call that favor in, never doubt it.”

“I’ll find him anyway.”

“But I can make it easier.  Probably quicker.  I think Skeffington has a secret laboratory somewhere.  Laurie isn’t the only Talent to mysteriously disappear from this part of California.  Talents tend to live solitary lives, so when you go missing, unless there’s a loved one to raise the alarm, it can be some time before anyone realizes you’ve really gone, not just taken off.”  He took a deep drink of water and put his glass down carefully in the slot provided in the arm of his seat.  “So I started looking, and I think there are at least two others missing.  Possibly more.”

He regarded Josh with such compassion, he nearly broke down.  Knowing he had a job to do, Josh hadn’t let himself think about where his brother was, what he might be going through, but now it was clearer than it had ever been.  He wished it wasn’t.

A laboratory.  Somewhere, Laurie was hooked up to machines, being experimented on, trying to contact them.  “Why can’t he contact me?  We’ve been doing it for centuries.”

“They’ve developed interference.  It’s usually sonic, but I’ve also known facilities completely lined in lead or silver, and as you know, both metals tend to inhibit communication.  I’m hoping they’ve used lead in this case, because the link between you and Laurie might just be strong enough to break through that.”

Josh nodded.  “Yes, and because I have to amplify the communication, I need to be closer.  Yes, I see.  Okay, Cristos.  Tell me what to do.”

Cristos smiled, a small, tight grin.  “Do what you planned to do.  Go to Skeffington’s, see what you can discover.  In a few days the team will be in place and I’ll contact you so you can meet them.  You’ll need to set up deep contact.”

Josh shuddered.  He hated letting anyone past the barrier that hid his inner thoughts from the outer, superficial ones.  He’d purposely built up a very strong barrier.  He valued his privacy.  But for Laurie, he would do it.  He stared out the window at the road racing by the window.  Normally he’d enjoy a break like this.  He was far from enjoying this one.

*****

A car waited for Josh about a mile before they reached the Skeffington estate.  Josh smiled when he saw it.  Perfect.  A yellow Porsche 911, a real footballer’s car.  Due to several TV programs and press speculation, European footballers were firmly entrenched in the public’s mind as handsome, rich and thick as pig shit.  They had no taste, or so the media said.  Many had fun playing up to this image, and Josh and Laurie were no exception.  Flashy sports cars fitted beautifully with this image.  Better than the black Ferrari Josh had originally ordered from the rental company.

He faced Cristos with a grin and shook his hand in farewell.  “Can I give you a lift somewhere?”

Cristos shuddered dramatically.  “Not in that thing.  I’ll stick with the Rolls.”

Josh chuckled and stopped to thank the driver and the agent, who had transferred his luggage from the Rolls to the Porsche.  It wasn’t likely he’d see either of them again, but he never ignored people.  Far too dangerous, and there was a lot of fun to be had in the people others often overlooked.  One of his best friends was one of the drivers for The Rovers, the contract people hired to chauffeur officials and their guests around.  He’d learned a lot from Charlie, but he’d never asked him anything, and never passed on what he knew.

Except sometimes to Laurie.  He missed his brother so badly he ached with it.  It made him bad tempered, when he was usually tolerant and easygoing.  There was twenty years between them – the blink of an eye to a shapeshifter.  Laurie was his only stability in his long life, the only constant.  He couldn’t lose him now.  It was unthinkable. 

He stopped the chauffeur when he would have closed the trunk, and winked.  “I’m going to turn into the public figure now, if you want to watch.”

Behind him, Cristos chuckled.  “It’s worth seeing, boys.”

Out of Josh’s hand luggage came a black mesh t-shirt.  Outrageously sexy, absolutely the wrong thing to go visiting in, he stripped off his plain shirt and donned the mesh number.  Over it went an open shirt with his club insignia on the back.  He exchanged his comfortable but plain pants for a pair of artfully ragged jeans, and a large, studded belt.  Cowboy boots finished the ensemble, and a pair of very dark sunglasses.  To finish, he dipped his fingertips into a pot of gel and slicked his hair back, pulling a lock forward to curl over his forehead.  He’d done it so many times he didn’t need a mirror.

Throwing his head back and picking up a cowboy hat with a studded band, he grinned.  “There you go, boys.  Does this say ‘look at me’ hard enough?”

The chauffeur crowed with laughter.  “Do you do this all the time?

His grin broadened.  “Oh yeah.  The public expect it.  And this time, I’m on a job for Cristos, so it’s a disguise, too.”

He closed the trunk and headed for the driver’s side, but paused to look over his shoulder.  “Oh, and I almost forgot.  It’s fun.”

*****

The Porsche might be gaudy and flashy, but it drove like a dream.  Smooth, responsive, even on these straight, boring roads, it couldn’t help but perform for Josh.  A mile was nowhere near far enough to enjoy this sleek, efficient machine, and mentally Josh put aside an hour for himself, if he could spare it.  Just him and the Porsche.

Not for a moment did he forget his mission, which for him was to rescue his brother.  Above anything else, he had to make sure Laurie was safe.  He wasn’t sure he’d want to go on if Laurie was gone.

And these scientists were a serious problem.  With new developments in science, their tortures were more refined, but just as brutal as they had always been.  To them, he and his kind were creatures, subjects, to be studied and discarded when all knowledge had been wrung out of them.  Left to his own devices, Josh would probably have chosen to destroy them all, but he’d agreed to live a reasonably civilized life.

Sometimes it was just easier to give in and be a griffin.

A pair of black wrought iron gates heralded the entrance to the Skeffington estate.  Nothing else, no sign, not even a brass plaque, just a box at the door with a button he was forced to get out of the door to push, so the camera trained on him from above could get a good look at him.

He pressed the button, lifted his head and grinned at the unseen watchers.  It did the trick.  There was something to be said to having one’s face all over the Internet after all.  The black gates silently swung open to allow him in.  He got back in the car and revved the engine, just to prove to himself that he could.  The gates spooked him.  He’d never liked being shut in, even if he knew he could escape whenever he wanted to.

The drive led straight to a long, low house, rather like the first floor or two of an English country house, but with an eerie singularity of design only seen when the country house had been given a new façade.  This house was the same all the way through.  No Jacobean dining rooms, no Georgian Chinoiserie bedrooms, unless they had been purposely created as such, about ten years ago.  The house couldn’t be much older than that, though it probably contained some choice antiques.

Good luck to them, as far as he was concerned.  Josh had lived long enough to realize how transient possessions were, and he wasn’t a member of the aristocracy, which jealously guarded the booty it had gathered over the centuries.  He had a few pieces he treasured, but even those he could bear to discard, if he had to.  But not Laurie.  If he was hurt, there would be revenge, civilization abandoned for pure havoc.

Josh deliberately put his anger aside, but couldn’t altogether rid himself of the simmering rage that he knew put golden sparks around him, invisible to most people, except for a certain electric aura it gave him, and others of his kind.

He pulled up outside what was obviously the main door to the building, judging by its size, and got out the car, taking his time and leaving the keys in the ignition.  It would have been gauche to do anything else.  Strange how manners and customs changed over time.  Fifty years ago he would have tossed the keys to the man who would stand waiting for him, but now things were more silent, more invisible.

The great double doors of what looked like oak stood open, the gloom inside emphasized by the bright spring sunshine.  Without pausing, Josh strolled inside.

The momentary gloom was designed to temporarily blind him by the transition from light into dark, but his eyes adjusted more easily than the average mortal’s.  A small, dark lobby led to a gateway of light, an opening leading into a hall of dazzling white marble, lit by an overhead skylight.  A stairway swept around two sides of the hall, the black iron banisters an echo of the gates at the end of the drive, some of the motifs the same.  All carefully designed.  Too carefully.

Josh allowed his eyes to adjust to the brightness and saw his host, standing just in front of the staircase.  A woman stood by his side.  Josh smiled and walked forward, allowing himself plenty of time to study his hosts.

Skeffington was dressed in a dark business suit, shirt and tie, despite the warmth of the day.  His tie was, however, a little loose at his neck, and he’d shoved his hands in his pockets, pulling them out as Josh approached and holding them out in a gesture of open friendliness.  A calculated gesture of open friendliness.  Skeffington looked scrawny, as though he’d shrunk inside the suit, his skin loose on his throat, the skin on his hands spotted with age.  For all that, he looked fit, like a lizard in the desert, comfortable in his environment.

The woman was very much Skeffington’s junior in age.  A brunette, dark, smooth black-brown hair carefully swept back into a chignon, probably sprayed to within an inch of its life, make up steadily applied with a sparing hand.  Honey colored skin, inviting a taste, despite the flawless finish.  She wore a suit, a loose skirt of linen with a jacket, both in a shade Josh immediately labeled as ‘beige.’  Tasteful, neutral in every sense of the word.  She even wore tights, or, perhaps stockings.  Josh’s groin stirred very slightly at the thought.  He’d always liked a woman in stockings, garter belt and nothing else, and he hadn’t seen one for a while.  Why this carefully polished brunette Barbie should make him think that way, he couldn’t imagine, but only now did he realize it must be nearly a year since he’d taken a woman to bed.  And then it had been a one-night-stand with another shifter, an old friend passing through town.  Before that, perhaps six months.  Football groupies didn’t do it for him.

The woman met his eyes straight on, but he couldn’t see any emotion in their dark brown depths.  Despite that, they were nice eyes.  Perhaps Skeffington chose his wives for their eyes.  Or their skin.  She had soft, silky, well cared-for skin.  Almost as though someone had put her into a car wash and buffed her until she gleamed.  It took a lot of money to get that look, and to get a beige outfit quite so featureless and so tasteful.

As he watched, the tip of her tongue came out and swept over her lower lip, the first sign of humanity Josh had seen in her in his endless approach across the far-too-large hall.  His abdomen tightened a little more.  Was she doing that on purpose?  Cynically, Josh guessed she was.  A polished princess like her wouldn’t do anything accidentally.  Well if she expected a little fun on the side while her aged husband attended to his business affairs, she’d have to think again.  No way was he getting involved personally.  No way on earth.

Josh pasted an easy smile on his face, warming it with the startled look his host cast his way when he noticed the mesh top.  It was always worth a flash or two of nipple to see that look, and this outfit rarely failed to provoke at least one look of disdain.

Doubled.  Her gaze swept comprehensively over him and when her attention once more went to his face, he saw her scorn.  Good.  They were less likely to think he held any danger at all, when in fact he was the spearhead for two very dangerous men, Cristos and Ted Maxwell.

“Hi,” he said.  “I’m Josh Friedland.  You have a nice place here.”

“I’m glad you found it,” George Skeffington said.  “We could have picked you up at the airport, no trouble.”

“I like to drive myself.  It lets me orient- ori- get used to where I am.”  He deliberately stumbled on the big word.  There was no harm in giving them more evidence to think of him as stupid and harmless.  Big words were a problem for sportsmen – everybody knew that.  Even though ‘Everybody’ was wrong. 

George Skeffington took his hand in a cold, too-firm grip, as though proving something to himself.  “I’m glad we have the opportunity to get to know you better.  You’re one of the stars of the team, and I want to get to know you all in time.”

Why?  Why would he want to know us?

I don’t know, either.  The words, spoken straight into his mind were feminine and abruptly cut off.  He turned in time to see a look of pure shock in the eyes of the young woman.

A psychic.  His first thought was dismay.  He’d have to guard his thoughts more carefully.  But if she was a natural, untrained psychic, she might not be aware that he could communicate, that he’d heard her.  He kept the easy smile on his face as Skeffington, oblivious to the telepathic exchange, spoke to him.

“I’m afraid I have a few business interests that will prevent me spending all the time I’d like to with you, so Kanchana has offered to help.  This is Kanchana, my stepdaughter.”

His stepdaughter?  To Josh’s dismay, his first thought was that she was available.  Wife would have been unthinkable, a spy, a honey trap, but surely Skeffington wouldn’t put his stepdaughter in the same position?  The woman Cristos had told him about.  He rapidly changed his mental label from “Angelina” to “Kanchana.”

Or would he?  Josh didn’t know George at all, and the more reading he did in the media, the less he felt he knew him.  An entrepreneur, starting with his own small store and working up to buy company after company, George Skeffington had been an ‘onwards and upwards’ man, but he hadn’t been dirt poor as a child, he hadn’t suffered any kind of tragedy that anyone could discover.  Josh suspected plain and simple greed had driven the development of the Skeffington empire, but he wouldn’t make any judgments.  Not yet.  Not until he knew more.

Perhaps his stepdaughter was his weak spot.

Kanchana nodded and smiled.  “Pleased to meet you.”

“Likewise.”  He gripped her hand and found it warm, unlike Skeffington’s.  It might be pleasant finding out just how weak she was, at that.  Not that he intended anything to go too far.  A bit of flirtation might put her off her guard, if she knew anything of what her stepfather was up to.  “I don’t think I need to keep you very busy.  I’ve hired a car, and I don’t know this area very well, so I want to explore.”

George’s smile broadened.  “Kanchana knows the area very well.  She can show you any number of places.”

“San Francisco is very beautiful,” he ventured.  Actually, he knew the area a little better than he was letting on, but not that much better.  He’d visited once during World War Two, on a mission for the government, when he’d had little time to explore, and later, about thirty years ago, at the height of the hippie movement.  He doubted those visits counted for much, these days.  Progress changed the look and feel of cities too quickly these days. 

“It is beautiful,” George said.  “That’s why I settled here.”  The slight Texas twang in his speech told of the origins Josh had read about.  Probably purposely, reminding colleagues he was a cowboy at heart, although Josh deeply doubted Skeffington had ever been within shouting distance of a cow, unless it was dead and steaming on a plate.

“I’m looking forward to the tour.  I usually do this kind of thing with some other guys from the team, but they’re still busy.”

“How is your knee?”  George didn’t seem anxious, as a true fan would have been.  Knee injuries could take players out of the game for good, and the extent of the damage wasn’t always instantly apparent.

“It’s fine, thanks, but Ted doesn’t want to risk it, putting me in for anything too much at the end of the season.  For everyday it’s great, just the pressures on the field might be too much.  Not to mention the tackles and professional fouls.”

“Professional fouls?”  She sounded startled, concerned even.  Josh warmed to her.

“When a player on another team knows you have a weakness, they home in on it.  If I went back this season, my knee would take a pounding it might not be able to bear.”

“God!”

He grinned.  “Don’t tell me your American footballers don’t have the same thing.”

She thought, her head slightly tilted to one side.  However much she tried to present herself as Barbie perfect, inside a human being was struggling to escape.  He didn’t need to enter her head to tell that, it was there, in the depths of her dark eyes, a humanity he was unwillingly drawn to.  “I don’t know, perhaps they do.  One of my step-brothers was a pro, and the other is a coach, but I tend to tune out when they talk about it.”

Four brothers, she had four big stepbrothers to look after her.  A princess indeed.  But her accent was light and pleasing, and she smelled good.

Josh stopped himself right there.  Attraction was fine; personal involvement was not.  He’d entered the house with his senses wide open, taking the risk in order that Laurie could contact him, if he was even the slightest bit sentient, if he was anywhere near, but when she had touched his mind, he’d shut right down.  He couldn’t afford to read her as he’d planned, in case she did have some training, some idea of what she could do.  Then she’d read him back.

“I have an itinerary, but it’s not very demanding.”  He watched Kanchana, let his gaze linger on her breasts.  Not because he had a particular interest in them, but because he wanted to see what their reactions would be to a definite leer.  He could base his behavior on that, use their vulnerabilities against them.

She lifted her chin and stared back, but her gaze didn’t hold an invitation.  When he glanced back at George, he saw nothing except a faint warmth.  It was so frustrating not to be able to probe gently at his mind, to see what was happening on the surface!  Any lower and most people noticed the intrusion, right down to a definite breach of the barrier everyone had, separating their consciousness from everyone else’s, which hurt like a bitch, if done against the owner’s will.

George didn’t seem to care if Josh ogled his stepdaughter’s breasts or not.  Since Josh was the jovial, none-too-bright, good living footballer, that meant that either George trusted his stepdaughter enough to make her own decisions, or he didn’t care.  Or, dreadful thought, that he wanted it to happen.  In that case, he was no better than a pimp.

Best not to think the worst, not yet at any rate.  He moved forward when George stepped aside.  “I have a few things to see to, so I hope you’ll excuse me.  Kanchana will show you to your room and make sure you’re comfortable.  I hope to see you at dinner.  We dine at eight.”

Things were looking more pimp-y by the second, but maybe, just maybe, George meant nothing more than what he said, that his stepdaughter was there merely to keep Josh company when George could not.  Or maybe he could have assigned one of his sons to look after him.  All but one still lived at home, which presumably was here, all worked in some capacity within the company, unlike his stepdaughter.  Her name appeared nowhere in the list of company officials.  Did George want to shelter his princess from the nasty world outside the estate gates?

In that case, he shouldn’t have invited the big bad wolf to step inside.  Or rather, the big, bad griffin, who could be a lot worse.

*****

His room was luxurious, verging on the tasteless, and completely without character.  An undraped four-poster bed in the Spanish style of heavy, dark wood, vied with a large sofa by the window.  An elaborate crimson carpet adorned the floor, one Josh’s feet would sink into once they were bare.  The whole house reminded him of a perfect showplace, and he would far rather take his shoes off at the door, as in some more modest houses in Manchester.  He didn’t want to leave a mark anywhere.  At least, part of him thought that.  The other part wanted to run amok and ruffle everything, disturb everything, make some kind of a mark on the polished perfection.

Much as he felt about the woman by his side.  She smelled nice, he noticed as she moved across him to show him the bathroom.  Allowing himself to feel it, knowing he would never become involved with a woman as refined, perfect and most likely spoiled as this one, he laid his hand on her shoulder when he leaned over her to look at the bathroom.

A great bath with lots of gold knobs and taps sat in a bed of red porphyry, and a large shower stall occupied one corner of the large, ivory tiled room.  “A bath made for sharing,” he murmured and she started.

“Possibly,” she said in a small, sharp voice.  “But you’ll have to find someone else to share it with.”

A devil took him by the tail.  When she would have backed off, he moved to stand behind her, catching her as she stumbled, off balance.  “Why can’t it be you?”  She felt delicious, firm but female, filling his arms beautifully.

She shot him a look he couldn’t interpret precisely, but it was filled with negativity.  He could almost feel the ice exuding from her.  “Because we’ve only just met.  Because I’m not sure I like you.  And because I’m five years older than you.”

He chuckled.  “Five years?  What difference does that make?  Are you sure you’re not just making excuses?”  He entered the persona of the identity he had labeled The Footballer.  “Disliking somebody can make sex even better sometimes.  Wildcat sex, you know.  You can rip me up a treat, if you like.  I won’t tell who did it.”

Now the look was definitely hatred.  “I respect myself more than that.”

He took the wind out of her sails by saying, “I don’t.  As long as it feels good, I’ll do it.”  He loved her dark eyes widening, her slim brows rising for an instant.  Laying his hands flat on her waist, Josh slid them up towards her armpits.  He loved the way a woman’s body curved, the gentle lines luring him in.  But when he bent to kiss the side of her neck, she jerked back, forcing him to take a step backwards to stop himself falling to the floor.

Realizing she wanted to get away, using the extra reflexes his profession and his Talent gave to him, Josh stumbled and fell, pulling her down with him and twisting her to face him as he went down.

This was better.  A heavy lock of hair tumbled out of the carefully constructed chignon, tickling his cheek.  A good way to find out what she wanted, and how clever she was.  Would she give in?  Was this a token resistance?

He had his answer when her knee drove hard into his balls.  “Argh!”

Shapeshifters and footballers reacted exactly the same way to a knee in the balls.  They saw stars and rolled over on to their stomachs.

Whimpering with pain he heard her voice from somewhere above him.  “You touch me without my permission and you get that.  Every time.  I trained as a cop, and I’ll use all that training to keep your filthy hands off me.  You ask, next time.  And wait for me to say no.”

While he was still moaning, he heard the door click shut behind her.

Chapter Three

 

By eight, Josh had taken a long, soothing bath, which he definitely needed after Kanchana’s emphatic rejection of his advances, and found the rest of his luggage had arrived.  While he was in the bath an unseen hand unpacked it for him.  He’d sensed the presence in the other room, but apart from monitoring it, did nothing.  It was nice of Someone to bother, but he’d almost predicted it.  This house was far more like a hotel than a real home, so why not expect room service?

He dressed for dinner in a suit, but added a colored shirt and a fancy waistcoat, decorated in Mondrian-like patterns.  He wasn’t even supposed to know who Mondrian was, but he planned to see as many cultural sights as he could while he was here.  On the sly.  He hoped he’d have time.  He hoped he’d see them with Laurie.

White socks and shiny black shoes completed the ensemble.  Fuck good taste, this was much more fun!

He went down to dinner, cocky on the surface, but underneath quailing at the thought of meeting Kanchana again.  His balls shrank inside his body as though trying to get away from her.  He’d have to apologize to her, despite her assault.  He needed to get close to her, to find out if the mental communication earlier was inadvertent or deliberate.  He’d just have to protect himself better.  It might be the key to Laurie’s disappearance, how they’d trapped him.  With a siren’s call. 

While he felt no less antagonistic towards this woman, who, wittingly or no, had caused his brother’s kidnapping, he would be a fool to deny that he felt physically attracted to Kanchana Rafiz.  Her presence made his body tighten, go on alert.  He might be able to use that.  Now he had to see if she was friend or foe, or neutral.  Any way, he’d use her, if he had to.  Anything, anyone, to get his brother back.

While in the bath he’d spread his senses, tried to find some trace of his brother’s distinctive pattern, but nothing.  There were a few Talents in the area, but Talents were everywhere, and with Cristos around, there were bound to be more than usual, but nothing from Laurie.

It couldn’t possibly be that easy.  Now for showtime, again.

A domestic, dressed in a maid’s outfit, showed Josh to the drawing room where they waited for him and Josh met three of George Skeffington’s sons.

Very large men was his first impression.  He was large, but tall and rangy rather than bulky.  The oldest son, George Junior, was a giant in every sense of the word.  Over six and a half feet tall, and about as broad, from what he could see.  His hand enveloped Josh’s, and his smile, while perfectly friendly, held a touch of menace, especially when Kanchana entered the room.

It was almost a relief to discover that someone in this house cared about her enough to worry about her prolonged contact with him.  Josh didn’t fool himself; he knew he was attractive, and he had a charisma he deliberately projected when it suited him, but that didn’t mean he was irresistible to all women, or that he had a right to claim them just because it suited him.  Right now, it suited him to provoke a little, and see where that took him.  Nothing like ruffling a few feathers to see how a household was composed.

Refusing a pale sherry, he trailed after the huge brother and the two smaller ones; an average sized effete looking man and a gangly teenager.  He offered his arm to Kanchana in a fit of gallantry.  After Skeffington glanced at her, she accepted, but wouldn’t meet his gaze.

If Cristos was right, and Skeffington was behind the disappearance of his brother, then she was the cause of it.  He didn’t dare open his mind to her, but when he tried a small, tentative probe, he found himself comprehensively rebuffed.  Her barrier was as strong as her knee had been earlier, although he knew he could penetrate it, if he had the need.  It would hurt her, though.  The psychic energy used to erect a shield that strong must be detracting from other parts of her, perhaps even tiring her.  She didn’t need to make it that rigid, or as strong.  She could turn it into a psychic mirror, gently bouncing back any thoughts sent her way.  Much easier, and much less noticeable.  He still couldn’t tell if her body’s natural defenses built a barrier this strong, or if she deliberately constructed it, but he knew how to get around that.  He needed another Talent.  He’d ask her to take him into San Francisco, sightseeing.  That should do it; there were lots of Talents there and Cristos said he’d be calling in his team.  Hopefully, that would contain a Sorcerer, the race supremely skilled in doing the job he needed to be done.

The first course arrived.  A salad, in the currently fashionable tower arrangement.  Josh set himself to eating, and listened.

Talk was desultory and tedious.  Obviously, the rule “no business at the table” was observed here, because when George Junior mentioned the office, he almost immediately fell quiet again after one quelling glance from his father.

The food was pretentious and mostly French.  Good French cooking was wonderful, but the stuff that all too often masqueraded as ‘cuisine’ was often inadequate and uninteresting.  Either no one in this family cared too much about what they ate, or they cared too much for appearances.  Josh made a mental note to eat out, whenever he could.

Looking up, he caught a surprisingly sympathetic glance from the giant, seated opposite him at the table.  Kanchana sat between them, at the foot of the table, and Skeffington sat at the head.  Very formal.  He wondered if meals were like this every day, or if this display was just for him.

Unlike Josh’s own eccentric attire, George Junior was dressed conservatively, but the dinner jacket he wore could have provided several tents for the unfortunate in the Third World.  It was immaculately cut to fit his extra broad shoulders.

By what appeared to be mutual consent, they didn’t discuss the food.  Josh thought about asking him if there was a good hamburger joint somewhere local, but decided against it.

“You’re a footballer?  Ever seen real football?”

Josh nodded.  “I play it every season.”

“No, I mean the real thing.”

The testosterone level in the air increased.  They could play this game for hours.  “My version is called football everywhere else in the world.  Here you call it soccer.  That’s fine by me, I don’t really care what you call it.”

He felt tension, and it wasn’t his.  Repressing an urge to cover Kanchana’s hand with his, he kept his attention on George Junior.  “I take it you play the American version?”

“Oh yeah.  I used to.  My brother Ray still does.  We play for my father’s team.”

“So do I.”  He played for the team.  So why did he feel like an employee?  He wasn’t a slave; far from it, he could move to another team in a heartbeat, but sitting here, at this table, he felt like the hired hand.

George Junior chuckled.  “His hobby.  He saw a few games and thought he’d like to buy in.  Isn’t that right, Dad?”  He raised his voice slightly and Josh felt his glass tremble.  Junior could make his voice heard clear down the length of a playing field,  European or American.

“Something like that.”  Skeffington paused in the act of raising a fork laden with a miniscule amount of food to his mouth.  “I thought it would be a good idea to buy in.  People make fortunes from soccer.”

“But not as much as the real thing, eh, George?”

Skeffington glanced at Josh, who kept his face bland.  “Actually, son, there are some nice profits to be made.”

Well that seemed to explain Skeffington’s new interest in football.  In his mind, Josh refused to call it ‘soccer,’ though on the surface he smilingly accepted the term.  It still didn’t explain why Skeffington had chosen to buy one of the most expensive, and financially best managed clubs in Europe.  If anything, considering Skeffington’s shrewd business reputation, it made the conundrum more puzzling.

Junior grunted.  “They probably don’t know how to capitalize properly.”  He grinned at Josh around a mouthful of steak.  “Perhaps you’ll give us a game sometime.  I know the basics of soccer – who doesn’t?  And I think we could give you a run for your money.  I played pro football for five years, so I know something about sport.”

“As long as you remember not to touch the ball with your hands,” Josh said, in what he hoped was a neutral tone.  A laugh from the youngest member of the family, teenaged Ronald, surprised him.  “You like football?”

“Oh yeah.”  Ronald smiled broadly.  “I’m probably the only member of this family who’s seen you in a big game.”

“Which one?”

“Last year’s FA Cup final.  I got up real early.  I subscribe to some English sports stations.”

Josh smiled.  “That could be useful.  There’s a game coming up this weekend I’d like to see.  Would that be okay?”

“Wow, yeah.”

Josh had brought several strips – team colors – with him, and more were being delivered to the schools on his itinerary.  He mentally reserved one for Ron.  He had the special ones, with the team’s signatures on their shirts.  His number was seven.  Ron could have one of those.  Astonishing to find someone in this family, he could actually talk football with.  Not that he was encouraged to do so at the table.  It would have been rude, in any case, to conduct an exclusive conversation, like the one the two eldest Skeffington brothers were having about American football, which Josh didn’t understand in the least. 

Since the only person next to him not involved in the conversation was Kanchana, he spoke to her.  “Have you any plans for the next few days?  My first scheduled visit is for the day after tomorrow.”

“Don’t you want to get over your jet lag?  Or don’t football players get it?”  The emphasis on ‘football’ was a gentle tease rather than a taunt, and something he hadn’t expected of her.  The first crack in the perfectly polished veneer, a veneer he’d thought was more than a finish, and deeper than the surface.  Perhaps it wasn’t.  Perhaps there was a real woman under the sheen.

An intriguing thought.

*****

Pleading the jet lag excuse Kanchana had provided him with, Josh went to his room early and took a long, hot shower.  The effects of a twelve-hour flight were beginning to tell on him now, and a heavy weariness filled his body, but there was something he wanted to do before he slid between the silk sheets adorning his elaborate bed.

He shifted.  At first, he took his true size; the room was big enough to take him, but barely.

Josh was a griffin.  Strong bodied, with an eagle’s wings and head, strong beak and vicious talons, he glowed in the dim bedroom.  Spreading his wings he stood before the mirror, head on one side, and flexed his whole body, easing the muscular tension that had grown heavier as the long day had gone on.  He watched his image ripple in response, the powerful muscles partially disguised by their fur and feather covering.

He only allowed himself a few minutes at his correct size – a little over ten feet high – before he reduced his shape to that of a small bird.  It was harder to cover decent distance at this size, but he only planned to quarter his immediate surroundings.  The other alternative was to mask his presence by ‘fuzzing,’ a kind of camouflage, but he was too tired to maintain any kind of mental illusion tonight.  He merely wanted to scout the area, and enjoy an hour in his other form before he slept the sleep of the just.

He left his bedroom and his bathroom windows open, and slipped out, stretching out his now sparrow-sized wings, reveling in the sensation of warm air currents lifting him.  A sense of ease and contentment filled him, even as he extended his senses to feel for his brother.  He’d done it so often recently the action had become almost a reflex one.  Any time he thought of it, he reached out.  He reached out a lot.

A small, feminine presence lodged in his mind.  While he couldn’t assume it was Kanchana, he strongly suspected she was sending out her feelings.  Perhaps she was tired, unguarded, but he felt exhaustion from her and an edge of anger.  Oh yes, it must be Kanchana.  She seemed to pulse annoyance, even when she was at her most serene.  He didn’t yet know whether it was her habit, or if the emotion came from a single event or series of events, but he meant to find out.  In his griffin form, the mental images were always clearer, more distinct and it took less effort to use his Talents. 

The night air felt delicious against his sensitive wing feathers and he was even tempted to hunt, an urge he hadn’t felt for a long time.  Maybe he could keep the fury and worry about Laurie at bay that way, although he doubted it.  He moved his attention to the estate below him.

The Skeffington estate was fairly conventional, and angular, as though the American mind hadn’t yet invented curves.  Everything seemed pixilated, made up of tiny squares and cubes, instead of flowing, as nature preferred.  His keen eyesight could pick out no weeds or extraneous vegetation in the paths and flowerbeds of the precisely laid out drives and walks in the gardens.  The pool was so blue it could have been dyed that color, even in the growing dusk, and was definitely somewhere he should explore in his leisure hours, if he had any.

He mentally marked three exits where he could leave the estate with the minimum of fuss; between security cameras and dark enough to conceal him, should he want to enter or leave in his human form.  As a griffin, very little could keep him out.

But something was keeping him out.  The easy communication with his brother, one of the few constants in his long life, was gone.  His parents were dead, and the grief when they had passed, sixty years before, had never quite left him.  Of course there were the other Talents, especially the shifters, but they changed, too, moved into different lives and they lost touch.  And sometimes they died.

A sharp pang of grief welled up to take him by surprise, as he wheeled and headed back for the house.  All he’d known and lost, made bearable by the constant of Laurie’s presence, now threatened to overwhelm him.  He gave himself a little shake.  Time to sleep, or he wouldn’t be of any use to anyone.  Grief and despair tended to attack him when he was at his weakest.  Normally he kept it at bay by working, either at his sport or his other job, the covert one for Cristos. 

Working with Cristos gave him access to some useful facilities.  He liked the idea of the teams, Talents working together, but not the same kind of Talent.  Unlike many of the dragons, griffins had little desire to stick to their own kind.  Vampires were even worse.  It would do them good to mingle a little.  Each vampire had a Family, the sigil etched into their brains, inherited from either their birth parents or their blood sires and some rarely stepped outside their families to make anything but superficial contact with the outside world.  And to feed, of course.

Despite the inconvenience of the compulsion to shift every month, Josh would far rather be a shapeshifter.  Which was lucky.

He nearly dropped out of the sky when a faint mental message reached him.  Help!  For God ’s sake, help me!

He didn’t recognize the voice, male, with no discernible accent.  While he longed for it to be Laurie, he couldn’t swear to it, and nothing else followed.  Regaining his balance, he hovered, waiting for another cry so he could pinpoint the direction it came from

Although he waited for a further half hour, nothing happened, nothing at all.  He opened his mind and found a few other voices but none had heard the distress call.  No one could help him.

He floated in through the open bathroom window, wondering if it was worth taking another shower to ease his tired muscles before he turned in, and hit a steel pole he couldn’t remember seeing earlier.  He had just enough time to recognize it before blackness descended and he passed out.

*****

In her room, Chana tried to settle to read, but her book couldn’t hold her attention.  She squirmed in her seat, remembering the smoldering looks their guest had thrown her during dinner.  How on earth was she supposed to get through the next few weeks?

It would be useless to deny his appeal for her, she was sure it was nothing more than a desire for something different.  A handsome Englishman made a change to the usual men she dated, who were  mostly moneyed, mostly moving in the same circles as Skeffington.  George tended to run a check over most of the men she took an interest in, but he would have done Josh’s test before he arrived.  George was extremely cautious with his own home, especially when it concerned her.

She wanted to do something of her own, become her own person.  She wanted a life.  Was that so bad?

A year as Skeffington’s hostess, a useless, decorative ornament.  She didn’t even have anything to do with his schedule; Eric did all that.  Her year was her respite.  It would give her a salary and time to think and plan.  The trouble was, she’d never had a vocation, like Edward, or a natural talent, like Junior.  She didn’t really know what she wanted to do.  All she knew was that this wasn’t enough.  Her degree was a good one, so she’d start there.  Business studies, it was true, but she could do a lot with it, once free of George’s influence.  She could probably do more under his influence, but she didn’t want that.  She wanted the freedom of having her own life, making her own decisions.  She was only thirty.  Easily time to make a real life for herself.

Something flashed past her window, an insect or a bird, drawing her attention outside, but then she heard a crash and a thump.

Dear God that sounded as if it came from inside the house.

Chana leapt to her feet and grabbed her gun from the drawer of her bedside table before racing out of her room in the direction of the noise.  Police work had made her comfortable with firearms, and when she’d turned her weapon in, she’d visited a gun store and bought one of her own.  All was quiet outside, but the crash had been heavy enough to rock the floor under her feet.  It would be ironic if her first arrest of any kind was in Skeffington’s house.

She listened for any sound in the now quiet house and heard a muffled groan.  Thumbing off the safety catch, Chana shoved the door open. 

Lying on the floor of his bathroom, groaning, lay Josh Friedland.  It could have been a replay of earlier events, except this time, Josh was naked and she’d had nothing to do with it.

Chana pushed the safety back on and put her firearm down on the vanity.  It was obvious there was no danger here.  At least, not that kind of danger.

There might be danger of another kind.  She’d noted, as coolly as she could, that Josh was handsome, but she hadn’t quite absorbed just how handsome.  Although Junior dwarfed him size-wise, Junior dwarfed everybody.  Josh was actually a tall man, and beautifully made.  He could pose for Donatello.

The muscles stood out on his shoulders as he sat up, reaching for his foot.  “Ah, God!”  he moaned, rotating it in his hands.  Then he saw her, and stared.

Those eyes, dark brown, mesmerizing with his lightly tanned skin and gleaming blond hair, caught her full beam and Chana felt a connection between them, electric and unique.  Never before and never again would she feel like this with anyone else.  This, whatever it was, lay between Chana Rafiz and Josh Friedland.  No one else.

He broke it first, which for some reason annoyed her.  He stood up, wincing.  “A wet spot on the floor.  I should have put a towel down or something.”

She glanced around.  “The shower’s dry, and the towels by the bath haven’t been used since dinner.”

A slow smile crept over his already handsome features.  “ I was on my way into the shower.  I just slipped.  Clever of you to notice all that.”

He was lying.  Part of her job was to keep the domestics up to their jobs, and once they’d clapped eyes on the handsome Englishman, they’d been more than eager to keep his suite neat and clean.  No cleaner under her watchful eye would have left a wet spot on a bathroom floor.

 But right at this moment, she couldn’t make herself care.  Forcing her head up, she kept her attention carefully on his face.  No sense tempting herself with what she was determined she wouldn’t have.  But naked, Josh Friedland was a treat for the eyes.  His hair, probably disordered by the fall, was more tousled.  It suited him better that way.  Made him even more – no, she wouldn’t look, wouldn’t think that!

Too late.  Her gaze dropped, and saw exactly how well hung he was.  Even limp, he was impressive.

When she raised her eyes, she caught his, gleaming wickedly.  Damn, he’d caught her looking.  Now he’d swagger.

He didn’t.  Instead, he smiled, slowly and thoroughly.  Much more effective.  Perhaps he knew that.  Perhaps he didn’t.  In any case, she didn’t think she could resist.  His cock twitched, just a little bit, but it showed her she wasn’t the only one to feel an attraction.

When he took a step forward, she didn’t retreat, as she should have done.  When he circled her gently with his arms she didn’t resist, and when he lowered his head to hers, she accepted him.

He kissed her, gentle and sweet, not at all what she expected.  His lips caressed her gently, pressed a little firmer and lingered to taste.  No tongues, no insistent grabbing, he treated her as though she was precious.

But she wasn’t precious, was she?  Diabetes didn’t mean delicate.

She pushed away from him.  He smiled at her, quietly.  If she hadn’t known better she’d have thought he wasn’t the same person.  “A little more honest?”  he suggested.

“In what way?”

He indicated, with a wave of his hand, her person, and she remembered.  Oh dear Lord!

No make-up, loose, tousled hair and worst of all, she wore her favorite comfort garment, a huge Care Bears nightshirt, ragged at the hem, which these days only just cleared her ass.

Not good.  Her resolution to keep him at a distance with immaculate make-up, clothes and hair had just gone right out the window.  She’d have to find another way.

She stopped looking at him by the simple expedient of turning around.  “Can’t you put something on?”

His rich chuckle filled the room.  “You seemed to prefer me naked.”

“No I don’t.  I only met you today.  Cover yourself up.”

She felt rather than heard him cross the room.  “Okay, since you’re so modest, you can look now.”  The short, gaudy silk robe barely covered him, and he’d belted it slackly, so any minute it might come loose, but he didn’t look as if he cared.  “Better?”

When she blinked and he laughed again.  “I told you you’d prefer me naked.”  He stuck his hands in his pockets and bowed his head to study his foot.  “No permanent damage, I think.  My manager wouldn’t be pleased.”

“If you injured yourself off the field?”

“Yep.  Especially if I’d broken my toe.  Not good for a footballer.  Broken toes can finish a career.”

“You’re kidding!”

He gave her a lopsided grin.  “Not hardly.  Precision footwork, my dear.”

“You are kidding!”

He wriggled his toes experimentally.  “No, I’m not.”  He looked up, smiling, but she thought there was a slight strain in his expression.  “It’s a serious injury.”

“Anyway, you’re okay, so I should—“

“No!”

His vehemence surprised her.  Her hand on the doorknob, she turned back.  “You must be tired.”

“Strangely, no.  I should be, but I’m not.  Stay and have a drink.”

She shouldn’t, she really shouldn’t.  But this Josh, as opposed to the one who’d entered the mansion seemed interesting, attractive.  The one she’d met this afternoon had been brash, stupid and arrogant.  None of those were guaranteed to attract her, but this new Josh had an edge of vulnerability that intrigued her.  Friendliness, and his new, sexy smile, attracted her far more than fancy clothes and sheer male arrogance.

“Okay, but you’re not to touch me like you did earlier.”

He nodded.  “That kiss just now was by way of apology.  I hope you can accept it.”

“Maybe.”  She didn’t entirely believe him.  There had been desire in that kiss, heavily banked down, but there just the same.

He led the way into the bedroom, crossing the room to what looked like a closet, and opened it to reveal a refrigerator and bar area.  He grinned at her.  “Somehow I thought I’d find a minibar somewhere in this room.”

She snapped into hostess mode, trying to hide behind the shield once more, but it was hopeless.  “You’re not happy?  I can find you another room if you wish.”

“Would you like that?  I couldn’t help noticing that my room is close to yours.”  He paused.  “Careful, I can hear your teeth grinding.”

“I’m here to look after you.  It’s better if I’m close.”  He drew the cork on a bottle of white wine, condensation beading the glass.  He poured the wine out and presented a glass to her without the flourish she half expected.  She took a sip.  “It’s the right glass.”

He looked at his glass in surprise, eyebrows up.  “Is it?  I just chose the first ones I could find.”

Why did she think he was lying?  Why would he lie?  Some instinct deep inside her answered.  Because he isn’t everything he pretends to be.  There’s something else there, something I can’t find.  But I will.

That gift she avoided using, the one that worried and upset her, nagged at her to let it loose.  She could probe his mind, open herself to him and see what there was to find.  She sipped her drink, enjoying the cool liquid on her tongue, giving herself time to think.  But the insistent little voice wouldn’t let her alone.  Feel him, read him!

She fought the impulse.  Something was wrong, but she couldn’t tell what.  She needed time.

“What about George?  Did he put us in adjoining suites?”

Glad to have something else to think about, she answered readily.  “Yes, he did.  He wants you to have a good time while you’re here.”

“And that includes you?”  An expression of disgust crossed his features.  “Your father wants us to—“

She laughed at his incredulity.  If George thought he could get away with it, he would probably throw her at his guests.  If she were a different person, she’d probably take the opportunity of some casual fun.  Her stepfather’s morals were no better, no worse than the average Californian, but her upbringing had included something stricter.  Her mother had adopted some Indian ways after her marriage to her Hindu father, and that included a strict moral code.  “No, he doesn’t prostitute me.  He knows I can look after myself, and he wants me to be available for you.”  Her laughter increased, became slightly shrill.  “No, not in that way.  That is up to us, but I don’t think so, do you?”  She controlled her emotions with an effort, knowing her uncharacteristic nervousness with her man might lead her to unknown territory.  “I act as my stepfather’s hostess, a job just as much as anything on the board of directors of one of his companies.  I am not paid to sleep with the guests, however, and I wouldn’t agree to it if I was.”

“He pays you?”

“I insist on it.”

He toasted her, lifting his glass in an elegant gesture.  “Good for you.  But you would sleep with someone if you wanted to.” 

“I might.  But not on the first day.”

“Or the first date?”

“We haven’t even had that yet.”

They both laughed and something inside her relaxed.  Josh was a human being under all that gloss and flash, after all.  She recalled the mesh shirt he’d worn earlier in the day.  Undoubtedly sexy, but even an idiot would know it wasn’t the right thing to wear for an initial meeting.  Or did he?  Did he know or was he completely unaware?

Without stopping to think, she sent out a mental probe.

And met another probe coming the other way, sharper, harder and more accurate than anything she could have sent.  It was there and gone in an instant.

She gasped and pressed back against her seat, suddenly far too hot, even in her flimsy nightshirt.

He was at her side before she opened her eyes.  “What’s wrong?  Are you all right?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered, staring at his face.  “Was it you?”

“Was what me?”

He stared at her blankly and she forced a smile.  It wasn’t him.  “Sorry, I just felt faint for a moment.”  Perhaps it had been all in her mind.  Come to think of it, her mind swam in a disturbingly familiar way.  “Can you help me back to my room, please?”

“Shouldn’t I have offered you wine?”  She watched the guilt sweep his face.  “Are you Hindu or something?  Not allowed to drink?”

She smiled.  “No, I’m fine.  My father was Hindu, but I hardly knew him.  My mother tried to teach me something of the traditions, put me in touch with his people, but they weren’t very keen on me.”  A hybrid, mixed race mongrel wasn’t welcome in Hindu society.  They’d never welcomed her and she’d left, though she’d learned some things from them.  She didn’t resent the society that spawned her, only the people who had rejected her.

He nodded and straightened, and it was only then she realized he’d lifted her in his arms, the muscles strong under her knees and back.  “No, it’s okay, really,” she began, but she might as well have talked to a brick wall.  When he opened the door the little juggle he had to do made her dizzier but it was better than trying to get back to her room on her own.  That deep, single probe had unnerved her more than she liked, and she was off balance in more ways than one. 

Glancing at her, he strode up the passage to her door and shoved it open with his foot.  He took her through to the bedroom and laid her on the bed.  “What can I do?”

My refrigerator, there are some phials and a box.  Please, can you bring them?

He hurried away and in a moment was back with what she’d asked for.  She reached up and took them, pushing the capsule into the pen, clipping on a new needle and injecting the drug almost automatically.  He stood back and watched.  She closed her eyes.

“You’re a diabetic, right?”  She nodded, eyes still closed.

“Then you mustn’t sleep until you’re recovered.  Just a few minutes more.  Come on.”

She felt an arm behind her, lifting her up.  “Open your eyes, sweetheart.”  She wanted to tell him it was okay, she wasn’t that bad really but she couldn’t find the energy.  Opening her eyes was just a token.  Nothing really.

“Open!”

She felt a strength, something deep inside her, and she opened her eyes.  Straight into his.

They stared at each other without speaking, then he smiled.  “See?  It’s better with your eyes open.”

Her strength increased quickly, perhaps even faster than usual, and he stacked pillows behind her so she could sit up.  “Well I did want to see your bedroom, but not like this.”

“How did you know what to do?”

“You told me.  Don’t you remember?”  He sat back on the bed, giving her space.  “Feeling better?”

She nodded.  “I didn’t know I’d spoken aloud.”  She was almost sure she hadn’t said anything.

“I heard you, so you must have done.  What brought this on?”

“I missed a shot.  I should take a shot every day.”

His eyes, his whole demeanor seemed brighter, smarter, sharper.  “What on earth made you forget?”

She bit her lip.  It was the disagreement with Skeffington about the menu for dinner.  She’d been right, too.  Nobody had eaten much; even she’d balked at the fancy food.  “I didn’t eat much tonight, and I’m supposed to eat regularly.  Stupid of me.”

“Well now I know I’ll make damn sure you eat and take your shots when we’re out.  Are you sure you’re up to it?”

Frowning, irritation sparking her into action, she sat up.  “Yes, of course I am!  I’m not ill.  Just stupid for forgetting my shot.  I usually carry something with me, a slice of fruitcake in cling wrap and a preloaded insulin pen.  Do you know what to do?”

Smiling, he shook his head.  “You’ll have to tell me.”

“Like I did before?”

“Just like that.”

*****

Josh watched Kanchana slip into sleep, and then leaned over and tucked the sheets around her.  The polished society woman was gone, replaced by this far more appealing being.  His protective instincts roared into action, and he had to fight against the instinct to continue holding her, shielding her.  He wanted to stay to care for her, his earlier, simpler feelings of sexual attraction overlaid by something more complex.

Gently he probed her mind, now it was open to him, and found her slumber perfectly normal, no trace of the dizziness that had taken her left.  Not surprising, since he’d induced the slumber.  Once he’d managed to slice through her defenses he’d been puzzled by some of her wave patterns, and now he suspected something he hardly dared believe.

Instead of bludgeoning his way in, he’d inserted a powerful mental probe, scarcely larger than the small needle she’d used for her insulin and once that had gone through, the rest of his senses could follow.  Only someone with his abilities could have done this, but he didn’t pride himself on it, like the person Kanchana had imagined she’d met earlier in the day.  He despised himself for it.  It was so close to the banned Compulsion, he hated himself for using it but it was just this side of legal, and he’d needed to know.  If she was the reason they had taken Laurie, then regretfully, Laurie had to come first and he had to know if she was leading him into a trap.

Once he’d learned she was to be his main guide, he’d grown suspicious, and still was, but enough antagonism for Skeffington rested in her mind to assure him she wasn’t in cahoots with her stepfather.  She might be going along with the scheme to find a cure for her illness, though.  Some hope.  The only way she could find a cure is if she was converted, and there was no way she could get that.  Unless they coerced Laurie into doing it.  But each shapeshifter could convert only one person in their lifetime.  A one-time thing.  Vampires died if they conferred their Gift on another.  Sorcerers only lived a normal life span, and had no abilities beyond their staggering mind power.  Anthros were a species of shifter, subject to the same restrictions.

No, in order to cure herself, Kanchana would have to seduce someone.  Someone like him.

He couldn’t believe it of the still, small figure in the huge bed, now sleeping as peacefully as a baby.  She just didn't think like that.  With Kanchana Rafiz you got what you saw, a woman not into playing devious mind games. 

Josh got to his feet, careful not to disturb Kanchana with an abrupt lift of mattress springs.  If she’d offered sex tonight, he had no doubt he would have accepted, but he didn’t want to force her, or even push her into it.  Now he knew her a little better he doubted he could.  Absently, he reached through the opening in his robe and stroked his erection, so hard it was almost painful.

Why she should affect him like this was beyond him.  She was pretty, but not beautiful, clever but not brilliant, well shaped without being spectacular.  Nothing about her stood out, but she sure made him stand up.  Just her scent, breathed in when he carried her into her room had aroused him stronger than he’d been in years.  He’d held himself back, knowing this wasn’t what she needed, but he’d read enough of her mind to know he liked her.  Reluctantly, but he liked her.

He couldn’t let himself fall for her.

When he was sure she slept soundly, Josh let himself out of Kanchana’s room and returned to his own, picking up the secure cell phone Cristos had given him.  Punching in the speed-dial, he wasn’t surprised when Cristos answered on the second ring.  The man never seemed to sleep.

“Cristos, I have something for your lab boys to analyze.  I’ll drop it off in half an hour.”

He pulled a small glass phial out of his pocket and stared at it.  It said “Insulin,” but labels didn’t always describe the contents accurately.  He never trusted them.

 

Chapter Four

 

Josh didn’t appear until noon the next day, but since no one had assumed he would, it didn’t come as a surprise to anyone.  What seemed to surprise him was when nearly the whole family gathered for lunch.

Lunch wasn’t as formal a meal as dinner, a collection of dishes and salads set on a side table for people to help themselves.  Josh appeared, in a yellow mesh t-shirt and matching overshirt, his muscular legs displayed mouthwateringly by a pair of shorts.  Before she could stop her wayward interest, Chana stared at the well-tanned legs, and up his body to his face.  He grinned at her, his cocky smile irritating in its confidence.  Back to the arrogant sportsman of the earlier part of yesterday.

She went forward to greet him, her ready, polished smile on her lips.  Except he knew better now.  She’d lost a lot of ground last night.  Now she had to find out what he was really like, so they were equal.  Somehow, she felt she hadn’t seen the real Josh Friedland yet.  Something lay under that charming, successful exterior, even under the caring man of late last night, something dark and fascinating.

Despite her vague irritation at his smile, she went forward to greet him.  “Do you feel better after your fall last night?  Did you sleep well?”

His smile softened, losing the arrogant edge and she liked him better for it.  “Yes, thanks.  I think I’m on San Fran time now.  No lasting damage from the fall.” 

“Come and have something to eat.”

He allowed her to take his hand and tow him forward.  Only when they reached the buffet did she realize what she’d done, and dropped his hand as though it burned her.  Glancing around the room she found her worst fears confirmed; they’d all noticed.

Today, all her stepbrothers were present, even Eddie the football coach, who lived at the other side of Atherton with his wife and kids.  Oh great.

Did she really care?  Did it matter to her what people thought?

Yes, it did, it still did.  She wasn’t involved in any way other than professional with Josh Friedland.  It might mean a little closer than usual, but Skeffington had given her a job, and she would do it as well as she could, before she moved on.  And she would move on.  Oh yes, she would.

He lowered his voice.  “Do you feel better now?  No ill effects?”

She remembered her attack.  “Yes, thanks.  It was the first one for a while and it was my own fault.  I’m fine now.  I won’t do it again.”  The last thing she wanted was for George to think of her as unreliable, or feeble. 

Oh even better.  Their low-voiced conversation would seem even more intimate.

Turning decisively away from him, she studied the array of food before them.  “If there’s something else you’d like, just ask.  I’m sure the chef will be able to accommodate you.”

Before she turned away, she heard him murmur, “Just like any good hotel.”

She knew exactly what he meant.

As she took her place back at the table, she heard Junior starting up again on his favorite subject.  “Some guys are coming over in an hour or so.  Want to see some real football, limey?”

After glancing at her, Josh answered coolly.  “I’d like to see your version, sure.”

Junior spent the rest of the meal denigrating soccer and exalting American football.  Chana didn’t know how Josh managed to keep his temper, but her respect for him increased as he responded to Junior’s taunts with noncommittal replies and mild acceptance of his less outrageous statements.  His avoidance of the confrontation Junior so obviously wanted made him more, not less, admirable in her eyes.

After the meal Josh waited until she was ready before he followed Junior outside, where his Porsche waited, glowing yellow in the hot sunshine.

George Skeffington Junior was still on the board of the team he’d left as a player several years earlier, a position he held courtesy of his father.  Chana chose to accompany Josh, rather than travel in Junior’s Mercedes convertible.  The car was also courtesy of his father.

Josh drove well, with the minimum of flash, unlike Junior who liked to cut up every car he passed in a stupid show of bravado.  They drove in silence for a few miles, but then Chana broke in to Josh’s thoughts.

“What will you do when we get there?  They’re going to ask you to kit up and join in.”

He glanced at her and smiled.  “What do you think I should do?”

“It’s up to you, but I’m pretty sure he’s set you up to humiliate you.  He’ll make you do a linebacker’s job, something like that.”

He stared in front of him at the traffic ahead.  “I’ll think of something.”  He drove in silence for a few minutes.  “I’m sorry you have to put up with that.”

Startled, all she could say was, “Yes, thanks.  It doesn’t bother me much.”  She swallowed.  Who’d have thought this relative stranger would be the one to see how much Junior’s behavior affected her?  He was a large man physically, but in no other way.  Even Edward, the brother next to Junior in age, with all his snobbish ways, was more bearable than Junior.  “It’s not so bad, really.”

“Did he bully you?  Does he still do it?”

She gave a short laugh.  “They treat me as the princess of the family.  They want to spoil me and keep me as a pet.  I’m not even a real member of the family, just that my mother was once married to George Skeffington.”

“Then why do you stay?”

These questions were making her uncomfortable.  “I don’t have much choice, not yet.  Josh, George Skeffington is more than a businessman, more than a millionaire.  He’s a billionaire with worldwide interests.  He takes an interest in me, so every time I try to get away, he drags me back.  I was a cop until a couple of weeks ago.  I’d just gone through the training course and then George had me pulled off the street.  I could have applied for a desk job, but that wasn’t what I wanted.  He got the commissioner to agree with him that I was a liability on the street, that I might be kidnapped or something like that.”  She made a sound of disgust.  “Nobody thought to ask me.  But George offered me a job after that.  I can be his hostess for a salary.  It’s not as if I have anything else to do.”

He reached out and touched her gently, then drew his hand back and put it on the steering wheel.  She found the brief contact incredibly comforting, much more than it should have been.  “You can’t get away?”

“Money talks and it travels well, too.  I’ve made a deal with George, and this time I’ve backed it up with a contract.  After a year, he has to let me go to do what I want.  Oh I don’t think he’ll let me go without a struggle, but with my year’s salary and my contract, I’m going to put up a hell of a fight  I’m thirty, and I’m still his princess.”

She hadn’t realized she was close to tears until she felt them pricking at the back of her eyes.  Taking a deep breath, she forced them away.  There was nothing worse than self-pitying tears and they did nothing, changed nothing.

After a moment he said, thoughtfully, “I never realized.  Poor little rich girl?”

“Something like that.”

There wasn’t a chance he’d miss her bitter, self-deprecating tone.  “I’m sorry.  Perhaps while I’m here you can show me some of the places you like to be.  If you want to take off to do your own thing I won’t tell.”

“Thanks, but I won’t do that.  George has paid me good money to look after you.”

He glanced at her again.  “Glad you’re enjoying it.”

She smiled weakly.  “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“No.”  To her relief he changed the subject.  “How long have you been diabetic?”

She leaned back, more relaxed.  She could lecture on the subject, and had sometimes done so, mostly to kids who’d just been diagnosed with the condition.  “Since I was thirteen.  It’s not so bad.  A careful diet, a shot of insulin every day.  One day soon they’ll be able to give us patches for our dose, or even oral medication.  The doctors are making great progress.  You get used to it.  I suppose you’re a perfect physical specimen?”

His smile was closer to a grimace.  “I guess some people would say so.  But most sportsmen run their bodies into the ground and many have permanent disabilities by the end of their careers.  The physios do their best, but the sport demands more and more from them, and from us.”  He paused to overtake a slow moving SUV.  “I’ve been lucky so far, and Ted, my manager, insists on our complete fitness before he’ll put us on the team list again.  One of my teammates is diabetic.  He does a lot of talks, too.”

She laughed.  “When you’re told you have something like this, you fear the worst.  But in reality it’s quite easy to live with, once you get used to it.”

“Do you have many seizures like you had last night?”

Before she answered she paused, thinking about her reply.  “Not really.  If I have them, they tend to happen at certain times of the month – you know.”

He glanced at her, and even though he wore sunglasses this time, his observation seemed particularly penetrating, as though he could read her mind.  Which, as she assured herself regularly, was impossible.  Sometimes she’d had thoughts that seemed to come outside herself, but it had to be her imagination.  Didn’t it?

“What times of the month?”

She tried to be twenty first century practical about his question.  “You know – round about the time I get my period.”

“Hmm.”  He followed Junior when he took a turn off the freeway.  “Since we’re supposed to spend some time together, is there anything else I should know about your condition?”

A sensible question.  Answering it gave her time to relax, as it was a question she’d answered more than once.  “If I go pale, get a bit incoherent, or very tired suddenly, I might be having a hypo attack.  Ask me about it, if you notice it.  I carry a wrapped slice of fruit cake in my purse, for emergencies like this.”

“Sounds a bit like asking an addict to carry heroin.”

She gave a short laugh.  “If I wanted to tempt myself I’d carry chocolate.  It’s the only thing I really miss, and I didn’t have it for very long.  Fruitcake I can resist pretty easily, especially this kind.  It’s the prepackaged spongy type.  It does the job.”

“I wish I could buy you chocolate.”

“You can.  I just can’t eat it.  But if you want to be my friend, don’t buy it for me.”

He chuckled, a low, intimate sound.  “Not even the diabetic type.”

She snorted.  “That’s just a tease.  It’s not in the least like the real thing, and it just makes you crave.”

“So what should I buy for you if I wanted to get myself in your good books?”

“Fruit, maybe.  I don’t think much about food.”  She daren’t.  So many things were denied her.  The diet was healthy, but she missed many things.  Champagne, chocolate, good cake.  At least she could still have strawberries and dry white wine sometimes.

The ground was fairly close to the freeway, and they reached it without incident.  Junior led the way to the staff parking lot, behind the offices.  After he’d parked up, before they exited the car, she asked, “Does this remind you of home?”

He glanced around.  “In a way.  It’s weird.  Familiar and yet not familiar, like driving on the other side of the road.  There’s a pitch, but you call it a field, and it’s the wrong size.  There are stands for the audience, offices, like ours, and the usual kind of signs outside.  I’m here to learn and to watch.  Nothing more.”

“They’ll want you to join in.”

“They’ll be disappointed, then.”

They walked to where Junior stood with a group of other men, some dressed for practice, some in jeans and shirts.  They turned and watched Josh approach, examining his body closely, their attention subtly different to the look of a woman who might desire him.  They studied him, watching his muscles as they moved, assessing his strength.

Chana stood back as Junior introduced him to “the boys.”  Most were from his days with the team, older men with hardened, battle-scarred bodies.  Josh was very much the stranger.  Jovially, Junior slapped Josh between his shoulders, the force of the blow stronger than it needed to be.  “Come see the field.  We’ll get you kitted up later.”

He followed “the guys” out but then paused, and turned back to Chana.  “Aren’t you coming?”

“Well—”  She glanced at Junior, who shrugged.  Junior had never encouraged her to come to his practice sessions, although she’d always been welcome to sit in the VIP box and cheer for him on match days.  She decided the shrug was enough, and quickened her pace to catch them up.  “Okay, I’ll come.”  Josh might need some help, in any case.

Waiting for them were a few instructors, bearing pads.  “Come on,” Junior smiled at Josh.  “I think we might have something to fit you.  Small, please, Fred.”

Fred, a wizened veteran, picked up a suit.

Josh smiled and held his hands up, palm out.  “If you were planning for me to give you a game, I can’t.  I’m happy to watch you guys practice, though.”

Several disbelieving pairs of eyes turned in his direction.  “You’re a football player, right?”  Harry Bowling, an ex quarterback and one of Junior’s closest cronies, asked.

“Yes, but not this kind of football.  That’s not what I meant, I’d really love to have a go.”  He sent a wistful look towards the Astroturf.  “I’m recovering from an injury, and my manager’d have my head if he knew I’d done anything more active than a mild kick-around.”

“Soccer,” Junior said in the same tone he might use to accuse a flea of attacking his pet cat.  “He plays soccer.”

“Can’t play the real thing, eh?”  Harry taunted.

Not even a spark of anger lit Josh’s golden eyes.  “I do play the real thing.  I play football, and I’m a professional.  That means I’m insured, but it won’t cover this.  I can’t risk it, guys, I’m sorry.”

Now he was talking their language.  Most of ‘the guys’ understood insurance.  Many of them sold it, these days, albeit at executive level.  Murmurs of regret mingled with not a few taunts about ‘the real thing.’

“Tell you what,” said Josh with one of his easy smiles.  “Later in the year, Manchester Rovers will be coming across to do a few training sessions with various people, and we’re doing a few exhibition matches.  We could always arrange something here, if you like.  Then there’d be no insurance worries.  We’ll play your game, you play ours.”

“That would be interesting.”

“I’m meeting the organizers in a couple of days.  I’ll let them know you’re interested.”

Agreement was desultory, but it helped to keep the peace.

Josh allowed them to kit him out in a running back’s set of pads and posed for a few photos before he stripped the outfit off and strolled to the edge of the field to sit with Chana in the shade of the office building.  The weather was heating, spring edging into something warmer, heading straight for blazing summer.  He grinned.  “Glad I had the excuse not to play.  It’s getting too warm for all those clothes and running about.”

“Don’t you have to play in the heat?”

“Only for World Cups.  The domestic season is over before the summer starts.”

She flicked a glance at him.  “Convenient.”

“Oh, Britain is closed in August.  Like a lot of Europe.  We go to France, Spain and Italy, they come over to us, it’s general visiting times.  The managers buy and sell players, and we do some charity work.  Not to mention training camps.  Hell on earth, they can be.”

When she laughed her brother shot an irritable look at her.  He was crouching on the field, waiting for a pass from one of his cronies.

“This is all very interesting,” he mused, “but not for very long.”

She stretched her legs in front of her.  “Games can go on a long time.”

“Do you like them?”

She paused.  “I guess.  Yes, I enjoy a good game.  I didn’t enjoy the ones  Junior took part in.”

“Too worried about him?”

Another pause while she thought about her answer.  Well, what the hell, Junior hadn’t exactly welcomed Josh to California.  She owed him nothing.  “He wasn’t very good.  George Senior bought the team to get him in.  That, and the good investment, of course.  Skeffington money took the team to the Superbowl.  They lost, but they’ve been in the playoffs every year since.  They’ve made good money for my stepfather.  But originally, it was for Junior, to give him something to do.  Junior always says he retired injured, but the truth is, he wasn’t good enough for the big league.  For a quarterback, whose main job is to catch the ball, he dropped it more than once.”

Companionable chuckles bubbled up, and a few of the players glared at them.  “It seems we’re ruining their concentration,” Josh remarked.  “We’d better behave ourselves.  When the team comes over in the summer, they’ll have to come here, considering our new owner.  We have to play them at their game, then the team plays us at ours.  Expect a draw.”

“Yeah.”  These attempts at cross fertilization sat uneasily on the shoulders of both teams, but in this case they had little choice.

None of the current team played today.  This was strictly a display by ex-members for Josh’s benefit.  Chana had no doubt they also meant to show Josh the error of his ways, as well as delivering a physical lesson to him, which he had declined.  It put a bad odor on the display, one Chana could almost feel.

An hour later, they still sat watching, and the players had worn themselves out.  Chana marveled at Josh’s patience, sitting and watching them as though he had nothing else to do, as though the game riveted him.

His murmured asides to Chana, at first scurrilous, eventually verged on the obscene, and it tried all her powers of self-control not to burst into gales of laughter.

It was only then, when the players took off their helmets and headed for where they sat, she realized how dangerous this man was, how absolutely charming.  How sexy.

*****

The next day heralded their first scheduled visit.  For this, Josh wore sweatpants and a loose jacket, with a t-shirt emblazoned with Manchester Rovers’ insignia.  They took an SUV from the garage by the side of the house, so he could stow away a couple of boxes.  “Strips and balls,” he explained briefly.

Since the day before, he’d kept mainly to his rooms, pleading a headache caused by the sun.  Junior had taken great delight in taunting him, stopping just short of calling him a wuss.  Josh swallowed it all, let them taunt, pretended he didn’t notice.  Junior thought he had won.  Chana, a bystander to all the byplay, wasn’t so sure.

Today Josh greeted her with a jaunty grin.  He hadn’t appeared at breakfast, preferring to ask for a tray in his room to the family circus downstairs.  After loading the boxes they were about to leave when Junior unexpectedly joined them.  “Any room for me?”  he asked, his smile disarming.  He was so sure of his appeal, so sure he would be welcomed that he didn’t notice Chana’s lukewarm greeting.  Josh gave him his easygoing smile.  “Your turn to see me do my job?” 

“Something like that.”

Josh shot a sharp glance at Junior, totally unlike his usual casual, smiling expression.  Her brother remained impassive, but Chana knew something had disturbed Josh.

“Scared I’ll hit on your little sister?”  He swung into the front passenger seat.

Junior got in behind.  “She’s a cop, she can look after herself.”

“Was a cop,” Chana corrected him.  She started up the car, wondering how long harmony would reign.  “George didn’t like it, remember?”

“Yeah.”  Junior smirked.  “And now he’s got you just where he wants you.  At home, under his eyes.”

She took the right out of the gates a little too sharply.  “My choice.  I couldn’t get the same money anywhere else.”

“You don’t have to tell me.  I’m on the boards of so many companies you’d think I had no time to myself, but I don’t even know when most of the meetings are.”

Josh made a small sound, and Junior turned on him.  “You got a rich father?”

“My father died a few years back.  But no, he wasn’t rich, not particularly.  Well off, but by your standards not rich at all.”

“How didja get into football, then?”

Josh swung around in his seat to regard Junior incredulously.  “We were scouted, my brother and me.  We joined the youth team while still at school.  To play for a Premiership team you have to have real talent.  Nothing else will get you there.”  He regarded Junior for a moment in silence.  “Don’t tell me it’s any different with your football teams.”

“Well, no.”  Chana chuckled to herself.  If Junior had admitted his place was at least partly because their father owned the team, he would either be admitting that the Bay Traders weren’t a top team, or that he wasn’t a good enough player.  Neither were acceptable.  Football had kept Junior busy and out of trouble for five years, and by the time he left the team, he was firmly under their father’s thumb.  Chana had no doubt George was trying something similar with her.  When her year was up, she was supposed to be so used to the style of living, she’d stay with him of her own free will.  No doubt to marry the man of his choice, something she’d resisted until now.  An asset, something George would use as much as he used a piece of stock, or a football club.

Well, it wasn’t going to happen that way.  The Skeffington empire paid for all her new outfits, her sessions at the beauty salon and hairdressers’, even her living expenses.  A company hostess had expenses.  Chana’s salary went into a bank, an account George had no control over and it would tide her over until she found her feet and got away from his influence.  Or at least as far away as she could get.

George’s obsessive possessiveness had to stop, but she needed the finances to get away, and this was the best way to get them.  She had no doubt he loved her, in his own way, but she needed and wanted to live her own life.  Not like Junior, who in his early forties, had three ex-wives, four kids he hardly ever saw and still lived at home with his father.

Josh kept the conversation going on easy, impersonal topics, which Junior tried to disrupt.  When he said he liked a film, Junior trashed it.  When he admired a band, Junior said they never amounted to anything in the States, therefore, they couldn’t be worth listening to.

The school was in the suburbs, a top school George had chosen for his youngest son.  It turned out a good number of graduates with high grades.

A group of older children and teachers waited outside.  Josh got out the car and greeted the principal first, the only person not dressed in PT gear, and allowed the man to introduce him to the pupils.  Chana winked at Ron, standing watching at the back of the group and she prayed Josh wouldn’t single him out.  Ron hated standing out from the crowd.

“We’ve called an assembly so they can all meet you, so I hope you can stay a while.”

Josh gave every impression of delight.  “You’re the first school I’ve visited, and it’s so nice to be greeted by so many people.”  He raised his voice so they could all hear.  “Do any of you know about European football?  Soccer?”

Quite a few kids raised their hands.

“Have you heard of my team, Manchester Rovers?”

The hands stayed up.

“Okay then.  I’ve brought a few things to remind you.”  He turned to Junior.  “Would you mind getting the boxes?”

Relegated to the position of porter, Junior had no choice but to fetch the gear they’d stowed in the car.  He didn’t look happy.  None of the kids asked for his autograph, as they did Josh, none of them looked his way.

That might have been because Josh, golden boy, seemed to glow in the sunlight, charisma on full beam.  When he led the way on to the field, stripped off his sweat suit to reveal his team strip, green and white, and donned the special sneakers he called his ‘football boots,’ it was obvious to all how comfortable he was in the outfit and with the children.  When Junior tossed him a football, he didn’t catch it, but bounced it on his knee, on each shoulder, and spoke as the ball bounced off various parts of his body.

“This is an old game, one most British school kids play.  Everywhere you see football played, you’ll see this.”  He bounced the ball off one shoulder on to his knee and down to his foot, back up to the other knee.  “It’s called the ‘keepie uppie’ game.  You have to keep the ball in the air, stop it from touching the ground, using only the parts of your body it’s legal to use in football – soccer.”  A deft movement brought the ball to the ground, and he balanced it under his foot before it could bounce.  “You can’t use your hands unless you’re a goalie – a goalkeeper, but you can use any other part of your body.  It’s a game you can play anywhere.  Try it sometime.”  Without seeming effort, he set the ball in motion again.

For the next half-hour, Chana and her stepbrother watched a breathtaking demonstration of skills.  Josh introduced the kids to techniques she wouldn’t have believed possible, turning his control of the ball into an elaborate dance, demonstrating stepovers, dodges and borrowing one of the larger kids for nutmegs and tackles, before bringing a few of the others into play.  Then he deliberately modified his play, lowered it a little but didn’t make it insultingly obvious.

After hesitating, when it became obvious that Josh wasn’t going to single him out, Ron joined in with vigor, enjoying the workout as much as the other children did.

In front of these kids, Josh demonstrated all the skills that made him the top of his profession, skills he’d refused to show fellow sportsmen, who’d only wanted to humiliate him.  He could have taken them apart, with skills like that.  Why hadn’t he?

Chana loved watching Josh.  His body flowed in a poetry of movement, athleticism joyfully released.  Although nothing he did was overtly sexual, everything reminded her what a superb athlete Josh Friedland was.  Everything he did spoke of understated strength, his body a supple thing she longed to touch, to feel the muscles come into play under his skin under her palms.

Knowing she would never act on her desires, Chana let herself enjoy, knowing it was an innocent pleasure she felt, although what she wanted to do with him was far from innocent.  Not until he glanced up and snared her gaze in his did she suddenly realize she was open,  her mind opened to anyone who cared to read her.

She slammed the shutters down, cursing her inattention, glad there was no one to read her but just as the blinds cast her mind into darkness again, warmth flooded in, so much that she closed her eyes to savor the sensation.

When she opened them, Josh was looking at her.  The connection was undeniable and utterly terrifying.

Chana closed her mind.

*****

She needed to think.  Unusually for her, Chana stayed with Junior for the rest of the day, so she didn’t have to speak with Josh personally.  It couldn’t be possible.  There was no way someone else could have the empathy she had.  She’d read of it, when she first discovered she could dimly perceive the emotions of others she even tried to develop the gift, but it had proved nothing but an inconvenience.

Until now.

It had happened too often for her to ignore it.  He’d touched her mind – Josh Friedland had a similar gift.  She had to speak to him about it just to make sure.  At least, if she were wrong, if it was all her imagination, she wouldn’t have to feel humiliated for too long.  He was only here for a few weeks.  Then he’d be gone, and that comfortable, warm feeling she got in his presence would go with him.  She wasn’t sure how she felt about his leaving, although she knew she should be glad.

That evening Skeffington was entertaining, although that, she thought as she got ready, was a matter of opinion.  Dinner with Skeffington’s business acquaintances was not her idea of a good time.

An evening with friends in a jazz club, a few good friends for an informal dinner, even a trip to the cinema would be preferable to this.  Perhaps she’d try for that in the next few days.  Josh might enjoy a change of scene, and since it was part of her job to entertain him, she should make the effort.

If she could keep her hands off him.

For this evening, it was work all the way.  She wore a gown that probably cost a year’s wages for the average cop, one she did not intend to ever wear again, once she was out of her contract.  It was too old for her, too conservative, too – everything.  Of heavy sapphire satin, made up to her neck, but dipping low at the back, it had a slit to just above the knee.  Respectable, but with hints of sensuality.  Chana felt too exposed in it, even though it covered her well enough.  But it was designer, so it was cut to her shape, to fit her form.  She had to wear it sometime, and it might as well be tonight, when Josh would be absent.

Unfortunately, as she found when she left her room, one of her suppositions was sadly awry, for lounging outside, obviously waiting for her, was Josh, resplendent in evening wear.  He looked good in a tuxedo.  Too good.

He gave a low whistle when he saw her.  “Wow, you clean up well!”

“I could say the same of you.”  She’d never seen him so sharply and respectably dressed  “Why do you—“ She flushed, the heat rising under her skin.

“Oh baby,” he murmured, but then smiled his jaunty greeting and took a step towards her.  “Why do I what?”

When he moved she saw his outfit wasn’t entirely suave.  Under the carefully tailored tux he wore a red vest of such dazzling brightness she wondered where he’d discovered it or whom he’d bribed to produce it.  Oh well, he’d heard, better get it over with.  “Why do you dress like that?”

His grin broadened.  “Ah, you noticed.  I don’t know how it is over here, but sportsmen have a certain image, especially footballers.  I just enjoy playing up to it.  It’s what people expect, after all.”

“Ohhh.”  She took another look.  The tux was beautifully, immaculately tailored and his cufflinks, although admittedly featuring his club insignia, were discreet and solid gold, by the looks of them.  The only feature that marred his look was the vest.  Without it he’d be simply and utterly gorgeous.

“Thank you,” he murmured, but before she could ask him how he picked up on her thoughts when her mind barrier was firmly in place, he moved.

“Shall we?”  He offered his arm in a old-fashioned gesture.  She let him win his point, and lead her downstairs to where George waited.

Secretly wishing she could stay with Josh, she took her place by George’s side, and greeted their guests.  All business acquaintances and politicians, with only Junior and Edward present.  The others had wisely taken themselves off elsewhere.

The evening dragged on.  Mindful she was doing the job Skeffington was paying her handsomely for, Chana ignored Josh’s disturbing presence and set herself to charming the guests, which mainly entailed letting them talk.  Before the dinner, she’d familiarized herself with the likes and dislikes of all the attendees, and during the meal she guided them to discuss the subjects that pleased them most.

To her surprise, Josh did the same.  He seemed to know what the women either side of him wanted to talk about, although he’d had no access to the records Chana had studied, and he flirted outrageously in the way older women enjoyed.

Junior kept silent, unless someone wanted to talk about his subject, which was either football or cars.  Then he held voluble court, and his father, at his end of the table, had great difficulty shutting him up.

Interesting that Josh had such immaculate table manners.  When she’d seem him eat before, he ate like a regular person, but tonight they ate in the large dining room, with wait service, brought in, like the food, from the catering company Skeffington owned.

A pure white cloth covered the polished table in the larger dining room, decorated with silverware and hothouse flowers.  Chana kept catching the tab of her zip in the embroidered, tall-backed chair, but they did look good.

Josh’s quiet self-assurance did more to pique her interest about his background.  Before tonight, he’d been an inconvenience who had become an uncomfortable presence.  Now she wondered where his quiet, immaculate manners had come from.

He never tried to communicate with her except once, when the man next to her, one of George’s sleaziest but richest associates, got too fresh and put his hand on her knee.  She ignored it until it began to creep up her leg, sliding under the slit in her long skirt.  It was her worst nightmare.  She couldn’t upset Mr. Smith, but she couldn’t accept this, either.  If necessary, she would make a scene. 

It became unnecessary.  He pulled his hand back as if burned, with a sharp exclamation.  “Good God, woman, what do you keep up there?”

When his wife, younger than Chana, aggressively blonde and stacked, turned, her carefully plucked eyebrows arched in mild query, Smith forced a smile.  “I must have caught my hand on something.”  He held up one meaty, but unmarked finger.  He shrugged and pulled back his hand.  “Whatever it was, it’s gone now.  It felt like a bee stung me.”

Chana was relieved, but also wondered what it had been.  When she met Josh’s eyes, for the briefest second she saw triumph etched there and she knew for sure he’d had something to do with the incident.

After dinner, they went to the drawing room that the family never used unless they had guests.  The family room downstairs was filled with comfortable chairs and sofas, set in front of a large screen plasma TV.  She couldn’t help thinking longingly of kicking off her high-heeled shoes and sprawling in front of the TV, instead of entering this room with its trays of hors d’oeuvres and bottles of champagne, wine and juice, to the sound of Mozart played at low volume.  For the first time she saw the cream carpeted, ivory upholstered chairs with new eyes.

The room was immaculate and completely lifeless.  Lifestyle magazines had featured the dining room, drawing room and a couple of others in their Homes of the Rich and Famous features, but the places life really went on, the family room, the big kitchen and the individual bedrooms, never featured.  So the lifestyle magazines weren’t named right.  No life went on here.  Only business deals.

Josh glanced at her before three of the women surrounded him, asking him to talk because his accent was “so cute.”  They were right, it was cute, but she resented them trying to turn him into an exhibit.  Although they wouldn’t have been allowed to touch exhibits they way they touched Josh.

They crowded around him, offering him a peek at anything he fancied looking at.  Since their gowns were cut down to somewhere around their navels, Chana was left wondering how they held their clothes together without constantly revealing more than they should.

Josh smiled and kept his attention above the neck.  Copping a peer didn’t seem to be on his itinerary for tonight.  In fact, he wasn’t behaving at all like his vest, more like his suit.  Polite and discreet, instead of loud and vulgar, despite all the alcohol pressed on him, which he seemed to accept with little effect.  Several of the men shot glances at him, admiring or otherwise, and she feared he would inadvertently make enemies.

“I’m sorry?”  She’d broken the rule of a good hostess; she’d stopped listening to Mr. Smith.

“I said the visitor’s creating quite a stir.  Putting us all in the shade.”

What could she say?  Smith was old and out of condition.  The only person who could compare with Josh was across the room, talking to Skeffington; Art Simonson, a young entrepreneur, and as it happened, an ex boyfriend.  He had his back to Josh, seemingly unaffected by the footballer’s presence, but she knew from his rigid stance that Art wasn’t enjoying not being the center of female attention.  Tall, dark and handsome, but also incredibly vain, Art was definitely playing second fiddle tonight.

She smiled at Mr. Smith.  “He certainly is.  He made his first appearance this afternoon, at my brother’s school.  Ron loved it.”

“Nice.  Is that why he’s here?”

“That, and to get acquainted with the way my father does things.  He’s a star of the team, and as such, an important asset.”

Smith frowned at Josh.  “But he’s just a player.”

“He’s off the field with injury, so his manager’s sent him here as a kind of ambassador.”

She felt an arm creep around her bare waist at the back.  Smith had a genius for slipping his hand inside openings in women’s’ garments.  “Still, he’s keeping my wife busy.  I swear, that woman eats credit cards for breakfast.  I’m not sure I can keep her shopping habit going much longer.  You can’t visualize being the next Mrs. Smith, can you?”  He gave her a squeeze, bringing them much too close together for Chana’s liking.  “After seeing you tonight, there’s a definite possibility.”

“Don’t you want to leave a decent interval between wives?”

He laughed uproariously, as though she’d made a joke, and used the opportunity to pull her even closer.  This close, she smelled the alcohol on his breath, a mixture of brandy and wine, too sweet, too intimate.  When she tried to pull away, he held her firmly.  She feared bruises.  Perhaps worse.  She squeaked in alarm.

Josh shot a sharp glance at them.  Immediately he drained his glass and murmured to his admirers, one of whom pouted fetchingly.  But the pout didn’t fetch him.  He handed his glass to another of his fans, who set off in the direction of the bar, incidentally leaving a path clear for him to excuse himself and reach her with the minimum of fuss.

“Mr. Smith, you’re appropriating my escort.”  His accent was clipped, perfect and very, very English.

“I didn’t know she was spoken for.”  Smith increased his grip.

“Only for the next few weeks,” Josh assured him.  “Then she’s all yours.”

He held his hand out, and she put hers in it.

For a few seconds, she thought she was going to be the rope in a game of tug of war, but then she felt Smith’s grip loosen and fall away.  Josh pulled her gently free, and then, to her deep embarrassment and shock, bent and kissed the back of her hand.  The soft, barely-there touch reverberated through her body and here, in the middle of the room, surrounded by some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in California’s business community, all she could think of was sex.

She wanted him.  He had a perfect body and that killer accent but that wasn’t the reason she wanted him.  More than physical attraction,  this was passion.

Chana felt as though the whole room watched them, although when she finally tore her gaze away from his and looked up, only the three women who’d previously held his attention and the luckless Smith were paying any attention.

He drew her to his side and tucked her hand between his arm and his body.  I won’t let him come near you again.

Almost before she realized what she was doing, she answered him in the same way.  I could have handled it.

I didn’t like to see it.  The man’s a pig.

A very rich pig.

He chuckled, and the sound broke the spell.  She would have pulled away, but his grip on her was as firm as Smith’s had been.  Don’t be afraid.  Some of us can just do this.  You seem to be one of them.

I couldn’t do it with anyone else.  Why with you?

He hesitated.  Who knows?  “Come and have a drink.”  He took her to the bar, where he hesitated over the champagne before picking up two glasses of brandy.  “Drink this, you look as if you need it.”  He handed her a glass and silently toasted her before taking a sip from his own.

“Haven’t you had enough?”  She gave an inward groan, knowing she should have censored herself.  She’d said too much.  Now he knew she’d been watching him.

“I have a hard head,” he replied, not responding to the information she’d given him.  “Take a drink.  How long do you have to carry on here?”

“Until most of them have gone.  You can leave if you want, say you have to get up early in the morning.”

He grimaced.  “No, I’ll stay.”

“To look after me?”

He raised a brow.  “What would you say if I said yes?  That you need nobody to look after you?  I know that.  I’m doing it for me.”

“You don’t need to, truly.  This is my job.”

“Perhaps this is mine.”  He wouldn’t allow her to say any more, but escorted her for the rest of the evening, despite the women who still approached him, trying to entice him away.  Despite the old-fashioned implications, Chana felt treasured and protected.  If Skeffington had done it, she’d have felt dominated and possessed.  The difference was subtle, but it involved choice.  If she chose to leave Josh, he’d let her.  Skeffington would not.

Towards the end of the evening, she did leave him, to join an old friend of Skeffington’s in a game of poker for penny stakes.  It was almost traditional, and as she’d hoped, it drew others into the game, so she could slip away from the table on the pretext of giving up her chair for others.

By the time the last stragglers left, it was nearly three am, and Chana was exhausted.  Knowing she had to be up in the morning to attend to Josh’s requirements, she staggered upstairs to get to bed as quickly as possible.  Only when she stood outside the door to her bedroom did she realize Skeffington hadn’t even thanked her for her efforts.  She stood by the door, her forehead resting on the wall, gathering her thoughts before she went inside, because she knew as soon as she’d taken off her clothes, she’d be asleep.

A sound just behind her made her start, fully awake.  “Tired?”

“Oh I didn’t hear you!”  Heart beating wildly, she turned to confront Josh.

He stood very close to her, so he didn’t have to move to take her in his arms, except to curve them around her and urge her to lean against him instead of the wall.

“You’re done in.  Come on, I’ll help you.”

He’d changed out of his tuxedo, and wore a soft robe of terry cloth that came down to his knees.  As far as she knew he wore nothing else, but she was past passion.  At least she thought so.

She heard the catch on her door click as he opened it, and then he guided her inside.

“I’ll just help you into bed, then I’ll go.  Don’t worry, I won’t hit on you.  Enough people have tried to do that tonight.”  His voice turned grim.  “I hope your stepfather’s paying you well for this.  I wouldn’t let you do this, if you were mine.  Come on.”

Her gown unzipped at the back, and the halter parted around her neck.  Chana was too tired to protest when she felt the gown slide down her body.  When she began to pull away, he hushed her with soft words, and led her to the bathroom.

She hadn’t known what he intended until she heard the shower, the hard sound of water on tile.  With a sinking heart, she realized her evening hadn’t ended.  She was too tired to protest, but also too tired to enjoy any sexual encounter she might share with Josh.  Yes, she found him attractive, yes, she would probably have ended up in bed with him sooner or later, but not tonight.

He lifted her with gentle hands, and his voice came just as gently.  “No, not tonight.  I’ll help you get ready for bed, that’s all, you’re too knackered to do it for yourself.  How do you take your make-up off?”

With an effort, she lifted her head and stared at him.  His golden eyes were clear and wakeful, watching her calmly.  “Cream in the cupboard over there.”

He chuckled.  “Get in the shower.  I’ll bring the cleanser.”

She did as he told her, stripping off her thong and stockings before she got in, glorying in the warm spray cleaning her body.  He’d taken off the needle setting she usually had, and set the temperature to pleasantly warm.  Everything seemed aimed at relaxing her.

When he drew back the screen and got in, she didn’t protest, she only wished she were awake enough to appreciate the toned body drawing her close.  His arousal jutted against her stomach.  “Ignore it,” he told her.  “I want you, of course I do but that’s not what this is about.  Not now.”

He reached for the cream and tilted her face up, stepping back so his body was out of the hot stream of water.  She hadn’t realized the simple action of spreading cleanser on her face could be so enjoyable, but his gentle touch made it more than that.  Despite her exhaustion, her lower body stirred, came awake, although he was doing nothing other than cleaning the make-up off her face.  He reached for a handful of tissues he’d placed on the broad shelf at the end of the shower and wiped her face gently, paying special attention to her eyes, which she’d loaded with cover-up and mascara, to hide her tiredness.

“Keep them closed,” he murmured, and steered her under the shower again, tipping her head up to receive the gentle, warm spray.

“You do that better than I do,” she confessed.  “Sometimes I just wash it all off with soap.”

“Hmmm.”  She shook her head and opened her eyes to see him pick up a bottle of shampoo.  “Turn around.”  He pulled her against his chest, where she rested gratefully while he pulled out all her hairpins, tossing them on the shelf.  When they’d all gone, he ran his fingers through her hair, loosening its heavy weight and letting the water soak through.  “You apply make-up very well.  Too well.”

“What does that mean?”

“It wasn’t until I took it off I saw the shadows under your eyes.”  He rubbed shampoo through her hair.

“How much do you charge for showering women?  I could employ you every day.”

He chuckled.  “I might be too expensive for you.”

“You’d be surprised, my expenses account is very large.”

“Who’s talking money?”

He pulled her back when she jerked away in shock, realizing just how relaxed she was with him.  How could she allow him to take her off guard like this?  She’d opened to him again, let his mind soothe hers, persuade her to take part in this outrageous scene.

“Don’t worry,” he said as if he could read her.  Of course he could, she’d just let him.  “We’ll talk about it another time.  For now, just accept that it is, that we can communicate mentally.  Your barrier is strong, so I can’t read your inmost thoughts, just your outer layer.  Okay?”

She nodded, relishing the sensation of his fingertips gently massaging the shampoo through her hair.  He guided her head under the showerhead to rinse, then drew her close to him again, her back to his front.  His cock pushed against her and she flinched before relaxing back against him.  “You’d be puzzled if it didn’t happen, wouldn’t you?”

Yes, she would.  They were naked and relatively fit, so yes, it was a natural reaction, when she thought about it in that way.  “I’m too old for you.  You shouldn’t want me.”

A rumble began low in his chest, and erupted in a gale of laughter, but he wouldn’t let her go, holding her around her waist, close to him.  “You have no idea,” he managed weakly.  “No idea at all.”

He wouldn’t explain, but instead reached for the body shampoo.  It smelled of one of her favorite scents, vanilla, sweet but not too feminine for him to use.  He disdained the sponge and washcloth, using his hands to smooth the shampoo over both of them, turning her to face him.  Kneeling down, he soaped her legs, her calves, her thighs, then her pubis, but while he cleansed, he didn’t seek to arouse.  The fact that he sent thrills through her when he touched her sensitized skin was hardly his fault.  He couldn’t have failed to have noticed.  “Relax,” he said.  “I’d have to be a monster to take you now.  Your tiredness is beating at my mind.  You’ll be in bed soon, I promise.”

He rinsed her thoroughly but slowly, doing nothing to break the sense of warmth and well-being suffusing her mind and body.  He leaned over her to turn off the water.

“Just relax.  I’ll do everything.  Close your eyes, sweetheart.”

She did as he bade her, feeling the warmth of a soft towel draped around her shoulders.  He toweled her hair, then rubbed her body, all his movements cherishing, gently caring rather than arousing.  “You’re in complete control of your body, aren’t you?”

His rich chuckle answered her.  “Almost.  I have to be, in my game.”  He lifted the towel away from her hair and then lifted her into his arms.  His lips, pressing softly against hers in a feather-light kiss, hushed her small squeak of protest.  She relaxed as he took her through to the bedroom and laid her against the cover, pulling it back before lifting her to lie on the crisp, ivory sheets.  Before he could cover her, she gripped his wrist and opened her eyes.

He gazed at her.  Only the bedside light was still on, and softened by the golden shade, his skin gleamed invitingly.  “Don’t go yet,” she murmured.  “Please stay for a while.  Get into bed with me.”  She didn’t want to be alone.  She spent every night alone, and it had been a long time since she’d shared with anyone else.  Tonight she wanted company, and she no longer cared if he wanted sex in return.  She’d welcome it.  His toned, gorgeous body made her mouth water, he liked her and this would be the first time she’d had a younger man in her bed.  Except for the times her little brother had had nightmares, but they were over now, and Ron was fourteen, so he never came to her any more.

He met her gaze honestly, and she felt him stirring in her mind, removing his presence.  She didn’t want that.  “I can’t,” he whispered, so close his breath heated her skin.  “I’m at the end of my endurance.”  His mouth flattened in a wry grin.  “I have to go, or you’ll get no sleep.”

“I can stay awake a little while longer.”

“You need to sleep.”

“Please, just get in.”

He straightened and glanced around the room.  “If I get into bed with you, I’ll make love to you.  Are you sure you want that?”

She smiled, weariness filling her body but the tingle in her loins still there, still insistent.  “Yes.  A truce, for tonight.”

He let his breath out in a long sigh.  “Have you any protection?”

“In the drawer.”  He pulled out the drawer in the night table and found a small silver packet.  Then he looked at her.  “Last chance.”

“No chance.”  She yanked back the covers.

His low groan told her he’d given in.  He got in.

She sighed and melted against him when he pulled her into his arms and drew the covers over them both, leaving them in a cocoon of warmth.  He lifted up on one elbow and bent to kiss her.

Their second kiss, in bed.  My, she was easy!  As his lips caressed hers, easing them apart it seemed they’d never paused.  His body felt sublime against hers, almost as if this wasn’t their first time, if they’d known each other before, in another time, another place.

But they hadn’t.  Josh Friedland wasn’t part of her world.  He wasn’t involved in the boardroom tussles, the sniping, the intricacies of California business society.  It made him all the more attractive to her.

She opened her mouth to him, and he slipped his tongue inside, just the tip, sliding across her teeth to touch her tongue in greeting.  When she pulled him closer, trying to get nearer, she heard his voice in her mind.  Easy, easy.  Let me do all the work.

The packet crackled when he tucked it under the pillow, his breath heated her cheek and his mouth did wonderful things to hers.  When he drew away, she almost cried out for it back where it belonged.  He smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling a little.

She smiled back.  “You don’t look twenty-five.”

His smile broadened.  “What does twenty-five look like?  Just relax.  Let me touch you.”

His free hand swept up her body to settle on her breast.  Instead of the almost impersonal touch he’d used earlier, he rolled her nipple between thumb and forefinger, before bending his head and lapping gently at it.

She moaned softly.  Do you like that?

Oh, yes!  Her response came as naturally as his question, sending a spark of surprise through her.

It’s not one-way traffic, sweetheart.  He drew her nipple into his mouth and sucked, stroking her breast with his tongue before releasing it and kissing his way across to the other breast.

Slowly, he lifted his body over hers, pressing her legs open to lie either side of his.  The hair on his thighs chafed hers with a delicious sensuality.  He didn’t stop kissing and sucking at her breasts until she felt his erection strong between her thighs, now damp with desire.

He lifted up, knelt above her, the foil packet once again in his hand.  Without taking his attention away from her, he opened the packet and smoothed the condom over his erection.  She watched his face, only peripherally aware of his steady, gentle actions.  When he finished, he took his gaze away from her face and looked down her body, to where her thighs lay spread open for him.  He wouldn’t let her lift her knees or close her legs.

“I like to see where I’m going.”  His voice came to her in a low purr.  “I haven’t seen anything this inviting for a long time.”  His long fingers caressed her, insinuating themselves between her outer lips, gently opening and readying her for his entry.  Everything he did was calm and considerate, gentle but firm in purpose.  She hadn’t felt this cared for in a long time.  Ever.

“How do you do that?”

“What?”

“Make me feel so – wanted?”

His chuckle came again.  She was learning to love that sound, a deep rumble low in his chest, very quiet, very intimate.  “I don’t see how you could miss it.  Give and take.  I want you just as much as you want me.  Maybe more.”

She glanced down at his erect penis.  Beautifully shaped, like the rest of him, she wished she’d seen it properly before he’d covered himself.

With slow, careful movements, he came back down to her, his entry as firm but unhurried as his other actions.  He pushed into her, waiting to allow her body to accept him.

This was bliss.  At the end of a long, tiring evening, was there anything better than to be cared for, and then made love to?

Her legs came up to cinch his thighs tightly, as though she never wanted to let him go.  For now, she’d be happy if they stayed that way forever.

He pushed deeply inside her, making her gasp when he touched her sweet spot.  His lips touched her cheek, and as he withdrew, he took her mouth in a kiss, as deep, as all consuming as his movements below.

Inside her, he seemed larger than outside.  A symptom of her tiredness, maybe.  But he stroked her with insistent purpose, preventing her thinking of anything but him.

“That’s it,” he whispered, his breath intimately close, warming her, exciting her.  “Just relax.  Feel me inside you, with you.”

“With me,” she echoed dreamily.  It was a strange concept to her, one she badly wanted.

“Is that why you went to cop training?  To get a partner, someone who would work with you?  So you wouldn’t be alone any more?”

When she would have started, shocked by his perceptiveness, he pressed into her, shattering rational thought.  “Partly,” she admitted, her words a gritted out groan.

Slowly, steadily, he brought her up to a peak of sensation.  Every stroke touched the very heart of her, the heat radiating up through her body to take her completely, putting her under his spell.  She didn’t care.  “Don’t stop!”

“I won’t.”  This time his voice sounded strained.  He was reaching his own peak.

With a burst of sensation, she came.  A waterfall in a forest, a sudden explosion of liquid power, exploding and cascading down endlessly, inside and out.  Dimly, she realized he’d joined her, crying her name softly into the pillow by her head.

They lay together, replete, content and Chana slowly became aware of the world around her once more.  She blinked her eyes open, seeing a mass of golden hair to one side of her and the familiar contours of her bed to the other.  She turned her head into his hair, still slightly damp, smelling of vanilla and him.

He turned his head and kissed her softly, sealing their union.  “Thank you,” he murmured.  Slowly, showing unconscious but breathtaking control of his body, he slid to one side of her and lifted up on one elbow.  “Do you like to sleep alone?”

“What makes you think that?”

His shoulders moved in a shrug, the muscles gleaming in the dim light.  “Some people do.”

“Do you?”

“Not particularly.  I’ll stay if you want me to.”  He lifted a hand and stroked her cheek.  “You’re very generous.  I never meant for this to happen.”

“No?”

His smile was slow and unthreatening.  “No.  I would have left, if you hadn’t asked me to stay.  I’m a big boy, I’m not ruled by my cock.”

She laughed.  “Someone your age usually thinks of little else.”

“Someone my age?”  It was his turn to laugh.  “What do you know about that?  And since when is age any indicator of maturity?”  His expression turned momentarily grave.  “I’ve seen things and done things you can’t imagine.  Nor should you.  I came here determined to dislike Skeffington and all his family, you know.”

“I guessed.”

“I thought you were a rich bitch.  You aren’t.”

She smiled.  “Yes I am.”

“No.  Not in attitude.  I’ve touched you, inside and out.  You’re sweet, determined and confused.  I’ll do my best to help you.”

Frowning, she considered his words.  Perhaps she was, although she’d never thought about it before.  Confused would describe the way she felt at the moment, or had, until she’d taken the decision to stay for a year.  “I don’t greet all my stepfather’s guests like this, you know.”

He laughed.  “I guessed.  You’re very tight, deliciously so.  You haven’t done this for a while, have you?”

She couldn’t hide that from him.  The feeling was rather unnerving.  “No, not for around a year, after I broke up with my last boyfriend.  He was nice, but—“ She shrugged.  “ Meh.”

It earned her another laugh.  “Yes, I’ve had my fair share of ‘meh.’  They can drag on, if you let them.”

“No chance with us doing that.”

“No.”  He rolled over, leaving the bed and heading for the bathroom.  She heard the toilet flush, taps ran briefly and then he was back, urging her into his arms.

“One more thing,” he murmured.  “Do yourself a favor and sleep in tomorrow.  I have an appointment with my boss’s agent in San Francisco.  Office stuff.  There’s nothing for you to do, so take it easy.  Call me when you wake up, and we’ll go from there.  I’ll keep my cell phone switched on.”

She was too tired to protest.  Exhaustion swept over her and she slept.

Chapter Five

 

A glowing warmth still suffused Josh when he walked into the reception area of Department 57, San Francisco the next morning.

Very few people realized the nondescript set of offices, set above one of the department stores in Union Square was actually owned by the CIA, much less that it housed some of the most remarkable beings the world had ever seen.

Not that any of that was obvious.  People arrived for work in the usual way, and the offices looked like many other offices; small cubicles, each with a computer terminal and enough paper scattered around to make it look normal.  There was even the usual set of people around the copier machine, sharing gossip, drinking coffee.  One nodded at Josh as he went past and Josh shot her a grin.

Only a Talent would recognize the mental aura of the place.  Strong barriers set it apart from the rest of the community, invisible but powerful, resisting any intrusion, even replacing the vacuum there would have been with a mundane level of office chatter and white noise.  Inside, the stimulating hum alerted anyone with the least degree of psychic ability to the presence of strong Talents.  This place was packed with them.

Josh felt at home here, something he could say about very few places.  He strode through the office, letting his senses guide him.  They led him to a small door at the far end of the office.  He knocked and went in.

Diane, Cristos’s assistant sat at the desk as though she belonged there, although her usual desk was in New York.  She glanced up and smiled, then her glance lingered.  “Hi,” she said softly, sympathy in her rich voice.  Diane was one of the few mortals to know everything about Talents, at least, as much as her boss knew.  Cristos rarely went anywhere without her.  Josh smiled back, with real pleasure.  Diane’s hair was a wonder.  Straight, cut in a long bob, today it was blonde with pink highlights.  Very, very pale blonde.  The last time he saw it, it had been navy blue.  “I heard about your brother.  I’m really sorry.”

“We’ll find him,” he said brusquely, unable to bear the thought of the alternative.  He forced himself back to the easy tranquility he wanted.  “Then they’ll pay.”

People didn’t hear him say things like that.  Josh deliberately kept the brutal side of his nature hidden but it was still there, as strong as it ever was, and where his brother was concerned, he didn’t much care who knew it.  If he caught them first, they would die.  It was that simple.

Keeping the easy smile on his face, he went through to the private office.

While it wasn’t a mirror image of Cristos’s New York office, this one contained the same elements.  A box containing CD versions of Cristos’s reference books, which weren’t the usual ones expected of a CIA Assistant Director.  He’d seen that box before, a traveling library of grimoires and esoteric texts.  A laptop and a separate hard drive and monitor, positioned for convenience rather than aesthetic appeal on a large desk.  A comfortable leather chair.  A seating area, for up to eight people.  And Cristos himself, coming towards Josh with a smile and an outstretched hand.

He wore pale gray here, and he’d discarded his jacket, but the suit was the same immaculate cut as the rest of his suits, and definitely made to measure.  His shirt showed an immaculate fit around his neck, screaming custom made, and his tie, although slightly loosened, was plain, neatly tied and in place.

“Josh, the team has arrived.  If you’ll join them, I can brief you all.”

Josh greeted him and went through the door Cristos indicated to a small board room.  People sat around the large table, studying Josh with interest as he went in.  He listened carefully as Cristos introduced the Talents he’d assembled to help him find his brother.  He opened the outer layer of his mind, demonstrating his willingness to let them in, but kept the rest of his thoughts to himself.  He had no doubt there were some powerful minds in this room, so he didn’t try to dominate.

“This is Fabrice Germain, a Sorcerer.  He’s an advertising executive working out of Toronto.”  Josh nodded to a tall, blond man with startlingly blue eyes. 

“Andreas Constant, vampire.”  A powerful looking dark man with fathomless dark eyes.  Josh smiled.  “Svetlana Yevchenko, model and shapeshifting firebird.”  Her hair was scarlet, her eyes, gleaming amber.  She had a pointed chin, high cheekbones, and was slim and graceful.  Beautiful.  To his mild surprise, Josh found she didn’t stir him on a visceral level.  Svetlana was precisely his type, beautiful, graceful, fashionably dressed, but he only regarded her with interest, not desire.  All his desire was now centered on one person.  How had that happened?  When had it happened?

Cristos watched the interaction and wariness, and Josh watched him, knowing he would have to accept this.  A clever tactic, mixing Talents to get the best out of each of them, reinforcing another’s weakness with a strength, but shapeshifters had their own society, their own traditions.  Not as much as vampires, but they’d been around as long, and hadn’t always mixed.

Josh knew he was showing his anxiety more than he wanted to, but it didn’t matter.  All the people here knew why they were here, and all he felt were waves of sympathy, mixed with anger for the people who had taken Laurie.

“I’ve put some people on to tracking Laurie’s last known sighting,” Cristos said, taking a seat at the head of the table, where he undoubtedly belonged.  “He helped us with a case in New York, and lent his apartment to Deverell Wyvern and his lady so they had somewhere safe to recover after a traumatic time.  He checked in at a hotel, and that evening he met someone.  I don’t know her name, but I don’t think the encounter was entirely sexual.  I think she presented herself as though she was in some kind of trouble.”

Josh sighed.  “That sounds like Laurie.  He’s always been a sucker for a pretty face.”

“Yes.”  The flat agreement showed how well everyone knew Laurie’s proclivities.  He’d always been partial to a damsel in distress.  “We can’t find any trace of her, and of course the name and the credit cards she used at the hotel were fake.”

“Naturally,” the vampire commented, his lips compressing into a grim smile.

“The next day, they got a flight to San Francisco.  That doesn’t mean they’re here, just that they’re in this vicinity.  They checked in to a hotel, and then they hired a car.  That’s where the paper trail finishes.  I had to bring Talents in to trace him.”  Cristos looked at Josh.  “These people were members of the last team Laurie worked with, and he let them in.  Fabrice has used his powers to trace Laurie’s last movements.”

Fabrice took up the story.  “I found a trace of his mental activity at the car hire place, and followed.  It’s snuffed out, completely and suddenly, about five miles out of town.”

“He was knocked out,” Josh said.  “He’s not dead.  I would know that for sure.  I’m a couple of hundred years old, and Laurie’s been there all my life.  If he died, I’d know.”  He bit his lip.  “I think.  But I can’t find him anywhere.  We can communicate, Laurie and I, wherever we are in the world, whatever he’s doing.  I got one trace when I arrived in San Francisco, a fresh one.”

Cristos sat up a little straighter.  “You’re the only person who’s felt anything.”

Josh glanced at Fabrice.  The man was a Sorcerer, capable of awesome feats of magic, with a powerful mind capable of moving whole buildings, if he had to.  He kept his speculation strictly to himself, but he couldn’t help remembering that the most powerful Sorcerers were virgins. 

But there were far more important things to think about today.  Josh put his speculation aside.  As long as Fabrice was a Sorcerer, and had Laurie’s patterns imprinted on his mind, he’d should have been able to track him.  That he couldn’t was telling in itself.  Even if Laurie was dead, Fabrice should have found him.

“It was the same day I arrived and it was very faint.  I couldn’t get a direction, or an indication of his condition.  Just a single cry for help.  He sounded weak.  I’m not sure it was Laurie, but it was a Talent in distress.”  He couldn’t keep the worry out of his voice.  He didn’t try.

The vampire swore.  “Two of vampires have disappeared in this area in the last year.  Just vanished.”

“I lost someone, too,” Svetlana said.  “No-one close to me, but another shifter, a firebird.  He’s not been seen for months and his mate is frantic.”

Cristos leaned forward.  “It all points to a laboratory.  There’s something none of you know, too.”  Something hard and dangerous entered his silver eyes.  “We found a body.  Buried deep.  A shapeshifter, someone known to us but not one of our operatives.  A musician.  His name was Valentine Roman.”

Andreas growled low in his throat.  “I knew him.  I didn’t know he’d died.”

“He was murdered.”  A low thrum at the bottom of Cristos’s voice alerted Josh to his anger.  Cristos must know that in the presence of Talents this wasn’t hidden.  “Tortured.  But in a particular way.  They experimented on him.  He was shot full of all kinds of drugs, including massive doses of cephalox, so he couldn’t shift and cure himself.  The slices and needle marks on his body were all clinical.”

“Shit.”  The single word, expressed by Fabrice, expressed it for everyone in the room.  “A lab.  Somebody knows more than they should.”

“They know about cephalox, they found out more than they should about other things.  They have his blood, and most likely his DNA too.”

“The DNA won’t tell them a lot.”  For some reason, differences between Talents and hominids didn’t show up in DNA, at least not at the present level of technology.  Josh wasn’t enough of a scientist to know why.

“We can assume they didn’t dump him near the lab, and we can assume they know how to block our attempts at communication.  That’s why I’ve brought you people here.  You all have Laurie’s signature, and you’re some of the most powerful of your kind.”  Cristos’s voice was back to its clear, analytical tone, but Josh could see the way he held himself in, restrained his emotions.  If Cristos ever freed his natural instincts, Josh feared for the world.  He had contacts and natural abilities nobody really knew about, but most people suspected.  The book on what exactly Cristos was grew every time Josh checked it.  He had him down as a vampire, and the odds had shortened for that possibility recently.

“That means,” Andreas said slowly, “the Gardiners will be hunting.”

“That thought had occurred to me,” Cristos admitted.  “It’s not something I could keep from the family, that one of their own had been murdered.  For sure they’ll be after the killers.  Will that cause you any problems, Andreas?”

The vampire shrugged.  “Not really.  As long as we catch the bastards and stop them doing this to anyone else, then I’m cool with it.”  He smiled lethally.  “Having no family means all families are mine.  If the missing two turn up dead, I’m hunting to kill.”

“I guessed,” Cristos said dryly.

Andreas chuckled, such an incongruous sound Josh stared at him in amazement.  “I was just thinking that this is the strangest CIA department I’ve ever known.  Aren’t you supposed to say something like, ‘don’t go native on me’?”

Cristos gave him a reluctant smile.  “If I have to go up against a pack of vampires who are, after all, chasing the same thing I am, I need my head examining.  If they kill your family, I don’t give them much chance, and the CIA even less chance of stopping them.  All we can do is clean up afterwards.”

“We do our own cleaning.  We always have.”

Josh lifted his head, alert and everyone immediately looked at him.  “What is it?  Can you sense him?”

“No.”  Deep in his mind something stirred.  Chana had woken up.  “I thought so, but no, it’s not Laurie.”

Cristos leaned forward and picked up a clipboard from the paper.  He turned the first sheet of paper over.  “Now we come to George Skeffington.  Tell us why you’re here, Josh.”

Josh sat up a little straighter.  “My boss Ted Maxwell, the manager of my football team sent me here.  Skeffington bought the team, and there seems to be no obvious reason unless he’s planning to asset strip it, but he won’t get much profit from that.  The club is well managed, there are few opportunities for extra money.  Skeffington isn’t a football fan and he has no connection with the club.  No relatives, no shared finance, nothing Ted can find out.  So when Skeffington suggested I came over early to meet with his people in preparation for the club’s summer tour, Ted asked me to see if there was anything else I could find out.  If Ted knows why Skeffington wants the club, he can work out what to do next.”

“I enjoy watching soccer,” Svetlana said, her sweet voice holding hardly an accent.  Josh had seen her interviewed on TV, and the heavy Russian accent she used in public was almost entirely absent now.  He wasn’t the only one with a private persona, then.  “Your team is one of the best in the Premiership.  You and your brother aren’t exactly known for intellectual activity.”

Josh smiled.  “No, we’re not.  And you’re not known for wearing many clothes or staying sober.”

She touched her fingers to her forehead.  “Touché.”

Today she was dressed in not particularly tight jeans and an old t-shirt.  She still looked gorgeous, but firebirds were usually slender, graceful creatures, even in their human form.  She stirred Josh not a whit, especially when he remembered Chana’s soft, warm body as it had curled around his that morning, trusting in sleep.

“What does Maxwell want?”  Cristos cut in.

Josh didn’t have to consider that question for a minute.  “He wants the club.  He was on the brink of making an offer when Skeffington cut in.  Ted wants to retire from management and take the chair’s job instead in a couple of years.”

“How does he plan to do that now?”

This time Josh hesitated.  Ted’s tactics weren’t for general consumption, even here.  What he was doing could be actionable, if not in law, then by the governing body of the game.  Not that people hadn’t done it before.  Oh, what the hell.  Laurie was more important than club tactics.  “He’s taken us out of Europe, where the real money is, by putting up the wrong teams, using the wrong combinations of players in crucial matches.  He’s got two A teams to choose from, in effect, and he’s deliberately doing it wrong, but not so wrong anyone can accuse him of incompetence or match fixing.  He just makes it possible for us to lose, if you see what I mean.  We’re fifth in the league and still in one Cup competition.  Just enough to keep our reputation, but it will bring the price of the club down because we usually bring back a hell of a lot more silverware than just one cup.”

Cristos nodded, a wry smile twisting his lips.  “I thought it was something like that.  Well, he might get his wish.  I know what he wants and it’s not too different to what we want.”  He leaned back and crossed his legs, resting the clipboard on one knee.  “So what has Manchester Rovers got that no other team has?”

Josh shrugged.  “I don’t know.  The land is no better and no worse than any others.  Most of the assets are bound up in the team, in the club—“ He paused, struck by a thought.  No, please, no.  “A club is only as good as its players.”  He’d heard Ted say that any number of times.  It was his mantra.  “I know at least two other teams with Talents.”

“Any with shapeshifters?”

“No, they’re not shifters, though I daresay there are some somewhere.”

He looked up and met Cristos’s eyes.  Cold as steel and full of grim determination.  “Skeffington wasn’t buying a team or a club.  He was buying two shapeshifters.  He has one, and now he wants the other.  Pray God that isn’t because the first one is dead.”

“No.”  It couldn’t happen.  “Laurie would have got a message out to me somehow.  He’s not dead.”  He had to believe it, and he would until he saw Laurie’s dead, cold body. 

“Then perhaps his usefulness is at an end.”

“Or perhaps he thinks he needs both of them,” Fabrice put in.

“Maybe,” Cristos said.  “In any case, you’re not going back alone.  I’m sending someone in with you.”  He paused, glancing around the group.  “It has to be Svetlana.”

“Why?”  It didn’t make sense to Josh, to send another shifter into danger.

“She’s the only female.  You’re in a house full of men, and you’re working on the only female in the house.  I need someone to monitor the men.”

This began to verge on the sordid.  Remembering the sweet, gentle love he’d made with Chana last night, Josh felt a little sick.  Had Cristos planned on that, did he now want Svetlana to duplicate his efforts with the men?

Cristos shook his head, his attention still fixed on Josh.  “I never ask that of any of my operatives.  I want Svetlana to flirt, perhaps to have dinner with George Skeffington.  He seems to like young women.  But no more than that.  That should be all she needs to do.”

“Why?”

“I need her to read him.  He won’t be on his guard with a woman.  I’ve studied his methods, his lifestyle.  He doesn’t have any women working for him at a high level, his ex-wives say he doesn’t regard them as people.  A misogynist with a heterosexual sex drive.”

“I’ve met a few of those,” Svetlana said dryly.  “And for the record, I wouldn’t sleep with that lizard if he had a dick the size of his foot.”

The laughter came as a release, and a surprise.  “My, my, where’s the enigmatic Russian princess now?”  Fabrice asked, a broad smile gracing his handsome features.

“She’s here.”  Before their eyes Svetlana transformed into an ice maiden, her sculpted lips forming a hard, perfect shape, her head tilted arrogantly, her back ramrod straight.  Then she relaxed back into her chair.  “We are all chameleons, in our own way.”

The laughter subsided quickly, and they were back to business.

“Can you handle it?” asked Cristos.

Svetlana nodded.  “No problem handling it.  I think I can get him into a state where I can probe his mind without him noticing.  But if I go with Josh they’ll think we’re a couple.”

“How about a casual couple?  Non exclusive?”  The vampire smiled wickedly.  “That can sometimes be the best kind of relationship.”

“You’ve never been in love, my friend?”  Svetlana asked.

“No.”  The answer came short and uncompromising.

Josh frowned.  “Do I have any say in this?”

“You either go in with someone or stay away,” Cristos said.  “It’s now obvious Skeffington wants you.  It’s too dangerous on your own.  I want somebody to watch your back.”

“Cristos, I’m a shapeshifter.  I’m hundreds of years old.  You think one mortal is going to beat me now?”

“No, but he managed to capture your brother.”

There was no arguing with that.

Josh knew he could carry on alone, and had it been anyone but Laurie, he would have done it, too.  He wanted his affair with Chana to continue, but if he arrived back with someone as gorgeous as Svetlana, she’d back off.  She was too edgy already, and they had barely begun their relationship.  Watching her that morning as he dressed, Josh had made up his mind that he wanted more of Chana Rafiz.

Then Cristos said something that turned everything on its axis.

“We analyzed the vial you gave us, the one you got from Miss Rafiz’s room.  It’s not insulin, Josh.  Chana Rafiz is taking cephalox.”

Chapter Six

 

Chana hated to admit how much she was looking forward to seeing Josh again, but  his tender loving made her hungry for more.  She’d called him, but he’d told her to stay put, he was on his way back, the call brief because he was already on the road.

When she heard the discreet purr of the powerful Porsche engine, she strolled downstairs, hoping to greet him alone, but Skeffington was already in the hall.  “You’re doing well with him,” he said, without preamble.  “I want you to do a couple more things for me.”

“What?  You know where I draw the line, George, I won’t sleep with him on your say-so.”

George didn’t twitch at her frankness.  He didn’t even seem surprised.  “That’s up to you.  No, nothing like that.  I want him to meet somebody  in a couple of days, that’s all.  What’s his itinerary?”

“He has another school to visit tomorrow, then none for a few days.  He went to meet his manager’s agent here in San Francisco this morning, and he didn’t want me with him.  He said it would be boring.”

Skeffington eyed her thoughtfully.  “Strange, I had no idea he was going until he called me.  He’s bringing someone home to stay for a few days.”

He hadn’t mentioned it in his phone call.  Perhaps the agent wanted to discuss the tour with George and decided to return with Josh.  “Josh went to discuss the team’s tour this summer.”

Skeffington’s thin lips flattened.  It was the only indication of his displeasure.  “You should have gone in for some shopping or something.  I don’t want him to think we’re abandoning him.”

“He won’t,” she said, unable to keep the slight smile warming her lips.

Skeffington regarded her in silence for a few seconds.  “No.  Well keep it that way.  Meantime, I want him to go for lunch at the Recitative the day after tomorrow.  There’s someone I want him to meet.  Can he fit that into his schedule?”

“Who do you want him to meet?”

George looked her straight in the eye.  “Nobody you know.  A business colleague wants to discuss a sponsorship deal with him.  Men’s cologne, I think.”

He was lying.  George had told her to look her opponent in the eye when she lied, to make a point of it, but he’d told her so long ago she doubted he remembered.  She had.  Now she knew he was lying for sure.  George wanted Josh in a certain place at a certain time.  Why?

She had no time to speculate as Josh came in.  She turned to greet him, but the smile froze on her face.  He wasn’t alone

Josh had his arm around one of the most beautiful women Chana had ever seen.  Tall, willowy, long, red hair falling in wisps to her waist and slanted amber eyes, soft as velvet.  High cheekbones, perfect skin and perfect dress sense, as demonstrated by her gauzy top and tight jeans.  The top drifted around her body when the breeze from outside touched it, revealing that either she wore no bra at all, or the skimpiest one imaginable.

By her side, she heard George swallow.

Great.  Josh had brought a girlfriend home and George wanted her.  Which left Chana nowhere except out in the cold.

Devastation filled her, and when she felt Josh reaching out to her mentally, she slammed all her barriers down.  The only man to touch her mind, and the first betrayer!

No, that wasn’t fair.  He’d promised her nothing.  She’d invited him into her bed; he’d been ready to leave.  She had to accept the situation and blame no one but herself.  It might be normal for him.  Girlish dreams should have been put away years ago.  She’d had a wonderful night with a caring, tender man and she should just remember that.

Showing no sign of the rejection she’d just dealt him, Josh ambled forward to speak to George.  “Thanks for inviting Svetlana, it’s greatly appreciated.”  He introduced her.  Svetlana Yevchenko.  When she searched her mind, Chana remembered the name easily.  The last time she’d seen Svetlana Yevchenko, she’d been gracing the glossy pages of Vogue, modeling the latest fashions from Paris.  Jet set lifestyle, exotic elegance, she was just the kind of person she imagined Josh Friedland would go for.  And she’d been right.

Chana put on her best society smile and went forward to greet Svetlana.  “I’m very pleased to meet you.  I’m sure we can find you somewhere to sleep.”  She gave a wry smile, hoping to convey her amusement.  This house had a plethora of bedrooms suites, mainly used for visiting businesspeople.  “The only problem is that there are no other suites where Josh is.  Would you like to share with him, or should I move you both?”

“Share?”  Svetlana stared at Chana as though she’d gone mad.  “With him?  No, thank you very much.  And there is no need to move his accommodation.  The fault is all mine, for arriving at such short notice.  I shall be happy with a couch, if that is all you have, and I am quite content to return to San Francisco.  I arrived this afternoon, and before I checked in at my hotel, Josh suggested I come and meet you and your stepfather.  Really it is most kind, but I do not wish to put you to any trouble.”

“It is no trouble at all.  We’re delighted to have you.  In fact, it’s a nice change from all the testosterone we usually have!”  She shared a smile with George, but she got the feeling he hadn’t taken her meaning.  He was too busy absorbing Svetlana.  Up close, she was even more gorgeous, with smooth, perfect skin and sharply chiseled features.

“Perhaps you can give Kanchana some make up and fashion hints,” said Skeffington to Svetlana, smiling.

Svetlana glanced at Chana, her soft eyes observant but impersonal.  “I don’t think I am the person to do that.  My appearance is mostly an accident of birth, not something I had to work for.  I let the fashionistas do as they wish.  It is merely a way of earning a living.”

A slight rebuke for a man who rarely heard them.  Surprisingly, George took it in stride.  “Then I may say you’re stunningly beautiful?”

“Certainly.  It is not of my doing.  It is the way I grew.”

Everyone should grow that way.  Chana felt the true curl of jealousy, that anyone should be so gifted.  It was supremely hypocritical of her, a woman born into money, one who never had to make her own living, but she would have paid a great deal to look like that.

Ridiculous, but the way George gazed at Svetlana showed Chana where true power lay.  Svetlana had everyone enthralled, not least Josh.

Wait, Josh was looking at her, not Svetlana.  She smiled politely.  Hostess to guest.  “Did you have a good meeting?”

“I suppose so,” he replied thoughtfully, regarding her in a way that made her feel uncomfortable.  “I learned some things I didn’t know about before.”

“It sounds very mysterious!”  She tried for playful, but didn’t quite manage it.  Her mood was too low.

His attention became more concentrated.  “Is there something wrong?”

“No of course not.  Why should there be?”

She turned away.  His golden beauty was too painful, up close.  She’d get over it.  She always did.

Mentally going over the house plan, she came up with a room not too far away from the wing containing hers and Josh’s suites.  That would do nicely.  The fact that its delicate pink décor wouldn’t do a great deal for Svetlana’s exotic beauty was merely a by-product.  A mildly satisfying one it was true, but it would have to do until this stupid ache inside went away.  She’d spent the day spinning stupid, stupid dreams, when all she’d had was a night’s comfort.  Just comfort.

Svetlana seemed delighted by her room, but seemed more interested in the bathroom, explaining that travel always made her feel dirty.  “Imagine sharing that air for twelve hours!”  Chana couldn’t help but agree, but she wondered if Josh planned to join Svetlana in the large, inviting tub that graced her suite.

Getting on with the day’s chores helped.  Instead of going to her room, she went downstairs to the kitchen and lost herself discussing menus with the chef.

*****

Chana forced herself to face facts and had begun to remember herself and shelve that pleasant interlude she’d spent with Josh in a place it belonged.  In the furthest recesses of her mind, to be recalled sometime in the future when she was feeling particularly low.  After a week, the feeling of wrenching unhappiness would fade.  It wasn’t the first time it had happened to her, a night of shared pleasure not turning into anything else.

After stripping, wrapping herself in her warmest, least sexy housecoat, and pinning up her hair ready for her bath, she found a comfort book and sat down to read for an hour to settle herself before getting ready for dinner.

She had almost expected the knock on her door.  When it came, she ignored it.  He wouldn’t try the door.  He’d probably go away, relieved that he didn’t have to try any more.

He tried the door.

She’d thought she’d locked it, but the small bolt fell away when he pushed.  She should have secured it better, turned it to lock.  There he stood, far too sexy, in black slacks and a white dress shirt, open at the neck.  His tie was undone, draped either side of his neck.

They looked at each other and she forced a smile.  “Do you need anything?”

“Only you.”

She stared at him before she wrenched her attention away, putting her book carefully over the back of the chaise longue, open at her place.  “I thought that was just a night’s comfort.”

Slowly, he shook his head and pushed the door gently closed with his foot.  “No.  More than that, for me, anyway.  I thought you’d be thinking things you shouldn’t, so I came to see you.”

“Why shouldn’t I?  You’re a free agent, you can do as you please.  Last night was – pleasant, but I never thought that gave me any rights to you.”

“On the other hand, I thought it gave me certain rights, as I gave you them to you.”

Her mind spinning, she tried to make sense of things.  She hadn’t imagined the friendly, bantering conversation at dinner, using words she felt unable to articulate, her mind working at half speed.  Josh and Svetlana were so comfortable with each other, they seemed like old friends, old lovers.

“I thought you’d be – somewhere else.”

He frowned.  “That’s what I meant.  You thought.  May I speak with you?  Will you listen?”

He’d come as supplicant.  She was in charge of this situation.  Her space, her terms.  “Sit down.”  She didn’t move, knowing if she took her feet off the sofa and put them back on the floor, he’d sit next to her.  After a moment, he sat on the small chair next to the chaise, at her feet.  “I assure you, you owe me nothing.  We enjoyed each other last night, and you helped me when I was feeling low.  Not to say tired.  I never thought that gave me any rights over you.”  She was in her best hostess mode, smooth and sophisticated.

“I did.”  He, on the other hand, was at his sexiest.  The slightly unbuttoned shirt invited her to finish off the job he’d started; his trousers were beautifully cut, emphasizing the muscular thighs, toned by hours on the football field, but designed to hide his other assets, just as a good pair of trousers should.  At least from a man’s point of view.  “I don’t know what you think I am, Chana.  It makes me think the men in your past were either shits or spineless.  Did you really think I’d waltz in here, flaunting another woman?” 

She said nothing, and worked hard to keep any sign of the hurt she felt inside off her face.  It was childish, she told herself.  She’d get over it.

Josh sighed heavily and pushed the fall of golden hair off his forehead, raking his fingers through the heavy mass.  “If I’d even thought such a thing, I’d have warned you first.  No, Svetlana is what I said she was.  She’s a friend, that’s all.”

For a brief moment, he looked more than troubled, something inscrutable behind his expression.  “Where did you meet her?”

He shrugged.  “I do the occasional modeling job.  I think it might have been on a shoot for sunglasses.  I’m not sure.”  He glanced away.  The loss of his close scrutiny came as a relief.  Or it should have done.

“So why did you bring her back?”

He stared at the ceiling.  He was going to lie to her.  His mind stayed closed but she felt a disturbance in the air between them, very short in duration but unmistakable.  “Just an impulse.  I called on the landline and your stepfather’s secretary answered, so I spoke to your stepfather instead of you.  He seemed keen to meet Svetlana, and she doesn’t like hotels, so it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

She felt far too much for Josh to share him.  No, with Josh it had to be all or nothing.  At the moment, it was looking like nothing.

He deserved to know that, at least.  She kept silent until he looked at her and only then, keeping his gaze trapped with hers, did she speak.  “Josh, I’m going to tell you the absolute truth.  No evasions, no games.  I’m a one man woman, at least where you’re concerned, so if you want Svetlana, fine but don’t count me in.  I know last night wasn’t planned, so there’s no hard feelings, truly there aren’t, and you don’t have to worry I’ll tell Svetlana.  She’s a beautiful woman.  I can see why you’re attracted to her.”

Josh swallowed.  “I should be attracted to her, shouldn’t I?  She’s my type, whatever that is, a woman of the world, beautiful, rich in her own right, cosmopolitan.  But I don’t feel it.  Not this time.  I’ve escorted many beautiful women in my time, I’ve slept with too many to count, but here and now I only want you.  It’s the truth, Chana, I swear it.”

What could she do, what could she say?  She didn’t know him well enough to tell for sure, and the only way open to her she’d closed herself.

“Chana, open your mind, just a little way.  Read me, find out if I’m telling the truth.”

Still holding that mesmerizing tawny gaze, she dared to lift the barriers she’d slammed down the minute she’d seen Josh with Svetlana.  “It’s hard to believe any of this is real.  Am I fooling myself?”

His mouth twitched in half smile, quickly gone again.  “We can easily sort that one out.  I’m going to think of something, and you tell me what it is.”

Cautiously, she opened for him, but only the outer layer, the superficial one.  Immediately she saw a china object.  “It’s a vase, an urn shaped one, decorated with piercing.  I’ve never seen anything like this.  It’s creamy in color, and the piercings make it look like lace.”  She opened her eyes.  “Is that right?”

“Perfectly.  My mother loved that vase.  It’s from Royal Worcester, and it’s quite a treasure.  I have it now, at home in England.”

“Your parents are dead?”

He nodded gravely.  “For quite some time now, but I remember them clearly.  They had Laurie and me quite late in their lives.  They were content to go, when their time came.”

“No other brothers and sisters?”

He hesitated.  “No.”  He sighed heavily.  “I know it’s a really hard thing to ask, but please trust me a little longer.  I have a lot to tell you, but I can’t tell you everything, not at once.”

She gazed at him, felt his sincerity in her mind and gave in.  At least for now.  “Just remember this – I won’t share.  If you want Svetlana, that’s fine, but don’t ask me to be a part of it.”

“I swear.”  When he reached for her, she slid her legs off the couch so he could move on to it and take her into his arms.

She felt his relief at her acceptance, his desire for her and his mouth came down on hers with none of the careful gentleness of last night.  He pressed her lips open and surged in, taking possession as though he belonged there.

She opened another layer to him, slightly deeper, giving him a little more.

Her mind was swamped with sensation, not all of it hers.

He lifted away a little, to ask, his lips against hers, “Have we time before dinner?”

“Time?”  A bare second later his hand on her breast told her what he meant.  She made a quick mental calculation.  “We have about half an hour.”

He lifted away and got to his feet, holding his hand out to her.  “Then we’d better save time by getting in the tub now.”

She chucked at his wicked grin and followed him into the bathroom.  He flicked on the faucets and set to completing her undressing, punctuating the buttons on her housecoat with kisses, soft pecking kisses, deep, passionate ones.  By the time he’d lifted his mouth from hers they were both naked and he was hard for her, pulsing against her belly.

After switching off the water and testing it, he took her hand and held it up, like a knight escorting his lady.  She laughed, blushing, and stepped in.

Josh looked at the woman he wanted to protect and care for, the woman who meant far more to him than she should and he wanted nothing more than this.  Not yet.

He didn’t give her the choice of seating arrangements, climbing in after her and sitting down, pulling her against him, between his legs.  He sighed with contentment.  “This feels good.”

“I’ve never done this before.  Shared a bath, I mean.”

“How did you miss out on that?”

She shrugged, the movement of her shoulders rubbing against his chest.  “I don’t know, I just never did.”

The water came up to his lower rib cage, and steam gently rose, wreathing them in warm mist.  For a few minutes he lay back, enjoying the sensation of the hot water and Chana, enclosed in his arms, her back snugly against his chest.  “This is almost enough.”

“I was thinking the same thing.”  Her voice came as a sigh on steam.  “I slept better last night than for a long time.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”  Her weariness worried him.  Every time she opened her mind to him, he felt it, beating at him with dark wings.  He’d thought it must be her illness, but it seemed not.  Something else had caused that exhaustion in her.

He slipped his hands around her waist and rubbed her nipples gently.  She made a small purr of contentment and pushed against his hands, driving his need up a few notches.  “Are you ready for me?”

“Why don’t you find out?”

He didn’t need a second invitation.  Slipping his hand down her smooth belly, he inserted his finger into her cleft and knew the wetness he felt had nothing to do with water and everything to do with arousal.  “Oh yes, you’re ready all right.”

He lifted his arms to her waist and lifted her on to his lap, on to his eager cock.  Slowly he lowered her and they both moaned when he slid inside her.

Instead of sinking on to him, she put her hands on either side of the broad edges of the tub and lifted, before dropping down again.

“Oh God, sweetheart, that feels so good!”  He lay, waiting for her next plunge and she didn’t disappoint.  His gasp echoed hers, his mind awash with sensation.  Never, ever, had this felt so good, not in two hundred and fifty years of existence had anyone sent him quite so high, quite so fast.

He found himself holding on, forcing himself not to come until she did.  It felt so good.

Another plunge, another swoosh of warm water and he’d reached his limit.  His grip on her waist firmed, preventing another drop that would have finished him.

She glanced over her shoulder, startlement in her eyes.  “Is there something wrong?”

“No, no,” he managed, and lifted her off him.  “Turn around.  I want to watch you come.”

Her lashes lowered in a sultry glance before she did as he asked.  He watched her, enjoying the sight of her body, flushed from hot water and passion.  She turned, straddling his legs, on her knees.  He pulled her closer, hands on her bottom.  “I love the way you feel,” he murmured, stroking her backside.  She glanced down at him and her eyes widened.

“You’re bigger.”

He smiled up at her.  “Yes, I am.  It’s just a family thing.  I get bigger when I’m inside you.”

“You mean it’s a genetic thing?”  She circled him with her hand.

“Yes!” he managed through gritted teeth, before watching as she united them again.

“All men should have that genetic trait!”

Only shifters do that.

“What’s a shifter?”

He groaned, turning it into a sound of pleasure.  How could he have forgotten he’d let her into his mind, as well as his in hers?  Pretending to be incoherent, he didn’t answer, but closed his eyes and gripped her waist firmly, pulling her on to him.  “I don’t think anybody has ever felt as good as you!”

She seemed to fit him better than he could remember anyone doing, or perhaps that was love speaking.

No!  He’d made that mistake once before, thinking while she was in his mind.  If she knew the train his thoughts were taking, she’d back off like a spooked horse.  He thrust the thought firmly behind his barriers, better built than hers, and invisible to anyone who didn’t know how to look.

But it was true.  He set himself to enjoying her, helping her to enjoy him.  She didn’t take much.  He slid down a little lower, changing his angle of entry and hit paydirt.

Her shriek would have taken out an eardrum had he been closer to her.  As it was, he relished her cry, and took the moment to enter her mind, as he’d always meant to do.

Lots of crudely fashioned but strong ‘doors,’ blocking out parts of her memory.  They’d all been there a long time, nothing recent.  She would notice if he broke through, and some of them seemed engrained, deeply embedded into her.  It would take an expert to remove them, an expert like Fabrice Germain.

He fought to keep his mind on the job, but with her body clasping exquisitely around him, it took every bit of willpower he had.

He read her and exited, unable to hold back any longer, wanting to join her in the convulsing paradise she entered.  He made it, and gasped as he felt himself pulse inside her.

Only then did he remember.  Oh God, no condom.

He opened her eyes and stared at him, eyes wide.  “No protection,” she breathed.  “I’m so sorry.  I swear to you I’m safe.  I must be, I haven’t done this for six months and I had a test then.”

“Did you?”  He pulled her forward, easing up the bath once more, still inside her.  Holding her he said, “I’m safe.  I know it for sure.”

“I’ll take care of the rest.”

It hurt not to tell her he couldn’t make her pregnant, and it might, just might not be true.  He smiled and traced his finger down the side of her face, curving it under her jaw.  “No you won’t.  We will.  Don’t do anything without telling me first.”

She smiled back.  “Okay.”

They shared a kiss, long, lavish and sweet.  When he swept his tongue into her mouth, she opened for him, mind and body, as though she’d always done it.

He drew away.  “Do we have to go down to dinner?  Are you on duty tonight?”

She shook her head.  “No, it’s just family, and Svetlana.  But it would be a bit obvious if we both stayed away, wouldn’t it?”

“Tell you what.  The day after tomorrow, I have another school to visit.  I can invent a dinner date in San Francisco, a business dinner and you’ll have to attend.  It would be much easier for us if we got a hotel room, wouldn’t it?”

“Oh yes,” she breathed.  “Or we could stay at my apartment.  It isn’t much, comfortable but not showy.”

“Either way.”  He dropped a kiss on her nose.  “I’d like to see a place that was wholly yours.  You don’t keep all your stuff here, do you?”

“No.  Most of it’s at the apartment.  The books I love, my laptop, my college notes, that kind of thing.”

“Cuddly toys?”

She chuckled.  “No.  When I came home and found the toys missing, then I knew I’d have to keep my precious things somewhere else.”

Shock arced through him.  “Skeffington does that?  Gets rid of the things you love?”

She shrugged.  “It’s his way of controlling us.  We’re supposed to look to him for everything.  I didn’t realize for years that other people didn’t live the same way.”

He could understand that.  For the first twenty years of his life, he’d thought everyone was like him, because he hadn’t known any different.  So for Chana, this was normal.  George controlled everyone around him so carefully, provided them with what they wanted before they knew they wanted it.  And he’d taken away things they became too attached to.  Bastard.

“So it was living away from here that made you normal?”  He grinned, to show her he wasn’t serious.

“School and the cop training course.”  She picked up the soap.  “We have to wash up, I’ll have to hurry if we’re to get downstairs on time.”

“Hmm.”  He twisted a lock of her hair around his finger.  “I love the way your hair falls heavy down your back when you wear it loose.”

“Useful in certain circumstances.”  She shot him a mischievous look, one he relished because it meant he’d made a difference, made her feel better.  “Like tonight.”

*****

They barely made it.  Josh found his tux, and helped Chana to scramble into a full-length gown, a Chinese style one.  That way her lack of hosiery would go unnoticed, and she had no time for that.  He found it amazing how she managed to turn herself from sex goddess to sophisticate in so short a time.

They entered the drawing room five minutes short of eight, the time Skeffington had set for dinner.  Josh found it vaguely surprising that the family should eat so formally, but he was beginning to see a pattern here.

His relief when he knew for sure that Chana didn’t know anything of George’s plans had been overwhelming, the bath and the sex a kind of cleansing, separating one part of the operation from the next, in his mind.

Chana was an innocent in this.  She didn’t know about Laurie’s disappearance, had never met either of the Friedland brothers before Josh arrived at the estate.  Somehow she was connected to the plot, but Josh wasn’t sure how.  When he entered the dining room, he linked with Svetlana and told her all he knew, as succinctly as he could manage.  She didn’t look at him, but she nodded, and sent him thanks through their private mental link.  I’ll work on George tonight, but I’ll come to your room later.

Why?

Have you forgotten what night this is?

Damn, he had!  Jet lag had somehow set his mental clock askew.  The first night of the full moon fell tonight, although he’d had it pegged for tomorrow.  He’d missed a day.  On the full moon, all shifters had to change their forms, and for the next two nights.  Oh well, he could shift briefly.  It should be enough.  The compulsion to shift was impossible to resist, unless the shapeshifter used cephalox.

The drug that was in Chana’s ‘insulin’ vials.

He’d hoped for another night, a time he could take her in his arms and explain, as gently as possible, what she was taking and what it might mean.  Time to get her used to the idea.  Now he had no time at all.  It helped to explain the weariness Chana felt, the black wings of exhaustion threatening to take her over completely.

Swiftly, he rearranged his plans.  He’d go to his room, take a quick flight with Svetlana, then return to Chana.

He’d never seen a firebird shift.  That was one part he’d enjoy.  The beautiful model would transform into one of the most graceful creatures imaginable.  The aesthetic part of his nature, long subsumed under layers of football vulgarity, resurfaced.

Speaking of aestheticism, it seemed to be Edward’s turn tonight.  To his regret, Josh sat away from Chana, between Svetlana and Edward, George’s third son.  Since Svetlana gave all her attention to flattering George, Josh found himself stuck with Edward.

Edward, he discovered rapidly, was an art bore.  On the whole, he’d rather have Junior’s blockish aggressiveness.  Easier to deal with, and far less boring.  Josh loved most art, hell, he’d met quite a few artists in his long life but he wouldn’t have recognized them from Edward’s descriptions.

Close shaven, but the dark shadow already forming under his sallow skin, Edward must take after his mother because he looked nothing like George.  Josh broke into a long diatribe on the values Monet tried to instill into his painting to ask, abruptly, “Was your mother Mexican?”

“I’m sorry?”  Edward’s thin mouth pursed in a look of haughty disdain.

“I’m sorry too, but someone told me your mother was Mexican.  Did you ever meet Diego Rivera?  I have something by him at home, and I was wondering if it was real or not.  I should have brought it with me.”

“You have a Rivera?”  Edward’s fine-cut nostrils positively quivered in indignation, though whether from being interrupted or from the mention of a native artist, Josh wasn’t sure.

“Well it’s only a drawing, but I liked it, so I bought it,” he said apologetically.

“It’s most likely a print or an engraving.”  Edward’s supercilious manner didn’t invite further query, but Josh persisted.  After all, he had good reason to know that his Rivera was genuine.  Such as sitting in front of the man while he drew it.

“Can I show you a photo?”

“I’m afraid that wouldn’t be of much use.  I need to see the real thing to be really sure.”

“Did you ever meet him?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Josh smiled.  “Diego Rivera,” he said, as though explaining something simple to a child.  “When you went to see your mother.”

“I see.”  He most certainly didn’t.  Josh would have bet his gold signet ring that Edward learned most of his art from books, not from actually looking at the paintings in question.  “My mother wasn’t Mexican, she was from Los Angeles, of Spanish origin.  And I  never met Rivera.”

“You’re part Hispanic, then?”

Josh delighted at the flush of color that flooded Edward’s thin cheeks.  Not only an art snob, then, but a snob of all things.

“No, I’m not Hispanic.  My mother is Spanish, from one of the oldest families in California.”

Josh picked up his wine glass.  “Except for the natives.”

“There is little evidence anyone was here before my mother’s people.”  Edward smirked.  “Like the wine?”

Josh couldn’t resist.  “I always enjoy a good Côtes du Rhone.  Especially a Beaumes de Venise.”

He watched with delight as Edward snatched the bottle from a passing domestic and stared at the label, thrusting it back at the man when he’d done.

Josh liked wine.  He’d even owned a vineyard, in his time, but that had gone, as had everything else stable in his life.  All he had was Laurie, and now Laurie was gone, too.

The thought sobered him.  Laurie was still alive, but nothing he did, none of the private channels, none of the sensors he’d opened up had given him any clue as to where his brother was or who had him.

Talents had to get used to life changing around them.  Either move with the times or die, he’d told Laurie more than once.  He wasn’t sure he could do it any more.  Finally, he understood why many of his kind had chosen to stop, to cease to function, to die.  If nothing stayed permanent, what was the point?  Forever alone, forever changing, no security, nothing stayed the same.

Warmth seeped into the back of his bleak thoughts.  Chana.  She was here, and a world with her in it couldn’t be all bad.

When had he started thinking like that?  When had this mission turned from saving Laurie to saving Chana and Laurie?  He couldn’t say, but it had.

After the meal, he had to listen to Edward’s pontificating about the Impressionists.  How anyone could make that lively bunch of ne’er do wells boring he couldn’t imagine, but Edward managed it.

“Do you work?” he managed, in between extensive biographies of men he’d actually known and talked with.

“Yes, of course.”  Edward smirked.  “Father endowed a new wing of the Freidrich Museum not far from here, and provided the funds for several new purchases.  He wants to give the Getty a good run for its money!  I work at the Freidrich, I’m one of the senior curators there.”

Senior enough to keep him out of trouble, Josh would bet.  Senior enough to keep his hands off the works of art, but not senior enough to cock up the management of the gallery.  George bought a wing, all George wanted was a job for his son, to keep him off his back.  He wondered how long it would take Edward to work out that Freidrich was awfully similar to Friedland and if that sweet little Picasso he’d donated fifty years ago still hung on the same wall.

“You’re a lot cleverer than I am,” he suggested, successfully sending Edward off on another ramble.

At ten, he excused himself.  Svetlana had her arm through George’s, a drink in her other hand, and a rapt smile on her face.  How she’d get away from Randy George’s clutches he wasn’t sure, but he had every confidence in her ability to do so.  Sure enough, within half an hour, he heard a tap at his door and the little ring in his head that announced her presence.

He let her in.  “Was your evening as hellish as mine?”

She grimaced.  “Worse.  I think he’s lining me up for wife number six.  He wanted me to go to his suite, but I said I never did that on the first evening.  Now he’ll expect it tomorrow.”

“It?”  Josh raised his brows, forcing Svetlana into a reluctant laugh.

“Well George Skeffington isn’t going to find out what “it” is, that’s for sure.  You’d really forgotten tonight was the first of the full moon?”

“Not forgotten exactly.  Miscalculated.”  He undid the first few buttons on his shirt.  He’d already discarded his jacket.

Svetlana turned her back so he could undo the zip at the back of her dress.  “Jet lag.  I carry a small alarm with me.  It reminds me when I get the date wrong.”

“I used to feel it precisely and I still can when I want to.  I forget.”

Svetlana slipped off her silk dress and stood naked except for her panties, totally unselfconscious.  “Ready?”

“Just about.”  He pulled off his trousers and underwear, dragging his socks off with them.  Now he watched her take her panties off, noting with interest that her pubic hair was as blazing red as the hair on her head.  He’d heard that about firebirds, their coloring indicated their nature.  “Do you want to go first?”

The etiquette of shifting dictated no desire should be shown, a difficult discipline to learn, especially in the presence of a gorgeous fashion model.  Strangely, Josh found he had no trouble.  He would go to Chana after a brief flight; then he could feel all the desire he wanted.

Svetlana stretched out a long, thin arm, which grew rosier, then sprouted feathers.  Shifting could be an art form in itself, and Josh watched appreciatively as Svetlana proved it.  Eventually a human sized bird stood in the room, one with red-gold feathers, a long, graceful body, stretching her neck in what looked almost like a ballet gesture.

In contrast, Josh was all power.  Griffins had a lion’s body and an eagle’s head and wings, or so the medieval bestiaries used to describe them.  Golden creatures, feathers gleaming wickedly, melting into the soft fur of his legs and belly.  He heard her voice in his head, faintly amused.  Impressive.

Thanks.  Shall we go?

You want to return to your lady.  Very well.  A short flight.

The bedroom window opened and they reduced their size before venturing out into the night.

Normally Josh enjoyed flying, especially after a stressful day.  Sometimes he wondered which of his two forms was the real one; the human or the griffin, but tonight he felt all human.  Apart from the mechanics of keeping in the air, following the thermals and remembering his bearings, his thoughts were firmly seated in one slender brunette with honey colored skin.

As usual, he stretched his senses, but nothing came back.  No sign of Laurie, no message anywhere in his mind.  After a quick foray over the grounds, and then showing Svetlana the layout of the place, together with the situations of all the security devices, cameras and movement detectors, they returned to his room and landed on the floor, immediately increasing their size again.  For a brief moment, Josh allowed himself the luxury of his true griffin size, ten feet high but the ceiling wasn’t ten feet and he had to subside.

He shifted, wasting no time returning to his human form.  Svetlana showed none of her previous artistry, almost beating his time returning to her other shape.  She reached for her underwear.  “Thank you for that.  I should go to my room now.  I think I’ve seen all I need.  We should fly a little further tomorrow night.  Do you think there is any chance George has the lab sited nearby?”

He shrugged.  “There’s a chance.  I can’t find any trace of him, Svetlana.”

The bleakness in his tone must have showed, because she took the two steps that separated them and laid her hand on his arm, softly comforting.  “We’ll find him.  And the others.  We have to, Josh.  Too many have disappeared and if we don’t find them, the vampires’ kin will come.  I can’t see them being very careful.”

“Neither can I, but I’d almost welcome it, if they freed Laurie.”

“There is more chance that the scientists would kill Laurie in any siege or threat.  They will want to cover their tracks.  Our way is better.  We will discover all we can before we storm the facility, and then we may destroy it, when we have rescued the prisoners.”

“The lab rats, the creatures,” Josh said bitterly.  “I’ve come across this kind before.  They don’t care who they kill, as long as they get the information they want.”

Svetlana gazed at him, her hand still on his arm and as she leaned forward to give him a gentle kiss on his cheek, the door opened and Chana came in.

Chapter Seven

 

If she could have done it, she would have turned right round and left, but when she tried, the door had jammed.

Tears filling her stupid eyes, Chana made for the bathroom.  The door slammed shut before she reached it.  She didn’t trust her voice, but if she didn’t get out of here fast, she’d make a complete fool of herself.

“Let me out,” she said softly.

“No.  I shall go, Josh will explain,” Svetlana said.  Absently, Chana noted the heavy Russian accent had gone, leaving Svetlana a pretty, lilting voice instead of the sultry siren who had captured Skeffington’s attention at dinner.

Of course, the model hadn’t been naked then.  Neither had Josh.  He stood as if frozen, his eyes bugging out.  “How did you get in here?”

“I opened the door,” she said.  “You could have locked it.  Or don’t you care who you hurt?  Maybe you’re too arrogant to care?  I told you I didn’t share, and I meant it.  Now let me go.”  For a minute there, she’d nearly lost it, but she kept an iron control on her features, on her feelings.  One good cry should let this bastard out of her system.  Perhaps two.  But she needed to get back to her room and quickly, before she collapsed right here.

“Don’t go Svetlana.  We need to show her what we are, why we’re here.  She might not believe it if it’s just me.”  He sounded calm, in control, but she caught the slight waver, a sign he might be a little bit affected.  Well good.  He deserved more than that.  He deserved a good kicking and for a second or two she was tempted to go and find Junior.  Having a big brother sometimes had its advantages.

Neither Svetlana nor Josh seemed at all put out by their nakedness when she’d entered the room.  As if they weren’t doing anything wrong, or they were used to being naked with each other.  Perhaps this didn’t count as betrayal in his world.  Well it did in hers.  She lifted her chin.  He’d just lost the opportunity to have a wild affair with the best thing that had ever happened to him, she told herself.  Later she could collapse, give way to all the doubts pressing on her heart, but not now.

She felt strong enough to look at him.  Even now, his lithe, sinewy body sent waves of heat through her and she hated herself for the automatic reaction.  And that someone else was here to witness it.  Starlight glinted through the open window, a mockery of the romantic rush she’d felt when she’d headed for his room.

“Very well.”  Svetlana moved forward so she stood close to Josh, but she didn’t touch him.  Thank God.

“Watch.”  The commandment held an underlying urge in it, a trick she’d used herself a time or two.  Fury rose in her, that he would use that on her.  But she didn’t look away as Svetlana stretched out one slender arm and glanced at Josh.

Feathers sprouted along the arm, red and gleaming in the dim light of the bedside lamps.  Chana blinked.  She must be seeing things.

Josh held his arm out and she saw feathers, too, growing into wings along his back.  She’d seen a film once where the transformation took place, but that had been CGI.  She must be in bed and dreaming.  This wasn’t happening.  Relief flooded her when she realized this was all a bad dream.  That was okay, that was fine, she’d tell Josh all about it when she woke up.  God knew she’d been tired recently.  That must be it.

Since she was definitely dreaming, she could lean back and enjoy the show.  Almost separate from her body now, she watched as feathers and fur sprouted over their bodies.  Svetlana seemed to stretch her neck, and grow a slender beak.  Everything about the woman, whether human or bird came out elegant.  God, she hated that.

Josh fell forward to his hands – paws.  Big, golden paws covered with a plushy fur.  His body strengthened, furred over and wings sprouted from his chest – flanks.  His head shortened, sharpened, and he, too, grew a beak, a vicious hooked thing that looked as though it could rip through flesh and bone without thought.  He looked like nothing she’d ever seen before, half mammal, half bird.  Four limbs, front and back paws, wings folded against a powerful body, and the head of a great bird.  He lifted his head and tilted it to one side.

That was when Chana received a nasty shock.  His eyes looked more like a bird’s eyes, domed, clear, sharp with speculation, but inside she saw Josh’s golden lights, the spark of the man she – liked.  Or had liked.  When she woke up she’d like him still, but the dream might make her wonder.  She’d had vivid dreams before, dreams of transformation she’d dismissed as the result of her overactive imagination.

It’s me.  Whatever form I take it’s always me.

Svetlana’s soft laughter washed over her mind.  This is what we were doing, dubchik, nothing else, I promise.

Enough.  Josh’s voice sliced hard and clean through her mind, and she watched dreamily as they changed back.

Svetlana bent and picked up a robe off the floor, shrugging into its lavender folds.  “I will leave you now.  The best of luck, zaychik.  Tell her everything and call me if you need me.”  She strolled across the room and left, the door opening as if it had never been locked.

“It wasn’t locked.  I just gave you the impression that it was.”  Josh’s voice had never been so soft, so sweet.

“Will I wake up soon?”

He crossed the room to her, gloriously naked and she couldn’t resist reaching up a hand to touch him.  Warm, welcoming.  Even touch was intact in this dream.  She snatched her hand away.  Half of him wasn’t enough.  “Nakedness to my kind is natural.  Wearing clothes when you shift could turn out very expensive, so we’re used to it.  Like naturists, it’s nothing to us.  Please, Chana, listen to me.”  His voice, softly pleading, persuaded her to listen.  After all, what harm could listening do?  “I’m a one woman man.  One at a time, that is, and you’re it.  If you don’t want me, say so, but I want you and I swear I won’t cheat on you.”

How did she know, how could she tell?

As if she’d spoken the words, he answered her.  “You already know we can speak, mind to mind.  You must know we can’t lie like that, we can only block, stop the reader from seeing too much.  Well then, I’m open to you.  Everything is there now, Chana.  Read me.  Please.”

Softly, she entered his mind.  She looked carefully at his aura, noted the lack of deceit and went deeper, and deeper still.  Everywhere she probed, he gave way, and she saw no doors.  He was telling the truth.  “Chana, this is strange to you, crazy, but believe me, please.  Judge later.  For now just read me and know I’m telling the truth.”

She gave a short nod.  She couldn’t find any lies in him and when she probed his libido she saw his lack of desire for the beautiful model, together with his astonishment that he didn’t want such a lovely creature.  That convinced her most of all.

“You’re not dreaming, Chana.  Up until now you have been, but this is real.”  Bending, he picked her up and crossed the room to where the couch sat before the window.  He sat and settled her on his lap, his arm firmly around her.  “This is what I am, what Svetlana is.  We were together because the moon is full, and we have to shift during the full moon.”

“No.”  She pressed her face against his chest, too tired to push herself away, reality catching up with her.  “I’ll wake up.”

“You are awake.”  She felt his fingers under her chin, urging her to look at him.  He regarded her closely, a small, worried frown between his brows.  “Chana, listen to me.  We’d agreed to tell you, but not like this.  You weren’t supposed to see that until you were ready, but if I hadn’t showed you, you’d have refused to believe me.  I’m a shapeshifter, Chana.  There are others like me, not too many, but we exist.  We hide ourselves away.”

“Why?”  The blessed feeling of disembodiment left her, leaving her frustrated, angry and confused.  This wasn’t possible, was it?  She’d had dreams all her life, dreams of changing, of flying, but that wasn’t true.  It couldn’t be.  Lots of people had dreams of flying.

How could he hide this from her?  Why would he want to?

“Because we are sought out and made to be different, when most of us would rather live our lives in peace.  Because they think they can experiment on us, somehow distill our essence and use it themselves.  Because they hate us and fear us and seek to kill us.  All of those things.”

Her mind raced to accept what she’d heard.  But she’d seen it, seen it for herself and he was right, this was no dream. 

She closed her eyes.  “Why are you telling me this?  Why do I have to know these things?”

He sighed and didn’t answer, threading his fingers into her hair.  He stroked her and she opened her eyes, afraid he’d suddenly transform into the – creature.  “What was that thing?”

“That thing was me.  I’m a griffin.”  He watched her carefully, holding her as though she were made of glass.  “Every month at the full moon I have to change into my other form.  If I lived as a griffin, I’d have to take my human form at that time of the month.”

“How – how do you manage?”

“I was born that way.  I think you’re the same as me.”

“A griffin?”

He grunted assent.  “Maybe.  Or something else.  You’re some kind of shapeshifter anyway.”

Her laugh came out high-pitched, forced.  “Now you’re joking me.”  Definitely la-la land. 

“No, no I’m not, sweeting.  I have proof, of a sort anyway.”

She turned in to his warmth, refusing to believe his nonsense.  “You can’t possibly have proof.  I’ve never done what you’ve just done, I’ve never shifted.”

“No, they wouldn’t let you.  Chana, shapeshifters stay in the form in which they were birthed until they reach puberty.  You think human women have it bad.  Well in our species, women not only get their periods, they get the compulsion to change every month.  If they’re lucky, both don’t happen at the same time.”

“What happens then?”

He grimaced.  “You don’t want to know.”

Somehow, his slight revulsion made it easier for her to understand, although she was far from accepting all this.  If she hadn’t seen it, the transformation, she wouldn’t have believed anything.

“I should have known you wouldn’t, but I didn’t want you to find out like this.”

She balled her fist and thumped his chest, hearing his gasp with secret pleasure.  He’d hurt her, so this was only payback, after all.  “It’s stupid.”

“Perhaps it is.  But it’s my life, what I am, and if you want me you have to understand that.”

His turn to take her breath away.  He might as well have hit her, she felt so helpless.  “It – it’s not as though we know each other very well.  Want you how?”

“With me,” he said simply.  He drew back a little so he could look into her face.  “For as long as it takes.”

She laughed shakily.  “After two days?”

“Yeah.”  His voice deepened, gained a rough edge.  “You opened to me like nobody else ever has.  I’ve read you, let you read me.”  He cleared his throat nervously.  “Well, nearly all of me.  I had to keep parts hidden.  You understand, don’t you?”

She frowned up at him doubtfully.  “I guess.”  She did feel closer to Josh than she had to anyone else.  She might even be falling for him in a big way, although she still wasn’t entirely convinced.  And with the new revelation he’d given her, she doubted it even more.

He bent his head and kissed her, just touching his lips to hers, then straightened up.  “There’s more, but I think that’s enough for now.” 

She sat on his lap, remembering, thinking, trying to remember the things that lay hidden in her life.  She couldn’t remember her mother very well, try as hard as she might, and she should be able to.  She couldn’t remember much from her childhood.  Had she been around these creatures sometime?  Was that why his telling her sounded more like the truth than anything else she’d learned?

“No.  Tell me everything.”  She couldn’t bear not knowing.  If there was something else, she had to know.

He sighed and studied her face.  After a moment, he seemed to make up his mind.  “You have to promise to keep your mind open to me while I tell you.  I want to know your reactions, and I don’t want to go too far.  Agreed?”

She took less time than he did to make her mind up.  “Okay.”  He’d seen all he wanted to see, anyway.  Mind and body.

He lifted her a little, shifting her position on his lap so he could watch her while he told her then she felt a gentle warmth seeping into her mind.  He’d opened to her, too.  “This is amazing,” she breathed.  “I know we’ve linked like this before, but never so deliberately.”

He smiled.  “No, never quite like this.”

Before he began whatever news he had, he kissed her.  This time the kiss was long, sweet and deep, caressing her mouth with his in exquisite slo-mo.  She was almost ready to give up and let him tell her another day, but not quite.  This news concerned her directly, she just knew it did.  She had to know.

“Do you often feel disembodied, floating?  Have you ever felt you know what it’s like to fly?  How about a secret, one you can’t quite touch?”

“Hey, what is this, twenty questions?  Or do you moonlight for a teen magazine?”

He laughed outright.  “I was trying to see if you’d had any idea of any of this.”

“Yes, yes and yes.  Now get on with it.”

Now he’d started to tell her whatever it was she couldn’t bear for him to stop, or play stupid games.

He took a deep breath.  “When a shifter doesn’t want to shift during the full moon, or it’s inconvenient for him, there’s a drug available to take.  I mean, just think if you were an astronaut, it would be a bit more than inconvenient to have to shift in orbit.”

She chuckled.  “I can see that.”

“The drug’s name is cephalox.  Scientists extracted it from a natural herb about a hundred years ago.  Trouble is, cephalox isn’t the nicest of drugs.  Think of it as the shifter’s heroin.  Three doses and you’re addicted, although there are some people who never get addicted and others get hooked after the first dose.  Eventually it’ll kill you, but if you’re careful with it, use it in measured doses, it can take a long time.  Some people are lucky and get addicted, but build up a toleration.”

“It doesn’t sound like something I’d like to get involved with.”

“Yeah.”  He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles, keeping hold of it when he’d done.  “You take insulin, don’t you?”

“It’s the diabetes.  It’s pretty much under control now, but I have to use two doses a day.”

“You’ve been taking it how long?”

She thought back.  “Since I was thirteen.  I had a couple of fainting spells, and they studied it and discovered I have type one diabetes.”

“Who did the diagnosis?”  His grip on her hand increased just a little.

She frowned.  “Why do you need to know?  Where’s this taking us?”  Seeing the determined look on his face, she relented.  “Our family doctor.  Dr. Speed, he has an office in San Francisco, but mostly he comes to us.  If we need medical treatment, we go into the private wing of the local hospital.  So far, I’ve only been in for my diabetes, when it needed stabilizing.  Why?”  His expression was making her uncomfortable.  She’d thought him easygoing, but he looked far from that now.

“Chana, I took a vial of your insulin and got them analyzed.  You’re not taking insulin, you’re taking cephalox.”

Chapter Eight

 

“What?  What are you talking about?  That dangerous stuff shapeshifters take?”  She jumped to her feet, taking a few short strides away from him.  “Why would it, how?”

She turned back to face him.  He sat, stark naked, one ankle resting on a knee, watching her, that grim expression still in place.  “There’s only one reason to take cephalox, Chana.  It only does one thing.  It stops the shifter changing form.”

He got to his feet, and took the two steps to her side.  “You’re a shapeshifter, Chana.”

“No!”  With a small sound of anguish, he drew her closer, into his arms.  She wept into his chest, unable to prevent her tears, caused by anger rather than anything else.  “How could I be?  Wouldn’t I know, how could this happen?

He spoke into her hair, softly, his tone so measured she knew he was holding his own emotions in control.  For her sake.  “George is a hominid, not a Talent.  There are two ways to become a shapeshifter.  One is a turning ritual, something partners do when one is a shifter and one is not.  The other is to be born that way.  That means one or other of your parents had to be a shapeshifter.”  He paused, pressing a soft kiss into her hair.  “Tell me about your parents.”

She lifted her chin and gazed at him, realization filling her thoughts.  “I don’t remember my father at all.  He died when I was a child.  My mother brought me up alone until she met and married George.  She died just before I realized I had diabetes.  I collapsed, and they took me to hospital and she died while I was still there.  Pneumonia, I was told.  I’m her only child.  George has married five times.  The last one moved out a few days ago.  Or rather, he moved her on.”  She gave him a wry smile.  “A bimbo trophy wife.  She didn’t leave much of a mark.”

She showed him the picture of her mother by visualizing it.  She had one good photo, and she’d spent hours gazing at, wondering what it was like to have someone who loved her, really loved her, so she knew the picture very well.  Her mother had been a redhead with soft brown eyes, an artist from Los Angeles, moderately well off.  Chana had her jewelry, but little else to remember her by.  “I don’t remember much.  I know I should remember more, but I don’t.”

“Shifters tend to travel light,” he said with a smile.  “Some put down roots, but it’s easier not to.  She must have been a shifter, or your father was, or they both were.  If you have a picture you can spare and her details, we can investigate her, see who she really was, where she came from.”

“George said she was an orphan, with no close relatives.”

He opened his fist over her back, holding her close.  The heat radiated off his body, making her feel strangely safe.  “I’ll make a few calls.  I should go in.”

“Go in where?”

He hesitated, looked away before returning his gaze to her.  “Department 57.  We have resources we can call on.  It’s a department of the CIA.”

Her eyes widened.  “You’re an agent?”

He chuckled.  “No, just a consultant.  I help them sometimes.  Now I have more at stake.”

His expression darkened and a somberness she didn’t associate with him dropped over his features.  She’d happened on something serious.  “What is it?  What’s at stake?”

“They’ve got Laurie.”

The three words dropped into the stillness of the room reverberated in her head.  She’d done her homework.  Laurie Friedland, Josh’s brother and teammate.  The brothers didn’t live in each others’ pockets, but were very close.

“Who have?”

He closed his eyes for an instant.  “We have enemies.  We think scientists have taken Laurie to experiment on him.  Several Talents have disappeared over the last few years, but until recently the pattern wasn’t obvious.  But the authorities found several mutilated bodies recently, and the Department got a look.  They were Talents.  And now they have Laurie.

“Is that why you came?”

He nodded.  “Laurie disappeared in this area a month ago.  It’s not like him.  Whatever he’s doing, he touches base with me every so often and I can feel him, sense his presence.  Now all I can feel is that he’s not dead, and I don’t know if that’s me imagining things or if it’s really true.”  He met her gaze squarely, but she didn’t need to look into his eyes to feel the misery pulsating through him.  “We’ve always been together.  Nothing’s constant in my life except for him.  I can’t imagine him not being there, and I need to get to him before they hurt him too badly.”

“How come you can’t sense him?  I’m new to all this but you’re incredibly powerful, aren’t you?”

He shook his head.  “They must be holding him in a shielded facility.  Lined in lead or silver most probably, perhaps sonically protected.  That’s very expensive to do, so we’re looking for money.”

Her throat went dry.  “My stepfather.”

He shrugged.  “Maybe.  Probably.  That’s not why I came here, that was the football thing.  Ted Maxwell wants to know why your stepfather chose to buy Manchester Rovers.  We’re one of the best managed clubs in the Premiership, there’s not a lot of financial slack.  If he’d wanted a quick killing there are plenty of clubs that would have been better for him.  So Ted is worried, too.  When I got here, Cristos met me off the plane.  He’s been keeping tabs on your stepfather for a while, and he thinks he has something to do with Laurie’s disappearance.”  He paused.  “Cristos runs the Department.  The cephalox we found in your vials just about confirms it.”

Something else occurred to her.  “Then I’m not diabetic?”

He smiled gently.  “It’s highly unlikely.  The only thing the lab found in those insulin vials was cephalox, and since type one diabetics generally need insulin – no, you’re not diabetic.”

Wild hope surged through her at the thought.  While she coped well enough with her condition, to be free of it was something she’d never allowed herself to dream about.  Something that could never come true.  Well now, it was true.  “For real?”

“Oh yes.  For real.”

His lips came down on hers and this time passion burned away the tenderness.  The need she sensed in him fed off the joy in her own heart.  The information that Skeffington was using her was hardly new to her, so it didn’t surprise or shock her, but the fact that she was totally healthy filled her with a wild elation she wanted to celebrate.

And Josh wanted to help her.

Chana wasn’t quite sure how they got across the room to the bed, but they ended up rolling across its broad expanse while Josh removed her clothes, shoving them aside as he removed each piece, laughing at her mock squeals of protest.  Then he was in her, for that moment of still, soaring perfection that amazed her every time.

She pushed him, and he allowed it, rolling on to his back close to the edge of the bed.  Pushing up against his shoulders brought her into a sitting position, her legs either side of his hips.  He gazed up at her, warmth and, yes, love, in his gaze.  “You’re spectacular,” he breathed, but his head jerked back when she drove her body down as hard as she could on to his growing erection.  She loved the way it grew inside her, and while she wanted to see its full size, there was no way his body was leaving hers any time in the near future.  It felt too damned good.

Driving him hard, riding him towards the ultimate Chana forgot her own body.  She entered his mind, feeling him embrace her hungrily, waiting more, always more.  And she was just the person to give it to him.

Her legs worked, she felt her muscles taut against his thighs, pushing, feeling him holding himself tight for her, pushing back, but she was undoubtedly the one in control.  She was doing him and loving every second of it.

“Oh God, Chana, I’m in so deep I swear I can feel your heart beating!”

She laughed shakily.  “Along with the rest of me.”  A slow, deep throb swelled out from the center of her being, pulsing along veins, nerves, muscles, reaching every part of her.  She threw back her head and cried out, long and loud, and heard his corresponding call.  He gasped her name, just once, then flooded her with heat.  She stretched out her arms and felt him grasp them before the pulses died away and she fell forward, his arms going around her in a fiercely protective hug.

She had no idea how long they lay together, just being, but she’d never felt so submerged in somebody else, so completely part of another person.  “This is new to me,” she whispered against his chest.

“Me too,” he confessed.

She lifted herself up on her elbows and looked at him, into the face that was already so dear to her.  “Well since I have a few years on you…” she began, then realized something else.  “ You’re not really twenty five, are you?”

“According to the press I am.”  He gave her a one-sided grin, very pleased with himself.  “No, we live a little longer than hominids.”

“Hominids?”

“Like you.  Or rather, like the rest of your family.  Human beings, homo sapiens, mortals.”

“So you’re a different species?”

He lifted a finger and stroked the side of her face.  “Not really.  More a different subspecies.  Look, you have different breeds of cats and dogs, why not humans?  Your kind we call hominids.  Vampires call them mortals.  I’m a shapeshifter.  Then there are vampires, anthros—“ he got no further.

“Vampires?  They exist?  And what’s an anthro?”

“Anthropomorphs.  Half and half’s, like centaurs and suchlike.  Yes, there are such things as vampires, but they’re not like you imagine.  To put people off the trail, the vamps themselves have spread a lot of the legends.  You’ll meet one tomorrow, if you agree to come with me.”

“Where?”

“To Department 57’s San Francisco office.  After I’ve been to the school tomorrow, I want to take you in, introduce you to a few people.  I think someone might be able to help you.”

“Help me how?”

He spread a hand over her back and stroked her spine while he talked.  “There are blocks in your mind.  If I try to release them for you, it would be like taking a sledgehammer to a door.  It’ll work, but it will hurt.  I don’t want that for you.  You’ve been through enough already.  But I know people who can release the blocks for you without hurting you, a bit like picking a lock.  You need them opening.”

“Blocks?”

“Crude but effective.  My guess is your memories of your mother, perhaps some of the things she told you have been blocked.  Perhaps you learned more than you thought, at some point, and that might be blocked, too.”

Alarm flared, but his touch soothed it away.  “How could they do that?”

He kept his voice low and gentle.  “Hypnotism can do it.  That would explain why they’re so crude.  Hypnotism is a bit of a blunt weapon.  You can keep them, if you want to.  But you have to come off the cephalox.”  His voice hardened slightly.  “It could be damaging.  You’ve been taking it far too long already.”

She wanted nothing more to do with the stuff.  “I want to come off it.”  Heartened by a new thought, she brightened.  “Does this mean I can have chocolate?”

His laugh shook her body deliciously.  “Oh yes.  But let me get it for you.  How about profiteroles tomorrow?”

Her mouth watered.  She’d seen them, supervised their preparation in her cordon bleu class, but never, ever tasted one.  Chocolate covered, oozing with cream, completely sinful.  A thought flashed through her mind.  Other things could be covered with chocolate.  And licked off, too.

A low groan from Josh reminded her their minds were still linked and a stirring below reminded her of something else.  “You’re still inside me.”

“So I am.  If you carry on thinking about chocolate sins, that’s the only reason I’ll have to come out.”

She laughed, but moaned softly when he thrust up again.  A few minutes later she lay on her back, oblivious to anything else but Josh.

Chapter Nine

 

After their scheduled visit the next day, Josh took her for lunch and ordered profiteroles.  Nothing else, just the pastries she’d craved nearly all her life.  After the first mouthful, Chana decided this was as close to heaven as she wanted to get.  Josh had a moderate amount, and picked at a side salad while he watched her.

After the first plateful, Chana discovered what people meant when they called the dish ‘rich.’  She pushed the second, half finished plateful away with a regretful sigh.  “If I have any more, I’ll be sick.”

He toasted her with his wineglass.  “You can have more later.”  He checked his watch.  “I said we’d be in the office sometime around two, and it’s one-fifteen now.  You want to go?”

He ordered coffee, evidently enjoying the ambience of the small, unpretentious restaurant she’d taken him to.  “It’s nice not to be mobbed everywhere.”

“Are you?”

He chuckled at her surprise.  “I’m a football star, Chana, playing for one of the top clubs in the Premiership.  I play for my country.  Yes, everywhere but here, I’m mobbed.  I love Manchester and my home in Alderley Edge, but I’m recognized all the time.”

“So how do you manage?”  She picked up her spoon and traced a pattern in the foam on her cappuccino.  “You said you were – older than twenty five.  What happens when you get old?”

“Ah.”  He glanced around, but no one sat at the tables near theirs.  The furtive look didn’t suit him, but she understood why he did it.  “We go on.  That’s why we need government help.  They don’t exactly know what they’re doing, but we can generate the paperwork.  I can look old, but I don’t exactly age.  I just move on.  Before this, I was my uncle.”  He grinned when she frowned at him.  “Josh Friedland was named after his uncle, who died age fifty of a heart attack.  I went to Manchester Grammar School and did my A levels, and then went into the club.  The rest was fabricated.  False papers, false memories, but not too many.  It’ll get both more difficult and easier.  Difficult because of the electronic records that exist, easier because we can put a flood of stuff into the system and people rarely notice.  See what I mean?”

“Yes.”  She eyed the half-finished plate of goodies regretfully before finishing her coffee.  “So how old are you?”

“Two hundred and fifty, give or take a year or two.”

Chana choked on her last mouthful of coffee.  Josh reached for her but she’d recovered by the time his alarm had escalated.  “You’re joking!”

“You did ask.  Don’t worry about it.  I don’t mind dating a younger woman.”

Reminded of her unease when she’d realized Josh was five years her junior, she had to smile.  “But you’ll always be younger than me as far as the press is concerned.”

His grin broadened.  “That just makes it sweeter.  Look, Chana, I really don’t want this to end any time soon, but if you want me to walk away after we’ve helped you and I’ve found Laurie, I’ll understand.”

“You don’t?”  The thought of him leaving her choked her more than the coffee had.  “I want it too.  I mean—“

He caught her hand in his.  “Don’t say any more.  Not yet.  Let’s get this mess sorted out first, okay?”

She stared into his eyes for a moment out of time, and then smiled.  “Okay.”

He paid the bill and they left.  Outside, where their car waited,  Josh tossed a tip to the boy, and helped her in.  The drive to the Department was short.  When they drove into the underground parking lot and found a space, she was driven to ask, “Are we going shopping?”

He laughed.  “You never look up?  Most of these shops have offices above them.  We’re going to the one above this store.”

The elevator had a panel, which Josh opened with a keycard, giving them access to the upper floors.  Even then, there were more checks, a standard security check, and then Chana felt an impersonal touch in her mind.  Before she slammed her barrier down, Josh touched her arm.  “Let them.  You won’t get in otherwise.”

The touch retreated, and they were allowed forward.  Laser barriers hummed into place after they’d passed through.

The office looked like a normal, open office, filled with standard cubicles.  Josh led her to an office at the end, and through to a small, private office where a woman with the most incredible hair she’d ever seen looked up from her computer and smiled.  “Go straight through,” she said, in a New York accent.  “They’re waiting for you.”

“Ah.  Have they been waiting long?”

“Nah.”

“I liked the pink hair best,” he murmured as they passed by her desk.

The woman smiled, not put out at all.  “I thought this was a nice green.  Leaf green they called it at the salon.”

Josh didn’t venture to comment further, but stepped back to let Chana go through the door first.

The double doors led to what looked like a standard boardroom, not as fancy as the ones George used, but reasonably well furnished with white table and chairs, and soft lighting.

A tall, middle-aged man came forward to greet them.  If she was any judge of clothes, and she was, he wore Armani.  Somehow, the cut of Armani was distinctively different from any other.  Discreet, charcoal gray, and completely immaculate.  The man looked as though he never sat down, the pants were so creaseless but a superb cut could do that.  He smiled, and it reached his eyes, which gleamed silver in welcome.  Skeffington smiled a lot, but she’d never seen him truly amused or smiling like that.  The man radiated charisma, but then, so did all the other people in the room, a subtle thrum under the calm exterior.

“Welcome, Miss Skeffington.”  His accent had a touch of Midwest, but nothing specific.  He sounded cultured and cosmopolitan.  Josh’s hand touched the middle of her back and she welcomed his steadying presence.  She couldn’t remember ever being this nervous, merely meeting people.  Knowing that deep down she was one of them didn’t seem to help in any way.

“I’m Cristos, and I run Department 57.  Josh says he told you why he came here, and what we’re trying to do.”

Chana forced a smile.  “Yes, he has.  I’m still having difficulty believing it all.”

“That’s just as well.  We go to great lengths to keep our activities secret.”  Cristos turned to the others.  “Please take a seat, and our colleagues will introduce themselves.”  Josh pulled back a chair for her and helped her to sit, an old-fashioned gesture no one here seemed to think unusual.  He took his seat next to her and reached for the water carafe and a couple of glasses.  While he poured them, the three people murmured their names and what they were.  A vampire, a Sorcerer and Svetlana, the other shapeshifter.  God.

The vampire was dark and brooding, just as she’d always imagined a vampire to be, but she hadn’t expected to see him in broad daylight.  One of the myths, she suspected.  The Sorcerer was fair-haired, wearing a good business suit, tall, with eyes she didn’t like to look into for too long.  Svetlana was as beautiful in daylight as she had been by night, but at least she wasn’t naked.  They welcomed her with nods and smiles, nothing fulsome, but all the same, Chana had the weird feeling that she was coming home.

They sat at the table, Josh next to her, sprawling back in his chair.  Cristos glanced at him.  “Josh?”

“I brought Chana here because I’ve read enough of her to know she’s no threat.  Whatever Skeffington is planning concerns her, too.”  He paused and glanced around at his colleagues.  “She’s a shifter, no more diabetic than I am.  Skeffington’s been giving her cephalox, not insulin.”

The short, brutal expletives showed what the people sitting at the table thought of this.

“We need to take you into hospital, Chana, to get you off the drug.”

She stared at Cristos, wide eyed.  “My stepfather is very protective.  He won’t let me go.  “

“We’ll find a way.”  Cristos reached for the water carafe and poured himself a glassful, his hands completely steady.  “We have our own endowments, too.  Most major hospitals have at least a couple of experts who can help when one of us gets hurt.  Can you imagine the fuss if a shapeshifter changes his form on the operating table?  That’s why cephalox was developed; for limited use when it might be dangerous for a shifter to change.  Nothing else.  But it’s an easy drug to produce, sadly, and our enemies know how to make it.”  He turned his glass, studying the play of light on the clear liquid, then he looked up.  “We just discovered the PHR has it.  We knew several scientists had it, but until recently, they didn’t know about its effects.  Now they do.”  He took a sip of the water and fascinated, Chana watched his beautifully manicured hands put the glass down, and retain it in a loose hold.  That hold would be difficult to break.  Much like Skeffington’s hold on her, insidious but all-encompassing.  “It seems they’ve known for a bit longer than we thought.  Luckily there doesn’t seem to be a mastermind controlling the scientists, no central organization that we’ve found, unlike the PHR.”

She frowned.  “What’s the PHR?”

“It stands for Perfect Human Race.  Purists, people who believe God only made humans in one form, and they are therefore the only ones with a right to live.  They organize themselves in cells, terrorist style.  We’re trying to get enough information to have them classified as terrorists, but in order to do that we have to come out into the open and reveal ourselves, if only to a few people.”

“But you’re CIA?”

He smiled bleakly.  “Yes, but as far as the Company is concerned, Department 57 is a research department, concerned with advanced communications equipment with a sideline investigating psychic ability.  They don’t know who works there, but it gives us access to things we would otherwise find it hard to reach.”

“I see.”  She was beginning to.  Josh and others of his kind needed access to official records when they ‘moved lives,’ moved up a generation.  They couldn’t stay hidden without some form of official help.  “Are there other departments like you?  In other countries?”

“Of course.  There always have been.”

“What about patriotism?  Aren’t there spies?”

“There are spies in every department, but no more than anyone else, any other national.  We’re just people, Chana, like anyone else.”

“What are you?  Vampire, Sorcerer, what?”

Silence fell, as though she’d transgressed.  Josh cleared his throat.  “Actually, Chana, you’re not supposed to ask that.  We volunteer what we are, or we don’t.”

“Sorry,” she mumbled.  Did she feel stupid now.

Although he didn’t make a move, she felt Josh in her mind, soothing and gentle.  “It doesn’t matter,” he said, his voice cool.  Then he took her hand in his.  It was as proprietorial a gesture as she’d ever received from Skeffington.  So why didn’t she mind when Josh did it?

Because he’d let her go.  If she asked him, he’d release her.

She looked up, at Cristos.  “Sorry,” she repeated, but firmer now.  “I didn’t know.”

The slight tensing of Cristos’s jaw relaxed.  “That’s all right.  It’s a convention we tend to take for granted.  Don’t worry about it.  You still belong here, as you didn’t in your stepfather’s world.”

How did he know that?  How did he know what it felt like to be someone apart, different without any way of discovering how or what those differences were?”

“We think your stepfather started you on the cephalox as soon as it became apparent what you were.  He’s probably locked away the memory of your first shapeshift, perhaps when he induced the attack that gave you the diagnosis of diabetes.”

“I was in a coma for a day and took some time to recover.  I don’t really remember a lot about that time.”

Cristos frowned.  “Yes.  It would have been then.  So we have to conclude that your stepfather knows about your condition.  If one of our doctors had come into contact with you, he would have told us about you.  Even if you hadn’t wanted to become part of the community, we would have kept an eye on you.  Not everybody chooses to live with others of their kind, but our duty is to all of them, not just the ones who want to play nice.”  He took another sip of water he watched her, but glanced at Svetlana.  “Svetlana is a shifter but came to us from an orphanage in Russia.  We haven’t been able to find her parents, but we suspect they are choosing to live apart from our society.”

Chana wasn’t sure if that was a blessing or a curse.  It depended on the parents, she supposed.  Svetlana seemed to have thrived on it, except, perhaps for the air of melancholy she detected in her now.

After a sympathetic glance at Svetlana, Cristos carried turned his attention back to Chana.  “So your stepfather knows about you, and he has medical staff who play along with him.  The question is, why?”

“I thought it might be to find a cure for Chana’s diabetes, but she doesn’t have diabetes,” Josh put in.  His thumb stroked her palm.  Distracting, but not unwelcome.

“So did I, but the cephalox puts a new twist on things.”  Cristos turned his attention back to Chana.  “At first I thought you must know, but you allowed Josh to read you.  You didn’t know any more than we did.  Less, in fact.  Your stepfather didn’t want you to know that you’re a shapeshifter.  He evidently knows it, but you didn’t.  I can’t really understand it.”

“I can.”  Svetlana took a deep breath and let it out on a sigh.  Next to her, Andreas Constant, the vampire, took an appreciative glance at what that did to her breasts, easily discernable under her T-shirt.  His lids flicked up and when he caught Chana watching him, he gave her a devilish smile.  She wasn’t sure she liked Andreas Constant. 

Svetlana, seemingly unaware of the exchange, took the floor.  “I’ve spent a day with him, read what I could of him.  In fact, I have to get back soon, so I wish to report my few discoveries before I do.  George is showing me his home office.  He wants me to meet some of his colleagues.  I get the feeling I’m being lined up as a possible candidate for the position of the next Mrs. Skeffington.”  She smiled at Chana.  “One I’m not tempted to take.”  Her gaze went to Andreas, and with that sharp stare, Chana realized Svetlana hadn’t missed a thing.  “If you want to see more, Andreas, feel free to come to one of the Paris catwalk shows.  I spend most of that week artistically nude.”

Constant lifted a dark eyebrow.  “I might just do that.”

Svetlana shrugged and turned back to Cristos.  “George Skeffington is one of the most selfish men I’ve ever met.  His conversation always returns to him, and he relates everything in his life to himself.  His children are completely under his thumb and he speaks about them as possessions, rather than people in their own right.  If Chana had tried to escape him, he would have brought her back, not because he loves her or needs her for anything in particular, but because he thinks he owns her.”  She gave Chana a grimace of apology.  “Sorry.”

“You’re right,” Chana returned without a qualm.  “I married straight out of college, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that I’d married one of George’s patsies.  He gave Steven everything he wanted, status, a seat on the Board, a trophy wife – that was me – and Steven did what he was told.  So I divorced him.  George didn’t complain, he’d done all he could for Steven, and he hadn’t come through.”  She sighed.  “If he’d let Steven continue in his corporate career, climb the ladder at his own pace he would have made a good manager, but being thrown up to the top of the pool put him completely out of his depth.  I went to San Francisco afterwards, spent some time on my own and decided I wanted to join the police force.  George let me go through the training before he jerked my chain and pulled me back.”

“Why did you go back?”  Svetlana asked.

Chana gave her a wry smile.  “I had no choice.  He has a lot of connections.  World wide.  Senators, politicians, business.  Whatever I do, he has influence, and he can pull me back.  The only way I’ll get free is with a little money behind me, and all mine was gone.  He made sure of that.  My mother didn’t have much to leave me, and George kept me on a small allowance.  So I signed a contract to be his hostess for a year, at an exorbitant salary.  I planned to go after that.  This time I made him agree to it in writing, so  perhaps this time, he’ll let me go.  When Josh arrived I thought he was another of George’s ploys, meant to keep me at home.”  She gave Josh’s hand a squeeze.  “He wasn’t.”

“So I’m your way out?”

Under Josh’s flippant tone, Chana detected a harder note.  “No.  I’d planned to get out all on my own.”  She kept her tone as light as his, but wouldn’t let go of his hand.  She didn’t look at him.  His concerns would have to wait, but she’d do her best to dispel them later.

“Kanchana, we need to open those blocks in your mind.”  Something in Cristos’s voice made her pause, and concentrate.  His words sounded ominous.

“Will it hurt?”

“It might, but not much.  What it will do is release a flood of memories you didn’t realize you had.  I don’t know how many memories, or what it will do to you.  Do you understand?”

“Can Josh do it?”  If anyone had to be that intimate with her, she wanted it to be him.

Chana looked at Josh and saw the regret in his bright eyes.  “I can’t do it without hurting you, and I can’t be sure I’ll get everything.  The power of my mind is mainly in the communication area, in telepathy.  You need an expert.”  He released her hand, and she felt the loss of his touch.  He leaned back.  If she reached for him now, she’d look needy and she hated how needy she was already.  She’d never been so out of her depth, so determined to put a brave face on things.  Only Josh should see her panic and her fear.  To give anyone else that opportunity would be to give them power over her.

When she looked away, she saw Cristos watching her.  His expression seemed impassive, but she sensed an understanding that had nothing to do with telepathy and everything to do with his body language.  He wasn’t afraid to show his sympathy for her plight.  “I think someone’s made a mess of it, and it will take an expert to undo the damage.  Someone like Fabrice.”

With a slight shock, she turned to the blond man, who up till now had said nothing after his initial greeting.

Fabrice was a dark blond, and, like Cristos, dressed in an immaculate business suit.  But she could easily discern his powerful frame under the thin linen, and for all his seeming ease, he sprawled in the chair like an athlete, ready to spring off the blocks and down the track.  When he turned his gaze directly on to her she gasped.  Fabrice Germain had laser beam eyes.  He had to wear contacts, eyes just didn’t come that blue. 

When he spoke, his voice was surprisingly gentle.  “I’ve done this before.  People mess up their minds, or have them messed up for them.  I treat everyone with the sanctity of the confessional.  If you don’t want anyone to know, they won’t.  I swear it.”

“Even if it affects this case?”  She had to know.  He’d just made her a solemn oath, but she didn’t know him at all.  His mind was closed, but not with any heavy barrier.  When she’d tried to probe it, it gave, but bounced gently back when she released him, knowing there was no way through.

“Yes.  It’s your call, not mine.”  He flashed a smile, perfect white teeth in a perfect mouth.  Too good to be true, she thought.  “Tell you what.  You show me yours and I’ll show you mine.  You’ll know as much about me as I know about you.”

She had no choice.  Josh couldn’t do it, and Cristos seemed to know everything about everybody.  Chana had an inbuilt sensor for power, honed by years of Skeffington’s training, and Cristos had it in spades.  She also had a mistrust of power, also honed by Skeffington, and she didn’t want to give him even more control over this situation.

She let out the breath she hadn’t been aware of holding.  “Okay.  Do we do it here?”

“If you don’t mind.  I can shield us completely, nobody else will be involved in this.”  God, that French accent was one hell of a turn-on.  Or would be, if she wasn’t completely obsessed by Josh.

She felt his presence like a living shield, holding her safe, caring for her.  “Yes, we’ll stay here.”

“Good.”

Fabrice leaned forward from his seat on the other side of her to Josh and lifted his long fingers, touching her temples with the very tips.  She expected to feel a tingle, or something stronger, but all she felt was Josh leaving her mind.

She hadn’t been aware he’d been there.  The thought worried her.  So did the fact that she felt lonely when he left.  Not good, when she wanted independence and a life of her own.

Now she felt a tingle.  She stared into those laser eyes, and he stared back, but they were empty.  Fabrice was elsewhere.

He filled her with warmth, reassuring and gentle, so when the sudden pain lanced right through her head she jerked back, startled into reaction.

I’m sorry.  This is some mess.  Brace yourself, I might have to do that a few more times.

Even his telepathic voice had that sexy French accent.  Did he have to work at it?

Something inside her lightened, as though he laughed.  No, I’m part French and I’ve been working in Canada.  It’s natural.

Another white-hot pain, sharp, clean and accurate, but she’d braced herself for it, and she showed no outer reaction.  It didn’t hurt as much this time.

Four more.  Relax, all the doors are open now.  Let me look.  Look into my mind.  Everything is open for you.

She blinked and looked.  This was one damaged man.  Fabrice was a Sorcerer, forever alone.  To keep his formidable powers he couldn’t have sex, and so he couldn’t afford to love.  At least he had the standard threescore years and ten.  He wouldn’t have to put up with this forever.

Fabrice was a passionate man who forced himself to walk away from the temptation of women.  More than once, he’d tried to hurt himself, so that women wouldn’t look at him with desire, but he’d failed.  Self-mutilation wasn’t in his make-up, so he’d resorted to putting himself in danger, hoping somehow his beauty would be spoiled.  He seemed to be charmed.  Nothing had worked.

That was one powerful secret to give her.  In return, he was reading everything she was.  Not even Josh had got that close to her.  In opening her mind up, he had to see her greatest fears, her shameful secrets.

Fabrice withdrew, and lifted his hands away from her.  “Thank you,” he said quietly.  “Now we know the worst about each other.”

“Or the best,” she said.

“Lean back, close your eyes and concentrate.  Let the memories come back and become a part of you.”

She did as he bade her and the first face she saw when she closed her eyes was her mother’s.  A precious memory, a beloved face.  “I love you.”  The first person to say that to her.  Come to think of it, the only person to say it to her.

Some scattered childhood memories, which might just have given her a clue that she wasn’t normal.  She scanned through them – she’d explore them properly later.

Then her first, and so far only, shapeshifting.

She lifted her eyelids and reached for Josh.  Immediately he was there for her, taking her hand in a gentle clasp.  “You’d better all see this.  I’ve reached my first change.  Please, you may read me.”

How did she know how to say that?  How did she learn how to close all but that one memory off?

Her mother, that’s how.  Her mother had taught her.

She felt their presences in her head, and although it should feel strange, it didn’t.  She’d done this before, been here before.

She was thirteen years old, with her mother and stepfather.  George had his arm around her mother, and Chana was dressed only in a loose, toweling robe.  A full moon rode outside the window, and from the view she knew she was in Skeffington’s office.  She felt the change begin, a tingling warmth filling her legs.  Drawing the robe aside, she watched as fur began to sprout.  She wasn’t afraid.  Her mother had prepared her for this, so she knew what to expect.

When the fur covered her legs and reached up to her waist, she undid the sash of the robe and shrugged it off.

The transformation didn’t hurt.  It felt strange, but it didn’t hurt.  When her spine weakened, she let herself fall forward, and felt her beak form, and her skull change shape, pushing her eyes on either side of her head.

The world looked very different from the point of view of this creature.

“She’s a griffin,” Josh breathed.

Chapter Ten

 

Chana opened her eyes.  The first person she saw was Cristos, gazing at her with compassion filling his silver gaze.  “That’s the key.”

Cristos’s lips flattened in distaste.  “He connected with your mother, Chana.  She must have told him what she was, and the advantages of her condition.  There’s a reason telling outsiders is banned, and I can confirm she never asked permission of any Guardian to tell George Skeffington.  But you saw him, Chana, he was there at your first shift.  He started with griffins, and he wanted more for his research.”

“That’s why he wanted the football club.  He didn’t want the club, he wanted Laurie and me.”  Josh was right.  It was because of her that Josh’s brother had disappeared, taken by George Skeffington.  He needed griffins, and they were griffins.

“Buying himself two real live griffins.  You can’t go back to that house, Josh.  It’s too dangerous.”  That from Svetlana.

“If Chana goes back, so do I.  And I won’t stand back while you find Laurie.  I can’t stop looking for him, with or without the Department.”

“I know that.”  Cristos leaned back in his chair.  “We have an advantage now.  George doesn’t know we’ve released the blocks in Kanchana’s mind.”  He smiled.  “Thank you, Fabrice.”

“Consider it my privilege.”  Fabrice pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose, as though weary from the effort.  “I can confirm Josh’s conclusions.  Chana is entirely innocent of Skeffington’s plotting.  And she’s a shapeshifter, a griffin.”

“I didn’t need you to tell me that,” Josh growled.  He was jealous, jealous of the close connection she now had with the Sorcerer.

Warmth filled her at the thought.  To be wanted.  That was all she’d ever asked, and now somebody did.  With her world turning upside down around her, Chana realized she needed time.  Time to reassess her new self, time to decide what she wanted and what she could do about her life.

“There are other consequences to all this,” Cristos said.  “We need to find out who Chana’s mother was, where she came from, why we didn’t know about her.”

“Who she is,” Andreas said.  His deep voice rumbled through her consciousness.  Is?

“She died,” Chana felt obliged to say.

In her confusion she turned to the one person she thought she could trust.  Fabrice.  Although she felt Josh’s shock, she knew Fabrice would tell her the truth, without too much emotion and she didn’t think she could cope with more emotion right now.  “Your mother was supposed to have died of pneumonia,” he said softly.  “If she was a shifter that means that either she was prevented when she tried to shift, and died, or she lived through the illness.  Or she never had pneumonia at all.”

“She could be alive?”  This time she turned to Josh, and she felt his relief as though it were her own.  Had her senses increased when Fabrice released her mental blocks?  She certainly felt everyone’s emotions clearer, and when Cristos poured himself another glass of water, she heard every drop fall into the glass.

“It’s possible she’s alive,” Josh admitted, searching her face anxiously.  “You need to rest.”  He stood up, pulling her to her feet.  “She’s had enough.  You’ve found what you were looking for, the clue that links the football club to George Skeffington.  When you’ve decided what to do about it, contact us.  I’m booking us into a hotel for the night.”

“It’s still the afternoon,” she pointed out, smiling.

“You’ll sleep,” he promised.

*****

Chana let Josh drive her, smiling when his exclamations reached her ears.  “Wow, do you know I’ve never been to San Francisco in the modern era?  This is amazing.  I thought the streetcars were only there for the tourists, but everyone seems to use them.  I love it here.”

“If it weren’t for the tourists they might have put something a bit more efficient but less picturesque in their place years ago,” she felt obliged to explain.

He greeted each sight with such enthusiasm she’d wished she had time to explore the city anew with him.  She was so familiar with it, that she’d almost stopped looking.  With most of the other residents, she avoided the heaviest tourist spots, but she had to admit that might be a mistake.  People wanted to see the bridge for a reason.  It was beautiful, glinting in the early spring light, a testament to the persistence and vision of mankind.  “It must be hard to be a vampire and never be able to go out in the sun,” she remarked.

Josh laughed.  “No, that’s another legend.  Vampires love all the stories and spread them around.  As well as keeping the heat off them, it adds to their mystique, and nobody loves mystique more than your average vampire.”

“What is true?”

“They are sensitive to the sun, but they can go out in it, if they’re careful.  They can eat and drink.  They need blood, fresh blood, every day if they can get it, but the older ones can go longer between feeds.  Not much blood, but some.”

“Do they die if they don’t get it?”

“They go into a kind of coma.  It takes a lot of effort to get them out again, and some never do come out.  The lab, wherever it is, must be experimenting with them, too.  The Department found some dumped vampire bodies, almost like a challenge.  They’d been starved of blood and then experimented on, poor bastards.  The vampires’ families are after revenge.  Vamps are big on revenge.  If they find this facility before we do, there won’t be much left by the time we get there.”

“Will they hurt your brother?”

He consulted the Sat Nav and took a left.  “Unlikely.”

“So why do you care?”

“Because we want to investigate the place.  Discover if there are any more, so we can shut down more than this one.  Make sure we get all the perps, so they can’t escape and set up again elsewhere.  In a killing rage, the vamps will reduce everything to ashes.”

“I thought all you cared about was getting Laurie back.”

He glanced at her before taking a right.  “That’s my main concern, but not the only one.  I want Laurie back, I want to make sure these bastards don’t do this to anyone else, and I want to make sure you’re safe.”

He drew up outside a tall building.  They couldn’t go to her apartment now.  They didn’t know what might be waiting there for them.  The hotel that Cristos had recommended was perfect for their needs.  Expensive and discreet, not one of the hotels guests on the ‘A’ list would flock to on awards night, but one they might use when they didn’t want to advertise their presence.  Chana had recognized the name as soon as he’d said it, and approved of the choice.

They left the car to the valet and let the bellboy deal with and their luggage, such as it was, following him upstairs to a suite on the first floor.

When the boy had gone, Chana went to the window, only to be yanked back.  “Nobody can see in through the drapes.”

“Yes they can.  You’re still thinking in hominid terms.”  When he found the control panel and closed the curtains, she didn’t protest.  The bed looked very inviting, but although her body was weary, her mind raced ahead.  She couldn’t sleep, not yet.

Josh came up behind her and slipped his arms around her waist.  “You’re a griffin,” he murmured, his breath hot in her ear.

“Yes.  I seem to be, don’t I?”

“You know what that means?”

“That I’m like you?”

“Yes, you are.  And it means that I could have made you pregnant.  Why does that turn me on so much?”

The thought sent a chill of recognition through her.  Damn, he could.  If they’d made a child, she’d have to let him care for her, and she knew him well enough to know he’d want to.  Josh’s sense of responsibility was acute, and he wouldn’t allow a child of his to grow up without a father.  Then she’d never know if he wanted her for himself, or for the baby.

“Do you think I’m pregnant?”

He hesitated.  “No.  We don’t reproduce very easily and shapeshifter women become sterile after their second child.  I suppose it’s related to living a long life.  Otherwise we’d overrun the world with shifters.”

The gentle pressure on her waist encouraged her to turn into his arms.  “What’s wrong Chana?  There’s something you’re not telling me.  I won’t intrude on your private thoughts, but I’d like to know.”

She might have known he would guess.  She couldn’t hide anything from him, any more.  “Josh, I only had one year when I was myself, dependent on myself alone.”  She lifted her chin and met his eyes.  They glowed with desire, and maybe something else.  “I liked it.  No, I loved it.  I can’t leave one man’s protection only to throw myself into the arms of someone else.”

“No.”  She could almost see his thoughts.  He understood, but he was torn.  “So what do you want to do when we’re clear of all this?”

“I don’t know.  If my mother is alive—“ she broke off for a moment, filled with wonder.  If her mother was alive, there was a chance of a new life, one for herself.  “If she’s alive I’d like some time to get to know her.  Spend some time with her.”

He leaned forward until his forehead touched hers.  “Yes.  I see.  You know I – want you.  But perhaps you do need some time on your own.  Will you let me come and see you?”

“You can’t want to hang on for me.  I don’t know how I’ll feel, how I’ll be when I’m back in control.  Hell, I don’t know!”

He closed his eyes.  “I know I’m falling in love with you.”

Doubt filled her mind.  As Skeffington’s hostess, she’d done her research.  She knew how many women Josh had dated, how fast he tired of them.

He knew.  She didn’t have to say anything.  “Just don’t push me away, okay?  If you want more time, I’ll work hard to give it to you, but I don’t want to let you go.”

He was trying to lighten the situation for her, make it easier for her to do what she wanted.  Her heart burst.  Josh’s feelings weren’t one way.  “No, I won’t do that.”  So much to assimilate!  But first things first.  “I want more chocolate.”

He broke into a laugh, lifting up and holding her tight.  “Well that just about confirms it.  Chocolate!  I’ll call room service.”

In the shower, she stood under the hot stream of water, just thinking.  Having her world turned upside down took some getting used to.  She wasn’t diabetic.  She wasn’t human, at least not as she understood it.

How could Skeffington have hidden all that from her?  Why did he want to?

She knew, she just knew.  The conclusion led to a place she didn’t want to go, not yet.  She’d always thought Skeffington had put her through school, kept in touch after her parents’ brief marriage out of care for her.  Now, it seemed, that might not be the case.

After her shower, she checked the time and out of habit, opened her dressing box and took out the case holding her insulin pen and cartridges.  After loading the pen, she held it to her arm.  And put it down on the vanity.

What was she doing?  This wasn’t insulin, she didn’t need it.  This stuff was stopping her becoming what she should be.  She didn’t have to take it any longer.

Wrapping a toweling robe around her, she went back into the other room to the sweet, delicious smell of chocolate.

Josh had taken her at her word, and the cart delivered while she was showering held all the chocolate off the menu.  Hot chocolate to drink, chocolate tart, Death By Chocolate, sundae dishes holding a mouthwatering concoction of dark, white and milk chocolate.  He watched her take it all in and then murmured, “The ice cream is in the fridge.  Tuck in, sweetheart, while I take a shower.”

He lingered to watch her take her first mouthful.  She started on the bar of Belgian milk chocolate.  “Going for the neat stuff, eh?”

She smiled at him around the gorgeously sweet, rich taste, the chocolate filling her mouth with sensation.  She’d had the diabetic equivalent, tasted low calorie chocolate a time or two, but she hadn’t had this since childhood.  He watched her, frankly enjoying her pleasure before he winked and went into the bathroom.

When he came out again, ten minutes later, she was still eating.  She’d had a taste of everything and settled on the dishes she liked best.  “Why did you order all these?  I can’t possibly eat them all.  I’ll be sick.”

“Then be sick.”  He wore only a towel around his waist and he looked as delicious as the chocolate.  “Make room for more.”

“Ugh!”  She laughed, anyway.  “Chocolate isn’t the only thing I want.”  She reached for him across the small table and without hesitation, he took her hand, and laced their fingers together.

“Glad to hear it.  I’ll be here as long as you want me.  Longer.”

His gaze left her in no doubt that he meant every word.  She tried to lighten the feeling that frightened her, the feeling of linkage, as though they’d never be apart again.  “Will you stalk me then?”  She gave him a wicked smile, to show she didn’t really mean it.

He smiled, an intimate, warm caress she felt as though he’d touched her.  “No, not against your will.  But whatever happens I’ll want to know that you’re well and happy.  I want you, I know it but you have to know it too.”

“Yes.”  How had she gotten so lucky?  He loved her enough to let her go, if she needed to.  She hoped she didn’t, but she wasn’t sure of anything.  Too much shifting sand under her feet.  “All my life people have acted in my best interests, tried to do what they thought was best for me.  I want to do it for myself.”

He released her hand, but she didn’t return to eating.  Instead, she reached for a bottle of chocolate sauce and got to her feet.  “I always wanted to do this, as well.”

She walked around to his side of the table and got to her knees, reaching for the towel at his waist.

When he realized what she was about to do, he groaned.  “Go ahead.  Don’t mind me.”

She glanced up at him to find his eyes hot with need.  When she drew the towel aside he was already erect, straining towards her, the head richly colored.  She lifted the bottle and uncapped it before she turned it upside down and squeezed a thin stream on to his penis.

He gasped, although the sauce wasn’t particularly cold.  She took her time, trailing streams around the sides, lifting his balls gently so she could decorate them, too.  She finished with a swirl at the top, which was already damp.  As was she.  She licked her lips slowly, and gloried in the soft, low sounds he couldn’t prevent escaping.

When she bent to him, she took her time, and extended her tongue, licking at a trail about half way down his length.

She started at his balls, taking them into her mouth, swirling her tongue around them and making sure they were perfectly clean before she moved on.  She even sat back on her heels to admire her handiwork, aware of his tension, the way his muscles and tendons stood out tautly.  When the belt at her waist loosened, she let it, giving him more of a show, but not allowing her robe to completely open.

She bent again, and lost herself in the texture of him, the warmth, sweetened by trails of chocolate.  He groaned.  “Oh God, this is something else!”

She was careful to follow the trails just as she’d traced them, running her tongue over the lines repeatedly, until every scrap was gone, before moving on to the next bit.  She leaned on his thighs, feeling the powerful muscles tense.  Then she opened her mouth, hovering above the tip.

He came to meet her.  She’d wanted to see what happened at the height of his arousal; now she did.  He grew, swelling and lengthening even more, until the head entered her mouth, and she closed her lips around him and sucked.

Blissful, she lost herself in pure sensation, curling her tongue around him, closing her eyes to concentrate everything in this moment out of time.  She’d never really enjoyed giving head before, but this was different.  This was Josh.

He tasted wonderful, a tart note through the mouth-filling chocolate, enhanced and essential to her pleasure.  She felt him in her mind, caressing her with soft sounds, echoed by the low notes in his throat.  He trusted her with his mind, his heart, his masculinity the vital parts of him and she took them and stroked them.

With a shout, he gripped her shoulders as though to drag her away, but she refused to leave him until the end, licking and sucking until he couldn’t hold back any longer.

Warmth flooded her mouth and she took it, all of it, and took her time afterwards, cleaning him, kissing and gently licking his length.

Leaning back, she looked up.

He opened his eyes, and the blaze in them almost made her start in surprise.  She’d seen him filled with desire, she’d seen him in unguarded moments, but never so intense, never so – so filled with passion.

Without speaking, he got to his feet and held out his hand to help her up.  Wordlessly, she stood.  He led her to the bed as though she were a queen and drew back the covers for her, before walking around to join her and take her into his arms.  She went as though she belonged there, curling her leg over his, resting her head on his shoulder.

Only then did he speak.  “You don’t think I’m going to let you go without a fight, do you?”

“I won’t let you stop me,” she warned him, though she hadn’t yet made up her mind.

“Then I’ll just have to do my best to persuade you, won’t I?”  He lifted himself up on one elbow, smiling at her.  “That was amazing, past anything I’ve ever felt before.”

She lifted her hand and touched his cheek, stroking the light fuzz of a day’s beard growth.  “In two hundred years?”

“That couldn’t be bettered in two thousand.”  He took the tip of her finger into his mouth, nipping it then sucking gently.  He let her draw it back out.  “I can’t imagine what it would be like if we joined minds.”

That was what she had unconsciously missed!  She realized almost at the same time he said it.  “Why didn’t you?  I’m open to you.”

“Not tonight.”  He bent and kissed her gently on the mouth.  “This is the second night of the full moon, and I’ll have to shift form.  I don’t want you to come into contact with the compulsion to change, not yet.  It’s too soon.”

“Could I change?”  What could it be like?  Her early memories, which Fabrice had restored for her, told her it didn’t hurt, but she had no sharp memories, it was all too hazy for her to really identify with.

“Not while you’re on the cephalox.  We have to get you off that stuff, darling.  In the long run it could damage you.”

Now was a good time to ask.  She’d wanted to know, but she didn’t want to reveal her fears about taking a drug she’d never heard of before, a drug that sounded dangerously experimental to her.  “Has it already damaged me?”

He frowned and avoided her gaze, taking an interest in her collarbone instead.

“Josh, I want to know.  I need to know.”

He flicked his gaze back up to her and she saw the trouble clouding them.  “To be honest, I don’t know.  I don’t think so.  If it hasn’t harmed you so far, it’s unlikely to have done any long term damage.  I’m praying so, anyway.”

“I don’t want to take it any more.”

“It’s addictive.  You should come off it gradually.”

She didn’t tell him she’d already missed a dose.  Although she didn’t want to touch it ever again, she saw the sense in what he was saying, but decided to consult a doctor.  Besides, she wanted to know how it felt not to take the drug.  And she wanted to be her true self, whatever that was.  “Can I see a doctor?”

“I think you should.  There’s a special unit for shifters in the general hospital here, and another in a private facility nearby.  We can consult one tomorrow, if you like, and see what you have to do to kick this thing.”

She bit her lip.  “How could my stepfather have made me an addict?”  Trouble changed to distress and she fought to hide her full reaction from him.  George hadn’t cared for her; he’d wanted the secret of her shapeshifting talent.  That was the only reason he’d kept her close all those years.

Even if he refused telepathy, he was empathetic.  He couldn’t hide the way he felt from her.  “I don’t know.  God knows, I can’t understand it!”  Sparks of anger glimmered low in his golden eyes.  “I could kill him for that alone.”

“I’ve given the name of our family doctor to Cristos, and the hospital where I was assessed and I go for my checkups.”

“They’ll investigate before they close them down.  With any luck, the lab where they’re holding Laurie and probably some others is at the hospital, and we find them soon.”  He bent and kissed her again, as though he couldn’t help it.  “I have to shift form tonight, love, but I won’t linger.  I’ll change back.  I don’t want to be out of your sight any longer than necessary.”

“I’m in no danger.  My stepfather doesn’t know what we’ve found out.  If we don’t go back tomorrow he’ll look for us, but for tonight we’re okay.”

He smiled and heat curled low in her body.  “I know.  Let’s celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?”

“Your newfound knowledge, for one thing.  You can start to be what you were always meant to be.  I can’t wait to see you, what you look like.  But there’s something else.”  She quirked a brow.  “My love for you.  For tonight, ignore your doubts.  Just accept.  I won’t hold you against your will, but I’ll do everything I can to persuade you to stay.”  He kissed her forehead.  “Starting now.”

He began by kissing her on the lips, easing her mouth open with the tip of his tongue, then taking possession.  Deep, slow, penetrating kisses as though they had all the time in the world, and no worries.  Almost like a wedding night.

She pushed that thought aside.  She didn’t even know if shapeshifters went in for lifetime commitments.  After all, they lived a very long time.

He punctuated his slow progress down her body with licks and kisses.  He lingered a long time at her breasts, kissing around each nipple before teasing them with his tongue tip and taking them into his mouth, sucking deeply until she moaned aloud.  His mouth still at her breasts, he reached out his hand to curve between her legs, slicking a finger into her warmth, then two.  He teased her, avoiding her clit, circling it, until he kissed down to her navel, and the soft spot just inside her hip, lingering to caress and kiss her.  “Please, Josh, please!”

He lifted just enough to talk to her.  “What?  What do you want me to do?  Tell me, sweetheart.”

He wanted to hear it.  She’d never done that before, never asked.  She’d do it for him.  Hell, she’d beg if he wanted her to.  “I want you to do me, Josh.  I want you to suck my clit, lick me until I come and then ride me hard.”

Without warning, he lifted up and covered the last few inches without pausing, swooping down on her like some bird of prey.  “Oh!”

Within the space of a minute had her nearly incoherent, forcing herself to hold still, not to move away from his deep, sucks and long licks.  He licked her back to front several times, like she was a popsicle in his favorite flavor, making appreciative sounds before sucking her clit right in and holding it gently in his mouth with his teeth.  He teased, sucked, licked, used his tongue to make her explode in the space of a minute.  It usually took her much longer than that.

But he didn’t stop.  Now she was ultra-sensitive from her orgasm, he gave her no quarter.  When she tried to writhe away, he pressed his hands to her hips, holding her in place, allowing the torture to turn back into exquisite sensation, heat building and building inside her until she screamed her release.

Once more, once more, he brought her up until she was mindless, sensation coursing through her, then he stopped to taste, to lick up her juices and make sweet, delicious sounds.

He hadn’t even entered her, with his tongue or his fingers, but he did now, slipping two fingers inside while he brought himself back up the bed to share her taste.  “You,” he murmured, his mouth close to hers, “Are delicious.  I can promise I’ll never get enough of that.  I trust madam is ready to receive me now?”

She gasped and he kissed her, his tongue penetrating as he moved over her body to lift over hers and push inside her.

Her head went back, but he followed her, pressing a deep kiss to her lips before lifting up to drive hard into her wet, welcoming body.  He kept his eyes open, showing her the fierce passion he felt, the need to take her.

She felt the same and like him, she held nothing back, arching her body off the bed in her eagerness to meet him, gasping in release.

He curved an arm around her waist and lifted her, letting her shift her legs so she could kneel.  His body still deep in hers, he thrust deeper and supported her when she lost control.  She dropped her head to his shoulder, hearing his soft murmur.  “Let it go, love, let it all go.  I’ll love you so much, you’ll get addicted to me instead of the cephalox, you won’t leave me.  Ever.”

“I won’t.”  Her breath came back to her, reflected off his muscular shoulder.  “Tonight is for always.  We’ll always have this.”

“Pity it’s not Paris,” he said, drawing out a chuckle from her with the Casablanca reference.  It should have felt odd, to laugh in the middle of passion, but with Josh, it only enhanced her desire for him.

He was so deep inside her, she felt the throb when he responded to her movements, and he gasped, holding his breath.  She waited, knowing he was holding back his orgasm, wanting this to go on longer.

He opened his eyes.  “I’m okay now,” he whispered, and started to push again.  His hands on her bottom urged her closer, ever closer and she gripped his back and responded.

Kneeling, their movements were more restricted, but he took the time to watch her, to love her.  Gently now, he moved deeply inside her, pushing  until she gasped in response as he caressed her sweet spot.  His eyes lightened with comprehension.  “There?”  he murmured, moving again.  “Oh yeah.  There.”

Instead of thrusting, he revolved inside her, wreathing her with sensation that became ever more tantalizing, closer and closer until she thought she would never come.

But she did.  An exquisite burst, not fireworks but warmth glowing into heat.  The unhurried pace meant she could experience it all, the slow burn, the fire she never wanted extinguished.

It left her limp and completely sated, but he was still hard inside her, moving gently in the aftermath.  She lifted her head and opened her eyes.

If his passion had been fierce before, it was intense now.  Deeper and stronger.  He began to withdraw.

“No!”  She gripped his waist so he couldn’t go.

He lifted one hand to stroke her cheek and give her a soft kiss.  “It doesn’t matter.  I honestly don’t care if I come or not.  And I might do something stupid if I do.  It’s best I don’t lose complete control, sweetheart.”

“Why?  What will you do?”

He smiled.  “If I’m right, I might partially transform.”

“What?”

He took her hand and moved it down his thigh.  She yelped and pulled it back, tilting her head to see.

On his thigh glowed a mark, like a tattoo done in burning fire.  A small creature, a – “It’s a griffin!”

The lines ridged his skin.  She didn’t remember seeing it before.

“It happens when a shapeshifter meets a woman, a hominid, he can convert.  It also happens when a shapeshifter falls in love and begins to bond.  I’ve never seen it before I met you, I was beginning to think it was a myth, but it’s not.”

“Does it hurt?”

“It burns a bit, but not much.”

“I like it.”

He smiled.  “So do I.  But it means there are other dangers.  The full moon is on us.  That means I’m close to changing.  The way I feel about you, it makes it more likely.  I can control it, but not completely.  I don’t want to scare you, love.  You’ve had enough for one day.  Let me care for you, love you, and after I’ve shifted I’ll come back and make love to you all the way.”

She didn’t want that.  This was the most perfect lovemaking had ever been for her, and she wanted the experience complete.  For both of them.  “I won’t be scared, I promise.  Love me, Josh.  Let’s see what happens.”

He looked at her, and she felt the brief touch of his mind in hers, but he didn’t stay.  “I needed to be sure,” he whispered, and he began to move again.

She heard a rustle, but she kept her gaze on him, her arms clasping him loosely, so she felt the movement at his back, a gentle accommodation of his muscles.  The light in the room changed, but she didn’t look away, all her concentration on his loving, gentle movements, she leaned her head on his shoulder, intending to kiss his neck but halted.

“Your wings.  They’re your wings!”

Glowing deep gold, his wings stretched either side of his body, curving towards her.  With a rustle, they settled around her, the feathers touching her gently, stroking her back in whisper soft caresses.

“My wings.  I didn’t know what would happen, but it’s perfect.  I want to fly with you.  When you make your first shift, I want to take you up for your first flight.”

“It’s yours.  I promise.”

Enclosed by soft wings he thrust hard inside her and came.  She felt the heat, the flexing of muscle, and she softened, coming with him, spiraling together into the heavens.

There was nothing else, nowhere else she wanted to be and she let him support her back down to the bed.  The only thing that would disturb her now would be if he left her.

He didn’t.

Chapter Eleven

 

Josh yawned and stretched, watching the woman peacefully slumbering by his side.  This was better than anything he’d dreamed of.  Not only the first woman he’d loved with this kind of passion, but another griffin.  Almost as if it had been pre-ordained.  He smiled at his fancy.  Her stepfather had deliberately hunted him down, just because he was a shapeshifter, the same as his daughter.  In doing so, he’d introduced Josh to the woman he fell irrevocably in love with.

Light filtered through the heavy drapes at the windows, and when he glanced at the clock, the digits told him it was eight o’clock.  He pressed a kiss to Chana’s shoulder but she hardly moved.  He grinned.  He’d shower and call room service for breakfast.  He’d tired her out last night.  The last time had been just before dawn, just after he’d retreated into the bathroom to shift and then change back again, when he’d loved her gently and slowly.

He’d have to look after her better.  Starting with a good breakfast.

Before he picked up the phone, he decided to take a quick shower.  She might wake up and decide to join him, and if she did, it wouldn’t be entirely his fault if they ended up making love again and by that time their food would be cold.  Breakfast was better hot.

He showered, enjoying the cascade of hot water over his skin, a sense of well being suffusing his whole body.  It was going to be all right.  He loved her–she loved him.  They’d take it a day at a time.  Once she was off the cephalox, he’d take her somewhere hot and quiet where they could spend most of the time naked and he could teach her to fly.  In more ways than one.

Wrapping a towel around his body, Josh headed for the vanity, where he shaved very carefully.  He didn’t want to hurt her skin, and he had every intention of waking Chana with several kisses, not all of them on her mouth.

He noticed an unfamiliar object on the shelf and picked it up.

An insulin pen, a device for injecting the drug.  Except it hadn’t been insulin.  She’d have to take it for a while longer.  They’d consult a doctor today and decide on her treatment.  For the cases of cephalox addiction he’d come across before, gradual withdrawal seemed to be the best way.  Cold turkey could result in a deep coma, especially after long-term use.

Cephalox had a mild tranquillizing effect, but most cases of addiction were caused when a shapeshifter couldn’t cope with the transformation and decided to avoid it.  Someone had avoided it for her.  Josh wanted to kill him.

Hefting the pen in his hand, Josh became curious.  How did it work?  Perhaps he could load it for her, ready for her morning dose.  Not a pleasant thought, but it had to be done, until a program had been worked out for her.  He couldn’t hide from it, nor did he want to.

He opened the small cupboard and found her box of cartridges.  He unscrewed the top of the pen.

The cartridge inside was still full, the protective sleeve still on the needle.

She hadn’t taken it?  Bad, very bad.  He needed to get her dosed up before she had any adverse reactions.

Taking the pen with him, he went back into the bedroom and leaned over to kiss her good morning.

Five minutes later, after shaking her, calling her, and even giving her thigh a small pinch, he knew they were in trouble.

Cristos, I need you.

Cristos’s voice came sleepily.  I’m here.

I can’t wake Chana up.  I think she’s missed her cephalox dose.  At least one.

The voice sharpened.  Cristos had woken up.  She’s been taking that stuff for years.

Since she was thirteen.

Josh, I don’t want to worry you, but she needs to see a doctor.  One dose should be fine, but what if she’s missed more than one?  Two could lead to problems.

Josh heard no worried tones in Cristos’s voice, which in itself was worrying.  He’d taken a moment to control his reaction before communicating with Josh.

Where?

San Francisco General.  Hold on.  Josh waited in agony for a few minutes, his hand on her shoulder.  He couldn’t communicate with her mentally or physically, even at the deepest level.  She was completely unconscious.

Josh received a picture, and place he needed to memorize.  That was all he needed.

Thank God this was the kind of hotel with opening windows.  He tied a sheet securely around Chana, making a kind of sling.

He opened a window, dropped his towel and shifted.  He picked up the sling in his claws, making sure to wrap the sheet a couple of times around his front paws.

I’m on my way.

I’ll meet you there.

The hospital was a short flight, and he found the special wing for Talents with no difficulty from the amount of fuzzing going on, a kind of mind confusion, the same kind he’d used during his flight to stop people recognizing what they’d seen.  They’d see him all right, and some of the more sensitive might remember, have a residual image of the sight, but most would shrug it aside as an illusion of some kind.  Instead of a griffin, they’d think they saw a blimp, or a helicopter in the sky.

A large window lay open for his entrance so he swept through, glad they’d put the bed in the center of the large room inside.

He hovered over the bed and waited until they’d cut the sheet loose.  He’d taken no chances, preferring to lose the sensation in his paws rather than let Chana fall.

He’d never shifted so fast before.  Someone handed him a scrubs outfit and he shrugged into it, without taking his attention from Chana, lying white and still on the pristine sheets.

A white-coated doctor already bent over her, and another stood nearby.  Cristos stood at the end of the bed, dressed in slacks and a polo shirt.  Josh hadn’t thought Cristos owned any casual gear.  In normal circumstances, he would have been surprised.  Today he didn’t care.

“I’ve sent for Fabrice,” Cristos said.  “He might be able to help.”

Swallowing his jealous reaction, Josh concentrated on Chana.

The doctor stood.  He seemed young, or perhaps that was the way he preferred to appear.  “Dr. Gupta, centaur,” he said.

“Josh Friedland, griffin shapeshifter,” Josh replied automatically.  “Chana’s a griffin too.”

“How long has she been on the drug?”

“Since she was thirteen.  She’s thirty now.  Until yesterday, she thought she was diabetic, but then she learned her insulin was cephalox.  I didn’t know she hadn’t taken her dose.”

If he had, he would have held her down and made her take it.

“She’s only just learned she’s a shapeshifter,” Cristos murmured.  “She seemed to cope well.”

“It’s the second day of the full moon,” the doctor said.  “That would not have helped.  She would have felt restless.”  He looked up, snagging Josh in his dark gaze.  “Did you shift in front of her?”

Josh shook his head.  “Not last night.  I did it in the bathroom, very briefly, when I went for a slash.”  The doctor stared at him, not understanding the British slang.  “I had to urinate, and afterwards, I shifted.  It was enough to settle me down.”  He cleared his throat.  “But I did partially shift earlier.  I stopped the complete transformation.”  He felt slight irritation.  At least he’d taken care of his needs, which was more than she had.

Chana didn’t know, or didn’t realize what she was doing when she’d omitted to take her cephalox.  “Perhaps she’d hoped to go cold turkey.  Didn’t she realize?”

“Why should she?”  Cristos grimaced.  “We should have warned her properly, but we didn’t.  We touched on the subject, then passed on to other things.  She didn’t need the insulin, so why bother taking the cephalox?”

“You should certainly have warned her,” the doctor said grimly.  “Emphasized the probability of this happening.”

“What can you do?”

“Another dose might or might not bring her out of it.  I’m afraid the chances are that it would not.  I have never come across someone taking cephalox for this long.  As you know, the drug is dangerous, and most addicts don’t last long.  Twenty years at the most.”  He looked up.  “She is close to that.  I would rather try to take her off completely.  She has begun the process.  If we give her another dose, it could kill her.”

Dully, Josh took it in, and a part of his mind, the detached part, accepted it.  For now.  The reasoning part knew that if Laurie was gone, and Chana went too, so would he.  There was no point going on without them.

Making the decision left him a little lighter, more able to think clearly.  “So what do we do?”

“Our best chance lies with the Sorcerer.  He may be able to connect with her, and if he can, he needs to hold that part, keep it safe and try to open the other paths in her mind.”

“When will we know?”  How long did he have to wait before he knew if she was going to live or die?

“Pretty soon.  If the Sorcerer can’t make contact, we’ll have to give her a dose of the drug.  It’s the only other way.  This dose could make things worse, but  it’s our only alternative.”

Josh glanced around the room, forcing the tears back.  No time for that now.  “It’s the full moon.  Won’t she shift tonight?  Isn’t that a good thing?”

Dr. Gupta shook his head, and his frown deepened.  “She’ll shift.  But if she does it before we’ve contacted her, she could stay that way.  She hasn’t shifted for nearly twenty years, and without conscious willpower, her body will want to keep her in the other form.”

Josh’s heart lightened, just a little.  “I’ll wait for her.  Twenty years is doable.”

“No, my friend.  When she comes back, her memory will be gone, wiped.  You know a long time in your other form will do that sometimes.”

Yes, he knew.  Faced with heartbreak, shifters often opted to stay in their other form for just that reason.  To forget.

So it came down to that.  If he couldn’t reach her by moonbreak, she would be lost to him forever.  Just when he’d found her, when he’d reached the woman he wanted to keep forever, she would leave him.

He bit his lip and concentrated, trying to enter her mind.  Nothing but barriers, blank walls, no way in.  He could go mad trying, but anything was better than just waiting.

He was still trying to find a way in when he felt a hand on his shoulder and received a message.  It’s Fabrice.  Let me try.

Startled, Josh looked up and received a sympathetic smile from Fabrice.  His T-shirt was on inside out, showing evidence of hasty dressing, which pleased Josh.  Fabrice cared.  He’d showed some urgency.

Fabrice spoke aloud, breaking the church-like silence.  “I’d like you to come in with me, if I can find a way.  I only met Chana yesterday, and you are more involved with her.  If she’s going to come back, she’ll do it for you.”

“Anything you say.”  He meant it.  If Fabrice was the only chance they had, he wanted the man to have a free hand.  Hell, he’d pay anything, do anything, to get this to work.

Fabrice must have seen the desperation in Josh’s eyes, for he squeezed his shoulder before releasing it.

Chana lay on a narrow hospital bed, but she wasn’t hooked up to anything except a drip of clear liquid.  They must have done that while he was trying to contact her.

“It’s saline, to keep her hydrated, that’s all.  Time to do something more elaborate later and only if we need it.”

Christ that meant catheterization, feeding tubes, all the paraphernalia he’d only ever seen before in people who were comatose.  Which was what Chana was.

He stood up, to let Fabrice take his place by the bedside.  Someone provided an extra chair so he could sit next to Fabrice and take Chana’s hand in his left and Fabrice’s in his right.  He felt Fabrice’s strong, warm grip and Chana’s cool, loose one.  His heart ached.

“I suggest we leave them alone, gentlemen.”  The doctor’s voice came almost as a shock, it sounded so mundane.

“I’ll stay.”  Cristos spoke quietly but firmly.

Just in case.  In case they couldn’t get out, in case something went wrong.  “Can you help?”  He had to ask.

Cristos sighed.  “Maybe.  If something happens, I’m probably the best hope you’ve got.  I can’t do what Fabrice is about to do, because I didn’t enter her mind when it was relatively healthy, I didn’t go deep, I don’t know where to go.  But I know Fabrice, I’ve linked with him so I might be able to help.”

“Backup,” Josh said.

Fabrice flashed him a sharp look.  “Watching my six.”

Josh got the feeling it wasn’t the first time Cristos had watched Fabrice’s six, and vice versa.

No time for anything except Chana now.  He sat as still as he could, watching Fabrice draw his considerable internal energy into himself.  It was a bit like watching a vacuum.  Fabrice had considerable presence.  Josh knew he worked in advertising in some capacity, and that didn’t surprise him.  Fabrice could probably sell sand to the Arabs if he wanted to, even.  Without using any kind of mind persuasion.

Now Fabrice drew everything into himself.  If he’d been sitting in a small room with five other people, the others would swear there were only five people present.  Fabrice took several deep breaths, then gripped Josh’s hand tighter.  “Here we go.”

Josh closed his eyes and concentrated.

Time disappeared, melted away as he sent all his support, everything he had to Fabrice.

He waited outside, unable to enter, as Fabrice looked for an opening.  Anything would do.  If he could insert a mental needle, he could find a way in.  His mental powers were stronger than anything Josh had ever come across before, and he was so glad of it.  If there was anything he could do for Fabrice, whether Fabrice won or lost this fight, he would do it.  He knew what it would cost the Sorcerer to fight a battle like this.  Add to that Fabrice was facing his own worst nightmare head on.  He was entering a woman in the only way it was possible for him to do so.

Josh couldn’t imagine what it could be like.  The joys of sharing a bed with a woman denied him, forever forced to make the choice; the gift that made him special or ordinary.  Human love, something so sublime people took it for granted.  He would rather face a lifetime mourning Chana than miss the chance of loving her.

No!  Negativity was their worst enemy.  Determinedly, Josh shut that possibility out of his thoughts, blocked it from his mind.

He tried to be a source of strength for Fabrice, but it was hard to sit by and let someone else do what was needed for the woman he loved.  Every cell in his body protested, wanted to charge in and take control, but that way disaster lay.  He’d tried and tried to find a way, and he had to stand back and let someone more skilled help, when he knew he could do no more.  His mind and body raged against it, wanted to be the one to help her, but this was the best he could do.

Josh had no idea how long they waited, while Fabrice did everything he could to probe Chana’s mind.  He opened his mind fully, made it available to Fabrice, and then he felt another.  Cristos.  The rapier sharp intelligence, the keen observation of detail, all spoke of the head of Department 57.  Cristos opened too, but kept a part of himself away, the part he would have to use if he had to rescue them.

If that happened, Josh wasn’t sure he wanted to be rescued.

Chapter Twelve

 

When Chana opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was another pair of eyes.  Golden, worried.  Josh.

She tried to smile, but found the effort too much.  “Hello,” she managed instead, though even that was hard to do.

“Hi,” he replied.  “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

She blinked.  She wasn’t in the hotel room any more.  “Where am I?”

“San Francisco General Hospital.  I brought you here when I couldn’t wake you up.  You took yourself off the cephalox, sweetheart.  Not a good idea.”

Hospital?  Muzzily she went over a confusing haze of recollections.  Not taking the cephalox.  Making transcendent love with Josh.  Then a mess, nothing real, like dreams.  People talking about her and being unable to respond.  Someone in her mind, feeling her, touching her with disturbing intimacy.

Fabrice.

Her eyes shot open and she saw she wasn’t alone.  Behind where Josh sat, standing staring down gravely at her, was Fabrice Germain, the French Canadian man, the man with the amazing eyes.  “Bonjour.  How do you feel now?”

“Wiped,” she answered and heard a sound.  Turning her head she saw Cristos. 

“Why did you stop taking the cephalox?”

“There didn’t seem much point.  I’m not diabetic, and it was stopping me being the person you said I should be.  I wanted to see what it was like.”

“You will,” he said gravely.  “This is the last night of the full moon.  You won’t be able to help yourself.”

She caught her breath in wonder.  “Truly?”

“Truly.  If you think you’re wiped now, wait until tonight.”

“I’ll be with her.”  Josh sounded as exhausted as she felt.  Without bothering to wonder what it would look like, she stretched out her hand to him and felt it wrapped in warmth.  She hadn’t realized how chilled she was until then.  “Jesus, you’re cold!” she heard before he stood up and took something Cristos handed to him.  A blanket.  Warmth settled over her body and she sighed in contentment.

“Don’t you remember me telling you that cephalox is addictive?”

Searching back in her mind, she had a moment of clarity.  “Yes, I do now you mention it, but it was with a bunch of other stuff I was more interested in.  Oh how could I have been so stupid!”  Now she felt like crying.  Well damn that, in front of three grown men she wasn’t about to dissolve into feeble tears!

Josh took her hand again and squeezed it.  “It’s as much my fault as yours.  I had other things on my mind, but I should have made sure that you took the stuff.”  She remembered what he’d had on his mind and was rather glad he had.

She was surprised when Fabrice flushed, hot pink under his lightly bronzed skin.  “I’m still in your mind, Chana.  I need to stay there until we’re sure you’re okay.”

Oh God, she’d just thought of sex with Josh when there was someone else to see it!  “What happened?  Why are you there?”

“The cephalox made you close down.  All your shutters came down and I couldn’t reach you.  You were in a coma.”  She swallowed when she heard the desperation in Josh’s voice.  He must have had a bad time when he discovered that.

Cristos’s voice came cool and clear, like a draught of clear water.  “Fabrice was the only person who had the strength to reach you.  He’s a Sorcerer, a hominid with enhanced mental abilities.  They come from a race of people in Hungary.”

She looked up at Fabrice in surprise.  “You don’t look Hungarian.”

He laughed.  “It comes from my mother’s side.  Besides, we’re not all dark haired Magyars, you know.  We didn’t live separate from society.  The genes tend to descend in the female line, but males can be the recipients.  Some of us are stronger than others and we have to take certain precautions to remain strong.”

“Is that why you’re…?”  She snapped her mouth closed, appalled she could even begin to blurt such a thing out when they weren’t alone.  What had passed between them that time was intensely private.

He laughed, but it sounded strained to her.  “A virgin?  It’s self evident, chérie.  Everyone in this room knows it.  I have to stay that way if I want to retain my powers.”

Chana wondered how long she could hold on to such powers.  Would she even want to?

Without warning, his voice sounded strong in her mind.  You think I never wanted to?  I have responsibilities.  I can’t let go just like that.  And it would be with someone like you.

He sounded bitter, but the last sentiment surprised her.  He’d never shown a sign of thinking about her like that.

A smile flickered across his lips, gone almost as soon as it had arrived.  You are not mine.  I couldn’t break the oaths I took and then betray someone like Josh.

Can he hear us?

No.

Does he know how I feel about him?

He’d be blind not to at least hope for it.  Tell him, Chana.

She didn’t allow herself to think.  It might have been too late for them, had Fabrice not found a way into her mind.  She turned her head and met Josh’s gaze, staring right into the fierce, predator’s eyes.  “I love you.”

His grip on her hand increased, making her gasp, and his eyes softened with unshed tears.  “I’m glad.  I love you too.”

He’d been afraid, afraid her contact with Fabrice might have led to more.  She knew it without mind contact, without doubt.  Fabrice might have broken his oaths for her.  She hoped that one day he would find someone he could love enough to do that with.  But it wouldn’t be her.

Fabrice spoke gently.  “I’ll leave you now, Chana.  Josh can enter your mind, keep you safe for the next few hours until moonrise.  Close your eyes and relax.”

She felt another presence enter, caring and fierce and something else withdraw.  She hadn’t realized it was there until it was gone, a soft, protective blanket she knew had to be Fabrice.

Josh was with her, Fabrice had gone from her mind.  “I’ll always be here if you need me,” he said.  “You need to keep Josh with you until your first change, then you should be all right.  Eat, drink, rest.  But don’t sleep until after you’ve shifted.”  She smiled at the tall Canadian and he smiled back.  Friends.

He glanced at Cristos, who walked him to the door, and exchanged a few murmured words with him.  Cristos looked back at them.  “I’ll rustle up some food for you both.  Do you need any clothes?”

What an odd question!  Only then did she notice that Josh was wearing what looked like green hospital scrubs and she was in a white paper gown, the kind hospitals issued patients with for operations.  She licked her lips, suddenly gone dry.  “How did we get here?”

“I flew you here,” Josh said without inflection, but he watched her closely.

She smiled.  “I wish I could have been awake!”

“Believe me, sweetheart, so do I.”

His tones held all the worry he’d been feeling.  Chana liked it that he didn’t attempt to hide it from her.  “Am I okay now?”

“A bit fragile.  Like Fabrice said, someone has to stay with you, in your mind, until after your first shapeshift.”

She swallowed, nervousness hitting her midriff.  “Will you help me do that?”

“You’ll do it on your own.  Now you’re off the drug, your body won’t be able to resist.  Then you just reverse the process to get back to your human form.”

A slow smile spread across his lips.  “You’re a griffin, love.  Just like me.”

*****

Moonbreak came all too soon, and not soon enough.  The others had left them alone, but they remained in the hospital, in case they needed medical help.  A precaution, Cristos had said.

Josh saw Chana’s apprehension, felt it as if it was his own, when finally, she felt a stirring inside her, a bit like the beginning of indigestion.  Seated inside her like this, he felt her fear, and set to soothing her.  “I’m here.  Come on, feel my urge, too.  That’s the feeling you get when it starts, it’s your warning.”

She forced a tentative smile.  He folded back the covers on the bed and helped her out.  “We need to undress, otherwise we’ll split these things.”

After a moment, she found she could stand on her own.  She didn’t feel nearly as weak as she had earlier in the day.  She stripped off the hospital gown and stood in the center of the small room, just at the bottom of the bed.  Josh suppressed the urge to forget it all, to take her back to bed and love her until it was all over.

“I’ll keep our sizes small,” he told her.  “There’s not enough space to reach our full size.  But don’t worry, I can control that for both of us.  Let it happen, Chana, go with it.  When you see the trick of it, you’ll know how to change back.  And if you don’t get it right away, I can help you with that, too.”

He held her hand until he saw the fur sprout on their arms, then his changed form forced him forward on to all fours.  Beside her, she did the same thing.

Just as well he’d had the experience of two hundred and fifty years of monthly shapeshifting.  He needed every minute of it now.

He felt her terror as if it were his own.  It had been so long he didn’t remember what the first transformation felt like, and this was as much a part of his life as driving his Porsche.  But now he remembered.  Nameless fears, and terrors, wondering if he would change back, if he would feel different in himself.  Without words, he soothed her, stroking her mind, feeling her give herself up to him.  She would never regret it, he vowed.

He held her tightly in his mind, as though he held her lovely body in his arms.  He let her see them, naked and clasped tightly together in their human form, let her concentrate on that image while she changed.

You feel it, that is enough.  You’ll be able to duplicate it whenever you wish now.

What about changing back?

You can do it.

He could do it for her but he wanted her to do it on her own.  Some shifters never got the knack, and remained dependant on parents, siblings or their partners all their lives.  He didn’t want that for her.  He’d take on the burden gladly, but she would hate the dependency.  It was late for her to learn, but like someone coming late to driving, she could learn and be stronger for doing so.

Chana made a very beautiful griffin.  The feathers on her wings and head gleamed fierily in the cold moonlight.  Her eyes gleamed a wicked amber when she turned her head to look at him, her cruel beak strong enough to rip a man apart, even in this small version of herself.  Josh had taken care of the size, but hadn’t intruded on her to do so.  It came naturally to him to adjust his form to take account of his surroundings, and he easily took her with him.

You are lovely.

Like this?  Tentatively, she shook a wing, the new feathers rustling in the slight breeze from the open window.

Indeed.  Very beautiful.  Are you ready?

To change back?

No.  To fly.

He chuckled at her shock.  We don’t have to, but it’s a short flight to the hotel.  We could go straight back there, if you wanted to.  Be on our own instead of facing the questions and plans.

I – I’m not sure.  How could we pass unnoticed?

She was still Chana, whatever form she took.  He felt her confidence grow, knowing it was because she felt her essential character remain the same.

We can become the size of small birds, or we can fuzz.  Then people who spot us will dismiss us as an illusion, or won’t remember us at all.

Another skill?  Her doubt came through clearly.

Another day.  That was surely enough.  He would rather slip back to the hotel than have to find two sets of clothes and drive themselves there, then gain access to their rooms. 

After a long silence, which he didn’t try to interrupt, she said; I want to fly.

You’re sure?

Hell no, but I’m sure I want to try!  I dreamed of it for years.

He wasn’t surprised.  If she hadn’t flown, the urge had to appear somewhere.  He loved flying.  Better than football, better than driving, better than anything else he could think of.  No, he corrected himself.  Making love to Chana was better.

He looked up suddenly and smiled, not easy to do with a beak instead of a mouth but he did his best to show her how pleased he was by her decision.  Not just because of the convenience, but because she was taking the new decisions on her own, entering her new life willingly.

I am so proud of you!

Watching her reaction, he reduced his size.  She watched from one bright eye, her head cocked in his direction.  Then he did the same for her, and showed her how it was done.  Her laugh was only in their minds, but it rang through him joyfully.  A few hours ago, he’d feared for her life, and now she was back with him, bright and full of hope for the future.

You’ll have to stay in this form all night and perhaps part of tomorrow in order to kick the addiction.  Then you should be fine.

He could have sworn she blushed, but in this form that was impossible.  How do I – that is—

His chuckle echoed richly in their minds.  You’ll see.  It’s all manageable.  Come.

He led the way to the window, where he hopped up on the sill and helped her to do the same, showing her the way to spread her wings and use the impetus to impel herself forward.  They looked down.  They were only three stories up, but it looked like much more when you were a small bird.  Miles.

She didn’t flinch, either physically or mentally.

He dropped off the sill.

Her scream echoed in his mind, but he allowed the air to take him and came back up to face her.

See?  If you fall, I’ll increase in size, fuzz and carry you.  Try it.

She lifted one paw and held it in the air.  Then she jumped.

At once, she spread her wings, as though she’d always done it.  When she found the current took her, she laughed, and made a strange sound, half way between a caw and a roar.

She soared.  He watched for a moment before he followed, his heart bursting with pride and love.  She’d done it.

*****

I’m hungry.

Josh shifted back into human form.  “I think you could change now.  We’ll call room service.”

He watched her return to Chana the human.  She’d found the last twenty-four hours a strain, but had coped better than he’d hoped.  He’d kept in griffin form, too, feeling it would be cheating to do it any other way.  He’d shown her what she needed to know, but since griffins feasted on raw meat, he thought it better for them to go hungry.  Time enough to introduce her to that later, if they needed to.

She blinked.  He knew the feeling well.  As a griffin, their eyes were birdlike, on either side of their head, so the return to stereoscopic vision could be disorienting.  It would take her a few minutes to regain her vision.  Josh stepped closer and took her into his arms.  “Let me take care of you, sweetheart.  You’ll be fine in half an hour or so.  Very few shifters go for a day their first time.  You did really well, I’m so proud of you.”

He guided her to the bathroom and switched on the shower.  “Let’s get clean first, okay?”

She looked up at him, one eye closed.  It looked like a saucy wink.  “That would be great.”

He got in the shower with her and she laughed shakily.  “I can manage.  You don’t have to do this.”

He bent and growled in her ear.  “Oh yes I do!”

In their griffin form, she’d asked and he’d answered all her queries.  There’d been little else to do.  The TV had killed an hour or two, but the mindless daytime programs had palled very quickly and they’d talked, mind to mind.

It only confirmed the way he felt about her, and now she was open, her mind free of restraints, he’d waited for any signs of rejection, but had found none.  She might decide to live on her own for a few years.  He hadn’t forgotten her concerns.

He didn’t want her to see him like this, needing her so badly but with worry circling his mind.  If she wanted to go, he had to have the strength to let her, so she could come back to him whole.  If she came back.

Scooping her hair into his hands, he found the shampoo, and set to massaging her head, working his fingers against her scalp in a soothing rhythm.

Chana shuddered.  “Where did you learn to do that?”

He chuckled.  “I’m a sportsman, sweetheart.  I have physios working on me all the time.  Do you really think I didn’t get them to teach me a trick or two?”

She leaned against him.  “Just don’t stop.”

“Not yet.  I won’t stop yet.”

He used the shampoo as body wash and lubricant, moving to her shoulders and her sides, curving his hands around her waist to wash her stomach and stretching his hands lower.

He rubbed her all over, her low moans feeding his soul.  He drank in her sounds, the feel of her, tried to commit it to memory.  It might have to last him for a while.  But she would come back to him.  She had to.

Under his hands, her skin felt silky smooth, even when he’d rinsed off the soap, and he could have stayed there a lot longer, but she turned to face him again.  “My turn,” she whispered.

He watched her pour a puddle of shampoo into her hand, and swallowed.  For the life of him, he couldn’t think of a word.  Smiling, she reached up to his hair.

Her massage might not have been as professional as his, but it was thorough, and the best he had ever received in his life.  She took her time, soaping his chest, lingering at his nipples before she rinsed them off and tasted them with the very tip of her tongue.  His groans only encouraged her to do more.

“I love your body,” she murmured, running the shampoo down his back, so it insinuated itself into the cleft of his ass, stirring feelings he couldn’t help and didn’t want to.  He was too far gone for that.

“I love it too, when you treat it like this.”

He felt his erection harden even more, something he hadn’t thought possible.  It had begun the minute she had shifted back into human form, and was way beyond his control now.  Wickedly, she worked around it, shampooing his pubic hair and pulling the blond curls into little peaks before rinsing it all away.  “I could get quite creative here,” she mused.  She would have sounded pensive, except for the little tremble in her voice that revealed how turned on she was.  As if he couldn’t smell her arousal, the musky scent rising above the gentle vanilla perfume of the shampoo.

“Please, oh please,” he moaned.

“Begging now?”

“Anything you want, but just touch me, Chana, please!”

She did better than that.  Pulling him forward so his cock was out of the water, she swooped down and took him into her mouth.

He nearly came on the spot.  Crying out, he reached for her, to pull her away but ended up holding her head steady, and pushing forward, careful not to choke her but desperate to feel her on him.  She licked, she sucked gently, took his balls in her hand and continued her massage, rolling them in her palms.  He felt, he actually felt, the warm rush as sperm formed.  “Chana!”

He lost it completely, no longer capable of even giving a warning, only one word possible.  He came, crying her name over and over, slumping back against the toughened glass of the shower, distantly feeling the coolness on his back.  Reaching up desperately, he found the edge of the screen and held on for dear life, his body jerking uncontrollably.

Chana didn’t lift her head until it was all gone.  When she did, all he could do was gaze into her eyes, all the adoration he’d wanted to conceal there for her to see.  “Oh God, Chana, I love you!”

She smiled and lifted up on tiptoe to kiss him, a gentle brushing of lips.  “I know.  I love you too.”

It was her turn to take control, switching off the stream of water and reaching for towels for their bodies and hair.  She watched him, not herself, drying her body without looking, then dropping the towel and reaching for his.  Her gentle rubbing over his chest made him feel pampered, cared for.  Not a feeling he was used to, but one he would love to become further acquainted with.

When he lifted his arms to hold her she stepped back.  “Keep your arms there.  Just for a moment.  You’re beautiful, you know that?  All that sleek muscle and yummy skin, just oozing sex.”

He smiled.  “Well you certainly made me do that.  It’s all yours, you can do whatever you want with it.”

“Hmm, I’ll have to think about that.”  She dried his arms, and gave him the towel so he could scrub his hair dry.  “Let’s go to bed.”

She turned as if to leave the room, but before she got across it, he was ahead of her, leaning his hand against the door.  “Oh no, not yet.  I think I have a favor to return.”

He set about her, pinning her arms under his hands then sliding down them to hold her hips steady.  He looked her up and down, lingering on the contours of her body, letting her know just how much she turned him on.  “We should be tired, but I want to make love to you before we sleep.”  All the anxieties of the last day turned into a frantic need to show her, to love her and love her again.

He kissed her, pushing his tongue into her mouth, his hands busy, lifting to her breasts to take their weight in his hands, and curl his thumbs over her chocolaty nipples.  He could still taste himself, very faintly, an elusive flavor he didn’t stop to analyze, except for the need to show her how she tasted in return.

Her breasts were lovely, the nipples tightly puckered for him, ready for him to take each in turn into his mouth, caressing and sucking until she cried out in desire.  “Oh Josh, oh that feels so good!”  The last word had so many ‘o’s he didn’t think she was going to finish it, and he smiled against her skin.

He let his fingers play, massaging the tender spot just inside her hips, stroking gently to heighten her nerve endings, sensitize them as much as he could.  He wanted to drive her as wild as she’d just driven him.  Lifting his head and going down on one knee, he licked around her navel, tracing the little creases with his tongue before plunging deeply inside for a brief moment.  He continued down, paying homage to the most succulent body he’d ever tasted, until he reached the shower-damp dark curls, now dampening with something other than shampoo.  He licked where his fingers had played, sucking the skin slightly and glided his hands up the insides of her legs, taking his time.

He groaned aloud when he discovered how wet she was, how hot.  Still he teased with deliberate purpose, touching her, heightening her sensitivity with every glide, every gentle skim of his fingers.  Between her thighs, repeating the featherlike touches, then inside the crease, grazing her erect clit as though by accident.  He murmured words against her body, knowing his breath would heat her even more.  “I love muff diving.”

Chana moaned his name just before he caught her clit in his mouth.

He licked it, traced all around it with his tongue before sucking it in, hearing her moans, feeling her wetness and then sliding one finger inside her.  While he worked her clit, bringing her up and further up, he slid two more fingers up and pushed them inside.  Gently at first, then harder, until he slid his free hand around the soft curves of her bottom and between, barely touching her sweet ass, and then slipping the very tip of one finger inside before holding it steady.  Her first exclamation was replaced by an increase in volume when she called his name, startled, then accepting.

Josh slipped into her mind, knowing she would recognize his presence instantly.  She welcomed him, and her warmth and heat nearly made him come again.  Whispering her name in her mind, he told her how sweet she tasted, how beautiful she was.

Come for me, my beautiful woman.  Come for me now.

Long waves of tremors shuddered against his fingers, her clit reached a peak of hardness in his mouth and he sucked, feeling her wetness gush over his hands.  Her cries reached a peak and she locked her leg muscles.  He would have smiled.  He knew how she felt.  She’d made him feel that way a bare fifteen minutes before.

Only when she softened against him, when there were no more muscle spasms did he get to his feet and share her essence with her, kissing her long and deep.  She welcomed him into her mouth as she had into her mind, reaching out to hold him close.

He found the door handle and drew his mouth away a fraction.  “Let’s go to bed.”

“I am tired.”

“Can you hold on for another twenty minutes or so?”

She pushed her belly against his growing cock.  “Oh yeah.”

*****

The phone woke him up, startling him out of a sound slumber.  Not wanting Chana to wake up, Josh reached across her and picked it up, checking the bedside clock for the time.  Seven forty five.  It didn’t say what day it was.

“Yeah?”

“Josh, is that you?”

George Skeffington.  Damn.  He nearly hung up on the man there and then.  “Yes, it’s me.  Anything wrong?”

“You bet your life there is!  Where’s Chana?  Have you seen her?  She went out with you two days ago and when I went to check her room before dinner, she still wasn’t back!”

It took him a day to realize she wasn’t there?  How was that for fatherly concern?

Josh rolled on his back, but kept Chana tucked to his side.  Some primitive need to protect her kicked in and he needed to hold her.  “She’s with me, George.”

“Well, hell!  You could have contacted me!”

“We were a little tied up.”  He grinned when he remembered what that meant.  “Did you try her cell?”

“It’s on voice mail.  I’m very displeased with you both.  You could have called, told us you were okay.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.”  He didn’t feel sorry, however hard he tried.

He wasn’t mollified.  “I could have you fired.”

His grin broadened.  “Sir, there are a dozen top football teams that want me.  I stay with Rovers because of my loyalty to Ted and the team, not because I can’t get a job anywhere else.  In any case, you can’t get rid of me until the next transfer date, you can only pay me to do nothing.”

“I’m sure something could be arranged,” George said silkily.

“You wouldn’t want your future son-in-law without a job, do you?”

A significant pause ensued.  “You haven’t known Kanchana long enough to even consider that.  Get back here.  Now.”  No silkiness in the tone now, only cold, hard efficiency.

Josh wanted to growl at him, but kept his tone cordial.  “We had a hard night.  Chana wasn’t feeling well and went to the hospital.  She’s fine now, but she needs her rest.”

Anxiety sharpened his tone.  “What’s wrong with her?  Why didn’t you contact me?”

Was it his imagination or did he feel another mind reaching for him down the line?  A weak, unpracticed one, but Josh sensed it.  He cut off its feeble efforts to locate him.  “There was no time.  She’s fine now.  The doctor said it was just a touch of food poisoning.”

“Has she taken her insulin?”

This time Josh clamped a hand over the phone while he controlled his breathing.  Did George want to provoke him so badly he’d lose control?  Did George know she had cephalox, not insulin in those vials?  He’d bet the farm on it.

His breath hitched in his throat.  He had to know if George was controlling this or if it went further.  He had to know for sure.  Finding Laurie might depend on it.  “Insulin?”  He kept his voice low, unthreatening.

“You must know she’s diabetic.”

Josh worked hard, but could read nothing but sincerity in George’s voice.  “Yes,” he said, more to buy time than anything else.  “She’s fine.  Her problem had nothing to do with her diabetes.”

George’s sigh of relief came back at him.  “Bring her home, Josh.”

“Okay, when she wakes up.”  He still didn’t know if he would take her home or not.  “You wanted this, didn’t you?”

“What?”

“Chana and me.”

A slight pause before he heard George’s voice again.  “Not necessarily.  My stepdaughter is my hostess, nothing more.  What she chooses to do in her spare time is up to her.”

“You should be paying her overtime.”

With satisfaction, Josh heard George’s breathing quicken slightly.  He’d got to him.  Perhaps George did care about Chana, after all, or perhaps he took the insult personally.  “I told you.  That’s her decision.  Before I invited you into my home, I had security and personality checks run on you.  You’re a playboy, but that’s to be expected.  Many sportsmen are.  But you don’t treat your women badly.  I had no reason to be afraid for my stepdaughter.”

“Did you want us to get together?  Did you work for it?”

George cleared his throat.  “Well, she has been a bit unhappy lately.  I had to pull her off the active police roster.  She was a liability there, but she never saw it like that.  I did it for her own good.  She would have been fired otherwise.”

Josh didn’t believe that for a moment.  Chana was more than competent, and she would have made a good cop.  George had her pulled for his own ends.  But he might love his stepdaughter, for all that.  “Whatever you say, George.”

“That’s better.”

Although anger rose in him, Josh quelled it.  Not now.  They had to go stealthily, carefully, discover everything they could.  Because of Laurie.  But having heard George, Josh wasn’t so sure any more.  What if George was a pawn of someone else?  Fronting for the real danger?  “Is Svetlana okay?”

“Oh yes.”  From the purr, Josh knew Svetlana had been doing her job.  He fervently hoped she hadn’t slept with George, but Svetlana was a firebird, and perfectly capable of enchanting a man without commitment.  “She’s a delightful woman.  Wouldn’t it be something if she became the sixth Mrs. Skeffington?”

No chance.  Svetlana had better taste than that.  “Sure.”

“Oh yes, I almost forgot.  I took a phone call for you yesterday.  From your brother.”

“What?”

He gripped the receiver tightly and felt Chana stir next to him.  His response had been voluntary, but now every sense was on alert, reaching out as though he could clutch his brother from the very air.  “Laurie?”

“Yeah, Laurie.  He said he’d call here soon.  I said he was welcome, and he’s arriving later on today.  I’m looking forward to meeting him.”

Dear God!  Had it all been a false alarm, then?  Had Laurie disappeared from the face of the earth on a whim?

No.  It wasn’t possible.  Although Laurie could be feckless and almost always acted impulsively, this was no false alarm.  “Did he say where he’d been for the past month or so?”

George chuckled and Josh wanted to hit him for making light of the desperate worry he’d been feeling for the last few weeks.  “He said he’d been kidnapped, but I think that was more voluntary than he admitted.  Otherwise, it would have been all over the media, wouldn’t it?  I got the feeling he might not be arriving alone.  See you later.”

He hung up.  Josh stared at the phone as though he could conjure Laurie up through it.

He turned to find Chana staring up at him, alarm replacing sleepiness in her eyes.  “Josh?  What is it?”

“Laurie.  He’s coming home.”

Chapter Thirteen

 

Chana blinked, unable to take in the news.  Josh didn’t seem to be very pleased, considering Laurie had been the center of his thoughts recently.  “Why aren’t you smiling?”

“Because your stepfather told me.  And because I can’t feel him or contact him.”

She sat up, clutching the sheet around her.  “George has Laurie?”

“He says he called and said he was coming home.  I have to go, Chana, though I think it’s a trap.”

She reached out to him and immediately he folded her in his arms.  “Don’t go.”

“I have to.  But I won’t go until I’ve contacted Cristos and the rest of the team.”

“I don’t want you to go.”  She didn’t give a damn about Laurie at that point, only Josh.

“Sweetheart, I’ll be fine.  I promise.”

She thumped his chest.  “How can you promise?”

He kissed her forehead.  “I can get away.  I want to go in, see what’s going on and bring Svetlana out.  I think she could be in trouble.”

An hour later, freshly showered and dressed, they sat in Cristos’s office at Department 57.  Cristos, Andreas and Fabrice listened to Josh’s account of the conversation, and agreed with his conclusions.

“But do you really want to walk in to a trap?”  Cristos asked.  “You know Laurie isn’t there.”

“But he might be.”  It was a cry of despair, not of hope.

“No, no he isn’t.”  No uncertainty colored Cristos’s words.  “You can’t sense him any more than you did before.”

Josh’s silence was more eloquent than words.  He couldn’t.  She wanted to reach for him, but she knew he wouldn’t welcome it.  All his thoughts were for his brother.  She guessed everyone in the room felt Josh’s desperate searching before he brought himself under control.

She was surprised when he reached for her hand and curled his fingers between hers.  Surprised and pleased.  She’d thought all his concern was for Laurie, and while she could understand that, she’d felt the loss of his devotion, his concentration on her.

“Perhaps you’re right.  But someone needs to bring Svetlana out.”

Cristos stared at him for a moment, before giving a curt nod.  “We haven’t been able to contact her since last night.”

“I know this sounds stupid,” Chana said hesitantly, “but have you tried her on the phone?”

Cristos flashed a tight grin.  “Not stupid at all.  Considering the things you’ve learned in the past few days, I’m impressed you’re the one to ask.  Yes, we have.  Landline and cell phone.  They told us she was unavailable, sleeping in after a long night.”

Surprisingly it was Andreas who groaned as the thought struck Chana, as it must have everyone else – had Svetlana slept with George?  It hardly bore thinking about, the vibrant, beautiful firebird in bed with a man well past his prime.  A parody of love in every way.

“No.  She wouldn’t.”  It was hard to guess, from Andreas’s tone and demeanor, whether he loved or befriended Svetlana.  Either way, such an act would be a betrayal.  That must be why Andreas was so sure.

“It might be true.  She could be sleeping in.”  Chana was no longer sure, but it was a possibility.

Fabrice shook his head.  “No.  I tried to rouse her mentally, and she wasn’t responsive at all.”

“I’ll go.”  Josh’s mouth set in a hard line and Chana had already learned that once he’d made his mind up, he wasn’t going to be swayed in his decision.

Cristos gave him a look of regret.  “I’m afraid it’s for the best.  However, keep in touch.  The minute you break off, I’m sending Andreas in to flash you out.  Covert or not, I won’t risk losing anyone else.”

There seemed to be little else to say, but until Josh got in his car ready to drive back, Chana didn’t let go of his hand.  He lifted it to his lips and kissed each knuckle in an old fashioned, but highly erotic gesture.  “I have more reasons to keep safe than ever before,” he told her.  “Be sure I’ll take no unnecessary chances.”

Before he left, he’d allowed Cristos access to the deepest recesses of his mind, a guarantees that they would be able to keep tabs on him  Chana couldn’t tell, from her connection with Josh, that anyone else was there.  She found that a little scary.

You’re deeper than anyone else, sweetheart.  No one can eavesdrop on us.

She gave him a smile.

“I’ll tell your stepfather you’ve had food poisoning, but you’re a lot better.  If he thinks you’re sleeping it off, he’s less likely to bother you.”

It seemed like a good plan and would explain why Josh returned to the house alone.  He could use the excuse of fetching her to bring Svetlana out of the house.  That was the plan, but everyone had doubts.

They could only hope that the ruse would work.  If not, Andreas was their secret weapon.  After sunset, he could flash in and out before any safeguards against him could be set, or even before they became aware of his presence.

When he drove away without her, Chana felt bereft, as though he was never coming back.  It was the first time they’d separated since they had committed themselves to each other.  It would always have been a wrench, whatever the circumstances but this was particularly hard.  She would never forget it.

Cristos slid his arm around her waist and guided her back in to Simpson’s’, the store under the Department’s offices, one of the largest department stores in San Francisco.  “You’ll need to buy some basics if you’re not going back for a while.  You can’t go to your apartment, they’ll probably be watching.”

Chana had never really enjoyed shopping, but the distraction was welcome today.  She bought toiletries, a few T-shirts, a pair of jeans and a skirt.

Cristos took her to lunch, and they exchanged nothing more than small talk.  When she recalled that she needed underwear, he didn’t show any embarrassment in the section that held thongs, bras, and a selection of deliciously sexy nightwear.  Many men might, but when she remarked on it, he said, “I’m not a monk, Chana.  I’ve done my share of purchases in these places.”  So he was probably not a virgin Sorcerer then.

Cristos surprised Chana, with his humor and drollery, keeping her amused with harmless stories she didn’t know whether to believe or not, of mermaids buying bikinis and leaving the bottoms behind, of vampires looking for crimson negligees.  He never slipped up and talked to her when anyone walked within earshot of them.  Impressive that he always knew without looking whenever someone was nearby.  “Of course they’re the ones who are obsessed with the image,” he explained.  “Most aren’t, but a few like to live the life to the full.”

“I never believed all those stories,” she answered, fingering a little pale blue nothing of a robe, wondering if Josh would like to see her in it.  “That’s probably why I denied it in myself for so long.  It only came out in my dreams.  I still don’t remember my mother very well, only a few images.  I’d hoped to have more, once Fabrice had done his magic, but there’s still so little.”

“She was taken from you when you were very young.”  Cristos led her further into the lingerie department, his voice soothing and reasonable.

“I’m not sure I like the way you put that.”  To hear the event described so enigmatically made her pause.

“We don’t know any more.”  Cristos reached for a shell pink negligee, and Chana had the feeling he was avoiding looking at her.  The gown and robe were of cheap, ribbed fabric, very shiny, trimmed with lace that didn’t quite match in color.  Not everything in this store was as delicious as the blue robe she’d almost decided to buy.  “Don’t get your hopes up.  She might be dead, just as you say.  In human form, shapeshifters are as vulnerable as anyone else to illness and disease.  You can only shake them off by shifting and if your mother couldn’t do it, for the same reasons as you, then pneumonia could have carried her off.”  He dropped the gruesome object and turned to face her.  “I’m sorry.”

She was beginning to know Cristos a little.  It was typical of him not to avoid the truth, or to make an apology he didn’t mean.  Sadness resided in his eyes, understanding that nearly undid her.

She opened her mouth to reply, but before a syllable passed her lips, a deafening blast took away her words, and most of her breath.  A rumbling roar and exploding crash, as windows blew in and flames licked at the silks and nylons of the lingerie.

Panic lanced through her, but before she could run, before her frozen vocal chords regained their power to scream, something hit her hard, bearing her down to the hard floor.

Cristos covered her, his heavy body smothering her in fabric and hot, male flesh.  She smelled his aftershave, light and elusive, incongruous in this instant war zone.

“Everybody get down!  We’re under attack!”

Under attack?  This was Simpson’s, one of the biggest stores in the city.  How could that happen?  Numbed by the suddenness of change, Chana couldn’t think, could only feel and grope for her reason to return.  Thin wails and screams gave way to the fire alarm, its shrill decibels punching clean through her with  painful intensity.

Heat grazed her cheek and a thin flame curled above their heads.  Dear God, with all that cheap nylon hanging above them, they were in danger of going up like a torch. 

She rolled, taking Cristos off balance and forcing him away from the rack of scanties.  He glanced up, then back at her and gave her a brief nod when he saw the now melting fabric, the bags containing her new purchases burning merrily from the heavy drips of molten nylon coming from the cheap pink negligée.  Cristos lifted himself clear of her, crouching on all fours, to peer over her head through the cloud of smoke and debris.  “This is the top floor of Simpson’s.  Our office is directly above this.  I think that was the target.”

Chana heard a voice in her head, on the main pathways.  Cristos must be able to hear it, too.

Where are you?

She saw a picture of where they were, vividly depicted, like a photograph and then, where heat struck her face, a dark presence appeared to shield her.

“What happened?”  Andreas, the vampire, seemed as collected as his boss, staring around at the screaming women racing for the elevators.

“Someone or something has hit the department.  I’d suspect dragons.”

“Or missiles,” Andreas said grimly.  “Dragons might be a bit more difficult to hide.”

“Were you upstairs?”  Cristos got to his feet, brushing off his trousers, seemingly indifferent to the blistering heat that scorched her skin and made it difficult to breathe.  Should she shift?  Would she be better as a griffin?  What about the poor people who didn’t have that option?  Around her the combined screaming of the fire alarm and the other people caught in the maelstrom almost deafened her. 

Andreas kept his voice low and steady, pitching it so they could hear him.  “I was in the restaurant around the corner with Fabrice, having a late lunch.  I’ve called all the shifters I can find.  They’ll do their best to get everybody out.  The vamps will join in as soon as they can.”

Cristos turned to her, his hand outstretched.  “Kanchana, go with Andreas now.”  His voice held no conciliation.  It was as good as an order.

“What about you?”  Unlike Andreas, she had to yell to make herself heard.

“I’ll be fine.  Andreas, come back for me later.”  Cristos looked around at the crowds, much thinner now, everyone heading for the exits.  So much for controlled exits in the event of fire.  Most were screaming, all were running, shopping bags and purses abandoned in the mad dash for the doors.

Andreas took her hand.  “Come with me.”  She did so, to a smashed window.  The air seemed thick here, and she recognized it as fuzzing.  A great red/gold creature waited patiently, several unconscious people already on its back, its wings keeping a gentle hover.  Chana shrank back, but Andreas pushed her forward.  “Get on his back.”

Shaking, holding back her tears and panic, Chana climbed out the window and on to the creature’s back.  She didn’t look down.  Andreas climbed on after her.

The unconscious people were tied to the creature, with a makeshift mixture of ropes, belts and other items.  She held on, numbly doing as she was told and closed her eyes.  A cool wind whooshed around them, past her hands, refreshing on her poor, burned face until, with a thump, they landed.  The air was still thick, fuzzing to prevent anyone seeing anything but ambulance the creature projected in its mind.  She almost fell off the creature’s back, to be swept up by Andreas and plonked in a wheelchair.  She felt like a piece of luggage, but knew this was the best thing she could do.  She couldn’t help, so the best thing would be to let them take her to a place of safety, and regroup. 

She was wheeled into the hotel, and into an elevator, which glided up and then along a corridor to a room.  The door opened with a quiet click and closed behind her.  Chana got to her feet.

She stood in the center of a large hotel suite, the carpet soft under her feet.  Andreas flicked a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.  “All right?  I’ll leave you with Diane.  I need to check on the situation and get back.”  The haunted look in his eyes told her everything he wasn’t saying.  People were dead and trapped on those floors above Simpson’s.  Chana glanced around and saw Cristos’s assistant, blonde and pink hair incongruous in this situation.  Nobody should be this frivolous.

She swallowed away her fear, and nodded.  “Go.”

He went.  One minute he was there, then he was gone, racing out the room at top speed.

Diane gave her a tight smile.  “You’re in Cristos’s hotel room.  I wasn’t at the office when the strike came, I was here.”  She didn’t say why, and Chana found herself wondering if Diane and Cristos were more than boss and secretary.  Not that it mattered now.  “The stairs and elevators in the store are completely blocked.  We’ve called what shapeshifters we can find and we’re working overtime fuzzing minds and getting everyone out.”  Her face turned bleak and grave, a tragic contrast to her cheerful efficiency when Chana had first seen her.  “The attack was sudden, but whoever did it knew exactly where to strike.”  She stepped closer.  Frowning, she studied Chana’s face.  “That looks nasty.  You’re a shifter, aren’t you?  Well you’d better change your form, otherwise you’ll blister.”

“What?”  Chana looked around.  Everything was happening too fast.  The explosion stunned her senses, making her feel stupid and completely numb.  She stood in a bedroom, the bed neatly turned down, the light to the room beyond switched on.  She followed Diane into the spacious bathroom and stood in front of the full length mirror.

She gasped.  One side of her face was raw with burns, skin hanging off in shreds.  Why hadn’t she felt it?  Her clothes were ruined, the blouse torn off her shoulder, the pants smeared all down one side.  But she was here, and alive.

Now she felt the burn.  Shock must have cushioned the pain before.  And Diane was right.  Blisters began to swell up as she watched.  Diane spoke from behind her.  “Shapeshift.  If you do that, you’ll heal much, much faster.”

“I don’t know if I can.”  Her lips were swelling up now, and she found it harder to speak.

“Try.”  The urgency in Diane’s tone told her more than anything else she had to do it and now.

She tried.  To her surprise, the fur began to form immediately, pricking as it pierced through her skin, and she felt her bones and muscles elongate and re-form.  She tried to speak, but couldn’t.

The only thing she couldn’t do was regulate her size.  When she’d done that before, Josh had regulated that for her and she hadn’t the least idea how to go about it.  She had no choice but to see what happened.

Her head hit the ceiling, and she was forced to bend, but to her relief, she fitted.

Diane spoke from the door.  “A griffin!  How marvelous!  I’ve never seen one before.  Stay like that for an hour at least, then we’ll see how you’re getting on.”

How could she be so practical in the face of so much change?  Shapeshifting had freaked Chana out completely and she’d been the person doing it.

Low murmurs and the occasional shout told her more people had arrived in the other room.  Someone, no one she knew, stuck his head around the door.  “Want some help with that size?”

She couldn’t even nod.  She felt like Alice, too big for her surroundings, wondering which piece of mushroom to nibble.

Someone asked to speak to her, mind to mind.  Nobody she knew.  A feminine voice, brisk and clear.

I’m a basilisk.  Would you like me to help?

Yes!

Immediately she saw how the trick was done, as though someone held a book open at the right page in front of her.  All she had to do was to follow the instructions, and they were a lot clearer than self-build furniture.

She tried, and it worked, so she found she could reduce her size to something more manageable, the size of a child.

Thanks.

That’s okay.  Were you there?

I was in the store below, on my way back up.  What was it like upstairs?

She felt a mental shudder.  Unbelievable.  They got us with our pants down.  There must have been at least fifty people there.  God knows how many got out.

Someone else waddled into the bathroom and looked at her.  A serpent like creature, with wings.  The two legendary monsters looked at each other, and the griffin felt the other smile.  Were you hurt, too?

Yes.  My arm broke, and I got burned.  Pretty bad, but it should be okay soon.  It doesn’t hurt too much any more.  You?

I was in the store below with Cristos.  Burned, but it’s weird, I can actually feel it getting better.

You’re the new griffin, aren’t you?  The one the English griffin brought in.

Yes.  The hit might have been because of me.

The creature regarded her solemnly through large, black eyes.  It wasn’t you.  You can’t help being what you are, any more than the rest of us can.  You’re not the cause, never think that.

She walked towards Chana and touched her with the tip of a tiny, extended wing.  Try to get some sleep.  All hell will break loose soon.

Excuse me but that isn’t going to help me sleep.

A small chuckle.  Let me help?

She gave unspoken permission, too weary to protest any longer.  A wave of lethargy swept over her, making her limbs heavy, her eyelids impossible to keep open.  With a whispered Thanks, she fell asleep.

*****

A sound from the next room made Chana open her eyes.  For a moment she thought she was still in the dream, a comforting vision that rapidly left her as she came to a sense of where she was.

Warm bodies surrounded her, some furry, some feathered, none of them human.  She moved, and felt the shifting as her companions adjusted themselves, some stirring awake.

A voice disturbed their peace.  “Those of you who can attend, Cristos is holding a meeting in the conference room at the end of this corridor.  He’s hired the whole wing here, so you needn’t be afraid of meeting any hominids.”

She glanced at her companions, wondering how on earth she got here, when exactly her life had taken this bizarre turn, feeling like a character out of a David Byrne song.

The small creatures scattered, moving apart.  Then they shifted.  Chana emulated them, feeling the bones change shape, the fur recede, a sensation almost impossible to describe.

Watching the others, belatedly she realized she’d be naked when she completed her change, but now the process had started, she couldn’t stop it.  Horror and embarrassment filled her with heat, but she had to endure.

Most of the other creatures completed the transformation before she did, but they waited for her to catch up with them.  How she wished they hadn’t!

Now about a dozen people filled the bathroom, some with wounds seeping blood, pink edges showing the newly healed cuts, some yellowed bruises, as though they were weeks old instead of hours.

Although she tried very hard, when she got to her feet, her arms went in front of her, shielding her nakedness.  Someone chuckled and threw her a bathrobe.  “Here, put this on.  You’ll get used to it.”

“Is it obvious to everybody that I’m new at this?”

A few people smiled.  None of them tried to hide their nudity, none seemed discomfited by it.  “In our society we have to spend a fair amount of time naked.  Either that, or lose a shirt every time.  How come you’re not used to it?”

She looked at the man who had spoken.  Like the others, he was a magnificent specimen of humanity, long, dark hair reaching to a slim waist, narrow hips…  She looked up hastily to meet his broad smile.  “My stepfather kept me dosed up on cephalox and I didn’t even know until recently.”  She forced herself to let her arms drop to her sides, noticing that his gaze didn’t immediately go to her breasts or her crotch, as she’d half expected.

His eyes remained fixed on her face.  “Jesus, you’re the griffin, aren’t you?  Cristos is bound to want you at this meeting.”

She bit her lip.  “Yes, I’m the griffin.”

“I’m sorry.”  He seemed entirely serious.

It had been so long since she’d received sympathy from anyone that she could hardly believe it.  The Department had been targeted, people must have died in the attack and he thought of her dilemma.

He took her hand, the warmth of friendly contact nearly bringing her to tears.  “We’re in this together.  Come on, let’s see what’s up.”

He helped her slip her arms through the sleeves of the robe before they followed the others out of the small bathroom to where people were filing through the outer door of the suite and up the corridor.

It was as well Cristos had booked the floor, because her companion, a man she discovered was Jack, a serpent shapeshifter, wasn’t the only naked person to file into the room.  He took a robe from a pile just inside the door of the conference room and shrugged into it.  Only then did she realize he must have lost his clothes in the explosion, probably burned or torn off him by the power of the attack.  Her mind seemed to catch up with her, assimilating, taking in what had just happened, although the numbness of shock wouldn’t leave her for a while.

Cristos stood at the end of the room, tapping one shiny shoe against the parquet floor, waiting for them to settle, but he didn’t have to wait long.  Everyone in the room was psychic to some degree, but you didn’t have to be psychic to feel the tension and fierce anger permeating the air.  The room was a large one, but there must have been around fifty people present, and when many of them were Talents, it made for an uncomfortable fit.

Chana concentrated on keeping her mental abilities locked away tight, as much out of respect for other people as to keep her thoughts private.  She stood to one side, with a group of other people wearing hotel bathrobes and listened to Cristos.  None of the urbane sophisticate remained.  Only a warrior, a general, waiting to brief his troops.  He wore clothes he’d obviously thrown on for convenience, but they still matched, were immaculately ironed.  His eyes weren’t kind, as hard as the blade of a sword, his mouth straight and thinned with strain.  He scanned the room efficiently.

“You know what happened.  We’ve been targeted.  By whom we don’t yet know, though we have our suspicions.  With what is easier.  A missile of some kind, nothing paranormal.”

A slight murmur arose but Cristos ignored it.  “Our people are on it.  And I don’t mean the Department 57 people, I’m talking FBI.  So be careful.  All evidence of Talents has gone, and we never carry much in any case.  We need them on our side, so don’t any of you antagonize them.  They’ll want to talk to all of us.”  He glanced around the room again, his gaze lingering on Chana a fraction longer then on the others.

“How did they find us?”  Jack asked.

Cristos grimaced.  “A bug.  Probably in a cell phone or a piece of personal jewelry, something like that.”

Chana gasped, and everyone around her stared.  “It was me, wasn’t it?”  Her watch, or the medallion on a slender gold chain, one her stepfather had given her last Christmas.  That was how he’d kept such close tabs on her.  The medallion held a lock of hair, and he’d told her it was her mother’s.  He must have known she’d choose to wear it most of the time.

Cristos heaved a heavy sigh and ran a well-manicured hand through his short-cropped hair.  “It seems likely.  Evan’s working on it from our New York office.  He has a direct link to the computers here.”  He grimaced.  “Whatever it was, it was a sophisticated device.  We’re set up to detect all bugs in the department, but this one passed unnoticed.  It could have been anyone, Chana.  It just happened to be you.”

“Does that mean—“ She couldn’t finish the sentence.

Cristos nodded.  “Oh yes.  You didn’t say it out loud, but I think most people here heard what you said.  Your stepfather.  Somehow he’s involved, though I don’t know if he’s the instigator or a patsy.  I suspect a bit of both.”

To her surprise, people didn’t move away from her.  She would have done, if she could have.  She heard Jack’s gentle sigh.  “They want what we’ve got, or they want to get rid of us.  Which group was this?”

“The scientists.  There’s a lab somewhere close, very well shielded.”

“Why would they want to hit us?”  That was a female voice from the other side of the room.

“To take us off guard and to snatch what they could.  We intercepted a group of people disguised as firefighters trying to remove certain items.  Computers, some paperwork.”

“They’re dead?”

“No, merely under the illusion that the equipment and paper they have is what they found in the Department.  More useful that way.”

A chuckle rippled around the room and some of the tension eased.

“They hit us, then sent a team in to retrieve equipment.  And people.  Dead or alive.”  When Cristos’s expression turned grave, the room fell silent.  “We lost five.  Three Talents, two mortals.  The store lost another five, on the top floor, which took the impact.  So if they wanted to hit Talents only, as the PHR claim, it was remarkably unsuccessful.  No, they wanted information, and bodies to study.”

Hot tears flooded Chana’s eyes, and she dashed them away, but more followed.  She wasn’t the only person in tears, but her guilt, the sorrow washed through her, and she knew she would never lose it.  These people had died because something she’d carried with her had told the enemy where to find them.

Cristos picked up a remote control, hefting it in his hand before switching on the large plasma TV set behind him.  The news blared out into the near silence.

Simpson’s had become a disaster area, yellow tape sectioning it off, the normal bustle of an ordinary shopping day replaced by haphazardly parked television vans and emergency service vehicles.  Behind the reporter was another, talking into a different camera and behind that, firemen and paramedics scurried about.  Smoke still billowed from the upper levels of the building.

The reporter spoke rapidly, in taut, short sentences.  “The missile struck late morning.  The authorities have as yet no idea who made the strike, or why, but Al-Qaeda has to be at the forefront of suspects.  Already, several Muslims have been taken into custody.”

Cristos turned the sound down so it was only just audible.  “Look for the obvious, or set up a smokescreen.  Because Al-Qaeda are suspected they can bring the specialist units in to the scene.  The CIA can get a foot in the door.  Which they will.  We will.  I’ll send some of you in.  You’re supposedly communications experts, so you can play on that.  But I want you to make sure there’s no sign of any activity by Talents anywhere in that building.  We’ll regroup, re-form somewhere else, but for now, I’ve designated a few safe areas.  One of them is not this hotel.  Diane is booking rooms in hotels all over the city, from luxury class to motels.  I want you all to take one, even if you’re resident here.  Until we’ve checked over your place, you’re under orders not to return there.”

Murmurs followed, but no one dissented.  “If I don’t call you in the next few hours,  leave the city for a safe place, if you have one.  And I know most of you do.  I’ll draw up a list of operatives I need to stay, and let you know as soon as I can.”  He paused, and glanced at the screen, but Chana felt her body tense, as though Cristos was avoiding saying something.

For the first time since the attack, she tried to contact Josh.  Her senses flooded back, and she knew that until that moment, she’d been in shock, dealing with each moment as it came.  Was that her nature, shapeshifter’s way of coping, or was it just the way she was naturally?  She’d spent so much of her life under the influence of a drug she didn’t even know about, she couldn’t tell.

Josh wasn’t there.  Nowhere.  He’d have come at the first explosion, when her mind had blazed out in alarm, but he hadn’t come, he wasn’t here.  He wasn’t anywhere.

As she began to panic, she heard Cristos’s voice, as though it came from a great distance.  “Also, I think the enemy has been planning to take a particular person.  We know that a griffin shapeshifter, Laurie Friedland, has been missing for some time, and his brother came here to search for him.  Well it seems they have him, too.  Josh Friedland has disappeared.  Please can someone catch Kanchana?  I think she’s about to faint.”

Chapter Fourteen

 

Josh moaned.  At least he was still alive.  He hadn’t meant to make any noise, but the control needed seemed to be beyond him.  Weakness coursed through his body, his blood running sluggishly through his veins.

He forced his eyes open and blinked.

He saw a plain white ceiling, totally devoid of ornament.  It was so gleaming white it was probably new.  Turning his head he found he lay on a bed.  Movement made his head spin, so he closed his eyes again, trying to regain his equilibrium.  Something was wrong, deep inside.

He was alone.  When he reached for her, she wasn’t there.  His breath hitched but he couldn’t do anything to stop the rising panic attack, hadn’t any way of stopping it.  Until he heard a voice, one he’d longed to hear.

“Hey, take it easy, bro.  Look at me.”

He opened his eyes again.

On a narrow hospital bed, dressed in a paper surgical gown, tubes running out of most of the parts of his body, lay Laurie.

“Oh God, Laurie, where have you been?”

Laurie grimaced in that half-comical, half-regretful expression Josh had missed so much.  “Here.  All the time.”

“Where’s here?”

All the humor went out of his brother’s expression.  “Fucked if I know.”

“I was in San Francisco.  In Skeffington’s house and – I can’t quite remember.”

“Don’t try.  They knocked you out, probably in a drink or something like that.  That’s how they got me.”  His eyes widened in alarm as Josh moved.  “No, no don’t.  If you disconnect any of these tubes, they’ll be straight in here.  An alarm goes off somewhere.”

“What’s in them?”

“Cephalox, for sure.  I haven’t been able to shift, except for the once, and that time they were ready for me.  They wanted to see me shift, to be sure they had what they thought they had.  Josh, they have moles in the Department.  That’s how they knew about me.”

“Housekeeping.”

“Yeah.  Gotta be done.”

Josh lay back, his head swimming.  “How did they take you?”

“A babe, a really hot babe—“

All Josh’s doubts and anxieties rose.  This turn of events meant he could have been fooled all along.  But if he was, then he wouldn’t trust his own judgment ever again.  Let it not be Chana!  “What did she look like?  What was her name?”

“Justine.  Tall, leggy, blonde.  Just how I like ‘em.  She said she had an acting job in LA, and did I want a week in San Francisco before she went.  I said yeah, and they took me right off the plane.  Didn’t even get her in the sack.”

Josh breathed out slowly.  Not Chana.

“Who’s Chana?”

He might have known Laurie would pick up on his thought.  “The woman I love.  George Skeffington’s stepdaughter.”

“Whoa!  She got you in here?”

“No.  Laurie, can they eavesdrop on our thoughts?”

“Probably.”  But Josh felt a stirring, deep, deep down, and he let Laurie in at that level.  Nobody could read them there.  That was the connection they’d established when Josh was a child, and had to be safe.  If it wasn’t they were in such serious trouble it hardly bore thinking about.

She’s a shifter, Laurie, but she didn’t know until recently.  Skeffington kept her dosed on cephalox, told her it was insulin for her diabetes.  She’s not diabetic.  Her attacks were her body’s way of rebelling against the lack of shifting.

Jesus!  I knew he had something to do with it!

What can we do?

Laurie shifted restlessly.  I’ve tried a few things.  So far, nada.  One of the drugs is weakening me, so I don’t even have my human strength.

Laurie was bigger than Josh, a midfielder in the football field, with great body power.  Josh’s strength was his speed and agility.  If Laurie had lost his strength, Josh knew why he felt unusually clumsy.  Not to mention lethargic.  Some kind of tranquillizer, he guessed.

So what do we do?

I think they wanted us both.  They’ve put us in together for a reason.  Let’s talk, not let them know we’re communicating inside.

Sensible.  Josh thought of something they could both discuss without too much trouble.  “Do you think they came up with the idea of Princess Leia being Luke’s sister after the first film?”

The hours they’d spent discussing Star Wars had become a joke and Laurie’s obsession with Princess Leia character even more.  A tried and true discussion, something they didn’t have to concentrate on.  He only half heard Laurie’s reply, “Well there are some indications in the first film….” and he let his mind drift down, down, down, where they could talk privately.

 They’d both been taken near San Francisco, so perhaps they were still close.  But neither brother knew how long they’d been unconscious.  There had been time to get them anywhere.

Who are they?

Scientists for sure.  They want to know what makes us shifters, if they can bottle it.

It might be Chana.  They might want to turn her back.

Could be.  Or they might want to be like her.

Josh considered the conundrum.  More likely, they want our advantages for themselves.  Do they know we can turn them?

I haven’t told them.

If there’s a mole, they’ll know we can.

There might not be.  Laurie made a frustrated sound in the middle of a long speech about Leia.  I don’t know anything.

How could they overpower you?

Drugs.  Another disgusted sound.  They’ve taken samples of everything.  Blood, bone, urine, they’ve had it all.

Any operations?

Those too.

A cold hand of fear clutched Josh’s heart.  He’d only had one, in a specialist unit, to remove his tonsils, and he never forgot the panic as he was going under, waking up in a blind funk and trying to shapeshift, being unable to.  Of course, he’d been given cephalox for the procedure, a legitimate use of the drug.  Now one of the tubes inserted in his body was no doubt feeding him the stuff again.  He felt Laurie’s soothing presence and sent him an unspoken reassurance he was far from feeling.

We have to get out of here.  Cristos is in San Francisco.

The door opened.

“Good morning, gentlemen.”

Laurie stared, Josh swore.

“Well, not exactly the response I expected for reuniting you.  But it will do.”

George Skeffington, incongruously dressed in a brown tailored suit and tie strolled into the room and stood between the two beds.  He smiled broadly.  “Just as I always dreamed.  Brothers.  Your DNA will tell me much more together than they will apart.”

Josh sighed.  “What is all this in aid of?  What can you possibly gain by doing this?”

Skeffington grinned, baring yellowed teeth.  “Immortality.”

“Huh?”  The brothers looked at each other.

“You won’t find that from us.”

“Oh no?”  George snapped his fingers, and someone else entered the room.  A young man, in another business suit, holding a briefcase.  He handed George some glossies and George held them up.  “I have some photos of you both.  They go back as far as the invention of photography.  I have been collecting data on you for some time, so don’t bother to deny it.  I even had a grave exhumed.  As I expected, it was empty.”

“He’s mad.”  Laurie gave Josh a resigned glance.  “And you did all this because we have a strong resemblance to our ancestors?”

“I’ve had your DNA analyzed.”

Josh wanted to shrug, but he couldn’t muster the energy.

George smiled.  “It corresponds to the DNA from a museum piece, a lock of hair encased in a locket, taken from a World War One pilot’s plane.”

Josh remembered that plane, and his heart sank, though he was careful not to let his expression show.  He’d lost that locket in the crash, hoped it was burned with the wreckage.

Apparently not.  “Is that what you call evidence?”

“That and others.”

Josh thought of all the envelopes he’d licked, all the lovers he’d had.  But surely DNA in that form couldn’t last that long?  He wished he knew more.

“I don’t have enough for a court of law, it’s true but I do have enough to be sure.  I want what you have, boys.  Give it to me and I’ll let you go free.”

“No.  Way.”  Laurie gritted his teeth and his body went taut.

George opened his palm to reveal a small device.  “You both have one of these attached to interesting parts of your body.  At the end of the catheters.  Inside.”

God!

In the next few minutes, Josh realized there was a lot to be said for unconsciousness.

*****

It took every ounce of control Chana had not to despair, not to give up and mourn her loss.  Josh had  seeped into her soul.  He was a part of her, and without him, she wasn’t even half a person.

But she forced herself, and went on.  Searching his room, searching her room for some clue, anything, Virgil a silent, menacing figure by her side.  Once he touched her arm.  “I feel some of your pain, and I’m sorry.  You’ve bonded with him.”

“Something happened, that’s for sure.”

When couples are very close, they bond.  You’ve done that, or you’ve gone some way towards it.  He’s probably missing you the same way.”

She swallowed a sob.  “If he’s alive.”

Virgil said nothing, but turned aside to look through the last drawer in Josh’s bedside table.

No clue.

Cristos walked into the bedroom and Chana gasped at the sudden appearance.

He looked at her, compassion filling his eyes, and she hated it, hated the necessity, hated the pity.  “Chana, I have a proposition for you.  When your stepfather gets home, I want you to stay here and talk to him.  Tell him Josh has disappeared, try to get him to take you to him.  It’s an outside chance, and it’s dangerous, but I can’t keep you out of this, so I have to think how I can use you most effectively.  We still don’t know precisely why he’s doing this.  You might be part of his experiment, or you might be the reason for it.  You say he loves you, in his way, and that’s all we have to go on, so if you say no, I’ll understand.  We’ll find a way.”

“I’ll do it.”  It made sense to her.  She might be able to find Josh quicker, if Skeffington had him.  That was all that mattered.

“Okay, then I want you to wear a wire.  A good old-fashioned bug and tap.  A small homing device and another, to transmit to us.”

The thought was so novel, she almost smiled.  In any other part of the Agency, this would be routine, but to Department 57 it was an alternative to the regular channels of telepathy.

“Josh and Laurie are somewhere that is being very efficiently blocked, or they’re being kept completely unconscious.  But they aren’t the only Talents to go missing, and some should have found a way, would have done, if they weren’t in a shielded facility.  I have people on all the places George Skeffington has a registered interest, and there are a couple that look more promising than most, but my guess is that he isn’t on the deeds to this place, that there’s nothing to connect him to it.  Does he do business under any different names?”

“Not that I know of.  Only his own, and the companies he owns.”  What would be the point?  George was a control freak.  He got off on demonstrating his control, so until now she hadn’t considered anything covert.  But now she knew the point.

“We’ll wire you, and leave Virgil here just in case you need to get out in a hurry.  No reason to tell anyone he’s here.  Andreas will stay, and get Svetlana out as soon as he can.  Agreed?”

The others nodded, Andreas standing in the doorway where he could see anyone approaching the room.  “I’m her boyfriend, and I’ll make a scene and drag her away.”

“That should work.  She’s with George, she’s been shopping in town and he’s bringing her home.  Andreas is mentally tracking them every inch of the way, so if she disappears he’ll be on it.  So we might not need you, Chana.  Svetlana’s doing everything she can to let George realize she’s a Talent, without actually shapeshifting.  Giving him a chance to take her.”  Cristos glanced at Andreas.  “That’s your number one task.  Fabrice is tracking her from San Francisco, so we should be able to get a clear triangulation if they do take her.”

He smiled at Chana.  “Don’t worry.  Svetlana is a trained operative, much more lethal than she looks.  She can take care of herself.”

“So could Josh.”

Cristos’s mouth tightened.  “Yep.  And Laurie.  We’ll get them back, Chana.  For your sake and for the sake of all Talents, we’ll get them back.”

He didn’t say “Dead or alive.”  He didn’t have to.

*****

Watching Department 57 operatives at work was an awesome experience, even if it was one Chana could have well done without.  When George came home, his arm slung casually around Svetlana’s waist, Andreas met them with a roar.  “Where have you been?  What did you mean by walking out on me?”

Svetlana leapt, her large eyes even wider with shock.  “Andreas!  I – I wasn’t expecting you!”

She heard the message Andreas sent her.  We need to get you out of here.  I’m your boyfriend, come to collect you.

From then on, they conversed in Russian, a language Andreas wasn’t completely fluent in.  Chana knew because she heard the rapid mental instructions Svetlana sent him, and the way he picked up and said the words almost at the same time he heard them.  She conducted the argument, both sides of it, acting shocked, then angry, then contrite, and ending up in Andreas’s arms, sharing a passionate kiss.

He murmured endearments in Russian, and she cooed her response before ‘becoming aware’ of their audience.  George, Junior, Chana and a couple of domestics, gawked at the scene between the fiery haired Russian aristocrat and her dark haired, brooding lover.  They could have lit up the screen, had they been in LA.

Not once did they look Chana’s way, but she heard Svetlana’s farewells in her head, and her encouragement.  I think he knows I’m a Talent, but he didn’t take the bait.  He probably suspects Andreas, too.  I hope you get Josh back, Chana.  Be strong for us all.

There was only one person she had to be strong for.  Josh.

Andreas swept out, his arm possessively encircling Svetlana, and shortly afterwards they heard the sound of a powerful car engine, fading into the distance.

“Well!”  Junior exclaimed.  “That girl was beautiful, but trouble.  You’re better out of that one, Dad.”

“Hmm.”  George stared out the window.  “Maybe.  I think something spooked her and she sent for him.  Anyhow, she’s gone.”  He turned away as though he’d never met Svetlana.  Chana had seen him do that before, dismiss someone as though they’d never existed.  She wished he’d do it to her, but he never had.

“Can I have a word, George?  A private word?”

George fixed her with his stony stare.  “I think so, Kanchana.  I want to talk to you, too.  Come on, Junior, you might as well be in on this.”

“No.  It doesn’t concern Junior.”  How could she give voice to her suspicions with him there?  Junior was a bumbling idiot, Skeffington’s tool in every way possible.

“It might.”

George’s voice held no room for discussion, so she followed him.  She’d dressed in a pair of pants and a loose top, covering the electronic gadgets she now wore.  Tiny devices, state of the art, Cristos had told her, developed within the Department.  Where telepathy couldn’t go, perhaps more conventional methods could succeed.  If they were discovered in a scan or a search, Virgil was tracking her, ready to flash her out.  It was the best Cristos could do to protect her, given the circumstances.

She decided to let George take the lead.  She needed to discover where Josh was, but she wasn’t sure which approach would get her the result she desperately yearned for.  Nothing mattered as much as that, nothing.

George took his time sitting at his desk, settling himself and watching Junior find a chair for Chana, waiting until she was comfortable before finding a seat for himself.  Chana set her teeth.

“I noticed you did not bring our guest home with you,” Skeffington said.  “Has he wandered away to pastures new?”

She unlocked her jaw.  “You know what happened to him, George.  You have him.”

Skeffington stared at her for a long moment before leaning back in his chair.  “What makes you think that?”

“Did you have anything to do with the attack this afternoon?”

At least he didn’t say, “What attack?”  George met her gaze straight on, but she didn’t look away.  Still keeping his eyes locked on hers, he said, “What makes you think that?”

Too late, she realized she’d revealed more than she needed to.  She had to have had information, and where would she have got that from?

She improvised, praying it would work.  “A man from the CIA got me in an office and asked me some very pointed questions.  That’s why I was late, that’s why I lost sight of Josh.  Right after the attack, he came and found me, and made it clear they suspect you’re involved.  They knew Josh had gone, and they said he might have been kidnapped.”

“What did you say?”  George rapped out the question and next to her, she felt her brother stiffen.

“Nothing.  What could I say?”  Time to take this up a level.  “George, you said you wanted me to be your hostess, to arrange social matters for you.  I can’t do that properly if you don’t tell me what’s going on, can I?  If you just trusted me more, I wouldn’t have found myself questioned by the authorities this afternoon.  And what gives?  I thought the CIA wasn’t allowed to conduct investigations in this country?”  She let her voice rise a little, her temper let loose, just for a moment.

“I don’t know why the CIA, sugar.”  Skeffington sounded so reasonable, she knew he was close to the edge.  It helped her to control her rising anxiety, so dangerously close to temper.  “Something went wrong this afternoon.  I still have to find out what.”

“You’re telling her too much.”  Junior sounded sullen.

“Shut up, Junior.”

Chana shot her father a fierce look.  “Take me to him, George.  I want to see him.  What is all this?  What are you trying to do?”

“Find a cure for what’s wrong with you.”

Just in time, she bit her tongue and changed what she was going to say.  Did he mean for her to do that?  To lose her temper and say too much?  Of course he did.  “I have diabetes, George.  There is no cure.”

“No.  There’s a way, there has to be.  And when I have it, I might be able to find a cure for a whole bunch of other things, too.  Do you know how much money there is in that?”

It sounded so much like Skeffington, she knew that was the truth.  Or at least, some of it.  Experiments on Talents to discover magical cures, and provide a hold on the medical market. 

“So how do you propose to do that?”

The barest vestige of a smile twitched his lips.  “There are some people, Chana, who hold the secret naturally.  So far, they’ve refused to co-operate, wanting to keep their secret to themselves.  But we have some, and they will help us, whether they want to or not.”

“And you have Josh.”

“I’m afraid so, sweetie.  I needed him.  For you.”

It sounded like the worst kind of self-justification.  He wanted, so he found a way to explain matters.  But not to her.  “You set me to seduce him, so you could take him.”

Beside her, Junior flinched.  “You did what?”

Chana gave her stepbrother a patient smile.  “Junior, I’ve been married.  I’m not a virgin any more.  And George knew Josh would appeal to me in that way.”  She turned her head and caught Skeffington’s knowing smile.  “Didn’t you?”

“Sure.  But I didn’t force you into anything, did I?  So what did he tell you, Kanchana?  What secrets did he whisper to you in the dead of night?”

She hadn’t realized it was possible to hate Skeffington more, but she found there was still room for more.  “You bugged my room, didn’t you?”

He didn’t even blush.  “Only I listened to the tapes, sweetheart.  Nobody else.”

“Don’t call me that!”  The memory of Josh murmuring the endearment to her as he thrust deep into her body came back in force.  She cursed herself for losing it, however briefly, knowing that was probably why Skeffington had called her ‘sweetheart.’  “How could you?  What gives you the right?”  She stopped abruptly, forcing herself back into controlling mode, knowing as well as George did that the first person to lose control lost the battle.  And she could not afford to lose this one.

“The right to care for my stepdaughter.”

She bit back her initial response, a scathing repudiation that George Skeffington cared for no one but himself.  “By kidnapping the man I was coming to care for?”  Carefully she avoided telling the truth – that she loved Josh.  If Skeffington knew that, he’d know he’d lost her.  And her value to him was as an acolyte, a disciple, someone who loved him above all others.

“For your own sake, Kanchana.”

“Have you hurt him?”  Try as she might, she couldn’t completely dispel the quaver in her voice.

“Nothing irreversible.  The doctors have taken samples, that’s all.”

“So what was with the missile?  I was in Simpson’s when it hit, looking for lingerie.”

He blinked.  “What were you doing there?  Haven’t I taught you to have better taste than that?”

She realized that he really believed that.  To George, money meant quality, something that was far from the case, and Simpson’s offered economy lines as well as more exclusive ones.  “Something for everybody” was its proud boast.  Therefore, a Skeffington didn’t shop there.

“Did you know I might be in the offices above?”

“I made sure you weren’t.  You’d gone for lunch and not returned.”

That meant he’d had her watched.  She’d led his spies straight to Department 57’s headquarters in San Francisco.  Dear God.

“Why hit them?”

“Wait.”  Junior put a beefy hand on her arm.  “What are you talking about?”

“You mean he didn’t tell you that?  You, his right hand man?”  Chana didn’t even try to keep the scorn out of her voice.  She confronted her brother, letting him see everything she didn’t have to say, lifting her chin belligerently.  “He hit the department store this afternoon.  They were getting too close to him, and he knew it, so he hit first.”

“You saying George has access to military style missiles?”  Junior’s scorn broke into a derisive laugh.

Chana looked into his handsome face, feeling truly sorry for him.  Junior would never get away from his father while Skeffington lived.  “Why not?  You can get anything at a price.  Even ex army vets who have a grudge.  I’ll bet you anything you like they’ll find someone just like that who claims he just got lucky.  He’ll take the fall, his family will find themselves with a nest egg.”

She knew she was right when Junior paled.  “They said on the news they’d arrested someone.”

She thought too much like Skeffington.  The thought gave her pause until she remembered.  Josh.  Nothing mattered more than that.  Except perhaps, just perhaps, he had her mother locked up in the same place.

“Take me to Josh, and show me what you’re doing,” she demanded.  “Do it and I might consider not going to the cops, not telling anyone what I know.”

“Do you care that much?”

She steeled herself for the worst lie of all.  “Not at all.  But I want to know what you’re doing.  And if you’re anywhere near a cure for diabetes.”

Or whatever he wanted to call it.  She took a deep breath.  “George, you and I know it’s not diabetes.  How did this happen?  What did you do to make me like this?”

Chapter Fifteen

 

George Skeffington looked at his stepdaughter, the woman who was so much more.  How had she turned into the smartest of all his children?  Why couldn’t Junior, the son of the only woman he’d truly loved be that person?

He sighed.  What he had, he must use.  And it looked as if he’d better use Kanchana.  He’d seen her as a pretty asset, the stepdaughter he secretly adored, as he’d adored her mother for a short term, although she had proved such a disappointment he’d feared Kanchana would be the same.  She wasn’t, and she’d accurately seen through all his ruses, all his schemes.  If he didn’t draw her over to his side, she’d become an enemy.  He couldn’t bear that.

So George decided to trust Kanchana, before he lost her.  At least as much as he trusted anyone, which wasn’t all that far.  He had to.  Junior was a severe disappointment, reaching a level of intelligence at sixteen that he’d never surpassed.  Edward only showed any interest in his damned art and Ron was too young to be able to say.  His other son took care of the sporting side of his investments, very successfully so far, but he couldn’t do everything.  So he had to take Kanchana, make her his.  She’d be worth having.  She wasn’t of his blood.  Perhaps it was possible to marry her.

He went over the possibilities rapidly.  Kanchana had found out what she really was.  Perhaps she’d missed a dose of ‘insulin,’ and scared herself half to death when she changed into that – that creature.  “When did you find out?”

“About what?”  Cool, intelligent eyes met his own.  Despite his misgivings, he felt proud of her.

“What you are?”

She considered him, face giving nothing away.  “A while back.”  Had she really hidden it from him for a long time?  His admiration for her went up.  He could use someone with her guile.  “I want to know more about it.”

“Go, Junior.  Make sure they’re expecting us at the facility and arrange transport.”

“But George—“

He didn’t take his eyes away from his stepdaughter.  “Go, Junior.  Make it as soon as possible.”

He didn’t say anything else until Junior had left the room, then he studied his stepdaughter as he’d never done before.  Yes, there was intelligence in that clear gaze.  Beauty, he’d always accepted, and the style and poise she’d always possessed.  Her mother had possessed it, too.  “Your condition comes from your mother, not from your father.  I wanted to breed more children on her, but she died.”  Something in her eyes flared, but he wasn’t sure what he’d said to provoke that flash of anger.  “She didn’t take care of herself.  But I still had you.  I prayed you hadn’t inherited her – condition, but you did.  The first time it happened to you, you panicked and I thought you would kill yourself.  I was worried, so I called for help.  As it happened, I found someone who knew something about it, he helped clear your mind and you could start again.  I’m sorry for the diabetes diagnosis.  I always meant to tell you when you could bear it, but you seemed content with the way things were.  I want to cure you.  I still do.”

She blinked.  “I don’t mind.”

“I do.  I want you perfect.  I want the best for you.”

“Does being different really matter?”

He shuddered, not attempting to hide his revulsion.  “Yes.  The creature you become is unbearable, terrible.  I vowed to help you, to find a cure.  And we’re close.”  He leaned forward over the expanse of desk.  “Kanchana, I found two beings just like you.  I received information.”

“So that’s why you bought Manchester Rovers.”

He smiled, leaning back in his chair, the creak of expensive leather soothing his senses.  Although part of him felt dismayed that she’d worked it out, another part had all the pride of a mentor for an apt pupil.  “The club is still worth something without two of its stars.  It’s a good investment.  I can sell it back, if I want, for a profit or even a slight loss.  But I can learn so much from those two brothers, I can control the pharmaceutical industry.  Do you know these creatures don’t retain any illness?  I’ve given one of them AIDS, and let him do his thing, and when he turned back to man form, the AIDS had gone.  No error.  I made sure he had it before I withdrew his medication and let him change.  Mind, we had to keep him in a special room when we do that.  He has awesome strength.  Do you have that kind of strength?”

“I don’t know.  You tested him with diseases?”  He couldn’t see what was going on behind that shuttered face.  Something in her favor, if she agreed to work with him.

George shrugged.  “That and other things.  I’ve had his bones broken.  They heal.  I’ve cut him.  He heals without scars.  Kanchana, we’re sitting on a goldmine!”

She shoved back her chair with a squeak that made him fear for his expensive parquet floor and strode to the window.  “Will you do it to me?”

“No!”  His response was instinctive, but as sincere as he ever got.  To be truthful, he didn’t need to.  If he hadn’t found the Friedland brothers, he might well have used his stepdaughter, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. 

This discovery was just too valuable to let sentiment get in the way.  “Kanchana, I’m doing it for you!”  He had to tell the truth, or at least some of it, because she wouldn’t believe it any other way.  “At least, it started that way.  But when I discovered what we were sitting on, hell, girl, not only will we become more powerful than the Rockefellers, we’ll be benefactors of mankind!”

She made a strangled sound, but said nothing other than, “And you need Josh Friedland for this?”

“Yes.  Kanchana, if you’re as intelligent as I think you are, just stop feeling and start thinking!  Work it out!”

*****

Chana worked it out.  Skeffington wanted power, and he didn’t care who he crossed to get it.  If George had discovered a new weapons technology, one that would have destroyed thousands of lives, he would have taken it.  It didn’t matter, as long as it led to the glory of George Skeffington.

She couldn’t transmit her gift to anyone else.  There was no magic bullet, nothing that could transfer her immunity from disease, her healing ability, to anyone else, unless she converted them, and she could do that only once.  It went with what she was.

So now was the time to do the acting job of her life.  Never very good at it, the only way she could hope to carry it off was to believe it, to convince herself Skeffington was right.  She turned and met his gaze, clear-eyed and calm, at least on the surface.  “Do you need both brothers?”

He would expect her to ask that, he knew she’d become involved with Josh.  He shrugged.  “The scientists want to check their DNA, and do a few experiments on both, in parallel.  See how they react.  But the main reason is we need two of the same kind.  These two are undoubtedly that.”

She acted dumb.  “The same kind?”

“Two like you.  All the early experiments were done on – one of your kind.”  It didn’t need the hesitation to tell her the early subject had been her mother.  She hated Skeffington so much at that moment, she nearly lost it.  Josh, she reminded herself.  Josh.  “Finding these creatures is incredibly difficult.  There’s no clear sign, nothing to tell that the man walking past you in the street isn’t one of them.  We’re trying to develop a test of some kind.  Our aim is to spot them on sight, or nearly so, but for now, we’ll settle for a simple test tube test.”

“You haven’t developed anything so far?”

“We’re close.  Real close.”

She wrapped her arms around her body, deliberately invoking a protective gesture.  It would make Skeffington feel superior and give her a slight advantage, since she didn’t  really feel that way.  She could shapeshift whenever she chose now, thanks to Josh’s tuition.  “Do you need me?  To experiment on?”

The look of horror that widened his eyes was over, controlled almost as soon as it had begun.  If it wasn’t for her extra sense, the gentle telepathic feelers she put out, she would probably have missed it.  Dispassionately she marked it down as another advantage to her. 

“I might be able to help without being hurt.  Give blood, that kind of thing.”

He turned around, his eyes as warm as they ever got.  “That would be greatly appreciated.  I thought you’d be more upset.  I know you had a thing with Friedland.”

She kept her expression bland, concentrated on not showing a thing.  She shrugged.  “It was fun.  What do you expect, George, you threw us together.”

He smiled, his thin lips curving just for a moment.  “I needed him to stay for a while.  I wanted to make sure he really was one of those creatures.  We know very little about them, and there’s no guarantee it runs in families.”  He paused.  “I thought it did.  After all, your mother had you.”

“I don’t remember my mother very well.”  Even now her mind had cleared, the blocks gone, she had only vague memories, flashes of recollection.  Hardly anything.

“No.”  He knew why.

She couldn’t ask, but she wanted to know – who had cleared her mind?  Who was skilful enough to go into her head and block the memories they didn’t want her to have?  If she asked, he’d know someone had cleared her mind, and she couldn’t give Skeffington an advantage like that.

A soft knock on the door heralded the arrival of the transport to take them to the facility.  Her heart rose up, and she felt slightly sick.  The pampered stepdaughter of a business tycoon wasn’t expected to go into dangerous situations, and she knew enough to realize Skeffington could be lying.  He’d told her once how he could lie so effectively.  “Believe it,” he’d said.  “Make yourself believe the lie.”  So the thoughts of sincerity she could see in the forefront of his mind could be lies, too. 

Head held high, Chana made her way out to the waiting car.  Junior didn’t go with them.

Half an hour later, they arrived, just as the hot day was beginning to fade into dusk.  The facility was in the middle of nowhere, one of those featureless buildings spotted at a distance from the highway, idly wondered about, and then forgotten.  Only they took the narrow road from the highway that led to the building.  As they approached, the steel gates opened and they passed through.  The security checks were thorough, but discreet.  With her heightened senses, she felt the invisible electronic field, one then another, making the little hairs on her neck lift.  She held her breath as they passed through, but nothing happened.  No alarms.  Cristos had been right.  She carried two bugs, one in the open setting of an amethyst ring on her finger, another under the lapel of her black jacket.  If they were discovered she could claim she had no knowledge of them.  Someone could have planted the bugs on her by shaking her hand, or briefly coming into contact with her in a crowded place.  Another thought for her safety.  Another demonstration of the consideration offered her by virtual strangers, and a reminder of the way her own people treated her. 

The doors to the facility looked normal from the outside, but the wood was only a facing, and the doors were three inches thick.  The car paused inside the gates, in front of another pair, while they were scanned again.  The second set of doors opened, and a blast of tangy sterile disinfectant smell assailed her nostrils through the window Skeffington had opened to wave at the cameras. 

Like a hospital or a dentist’s surgery, clinically clean. 

“Time to get out.”  Skeffington had driven them, an unusual arrangement.  George preferred to be driven, using the drive time to do paperwork or talk to colleagues.  Sometimes high security meetings were held in the back of a large limo, safer than talking in a building, which could be targeted by long range listening devices.  If he had many secrets like this, Chana wasn’t surprised at the attention to secrecy. 

She didn’t wait for the door to be opened, but reached for the handle and got out by herself.  People in white coats approached her, converging like birds of prey on a fresh victim.  Chana fought down her instinctive terror.  They knew what she was, but while she was here with Skeffington, she was untouchable.  That might change, but not yet. 

“This is my stepdaughter.  She might volunteer to help us, but you are not to touch her without her permission.  She’s the reason we’re here, on the brink of great discoveries.  Treat her with the same respect as you would treat me.”  He turned to hold out his hand, beckoning impatiently.  “We’ll see how our new resident is getting on.  Anything to report?”  He turned to a thin, ascetic looking man carrying a clipboard.

Chana fell into step with the pair.  She didn’t want the listeners at Department 57 to miss anything.  She put out a gentle probe on the channel Cristos had shown her, and she felt nothing.  Nothing came back to her.  This place was telepathy proof.  They’d expected it, but hoped for some break.  She left her channels open, to Cristos and the deeper, more intimate one to Josh, hoping there might be gaps somewhere.

“The older patient is showing definite signs of weakness,” said the man dispassionately.  “It doesn’t seem to be recovering as fast.  The second arrived just in time to save the experiment.  We’ve hooked it up to the machines.  It fought hard, even in its unconscious state, but it can’t fight now.”

Chana wanted to ask what they’d done, but rage suffused her and she couldn’t speak.  They called them “it”?  Were they just subnormal things to experiment on?  She concentrated on keeping her expression one of mild interest, deliberately working to relax the muscles that tightened when fury took her. 

The man glanced at her.  Was it possible he could read her?  As they passed closed doors she got senses, twinges of awareness, and once or twice, cries for help.  Josh and Laurie weren’t the only sensitives held here against their will.  But she couldn’t reach outside the facility, however hard she tried.  She prayed the bugs were working.

They passed a junction of two corridors and it was like a door opened on to the outside world, a flash, just for a moment.  She stumbled, allowed herself to fall right on the spot.

This must be a weak juncture.  Perhaps the scanning devices hit a weak spot here.  Whatever the cause, she could communicate here. 

When the doctor bent down to help her, she let her purse fall open, exclaiming lightly in irritation.  The doctor set to picking her things up while she nursed her ankle.  “I’ll be okay in a minute,” she said with a rueful smile.  “Just a twist.”

The doctor bent to examine her and she stretched her foot out for him before concentrating on the commotion inside her head.  She opened her mind completely, then shut out the calls that came from close by.  One sharp effort, a distance call.  Cristos, there are many Talents here.  Get here.

The response came instantly, firm and clear.  We have a fix.  Get out of there as soon as you can.  I’m sending in a team.

“You seem to be fine,” the doctor said to her.  Chana concentrated on not kicking out at the man, instead, allowing the doctor to help her up. 

She made a show of testing her foot.  “It’s good to go.”

They walked on, slowly at first, until she put her full weight on the leg and walked more confidently.  Whatever Cristos said, she wasn’t going until she’d seen Josh.  And she wanted them to leave together.  Or she wanted a shot at it.

This place appeared like any small, private hospital.  Doors open to the carpeted corridor showed private rooms, decorated in quiet shades, with beds, TVs, pictures on the walls, all empty.  There were more closed doors than open ones.  When they turned up yet another corridor, she spotted the open door to an office.  Probably where the guards hung out.  Less a hospital, more like a prison. 

At the end of this corridor, the doctor led them through two sets of doors, each opened by the doctor’s thumb and retina print.  Chana gritted her teeth.  Great.  They’d need him to get out. 

A pair of guards stood either side of a door, their nondescript navy blue uniforms indicating a private security service.  Chana suspected she was the only government agent on the whole property, and she was only a temporary agent.  Usually a high security place like this swarmed with government agents and representatives of all kinds.  Not here.

“Kanchana?” 

She blinked and realized Skeffington was talking to her. 

“Are you ready to go inside?”

“Yeah, sure.”

She swallowed, and lowered her chin to disguise her reaction, wishing she had an empty stomach. 

Stepping through the door, she saw two beds.  Although she’d steeled herself, the sight still came as a profound shock, pushing bile into her throat and making the small hairs on the back of her neck rise.

Josh lay in the bed nearest the window, which looked out on to a featureless courtyard.  He had his eyes closed.  Sweat darkened his hair, and a damp mark showed on the pillow where he’d tossed his head restlessly.  Thick leather straps held his arms and legs down, and under the light cover she had to assume his body was strapped down, too.  Not that the restraints were needed.

The moment she stepped into the room, she reached out to him mentally, at the deep level they’d connected at before, forcing her hands open against the fists she wanted to form, blinking hard to ensure no tears fell.  Nothing. 

In the other narrow, metal hospital bed lay a man who must be Josh’s brother Laurie.  The resemblance was unmistakable, although Laurie seemed to be slightly larger, his body bulkier.  His hair was cropped roughly short, and he was similarly restrained.  He looked pale, almost dead, red marks showing livid against the pearly skin where he’d struggled in the early days of his captivity.  The marks were almost healed. 

At first she thought Josh was unconscious, then she felt a stirring deep, deep down in her mind. 

He opened his eyes and stared at her, his expression full of hatred.  “Bitch!”

She jumped back as if he’d shot her.  “Josh!  I – I – “

She turned her head to see Skeffington smiling at her.  The sight chilled her blood.  Had they told him she’d helped to capture him?  Did he believe them over her?  If he did, he wasn’t worth it.  He’d demanded trust from her; well, it went two ways.

The stirring deep down turned into words.  Be careful.  They’ve tapped the telepathy somehow.  What are you doing here, sweetheart?  Get out and go to Cristos.

I’m not going without you.  They’re on their way.  Oh God!

She’d sent a message to Cristos along the usual channels.  Had they heard?

She couldn’t ask, but prayed the fissure she’d used wasn’t traceable.  Perhaps it had been a real break, where messages could be sent and received in stealth.  She had to hope so, but there was nothing she could do about it now. 

Josh continued to hurl insults at her until Dr. Jones stepped forward and backhanded him, calmly and without warning.  The sound echoed in the still room and Chana worked hard to conceal her shock and anger.  Dr. Jones spoke into the shocked silence.  “I’m sorry, Ms Rafiz.  These aren’t real people.  They’re more like animals.”  Afterwards, he crossed the room to the sink and rinsed off his hand.  “We try not to touch them unless we have to,” he explained.  “We have no way of knowing what might rub off.”

Josh fell silent, but glared at Chana and the doctor. 

George chuckled.  “I guess you’ve worked out why I bought your little football club?  You boys will make my fortune for me.” 

He turned to the doctor.  “So what’s the progress?”  His eyes gleamed with anticipation.  “Anything useful yet?”

“Oh yes.  But everything we extract will have to go through clinical trials, you know that.”  The doctor glanced at Josh, then his attention flicked to Chana.  He didn’t seem capable of meeting her eyes.  He fidgeted with the pen attached to his clipboard.  “We’re analyzing everything that comes out of them.  We need to preserve them alive for a few more experiments, and then—“ He shrugged.  “We need to collect more specimens.”

“These were expensive,” Skeffington growled.  Trust him to bring it down to the bottom line.  “I can’t afford to get any more that way.  You said you wanted brothers, that siblings would tell you more.  Well I got them for you, and it cost me.”

The doctor nodded. 

Chana’s fury allowed her to respond in a believable way, but it was the doctor she was mad at, not Josh.  She wanted to kill him.  Even when she’d worked for the SFPD she had never felt murderous towards anyone, not like she felt towards this sorry excuse for a human being.  No species should be proud to claim him as one of them. 

She strode to the bedside, standing on the far side, where Josh’s arm was strapped down and needles passed into his body from various drips.  It looked as if she was being cautious, moving to the side that was immobile, but she wanted to see the set-up closer to.

If you can, drag these needles out of me.  The poison they’re pumping into me is stopping me shifting, and it’s sapping my strength.  I feel too weak to fight. 

I’ll do what I can.  It would hurt, but she could do it.  The catheters were bound together once they left Josh’s body.  A tidy nurse, she guessed.  The stand holding the various drips could be knocked over and they would all come out at once.  She winced when she realized he was catheterized.  That would hurt, coming out.

They were outnumbered.  She had to pray they could hold them, and that Cristos got here in time. 

Skeffington smiled at her.  “You can help get us more specimens.” 

“What makes you think I’ll do that?”

His smile broadened.  “If you can’t bring some in, we’ll be forced to use you, my dear.”

She saw the tendons tense in Josh’s arm, and knew it was nothing to do with the cocktail of drugs being pumped into him. 

“You’d do that?  Your own stepdaughter?”

Staring into her eyes, she saw hesitation, and entered his head, at the superficial level, reading him.

He would do it, but he would do it very reluctantly.  He wanted this more than he’d ever wanted anything else.  He loved her, but he loved himself more.

Feeling contaminated, she withdrew.  “I don’t see why you need so many.”

The doctor shrugged.  “Contracts to fulfill, experiments to conduct.”

Contracts?  This research was well away from commercial viability.  Even if they managed to discover something, they had years of clinical trials ahead of them.  This was very long term and Skeffington rarely thought in those time spans any more. 

Contracts? 

“The investment here must be huge,” she said, moving closer to Josh.  “Why don’t you look after the ones you have?”

“In the early days we needed to do a lot of work on anatomy and simple chemical analysis.  We thought the difference was in the brain.  It might be, but it is probably in the way the brain works, so we need them alive.”

Chana felt sick when she realized what the man, in his detached way, was discussing.  Killing to dissect.  Worse. 

Josh moved as though to comfort her, and his arm strained against the leather restraints, the muscles bulging above and below.  Normally he could have part shifted and broken out without raising a sweat, but one of those drugs must be cephalox. 

The quietness in the lab shattered when the door opened with such force it crashed against the wall, revealing a guard, gun in hand.  Light gleamed dully along the black barrel pointing at her. 

Behind him stood another white coated man, short, skinny, carrying some kind of electronic device the size of an e-reader.  He stepped through the door, careful not to obstruct the guard.  “We’ve intercepted a message from one of you.  A mental one.”

Josh closed his eyes.  You used the simple communications channels, didn’t you?

I didn’t know.

It’s not your fault, sweetheart.  We didn’t know it was possible.  Keep deep, they can only track superficial communication.

The white coated man glared at her.  “It had a feminine imprint.”

George glared at her and Dr. Jones stepped forward as though to block any escape she might try to make.  “What did it say, Wrightson?” 

Wrightson grinned, showing a set of perfectly white teeth.  “We can’t read the words, but we can pick up transmissions.  The electronic web networking this site reacts to them.  But now we have definite proof that it can be done, that someone was doing it, we can work with the sender.”  His cold gaze switched from George to Chana, as inexpressive as a camera.

“I don’t want you to hurt her,” George said quietly.

“Why not?”  Dr. Jones sounded almost pained.  “She’s not one of us, she’s a thing, an animal, just like the ones in those beds.  She belongs here.”

“If I am, what does that make you?”  Chana said, only aware afterwards that she sounded just like a little girl taunting her elders. 

Dr. Jones sneered.  “Your mother wasn’t really with it, was she?  Now we know why.  She was—“ he made a sound of disgust in his throat—“one of them.”

“I don’t want to use her.”  George met her gaze, and as far as she could tell, he was honest, perhaps for the only time in his life.  “I’ve fought for my family, worked for you all.  One of the reasons for all this, all this work and expense is to try to cure her.”  He smiled at her, the sort of smile a man might give to an imbecile.  “When did you find out?”

“When Josh told me.”  She reached for Josh, touched his skin, because she had to. 

“Did he take you off the drug?”

She felt Josh’s arm twitch under her hand.  Don’t tell him.  It’s a trap.  He wants to know if you can shift.

Sickeningly, she knew he was right.  If she could shift, she was a danger.  They’d overpower her before that.  “I’m not off the drug.  Josh said it could be dangerous to come off all at once.”

George’s shoulders slumped.  “Thank God!” 

Thank God she couldn’t change, or that she hadn’t tried to go cold turkey?  She still didn’t know, didn’t want to know. 

An unearthly scream pierced the quiet, shocking her into tensing.  A siren outside, drowning the whole facility in unbearable screaming.  Then the public address system cut in, blaring, “We’re under attack!”

George turned for the door.  “Kill them,” he said.  “Kill all the creatures.  Not my stepdaughter.”  Without looking at her, heading rapidly for the exit, he said, in the sudden silence, “Decide now, Kanchana.  You belong with us or with them.  Make your mind up.”

She did.  Chana began to shift. 

Josh’s smile was wonderful to behold, warm and loving.  From the other bed, Laurie added his encouragement.  “Great stuff, lady.”  His thready voice seemed to revitalize Josh, and his presence in her mind gave her the strength to continue.

Chana took the moment the guards froze, watching the feathers sprouting from her skin to sweep one arm in front of her, yanking out the catheters in Josh’s arm, his yelp of pain ignored by everyone but her, in the commotion. 

She concentrated on forming the arm first, making it a great, furred paw, not attempting to shrink her size.  A bullet ripped through her shoulder and she cried, or rather, roared as the rest of her body followed, her clothes tearing into shreds and falling away from her large body.

“Chana, keep to around ten feet, or you won’t fit in the room,” Josh instructed, and she obeyed, pleased at how well her new skills came to her. 

Not trying to hide any more, she blasted out a telepathic message to anyone who could pick it up, a picture of her route here, the main corridor, all the cameras she’d observed, and ended with a detailed vision of the room where people stood gaping at her.

Two vampires popped in, Andreas Constant and a woman she didn’t know, silver white hair streaming down her back from a tie at the nape of her neck, dressed incongruously in a pair of shorts and a sweaty t-shirt.  She must have come straight from the gym when Cristos called. 

Constant took the time to give the woman a once-over.  “Very nice,” he commented in his dark, sinful voice.  “Was it cold where you came from?”

The woman glanced down at where her nipples peaked the thin material of her t-shirt and frowned.  “It’s colder here.  Flashing does that to them.”

Constant lifted an eyebrow.  “Does it now?”

Chana cut in, irritated.  You do know we’re in danger here?

Constant grinned.  “Not any more.  We’re here in force, little sister.”  His grin faded when he saw Laurie.  “Christ, he’s in a bad way.”

“So do something.”  Josh stood next to Chana, a washrag pressed against his arm to staunch the blood from the drainage holes.  “Take those tubes out of him and get us out of here.  Take the bags, so we know what they’ve given him.”

He vaulted over the bed and stretched his hand out to touch his brother, so gently Chana wept for him.  “You are not going to die, Laurie.  I came to get you, and I’m not taking you out of here in a body bag.”

“No, he’s not.”  Cristos walked into the room.  He opened his mouth to say more, but the siren wailing started up again.  Cristos lifted a walkie-talkie to his mouth;  the old fashioned kind, the one that looked like a black brick with a silver aerial poking out the top.  “Somebody get that thing knocked off!”

The siren abruptly stopped.

He glanced at Andreas, who was gazing at the walkie-talkie in disbelief and he shrugged.  “Outdated, but it works.  Don’t ask me why.  We’ll figure it out.”  His gaze swept over the room, comprehensively taking in the inhabitants.  “My, my, what a crowd.”  He glanced at Skeffington’s guards, who had trained their guns on him.  “It’s very flattering, that you’d shoot me over a shapeshifter, but put your weapons down.  It’s over.”

He walked into the room, his usual suavity overlaid by an air of command, one Chana wouldn’t have dreamed of questioning.  “We pinpointed the facility from Chana’s transmission and arrived.  In force.  We are in control here now, so don’t fight it.”

“Neat,” said Josh admiringly.

Cristos gave him a genuine smile, so different to George’s.  “Glad you’re okay.”

“Laurie isn’t.  They’ve pumped all kinds of things into him, starved him, cut him, hurt him.  They deserve to die for that.”

“Not our call.”  Cristos went over to Laurie’s bed and laid his hand on his forehead.  “We’ll keep him here for a day, make sure we’re not forcing his body into shock when we withdraw the cephalox.  Then we’ll move him to another facility, where we can look after him better.”

Laurie took a deep, shuddering breath and turned into Cristos’s hand.  “Keep it there.  I don’t know what you’re doing, but I feel better than I have in days.”

“There’s no miracle cure, Laurie, I can only give you a small boost.  Like an adrenaline shot.”

But he kept his hand on Laurie’s forehead while he turned his head and addressed George.

George glared at him, fury overriding any other emotion.  “This is my facility.  I’m merely conducting clinical trials here.  I’ll appeal to the government.”

Cristos slipped his spare hand into a side pocket and drew out his CIA ID.  On the other side of the room, Andreas Constant did the same.  “I am the government,” Cristos said.

“So am I.”  Slowly, so as not to provoke Cristos’s men standing at the doorway, George drew out a small leather wallet and flipped it open

CIA. 

 

 

Chapter Sixteen

 

 

The scientists Cristos brought with him unhooked Josh from the machines, and took samples of the stuff away for analysis.  It was obvious that one of the substances was cephalox, but the others were equally clear and water-like in appearance, and George’s staff wasn’t telling.  Laurie was left on a cephalox drip, with some saline to help his nutrition.  He was addicted to the drug now, and there was no cold turkey for someone as weak as he was.

A technician remained in the room, but Josh refused to leave his brother.  He dressed Chana’s wound when she changed back, found her something to wear, a pair of jeans she had to roll up at the bottom and an overlarge t-shirt, much like the ones someone had found for him.  Her wound was clean, and the bullet had passed through the fleshy part of her shoulder.  Even the short time she’d spent in the griffin form was enough to accelerate the healing process, but she wanted to be in on what happened next.  Time enough to heal properly later.

Holding Laurie’s hand in his left and Chana’s in his right, Josh sat by the bedside, sending all his strength to aid his brother’s recovery.

When the call came from Cristos, Josh was reluctant to leave Laurie, and made the technician swear he wouldn’t leave him, for any reason.  He met Chana’s eyes with a bleak stare.  “Until he’s better, I’m not leaving him.  I know you can’t be happy at that—”

She interrupted him with a gentle finger against his lips.  “I think it’s the right thing to do.  It makes me happy to see one family that isn’t dysfunctional.  There’s no way I’d want to keep you away from him.”

He kissed her fingers before she moved them away.  “Thank you.”

Still hand in hand, they made their way to the conference room Cristos had found, following the man who’d been sent to fetch them. 

Cristos greeted them with a grim smile.  The room was large, full of Department 57 people, and George Skeffington, who stood between two men, obviously detailed to take care of him, from the way they stood close and the determined expression on their faces. 

“This is a quick operational meeting,” Cristos said, once the crowd had hushed.  “Status reports, a plan and back to business.  We need this facility shut down, people, but we need to know what’s going on.  So I’ve set the usual staff in the command center we found, with a special assistant on each to monitor the calls.  We’ll know more later.”  He shot a glance at George, standing silently between his captors, a slight smile on his face. 

Cristos turned his attention back to the crowd, sitting or standing, waiting for his update.  The air tingled with Talent, but at sight, Chana would have walked past most of them in the street without a second glance.  Well, perhaps a second glance at some of the more stacked males. 

Josh tugged her hand, and she turned to him with a smile, wondering why he caught his breath.  He leaned forward and kissed her softly.  “Because you’re gorgeous and mine,” he murmured.  “That’s why.”

Cristos cleared his throat.  “Ladies and gentlemen, let’s get on, shall we?  Josh, I’ll want you and Chana to debrief.  Stay back when the others leave, please, and I’ll do it myself.  Di—!”

Diane stepped forward before he finished the word, handing him a piece of paper.  Cristos glanced at it and grunted.  “No more than I expected.”  He looked up, scanning the people waiting, more or less patiently.

“It may be that some of our own people are involved.  This won’t be pleasant, people.  I’ll set up a meeting and go from there, and I want to see those of you who are full time agents.”

Chana felt the shock arcing through the room, and because of her connection to Josh, she understood why.  The Company had made certain promises to Cristos, and now it was breaking them, maybe setting other people, other agents, against them.  They shouldn’t have been entirely surprised.  Perhaps they weren’t.

“This facility is finished.  The technology is being investigated, dismantled and I’m calling in our best people to look at it.  That accounts for some of you.  I’m having our own medical people flown in, and we’ll move those Talents in a bad way to more appropriate hospitals.”  He looked directly at Chana.  “That includes you, Ms.  Rafiz.”

She clutched Josh’s hand.  “I’d like to stay here, if I may.”

Cristos gave her his full, unnerving attention for a full half minute.  It seemed much longer than that.  “If the medics say there’s no danger.  If there is, I want you somewhere we can care for you properly.”

“So do I,” Josh said quietly.

“You too, Josh.  How are you feeling?”

Josh shrugged.  “Tired, but okay.”  He grinned and flexed his bandaged arm.  “Especially now I’m not full of chemicals.”  George shot him a malevolent look, but said nothing.  Josh’s hand tightened around Chana’s. 

Rapidly, Cristos assigned tasks.  Just as rapidly, the room cleared as people went to deal with their assignments.

“You’re trying to tell me you people are efficient?”  George sneered once the room was empty of all but George, his guards, Cristos, Andreas and Josh and Chana. 

Cristos sent him a scathing glance.  “I’m not trying to tell you anything.  You’re finished, Skeffington.”

“Yeah?”

George didn’t have to remind them about his financial power, the politicians he’d bought, the favors owed him.  Cristos arched an eyebrow.  “You’re seventy.  You know you’re getting weaker, and you know why.  Do you think you can walk into a room full of Talents and no one would notice?”

Chana turned shocked eyes on Cristos, then to Skeffington.  Cristos had hit a nerve.  She knew Skeffington well enough to see that.  “George?  What’s wrong?”

George looked towards her, but didn’t meet her gaze.  “Just a little heart trouble.  It’s only to be expected in a man my age.  I don’t need a transplant or anything like that.”

Cristos met his gaze levelly.  “You and I both know it’s more than that.  You should rest, I don’t want you dying on me.”  He stared at George, the men’s gazes clashing like duelers in the field.  “I don’t intend to interrogate you at any length.  I’m letting you go.”  He turned to Chana.  “Take your stepfather home, Chana.”

Josh’s grip tightened.  “I’m going with her.”

“Of course.  Right after I’ve debriefed you both.  It shouldn’t take long.  I’ll send a medic to you at the house.  I want your progress monitored, though I think you’ll both be fine.  Chana, you should shift when you get home, you’ll heal completely.”

Skeffington growled.  “I wanted to spare you that.”

She turned a look of astonishment on to him.  “Spare me what?”

“Becoming a monster.”  He sighed.  “I thought the drug would be enough, that it would help.”

Without warning, Cristos strode to George and put the tips of his fingers to George’s temples.  Although Chana started, she stayed back.  It was hardly likely she could change anything.

The room virtually thrummed with power.  Two forceful, powerful men like Cristos and George Skeffington didn’t need Psi talents to make their presence felt, and together, they could have achieved anything.  Only when they were so close did Chana realize how similar they were.  Charismatic, powerful, neither of them conventionally handsome, neither acknowledging the usual limits.  They knew what they wanted, had untrammeled, unobscured visions, and went for it with everything they had.  Scary.  She was beginning to think Josh was made of the same material, for all his easygoing manner.

He stood back, silently waiting, and she let her mind open fully, slipping into his, shocked at his sheer weariness.  He smiled.  It’s worth it.  I have Laurie back, and I still have you. 

How long for? 

As long as you want.  Your call. 

She had no time to question him, because Cristos stepped back, returning to his place at the table and picking up the loose jacket that seemed to turn into some designer creation when he handled it, although she knew it wasn’t.   

“He didn’t realize he was doing you any harm, Chana.  He still doesn’t believe it, but you would have eventually suffered from being on cephalox for so long.  Half knowledge is sometimes worse than any knowledge at all.”

He walked to the door.  “Reese will take you home, the conventional way.  I’ll clean up here after you’ve gone.  It’ll take a while.”

“I won’t leave Laurie,” Josh said. 

Cristos studied him for a moment, his face expressionless.  “You’re probably right.  But promise me you’ll go when he’s out of danger.  I want to close this facility except for my people in a day or so, and I want Laurie moved to somewhere better.  You’re tired, Josh.  Don’t forget what you’ve been through, and get some rest.”

But when they returned to Laurie’s room, after a very short debriefing session, they found him strapped to a gurney, two men wheeling him out of the room.  Laurie was conscious still, and he smiled weakly at them.  “I’m going to San Francisco General.  Seems they have a unit specially for us.”  He reached out and immediately Josh took his hand, smiling down at his brother.

Josh looked from Laurie to Chana.  “Go,” she said.  “I’ll be fine.”  She couldn’t intrude on Josh’s time with Laurie. 

Josh smiled his thanks and turned to his brother.  “I’ll come with you.”

“No.  Go home.  I’ll call you if I need you, I promise.  Really, I feel much better, but I need to shift.  In a day or so I should be able to do that, they say, with help, then I can heal faster.  I might need you then.”  Laurie waved his free hand at Chana in an echo of a courtly flourish.  “He wouldn’t have stood a chance if I’d seen you first.  And he’d better look behind him when I’m out of here.  Go with her, Josh.  I promise I’ll call if I need you.”

“At the first twinge?”

“Before that.” 

Their knuckles whitened briefly when their grip tightened, then Josh bent and kissed Laurie on the forehead.  Tears sprang to Chana’s eyes when she saw the love the brothers had for each other, and the way they could unselfconsciously express it.  She shook her head.  No doubt she would cry, once the shock of the recent events hit properly. 

But not now. 

Chapter Seventeen

 

 

Once back at the house, the guards took George to his room and removed all communications equipment from his suite.  George wasn’t to have any contact with his partners in crime.  Not yet.  George seemed subdued, tired, but Chana knew he wasn’t defeated.  It would take more than a few setbacks to get the better of George Skeffington.  She would have warned Cristos, but she knew he didn’t need telling.

Besides, she was more tired than she could ever remember being in her life.  In her room, Josh took her in his arms, and they stood together, warming and affectionate, almost too tired to move.  He chuckled.  “Aren’t we a pair?  Come on, love, off with the clothes.  We both need to heal which means, I’m very much afraid, that we have to shift.”

That startled her enough for her to lift her head.  “Can’t we just go to bed?”

He smiled and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead.  “Soon.  But we’ll heal much faster in the other form, and we’ll be able to sleep.  Pull the comforter off the bed and drop it on the floor.”

She had just enough strength to do that, and to strip, as he bade her.  To her great surprise, when she saw him naked, she felt a stirring of desire, and from his reaction, so did he.

He gave another sleepy chuckle.  “I’d have to be dead not to respond to you.  Come here, and I’ll help you shift.”

She tried to do it herself, and needed only a small amount of help to keep her shape small, to the size of a sparrow.  Josh climbed on to the comforter, and she nestled close, snuggling into his warmth.  Now they were together, neither of them could keep sleep at bay any longer. 

*****

Chana slept the clock around.  When she woke, Josh helped her shift back.  She stretched on the comforter, smiling up at him as he leant over her.  “It feels strange when I do that – shift.”

“It will come naturally to you after a while.  It always feels strange, but it feels natural, too.  How do you feel?”

He smoothed his hand up to her shoulder, and gently over the mark where she’d been shot.

“A little stiff, that’s all.  This is amazing.  I can see why my stepfather wanted to find out how it’s done.  Wouldn’t it benefit everyone?”

He smiled.  “That it would.  We have our own laboratories where people go in voluntarily and take part in controlled experiments.  It’s only the inhumane labs that we go against.  Our own doctors have a head start, in any case.  They understand our make-up, they don’t have to relearn the anatomy.”

“I’m surprised you need doctors at all.”

He stroked her, down to her breast, thoughtfully cupping it.  “For some things.  We still have difficult childbirths, there are a few diseases that get through and when a vampire goes into a catatonic trance, it can take a medic to get him out of it.  Some surgical conditions need correcting, too.  Vampires may still need tonsillectomies or appendectomies sometimes.”

She laughed, then caught her breath on a gasp as he pinched her nipple gently, sending sparkles of sensation through her.  “What do we do now?”

“Now?”  He bent and touched her nipple with the tip of his tongue before kissing it gently.  “Now we rest, and plan our wedding.”

She sat up quickly, but a wave of dizziness forced her back down on to the soft folds.  “What wedding?”

He released her breast and mounted her, nestling his erect penis between her legs but not attempting to enter her.  “Will you marry me, Chana Rafiz?”

“You don’t have to.”  Trying to take it all in, Chana thought he might be feeling guilty.  “Really.  We’ve had a good time, haven’t we?”

“You don’t love me?”

Trust him to dive right to the heart of the matter!  And to present her with a question she couldn’t lie about.  “Yes, I do.  But – but—“

“But nothing.”  He leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to her lips.  His erection just entered her, slipping inside as though it belonged there.  She wanted it to, very much.  “I love you, you love me, what else is there to think about?  I want you with me, I want you safe and I want you to do whatever it is you want to do with your life.  There’s a great deal more of it than there was a few weeks ago.”

He slid inside, gasping at the hot, silky clutch of her and she felt him grow.  Knowing that was as much an expression of his need as the scorching look in his eyes she melted, feeling her flesh shape itself to take him, better than anyone else, better than she had ever imagined. 

Her head went back and she gave one long moan of pleasure.

“I take it that’s a yes,” he said, more breathless than he’d been a moment ago, drawing out and driving in with a force that made her gasp.

Sex with Josh was hot, sweaty and wonderful, and Chana found with mild surprise that her mind had stayed open to him all through their long sleep.  He was in her, body and mind, and she was in him, sharing his feelings of hard, driving need and her own soft surrender.  She lay back, as she knew he wanted her to, and let him pleasure her, driving her to a quick, hard climax, shimmering through her, before she pushed up and rolled him over.

“My turn.”  She knelt, then sat, driving him hard inside, watching him gasp and moan.  He arched his back, pushing up, but letting her do what she wanted, watching her through half closed, glittering eyes.  When she leaned forward to press his hands into the comforter, imprisoning him under her, he caught her nipple between his teeth, sending shafts of heightened awareness right through her.  She cried out, almost stopping in her rhythmic movements, but managed to keep it together, feeling all the bolts of passion gathering together, building again towards another climax.

She felt him in her mind, sharing her joy, giving her his, and together they climbed, she riding him hard, animal cries escaping both of them, as flesh slapped flesh and the sound of their lovemaking became softer and wetter. 

A shared climax was more than two added together, her spiraling blending with his explosion, making it something entirely new. 

She collapsed on top of him, releasing his hands, feeling him tremble with the force of their shared orgasm.  His arms cradled her close, his breath hot and uneven in her ear.  Slowly, it quieted to near normal.  “Bath or bed?” he murmured, and finished with a kiss. 

“Both,” she said.

“Deal,” he replied, but it was quite some time before either of them managed to move to any significant extent.

*****

After checking with Cristos, they climbed into bed and slept, curled up together like children.  When Chana woke up again, it was dark outside.  Josh slumbered peacefully by her side, and it wasn’t until she moved closer, that she noticed something was wrong. 

He was too cold.  His skin chilled her, made her flinch.  She sat up, suddenly awake and stared down at him.

He wasn’t breathing.

 

Chapter Eighteen

 

 

“What have you done to him?”

Too frightened and angry to think straight, Chana reverted to childhood practices and went straight to Skeffington, but she hadn’t been stupid enough to go without sending a warning first.  The guards didn’t try to stop her, but one followed her inside.

He sat at his small desk, dressed in a brocade smoking jacket and pants, staring at his computer screen.  “Damn thing’s useless without the internet,” he muttered, as though her explosive entrance meant nothing to him.  Perhaps it didn’t. 

“Tell me.  I’ve called Cristos.  He’s on his way.  What did you do?”

He looked up at her, taking his time, then leaned back in his chair, smiling in a greasy, oily way she knew well.  He’d done something.  She knew it–she just knew it.

“What’s happening?”  She stuck her hands in her jeans pockets, knowing Skeffington hated her in jeans, and detested her behaving in a ‘less than ladylike manner.’  She was tired of dancing around him, tired of waiting for another day, when he was in a better mood.  If he didn’t tell her, she’d make him.

“Some of his drugs had longer term effects than others.  Drugs can stay in your system for a while, you know.”

She wanted to hit him, but she held back.  Skeffington’s smile was positively beatific.  “You should know you can’t win so easily.”

She heard the door open behind her and knew Cristos had come in, followed by someone else.  She glanced around and nodded to Andreas.  He nodded back.  “Josh is too cold.  I thought he was dead at first, but he isn’t.  It’s as if he’s in a coma.”

“He is.”  Cristos’s clipped tone revealed his anger.  “What have you done?  It’s only a matter of time before we find out.  We’re taking samples now.”

“You’re not the only man with secrets.”  Now he was back in control, George seemed to fill out, his age once again disguised by vitality.  “By the time you find out, he’ll be dead.”

Chana took a step back.  “Then you will be, too.”

She didn’t believe the compassion in George’s eyes, but was the love false, too?  He’d loved her like the daughter he’d never had, she was sure of it, but only when he had her under his control.  When hurt crossed his face, a light flinch, she was inclined to believe it because he immediately hit his reaction.

“You love me, George?  You feel anything at all for me?  Then tell me what you’ve done.”

He glanced away.  Now she knew the hurt was real, and if she could hurt him, he loved her.  “Yes, I love you, but not the way a father loves his daughter.  I want you for my wife, Chana, not my stepdaughter.  We don’t share any blood, so I think it’s possible.  Do it and refuse to see him again, and I’ll give Friedland the antidote.”

She shuddered.  “Never in a million years.”

“I’ve poisoned him.”  He looked up again, the momentary hurt covered by a triumphant smile.  “Ever wonder what it’s like on the other side, boys?  I’m seventy, I’m not going to last much longer, however well I’m cared for.  So sue me.  I’ll trade.”

“What do you want?”  Chana was surprised Cristos could keep his cool, but she’d known he was a match for Skeffington.  One of the few. 

“I want what you’ve got.  Immortality.”

Andreas spoke softly, but his voice held a lethal edge.  “Nobody’s immortal.” 

“More than I am.  How old are you?”

Andreas glanced at Cristos.  “None of your business.”

“See?”  George lifted a quavering finger, and pointed at him.  “I’d like to bet you’re as old as me, if not older.  Give me that.  It’s all I want.  You think I funded that facility for altruism, or money?  Oh, the money would’ve been nice, but you’ve probably found the key documents by now.”

“Yes.”  Cristos spoke without inflection.  “To discover the secret of longevity.  That’s at the heart of all the programs you set up.  Our people are working on it, too, but we haven’t discovered anything usable yet.  And we don’t use inhumane methods.”

“Inhumane!”  George’s thin, dry lips turned up in a sneer.  “But I don’t care what you turn me into.  Make me young again.  Give me extra life.  Then, I swear, I’ll work with you, not against you.  I just want what you have.  Life.  I’ve not done yet.  I’ve only just started.”  He stared at Chana, not trying to hide the desire in his eyes.  All her life she’d seen him as a father figure.  Not as husband material. 

Agony and disgust pulled at her, drew her to the stepfather she saw with new eyes.  Liver spots blotched the backs of his hands, lines crisscrossed the thin, papery skin of his face.  George’s very vitality, his zest for life hid the signs of ageing, but she saw them now. 

From what Josh had told her, she had the gift.  She could make him what she was.

Cristos knew the same moment she did, and they looked at each other, all barriers down, nothing hidden.  She had never seen strength in submission, but she did now. 

“Do it.  We have no choice.  Josh is deteriorating quickly.”  His head whipped around to confront George.  “Do you have an antidote?”

George nodded.  “Not a vial of liquid, but I will give you the formula.  You can get the ingredients easily enough.  It’s the proportions that are important, but you can’t get them from me, because I never memorized them.  The formula is on a computer in this house, protected by so many passwords that by the time you get to it, it’ll be too late.”

Cristos studied him.  Chana knew he was examining George’s mind, searching it for the truth, and it wasn’t gentle.  That she knew from the lines of tension around Skeffington’s mouth.  She didn’t attempt to read either of them.  She knew it would hurt.

After about five minutes, Cristos breathed out in a deep sigh and looked at Chana.  “He set this up as a contingency plan.  Taking Josh straight off the drugs was a mistake.  One of them was laced with this poison.  We have no choice.  But if you agree, after you convert Skeffington, we’ll hold him until we’ve checked everything out.”  He paused, and his eyes sparked with a new concentration, something drawn out from deep inside himself so there seemed only to be the two of them in the room.  In the universe.  “Be sure, Chana.  You can only convert one person in your lifetime, and you’re going to live a long time.  Don’t let anything sway you.”

“I already have.”  She didn’t look away.  She didn’t need to.  “I love Josh.  I would do anything for him.  I’ll do it, if it means he lives.”  She swung around to face Skeffington.  “But if you’re lying to me, I’ll make sure you die when he does.” 

“We can do that.”  She heard Cristos, but she didn’t break off contact with Skeffington.  “We can bind them.”

“No, I don’t want that.”  She was the only person she wanted bound to Josh, and she knew now that they were truly bound.  Nothing mattered more than him.  If he died, Skeffington wouldn’t be the only one to follow Josh Friedland into death.  And I will never marry you.  Ever.”

Skeffington sneered.  “I was a handsome man once.  I will be again.  At least I can compete with Friedland on a level playing field.”

She shook her head.  “Never,” she repeated firmly.

“Do you want us to leave?”

She still gazed at Skeffington.  “Yes, but not you, Cristos.  I want you here.”  She wanted a witness, someone to see everything played out.  “If he tries anything, kill him.  If Josh doesn’t survive, I’ll go with him.”

“You’ve bonded?”

A smile played around her lips.  “I believe we have.”  When cold, hard reality struck her she almost gasped with the shock of it, but caught the sharp breath.

Instantly, she felt Cristos in her head, bolstering her, and she asked the question she longed to know the answer to.  Why are you letting him get away with this?  Why don’t you hurt him?

The answer came back filled with grave sincerity.  He isn’t lying about Josh, Chana.  Skeffington has given him a designer drug, and by the time we analyze it and find the antidote, Josh will be dead.  At least, if Skeffington is part of the community, we’ll have something on him.  Outside the community, he is dangerous.  If you do this, he will need our support network.  We can control him. 

That made sense.  Perhaps he would see things differently, from the other side of the fence.  If he didn’t, the community could impose sanctions.  Or she could kill him.

I’m only doing this for Josh.

I know.  If there were any other way, we’d take it.

She cut the connection, not wanting to know any more.  This was the only way they had of saving the man she loved with all her heart.

She met Skeffington’s gaze straight on.  “If Josh dies, so do you.  That’s an oath, sworn before witnesses.”

“You won’t have to do it.”  Andreas’s low voice confirmed her oath.  “You should not do it, but I will do it for you.  That is my oath.”

“Witnessed.”  The single word from Cristos, without emotion.  Sealing a pact.

George didn’t believe it, Chana saw the incredulous expression in his eyes.  He had a lot to learn.  If he had time to learn, that was.

Chana began to strip, deliberately keeping her mind vacant.  The door clicked softly behind Andreas as he left, and Cristos gazed down at the floor.  While shapeshifters were probably comfortable with each other, others had a little more difficulty, it seemed.

Down to panties and bra, Chana shivered when she caught Skeffington’s hot, avid stare.  She decided to sacrifice her underwear in the cause of modesty and began to shift.  This was the first time she’d done it on her own, and she was relieved when fur began to grow on her arms.  Who’d have thought the sight of golden fur on her body would please her?

Her underclothes tore away and fell to the ground, but by then her shape had changed. 

Cristos looked up and stepped forward.  “Can you keep your shape human sized?”

Yes.  Josh had taught her well.  At the thought, sorrow filled her heart and she felt tears fill her eyes, wetly spilling over.  She took a deep breath and fought them back, feeling Cristos touch her flank in a soothing gesture. 

“Come over here,” Cristos told George.

His eyes wider than she’d ever seen them, George slowly stood up and came around his desk to stand before her.  She extended a wing, enjoying the half repelled, half fascinated look he gave her.

“I’ve not seen anything like this since—”

“Since your wife?”  Cristos suggested.

“Yes.  Since my wife.”

“What happened to her?”  At least, that was what she wanted to say, but the words came out as a muted roar.  Cristos patted her and she remembered, quieting. 

“The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can save Josh,” Cristos reminded her.  As if she needed reminding.

“Take a feather,” Cristos instructed George.  He plucked one from the underside of one wing, using the tip of his finger and thumb, touching her as little as possible.  It stung Chana, but not much.  Not as much as the ache in her heart.

He stepped back, staring at her.  “I can see her, inside.”

“She’s not inside.  This is her, as true as her other form.  You could have killed her, feeding her cephalox year after year.”

“I didn’t know.”  Since she was inside his head, reading him, she was inclined to believe him.  It didn’t matter.  She’d find out for sure another time. 

“Change back now, Chana.”  Cristos spoke low.  “Turn around, Mr. Skeffington.  Give Chana her privacy.”

“Her name is Kanchana.”  But he turned around, facing the wall.

Cristos turned, too, but kept George well within view.  She changed back, and scrambled into her top and jeans, her underwear ruined.  She picked her bra up, grimaced, and threw it into the wastepaper basket.  “You can turn around now.”

George’s fingers were white around the feather. 

“Take off your shirt, Skeffington.” 

He wouldn’t release the feather, so he fumbled undoing the buttons.  But when his jacket, tie and shirt were thrown over the big leather chair, and George only wore his singlet, he took the two steps that brought him to her.  She stared at him, looked properly for the first time in years.  George’s skin was blotched with the brown spots of age, his receding hairline was more skin than hair and his flesh sagged.  Normally, his vitality closed people’s eyes to his physical condition, and there was no doubting that George was very fit, for a man of seventy.  But he was seventy.

“Put the feather in the palm of your hand, George, and press it to your upper arm.  Chana, you have to put your hand over his.  It will burn, but you mustn’t let go, or it won’t happen.”

Cristos silently crossed to the door.  “This is a private ceremony.  I’ll leave you to it.  Come outside when it’s done.”

George laid his hand over his arm, and nodded at her.  She followed suit, and tried to control her trembling.  How long would this take?

Not long.  She felt the warmth through their combined hands.  It quickly grew into searing heat, but she held still.  If this burned her, she could shift and heal.  Once they’d seen to Josh.  Nothing mattered more than that, nothing. 

Skeffington murmured something to her, but she didn’t listen, concentrating on keeping her grip steady.  When he whimpered, she wondered how he was holding on.  If it burned her, it must be hot enough to brand him.  But she couldn’t bring herself to care. 

All her thoughts were with Josh.

At last, after what seemed like forever, the heat receded.  She lifted her hand away.  When Skeffington did so, there was no sign of the feather. 

Instead, branded on his upper arm, was a griffin tattoo, in glowing reds and golds, perfect in every detail.  For a brief moment she forgot Josh in her wonder.  She had the mark, but she’d only seen it recently.

Memories returned in a flood.  “What’s the formula?”

“Bring them back in.”

She sent a brief message to the people outside, and she heard the door open.  Without looking she knew Cristos and Andreas had returned. 

George smiled slowly.  He looked the same.  “I feel it,” he murmured.

“We’ll take you in,” Cristos said.  “You’ll need a mentor, and Chana will be too busy with Josh.  You should know they’re mated.  That means when he dies, she dies.”

“No!”

She sighed in relief.  Yes, George wouldn’t welsch on a deal, but he’d do his best to change the terms and conditions of it.  And delay matters in the hopes of getting his stepdaughter back.  So he could court her.  Some hope.

If he loved her, he wouldn’t delay now.  Not if he thought she would die.

With a low growl, George gripped the singlet and dragged it off over his head.  Then he turned around.

The feather tattoo wasn’t the only one he had.

 

Chapter Nineteen

 

 

When Josh woke up, he felt her hand enclosing his.  When he opened his eyes, she was there, waiting for him. 

She smiled.  “Welcome back.”

He smiled stiffly.  “Thanks.  Where have I been?  I remember you agreeing to marry me, but after that, not a lot.” 

“You’ve missed a day.”  She squeezed his hand and glanced away.  He followed her look, and saw Cristos, sitting on a chair by the window, watching him. 

Cristos took up the story.  “Skeffington poisoned you.  He and his department devised a new poison that crosses the shapeshifting barrier, and used it on you.  It went in with your drip and had a delayed effect.  Every Talent will have to memorize the antidote formula, or have a vial of it on their person until we develop a vaccine.”  He sighed.  “For every step forward, we take two back.”  Weariness, Cristos’s weariness, enveloped them all, but he quickly shook it off.

Josh worked to clear the last of the fuzziness from his brain.  “Considering I’ve been poisoned, I don’t feel too bad at all.”  He pushed against the bed and sat up, feeling Chana pile pillows up behind him.  He smiled and reached for her hand, needing to touch her. 

She sat on the bed and they both looked to Cristos. 

He was smiling gently.  “You’re a good couple.  It makes some of the things I do worthwhile, to see this.”

Josh arched a brow.  “Some?”

“Some,” he said firmly.  After a brief moment of silence, when he looked his fill, he continued.  “We’ve closed down the facility.  We found six Talents there, not counting you and your brother, Josh, and we’ve moved them all to better facilities.  We found evidence that they have experimented on, and killed, at least six others.”  He sighed heavily and rubbed his forehead.  “They know about cephalox, but they’re not quite sure what it does.  We’re not sure why.  Either they don’t know that shifters are compelled to change their form every month, or they think their combinations did it.  They learned nothing of any real value.”

He looked up, his eyes bleakly fierce.  “They sacrificed people, treated them like animals, all for nothing.”  His attention turned to Chana.  “I don’t know if your stepfather knew the extent of the experiments.  I don’t think he wanted to know.  He’s desperate.  Or he was.  Now he’s a Talent, I intend to take him in and find him a mentor.”

“He could be dangerous,” Josh put in.

“He could.  But I don’t think so, not now he has what he wants.  He’ll have to die soon, anyway.”

“What?”  Chana sounded so lost, Josh moved to hold her.

Cristos flashed a grim smile.  “It’s why the Department exists.  He can’t go on being George Skeffington, and since he made no provision to carry on, he’ll have to become  someone else.  We’ll make sure it’s someone reasonably weak.  He’ll have to fight for his power.”

“What’s to stop him coming back anyway?”

Cristos shrugged.  “He can come back as his own employee.  If he refuses to relinquish his power, we’ll block his memories.”  He gave her an apologetic smile.  “Some don’t want to give it up, the gains of a lifetime, especially the first time.  We can provide help, and he can have a few more years, but that’s it.  To protect the rest of us, we have to make sure he doesn’t live to much more than a hundred.”

“He’ll be excited.”  Chana’s flat statement sounded as though it came from an old woman.  Weary, full of ennui.  “He’ll want to start again.  He’s done all he wanted in this place, so starting again will be a challenge.”  She lifted her eyes and looked at Josh.  “I couldn’t do anything else.  I had to do what he said.  Now he’ll always be there.”  She turned her head to regard Cristos.  “He’ll always be a threat.”

“Why?”

“Because he always wants more.  And he wants me.”

Cristos sighed again.  “I know.  He could be an asset, in time but for now he’s another headache.  You won’t be involved.  When he moves on, you won’t know where he is unless you want to.”  His voice softened.  “Sometimes it’s better to make the break clean.”

“I know I was born to this,” she said, sounding even more lost than before, “but it’s new, all new.”

Josh wanted to cradle her close, to care for her, to protect her against everything.  Irrational, but the feeling didn’t come from the rational part of his brain. 

Because he was always connected to her, she knew.  She sent him understanding, and strength.  And he knew he was wrong to want to shelter her, but it didn’t stop him wanting to.

“We’ll go away for a while,” he said softly.  “Somewhere warm, where you can rest.”

“You too,” she murmured.  He saw the heat in her eyes, and wished they could go now. 

A voice came from somewhere outside.  A loud voice.  “Hey, Friedland!  You there?”

For a moment Josh felt disorientated, as though this place was an illusion.  That voice didn’t belong here.

A brusque tap on the door was the only other warning he received, then in strode Ted Maxwell.

*****

Josh gaped, but so did Ted.  “Cozy,” he commented, coming into the room uninvited.  He nodded to Cristos, who had got to his feet, and Chana, who had not.  “I  need a word with my boy.”

Cristos stepped forward smiling urbanely, not at all put out by Ted’s brusque manner.  “I think he’s Chana’s boy now.”

“Not unless she’s got a contract.”

Josh’s grip on her hand tightened.  “She will have, very soon.”  When she turned to protest, he said, “You promised, so I’m keeping you to it.  A verbal contract is as good as a written one between honest people, isn’t that right Ted?”

Ted, in the process of shaking Cristos’s hand, turned his head sharply.  “Aye, that it is.  That’s the way, is it?”

“Definitely.”

“It might settle you down.  So tell me who she is.”

Although Ted was as forceful as Skeffington, Chana didn’t feel intimidated.

I know.  I feel that way too.  Josh sounded amused.  “This is Chana Rafiz, George Skeffington’s stepdaughter.”

“The diabetic?”

Josh chuckled.  “A mistaken diagnosis.”

Ted’s eyes narrowed.  “The same as you are, boy?”

Josh burst into laughter.  “And what would you know about that, Ted Maxwell?”

Maxwell grinned, and the smile transformed his face.  That was the difference.  This man knew how to love.  He wasn’t afraid of his own emotions, or that of others. 

Fortunately, after a cursory glance and smile for her, she wasn’t required to take part in the conversation.  Josh told Ted he’d had a fall, but hadn’t damaged his knee, he was resting up to be sure and Ted told Josh he was pleased Josh was looking after himself.  “But I got calls from the places we booked you in, and I told them summat like that and decided to come over and talk to Skeffington for myself.  The season’s all but over, the Premiership’s decided, and I’ve got a week or two to meself.”

“Where’s Mrs. Maxwell?”

“In Corfu, waitin’ for me, so I don’t want to make this a long visit.  His secretary told me Skeffington was busy, but if ‘e thinks ‘e can keep me waitin’ like a servant, e’s got another thought coming.”

“I’m sure he didn’t mean it in that way,” Cristos said.  “Skeffington has had a lot on his mind recently.  I work for the Government, and we found some irregularities in his research laboratories.  However, he’s offered to put it right and I think he’ll be able to get back to business in a day or so.”

Maxwell regarded Cristos silently for a moment.  A man not afraid of gaps in conversation.  Chana had seen Skeffington use the same tactic to let a man talk himself into trouble.  When it became clear Cristos was made of sterner stuff, Maxwell shrugged and said, “Aye, well, I hope so, because I haven’t got much time.  All I want to know is what he plans for the team, and why he hasn’t been in touch, like ‘e promised.”  Ted Maxwell’s use of the letter ‘h’ was haphazard, to say the least.  Chana liked it. 

“You don’t want him in charge, do you?”

Maxwell shot Cristos a sharp look.  “Why do you say that?”

“He doesn’t know anything about the game.  It’s a financial investment for him, nothing more.”

“He wouldn’t be the first one to treat football like that.  Most of the boards of the top clubs are made up of money men.”  Maxwell’s expressive face settled into creases of unhappiness. 

“You don’t like it.  I can’t blame you, I’m a hands-on man myself.”  Cristos sent a message to Josh and Chana.  I like him.

Why does that not surprise me? 

Chana giggled, and both older men glanced in her direction before Cristos turned his attention back to Ted.  “I can’t promise anything, but at present we have a certain leverage with Skeffington.  What do you want?”

“I want the club back.  I’ve got a syndicate, ready to step in, at the right price.  I can’t do it and stay manager, they won’t have that.  Anyway, I’m not that rich.  I get to be chairman when I retire as manager with this lot.  Unlike George Skeffington, they know their football and what’s good for the game.”

Cristos chuckled.  “I’ll do what I can.”

That meant Ted would get his deal.  In any case, Ted didn’t know what they knew; George Skeffington bought Josh and Laurie, not the soccer club.  He didn’t really care about that.

“Aye, well I hope it doesn’t take long.”

Cristos clapped Maxwell on the back.  “Let’s go and discuss it.  I happen to know where I can find a very nice bottle of old Scotch.”

“Sounds good to me.”  Maxwell turned to Josh.  “You stay in bed the rest of the day, boy.  I don’t want that injury starting up again.  I’ll cancel the rest of your appearances, and make it up to them when the team tours California next month.  You concentrate on your young lady.  When are you planning to get hitched?  Are you doing the Beckham thing?”

For some reason that made Josh smile.  “I think we’ll do the Vegas thing instead.  We can always have a loud party when we go home.”

“Home?”  Chana swung around, indignant.  “This is my home, Josh!”

“Yes, sweetheart, I know.  But I’m under contract to Rovers for at least three more years, and I want to continue my career.  I really do.”

“And what am I supposed to do?”

He drew her close as Cristos ushered Maxwell out of the room.  “Whatever you want to do, darling.  Whatever you want.”

“What if I want to join the police department again?”

He grinned.  “You won’t get a big gun in England.”

She slid her hand down the sheet, until she found him, already hardening for her.  “Oh I wouldn’t be too sure of that.”

Chapter Twenty

 

Chana and Josh only just made it to dinner.  They planned to eat in their room, but Ted called Josh, asking him to make an appearance.  As he put the phone down he grimaced at Chana, lying naked and sated on the bed.  “He wants me to help persuade your stepfather to sell the club.  I think I should.”

“I thought he told you to stay in bed!”

“He asked if I felt well enough to eat.”  A sudden grin as he remembered Ted’s precise words.  “He said from what he guessed we were doing, I could do with the rest getting up would give me!”

She broke into laughter and his smile broadened to see her so happy.  He guessed she hadn’t had many happy moments in her life.  He would make sure she got many more in the future. 

“He said formal, so I’d better break out the tuxedo.”

“Did he say anything about my stepfather?  I do have a contract with him.”

“You’re about to break that contract.  He’s going to have to find another hostess.”  He reached out a hand and helped her up, lingering to caress her plump breast and draw her close for a lingering kiss.  “I’m going to want you all to myself for a while.”

“I don’t like breaking my word,” she said, a frown between her brows. 

He kissed the frown away.  “Too bad.  I’ll ask him after dinner.  We’ll do it properly, if you like.”

“He might hold you to it.”

“He’ll be too busy.”  Unable to resist, he kissed her again, soft and slow.  “So will you.”

He was ready in half an hour.  It took her a little longer, but they were in the drawing room in time.

Junior and Edward congratulated them, Junior with a worried smile, Edward stiffly.  Ron was delighted, and didn’t hesitate to demonstrate his pleasure.  “Can I come and stay with you sometimes, in England?”

“During the football season?”  Chana asked archly.

“Oh yeah!”

Ron’s enthusiasm broke the ice and they laughed.  Junior clapped Josh on the shoulder, nearly knocking him flat.  “Well, I’ll be sorry to see her go, but it’ll be good to have a place to stay in England.  Congratulations, buddy.”

Perhaps Junior improved with knowing him.  Or perhaps once his father went, Junior might come into his own.  Josh decided it would be nice to find out. 

Skeffington was late for dinner, an almost unheard of thing but taking recent events into consideration, hardly surprising.  After fifteen minutes passed, Edward straightened his bow tie nervously.  “I wonder where Father is?”

Cristos was already heading for the door.  “I’ll go find out.”

Josh was quickly behind him.  His concentration on Chana broken, he sensed what Cristos had already found.  Something was wrong.

Although neither Josh nor Cristos knew their way around the house, they followed the source of the anguish.  For anguish it was.  Searing through them, getting stronger the closer they got to their destination.

Josh knew Chana followed him, and he wished he’d asked her to stay behind, but he heard her voice in his mind and knew she’d sensed his anxiety.  Not a chance! 

George’s study was in the public part of the house, the office wing.  A few staff were still at their posts, but none seemed alarmed, although when they saw the small, formally dressed party striding through the offices heading for George’s private quarters, some got up to follow.

George’s secretary had gone home, her station closed up and silent.  Cristos didn’t stop, but Josh paused to hold Chana.  “Don’t go in.”

“Why not?  What’s going on?”

Cristos gave a strangled cry and Josh followed him into George’s office.  What he saw made him close the door behind them, but not quickly enough to prevent Chana going in. 

She cried out and surged forward, dropping to her knees next to the – thing on the floor.  Cristos pulled out his cell phone and hit speed dial.  Josh stood in horror, gazing at the half man, half griffin lying unconscious, sprawled across the expensive Chinese rug. 

George lay naked, his thin, sagging skin a startling contrast to the fur on his left flank and arm.  One great paw curled into the floorboards under his body, the other lay sprawled next to the leg.  Josh had never seen a man mid-change before, not one who’d not completed the process.  He found it utterly shocking.

Snapping out of his stupor, he went forward to give Chana the comfort of his touch.  He didn’t know what else he could do.  Cristos murmured into his phone before hanging up.  “I’ve called the paramedics.  They’re coming in a helo.  There’s a pad here, right?” 

Chana nodded.  She picked up Skeffington’s hand, and cradled it against her cheek.  “He’s not dead.”

“I know.  I felt for his vital signs when I came in.  Mentally,” Cristos explained.  “I can reach him, just, and I’m keeping in contact until the paramedics get here.”

Chana gave just one sob, then was silent, holding Skeffington’s hand. 

 

*****

Another hospital bed.  This one was in a private facility, luxuriously appointed.  Not that it made much difference to the man in the bed.  Back in the special wing of San Francisco General Hospital. 

This man surely had a problem.  Josh went in to find Chana sitting by the bed, staring at him.  She’d cut herself off from everything else.  At least they had managed to get him back to his human form.  The half man, half beast had gone, and George Skeffington had returned.  He had as many tubes inserted into him as Laurie had, when Josh had first seen him.  Now Laurie entered closely behind his brother.  Josh knew he was as worried about Josh as he was about Chana.  Ted had stayed on, ostensibly to arrange the publicity tour Manchester Rovers was due to take later in the summer, but actually more concerned than he would ever admit about his two star players. 

Today was the day the doctor was due to give his verdict.  Today they would know what exactly had happened and what the chances were of George recovering.  Josh longed to take Chana away.  Every day new lines of strain appeared on her face, and her eyes became bleaker.  She needed a break, a long one, but she wouldn’t go until she knew what happened.

She blamed herself.  Josh could tell her until he turned blue that it wasn’t her fault George refused to take advice, that he tried to shift before he was ready.

So he’d stayed, and Laurie, now almost completely well again, had stayed with them. 

He crossed the room to Chana, his attention entirely on her, as it always was.  When he put his hand on her shoulder, she lifted her free hand and touched him, but she didn’t look.  She didn’t need to, although sometimes he wished she would.  The contact was exquisite torture.  She hadn’t left Skeffington’s bedside for days.  He longed for her, but knew she’d think him selfish if he insisted she left the small suite and came home with him. 

All he could do was wait.  And today was the day. 

Cristos entered the room, followed by a white-coated doctor, rectangular, black framed spectacles adding severity to his lean features.  He glanced around the room and flipped open a file of papers.  “We’ve done all the tests we can do,” he said, his voice dispassionate.  Josh was glad of it.  Dispassion would help her to cope with the news.  He tried to contact Cristos, but he was completely closed.  He felt Chana’s skin tremble under his hand, and he wanted to hold her, but recently she’d drawn away, saved all her energy for Skeffington.

“So what happens from here?”  Cristos said, his voice cool.

The doctor regarded him over the top of his eyeglasses.  “Mr. Skeffington’s conversion went very well, as far as we can tell.  But he tried to shift alone, with no one to help him, and without the compulsion forced by the full moon.  You, I understand, warned him against this.”  Cristos nodded.  “You were quite right.  He should have waited and let the shift happen in its own time.  It takes a few days, up to a week for an older person’s body to adjust to the conversion.  The strain of shifting is too much.”  He lowered the file and took off his spectacles, addressing Chana directly.  “It was not your fault.  You did everything right.  He did not.  You even timed it right, a week or so after the full moon, to allow his body a chance to recover before the compulsory monthly shift.”  He lifted his eyes and glanced at the others, waiting for his verdict. 

“George Skeffington had a stroke.  As simple as that.  He tried to shift on his own, far too early, defying the advice he’d been given.  He has suffered aphasia, the loss of all communication.  He is, in effect, locked inside his own body.”

Chana’s single sob was the only sound inside the room.  Josh tightened his grip on her shoulder.  Whatever it took, he’d be there for her.  If he had to resign from the team, he’d do it gladly, to keep her safe and well. 

The doctor sighed.  “He is no longer a shapeshifter.  That part of his brain also left him with the stroke.  He is an old man, unable to communicate, and he will live the remainder of his life as a mortal.  You might say, like a transplant gone wrong, that the conversion didn’t take.”

Josh felt heartsick.  She’d done this for him.  It was as much his fault as it was hers, but he didn’t feel guilty, because above everything, George Skeffington had been at fault.  If he’d listened to the advice Cristos gave him after his conversion, he’d be hale and hearty.

Something he would never tell Chana, if he lived to be a thousand was that he felt relieved.  George would have remained a constant thorn in their sides.  Now, he would be human, and would die at his appointed time.  He could help her through that.  Better than centuries of interference and harassment. 

He shouldn’t feel like that, he knew, but as he tried to lock his guilty feelings away he heard Cristos speak to him privately.

You’re right.  He would have been a constant problem.  That is no reason to feel guilty.  Skeffington brought his own troubles on himself.  Neither of us effected them.  We are not responsible for this.

He sent a note of thanks, but he knew it would be some time before he believed in the reality of Cristos’s words. 

“What do you suggest we do?”  Chana asked then, not looking anywhere but at George.

“Take him home, employ a good nurse and pray.  He won’t get any better.”

“I can do something for him.”  Cristos stepped forward to stand on the other side of the high bed to Chana, and for the first time since Josh had entered the room, she looked up.  At him.  Cristos kept her gaze snared in his cool, grey one.  “I can give him the gift of telepathy.  He cannot speak, he can’t write, but I can give him a way to communicate.  We will provide a nurse who can read him, and so he will be able to communicate with the outside world.”

Josh looked at George and knew he wasn’t imagining the pleading expression in George’s watery eyes.  For the first time since that day George had collapsed, he tried to enter George’s mind.  When he felt Chana there he breathed a sigh of relief.  That was the closest they had been for what seemed like eternity.

George’s mind was in turmoil, but in rational turmoil.  Anger warred with frustration, and they heard, in clear tones; Please, do it!  They say I might be able to learn to speak again, but it will take time.  I need it now, I want it now!

Leave.  That came from Cristos, an implacable command.

They left Skeffington’s mind, and waited.  George’s eyes lightened, the eyelids lifted as he accepted Cristos’s gift.  No one else Josh knew could do this, strengthen and increase the gift of telepathy by using his own Talent.  Josh hadn’t the faintest idea how Cristos did it.  Or what he was.  He could be an ordinary human with an extraordinary gift, or a vampire, or even a shapeshifter.  Nobody knew for sure, nobody had a clue what he was.  Cristos liked it that way. 

Cristos glanced away, closed his eyes and pressed his forefinger and thumb to the bridge of his nose in a gesture of weariness.  “It’s done,” he said, without looking up. 

Josh’s first thought was for the Department 57 boss.  “Do you need anything?” 

Cristos looked up, and Josh took a step back, shocked. 

He’d never seen Cristos looking anything else but in control, assured.  But not now.  Cristos was bleary-eyed, weak, vulnerable.  Dangerously vulnerable. 

Unaccustomed fear struck him and Josh hated George Skeffington for that.  Until this moment he hadn’t fully understood how much all Talents depended on Cristos and his kind, the people who ran the departments worldwide.  Without Cristos, the US contingent would be badly damaged. 

They couldn’t allow him to do that.  They had to protect him. 

He should have remembered his mind was open.  At that thought Cristos’s eyes regained their steely command, and he lifted his head.  He might still be weak inside, but his self possession allowed him to cover it up better than anyone Josh had ever met. 

The revelation made him wonder.  How often did Cristos worry, how much strain was he under?

Cristos spoke to him in a low voice.  “No-one protects me.  I do the protecting.” 

“Can’t I even feel sorry that you have no one to protect you?”  His heart ached for a man so alone.

“I’ve not always been alone.”  Cristos turned away, breaking eye contact.  “I  choose to be so.”

He deserved more. 

“I’ve had more.  Once.” 

Cristos blocked.  It was considered rude to shut down suddenly, so the closing was more gradual, like a mist falling, but it was just as final. 

With a lingering, troubled look at him, Josh turned back to Chana. 

He felt the communication between stepfather and stepdaughter before he tuned in to it.  He had no compunction in listening in before announcing his presence.  George was wily.  Just because he’d lost his ability to talk didn’t change his personality.

It is so good to speak to you again!  Can you tell me, when will the changes take effect?  When will I be able to shift my form again?

Never.  Cristos had moved into the conversation, too.  You should have waited.  When you tried to shift on your own, your body rejected the change.  That was your chance, and you blew it.

Shock, as potent as an electric shock lanced through the body of George Skeffington.  That’s not possible.  I can’t have reverted.  I felt the change, I feel it still!

It’s as if you lost a limb.  You will feel it for a little while before it goes.  You are as you are, George Skeffington.  The rejection brought on a massive stroke.  You’re lucky to be alive.

George’s pale face contorted.  Am I?  Is this it, then?

You mean are you going to die?  Cristos shook his head.  You have stabilized.  You can learn to talk and write again, but I’ve given you the gift of telepathy.  I’ll send someone to you who can interpret.  You can make a dumb show of sign language, but the assistant will read your mind.

I don’t need an assistant.  I have Chana.

Immediately Josh put a hand on Chana’s shoulder, to anchor himself as much as her.  The old bastard assumed too much. 

Chana remained silent, but George seemed to take her consent for granted.  We have a contract, Chana.  I’ll make it worth your while, you know that.

“You can’t.”  A slight shock reverberated around the room when she spoke aloud.  “You can’t make it worth my while, George.”  She got to her feet.  “I’m sorry for what happened to you, but it was your own fault.  I gave you what I had, and you never thanked me, never praised me.  But more than anything else, you killed my mother.”  He began to protest, but she cut him off.  “You had her taken to that place, and experimented on until she died.  You cut off all memories of her in my mind.  Crude hypnotic techniques and drugs, they said.  How could you do that?  Oh don’t bother, I know.  Everything you want, you get.  Except this, George.  Except this.  Josh has asked me to marry him and if the offer is still open, I accept.  Even if he didn’t want me, I’d leave.  I stayed because I loved you, because while the world feared you, admired you, hated you, I loved you.  Me and Junior.  Now you only have Junior.  Make the most of him, George.”

We have a contract.

I’m breaking it.  Sue me.

I will.

Chana turned to face Josh, and he saw none of the bleakness he’d expected, just a terrible sadness.  “Is your offer still open?”

“Always.”

She leaned forward and kissed him softly on the lips.  “I accept.”

Without looking back, she moved towards the door.  Cristos walked to the door and opened it for her.  “He’ll be well cared for,” he murmured.  “And he has his son.  Good luck, both of you.”

Josh shook his hand.  “Thank you for everything.”  He glanced at Laurie, silently staring at Skeffington, an unfathomable look on his face and hate in his heart, though it wasn’t likely he wasn’t going to share that with anyone but his brother anytime soon.  “What will you do?”

“I’m staying for a while, with Ted.  Help him prepare for the tour, have the look around I wanted to when I first arrived.”

Josh grinned.  “Lay off the women for a while, will you bro?”

Laurie chuckled.  “You can put money on that.”

Epilogue

 

“Darling, are you anywhere near ready?”

When Josh opened the door to the bedroom Chana was using, calls and alarmed shrieks greeted him.  He ignored them and strolled in.

“You can’t see the bride before the ceremony!”

“Too late.”  Ignoring the fluttering and occasional pull on his arm, Josh walked over to where Chana stood, resplendent in the most flamboyant wedding dress they’d been able to find.

Tiers of amber tulle, topped with creamy white, embroidered with little gold flowers formed the skirt, and a tight corset top that pushed her breasts right up.  She glared at him.  “What made me choose this thing?”

He grinned.  At least he’d have a good view during the ceremony.  “You didn’t want to pass unnoticed, remember?”  He watched one of the four women bustling around the room lift a tiara and carefully settle it on Chana’s elaborate hairstyle.  The confection glittered with crystals and topazes.  “Very tasteful.”  The two color veil that trailed behind the tiara took some arranging. 

Chana giggled.  “You look amazing.”

His smile broadened.  “Don’t I?”  From his Manchester Rovers cufflinks to his tartan waistcoat, he knew how he looked.  Elaborately overdressed.  His suit was a deep caramel color, to compliment Chana’s gown, and the tartan clashed beautifully with it. 

“How long do we have to stay in these things?”  The women stood back, and one accidentally brushed against Josh and then started back, as though she’d been burned. 

“Until ‘OK’ magazine has taken all the pictures it wants.  Then we don’t have to see them again.  I thought we’d donate them to a charity auction.  We’ll marry, eat a few courses—”

“You think I can eat in this?”  She beat her hands against her dress, to anguished cries of “You’ll ruin your manicure!” and “Oh no, now I’ll have to arrange it all over again!”

“I’ll feed you later,” he said, his voice lowering intimately.  Despite the women trying to fuss over her, despite the astounding gown, which prevented him getting too close, the atmosphere tingled between them.  He wondered how long it took to get her out of the dress.

Too damned long.

His crack of laughter shocked the lavender clad matron to her left and she shot them a frowning look.  “You should not be here.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

It didn’t matter in the least.  Only he and Chana – and Laurie and Ted Maxwell, both of whom waited downstairs – knew the truth.  He and Chana had had their Vegas wedding, as soon as they had recovered enough to travel.  They’d been married a month. 

Their bonding was continuing, and he could never regret their meeting, although he would have changed the circumstances.  He was overwhelmingly glad he’d been there to help her through the inevitable grief.  Her bravery astounded him, both in the way she’d spoken to Skeffington and taken on her new life, and every day he grew to love her more. 

He’d promised himself he would make her laugh every day, and so far he’d done that.  It was fun, finding new ways to see that glorious smile break, to coax her to joy.  Today was another way to make her laugh.

British footballers had a reputation for vulgarity.  In private, many were far from that, but since they’d entered the scene, Laurie and Josh had delighted in giving the press what it wanted.  Flashy sports cars, elaborate, vulgar décor and extravagant clothes were the order of the day.  It had taken him a full week to persuade Chana to consent to this over the top wedding ceremony, but eventually, she’d entered it with enthusiasm.  Now a huge wedding cake awaited them downstairs, with a vicar, a multitude of guests and a feast fit for a king.  Actually, some minor members of the Royal Family had been persuaded to attend.  Josh wondered if they enjoyed the unabashed display of taste going right out the window.

And now Chana was done up like a fairy godmother, enjoying her complaints.  Planning this had helped to dispel the shadows in her eyes, at least for now.

Looking at her almost made him forget what he’d come to tell her.  “Ted’s happy.”

“Junior did it?  Oh, I’m so glad!”

Acting as legal representative for his father, Junior had promised to sign the contract giving Ted’s syndicate control of the club.  Much to everyone’s surprise, Junior retained a small interest, declaring that after he’d seen a few matches, he thought he’d like to learn more about this sport.  It would never replace his beloved American football, but it was an interesting addition.  So Ted had his club back, and was already making plans for the next season.

George Senior wasn’t at this wedding.  He’d refused to communicate with his stepdaughter, but Junior told her not to worry, he’d come around in time.  Josh tried to care about that, but all he cared about was Chana’s continuing distress at Skeffington’s rejection of her.  He was happy when the rest of her family had defied George Senior and come to the wedding.  They were downstairs with the other guests, waiting for Chana’s grand appearance. 

Right now she had a questioning look in her eyes.  “So are you telling me where we’re going after this?”

“In that long white limo?”

The monstrosity waited outside, the biggest limousine he’d been able to locate.  “So you’ve seen it?”

“How on earth did you expect I’d miss it?”

Laughter bubbled up in both of them.  “I thought you’d like it,” he said, taking out his handkerchief to wipe his eyes. 

She stared at him, transfixed.  “You’re not wearing make up are you?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Brown smears on white cloth.” 

He looked down ruefully.  “I did try it, then I thought it was going too far.”

“Is that possible?”

He shrugged.  “It stung my eyes.  Worth a try, though.”

Ignoring the protests of the two women trying to arrange the folds of her gown, she walked forward, crushing herself against him.  “You see?  It is possible,” she said huskily. 

He ran his hands up her arms, unable to resist touching her but before he could kiss her, a small body inserted itself between them.  “You will not kiss her!”  The woman put both hands against his chest and pushed.  “You’ll ruin her make-up.  Go away!”

Laughing, he stepped back.  “Later.”

*****

Later was far too long. 

In between came the wedding.  The glitz, the guests, the clothes, the extravagant floral arrangements that made Chana sneeze, she forgot it all when she stood with Josh and made her promises to him.  Although they were married, this ceremony, performed by a man of the cloth, with its sacred oaths, sealed the contract for her. 

She loved him, and she knew she’d always love him.  She couldn’t have found a better way of saying it than in the words of the marriage ceremony.  “In sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer.” 

He’d given her so much, the least she could do was give him everything she had. 

When he made his promises to her, she saw the same sincerity in his eyes that she felt in her heart. 

The marriage ceremony lasted perhaps twenty minutes.  Afterwards, she wanted nothing more than to find a quiet space and show him with her body what she’d just sworn in front of a thousand people. 

She had to wait.  After posing for innumerable press photographs, and the ‘OK’ special feature, they had to sit through the banquet.  On a pair of elaborately gilded, brocade upholstered chairs.  The one dozen bridesmaids, dressed in contrasting shades of yellow and gold, sat either side of them, presenting yet another photo opportunity. 

Interminable.  If it weren’t for their private conversation, conducted entirely without words, she might have fallen asleep.

Josh kept her awake. 

How many buttons are there at the back of that gown?

She thought.  They’re hooks and eyes, but I don’t know how many.  About twenty, I think.

 She didn’t need to look at him to see his wicked smile, but she did anyway and also saw the warmth lighting his eyes.  I plan to undo them one by one, and kiss you for each one.  I’ll slide that gown off you, slowly, and for every inch of skin I see, you get a kiss.  She shivered, as though she could already feel them.  When I have you naked, I want you lying down, presenting yourself to me, just for me, for my enjoyment.  I want your legs wide open, so I can see everything.  Do you know how hard that will make me? 

Deliberately he sent her an image of his cock, rigid and straining for her.  She moaned, low in her throat.

“Feeling tired, darling?”

She cleared her throat.  “No, not at all.”

He took her hand in his, and smoothed his fingers over the diamond ring he’d put on her finger earlier that day.  Unlike the other things she wore, this was exquisite.  His touch sent electric thrills right to her center.  He continued to speak to her, mind to mind.

I’m going to taste you, so deeply you’ll never forget it, never be free of me.  I’ll be in you with my tongue, with my mind, holding you down so you have to take everything I can give you, and I won’t let up until you’ve come at least three times.

She suppressed another moan with difficulty.

I’ll touch you, every inch, slide my cock up your body and let you taste me, but not for long, because I want you at the peak.  I’ll slip back down, just out of reach and only then will I come back and ram inside you.

The first time is likely to be fast, but it’ll be hard and deep.  Then I’ll stay inside you until I’m ready again, and then we’ll bond.  I’ll hold you safe in my wings until you can’t remember what it’s like not to have me in you, and only then will I tell you how much I love you.

He kept every word of his promise. 

The End