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Fingers flying over the keys, concentration transformed his face. Though he was devastatingly handsome when he smiled, the smolder he was working while he was completely unaware was mind-boggling. Transfixed by his aura, she didn’t realize he’d begun speaking again until his eyes caught hers.
“Cortana?”
Blinking, she attempted to cover her mistake. “My apologies, was running through the list of things that bother me.”
Riaz gestured for her to come around the desk. “Come look.”
The urge to further poke at him barely repressed, she rose at his beckoning and sidled around the desk to hover next to him. It took her only seconds to identify the facility that was shown on the screen.
“The Citizens’ plant?”
“Yep.” He nodded, every trace of mirth gone from his face. “We’ve got several images of it from the few scouting missions we’ve deployed, but nothing inside. Given where it’s located, it’s not easily accessible. We’ve had to be creative.”
Narrowing her eyes, she tapped on the screen. “What’s that?”
“An electrified silver fence, if you can believe it—and it’s tall,” he growled, the rumbling noise making her shiver in a way that had nothing to do with the air-conditioned chill.
Suddenly overwhelmed by their proximity, Cortana’s breathing hitched. Now, so close to the vexing man, the delectable cedar scent that clung to his skin was proving hard to resist. The idea of it was as laughable as it was damning, yet she found herself barely beating back the impulse to bury her teeth in his neck.
Riaz hadn’t noticed her sudden change. His pointer finger hovered over a bird’s-eye view of the facility. “We’ll enter here. They patrol the perimeter, but the guards change at ten p.m. We’ll use the cover of darkness to our benefit. Our scouts noticed they’re cutting corners, and they didn’t equip the night shift with infrared or night vision goggles, so we’re in the clear. Once we get in, we can verify if they are partnered with the Citizens or are simply a supplier.”
Not satisfied with her half-hearted noise of approval, he turned his head to glance up at her. Riaz had clearly misidentified her proximity to him, and in turning his head, he’d closed the distance between their faces to a scant few inches.
That was when his eyes turned wolf.
Chapter Four
Orange fire swallowed the brown of Riaz’s eyes, the only outward sign that he’d succumbed to the wolf that lived within. Swiftly following the change, his heartbeat ticked up, another sign he was losing control to his urges.
The subtle scent of fresh raspberries caressed his senses. Every primal instinct screamed at him to nuzzle his nose into her neck and breathe in the sultry perfume that lingered there. A plume of desire heated his blood as their breath mingled. Both of them were locked in a shiver of tension, uncertain how to remove themselves from their current predicament.
Fortunately, they didn’t have to.
Heels clicked on the tile flooring in the hall, a grunting sound of outrage accompanying the oncoming storm. With each step drawing closer, the pulse in his ears compounded and his gut twisted. Instead of the usual eagerness his wolf showed at Renata’s presence, he found only a vacant pool of indifference.
Odd.
By the time Cortana and Riaz broke their trance and looked toward the door, Renata had already entered the office and shot a narrowed gaze at the vampire next to him.
“And you are?”
Renata’s perfectly sculpted features, normally a schooled mask, were shadowed by a burning anger. A sophisticated beauty, the she-wolf had long black hair and beautiful, burnished olive skin, so smooth and even it was as if she’d been airbrushed by a master artist.
Cortana extended a hand to the new arrival. Instead of accepting the gesture, Renata merely gazed at her with a vague look of disgust, which persisted as Cortana made her way through the piles of paper and back into the chair opposite him.
Riaz gaped at the she-wolf mutely, horrified by Renata’s behavior.
“I’m Cortana, here from New York as part of the Accords ambassador program.” The professional tone in her voice told him she took Renata’s behavior in stride. “I’m a certified expert in chemical explosives and blasting agents, and when Riaz put out the call to the Peace Accords network, the Head of the Vampire Council assigned it to me.”
“A vampire?” Renata spat the word, moving around the desk to stand by his chair, her fingers trailing over his shoulder in an outwardly possessive gesture.
“Cortana will be aiding us with the Citizens plant, Ren,” he warned, “and we’re appreciative of her assistance.”
A fake smile barely stretched her bow-shaped lips. “Fabulous. A grunt to take the load. Happy to have you.”
He was about to refute Renata’s cruel words, but Cortana beat him to the punch. “I’m happy to get my hands dirty. I have no qualms about protecting those too weak to fight back.”
Even without looking, Riaz knew Renata’s wolf had bounded to the surface, snarling, and was a hairsbreadth away from making good on her aggressive tone. He casually brought his fingers up to circle around her wrist. The subtle touch accomplished two goals: it pulled her back from the edge and kept her from lunging toward the other woman.
