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"I'll just call him," she said, handing over a locker key. "If you'd like to wait on the sofa."
I glanced at the sofa, then at the wall of glass beyond it, nothing with some pleasure it looked out over the main gym area. There were lots of men inside, working away on various machines, skin gleaming with sweat and muscles rippling. As views went, it was pretty damn fine, and I walked over to make the most of it.
Jin's name was announced over the speaker system. Five minutes later, awareness raced across my skin. Though I couldn't hear any footsteps - probably because of the thick carpet - I knew it was Jin. The heat and scent of him called to the wildness within, even from a distance.
I glanced over my shoulder. He strode toward me, wearing black gym pants and a black singlet top. His skin gleamed with sweat and heat, and he looked sexier than any man had a right to. Desire surged, but my gaze caught his and it fled as quickly as it had risen. His dark eyes gleamed with a ferocity I'd never seen before - a ferocity that was both ancient and inhuman. As if, in that one brief moment, I was viewing his soul and it was nothing that belonged in this time.
Nothing that belonged on this earth.
Then he blinked and smiled, and the strangeness was gone, leaving me wondering if communicating with the dead woman had shaken me more than I'd presumed. I mean, Jin mightn't be human, per se, but he had to be at least a subspecies or some sort of nonhuman. Didn't he? What else was there?
A comment Quinn had made a few months ago floated through my thoughts. He'd said that while he was raised as a human, technically he was only partially so. That the other half of his being was something that no longer existed.
If a half-breed from a race that no longer roamed this earth could survive through the ages, then other, darker things surely could.
The chill that raced through my soul this time was one of foreboding. I didn't want to know about those other, darker things. I really didn't. But I had a bad, bad feeling that not only was I fucking one of them, but I was stepping deeper into their world the longer I stayed by Jin's side.
He stopped and leaned forward to kiss me, and it was all I could do not to recoil. His mouth was cool and quick against mine and, for that, I was grateful. Right then, anything more passionate would have been too much.
"Hi," he said softly. "Nice to see you again."
He smelled of musk and man and dark spices - all scents normally guaranteed to set my hormones a-dancing. And admittedly, despite the chills and foreboding, desire did stir. I was a wolf, after all, and danger was an aphrodisiac.
But running underneath his lust-worthy scent was a trace of sex and blood, mixed in with a hint of jasmine. I couldn't help wondering if his exertion had been more the rough horizontal kind - involving straps, whips, and naked, perfumed flesh - rather than mere gym work.
"Looks like I've come here at a bad time."
He shrugged. "There's a gym and spa special running at the moment, so we've a bigger crowd than normal tonight. I'm afraid I can't give you that massage I promised, but I'll get Terri to start you off with the treatments, and I'll see if I can grab a break in the next twenty minutes or so."
"Look, if you'd rather I leave and come back - "
"No."
His grip tightened on my arm and the alien light gleamed briefly, starkly in his dark eyes.
"I have no idea how long I'll be," he continued, "but I'd rather you wait."
"Then I'll wait."
He nodded and pulled me forward, kissing me hard. It was very much a signal of intent and part of me quailed - if only because it suggested that last night was only a teaser. That tonight I'd get a more in-depth introduction to his darker needs and desires.
How far was I willing to go for the sake of the Directorate and tracking down a killer?
I didn't really know anymore, and that was perhaps the scariest thing of all. If my determination not to do what the Directorate and Jack wanted me to do had slipped so much in a matter of months, what would I be like a year down the track? Would I become the willing fighting and fucking machine Jack wanted me to be? Was it as inevitable as the cycle of the moon?
A tremor ran through me. Jin broke off the kiss, and smiled. "I shall try to hurry," he said, trailing one hot fingertip down my neck. His touch paused near the pulse point, and his smile widened. "I'd hate to waste such delicious excitement."
"Then don't." I stepped back. "The sooner you go, the sooner you can be back."
He laughed, then turned and walked away. I repressed another shiver and tried to ignore the humming of hormones that just loved the danger Jin represented. Sometimes being a werewolf was a pain in the ass.
I looked across to the receptionist. Her face was carefully neutral, but her distaste rode the air. Resisting the urge to tell her I actually sympathized, I said, "Where do I go for my treatments, then?"
"Just follow the door to your right. Terri will take care of you."
I followed the directions and pushed through a set of swing doors. A meaty-looking black woman possessing slick, tied-back hair and hands big enough to snap a bus in two approached from the opposite end of the hall. She stopped when she saw me, well-shaped eyebrows rising almost in alarm. It wasn't hard to guess why. She knew what I was, simply because she wasn't human herself.
I stopped several feet in front of her, and looked her up and down. I'd only ever met one bear-shifter before, but this woman left Berna for dead when it came to sheer muscles and size.
