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Without warning, the door to the old car swung open. Frankie scrambled back. Two goons, who without a doubt from the stupid looks on their faces were EU security, beckoned her out of the car.
“Let’s go,” the larger one said.
She scooted her way to the edge of the bench seat. As she tried to stand, one of the guards moved to hold her arm, whether to assist her or restrain her, she couldn’t be certain. Her eyes flashed to her wolf as she bared her teeth and snarled. No way was she letting these idiots lay a hand on her.
The guard’s brow drew low, even as his hand dropped to his weapon. “Move it,” he ordered again.
They led her through the abandoned warehouse facility, down a flight of stairs to a basement entrance door. The soles of her feet were freezing against the concrete thanks to the subzero temperatures outside and she regretted more than once not bothering to button the hunter’s trench coat she was donning, but she allowed her rage and her wolf stirring inside her to keep her warm. How had she gotten herself into this mess?
A few minutes later she was deposited in a flimsy, metal folding chair in an interrogation room. The harsh florescent lights overhead seared her wolf’s retinas. The lights, the creaky chair beneath her ass, and the cuffs still holding her hands behind her back were all meant to set her on edge, but she was too smart to fall for it.
Then, she waited.
And waited.
She knew the drill. They’d leave her here on ice as long as they could, making her sweat it out like she was some kind of criminal. She could practically feel his eyes on her through the two-way mirror, watching, judging, sizing her up. But she wasn’t a criminal. Protecting her pack and eliminating rogues that broke her pack and the Execution Underground’s laws wasn’t a crime. Neither was sniffing around crimes scenes in her jurisdiction. It was her birthright as packmaster.
Then again, his kind had shown they didn’t always follow policy, which was exactly why she needed to play her cards right.
Finally, the door to the interview room swung open and the hunter stepped inside. She frowned at the sight of him. He had a name, not that he’d cared to share it with her earlier. Even though she knew it in her head, she couldn’t bring herself to use it, to humanize him.
Humanize.
She nearly scoffed at the cruel irony of that word. If only his kind could feel the same for hers as they did for their precious fellow humans. She wasn’t certain what she’d been thinking back in the alley, wondering what he was. He was too single-minded to be anything but human.
He closed the door behind him, holding a thick manila folder of papers in one hand and a Styrofoam cup in the other. From the scent that followed him: black coffee. She sniffed harder, searching for his scent and finding none. Normally, for a human like him, she could scent everything about them. Fear, rage, sadness.
Hell, she could have likely even told him what he’d had for breakfast if she really wanted to strain herself. Even for her own kind, her people held unique scents, allowing for increased awareness of one another. She’d heard rumors that the injections the Execution Underground gave their hunters masked their smell from supernaturals, but she’d never confirmed it until tonight. It was unnerving.
She gave him a quick once-over like he wasn’t worth her time, which he wasn’t. “So you going for good cop or bad cop?”
He set the coffee and the manila folder down on the table across from her but didn’t say anything. Instead, he watched her with those intense green eyes as he rounded the table, only to lean against its edge next to where she sat. His gaze flicked over her, quick and assessing, impersonal, but still a flood of heat rushed to her cheeks.
Why hadn’t she buttoned the damn coat when she had a chance?
Her thoughts turned to that trashed alley again.
Kiss me or I’ll die.
The words she’d whispered against his lips echoed in her mind.
God, she’d sounded desperate, even to her own ears.
It was the adrenaline that had made her sound like that. Fear. Nothing more. She hadn’t been able to help herself. She knew that.
Did he?
Pushing off the edge of the table, he stepped behind her. Even no longer in her line of sight and with no sense of smell to aid her, she could feel him there, lingering. A large imposing presence at her back. The air felt heavy with tension, even though she couldn’t see him, couldn’t move. When the rough, calloused skin of one of his hands brushed against her own, she startled, nearly coming out of her chair.
“Easy,” he said, his voice a low rumble that vibrated through her chest.
Gruff yet somehow soothing.
She heard the quiet jingle of a set of keys being pulled from his belt clip before she felt the first cuff fall from her wrist. A sigh of relief tore from her. The cuffs. He was just removing the cuffs. She swallowed hard.
What are you?
Her question from the alleyway echoed through her. He hadn’t answered her. Logically, she knew he was human. He had to be, considering his employer and the facility in which she was currently sitting in. So what was this tension between them? This electricity?
