*
“Kate?”
Curran’s voice slipped through my dream. Mmmm . . . I smiled and opened my eyes, still half-asleep. Curran leaned over me. My handsome psycho. When I came back from speaking with Julie, I crawled into bed. I awoke a couple of hours later when he slid into bed next to me. He pulled me close, his body so warm against mine. We made love and I fell asleep on his chest.
“Kate?” Curran repeated. “Baby?”
I reached over and touched his cheek just to make sure he was really there. “You should stay in bed with me.”
“I’d love to,” he said. “But I just spoke with Barabas.”
“Mm-hm.” He really was ridiculously handsome in a gruff, kill-anything-that-moves way. Exactly how I liked it. “What did he say?”
“Saiman is waiting for us in a conference room. He says he owes you a favor and Barabas called him to invite him to the Keep on your behalf.” Gold flared in Curran’s eyes. “Would you care to explain this, because I’m all ears?”
Ten minutes later Curran and I marched down the hallway toward the conference room. When you live in a building with excellent acoustics populated by people with supernatural hearing, you learn to argue under your breath, which was precisely what we were doing.
A month ago I’d gotten a late-night call from the Mercenary Guild informing me that Saiman had been kidnapped. An information broker and a magic expert, Saiman was a shrewd businessman who had his fingers in all sorts of pies, from illegal gladiatorial combat to a shady import/export business. He charged exorbitant prices for his services, but because I amused him, he had offered me a discount in the past. I had consulted him a few times, but he kept trying to entice me into his bed to prove a philosophical point. I’d put up with it until he had the stupidity to parade our connection in front of Curran. The Beast Lord and I had been in a rough spot in our relationship, and Curran didn’t take that exhibition well, which he expressed by turning a warehouse full of luxury cars Saiman had slipped past customs into crushed Coke cans. Since then, Saiman, who feared physical pain above all else, lived in mortal fear of Curran.
Saiman maintained a VIP account at the Mercenary Guild for times when he needed to use brute force, so when some thugs decided it would be a good idea to hold him for ransom, his accountant put the call in to the Guild, which in turn called me. I’d dealt with the kidnappers and rescued Saiman. In return he owed me a favor. Yesterday I’d called him and told him that I would like to collect.
I had successfully managed to hide the incident from Curran precisely because I knew he would go ballistic. Explaining all this now proved a little complicated.
“The clerk called and said Saiman was kidnapped. What the hell was I supposed to do, leave him there?”
“Let me think . . . Yes!”
“Well, I didn’t.”
“He doesn’t care about you. If you died saving him, he wouldn’t give a shit. Nobody even knew where you went.”
“Jim knew where I went.” Aaand I shouldn’t have said that.
Curran stopped and stared at me.
“I took backup,” I told him.
“Like who?”
“Grendel and Derek.”
Curran’s eyebrows came together. He realized that Derek knew and hadn’t snitched. I shouldn’t have said that either.
The best defense is a vigorous offense. “You’re overreacting.”
“You left in the middle of the night to rescue a man without any shred of conscience who cares nothing about your safety, who schemed and manipulated to seduce you, and when he found he couldn’t, acted like a coward and put you in danger. How am I supposed to react?”
“Last time I checked, I was a big girl, all grown up and able to put on my shoes and swing my sword all by myself. You don’t have to like it.”
“Kate!”
“He owes us a favor. A big favor.”
“I don’t need any favors from him,” Curran snarled.
“Yes, you do. Do you remember that warehouse of luxury cars you demolished?”
Curran just looked at me.
“How did those expensive foreign cars get into the country?”
The realization hit Curran like a ton of bricks. His scowl vanished. “He shipped them in.” He started down the hallway, accelerating.
“Exactly.” I matched his stride.
“And he avoided customs because they came in on his vessel. He owns a fleet.”
“Bingo.”
We turned the corner. A shapeshifter heading in our direction saw our faces and tried to abruptly reverse her course. Curran pointed at her. “Get Jim for me, please.”
She broke into a jog.
“We don’t even know if his ships go to the Mediterranean,” Curran said.
“Yes, we do. During the Midnight Games he brought in a minotaur from Greece.”
We reached the door and I opened it.
A beautiful Asian woman waited for us in the North Conference Room. She was on the cusp of thirty, of average height and flawless build, with a slender, delicately curved waist and long legs. A dark green sweater dress, complete with a draped cowl and a sash, hugged her figure, showcasing her beautiful dark hair.
A male shapeshifter was watching her the way one would watch a rabid dog cornered in an alley.
Curran didn’t miss a bit. “Saiman, you look lovely. Thank you for dressing up.”
The woman looked up and I saw the familiar air of disdain in her eyes.
“Did you come as a woman so Curran wouldn’t hit you?”
The woman grimaced. Odd bulges slid over her face and arms, as if someone had struck billiard balls under her skin with a cue and they spun, rolling in all directions. I willed my stomach to keep still.
“No,” the woman said, as her flesh crawled, stretching, twisting, and reshaping itself in a revolting riot. “I simply had a prior appointment.”
Her hair shed, her breasts dissolved into a flat male chest, her hips narrowed, all moving simultaneously in a grotesque coordinated process. Acid burned my tongue. Shapeshifter change was an explosion, a quick burst of movement over in a couple of seconds. Saiman’s change was a controlled methodical adjustment, and watching it never failed to make my stomach panic and attempt to empty itself by any means necessary. I closed my eyes for a long moment, opened them, and saw a slender bald man crossing his new arms. In his neutral form, Saiman was a blank canvas: neither ugly nor handsome, average height, average features, average skin color, sparse frame. The sweater dress made him look completely ridiculous. I had a sudden urge to laugh and clamped down on it.
“I’ve brought some currency.” Saiman pointed at the suitcase next to him. “I believe the standard Guild fee for rescuing a kidnapped victim is ten percent of the ransom. Feel free to count it.”
Of course. Money was Saiman’s default response. Paying us off would be the easiest way to get rid of his debt.
Curran offered him a chair with a sweep of his hand. “We’re not interested in money. Would you care for something to drink?”
“Is it poisoned?”
“It’s Saturday,” I said. “We only serve poison during the week.”
“Yes, we’re not complete savages.” Curran sat. “Shawn, could you please bring some water for me and Kate, and a scotch for our guest?”
The male shapeshifter nodded and departed.
“Feeling better?”
Saiman didn’t look at me. “I’m sorry, I’d love to answer that, but you see, if I attempt a conversation, your furry paramour will pummel me into bits.”
Oh, you fussy baby.
“Not at all,” Curran said. “I have no plans to pummel anyone this morning.”
Shawn stepped into the room, bringing a platter with a pitcher of water, a decanter filled with amber-colored scotch, and three glasses. Curran took it from his hands and set it on the table. “Thank you.”
Shawn left, and Curran poured water into two of the glasses and scotch into the third. “There is no reason we can’t all be civil.”
His tone was light, his face relaxed and friendly. The Beast Lord was in rare form. We really needed the ship.
Saiman sipped the amber liquid and held it in his mouth for a long moment. “So. You refuse my money, you serve me thirty-year-old Highland Park scotch, and we’ve been in the same room for approximately five minutes, yet none of my bones are broken. This leads me to believe that your back is against the wall and you desperately need me for something. I’m dying to know what that is.”
In his place I’d be careful with my choice of words.
“I have a business proposal for you,” Curran said. “I’d like to hire one of your shipping vessels to transport the two of us and ten of my people. We will pay you a reasonable rate.”
“My reasonable or yours?” Saiman studied his drink.
“Ours. In turn, you will no longer owe the Pack and we will make your life less inconvenient. For example, we’ll stop blocking your real estate purchases.”
“You’ve been blocking his purchases?” I looked at Curran.
“Not me personally.”
“The Pack and its many proxies.” Saiman drained his glass and poured himself more. “If I choose to move on a project, the Pack will inevitably bid against me, drive up the price, and then abandon the bid, leaving me holding the purse strings. It’s been most inconvenient.”
I bet.
“You’ve always struck me as a man who enjoys attention,” Curran said.