Rogue (12 page)

“Yeah.”

“Be careful what you ask for. Life has a way of giving you what you want, whether you’re ready for it or not.”

I frowned. “Why do you say that?”

With a cryptic smile, the Alpha strolled past me and through the barn doors. A moment later, his voice floated out of the darkness. “I got you, didn’t I?”

K
evin Mitchell met us at baggage claim. I didn’t recognize him until he stepped into my path and stuck his hand out, his broad smile brightening an otherwise ordinary face.

“Faythe Sanders, you look amazing!” he said, brown eyes shifting upward as his gaze slid over my denim shorts before stalling at the low neckline of my shirt. His leering appraisal made me wish I’d opted for painter’s coveralls instead of the snug black tank top. Or maybe a big paper sack. Rather than shaking the hand I extended reluctantly, he used it to pull me into an intimate hug, as if we’d known each other for years, when really I’d only met him once before.

Bristling, I broke free from the involuntary embrace and bent to pick up my bag, determined to get Kevin’s brain focused on business and keep it there. He was only a few years older than Marc, but my gut had labeled him a dirty old man the minute he’d made eye contact with my breasts. If that’s where he thought my eyes were, I didn’t want to know where he’d look for my brain.

But I was pretty sure where to find his.

“Hi, Kevin.” I glanced at Marc and started to take his hand out of habit. But then I stopped. I didn’t want either of them to think I was using Marc to shield myself from unwanted attention. Instead, I gripped my bag in both hands, though it wasn’t heavy, and met Kevin’s eyes candidly as I introduced him to Marc.

“Marc Ramos, Kevin Mitchell.”

“We’ve actually met before, but it’s been a while,” Marc said, extending his hand. His expression remained admirably neutral, in spite of the possessive growl I knew he held ready deep in his throat.

Kevin studied the offered hand for several seconds, as if inspecting it for grime, and my grip on my bag tightened as I watched Marc’s eyes harden and his shoulders tense. This wasn’t going to be pretty. I could already tell.

“Of course.” Kevin finally accepted Marc’s hand, but instead of shaking it, he squeezed it, and to my horror, Marc squeezed back. “Who could ever forget Greg’s pet stray?”

Marc’s hand tightened visibly around Kevin’s fingers, his digits going white. Again. Both men clenched their jaws, Kevin in pain, and Marc in an obvious effort to control his temper and keep from breaking Kevin’s hand.
Off.

Why couldn’t guys find a more original way to test each other’s manly prowess? Arm wrestling might have been more subtle. Or maybe comparing the length of their…
canines.

I elbowed Marc in the ribs, and he let go. Then he turned an insincere smile on me for a moment before aiming it at Kevin. “I guess this is your big chance.”

Kevin raised one eyebrow at Marc. “For what?”

“To prove yourself. Isn’t that why you’re here? You think
if you impress the boss’s daughter, he’ll finally make you an enforcer.”

His verbal jab jarred loose an old memory and I realized I’d actually met Kevin not once, but twice, the first time nearly eleven years earlier. I’d been just a kid when Kevin applied for a job as one of the south-central territory’s enforcers. My father accepted him into our Pride from his birth Pride, but turned him down as an enforcer, along with four other tomcats, including my brother Ryan.

Though Marc hadn’t quite been eighteen, he’d gotten the job. And apparently he wasn’t above lording that over Kevin, though I could hardly blame him after the stray comment.

“Actually, I just want to help.” Kevin swallowed thickly and made an awkward attempt at a smile.

Marc nodded, wearing his business face, nearly expressionless and impossible to read. “Good. Keep that in mind, and we’ll be fine. But if you forget your altruistic intentions, we’re going to have a serious problem. Got it?”

For a moment, Kevin said nothing, and I could almost see the possible answers cycling through his brain as expressions flitted across his face. “Look, I’m just doing Greg a favor,” he finally said, settling on an arrogant I-don’t-know-what-you’re-talking-about look as he tried to imply that he and my father had a much closer relationship than they actually did.

No one was fooled.

Marc threw his backpack over one shoulder, snatched his overnight bag from the floor, and took off toward the parking lot, without even a glance back to make sure we would follow him.

I scowled at Kevin, then raced to catch up with Marc.

In the parking lot, as the muggy Louisiana heat settled in
around us, Kevin stormed past Marc, and we followed him to a green four-door sedan with a dent in the rear bumper and a four-inch scratch on the driver’s-side door. Kevin came around the car to unlock the front passenger-side door first, holding it open for me with an inviting smile. I almost admired his tenacity. Marc did not. He took my bag from me and tossed it onto the front seat along with both of his own, then reached through to the back door and unlocked it himself.

He held the back door open for me as I climbed in, then slid over to sit directly behind the driver’s seat. Marc settled onto the seat next to me and slammed the door on Kevin’s irritated pout. By the time our driver had stomped around the car and unlocked his own door, his resolute smile was firmly in place once again. He was resilient; I had to give him that.

“Where to?” Kevin adjusted the rearview mirror so he could see my face. I read him the name of the restaurant and the Metairie address my father had written down, and Kevin pulled out of the parking lot without another word. And without readjusting his rearview mirror.

I rolled down my window to relieve the locked-car heat, then unbuckled my seat belt and snuggled up next to Marc in spite of the temperature, content to know that now Kevin couldn’t stare at me without seeing Marc, too. In the mirror, our reluctant chauffeur’s eyes crinkled in a frown, then shifted to look at the road.

Including Holden Pierce, there were two other Pride cats living near New Orleans, both of whom were more courteous, more polite, and infinitely more pleasant to be around than the one behind the wheel. Yet my father had insisted that Kevin Mitchell be our guide for the day, probably just to test my self-discipline. I was pretty sure that if I made it home without
Kevin’s detached head in tow, I’d get a gold star on my permanent record. Or maybe one of those little smiley faces.

Kevin’s father was Alpha of one of the northern Prides, and beating the shit out of an Alpha’s son, even if he was a real prick, wouldn’t be very good for inter-Pride relations. In fact, it would be really
bad.
Anyone looking for a reason to oust my father from his position as head of the Territorial Council—and there were several people on that list—would have plenty of ammunition if either of us lost our collective temper with Kevin without ample justification. For that reason, on the plane, Marc had rattled off some crap about this assignment being an assessment of my diplomatic skills. But it was really a test of my patience.

And I was willing to bet Marc would lose his before I lost mine.

After baking for forty-five minutes in the back of Kevin’s clunker, we pulled up in front of a long strip of connected storefronts, each housing a different business. Kevin parallel-parked at the curb and we got out, staring around like the tourists we practically were as brass-heavy jazz music poured from an open doorway nearby and strangers bumped and jostled us on the egg-fryable sidewalk. This part of town had obviously recovered nicely from the infamous hurricane.

The first thing I noticed was the Closed sign in the door of the Cajun Bar and Grill. According to a plaque propped in the front window, the restaurant didn’t open for lunch until eleven o’clock, which gave us nearly half an hour to stand around like idiots before we could speak to the employees inside.

“Let’s check out the alley while we wait,” Marc suggested. We went with his idea rather than mine, for obvious reasons.

The restaurant was in the middle of the block, so we had
to walk past a florist and a hardware store, then around a dry cleaner to get to the mouth of the alley. Once there, we discovered that though the restaurant didn’t open for thirty more minutes, the staff inside was already hard at work crafting a jumble of spicy aromas that made my stomach growl in anticipation of dishes I’d never even tried.

How did we know this? The back door of the Cajun Bar and Grill was propped open, spilling laughter, the sharp clang of pots and pans, and piquant, lyrical accents into the alley.

“We can’t leave without eating there,” I told Marc, gripping his arm with one hand as I pointed to the open doorway with the other. “I’m starving.”

He grinned. “We’ll order extra and take it home.”

“You’re hungry?” Kevin asked from my other side. “There’s this great Italian restaurant near my apartment. You like manicotti?”

“Thanks, Kevin.” I was trying my hand at tact and discretion. And manners. “But I’m going to try some of the local favorites. Right here.” I paused to glance at Marc, then continued, though I hadn’t seen what I’d been looking for in his expression. “You’re welcome to join us.”

Kevin frowned. “Thanks,” he said, but I wasn’t sure if that was a “Thanks, but no thanks,” or a “Thanks, I’d love to.”

“Okay, now what?” I mumbled under my breath, eyeing the row of widely spaced Dumpsters as I concentrated on the epicurean aromas to block out the other, less-pleasant smells originating from farther down the alley. Parker had said he found Harper’s body beneath the overflow from the one nearest the Cajun Bar and Grill. But what exactly were we looking for?

As we approached the Dumpster, my progress hindered
momentarily when I put my sneaker through a rotten plank in an old pallet, a feeling of dread settled into my stomach. The Dumpster looked pretty clean, as far as Dumpsters go. It sat on bare, if slimy, concrete, absent of the overflow of garbage Parker had described. Trash collectors had clearly come and gone, taking any evidence we might have found to the city dump, wherever that was. And I was in no hurry to find out.

Marc climbed a stack of wooden crates to peer into the trash receptacle, tossing the heavy lid open without so much as a grunt. “It’s nearly empty,” he said, glancing down at me. “And what’s in here smells fresh.”

Behind me, metal hinges squealed as a door opened across the alley and down a few feet from the Cajun Bar and Grill. I whirled around to see a short, slender man wearing black jeans and a hot-pink T-shirt. He nudged a broken brick into the threshold to prop the door open, and when he stepped into the alley, I could see that the block printing in black across the front of his shirt read Forbidden Fruit.

“Hey, you can’t be back here,” he said, his fist tightening around the top of a bulging garbage bag.

Marc grabbed my elbow and I looked up to find something intense and imploring in his eyes. He was trying to tell me something, and I wasn’t getting it. Maybe he wanted me to pound the guy? Seemed a little extreme to me, but definitely effective.

The little man in the doorway reached for a wireless radio hanging from his belt. I curled my hands into fists and started to step forward. Marc pulled me back by that same elbow, and I glanced up to see him roll his eyes at me in exasperation.

Oops. Not the right time for a pounding, apparently.
Kevin glanced from me and Marc to the man, then stuck his hands into his pockets, making no effort to help.

“My sister left her cell phone in there yesterday, and no one turned it in,” Marc said, lacing his voice with a healthy dose of bored irritation as he nodded at the restaurant behind us. “The guys in the kitchen said we could look through the garbage.”

Actually, the guys in the kitchen hadn’t noticed us yet. They probably couldn’t hear us over their own racket. But the little man bought Marc’s lie with no hesitation. His hand moved away from his belt and his posture relaxed. He seemed more than willing to believe I was just some dumb chick whose most dangerous trait was an inability to keep hold of her own stuff. I couldn’t help being insulted by how readily he accepted that thought.

“Good luck.” Shrimpy nodded at the Dumpster as he walked toward it, passing less than two feet from me without so much as a shiver of fear.
Damn it.
We were going to have to do something about my harmless-looking exterior. “The garbage truck came first thing this morning,” Shrimpy said, tossing his bag into the Dumpster. “You’d have better luck finding the Holy Grail in there.” He strolled back across the alley, making no attempt at all to avoid me, though he steered noticeably clear of Marc, and even Kevin. Pausing in the doorway of Forbidden Fruit, Shrimpy held the door open with one hand and pushed his brick back inside. Then he turned to look me up and down. But mostly up, because I was at least two inches taller than he was.

“I can’t help you find your cell phone, miss,” he said, meeting my eyes much more boldly than I would have thought possible for such a small man. “But if you decide you want a job, come see me. Go to the bar and ask for Jeff.”

Before I’d recovered from surprise, he disappeared into the dark interior of the building.

Kevin’s raucous laughter filled my ears, as Jeff’s meaning sank in. “He just offered you a job as a stripper. Sounds like a lot more fun than your current line of work, and
I’d
sure as hell pay to watch you take off your clothes.”

No, casual nudity wasn’t a big deal for werecats; it was generally unavoidable. But stripping wasn’t casual nudity, and an unwelcome pass at me—especially in front of Marc—was a
very
big deal, to which Jace could readily attest.

My right hand formed a fist, but before I could put it into motion, Marc’s arm soared past me. His fist slammed into Kevin’s stomach. Kevin’s laughter ended in a sudden whoosh of breath rushing from his lungs. He flew ass-first into the wall at his back, then crumpled into a heap of denim and cotton on the ground.

Ha!
Marc lost his temper first, and suddenly I was in very good spirits. Of course, my mood was also elevated by watching Kevin struggle not to vomit.

I held my hand out to Kevin, but he slapped it away and pushed himself up on his own, glaring at Marc over my shoulder as he stood. I wanted to tell him that he’d be singing soprano if Marc hadn’t beaten me to the punch, but he looked like his pride was in pretty poor shape without hearing what might have been. Pity.