Alterant (Belador #2)(3)

She paused. Had she felt energy skimming through the air?

Or was she just jumpy?

Nothing stirred this late on a Thursday night except weeds withering in the August heat. Patchwork concrete and gravel stretched ahead of her, running beneath the street-level parking deck that fronted CNN. Tourists rarely wandered down here, where a ten-foot-high chain-link fence protected parked cars from vandalism.

Prime area for something nasty to wait for prey.

Bring it. I’ve got time to wash blood off my boots.

Or at least she’d die doing something for the greater good versus dying because of being born part Belador, part beast.

She swept a suspicious gaze from side to side and kept moving toward the dimly lit area, but not even a roach crawled in this sweltering weather. Sweat trickled along her cheek. Loose tendrils from her ponytail clung to her neck.

She’d miss Atlanta if she didn’t return, especially being able to ride her motorcycle throughout the winter.

Would the Tribunal send her somewhere hot or . . .

The humid air skimming her arms changed with a prickling of awareness. Her boot heels tapped softly across the rutted pavement. No other sound filled in the gaps.

She opened her empathic senses . . . then wider.

Another presence moved toward her.

Human? She didn’t think so.

If someone or something tangled with her right now it had better have a death wish. Tzader and Quinn would be waiting at the park to see her off, and she wanted to see them.

A male voice close behind said, “You’re hard to find, Miss Kincaid.”

Definitely not human.





TWO




Evalle swung around to face her stalker. “I’m not hard to find if I want to be found. How’d you know where I live?”

“You forget that VIPER hired me as a tracker?” Storm asked.

No. She just hadn’t thought about him using that skill to find her apartment. She should be annoyed at his invading her privacy, not secretly thrilled at seeing him before she left.

Silly, but she was glad he’d shown up unexpectedly.

She’d only known Storm for the few days he’d been assigned to be her partner at VIPER—a coalition of powerful beings who protected humanity against supernatural predators. But the time they’d spent together had been intense while they’d hunted the Ngak Stone, an ancient and powerful relic. She’d fought demons and Kujoo, enemies of the Beladors for centuries who had escaped their cursed life beneath a mountain and traveled through a portal to Atlanta with apocalyptic plans.

She still nursed wounds from those battles.

Storm stood three steps back with thumbs hooked in the belt loops of his nicely broken-in jeans. A casual stance to those unaware. What lurked beneath that tranquil pose could change into a deadly black jaguar. Not a lycanthrope but a Skinwalker. Straight hair the color of midnight fell around his shoulders with rebel intent. His open-collared shirt blended with the obsidian night. Brown eyes with thick lashes took in every whisper of movement and punctuated a face cut of sharp cheekbones and a square jaw.

He’d been brought into VIPER for his ability to track supernatural energy.

She had one thing in common with Storm. He was a mixed bucket of powers, too, part Navajo and part Ashaninka.

Cocking her chin up in question, she asked, “What’s up?”

“Came to tell you something,” Storm murmured, distracted.

He stepped closer to her. His gaze roamed over the side of her face where a bruise was just getting ripe at twelve hours old. His eyes lifted to hers. “Too bad we sent the Kujoo back eight hundred years. I’d like another shot at that warlord.”

“I could have done without him coming here the first time.”

If she hadn’t been busy fighting the Kujoo, she wouldn’t be facing the Tribunal empty-handed. She made a show of checking her digital watch. “If this is about agency business, save it for later or email me.”

“This isn’t about VIPER, but it’s important. I know you’re on a tight schedule. That’s why I’ve been waiting out here for over an hour.”

Storm had waited an hour to talk to her?

That was . . . nice.

She could afford a few minutes to find out what he had to say and still make it to the park on time.

He eased forward, reducing another slice of space between them. His dark eyes stirred with interest that would cause another woman with her sordid history to retreat.

Not her. She cowed to no man and, deep inside, she believed Storm wouldn’t try to harm her. And she wasn’t a vulnerable fifteen-year-old girl anymore but a twenty-three-year-old woman with Belador powers.

He hooked one long finger under the string of leather tied around her neck. “You’re still wearing the amulet.”

She blinked at his change of topics and looked down to where a silver disk the size of a half dollar hung from a leather thong tied around her neck. An intricate pattern had been inscribed inside the pentagram center. Nicole, a white witch friend, had placed an invisibility spell on the amulet before loaning it to Evalle for Storm to wear during a mission.

Even though the spell had run out last night, this thing had to be valuable.

“Glad you reminded me,” Evalle said. Dipping her head down, she reached up to untie the leather thong. “I need you to return this to Nicole.”