Hotter After Midnight. Cynthia Eden

door. “Thanks.” He opened the door, heading into the empty lobby. It was after eleven P.M. and Emily’s assistant, Vanessa, had left just as Marvin arrived for his appointment.

      Marvin looked back over his shoulder and said, “I’ll see you next week.”

      She pushed her glasses back on her nose as she followed him into the lobby. “Don’t worry. Everything is going to be—”

      A loud knock sounded on her office door.

      Marvin jumped.

      Emily frowned. She didn’t have any other appointments scheduled for the night. No one else should have—

      A fist hammered against the wooden door. “Dr. Drake?” A man’s voice. Deep. Hard. Slightly annoyed. The doorknob rattled.

      Good thing Vanessa always locked up when she left.

      The vampire edged closer to her. “Do you…know who that is?”

      No, she sure as hell didn’t. But she was going to find out. Straightening her shoulders, Emily marched forward, flipped the lock—

      “Dr. Drake, I know you’re in there!”

      —opened the door, and found herself staring at a tall, dark stranger, a stranger with a badge clipped to the top of his faded jeans. A cop.

      Alarm bells rang in her head. Anytime a cop paid her a call this late, well, it was never good.

      The cop blinked at her, blinked a pair of sky blue eyes, and lowered the hand he’d raised to slam against her door.

      Emily felt her stomach tighten as she stared up at him. A shiver of foreboding slid over her. This man, he was dangerous, very dangerous. Her psychic gift told her that, and every instinct she possessed as a woman screamed the same warning.

      The cop was tanned a deep, dark gold. His hair was pitch black, a little too long. He had a hard, square jaw and a long blade of a nose. His cheekbones were high, glass sharp, giving him a slightly predatory look. His lips were thin and currently curved down in a frown of annoyance.

      The cop was a big guy. Tall, well over six feet, with wide shoulders and thick muscles that stretched the black T-shirt he wore. He was also glowing faintly.

      Shit.

      She knew what that hazy, shining light around his body meant.

      The cop wasn’t human.

      And there was only one kind of creature that carried a glow like a second skin.

      The guy was a shifter.

      Shit. Shit. Most people knew the legends about the shifters. Some folks called them Weres. They were creatures who could change their forms, shift into beasts.

      Her empathic ability let her see their second form, allowed her to see the soft, shining glow of the beasts the shifters carried.

      Sometimes those beasts took control. Shifters had been known to go mad, to attack, to kill—

      “Are you Dr. Drake?” His gaze darted over her shoulder to Marvin, narrowed.

      “Ah, yes, yes, I am.” Oh damn, but she didn’t trust shifters. Never trust anything that was born with two faces…that was her motto.

      What kind of shifter was the cop? She’d met plenty of his kind in her time. Met shifters who could become panthers, snakes, even one who could become an owl. What was the cop?

      Something fairly safe like an owl or a snake?

      Or something dangerous…like a bear, a dragon, or God forbid, a wolf? The wolves were the worst. Uncontrollable, aggressive, with strong psychotic tendencies—

      The cop grunted, then said, “I need you to come with me.” He reached out his hand to her.

      She stared at his hand, at the long, broad fingers that reached for her. The hair on her nape rose. Go with a shifter? What, did she have the word stupid written on her forehead? She made no move to take his hand. Instead, she asked, “And just who might you be?”

      “Detective Colin Gyth.” He withdrew his hand, used it to pull out a black wallet, flashed her an ID card for all of two seconds.

      “Ah…I need to see that again.” Oh no, never trust a shifter.

      His black brows lowered and he tossed her the wallet.

      Emily took a moment to study the picture and ID information. Hmmm. It all looked legitimate. But what did the detective want with her?

      “Uh, Dr. Drake?” Marvin’s quiet voice.

      She’d almost forgotten about him. Emily stepped back from the doorway, gave him a wan smile. “It’s all right. You can go now.”

      He eyed the cop. “You sure?”

      She nodded.

      “Well, okay, then.” Colin Gyth didn’t step back when Marvin approached the door, and the vampire wound up brushing against him as he crossed the threshold of the office.

      Colin’s nostrils flared slightly and he turned his head, watching carefully as Marvin headed toward the elevator. He didn’t speak, not until the shining, mirrored doors had closed behind Marvin’s pale form. “He a client?”

      Emily didn’t answer, just stared back at him.

      Colin sighed. “Sorry, none of my business, right?”

      It sure as hell wasn’t.

      “Look, Dr. Drake, my captain sent me down here to get you. We’ve got a top priority case that—”

      “Your captain?” Her heart began to beat faster. She knew a guy who worked on the Atlanta PD. He’d been one of her first patients when she’d opened her practice.

      “Yeah, Danny McNeal. He wants you to look at a crime scene.”

      Danny. She kept her face expressionless. It was a skill she’d perfected years ago. When you could tell a person’s innermost thoughts, it helped to be able to cloak your response. Cause sometimes, the thoughts that she picked up scared her to death.

      Hmmm. So Danny had sent him. That relaxed her a bit, but…“I’m not a forensic psychologist, I can’t help with any kind of—”

      His hand reached out, snagged hers. “He told me to come get you.”

      His hand was warm. Strong. Colin’s scent, rich, masculine, wrapped around her, and a strange ball of heat began to form in her stomach.

      His blue stare held hers. “And, lady, I’m sure as hell not leaving this building without you.”

      She wasn’t what he’d expected.

      Colin Gyth glanced at Dr. Drake—Emily—from the corner of his eye as he pulled his Jeep to a stop in front of the two-story house at the end of Byron Street.

      He’d heard of her before, of course. Heard rumors, whispers about the Monster Doctor. But rumors, in his experience, usually didn’t amount to jackshit.

      So, after getting the order from his captain, he’d done some quick research on Emily.

      According to her driver’s license, Emily was thirty-one, five foot five, and weighed one hundred thirty pounds. He’d learned that she’d been born and bred in Atlanta. Went to college at Emory and got her degrees there. She had a Ph.D. in psychology, with a dual focus on clinical studies as well as neuroscience and animal behavior. Her mom was a teacher at a local elementary school, and her dad was deceased.

      The good doctor had never been in trouble with the law. She paid her taxes, owned a house in one of the historic suburbs, and was single.

      She had long, midnight black hair—hair that was currently pulled back in a rather painful-looking bun. She wore black-rimmed glasses that made her wide, green eyes look even bigger.

      Yeah, he knew the basic facts