Taming The Shifter. Lisa Childs

leave...”

      His body tensed, and his topaz eyes dilated. “Kate...?”

      “Don’t leave without telling me your name.”

      His mouth, with those sexy sensual lips, curved into a slight grin. “Warrick.”

      “Warrick?”

      “Yes. Warrick James.”

      “Warrick James,” she repeated, loving the sound of it—the feel of his name on her lips.

      He leaned closer, as if she’d drawn him nearer. “Yes, Kate?”

      “You’re under arrest for assault—”

      He laughed at her now. “You never quit.” He moved to stand up.

      But she clutched at him, holding him down on the bed. Holding him to her. “You’re not disappearing again.”

      She needed to bring him in to the department, needed to prove her sanity to her coworkers. Especially the one who had been most vocal with his disdain for her story about what had happened that night.

      “How are you going to stop me, Kate?” he asked. “You have no gun. You’re hurt. You’re weak.”

      She winced—not in pain but in self-disgust. “I’m not weak.” She wasn’t that same scared woman she’d once been. She was older, wiser and stronger now than she had ever been. And to prove it, she launched herself at him, wrestling him down to the mattress.

      He sprawled on his back without a fight, his arms wrapped loosely around her waist. Her breasts nestled against his hard, scarred chest. “You’re not weak at all,” he assured her. “You’ve overpowered me.”

      “Because you let me,” she suspected.

      He nodded. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

      “You did.”

      “Not anymore,” he said, lifting his head to close the distance between his mouth and hers. His lips skimmed across hers. “Now I just want you...”

      And she wanted him, her skin heating and tingling everywhere they touched. The sheet had slipped down, so that her breasts were bare against his chest. His hair, which covered his impressive pecs, tickled and teased her nipples, bringing them to tight, sensitive points.

      “And I want—” she struggled free of his loose grasp and grabbed up the sheet again, holding it between them like a shield “—to arrest you.”

      “I’m not a monster, Kate.”

      One of those dreamlike images rushed back to her mind—of a man that wasn’t a man. Of a man who was a monster—a mammoth, heavily muscled, hairy beast.

      She didn’t believe him; she didn’t believe anything Warrick James said. She had been fooled once before and had believed a man to be a hero when he was really a monster.

      So what could a monster be...but a monster?

Chapter 4

      The human detective hadn’t killed Warrick, but what she’d done might have been far worse. She had bewitched him.

      “Poor bastard,” Reagan murmured to himself as he sat alone at the bar in Club Underground, staring into his drink. He, too, had become besotted with a woman—so besotted that he’d lost himself in her. He had lost his honor and his integrity. He’d also lost his father and his brother.

      Even if he could talk to Warrick and could actually get through to him, their relationship was destroyed. Reagan had destroyed it and maybe because of that, he deserved to be destroyed, as well. But Warrick didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve any more pain.

      And neither did she. Reagan glanced down at the picture he’d set on the bar next to his untouched drink, and he sucked in a breath at her beauty. With her silvery blond hair and mesmerizing green eyes, she was beyond beautiful; she was ethereal. Reagan needed to get back to St. James—to her—before something happened to her. If only he’d had time to bring her with him...

      But everything had happened so quickly—had gone so wrong. There hadn’t been time. And after what he’d done, he wasn’t sure she would have gone with him. Like Warrick, she would probably hate and distrust him, too.

      And, he assured himself, nothing would happen to her—until he was dead. Then she would be of no use to the pack anymore. They couldn’t bait a dead man.

      “You’re about to break that glass,” the bartender warned.

      Reagan hadn’t even been aware how tightly he’d been gripping it until Sebastian Culver commented on it. Then he glanced at his hand and noticed how his fingers had gone white. He forced himself to release the glass.

      “It’s not like you’re going to drink it anyway,” the vampire bartender remarked. “You just sit here every day until midnight—waiting for him to show up.”

      And after midnight, he took to the rooftops, so that he could watch the city. So that he could watch Warrick.

      The bartender shook his head. “I don’t get it...”

      “What?” Reagan asked.

      “He wants to kill you,” Sebastian told him what he already knew. “You should be trying to avoid him. Instead, you’re trying to find him.”

      He had been trying to find him—to make sure that the human detective hadn’t wounded him too badly. But now Reagan knew where to find Warrick—near her. And he’d chosen to avoid a private confrontation that would probably end as badly as the one in the alley had. With them both wounded...

      “I want him to find me,” Reagan corrected the bartender’s misassumption. “Here—in a public place.”

      “You think that’ll stop him from trying to kill you?” Sebastian glanced around the crowded bar and snorted derisively. “Gunshots to his shoulder and his heart didn’t stop him from trying to tear you apart. I don’t think anything will stop him.”

      Reagan sighed in resignation and reluctant agreement. “Not even the truth...”

      “You’re wasting your time here,” Sebastian said.

      “Not if I can save his life...” Then it would all be worth it. Even leaving Sylvia...

      “Then you better find him,” Sebastian suggested.

      “I know where he is,” he said. “With the detective.”

      Sebastian shook his head. “He’s not with Kate.” He chuckled. “Maybe she’s done what she tried that night. Maybe she arrested him.”

      Alarm slammed through Reagan. If Warrick was in custody and changed...

      More than just his life would be lost.

      * * *

      Warrick stared through the bars, his hands grasping the old brass rungs. “Glad you’re here.”

      “Glad I found you, boy,” the old man said. “You’ve been gone for much too long.”

      “I can’t go back.”

      “Not until he’s dead,” Stefan James agreed. His hair was more gray than black, his eyes nearly the same steely gray. But his age didn’t indicate weakness; if anything it represented the reverse. The older and wiser Uncle Stefan had grown, the stronger he had become. He was a good leader for the pack, but he wasn’t Warrick’s father. That was whose advice Warrick really needed, but he could never speak to his father again.

      Because of Reagan...

      Warrick’s hands slid from the rungs and he walked around the partition wall that separated the tellers from the vault area of the former bank. Or it would have had the bank still been operational but it had been deserted...until