Possessed by a Wolf. Sharon Ashwood

turned to the guards. “Let him go, he’s with me. Now where’s my photographer?”

      An argument started, Chloe insistent and the guards defensive. Faran tried to eavesdrop, but Maurice tugged on his sleeve. “Do you know if they ever found the ring?” he asked.

      “What ring?” Faran answered.

      Maurice grinned a ragged smile. “The wedding ring. What did you think I was talking about, hobbits?”

      Faran grimaced. “I’m so not going there.”

      “It’s gone. Stolen.” The man waved a long-fingered hand. “That’s what this is about. The green-coats showed up at my rooms last night looking for it.”

      “And they think you have it?”

      “I’m not sure what they think. I was having a party. You know—a few musicians, a few fans. Some lush young lady in a school uniform. Don’t think she was in school though, if you take my meaning. The green-coats showed up with faces like the Grim Reaper in need of a laxative.”

      “And?” Faran said.

      “One of the guards was clearly unused to such sights of revelry. He fainted dead away.”

      “A Knight of Vidon passed out on the job? That’s hard to believe.”

      Maurice shrugged. “I can’t be responsible for the effect I have on common mortals.”

      Faran couldn’t think of a reply to that one. Fortunately, Chloe’s argument with the guards ended right then. She grabbed Faran’s wrist and dragged him away—which felt odd since she was more than a foot shorter.

      “This is a nightmare,” she murmured. “They think Lexie stole Amelie’s wedding band.”

      “They think everybody stole the ring,” he replied, gesturing to himself and Maurice.

      “You’ll be fine,” Chloe replied, sounding exasperated. “The guards have nothing concrete on you or Maurice. They’re just making a big show so they look like they’re doing something. But Captain Valois is focused on Lexie because she was standing right next to the case when it vanished. It’s circumstantial, but he counts that as a real lead. I just found out he’s taken her for questioning. He’s had her for hours.”

      “What?” Faran snarled. Lexie was many things—some of which made him furious—but she was no thief. “Is she all right?”

      “They won’t let me see her.” Chloe’s blue eyes were dark with worry. “Thank heavens you’re here. They’ve sent Sam out of the city.”

      “You know Lexie and I aren’t together, right?”

      “What does that matter?” Chloe demanded. “She saved your life last night.”

      Chloe had a point, but that didn’t make things any less awkward. He folded his arms. “Where are they holding her?”

      Silently, Chloe pointed to a door at the end of the hall.

      He flexed his fingers, wishing they were claws. “Have they allowed her to call a lawyer?”

      “It doesn’t work like that in Marcari. You know that.”

      But what he knew and what he demanded for Lexie weren’t the same thing. His vision went fuzzy around the edges as he went from anger to fury. Faran was storming down the hall before he realized it.

      Within moments, he heard Chloe’s voice raised in another argument. Clearly, she was running interference with the guards and buying him time. She might have been Lexie’s best friend, but Faran owed her a long list of favors, too.

      One of the guards called after Faran, ordering him to stop, but he blew through the command as if it was no more than a wisp of steam. There were a few things the world didn’t understand about werewolves. They didn’t need the moon to change. They were a different species, not victims of a disease caught from a bite. And they were insanely loyal when the occasion demanded it.

      The door was locked but he wrenched the handle. It made a sick crunch and ping and then the door swung open. Lexie was sitting alone at the table, her head in her hands. She looked up, her hazel eyes widening as she saw him. “Faran!”

      His chest constricted. She was alone and forlorn, the only vibrant thing in the dead room. He crossed the room in two steps, stopping on the other side of the table from her. “Time to go.”

      Her hands settled on the table, looking pale against the dark wood. “What are you talking about? Captain Valois is holding me for questioning.”

      He knew Valois. A good cop, but this time he had the wrong suspect. “You don’t belong in custody. I won’t have it.” A tiny voice inside Faran whispered that he was losing it. He wavered a moment, realizing that the wolf in him had bounded past some invisible line of good sense. Lexie brought that out in him as surely as if she short-circuited his brain. But then he decided he didn’t care.

      She opened and closed her mouth before sound came out. “You shouldn’t be here!”

      “Why not? You need help.”

      She held up her hands, palms out. She looked appalled. “You’ve got to leave. If you break me out, you’re just digging us both in deeper.”

      “Don’t you want to get out of here?” He leaned across the table. She pulled back. Whatever softness he thought he’d seen in her when they’d met in the garden was gone. Her fingers were trembling. He could scent fear on her, sharp and sour. His own nerves coiled, unnaturally alert. Fear meant prey. “Come with me.”

      “Think, Faran.” Her expression was fierce, but tears glinted in her eyes, silvery in the hard light of the room. He had always loved her combination of bravado and vulnerability—but at times like this, her stubborn refusal to take the easy way out drove him crazy. She lifted her chin. “Cooperating is my best chance for a clean getaway.”

      She was probably right, and that made her refusal sting all the harder. Getaway. She was already planning to leave him behind. Again. Frustration bit like fangs. He slammed the flat on his hand on the table, making her jump.

      “Stop it!” she protested. She was breathing hard, a pink flush bright on her cheekbones. “You’re not going to bully me. Not ever.”

      He instantly felt worse. She’d been terrified of him ever since he’d saved her that night in the alley. He didn’t understand. He’d never hurt her. Ever. “Your solution is to run. I want to make it so that you don’t need to run ever again.”

      “That’s not your decision!” Her voice cracked, but there was anger there as well as fear. “And you’re not being logical.”

      But he was far past rational thought. The ground seemed to drop away under his feet, and suddenly he was back in Paris, begging her to stay. “How do you expect me to help you if you keep pushing me away?”

      She took one last deep breath. It came out on a sigh. “I didn’t ask for your help. I can clear my own name. Or maybe running is what I want, but I’ll manage it on my own.”

      And there was the rejection again. You wrote me off as a freak and cut your losses. “Sorry I stopped to care.”

      Lexie didn’t answer. Instead, she looked up, her eyes shifting to a point behind Faran. He whirled, past and present blurring in his head. And then the present hit him like a brick.

      Captain Valois was in the doorway, a scowl on his face. Odd, but the captain looked shorter from this vantage point. Faran had only ever seen him when in wolf form.

      “What happened here?” Valois asked, his voice mild. Faran wasn’t fooled. There was a core of steel in that softness.

      He didn’t care. “The door was in my way.”

      Valois’s eyebrows rose.

      Chloe appeared at the captain’s elbow, linking her arm around