The Darkest Kiss (Riley Jenson Guardian 6)

Hoping all the while she ran straight out the back door and into Kade's waiting arms.

The hallway ran the length of the long house, and finished in an open-plan kitchen-living area. Windows lined the rear wall, letting the sunlight stream in and lending the white room a warmth it wouldn't have had otherwise. I couldn't see Kade in the garden beyond those windows, but I knew he'd be near, waiting and ready.

I scanned the room, looking for the cat, and saw the flick of a black tail just before it disappeared through another doorway. I ran after it, heard a creaking noise and a soft thump, and got there in time to see the small window in the laundry room closing. A second later I barreled into the washing machine, leaving a huge dent in the pristine metal front. It didn't do my knees a whole lot of good, either.

I cursed, but scrambled - well, limped - to the back door and flung it open.

Kade was little more than a warm red and black blur as he leapt the fence into the neighbor's yard. I shifted shape again and followed, my belly barely clearing the top of the wooden palings.

Kade was nowhere in sight. I sniffed the air, finding both his scent and the cat's, and ran after them - across an overgrown back lawn and over another fence. Kade was standing in the middle of the next yard, his hands on his hips and his expression one of frustration.

A second later I understood why. The scent of cat had multiplied and the scent we were chasing wasn't strong enough to stand out amongst the other half-dozen cat scents now staining the air and the ground. I swore internally and nosed around, hoping against hope to catch the trail again. Instead, I found a white cat and a tabby, neither of whom were pleased to see me - a fact demonstrated by the way they hunkered down and hissed their little hearts out. I kept out of the way of their sharp claws and continued on, searching through the small garden bed and behind the old shed, but couldn't find anything.

I shifted back to human form. "Fuck, we've lost her."

"So it appears." Kade ran a hand through his sweaty dark hair. "I didn't even see her well enough to stop her kinetically."

I frowned. "She must have been moving fast if you couldn't freeze her. You can generally freeze vamps when they're blurring, can't you?"

"Yeah, but the trail of their emotions usually gives them away. I was getting nothing from her." He glanced at me. "Did you catch a glimpse of her?"

"Yeah. Her animal form is black, but she can obviously shift the size of her cat, because what we were chasing is not what killed that man in the shop window. Cole reckons her hands were at least tiger-size."

Kade frowned. "I didn't think it was possible for shifters or weres to alter the size of their beast, let alone partially shift."

"Well, up until recently, I didn't think there was a wolf pack who could alter their human form, either, so who knows what else is out there?" I shrugged and adjusted my bra. Luckily, I'd gone for one that was Lycra rather than lace this morning, and as a result it had come through the shapeshifts in wearable condition. Which meant I'd definitely have to buy more for work situations. Running around with a bra on was infinitely better than running around without. "We better get back and check what - or who - is dead in that house."

"Our shifter is obviously killing these women to assume their identities, which means she probably looks a lot like them to begin with."

"Not necessarily. Maybe she can alter her human shape as well as her animal. After all, her cat is black, and yet the witnesses said she was blonde." I shrugged and clambered back over the fence. "Or maybe she's not even a shifter to begin with. Maybe she's something else entirely."

"But what else is there that can shift?"

"Who knows?" But if the spirit of an ancient god of death could be called into this time to create havoc once again, there was no saying what else was out there.

Or what else could be called into being.

A chill ran across my skin and I rubbed my arms. Kade must have caught the movement, because he retrieved my sweater and tossed it to me. I pulled it on gratefully, then caught my coat. Wearing it didn't seem to ease the chill, though.

Our footsteps echoed through the silent house as we made our way back up the corridor. The death scent was coming from the first room, and my steps slowed as we approached. I'd seen a lot of bloodshed and killing over the last year - had even done my fair share of it - but it never seemed to get any easier to confront.

I hoped it never did.

I hoped the part of me that mourned the wanton destruction of innocent lives haunted my days - and nights - for as long as I remained in this job. Because it meant that I wasn't becoming my brother, wasn't becoming the unthinking killing machine that he could sometimes be, and that Jack wanted me to be.

We stepped into the room. A large bed dominated the small space. Like the rest of the house, everything was white - only here, the brightness was alleviated by dark red patches that adorned the walls, the bedspread, and the carpet near the bed.

Like the woman I'd found yesterday, this woman was lying half-undressed, slumped across the bed. Her lacy bra dangled from the stump of her shoulder, and her torso was crisscrossed with bloody gashes. Gashes made with claws bigger than your average black house cat.

"Christ," Kade said. "The press are going to love this. First James, then his lover, and now another member of Toorak's finest."

"The press won't get anywhere near the story if Jack has anything to do with it. He'll keep them focused on James."

"Press have a nose for these things."

"And Jack's had plenty of experience restraining them."

He grunted, but whether that was agreement or not was anyone's guess.