Skin Trade

28

I FELT THEM like a wind on my skin-a tickling breeze of energy that raised goose bumps on my skin and made me shiver in Edward’s arms. Most men would have taken credit for that shiver, but Edward looked up and around. He knew I’d sensed something.

His reaction put Olaf and Bernardo on alert. Olaf’s hand was actually hovering near the edge of his jacket, where it barely covered one of his sidearms. We were just all back to that “cop” moment.

Edward and I moved apart, enough room to go for weapons if we had to. Enough room that we wouldn’t get in each other’s way. Bernardo and Olaf did the same thing. Without talking to each other, or even looking at each other, the four of us formed points of a square to watch the room. I made sure my point was watching the coming tigers, but we all knew our jobs. I might have issues with Olaf, and even Bernardo, but it was nice to work with people who knew how to deal. We covered the room, not like cops but more like soldiers. No, we covered the room like people who were used to pulling guns and shooting first. None of us were really cops. Cops save lives; we took them. Four executioners standing in a room; best to be elsewhere.

There were two uniformed and armed security guys at the back of the group, but I didn’t give them much of a look. It wasn’t guns I was worried about. I trusted Edward to watch the guns. The woman in front had red hair, and that pale skin that goes with it. As she got closer, I saw the dusting of freckles underneath her base makeup. Her eyes were brown and human looking. In fact, she radiated goodwill and humanity. The two men on either side of her didn’t waste energy trying to pass for human.

They were both tall, about six feet. The one on her left was the taller by an inch or two; he had white hair cut short and close to his head. His eyes were icy blue but not human. White tigers have blue eyes, and the man in front of me had the eyes he’d have in animal form in his human face. In any other wereanimal, it would have been a punishment brought on by being forced into animal form too often, and for too long, but in the tigers it showed purity of bloodline. They were born with the eyes.

The man on her right was just under six feet, with curly hair; some of those curls were black, some white. His eyes were a brilliant orange, like staring into fire.

The woman held her hand out. “I’m Ava, and you must be Anita.” She smiled, and you would have thought we were a group of visiting businessmen. I took her hand automatically.

Energy jumped between us like a small electric shock. It made her eyes go round, and her mouth made a little O of surprise. I took my hand back and fought not to wipe my palm on my pants to take the insect-crawling sensation away. Mustn’t let them see you flinch. We might be on a social call, but it was going to be about power, too. We’d be doing a more dangerous version of what happened when I met the SWAT practitioners. There, the worst that would happen was it might be scary, but no one would have hurt me. Here, I wasn’t sure of that.

Ava did wipe her hand on her dress. “I think we might wait until we’re upstairs for any more introductions.” Her voice was a little breathy.

“I wouldn’t suggest anyone pushing power into me, just to test the limits,” I said, low.

“I’m just following orders, Anita,” she said.

“And what were your orders, exactly?” I asked.

She ignored the question and answered a different one. “This is Domino, and this is Roderic.”

Domino had to be a nickname from the hair. He just nodded at me, and I nodded back. White Hair smiled and said, “Rick, I prefer Rick.”

I nodded and answered the smile with a small one of my own. I didn’t blame him on the name choice. “Rick,” I said.

Then I felt something else. Something more. It was Crispin, and he was agitated. I fought to keep my eyes on the security tigers because the two tigers with Ava were so much muscle. Maybe not professional muscle, but they had the feel to them of people you wouldn’t want to fight, not if you didn’t have to. I’d been the smallest person in violent situations for years now. I knew how to judge potential. They had potential, and not all of it good. But it was an effort not to look away from the danger zone, a real effort not to scan the crowd for Crispin. He was my tiger to call, which meant that sometimes I could feel his emotions. He was upset, scared, nervous, just wrong in his head.

But just as I could feel his agitation, I could also feel him getting closer to us. I fought to keep my attention on the weretigers in front of me, but they had picked up on my… body language, tension, maybe even my scent had changed. I was more tense because try as I might, I was picking up some of Crispin’s agitation. Wereanimals with some training are like uber-cops. You can’t hide much from them.

Edward spoke low. “What’s wrong?”

“Ask them,” I said.

Rick was no longer smiling; even Ava wasn’t as happy. But it was Domino who said it. “He was ordered to go upstairs and wait for us there.”

“He’s a little conflicted,” I said.

“You can’t serve two masters,” Ava said, trying for a soothing voice, but her words held an edge of that tension, as if Crispin were leaking over them as well as me.

“Who’s conflicted?” Bernardo asked.

“Crispin,” I said, and as if his name had conjured him, he was there. Walking through the crowd of humans, moving through them too swiftly, too easily, as if he were made of water and the crowd were rocks to flow and glide around. But glide implied grace and ease, and there was nothing easy about his movements. Swift, near dance-like, but too jerky to be graceful. What was wrong with him?

The tigers felt him, too, because Domino turned to watch him. Were they picking up his scent or his emotion? Rick kept his attention on us, but there was a tension to his shoulders that seemed to scream that he wanted to turn around and face Crispin. Rick assumed that the greatest danger was another wereanimal. Normally, he’d be right.

Crispin was wearing a T-shirt almost as pale a blue as his eyes, jeans, and no shoes. He hadn’t bothered with shoes. Most of the wereanimals would leave clothes off if you didn’t make them behave.

He held his hand out toward me. I took a step toward him without meaning to. Domino stepped between us. A sound came out of my throat that I hadn’t meant to make, either. I growled at him. It rolled up my throat and across my tongue and between my teeth and lips. The growl vibrated on the roof of my mouth like a taste. I saw the white tigress inside me, and we looked at Crispin and he was ours. You do not stand between us and what is ours.

I felt Bernardo and Olaf shift around me, as if they weren’t sure what to do. Edward was Edward, and stayed still. I knew he would back my play whatever it was.

Domino looked at me, and there was anger in those orange eyes. “You are not my queen, not yet.”

“Get out of our way,” I said, and my voice held that note of growl that I’d come to associate with wereanimals. Outwardly, I was human, but the sound in my throat wasn’t.

Ava touched Domino’s shoulder. “She smells of tiger.”

He jerked free of her hand. “You are not my queen, either.”

Rick said, “Don’t make a scene. Bibiana was clear on that.”

“She has no right to order me about.” I wasn’t sure if he meant me or Ava.

Crispin tried again to move around the other men and come to me. Domino started to grab him, but Crispin simply wasn’t there to grab. He might not be professional muscle, but he had the reflexes of a cat. And apparently, he was a quicker cat than Domino.

Domino tried to move forward, with that we’re-about-to-have-a-fight energy. Rick grabbed his shoulders, and Ava moved in front of him, facing us. Crispin came to my outstretched left hand, and I moved him behind me, so I’d have both hands free, but he’d be protected. He was quick, and he could fight when he had to, but this was a fight he could not win. The black-and-white tiger had the feel to him of death contained and waiting. I knew that with a certainty that made me want to go for a gun.

“You should have gone upstairs as our queen told you to,” Ava said.

“Anita needed me,” he said, and his six-foot-plus frame towered over me, just a little. It seemed wrong that so much tall, athletic grace was hiding behind my short, not so athletic, and definitely not so graceful self.

“You’re hiding behind her,” Domino growled. Rick’s pale hands tightened visibly on the other man’s shoulders. They both had to look up at Crispin, which should have lessened their tough-guy act but didn’t, because it wasn’t an act.

“She doesn’t need any help with violence,” Crispin said.

Edward said, “We’re attracting a crowd.”

He was right. The tourists were getting a show, or anticipating one. We were drawing them away from the slot machines, and that takes a lot in Vegas. I didn’t think we’d done anything that interesting yet. Of course, it could be the three of us in our U.S. Marshal windbreakers and badges, with weapons peeking out all over the place; yeah, that might be enough to attract some attention. Olaf would have looked dangerous anywhere with all the black clothing and leather.

“Let us continue this upstairs,” Ava said, and motioned us all farther into the room, in the general direction of the elevators.

I looked at Domino still in Rick’s grasp, so angry. Was it a good idea to get in the elevator? Probably not, but nothing scary enough had happened yet to make me willing to back down.

“Fine,” I said, “lead the way.”