Blackmailed By The Wolf (Shifters, Inc. Book 6) Read online

  So I could keep a closer eye on her. So I could be closer to her, period. Blake didn’t say the words out loud. “Dumb mistake,” he muttered.

  “You don’t make mistakes, though,” Mal said with a thoughtful frown. “And you never used to lose your cool like that.” That was the thing about Mal. If you let his clownish exterior fool you, you could forget how insightful he was. That would be a mistake.

  “I did not lose my cool,” Blake growled, swallowing the last of his roast beef sandwich.

  “Oh, man, did you ever. The look on your face when she came running across the street towards us?” A grin stretched across his face. Then the grin faded, replaced by a thoughtful look. He looked at Dexter and arched an eyebrow questioningly.

  Dexter nodded and looked speculatively at Blake. “We need to get back to the office.”

  Blake scowled at him. “What’s the rush?”

  “I’ll tell you when we get there.”

  Blake bit down a sharp reply. Dexter was a stubborn ass, and obviously, he thought protocol demanded that they deal with this, whatever it was, back at the office. Pushing him would just seem like a challenge, which would end up with Dexter and Blake rolling around on the sidewalk, clawing and gouging each other. And Mal in the middle trying to separate them—or giving a running commentary, depending on his mood.

  They headed back to the parking lot and piled into Mal’s beat-up old Jeep. Blake’s impatience climbed as they slowly made their way through the heavy lunchtime traffic. Most of the other drivers were human, but not all. Crystal Bay was one of the spots in the country with a higher concentration of shifters, which was why Kenneth, the billionaire owner of Shifters, Inc., had located the new office there.

  Mal and Dexter made idle conversation, but Blake tuned them out. He had to figure out a way to deal with whatever he was feeling for Krista and work his job at the same time. Why was he so out of control of his reactions and instincts when she was around?

  “Holy crap,” Stef said as soon as they stepped into their third-floor office. She flashed her huge white teeth at him. “You smell delicious.”

  Blake gave her a smile as they walked into the bullpen. It wasn’t really a bullpen—no bull shifters, for one thing—but the random grouping of desks was reminiscent of the detectives’ office at a cop shop, and it was where they did a lot of their brainstorming.

  “Stef,” Dexter said, “we figured out our Blake problem.”

  “Excuse you?” Blake glared at him. “Your Blake problem is going to shove its boot up your ass if you don’t tell me what the hell you and Mal are going on about.”

  Stef put her hand on her hip as she leaned against the door frame. She had a folder in her hand and a frown creasing her forehead. She wore dress pants and high, thick-heeled shoes. She actually ran in those things, which Blake found super impressive.

  “Yeah, what is his problem?” she asked Dexter and Mal as if Blake wasn’t standing right there. “He’s been acting like a squirrel on crack lately. What’s wrong with him?”

  “Fated mate.” Mal took off his dress jacket and dumped it on his chair. “Krista is his fated mate. That’s why he acts all weird whenever he sees her.” There was a smirk on his face. “Because he’s in luuuurve.” And he actually starting singing “Krista and Blake, sittin’ in a tree… k-i-s-s-i-n-g…” in a low voice.

  “So in love,” Dexter agreed, with a rumbling laugh. “You should see how his face goes all goofy when she’s in a ten-block radius. I don’t know how we didn’t pick it up earlier.”

  “He looks like this,” Mal said, and bugged his eyes out and let his tongue hang from his mouth, making panting noises.

  Blake looked at Dexter and Mal with murder in his eyes.

  Were they effin’ kidding with this? His job was on the line and they were cackling like a couple of high-school hyenas. And there’s no such thing as fated mates.

  But apparently, Stef didn’t think so. She groaned, her entire posture sagging. “Great.” She pushed off the door frame. “Conference room, five minutes. Hit the head, drink, and meet me there.”

  The room had a picture window that looked over downtown Crystal Bay, with its glass-fronted office buildings glittering like diamonds in the sun, and an astonishing view of the crystalline waters of the harbor. Crystal Bay was an international port, and enormous cargo ships from all nations chugged their way into the harbor every day.

  Blake sat down at the long rectangular table in a chair that had been manufactured for a shifter’s large frame.

  Stef set down her folder and took the seat at the head of the table. She skewered Blake with her gaze, making him feel like a bug under a magnifying glass. “Fated mate, huh?”

  “No, she isn’t. It’s impossible.”

  “It’s not.” Stef’s expression darkened minutely. “Details.”

  “I screw up when I’m around her, I guess. I get distracted.”

  She rubbed her finger across her lips, her dark eyes troubled. “Really. That could either be an opportunity or a problem. Most likely a problem.”

  Mal and Dexter joined them, and Stef gestured for them to take a seat. She tossed them each a folder.

  “Things have heated up in the Zoo. We have a new case, and we have to move now. Krista Ellis is still our best way in, and now Blake has to go and decide she’s his fated mate.” Her eyes blazed with annoyance.

  “In his defense, nobody decides that someone’s their fated mate,” Mal protested mildly. “That’s why they call it fate.”

  Stef made an impatient flapping gesture with her hand, dismissing him.

  “What’s the case?” Blake was desperate to re-direct this conversation away from the sexy red vixen who haunted his dreams and invaded his waking thoughts and was definitely not his fated mate.

  Blake’s assignment for the last few weeks had been to run surveillance on Krista Ellis and dig up anything he could use against her. She was one of their best chances at gathering intel on what was happening in the Zoo. Several people had gone missing there recently, including a DEA agent, and the suspicion was that it was tied in with the moonshine pipeline operating out of the area.

  Krista had left the isolated, close-knit country community, apparently for good ten years ago, but it didn’t seem like she was an outcast—not altogether. That nutty great-aunt of hers still visited from time to time, and recently she’d been trying to wheedle Krista into returning for some kind of big family reunion.

  Stef opened her folder on the table in front of her. “A missing nine-year-old cub named Ethan Coffman. He’s the son of Michael Coffman of the Golden Eyes Pride. A very wealthy, influential lion pride who live in a suburb of Crystal Bay.” Stef slid a packet of papers across to each of them. “Went missing this morning in Flowering Dogwood.”

  “Flowering Dogwood?” Blake flipped open the folder he’d just been handed. That was Krista’s old stomping ground.

  “What time exactly did this happen?”

  “About four hours ago. His father was out there on business, looking into buying up some old mining property. Given the history of disappearances in that area, his father didn’t waste any time in calling us.”

  “The other disappearances were all adults,” Blake pointed out. “It seems unlikely that the same people are behind it. He might even have just run off and gotten lost, or maybe he ran away on purpose.”

  Stef shook her head. “His scent trail says otherwise. It led up to a big oak tree and then vanished. That’s the main thing that triggered his father call to us.”

  Blake let out a growl. That wasn’t good. There were certain herbs that could be used to disguise a shifter’s scent, like noscentium, and if the kid’s trail had abruptly disappeared, it was a sure bet that someone had made that happen. Scent trails didn’t just vanish, and the lion cub hadn’t grown wings and flown away. Someone had taken him.

  None of the other people who’d disappeared had come back alive. If the same people were behind the kid going missing…
>
  “What intel has been gathered from the previous disappearances? That might give us a starting point,” Mal said. “Who can we talk to? Local cops? Other security companies?”

  Stef shook her head, glossy hair swinging. “They’ve tried. Nobody can get close. Anyone who tries is met with a wall of silence. It’s pretty lawless out there, and the locals are known to be hostile towards outsiders.”

  “What about a ransom demand?” Dexter asked. “Michael Coffman—I’ve heard of him. CEO of Goldeneyes Property Development, right? Seriously wealthy. The most likely explanation is that someone’s trying to shake him down.”

  Stef shook her head again. “Nothing yet. Given that his father is so wealthy, it could just be a matter of time, and they want the dad to sweat a little first.” She looked at Blake. “I’m debating right now if I want you to take lead or if I should pull you off the assignment altogether. This fated mate connection could screw things up completely or it could be our way in.”

  Blake held up his hands in a “hold up now” motion. He needed to put a stop to this right now. “Stef, I don’t believe in that old wives’ tale, but even if there were such a thing, Krista Ellis is not… what Dexter and Mal are saying she is. Think logically. What are the odds that you’d assign me to gather intel on some random woman and she’d turn out to be… that?” He didn’t want to keep saying the words. It made them too real.

  “Astronomically high, actually. That’s the whole point of a fated mate.” She smiled and fluttered her eyes at him sarcastically. He tried not to visibly flinch when she said the phrase. “Fate throws them into each other’s paths because they’re meant to be together. So here’s the thing. It is impossible for us to enter a place like the Zoo by stealth, and certainly not a tiny isolated little town like Flowering Dogwood. And we’re in a hurry. We could muscle our way in with a show of force, but then nobody would talk to us. The fastest way for you to get in and find that cub is to have Krista take you there—tonight—and introduce you as her fated mate. Because you are.”

  Blake stared at his boss in astonishment. She looked so normal for a crazy person. But clearly, she was bonkers if she was suggesting this tactic.

  “Why in the hell would she agree to that? And so quickly? We’ve never even exchanged more than a few words since…” He trailed off.

  He’d never told anyone that when he first started following Krista, he’d saved her from a mugger. She wasn’t supposed to know that he existed.

  “Since when?” Stef’s glare pinned him like a bug in a specimen jar.

  “Yeah, since when?” Dexter demanded. “Did you do something to compromise op-sec?”

  Blake could swear that Mal was humming “Blake and Krista, sitting in a tree” again, very, very quietly. When he looked at Mal, though, Mal instantly shut up and stared at him with big innocent eyes.

  “Today,” he mumbled.

  “Bullshit, but we don’t have time for me to do a full-on interrogation.” Stef leaned back in her chair. Use the connection between the two of you to get her to cooperate. Sweet-talk her, seduce her… whatever it takes.”

  “When she finds out, won’t that totally ruin his chances of actually, you know, living happily ever after?” Mal interjected.

  Everyone looked at him with surprise.

  “What?” he said defensively. “A fated mate sounds kind of nice. No more chasing random pieces of tail. She’d just be… there. Waiting for me to get home. And she’d be all happy to see me.” He actually looked kind of wistful. Mal the joker. Mal the king of the cheesy pickup line. Mal the secret romantic?

  “Doesn’t matter,” Stef snapped. “Blake, are you in or out? You say whatever it takes to get you into Flowering Dogwood. This isn’t just a job, this is a child’s life on the line.”

  “I’m in.” He bit the words out, grabbed his file folder, and surged to his feet in frustration.

  He knew from spying on Krista that she was a feisty, self-confident shifter and she was not going to just fall at his feet as soon as he crooked his finger. What if she said no? What if she laughed? What if she was still part of whatever the hell was going on back there?

  Chapter Three

  Krista

  Krista gulped down the last of a terrible-tasting cup of coffee in the break room. A few drops fell on the white polyester lab coat she’d donned when she’d returned after lunch, staining it, and she winced and set the empty cup down.

  She loved Hattie, even if she was utterly mortifying, but Hattie’s annual attempts to drag Krista back to Flowering Dogwood made Krista want to self-medicate with several entire bottles of tequila. The three-day hangover would be worth it—wouldn’t it?

  Hattie knew damned well why Krista didn’t want to go home, but she’d let Krista’s mother manipulate her into coming up here and laying on the guilt. It was too bad “self-pitying drama queen” wasn’t a paying job, because Maybelline Ellis would have been a millionaire.

  And then there was Hattie’s Thursday afternoon bridge group, Pearl, Marigold, and Ethel. They were all a million years old and they all liked to get together and brag about how many grand-kits they had. Hattie and Pearl were always partners, and Marigold and Ethel were their best frenemies, partnering up against them.

  Krista knew all this because Hattie insisted on describing it all to her in great detail in her monthly phone calls.

  It was Hattie’s great shame that she couldn’t trot Krista around at the family reunion and brag about her. Krista was one of the few people in their family who’d never been arrested, and the only person to graduate—not only from college but with a master’s degree—but apparently those accomplishments paled in comparison to being able to drag out the grand-kits (and the grand-cubs from the wolf side of the family) and hold them up like trophies.

  To add to the annual Hattie drama-llama, Krista was getting more and more rattled by her mysterious attraction to Blake. Back in Flowering Dogwood, everyone would have said they were fated mates. She’d left superstitions like that behind along with her mother’s dry drunks and the Reed family’s moonshine business. There had to be more to two people liking each other than being “fated” for one another.

  The intercom by the doorway buzzed. Her next patient was here. She headed into exam room five, thankful for the distraction.

  Ruth Mallows, a white-haired fox shifter in her seventies, was up next. She was affected with multiple autoimmune disorders that seemed to keep multiplying. Her previous human doctors had her on a cornucopia of medication, most of which should never be mixed. When she’d come to see Krista, she’d been terribly ill and at her wit’s end. Foggy-headed, achy, itchy, tired all the time.

  Krista hadn’t even needed to examine her—she’d known just by studying the list of medications what was going on. She’d had a quiet word with Ruth, offering her the option of trying the all-herbal regimen that worked so well on shifters, even though it wasn’t FDA-approved. That was something positive that had come from Krista’s upbringing in Flowering Dogwood, at least—she really knew her way around herbs and minerals, even if their use back home had often been more recreational than medicinal. Ruth would officially keep buying the prescription medicine, but she’d flush it down the toilet and only take the herbs.

  Since it wasn’t approved medicine, Krista could lose her license if anything went wrong. But the very visible, obvious difference in her patients’ health made it worth the risk.

  She stepped into the exam room, and instantly her mood lightened.

  The herbs were working. Ruth was practically a new woman. She’d had a blue rinse put in her hair, she was fizzing with energy, and her amber eyes seemed to have a sparkle to them. Her skin even looked better. She stood up and twirled around. “Look at me, doc! You’re a life-saver!”

  “Excellent! You look like a million dollars, Ruth.”

  She looked over her tablet at the vital signs that had already been gathered by the medical assistant. Ruth’s blood pressure and heart rate were back within n
ormal range. She’d put on five pounds, and her skin rash had cleared up.

  She went through her exam quickly, listening to Ruth’s breathing, palpating her glands. Then she unlocked a cabinet and pulled out a bag of herbs, which she handed to Ruth, who quickly tucked the bag into her purse. “Mum’s the word,” she said with a wink. “I’ll see you again in three months?”

  “Absolutely. You’re a miracle, Krista. You’ve given me my life back. I don’t need a doctor.” She grabbed Krista’s hand in both of her own. “I just need you.”

  While that might be true, by law Krista still needed to work with a licensed M.D. But she just smiled and squeezed Ruth’s fingers, delighting in the strength of the older woman’s grip. “I’m just glad we were able to help.”

  With one last smile, Krista turned and headed to her office so she could enter her case notes.

  She was feeling really good right now. Unusually good—bathed in endorphins. Her heart was doing a little happy dance in her chest, and she had that basking-in-sunshine feeling. Weird, but why question it?

  Just as she settled into her chair, the door swung open and the medical assistant, Susie, scurried in. “Ruth is looking so much better!” she said cheerfully. “And…”

  The girl was practically brimming with excitement about something, and it wasn’t just Ruth’s improved health.

  “That’s not the reason you’re fizzing like a shaken soda can,” Krista said, puzzled. What was there to get Susie all worked up about at the clinic? They had a waiting room full of patients who were either geriatric or recovering alcoholics who smelled like they’d been pickled. They’d started coming to the clinic because Krista’s special herb-mineral cocktail actually worked in combatting the DTs and quelling cravings.

  Bouncing on her toes, Susie practically squealed, “You’ve got a gentleman caller. And he’s so big and handsome.”

  Susie spent too much time reading Harlequin novels when she should be manning the reception desk.