Diego flashed her a sudden grin. “Not out here where I can get thorns up my ass.”
“I’d make sure you didn’t.”
“You’re a tease, woman.”
She returned his grin. “Yeah, they all say that.” She hadn’t much felt like teasing anyone for a long time. “You know, Diego, you’re not bad for a human.”
“No? Damn, I’m flattered.”
She stopped smiling and studied him. “There’s a darkness in you, though. You told me that your partner, your best friend, died. I’m truly sorry about that.”
Cassidy sounded truly sorry. Like she understood.
“He got shot,” Diego said.
He’d never forget the horror of watching Jobe, a towering giant of a man, get to his knees and lay his pistol on the floor in front of ten guys armed with various pistols and shotguns. Then the greater horror of watching Jobe buckle as a bullet went into him, his blood bursting onto the white carpet of the hotel room.
“They shot me too,” Diego said, the words stiff. “I lived. Jobe didn’t. He was my closest friend, and I should have been taking care of him.”
The counselors were supposed to help Diego deal with his pain and guilt. They’d told him that he needed to see the shooting in a larger context, but Diego knew damn well that there was no larger context.
Diego hadn’t thought there were more than two men in that hotel room, had thought that he and Jobe could bring them in without much trouble. An easy bust.
He hadn’t known until he’d burst in, twenty steps ahead of Jobe, that the men who’d rented the penthouse had sneaked half a biker gang up there for a party. When Diego had entered by himself, one Sig to their arsenal, the bikers had decided to play the game of Hang the Stupid Cop off the Balcony.
Jobe had called for backup, but instead of waiting for them, he’d tried to rescue Diego himself, terrified for his partner. Jobe had paid the price.
Diego had expected to get dismissed from the force, but even after the department’s investigation into what had happened, the police chief decided to turn Diego and Jobe into heroes. Jobe deserved it, yes, but Diego didn’t. The counselors could placate Diego all they wanted to, but Jobe was dead because of Diego, and Diego knew it.
“It pains you,” Cassidy said. “I know this pain. What happened to the ones who shot you?”
“They got away.” Diego tasted bitterness. “They ran off while Jobe and me were bleeding to death in the hotel room.”
“Did you try to go after them?”
Hell, yes. “By the time I was out of the hospital and could function again, they were long gone, to Mexico or Central America. I was taken off the case and ordered to stop looking.”
Cassidy rested her head on her knees and looked at him. “But you didn’t.”
“No. I never will.”
“Good for you.”
Her approval ignited a spark in his heart. Diego had kept it to himself that he was still tracking the men who’d killed Jobe, because he’d get all kinds of hell for it. The department had told him firmly to leave it alone.
The fact that this Shifter woman approved of what Diego did made him feel strangely warm, but there wasn’t much normal about Cassidy Warden.
No, strange was sitting next to a beautiful naked woman in the middle of the woods. She had amazing eyes, the green in them changing with her emotions. Her lashes were dark, but her hair held the light of sunshine.
Diego wanted to see her hair spread over his pillow, wanted to open his eyes in the morning and look into her green ones while she smiled at him. Maybe when her probation was over, he could take her to the Mount Charleston cabin a cop friend let him borrow from time to time, where they could drink hot toddies under blankets. He’d bet she’d look good snuggled up with him under a blanket.
Cassidy inhaled, and her eyes softened. “You want me.”
Diego’s heart beat faster. “It’s that obvious?”
“You throw off pheromones like crazy.” Cassidy touched his shoulder, the lightest brush. “You smell good.”
So did she. Her hair was warm, so near his lips. Her body moved against his. Diego could lift her hair in his hands, feel the warmth of the back of her neck, kiss the lips that turned up to him so readily.
He touched her cheek…
Cassidy jerked away, but not because of Diego. She riveted her attention to the trees, her body completely still.
“What is it?” he whispered.
Cassidy noiselessly rose in front of him. Diego got a great view of her tapered back, fine ass, and long, strong legs as she scanned the night.
“Can you smell that?” she asked.
Diego sniffed, but all he caught was pine, damp earth, and Cassidy’s warmth. “No.”
She gestured, keeping her hand close to her body. “Something in those rocks down the hill. Not the trackers, not Eric.”
Diego lifted his rifle. He had a starlight scope on it; nothing too high-tech, but there was enough moonlight out here to help him pick things out pretty clearly.
At the bottom of the hill and about twenty yards to the right was the outcropping of jagged rocks they’d climbed around to get up here. Diego trained his scope over it, picking up the movement of a rabbit, the flutter of an owl.
And something upright and human-shaped. “Got him,” Diego said. “It’s not a Shifter?”
At the same time Cassidy said, “No,” Diego knew it wasn’t.
The silhouette didn’t have the bulk of any of the Shifters he’d seen so far, and it moved too smoothly. It also burned bright hot, showing vivid green through the scope. Something with a temperature warmer than a human’s, maybe hotter even than a Shifter’s.
The man rose, turned, and raised his arms in a stance Diego recognized.
“Down!” He grabbed Cassidy and was on top of her, both of them facedown, as a bullet pinged on the rock she’d been standing next to.
“Sharpshooter,” he whispered into her ear. “He the same one from the construction site?”
“I don’t know.” Cassidy wriggled against him as she tried to raise her head to look.
Diego pinned her with his weight. “Stay down.”
“Let me shift.”
“He can shoot you in your animal form as fast as he can shoot your human form.”
“Yes, but I move better as a cat. You shoot at him, keep him looking your way, and I’ll get around behind him.”
“Screw that, Cassidy. No way am I letting you get anywhere near him.”