“What was I thinking eating six tacos?” She groaned, rubbing her belly. Spicy food and hand-to-hand combat rarely mixed.
She did a quick check inside to make sure the house was empty, wishing she had brought her gun. “You live like a pig.”
A beer can clacked against the dingy wall when she kicked it out of the way and sat on the living room sofa—a checkered monstrosity that was crying out for someone to take a blowtorch to it and put it out of its misery. She shuddered at the crusty stain on the carpet and reached for his laptop. The computer screen came up without a password lock.
“Not only that, but you’re a tool. Didn’t anyone ever teach you about password protection?”
Kat scrolled through his files. He’d labeled his folders in Russian, so she was able to figure out which ones were important. One had pictures of the Shifters he’d bought and sold, while another listed every transaction he’d made over the past ten years. Since he was an outlaw, he couldn’t use a Breed bank without getting caught, even with an alias. Vlad must be hiding his money somewhere.
When the door creaked, she glanced over her shoulder at Prince and then turned away. He moved silently around the couch and knelt before her, his slender fingers lightly touching her face.
“Are you injured?”
“I almost had him, but he wiggled out of reach. Did your wolf tire out?”
Prince stood up and crossed the room behind her, rattling something in the quaint kitchen.
“Where do you think he keeps his money?” she yelled out. “Maybe we can hold it for ransom.” The thought amused her and she laughed quietly.
Prince reappeared and pressed something cold to her face. She hissed and recoiled, trying to shove his arm away.
“Keep still. Your lip is bleeding. Do you want to shift to heal?”
“A little boo-boo on my face isn’t traumatic enough to unleash my wolf. If it swells up to the size of a grapefruit, I’ll do a quick shift, but right now I need to look through these files.”
Kat took the ice-filled towel from him and held it against her mouth. Having a man fuss over her was bad enough, but the fact that she liked it wasn’t helping matters.
“Can you search the house while I finish this up? Maybe we can find something of value and strike a bargain. I’d take the laptop, but I’m betting he has a backup and I’d rather him not know I’ve downloaded his files. Thoughts?”
Prince paced in front of her barefoot, and Kat couldn’t tear her eyes away. His shoes must have still been in the yard, not that she had any complaints. Kat liked seeing a sexy man barefoot, just so long as he didn’t have excessively hairy toes or something growing on them. Prince had nice feet—the kind that were probably bathed in scented oils and massaged by virgins.
When he moved out of sight, she reached beneath her shirt and pulled out a flash drive.
“What else do you have in there?” he asked with amusement, threading his long hair away from his face.
She plugged it in the side of the laptop and began copying files. “Having a good strap to hold my knife is great, but it also came with a few small pouches. I have a pack of gum in one, but I always carry a flash drive for opportunities like this.” She pulled out a stick of cinnamon gum. “Want some?”
Kat expected him to berate her for foolishly fighting a Mage and then acting as if nothing had happened. That was how most people reacted to her job, and she could hardly blame him since she lived outside the lines of normalcy.
But Prince accepted the gum, folded it into his mouth, and sat on the couch beside her. That fluffed up her ego just a little bit, although Prince was a man who chose his words wisely and was probably taking his time to think of the right manner in which to reprimand her as all Packmasters loved to do.
“You have admirable control over your wolf,” he said, bumping shoulders with her.
Kat ballooned with pride, attempting to suppress her smile. “We’re a team. She knows when to hang tight and when to attack. This guy’s gonna be hard to catch,” she said, pulling out the flash drive.
“Next time give me the knife while you lock him in restraints.”
Next time?she thought. It roused all kinds of emotions—a sense of camaraderie with someone who was willing to be her partner, even if it was just temporary. Someone who wanted to see this thing through until the end. Someone whose skin was brushing against her arm and giving her all kinds of indecent thoughts.
Mated wolves were amorous after battle. Prince wasn’t her mate by a mile, but after seeing him in action today, she was having lustful thoughts about him fighting to protect her life. Her wolf was pacing anxiously within, signaling she was eager to be mounted.
“Oh, hell no,” Kat blurted out. She snapped the laptop shut and sprang to her feet.
“Is something wrong?”
She dropped the bag of ice on his crotch and he tensed. “You sitting on that sofa, rubbing up against me, is what’s wrong. You can’t just sit there smelling good and speaking in that smoky voice like it’s no big deal. And stop smiling with your eyes. They’re sexy enough without you having to draw more attention to them. And don’t compliment my wolf after battle; youknowwhat effect that has on a Shifter. And put your hair back into that ponytail while you’re at it. I can’t concentrate with you walking around looking like a man who wears tear-away pants.”
“Tear-away what?”
