It wasn’t that Dean wasn’t used to the sight of shifters roaming around in and near SoHo, considering this was the portal central in the human world and many shifters came here under regulation for business, sometimes pleasure.
And that was exactly the thing—everything was regulated, which was why he was so pissed at this little hag who thought herself above all the rules and threw it at his face like she wasn’t afraid of the consequences at all.
But it looked like she wasn’t the only one who got in without regulation.
Dean eyed the lion shifter who just walked into the bar and sat near one of the dim-lit tables, scanning the place and acting like he had every right to be there. Dean recognized the man instantly, from the tall, broad body to the tanned skin, down to the scars riddled all over his body, particularly his face—brought upon exactly ten years ago, when a fire broke out in one of the shifter world’s forest areas, and this particular shifter was too fast asleep to get out of it in time.
Peter Ridges wasn’t particularly attuned with his senses, and it showed now as he passed his scanning eyes in Dean’s direction and didn’t spot him at all.
Dean’s eyes narrowed, a bad feeling settling in the pit of his stomach.
“What are you looking at?”
The female voice interrupted his thoughts, but not where his eyes were. “None of your business.”
“It is my business since you are in my establishment.”
There was no mistaking the impatience in her tone, and that didn’t sit well with him at all. But Dean had more pressing matters to attend to, so he spared her a glance, one full of deadly promise. It worked, because her back stiffened and her eyes widened, the red in them growing.
“I said keep that red off. I’ll be back for you. We’ll discuss this like civil beings. I assume you know how to do that?”
He didn’t wait for her answer, letting her stew on that. Dean slipped out of her office and into the bar. He stayed at the walls as he slowly walked, his gaze now back on the scarred shifter all alone.
Except he wasn’t alone for long, because a woman sat beside him. Any average human wouldn’t have seen what went on after, but Dean wasn’t any ordinary human.
He watched as the woman’s hand went down the table and casually squeezed Peter’s hand. Something tiny was slipped in it, which he took by squeezing her hand back. Then he leaned forward to kiss her cheek, muttering something that had her nodding her head before she stood up and walked away—particularly, to the long bar to order some drinks.
Peter stood up, too, and headed right for the door and out of the bar.
It all happened within the span of a minute or two, which had Dean’s suspicion growing as he kept walking. He slipped out of the bar, too, scanning the lighted streets until he spotted Peter getting in a taxi. His eyes read the license plate, which he took note of before walking away and finding a fairly quiet spot, right between another bar and an art gallery. This art gallery looked like a fairly new one, but that was nothing new because art galleries were literally scattered all over SoHo like precious little jewels.
Dean took out his phone and dialed a number, waiting until it was picked up after the fourth ring.
“Hey. Where are you?”
“Trying to round up a hag who illegally opened a bar here.”
“Trying?”
Obviously, Kasper Diether didn’t miss the little details, and this was just one example. Dean frowned over the phone at the wolf shifter who was once an enemy but was now one of his few trusted allies.
The man still tested his patience every once in a while.
“It’s the hag who took over your bar. Indigo.”
Kasper whistled. “So she’s here?”
“And making goddamn illegal money. But that’s not why I called. There’s something more pressing.”
“More pressing than a hag with an illegal business?”
“Yes. There’s a lion shifter here. Unauthorized.”
That had Kasper sucking in a breath, and Dean knew their minds were on the same memory.
A few months back, there was a separate faction of shifters living in a jungle, accessible through portals in the Hudson River area near SoHo—home of the crocodile shifters, whose ancestors were once at war with the other shifters. But the leader of their tribe, Xian, wanted all that to end, and had gone ahead to meet the elders with Dean’s help to plead his case: that it was time for all shifters to unite and forget the past, that their jungle was deteriorating and he wanted to provide a new home for his people, and that bounty hunters were at their heels and they needed all the help they could get. Xian had then been challenged by representatives from every shifter tribe, where he defeated them all in fair fights and finally earned the elders’ approval to accept them in.
But before Xian could, someone had started a fire in the jungle, effectively killing the majority of the crocodile tribe and stealing their hides in the process. Further investigation had resulted in two lion shifters and a witch dead, which only made the whole conspiracy deeper as they realized lion shifters were possibly working with the witches.
And none of it could have been possible without someone important pulling the strings.
There had been no movement after that, as Dean made sure none of their investigation activities would be linked back to them. They’d managed to save some of the wings and hides, but the rest had disappeared, and he knew the culprits were trying to lie low and figure out who was trying to expose them.
This was the first sighting Dean had since then.
“What did you want me to do?” Kasper asked.
“Run this plate number,” Dean said, reciting it slowly. He then recited where he was. “Let me know where it’s headed.”
He heard the phone being switched to loudspeaker, then the clacking of keys on a keyboard. Kasper was pretty good at computers, and Dean waited it out as he knew results would be coming soon. There was a female murmur in the background, followed by a cheerful voice greeting him.
“Dean! It’s Yeri.”
Despite himself, a small smile came from his lips. Kasper’s mate, a fairy, was one of the few people he met who was genuinely happy all the time, and he’d have to be a full-on asshole to kill that off.
“Hey, Yeri. Long time no talk.”
“Well, we’re not really close friends, but that’s not going to stop me from trying. Did you have dinner already? Do you want some dinner? I can order pizza.”
The small smile grew. “No, thank you. But thanks.”
“Aww, Dean. You’ve been working too much.”
Before Dean could respond, a male voice piped in again. “Forget it, Yeri. You’re not going to get through all that snobby front.”
“Kasper!” Yeri protested.
“It’s true. I found it, Dean. It’s ahead ten minutes from where you’re located. There’s a taxi stand there leading to an art gallery, and that gallery has a function happening right now. Chalice. There are no other open establishments nearby.”
“Thanks,” Dean said.
“Are you going after him?”
“No choice.”
“Okay. Jack and I will be on standby.”
“Good.”
He hung up and used his phone to look up Chalice’s address, then opted to walk in that direction. It looked like it was another new art gallery, with media outside and a couple of dressed-up people inside that told him this was one of the huge, sensationalized ones that opened. He studied the tuxedos and realized he wasn’t dressed for the part—but neither was Peter, which just puzzled him all the more.
What was Peter doing here?
Dean needed to find out, and he was going to hang around here if that was what it took.
He scanned the area, then decided to slip in an alley across the event and watch things from there. Kasper was right. There were no open stores nearby, so either Peter was really there, or…
His eyes landed on an abandoned building just a block away, where nothing untoward was happening.
Except a flash of light that was gone as quickly as it came.
He was on it in an instant, crossing the street and staying in the dark corners as he slipped into the building and let his eyes adjust. When they finally did, he saw what might once have been a warehouse, completely empty and with no sounds but the occasional scurrying of mice. He walked in as quietly as he could, finding nothing amiss as it looked like this place had been abandoned for a good few years now.
The light came from a nearby window, and he went in that direction now. Dean readied his claws, then stopped just a few feet away from the window and observed it.
Again, there was nothing amiss there…except the traces of what appeared to be a closing portal. Those weren’t detected easily, but he wasn’t a portal guardian for nothing, and Dean could just smell the magic in the air before it faded into nothingness—an indescribable scent that was a mix between water and clouds. If the portal had closed and there was no one there, that meant he missed Peter by a few minutes.
Damn it.
Dean turned around, brooding. He took a few steps away from the window, his eyes strictly ahead of him.
Something buzzed by his ear, faint. He ducked in an instant, missing the swipe of claws just in time. Then Dean was shifting into his lion form and receiving the attack headed his way, which had him and the other lion crashing straight to the cement floor.
Peter.
Peter’s lion form was as scarred as his man form, but that didn’t diminish the strength the guy had as he tried to snap his sharp teeth at Dean’s throat. Dean snarled, trying to push the beast off and get a dig in, too.
But they were both strong, and they both ended up rolling around the floor until Dean felt his back hit a wall. Sharp pain snapped at his spine, spreading throughout his body, but he pushed again and managed to roll them around until it was Peter’s back that crashed against a wall. There was a grunt, followed by a roar, which Dean tried to mute by a press of palm against a certain point on Peter’s neck. No need to bring innocent humans here via loud sounds.
They grappled, a silent wrestling match where neither gave up. Dean began to lose his patience when the other started fighting dirty, taking swipes at points that indicated he wasn’t just doing this to defend himself.
Peter intended to kill Dean.
Dean didn’t like fighting dirty, never did. But he did it now, swiping at the same points until he got some wounds in and slowed Peter down. Minutes passed, but it felt like hours, and Dean didn’t notice until the very end that his own wounds were slowing him down…
And a portal was gleaming in the spot by the window once more.
Someone stepped out and attacked him, too, and the realization hit Dean like a ton of bricks, that Peter had been stringing him along. He also realized he recognized this other lion—Paul, Peter’s younger brother and one of the regular shifters in their world who kept his head down and didn’t stir up any trouble.
The knowledge staggered him. Then the knowledge was lost as the two shifters ganged up on him, mauling him as they tried to tear him apart. He tried to fight back with all that he could, but his strength was starting to give in, an alarming situation that Dean refused to acknowledge. He was always good at negotiations, and Dean banked on that now, biding his time and running to the center of the warehouse.
Then he shifted back to his man form, hoping like hell he wouldn’t be killed before he could talk.
To his surprise, the two shifted to man form, too, facing him with hard expressions on their faces. Dean tried to breathe quietly, despite the fact that shifting back had his pain radiating twofold and had him as defenseless as the mice scurrying about.
“Did I interrupt a delivery of new items, Peter? Some horns, perhaps?”
Peter’s mouth flattened. “You shouldn’t have meddled, Dean. And you shouldn’t have been there.”
“So is the hag involved?”
“That bitch shouldn’t have been there, either. It wasn’t one of her usual shifts.”
That cleared things up. Dean’s mind worked furiously as a plan formed, one that had him tilting his head. “I wanted to be here.”
“Why? So you could bust us?”
“No. Because I want in.”
That was the last thing they expected, as obvious from their surprised faces. They stared at each other, then at him.
“Then why the hell would you fight us?”
Dean glared. “Because you were too busy fighting me first. I was defending myself. What’s the shipment now?”
Paul opened his mouth, but Peter placed a hand up, eyeing him suspiciously.
“Why would you want to be a part of this, Dean? You have your life easy.”
Dean gave the other a cold look, making sure some resentment came through. “Because I’m sick and tired of being left in this godforsaken place, acting as a valet for other people’s needs. You call that easy? It’s disgusting.” He stepped forward. “Give me a job. I’ll take it.”
The hesitation left Peter’s face, followed by astonishment. Then he grinned, nodding his head in Paul’s direction.
“We’ve got some panther hides right now,” Paul said. “To be shipped to that new gallery owner in three days. Maybe you can give us a hand, and we can come up with a deal.”
Dean nodded his head. “Fine.”
He watched as Paul took a step back, and Peter visibly relaxed. He watched as Paul turned around, obviously going back to the portal he opened.
Dean shifted in a split second and used his jaw to snap Peter’s neck, the grin still frozen. A blur appeared in front of him as Paul shifted again, taking a swipe in. But Dean was ready as he rolled to the side.
Then he jumped on Paul’s neck and snapped it as well.
Both shifters slumped to the ground, one after another. Blood spilled out of them. Dean stared, glad that was over but horrified at what he’d done: killed off fellow lion shifters.
That was the last thought he had before pain shot through him everywhere.
Then darkness was swallowing him.