I stared up at the ceiling as the sunlight streamed through the window and tried not to wince.

What the hell had I done?

This wasn't me waking up hungover - or still drunk - and wondering where I was, who I was with and how I had ended up there.

This was me waking up and wondering what had possessed me to sleep with a murder suspect. I rolled over in bed and looked at Kenai Tanner asleep beside me. Okay, now I remembered what had possessed me.

Which didn't make it a good idea.

On the other hand, as sweet memories of the previous night lit up in my mind, I couldn't quite bring myself to regret it. Having pounded me to orgasm in the alley, Tanner had demonstrated the other side of his nature once we got into bed. For two and a half hours he treated my body as his private play area, leaving no part of it unstimulated, taking me to heaven over and over, until he finally joined me and we came together one last extraordinary time as I rode him furiously, the headboard smacking rhythmically against the wall.

If you're going to abandon professional ethics and common sense in one stupid night, then this was definitely the way to do it.

But again, none of this made it a good idea.

I had to get out of here. He hadn't gotten around to asking my name - too busy exchanging fluids - so if I slipped out now, I could remain a one-night stand he never heard from again, a delicious memory to warm him in his old age. Or possibly a delicious memory that would come back to accuse him of the attempted murder of his father, depending on how things went from here on in.

Yeah, I definitely needed to get out of here.

It was still early, and Tanner showed no immediate sign of waking - he had earned his rest. I had time to sneak out before he woke up and started asking all the questions I didn't want to answer.

Gingerly, I stretched a cautious foot out of bed and winced as twenty or so different muscles complained - Tanner had certainly put me through it. I paused for a moment, pondering how much I would like to wake him now, drag him into the shower, and see how many more muscles we could strain. But I was thinking a bit more clearly, now. Besides, certain parts of me needed a day off.

Possibly a week.

I slunk out of the bed, gathered my clothes up off the floor - wasting valuable time looking for my panties before remembering they were in an alley in tatters - and got dressed. With my shoes in my hand, and with one last, longing look at the sleeping Tanner, I slipped out of the door.

Out in the corridor, I took a moment to get my bearings, recalling the way we had walked the night before. My feet made no noise in the thick piled carpet as I tiptoed towards the main staircase, glancing occasionally at the art on the walls, which veered from hunting scenes to nudes to modern art that I guessed was mainly collected for value. Heir’s House was the official residence of the sons of Kenai Pack Leaders - or had been for the last three generations - and the decor bore the hallmarks of different personalities leaving their impression upon it.

From somewhere in the building, I heard the sounds of movement and the rustle of whispers. Probably servants rather than the heirs themselves, all of whom had had a late night, but I didn't want to be caught, or even seen, by anyone on my way out. The plan was to vanish as if I had never been here, leaving nothing more than a warm spot in Tanner's bed, and certainly leaving no way for them to find me. If Tanner found me, then he would find out I was a PI and then he'd start to ask questions about what I had been doing at the party last night and why I lied to him about it when he asked.

As I reached the stairs, the sounds of movement got louder, footsteps coming from the far end of the landing. Caution was no longer an option, I ran down the stairs like Cinderella leaving the ball - though I was a bit more careful with my shoes. My feet slapped on the marble floor of the hallway as I hit the base of the stairs and ran on. I had no time now to worry about the noise I made, I just needed out. Reaching the door, I fumbled with the heavy iron bolts that seemed more an aesthetic choice than a practical one - locks were not necessary at Heir’s House; anyone breaking in clearly had a death wish. As the last bolt slid back, I hauled the heavy oak door back and ducked out into the bright, cool morning air.

Once I had made it a few blocks away, I stopped to put my shoes on and it was only then that I felt I could breathe safely and slow down for long enough to assess the situation. True, I had crossed a professional line last night, but Tanner did not know my name and had no way of finding me, so; no harm, no foul. And while nothing I had learned last night could be called definitive, it had been interesting, and I had a better sense of Tanner, at least. Perhaps I could not quite dismiss him as a suspect, but I felt I could put him on the back burner for now.

All in all, I was calling last night a success. In more ways than one.

It was, therefore, with a certain amount of smugness that, having headed home for a shower and a change of clothes, I went into the office to make a few calls around my werewolf contacts, looking for information about Gray and Hudson.

I opened the door and froze. Seated in my outer office, waiting for me, were the two werewolves I had just been thinking about, and between them, the werewolf with whom I had spent the previous night. Their eyes were on the door as I came in, as if they had been waiting for me.

My mind raced as I sought for something to say, but what the hell could I say? If they had found me, then they knew what I was, and who knew how much else they knew? Probably that I was in the employ of their father and that they were the objects of my investigation.

And yet, while all that was, of course, on my mind, my greatest worry was the thought that Tanner might think I had slept with him just to get information or distract him from the fact I had been following him. For whatever reason, I desperately didn't want him to think that of me.

None of which rapid fire thinking gave me a useful opener in the conversation I now had to have, but, fortunately, Tanner started for me.

"You left without saying goodbye."

He said it without reproach, but I still flinched.

"In the circumstances, I thought it was best to avoid any awkward questions." There didn't seem to be any point in lying, but nor was I going to volunteer information until I had a better idea of how much they knew.

"I think we'd all appreciate a little information on the exact nature of those circumstances," replied Tanner.

I shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. "One-nighters are always awkward come the morning."

Tanner grinned. "Not what I meant. But wolves can appreciate guile when it's motivated by loyalty - in this case, to your client. Perhaps we should tell you what we know."

"Why?" snarled Gray. He was not looking at me with any sympathy, and his clear fury sent a cold trickle of fear down my neck.

"Because she's just doing her job, Gray," pointed out Hudson, a more happy-go-lucky presence. "And because we might need her."

They might need me? What the hell did that mean?

"Your name is Lana Malone," Tanner went on. "You're a part-wolf and a private investigator specializing in cases involving wolves. Right so far?"

I nodded. "Mind if I ask how you know all that?"

"Yes," said Gray.

"Here it gets a bit more speculative," said Tanner. "We're guessing, but I'd bet my inheritance that we're right. You were hired by our father, Kenai King, to investigate us because he thinks we had something to do with the attempt on his life at the Lunar Hunt."

"The assassin was trailed to Heir’s House," I said, neither confirming nor denying the accusation.

"That's what they say," Gray put in, sullenly.

"We're not denying that someone tried to kill our father," said Hudson. "Quite the reverse. And that someone may well be close to him, someone who fancies themselves next in line for Pack Leader if our father died and the three of us were accused of his death."

"It's a theory," I acknowledged. In fact, it was a theory I had been wondering about myself. After last night, I found it harder to see Tanner and his brothers as killers.

"It's a theory that we'd like you to look into," said Tanner.

"What?"

"Werewolves are not investigators," admitted Tanner. "We don’t have the temperament. We're good at dealing with the perpetrators when they’re found, but bad at finding them. We want to hire you."

I could hardly believe what I was hearing.

"You want to hire me to prove your innocence?"

"No," Hudson put in. "We want to hire you to find out who tried to kill our father. We know it's not one of us, so it must be someone else, and you're wasting time while the real killer prepares to have another try."

"The investigation takes you where it takes you," said Tanner. "So it's not interfering with any prior arrangement you might have made with any other member of our family - on which subject, I note, you have still made no comment."

It was tempting - if only to get paid for doing both sides of the investigation - and the three sons did have a point; if King was wrong, then I was wasting my time and he would end up dead. And if he ended up dead, then chances were, I wouldn’t get paid. But I had already been hired to do a job, and whichever way you looked at it, the job of investigating Tanner, Gray and Hudson was not compatible with being hired by them. I had my professional ethics, and despite the serious lapse in them last night, I was sticking to them.

"I'm sorry. I'm going to do the job that I was paid to do."

"You don't think investigating us will be difficult now we know you're at it?" suggested Hudson. "Not to mention awkward, since you and Tanner did the wild thing?"

I didn't back down and I didn't blush. "Difficult and awkward aren't the same as impossible. I don't back out on clients."

"But you do bed down with suspects?" suggested Hudson, a sly grin on his handsome face.

"Was there anything else you wanted?" I asked. "Because if not, I have work to do."

The brothers looked at each other. Perhaps they had not expected the meeting to go like this. I was very aware of the fact that there were, in this room at the moment, three individuals who could kill me if they wanted. They might not quite be able to do it with impunity, but as the sons of Kenai King, the law might not look at them too hard. I wouldn't have been human if I did not have a flicker of anxiety in me, but I strove not to show it. I didn't back down - they were in my office, my territory, and they had better not forget it. Werewolves respect strength.

"Alright," said Tanner, finally. "I guess we'll see you around."

"I won't be far away," I replied, still holding my own, but barely. Besides the awkwardness of this all, I was having serious flashbacks of Tanner’s hands on me, and it was jumbling my thoughts. Not to mention the strange reaction I was seeming to have over that wicked gleam in Hudson’s eyes.

I slammed the door on those thoughts and watched as the Kenai brothers headed for the door, Gray leading the way, followed by Hudson and Tanner.

"Tanner."

The eldest brother turned back as I said his name, looking at me with an unreadable expression on his face. I wanted to tell him that last night had not been about using him, that I hadn't slept with him for information but because I had wanted to. I wanted to tell him that it had meant something to me and, damn it, I wanted to know if it had maybe meant something to him, too. But how the hell was I supposed to communicate any of that without weakening my stance? Without compromising my investigation still further?

"I'll be in touch," I found myself saying without really knowing why.

Tanner nodded, a little baffled perhaps, and exited, closing the door behind him.

I slumped. However much I wanted to believe in him and his innocence, I knew that he could still be an attempted murderer. My gut instincts all said he wasn't, but those instincts were now being undermined by our night together. I liked him. And that was not a good thing to say.

To make matters worse, I kept thinking about his brothers. Even Gray, as chilly as he’d been, had captured my imagination. Had Tanner awoken some secret animal inside me? And if so, how was I going to put her back to sleep?

The room seemed somehow larger now the three had left. It was not that they took up a huge amount of space physically – although, they were big guys - but their charisma seemed to fill the room. They each carried an aura with them - something that I reluctantly found deeply sexual - which made me feel cramped, or even trapped. Presented with that much raw sexuality, I felt like I had no place to go. Except towards them. It was similar to the sensation I had felt in the hall last night, that overwhelming abundance of wolf pheromones in the air, but in my little office with just the three males - and uber-males at that - it was all the more potent.

I threw open a window to let the fresh air in, and also so I could watch my three guests walking away, down the street. They were not accompanied by bodyguards - they had gone out of their way to keep my secret.

What did that say about their possible guilt? Were they trying to put me off the scent? Or were they genuinely trying to find the real killer?

Either way, they had something to gain, and I was nowhere near yet making up my mind about the sons of Kenai King.