The Darkest Kiss

"A dead businessman in Collins Street. The Paris end."



I raised my eyebrows. The so-called Paris end of Collins Street was filled with beautiful old buildings and mega-rich companies and businessmen. They had to be, just to be able to afford the rent there. It certainly wasn't the sort of place you'd expect us to be called into. Though I suppose when death came calling, it really had no respect for wealth or location.



"So are we talking a street death, or inside a building?"



"Inside. He was found in his office by his secretary. No signs of a break-in, and no obvious signs of foul play."



I frowned. "So why were we called? It sounds more like one for the regular cops than us."



"It's ours because the victim was Gerard James."



Who was obviously someone I should know, but didn't. "So?"



"So Gerard James was the head of the Nonhuman Rights League - the party intending to run several nonhuman candidates in the next state and federal elections."



"And his death is a political hot potato, so the cops have hand-balled it to us?"



"Precisely."



Meaning the pressure would be coming down from on high to solve this case quickly. Great. "I gather he's not human himself, then?"



"Nope. He is - was - a hawk-shifter."



"Does he have family in Melbourne?"



"Elderly parents living in Coburg. Gerard's a self-made man, and there were rumors of a contract being taken out on him several months ago."



"Well, there are probably plenty of humans out there who'd go to great lengths to stop nonhumans getting into government."



"The rumor was investigated and appeared unfounded."



So why was he now dead in his office? "Have you called in a cleanup crew?"



"Cole and his team are there already. Kade will meet you out the front of the Martin and Pleasance building in half an hour."



I glanced at my watch. It was nearing three-thirty, which meant the daily traffic snarl had already begun. "It'll take me longer than that to get there."



"Not if you speed."



Amusement ran through me. I had a somewhat checkered driving history - the last car I'd actually owned I'd driven into a tree, and to this day I have no recollection of the event. Though given I ended up in a madman's breeding center immediately after it, I very much suspected that particular accident wasn't my fault. But I'd had several mishaps in Directorate cars since that were, hence my surprise at Jack's order. Hell, it was only last week he was lecturing me about it, saying that any more accidents might send his budget into the red.



"If you're ordering me to travel fast in a Directorate vehicle, this must be urgent."



"Just don't wreck the car any more than you already have." He hesitated, then added, "Or yourself."



"Gee, thanks for caring, boss."



"Riley, just shut up and get there," he said, and hung up.



I shut up and got.



It took me a good forty minutes to get into the city, then another ten to battle my way through all the traffic to the Paris end of Collins Street. I might have had permission to go super fast, but this particular Directorate car didn't come equipped with lights or sirens. Which was a damn shame - I would have loved roaring through the city streets scattering pedestrians and cars alike. Although with my driving record, that probably wouldn't have been such a good idea.



Kade was already waiting in front of the building, his jean-clad butt resting against the trunk of the car, his muscular arms crossed, and his long legs stretched out before him.



Just the sight of him sent pleasure shooting through me. I might be reluctant to get emotionally involved with anyone right now, but I was still a wolf, and still capable of admiring a good-looking man. Kade was that, and a whole lot more. He was a horse-shifter, and his coloring was that of a bay - a rich, mahogany bay that came complete with jet-black hair and wicked, velvet-brown eyes. And he was built like a thorough-bred, with broad shoulders, slim hips, and those wonderfully long legs. Legs that could hold a girl just in the right place as she drove him deeper and harder inside.



I blew out a breath, lifting the hair off my forehead, and tried to ignore the excited bouncing of my hormones. Even if I was back on the sexual merry-go-round, Kade would still have been out-of-bounds. Jack had made it perfectly clear the day Kade had finally finished training that he didn't want workmates becoming bedmates.



Which didn't stop Kade flirting one bit, but neither he nor I had pushed it any further. Jack was mad enough at me as it was.



I tugged my keys out of the ignition and climbed out. He made a point of looking at his watch, then said, "That was the longest half-hour on record."



"Jack was expecting miracles. There was no way - short of flying, and trust me, that ain't happening yet - that I was ever going to get to the city in half an hour. Not from the Dandenongs, anyway." I hit the lock button on the remote, then walked over.



His gaze skimmed my body, a caress of warmth that sent little tingles of desire shooting across my skin. In many ways, it was a damn shame that I couldn't play with Kade, because he was the one man who'd be totally safe. When it came to the two of us, he wanted nothing more demanding than sex. He didn't care that I was a half-breed, that I couldn't have kids, that I was a guardian, or that my DNA might be changing for the worse, not the better. He didn't demand that I stay away from other men, that I be with him, and only him. All he wanted was to have a good time, while the good times lasted.



And I really did wish I could reciprocate - but it just wasn't worth the hell my life would become if Jack found out. I'd only seen him truly angry a couple of times, and I had no wish to go there more than necessary. An angry Jack was not a pleasant thing to behold, nor be around.



"Do you know how boring it was, waiting here?" he said, voice warm and rich, and so very sexy. "There wasn't even decent scenery to admire."



A smile tugged at my lips. "Lust after, you mean."



Amusement crinkled the corners of his velvet-brown eyes. "Admire, lust. It's all the same."



"Whatever. But I refuse to believe that in a street filled with offices - and therefore tons of secretaries and workers - there wasn't a single pretty girl who walked by."



"Well, maybe one or two. After all, I do have a couple of phone numbers tucked into my pocket that need to be checked out." He raised a hand and lightly brushed some hair from my cheek. His fingers were warm against my skin and a shudder that was all pleasure ran through me, but I resisted the urge to press into his caress and stepped back instead.



His lips twitched. "Jack," he said heavily, "is a pain in the ass."



"Oh, he'll be more than that if we get down and dirty, trust me." I stepped to one side, waved him on, then added, "So what has Jack told you about this case?"



"Probably the same as you. We've got a dead shifter whose political aspirations have made him too hot for the regular police." He glanced at me as he opened the building's glass door and ushered me through. "I'm betting he brought a bit of tail into the office and had a heart attack while showing her the official briefs."



I raised my eyebrows. "How old was he?"



"Forty-five."



Not what anyone would call old, especially for a shifter. "Has he got a history of heart problems, then?"



"No, but he's got a bit of a reputation as a playboy. And even the fittest playboy can go down if he overexerts himself, and one thing our boy wasn't was fit."



I dug my badge out of my purse and showed it to the cops on duty as we headed toward the elevators. Our footsteps echoed on the marble floors, and the sound seemed to be amplified by the high ceilings. It had to be hell on the ears when there was a full complement of office staff going through here.



"But if it was just a heart attack, we wouldn't have been called in."



Kade snorted softly and hit the elevator button. "Yeah, we would have. Anytime a politician dies in suspicious circumstances, there's an investigation. But in this case, they'd want to be doubly sure there was no foul play. Him being the first nonhuman politician and all."



"All the while cheering that the political threat he represented has very neatly been taken care of, no doubt."



"No doubt. Gerard James wasn't about making friends, and I really doubt he had many of them, either in the political field or out of it. Not that it mattered - not to those who cared what his party was about."



I raised an eyebrow. "Are you a supporter of the Nonhuman Rights League?"



"Hell, yeah." The elevator doors slid open. He pressed an arm against the door and ushered me inside. "I liked what they were trying to achieve."



"Which was?"



"Getting us nonhumans into state and parliamentary offices so that we might actually have a voice in the things that are decided for us."



"Yeah, like the humans are ever going to want that." I punched the fifth-floor button, which was the top floor, then glanced at Kade. "So if he didn't have many friends, why was he so popular with the public?"



"Because it was all about image, and he was good at that. He might have been an obnoxious bastard behind the scenes, but in the political arena - and on the social circuit - it was all smooth sophistication and friendliness."



"So if he was obnoxious and a playboy, why didn't the human politicians make political hay out of that?"



"Oh, they tried, but Gerard had a very good publicity machine behind him. They were able to twist derisive comments to his advantage."



I glanced at the floor indicator, seeing we'd barely reached three. This had to be the slowest elevator ever made. "How?"



Kade shrugged. "In the case of the ladies, by focusing on the fact that many of the women he went out with were human, and making the attacks feel race-related."



"Clever."



"But still an asshole. Wouldn't have stopped me from voting for him, though. I want a fairer world for my kids to live in, and I think he could have helped achieve that."



Well, there was no law saying you had to like politicians to vote for them. If there was, there'd be no one in parliament. But could one lone politician make that much of a difference? Somehow, I doubted it.



I looked up at the floor indicator, saw we were almost there, then asked, "How's Sable doing, by the way?"



Sable was his lead mare, the one mare he'd managed to keep from the herd he'd gathered before he'd been captured and slung into a madman's breeding labs. Which was how I'd actually met him - I'd been slung into the same lab. We'd escaped together, and it was only after that I'd discovered he wasn't an innocent bystander snatched up into the scheme, but rather part of a military investigation into an arms theft who had somehow stumbled onto the breeding labs.



Like Kade, Sable was a horse-shifter - a stunning, leggy black mare whose every movement spoke of class and sophistication. I'd met her only once, but I'd seen her enough on TV. The woman was a phenomenon, with her show rating through the roof and five of her eight books on herbs and healing still amongst the country's best sellers.



Of course, she wasn't the only mare he now had. He'd collected at least seven others that I knew of, and was constantly on the lookout for more to add to his herd. The more the merrier was a stallion's creed, apparently. Why the hell we werewolves got branded as sex-mad lunatics and horse-shifters didn't was beyond me. I knew for a fact that Kade was sexually insatiable, and he didn't have the moon as an excuse like we werewolves did. Not that we used it as an excuse, of course. Sex was something wolves enjoyed indulging in, whether or not the moon was blooming full.



When their hearts weren't broken, anyway.



"Sable is very pregnant, very fat, and grousing about being forced to leave her leafy Toorak house to live with me." His sudden grin was all proud male. "Another mare confirmed she was pregnant yesterday, too."



"So that makes five of them now? Damn, nothing wrong with your little swimmers."



"With us, a sign of virility and strength is not only the size of the herd, but the number of foals. I fully intend to have the biggest herd in Melbourne."



"Show-off." The old elevator came to a jumpy halt, and I grabbed the railing to steady myself. "Your Directorate salary is not going to stretch to feeding that many mouths."



"Doesn't have to. Herds work as a complete support system. Everyone contributes to support each other."



"What happens if you die?"



He shrugged. "My personal insurance will take care of them. And the Directorate insurance policy is quite generous."



That I wouldn't know, having avoided the whole "death while on duty" line of thinking. Which I guess was stupid, given the fact that a guardian's lifestyle wasn't exactly compatible with a long life - unless you were a vamp and all but indestructible. But there again, if something happened to me, I don't think Rhoan would be worried about money. Nor me, if the situation was reversed.



The elevator doors finally swished open and Kade ushered me out. The foyer was empty, but I could hear voices coming from the right, and one of them was familiar. I headed that way.



Cole looked around as we entered the office. He was a tall, gray-haired wolf-shifter with a craggy face and a sharp attitude - at least when it came to dealing with me. Though I have to admit, I probably deserved it. I enjoyed teasing him a whole lot more than was warranted. Of course, it didn't help that he kept saying he wasn't interested when I knew for a fact he was. Even though wolf-shifters tended to think of themselves as better than us werewolves, not even they could hide the smell of arousal.