His nostrils flared, a growl rumbling through his throat.
“The two of us need to come to an understanding,” I said flatly. I twisted the blade, watched as it pushed a little deeper into his throat. “I’m dead if I don’t find this kid. If he’s down there on a slab, I’m dead, all because your crazed queen needs to blame somebody and it doesn’t matter if he’s been dead for ten minutes or ten days.”
His lashes flickered.
“Now I’m not going to whine about how unfair that is. Nor am I going to bitch about the fact that if you all had been doing your job by that boy, maybe he wouldn’t have run,” I added. “The bottom line is…he did run. And I’ve got a soft spot for kids. This is a well-known fact, a card your Alpha knew and worked to her advantage. Now…if that’s not him, we’ve still got a job to do. If it is him…well, I’ll deal some other way. But nevertheless, there’s a job to do and it’s not going to get any easier with us at each other’s throats.”
He snarled and pushed himself closer, driving the blade a quarter of an inch into his throat. “You think I want to be working with some crazy little bitch who can’t control her emotions?”
“Well, you worked with your Alpha,” I pointed out with a polite smile. “Face the facts. I’m not were. I respond to fear, anger, grief and all the other emotions. Those are my shortcomings, having human blood. You should have been prepared for that. If you’re not equipped to deal with it? That’s your shortcoming as one of the more alpha cats in the damned clan.” I smirked at him. “I keep hearing about your vaunted control. All the shifters are supposed to be in control. It’s what guides them through the spiking, adolescence. If you can get through that and not lose your marbles, it’s supposed to be smooth sailing.”
Damon glared at me.
“It seems to be a myth, if you ask me.” I twisted the blade and watched as blood trickled down. Flesh continued to burn and he just stood there. Oh, he had control, all right. He had it in spades.
“Is there a point to this or are you just really into having me wring your neck?” His voice was a growl too deep. The storm clouds in his eyes had changed, too—shifting to that eerie luminescence singular to felines. The pupils were changing.
Pushing too far, damn it. Oh, well.
“The point is…if you want this job done, you have got to get off my ass. I can’t do it with you growling at me. I can’t do it with thunderclouds over my head and I can’t do it if I’m worrying about an ax falling on my head at the first wrong move, if I’m worried about anything other than doing this damn job.”
Those eyes flashed again, and then, to my surprise, that eerie, flickering glow melted away and he stared at me with a human gaze. “Are you done?”
“Possibly.” I twisted the blade once more. Maybe I really was crazy. “Are we going to keep doing this or are you going to let me work?”
He reached up and closed a hand around the blade.
Shifter flesh met the enchanted silver and started to smoke. As he pushed it away, he leaned in and said, “You can work, little girl. But sooner or later, you and I are going to have a reckoning.”
“I can’t wait.”
It wasn’t Doyle.
Staring down into that battered, unrecognizable face, I couldn’t really even find any relief over the fact that it wasn’t the kid I was searching for.
Yay. I got to live a little while longer.
But this kid was dead, and he’d died horribly.
“It’s not him,” I said to Lincoln, still staring at his battered face.
“How can you be sure?” Lincoln stood next to him, his dark face dubious.
“For one…the hair is the wrong color. My kid is a blond. And… He’s not a cat. I think this boy was a wolf.” Even though life had left him, I could sense that fading energy. He hadn’t been dead long enough for it fade completely and I could still see it, hovering over him like a creature in mourning.
I could almost hear its grieving howl echoing through the air as I crouched down by the table, studying the disaster that had been his face. “Shit, what did they do to him,