Avoiding everyone’s gaze, Jace retrieved his bagged evidence and shoved it in his kit. He marched past the crowd, who were trying not to look at him, toward the back door.
Tala watched him leave. She could feel the anger wafting off him like steam from a scalding shower. It floated over her, making her skin prickle.
She knew her assignment was going to be tough. As a transfer from another department, she expected a certain amount of razzing. It didn’t help matters that unflattering rumors about the reason for her transfer followed her like a bad smell. Being a woman also didn’t help. However much integration police departments had gone through over the years, and despite the publicity surrounding equality, it was still a boys’ club.
This babysitting assignment was just an example of the kind of thing she knew she would be subjected to. Tala was told to prepare for animosity and strange activities and mood swings. That the Otherworlders might be difficult to handle. Difficult seemed like such a tame word to describe Jace Jericho.
Feral.
That was the one word that popped into her head when she first saw him. His chiseled face had been stern in concentration and his dark brown hair looked windblown, unruly, as if he had just come back from a hard run. Wild and untamed, he had that look about him. As if nothing and no one could pacify him.
Tala thought she had mentally prepared for this assignment. The minute after she was handed the order, she rushed out and did as much research as she could on each of the members of the OCU. The vampire and the witch she’d known wouldn’t be problematic.
It was the lycan that had worried her.
Tala snapped back to attention when the little witch approached, her eyes wide and a small knowing smile on her face. Why did she get the feeling the woman knew something that she didn’t?
She looked Tala up and down, then stuck out her hand. “I’m Lyra Magice.”
Tala took it in hers. “Tala Channing.”
Lyra held on a little too long. Tala got the notion the witch was testing her for some reason. Tingles of something swept over her arm. After a long pause, Lyra squeezed her hand and let go.
“Now that the niceties are over, we can get to work.” Lyra grabbed her kit and made her way through the living room and out into the hall toward the front door without another word to anyone.
Flustered, Tala glanced around the room at the others. Everyone was staring at her. Some of the officers had smug smiles on their faces. She suspected they knew she’d been transferred from the narcotics division as a form of punishment. It didn’t matter to them that there was no proof to the allegations being tossed around the department like wads of useless paper.
Anger flowed over her and she turned her gaze from them, settling it on Caine. He was studying her with one perfect eyebrow raised.
“Don’t let Jace and Lyra rattle you. They’re not nearly as scary as they seem.”
“Are you trying to say that their bark is worse than their bite?”
“Hell, no. I’d be lying, then.” He smiled, his fangs winking at her in jest.
Ignoring the urge to return his smile, Tala straightened her shoulders, raised her chin and walked out of the room in the wake of her new charges.
She knew she had her work cut out for her. The Otherworlders were obviously not going to make it easy. But she’d never backed down from a fight before and she wasn’t about to start.
Chapter 4
“Y ou’re okay, right?”
Jace snarled at Lyra again as he prepared the piece of wax-imprinted wood for shoe-print scanning. This was the third time she’d asked him that question in the past hour and he was tired of answering.
“Would you quit asking me that?” He spun the wood around to get a better angle for the machine. “I said I’m fine.”
As she leaned over his shoulder, he could see her pert little nose scrunch up. She was thinking about something. “It’s just that I’ve never seen you incapacitated before.”
Straightening, he reached over and pressed the switch on the scanning machine. “I wasn’t incapacitated.”
The machine’s metal arm with mounted laser swiveled around and passed over the square of wood. The infrared light was taking a picture of the black wax shoe print. He hoped it would give them a lead. If not, at least it would give them the type of shoes the killer wore. Hiking boots, running shoes, loafers, each could tell them something about who they were after.
“Jace, you were on your knees trying to breathe.” She snorted. “You were out of it, my friend.”
“Yeah, well, I’m fine now,” he told her without making eye contact. He didn’t want her to see how on edge he truly was.
When he had exited the house and walked out into the dark of the early morning, he thought the sensation would abate. It had for a while. But the sight of the full moon cascading her glorious moonlight on him only ignited new sensations, a new itch.