"Why is he here? Don't we have enough problems to deal with?' she asked.
"Sit down, Megan," Lanced groused, obviously not in the mood for this little meeting. "Even if it means moving the chair."
She did just that. Braden smiled at her slowly, wickedly, as he watched a light flush color her bronzed flesh. The information he had on Megan had been as clear, concise and well put-together as Braden had come to expect from Jonas.
Her relationship with her cousin had been part of the report. It seemed she and Lance had been sniping at each other for months due to her insistence on taking the desert patrols rather than the safer assignments in town. But they were closer than most brothers and sisters, let alone cousins.
"I do have work to do today," she finally pointed out a bit impatiently when neither of them spoke.
"No, you don't." Lance sat forward then, bracing his arms on his desk as his frown darkened. "You're about to get exactly what you've been wanting for the past two years. Congratulations." He wasn't pleased, but Braden was already aware of that fact. Lance was madder than hell, not just at Braden and the Bureau of Breed Affairs. but also at Megan.
"Really?' she drawled in mocking amusement. "That's interesting. So, does this mysterious want of mine include a gun?" Evidently that was one argument she hadn't managed to win against her cousin. She hated the police-issue Wounder and had been harassing him to requisition a more powerful gun for her.
"Use one of your own," Lance harrumphed rudely. "You have enough of them, and since you're no longer on official duty, I can't stop you. Or use one of his. You seem to have done fine with it yesterday."
Megan cast Braden a look from the comer of her eye.
Braden gave her a smug, satisfied smile as her gaze moved fully to his. Finally, she turned back to her cousin rather than voicing the mocking retort he sensed lay on the tip of her very pretty tongue.
"Are you going to tell me what it is I'm getting? I have a lot of wants, you know. Or are you going to let Mr. Arness do your talking for you?"
Spicy. That's what she was. Just spicy as hell. He loved it.
He lifted his foot from his knee and set it slowly back on the floor before straightening in his chair. He never took his eyes off her, staring back at her intently, loving how she met his gaze and hid the nervousness he could feel growing inside her.
Sometimes the animal DNA he possessed came in damned handy. The natural empathic abilities easily picked up the emotions of those around him, filtered them and came across without the emotional impact on his own psyche that a normal person would experience. He knew what she was feeling, but he didn't feel it himself.
He growled, a deliberate, rough vibration that rumbled dangerously from his chest as he lowered his eyelids and let his gaze rake over her.
Heat flushed her face and he'd be damned if the soft, spicy-sweet smell of her sex didn't have him ready to jump her then and there. He wondered if she had glimpsed his hard-on. It would be damn hard to miss if her gaze slid down just an inch farther.
"Menace," she muttered, clearly not intimidated as she turned back to Lance. "Why is he here again?
You haven't explained that one yet, Lance."
"Making my life hell," Lance grumbled as he flicked him an irritated glare.
Braden tilted his head in mocking acknowledgment.
"Fine, he can make your life hell and I can leave." Megan moved to rise from the chair.
"Sit down, Meg." Her cousin sighed then. "This involves you, too. Too much. Braden, as you know, is a Feline Breed. Lion, to be exact. His assignment here is a bit complicated."
"And involves me how?"
Before Lance could speak, Braden broke in.
"In the fact that the Breeds you found dead in that gully were here looking for you. As were the Coyotes. Would you like to explain that?'He tilted his head, watching her closely, sensing her confusion.
"Me?" She shook her head, staring back at him, perplexed.
"Why would they be looking for me?"
"I was hoping you could answer that one."
"Lance, what's going on here?" she asked. A subtle scent almost of fear reached out to him, made him want to shield her, protect her.
"Our interrogation of the Coyote you wounded yesterday revealed they were here to kill Mark and Aimee · and you. They were to murder them in your area, where you would be drawn to them_" His choice of words had to be a mistake. "From there, they were to kill you, Megan."