to teach Garnet the things he was taught in his more advanced class, how quickly she’d always caught on. It hadn’t been long before her trainers had realized that regardless of her age and size, she needed to be in the advanced class alongside him. “How did she hold her own?”
A pause before a girl answered. “She doesn’t use quite the same moves—she’s adapted them to make her size an advantage.”
“Good. Keep talking.”
The discussion was energetic and involved, and when Kenji separated the students out into unbalanced pairs to do self-run bouts, they went at it with frowns of concentration. He and Garnet watched over the group for ten minutes to make sure there were no major issues, before walking out together.
“Shane?” he asked once they were in the corridor.
Garnet narrowed her eyes. “We need to look at that room again,” she said after filling him in on their main suspect’s broken recollection of events as well as what she’d learned from Lorenzo. “My gut isn’t settling.”
Kenji felt he had a good handle on the players now and his instincts echoed Garnet’s. “Ruby gave me deep background on Shane after you left the dining area today.” Garnet’s sister honestly knew everything about everyone. “If it had been him, I would’ve expected a heat-of-the-moment burst of anger and violence. The knife to the heart seems cold and showy at the same time.”
“Exactly!” Reaching back to fix her ponytail, her white shirt stretching over the taut mounds of her breasts and drawing his eye like a laser, Garnet bit down on her lower lip. “Do you need to shower?” A teasing gleam in the blue of her eyes, her dimple in full taunting mode. “Not that you don’t smell delicious.”
Running a hand through his sweat-dampened hair, Kenji glared at her. “Stop messing with me.” He had no defenses where Garnet was concerned and she’d figured that out.
A sinful smile as she closed the distance between them until her boots touched his bare feet. “But I like messing with you, Kenji Tanaka.” Gripping the sides of his T-shirt while he stood frozen in place, unable to break contact, she rose on her toes and nuzzled a kiss to his throat. Right where his pulse ricocheted against his skin in a rapid tattoo.
Then she bit. Hard. Leaving a mark. A possessive, unmistakable mark.
Breath harsh and cock primed, he wound her ponytail in his hand. “Garnet.” His chest rumbled.
Drawing in his scent on a luxurious breath, as if she couldn’t get enough of him, the dangerous wolf who’d marked him rubbed her thumb over his jaw before stepping back. “We have to be lieutenants first.” Her scent wrapped around him, steel and Garnet and slick, wet welcome.
“Five minutes,” he ground out and stalked off to his quarters before he could talk himself out of it and right into Garnet’s arms.
He twisted the water to ice-cold.
When he reached the scene after dressing in blue jeans and a thin gray sweater, boots on his feet, it was to see Garnet just coming around the corner. She’d showered, too, was wearing a pair of chocolate-colored pants that skimmed her legs and cupped her butt, teamed with a V-necked blue sweater and what he’d already figured out were her favorite brown boots.
“How are your folks?” she asked as she reached him. “I just saw the textured mural your mom did down in that corridor and it reminded me to ask.”
Kenji didn’t answer until they were inside Russ’s quarters with the door shut behind them. “Dad’s in Alexei’s den. He’s taken over the communications hub there.” Alexei was the youngest SnowDancer lieutenant and had the smallest den to look after, but that den lay along a border and, as such, was in no way unimportant.
“Your dad’s one of the best.”
“Yep.” Kenji knew his dad would be the best if he wasn’t more interested in ballroom dancing and Moroccan rug weaving and herb gardening—just three of Satoshi Tanaka’s intense and short-lived interests. “He sent me a yoga book the other week. That’s his new thing.” Kenji would bet his left arm that Satoshi was already sleeping with his limber young yoga teacher.
“If your dad’s in Alexei’s region,” Garnet said with the wry smile of someone who’d grown up with him, “then your mom is surely not.”
Kenji grinned—his parents’ fights had scared him as a pup, but he’d come to terms with their relationship long ago. “She’s in Tomás’s region,” he told her. “According to him, she’s driving him crazy while creating