Keri Arthur - Dangerous Games

How far was I willing to go for the sake of the Directorate and tracking down a killer?

I didn't really know anymore, and that was perhaps the scariest thing of all. If my determination not to do what the Directorate and Jack wanted me to do had slipped so much in a matter of months, what would I be like a year down the track? Would I become the willing fighting and fucking machine Jack wanted me to be? Was it as inevitable as the cycle of the moon?

A tremor ran through me. Jin broke off the kiss, and smiled. "I shall try to hurry," he said, trailing one hot fingertip down my neck. His touch paused near the pulse point, and his smile widened. "I'd hate to waste such delicious excitement."

"Then don't." I stepped back. "The sooner you go, the sooner you can be back."

He laughed, then turned and walked away. I repressed another shiver and tried to ignore the humming of hormones that just loved the danger Jin represented. Sometimes being a werewolf was a pain in the ass.

I looked across to the receptionist. Her face was carefully neutral, but her distaste rode the air. Resisting the urge to tell her I actually sympathized, I said, "Where do I go for my treatments, then?"

"Just follow the door to your right. Terri will take care of you."

I followed the directions and pushed through a set of swing doors. A meaty-looking black woman possessing slick, tied-back hair and hands big enough to snap a bus in two approached from the opposite end of the hall. She stopped when she saw me, well-shaped eyebrows rising almost in alarm. It wasn't hard to guess why. She knew what I was, simply because she wasn't human herself.

I stopped several feet in front of her, and looked her up and down. I'd only ever met one bear-shifter before, but this woman left Berna for dead when it came to sheer muscles and size.

"How did you get past the monitors at the door?" she asked, her voice a low growl that was more curious than antagonistic.

I met her dark gaze with a raised eyebrow of my own. "Probably the same way you do."

"You're a half-breed?"

"Yep."

She nodded. "The sensors read us half-breeds as humans. Kinda handy in a situation like this."

It would have been if I'd actually been half-human. "When we want to go where the rules say we can't go?"

She grinned. "The club rules say no nonhumans. Doesn't say anything about us half-breeds." She motioned me down the hall. "I've set you up in cubicle three. I'll give you the massage, then Raj will show you to the spa. There's a twenty minute limit, unfortunately, because we're full tonight."

"Can I be nosy and ask why you're working here? It's a bit of a risk, isn't it?"

She shrugged. "The worst they can do is fire me. And the pay here is better than other clubs. Gotta go with the money when you've got a family to feed, you know?"

I nodded, taking in the scents and sounds as we walked down the hall. Hints of sweet oils and feminine musk rode the air, mingling with the tangy spice of male and the faint scent of chlorine. No jasmine, though. No hint of sex.

Whatever Jin was doing, he wasn't doing it in this section.

"Are you the only nonhuman working here?"

"Yep. All employees have to present a birth certificate as evidence of humanity, but mine says human, so I'm okay."

I raised my eyebrows. DNA tests at birth had been mandatory for at least thirty years, and Terri looked a lot younger than that. "And how did you manage to achieve that?"

She grinned. "My old man worked in the labs and fudged the evidence."

"Dangerous stuff." And worthy of at least ten years jail time if it ever came to light.

She shrugged. "He's dead now, so what can they do to him?" She opened the next to last door on the left. "You want to strip off and place all your valuables in the locker? I'll wait out here."

"And am I supposed to walk around in nothing but my skin?"

She grinned. "I've heard tell you wolves make a habit of it."

"Well, yeah, but humans get quite antsy about it."

"Which is why you put on the robe hanging next to the locker you've been assigned."

"Ah. Thank you."

The changing room was on the small side, and smelled faintly of lemon and ginger. There weren't many other lockers in use, meaning there weren't a whole lot of women in tonight. After quickly stripping off and putting everything in the locker, I grabbed the robe and walked around the room, sniffing the air lightly. And found the scent of jasmine coming from a locker on the far side of the room.

I glanced at the door, wondering if I should take the chance of breaking into the locker. I needed to find out who the woman behind that scent was, if only because she might be one of Jin's regulars, and therefore might know something more about him. Like what he really was.

I checked out the ceiling, but couldn't see any cameras. Not that cameras were usually found in changing rooms but I couldn't take the risk of security seeing I was up to no good.

I slipped my locker key in between the locker door and the frame, and jimmied the door out enough to grab it with my fingers. Then I gave it a quick, hard tug. Locker doors just weren't designed to withstand the strength of a werewolf, let alone one who also had the might of a vampire behind her as well.

With the door open, the scent of jasmine was more powerful. The woman had stacked her clothes in a neat pile, and had hung her handbag over the single hook on the side. I opened it, then searched through the mess of tissues, makeup, and keys until I found the holder containing her credit cards and photo ID. Her name was Jan Tait, and she was a pretty woman with green eyes and blonde-highlighted brown hair. I memorized her Carlton address, then flicked through the rest of the holder, seeing more credit cards, a gold card for the cinemas, and a picture of a black and white cat. Which probably meant she was single. Attached or married women usually had pics of their other half or kids.

I shoved everything back into the bag, then closed the door and gave it a light thump to force the lock back in place. After doing up the robe, I headed for the door and the waiting Terri. We only walked another four doors down before she stopped and opened another door, this time revealing a small cubicle with a lone table sitting in the middle.

"Here you go. Just strip off and lay on the table. I'll be with you in a moment."

"Thanks, Terri."

She nodded and closed the door. I took off the robe and threw it over the end of the table before laying down as directed. After about five minutes, Terri came in and got down to work. I have to say, she was damn good. By the time she'd finished, my muscles were all fluid and relaxed. Like the aftermath of fantastic sex, only without the effort and fun.

"Okay," she said, doing up the massage oil bottle lid, "I'll just buzz Raj and he can take you down to the spas."

"They're not on this floor?"

She shook her head. "Next one down, near the administrative areas."

This place had to be bigger than it appeared if they had a second floor just for the office crew and the spas. "That's inconvenient, isn't it?"

She shrugged. "It's only a set of stairs."

I guess so. I put the robe back on and lashed the front together. Raj, a pimply teenager who looked no older than seventeen or eighteen, strolled in a few seconds later and gave me an insolent wave to follow. We walked down a set of carpeted stairs and into another wide hallway that was lined with doors. From behind each came the sound of bubbling water and soft music.

"Individual spas?" I said, taking a quick glance up and down the hall. No security cameras here, either. Very convenient.

The kid nodded and threw open a door. As he did so, a pass-card swung out from under his shirt. It had a bar code across the bottom, suggesting that if I wanted to go anywhere less public, I might need a pass to get into it.