Lisa Childs - Taming The Shifter

His body hardened as blood rushed through his veins, hot and heavy. He would have to be crazy to be attracted to her—the woman who had tried to kill him and obviously felt no remorse. “Don’t you have a conscience?” he asked. He shouldn’t have been surprised that she didn’t. Apparently nobody he knew had one.

“Yes, but there’s no reason for it to bother me,” she murmured, her brow furrowing with genuine confusion. A lock of silky-looking black hair fell across her forehead and skimmed her jaw. Her hair was dark, her skin pale and her eyes a sharp, clear blue.

Hell, maybe he would be crazy if he wasn’t attracted to her. But this attraction did nothing to cool his anger with her.

He barely resisted the urge to reach out and shake her. But she was still holding that damn gun. And while she couldn’t kill him with it—permanently—the bullets still hurt. He grimaced in remembrance of the pain that had burned so fiercely in his chest that he had actually lost consciousness. “Because you shot me.”

“And if the situation was the same, I’d do it again,” she replied. “Shooting you was the only way to stop you from killing that man. Even after I identified myself, you wouldn’t listen to my commands to let him go. And you had this look on your face...” She shuddered.

“You didn’t understand what was going on,” he said. “You should have given me a chance to explain.” That he had been doing her job for her. He had been protecting and serving all the citizens of Zantrax—both human and superhuman—as well as his home village of St. James.

“You were too busy strangling the life from that man,” she reminded him.

“Yes,” he said, frustration gnawing at him that she had stopped him from doing what had to be done, what apparently should have been done years ago so that other lives wouldn’t have been lost and destroyed. Now the bastard, Reagan, had gone underground. He hadn’t been easy to find the night Warrick had chased him into that dead-end alley; he would be even harder to track down now. Thanks to Detective Kate Wever.

“Why?” she asked. “I fired the first two shots into your shoulder, but you wouldn’t stop. You were in such a murderous rage.”

He couldn’t deny that he had been. “I had a damn good reason.”

“You should have stopped beating him when I told you to,” she said, “then I would have taken a report and you could have explained your actions.”

But he had been beyond explanations. Beyond reason. All he’d known was his hunger for vengeance, the exact same hunger he should be feeling for her—just for vengeance. But, despite the gun she held on him, another kind of hunger gnawed at him—and only that thin sheet separated her naked body from his gaze, from his touch. His fingers itched to reach for the sheet, to tug it off. But she would undoubtedly shoot him again.

“Explain the situation to me now. Why were you trying to kill that man?” she asked. “You called him a killer.”

Reagan was. But Warrick shouldn’t have told her that; it was none of her business. It couldn’t be. He couldn’t share his story without disclosing secrets he would really die if he revealed. That story haunted him, like he had tried to haunt her. Since she kept staring at him as though he were a ghost, he must have been successful haunting her. But he didn’t bother correcting her misconception; it was better that she think him a ghost than what he really was. He lifted his shoulders in a shrug, but he couldn’t shake off the pain any more than he could the hunger. “Some people just need killing.”

She sucked in an audible breath and adjusted her grip on her gun, steadying the barrel that was still pointing directly at his chest. “That’s not for you to decide.”

“It wasn’t for you to decide that he should live and I should die.” Because she had let that bastard live, more would likely die. Maybe even her...

She drew in a shuddery breath. “You gave me no choice. I couldn’t just stand there and let you kill him.”

“So instead you killed me.”

“But you’re not dead,” she murmured, reaching out the hand not holding the gun toward his face. And as she did, her sheet slipped a little lower and revealed the deep cleft between her breasts.

He sure as hell wasn’t dead, not with the way his heart pounded frantically as desire coursed through him. Then her fingers brushed across his face, scraping over the stubble on his cheek until her fingertips covered his lips. Heat sizzled between them. He uttered a gasp of breath, and she shivered.

“You’re not a ghost, either.”

“No,” he admitted, moving his lips against her fingertips.

She shivered again, and her nipples hardened even more, pushing taut against that thin sheet. “If you’re not a ghost, what are you?”

“Well, I’m no angel.” But if he was, Warrick would be an avenging one. Or he would have been had she not interfered. Because she had, he had lost his chance for vengeance...against his enemy.

Her interference should have made her his enemy, too. He’d told himself that she was. And that was why he couldn’t leave her alone even though he no longer had any reason to stay in Zantrax. Except vengeance. Against her.

Liar.

His tense, aching body called him on his lie. He didn’t want vengeance on her. He just wanted her . Her fingers still pressed against his lips, he didn’t have to speak—to explain. All he had to do was lean closer...to her.

* * *

Kate’s heart hammered against her ribs. He was staring at her mouth with that intense, eerie topaz gaze. He was going to kiss her. And just like she hadn’t wanted to shoot him in the alley, she didn’t want to stop him.

He had broken into her apartment and had been watching her sleep. And instead of shooting him, she was going to let him kiss her? After all of those sleepless nights, she had totally lost her mind. She had no doubt anymore.

Only desire.

She had touched him to see if he was real or if her fingers would pass right through him like mist. But she couldn’t stop touching him, skimming her fingers along his jaw to his lips—which were surprisingly soft and warm. She wanted to taste them, too. She slid her hand to the nape of his neck and tugged him closer so that only a breath separated his lips from hers.

He was breathing. Fast and ragged. And his heart was beating. She could feel the vibrations of it despite the small space that separated his body from hers. His skin radiated warmth to hers, making her tingle in reaction.

He was no ghost. No dream.

“What the hell are you?” she murmured again. “Indestructible?”

“I’m destructible,” he replied with a heavy sigh that teased her lips.

“You weren’t wearing a bulletproof vest,” she said. “I saw the gunshot wound, saw you bleeding.” Her trembling fingers skimmed down his neck to the buttons on his shirt. She needed to see the scar, needed to understand how a man could have survived such an injury. If he was a man...

He caught her fingers in his hand. “If you see my scars, I’m going to have to see yours.”

Goose bumps lifted along her bare shoulders and arms. She had scars, but hardly anyone knew about them. How could he know? The fear she should have been feeling the minute she’d discovered him in the shadows finally coursed through her. The hand holding the gun tightened on the grip.

“Who are you?”

He chuckled and cupped her cheek in his hand. “Poor Kate, you can’t figure out if you want to kiss me or kill me.”

She gasped at his arrogance and his perception. And the desire that jolted her with his touch.

“Remember how well that worked out for you last time,” he goaded her with a wink, his long thick lashes brushing against his chiseled cheekbones. “You can’t kill me.”