Pretty Little Lion by Suleikha Snyder
12
The mischief, the mirth that had fueled her as she climbed out the ventilation duct and dropped onto the frost-edged ground below didn’t last long. Meghna was a mess of contradictory emotions by the time she and Elijah got to the car and buckled in. Magic still sang in her bones from charming the hybrid shifter. Energy coursed through her veins. What could she do with that? How could she channel it?
They were barely a few miles from the clinic when she told Elijah to pull over. Not remotely out of the woods. Still in danger of pursuit, because the doctor and the bat-snake had surely woken up by now. But the need she vocalized was guttural, thick, and demanding. The need in her soul was even worse. Something all-consuming. Hungry. Something that demanded to be sated. And it wasn’t more than two seconds after Elijah steered the car onto the shoulder that she was unbuckling her seat belt and diving across the console that divided the bucket seats. Climbing into his lap. Burying her hands in the thick locs he’d grown for this trip. She could still smell the lion on him. She would always smell the lion on him. Maybe he could taste the temptress in her. The apsara who was a tool of passion.
Meghna seldom gave in to her own lusts. Her entire existence was built around manipulating the lusts of others. But here, on this dark stretch of road, with this dark stretch of man, she let herself plunge straight into selfish debauchery. Claiming his mouth, burying the fear and tension and impulse that had guided her every move inside the research facility. Erasing everything but the here and the now. The scent of him. The feel of him. The adrenaline racing through her veins.
“Meg,” he gasped under her siege. “Meg, love…” But he didn’t stop her. Didn’t remove her from her awkward perch on his knees, pressed between his chest and the steering wheel. No, he just toggled the lever that pushed the seat back, giving them some room. Then he slid his hand up along her spine until he was cradling her neck in one large palm—and he kissed her back. Hard and furious and just as desperate for distraction, for completion, as she was.
Somehow they got their pants and her underthings sorted. With the expert contortions of two people who’d managed tight spaces before. A condom materialized like a conjurer’s trick, and then there was nothing stopping them but misgivings they were too far gone to voice. It wasn’t like the hotel room. The choreographed seduction where her mind was on a thousand other things as her body did the work. She was here. Present. All in. Just as he was all inside her. Surging up into her, meeting her when she slammed down and took him, grinding her clit against the outer ridge of his cock.
It was quick. Frantic. Chasing orgasm like they’d been chased in the hallway. Two predators. No prey. Equally matched. Elijah nipped at her throat. She sank her nails into his shoulders. They panted nonsense words and sounds against each other’s ears, and Meghna told herself that the sex was just as meaningless. They were blowing off steam. Two people who’d already done this before, so what was the shame in doing it again? In enjoying it for what it was? Bodies grinding. Lips exploring. Fingers diving down between them as Elijah worked her clit with his thumb and she stroked his sac. Sweat and salt and skin and precious seconds until she was falling apart on top of him. Meghna took the pleasure and the escape. Grabbed it with both hands. Not because she needed information. Not because she needed to know Elijah’s game. But because she needed to come, and he was the one bringing her there.
When it was done, she moved back to the passenger seat. Tugged on what was left of her clothes. The air between them was hot and musky, smelling strongly of what they’d just done. She rolled down the window to let the cool air take it away. To let common sense return. And it did with two words. “The Naga,” she said. The snake hybrid back at the clinic. It hadn’t sat right with her. Seeing him there. A tool of a mad scientist and her so-called boyfriend’s schemes. “They’re incredibly rare supernaturals. Schoenlein shouldn’t have had access to that DNA. How did he get it? How did he create that shifter I put to sleep?”
If Elijah was disturbed by her change of subject, change of attitude, he didn’t let on. He simply continued cleaning himself up, disposed of the condom out his own window, and fumbled around for the hand sanitizer that almost everyone kept in their vicinity these days. “Good question,” he said as he rubbed alcohol solution on his palms and then offered her the bottle. “Lucky for you, we have someone at 3S who can provide answers.”
“You have a Naga on staff?” She couldn’t hide her skepticism. She could hide how her skin still burned from his touch and her body was still wet and wanting, but she couldn’t hide that. The sharp sting of alcohol filled her nostrils as she ruthlessly scrubbed her hands with the sanitizer. Like that could clean away some impulsive car sex.
“No, I have a Naga’s cousin on staff,” Elijah said as he put the car in drive, getting them back on the road. “Is there anything else you’d like to know about my personnel? Fancy a look at the HR files?”
“You have a human resources department?” she sputtered before she could think better of it. What was it about Elijah Richter that made her forget all of her poise, all of her media training? Meghna just replied, reacted, without taking a moment to consider her goals. Just like she’d pounced, kissed, fucked, without giving a damn.
“Well, supe and human,” he corrected, amusement brightening his eyes. “Off-site. Everything’s done digitally and securely. Safer that way.”
Third Shift’s HR office could’ve been on the moon for all she cared. But unlike with Mirko and his goons, she didn’t feel the need to tune out. To play the bubbleheaded arm candy while she mentally ran mission scenarios and went through her social calendar. Meghna liked listening to Elijah. She liked the timbre of his voice, the notes of his accent—at times so very rough-and-tumble London and at times the lilt of the Caribbean. And she liked what he had to say about Third Shift.
The Vidrohi…they were a collective, not an organization. Camaraderie—any kind of attachment—was incredibly difficult just by virtue of how they operated. It was hard to bond with people through encrypted messages, masked voice calls, and anonymous intel drops. And that was the point. Because if you bonded, then you felt things. And if you felt things, it made it that much harder to fuck a stranger or kill one for the cause. Meghna knew that not all sex workers viewed the job as such. Many had spouses, children, perfectly healthy emotional lives. But being an apsara was something different. Something that went beyond a business transaction between two or more consenting adults. It was seduction in the name of deceit and espionage. With or without her powers engaged, it was a lie. And thanks to how her kind had evolved with their allegiance to the Vidrohi, sometimes that lie was fatal.
Evolved. Wait.The chill that grabbed hold of her then had nothing to do with the late fall air rushing through the open window. What if that was why Ayesha had really gone missing? Had these mad scientists figured out a way to extract DNA from all types of supernatural beings? “What else do they have, Elijah? What if they have material from ifrits and other jinn? What if they’ve made an apsara? If they start moving beyond shifters, imagine the damage they could do.”
“No worries, Meghna. We’re going to stop them before they get that far.” Her non sequitur didn’t faze him. Maybe nothing about her fazed him. “Besides which, they had a starting point with the military when it came to shifters. They don’t have a biological template for anyone else. Unless they’ve got some other sorts of supes in their mix.”
“Just Tavi Estrada,” she said immediately. But one didn’t need to engineer more vampires. It was much simpler. All done with a bite and a transfer of blood. “I think he’s been holding out on them, though. He’s not the type to create more vampires willy-nilly.”
Elijah nodded, digesting that bit of insight. “One point in his favor then, but I’d reckon Finn doesn’t want to give him any at all.”
That brought them to the parallel op taking place tonight. Just a simple meeting between Estrada and Third Shift’s representatives. In Meghna’s experience, the things you expected to be easy seldom were. “He keeps to himself,” she said of the quiet vampire. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, the sort of handsome frequently described as “rugged.” The few times she’d seen him unguarded, he’d smiled like a saint and danced like a sinner. “I don’t really know what he’s doing with Mirko, why he chose him of all people to align with. It’s never made all that much sense. But I suppose the same could be said of me. We all have our reasons.”
“And you’re still not going to tell me yours, are you?” Elijah huffed and shook his head, glancing at the rearview. There were no headlights reflected. If anyone had caught on to them breaking into Schoenlein’s facility, they weren’t on their tail yet.
“No. I’m not.” Meghna felt no shame in admitting it. As far as she was concerned, Elijah knew everything about her that he needed to know. Where to kiss her. How to touch her. And when to turn his attention back to the road and steer them toward New York. He put dancehall on the radio…and turned the volume up loud enough to drown out the tiny internal voice itching to tell him “pull over” again.
* * *
Hector’s was a two-story establishment in a converted brownstone just across the street from one of the many Broadway theaters. A blue awning and a bright vertical marquee emblazoned with a palm tree advertised the restaurant’s name with just enough panache to draw in tourists for a prix-fixe meal and some drinks. Grace felt simultaneously overdressed and underdressed once she and Finian went inside.
“I miss the old place,” he murmured in her ear, giving her arm a reassuring squeeze. “But this is just about what it looked like there.”
The front dining room was elegant, with white tablecloths and dark wooden furniture. Ceiling fans spun slowly and wooden window shades were set into the wall, bringing to mind a grand old house in Havana. Half the tables were populated by people in jeans and T-shirts with their Playbills sticking out of their shopping bags. Heads swiveled to take note of her in her slinky dress and heels and Finian in his tight-fitting black leather and eyeliner. They probably looked like minor celebrities or like trouble—which would be more accurate. Welcome to your authentic New York experience, she wanted to tell the gawkers ruefully. Instead, she focused on the bright side. The city’s economy was slowly bouncing back after the past few years. Tourists had returned in droves, and the theaters were all open again. Border checks and increased drone surveillance be damned, the Big Apple was still the best city in the world. Grace didn’t want to live anywhere else.
“So where do we start?” she asked Finn as he swept her past the maître d’ stand with nothing more than a dazzling smile at the confused young woman standing there with menus.
He nodded toward a set of stairs at the back of the dining room. “The Santiago Lounge.”
When they reached the top of the steps, it was the moment Grace felt like she hadn’t dressed up enough. An intimate club-like venue with rum cocktails, small plates, and live music, the lounge was filled with men in sharp linen suits and women in bright dresses. There was a quintet of musicians on the stage to their right, a bar buzzing with thirsty patrons to their left. Grace didn’t need Finn’s tight posture and clenched jaw to tell her that Tavi Estrada was indeed in the house.
He was the incongruous fifth in the band. The only man not wearing a guayabera or a jaunty fedora and, at least visibly, decades younger than the silver-haired horn players and the men on the drums. He sat on the edge of the stage, a guitar in his lap, finishing up a haunting Spanish ballad. His smooth, low voice entwined with the trumpet like a lover, and if half the audience didn’t care…it didn’t matter to him. He was the music and the music was him. Nothing else existed. She recognized that feeling. It was her in the OR.
“I’ll get us a drink,” Finn bit off sharply, not as spellbound by Estrada’s performance. “Don’t break any hearts—or any legs—while I’m gone.”
By the time he returned with a blackberry mojito for her and a rum punch for himself, she’d found them a shiny black high-top near the stage. Not that it was necessary to stay in the band’s sight line. She had no doubt in her mind that Tavi had seen them enter, recognized Finian, and knew exactly where in the lounge they were. They didn’t have to wait long. Sure enough, once he finished his heartrending tribute to lost love and said his thank-yous to the band, the vampire immediately made his way to their table against the wall.
Finn clapped softly as he approached. A golf clap. There was nothing sincere about it. Petty was definitely the theme of the evening. “You still have them eating out of the palm of your hand, Tav,” he said by way of greeting. “Makes it that much easier to take a bite of their necks, doesn’t it?”
The other vampire didn’t even blink at the dig. “Never thought I’d see you in the audience again, Finian,” he said, like they were old friends instead of something far deeper and stranger, before turning to Grace. “And who is your beautiful companion?”
“It depends what you’re going to do with that information,” she murmured, taking a slow sip of her mojito, prolonging the moment…and slipping her free hand into her purse. She activated the Cricket that Joaquin had furnished her with before they left HQ. It was a privacy shield, emitting a high-frequency noise that would mask their conversation for eavesdroppers. “You have a reputation, Mr. Estrada. Not just for singing but for selling.”
His polite demeanor slipped a notch, the agreeable smile of a musician greeting his fans wavering. With his enhanced vampiric senses, he likely heard the Cricket and knew what that meant. “So I take it this is business, not pleasure?” When their only answer was shared silence, he reached for Finn’s rum punch and drank half in one gulp. That, more than the pettiness, more than the niceties, spoke of the history between the two.
“I take no pleasure in discussing your business,” Finn assured him as Estrada thunked the glass back down on the table, sloshing rum and juice over the rim. “But it’s come to our attention that you’ve been running with the wrong sort of a crowd.”
Estrada gave a theatrical shudder. “God forbid!” he exclaimed. His polished voice was devoid of regional accent. Unlike Finn, who’d clung to his Irish brogue. “If you don’t like my new friends, I don’t know what I’ll do with myself. I might cry.”
The sarcasm dripped from his tongue like the distilled molasses he’d just downed, so Grace took the perfect opening to ask him, “Are they really your friends?”
“No.” He snorted and helped himself to the rest of the punch.
It wasn’t an answer that pleased Finn, who growled his frustration. “So why, Tav? Why are you working with these people?”
“Maybe I’ve changed.” The shrug was elegant even if the man himself seemed more like a pirate than a gentleman. His dark hair curled around his face, a few streaks of silver the only markers of age. The scarf thrown carelessly across his neck was a brick red, almost brown, like dried blood. “Maybe I’ve sold my soul to the highest bidder. You were always worried about the state of my soul, weren’t you? Here we are.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it,” Finn snapped. He leaned forward across the small table, his eyes blazing and his normally easy tone filled with fury. “I understand you being out for yourself…but traffickers? Racists? People who’d gladly see you dead for who you are and who you love? There’s no way you’ve changed that much.”
The smile Tavi Estrada flashed them didn’t reach his eyes. They were flat, lifeless, like dirty copper coins. “You haven’t changed at all. Still giving impassioned sermons.” Maybe something in how she moved or breathed betrayed her, because his gaze flicked to Grace. “Did you know?” he asked. “Has he told you that he was a priest once?”
Oh.So many things fell into place with that one revelation. Like the tumblers on a safe, now unlocked. It didn’t hurt…but she ached. Not for herself but for her friend, for her partner. A man of so many contradictions, so many vulnerabilities, all hidden behind the devil’s own tongue and the most beautiful blue eyes she’d ever seen. Grace channeled Dr. Freeze, the Ice Queen, and marshaled her physical responses once more. There was no need to give Tavi more weapons against Finn. Not when he had decades of them in his arsenal already.
“Seminarian,” Finn said softly, drawing his former lover’s attention back to him. “Acolyte. But never a priest. I never finished. I never took holy orders. And why might that be? Care to hazard a guess, Grace of my heart?”
Oh, here was the pain for herself. Hearing his nickname for her like this. Not as an intimate joke between the two of them but as a gauntlet thrown for someone else. But she knew better than to flinch. This was not her fight. She was just collateral damage in a conflict that had begun decades before she was born. And more importantly, they had an asset to finesse. “Because that was when he turned you—both into a vampire and into the spy game,” she said aloud.
“Aye,” Finn confirmed. “And he fucked me too. But who are you fucking now, Tav? And for what purpose? What could be worth consorting with the likes of Mirko Aston?”
For a moment, Estrada’s cool veneer slipped away, a sharp surge of emotion darkening his eyes and flushing his cheeks. Only a moment. Then it was gone and the mask returned. With the dead eyes of a shark circling its prey. “Do you really expect me to answer, Finian? To tell you everything? It’s not so easy as that.”
Grace had been caught between Finn and another man before. In a far more pleasurable clinch. That night suddenly felt like years ago now. Where she and Nate had fussed over Finn’s still-healing wounds and put him to bed…and then joined him there. This was different. This wasn’t about healing or affirming life. It was dark and painful and dredging up a past she had no part of. That’s why he needs you, she reminded herself. That’s why you came. To remind him to stay in the light and in the now. She stepped forward, angling her body so Finn was behind her. It was time to take control of this little reunion.
“Then what’s the incentive you need?” she demanded. “Money? Information? For us to say ‘please’? What’s your price, Estrada? You say you sold your soul… What will it cost us?”
“Ay, querida.” The vampire sighed with air he didn’t need to breathe. And here was the Latinx accent he’d code-switched away before. Along with the honesty. “You can’t afford me.”