Pretty Little Lion by Suleikha Snyder

23

Elijah lived on the top floor of 3S HQ, in one of the two luxury apartments. “Perks of the job,” Jackson liked to call it, especially seeing as how he lived in the other one. There were other, smaller units scattered throughout the building—including the underground lair that Finn called his own. Danny Yeo and his new bride had just taken over one. Joaquin ran their hacker empire from another. Lije had been tempted to become their neighbor when his teaching term at the Westchester Military School just outside of the city had ended two years ago. It burned him to even consider moving into a place that could fit the flat he’d grown up in into one room. Even his staff quarters at the school had been spare. But Jack put his Ferragamo-clad foot down. “Absolutely not. You’ve earned your way to the top, my friend. You’ve paid for it and then some. Now let yourself enjoy it.”

He’d never seen Jack’s point, never appreciated it, until he brought Meghna home after the morning briefing. Not that she spent much time admiring or exploring the space—which he’d furnished in dark woods and chromes from IKEA and Crate & Barrel, because you could give a man a posh pad, but you couldn’t make him buy a $6,000 credenza. No, Meghna turned to him in the open living room, her gaze barely lingering on the high ceilings, the tall windows. She spent maybe moments more taking in the football posters on the walls and the record collection he’d been amassing since he was fourteen. He was all that mattered to her, not his fancy digs. But as he looked back at her, met those gorgeous eyes, all he could think was that she looked good here. She looked like she belonged in a place like this. And maybe that meant he belonged in it, too.

She arched an eyebrow. Her lips tilted in a rueful smile. The spokesmodel, the brand ambassador, saying everything with a single expression. “So this is you.”

“Mm-hmm.” He slipped his arms around her, pleased when she didn’t resist. When she nestled in. Meghna Saunders, a cuddler. Who knew?

But her next words belied the physical softness. They were hard. Cynical. From social butterfly to black widow. “Aren’t you afraid someone’s going to burn it down now that I’m here?”

No. He was afraid of a lot of things, but not that. He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. That high hairdo with its deadly pins. And then he kissed the side of her equally sharp face. The bow of her scimitar mouth. “The only arsonists here are us, love,” he told her. “You and me. Setting my bed on fire.”

She didn’t offer a counterargument. Maybe it was easier to speak with her body. With how she fiercely kissed him back and frenetically tore at his clothes. They stumbled through his fancy apartment, leaving bits of discarded clothing in their wake. Burning a trail to his bedroom. All the places they’d bruised and scratched just hours ago in the med bay, they now stroked and licked. Was that their cycle then? Violence and then tenderness? Frenzy and then the beautifully slow burn? He’d take it. Revel in it. He’d earned it, hadn’t he? Now he was determined to enjoy it.

Later, much later, Elijah found himself puzzling over the same question he’d had when he discovered what and who she really was. “How do you do it?”

“Do what?” There was sleep in her voice, but suspicion too.

“This.” Elijah glanced meaningfully at the strewn sheets and their entwined limbs. Somehow, they’d managed that tangle you only saw in movies and on TV. Her whole body covered, him bared to the waist.

“How did you do it?” Meghna turned the question back around on him, like she’d done so effortlessly the other day in the elevator—fuck, had it really only been days and not months? “You had no idea what you were walking into with me. Whether I’d respond to you. Whether I’d like you. Whether I’d be anti-Black. Conservative. My father voted red for most of his life,” she said. “Obama was the first time he went the other way.”

It shouldn’t have surprised him. Her just putting it out there like that. She kept her secrets, sure, but she’d been free with her opinions. He rolled to his side, propping his head up on his hand. Studying her face. So open when it was usually closed. “We researched you,” he said honestly. “Your voting records. Your friends. Even your Netflix queue. The paparazzi shots of you in Black Lives Matter shirts.”

“Performative allyship,” she pointed out. “Plenty of people wear the swag and don’t believe it. As long as they hashtag it or retweet it, that’s all that matters to them.”

Elijah nodded, conceding the point with a short laugh. He and Joaquin had the same argument with Jack at least a few times a year over pints and darts. “So you’re saying you’re performative in all ways? Sex and politics?” he couldn’t help but tease.

“Oh, fuck you.” Meghna pulled one of the pillows out from beneath her head and hit him with it. Playful, but still hard enough that he could swear he tasted feathers.

“Ow!” he exclaimed with exaggerated outrage as he tossed the makeshift missile to the foot of the bed. It was strange to see this aspect of her personality. Strange and…encouraging. She was letting him in. Letting him see the side of her that pondered and the side that played.

“You researched. You moved forward with me. I have to do the same.” She settled back against the headboard, chewing on her lower lip, measuring her thoughts and her words. “Even if it’s someone I’d never associate with in my personal time.”

“That’s a helluva risk to take, Meg.” He wasn’t some hypocrite who was against sex work. His sister Amani had worked one of those XXX mobile hotlines for years to pay for uni and grad school. But what Meghna did…it was in person. And it wasn’t just a transaction. It was espionage, if not more. She went to bed with killers and frequently woke up one herself. “You ever think there might be someone you can’t charm? You can’t overpower?”

“Like you weren’t taking a risk with me?” Meghna fired back. “Even if you didn’t know how much danger you were in at the time. That’s the job we do, whatever shape it takes. It’s not like ‘dating across the aisle’ or ‘fucking across the aisle’ or whatever cutesy thing all those lifestyle blogs want to call it. If it weren’t for the work, I couldn’t see myself even talking to a man like Mirko Aston. Much less touching him. He’s against everything I stand for. Everything I am. Most of the men I’ve targeted over the years are fundamentally vile. Racist, homophobic, misogynistic abusers who want me to go back to where I came from—but only after they come their brains out.”

It was a precarious dance she did. Public face, private body. Both with their own agendas. “You said your reputation was taking a hit for being seen with the likes of them. Aren’t you worried your public persona will stop being effective cover?”

“Of course.” Meghna made a face. “My badass publicist can only do so much. It’ll work until it doesn’t. But better my reputation than my life or someone else’s.”

Except that she was putting her life in danger. Willingly. Knowingly. While fucking men she loathed. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t fathom it. “You still haven’t answered my question, Meg. How do you do this? Because I got one go at you and lost my whole head. No objectivity. No eyes on the mission. Nothing. But you? You’ve done this again and again. With people who’d probably want to see you debased, deported, or dead if you weren’t in their bed. You let them close. And sure, sometimes you take them out, but sometimes they walk away with a piece of you.”

Meghna was quiet for a long time. Touching his hip, the border of his rib cage, before pulling away. “It disgusts you, doesn’t it?” she asked. “The sex work. The wet work. You can tell me, you know.”

Elijah’s chest constricted. Disgust? For this remarkable woman? Never. But was there worry? Yeah. Of course. “Killing people’s not an easy thing, Meg. Even if you shrug it off. I know it lives inside you. And the other work you do to get there, the sex work”—he made himself say it so she had no lingering doubts about where he stood with the concept—“it scares the hell out of me. Because I couldn’t manage it. Not even for one hot weekend. And you’ve done it for years without losing who you are and what you stand for. But disgust? No. You’ve got my feelings all wrong on that count. I’m in awe of you. Of your strength. Of your commitment to your cause. Of how you just don’t give a damn.”

Meghna scooted to the edge of the mattress. As far as she could go before falling off. He almost dreaded what she was going to say. Something cutting. Something that denied everything they’d been through so far. But she gave him none of that. “Now you’ve got me wrong,” she said, tracing patterns on her kneecaps with her fingertip. “Because I do give a damn. With you.” It was almost like she was talking to herself, not him. “All those marks? They’ve never taken anything valuable. Anything I didn’t knowingly let them have. But you? Elijah, if I have anything good and real left in me to give anyone, it’s yours.”

Meghna. Fuck.The breath rushed out of him in a whoosh like he’d been punched in the gut. He reached across the divide she’d created. Put his palm over hers on her knee. What could he do but be as naked as she was being with him? “You have so much good in you. So much that’s real. And you own it. Not me,” he confessed. “I’m just falling for you because of it.”

She didn’t look at him. She bowed her head. He could hear her rapid breaths with his supernatural ears. “You’re what?” she asked softly, like she hadn’t heard exactly what he’d said.

He could walk it back. What he’d revealed. But Elijah had never been a coward. Mum and Dad hadn’t raised a man who couldn’t stand behind his words. He took a deep gulp of courage and air. He squeezed her knee. Just the feel of her squeezed at his chest. “You heard me. I have feelings for you, Meghna Saxena-Saunders.”

She raised her head, face hidden by the curtain of her loosed hair. “Already?”

“Already.” Because that was the truth, wasn’t it? Maybe he’d fallen for her the first time he saw her, like some poor starstruck fan. Maybe he’d been off his head when she sank to her knees to seduce him and when she stared dispassionately down at Sasha Nichols’s body. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact second; he only knew that it had happened and he would never be the same.

Meghna covered his hand with hers. She stared down after doing it, as if memorizing or analyzing how it looked. Her smaller golden-brown hands sandwiching his dark-brown one. She was no less dangerous. They were both equally capable of meting out harsh justice, of dealing death. “Is it because you’re a lion? A shifter thing?”

Oh. Oh, beautiful baby girl. She couldn’t dare to trust. Not even now. He curled toward her. Closing the space she’d deliberately put between them. “No, it’s an Elijah thing. A you-and-me thing.” Because if she couldn’t meet him…well, he was strong enough to go to where she was. To stay there for as long as it took to make her believe him.

Meghna held herself still. So painstakingly still. His pretty predator. Maybe she’d kill him now. Slice him with one of her blades. Or maybe she’d cut him with her words. Bound to be even sharper. “There’s a ‘you and me’?” She turned on her side. So they were face-to-face. Her eyes were like dark, drowning pools. Fuck, she was gorgeous like this. Sweated out of her makeup, her armor. “Are you sure about that? Because I’m not. I’m not sure of anything anymore.”

This was a pivotal moment. He knew that without having to be given a clue. And Elijah had no problem rising to the occasion. With his prick, and with his heart. “Nothing performative here, love,” he admitted. “Only the truth as I see it. As I feel it.” And he felt her. The beat of her pulse under his mouth. The slightest trembling of her body beneath his as she digested his words and what they meant. Oh, Meg. Sweetheart. Just let someone love you. Like you deserve.

Yes, he was in love with her. He loved her. Perhaps he should’ve been embarrassed to put it all out there, but there simply wasn’t time. They only had this small bit of respite before diving back into the game. And he wasn’t going to waste it when he could die tomorrow. There was no sense in holding anything back. No shame in laying all of his cards on the table. He was mad for Meghna, and he wanted to be with her as much as he wanted his next breath. If they made it through Mirko’s auction, if they survived the next week, the first thing he’d do was ask her for something real. Lasting.

“You’re going to regret it,” she murmured into his neck. “Anyone who cares about me usually does. Look what happened to Chase.”

“I’m not Chase,” Elijah said, pulling her more securely against him, stroking circles along the tense column of her spine. “I know who you are. More than that, I know who I am and how far I’ll go for someone I care about.” Third Shift. His family. Now Meghna. He’d protect them all with his life. No regrets whatsoever.

“I can’t make any promises.” Meghna was still speaking to his skin. To the hard line of his collarbone. Her hair spilling across his chest. “I won’t give you any hope.”

“I know,” he said simply. Because he did and he understood why, too.

But then she gave him what she could. Her touch. Her affection. Her passion. And that spoke more eloquently than the words ever would.

* * *

Everything told her to go. Like that time in Reno. And the time in Montreal. Her molecules shoving her out of bed. Her blood screaming to escape. Get out. Now. Meghna was halfway to the front door, clothes bundled against her breast, exit strategies running through her head, when she made herself stop. When she remembered she didn’t have to sneak off like a thief in the night. Old habits died so very hard. Because her instincts were telling her to run…and those things she’d only recently identified as softer emotions were begging for her to stay. Elijah was asking for her to stay, even though he was still asleep in the bed they’d nearly wrecked.

“You heard me. I have feelings for you, Meghna Saxena-Saunders.”

Plenty of men had told her they loved her before. That they had feelings. That they wanted some sort of reciprocation. All but one had been lying…and it had landed him in the hospital years after the fact. Not exactly a rousing endorsement. Now here was this lion shifter, this gorgeous man, putting himself in the line of fire. Maybe that was why Meghna had such a strong desire to get the hell out of Dodge.

She let her hastily gathered up clothes spill to the floor as she made her way back to the bedroom. Where she just stood in the doorway for a moment. Two moments. Three. Studying the shape of the man tangled in the sheets. A week ago, she’d had no idea he existed. Now she knew the intimate curves of his body. How he smelled and tasted. How passionately he cared. It wasn’t that she didn’t care. Meghna wasn’t…cold. But it had been so long since she’d let herself exist beyond the surface, beyond the roles she played. Emotional investment was just a step too far. If she started feeling, then she started thinking, and then she started second-guessing. And then she couldn’t pretend she liked Mirko Aston’s clammy hands on her skin.

But that jig was up, wasn’t it? She’d never have to fake it for the arms dealer again. She’d just have to be real for the man across the threshold. Can you handle that, Meghna? That was the million-dollar question. She didn’t have the answer. So she just slipped back into bed and fit herself against Elijah’s back.

“Couldn’t do it, hmm?” he murmured sleepily.

Of course. A shifter. An operative. He hadn’t slept through her departure at all. “Don’t be so smug,” she said, dropping her arm around his hip.

He shook with barely suppressed laughter. “Not smug, Meg. Just happy.”

Happy. That was another thing she was unfamiliar with these days. Unless you counted getting a swag box of lipstick from a prominent makeup brand or cashmere lounge wear from an athlete turned designer. What was happiness to someone like her except a fleeting feeling you got from two scoops of ginger ice cream and a good gin martini? Fuck. She didn’t want to equate joy with the wild scent of Elijah’s skin. With his solid bulk offering her something, someone, tangible to hold onto. She didn’t want to equate joy with anything that was supposed to last.

Nothing lasted in her life. Not her parents’ relationship. Not any mother-daughter bond. Not safety or security, citizenship or personhood. The only certainty she had was that things were shitty. And that it was her job to make things slightly less shitty. Meghna was a weapon. Just like the stilettos she favored. She wasn’t a person. She didn’t get to have real wants and needs. That was ridiculous. That was too much. That was…who she wanted to be. In a perfect world.

Goddammit. Meghna inhaled. Exhaled. Clung to Elijah like the life preserver he’d thrown her. And then his watch chimed with alerts that drove them both upright.

“Estrada’s back on-site with Mirko,” he rumbled, staring at the digital screen on his wrist. “Everything’s going according to plan.”

Was it, though? Was there even a plan? She shoved a handful of her hair out of her face and curled her legs beneath her. “When do we move out?” she demanded. “That’s all I care about.”

Elijah’s brows rose. “Is it?”

No. No, it wasn’t. And he knew that full well. She scowled. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in the middle of a clusterfuck that could have disastrous global implications,” she pointed out. “Pardon me if I don’t stop to be glad we have a break.”

He wasn’t the least bit contrite. His dark-brown eyes were soft. So were his fingertips along her cheek. “You can, though, love. You can breathe,” he urged. “You can rest. The clusterfuck will still be there when you’re done. It’ll always be there.”

“That makes us pretty bad at our jobs, doesn’t it? If it’ll always be there?” Meghna couldn’t help but play the contrarian. Mostly because it was a legitimate question she had about the longevity of anyone in the game. The Vidrohi had existed in some form or another since the beginning of recorded time. Didn’t that mean they’d failed in their core mission to set the world to rights? Or was it just that there would always be evil to balance out the good? You could only ever hope to be one step ahead before it caught up with you. “Or does it mean we can never retire?”

“Got plans for your 401(k), do you?” Elijah chuckled before settling back against the headboard and giving the question more consideration. “I don’t know that I’ve got that much time left with 3S,” he admitted quietly. “Either because I’m getting on in years, or because someone’ll take me out. One way or another, my work will come to an end. But the threat…that’ll keep going. That doesn’t mean I was bad at my job. It means humans will always be humans. Supes will always be supes.”

She nodded, because she understood that logic. “You’re saying peace is not in our nature.”

Elijah tugged her back toward him, so she was cradled between his massive thighs and sheltered against his chest. “Would you even be content with peace?” he asked, stroking her hair. So much comfort, even as he asked her uncomfortable questions.

“I don’t know.” She’d had no chance to find out. No opportunity to learn. Not just because of the charge her mother had laid upon her, but because of the direction of the country, of the world. A slow crawl to fascism that had turned into a free fall after the Darkest Day. And sure, plenty of the people she’d gone to high school and college with had clapped their metaphorical hands over their ears and eyes and ignored what was happening. Almost everyone from her MBA program was a corporate bigwig now, rolling in dough. They’d all continued on, luxury and denial allowing them to live just as they once had. While children were being thrown in cages and mass deportations were put into effect. Meghna wasn’t plenty of people. She wasn’t other people. She’d embraced the opportunity to make—to force—change. And if she’d wished, occasionally, to have a different life…well, the feeling hadn’t lasted. It couldn’t. Not as long as men like Mirko Aston walked the earth.

“Can I tell you a secret, Meg?” Elijah rested his chin atop her head…which would have annoyed her if it weren’t an unconscious gesture. It wasn’t patronizing. Just…natural. Like he felt he could.

“You’re going to tell me either way,” she pointed out dryly. This, too, was natural. To tease him like she knew this about him.

“Oh, I am, am I?” He huffed, tickling her side before letting his hand fall back to the mattress. “I want to believe we’ll be okay,” he said, picking up the thread like he’d never dropped it. “That by the time I’m old and gray, we’ll have sorted it all out. Does that make me a fool?”

“No.” It didn’t. Not by a long shot. Meghna had known a great number of fools in her life. He wasn’t even in the Top 100. “It makes you exactly who I thought you were. An idealist. A hero. A man with an overabundance of hope.”

Maybe some of his hope and idealism would spill over to her. Maybe it already had. And that was why she was still here. Why she’d come back instead of running off to parts unknown. Meghna wasn’t naive enough to call that love. Like she’d said to him earlier, “I can’t make any promises. I won’t give you any hope.” But it was something. Something strong and real and binding that she wanted more of. That she craved more of. She’d been alone a very long time. Too long. Surrounded by people but forever by herself in a crowd. Her own doing, of course, but that didn’t make it any easier. It just meant she knew precisely where to lay the blame.

Elijah was laughing when she snapped back from her self-reflection. A warm, rumbling sound, not unlike a purr. “I’m no one’s hero,” he said quietly. “I’m just trying to do what’s right.”

So was she. But their methods were completely different. Meghna saw most people as expendable. He saw every life as something worthy of being saved. She used men like tissues. Like Mrs. White in Clue. At best, they were “soft, strong, and disposable.” Whereas Elijah had attempted his first seduction for this mission and failed spectacularly. Or succeeded and then some, depending on how you looked at it. After all, she was here, wasn’t she? In his literal bed?

She was marveling at that, all of that, when simultaneous vibrations jerked her head toward the dark corners of the bedroom. Her devices. All of them. From wherever the Third Shift people had stashed her things. Meghna leapt from the bed like she was the lion shifter, finding her purse hanging off a hook attached to the wardrobe. Shit. Shit. She’d been out of touch for more than twenty-four hours. And if it was more than Em could handle…

Elijah was out of bed, too, like a shot. Beside her as she tossed her silent burners aside with a clatter and pulled forth her three “real” devices. Mirko had to be furious, she thought, as she thumbed out her security code on the first phone and pulled up the messages. He hadn’t caught her yet. She’d gone to ground. Slipped through his grasping fingers. Whatever this was, it was to draw her out. To pay her back.

They were photos. Nothing but photos. Of Chase. First in what was clearly his hospital bed at UCLA. And then…then in a chair. Looking pale and wan, anything but the beloved action hero, in his polka-dot gown. A saline drip on a stand the only concession to his wounds. She stared down as if she was some odd sort of remote watcher. Half-fascinated, half-horrified. Like rubbernecking at a car crash. Surely this wasn’t her ex-husband. Surely they hadn’t continued to use him as a bargaining chip? How had they smuggled him out of the hospital without raising a single alarm? Oh hell. Getting him shot hadn’t been enough. Now she’d gotten him kidnapped, too.

“I don’t have to care,” she said aloud. If her hands were shaking…well, that was just an unfortunate physical response. “This doesn’t have to mean anything.” It was just a play. One she could ignore. Chase could die in this anonymous warehouse, and it didn’t have to impact her goals in the slightest. Because Mirko had miscalculated. Yes, she had a soft spot for Chase. For everybody on her celebrity text chain, too. But would she risk her core objective for any of them? No. So why were her knees like jelly? Why did she accept it when Elijah caught her and banded his arm across her hips to keep her upright?

“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” he acknowledged with a growl. “But that’s not you, is it, Meghna? No matter how hard you pretend. You care. They know you care. I know you care.”

Chase was innocent. “Big, dumb, and tons of fun,” so many of the tabloids called him. As if a “himbo” couldn’t have depth, couldn’t have feelings. He’d given her an escape when she’d needed it. A chance to be the vapid little celebutante brat everyone thought she was. He didn’t deserve this. To be a plot device in a suspense novel. To be a cudgel they used to beat her. “We have to get him out,” she said. Slightly amazed that her voice was even working. That she had the capacity for words. “They can’t have him, Elijah. I have to go.”

“Not alone, you don’t,” he said fiercely into her ear. So warm. Velvet heat brushing her lobe. “You’ve got me now, love. Us. The whole of Third Shift. And we’ll find him. It’s all right.”

When her phones all vibrated in unison again, it was he who looked at the message. Who told her what it said. You can have him or the serum. One location, one choice.

It was spelled too precisely to be from Mirko himself. Meghna had to giggle hysterically as she registered that. Maybe it was Tavi Estrada, so recently returned to the fold. Maybe another minion in on the plans. But they’d made it easy. Efficient. Chase and the serum all in one place. It was almost too easy.

Elijah didn’t laugh so much as scoff. “Why is it always kidnappings with this lot?” he demanded. “They nabbed one of my people last month. Now they’ve got one of yours. No imagination whatsoever.”

And why did supervillains always lay out these traps in such obvious ways? Did they not think people could go to the police? The FBI? The CIA? Meghna’s father was a high-level defense contractor, for fuck’s sake. But such was their arrogance. Such was white supremacy. They assumed they could take control, and people like her, like Elijah, would just fall in line. No, she had no intention of going to the police, the FBI, or the CIA, but she had Third Shift. She had her own wits, her own skills. If things worked in their favor, she wouldn’t have to choose between her ex and the shape-shifter serum. But maybe she’d have to choose between her heart and what was right.

No. Maybe you already have.The nagging reminder sounded more like the General than it did her own internal monologue. Like a smug “I told you so.” She looked up at Elijah, at his beautiful bearded face. “I didn’t want to compromise my mission objective for Chase…but I did it for you, didn’t I? From the minute we saw each other across that room.”

“Do you regret that?” he asked.

She gave him the only answer she could be certain of. “I hope I don’t have to.”