Pretty Little Lion by Suleikha Snyder
3
Meghna hailed a yellow cab on the corner just south of the Manhattan Grand, pulling the faux fur jacket she’d liberated from coat check around her shoulders to ward off the night’s chill wind. The mistress suite Mirko had rented for her in an entirely different hotel was downtown. She could walk a few blocks to the subway entrance at Fiftieth, take the 1 train for a few stops, and make one easy transfer to her closest line. That was asking a lot of a woman in three-inch spike heels. She could take a punch. Suck up cracked ribs. But there was no sense in tormenting her feet when god and man had invented taxis.
Besides, this way, the drones circling overhead would only capture her leaving, not her entire path. As long as she paid with cash, she was anonymous once the cab pulled away from the curb and merged with the rest of Eighth Avenue’s traffic. A sea of cars, a few pedicabs that had returned after the theaters reopened last year, a few reckless assholes on bicycles going against the flow. It was camouflage. Cover. Another layer of the lie she lived.
She’d washed up and reapplied her lipstick before making her excuses at Mirko’s party. She could still taste the man from the closet on her tongue. Beneath the sharpness of mints and the bite of mouthwash—which had been stocked in the bathroom not for her benefit but for those coke-fueled and booze-addled men who had to go home and pretend they didn’t reek of vice. Meghna had no use for that kind of pretense. Everyone already saw her as a party girl. If she stumbled home smelling of high-end liquor and smoke, it only added to the story. If she tasted a man’s come, inhaled the musky scent of his thick dick, and remembered the weight of it as she headed to her paid-for pied-à-terre…wasn’t that just expected?
No.Not that last part. She was supposed to forget. She was supposed to fling the memory away like a condom wrapper or a burned-out match. She’d done so more times than she could count over the past decade.
“You don’thave to sleep with them, Meghna. You can simply dispatch them,” her first handler had said to her during one of their increasingly rare in-person meetings. As if it was a genuine concern for her mental and physical well-being. “Sex is not our only weapon.”
“That’s funny coming from you,”she’d replied, setting aside the file with her next assignment. They hadn’t gone digital yet, not then. And she hadn’t bothered to expand or clarify or even defend her methods. The woman they’d nicknamed “the General” didn’t get to judge her. Not after the choices she’d made.
Sex wasn’t Meghna’s only weapon, but it was a damn good one. Efficient. Literally catching targets with their pants down. She could poison them. Stab them. Shoot them. Almost anything was easier when someone let down their guard for her. As long as she never let her guard down for them. And thus far, she never had. Not even for her husband. She’d wooed him for her work and then let herself enjoy being Chase’s red-carpet arm candy, falling into the role and into his bed. They’d played out a whirlwind romance and elopement for the weekly tabloids, and those glossy photos had captured most of the substance of their relationship. The rest of it had been actual substances. Ecstasy, ketamine, high-quality weed. Meghna hadn’t been high since the quickie divorce. She’d almost forgotten how it felt to fly like that, without a care in the world. Because the thing about flying was that you always came down. The woman she was now couldn’t afford the hard landing. Yes, she’d hit the floor for that man in the closet—but she’d only gone to her knees because she knew he’d fall, too.
Those powerful hands clenched, hovering just above her head, as if he understood he couldn’t muss her hair. His breath coming in harsh gasps as she licked him. A rumble like a purr emanating from his chest. Did shifters purr? That might warrant further hands-on investigation. Along with everything else about him.
“We can do a whole world tour of closets,”he’d murmured. “All the posh hotels. Even Buckingham Palace if you like. Only the best for a beautiful woman like yourself.”
Dammit.The car squealed to a halt in front of her destination just as her brain hit the brakes, too. She pressed a fifty-dollar bill through the slot in the Plexiglas divider and hurried out of the cab. Like she could outrun the disturbing reminder of just how much fun she’d had flirting and fellating and being fingered by a fine specimen of man. He’d made her want to laugh. That was almost more of an affront than making her come. She could fake both, sure, but she’d faked neither for him. Mostly because it hadn’t even occurred to her. She couldn’t make that mistake again. In her line of work, everything had to be a calculation.
Doctor. Lawyer. Engineer. Astronaut. Princess. General. These were career goals for most little girls. For the child Meghna had been once. So how was she now courting not one but two suspect men out of misguided duty to a country that didn’t even want her? Fifty percent patriarchy. Fifty percent twisted celestial feminism. Because now she was a firefighter, an assassin, a soldier…a million little-girl dreams twisted into one often-nightmarish charge.
Girls from other cultures, human girls, had a quinceañera or a Sweet Sixteen. Meghna’s fifteenth birthday had been celebrated in a manner befitting her father’s wealth and status, with the promise of a commensurate blowout and a fancy sports car for the following year when she was old enough to drive. She’d received a diamond solitaire necklace, a pair of Jimmy Choos she’d been eyeing all summer, and hugs from three of her favorite Bollywood actors. But the biggest and most shocking gifts she’d received that day were ones she couldn’t wear, couldn’t brag about, and probably should have found a way to return: a mother she’d never met, bearing news of a calling she’d never asked for.
“You are an apsara,”the beautiful woman she’d only recognized from painfully awkward family photos on the mantel had said, swishing toward those very picture frames in a cloud of silk. “Daughter to an apsara. And there is a war coming that will require your particular weapons.”
Spy. Operative. Secret agent. Those were the official words, the kind words, the English words. She’d been called far worse for the work she did. In multiple languages. The only name that mattered was Vidrohi. The network she’d been born into, the duty she couldn’t forsake. In simple Hindi, it meant rebellion. It meant defiance. To her and her sisters in the network, it meant everything. That was what she had to remember. That was why she was here. Kicking off her heels just inside of the high-rise hotel suite that didn’t have her name on the bill. Stalking to the bedroom as she pulled off her earrings and undid her hair. Preparing to cheat on a man she routinely pretended to adore…with a stranger she was about to identify.
Meghna undressed quickly, unearthing equipment from the bottom of her everyday bag while still naked. She ran the black light and the scanner over her skin, over the folds of her dress, looking for prints. Even a partial would do. It was amazing what the Vidrohi’s network could turn up. With their tech, with their magic. Their resources were limitless. Their patience was not. She’d been working on Mirko for months now. Almost too long. They didn’t have the luxury of devoting endless personal attention to all of the scum that walked the earth. Or to handsome mystery men. But she ignored the latter warning as she sent scans to one of her contacts. As she then wiped her devices and tucked them back beneath makeup palettes and tampons. Not that she needed the latter anymore, but they proved a simple and effective anti-snoop solution. Like hygiene products were radioactive. God forbid. You could probably fell entire dictatorships by flinging some Stayfree maxi pads like that man who’d flung a shoe at George W. Bush in 2008.
Meghna still preferred knives. They hadn’t failed her once. They weren’t like people. “Poor little rich girl,” the General had mocked her a year or so into her training. “So angry that your father ignored you and your mother abandoned you. You should feel honored that I rescued you from such a pedestrian life. That I showed you what you were meant to be and gave you a higher purpose.” Such a high purpose. Slaying monsters. Bedding monsters. Becoming one herself. But the General hadn’t been wrong. It was a better life than the one she’d almost led. She saw the truth of the world and she could rage against it. She could do something beyond throwing money at a problem and considering it solved.
Is that so? You really didn’t miss having a childhood? Having a choice?If a tiny voice deep inside her disagreed once in a while, that was just something else to overcome and ignore. She buried the whisper as she took a quick shower and readied herself for her not-so-gentleman caller. Just like she’d long ago buried her conscience, her standards, and her innocence. Some things were more hindrances than they were help. Some things…you couldn’t get back.
* * *
The party was ratcheting into high gear with the host’s girlfriend gone. Elijah couldn’t wait to leave. So he didn’t. He stayed a whopping forty minutes more after Meghna’s departure, watching the drunken debauchery until his gut roiled. And the coke. So much cocaine. An amount that only white men could do without fear of legal consequence. It was early November outside, so snow in the city was still rare, but the blizzard in the VIP suite showed no signs of abating. That was his cue to go. To leave the other guards to their well-paid duty while he saw to his own. If it didn’t sit quite right with Aston and his ilk…well, Lije wasn’t looking for references, was he?
The minutes ticked by like hours as he watched a room full of criminals snort and shoot and bray about their various deals. And then he just…left. He’d memorized the location she gave him. Not that of the place she owned in Tribeca. It was downtown. He took the train, so it gave him time to decompress. To think. To check in with HQ.
Elijah was more than a decade removed from the desert. Sometimes he swore he was still there. When a car backfired. When someone shouted just a little too loud. The first few years they had Third Shift up and running, it was as much a PTSD support group as it was a covert black ops outfit. Him and Jackson and Mack working through all of their shit from the wars. Then they started bringing in the civilians. The people who weren’t satisfied with their day jobs, with fighting for justice only to end up with sand trickling between their fingers. The supes like Finn who had nowhere else to go. That was when it had all really gotten serious. Both internally and externally. A real organization fighting real battles against oppression and fascism. For all the good it had done them. Because the fascists kept winning no matter what happened.
Elijah still remembered life without surveillance drones. Without having to show his papers whenever he set foot outside New York City limits. There were kids in primary school now who would never know anything different. Who would always understand their country to be a dictatorship dressed in the tattered remnants of democracy. Who were being taught to fear and distrust anyone different, all while upholding American exceptionalism. It was bullshit. The whole of it. He’d wondered time and again why 3S even tried. Why he even tried. Hence his brief foray into teaching at a private military academy. The place he’d met Joaquin, who’d also joined the Third Shift fold.
He can feel Jack’s gimlet eye on him the minute he hangs up the call from the school. And sure enough, the man doesn’t even wait to offer his unsolicited opinion. “Just because your friends back home call you ‘Teacher’ doesn’t mean you actually need to teach, Lije. Don’t spread yourself too thin,” he warns like Elijah is a jar of peanut butter or, god forbid, Marmite.
“Teacha,” he corrects, not that he wants Jackson to attempt it. The man’s a whiz with most languages, but not Patwah. Not by any stretch. He’d rather listen to nails on a chalkboard. “And I have to do something. If we can’t stop the next generation from turning into good little Nazis, does what we do at 3S even matter?”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Jack flings a slew of pencils across the room with the shake of one hand, embedding them in the office corkboard like darts. “Iwas one of those brats you’ll be trying to enlighten. I still went off to fight wars I didn’t believe in for administrations who didn’t give a shit.”
“Ah, but you’re not a Nazi, are you?” he points out.
“I’m a rich white asshole,” Jack says, ever so self-aware. “Look at who’s in power. These days, there’s not much difference.”
There still wasn’t much of a difference. And yet they kept trying to make one. With Jackson’s wealth. With Third Shift’s skills and resources. Elijah was supposed to be in charge now. Doing things differently than he had in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not using people like the scientists and military brass who’d cooked up Phase One of the Apex Initiative and then gone on making their own monsters with Phase Two and Phase Three. But here he was. Using Meghna Saxena-Saunders just the same.
It was new to him. Playing the honey trap. Being the bait. All of the things that Finn had teased him for in the weeks leading up to tonight. Not everyone could be a walking sex tape, yeah? Conlan was the sort of bloke you could call a “sod” or a “wanker,” and he’d say a cheerful “thank you” in return. Whether he ripped your throat out after depended on what side you were on. Lije had never been on his bad one. Being his boss rather helped in that department. But the department of job-related seduction…? He should’ve asked the vampire for pointers. A brief. A TED Talk. Stick-figure drawings. Because this wasn’t dating. It wasn’t taking a nice woman out for dinner and a show. That he could handle. Fucking he could handle. But not feeling anything? Keeping his head and his heart separate from his prick? He didn’t have the knack for that.
“We can bring Hawk over from Prague. It doesn’t have to be you.”Just days ago, Jack had given him one last out. It had only strengthened Elijah’s resolve. Because he was damned if he was going to have one of his people do something he wasn’t willing to do himself. And because…because Meghna Saunders was his project, dammit. He’d done all the research. All the legwork. Stacks and stacks of magazine articles. Casual surveillance around her Tribeca loft. He knew how she liked her coffee—with soy milk and cinnamon—and her fancy gin martinis. He could rattle off her favorite club in Ibiza and what exact shade of lipstick she shilled on billboards and bus shelters all over the city. And now he knew what she tasted like. And he wanted to taste her again. He’d started this. He was going to see it through.
He transferred at Fourteenth Street and took the next subway train a few stops to a fairly new boutique hotel. One of the ones that had cropped up after the hellscape of the Darkest Day. This was where Mirko Aston had booked a love nest for his flashy quasi-famous girlfriend. Not a bad choice, really. Not that Elijah knew that much about love nests. His relationships had always been straightforward. Brief, but honest. He’d never been the other man. Or gotten into a love triangle or a love quad or any of that geometry. Who had time for that? And yet here he was now, about to bed a woman theoretically attached to another man.
He was thankful for Wi-Fi in the subway tunnels as he texted out a terse message to Third Shift’s resident flirt. Despite not being a product of the digital age, Finn responded before Elijah got off the train and took the stairs aboveground.
Breathe, mate.
A rich bit of advice from someone who didn’t have to. But the two texts that came in after, in quick succession, were more useful.
Stay in the moment.
Stay with her.
That wouldn’t be a hardship. Because Meghna Saunders was the kind of woman Elijah wanted to know more of. That gorgeous, responsive woman who’d come for him in a dark, dusty room. Sure, she could have been faking it. But the slickness he’d rinsed from his fingertips before leaving the Manhattan Grand didn’t feel like a lie. Going to her now didn’t feel like a lie.
He was more than a decade removed from the desert. But she was an oasis. What did that mean? That he’d already fucked this up?
You’re still you, Lije.
A last text. Unprompted. He scowled down at his mobile before he shoved it into his pocket before he walked through the doors of the hotel. Elijah knew exactly who he was. Exactly who he’d always been. Maybe that was the problem. Elijah Richter, son of Simon and Nakia Richter, was not the sort of man who fucked women he barely knew. Not the sort of lion shifter who went toe-to-toe with potential prey before he sprang. He was responsible. Methodical. Always in control.
But you couldn’t control sex, could you? Even if you knew it was just a job, just a ploy to get close to someone. There was still the smell of her, the feel of her, the taste of her. All things he’d carried with him on the ride downtown. He wasn’t cut out for this part of undercover work. He’d likely never do it again. But he’d do her. Oh yeah. He’d definitely do her.