His Purrfect Mate(8)
The two of them stood in front of a grimy, graffiti-splattered apartment building in the waterfront district of Playa Linda.
Bobbi tipped her head back and sniffed the air. “Do you smell that? It smells like…betrayal.” She could also smell vomit, urine, beer, and the sour reek of garbage piled up in a dumpster next to a biker bar called the Hogtie, right next to the apartment building. But mostly betrayal.
Pixie nodded vigorously. “I seriously can’t wait to see how this one plays out. When will that dumbass wolf learn he can’t outsmart us? You should hit him really hard. And while you’re hitting him, I’ll steal his wallet.”
“Why would you bother stealing my boyfriend’s wallet? It’s not like he carries any cash with him. I swear, you need to go to a twelve-step group for pickpockets.”
“Practice,” Pixie said. “Although it’s true, he’s way too easy.”
The sun was low on the horizon, but the fall air was still warm and humid, trapping the neighborhood’s pungent aromas in a haze of pollution and stink.
“Let’s go get this over with,” Bobbi said, exasperated. The two of them circled around the back of the building, jimmied the door’s lock, and dashed up the stairwell, which smelled a lot like the alley they’d just left.
“Phew,” Bobbi said. “Has anyone here ever heard of a toilet? Welcome to the 21st century, for God’s sakes.”
On each floor, Bobbi stopped, opened the doorway to the stairwell, stuck her head into the hallway, partially shifted to enhance all of her senses, and sniffed. She could scent her fated mate easily, even with all the sour odors of bodily waste clogging her nostrils.
Finally on the fourth floor, she smelled what she was seeking.
Pixie followed her down the hallway, and, when Bobbi paused and pointed at a doorway, she reached inside her leather jacket to pull out her bag of lock picks. They were inside in seconds.
The apartment was dark and dingy, and the paint on the wall was peeling off in sheets. Jax Mackenzie, the aforementioned dumbass wolf shifter, sat next to Bobbi’s brother Heath on a faded green couch, watching a flickering black and white TV with rabbit ears.
Both of them were big, broad-shouldered men, although Heath at six five was several inches taller than Jax. Jax had thick, glossy black hair and cheekbones that hinted at Native American heritage. Heath had curly brown hair and caramel brown eyes. A broken, reset nose and a scar slashing through one eyebrow hinted at Heath’s upbringing on the streets.
They both glanced up as Bobbi and Pixie burst into the room. Jax had a resigned expression on his face. “I scented you in the hallway,” Jax said. “I guess I should have known that you’d find us.”
“Yes, idiot, you should have.” Bobbi’s breath came out in an exasperated hiss. Jax was her fated mate, and they’d agreed that they would get married if they could make it a year together without killing each other. Jax’s odds that evening weren’t good.
She knew what was going on. Jax trying to protect her and treat her like a fragile china doll. She understood why he would do that, but she had also made it very clear when they started dating; she wasn’t a hide on the sidelines kind of girl, and he would have to live with that.
She could always tell when Jax was lying to her…and something had clearly been up earlier that day when he’d told her that Tyler wanted her to head out to an elegant hotel called The Gilded Swan to guard an Eastern European princess.
All the signs were there, the mumbling, the way he spoke too fast and avoided her eyes…
That night, she’d pretended to head out to the address that he’d given her, but then she’d turned around and circled back to lay low near their apartment so she and Pixie could follow him.
And here they were, not at a fancy uptown hotel, but in a stinking slum that clung to the edge of Playa Linda’s coastline.
“I told you we couldn’t fool her,” Heath chided Jax in exasperation.
“I know. She’s too smart for us,” Jax said dolefully.
The TV turned staticy, and Heath crossed the room and wiggled the rabbit ears, looking annoyed.
“We’re both too smart for you,” Pixie added.. Pixie hated to feel left out.
“Damn straight,” Bobbi said irritably, feeling slightly mollified by his concession. “So what the hell is the real assignment?”
“The real assignment is what we said it was. We just lied about the address. There have been numerous assassination attempts on this young woman’s life, because she rejected the marriage proposal of a sheikh. Her family is trying to figure out a safe place to hide her. We have word that the people who are trying to assassinate her are in Playa Linda. Staying in a luxury hotel is too obvious; we decided that for tonight, we would hide her out in a place that nobody would ever think to look for her.”