The Shifters

Ryder stepped forward and handed him a business card that seemed to have materialized from nowhere. Case took it, and the two men eyed each other.

Then Ryder turned and opened the door for Caitlin, waiting for her.

She looked toward Case. He made a courtly, mocking gesture. “Thanks for stopping by, little sister. Hope you got what you were looking for.” Again he slid a knowing look at Ryder, which made Caitlin’s face burn.

Ryder was still waiting by the door. She hesitated…then stalked out.

Chapter 14

Ryder followed Caitlin out through the dark corridor, past the bookshelves of the pagan shop. The sleepy-or-stoned clerk barely turned his head as they walked by.

Outside on the sidewalk, in the balmy night air, Ryder reached for Caitlin’s arm. “I’ll take you home.”

“I’ll be fi—” she started.

“There’s an entire swarm of malevolent entities out here looking for you, and you think you’ll be fine,” he said, shaking his head. “There’s an outer limit to independence, and you’re it.”

She opened her mouth again, and he put his fingers on her lips. Just that mere touch flooded her with fire, and she was as speechless as if he’d bewitched her.

“This isn’t a discussion,” he said. “I’m taking you home.”

Slowly he withdrew his hand, and she turned numbly to start walking down to Royal.

He fell into step beside her, but thankfully didn’t touch her; her heart was already racing. The cobblestone walks were lit by electric lamplight, and their footsteps echoed against the walls of the shops.

Ryder spoke quietly. “You should call your sisters, let them know you’re all right.”

She looked at him, startled; it was the last thing she would have expected him to say. She was about to protest, but he cut her off.

“If you don’t, I will. I had a hell of a time persuading Fiona to let me go after you alone, and I owe her that.”

She narrowed her eyes, then stopped under one of the electric lamps and pulled out her cell phone. She wasn’t about to talk to anyone, though; instead she texted Fiona, using a code phrase the sisters had set up to let Fiona know it really was her texting, and left a message that she was all right and headed home. She clicked off the phone irritably.

“Satisfied?” Then she realized that was entirely the wrong word to use.

His smile curved, slow and sensual. He said nothing, but he didn’t have to—the look he gave her was pure, slow, searing heat.

She started walking again, shakily, but her heart was pounding now, and other parts of her were throbbing, too. And of course the Quarter wasn’t helping. It was a sublimely perfect night, warm as bathwater, and perfumed, too, lilac and lavender and sugar candles and gardenia, the soft colored lights from the closed shops, music floating down from Bourbon Street, and a soft, enticing wind.

They walked for a while in silence, passing a drunk couple dreamily entwined, a group of laughing young men crossing the street in every direction but straight. But when she started to turn on Royal, she felt Ryder touch her waist, which sent another shock wave of sensation through her.

“This way,” Ryder said beside her. He nodded his head down Dumaine Street, toward the river. Caitlin hesitated.

“I just want to take a look…feel the wind,” he said.

It could have been a ploy, but Caitlin knew what he meant. It was in the wind that she could always feel things, too. She fell into step beside him, and they started toward Jackson Square, the looming shadows of trees behind the iron bars.

“That was an unbelievably stupid thing you did, you know that,” he said without looking at her.

Caitlin knew what he was talking about, and who, and why, but she stayed stubbornly silent.

“Those two will drag you down into the dark so fast you won’t know what hit you.”

“No one has to tell me,” she retorted. “They’re shifters, aren’t they?”

He flinched, and she was meanly glad to see the dig had hit its mark.

They crossed Poydras Street toward Café Du Monde, lit up like an Edward Hopper painting against the dark backdrop of the embankment. A saxophonist was playing outside the café patio, and Ryder dropped money in his instrument case as they passed. Then they walked up the stairs to the Moonwalk.

As soon as they reached the top of the barricade and she could see the broad, meandering curve of water, Caitlin relaxed, letting the fear and threat and strangeness of the evening recede. There was something about the river that always calmed her, settled her, made her feel at peace. Beside her, she felt the live tension in Ryder uncoiling, as well.

They walked without speaking to the railing and stopped, looking out over the water. The river lapped at the shore, and the city lights shimmered on the waves under the moon. The air was soft and warm and alive, moist like breath.

Caitlin could feel that Ryder was struggling with something. Finally he spoke. “Why does he call you ‘little sister’?”

That wasn’t what she’d been expecting him to say at all. Caitlin shook her head. “He calls me all kinds of things. It doesn’t mean anything. We’re not related, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“No, that I got,” Ryder said ironically, and Caitlin blushed, realizing he’d figured out their relationship, or ex-relationship.

“I was young,” she said defensively. “It’s easy to get caught up when someone can shift and—” She stopped, mortified at what she’d just revealed.

He grinned at her. “And become anyone you want them to be?” he teased. And then he became serious. “You’ve got to watch the ones who don’t know who they are at the core, that’s all, Cait. And that’s true of all men, not just shifters. You need to trust yourself to know what’s right. You can trust yourself, you know.”

Caitlin was unbelievably uncomfortable with the conversation, not knowing what to think. “I’m supposed to trust what a shifter says about shifters?”

“You should trust yourself,” he said again, seriously. “Ask your heart.”

That’s all very well coming from someone who has no heart, she thought, but this time she didn’t speak. She didn’t need him to be serious or compassionate or whatever he was being. She needed…

It was better not to think about what she was needing right now.

Suddenly she found herself being honest. “Case is a lost cause. Anyone can see that.”

“And you’re the patron saint of lost causes.”

“I work with shifters, it’s an occupational hazard.”

He laughed, a deep, warm, real laugh. “Fair enough.”

“But Danny…” She found herself dangerously close to tears and willed them away. “He’s gifted,” she finished shortly.

“Most shifters are.” Something stole over Ryder’s face, something so subtle it might just have been a shadow. But Caitlin felt a difference, something significant. His voice took on an edge. “But they can’t hold the center. It’s intoxicating to shift, the feel of weightlessness, the rush of being in the astral, being pure energy, completely light, more and less than human. And the power of manipulating human beings, of becoming whatever they desire, and seeing them helpless to resist you…”

His voice was far away. Caitlin felt a chill at his words, but she knew the chill was at least half excitement.

“It becomes an addiction, that power, the sensation, all of it. And one addiction leads to another….” He trailed off, and his face hardened. “And a shifter who’s opened himself too many times becomes open to all kinds of things. Including entities.”

The agony in his voice was unmistakable, and Caitlin realized that he must be talking about someone he knew, someone close. She stared into the dark water beneath her, grappled with a dozen mental questions, finally asked carefully, “Is this really a job for you? Or was there something else?” She hesitated. “Someone else?”

He looked at her in the dark, seeming for a moment startled…and then not. “My sister,” he said heavily. “I left home when I was just a teenager. She was much younger, and I rarely saw her. I could never stay in one place.”

His mouth quirked bitterly. “I won’t lie. I haven’t been a saint. I had the same demons as any shifter, and I’ve used all my skills in every way they can be used. I’ve been a terror—for women, for humans in general.”

Caitlin stared out at the reflected lights, silent, her thoughts racing. It was nothing she hadn’t known about him—all the things that made him dangerous, that made her want to run from him. Still, she was shocked that he was being so open, so forthcoming. More than that, she could feel his pain, feel what was yet to come in the story.

“Little sister,” she murmured.

“Yes, my little sister.” There was such emotion on his face that his features seemed insubstantial, on the verge of shift. “While I was out raising hell all over the world, my little sister found friends like yours back there, and they got her started down a path that took over her life—and soul.” His voice was bitter. “I didn’t know, and if I had known, I’m not sure I would have cared. I had my own poisons.”

He gripped the railing in front of them, and Caitlin was silent, letting him gather himself to continue again.

“I was lucky. A shifter who had been through the same journey that I had found me. He said I could do better with my gifts. He hired me and trained me for the work I do now—tracking, containing, casting out. And then one night I heard her…in the astral.”

His face was so haunted that Caitlin had to keep herself from reaching out, touching him…. She grasped the railing and was silent.

“I heard my sister crying…and I knew it was her, and I knew I had to go to her.” And now there were tears in his eyes, grief in his voice. “And then I heard the raging of that…thing.” The loathing seethed through his entire body. Caitlin remembered how he had leaped out of his chair when that alien voice had come through Danny, the fury on his face, the killing rage….