She leaned forward to frame his face in her hands, glaring into his wounded eyes.

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true. Mierda.” He shuddered, his hands lifting to lightly grasp her wrists. As if he needed to reassure himself that she was alive and unharmed. “I was so worried you would be lured into a trap and I walked straight into one. And then, when Morton was torturing you with that damned collar ...”

Without thought she leaned forward to halt his pained words with a fierce kiss. She couldn’t bear for him to be burdened with regret when he’d done everything possible to keep her safe. But as soon as their mouths connected, the gesture of comfort combusted into something far more intense.

Dangerous.

Hurriedly she jerked back, licking her tingling lips.

“I’m assuming he’s dead?”

His brooding gaze remained locked on her mouth. “Yes.”

“Good.”

There was a short silence as they both savored the thought of Morton dead.

Sophia hoped the bastard was rotting in hell.

At last, Luc slowly smiled. “Of course, there was one good thing about being locked in that basement.”

A good thing?

She scowled. “Did you take a blow to the head? That place was a nightmare.”

“You risked your life to rescue me,” he pointed out softly. “You wouldn’t have done that if you didn’t still love me.”

“I was too weakened to shift,” she lamely tried to argue. “I knew I would need you to kill Morton and get us out of there.”

“Liar.”

“Luc ...”

Tugging on her wrists, which he still held in a loose grip, he kissed her with an aching tenderness.

“I’m sorry, cara,” he whispered against her mouth. “I regret ever deceiving you, and if I could go back in time I would change everything. But all we can do is go forward.”

She pulled back to study his somber expression. Deep inside she knew that he hadn’t meant to hurt her. At least not intentionally.

He’d come to Chicago as a soldier obeying orders. And like her he’d been knocked off guard by the power of their mating.

Could she truly blame him for being reluctant to confess the truth?

Not that she didn’t intend to keep his blunder as ammunition to pull out whenever she screwed up. It was almost like having a Get Out of Jail Free card, she decided.

“You swear never to lie to me again?”

She could feel the tension drain from him at her question, a small smile curving his lips.

“I swear I will never ever give you a reason to regret trusting in me,” he hedged, knowing better than to make a promise he could never keep.

A Were who could be trained.

A good sign.

“And you won’t interfere when I kick Salvatore’s furry ass?”

“He is my king, but you ...” The dark gaze seared over her face, his steadfast love burning like a beacon. “You are my mate.”

“Smart Were,” she whispered, a delicious warmth spilling through her as she wrapped her arms around his neck. “Maybe you should remind me why that’s a good thing.”

“With pleasure.” He pressed her back against the pillows, his lips tracing a path of erotic fire down the curve of her neck. “For both of us.”‘

MURDER ON MYSTERIA LANE

ANGIE FOX

CHAPTER 1

Last time I got stuck in a graveyard after dark, I missed the final episode of Lost. This time, an immense werewolf leveled a shotgun at my nose.

I could smell the sharp tang of gun oil in the dry desert air.

“Heather McPhee”—he cocked his weapon—“I order you to halt!”

“You and what army?” I came up short, less than an inch from the double barrel. You really could poke an eye out with that thing. My gray cargo pants clanked with handcuffs, a stun gun, mace, two fixed-blade daggers, and of course my lucky boot knife.

A desert wind blew in from the west, pelting the aged tombstones with rocks and debris. Two more werewolves emerged from the darkness. They took positions on either side of the scraggily, bad-breathed Goliath.

Great, just great.

“What’s the password?” he growled.

Like I knew. “Out of my way you, hairy oaf.” I started to move around him until his hand closed around my arm in a vise grip. “Ow!”

“Don’t play with me, girl. I’m not afraid of your kind.”

Too bad everybody else was.

“Listen, brainiac,” I said, fighting the urge to stomp his foot,

“I’m here on the Alpha’s orders, so unless you want to take it up with Finnegan—”

The guard growled low in his throat, his face a mix of shadows. “Finnegan should have told you—”

“Well, he didn’t.” Not that he wouldn’t be on my shit list for that. But to be fair, the guy had a pack to run. And an emergency it seemed.

I craned my neck around the wall of weres to see if I could catch anybody peeking out from the crypt.

There was no little stone house-like structure or stone angels to guard it. The Topanga Pack buried their alphas bunker-style. The shadow of the hole gaped low and menacing in the canyon bedrock. Thirty stone steps surrounded by sandstone walls ended in a solid oak door.

Lovely. No help in sight. Whoever was there to meet me was already inside—waiting.

“He’s not answering his phone,” barked the bodyguard to my right.

“I’m thinking he might be busy,” I snapped. I would be, too, if I could get past these clowns.

The top dog didn’t just open up the Crypt of the Alphas for his health, or an all-night kegger. It was unsealed maybe once or twice a year for matters of pack justice. I was his only interrogator, a position I rather liked. So when Finnegan ordered me to get my ass down there, I’d bailed on my dinner date with a bucket of KFC’s original recipe and made a beeline for my boss.

Until I’d run smack-dab into a boulder.

“You know I’m not a threat,” I said. For heaven’s sake, it’s not like the overgrown Chewbacca and I weren’t on a first-name basis. We’d played together as kids—Mary Poppins to be exact. And I wasn’t the one dressing up as the flying babysitter.

Just because he’d avoided me for the past twenty years didn’t mean I’d forgotten. The bodyguard had other secrets, too. Everyone did. That’s why my bugged-out powers came in so handy.

I’d been born with the Truth gene, an obnoxiously rare and recessive trait that showed up about once every seven hundred years. Lucky me. I could ask a question and literally make a person tell the truth.

Within limits. But I wasn’t about to start broadcasting that little tidbit.

“Want me to start asking you questions?” I asked.

“Can it, McPhee,” he said with a snarl, casting a glance at the wolves on either side of him. His eyes had widened a touch. I recognized the fear.

Good.

I reached into my back pocket for a rubber band and proceeded to pull my long red hair into a ponytail. Lucky for him I wouldn’t be unleashing my powers in the middle of the Wolf’s Lair flats. First off, it would be downright mean, even if my old buddy was being an ass. Second, using my powers gave me a massive hangover.

This joker wasn’t worth it.

“What’s it going to be, meathead?”

He scowled.

“I can stand here until Finnegan comes out looking for me. No sweat off my back. Though it may mean the skin off yours.”

He growled low in his throat as I started whistling the Jeopardy theme song.

“I don’t have time for this bullshit,” he grumbled, standing aside.

“Thank you.”

I nudged him with my elbow as I brushed past.

He growled low in his throat. “Freak.”

Oh goody. Things were back to normal.

I descended the thick stone stairs into the darkness of the tomb. I might not win Miss Popular 2011, but my pack was stronger because of me.

Frankly, I’d rather be needed than accepted.

The coarse walls were broken every so often by burial carvings and caked with canyon dust.

“Where were you?” Finnegan’s voice boomed before I’d even reached the bottom of the stairs. “Never mind,” he added. “Just get your ass down here.”

It was cooler underground, the air stale. I could smell the pack leader’s agitation even before I came upon him pacing in the center of a small, circular room.

A turquoise and orange pack crest spread across the ceiling. In the flickering light, I could read the inscription: Riamh daing-nithe i gcúinne.

Never backed into a corner.

Damned straight.

It didn’t look like our pack leader was doing so hot tonight. Finnegan jammed his hands into his copious red hair. His bulbous nose had gone red and his beard twisted sideways where he’d been yanking on it.

Behind him, a shirtless human sat lashed to a wooden chair etched with runes and death spells.

“We need you to question this ... gardener,” the Alpha said, as if he wasn’t quite sure what a gardener even did. “He’s from Eternal Life Estates.”