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reach out and run her fingers over his beautiful face. Just to prove to herself he was real.
    She needed to put some distance between them.
    “And here I thought you were just another pretty face,” she mocked.
    His mouth twitched. “Actually, I’m pretty all over. Just in case you were interested.”
    “I’m not.”
    “The lips say no, but those eyes…” He gave a low chuckle as she lifted her hands to shove him away.
    “Are you ever going to get to the point of why you brought me here?” she growled.
    His teasing expression slowly faded. “If you’ve been in contact with the Wildlands, then you know we recently prevented a military contractor from using Pantera blood as a serum to create super-soldiers in the military.”
    She nodded. It’d been several weeks since she’d been to the bayous, but Parish had called only a few days ago to update her. As always, she refused to tell her friend where she was living, but she couldn’t break all ties with him.
    “I thought Stanton was dead?”
    “He is, but Xavier intercepted an e-mail from one of the researchers who was working with Locke,” he said, referring to the human who had been Christopher’s right-hand man and responsible for building the laboratories that experimented on Pantera as well as humans. “The mystery man claims he downloaded the data before we torched the place.”
    “Do you believe him?” Lucie asked. It would be an easy claim to make.
    Rage shrugged. “Impossible to say, but we can’t take the risk he isn’t bluffing.”
    “Why not contact the human authorities?”
    His beautiful features tightened. “We don’t know who we can trust.”
    Lucie snorted. She knew exactly who she could trust.
    No one.
    “What do you want me to hack?” She went straight to the point.
    “Whoever sent the e-mail was setting up an online auction,” Rage explained. “In twenty-four hours, the top bidder will receive the supposed intel.”
    Lucie hesitated. She had never been able to resist a challenge. Something that’d gotten her into trouble more times than she wanted to remember.
    If she intended to walk away, she had to do it now.
    Rage wisely remained silent, waiting for her to sort through her inner conflict until she at last accepted the inevitable. She might want to deny the Pantera as her pack, but in her blood, they were still family.
    “Show me,” she muttered in resignation.
    Not giving her the opportunity to change her mind, Rage turned to head out of the kitchen. They walked through a large front room with molded ceilings and a sweeping staircase before they crossed the hall into the library.
    Lucie glanced around the large space. It was more or less what she expected. Traditional mahogany furnishings that were arranged around the wooden floor. On the far side of the room was a deep alcove with a brocaded chaise lounge, and at the back was a marble fireplace. Her lips twitched as she caught sight of the velvet Elvis painting that was hanging above the mantle.
    Someone clearly had a sense of humor.
    Rage headed directly to the large desk that was loaded with high-tech electronic surveillance equipment and a computer system that would have been a wet dream for most nerds.
    Lucie, however, had a setup that was illegal in most countries.
    “Xavier said he’d send the info to this computer,” Rage said. “It’s encrypted, but he said you should be able to—” He bit off his words as Lucie slid into the chair and swiftly lost herself in the world of electronic data.
    This was the one place she felt safe.
    The one place where no one and nothing could hurt her.
     

Chapter 3
    For the next hour, Rage paced the library. From the bay window to the fireplace. From the alcove to the towering bookcases. All the time keeping a covert watch on Lucie as her fingers flew across the keyboard.
    She was completely engrossed in her work, unaware that the glow of the monitor was emphasizing the delicate beauty of her face and shimmering in the