Tempting Danger Read Online Free PDF

look too closely set. Still, those eyes were her best feature—large, dark and luminous.
    She looked happy. “What, you missed me?” she said when Turner reached her, and looped her arms around his neck.
    “There’s a police officer to see you,” he said gently. “She has bad news, querida .”
    The happiness drained out, along with much of her color. Lily stepped forward. There was no good way to deliver news like this. “I’m very sorry, Ms. Fuentes. Your husband was killed tonight.”
    “Killed?” She shook her head. “No, you must be wrong. He’s at church. There was a rehearsal. He’s a singer. Did you know that? He has a beautiful voice. He . . .” Her face crumpled. “Y-you’re wrong.”
    As gently as she could, Lily gave her the basics—the place and manner of death, the identification based on the driver’s license and what was left of the victim’s face.
    The fact that he’d been killed by a wolf.
    Rachel Fuentes shuddered once. She began to wail. Briefly, Lily met Turner’s eyes. Rachel seemed oblivious to the irony of being comforted by her lover for her husband’s death. Rule Turner wasn’t.

THREE

    FOUR hours later, Club Hell was empty of customers and cops. Scents hung heavy in the air, a blurred bouquet impossible to sort when Rule was two-legged—alcohol, fruit, smoke, sweat, humanity. And that damned incense Max was so fond of, that was supposed to represent brimstone.
    And her. She’d left an hour ago, but her scent lingered.
    Or maybe he was imagining that. Rule sighed, sat in the same chair he’d occupied earlier, and punched in a number he knew better than his own. Max and Cullen were at the bar on the west wall, making busy with drinks to grant him privacy.
    After nine rings, a sleepy female voice said, “This had better be important.”
    “I need to talk to the Rho, Nettie.”
    “I’ll have him call you— after he wakes up. He’s in natural sleep now, but he needs that, too.”
    “You misunderstand. I did not ask to speak to my father. Your Lu Nuncio needs to speak to his Rho.”
    There was a moment’s silence. “God, you do that well. Too well for my peace of mind. All right, I’ll take the phone to him. But if he has a setback, I’m taking it out of your hide.”
    “I hope to have a hide for you to take it out of.”
    She muttered something about lupus politics. He heard her movements, then his oldest brother’s voice. Benedict had come down from his mountain in time to save their father’s life, and stayed to guard him.
    A moment later his father came on. “Yes?” Isen’s gravelly bass was strong in spite of his condition. But then, he did still have both lungs.
    “The husband of a woman I’m involved with was killed tonight. The police believe a lupus did it.”
    There was a long pause. “You aren’t under arrest?”
    “I’m a suspect, of course. So is every other lupus who was here. I was very cooperative.” He glanced wryly at his bare feet. “They had us strip.”
    “What?”
    “It was all very respectful.” And it had been fun to see the look on the lovely detective’s face when, complying rather more instantly with her request than she’d intended, he’d started to unzip his pants. She’d stopped him, of course . . . but part of her hadn’t wanted to.
    She hadn’t liked that. “I was escorted to the men’s room, where I stood on a sheet of white paper to disrobe. A male sergeant went through my things thoroughly.”
    “What were they after?”
    “Evidence, I suppose. Though if the killer was in wolf form, I can’t see what they hoped to find. But Detective Yu is no fool. There must be something they thought could link one of us to the scene. Which, by the way, was a playground very near here.”
    “What’s he like?”
    “She.” Rule took a moment to order his thoughts, filtering out the personal. “Bright. Determined. Probably ambitious. Doesn’t like me much, but she hasn’t made up her mind I’m guilty, either. I have