Free Lycan Unleashed by Tiffany Allee Page A

in frustration. I’d hoped for his signature to be familiar, at least. It would give me something to tell Mason, something to make my lie into the truth.
    But I had zilch. And after tonight, Mason was going to know I’d lied.
    “I’ve heard that you’ve had a bit of trouble holding on to your evidence,” Isaiah was saying as I picked back up on the conversation. He smiled at me, and my stomach clenched and my breath came faster. It took everything I had not to back out into the hall and run away from the vampire in front of me. The smile was like that of a shark, and it disappeared quickly.
    Mason stiffened and took a single short step to his side, placing himself slightly between Isaiah and me. “I’m sure we don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mason said, a warning in his voice.
    Isaiah continued, as if he hadn’t noticed the tension the lycan now emanated. “An unfortunate loss, that coin.”
    “What do you know about it?” Mason asked.
    I forced my expression to stay even, but I almost started at Mason’s admission. But pretending the coin didn’t exist wouldn’t get us anywhere. The vampire obviously had sources of information, either with the police or more likely in the local vamp community.
    Isaiah’s gaze flashed to me before returning to Mason. “I’ve heard things—rumors. Managing things so recklessly, you’re lucky no one has gotten hurt.” A slight grin touched his lips. “Then again, your investigation is still young. And I suppose accidents are inevitable in your line of work.” Again, his gaze slid to me. It was subtle, but the threat was as clear as if he’d slid his finger across his throat, in a macabre imitation of a knife.
    Mason shoved Isaiah against the wall, his forearm under the vampire’s neck, and their faces only inches apart. I blinked at them before reaching for my gun. I’d known that lycans were fast—even in their fully human form—but I hadn’t known they were that fast.
    “Was that some kind of fucking threat, you undead piece of shit?” Mason’s hard voice was low and controlled, despite his words. “Because you look at her again with a threat on your tongue and I will rip your fucking head off.”
    I gaped at his words, and my hand found nothing. Shit. I didn’t have a sidearm. Great. All I could do was stand and stare and pretend that I had a holster on my back. Doing my best to smooth my expression, I hoped I looked convincingly unaffected and ready to pull my weapon at any second.
    But neither man seemed to remember I was in the room, and as the seconds ticked by, the tension was so thick it choked me. The power rolled off them, mixing with the violence to create a room set to explode.
    I couldn’t think about what Mason had said and what it might mean, but the possibilities kicked my heart rate up a notch. And looking at the dead, deep eyes of the vampire, the professional killer who had murdered his own kind for years, I wasn’t entirely sure which side would come out on top if it came down to it.
    I had to diffuse the anger, before the balance tipped. “Thank you for answering our questions, Isaiah,” I said in the most civil and disinterested voice I could manage. “We’ll be in touch. It would be best if you didn’t leave town for a few days.”
    Like the fuse fizzling out on a bomb, the tension dissipated, and Mason released the vampire.

Chapter Six
    “Well?” Mason asked when we were safely in his SUV.
    “Can we talk when we get to my place, please?” I rubbed my temples and wished that I was just asking in order to postpone the inevitable, but the power and menace rolling off of that vamp had been overwhelming, especially with Mason’s energy jockeying for my attention. Trying to push it away to actually pay attention to the conversation and then jump back into the swirl in the inane hope of matching Isaiah to the coin had given me a splitting headache.
    “Sure,” Mason said.
    “And I’m bringing my personal sidearm