Free Seeker of Shadows by Nancy Gideon Page A

should. A doctor’s constant dilemma.
    “And what does Max think about all this?” Dovion challenged.
    Charlotte’s eyes narrowed. “He’ll agree with me . . . when I tell him.”
    “Will he?” Dev challenged.
    Charlotte’s jaw squared and rose with an arrogant tilt. “Yes.”
    She was good, Susanna mused, using fierceness to conceal her uncertainty.
    Under other circumstances, that might have been her cue to take a cautious step back. In her tenuous position as an outsider, the last thing she needed was to run afoul of the leader of the New Orleans Shifter clan in a spat with his not-quite-human mate. But Charlotte’s covert agenda, as intriguing as it might be, wasn’t the one compelling her to set aside her reservations.
    She needed this opportunity for study. Desperately. And so, she remained silent, suppressing her misgivings regarding what they were about to do.
    Dovion finally broke the silence, heaving a big sigh and throwing his hands wide. “All right, Charlotte. You know there’s little I can refuse you. Let’s give your friend a tour and lay down a few ground rules. Rules not even you will be allowed to break.”
    “Whatever you say, Dev.”
     
    Susanna keyed in the entry code on the rear door of the club, her mind still racing with probabilities and pathways for her research.
    Though far from the sophistication she was used to, Dovion’s lab facilities were adequate, and what he didn’t have on site, he had access to. Reluctantly, he’d helped Charlotte create an identity for her, linking Susanna to an ongoing case so she’d have full run of the technology and testing she required, putting his own career on the line in doing so. If she had someone with his loyalty and dedication at her facility up north, how much smoother her studies would go.
    Here, with free rein, she’d have the opportunity, if not the time, to explore her hypotheses, and perhaps discover the breakthrough she knew in her heart was there just beyond the reach of her next idea.
    She couldn’t wait to get started.
    The club’s interior was pitch-black and quiet as she hurried down the hall toward the open office door. A faint light shown within from the recessed fixtures she’d left dialed low. It was five A.M . She’d have only a few hours to set up the appropriate protocols and was anxious to boot up and begin. As she crossed to the big desk, the overhead fluorescents flashed on, momentarily blinding her like a lightning strike, as a startling thunder boomed behind her.
    “Where the hell have you been?”

Six
     
    T he sight of Jacques LaRoche blown up into a temper rooted Susanna to the spot.
    He was magnificent in his fury, brows lowered storm clouds over the now iridescent blue of his eyes, nostrils flaring like something wild and dangerous scenting a fight . . . or a female. His posture was all aggressive male, leaning in to intimidate, squared up to accentuate his impressive dimensions. In a moment, he’d be beating his chest and letting out a conquering roar.
    And Susanna had had enough.
    She’d been bullied and threatened and submissive for the last time. Fisted hands on her hips, she drew herself up with the added inches of her new shoes to a puny five foot four, placing her level with his sternum.
    “Who do you think you are, taking that tone with me?” she snapped with the fierceness of a terrier attacking a Rottweiler.
    If anything, her retaliation only fueled his anger. “I’ll take any tone I please. This is my place and you are a less than invited guest here. Where have you been?”
    It registered in the back of her mind that he’d been worried by her absence, but she couldn’t getpast the arrogance of that snarling masculine entitlement.
    “I don’t have to check my schedule with you,” she countered. “I’m using your computer. That doesn’t make you my babysitter or master.”
    “When you’re supposed to be here and you decide to be elsewhere, you will check with me. You’re my