Free Primal Desires by Susan Sizemore Page A

sister. But Cathy has never talked about where she came from before Mike saved her from the feral that turned her. It’s strange to find out that she’s kept up with her relatives. I thought we were her family,” Sid added a bit forlornly.
    â€œMaybe you should think of Cathy as a little sister who hid her diary from you. We all need privacy, werefolk and vampires even more than mortals.” Eden gave Sid a very discerning look. “We all have secrets. Some more dangerous than others.”
    Sid knew that Eden wasn’t at all psychic, but she was far from stupid or unobservant, and all the vampires, werewolves, and mortals at the firm’s office spent a lot of time interacting with one another.
    â€œI have no secrets,” she said as lightly as she could.
    â€œOh, no, a daughter of the Wolf Clan like yourself is too noble and forthright to ever scheme, lie, conspire, or connive to get exactly what you want, while denying yourself the one thing you don’t think you can have.”
    â€œThere are a lot of things I know I can’t have. Vampire females have to tread very carefully and you know it.”
    â€œAnd yet, you are a career woman with all the perks of a Prime—in most things.”
    â€œIn most things,” Sid echoed hollowly. “And I shall continue to scheme, conspire, and connive to get what I want—for all the good it will do me in the long run.”
    Eden shook her head. “You don’t have to be a prisoner of your gender.”
    â€œFor the sake of the continuation of the species, and the honor of my Clan, in the end, I will be. I’m just trying to put off the inevitable as long as I can.”
    â€œAnd you’d never openly rebel?”
    â€œYou know I won’t.”
    â€œYou Clan folk are such hopeless, selfless romantics. Not that I’m complaining,” Eden went on before Sid could argue. “If you hadn’t decided to go searching for your long-lost brother, neither he nor I would have ended up as part of the Bleythin-Wolf menagerie. He was terrible at being a villain and I made a lousy vampire hunter, so Laurent and I have a lot to thank you for. You and Joe, and Mike and Harry and Marj and Daniel, and Cathy, our lost feral sister.”
    Sid noticed the slight emphasis Eden put on Joe Bleythin’s name, and her heart pricked just a little with knowing that here was one more person who shared the knowledge Sid could never share with him.
    â€œLet’s concentrate on Cathy.” She firmly called their attention back to the far more important subject. “Read on.”
    Eden opened up another saved message in the Sofia file, but Daniel Corbett came into the kitchen before Sid could read the e-mail.
    â€œSee anything?” Sid and Eden both asked.
    He blinked from behind his glasses and ran a hand through unkempt blond hair. They’d left him sitting in Cathy’s bedroom doing his psychic thing while they searched the computer.
    â€œI doubt it,” Daniel answered. “I’m not sure if what I caught was glimpses of the past, or scenes from a horror movie set in World War II.” He scratched his jaw, where faint stubble of a beard showed how long he’d been up. “Somehow I don’t think Cathy’s disappearance has anything to do with rescuing gypsy werewolves from evil Nazi scientists.”
    Sid looked at her retro-psychic mortal cousin in disbelief. “What did you eat before going into your trance?”
    â€œMy gift’s obviously no use this time,” he said. “I think I’ll see if Joe and Mike need help. Has Laurent picked up any news from his sources?”
    It sometimes came in handy that Laurent Wolf had not always walked on the good-guy side of vampirekind. He knew a lot of dubious characters out on the streets who wouldn’t talk to anyone else at the Bleythin agency.
    Sid tapped a finger on her forehead and held up a cell phone. “Not a