Dangerous Games by Keri Arthur

in the room. One was Gautier’s. The other was more flowery and feminine, so it undoubtedly belonged to the girlfriend the old girl had mentioned.
    So, if this was Gautier’s handiwork, where the hell had he learned to skin a body this skillfully? Dunleavy’s back might be a mess in places, but the knife work was still way above that of an amateur. Which Gautier surely would have been. He might have been off the Directorate leash for months, but was that enough time to learn the ins and outs of skinning without the benefits of a teacher?
    And if he had been practicing, where were the bodies?
    Then I remembered all the body parts I’d found in the factory. Maybe, if I’d taken the time to sort through the bits and pieces, I would have found skins, whole and not.
    Maybe the bits and pieces weren’t the result of a baby vamp’s feeding frenzy, but rather, Gautier’s efforts to learn new and terrifying skills.
    I shivered and rubbed my arms. Perhaps the more worrying thought was the fact that Gautier had obviously left the town house after dawn had risen. The old girl had said the noise all stopped hours ago, which still placed the fall of silence well after dawn. And the stickiness of the blood on the sheets and on Dunleavy’s body would probably match that estimate.
    Gautier was a young vamp. He shouldn’t have been able to go anywhere once the sun was up, and yet it looked like he had. I had a bad feeling we’d better find out how real fast, or the shit could really hit the fan.
    I took a breath and released it slowly, and let my gaze travel across Dunleavy’s body. There was no obvious sign of a struggle—neither his hands nor his feet were tied, and nothing in the room was upturned or knocked over.
    Which meant Gautier had used mind control to bring Dunleavy in here, and he’d obviously used it to control the girlfriend, because the old girl in the first town house had heard no shouting. So who’d been destroying the place? And why not stop that as well? Gautier was certainly powerful enough to fully control the actions of two humans. Unless, of course, he didn’t want to.
    It was a thought that had chills skating across my skin. Gautier didn’t do anything without a reason—how often had I thought that in the past?
    Frowning, I lifted my gaze from Dunleavy’s body and looked around. The walk-in closet was filled with a mix of women’s and men’s clothing, meaning Dunleavy’s girlfriend either lived here, or spent a hell of a lot of time here. But there was little else in the room. Dunleavy was a man who didn’t spend a lot on furnishings, because everything in this room was bargain-basement–type furniture. Either he wasn’t a very successful thief, or he spent his takings on other things. Maybe the living room might hold that particular answer.
    As I turned to leave the room, a tingle of awareness ran across my neck, even as the scent of musk reached my nostrils.
    “Riley Jenson?” an unknown voice said. “Cole Reece, Directorate cleanup team.”
    I smiled at the caution in his voice. Obviously, Cole was a man who’d worked around a few too many quick-tempered—or perhaps that should be quick-reacting—guardians. “In here.”
    Footsteps echoed down the hall—three sets, all men. The heavy weight of their steps was as much of a giveaway as their thick scent. A tall, craggy-faced man of indeterminate age appeared, his gray hair glinting silver in the harsh light streaming in through the window. His musky, spicy scent swam around me, as refreshing as an evening sea breeze in the less than aromatic atmosphere of the apartment. My hormones did an excited little shuffle—not that that took a lot of doing when the moon heat was rising.
    His scent also told me he was a wolf, though not a were. Every species had its own particular scent—a base, if you like, that personal odors were built upon. Male werewolves tended to have sharper basic aroma than males of other species. Or maybe it just seemed