Dangerous Games by Keri Arthur Page A

that way to us females because we were more attuned to them. Werewolves might spend a lot of time enjoying sex, but there was a serious purpose to all the fun—no matter what other races might think. The desire to find our soul mate was patterned into our DNA, and few wolves settled down until this aim was accomplished. And playing around with other species certainly wasn’t going to accomplish anything—except, perhaps, fun. But no wolf could survive on fun forever.
    No matter what my brother thought.
    The shifter’s gaze swept the room, pausing briefly on Dunleavy before coming to rest on mine. Surprise briefly overran the caution in his pale blue eyes. “Agent Jenson?”
    I nodded. “Not what you expected, huh?”
    His sudden grin crinkled the corners of his eyes, making his timeworn face a lot more attractive than I’d initially figured. “Not in the least. Never knew we’d gained a werewolf guardian.”
    Two other men crowded into the doorway behind him. One of them swore lightly as his gaze fell on Dunleavy. The other didn’t react at all. Both of them, like Cole, were shifters. One had a cat scent, the other was a bird of some kind. Neither tickled my hormones in the least. Which was a good thing—there was nothing worse than a moon heat that lusted after everything with a dick. Especially when there was work to be done.
    Cole motioned with his chin to the body. “What happened?”
    “He was skinned.”
    Cole studied me for a moment, the brief spark of amusement gone. “By you?”
    “Hell, yeah. And after that, we danced a tango down the hall.”
    He raised an eyebrow, like he wasn’t entirely believing. But then, if he’d worked with guardians for any length of time, he’d know full well what they were capable of.
    And given I’d identified myself as one of their number, I guess he had a right to be wary.
    “Some guardians do like their torture.”
    “I’m a werewolf,” I said dryly. “I think I could come up with a better means of getting information from a suspect than using torture.”
    He looked me up and down, but in a purely nonsexual way. Much to my hormones’ disappointment. “I bet you could.”
    If four seemingly innocent words could state an opinion, then his certainly had. He might not have called me whore straight out, but his tone had certainly implied it. If I’d been in wolf form, the hackles around my neck would be bristling right about now.
    I clamped down on the rising tide of my temper, and said, as mildly as I could, “You know, werewolves get enough attitude from humans. We certainly don’t need it from our own kind as well.”
    He stepped forward to allow the two other men entry into the room, then said, “I am not your kind. I’m a shifter.”
    Thank God.
    The unspoken words practically hung in the air and flashed like a neon sign. I flexed my fingers. “You’re wolf, so therefore kin, whether you like it or not. And shifters of all kinds have a high sex drive, so don’t try and get all high and mighty with me.”
    I glanced at the vid-phone, suddenly remembering it was on and recording. Great. A permanent record of unprofessional touchiness. Not that that would surprise anyone back at the Directorate. I blew out a breath and retrieved my phone. Cole’s two assistants were setting up their own recording device, so I no longer had to bother. Of course, this brought me quite a few steps closer to Cole, and his scent spun around me, warm and tantalizing.
    “If you’re going to investigate the remainder of the house,” he said, nostrils flaring—like he was catching a scent that both attracted and repelled—“I need to set up the mobile record units.”
    “Then do it quickly.” I pushed past him and walked down the hall. If footsteps could sound angry, mine certainly did.
    Dammit, I didn’t need an attraction to a man who hated what I was. I had enough of that with Quinn. Of course, the moon heat didn’t give a damn about that sort of thing. It just saw a