Chapter 2

Shadow sat in his chair, watching as Callie slammed out of the meeting room. He sighed, a tired sound. Some days, the existence that had been forced upon him was more than he wanted to take anymore.

There were days when he craved the sound of another human voice calling his real name. But it was a dream. Anyone who knew him when he was nothing more than a human male was long dead. He'd been Shadow for more years than he'd been human.

Those ridiculous bomb tests out in the deserts of Nevada had done more than just blow up a few thousand cacti. He'd been bombarded by radioactive particles until he almost glowed. The sickness had taken him, eating at his body and his mind until he'd wandered, half mad, his skin falling away from his body, out into the desert that had made him that way.

He still wasn't sure what had happened out there. He had a slight memory of an aged man, impossibly old and frail looking, stronger than he could believe, lifting him in his arms. The rest was a blur of faces and sounds, mostly coming to him in his restless sleep at night.

Someone had save him from the radiation poisoning and, in doing so, had created Shadow. He was able to change his molecules, shifting them to blend in to whatever he was by. He could do it without thinking about it now, though the first time had caused him massive pain.

"When are you going to take control of your team?" Daniels said, interrupting his thoughts.

"When are you going to get off my back and realize I do have control of them?" he asked without skipping a beat. "Callie is a good cop and she thinks on her feet. She was in the process of saving herself when we got there. Give her a chance and quit letting who her father is affect the job."

"Maybe you should let it affect your job a bit more," Daniels growled. "He created this agency, or did you forget that Callan Wolfe's name is on the brass plate that sits at our front doors."

"God, how could I with you throwing it in my face all the time?" Shadow rose from his seat, taking his cup and tossing it in the trash. "Our mission was to retrieve the lizard and keep him from taking human lives. We did it. Mission accomplished, yay for us. Now, if there are no other problems you want to throw up in my face, I have reports to update."

Shadow walked out of the room feeling Daniels' glare against his back. He strode down the hall, almost growling as someone said something to him, then went in the door to his office. Closing it behind him, he also closed all the blinds, desperately seeking some time to get himself together.

It didn't help that he couldn't get the image of Callie out of his mind. She'd tossed aside her suit, leaving her curvy little body naked and within his reach. He had been able to see every curve, every line, every lovely inch of her. He'd felt just a brush of her warmth as he'd reached out to her, wanting so badly for more.

"Ahh!" he groaned, grabbing his head as he fell into his chair. "Get out of my mind."

"Boss?" Marcus's voice was concerned as he opened the door to Shadow's office. "You okay? That powder's still working, isn't it?"

"The powder's fine but you'd think with all the money they throw out on research and development, they could find a way to make it taste better." He looked up, seeing Marcus half in and half out of his office. "Did you need something?"

"Angel over easy with a side of toast, but that's my own problem. You just looked kinda peaked is all."

"Did you just say peaked?" Shadow lifted his head the rest of the way off his hands, a smile turning up the corners of his mouth. It changed him from stern and gruff into unbelievably handsome, but it was lost on Marcus. "Didn't the Gods in Atlantis or Greece or some such place create you?"

"Well, not exactly create, but yeah, I was once part of a great contingent of warriors created by the Atlantean Gods to do their dirty work, until that damned earthquake took me down and had me buried for a couple, three centuries. Why?"

"No reason." Shadow shook his head, pulling a file from the stack of paper work he'd been putting off doing.

"Just take it easy boss, I really don't want to have to break in another." Marcus gave Shadow a snappy salute and then closed the door softly behind him.

Shadow opened the file, staring down at the pictures that were clipped to the front of it. The girl was young, beautiful in the head shot of her, with light auburn hair and creamy skin that would freckle in the sun. Her eyes were green, open and friendly in that first picture.

She wasn't so beautiful in the next shot.

His face turned grim as he forced himself to memorize every ugly detail of the horror that had been forced upon the girl. Her throat had been ripped out, but no blood had been found by the cops. Of course, then they thought they would have a primary and secondary crime scene, but he knew that there had only been one.

A group of rogue vampires had found this poor girl. They'd fed on her, until there was only the faintest of heartbeats left. Then they tortured her, playing with her while she weakly tried to crawl away. Her dirt stained face held evidence of tears that had trailed down the muck and grime on her cheeks. Her death was finally attributed to trauma from a blunt object, a baseball bat by the look of the wound.

This same group of vampires was responsible for at least twelve more deaths, all grisly as the rogues swept a swathe of destruction through the night.

He studied the file before opening the next, staring at the gruesome pictures and making notes on a yellow pad of paper. So engrossed was he, that he didn't hear the knock on his door or hear the creak it made as it opened. He didn't hear her enter but his nose told him she was there. Slowly, he lifted his head from his work and let his eyes roam over her sleek form in the silver uniform.

"What did the doctor say?" he asked when he saw the bandage on her cheek.

"I'll heal. I really didn't need to go see her, Shadow. She kind of gives me the creeps." Callie walked into the office and looked askance at him.

"Sit down," he said hurriedly. "Dr. Chanteuse is one of the best doctors that ASP has."

"I know but the constant humming she does, it gets on my nerves. Don't you think it's a little creepy?" She sat and picked up a paperweight from the desk, turning it over and over in her hands.

Shadow could see she was nervous and he stayed silent, waiting for her to spill why she'd come to see him.

"I um ... I wanted to thank you for sticking up for me with Daniels. I think he'd stuff me behind a desk and give me nothing but paperwork if he could get his own way. He's so worried about pissing off my dad. Well, anyway, thank you." She stared at the round ball of acrylic that held a single gold coin in the center.

"That would be a big waste of a very talented agent," Shadow said softly, watching her hands as she played with the paperweight. "Going into the alley on your own was pretty reckless, Callie. You know that as well as I do. If that lizard ... Well, you heard what Daniels said was their mating practices."

"Yeah," Callie answered, shuddering at the thought. "Not my idea of a fun night on the town." She sat up suddenly, looking at the file he'd been in the process of studying. "Is this our next case?"

"This one won't be as easy as that lizard," Shadow said, squinting down at the file. "These vamps have been causing problems for a long time. Every time one of our agents gets close, they disappear. It's almost as if they've got inside information." He shook his head. "I'd trust any of our agents with my life, especially our team, but I can't figure out how and where they go to ground."

"May I?" she asked, holding out her hand for the file.

Shadow held out the file, seeing Callie flinch as she saw the picture. The woman hadn't been particularly beautiful, but she was smiling in the first picture, her hands cupped over her belly, showing off her pregnancy. What the vampires had done to her, well it was particularly gruesome.

"They killed both of them," Callie whispered, rubbing her hand over the one picture where the woman had looked so happy.

"The baby was torn from her womb," Shadow said, getting up and sitting in the other chair that was in front of his desk. He put his hand over hers, feeling her jump just a bit and that strange electricity, that jolt of awareness that he always felt around her tingle through him. "This case isn't going to be easy on any of us, Callie."

"Especially Angel if she knows any of these killers," Callie said quietly, glancing up and into the strange icy blue eyes of his.

"We've chased vamps before, but God, Callie, I can't think of any case that could even compare to this one. Not only are they killing, they are changing some of their prey. You know, it takes an Old One to do something like that."

"If the Old Ones are changing and going back to the way it used to be," Callie shivered "we're going to need more help than just the squads. We should get in touch with my father. You know he needs to know this."

"I've sent him a message, Callie. I wasn't going to keep this from him. It wasn't too long ago that Vampires and Werewolves were feuding. If it wasn't for your father and his ideals, they still would be." He squeezed her hand and then released it. "It's getting close to sunrise. You should go home before it gets too late. I'll be briefing the team tonight after I've gone through all the files.

"I could help," she offered quickly.

"No, you need to get some sleep."

"No more than you do," she said. "If you don't want me around, Shadow, tell me. Don't push it off on my needing rest or the sunrise, whatever." She got up from her chair staring at his back. "And don't stand there and think you're doing this for my own good either."

Callie slammed down the paperweight on the desk, hearing it crack. She spun, heading for the door. So wrapped up in her own misery, she never heard him move until he grabbed her arm, spinning her to face him.

"You want to know why you can't stay here?" he growled, his voice deep and menacing sounding. "I'm afraid I'd do this." His head bent, his mouth covering hers, drowning out her squeal of surprise. He kissed her until all he could think of was her, her taste, her scent, the way she rubbed up against him. He felt the softness of her lips and let himself drown in her for a single instant in time.

Then she was free and his back was turned to her again. "Now you understand. Go home, Callie. I'll see you at the team briefing at dusk."

Shadow stared at the wall, for the first time wishing that the underground office building had a view and a window he could pretend to look out of. He waited to hear her moving, cursing himself for allowing his baser side to react when he'd promised to never let show how he felt for her. She was a Were, belonging to one of the most noble of Were families. Her father had built ASP, had stopped the feuding, and had brought the Were community together as one, even those that usually were scorned.

The door closed quietly behind her and he allowed himself one final look through the glass door. Her head was bowed, her hair swinging down to cover her face. He couldn't judge how she reacted to what had just happened. It took everything in him to walk to his desk and sit down, moving the file they'd been looking at back on to his blotter.