And everyone was a predator.
She knew it, and so did everyone else. It made life more dangerous and a whole lot more exciting than it had been before the war. Biological warfare early in the twenty-first century ripped the planet apart. What scientists never expected was the effect long-term exposure to their weapons would have on humans. It twisted their genes, morphed them into shape-shifters.
Jungle cats, bears, wolves, birds of prey, every imaginable predator on the planet. No one knew why, but the chemicals brought out the most feral instincts in mankind. Nearly a century later, everyone accepted that inside each human lurked an animal, a beast who might take control at any moment. It meant Delilah had to be even more careful not to get caught. A small sigh slid past her lips. Her ancestors had it so much easier when they tried to steal something.
Then again, if it was easy, it wouldn’t be so much fun.
The balcony door was laughably easy to get through. The problem with most people was they assumed if their security system was expensive enough that they didn’t have to take care of the simple protections for their property.
Stupid, but their mistake was her gain.
She slipped inside the penthouse and froze for long, precious moments. Every feline sense went on alert for any movement, any noise.
Nothing.
Even if there was someone here, it wouldn’t stop her. She had a nasty little surprise she used on those who interrupted her work. She slid her hand into her vest, running the pad of her thumb over the trigger of a tiny, pressurized canister of poison. It wouldn’t kill them, but it left them with nothing but a headache to remember her by.
Creeping forward, she eased into the master bedroom where this particular hawk kept his treasures. A bit of digging had turned up the fact that his safe had been installed along the west wall. There was a painting large enough to cover a safe hanging on the wall. Picasso. Original, too, unless she missed her guess—and she rarely did. A pity she didn’t have any way to take it with her. It would fetch an excellent price with several of her regular clients. In fact, most of the decorations in this penthouse would bring in more than a few creds.
Her eyebrows arched and she gave a low, appreciative hum. “Prime.”
Business must be even better for Avery than the buzz said, because the whole penthouse was a study in the rare and valuable. Polished wooden floors when most people had concrete, marble sculptures and ancient artifacts sat in precise arrangements on mercurite and polyglass furniture. The man’s bed was wide enough for ten and draped in deep blue microsilk.
What she wouldn’t give for a few hours to take her pick from Hunter’s collection, but a glance at her chrono made it clear she didn’t have time to admire the man’s pretty toys. Slipping her bag of tools off her shoulder, she set to work disarming the safe.
The Windy City was the best place to fly. The breeze that kept Lake Michigan at a constant ripple swirled around Hunter as he skimmed above the water in his hawk form. He stretched his wings further, pulling out of his glide to spiral higher and higher in the night sky. The wind cut sharper up there, whipped at his body. It was one of the few times he was free, the stink of the city and the weight of his responsibilities falling away as he soared into the moonlit clouds.
He glanced down at glittering metal and glass cityscape of New Chicago as it whizzed past. The Lakeshore District and the downtown areas of the city had been built over the graveyard of the old. Most of Chicago was reduced to rubble in the urban riots of the Third Great War, which had ended long before his birth. Many who lived before the war said New Chicago lacked the grace that history lends a city, but there was little left of the world that could be called graceful. Most people struggled to survive. He was one of the lucky ones, and even he had more than his share of problems. A heavy sigh slid from his throat.
The meeting with Pierce Vaughn hadn’t gone well. A wolf-shifter, the government agent was as ferocious and relentless when he pursued his prey as Hunter was. He liked that about the man, respected his judgment. Even so, Pierce had been trying to nail Tarek for over a year. A viper in every sense of the word, Tarek had done things that would make most humans’ stomachs revolt.
As Tarek’s biggest business rival, Hunter was a prime target for industrial espionage and sabotage. This last trip to Los Angeles had proven that someone was sabotaging his business efforts there. Both Pierce and he knew who was doing it; they just couldn’t prove it. Yet. But they would.
Privately, Hunter suspected the wolf kept him informed as a way to ensure he didn’t take the law into his own hands when he finally had undeniable proof of Tarek’s perfidy. Once he did, there was little Pierce could do to stop Hunter. He would relish ripping the viper apart, but he would wait until his suspicions were grounded in fact. If that meant Pierce and he had a relationship of mutual information sharing, then he was willing to listen. Each of them were in this for their own ends, and he respected that they were up front about it. No games, no toying with each other.
The arrangement worked for him.
Slow, deep beats of his wings carried him toward home. He wasn’t going to be able to outdistance the problems plaguing his mind, so he wouldn’t waste his energy trying. Frustration boiled through him. He was a patient man, but a year was too long for any rival to get the better of him.
Tarek. The viper-shifter redefined cutthroat, and his inability to beat Hunter and drain profits from Avery Industries had made their rivalry personal for the viper. Hunter snapped his beak. It was business; ruthless, cool-minded efficiency was the best approach to business decisions. Lack of objectivity was going to trip Tarek up sooner or later; Hunter just had to hold tight to his patience and wait for the best time to strike.
He had to admit it pleased him how galling it must be for Tarek that he hadn’t succeeded this time any better than he had in his other attempts at sabotage. Hunter had been attending an annual board meeting in Los Angeles when word of problems at a local manufacturing plant had reached him. He’d gone to investigate and found that someone had been caging half-starved illegal immigrants as slave labor. In his facility. It brought back nightmares of the last time an Avery plant had been used for criminal activity. His parents’ faces flashed through his mind, twisted in terror as they had been the last time he’d seen them. His stomach churned and he shoved the memories aside, as he always did.
He’d cleaned up the mess, fired the traitors who were obviously on Tarek’s payroll, let Pierce sort out the illegals, and returned home a day ahead of schedule. He was more than ready to enjoy the peace and solitude of his private tower. Circling slowly, he tucked in his wings to land on his balcony. He shifted quickly, heat vibrating through his muscles as they stretched and twisted into the shape of a man. Shrugging his shoulders to settle into the new form, he scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck.
The restless feeling that had eaten at him for weeks intensified. It wasn’t just the business problems—it was something deeper, something he couldn’t pin down. An instinct he had no name for. Not for the first time, he wished his father were still alive to ask. But he wasn’t. The only two people he’d ever trusted were dead and he was alone. Always alone. Anyone who met him now wanted something from him. He was nothing but a name, a fat cred account, and an opportunity. He didn’t bother reining in his disgust at the other man that he should have been able to trust. His uncle. Thankfully, that blight on the family tree had been cut away.
The only lesson his uncle had ever taught him was that there were worse things than being alone.
He was used to the loneliness, but this new instinct was something else. He tried to step back, to look at the unwanted and unwarranted feeling logically. The restlessness was new. But it was more than that. The unfamiliar instinct that crawled over his skin, like an itch he couldn’t reach. A foreboding of some kind? Some people claimed they could sense their own death, but…that didn’t sound right. Deus knew he’d had enough troubles lately. Deliveries going late or missing, a rash of fires, accidents that had become