Shifter's Claim (The Shadow Shifters) by A. C. Arthur Read Free Book Online Page A

didn’t look happy.”
    “Guthrie’s a natural-born killer given the permission to do his evil deeds by the commendations lined across the chest of his Marine uniform. He never looks happy,” she quipped.
    “And he never misses a kill,” Lolo added. “Look, I know you don’t want to tell me why you’re looking into Reynolds or why this is so top secret, but I don’t like it, Priya. I’m getting a bad feeling about it,” he said, lifting a hand to his chest and rubbing as he looked up the street and then back down to where he’d come from.
    “That’s your acid reflux, Lolo. Take a pill, e-mail me all the names, and I’ll call you later,” she said, turning once again to head toward the Reynolds Building.
    She’d taken only two steps when the glass doors to the front of the building opened and a line of men—no, they actually looked more like living gods—came filing out. She noticed them immediately and stood still, watching them. The first two had also been at the table with Reynolds last night at the reception. Their names she already knew, even without Lolo’s assistance, thanks to her early-morning research on Perry. The first was Jace Maybon, a talent agent from L.A. with tall, dark, and sinfully delicious looks that would raise the brow of any breathing female. The second, not to be outdone by the first, was Cole Linden, slightly more low-key, brutal in the boardroom, and seemingly averse to females as noted by an article in Forbes that neatly outlined his portfolio and congratulated whatever lady was lucky enough to land him.
    Both of them paled in comparison to who came out next. Her breath should not have hitched, her eyes widening. There should have been no surprise that he was close because her body had already begun to respond as it had only to his proximity. He was dressed in a suit, a dusky gray that she thought might actually match the color of his eyes. Sunlight caught the diamonds that circled his watch as he lifted his hands to pull his jacket together and button it.
    He looked up instantly, as if he’d been expecting her to be standing there. His gaze locked on hers and she licked her now-dry lips, cursing the tingle of her nipples at the sight of him. Priya instinctively took a step back anyway. Linden and Maybon had already gotten inside a truck … a black SUV, to be exact. But Perry walked immediately toward her.
    “What are you doing here?” he asked.
    “Hello to you, too,” she replied, taking a deep swallow but hoping he didn’t notice. He towered over her today, his broad shoulders and chest blocking her vision, encompassing her without even touching her. “I see you still haven’t worked on your greetings.”
    “Priya, we should go,” she heard Lolo say from her left. He was pulling on her arm again.
    Perry looked over at Lolo, a muscle ticking in the right side of his jaw. “Who is this?” he asked in a voice deeper, sterner than she’d previously heard from him.
    “This is a man and he’s with me,” she said slowly as if she thought he might have trouble comprehending, especially since he’d taken on this master-of-the-universe stance demanding answers from her as if she actually owed them to him.
    His gaze went to where Lolo’s hand rested on her arm, then back to her face.
    “You should not be here,” he stated.
    “It’s a free country and I have a job to do,” she insisted.
    He shook his head. “Not here. Not now,” he told her. “It is not safe.”
    “I told you,” Lolo chimed in. “Let’s go, now!”
    Priya watched as Perry looked at Lolo once more. There was dislike and something else she couldn’t quite place, but she shook that off. None of it mattered, only getting into that building mattered and she didn’t have much time to do it. Burning a hole in the pocket of her jeans was a list of questions she’d been told to ask, even more prevalent in her memory was that those questions had been left taped to her mother’s door.
    “Listen