Detective Lion Shifter (A Paranormal Night Club Book 3) Page 3

  “It’s likely that they were caught off guard,” Brady surmised.

  Lucian nodded in agreement.

  Lana focused on the discussion intently, but didn’t say anything. Nick could almost see the gears turning in her head as she mulled over everything, and her worry for Lucy intensified.

  “What is your theory about Dizag and what he hopes to gain by abducting or killing the females?” Nick asked Lucian. “After all, what affects our world affects yours, too.”

  “You are right about that. I think that one reason is what you guys were talking about. He is doing it because he is angry about a woman getting the best of his boss. He is blinded by hatred and rage. Second, that is the culture he was raised in. Look at how Vardok treated his women. He would use them, beat them, and then kill them. Vardok would have done the same to Alix if he had the chance,” Lucian paused.

  “I think that there is another reason, as well. I think that he is using the women for leverage. He has something planned, perhaps some kind of coup to get the kingdom back from Alix,” Lucian added.

  They talked about Dizag’s plan and who could be helping him. Finally, though, it was getting late, and Nick decided that it was time to take Lana home.

  “I can take a cab or walk. I’m a big girl. You don’t have to babysit me,” Lana said. She sounded tired and a little indignant.

  “I know that you are perfectly capable of taking care of yourself. However, even the most ferocious lion might have some difficulty fighting off a dragon. He could also take you by surprise. Not necessarily jumping out of shadows or an alley, but dropping out of the dark sky,” Nick said.

  Lana just looked at him as though she were trying to decide what to do.

  “Do it for me,” Nick pleaded. “I would feel a lot better if you would let me take you back.” After a moment he added, “And you know that you aren’t going to do Lucy any good if something happens to you as well.”

  She is most definitely stubborn. Nick sighed, waiting for a response.

  Lana nodded, finally.

  The night sky was absolutely beautiful. There were no clouds, so the full moon lit the world up in a silvery, shimmery magical light. The stars shone on the way to the hotel room.

  Lana was quiet, and Nick wondered what she was thinking. He knew the entire situation must be extremely frustrating and frightening for her.

  She couldn’t go out and simply start searching for her sister. She wouldn’t know where to look. This tied her hands completely. Nick wondered what her plans had been when she came over if Brady hadn’t been there to help her. She was smart and was quick to adapt to the situation around her, but she wouldn’t have known who to trust or where to start looking, especially since she didn’t know anyone or the city. She would have stood out like a sore thumb, naked in the human world, and she didn’t have any money for a place to stay or food. What had she been thinking?

  Nick realized that he was getting more and more worked up over his concern for Lana. He paused his thoughts to consider what that meant for him. He realized that he had grown quite fond of Lana over the last couple of days.

  “Are you okay?” Lana asked, breaking the heavy silence that had hung over them.

  “Yeah, why?” Nick asked.

  “Because you suddenly grabbed my hand and started squeezing it hard enough that you might break it,” she replied.

  Nick hadn’t even realized that he had grabbed her hand. He let it go quickly as though it were a burning lump of coal.

  “I’m sorry. I was just worried about you, and thankful that Brady was there to help you when you came through to this world,” he said.

  “I appreciate your worry. Father showed me which portal to use, so that I would have a safe passage,” she said.

  As silence fell heavily upon them once again, Nick considered Lana. He knew she would be able to defend herself well, since she was a lion shifter. Even if she lost a fight, she would make a good show of defense. However, he still sensed a kind of vulnerability around her. Nick knew that Lana would be horrified if she knew he thought this way, because she would consider it a weakness. She was confident and proud of her ability to take care of herself.

  If there was one thing that Lana was not, it was weak. Yet even the strongest people were vulnerable to something. Somehow, though, Nick doubted that Lana would see it from that perspective.

  This line of thinking stopped as he spotted the bright lights from the hotel just a couple of yards ahead of them. Perhaps once she was safely tucked inside her room and he was able to get a good night’s sleep, he would be able to focus on something besides the shapely, beautiful woman who walked next to him.

  Nick opened the door for her. The elevator ride seemed to take forever, even though her room was only on the third floor. The silence once again cloaked them in a heavy wool blanket, making Nick feel as though he were choking. He wanted to say something to Lana, but he didn’t know what. He didn’t know if he should reassure her that he knew she could take care of herself or reassure her that they would find Lucy, or both.

  Finally, the shiny silver doors slid open and a rush of fresh air bathed their faces.

  Lana’s room was at the end of the hallway, but it was quite evident before they even got there that she had had a visitor while she was gone.

  How no one had heard the commotion and came to investigate was beyond Nick. The door to her room had been shredded—literally. Claw marks started at the top of the aluminum door all the way to the bottom. At one point, the intruder had tired of playing with the door and simply tore it from the frame and pushed it down to the floor.

  The bed and chair had suffered a similar fate. Claw marks slashed the mattress and chair. Stuffing exploded out of the furniture, making the room look as though a blizzard had come through and littered the place with snow. Pillows had been cut into ribbons, the filling ripped out and thrown around the room.

  Most of Lana’s new clothes, as well as the comforter and sheets from the bed, lay in a pile on the floor. Smoke still rose from the clump of fabric. The smell of sulphur permeated the air. Nick looked up to see that the smoke detectors had been covered with plastic, so they didn’t go off and alert the hotel staff that there was a problem.

  Nick quickly pushed Lana into the hallway and told her to wait there while he checked out the room. It was a basic hotel room, but there were still a couple of closets and a bathroom to check out. There wasn’t a lot of room for a dragon to hide, but plenty of room for someone if Dizag had another, smaller shifter, or even had paid a human to destroy the room, and perhaps wait for Lana to return.

  There was no one waiting, so Lana walked in to inspect the rest of the damage. All of the color drained from her face when she was able to take in the mess. She swayed as though she were going to faint. Nick moved quickly to steady her, but she steadied herself.

  The bathroom was a mess. Soap, toothpaste, and other items were sprayed everywhere. A message, scratched into the wall, read “Come get me if you can, Your Highness.”

  The monster even had the audacity to sign his name to the message: “Dizag.”

  Worried, Nick turned to Lana and put his hands on her shoulders. He started to say something comforting about protecting her, but stopped before he even drew in a breath. Her eyes were hard, like pure steel. This attack hadn’t made her afraid. She was angry.

  5

  Lana

  Lana was in complete shock. She had rationalized earlier, when she decided to leave the hotel, that being locked in her room would not protect her. However, seeing the evidence with her own eyes was a jolt to her very core.

  This was the monster her sister had fallen in love with and married. Lana had always thought that Lucy had a good judge of character and made smart choices. How could she have been so fooled by this hideous shifter? Fear gripped her heart as she thought of the fact that Lucy was now missing and that she was in the clutches of such a beast.

  Then, Lana realized that she wasn’t going to help an
yone dwelling on her worris, least of all Lucy. She closed her mind for a few seconds. She breathed in positive energy and breathed out the negative energy. She would not let fear conquer her.

  Nick had made sure that there was no one lingering about in the room, but Lana could not stop the shudder of unease. She still felt as though she were being watched.

  The message on the wall was clearly intended as a taunt to upset her. She stared at it, almost able to feel Dizag’s glee as he was carving the wall. He thought he had the upper hand. He thought he would get to her. Lana decided that she wasn’t about to let that happen.

  Lana jumped when Nick grabbed her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. He wanted to make sure that she was okay. She was fine. She was just angry. She thought that she could literally feel her blood become hotter and hotter as she considered the situation.

  She was angry at Dizag for taking his revenge out on people who had nothing to do with the situation. She was angry at Dizag that he had so low confidence in his own manhood that he had atack more vulnerable female shifters. If he was such a strong alpha, he should attack other dragon shifters. Even female dragon shifters were extremely powerful. Other shifters were at a disadvantage when it came to fighting dragons. They could fly, and they had nasty, sometimes poisonous, talons, fire, and powerful wings. They could plummet silently out of the sky. They were at the top of the food chain, so to speak. A deer shifter didn’t stand a chance against someone like Dizag.

  “What a damn coward,” Lana said under her breath.

  “What?” Nick asked.

  “Nothing. Just talking to myself,” Lana answered.

  Lana’s words had startled herself out of her thoughts. She never used language like that. Her mother had drilled it into her that she always had to be proper, no matter what the situation. However, Lana could think of some other words she would like to spit at when thinking about Dizag.

  Then, Lana’s thoughts shifted completely. She suddenly became acutely aware of Nick’s hands on her shoulders, still gripping her tightly. His chocolate eyes peered deep inside of hers, as though they were trying to see into her soul.

  His chiseled face was so close to hers that she could feel his warm breath on her face.

  While he stared into her eyes, she wanted so much to lean into him and feel his arms wrap tightly around her. Not because she was scared of Dizag, but because she was afraid of what he would do to Lucy. She wanted to feel Nick’s warmth and comfort envelop her and block out the nastiness that lay around her in the room.

  She shook herself out of it and purposely stepped away from him. Lana wrinkled her nose at the hideous odor that filled the air.

  Surveying the damage, she asked, “How am I going to pay for this?”

  Nick said, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll make it right with the owner. I’m more worried about the fact that no one saw or heard anything while all of this was going on. I know that dragons can be extremely stealthy, but there should have been some noise as he ripped the door apart.

  Lana had to agree. Dizag had spent some time in the room. Ripping apart the furniture, disabling the fire alarm, burning the clothes, and scratching his message on the wall would have taken him a while to accomplish. Even though her room was at the end of the hallway, someone should have heard the door being slashed and destroyed. If there was no one around, then someone should have seen it later.

  That made Lana think of the camera that was in the hallway just outside of her room.

  “The camera should have picked up Dizag as he came in here and left.”

  Walking to the window, Nick pushed back the heavy drapes. The window had been shattered.

  “I don’t think he came in through the door. I’m pretty sure he came in this way. Shredding the door might have been the last thing that he did, doing it to try to scare you. He might even have left through the window.”

  The idea that Dizag thought that he could scare her made her angry all over again. She growled, loudly.

  Nick looked at her as though he understood what she was thinking.

  “See if he left any clothes untouched. If so, grab them. You’re gonna stay in my extra room. There is safety in numbers and we can watch each other’s backs,” Nick said.

  Lana looked at him gratefully. She knew that he wanted to let her know that he thought she was strong and capable of fighting, but that she needed extra protection against their dangerous enemy. An extra paw in a fight against a dragon always came in handy.

  They stopped by to talk to the manager before they left. Nick briefly explained the situation in Lana’s room. The manager was startled because no one had reported hearing or seeing anything.

  He took them into his office where the images from the camera were recorded and stored on the computer systems. He was shocked to see that all of the cameras on Lana’s floor had been disabled.

  Nick didn’t seem to be surprised.

  “We’ll send some people over to repair the room tomorrow,” Nick said. “Just cordon it off for now.”

  “Shouldn’t we call the police?” The manager asked.

  “You could, but it wouldn’t do any good. We know who did it and why. We also know who we are looking for. The police, except for a couple of shifters on the force, wouldn’t stand a chance against Dizag if they cornered him,” Nick said.

  The manager, a raccoon shifter, nodded. He understood.

  Nick signaled a taxi, which dropped them off at his apartment. He nodded at the night watchman and grabbed Lana’s hand, leading her to the elevator.

  The night watchman looked Lana up and down as though she were a fine steak, licked his lips, and then winked knowingly at Nick, whose back was turned.

  Lana had the sudden urge to throat-punch him.

  Once again, her violent reaction stunned her. She had always been calm and peaceful. Now, she felt like she was out to destroy anyone and anything that irked her or got in her way of trying to find and save her sister.

  Nick, sensing her mood, gripped her hand tightly and pulled her into the elevator. It seemed as though the ride took forever, but finally there was a ding and the doors slid open.

  Lana wasn’t shocked when she entered his apartment. It was neat. Everything was put in its place. There wasn’t a lot of clutter, but it was functional. He had what he needed, nothing more, nothing less.

  She couldn’t help thinking that his place could really use a woman’s touch.

  As though he could read her thoughts, Nick smiled ruefully and shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t spend a lot of time here. I work so much that this is basically a place where I eat, sleep, shower, and occasionally watch television.”

  Lana suddenly felt as though her legs were too tired to hold her up anymore, and she sank into the enveloping softness of his couch.

  Nick ordered a pizza and then went into the kitchen, grabbed a couple of beers, and then sat next to her. At first, they simply sat in silence, staring out into the moonlit darkness through his patio door.

  Lana wanted to say something, but she didn’t know what. Suddenly she felt awkward, like a schoolgirl with her first crush.

  They both jumped like they had been shot when the doorbell rang.

  Lana smiled coyly at Nick as she took the last piece of pizza. “I hadn’t realized I was so hungry,” Lana said, patting her stomach after devouring her half of the extra large pizza.

  “Stress and adrenaline does that to a person,” he said smiling.

  Once again, he sat next to her on the couch. He was so close that their thighs were touching. Lana could feel the warmth radiating from his leg to hers, heating up her entire body.

  She breathed in his scent, sensing a hint of pine. Her heart began to beat a million miles an hour and huge bolts of electricity coursed through her like a herd of racehorses.

  Her hand twitched. She wanted to reach over and touch him. She wanted to grab his hand and then feel all the way up to his thick muscles, across his chest, and …

  Lana’
s thoughts stopped abruptly as her face erupted in flames. Where had these thoughts come from?

  Abruptly, Nick stood up and reached out his hand, pulling Lana to her feet.

  “You must be exhausted. Let me show you where your room and the bathroom is,” Nick said.

  He led her to the bathroom and pulled out a new toothbrush. “I hope you like this brand of toothpaste,” he said.

  She nodded. “Anything is fine, as long as it cleans!”

  He left her alone so she could use the facilities and take care of her night toiletries. Then, he showed her to her room.

  It was decorated in an emerald green color, which just happened to be Lana’s favorite color. She looked at the bed and could almost feel the fluffiness of the pillows and the soft mattress cocooning her.

  Nick looked at her as though he wanted to say something. Lana hoped that he would say something—or nothing—and just kiss her.

  She wanted to feel his lips pressed to hers so much, and she wished that she had the courage to initiate a kiss herself. However, just as she was about to, he briefly touched her cheek and said, “Have sweet dreams and get some rest. I suspect we are going to be very busy soon.”

  Then, he softly closed the door behind him. She leaned her face against the cool door and listened to his footsteps go down the hall to his room.

  Lana gripped the doorknob tightly. She wanted to go after him, but she wasn’t sure what she would say. “You are the sexiest beast in both worlds and I want to make love to you?”

  Although she was innocent, she knew that she wanted to mate with Nick more than anything. However, at the last minute, her courage failed her. Instead of chasing after him, she walked slowly to the bed. Dropping her clothes to the floor, she slid into the soft sheets naked, relishing their coolness against her blazing hot body.

  Lana grabbed one of the large pillows and held it close to her. Closing her eyes, she imagined that it was Nick she was clasping tight to her body. Once again, she thought about going into his room.