​The longer he sat there inhaling her delicious scent, the more pissed he got. She had no right to make him feel like this, dammit. She’d dumped his ass and had made no secret about why. She’d gone out of her way to end their partnership in the most complete and total way possible. He should be thinking of all the different ways he could make her suffer, but instead he was remembering what it had felt like to hold her in his arms and make love to her. And that pissed him off even more.

Something else pissed him off, too. Something that made him want to get up and walk straight out of the Sacramento field office and right back to the airport: John had set his ass up. True, John hadn’t known he and Danica had been sleeping together—at least Clayne didn’t think so—but he’d known their partnership hadn’t ended on a good note. Understatement there. John had to know Clayne would rather take on a whole pack of hybrids by himself than work with his old partner again.

There was no way he didn’t know Danica was on this case. John clearly wanted them working together again. But why?

Clayne didn’t know, and he didn’t care. The blatant manipulation was enough to make him unleash his inner animal right there in the middle of the conference room, witnesses be damned.

Somehow, he kept it together until Danica was finished with her briefing. The moment she was done, he was out of the room and heading for the elevator. He punched the down button with his thumb, wishing he could put his fist through the wall instead. Down the hall, feds and local cops poured from the conference room. Dammit. He’d hoped to be long gone before anyone came out. And they were heading his way, too.

Shit.

While most of them regarded him curiously, one of the suits wearing a visitor’s badge extended his hand. Clayne knew it’d be too much to hope they’d ignore him.

“Jeremy Weathers from BI,” the man said. “I didn’t catch your name.”

Because I didn’t give it, smart-ass. The words were on the tip of his tongue, but Clayne bit them back. John had told him to be discreet, and even though he felt like killing his boss at the moment, the DCO director was right about playing nice with these people. Growling at them and shoving them up against the wall wasn’t going to improve this screwed-up situation anyway. So he put on his happy face and shook the man’s hand.

“Clayne Buchanan. Homeland Security.”

Weathers’ eyes narrowed. “What’s DHS doing working a serial killer case?”

Clayne gave the man a shrug. “Just lending a hand, that’s all.”

“Does DHS think the guy we’re after is a terrorist?”

The question came from a stocky blond-haired man with an FBI badge. Where the hell was that elevator?

Clayne shook his head. “No, nothing like that.”

Senior Special Agent Carhart had joined the group and was eyeing him with the same interest as everyone else.

"If the killer isn’t a suspected terrorist, why is Homeland Security wasting its resources helping us look for him?” Carhart asked.

Clayne ground his jaw. What Carhart really wanted to know was whether the Department of Homeland Security—the DHS—was going to swoop in and take over his investigation. Kind of like the FBI had done to the locals.

“I just go where I’m told,” he said.

“Is that so?” The superior look Carhart gave him probably would have been a lot more intimidating if Clayne wasn’t a foot taller and outweighed him by seventy pounds. “What exactly do you add to the team, Agent Buchanan?”

Clayne barely suppressed a growl. He’d been willing to stick to the script and play nice like John wanted, but he didn’t need some pencil-pushing prick getting in his face because he was worried someone might steal his glory. It had been a really bad day already, and it’d feel damn good to rip off this a-hole’s face.

The thought made his fangs tingle in that pleasant way they did before they elongated. He still had enough control to prevent it, but that didn’t stop him from forming a nice visual in his head of making this jerk piss all over himself in fear. Then he’d see what Clayne added to the team.

Carhart was oblivious to the ass whooping Clayne was about to lay on him, but the people around them must have picked up on the hostile tension because they were eyeing him and the fed warily.

“He hunts people.” Danica’s words effectively stuck a needle in the balloon that had been the only fun this day was going to provide. That was the second time she’d snuck up on him since he’d gotten there. He was seriously off his game. “He has the unique ability to track down bad people.”

The men and women gathered around him and Carhart turned to look at her. There wasn’t a room that Danica couldn’t command when she wanted to. Clayne used to think he was the only one she had that effect on because he’d been so in love with her, until he’d seen her do it to heads of state and foreign military leaders. It obviously worked on FBI agents, too.

Carhart frowned at her. “You two know each other? I didn’t see anything in your file saying you worked interagency with DHS, Agent Beckett.”

“We worked together a few years ago,” she answered smoothly. “I think you’ll discover Agent Buchanan is a valuable asset to the team.”

Carhart’s mouth tightened. “That remains to be seen. Since you worked with Buchanan in the past, he stays with you at all times. I don’t want anyone going rogue on this task force. I don’t care what agency he works for.”

Danica looked about as thrilled with that order as Clayne was, but Carhart strode down the hall before either of them could say anything.

The elevator doors finally opened. Damn things.

Clayne would have jumped on, but the BI guy he’d been talking to earlier beat him to it. The rest of the people waiting hurriedly crowded on, leaving Clayne with Danica and a tall, dark-haired man. Clayne waited for the man to bolt like everyone else, but he stayed where he was.

“Good to see you haven’t let those valuable social skills of yours deteriorate in the last two years,” Danica said when the elevator doors had closed. She glanced at the man beside her. “This is my partner, Tony Moretti. Tony, Clayne Buchanan.”

Moretti offered his hand, but Clayne didn’t take it. The fed studied Clayne with dark eyes, as if he didn’t know exactly what to think of him. Clayne, on the other hand, knew exactly what he thought of Danica’s partner—he hated him.

Danica sighed. “Some things never change, do they?” She shook her head and glanced at her watch. “We have a little bit of daylight left. I assume you’d like to see the most recent crime scene?”

Ten minutes ago, Clayne wanted to be anywhere but this building. Now he wasn’t sure if he wanted to leave, not if it meant going with Danica and her partner.

“Give me the address,” he said. “I’ll check it out myself.”

Danica shook her head. “Uh-uh. You want to see it, you get an FBI escort. And thanks to my big mouth, Carhart’s decided that’s going to be Tony and me. So, let’s go.”

She pressed the button for the elevator, then stood there with her eyes focused on the doors and her arms folded underneath her perfect breasts. Damn, he hated her with a vengeance right then.

Clayne swore under his breath. He didn’t care what it took, he was going to find this killer in record time, then get his ass the hell out of California. Because there was no way he was spending one minute longer with his ex-partner-slash-lover than he had to.