Read Online The Guardian by Connie Hall - Free Book Online

joke, it’s not funny.”
    â€œI never joke about my work.” He looked lethally serious.
    The government had a secret branch that dealt with supernatural occurrences? Never in a million yearswould she have believed that Uncle Sam knew about the supernatural realm. But what about Area 51? And they funded studies on ESP. Why not have an agency that investigated supernatural incidents? What floored her was they’d actually kept it a secret. So the X-files do exist.
    â€œHow many branches of the bureau are there?” she asked.
    â€œI don’t know. I run the one in Washington.”
    He knew; he just wasn’t saying. It occurred to her that he probably knew she was a shape-shifter, too. She swallowed past a growing lump in her throat. Suddenly the coffee in her empty stomach tasted sour.
    She kept her voice level. “So why was BOSP interested in the park murder?”
    â€œI’m certain you know why.” There was that shrewd look again like he knew her inside and out.
    She nervously gripped the handle of her coffee cup, but didn’t drink it because she couldn’t exactly swallow at the moment. She decided to deflect his last statement and asked, “So did you find something we missed at the murder scene?”
    â€œNot really.”
    He was making her work for every bit of information. The waiter arrived with their food and plopped it unceremoniously on the table.
    Fala picked up her fork, dipped it into the mound of whipped cream on her waffle, and licked it. When she noticed his eyes sharpening on her lips, she regretted what she’d done. She pretended to concentrate on cutting her waffle.
    Silence stretched for a while, then he said, “Now thatyou’ve been to the murder scene, what are your feelings about the murder?” He wolfed down a strip of bacon in two bites.
    She decided honesty would be the best tack on this point. “I think our visitor at the station murdered the woman. Now I just need to find out where he’s hiding. You have any leads?”
    â€œNot a clue. I’ve never seen a werewolf dissolve into thin air as that one did. He’s not like any lycanthrope I’ve come across. How about you?”
    She wondered how many werewolves he’d faced in his job. “Sorry.” She wasn’t about to go into Tumseneha with him. “So are the qualifications for working at BOSP that you have some kind of supernatural power of your own?”
    He nodded while he cut his egg. “Warlock.” He scoured her for a reaction.
    She kept her face as blank as his and forked another piece of waffle into her mouth. The title warlock in some modern Wiccan societies usually meant one who’d been banished from a coven for some betrayal. If a witch called himself a warlock and sounded proud of it, as Winter just had, he probably lived up to his title. She’d had a few run-ins with lone-wolf warlocks. They were the worst kind. Mercenaries, the lot of them. So the million-dollar question: was he drawn to white magic or black?
    â€œYour turn,” he said, looking expectantly at her.
    â€œI’m betting you probably already know what I am.”
    He blinked at her as if she’d scored a point in the respect area, then he said, “Then you’d win the bet.”
    â€œHow much do you know?”
    â€œNot much besides the file I have on the Patomani.”
    â€œThere’s a file on us?” She dropped the fork in her hand and it clattered against her plate.
    The nod again.
    â€œSo you know I’m about to become the Guardian?”
    â€œYour grandmother has been on our radar for some time, too. We know how pivotal your role is here on Earth, and I have a proposition for you.”
    Here comes the real reason for this breakfast. If she cared to admit it, she had hoped that he might have wanted to get her alone so they could get to know each other better. Surprising, too, because she didn’t even like