Full Color (ORCA #3)

Chapter 9

CHAPTER

NINE

DIMITRI

Scraping in the lock on my door pulled me from another nightmare, and I sat bolt upright in bed, clutching the duvet to my naked chest. For a heartbeat, I thought maybe I’d dreamed the noise, that it had all been in my head, but terror climbed up my throat as I watched the knob turn and the door slowly start to swing open.

Dasselaar’s men never came to my room at night, but Scar had been particularly handsy as he’d thrown me back into my room after dinner, and I wondered if tonight was the night his leers turned into something more sinister.

I had nowhere to run, so I sat frozen with fear, my heartbeat drowning out all other sounds as blood pounded in my ears dumping adrenaline into my veins, as a figure I didn’t recognize stepped into my room and quietly closed the door.

“Wh-who’s there?” I wasn’t proud of the way my voice shook, but it was difficult to speak around the panic rising in my chest.

“It’s Quin. Quin Hunter. I didn’t mean to scare you. I promise I’m not here to hurt you.”

Mr. Hunter. Mr. Hunter was in my room.

Why?

My fingers warmed, and for some reason, that settled the fear that had been threatening to overwhelm me. My heart rate slowed and my body relaxed, and when I looked down at my hands, the iridescent glow was visible even in the darkness. I reached for the lamp on my bedside table, and when the bulb flicked to life, I saw Mr. Hunter was still standing by the door. He’d made no attempt to come farther into the room, and that helped to dispel the rest of my panic.

“What are you doing here, Mr. Hunter?” Maybe the question was rude, but since he’d invaded my space, I felt like I was owed an answer.

“Please call me Quin.” He shifted on his feet but didn’t move, though it seemed like he wanted to. “As for what I’m doing in your room, I needed to talk to you, and it seems Dasselaar is doing his best to keep that from happening.”

“How did you know where to find me?”

“I followed Dasselaar’s men after he told them to take you back to your room. I saw them lock you in.” Quin’s brow creased with anger, the same way it had when Dasselaar had demanded I show him the Renoir in the gallery was real. His hands were balled into fists at his sides. He took a small step toward where I still sat in my bed, and I held my breath, waiting to see if he was going to come closer, but he didn’t close the distance between us. “I don’t like the way Dasselaar treats you.”

My heart flipped over in my chest. I couldn’t remember the last time someone besides Athina had cared about me. Still, a scoff escaped my lips. “That makes two of us.”

“Then why do you let him use you?” Quin looked honestly distressed, then upset that he’d asked the question. He shook his head. “That’s not my business. I’m sorry I asked.”

“I don’t let him do anything.”

Quin raised an eyebrow like he wanted me to elaborate, but regardless of how many times I’d drawn his face in my sketchbook or dreamed about being held in his arms, this was the first time we’d spoken. And even though he looked better in real life than he did in my head or in charcoal on paper, and my gut said I could trust him, it was too soon to lay all my vulnerabilities on the table just in case my instincts were wrong. Instead, I looked down at my hands, which continued to tingle with warmth. The glow around my fingers was brighter than ever, so I tucked my hands out of sight under the duvet, then changed the subject. “Do you have a brother?”

He narrowed his eyes, clearly confused by the question. “Yes. Three of them. Why do you ask?”

I wanted to reach for my sketchbook to show him the original picture I’d drawn, but I didn’t, not ready to give that away yet either. “Does one of them look like you?”

He studied me carefully, much the way he had during dinner, and I got the distinct feeling he was seeing more than I wanted to reveal. “Yes. I have a twin.”

“I think I’ve met him.”

Quin nodded. “I know. He told me.”

I waited for him to say more, but he didn’t, even though his gaze continued to roam over me with such intensity it gave me goose bumps and sent a pleasant shiver down my spine that landed in my balls. Wanting this strange interaction, whatever it was, to last, I pivoted back to our previous topic, steering clear of my reasons for being Dasselaar’s good little toy. “I find it hard to believe you went through the trouble of breaking into my room just to tell me you think Dasselaar is an asshole.”

Quin took a tiny step forward, and my pulse picked up, not because I was afraid but because I was hoping he would finally come closer. Sitting up against the headboard, I shifted on the bed to make room for him. The duvet dropped away from my naked torso, and I felt Quin’s gaze fall to my chest, studying it like he would need to paint me from memory. When his eyes found mine in the dimly lit room, there was a hint of fire in his dark irises, and a thrill of desire unfurled in my core.

When he didn’t move closer to the bed, I pulled my hand from under the duvet and patted the space I’d made for him, trying to ignore the fact that I had decided to sleep in the nude and had nothing on under the blanket.

He still didn’t take the hint.

“Please sit. You’re making me nervous.”

“I’m sorry. I’m screwing this up so badly.”

“Why don’t we start over?” From my position on the bed, I held out my hand. “I’m Dimitri Chrysanthos.” Quin studied my hand for so long I thought he might not shake it. I started to pull it back, but he grabbed my fingers, and the second our palms touched, it felt like I’d brushed a live wire. Tingling heat moved from where our hands met up through my body until it felt like he was touching me everywhere from the inside out. Maybe I’d been alone and starved for gentle touch for too long, but I never wanted to let Quin’s warm, callused hand go.

Unless it was so he could touch me somewhere less innocent.

Quin gasped, and his eyes met mine, the tiny fire that had been simmering there now a roaring inferno, and I was pleased to see I wasn’t the only one instantly affected by our connection.

He might not have been there to hurt me, but there was no denying Quin Hunter was dangerous.

To my heart.

Quin looked down at where our hands were joined, then up at me, a look of awe on his face as though he was feeling what I was feeling. “I’m Quin Hunter.”

Reluctantly, I let go of his hand, my fingers still buzzing from his touch. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Quin Hunter. What brings you to my room at this time of night?” I patted the spot on my bed again, and Quin finally sat. He held himself stiffly, like he was afraid to relax.

“I’m here because I need your help.”

That surprised me. “My help? Why do you need my help?”

Quin answered my question with a question of his own. “How long have you been living here?”

I thought living was a generous way to describe what I’d been doing. Existing felt more appropriate, but I understood what he meant. “Over a year.”

“A year?” His hands balled into fists again where they rested against his thighs, his anger palpable. “He’s kept you locked up here for a year?”

“He lets me out for meals and when he needs me at the gallery or at one of his meetings.”

The muscle in Quin’s jaw ticked. “That’s unacceptable.”

“There’s nothing I can do about it for now, so why don’t you tell me what it is you need me to do for you.”

His gaze swept over my features, and he shook his head, then mumbled like he was talking to himself and pulled something from his ear, closing his fist around it so I couldn’t see what he held. “My brothers are going to kill me. This is why I don’t do fieldwork.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Do you want to be here, Dimitri?”

Quin’s question took me aback. The answer was obvious. “Do I want to be locked away, drugged, and at Dasselaar’s beck and call? No, Quin. I’m pretty sure I’d rather be anywhere else.”

“Drugged? What do you mean?” His words came out through clenched teeth.

Sighing, I gave Quin a tiny piece of my story, hoping like hell that I could trust my intuition about him. “I’m a chameleon shifter.” Quin’s eyes went wide. “When Dasselaar saw what I could do, like what I did with the Renoir and the forged Vermeer at his gallery, he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Because chameleon shifters can change their appearance at will, we are bound to the countries we are born in unless we’re granted permission to leave by our country’s government or we leave the country illegally. I chose the latter when I left Cyprus. Dasselaar found out and has used that information to his advantage. Since I’m small in my shifted form, almost the size of one of my wild cousins, Dasselaar couldn’t allow me to shift because that would mean I could take my animal form and slip through his grasp. He keeps me on a steady dose of antitransmutative drugs that allow me to partially shift so I can do what he wants but makes it so I can’t shift beyond that.”

By the time I finished speaking, Quin’s fists were so tight his knuckles had gone white. “You haven’t shifted in over a year?”

I shook my head.

“I’m going to kill him.”

Quin’s vehement response on my behalf made me feel warm in a way that even his touch hadn’t. “Is that what you need my help with?”

Almost like he’d forgotten what we’d been talking about, he shook his head, then looked at me with softness in his previously tense features. “No. I would never put you at risk like that.”

Little did Quin know my life was at risk every day, whether I planned on attempting to take Dasselaar’s life or not.

“So then, what do you need me for?”

“My grandmother is Juno Hunter, a famous art thief. My brothers and I are here because we think one of the paintings Dasselaar is going to auction off is part of a bigger plot that involves my family. We think Dasselaar has invited whoever is targeting my family to the gala.”

“Okay.” I wasn’t sure what any of that could possibly have to do with me.

“I need to find the guest list and any information Dasselaar is holding on to about the painting so my brothers can start doing research.” Quin looked at me seriously. “I hate to ask you for this, but is there any way you could take me to Dasselaar’s study or office? We weren’t able to get the list from any of the computers at the gallery.”

“That’s because he hates technology. He doesn’t trust it. He thinks it’s too easy to manipulate, and a digital footprint is forever. You can’t just kill it to make it go away.” A shudder shivered down my spine as my mind conjured up an image of the truck driver lying in a pool of cooling blood, and I had to close my eyes to push the memory away.

Quin nodded. “Oddly, that makes sense. I looked into the transactions for the gallery and none of the bills of lading have been filed electronically.”

“Like I said, I’m not free to roam the estate. I’ve only been to Dasselaar’s study here a few times, but I think I remember where it is.”

“Will you show me?” Quin’s eyes were pleading.

The thought of wandering around Dasselaar’s estate in the middle of the night was oddly thrilling. It was a type of freedom I hadn’t tasted in a long, long time, and if we were going to break into Dasselaar’s study, I could look for anything I could possibly use to free myself and my sister while Quin looked for his list.

“Yes.”