Chapter Text
November 14, 1997
North of Poughkeepsie in Dutchess County, NY during the Full Moon
Almost directly overhead in the winter night sky, the full moon lit a scene of death and life in silver light and deep shadow. The night was still and hushed, with not even the faintest hint of wind stirring the dead leaves still clinging to their branches. The deer standing in the shadows of the naked trees stood almost immobile except for the nervous twitching of its tail and the flaring of its nostrils as it tried to determine what creature had invaded its normally safe existence. Crouching motionless against the frozen ground several meters away, a massive jaguar, midnight black in color, waited with patient stillness for the right moment to strike for a quick kill. The most visible sign of life between the two motionless creatures were the steaming white plumes that hung in the chill air with every breath of both predator and prey.
Usually the consciousness whose body was currently in the form of the jaguar considered deer elegant, graceful creatures and enjoyed watching them play in the early morning as they grazed on the lawn of her estate in upper New York. On the night of the full moon however, the jaguar’s predatory instincts held sway over her human side and they were her prey. She had picked out one of the weaker, older deer that would probably not last the entire winter as this moon’s quarry. Stalking it, she had adroitly cut it off from the rest of the herd. Now it stood, terrified and indecisive, uncertain of where to run, then suddenly tried to leap past her. The were-jaguar sprang from her crouch and slapped its head with her paw, crushing the animal’s skull with the blow and instantly killing it.
The force of her strike caused the body of the deer to flip around mid-air before it landed hindquarters first and then slid a few feet along the leaf covered ground before coming to a halt. There it lay limp and still, all life fled from it. For a brief moment the human within the jaguar rose and felt regret over the deer’s death - only for a brief moment however, and then the jaguar dominated once again as the big cat’s body demanded the substance that was the reward of successful hunt. Crossing over to body of the deer, she ripped open the hind flank of the animal with one slash of her powerful claws. The hide of the deer split open, revealing the red flesh underneath. For a moment the were-jaguar stood still, her wandering gaze alert and her ears flickering as she searched out any sign or sound of danger before settling down beside the dead animal upon her haunches to feed.
The were-jaguar enjoyed these nights of the full moon. She knew that she perhaps shouldn’t enjoy them as much as she did, but all her human cares and worries were set aside on this night and only her prey and the exhilaration of the hunt concerned her. It wasn’t as if she couldn’t change any time she desired, but the nights of the full moon were different. On these nights she felt closest to the cat spirit that lived inside her. On these nights it did not pain her to change her form. Instead, it was a pure, sensual pleasure to slide into the jaguar shape.
Once the were-jaguar had sated herself upon the carcass of the deer she stood; leaving what remained for forest scavengers and sauntered through the forest toward the nearby stream fed lake for a swim. She loved swimming; it was one of the more enjoyable aspects of being a jaguar instead of another type of cat and it also had the useful side effect of cleaning her coat of any blood from her hunt. The powerful strokes of her legs and splayed paws moved the big cat rapidly forward through the lake waters as she enjoyed the feel of the winter chilled water against her thick fur. Occasionally she ducked her head underneath the surface, closing her eyes and letting the water flow over her muzzle before lifting her head once again for air.
Finally tiring of her play, the big cat decided to head towards the far shore where a large estate house overlooked the expanse of the lake and the forest. Once upon dry land she shook vigorously for several seconds, shaking the water from her fur before heading toward the white sided 18th century building. The housekeeper and grounds keeper that normally cared for the house were gone for the evening, thus she was free to saunter through the open patio doors on the west side of the house without fear of anyone seeing her. Entering the room beyond, she barely spared a glance at the room’s antique cherry furnishings or the monstrously huge four-poster bed against antique ivory colored walls. The room itself was spacious, even with the presence of the bed, with plenty of space for the were-jaguar to move about.
Halting in front of a hanging mirror, the great cat took a moment to examine her reflected image: a broad, blocky head with strong jaw and muzzle; a muscular, deep chest; stocky body; deep black coat and thick tail. She was larger and heavier than a natural jaguar by over one hundred pounds, and nine inches taller as well at thirty-six instead of twenty-seven inches. After a few moments more consideration of her current form, the were-jaguar closed her eyes and began concentrating on changing back to her human form. Nothing happened for a brief moment and then the massive body began to shrink as the were-jaguar collapsed upon the hardwood flooring, writhing in apparent pain from the transformation taking place within her body. The jaguar’s thick black coat withdrew, revealing pale but tanned skin, cat limbs transformed into human arms and legs, and the blocky muzzled head altered into that of a human female with long black hair. Once the woman had recovered from the transformation process, she rose to her feet and looked searchingly into the mirror at her nude body as if double checking that everything was in its right place.
Slightly taller than average at five feet ten inches the woman’s nude displayed well toned muscles under light olive skin. Reassured that everything about her body was in its proper place, the woman studied her face with a quick, intent gaze. Her deep blue eyes were her most commented upon feature, their intensity of color garnering her compliments from both sexes. Strength and determination were revealed in the strong lines of the woman’s face with a square jaw line and chin, angular cheekbones and a straight, somewhat narrow nose. Full lips and a graceful long neck completed the picture, adding a feminine and sensual touch to her face.
The black haired woman who had just transformed from a jaguar back into a human was Kendra Canmore, daughter of Robert Canmore and Maria De Santos. She had not always been a were-jaguar, when she was fifteen she and her parents had gone exploring Mayan ruins in Brazil after visiting her mother’s parents. Separated from her parents in the ruins, the young teenager had come across a wounded jaguar trapped in one of the rooms. The animal was unable to stand on its own, and watched her intently and without any apparent fear or hostility as she examined it. Kendra looked around the room the jaguar had fallen into for a way to free the animal, and decided that if she could move some of the fallen masonry sections she could free the beautiful animal.
The dark-haired teenager climbed carefully down into the room, staying away from the hurt animal, and began to work on clearing the fallen rubble. She had not been paying attention to the trapped cat as she worked, and was surprised when the animal rubbed up against her side, apparently having freed itself. She turned slowly and looked unblinkingly into the animal’s eyes, telling herself to betray no fear, though strangely the girl was not really afraid of the animal. It was the largest black jaguars the girl had seen, and as she slipped into unconsciousness her last thoughts were how strong and impressive the animal appeared and how compelling the animal’s green eyes were as they looked into her own.
When Kendra came to her clothing was bloody, but the teenager could find no wounds on herself. Puzzled, the girl looked around for the handsome animal but could not find any trace of it. She had climbed back out of the room and found her family afterwards, telling them the blood was from a hurt deer she had found and freed knowing that her parents would panic if she told them the animal had actually been a jaguar. That was something the teenager was not eager to experience, so she kept that particular detail to herself. Almost a year after the incident with the trapped jaguar, Kendra’s father was killed and her mother severely injured in a car accident. Maria Canmore left the hospital after several weeks, but the accident left Kendra’s mother with permanent spinal injuries and she would never walk again.
A few months after the accident Kendra began dreaming of being a jaguar, of her body changing, stretching, fitting into the shape of the cat she had believed she was rescuing. Then, almost exactly year later from when the dreams began, on the night of a full moon, the girl transformed into a jaguar for the first time. Despite the dreams which had prepared her for the process, the first transformation was still very frightening and confusing for the young woman. The following full moon was as exhilarating as frightening, and by the third full moon the transformation had barely frightened her at all. Even with her fears about what was happening to her and the questions she had about why and how she transformed, Kendra kept silent about it. She told no one, not even her mother, and due to her mother’s injuries it was not difficult for the teenager to hide the fact that she was changing into a jaguar every full moon. Five years ago, Maria Canmore had followed her husband, Robert Canmore, into death, leaving Kendra, now twenty-two years old, significant shares in several businesses, a considerable fortune and an estate in upper New York as well as a large loft condo in Manhattan.
All in all, Kendra enjoyed her life more now than before meeting the jaguar in the Mayan ruins. She was much stronger and quicker after the transformations began than before, and had learned, after a few startled looks from her class mates and teachers in high school, to be careful to not bring undue attention to herself by displaying her higher than normal strength and quickness. Her body now healed at an increased rate. Fortunately, nothing had happened to her to bring it to anyone’s attention exactly how fast she healed. Kendra didn’t know what she would do if she were ever injured badly enough to require hospitalization. The doctors would notice immediately that something was very different about her, no normal human healed as fast as she did.
Kendra had been dealing with the changes for ten years, and was twenty-seven now; over the years, she had learned how to control the changes so that she changed only when she chose to do so. Now it didn’t matter if it were day or night, or whether or not the moon was full. It was fortunate for her that she had learned how to do so for seven years ago, while she was visiting the loft in Manhattan, four men had attacked her in Central Park. Finding herself unable to fight them all off in human form, she had changed into her jaguar form and killed them. Because of that night Kendra began training in the martial arts, determined to be able to protect herself without resorting to bringing forth the jaguar.
Now, several years later, she was an accomplished martial artist, having taken to unarmed combat rather eerily like a duck to water. Kendra knew she was intelligent and learned things relatively quickly, but when it came to learning physical skills she was on another level entirely in comparison to normal humans. It had to be the were-jaguar part of her, for while she had always been better at learning physical skills than purely mental ones when she was young, she had not been nearly as quick to learn them as she was now. Kendra had absorbed the skills that her martial arts teacher taught her so quickly and progressed through the initial skill ranks so fast that her sensei and the other students had begun commenting upon it, prompting her to make the effort to look less skilled than she actually was to slow her progression though the ranks and stand out less from the other students.
Her visual double-check that she did every time she changed shape complete, Kendra dressed and pulled out a suitcase to pack for her trip to Manhattan. While there, she planned to visit her cousin Jason who had been paralyzed in a mysterious accident over a year ago. He had been very reticent about the cause of his condition during their phone call, and she suspected it had something to do with his family’s murderous obsession with gargoyles. Gargoyles were without a doubt the greatest scientific and anthropological mystery of the modern age, and until recent times and the occasional sighting of them in Manhattan, thought to have gone extinct during the Middle Ages and Dark Ages when they were believed to be demons and killed whenever they were discovered.
Tales of gargoyles had existed since ancient times; however, like the tales of vampires and werewolves, which had also existed since antiquity, without any physical evidence beyond that of ancient shattered statues claimed to be those of actual gargoyles, they were thought to be merely legends and myth instead of tales about actual living beings. Then in 1973, detailed microscopic studies of a destroyed gargoyle statue from the 1300’s had revealed the intricacies of a living being all perfectly cast in stone. Skin, organs, tissue, bone and blood vessels, all perfectly preserved down to the microscopic level of cell walls, mitochondria, ribosomes and nucleolus. The discovery had immediately been denounced as a colossal hoax until universities around the globe had duplicated the discovery from the original source material.
It seemed impossible for such a species to be real, but then it seemed equally impossible for even modern science to duplicate the effect of living tissue turned into stone. That left two possibilities, that the Gargoyle race - a race of winged, egg-bearing mammals, or mammal-like reptiles, which reportedly turned into stone during the day - had actually existed as a living species; or that the Gargoyle race had existed, but did not turn into stone, and an unknown method of permineralization, the process of the fossilization of organic tissues, had occurred to preserve this particular specimen. The later theory, of course, was immediately declared to be the preferred explanation of the scientific community, setting of an immediate competition among well-known Universities to find more evidence of the previously unknown species for study. One of the things these scientists were hoping to find was a specimen that had not been so well fossilized that extracting DNA for comparison studies was not impossible. Scientists wanted to determine where in the species tree between reptiles and mammal’s the gargoyles fell, for there was much contention between the scientific groups who thought they were warm-blooded egg bearing reptiles and those who believed they were egg bearing mammals like the platypus. The second thing the scientists wanted to find was evidence of how intelligent the gargoyles actually were, for the tales of the winged species described them as being able to speak and use tools, which would make them the second intelligent race of Earth beside Humanity.
Unsurprisingly, the scientist’s declaration that the specimen was actually a fossil did not stop further speculation from less academically minded sources who preferred the seemingly impossible, and certainly more sensationalistic, theory that gargoyles had actually been able to turn into stone. Proponents in this camp firmly believed the scientists had really been examining a gargoyle corpse and proposed theories ranging from the vaguely scientifically possible, but highly unlikely, to the outright supernatural for the gargoyles bizarre ability. Many far right religious groups, Christian, Jewish and Muslim, promptly declared that gargoyles were not actually living beings but demons; agents of darkness who could not stand the touch of sunlight and thus turned into stone to escape it. To these groups, the killing of gargoyles by humans had not been an act of genocide against another intelligent species, but, just as many ancient tales had stated, the destruction of agents of evil by true believers only seeking to protect humankind from them.
Kendra knew the declaration that gargoyles had been hunted as demons and killed whenever they had been found was true, for her family, the Canmore’s had been hunting and killing gargoyles ever since the first Canmore hunter, Duncan Canmore, the King of Scotland from 1034 to 1040. Kendra’s uncle, Charles, and his children were but the latest in the long line of Canmore Hunters. Her father Robert, however, had refused to follow the family’s murderous traditions, leaving Scotland as a young man to come to America and pursue a career in business. Kendra’s father had always said that his brother Charles’ choice to continue the Canmore obsession with hunting gargoyles would result in nothing but grief, and it had not surprised her father that one had taken exception to being hunted one night and had tossed his brother off the side of the Notre Dame Cathedral. Compounding the tragedy was the fact that Charles had taken his children to watch, and they witnessed their father’s death. Her uncle’s children, Jason, Jon, and Robyn Canmore, had all vowed to hunt down and kill the gargoyle who had killed their father. They asked Robert for his help, but her father had refused. He was sorry about what had happened to his brother, but he would not kill any creature for defending itself. Kendra’s cousin’s had been shocked and angered by the refusal and all conversation between the two families had ceased, at least until last week when Jason had called and asked her to come and visit him at his new apartment in the city.
Kendra left for Manhattan the next morning, the moon was just beginning to wane and she knew she would not feel the overwhelming urge to change for another three weeks. Besides, she was curious about the gargoyle stories she had been hearing on the news from Manhattan. Kendra was all but certain that gargoyles were not the demons the Canmore’s made them out to be, but other than that, she really knew very little about them. Oh, she knew the history behind, and the reasons the Canmore’s claimed justified their brutal vendetta against the gargoyles. She had read a few of the journals written by Canmore hunters, journals where they kept their tally of the number gargoyles they had found and killed. She had been horrified at how the hunters boastingly wrote about how many hatchlings and eggs they had destroyed. As a young teenager, she had wondered if the hunters had actually committed murder and infanticide. In the end, the young Kendra decided the fact that the hunters had killed helpless babies was enough to convince her that the hunters were the demons, not the gargoyles they boasted about killing, and she was all the prouder of her father for rejecting his father and brother’s beliefs.
The family histories had included surprisingly little about what the gargoyles were other than calling them demons. They included lots of information about how to find and kill them, but little to nothing about basic things like what they ate, what their social structure was, or even how long they lived. Kendra had no idea exactly how intelligent the gargoyles were beyond the fact that they could speak, wore clothing, made fires and used basic tools, which only indicated that they were as intelligent as primitive man. Perhaps she would get the chance to see one in the city and look into his or her eyes and find the answers to some of her questions.
Sliding behind the wheel of her black Jaguar convertible, Kendra grabbed her sunglasses and put them on before putting the vehicle in drive and start on her way to Manhattan. Really, she couldn’t possibly have bought any other type of automobile, and she always smirked just a little bit in amusement every time she drove it. So curious was she about what her cousin had to tell her that she only stopped by her loft condo apartment long enough to drop off her suitcase and freshen up after the trip before continuing on to Jason’s apartment.
Her cousin answered her knock in a wheelchair and invited her inside exclaiming, “Kendra, you did decide to come!” To Kendra’s surprise, there was another person in Jason’s apartment, staring out the barred patio door was a woman with long dark hair. Kendra had only a brief moment to admire the woman’s trim feminine figure before the woman turned around to stare at her curiously. Kendra smiled, the woman was a nice to look at from the front as the rear, Jason definitely had good taste. Then her cousin introduced them, “Elisa Maza, meet my first cousin Kendra Canmore. Kendra, Elisa is a detective with the 23rd Precinct in Manhattan.”
Kendra nodded politely to the detective in response to the woman’s greeting, “Nice to meet you.” She raised a curious eyebrow at her cousin, wondering how he knew a police detective.
“I met her while pretending to be a newly transferred detective. She was assigned as my partner. She’s been nice enough to come by and visit every week,” Jason answered the silent question.
Kendra glanced over at the detective, she wanted to ask if her cousin had gotten hurt hunting gargoyles, but she didn’t want to bring up the subject in front of the detective. “How are you doing?” she asked instead. As attractive as the woman looked, right now Kendra really wished she wasn’t present.
Jason stared at her for a second, “Fine,” he answered slowly following her gaze. “She knows,” he sighed, “she knows about the gargoyles and about our family’s history with them.”
“Your side of the family’s,” Kendra corrected immediately, and then regretted it when her cousin flinched.
Jason grimaced, “Right, my side of the family’s,” he agreed and she thought she detected an overtone of regret in his voice.
She sighed, “Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up. So how did you get hurt, a gargoyle?”
“No, actually I saved one’s life by stepping between Jon and it. Jon shot me by accident,” he answered.
Kendra straightened up surprised, “Ok, now I’m really curious. I never thought I’d hear you say that you saved a gargoyle in my wildest imagings.”
Kendra listened intently to Jason’s story interrupting him to clarify some points. As he continued, she became more and more puzzled over the Demona that he spoke about so frequently, and what connection a gargoyle could possibly have with Nightstone Unlimited, which she knew was owned by Dominique Destine. Finally, feeling that she was missing a vital piece of information, she asked, “How did a gargoyle manage to direct such a research effort? What connection does this Demona have with Nightstone?”
Jason paused, hesitant. She waited as still and patiently as she had waited last night for her prey to approach knowing that he would eventually decide answer her questions. Finally, he began speaking again, nervously revealing that this particular gargoyle used sorcery to turn herself into Dominique Destine during the day. Kendra was fairly certain that only a slight widening of her eyes possibly betrayed her surprise at this information, for she knew about the woman from business dealings with Nightstone in the past.
“Let’s say for now that I believe that sorcery can change and woman into a gargoyle and vice versa,” Kendra smirked, letting Jason assume that she didn’t really believe that such a thing was possible, when, of course, given her own reality, she did believe him. “It at least explains how she was able to get the resources to develop such a virus. So…go on,” she prompted him to continue.
Detective Maza had sat down in a chair earlier and was listening intently to Jason’s tale; at this comment, she glanced sharply in Kendra’s direction and regarded her suspiciously. Kendra returned the stare with a smirk, and then followed it with a slow, appreciative sweep of the detective’s body. A flush of color in the woman’s cheeks and a narrow eyed glare rewarded her, she smoothly turned her attention back to her cousin as if her appreciative examination had never happened knowing that was likely to provoke the detective even more.
Jason, who had evidently not noticed a thing, was busy describing how he had saved the leader of the Manhattan gargoyle clan, Goliath, from being shot by Jason, and how Goliath had ruined Demona’s enchantment that would have spared the gargoyles from a general plague to wipe out all intelligent life. Demona had tossed the canister containing the plague virus in the air and had gotten away as Goliath had scrambled to catch it before it broke on the floor.
Kendra noted how tense Elisa became every time Jason spoke of the other gargoyles besides Demona. It was not something Jason seemed to notice, and Kendra doubted most humans would notice, but her predator senses had alerted on the small signs of nervousness. She filed it away for further consideration along with Elisa’s silence during the story and merely nodded in response to her cousin’s description of the events which led up to his injury. She asked Jason, “So you and Robyn are done with this nonsense?”
Elisa looked surprised at her statement, but Jason simply nodded, “I am at least; Robyn is in jail serving a ten-year sentence for various charges her first chance at parole comes up in two years. I would be in jail as well but they aren’t going to press charges given my injury.”
Kendra asked, “And Jon? What’s he up to?”
Jason grimaced, “Jon blames the gargoyles for this instead of himself and has started a group called the Quarrymen to destroy the gargoyles.”
Kendra rolled her eyes in annoyance; she had begun to hope that Jason would say they had all given up their continuation of the Canmore’s vendetta against the gargoyles. From what her father had told her, and from her own brief chance to read Duncan’s own journal, she knew that Duncan the First had been a ruthless and unprincipled king. Duncan had only begun hunting gargoyles because a clan of them were allied with Macbeth and he wanted them killed before beginning his attack on Macbeth. The gargoyle clan’s female leader had killed Duncan during the attack on Macbeth’s castle, and later, when Canmore became king after defeating Macbeth, he had begun hunting that particular gargoyle along with any other seeking revenge for his father’s death. Her thoughts reminded her of something she had just heard Jason say, she frowned confused, “You really believe this Demona is the same gargoyle that first Duncan, and then Canmore, fought?” She stared incredulously at Jason, “But that would make her around a thousand years old.”
Jason winced, “Goliath said that she was probably the same person, she’s immortal.”
Kendra stared at him, absorbing the implications, and then simply nodded for Jason looked tired and Elisa was glancing at her watch. Kendra commented, “Well I need to go get something to eat, and Elisa looks like she needs to be going somewhere. I will come back and see you tomorrow Jason.” With that, she gave him a light hug, gave the detective a purposefully friendly non-sexual smile to confuse the woman even more, and exited Jason’s apartment building with a light step. Walking over to her Jaguar, she noticed the dark-haired detective watching her and saw the envious look at her car. Smiling in amusement at the other woman, Kendra put the care in reverse and pulled out of the parking lot. She had passed by a steak house on her way to the apartment. A huge porterhouse sounded really good right now, her stomach had been growling at her for the past hour.
Red wine and steak what a wonderful combination, Kendra though with a contented sigh, her hunger finally sated. Pondering everything Jason had told her, the entire tale made less and less sense to Kendra. Dominique Destine, sole owner of Nightstone Unlimited, was well known to Kendra, she had business dealings with the woman’s company in the past. The woman was a shrewd businesswoman. She was not the type to make a mistake like making permanent record of your plan to exterminate the human race, and then leave it in plain sight in the company safe. Moreover, it wasn’t as if the plan Jason had described was complicated, go here at this time, do this spell, then release the virus, hardly any need for the disk at all. On top of that, who took a newly hired personal assistant down to show off their plan to exterminate the human race, or at least part of that plan, on the first week at work anyway? Kendra thought with a smirk. Not to mention that Robyn and Jon had been lucky that the gargoyle hadn’t actually killed them the night before. Kendra certainly would have never walked off without making sure that ‘dead’ enemies were definitely dead. Something like snapping their necks or crushing their skulls would have been her preferred method of ensuring dead was actually dead. She would have thought that Demona at least would have checked to make sure of the same, that she hadn’t spoke of a sloppiness that just didn’t fit with what Kendra knew of Dominique Destine.
Then there was the simple fact that Demona’s virus, in the manner that the gargoyle planned to release it, would never have succeeded in infecting many people at all. One container of a biological agent released within a building where the people infected were all aware of the infection had no hope of achieving the stated goal of a world-wide plague, no hope at all. As soon as the city knew a biological agent had been released, and there was no doubt in her mind that Detective Maza would have immediately informed them, Hazmat units would have sealed the immediate area around the building. The CDC would have quarantined everyone within the building, and the so-called plague would have ended rather quickly, though perhaps unfortunately, for those quarantined. It certainly would have never even been given the chance to spread to the general city population.
Nothing that Jason had told her fit, Dominique Destine was a ruthless businesswoman and a perfectionist. A year ago, the owner and CEO of Nightstone had tried to take over one of the businesses Kendra was a shareholder of, Murton Electronics. Only fortunate chance had given them enough warning of the carefully and meticulously orchestrated take-over in time to have a hope of countering it. Even while Kendra had been combating Dominique’s maneuvers to drop the company’s stock valuation in preparation for a buy out offer, she had admired the brutal elegance of the woman’s tactics. Only equal parts skill and luck allowed Kendra and the other stockholders to keep the companies share valuation from actually dropping and Dominique Destine had never even made the buy out offer once she saw her plans fail.
Maybe she wasn’t as intelligent in gargoyle form as she was in human form? Kendra thought back to what she had heard from her business partners of negotiations that Ms. Destine had conducted late at night over the phone. Mulling over the gossip she had heard, Kendra quickly discarded the idea that Demona wasn’t as intelligent as Dominique, though it certainly would explain why the woman absolutely refused to hold any nighttime meetings. Which left some burning questions, why would the gargoyle have made that incriminating disk in the first place, why let Robyn, the new hire, see any part of her plans, and why the quite frankly, stupid, method of releasing the virus? Kendra needed to find out more information about Demona to formulate a sound hypothesis for the gargoyle’s bizarre decisions concerning her cousins.
Ever since the takeover attempt Kendra had wanted to meet Dominique Destine in person. The woman’s voice had been intriguing during the various business conference calls she had participated in as a board member of Murton Electronics. She had even managed to obtain several pictures of Nightstone’s CEO and had been pleased to find the woman was an exceptionally beautiful redhead. Maybe this puzzle solving would lead to finally meeting the intriguing Ms. Destine. Kendra could only hope so, for her curiosity was roused now and there was nothing like a good puzzle to keep the attention of a cat.