by Eliza Gayle
Fuck. Just the thought of her with another man had his fingers tightening painfully on the roll of tarp in his hands. He needed to do something about this or whoever showed up to investigate wouldn’t believe a word he said. Not with blood lust coursing through his veins. He probably looked ready to kill at any moment.
Malcolm stalked to the side door and headed to the front of the house, anxious to get this job done and out of the house. Until the cleaners arrived he’d put some distance between him and her luscious scent. For once in his life, he wanted to do the right thing and going back in the house to have drinks with the woman he ached for was not it.
Clearly he’d fucked up all those years ago, but what kind of woman cheated on her mate? Then she’d gone and reminded him of just who she was. A white furred shifter capable of becoming a wolf or a cougar. Not all hybrids had power like that. It made them sneaky as hell and hard to detect. Not to mention outcast. No wonder she snuck around all the damn time.
With her hybrid status, he knew she was normally confined to the neutral zone. But with her abilities she’d be a member of the inner clan. A group of polys who were called upon for dirty work or the kind of work no one else wanted. His father had told him about them, but over the years he’d begun to chalk them up as legend. Not once had Kane or Lucas mentioned them. Clearly he’d been gone too long if Kane was using them.
He needed to have a talk with his brothers. No! He wasn’t an enforcer anymore so what the clan did had nothing more to do with him. The council had decided he wasn’t worth saving after all. So why the hell would his brother send her here, for him?
Chey was right about one thing though. Her people were not thought of in a positive light by either cougar or wolf. They were caught in the middle and left alone because they were useful when they needed to be and quiet when they weren’t. He had a hunch they’d downplayed their abilities though. Something about Chey seemed off and he suspected if either of the councils got wind of what they were missing out on, the enforcers would be hunting them down. And if one of them started killing people…
Before he even rounded the corner to the front of the house the nasty stench assaulted him. He sure hoped the cleaner Kane sent arrived soon; this wasn’t a situation he wanted lingering at his front door. He’d been so angry when he’d left the house that when he’d found Chey leaned over the deceased she might as well have had blood smeared on her hands. He’d assumed the worst. Would his rejection have been enough to drive her over the ledge into a killing frenzy? It seemed unlikely. So who else had something to gain by killing Carl and leaving him on his doorstep?
Malcolm shook his head. None of this made any sense. Chey, Carl, Kane… It was all too planned. Malcolm stared down at all the jagged tears and gaping wounds that covered Carl. This was not a nice, clean kill. More like an outburst of provoked violence or the result of someone losing their mind. Or at least made to look like that. It seemed the more time passed the more suspicious he became.
Either way, the only suspects at this point would be he and Chey. They’d both been alone, in the vicinity, with motive and no alibi. In other words, they were fucked.
“Carl, why’d you have to go and get yourself killed? The least you could have done was find a way to leave us a clue.” Talking to the dead seemed pointless but his frustration needed to go somewhere other than the woman sitting in his living room. Not even a cold, cruel murder stopped the yearning he felt for her, despite knowing the truth.
Malcolm blew out a hard breath. He only had to spend a little more time with her before the others arrived, invading his space and masking her scent with their own stink. He finished covering his once childhood friend who’d had his own secrets and hopped in his truck to move it so that anyone coming up the gravel road wouldn’t see the tarp at his door and get curious.
Walking back toward the garage, Malcolm’s nose flared at the slightest shift in the air. A strange scent carried on the wind, barely discernible even to him. He followed it trying to pick up a trail. Maybe he had just found the killer. If he didn’t already have her.
The subtle odor led away from the house and into the woods. Malcolm contemplated whether or not it was a good idea to leave Chey alone and decided he couldn’t pass up the only potential clue he’d found. She likely wouldn’t run, but if she did, he would find her. His animal was certain of it. She still had some explaining to do. Malcolm quickly shed his clothes and attempted to shift to the cougar. If he was going to pursue through the woods he would have to do it as the animal; it would be easier to cover more ground.
Pain splintered in his skull, sending what felt like thousands of needles pushing through his skin. He stumbled to the forest floor on his hands and knees. Bones wrenched and contorted in an agony he couldn’t bear. Screams pierced his ears under the onslaught of tearing flesh. Malcolm jerked as he fell to his side. Burning heat raged inside him, fast and out of control.
“Malcolm!” Through the rage and helplessness inside him he heard his mate calling for him. Fear tore through him the closer Chey got to him. His stomach pitched at the picture she would soon face. Him helpless to the torture of his own body. When had the situation progressed to this point? He’d shifted what, two, maybe three days before. The enraged beast inside him fought for total control, making logic impossible.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Malcolm.” She dropped to her knees and moved to touch him.
“No!” He reared away from her. “Don’t touch me.”
“What the hell happened? Your body.” Tears fell down her face while the burning pain raced through his blood. Somehow the scent of her fear broke through his consciousness and he wrestled the animal for control.
“What can I do? There has to be something.” The trembling in her voice threatened to break him. He couldn’t allow her suffering.
“Will be fine. Give me a minute,” he pressed through gritted teeth.
“Oh Goddess.”
His bones compressed and shifted again, this time to their normal state. The agony ripping through him recessed.
“I’ll be fine in a few minutes. I just need to breathe.” He tried to stretch an arm to only be greeted by more misery.
“What were you doing out here? Did someone do this to you?”
“No,” he gasped. “Scent. Smelled something. Had to follow.”
A frown crossed Chey’s face and she tipped her nose into the air. “I can’t smell beyond your suffering.”
“Someone was here.” He had to stop talking and focus on regaining control of his traitorous body.
A faint sound caught their attention and both he and Chey tilted their heads to peer through the canopy of trees. The sound grew louder until he finally recognized the thwap thwap of a helicopter moving in and doing so at a fast clip. Either they’d gotten here a lot faster than expected or he’d been out here far longer than he realized.
Fuck. The cleaners.
“Can’t let them see me like this.” Thank goddess for the thick sheltering pines of the forest. But he still had to recover quickly or be found out. “Can you stall them?”
“I’m not leaving you like this.”
He grabbed her arm and winced at the torment the sudden move created. “You have to leave me. I need more time.”
She stared down at him, tears falling down her cheeks. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. Now go.”
She slowly stood and his eyes widened in shock. “Uhm, Chey honey. Where the fuck are your clothes?”
“I shifted when I heard your screams. I thought you were dying.”
He’d thought so too. Although he hadn’t realized all that screaming he’d heard had come from his own mouth. “Take my shirt. It’s behind the tree.”
“I don’t need—”
He growled. “Take the damned shirt.”
On a frustrated huff, she walked behind him and he heard the satisfying sound of cloth brushing her silken skin. The pain was slowly receding but not as quickly as the helicopter approach
ed. She only had a few minutes to get back to the house.
“Hurry. Go now.”
He sensed her hesitation but only for a second before she turned and ran. He heaved a sigh of relief and fell on his back. The ache and stiffness of his muscles hurt like hell but he couldn’t lie here and wait for it to get better. Malcolm pushed to his feet despite the trembling of his arms and legs while balancing himself against the tree. Pure adrenalin fueled him now.
He reached for his jeans, and in warped and painful slow motion, he managed to get them on. A sheen of sweat covered his entire body from the effort of movement. Malcolm leaned against the tree and surveyed the area around him. The grassy area he’d stopped in disappeared in between rock croppings and dense trees, leaving nowhere for someone to make a trail. And with the dangerous terrain, it was unlikely the intruder had been human, although the damage to the body already told him that. If the killer had come through here there was no sign of him or her as it may be. Except for the faint scent of something unnatural he’d detected earlier. The evil in it could not be ignored.
Malcolm crouched and sniffed at the base of the tree, and his lip curled at the distinct stench of sweat and urine. Whoever he followed had rested here but it had been a while ago. He put his nose to the ground and searched for a direction from the rock and came up with nothing. Whoever it was had gone to a lot of trouble to hide their scent and knew how to do it well.
He stretched his muscles one last time and turned away from the tree. Like it or not, he couldn’t wait any longer. He had to get to the ranger station. Judging the short distance he’d traveled in comparison to the sound of the helicopter landing, he’d only be a few minutes behind them.
Chey getting interrogated without him was not an option. He needed to assess who Kane had sent and what kind of clean up and investigation they had in mind. He pushed his body as hard as he could take and limped from the edge of the forest all while the savage beast inside him snarled in complaint. Malcolm contained him for now but if he left his mate with strangers for long, things would go south quickly.
Malcolm tried to remind himself that she belonged to another and wasn’t his but his soul denied it. Watching the tears fall down her face when she’d cried over his injuries broke something inside him. They were about to have an even bigger problem besides the investigation. Despite the evidence of her mating, he wanted her. Goddess help him, he couldn’t let her go.
He took a shortcut through the back of the property thanks to his knowledge of the terrain. He’d hit this town in a desperate need to get away from his old life and somehow managed to stay. When Jeff the ranger asked him to watch over the park for him, he never dreamed it would be for months. He should have been long gone by now. Maybe if Chey hadn’t found him so effortlessly, Carl would still be alive.
He burst through the trees into the clearing on the side of the house to find the helicopter had indeed already landed in the open field about three hundred yards from where he stood. He circled behind the house to go through the garage. He wanted to catch a glimpse of his visitors before they saw him.
Malcolm rounded the corner of the house at the same time Chey stepped out of the side door making a crash inevitable. Her shoulder and arm dug into his chest and her leg tangled around his, pitching her forward toward the dirt. With restored reflexes, Malcolm automatically reached for her and caught her around the waist before she planted herself on the ground face first.
That brief physical contact fired his blood and made his groin tighten with renewed desire for the woman in his arms. The one his primitive side still called mate. Her gaze settled on his face, and for a few brief seconds he recognized the same lustful reaction in the blazing blue eyes staring back at him. Her lips parted, and a warm sweet breath of air feathered across his face to further entice him, begging him to take a taste.
“Are you okay?” she whispered.
“If by okay you mean hard as a rock and ready to fuck, then yeah, I’m fine.”
Chey’s brow arched. “Yeah I’d say you’re back to your old self then.” She shoved at his chest. “You can put me down now.”
Malcolm bit back a laugh. She spoke words of piss and vinegar but the husky tone of her voice gave her away. It took grinding his teeth together for all he was worth to keep from kissing her senseless.
“You should be more careful where you’re going. There’s still a killer on the loose, right?” He watched the fury bloom across her face at his insinuation.
“Right.” Her response dripped in sarcasm as she uttered it. Good. She needed to know that she was not off the hook as far as he was concerned. Her kindness in the woods had only softened his heart momentarily until the images of her with another man bled through his brain again.
“The chopper landed.”
“So I heard.”
“Might as well go and greet whoever Kane sent. Have you already talked to them? We probably should have discussed this before they got here. You know, what we wanted to say.”
“I’m not the one that left the house twice.”
“And I’m not the one who belongs to another man.” Yeah, it was nasty, but he couldn’t help himself. This whole situation was a cluster fuck and a half.
She wrenched from his grip and shoved his shoulder against the house. Turning, she walked away in the direction of the helicopter, leaving him to watch her sashay her way across the yard. Malcolm shook his head. For someone who still had a lot of explaining to do she had quite an attitude. Haughty wench. Good thing he had other problems to distract him. The frustration of not being able to claim her continued to grow with every passing minute he spent touching her. The animal inside had risen with no intention of backing down despite all the flimsy protests she fired his way. The illogical need to take her began to consume him. Evidenced by his hardened cock pressed painfully against binding denim simply from catching her fall. The cat didn’t give a damn whether she was willing or not.
Despite the danger lurking nearby, with her scent wrapped around him it took focus born of brutal intensity to keep from hauling her to the ground. If a council helicopter had not just landed, he might not have been able to resist the urge she brought out in him. The one that needed her tied to his bed, submitting to him…
He wanted to say something, make her stop walking away even for a second so he blurted out the first thing he could think of.
“I picked up a scent.” She froze midstep without looking back. “That’s what I was doing in the woods. Someone tried to cover it but they underestimated my tracking ability. If I’d been able to shift I might have found more. Whoever we are dealing with is very smart about what they’re doing. We need to be careful.”
She turned back to face him, her expression unreadable. “And why weren’t you able to shift?”
Good going, bright one. Why don’t you just tell her you suck while you’re at it? “That’s a story for another time, darling. Right now we have company. Better get your story straight.”
She snarled in his direction before turning and walking away, leaving him as frustrated as before. Her cool as ice demeanor every time he threw a barb her way gave nothing away. But if she didn’t do this, who did? What possible motivation could they have? His head throbbed with the endless barrage of questions he came up with, not to mention the onslaught they were about to receive.
He spied two people walking their way from the clearing. He recognized the man right away as Ben Hawling. Council assistant and hard ass extraordinaire. The woman he didn’t know at all. Short, cropped blond hair and blindingly pale skin, she stood to Ben’s shoulder if she was lucky. With a few quick strides, he caught up to Chey and went with her to face them. Whether she knew it or not they needed to provide a united front. Unless something came up pretty quick they would be the only suspects and their asses would be on the line.
Ben’s grim face didn’t smile or frown when he stopped in front of them. No, he knew how to control his emotions. “Malcolm.” He nodded to the man as
he turned to Chey and held out his hand. “I’m Ben Hawling, the Council representative that Kane Gunn sent to assess the situation.”
“Is that the politically correct way to say you’re here to nail someone’s ass for a murder?” Bitter ice-cold eyes snapped over to him, assessing the situation.
“You know better than anyone how this works. There are customs and laws to be upheld, even for you.”
Malcolm growled at Ben in warning, he wasn’t about to put up with the man coming in here and pissing all over him just to prove a point. The petite woman stepped forward, angling herself between the two men.
“Hi, I’m Charlie.” She held out her hand and Malcolm reluctantly took it while stealing a glance at Chey who stood stoically next to him, keeping her facial features as calm as possible. A subtle sense of power moved through him when he touched the woman, taking him aback. “I’m here to represent Chey in this investigation.”
“You’re one of…” He let his words trail off because he couldn’t think of any way to say it without it being taken as an insult of some sort.
“If by that you mean a hybrid, then yes. Not all of us are ashamed of the word.” She smiled at him with her statement but it was the kind of look that wasn’t really a smile but a “you better not fuck with me” expression.
“Actually no, I was referring to the other.”
“The other?” Now all of them were staring at him like he’d grown a third head. As if they had no clue what he was talking about.
“Yeah, when you shook my hand I felt a whisper of it.”
“Malcolm,” Ben interrupted. “You’ve been away from the clan for a while and things have changed. We have a treaty now with the polys so don’t go pissing all over it and giving me extra work to do.”
Charlie turned to Chey then, giving her a hard and assessing look. “I don’t think Mr. Gunn meant any harm. Maybe we should get a move on and take a look at that body. We’re burning daylight and we’ve got a clean up to take care of.”