by Lisa Ladew
“Ma’am, are you there?”
Ella couldn’t answer.
Chapter 13
Trevor’s phone buzzed in his pocket, waking him. The feel of the day told him it was morning before he ever saw the time. He’d slept all night. He pushed himself into a sitting position, knees up, and pulled out his phone. The number had no name associated with it, but when he saw the text he knew immediately who it was. Kalista.
He’s here. 1200 block Chestnut Ave.
Trevor was on his feet and running in a breath. He made it to the parking lot in record time, unable to worry about backup, his brothers, or anything else. Khain would be his.
He popped the blue bubble onto the top of his truck and flipped on the siren, then floored it, maneuvering around stopped traffic and running red lights. In only a few minutes, he turned the corner onto Chestnut Avenue, his tires screaming in protest.
Up ahead, he saw two parked police vehicles, and a calm officer on the sidewalk questioning a civilian woman while another officer walked sedately through a yard a few houses down. Trevor skidded to a stop, unsure if he was at the right place. He rolled down his window and sniffed the air.
Khain had been there, but he was gone.
“Damn it!” Trevor yelled, punching the dashboard in front of him. Would he never meet Khain face to face?
He swerved to the curb and parked his truck, jumping out and heading across the street. A delicious smell hit him and his steps faltered for a second as he identified it. Cinnamon and sugar, it reminded him of when he was young, very young, while his mother was alive. Trevor pushed the thought away angrily. No time.
“Report!” he barked at the officer on the sidewalk who talking to a tall human female whom Trevor could only see the back of. He turned away and strode to the other officer while the first left the woman and ran to catch up with him. The three met under a maple tree that had lost most of its leaves. Only twenty or so held on resolutely in the cool, crisp wind.
Trevor didn’t wait for anyone to start. “Was it him?” he asked the two officers, his voice low. He knew damn well it had been, but he needed to know what the first two on the scene thought.
“Definitely, Lieutenant,” one of them said while the other nodded. “He was gone when we got here, but we smelled him as soon as we turned on the street. A felen was here too, but he left already.”
“Where?”
The officer pointed to the house they were standing in front of. “We think he may have crossed over inside that house and disappeared from there too.”
“Who’s been in the house?”
The second officer held up his hands. “We only went inside for a second, to make sure he was gone.”
“Good, don’t let anyone else in. My team will be here shortly.” Trevor pulled out his phone and sent an alert to Mac, Harlan, Becket, and Crew, noticing when he was almost done that the cinnamon and sugar smell had gotten stronger.
He looked up. The woman with the black hair took two more steps towards them and stopped, just outside of their circle, her arms crossed over her chest. She was dressed only in a sweater and jeans and Trevor knew she must be cold, but that wasn’t what stopped his breath. She was gorgeous. Her skin, as cool and pale as cream, contrasted with her long black hair in a way that made his eye want to hug every curve of her cheek and brow. The delicious sweet scent came with her and hovered around her, like she’d spent all morning baking cinnamon rolls in a small, hot kitchen. She raised a dark eyebrow at the officer who’d been questioning her.
“Ah, is it safe? Can I go inside?”
At the sound of her voice, Trevor felt some great surge of emotion, some unnamed desire inside him. One word popped into his head like a neon sign he couldn’t ignore. Mine.
Trevor tightened down his inner will, surprised to feel his fangs lengthening in his mouth slightly, like something was spurring him to shift. Shiften couldn’t shift in front of humans unless Khain was nearby. He lifted his head and turned slightly, scenting the air. Khain was not around. He shook his head and looked at the clipboard in the officer’s hands. At the top was the woman’s name. Gabriela Carmi. “Miss Carmi, or is it Mrs. Carmi?” he asked, his voice and his chest tight.
She waved her hands elegantly, like doves set loose at a wedding. “Ella. It’s just Ella.”
Trevor nodded, his stomach twisting into coils as he smelled her rich scent and ate up the sight of her. “Ella, this man who was in your house. Did you see him?”
Ella shook her head, watching him carefully, her head tilted back slightly so she could look him in the eye, exposing the creamy length of her neck. “No. Just heard him.”
Trevor licked his lips, trying not to imagine what her skin would feel like if he ran his fingers over it. Or what it would taste like to his tongue. “Did he say anything?”
Ella frowned and Trevor thought he’d never seen anything quite so beautiful. “No,” she said after a moment’s hesitation, her breath frosting as she spoke.
Trevor sniffed the air, but he could smell no deception, although she looked like she wasn’t being entirely truthful. But why would she lie? He wished for Troy. Troy could sniff out any lie, any liar, not that he would ever call her that.
He noticed her pulse beating in her neck and he watched it, fascinated by the bluish tinge he saw at the delicate cut of her collarbone. She was cold. He should offer her a coat. His truck to warm up in. Or to drive. Maybe to have as her own. Or he could get her a new furnace for her house. Or give her his house to live in as long as she wanted. Or how about a ring, a big one, just in case she liked that kind of thing. A woman like her really shouldn’t go without─.
“Ah, Lieutenant?” One of the officers said and Trevor pulled himself back to reality. Both of the officers were staring at him warily and Ella Carmi looked almost scared of him.
How long had he been staring at her?
***
Ella held her breath as the big cop with the gorgeous face, the slight New York accent, and the cleft in his chin stared at her. She was a sucker for a cleft chin, always had been, not that she’d ever had much experience with men other than looking at them. Playing constant nursemaid didn’t leave much time for that kind of thing. Not that she was a virgin, oh no. She had let one man perform the hymen maneuver on her during her failed attempt at college. It hadn’t been anything to write home about. Her other boyfriend hadn’t even tried. But when Lieutenant Luscious looked at her, she felt a loosening in her hips and a tingle at her core that made her unable to think about anything but beds, soft lighting, and tongues in naughty places.
Then she remembered the guy who seemed to be hunting her down.
Ella bit her lower lip, hard, trying to draw herself back to reality. The big cop was looking at her again and their eyes met, making reality skitter away again. She put out a hand, feeling lightheaded, but there was nothing to hold on to. She stepped back with one foot and tried to ground herself, keep her balance. He was just so big. So handsome. He made her feel so─
He was speaking again, slowly at first, then with more speed and confidence. She tried to focus on his words and not the crazy way she was feeling. “Ella, you can’t go back in your house until the crime scene tema does a thorough sweep of it. I have somewhere you can go until then. In fact, I think it’s best if you stay away from your home for a while, just until we get this straightened out. We may know who this man was, and he’s dangerous.”
Ella nodded. That sounded good. She didn’t want to be alone anyway. But more than that, she didn’t want this handsome cop to see her zone out, and that’s what she felt like she was about to do. Just stop speaking, stare off into space, like some sort of a coma patient who walked and talked every once in a while. It had happened eight times in the last two years, five of those times just in the last three months, and it scared the crap out of her more each time. If she did it in front of the big cop, she thought she might die.
“I’ll have Officer Adin take you there in just a few mome
nts, but I have to ask you a couple more questions before you go.”
Ella nodded, hoping she looked ok, feeling like a balloon with a delicate spider web for a string, one puff of air and she’d be gone.
The big cop motioned her to walk on the sidewalk with him, then gave the other two officers some sort of instructions. Ella put one foot in front of the other, until she was pretty sure she was walking ok.
“I have a few strange questions for you, but please answer them honestly. They might shed some light on who this guy was.”
“Ok.”
“Were you downtown at all yesterday? Anywhere near 15th Street?”
Ella stiffened, unable to help herself, and a sudden fear shot through her. “No,” dropped out of her mouth, completely unbidden and before she could correct the lie, the cop asked another question.
“Are you married?”
“No.”
“How old are you?”
She could answer that one. “Twenty-five.”
He turned glittering blue eyes on her and she almost shrank at their intensity. “And your parents?”
“Ah, what? I mean, what do you want to know?”
“Are they here, in Serenity?”
“No. My mother and father are both dead.”
The cop pressed his lips together, and she expected words of condolences. Instead, he said, “Tell me about your father.”
Ella knew the question was strange, knew it made no sense at all, but she wanted to please the man. Wanted to keep talking to him, because it seemed to make her feel better, seemed to ground her in reality. So far, she hadn’t zoned out. Hadn’t lost it. She was still there, talking coherently. “His name was Howard. He sold insurance for Country Home. He was a sweet man, always laughing, but he never had a ton of money. That didn’t matter, though. He was still the best dad that ever existed. He came to every play I was ever in and always had time to talk to me. Everyone told us how much we looked alike.” She put a finger to her nose. “I’ve got his nose, his eyes, and his smile.”
She smiled as if to prove it, feeling suddenly sick to her stomach. Howard had been her imaginary father, the one she’d retreated to her room and made up every time Shay hit her or their mother had told her to quit being strange, why can’t you just be normal every once in a while. Why was she lying? Why was she spilling out this story, this absolute fabrication? Her mother would never, ever discuss her father, and when Ella tried, her mom would go still and silent and not speak to her for weeks. Shay loved that, and used to whisper about it when she really wanted to hurt Ella.
You’re so fucked up your own father didn’t even want you!
The cop turned slightly towards her, his eyebrows furrowed and his nostrils flaring slightly. She could tell he was disappointed, but she couldn’t understand why. Could he tell she was lying? Oh God. She opened her mouth and tried to tell him it had all been a mistake, but the words wouldn’t come. Her mind drifted instead, as it tried to cope with everything that had happened that day, with what was still happening.
The cop stopped walking and she realized they were next to one of the patrol cars. He opened the back door. “Just sit in here, Miss Carmi. Officer Adin will take you somewhere safe in just a moment.”
Ella climbed inside, unable to meet the big cop’s eyes, her mind unable to reason any of it out. She just needed a moment to think. A moment to breathe. A moment to recover.
He slammed the patrol car door behind her and walked quickly away, giving her the moment she no longer wanted.
Chapter 14
Trevor drove back to the station slowly, thinking hard, confused as to his reaction to the woman, Ella. He’d never in his life reacted to a woman like that. Like most of his kind, he found human women attractive on a sexual level, but he had never had that chemical and emotional attraction to one that made him think about… more. He knew it happened all the time, more so now that there were no female shifters, but it had never happened to him.
Idly, he wondered if she could be a one true mate, even as he knew she wasn’t. Her name was not like flora, and she knew who her father was. The only thing she had going for her was her age. Trevor wanted to kick himself for his attraction to her.
He shifted into low gear and let his truck coast to a halt at a stoplight, glad for the extra time to think before he arrived at the station. Maybe she was a half-breed. He’d heard of wolven being attracted to half-breeds almost like full shiften. Rarely could the half-breeds shift, but he’d heard stories that their children with shiften frequently could. Too bad there were no sort of databases of half-breeds that he could look up to figure out if she was. Wade would have been able to tell, maybe even Crew. But Trevor did not have their touch, and as sensitive as his nose was, he’d never been able to sniff them out either. He wondered if Troy would have known. Troy and Trent both seemed to have abilities and insights that Trevor did not, possibly because they had never shifted into human form. It kept them wilder.
The light changed and Trevor drove on, his mind spinning. He had a few things he wanted to do before his team came back to him with the results of their investigation. When he got to the station, he parked quickly and ran inside.
As he walked in the door, Trent hailed him mentally. We heard Khain crossed over again. What’s going on?
Not sure yet, he sent back. He was gone when I got there. The human involved was unharmed.
Poodle-fucker is up to something.
Trevor laughed in spite of himself. Agreed. Maybe you and Troy should find a handler. Patrol the two areas he’s shown up at the last two days.
On it.
Trevor hurried to his office, glad not to meet anyone on the way. He hurried to his black office chair and pulled his laptop close, opening a browser. Meaning of Gabriela, he typed in.
God’s able-bodied one.
Huh. He accessed the police department’s criminal database and looked up the last name Carmi. A Frederico Carmi had been arrested for terroristic threatening in 1972, and that was all he found. Not helpful.
His phone rang and he snatched it up. “Burbank,” he snarled, harsher than he wanted, but when he heard Mac’s voice, he wasn’t sorry.
“Nothing. He left no trace. Didn’t force the door. Just crossed over inside the front door, walked around a bit, then crossed back over from in front of the window. The felen said he was on our side for exactly ninety-six seconds. They said he’s still tracking differently, and it’s harder to get him but not impossible,” Mac said, his voice surprisingly free of hostility for once.
“Interesting,” Trevor said, wishing they had a way to track him when he left their world and went into his own. A way to reach him there. A way to go on the offensive and not always be on the defensive. “I’m sick to fuck of being on the clean-up crew,” he said into the phone. “Get with Harlan, maybe some of the sub-rosa team. Tell them we need a new strategy. Entertain any suggestions, no matter how crazy. Something big is about to happen and we can’t sit around and wait for it.”
“Good plan,” Mac growled and hung up.
Trevor stared at the phone before hanging it up. That couldn’t have been approval he heard from Macalister Niles.
His mind went back to Ella Carmi. He snatched up his phone again and dialed Wade.
“Chief Lombard.”
“Wade, can prophecies ever be wrong?”
“Trevor,” Wade growled. “Is this about this morning’s visit by our favorite asshole?”
Trevor ground his teeth. “Yeah.”
Wade sighed. “You tell me about it when you get a spare moment. As for your question, no, I don’t believe a prophecy has ever been proven wrong, but yes, theoretically, they could be. When we go under, language is different. We aren’t reciting something someone has told us in a conversation. We are interpreting messages that could be coming in any form.”
“Like what kind of form?”
“They could be images. Scents. Sounds. Intentions. Ideas. Thoughts. Almost never words.”
Trevor grunted. “That sounds to me like you could very easily get them wrong.”
“Yet I don’t believe I ever have.”
Trevor thought about that, hard. “And my dad?”
“Your dad was a Citlali with great power and a greater gift. I would bet my life that the One True Mate prophecy is 100% correct.”
Trevor caught his lower lip between his canines and worried it a bit. “Khain entered a woman’s house today. She got away. She’s twenty-five but she knows her father and her name is Gabriela, which isn’t a flower.”
The line was silent for a moment. Trevor was just about to ask if Wade had heard him when he spoke. “Was she a warrior?”
“A warrior? No, I mean, she was a woman. Soft. Pretty.”
“Don’t be fooled by softness, son. It tells no tales.”
Trevor huffed air out of his nose. “Thanks, Wade.” Was being cryptic in the job description for Citlali? Or did they work at it?
Trevor hung up, still thinking of Ella Carmi. Had he made a mistake by sending her to the safe house with Adin and his partner? If Khain had been after her specifically, he could try again. Track her somehow. Two patrol officers were no real match against Khain. Two were better than one, who Khain could easily best, but at least four strong shifters were needed to drive Khain away, and more were better.
Maybe when Mac reported in again, he should send him over there, him and Harlan. They were the strongest─
Trevor felt his fangs elongate and a growl come out of his throat at the thought of Mac being anywhere near Ella Carmi. He watched as the claws on his right hand grew long and razor-sharp.
Trevor reeled himself in and stood, grabbing a coat from the back of his door.
Trent, Troy, I need you.
He would check in with his team, then go watch her himself. At least for a few hours.