by T. S. Ryder
“To sleep on the couch? I didn’t figure you’d want me in here since...”
“No. You’re sleeping in here,” he said firmly, shocked she’d even ask such a question. He’d longed to sleep next to her again for years, and wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to share a bed with her again. If he was honest with himself, he hadn’t slept quite right since she’d left him.
“Are you sure?” she asked. She was met with a withering look as she slowly pulled the towel from her hair and laid down against the pillows. Already, her eyes began to droop.
“You’ve had a rough day, sweetheart. You need proper rest and you won’t get that out on the couch,” he said, reaching over to the lamp beside the bed and flicking it off. Slowly, he laid beside her and cradled her to his chest with a soft hum, pleased to find she made no attempts to move away or protest.
“Besides,” he whispered, hugging her closer until his lips rested just above her ear. “I missed you too much to sleep away from you tonight.”
Marceline giggled softly and pressed her face against his neck, a soft hum falling from her lips.
“I love you, Desmond.”
“I love you, too.”
He waited until he was certain she was asleep against him, before kissing her on the forehead. It wasn’t like him, being so outwardly emotional, but then, the day had been tense and he owed it to himself to love Marceline. After all, there was no promise that Marceline would keep wanting to fix things between them in the morning.
Chapter Six
Desmond didn’t know when he had finally drifted off to sleep, but it seemed only seconds had gone by before he jerked awake. At first, he wasn’t sure why. The sky was still dark outside and the clock beside the bed showed it was just past three. Marceline laid curled up beside him, her curly hair splayed out like a mane around her head.
Slowly, he relaxed beside her again and closed his eyes again, only to tense as a strange smell hit his nose. He stilled completely, not even daring to breathe as he strained to listen around him. Something was wrong.
Marceline’s deep breathing was distracting beside him and deadened the other soft sounds of the night, yet still he strained until—
“Say goodnight, Desmond.” The soft shnk of a knife being pulled from its sheath sent adrenaline flooding his system, fueled all the more by the softly whispered statement. His eyes flew open only to stare straight up into Ramson’s cruel green irises.
He moved—too late—to attack the rival alpha that stood over him, only to feel the cold bite of steel sink into the flesh of his chest.
“M-Marceline!” he choked out, eyes lightening silver with the danger of Ramson presence.
“Shut up. She’s mine, Desmond. There is nothing you can do to stop that,” Ramson snarled, turning the knife handle as he bore deeper into the wound he’d created.
Blood poured from Desmond’s chest and yet his skin still shivered. The clicks and pops of bones reshaping could be heard for a mere handful of seconds until a wolf exploded from Desmond’s body.
With a thunderous snarl, he charged at Ramson, lunging at his legs, his sides, his hands, anything he could get his jaws around. At one point, he sank his teeth deep into the rival alpha’s calf, but even as a human, the man possessed a strength and agility that he should have.
With a few sharp shakes, Desmond lost his hold and Ramson bowled him over, a second knife gripped in his hand.
“Give it up, Desmond,” he sneered, lunging forward with blinding speed that left Desmond with a fresh slash across his snout. He snarled deafeningly but made no move to attack further as his eyes started blurring with blood loss. “Marceline was never yours! She never wanted you! You’re stifling! Uncaring! She h—“
Three loud cracks of a gun firing cut off his word, and with wide eyes, Ramson looked down at his chest. Blood welled up from three, near perfect, circular wounds until, much like the wound Desmond had suffered, it coated his entire front and dripped to the floor.
“Don’t speak like you do any better, Ramson.” Marceline murmured, the gun she had threatened Desmond with the morning before was once again gripped firmly between her hands.
The rival alpha’s eyes flew wide as he stumbled about, turning to face the woman with pure hatred in his gaze until, with a gasp, they rolled back in his skull and he fell face first into the growing puddle of his own blood.
Marceline shivered as she dropped the gun, tears of fear and anger apparent in her dark brown eyes as she quickly ran to Desmond’s side and with trembling hands, inspected the stab wound on his chest.
“T-Turn back, baby… Please. W-We,” she sniffled, a look of panic on her face. “We need to get you patched up.”
Desmond whined, his eyes hazy and distant. For a moment, he didn’t think he had the energy to change back, but one look at the sheer desperation on his mate’s face and he slowly, painfully shifted back into his human form.
The wound on his chest was deep. Far deeper than anything he’d ever received before and his entire body felt cold. In the growing darkness, though, he was aware of Marceline’s touch as she held him.
“Gauze...” he whispered, forcing his eyes to focus on her perfect face. “Pack the wound with gauze.”
“I can’t leave you!” Marceline cried, clutching desperately at his hand as tears rolled down her cherub cheeks.
“Sweetheart, I’ll be ok,” he whispered, a faint smile on his lips. “Pack the wound. Stop the bleeding.”
He watched as she nodded and smiled. With a shaking hand, he reached up and brushed away a tear on her cheek. She laughed sadly and pressed into his touch, shaking herself, she got to her feet and walked away.
In the moments she was gone, Desmond had to seriously struggle with himself not to fall asleep.
“It’s just a little blood loss,” he scolded himself, gritting his teeth. “What’s the big deal?” But, he’d be a liar if he said he wasn’t relieved when his mate returned and began stuffing the stab wound with gauze, as instructed.
“Son of a…” he swore, alertness gripping him as pain at her prodding rocked through him. A cold sweat had broken out on his skin by the time she was through. Things must not have looked so bad, though, because Marceline smiled and laid down beside him on the blood soaked floor, her hand resting against his bandaged chest gently.
“I thought you were the one who was going to take care of me,” she teased softly. Her lips pressed lovingly against his side before he could answer, and he sighed, knowing she meant the words to help him feel better.
Ramson was dead. His pack would scramble to find a new alpha that, hopefully, wasn’t as corrupt by lust as Ramson had. There was nothing left to worry about, except—
“Marceline?” Desmond whispered softly, his voice hesitant as he forced himself upwards just enough to look at her properly.
“Desmond what—“
“I want to meet Therese,” he told her, “Soon.”
Marceline stared at him with a stunned expression on her face. Her dark eyes were puzzled, scared and excited all in the same instant. For a moment, he worried that her concern about him taking their daughter away from her still haunted her, but then her face softened, and a rock fell off Desmond’s chest. “I’ll call Auntie May tomorrow, see if she can bring Therese,” she told him gently.
She began to settle at his side again when he called for her again.
“Marceline?”
“Yes, Desmond?” she asked, no doubt expecting another glimpse into the soft heart of him, the one that he saved just for her... and, now, their child.
“Will you marry me?”
Whatever she was expecting to hear, the look on her face told him that was not it. Her mouth gapped open, and she clearly didn’t know what to say. As she closed it slowly, still silent, he began to fear she would reject him, but then she curled ever closer and rested her head just below the wound she’d taken care to bandage.
“Of course…” she whispered, tears in her eyes once agai
n and a smile on her lips. “Of course I’ll marry you, Desmond.”
He smiled and laid his head back down with a sigh, eyes slipping closed. “Good,” he whispered, finally allowing himself to wrap an arm around her and pull her closer.
“I’m never letting you get away from me again.”
“Do you promise?” she asked, kissing over his heart.
“I promise.”
*****
THE END
The Shifter's Detective
Description
What is a detective supposed to do when the insanely hot suspect she’s investigating starts kissing her… and more?
Detective Lucy is over the moon. She just got her first undercover assignment. She’s not going to screw this one up. Until she finds herself naked with the shifter she’s meant to investigate.
Levi Bennet and his Coyote pack are not your regular shifters. They live in the bad part of the city, where the police have no power and a shifter must flash his canines to get what he wants. Which Levi, by the way, is happy to do.
But strange things are happening in the city and the Coyotes are being held responsible. And soon Lucy and Levi find themselves entangled in a web of danger, lies, and murder.
Can Lucy keep her one-night stand a secret at the police station? What will Levi say when he finds out Lucy’s a cop? And what will Lucy do when she finds out she’s… pregnant with a suspect’s baby?
Chapter One – Levi
Levi gnawed on an antler-shaped jawbreaker as he wandered down the hallway of the apartment building he shared with the rest of his Coyote pack. It wasn't great, considering the broken elevator, broken laundromat, and electricity that probably needed to have been upgraded thirty years ago, but it was home. Their only home, in fact.
After the humans had decided to build a city on pack territory, the Coyotes had just moved in, taking over several abandoned or half-completed projects. It was their territory, after all. If they had been a Wolf pack, the humans wouldn’t dare encroach on their packlands.
But I guess we Coyotes aren't as sexy as Wolves, Levi thought. He paused to grin at his reflection in a dirty window. He flexed his muscles and shrugged. Sexier. We're far sexier. Humans are dumb.
With a wide yawn, Levi pushed open the nearest door, striding into the 'office space' his brother Steven did all his Alpha work in. Steven wasn't alone. He was with that man who had started hanging around the pack lately, always smelling like cigarette smoke and gunpowder. Levi stopped in the doorway. What was Steven doing with that dude?
"Levi, how many times do I have to tell you to knock?" Steven snapped at him.
"When have you ever told me to knock?"
Levi narrowed his eyes at the strange man. He was a muscular, short man who was nondescript in a very suspicious way. He wore old clothes, neat but worn, and yet his fingernails were manicured and his teeth had that recently-visited-the-dentist gleam to them. Ever since he arrived, Steven had turned into a stuffy fuss-bucket.
His brother shook his head and pointed out to the hallway. "I'm busy."
"What's going on here, Steven?" Levi shut the door behind him. "I'm your brother and your Beta. I deserve to know what you're up to."
"This is Aaron Knox; he's a realtor. I'm looking at getting the pack better accommodations."
Levi frowned. "Then why the secrecy?"
Steven growled low in his throat. Something he rarely did. "Levi, this is none of your business. Get out of here."
"I don’t think so. Not when you're lying to me." Levi strode over to the desk the two were bent over. Pictures of well-known drug dealers, men Levi had spent months heckling until they moved out of Coyote territory, were strewn over the surface. Levi looked up at his brother in alarm. "Are they coming back?"
"No. But there will always be more where they came from." Steven shook his head. "The pack is poor. We might not be able to afford to move, and I don't want people getting their hopes up. Now go, so I can discuss the matter with Mr. Knox."
"We could always sue the city for stealing our land."
Knox started gathering up some other papers. "If we're not going to discuss these matters, I have other business to attend to."
"Levi was leaving." Steven narrowed his eyes at his brother. "Now."
Levi let one of his canines grow into a long, sharp point. He flashed it at Aaron Knox before he turned on his heel and left. His brother was the Alpha, after all, and with the position came a certain amount of respect.
Still, it stung that Steven didn't trust his own Beta. Sometimes Levi thought that Steven named him his second just because he was his brother and the pack expected it. He certainly was given little to no responsibilities. Even though it was he who had driven away the drug dealers from the pack. Even though he was the one to get the city to start a recycling program in this area. Steven thought his methods were 'too childish'. So what if he collected weeks' worth of garbage and dumped it on the councilmen's lawns? It was effective!
Levi kicked the wall. Steven was too serious – too determined to use the humans’ diplomatic methods to solve things. The problem was, they didn't actually solve anything. Yet, moving would probably be a helpful thing – if that was what Steven was really planning.
The neighborhood the pack currently lived in was dirty and unkempt, just like the homeless people who lived in the alleys and behind dumpsters. The roads were full of potholes, the buildings made of crumbling concrete and covered with peeling paint. Trees had once lined the streets, but after one of them caught fire while entangled in the power lines, the city had cut them all down. Now children played on the stumps.
Levi's hands swung freely as he gazed across the bleak, gray jungle he lived in. The only brightness remained in splashes of graffiti that changed every so often when people got bored.
"Hey! You!"
The familiar, harsh call made Levi roll his eyes. This again. He turned towards the two police officers who often scoured the area, looking for people to bully. If they wanted to fight actual crimes, all they'd have to do was go north four or five blocks to where the drug rings ran rampant, but they preferred to harass the Coyotes. Levi smiled pleasantly as they approached.
"Is it time for our daily frisk, officers?"
The taller, more ripped one Levi liked to call Moose scowled at him. His hand was on his gun. "Put your hands on the wall, dog."
"Someone needs some cultural sensitivity training," Levi muttered as he turned to do as the officer said.
Even though he tried to keep his muscles loose and relaxed, a tight ball of anger simmered in his stomach. If he had his way, he'd bar all of these cops from the part of the city the Coyotes had staked out as their territory. It wasn't like they kept the streets safe. They just harassed people trying to go about their daily lives.
"So which one of you guys has the Coyote fetish, eh?" Levi asked as the smaller of the two cops, nicknamed Forsythe, began patting him down. "Must be you, eh Forsythe? You're the one who's always patting me down."
"Shut up. We got intel that you Coyotes are moving drugs, and we know the likes of you," Moose said. "Now spread your legs."
Levi snickered. "You're not even going to buy me dinner first?"
Moose showed just how much restraint he had as he stepped forward and punched at the Coyote's kidneys. Levi twisted away just in time for the cop to crack his knuckles on the brick wall instead. He laughed as Forsythe grappled with him, trying to hold him. The Coyote easily removed the cop's gun from its holster, and as Moose started raising his own gun, Levi spun away from Forsythe and grabbed Moose's gun by the barrel. With a yank and twist, it was in his hands.
"Oops, what happened?" Levi asked as Forsythe reached for his weapon. He smirked at the cops.
"I'm going to kill you," Moose seethed, coming at him.
Levi danced back a few steps, waving the guns by their barrels. "This is gonna be a little embarrassing when you get back to the precinct, isn't it?"
He turned on his heel and dashed
off as both of them lunged. They shouted as they chased after him. Levi smirked. This was the kind of thing he enjoyed doing–making the bad guys pay for their villainy. He dodged down an alley and through a culvert to an open sewage line that the city had been promising Steven they'd clean up for months now.
Levi dropped the two guns into the sludge. Once the police got an 'anonymous' tip describing where the guns were, the city would be forced to clean it up. He made sure that the weapons sank below the stinking surface before he took off again. He couldn't hear any sounds of pursuit, so he briefly stopped to steal a shirt and pants from a laundry line before he headed to the more human-populated part of the city.
He dirtied his hands in soot and dragged them through his light-colored hair to darken it as he emerged into the street again. He slowed his pace to a walk, wiping his hands off on his old shirt before tossing it into the garbage. Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he whistled as he strode towards a little café on the other side of the street. Just as he entered, he saw Moose and Forsythe turn the corner.
Hmm. They were harder to shake than usual today. He'd have to find a new escape route. Levi scouted the café out. There had to be somebody in here who would be willing to help a Coyote out…
The café was sparsely populated, and Levi's gaze soon locked on a pretty brunette sitting by herself. She had a newspaper up over her face and was tucked into an inconspicuous corner. The woman was all curves, sitting straight and prim. Perfect. He grinned as he strode over to her and sat down.
"Hello," he said.
The brunette jumped and looked up. "Um… hello."
"You look like the kind of girl that likes to help out strangers in need," Levi said, grinning broadly at her.
He propped his elbows on the table and leaned forward, keeping his eyes locked on hers. She had amazing eyes, perhaps the bluest he had ever seen. The effect with her dark hair and pale features was stunning.