It was lucky that he had such a hard head.
Skull twice as thick as it ought to be, Ajax recalled one of his brothers say, years ago now, during their misspent youth. That’s a numbskull, you numbskull.
And the worst of it was, at the ripe old age of nine, his brother had been right: he was a numbskull for having lost track of anyone during that fight. Too hot-blooded, that was him; and perhaps, too used to relying on a partner to back him up. Derek couldn’t follow him everywhere, nor would Ajax want him to.
I’m going to have to try to remember to be more vigilant in the future, vowed Ajax.
A man could only take so many blows to the head, before he learned a thing or two, right? Right?
Ajax certainly hoped so, at least.
By the time that the ambulance and squad cars arrived, Ajax found that he was feeling slightly better. Not so well, however, that he could fend off the EMTs’ concerned hands. Truthfully, he didn’t try particularly hard, not after his first attempt had made his head pound.
While the EMTs looked him over, the detectives spoke with the woman – Ajax hadn’t gotten her name – and the uniforms scoured the parking lot.
That was when Ajax realized that his car was missing. It definitely wasn’t where he had left it, still running, he realized through the cold clutch of horror.
There was always, of course, the wildly unlikely possibility that some kind soul had merely parked it for him and then forgotten to pass the car’s keys along to him.
Stolen, however, was much more likely.
Derek, Ajax thought, his heart sinking, is going to laugh himself silly over this.
Everyone was going to laugh themselves sick over it.
Frankly, being bundled into the ambulance rather than being forced to face his colleagues and admit to the full, horrifying extent of his screw up was something of a relief. But, Ajax knew, it was only a matter of time. And when that time came…
On his stretcher, Ajax shuddered, and the nearest EMT, the one riding in the back with him, kindly pulled his blanket higher.
At the hospital, they poked, prodded, and tested him before declaring him mostly sound but suffering from a slight concussion. That, apparently, required immediate tending and numerous admonishments that he was to shift as soon as possible, both to speed up his body’s healing as well as to ensure that it healed properly. There were other care instructions, but Ajax had trouble keeping them all straight when they were rattled off at him. Fortunately, there was also a handful of printouts to go with those instructions, as well as promises that they had said all the same things to his emergency contact.
Vaguely, Ajax wondered which one they had gotten ahold of. He hoped that it wasn’t his mother. She didn’t live nearby, and she had never taken things like this well.
To Ajax’s relief, waiting for him beyond the nurse’s station were his partner, Derek, Derek’s fiancée, Gabriela, and a woman whose face he couldn’t quite place, until a flash of memory – her hair falling in his face, her hands strong, as she had helped him move – informed him of where they had met.
She was the woman from the parking lot, the one that the fake detectives had been trying to hustle into a retired prowler.
Under the hospital’s harsh overhead lights – and without the imminent threat of violence – it was easier to see the details of her.
She was hot.
That was Ajax’s first impression of her, and, despite both the drugs in his system and his brain injury, his body tried to respond accordingly.
His second was that, in her normal attire, she was probably no-nonsense and tough looking, a regular punk. But in her pajamas – her luscious figure informing the curves and dips in her pajama pants and t-shirt, and her big breasts straining at the front of her lime green top – her sharp edges had been softened into something much more feminine.
In the normal course of things, her hair would have been medium brown, but she had put white and lime green streaks in it. Those lime green streaks matched her t-shirt, as well as the lime green polka dots on her pink plaid pajama pants, the lime green polish on her fingers and toes, and her large, lime green eyes.
Absently, Ajax wondered if her eyes were really green, much less really that green, or if she was wearing contacts. Either way, he thought that he could safely guess her favorite color.
“Are you okay?” asked Ajax, turning his attention first to the unknown woman, and her pretty face flushed pink. It must have been a ferocious flush to tint her golden-brown skin that particular shade of pink.
Silently, she nodded. Her nose ring, a tiny chip of diamond set in the side of her upturned nose, gleamed in the harsh overhead lights.
Ridiculously cute, decided Ajax. The cutest punk that he’d ever seen. And maybe it was the head injury – or the drugs that they’d given him – but he very much wanted to press his lips to hers, see what color she flushed when she’d been thoroughly kissed.
“I’m the one who should be asking you that,” she said at last, her voice low and smooth like a shot of gin. Ajax liked it. “No one ever laid a finger on me.”
“I’ll be fine,” said Ajax; breezily, he hoped.
“The doctors said that you had a concussion,” she said, frowning at him.
“They told you that?”
“I’m a shameless eavesdropper,” said the woman with a small shrug. “I was worried.”
“Which probably only helped the general impression that she’s your girlfriend,” said Derek, grinning.
Derek was the detective that he was partnered with at work. He was also the only person in the waiting room that was actually on Ajax’s list of emergency contacts. Gabriela was Derek’s fiancée, as well as a good friend, so Ajax understood why she was there too. The presence of the would-be kidnapping victim, however, was a mystery to him. They didn’t usually do this.
“Given how you got hurt, people leaped to certain conclusions,” said the woman. She shrugged her narrow shoulders. “I didn’t bother to correct them. I wanted to know how you were.”
Automatically, Ajax nodded, and then immediately regretted it. Even with all the tests and medicines, the movement reverberated through his poor skull. Derek, his face suddenly pinched with worry, put a hand out to steady him. As he was currently sitting in a wheelchair, Ajax figured that he must have looked impressive in his unsteadiness.
“Come on, champ,” said Derek. “Let’s get you home to bed. You need your rest. People are going to have a lot of questions for you later.”
Ajax wanted to argue that he was fine now, but he was tired, his head hurt, and he was full of drugs. And on top of everything else, he couldn’t smell anything over the harsh, chemical scents of the hospital’s various disinfectants. A wolf relied on his nose. Every time that he drew in a deep breath, but failed to scent Derek and Gabriela in it, it sent a small, instinctive frisson of panic through him.
Ajax missed his nose.
And he missed Derek and Gabriela’s familiar, comforting scents.
He just wanted to go home now.
“I could take care of him,” said the woman suddenly, surprising everyone. Off of their looks, she added “He got hurt helping me. I owe him.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” argued Ajax, forcing himself to rise to the occasion. “I was happy to help.”
“Well, so am I,” said the woman. “I’m happy to help now.”
“Let’s just get Ajax home first,” said Gabriela. “Then we can worry about who is going to stay with him.”
Ajax didn’t see the point in trying to argue that he didn’t need anyone to stay with him. And, as he was currently being trundled around in a wheelchair, he kind of doubted that anyone would listen to him, anyway.
It was probably for the best.
When they reached the front of the building, Derek left, saying something about going to go pull his car around to the front of the building. That was something of a secret relief to Ajax. Maybe it was the darkness, but the parking lot seem
ed awfully big to him. He hadn’t been looking forward to stumbling around in it, while they looked for Derek’s car.
And even when Derek brought his car around, Ajax found that he still needed a certain amount of help to make it from the wheelchair into the vehicle’s backseat.
The very first thing that he did, as soon as he was settled in the backseat of the car, was to pull a deep breath into his lungs. The comforting scents of leather, Derek’s favorite cologne, Gabriela’s favorite perfume, and, much more faintly, their personal scents filled Ajax’s lungs, along with the less comforting, but still lingering, stink of antiseptics and that strange therianthrope, courtesy of his own skin. And in Ajax’s chest, that little knot of worry (and carefully controlled panic) that had formed at not being able to properly smell anything finally began to unravel.
He was going to be fine. He just needed to go home, shift, maybe catch a nap. But, in the meantime, if he couldn’t make it into the car on his own steam, he probably had no business trying to fend for himself back at home. Much as it irked Ajax to admit it even to himself, he probably needed the help.
But as soon as his head cleared, he was going to get to the bottom of things, starting with who those fake cops had been, what had happened to his car, and why they had wanted to kidnap –
There, Ajax’s thoughts ground to a halt. Turning to the woman strapped into the seat next to him, he said “I don’t think we ever introduced ourselves. I’m Ajax Mytaras.”
The woman blinked and then laughed.
“Really?” she asked, a half-smile still curving her lovely lips. “Like in the Greek poem?”
“Exactly like in the poem,” confirmed Ajax, wondering what the joke was.
“I’m Tecmessa Johnson,” she said, as Derek pulled away from the curb. “But I usually just go by Tessa.”
Tecmessa; the name was familiar, like a word on the tip of his tongue, but Ajax couldn’t place it.
Tomorrow, he decided. Maybe I’ll know it, then.
He certainly didn’t know it now.
Reaching across the seat between them, Tessa held out her hand to him.
“It’s nice to meet you,” said Ajax, taking her smaller hand in his.
At the first contact of her calloused hand against his, Ajax sucked in a sharp breath. It was not so much the contact of her skin against his, although that was nice, or her scent – Tessa smelled overwhelmingly of gunpowder with an intriguing undercurrent of sweat – but the burst of tiny red sparks that erupted from Tessa’s fingertips. They glowed scarlet in the darkened car and smarted where they landed on his unprotected skin.
“Hey!” snapped Derek, and Gabriela, who was sitting in the front passenger’s seat, twisted around in her chair to look at them. “What’s going on back there?”
“Sorry, sorry,” gasped Tessa. She dropped Ajax’s hand in favor of patting at the smoldering sparks, trying to put them out with her bare hands. If touching the sparks hurt her, she didn’t show it. Or maybe she didn’t feel it? Ajax was squinting at her – and considering the possibility that she was some sort of fire shifter – when Tessa added “I’ve never done anything like that before. Not ever.”
Well, that was flattering, if ominous. Given the way that his night had been running, he was probably just lucky that they hadn’t spontaneously combusted at their first touch then.
Tessa didn’t touch him again, not once on the rest of the ride home. Ajax wasn’t sure if he was relieved or sorry about that.
When Derek pulling into the back parking lot, the same as Ajax had done what must have been hours ago, the headlights swept across no cute punks being menaced by fake cops. That was a definite relief to Ajax. He wasn’t up to round two with those guys, not yet.
When it was time to get out of the car, it was Derek and Gabriela who helped him, while the stranger hovered around them, shutting car doors for them and unlocking Ajax’s apartment with Derek’s copy of his key.
It wasn’t a long walk from the back parking lot to Ajax’s apartment, but by the time that they got there, Derek seemed to be supporting most of his weight and Gabriela the rest of it. He must have heavy for them, but they didn’t complain, and they didn’t dump him on the couch, either. They lugged him across the length of his apartment to the safety of comfort of his own bed and even helped him into it.
Tucked safely under the covers, Ajax finally transformed, sighing with relief as he shifted.
The act of shifting in and of itself healed much, and staying in the uninjured form for a while would help more. Tomorrow, he would feel better, and in a few days, he would be right as rain.
Curling up in a ball under his blankets – and among the shredded remnants of his clothes – Ajax sighed with pleasure. He was at home, his bed smelled like him, and he was safe, regardless of whether it was Derek or Gabriela who stayed the rest of the night. Derek was a lightning dragon, after all, and Gabriela was a football hooligan with a hot temper, although he wasn’t supposed to know that about her. No way would anyone get past them. And they’d probably take care of that woman too, the gorgeous one all in pink and green.
Relaxed and happy, Ajax allowed himself to drift off to sleep on memories of lime green eyes, golden skin, and the flash of a diamond studded nose ring in the light.
Chapter 03 – Tessa
When Tessa had offered to look after her Good Samaritan, she had meant it. She’d also, however, been angling for an excuse to stay in his place, because as far as she knew, nothing weird had been happening there. He’d just had the misfortune of being caught up in her problems.
But his friends had insisted on staying the night with him – either because they didn’t trust Tessa herself or because they didn’t trust that she’d be responsible enough to remember to wake Ajax up on the hospital’s schedule – and Tessa had thought that she was out on her rump. She had been trying to think where she was going to go – neither her car or her apartment seemed like great choices, just then – when the woman had looked directly at Tessa and said kindly “It’s late. We’re going to take the guest room, but if you’d like, you’re welcome to take the couch.”
“That’d be great,” said Tessa quickly.
Firmly, she ignored the knowing in the other woman’s gaze. She didn’t know anything.
Tessa might have thought that was that – and frankly, she wouldn’t have been disappointed, if it had been. Maybe she would have grabbed a coat to sleep under after the others had gone to bed – but Gabriela had scrounged up a spare pillow, a clean pillow case, and a blanket from somewhere for her.
As she stuffed the pillow into its case, the woman introduced herself as Gabriela Alves and her fiancé as Derek da Luz.
“Well, you know how I met him,” said Tessa. “Where do you know Ajax from?”
“Derek and Ajax are both police detectives,” said Gabriela. “In fact, they’re partners.”
The irony of it – that an off-duty police detective should step in to try to help her, after the ones on duty in the actual police station had brushed her off – was not lost on Gabriela. Their disregard for her weird problem had led to one of their own getting hurt. Surely, that would matter to them even if her issues with her apartment didn’t.
Not that her odd problem had seemed to interest any of the detectives or uniformed police officers that had spoken to her after Ajax had been injured either. Mostly, they had focused on the fake policeman and the attempted kidnapping.
But perhaps the two aren’t really related? Tessa thought that night, as she lay worrying on Ajax’s couch that night.
But they had to be related, didn’t they? It wasn’t like she ran around offending people and making mortal enemies willy-nilly. Mostly, she lived a quiet life; lot of work, some band practice, and a bit of drinking and partying on the weekends. None of that was worth trying to kidnap her or make her look like a paranoid nutcase. There simply couldn’t be two completely separate sets of people who had it in for her.
Of course, she’d been wrong before
.
Feeling restless, Tessa rolled onto her side and then immediately regretted it. Rolling onto her back again, Tessa frowned.
She needed to sleep.
Whatever was going on, she was probably safe tonight, what with there being two cops in the apartment. Admittedly, one was worse for the wear, but the other was fit as a fiddle and ready to crack heads, if anyone broke in here. Tonight might be her last chance to get any real shut eye for a while. And
Lifting her head, Tessa turned her pillow over so that it lay with the cool side up. Resting her head on it was a small pleasure.
Closing her eyes, Tessa willed herself to sleep. It only half worked. Eventually, she did fall asleep, but when she did, she didn’t sleep well. Tessa dreamed about being chased by shadows, and fire was a poor defense against such things. Every time she blew her flames, it just made more of them.
Clinking sounds and the sound of low voices murmuring invaded her dreams, and Tessa woke with a start. Laying where she was, Tessa blinked and looked around for the source of the sounds. It was easily found. Gabriela and Derek were in the kitchen, cooking breakfast from the sounds of it. As she listened, the man murmured something – not in English, not in Spanish, but probably some other romance language – and Gabriela giggled.
Still sleepy, Tessa wanted to roll over and try to go back to sleep, but she couldn’t, not with the others up and moving around outside of their bedroom. Annoyed, Tessa levered herself into sitting upright. She pushed her hair out of her face.
Shouldn’t have stayed up so late worrying, thought Tessa, feeling irritated, mostly with herself. Worrying never solved anything, it just robed you of sleep.
“You’re up!” said Gabriela brightly. “What do you like in your omelets?”
“Everything except bell peppers,” rasped Tessa.
Truthfully, there were a couple of other things that Tessa didn’t much care for, but she liked them far better than bell peppers in her omelets.
“And bacon? Or sausage? Do you eat meat?” asked Gabriela, the scent of cooking foods tickling at Tessa’s nose.
Her Detective Wolf Page 3