“They’re the best,” said Tessa, and Gabriela beamed at her. Tessa tried very hard not to be annoyed by her awful, perky, early morning energy. It wasn’t her fault that Tessa had gotten less sleep than everyone else.
Rising, Tessa found her way into the nearest bathroom, which was fortunately unoccupied. That sorted, she emerged to the mouthwatering scent of cooking meats. In her belly, Tessa’s stomach twisted with hunger. No way would she have been able to sleep though that delicious smell!
In the apartment’s small kitchen, Tessa found that Gabriela and Derek had already cooked more than a few omelets. In fact, they had omelets cooking in four separate frying pans and a stack of fluffy omelets neatly heaped on a serving platter. Clearly, these were people that were used to cooking with an eye towards shifter appetites.
Equally clearly, they had been up and working in that kitchen longer than she had realized.
“Can I help?” asked Tessa, politely, as she discretely eyed the omelets.
It looked like they had slightly – and sometimes wildly – different fillings in them. Tessa had her eye on one that seemed to have bits of bacon, mushroom, cheese, potato, and spinach poking out of it. If she only got one omelet, that was the one that Tessa wanted.
“No, that’s all right,” said Gabriela. “We have a system. But if you could set the table, that would be a big help.”
“Sure thing,” said Tessa, now turning her attention to said table.
In her apartment, they just ate at the pass through. Here though, Ajax’s table was a small, square thing lodged in a corner of the kitchen, two chairs clustered at its near side and two trapped between the wall and its far edge. If he regularly ate at it, then Ajax spent a lot of time contemplating the blank wall behind those trapped chairs. Tessa would have at least hung a picture or two there, maybe a flat screen tv, if she could afford it.
Shifting the nearest two chairs back a few feet, Tessa grabbed the edge of the table and pulled, moving it out a bit so that actual, human people could sit behind it. Then she set it, which took longer than expected, mostly because neither of them was familiar with the kitchen that they were in.
By the time that she was done with that, Ajax had joined them in the kitchen. Last night, he had looked like death warmed over. Just looking at his poor, bruised face had made her heart clench with guilt. This morning, he was hale, hearty, and in surprisingly good spirits.
Definitely a shifter, Tessa decided, while admiring her rescuer’s return to good health.
When he wasn’t all banged up, Ajax Mytaras was unfairly good looking – in a clean cut, suit and the establishment sort of way, if you were into that sort of thing.
Tessa definitely wasn’t.
Still, she could help appreciating his dark hair, which was currently damp and curling against the back of his neck, and dark, intelligent eyes. His lips were full, his jaw was firm, and his chin had a cute little cleft in it. He even had broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and a flat tummy, all of which was encased in a crisp red polo shirt.
Tessa would have liked it better if it weren’t.
“You’re looking better,” said Derek happily.
“I feel better!” said Ajax, as he reached for the omelet platter.
But Gabriela shooed him away from it, saying “You’re getting over a head injury! Go rest at the table!”
“I’m not getting over it,” argued Ajax, but he nevertheless did as he was told. “I’m already over it. It’s one of the benefits of being a lycanthrope: fast healing.”
Tessa doubted it. That head injury had really knocked him for a doozy. If it had been her, she wouldn’t have been over it so quickly, not even after shifting. But she also wasn’t a werewolf.
Maybe lycanthropes heal faster than dragons? Tessa wondered, as she watched Ajax claim a chair at the little table, his biceps bulged slightly as he did. Tessa couldn’t help but notice that, that delicious little bulge; not that she had been admiring the view or anything like that. It had just caught her eye, that was all.
Her mouth suddenly dry, Tessa watched carefully as Ajax settled into the seat next to her.
Sucking in a sharp breath, she looked away from him – and discovered, to her mingled joy and chagrin, that he smelled nice. Slowly, Tessa let her breath out.
Who knew that a free breakfast could be so awkward? Tessa wondered, as she watched the pair at the counter.
In the end, Gabriela let her guy, Derek, carry the platters of omelets to the table, which proved to be a wise decision. About half a second after the serving plates hit the table, the shifters sitting at said table fell on them with all the grace and finesse of a pack of hungry wolves.
Tessa nabbed her favorite omelet and another three or so tasty looking ones to wash it down with, and the guys at the table were equally circumspect. While Tessa and the two police detectives practically inhaled their fluffy, delicious omelets, Gabriela contented herself with eating a single omelet much more slowly.
As the lone human at the table, it really made her stand out.
“So, now that I’m better, would anyone mind telling me what happened last night?” asked Ajax around a bite of spinach and white cheese omelet.
Almost as one, all three of the other people eating breakfast at that table stopped eating it in favor of staring at him, aghast.
“I remember the attempted kidnapping and the fight and the hospital,” said Ajax impatiently. “But I never did find out why it happened. Or if I did, someone told me while I was concussed.”
And suddenly, all three of them were looking at her.
Tessa shrugged.
“I don’t know,” she snapped, annoyed all over again. “I was just coming back from the police station, and –”
“Coming back from the police station?” echoed Derek, looking up from the piece of omelet that he had just neatly cut away from the rest of it. His omelet looked like a play on huevos rancheros with bits of avocado, rice, beans, and red salsa oozing out of it.
“What were you doing there?” demanded Ajax, while gesturing at Tessa with his fork. The omelet filled with spinach and some sort of crumbly white cheese omelet was long gone, and he had moved on to one filled with chunks of potato, cheese, ham, tomatoes, and maybe parsley.
And so, the whole, ridiculous story came tumbling out. Hearing it out loud and after the initial rush of emotion had faded, Tessa had to admit, it sounded ridiculous. She sounded like a penny-pinching, anal-retentive nutcase.
To her eternal gratitude, none of the other three people at the table laughed at her or called her a paranoid crank. They didn’t even roll their eyes at her. They just gave her their undivided attention, their expressions serious. Somehow, and despite everything, she had fallen in with some very good, very kind people. Those were Tessa’s favorite kind of people.
When her story began to wind down, Tessa ending it with “and the fake detectives were waiting for me when I got home,” Ajax said cheerfully “Well, that sounds really disturbing. And annoying. It’s definitely something worth looking into.”
Tessa nearly choked on her tongue. Of all their possible responses to her admittedly strange and finnicky story, that wasn’t one that she had imagined.
“Uh huh,” drawled Derek, and Tessa bristled at his tone of voice. A moment later, he added “Hey, Ajax, can I see you in the other room for a moment?”
“No, I’d rather not,” said Ajax with such great indifference that even Tessa could see that it was feigned.
“Too bad,” gritted Derek. Rising, he muscled Ajax up, out of his seat, and across the apartment. And for a guy that claimed to be entirely healed up from his Sir Galahad act the previous night, Ajax didn’t put up much resistance.
Mystified, Tessa watched the pair of them disappear into what was in her apartment her roommate’s bedroom.
Well, that doesn’t seem at all ominous, thought Tess, as the bedroom door quietly clicked shut behind them.
Her entire life, Tessa had been a fire dragon. There h
ad never been anyone to ask, but as far as she knew, she had been born one. She knew for a fact that she hadn’t been turned into one, at any rate. So, she honestly had no idea how humans – plain, ordinary humans with no special abilities of their own – experienced the world. But from what Tessa had seen, her human form’s hearing was about as good as theirs was.
The upshot of that, at least at this particular moment in time, was that she couldn’t eavesdrop on the hisses happening in the next room. That was too bad. Tessa would have liked to hear what the two detectives were talking about. She had a feeling that it was probably about her. At the very least, it definitely involved her.
Nearer by, Gabriela said, without looking up from her omelet, “Have you considered getting your apartment’s locks changed?”
Tessa blinked. “Do you think they would? When I lay it all out, it sounds insane. I sound insane.”
“Maybe a little bit,” said Gabriela, finally looking up from her own huevos rancheros style omelet. The look in her blue-grey eyes was piercing. “But you don’t have to lay it all out like that for the front office. You don’t have to tell them any of that stuff – and you probably shouldn’t. You and Ajax were attacked in the parking lot last night. That’s what you should emphasize when you talk to them – well, that and the fact that the lights apparently need to be fixed in that back parking lot. Then you’re just being security-minded in the wake of an obviously distressing event.”
“Do you really think that would work?” asked Tessa, something that felt suspiciously like hope beginning to unfurl in her heart. Tessa tried to ignore it.
“Absolutely,” said Gabriela. “And it’s not like it would be a ton of extra work for them. Ajax’s car – his keys – were stolen. They’re going to have to change his locks anyway. They can just have the locksmith do your place too, while he’s out here.”
Tessa smiled. “I hadn’t thought of it like that.”
Gabriela flashed her an answering smile. “That’s why it’s important to have friends.”
Tessa hadn’t really had a lot of friends growing up. Eternally relegated to foster care, she hadn’t ever had a hope of fitting in at school. Her clothes had always been too cheap, to unfashionable, or too old, and she had always been too different from her classmates, who had always been sheltered and cared for by their parents. All of their concerns had been so petty, so shallow, so achingly enviable to Tessa.
Whatever friends Tessa had now, she had made later in life and on the back of some shared interest – cars or music or antiquing.
As far as she knew, they shared no interests on which to build the foundations of a friendship but, looking again across that gulf, Tessa decided that that time, it was probably bridgeable. Pretty, carefully coiffured, and fashionable, Gabriela Alves looked as sheltered and cared for as any of those kids from Tessa’s past, but there was an edge to her too. She had some substance to her. And she’d obviously seen enough to have some idea how to bully an apartment complex into new locks. This was someone that could probably take care of herself. As someone that had always had to look after herself, Tessa appreciated that in another person.
“Hey, how do you feel about junk shops?” asked Tessa, apropos of nothing.
Gabriela blinked. “You mean for like finding lost soccer memorabilia or something?”
Tessa grinned.
Yeah, this was definitely someone that Tessa could be friends with.
Chapter 04 – Ajax
“Subtle, that was not,” hissed Ajax, as Derek shut the bedroom door behind them.
“You weren’t being particularly subtle either,” said Derek. “It’s definitely something worth looking into?”
“What’s worth looking into? Honestly, Derek, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Liar,” said Derek, but without any rancor. “You’re just looking for a backdoor into the investigation.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” repeated Ajax, lying through his teeth, and then yelped when Derek lightly punched him in the shoulder. “Ow! You can’t hit me! I’m injured!”
“And that is why you should mind your own business and let Miller and Muto do their thing.”
“Mind my own business?” repeated Ajax in an incredulous undertone. If there weren’t people in the other room, he might have shouted at him. “I was assaulted and battered, and my car was stolen. That’s all my business, and I’m letting them handle it in their own way. I’m not going to interfere with their investigation.”
“Not directly,” inserted Derek. “Look, I interfered once, and I regretted it. It wasn’t worth it. My own work was better.”
“I remember,” said Ajax, and watched as some of the tension leeched out of Derek’s shoulders. His partner had been worried for him. “And that’s why I’m taking the course that I am. You have to admit that what’s going on with Tessa is strange.”
“It could be that her roommate has a weird sense of humor,” said Derek, neatly avoiding Ajax’s challenge. “The kidnapping attempt could have been a bad joke that got out of hand or an unfortunate coincidence. She might just have the world’s worst luck.”
“And maybe it’s important,” returned Ajax. “Maybe it doesn’t mean anything with regards to the attempted kidnapping, but someone could be messing with her for their own nefarious purposes. There are guys that wouldn’t be above that sort of thing to get back at an ex.”
Derek fell silent, no doubt thinking of his fiancée Gabriela’s previous lover. Once a menace that had loomed large over her life, that guy was now dead, but even from beyond the grave, he had still managed to mess up Gabriela’s life. It had taken some serious effort to extract her from that mess. While alive, that guy had certainly been petty and unkind enough to do something to Gabriela like what was being done to Tessa – what was possibly being done to Tessa, Aja reminded himself. Nothing was certain yet.
“Aren’t you the least bit curious?” demanded Ajax, ruthlessly pressing his advantage. Derek was like him, and they were both insatiably curious.
Right now, they were looking for a woman who had disappeared, using bit and pieces of their free time to try to piece together what had happened to her not as an official work case, but because no one had reported her missing, when she had abruptly vanished from her life with her husband, Gabriela’s now dead ex. They had been curious about what had happened to her, and everyone deserved to be missed.
Everyone deserved to feel safe in their homes too.
“I am,” Derek sighed. “But you should take it easy. You’re still recovering.”
“I’m one hundred percent better!” protested Ajax.
Derek fixed him with a hard look.
“That may work on humans and tourists, but I’m a shifter too,” he said. “I know that you’re not one hundred percent, not yet. You’re supposed to be laying around the house and taking it easy right now; practically on bed rest, really.”
“But taking it easy is so boring,” complained Ajax. Even to his own ears, it sounded perilously close to a whine. “I want to do stuff – safe stuff,” he added quickly, off of Derek’s developing scowl. “And she’s really pretty. Even if this investigation comes to nothing, it wouldn’t be hard to spend time with her.”
At that, Derek’s developing scowl disappeared completely, replaced with amusement.
“She could kick your ass.”
Ajax shrugged. “Why would she want to? I’m charming.”
Derek snorted. “You’re ridiculous, is what you are. Look, just promise me that you’ll be careful? No fights, no excitement, just boring background work and research until your head is better. Then, when your head is better, we’ll take them down together.”
“I promise.” It was an easy promise to make.
“And if there is unexpected trouble, let her do the fighting.”
“Hey! I owe those guys! And – Ow!” Scowling, Ajax rubbed his shoulder theatrically. Derek really hadn’t hit him that hard. “What was that for
?”
“Being an idiot. You’re still recovering. So, take your time and actually recover,” said Derek. “You can get in all the stupid fistfights after there stops being a bruise on your brain.”
“Yes, mother,” said Ajax sulkily.
Derek snorted.
“I’ve met your mother,” he said mildly. “She’s a fine woman.”
And Ajax grinned, because it was true. His mom – his whole family – was great, although most people couldn’t see that. It was good that he’d gotten assigned such a discerning partner.
When they returned to the main room, it was just Gabriela sitting at the table. Most of the food was gone, and so was Tessa.
“Where is she?” asked Ajax, making sure to keep his voice low. He didn’t want to offend. “The bathroom?”
“No, she said that she needed to call into work,” said Gabriela. “And she wanted to have a quick word with the apartment manager, before things got too hectic there.” Perhaps seeing something in Ajax’s expression, she added “I’ve got her number, if you need it? We’re going to meet up the weekend after next to go browse junk shops for lost soccer memorabilia. And other stuff.”
“I’ll go see if I can catch her at the apartment manager’s office,” said Ajax. “I need to go talk to them about changing my locks, anyway.”
“I’ll finish up here,” said Derek, while eyeing the remnants of breakfast. “But call me, if you need someone to carry you home.”
Ajax snorted. “As if!”
He was feeling much less brave and independent, though, by the time that he got to the apartment manager’s office. It wasn’t a long walk, but he was totally wiped by it.
Gassed out, Ajax took a moment to rest, sitting on the very low wall that separated the sidewalk from the box hedges. In fact, he was still sitting there and still getting his breath back, when a familiar form exited the apartment manager’s office.
“Hey! Tessa!” he called, while scrambling to his feet. “Wait a moment!”
Her Detective Wolf Page 4