by E A Price
Leaky gasped, and the figures abruptly stopped to look in his direction, seconds before fleeing. Fumbling to pick up his flashlight Leaky stumbled to the ground. Unable to stop his need to pee he let loose, yelping as he sprayed his flashlight and shoes. He grabbed the light just in time to see the two dark figures disappearing and to see Collins running in his direction with a barely restrained smirk on his face.
“Need a hand?”
Leaky scowled and threw the flashlight at Collins, who had the nerve to duck.
*
Isis grunted as she smashed her fist into the punching bag over and over again. The cold shower had appeased her somewhat, but she still felt buzzed with too much energy. Hence, she was beating the hell out of her punching bag. He was called Harold after an ex who deserved to be punched – repeatedly.
Her phone chirruped, and she paused to snatch it up and snarl a barely human ‘what’ into the receiver.
“Hey, it’s me,” came the smooth, rich tones of Raf making her tiger perk up with glee that she didn’t even try to conceal. “You okay?”
She was panting lightly from the furious battering she had been bestowing on Harold. “I’m fine, what’s up?” she asked warily. His demeanor, when she left him earlier, had been arctic. She wondered briefly if he was calling to tell her that he didn’t want her investigating the case with her anymore? To make it perfectly clear that he couldn’t stand to be around a slut like her.
“Someone’s paying another late-night visit to our favorite cemetery again. I just got the call. I’m on my way to you, be ready in five?”
“Sure,” she breathed, hoping she didn’t sound as relieved as she felt.
She hung up and ran to the bedroom. She had five minutes to pull off the sex kitten look and to get rid of the sweaty scent that clung to her skin.
Chapter Twelve
Shep gave them a hostile glare, beetling his bushy eyebrows.
“More missing bodies, Shep?” purred Isis, in a deceptively laconic way. Her eyes were hooded, and her lustrous lips curled into a smirk, but he could see the sharpness in her eyes. She was watching him as closely as a… well, as a tigress would watch her prey.
The patrol cops, not the brightest sparks, had tried questioning Shep already about the break in, but Shep had taken offence at their questions, apparently believing that they were accusing him of being in cahoots with the grave robbers. The patrol cops denied it, but Raf wouldn’t put it past them. Now they were trying to get him to open up. While other investigators might have tried coaxing him, even flattering his ego, Isis had decided to annoy the truth out of him. When it came to opening a door, she was more of a battering ram than a key. A skilled battering ram, he had to admit. And damn if it wasn’t fun to watch her work. He was used to dealing with cops – ornery, arrogant cops – and had plenty of practice at being the reasonable, amenable good cop, while pretending that their dumb behavior didn’t piss the hell out of him. But with Isis it was different. He could watch her be deliriously wicked all night long with a stupid grin on his face. Course, very little of his blood was still in his head whenever she was around, and he lost all reason whenever she arched a perfectly sculpted eyebrow in derision.
“A missing body,” he corrected, eliciting a snort from Isis. “And it’s not my fault!” His bulbous nose twitched violently.
“More intruders? You seem to be getting nightly visits.”
Shep’s eyes flashed with anger, and Raf wondered if he was going to shift into his animal. It wouldn’t exactly help him. No mole could be anywhere near as terrifying as a female tiger. “I’m a groundskeeper, not a fucking security guard!” He fixed Raf with black eyes. “Where the fuck were the cops while all these people were breaking into my cemetery? Lazy fuckwits! And besides, that vampire never causes any damage.”
“Vampire?” spat Isis, her own eyes blazed yellow, whether, in interest or fury, Raf couldn’t tell, but he suspected both.
The mole scowled and stopped talking. Isis, now that she had wrested something useful rounded on Shep. Technically, she didn’t change physically. But she stood up a little straighter, her shoulders squared, and a deep growl escaped her lips. With barely any movement, she seemed so much bigger, so much more dangerous, and so much more dominant than the snarky female who had been tormenting Shep a few moments ago.
Raf was amazed to see the quarrelsome mole shifter shrink and almost whimper while refusing to meet her eyes. What was wrong with the guy? Could he not see how hot she was like this?
Shep flinched as she spoke, even though her voice came out as more of a caress than anything else. “What vampire?”
The mole sucked in a breath as if he was readying to argue, but Isis’ eyes widened, her nostrils flared in warning and the words died in his throat. “He comes by about once a week,” muttered Shep.
“To visit the grave?” Raf asked, in a calm voice. Isis backed off a little, satisfied that he was going to tell her what she wanted to know.
The mole nodded, grateful for the interruption. “He said she was some kind of family member, I don’t know. He just wanted to come by maybe once a week. The cemetery closes at night and he, ah…”
“Can’t come by during the day,” supplied Isis. She turned to Raf, and he saw that her eyes had dimmed slightly. “He must be a fairly young vampire, resistance to sunlight takes hundreds of years.”
“You learn something new every day,” drawled Raf.
Isis gave him a small smile, and his heart stumbled before she frowned and turned back to Shep. He’d hurt her feelings earlier, he could tell. Although, he doubted she would ever admit it.
“And he was here the other night wasn’t he? He pushed me into that grave,” barked Isis, her mood returning to simmering anger.
“I don’t know anything about that,” said Shep, hotly. “If he did anything to you, it’s nothing to do with me. I just look the other way when he visits.”
Isis darted him a sardonic look. “Do you look the other way when he liberates corpses from their graves?”
“He wouldn’t do that!”
“You two best buddies, honey?”
Raf thought the mole shifter was going to explode. His doughy, round face turned an alarming shade of puce. And also, Raf didn’t like the way she called him honey. What was wrong with going old school and saying dirtbag?
“What would a vampire want with a dead body?” yelled Shep. “He only comes to visit that grave, and he always climbs over the fence, he never cuts the chain. Whoever is doing this it isn’t him. As for attacking you, all I can think is that he’d met you and knew that you deserved it!”
“That’s enough!” snapped Raf, looming over the little mole, irritated by the insult he had given Isis. He knew Isis was trying to piss off the mole shifter, and in his heart he seriously doubted anything he could say would hurt her steel-tipped feelings, but he had a desire to protect her. Yes, him, the puny human wanted to protect the big, bad tigress from harm. Maybe it was daft, but there it was.
Both Isis and Shep glanced at him in surprise, and Shep actually cowered a little from him. Raf felt a flare of guilt for that. He wasn’t the type to intimidate, or bully. That was the type of cop his dad had been, both at work and at home, and Raf had always promised himself that he would be different.
Thankfully Isis was there.
He placed her delicate yet strong hand on his arm, and his ire melted quicker than a snowcone. Now there was an image. Melting a snowcone all over Isis’ body and then licking it off…
“Can I go?” asked the fidgeting mole shifter. “The first I knew of tonight’s break in was when your cops came running over to my cabin.”
“Do you know the vampire’s name?”
“No, he never told me and I never asked.”
“Fine, you can go,” rumbled Isis. “But we may be back with more questions.”
Shep sucked in a breath and then flitted away with an impressive amount of speed for a shifter his age – or any age, really.
Isis cocked her head on one side, wordlessly asking Raf to follow her. He did, but then he’d probably follow her anywhere. He was such a sap.
Leisurely, she sauntered over to the newly desecrated grave, swinging her hips, making her round ass bob. She stopped at the new grave, ignoring the leery looks of the patrol cops stood around trying to look busy. They stood a little straighter when they spied Raf.
The body of a freshly buried male panther shifter had been taken, but the grave hadn’t been filled in. Unlike the previous bodies, they hadn’t tried to cover it up. Maybe they didn’t see any reason to after the incident two nights ago when they were forced to leave with just the arms of their dead victims. The cops already knew something was wrong, so why waste time filling in the graves.
Raf eyed the two patrol cops. They were the same cops from the previous night who had let the vampire escape. He had to wonder whether they were just a bit incompetent or whether they were just too afraid of supernatural creatures to actually attempt to tackle them. “What tipped you off tonight?”
The blonde patrol cop called Leaky blushed. “Well, I needed to take a leak, so I, uh, thought I’d use that tree over there.” He pointed to a large, gnarly specimen. “That’s when I noticed people moving around over here. I tried to pursue but…” He left the rest of that hanging.
Collins nodded. “By the time I got here they were gone.”
Raf scratched his chin. “They must have been carrying a body, how could they outrun you?”
Heat rose to Leaky’s cheeks. “Well, they were fast, even with the body and it uh, took me a little while to, you know, zip up.”
Meaning he was still pissing and allowing their intruders to carry on with what they were doing. “Did you at least get a good look at them?”
He bobbed his head, making his Adam’s apple shake. “There were two of them. One of them looked to be really big, and one of them looked to be very small.”
Raf waited for more details until he realized that was all he was going to get. “Nothing else?”
Leaky shrugged. “It was dark. But I think the big guy was carrying the body by himself. He had to be nearly seven feet tall and strong. I doubt he was human.” He flicked his eyes to Isis nervously, but she remained casually blank. Raf was grateful that she wasn’t saying anything to the patrol cops, perhaps sensing that trying to cajole them would only make them clam up.
Raf quelled the urge to yell at him and instead gave him a stern look and told him to stick around for the crime scene technicians. Isis puttered around the grave, sniffing and frowning at it.
“Hey, you got one of those cute, plastic bags you use?” she called, with her custom sauciness.
“If you mean an evidence bag, then yeah, sure.”
He passed one to her and she scooped up something he had missed. Cats’ eyes, can’t beat them. It appeared to be a piece of blue plastic.
“Reminds me of the gloves the coroner uses,” he commented. Or his doctor, she of the mercilessly cold hands.
“Hmmmm.” Isis eyed it thoughtfully. “It looks like someone stepped on it.” She passed it to Raf and he in turn handed it to Leaky to be given to the crime scene technicians.
“You think the crime scene techs will get anything?” she asked as they wandered back to his car. Like the last two nights they had spent in this cemetery, their visit had been a bust.
“Not really,” admitted Raf, “did you scent anything?”
“Just the weird dead smell again.”
When they reached his car, he held the door open for her, and she nodded her head in thanks before slipping inside. He jogged around to the driver’s side and slid into the seat. Their drive back to Isis’ apartment was peppered with talk about the case. They were both tired from the past few nights and yawned regularly. To keep awake, they went over what they knew, which wasn’t much.
He parked his car in the underground lot and placed a hand on her arm to stop her from leaving. “I’m sorry about earlier, for getting weird.”
Isis regarded him a little cautiously. “It’s okay,” she said slowly.
“No, it’s not.” Usually, he was the straight talker in any relationship, and his girlfriends had all indulged in passive aggressive bullshit until he couldn’t stand it. He didn’t want to do the same to Isis. “I don’t like to dance around the truth, so here it is.” He took a deep breath. “I like you, Isis. You already know I’m attracted to you, so it can’t be a surprise. And I was jealous at the thought of you being with Gunner, and I didn’t know how to act. We barely know each other, and god knows why you would want to be with me, so instead of doing anything, I just shut down. And I’m sorry. It’s my issue, not yours. But there it is.”
Her yellow eyes stared at him for a few beats, not betraying anything she felt. “There’s nothing to be jealous about.”
“I know, we’re not…”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” she muttered impatiently. “I mean, what happened with Gunner. First of all, I’m part animal. When I’m horny, I have sex. It’s just about satiating a need.” She gave him a rueful smile. “And don’t pretend it’s different for humans – plenty of them have one-night stands. That’s all it was – a few one-night stands to satiate a need. Plus, I was hoping for a promotion at work. There were no feelings involved. I don’t do feelings.”
“No?”
She bit her lip. “Not usually.”
Hope swelled in his chest. “So you think there’s something between us, too?”
“Yes,” she murmured, almost in an anguished voice. “You know I do.”
He let out a mirthless laugh. “I don’t know anything about you. I know you’re scary and beautiful, and funny and smart. I feel drawn to you, and I feel this need to be near you and, don’t laugh, but I want to protect you. But I can’t see what you would want with a human like me, and that bums me out. I don’t know what I can offer you. To know that you’ve been with a big, powerful guy like Gunner…”
Isis grabbed his jacket and pulled him to her for a bruising kiss. He tensed for a second in surprise before giving himself over to the sweetness, and the delicious pressure of her mouth against his, her gentleness opening him to her. Awkwardly, she grasped him as tightly as she could, pressing her body against his.
Too soon she left his mouth and trailed her lips over his cheek, dipping to nuzzle his neck and then moving up to his lobe. His hands clasped her waist, trying to drag her as close to him as possible. He felt her body ripple.
“Oh, no,” she breathed before nipping his ear.
“What?” he groaned.
“My heat,” she whined.
“Your what?”
Isis drew back from him. “I’m going into heat in a couple of days, and my hormones are all over the place.”
“Wait, you actually have heats? Like an actual tiger?”
She nodded a little sheepishly. “Not many shifters have them, but tigers do. A couple of times a year, I’m a big steamy bowl of need and horniness.”
“Wow, that’s uh, wow.” He definitely hadn’t been expecting that. “So what does it mean?”
“Usually I hole up in my apartment with some vibrators and wait it out, but being around you, just seems to be making it worse.”
“Must be my animal magnetism,” he joked.
“It is,” she said seriously. She pulled back and traced a thumb over his lips. It was a sensual move that he was more akin to giving than receiving. Hmmm, actually felt nice. “I’ve never been with a human. I know my friends have, but I don’t know whether we’d really be able to make it work. You’ve never seen my tiger, it might freak you out. But I’ve never met a male that appeals to my tiger half as much as you, and it’s sending her wild. And making my heat go nuts.” She growled the last part, obviously annoyed at herself, or possibly him.
“It’s been a long night,” he started hesitantly and she sagged a little in his arms. “And I don’t think either of us is in any position to start making life-cha
nging decisions tonight, but how about I do something to show you that if we wanted it to, we could make it work.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked, breathily.
He didn’t say anything just nodded his head for her to follow him. Her statement, her admitting to her desire for him emboldened him to take action. He got in the back of the car, and frowning she followed. When she was sitting, she arched an eyebrow that said, ‘your move’. He had a feeling that she didn’t usually allow men to take charge – even the huge, dominant Gunner – so he was going to enjoy this.
“Take off your pants and underwear,” he told her firmly. He didn’t exactly know a lot about shifters, but he had heard that they responded better to commands than requests, something about obeying an alpha.
Isis stared at him with an unimpressed look for a few moments, and he thoroughly expected her to laugh in his face and stalk away. Instead, her cheeks flushed slightly, and with fluid moments, she followed his instructions. He steeled himself on seeing her creamy, curvy legs unveiled, and he bit back a groan as his eyes followed the long lines of her legs up to her sex. So pink, so pretty, so ready for him.
With gentle movements, and with her yellow, eager eyes watching his every movement with predatory-like attention, he slid her round, so she was lying on the seat, her legs pressed up against her chest. He thanked every deity he could think of he had a large car, even still, it was kind of a tight fit. Neither he nor Isis was particularly small. However, he was determined to make it work. He wanted to taste her; he wanted her sweetness on his tongue, and he wanted to show her that he, a lowly human, could bring her pleasure, that he could slake her needs.
Hunching down in his seat, one hand gripped the silken smooth skin of her thighs while he traced the lips of her sex with the other. She gasped in surprise at the first touch, even though it must have been obvious what was coming. He liked that. Beads of her honey clung to the lips, showing she was already turned on, already wet for him. He liked that, too.