Thinking about it, about how mortified she would be, was enough to make Helena feel cold and breathless.
Best not to borrow trouble, Helena thought, trying to be practical. Poor people probably had to be practical. She wiped her clammy palms on her skirt. Let’s leave tomorrow’s problems to tomorrow’s me.
She had heard a superhero say that once. It had seemed like procrastination at the time, but now Helena could appreciate his point. Why worry about things that hadn’t even happened yet? And that you couldn’t prevent from happening, anyway?
She still felt stressed though. And her hands were still clammy.
A shower, thought Helena. A nice, cold shower always makes me feel better.
Unfortunately, all showers were currently off the table, at least until her host came home.
Helena intended to be on her very best and most unobtrusive behavior until she found out whom her relatives had sent her to and maybe for awhile after that, too.
Maybe I should just sit on the couch until they return? Helena considered, frowning.
It seemed like the safest, least objectionable course of action.
Mind made up, Helena went to sit on the couch, sitting where she could see the hallway – and be seen from it – through the room’s entrance.
Perching on the very edge of the couch, Helena arranged her pleated skirts around her legs. She crossed her ankles, folded her hands in her lap, and tried to smooth a few wrinkles out of her clothes. Helena wished that she wasn’t quite so disheveled from her long journey. Grandmother had always been adamant that a lady was never disheveled.
It’s the best that I can do, thought Helena, pushing thoughts of her deceased grandmother away. Surely, her host would understand.
Helena waited for her host as patiently as she could, being as pretty and still as a proper lady ought to be while waiting for another party. It was deadly dull.
Fortunately, her cell phone was currently without its battery. It made it easier to be ladylike. Or at least, that was what Helena told herself, while doing her best not to remember either the hardback or any of the three different paperbacks that she had packed in her things. They were all her favorites. And they were so close!
And yet so far, thought Helena unhappily, because she had just broken into this place. She didn’t want to be caught unaware.
It was probably a good thing that she didn’t have to wait long.
Helena was still struggling with herself and all of the books that she couldn’t afford to read just then, when there was a scraping sound from the direction of the front door. The apartment was so quiet that Helena heard it when the key was turned in the lock.
The front door swung open, and her heart leaped in her chest, setting up a wild rhythm. A light tread over the floorboards, and then Helena found herself looking up into the tall, dark silhouette of an obviously startled man.
Helena gulped.
Who knew that her host would be so handsome?
Chapter 04 – Dolf
Julienning vegetables took a lot more concentration than his secondhand cooking DVDs had led him to believe that it might. It was also harder than the chef in the video had made it look.
Rudolf Shaw was bringing the knife down in another precisely placed cut when the lights flickered and went out. He froze, the blade of his knife hovering over a length of carrot, but the lights did not come back on again.
Annoyed, he carefully put the knife aside. Even when one had superior night vision, as Dolf certainly did, cutting vegetables wasn’t something that should be done in the dark, not if he wanted a product that looked anything like the examples in his cooking DVDs, which he most certainly did.
Power surge? Dolf wondered, as he patiently waited to see if the lights would flicker on again. He was still waiting, when his cell phone began to ring.
“Shaw here,” said Dolf without bothering to read the display.
“Are you home?” demanded a familiar voice. Hearing it surprised Dolf.
“Aren’t you supposed to be on some sort of vacation?” demanded Dolf rather than answering directly. “Are you out of money already? I thought you guys had a system.”
“No, I’m not out of money,” said his coworker, Declan da Luz, indignantly. “Because I have a system, and it will work. The casinos aren’t going to know what hit them!”
“Uh huh,” said Dolf, leaning his hip against the edge of the counter.
It was in his most irritating tone, the one that always made the other guy see red. And Declan was no exception. He growled into the phone, a low, rumbling warning. Dolf might have been more worried about that, but Declan was over two thousand miles away. That was a plenty large enough distance to get some entirely unnecessary ribbing in.
The guy had it coming. Sometimes, Declan took himself entirely too seriously.
“It will work?” needled Dolf. “So it hasn’t happened yet?”
“No, not yet,” Declan admitted, grudgingly. “We’re still in the Las Vegas airport. But the alarm company just called me. Apparently the power is out there? And someone may or may not have broken into my apartment?”
“They did?” asked Dolf, straightening.
“Maybe? That’s all the security company is willing to commit to at this time,” said Declan. “Do you have time to drop by my place and take a look?”
“What do they think it was, if not a break in?” asked Dolf, feeling curious despite himself.
“Apparently, there was some sort of wild power surge there? Which might have either flipped a circuit breaker or fried the building’s electrical system?”
Looking up at his darkened overhead lights, Dolf hoped that it was the circuit breaker thing. He liked camping, but living without power in Florida could be unpleasant. He had done it before, of course, but that had been during hurricane season. If possible, Dolf preferred not to camp out in his own apartment. It sort of defeated the purpose of all that outdoors gear in his closet.
“Either way, the security system in my apartment managed to get a shout out before it was fried,” continued Declan. “That’s why they aren’t sure if there was really a break in, and they didn’t want to call it in to the local P.D. if it wasn’t really anything to get excited about.”
“Well now I’m curious too,” said Dolf. “Sure, I’ll go take a look. Do you still keep a key in the lockbox at work?”
“Yeah,” said Declan. “Hey, you’re a really good dude for doing this, Dolf. I’ll definitely owe you one.”
“Yeah?” said Dolf gruffly, despite the curls of warmth that he felt at Declan’s casual compliment. Wolves enjoyed being appreciated by their pack mates, even if said pack mates were just trying to squeeze a favor out of them. Feeling mischievous, he added “Pick up my tab the next time we all go bowling, and we’ll call it even.”
He could practically see Declan’s wince. It brought Dolf’s wolfish heart joy.
“It’s a deal,” said Declan, despite the fact that he had not once attended bowling night. He was much too cool for that sort of thing. “Let me know if you need anything?”
“Will do,” said Dolf, not meaning it at all.
It was probably just some sort of an electrical short. What could possibly be exciting about that?
Leaving his things where they were, Dolf pulled on his sneakers, grabbed his keys, and headed out.
The Dial A Defender corporate office was situated in an older district that had once been zoned for housing but had in all the years since then become a commercial district. Located in an older two-story home, the Dial A Defender office was mint green with white trim, a wide front porch, and a long, narrow parking lot where the front lawn had once been. Supposedly, the house had once been owned by a pair of vampires, and perhaps consequently, it was riddled with hidden cubbies and hideaway holes.
Nosing his vehicle into one of the empty parking slots, Dolf went inside where this week’s receptionist smiled at him vapidly. Lately, Dial A Defender had had a lot of trouble keeping a dece
nt receptionist. Apparently, they found the job stressful. For himself, Dolf found it stressful when they quit. Then the boss made the Defenders take turns manning the front desk.
In the present, Dolf flashed his work badge at the office’s most recent secretary without bothering to stop, intent on making this trip as quick as possible.
“Wait!” called the receptionist – Karen, maybe. Or Carol? It was something like that. “I didn’t read it!”
Reluctantly, Dolf stopped and returned to the front desk. To his surprise, she actually took his badge and frowned over it for what felt like whole minutes.
“Okay,” she said at last, as she returned his badge to him. Opening a drawer, she depressed a button on a keypad, which in turn unlocked the heavy door that protected the firm’s back offices. “You can go through now.”
“Thanks,” said Dolf, pocketing his work badge for the time being.
Passing through the doorway, he quickly made his way into the back offices and then up the stairs to the boss’ office.
The Orlando division of Dial A Defender was headed by Giles Geissler, a shifter like all the rest of them. Rapping on his boss’ door, Dolf respectfully waited for Gil to bark “Come in!” before he entered his superior’s office.
Opening the door, Dolf scented the air, smelling stress and sickness in the air. Inside, he found his boss, the de facto pack leader of their little group, sitting behind his desk with a fearsome scowl on his face. It was an expression made all the more imposing by the odd shape of his pupils. His coarse white hair, the color courtesy of his shift form rather than age, was sticking up in all directions. Mostly, he looked harried and unhappy.
“Dolf!” barked Gil, and then, at the unhappy murmur from the child sleeping on his couch, lowered his voice to a strident murmur, saying, “Dolf! Isn’t it your day off?”
“Declan called from Las Vegas,” whispered Dolf, after a quick glance at the sleeping child. Curled up under a pink blanket, her face was flushed. She looked sick. “He asked me to check on an alarm in his apartment.”
“Ah.”
Opening his middle drawer a crack, Gil leaned to one side and opened another drawer, a bottom drawer, all the way. Carefully, he removed the drawer’s meager contents from it to his desktop and then leaned down to take out the drawer’s false bottom. From there, Gil took a narrow, grey lock box. And from that, he took a key, its attached keychain labeled ‘Declan da Luz’ in Gil’s neat script.
Tossing Dolf the key, Gil said in an undertone “Let me know how it works out.”
“Will do.” Jerking a thumb at the kid, Dolf said, “And I hope Tallulah feels better soon.”
“Me too,” murmured Gil glumly, while gazing at his daughter with equal parts worry and love.
From there, Dolf returned to the apartment complex, parked, and schlepped himself up the stairs.
If there isn’t anything wrong, thought Dolf as he made his way down the darkened hallway, then I’m going to be wildly annoyed.
Not that he actually expected anything to be wrong, much less interestingly so, in Declan’s apartment.
That proved to be a mistake on his part.
Dolf had done a lot and seen a lot more, first in the army and then as a defender, but he had never before walked in on an intruder who seemed to be waiting for him, like she owned the place and he was her unexpected guest. Now, he had.
There’s a first time for everything, Dolf thought grimly.
The woman had arranged herself in the center of Declan’s couch, her brown skirts falling in smooth lines around her long, pale legs. Her slim hands were folded in her lap, her expression composed. In fact, as he looked, Dolf realized that every part of the woman was slim, practically underfed really, giving her a sense of having been delicately wrought. She seemed as easily broken as a porcelain doll.
She was as pretty as a porcelain doll too with her shiny white-blonde hair, enormous blue eyes, and carefully applied makeup; dressed like a doll too in her 1920s girls’ detective novel get up.
When it came to women’s fashions, Rudolf wasn’t great at guessing what was what, but he guessed that she was wearing a riff on an old-fashioned skirt suit, made either from brown plaid or else some sort of tweed. Either way, her skirt was short and pleated, giving him an eyeful of the prettiest legs that he’d ever seen.
Her white blouse, which was probably silk, was loose around her arms. Tucked under its collar was a length of red ribbon. Dolf wouldn’t have known that it was there, save that it was tied into a loose, loopy bow at the front of her long, slim throat. From the knot hung a bit of jewelry, gold gleaming in the shadows.
Over her white blouse, she wore a fitted brown vest and over that a fitted brown suit jacket, both made from the same material as her skirt. The vest, which was held shut by at least a dozen tiny pearl buttons, was tight enough to highlight the gentle swell of her high, tight breasts but forgiving enough to give her belly the impression of flatness. Slumped at the woman’s side was a little black purse. All she was missing was a stylish fedora with a press pass jammed into the band.
Given the situation and her overall appearance, it frankly seemed more likely that this woman had gotten lost on the way to a crime scene, roughly about a century ago, or been mislaid on Declan’s couch by a careless child.
It didn’t take Dolf long to take all of her in, but in that time the woman had begun to fidget under his careful consideration. Her hands tightened in her lap, her pale brown nail polish catching the light. The woman had had one foot tucked neatly behind the other’s ankle, but as he watched, she uncrossed then re-crossed her slim ankles. Her restless movements shifted her weight on the couch, wafting the scents of her bath products at him.
Like many women, she wore a confusing array of sweet, chemical scents in the belief that it would make her smell better. And to be fair, maybe they smelled nice to other humans, but they just made Dolf’s nose itch.
Between her beseeching bright blue eyes and general nervousness, Dolf could almost believe that he was the intruder in this pretty, if strange, woman’s apartment. He had the most unaccountable urge to go outside and check the apartment’s number again, despite the fact that Dolf’s spare key had worked in the front door’s lock. He even recognized all of Dolf’s stuff from the occasional poker night. And yet, the urge remained.
It was probably because she was just so pretty. And she seemed so frightened. And harmless.
She’s only pretty as far as your run-of-the-mill home intruder goes, Dolf sternly reminded himself. Because that was what she was: an intruder in his friend’s apartment. And she’s right to be frightened. You’ve caught her red-handed. And she’s probably not harmless. She just looks that way to fool idiots like you.
“Please,” said the woman, her voice quivering. “Please, help me. I don’t have anywhere else to turn to.”
“There’s this place called a police station where –”
“No!” yelped the woman and then flushed. In more measured tones, she said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled. But I can’t go there. I can’t. Please, help me.”
Her look was pleading. Under it, Dolf felt himself softening. He would have had to be a much harder man than he was not to respond to that look.
“We also have a main office,” offered Dolf weakly. He was pretty sure that he had lost. What, he didn’t yet know.
“A main office?” repeated the woman, now sounding bewildered. “What kind of main office?”
“You don’t know?” asked Dolf, now also confused. “Do you even know where you are? Or whose apartment this is?”
“Orlando, Florida, and no,” said Helena. “I don’t. But my uncle said that the person at this address could help me.”
And then she hit him with that pleading look again.
Dolf considered the woman warily. If this whole helpless and vulnerable bit was just that – a bit – he wasn’t going to fall for it. He wasn’t.
Dolf liked a pretty face as well as the next guy,
but it took more than that to sucker him. It was his nose that led him around, not his eyes. He was lucky that women liked to muddy their scents with lotions, potions, and perfumes. Without that, Dolf suspected that he’d be a total pushover. He would have definitely been putty in this woman’s delicate hands.
“You have to help me. Please.”
“Me?” repeated Dolf, surprised, and then remembered that they were in Declan’s apartment. She likely thought him Declan.
It was Declan whose help she wanted.
Dolf frowned.
“Hold on,” said Dolf, raising a finger between them.
Keeping a cautious eye on Declan’s unexpected houseguest, Dolf fished out his cell phone. Maybe Declan would have some idea of what was going on.
He had to call twice, listening impatiently to the phone’s rings, before Declan finally picked up, saying in clipped tones, “da Luz?”
“Took you long enough,” grumbled Rudolf.
“Sorry,” said Declan. “I was, er, in the swimming pool when you called?”
In the background, a woman laughed, the sound bright and mirthful. Dolf immediately resolved to stop inquiring in that direction.
“So, how’s my place? Just a false alarm, right?”
“No, there really was a break in,” said Rudolf. “She’s sitting on your couch right now. She says that she’s in some sort of trouble.”
“So have her go to the police. Or call the office. I’m on vacation.”
“Apparently, that just won’t do.”
In the background, Dolf heard one of the other guys called to Declan, who laughed. Then Declan huffed out an impatient breath at him.
“Does she at least have a name?” demanded Declan.
To the woman, Dolf said, feeling chagrinned, “Who are you?”
He probably should have asked that sooner.
“Helena Tarleton.”
Dolf had never heard the name before, but on the other end of the phone line, Declan sucked in a sharp breath between his teeth.
The Wyvern's Defender Dire Wolf Page 4