by Tina Gower
He swallowed, his blood rushing to his head. “I’m not sleeping with her.”
She looked confused. “You just said you were.”
“I was sleeping in her apartment. Not—we’re not having sex.” He choked out the last words, ignored his stomach tumbling over itself.
“So you are doing the werewolf stuff. Does she know?”
“She doesn’t need to. It’s just a temporary set-up.”
“You’re kidding me.” She coughed. “Oh, goddess. You believe that? Is it even possible?”
He shrugged. “Look, I got to track this guy. I don’t have time to sit around and discuss werewolf biology.” His skin had been slowly shrinking, like a too-tight suit, and if he didn’t get away and chase something he’d probably try to eat Kate’s cousin as a consolation prize.
Not like he know much about werewolf biology, anyway. But he didn’t want to hear some outsider’s interpretation, either. When Ali didn’t offer a retort, he took it as a sign he’d been released from her scrutiny.
She watched him from the stairs as he jogged away. It wasn't until he reached the corner of the building when she said, “I’m guessing you don’t have a clue what you’re doing. Just don’t fuck up my cousin.”
She said it clearly, but didn’t yell. Like she knew he'd be able to hear her from that distance, and had waited to ensure that she got the last word.
Annoying witch. He thought of the cookies she’d left and her dropping the wards for him. As much as his inherent distrust of magic users begged him to continue to see her as a threat, he knew from her mannerisms and facial expressions that she’d done it as a peace offering.
But . . . was he fucking up Kate?
He shook the thought away and crept around the building several times, attempting to pick up the scent from the unwanted prowler. Finally admitting he couldn’t find anything. Not a single clue. The only hint that someone had been there at all was a lingering trace of the scent he’d caught on Liza Hamilton. The same scent that had been on the coin Wu found, and at the house from the case Kate had given him. Rosemary soaked in almond oil, with a hint of magic that tickled at the back of his tongue.
The brass would never go for a weak scent collection, but Lipski would believe him. He just had to find a way to bring his partner in without giving away his relationship to Kate.
Chapter 8
Ian wasn’t able to leave Kate’s apartment complex until early that evening, when a patrol car showed up across the street. He’d given Morales a vague description of the guy he’d chased out of the complex and the information that he might be seen loitering around the building where Kate’s apartment was located. He hadn’t mentioned Kate or her association to the case. He couldn’t risk this looking like he was a jealous, overprotective boyfriend, and he didn’t want to alarm Kate either. His plan was to eliminate the threat before she even knew it existed.
It was the least he could do. She'd never wanted the Jack Roberts case, and now she'd jeopardized her career, attached herself to a werewolf, and had jerks peeking into her apartment in the middle of the night.
And that wasn't the worst of it. Ali’s words had hit him hard. He’d been playing with something he didn’t have any idea about—either how it worked or what it would do to Kate. He couldn’t bring himself to go back into her apartment. Not yet. He’d get more information first and then he’d let her decide whether or not she wanted to continue the pack arrangement. Sure, she’d promised she’d stick with him until he had something else, but instinct told him he needed to end it much sooner than that or it would be impossible for him to end it at all. He already couldn’t imagine letting her go.
He sent Lipski a text asking him for help with the case: Waiting on a search warrant for a case in Accidental. Possibly related to a petty crime. You in?
Lipski: Search warrant? Since when do you do things by the book?
Ian: Since I got this gig with Accidental. Don’t want the brass to take it from me. It’s the closest thing to detective I’ll ever see.
Lipski: Sure. I’ll stop by. If only to witness your inevitable downfall. Btw, you’re going to eat crow about that ‘never being a real detective’ shit.
Ian waited a few moments and circled the apartment complex a few more times. Once he was sure Morales was keeping a close eye on the place, he headed to the house from the death prediction Kate had felt was connected to some kind of crime. And it probably was, considering the guy was likely involved with Liza Hamilton. What were the odds that a case related to Liza Hamilton would come through to Kate? He didn’t know, but he didn't trust them. There was something off about this case, and he didn’t like the stench of it. Had it been a set up for Kate? Was she supposed to have innocently made a house call to check the details and be ambushed by Liza’s thugs?
No thanks. Ian wasn’t going to allow Kate to be Liza’s play toy.
Lipski met him a few minutes later, in uniform. Shit. He should have gotten into uniform. This all had to be official.
Lipski scratched his elbow and scanned the house. “What do we got?”
“Petty crime. Likely stolen goods inside. Guy’s got a larger than normal chance to get offed by a falling box with a television inside.”
“Gods, sometimes I wish we could just let a death ride through to the prediction, so we could have one less asshole in the world.”
Ian got into Lipski’s cruiser and made a few phone calls, wondering why his warrant was late.
Lipski sat at the driver seat and thumbed the wheel to a beat. “I say we just go in and make up a probable later. I’ll get my cousin to call into dispatch from a pay phone and say she heard someone calling for help inside.”
Ian cringed. “No. This one has to go by the books.”
Hank gave him a disgusted look. “Please, please tell me that whatever has you sleeping away from the break room isn’t turning you into a paper pusher with a pencil up his ass.”
Ian glared at him, his mouth working out the proper retort, but the crackle of the radio cut them off.
“…We got a fifty-one-fifty at Grain Levy Road. Three miles from your location, near the airport. Unit eighty-seven do you copy?”
Lipski pressed his radio and turned his face into the receiver. “We copy.” He released the radio and turned to Ian. “No warrant. We have a call and I’m the closest officer. I have to take it.”
Ian clenched his fists and gave Lipski a tight nod. “I’ll wait until you get back.” Except his phone rang before he could hop out. “Yeah?”
It was the captain. “We’ve got an out of control shifter on Grain Levy Road, near the airport. We’ll need your assist.”
“Got it. I’m with Lipski, so we’ll ride together.” Ian dug under the seat for a vest, shut his door, and hung up his phone. “They want me on the call, too.”
“Yeah, I heard.”
He gripped his thigh and angled his face out the window so Lipski wouldn’t see how pissed he was about having to answer a call in the middle of eliminating a threat against Kate. Ironic that his pack sessions with her were the only reason he was calm and collected enough to have waited for a warrant. Now he’d have to wait longer and potentially put her at more risk.
They drove out past the grain silos and the levy. Ian shoved his arms through the vest as they turned onto Grain Levy Road, letting the familiar weight of Kevlar sink against him. As they rounded a bend in the road, he could immediately see why he’d been called as well. Werewolf, covered in blood, in front of a seedy motel.
Lipski whistled. “Holy Hells. What do you think brought a werewolf this close to the city?”
The wolf, in his late thirties to early forties, raised his hands in surrender. Eyes in full glow, reflecting off the police car lights. Ian and Lipski got out of the car, using the doors as shields while they drew their guns, waiting for whatever horror was there to greet them.
“Hands on the ground. Lay down flat. Hands out! Hands out!” They both shouted commands at the wolf until h
e complied, his body shaking with what Ian knew from experience was adrenaline. Lipski held his gun on the wolf while Ian patted him down.
No weapons. Not that a wolf needed them. His fingers were dripping with blood, and his chin was stained with the stuff too.
“You hurt?” Ian asked.
“No. No, it’s not me, it’s Myra. Please, please go help her. Please cuff me.”
Lipski didn’t wait for more of an explanation. He folded the man’s hands behind his back and placed the cuffs tight around his wrists. That done, he spoke in his calmest voice. “Is there anyone else on the property? Is the person who hurt you still on the premises? Does anyone have a weapon?”
“I’m not hurt. There’s no one else. No weapons. Please, help Myra. She’s in the room on the bed. That’s where I left her.”
“Go!” Lipski called to Ian. “See if you can find her.”
Ian followed the trail of blood, his gun drawn as he listened for the sounds of sirens. Too far away. His stomach twisted like a wrung-out dishrag. This didn’t feel right. The blood led to a cracked-open door. He shouted for anyone inside to get down and kicked it the rest of the way open. Near the bed in the corner, a woman lay on her stomach, her shirt torn to shreds and her back soaked in blood. She clutched a bundle of bone and torn flesh in her hand, and a similar chunk, covered in blood and saliva, lay a few feet away.
Ian crouched down next to the woman. “Myra? Myra, can you hear me?”
Her brown hair and darker complexion reminded him of Kate. Kate on the floor, bleeding. He had to shake the thoughts away to keep his focus. The woman turned to him, her eyes and face unlike Kate's, her mouth wide with the intensity of pain. She wasn't Kate. He'd known it already, but seeing the difference allowed him to separate this woman’s identity away from his pack responsibility, even if he still felt a need to protect her.
“My wings,” She croaked.
Her eyes darted around the room, and Ian could tell from the chill in her skin that she was definitely in shock. With a trembling reach she placed the bone, tendon, and skin she'd been holding on his knee. The appendage of an angel’s wing. Those with angel DNA didn’t have wings, but some were born with featherless nubs where the wings would have expanded out from under the shoulder blades. It was an evolutionary leftover like wisdom teeth or an appendix. Angela, Lipski’s wife, had had hers removed as a child. And removed the kids’—again, like wisdom teeth. Sometimes they were prone to skin infections, or they just got caught on clothing, or created small unwanted lumps. Some angels kept them attached as a status symbol or because they simply didn’t have the money for a removal.
Ian snatched some towels from a rack in the bathroom and folded the wings inside one, placing them back in her hand. “You hold on to those. Maybe the hospital will be able to reattach them.” Although that didn’t look likely. They’d been ripped off with sharp, but imprecise teeth. He applied pressure to the gaping wound in her back, and she flinched. “Myra, who did this to you?”
She sniffled, tears streaming down her face. “He didn’t mean it. He’s sorry. He’s always sorry.”
Ian's heart squeezed. A zing of pain shot out to his fists. “The wolf outside?”
“Please don’t hurt Garret.”
“We have Garret outside."
"Is he okay?"
"He’s cooperating. Let’s focus on you right now.”
The woman clutched her towel-wrapped wings. “You’re a wolf.”
His shoulders sagged. “Yes. Would you feel more comfortable with someone else?” He kept his words and touch gentle, letting her take the lead. Under the circumstances, she couldn’t feel easy in the presence of a werewolf. He should have quietly excused himself in some way. Or called for Lipski, who could hear this entire conversation. Maybe he was already on his way.
“No.” She sighed. Content, but under it all a bit resigned. “I’m glad Garret will be understood.” Her gaze met Ian’s. She licked her lips and her eyes drooped. “Sometimes violence is unavoidable. Violence is necessary.” She nodded as if she expected Ian to understand and confirm her belief.
He couldn’t speak for all werewolves, but there was a deep dark part of him that always wondered if that was true. His stability always teetered on a ledge. At last, though, he shook his head. “No. It’s not.”
“I set him off. I know it looks bad, but I started it.” The woman closed her eyes. “Please don’t hurt him.”
She couldn’t make Ian promise that, because he very, very much wanted to hurt the other wolf. He bit back a muffled curse and called out to the emergency medical technicians he could hear close by. “In here! We have two severed wing bones, and blood loss. Area clear!”
The EMTs charged through the door, and he stepped out of the way. Far, far out of the way. In fact, he kept backing away until his boots hit the dirt outside, until the sound of airplanes taking off and landing drowned out the sounds of police and medical personnel. He kept moving away from the scene, farther and farther. His heart beat against his throat, like a scream that wouldn’t surface.
It wasn't that these kinds of horrors didn’t happen on a daily basis. That didn’t have him tucking his tail between his legs. It was that this had been done by a wolf.
It was just like his training, when he'd been required to analyze pictures of werewolf maulings. Wolves had quick reflexes and higher-than-average aggression—that paired with a tendency to use their teeth and fingers to rip through skin meant they were considered always armed. Unlike most other species, they were treated differently. It had bothered Ian to go through picture after picture of damage caused by people like him. As though they were trying to remind him who and what he was.
Lipski was standing directly in front of him, he realized.
His partner tilted his head and squared off his body to block his view of the mess. “You okay, Ian?” He might be asking, but he already knew the answer: Ian was losing his shit.
He blinked a few times and swallowed. “I’m going to wait in the squad car.”
Lipski nodded. “You sure? I just told you we put the suspect in there.”
Had he? Ian hadn’t noticed. “It’s fine.” He ran his hands through his hair in hopes it would clear his head. “Maybe he’ll talk to me.”
“Don’t do this, kid. He’s not your responsibility.”
“Of course. No. I know that.” But he was, in a weird way. A wolf like that—nearly full-blooded—was a possible threat coming into the city. Normally, he would have cleared things with the local pack as a courtesy. And Ian was all that was left of the Angel’s Peak pack. “I shouldn’t be in there,” he motioned toward the motel room door, “and the captain called me because it was another werewolf.”
Lipski gave him his don’t-be-a-hero look and tapped his ear. Ian nodded. Sure, he’d call if he needed an assist. Lipski tossed over his tranq gun, along with a few darts that would take down a wolf about the size of Garret.
Or Ian.
A reminder that these tranquilizers had come in handy when Ian lost it during his own breakdown.
Lipski glared at a group of nearby officers, his attention already waning. “Shouldn’t need it. The guy’s being cooperative. Maybe too cooperative.”
Ian tapped the tranquilizer in his palm a few times, staring at Lipski’s back seat and the outline of the man they’d apprehended. After a few moments, he opened the passenger side, sat, and closed the door. His gaze straight ahead. Let the asshole squirm for a bit. Let him talk first.
“Is Myra going to be okay?”
He hadn’t expected that to be the guy’s first words, but a chill of fear laced the other wolf’s voice. Ian was drowning in the guy’s cortisol levels. Either he realized the deep shit he’d put himself in or he really was concerned about the woman.
Ian let the man hang on his own question for a bit. “You clipped her wings. Tore them right off with your teeth. What do you think?”
The man was quiet for a long stretch. If Ian was here to get answe
rs, he’d chosen a piss-poor way of questioning the guy.
“Things have been hard. At work. Hells, you get it.”
Ian didn’t answer. Not because he didn’t get it, but because he was afraid he might. And he'd never expected the guy to admit it. But then again, it was wolf to wolf. You don’t lie to other wolves.
“Myra is all I have. I’m borderline. I don’t need a pack, but having someone near takes the edge off my anger. I tried counseling. Petitioning a local pack. They wouldn’t take me. I’m not wolf enough by the pack’s standards, and too much wolf for a counselor to take on who doesn’t specialize. And we’re too far out from the nearest facility that takes wolves. Plus, that shit’s expensive. And a pack? Too restrictive. I heard there was some diet stuff, but man, I like meat. Fuck that.”
Ian grunted. It had never been an option for him. The idea of having a choice of diet or no diet, pack or no pack, counseling or no counseling was a foreign concept to him. All that was just part of the package that came with being near full-blooded.
The guy licked his lips several times before continuing. “So she wanted to go visit her mom this weekend. A plane ride away, here in the city. It made me edgy. I told her no. Not an option. She begged and begged and one day I said sure. Fine. Do what you want. I didn’t think she’d actually go. But whatever. She’s a master at getting what she wants, but she knows the deal. I need someone twenty-four seven when things get high stress.”
Ian sent a silent thank you to his dad for teaching him multiple coping mechanisms. Sure, being under the thumb of your own emotions and sensory overload was difficult, but there were ways to manage that didn’t include shackling another person.
“She called to say she’d be gone for another week. I just couldn’t deal. I thought I could do it, but I’d gone for so long with nothing. I’d never had something like her and the peace she brought me. You get it, right? You’re a wolf, too.” He doesn’t wait for Ian to respond. “I went from surviving, to thinking it might be possible, to being unable to function without her. I messed up at work. Lost my job and bought a plane ticket to Angel’s Peak.” His expression went hard, as if this development was damned inconvenient, but that expression wiped away just as quickly, replaced by a mask of something more vulnerable. “I just wanted to see her. The plane was cramped with people. A kid screamed right in my ear the whole way.”