by Amber Lynn
“By saying that, you’re taking the craziness that apparently was Leto out of the situation. She may have thought she was in love, and clearly it was all one-sided, but can you really call it stable with her involved?”
“It was one-sided, and I do try to distance myself from the titan, which you’ll eventually find amusing. I like to think who we are came from the two people who cared enough about each other to ensure we existed after that first man was cursed to live a life that at times made him a monster.”
“Does that first man and woman have a name?”
Jack had indicated he’d only recently learned the real story of where werewolves came from. As epic as the story seemed to be, it didn’t seem possible that it had slipped away over the years.
“Rajan and Ece were their names. Any more details about them will be coming from Nikki and Vik tomorrow.”
“Okay, what else do you think I should know before I try to read you?”
Jack didn’t immediately respond. He looked off towards the fireplace for a second before looking back to me. Feeling playful, I sparked a fire into action, causing his gaze to move away from me.
It was amazing how easy it was to just be magical around him. Without him there, I never would’ve even played around with creating a small fire in my hand. A part of me just needed to show off.
“I hope that isn’t an indicator that I’m wearing out my welcome.”
“It’s not. I’m just having some fun.”
I didn’t have fun, so it was odd being able to say it aloud. I kept my excitement as close in as I could, but there was something taunting me to be myself. Jack didn’t seem to have any issues with who he thought I was, but there was something else in the room trying to reiterate that it was okay.
If it was just Jack, I’d be okay with relaxing. The other thing telling me to play wasn’t as comforting.
“I thought it’d be easy to just sit here and tell you my life story. It’s not that it’s really hard, I just have so much that it’s kind of hard to focus my thoughts.”
“Then maybe you should let me do things my way. At the same time, it’s not like you need to tell me everything there is to know about you today. You intrigue me enough that I think I’ll keep you around awhile.”
It appeared I was flirting, maybe not to the obnoxious level I saw some people, but for me, it was an advanced stage.
“I wasn’t sure how much you knew about werewolves, and after admitting that I’ve killed before, I wanted to make sure you didn’t think I was just a monster. I’ve had dark days, but Nikki and the rest of my family have helped me see that all the hate was unnecessary.”
“All except your father. Do you want to tell me what exactly happened there?”
“That’s probably one of my longer stories. It goes back to when Nikki and I were kids and ends four or five years ago when he helped plan the kidnapping of Nikki’s girls and Paul. He was well and truly a monster. Nikki ended up fighting him when she figured out he’d helped with the kidnapping. I’m sure there was more than just the kidnapping driving her on, but that was the main trigger. She left him to deal with later by embedding a knife in his chest.
“Then she let it slip that when she was a kid, instead of spending time learning leadership skills with another pack, like we’d been told, she was holed up in a dungeon he created. He didn’t feed her for a solid week. There are a few other times where I’ve totally lost my temper, but I’ve never seen red like I did hearing that. She may be my older sister, but I’ve always been protective of her.”
“Not to be devil’s advocate here, but wasn’t it Nikki’s right to decide what to do about the wrongs towards her? Did she ask you to kill him?”
“I think playing devil’s advocate would be telling me you thought he deserved to live.”
I shrugged. Technically his idea was right, but I wasn’t there in the moment to have a say as far as that went. I also didn’t know exactly what werewolf law was as far as killing someone went. I assumed it varied greatly from normal human laws.
“I was just saying I had another way of looking at things. Did Nikki ask you to kill him?”
“No, Nikki was unconscious for three hours, so it was a little difficult to ask her whether she cared if I killed him.”
“So there’s even more to the story. I can’t say I know much about your biology, but after meeting Nikki, I have to think it takes a lot to put her down.”
“Yeah, our father’s accomplice was this nutty girl Vik had promised to mate with before he ran into Nikki. She tried to poison him, I guess thinking she’d crap all over everything while he was out, but she didn’t take into account my sister.”
I had a guess about what happened, and I decided to share it, even though he was more than likely getting ready to tell me.
“Nikki somehow took the poison for him, didn’t she? She was out when you decided to kill your dad because she was fighting the poison.”
“Pretty much, but Nikki being Nikki, didn’t go down without a fight. They shot poison into her with an electrical current attached that kept shocking her, but that didn’t keep her from rearranging the crazy lady’s face. In case you’re wondering, Nikki didn’t get to kill her either. Our mom had that honor.”
“A family that kills together, stays together?”
“Something like that. I felt I had a lot to make up for. My father convinced me of all sorts of lies about Nikki, and I treated her like dirt. I’m not proud of some of the things I ended up saying to her over the years. There’s still a lot I have to make up for.”
“She doesn’t seem to hold a grudge, unless of course you think trying to set you up with me is a form of punishment.”
Jack reached over and grabbed my hand, lacing our fingers together. I wasn’t ready, so for a second the shocking was full-blown, but I quickly took it down to half level.
“I don’t think she’s trying to punish you, and being attached to me is the only punishment that could from us being together.”
“That’s still up in the air. It seemed like you had someone trying to stop your relationship plans earlier. What exactly do you know about him and the murders you say he did?”
“Do we have to talk about him? Even before he showed interest, he gave me indigestion.”
“If you don’t tell me, I’m going to have to ask him. Would that make you feel any better?”
Jack scooted closer, so my body was snuggled up against his side. With the hand not holding mine, he pushed my head down on his shoulder.
“Okay, but you can’t watch my eyes, and you have to let me hold you while I do it.”
“I can live with that. I definitely feel a lot more comfortable with you than I did him. There was just something odd about him. When he pushed energy at me, I wasn’t sure exactly what to think. A part of me thought it was interesting, because I could tell he was strong, but Abbie had said he felt like a demon to her.”
Jack’s head moved up and down next to mine. “I don’t believe in demons, or that he’s actually an incubus. I just don’t have a better word for what he is. I could call him a sex vampire, but that seems a little crude.”
“How exactly did you come to that conclusion? I assume you didn’t catch him in the act.”
“Thankfully we didn’t. The first call that came in said there was an elderly woman deceased in an apartment that was rented by a twenty-four-year-old. It didn’t immediately sound too weird, but Harry and I picked it up anyway.”
“Are you known as the ones in the department who take weird cases? Do we really have that many weird cases around here?”
Watching the news had never interested me, so I wasn’t hip on the crime rate around the city. Some of the librarians I worked with were a little gossipy, but they hadn’t shared any weird murders.
“There haven’t been enough cases for us to get any stigma here. Back when Vik and I were partners, we were nicknamed the dog catchers. The wolves in our area had a problem chewing on humans.”
“And you were able to convince people it was a dog attack? That was before you moved here, right?”
“Yes, it was before we moved, and I’ve found most people accept the easiest solution to a problem. As far as this particular case, I knew something was off the second we walked into the room. Something in the air stunk.
“When I took a closer look at the body, it didn’t seem right to me. Something about the wrinkles and shriveled skin were off. Harry took some convincing to see things my way, but Vik walked in and immediately knew what had happened.”
“Is Vik on the force here?”
“No, he doesn’t have time with all those kids running around. I do call him in when I think something is off, because he has a bit of a sixth sense when it comes to those kinds of things. This was actually the first time since we’ve been here that something was off.”
It was comforting to know there weren’t paranormal activities running rampant through the city. Questions would’ve turned to whether I somehow attracted the strangeness, and I was trying to be patient in hopes I’d get him to reveal more than he wanted to.
It wasn’t nice of me, but I found when people got comfortable, they sometimes let things slip. If it didn’t work, it wasn’t a big deal. I could last a day before they told me what they thought I was. Whether I believed it was the big question.
“What did your brother-in-law determine to be the culprit?”
“He just called him a nightmare. After asking for a little more information, he came up with incubus because it was a word I knew, and was essentially the same thing. Since I’ve been chasing him, I think he’s a little something more than a man who steals the life out of women.”
“But he’s done that already with two women, and he showed up today acting like he found his next victim.”
Jack pulled me in closer to him and rested his chin on top of my head. I felt him breathe deeply before he said anything. I hadn’t meant my comment seriously, but it was clear it was something he didn’t want to hear.
“I’m going to figure out a way to get him to leave you alone.”
Jack’s deep voice was soft, just above a whisper. I could tell he was working out exactly how he was going to keep that promise.
“Can he do more than sex me to death? I know that sounds ridiculous, but I wasn’t drawn to him, so I don’t think I’ll be asking to share a bed with him anytime soon. If there’s not something else he can do, there really isn’t a threat.”
“That’s the problem. We have no idea what he can do. He’s not going to like that he isn’t able to win you over, and after the tornado he sent after me, we know he has some juice.”
“At least he doesn’t seem to be following me. What do you think he’d do if he found us cuddling?”
“Is that what this is called? It’s nice, isn’t it?”
I elbowed him as best as I could with our connected hands. It ended up a bit awkward, but I managed.
“The elbow was for your sarcasm, but this is actually nice. Are you always this warm?”
My mind turned to think about how I wouldn’t need a blanket with him around, which was exactly where my thoughts shouldn’t have been. I was already thinking about sleeping next to him.
“I guess I don’t notice. The moon is getting ready to disappear, which means I’ll be coming out of my shell soon. We’ll have to see what you think next week.”
“So you do have to change, but it isn’t during the full moon. Interesting. I guess I have a lot to learn. Are you safe to be around when you’re all furry?”
“You’ll always be safe around me. So what else should we do tonight? I could bore you with a few stories of adventures Nikki and I had when we were kids. Since she kept most of her problems to herself, I mostly have good memories.”
I looked over to the clock on the mantle. Somehow it had managed to tick to nine o’clock. I had no idea where all the time had gone.
“You’re staying the night to protect me, right?”
He hadn’t said so, and in reality protection probably wasn’t his main reasoning, but I could tell he wasn’t moving anywhere quickly. I wasn’t ready to say we were in a relationship – in my book those didn’t happen in less than a day. That being said, I didn’t have a single issue with him sticking around.
“I figure if we’re together, it will be harder for him to either try to hurt you or kill me. Things this morning were all fine and dandy until I left.”
“Then why don’t you go ahead and start your stories. I can’t promise I won’t fall asleep during them, though.” I tried to keep from yawning, but something about seeing the time zapped my energy.
It had been a long day for me, and the next day was going to be just as long. Jack didn’t even make it through a full story when he realized my breathing was changing.
“This couch isn’t the most comfortable, but it will have to do since I don’t think you’re ready for me to share your bed.”
I registered him moving both of us around until he settled with me draped over his body. There wasn’t enough room for us to really lay side-by-side. Once we were settled, the calming scent of earth that seemed to follow him around soothed the last few neurons keeping my mind awake.
Chapter Ten
In the morning, I found myself a little disoriented as I stretched on the couch. Sleeping on the stiff couch was something I avoided, but somehow I’d managed to sleep through the night. Honestly, I was the most refreshed I’d probably ever been, which was saying something because of how crazy my day had gone.
My night should’ve been full of dreams about different courses my life could take after meeting Jack and the incubus. When my life got interrupted, my dreams were filled of the future and my attempts to change the course outlined for me.
Not having a single dream was a little worrisome, but it made me happy, much like the smell of breakfast cooking in the kitchen. I didn’t eat bacon, so the smell of it sizzling in a frying pan was something new to me.
I rolled off the couch and straightened my clothes. I thought about hitting the bathroom to make sure my hair didn’t look like birds had started nesting in it, but I figured Jack needed to see me in all my early morning glory, even if the clock said eight, which I didn’t qualify as early.
I walked around the couch and through the dining area attached to the kitchen. Seeing a man standing in front of the stove, wearing my frilly, red with white polka dots apron wasn’t something I thought I’d ever see.
Jack looked natural as he flipped the strips of bacon before putting them on a plate lined with paper towels that he had waiting on one of the unused back burners.
“If I had any bacon in the fridge, I’m pretty sure it’s a few years old. I’d make sure you’re really tight with a doctor if you’re going to attempt to eat it.”
Jack laughed as he walked over to me. He moved to kiss my cheek, but I countered so his lips lined up with mine. He didn’t keep contact long, choosing to only give me the peck he’d set on delivering to my cheek.
A peck was enough to ignite a slight buzz on my lips. I lifted my fingers up to feel if the feeling transferred to my hand, but it remained tickling my lips.
“Good morning. I hope you slept as well as I did.”
Jack made his way over to the fridge and retrieved a bowl that he took and sat down on the table behind me. Then he grabbed his plate of bacon with one hand and my right hand with the other and led me to the table.
“I don’t want your head to get any bigger than it already is, so I’m not going to tell you how well I slept,” I said as I sat down in the chair he pulled out for me.
“I was a little worried you’d have an unexpected visitor in your dreams. There are stories of him being able to do whatever it is he does while people are asleep.”
I looked down at the fruit salad, filled with strawberries, cantaloupe, grapes and kiwi. I had strawberries in the fridge, but I knew the rest of it wasn’t on hand.
“Is that your preferred
breakfast? If it is, we make quite a pair.”
I didn’t want to ruin our breakfast by talking about the incubus. Jack had brought him up, but that didn’t mean I was going to go down that path.
“I take it that means you approve of your breakfast.”
To let him know that I did, I plucked a halved strawberry out and plopped it in my mouth. The freshness that burst made me think they weren’t the ones that I had in my refrigerator.
“Where’d you get these from?”
Jack picked up two pieces of bacon and chomped on them before answering. As he did, his green eyes danced with a little gold sparkle.
“From the market down the street. The strawberries in the fridge are a couple days past ripe, so I wasn’t going to feed them to you, and I knew I’d need something with a little protein.”
“Two questions,” I said as I sampled more of my fruit salad. “What time did you get up and why didn’t you wake me?”
“Around seven and because you looked too cute sleeping. I was hoping you’d snore, but you didn’t make any odd noises. At one point I actually put my head on your chest to make sure you were still breathing.”
I gave him a skeptical look and hurried through the rest of my breakfast. I felt a little bit of a hurricane coming in our direction, and I wanted to make sure the food didn’t go to waste.
“Can you feel her coming, or does she even blip on your radar?”
“I got her. Do you want me to take my bacon and run? It’s a little unfair to leave you to clean up the mess in the kitchen by yourself.”
He was eating fast enough that there wouldn’t be any bacon left to take as he ran out the door.
“She might as well get used to you hanging out. You make a really nice pillow from what I remember.”
“If that’s the only way you’ll let me stick around, I’ll take the job as your pillow.”