by Noir, Roxie
“I don’t think so,” said Dane. “I think it’s because it’s his first homicide case as Chief.”
“It might be his first homicide case, period,” offered Isaac.
“This is how he is,” said Dane. “Small town police chief with not much experience outside that. He just doesn’t want to do anything wrong, and if someone from town says they saw you do it, he’s got to at least look into the possibility.”
Grey just sighed, then looked up at Dane again with her huge blue eyes.
“I didn’t,” she said.
Dane felt that wild, almost uncontrollable feeling. The feeling that made him want to grab the bars and push them open, let her out, fight anyone and anything that might be in her path. It was irrational and totally beyond his control, but it was there, and it had teeth.
“I know,” he said.
Then he took his hand off of his leg and turned it palm-side up, facing toward Grey. She hesitated for just a moment, clearly unsure about this, but then slid her small hand into his big one.
He squeezed his fingers around hers, holding her hand tight.
“You’ll be out of here soon,” he promised.
They were all silent for a moment.
“You’re sure you don’t remember who was at the poker game last night?”
Grey shook her head back and forth, her hand still in his. From the corner of his eye, Dane thought he could see Isaac stiffen, but dismissed it.
“I never got names,” she said.
Then she narrowed her eyes a little, like she’d gotten an idea.
“Isaac,” she said. “Who’s the guy you were talking to tonight? He was there last night, too.”
Dane’s head snapped around, and he looked Isaac dead in the eyes over Grey’s head.
Isaac swallowed and didn’t say anything, then Grey looked up at him, and over at Dane. She raised her other hand to cover her mouth, her blue eyes going wide.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“You were at the poker game?” Dane said.
He promised me, he thought. He goddamn promised.
“I meant to tell you,” Isaac said.
“Tell me what?” Dane asked. His voice went deadly quiet, and he felt almost calm for a moment, like the top of a volcano, seconds before it erupted.
“I’ve been talking to Pete.”
“That’s the guy who was also there last night,” Grey said. Her eyes were closed and her head was bowed.
Dane said nothing, but he seethed. More than anything, he felt betrayed — that Isaac could go back into fighting at all, but especially that Isaac could go back into fighting without telling him.
I thought we were mates.
“You’re fighting again,” Dane said. His voice was dead and flat, and he could see in Isaac’s eyes that now, the other man was worried.
Dane didn’t get angry easily, but when he did, it was serious.
“Once,” Isaac said. “Just once, I swear, that’s all. He’s splitting profits with me fifty-fifty.”
He still had his arm around Grey, but both of them had frozen, Isaac’s muscles going rigid.
Dane jumped off the bench and started pacing the length of the small holding cell.
“I don’t care what the profits are,” he said. “We don’t need the money.”
“We always need money,” said Isaac.
“That’s not even why you’re doing it,” snapped Dane. He could feel his anger start to take on a life of its own, the wolf inside him slowly expanding into a force.
On the bench, Grey sat up straight, extracting herself from Isaac’s arm, but he barely seemed to notice. He kept staring straight at Dane, his dark eyes a mixture of guilt and anger.
“I like fighting, okay?” Isaac finally snapped, getting to his feet as well. “Is that what you want to hear? That I couldn’t just leave it behind, like you could, that doing other peoples’ taxes is well and good but there’s no feeling like getting into the ring and baring your teeth?”
“And there’s nothing quite like having your arm amputated because gangrene sets in from a wolf bite,” Dane snapped back. “Or quite like having your mate push you around in a wheelchair for the rest of your life because someone’s snapped your neck in the ring!”
That stopped Isaac cold.
“It’s not just about you,” Dane growled. “You’re not the one who has to stand on the sideline and watch someone sink their teeth into your mate’s neck, or see your mate sprawled and unconscious, okay? There’s more to this than just you, now.”
“You get this from your job!” Isaac said, his voice rising. “You get the adrenaline and the feeling of, I don’t know, doing things and vanquishing your foes and all that shit, and I just tell people what they can and can’t write off,” he said. “I need this. I need it, just one more time. You don’t understand why I need it.”
“So play video games,” Dane said. “Join the volunteer firefighters. Don’t go back into the wolf ring.”
On the bench, in the corner, Grey had made herself as small as possible.
“It’s once,” Isaac said. Now his voice was half-angry, half-pleading. “Just once.”
“You didn’t even tell me,” Dane said. “Does everyone know? The rest of Rustvale? The whole circuit? Did you tell everyone but me?”
“I wanted to tell you,” Isaac said.
“But you didn’t.”
Isaac turned, crossing his arms over his chest, and stared into the bars. Dane knew that he’d gotten the keys from somewhere in the station — he’d let himself into the cell, after all — and he could leave whenever he wanted.
“What do you want me to say?” he asked. “I should have told you and I didn’t. I’m sorry.”
“Cancel the match,” Dane said.
He won’t, he thought. Now that Isaac had promised everyone that he’d be fighting one more time, he knew that the other man would never back down.
Isaac didn’t respond, but Dane couldn’t help but push him, fury still working its way through his veins.
“Call Pete and tell him you can’t do it anymore,” said Dane. “Tell him the cops know about it now, it’s too risky.”
Isaac just shot Dane a glare, but said nothing. Dane recognized that glare: Isaac knew he was wrong, but wasn’t about to do anything about it.
Dane’s radio, in his pocket, crackled to life.
“Sorenson to evidence,” said Ramirez’s staticky voice.
Dane stalked to the bars of the cell, got out his keys, reached through and unlocked it from the other side.
“This isn’t over,” he told Isaac, then glanced at Grey, still sitting very quietly in the corner of the cell. “I’ll be right back,” he told her. “Don’t worry.”
Then he walked back through the door to the police station, beyond furious at his mate.
Chapter Six
Isaac
As soon as Dane left the room, Isaac crumpled back onto the bench, his head in his hands.
“I’m sorry,” Grey said instantly. “I should have kept my mouth shut, I was just trying to help and I didn’t think that — I don’t know, I didn’t think,” she said, lowering her eyes to the floor.
Isaac just shook his head.
“It’s my fault, not yours,” he said. “I’m the one who decided to start fighting again and didn’t tell Dane.”
There was a quick beat of silence.
“Yeah, he’s pretty pissed,” Grey said. “You told him that you stopped fighting?”
“I did stop fighting,” said Isaac. “But I started going to fights again, just to see the young guys who are in it now, and I missed it,” he said.
Grey nodded.
“You couldn’t help yourself,” she said. “I get it. There’s nothing quite like the adrenaline rush of nearly losing.”
Isaac looked at her, into her blue eyes.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s right.”
“It’s a high,” she said. “I’ve never been in a wolf figh
t, but I know that kind of rush can be hard to turn down.”
She moved here from Reno to get away from all the gambling, he thought. I guess she knows a thing or two about being drawn to something she’d be better staying away from.
“I guess I’m not the only one with problems,” he said.
“My parents took out a second mortgage on their house to send me to rehab,” she said, quietly. “And when they found out that I’d been gambling again, they told me that either I had to move away from Reno to somewhere that gambling was harder, or they were cutting me off completely.”
“That’s harsh,” said Isaac.
Grey just shrugged.
“It was justified,” she said. “I was really mad at first, but...” She trailed off, shrugging.
“And then you became a kindergarten teacher?”
She laughed. “I’ve been a teacher all along. Five years now.”
“And they never figured out that you’re a gambling degenerate?”
“Not yet,” she said, a smile coming into her eyes. “I love kids, and you can be a degenerate in one way and still teach a five-year-old to spell.”
True, thought Isaac.
“I don’t know if there’s a cure for me,” Isaac mused.
He put his arm back around her, and once more, Grey nestled against him, her warm, soft body sending little electric shocks through him.
“Dane’s probably right,” she said. “There’s probably a more constructive way to fight the urge. Maybe you could get really into watching football or something.”
Isaac made a face.
“I’m more of the action type,” he said.
“Yeah?” she asked.
She looked up at him, and as he looked down into her eyes, he felt like he was drowning in those two perfect, blue pools.
Kiss her, something deep inside him whispered. That’s what she wants. She’s waiting. Just lean down, put your lips on hers...
He didn’t think he’d ever wanted anything more, but he couldn’t.
Not without Dane, he thought. If he ever forgives me, that is.
Instead of kissing Grey, he leaned his head back against the cinderblock wall and exhaled.
I really fucked everything up, he thought.
The door to the police station opened. Isaac’s heart fell into his stomach, and in his arms, Grey tensed her entire body.
Dane walked in and shut the door carefully behind him.
Then he grinned.
“You’re good,” he said.
Grey leapt off of the bench, clapping her hands together, and Isaac couldn’t help but smile as well.
She looks a little like a kid herself, he thought.
“You gonna let us out of here?” he teased Dane.
“I know you’ve got keys too,” Dane said.
There was still a slight edge to his voice. Isaac decided not to push his luck.
“My knives are okay?” Grey asked.
“Fine. There was some blood on them, but it wasn’t human, they said.”
“Well, they’re kitchen knives,” Grey said, sounding a little testy.
Dane unlocked the cell door from the outside and Grey was through in a flash, turning to face Isaac and Dane, rubbing her arms through her sweater. Dane’s jacket still draped around her shoulders.
It looks good on her, Isaac thought. It’s about five sizes too big, but it just looks right.
“Can I come out?” Isaac asked, still behind the bars of the cell.
Dane looked at him for a long moment.
“Please?”
“You’re a little more deserving of jail time,” Dane growled.
“I swear I’ll be good.”
Dane gave him a look, then swung the door open, and Isaac walked through.
They exchanged a glance. A ‘this isn’t over yet’ glance.
“I’ll give you a ride back to your house,” Dane offered to Grey.
“See you at home?” Isaac asked.
Dane just nodded and steered Grey toward the door.
Isaac didn’t go home right away. First, he cleaned up the Chinese food takeout that they’d left on Dane’s desk, carefully snapping the containers back together, labeling them DANE SORENSON in sharpie, and washing the chopsticks, placing them carefully in the dish drain.
Technically, he wasn’t supposed to be in the police station without an escort — that would be Dane — but it wasn’t the sort of thing anyone cared about.
Right before he left, in a fit of guilt, he drew a heart on a post-it note and left it in Dane’s drawer.
Isaac drew terrible, lopsided hearts, and this one was no different: the left side too squashed, the right side too long. The lines didn’t even connect in the middle, and Isaac had to draw a third line, making the heart one whole shape. It was a terrible heart, and Isaac didn’t even sign his name. Dane would know who’d left it.
Dane’s desk now perfectly clean, Isaac grabbed his own jacket and finally left, driving home alone in the dark, wondering what the hell he was going to say to his mate when they got home.
They lived in a small ranch house on a couple of acres just outside of town, a place that they’d bought two years ago. It was just big enough for the two of them, and they’d gone back and forth on whether they should buy that place or rent until they’d completed their triad, and then buy a bigger house.
The whole drive home, Isaac’s head swirled, full of Grey and Dane. Grey was theirs. He was completely, positively, a hundred percent sure of it; sure the same way he’d been sure about Dane, that long ago night in that distant holding cell. The night that they’d been utterly unable to stop themselves, even in public.
He wished he knew what Grey thought. Humans mated in pairs, not triads, and Isaac had never really negotiated a relationship with one before.
Would she be interested in both of them? What if she only wanted one?
The thought had never occurred to Isaac before.
Well, I’m not leaving Dane, he thought.
But I don’t want to give up Grey either.
He pulled into his driveway, somehow feeling worse than before, every thought and anxiety swirling through his head at once.
This is why I like fighting, he thought. It gives me solvable problems. That wolf is going to attack me, so I have to attack him back. In a few minutes, there’s a winner.
Sometimes it hurts, but it’s easy.
He shut off the car, got out, walked into the house, and flopped on the couch, waiting for his mate to come home. That only lasted about two minutes before he got off the couch and started pacing.
I wish I’d just told Dane, he thought. He’d still be pissed, but then at least I wouldn’t be a liar.
The front door opened, and Dane walked through. He had his jacket back on, and even from across the room, Isaac could smell Grey’s faint scent, floral and musky and just the tiniest bit smoky.
The two men looked at each other. Dane shut the door behind him, and Isaac crossed his arms over his chest, waiting.
Nothing. Dane hung his jacket in the coat closet, all his movements a little more precise and jerky than usual.
“Grey get home okay?” Isaac asked.
Dane walked to the couch and threw himself on it, not looking at Isaac.
“Yeah, she’s fine,” he said.
“I’m glad she’s not a murderer,” said Isaac, trying to break the silence with a little levity.
“I knew she wasn’t,” said Dane.
Isaac went silent, not sure what to say. The silence stretched out for a long time, and then finally, Dane spoke.
“Don’t fight tomorrow,” he said.
“It’s the last one,” Isaac promised.
“That’s not what I said,” Dane told him.
Isaac walked around the couch and sat gingerly next to his mate.
“I swear,” he said.
Dane looked away, his face clouding with anger.
“You didn’t even tell me,” he said. “I’m the
one who’s going to be changing your diapers and you didn’t tell me.”
“I’m sorry,” Isaac said. “I didn’t know how. I knew you’d be mad.”
“You chickened out from telling me,” Dane said. “You’re fighting in the wolf fights again and you couldn’t even face me.”
“Yeah.”
Isaac had no idea what else to say. It was all true, horribly, painfully true. He’d rather face off with ten vicious, snarling wolves than hurt Dane. But he also couldn’t turn down one more final fight. Every fiber of his being itched for it.
“I can’t stop you, can I?”
Isaac swallowed and shook his head.
“Everything’s set up already,” he said. “I got a fifty-fifty split on profits from Pete.”
“Make sure you see the receipts. You know that old bastard is crafty and if you don’t see what he spent, he’ll try to tell you that there was twice as much overhead as there was.”
“On it,” said Isaac. He let himself smile, just a little, then looked at Dane’s face again. His smile fell.
“That’s not why you won’t cancel,” Dane said. “You won’t cancel because you miss fighting and you want to do it again.”
Isaac opened his mouth, then closed it. It was true, and they both knew it.
Dane stood and started pacing in front of the couch.
“It’s not the fighting,” he told Isaac. “It’s not even that you lied to me, it’s that I don’t think this is going to be the last one,” he said. “I know you. I think I might know you better than you know yourself, and Isaac, you’re never going to not miss it. Every night when you go to bed, you’ll close your eyes, and for a moment you’ll think of how you felt in the ring. Every time you see a fight, or smell dirty dogs, or hear people cheer, you’re going to want to be back in that ring, even if only for a moment.”
He was completely, one hundred percent right, and Isaac couldn’t think of anything to say. What could he possibly tell his mate? You’re right, but I want you to be wrong? You’re right, but I want to want to stop fighting?
“Yeah,” he finally managed.
The withering look from Dane said that wasn’t good enough.
“I don’t want fighting to take you away from me,” Dane said. Now he was standing in front of Isaac, his arms crossed in front of him. “I hated having to watch you fight, thinking that one tooth in the wrong place, one bad fall, and you’d be gone.”