Eventually, Reed rolled off me, drawing his exhausted member from my aching tunnel and flopping down to the bed.
“God damn.”
It wasn’t much. But those words confirmed to me that I fucked like a she-wolf. I was worthy of being his mate.
Chapter 11
I spent a bit of time staring at Reed’s ceiling when I woke up the following morning. That had not been in the script. It had been a very welcome addition, improvised on the spot, but still. Sleeping with Kessler had not been planned, of course, but it had felt inevitable with Kessler being the way he was and me being really very much up for it. But this had been something else. Of course, the attraction between Reed and me was no less than that I had for Kessler, but the man was different. Reed was more serious, I would not have thought him the type to let this sort of thing happen – he seemed all business. Especially when he knew what had happened between myself and Kessler. Of course, wolves have different, and much looser, rules when it comes to sex. In fact ‘rules’ may not even be the right word.
When I had slept with Kessler, I had not even known whose side he was on or what those sides were. Now I knew that we were all on the same side, so why did this feel like more of a mistake?
Maybe because now we were all on the same side it felt like there was something that I could screw up with sex. I was a big fan of casual sex, meaningless sex, sex between two people who liked each other and had fun together but had no interest beyond that. But had this been that?
Reed rolled over to look at me in bed beside him. “Good morning.”
“Morning.”
“I half-expected to wake up and find you gone.”
“Disappointed?”
“A little. I’m not sure I have enough coffee for two.”
We headed for the kitchen together.
“You don’t have a lot of overnight guests, then?” I asked, fishing a little.
“I’m not Kessler, if that’s what you mean.”
“The three of you are very different.”
Reed nodded as he put the coffee on. “We work together and we get on very well, but we’re from different backgrounds and, yeah, I’d say we were very different men.”
“Different backgrounds?” It was funny, but even someone who knew wolves as well as me still inadvertently regarded them as all being just ‘wolves’ – background never came into it.
“Well,” Reed went on, “Kessler’s family was pretty well off. Not quite Pack nobility but not far off. I think him getting a ‘job’ was a big disappointment to them. His people don’t work. Talbot is from the other side of that divide, I guess. And me,” he seemed suddenly stuck for words, “my upbringing was very traditional.”
I thought back to the night before. “Strict?”
“Very.” Almost absentmindedly, his fingers gently traced across my bottom, still red and bearing the faint outline of his hand. “Sorry.”
I shrugged. “Thanks, but I actually didn’t mind.” I had been surprised how little I minded. “You still see your family?”
“The pack is my family now. And Kessler and Talbot, I suppose. They’re like brothers to me.”
I shrugged. “Family can be overrated.”
He turned a strange look at me. “I wouldn’t say that. Maybe my real family wasn’t… Well, my father and I have issues and let’s leave it at that. But if I hadn’t had a surrogate family to fall back on then I really don’t know where I would be now. Thanks to Talbot and Kessler, I have a job to be proud of and a life I love. You can’t put a price on people who care about you enough for that.”
I don’t think he was lecturing me but perhaps it felt like it because it hit home so deeply with me. I started to feel like I should call my mom, to whom I hadn’t spoken for months. Then there were my friends at the precinct, they had been family of a different sort and them, too, I had abandoned completely. Maybe I didn’t know how lucky I was.
Talbot’s apartment, where he and Kessler had spent the night and to which Reed and I now travelled, was expensive and comfortable but oddly soulless. Everything was very nice but it looked like a showroom model of an apartment. It was hard to believe that anyone actually lived here. It didn’t really stack up with what I knew about Talbot, but I guessed that what I knew about him was comparatively little.
Once we were all seated and with drinks in our hands, Talbot turned to me. “What now?”
It was somewhat tantalizing being in this apartment with three such handsome and sexy men, even if it was on business, but it was also very nice to be the one they all looked to. They were all fighters and hunters, their strong bodies honed to a sharp edge, they all loomed over me and could have juggled me if the inclination had taken them. And yet they all deferred to me. It was kind of cool.
“Well,” I began, hoping to say something smart enough to justify the faith they had all placed in me, “it seems like Texas may be into some deeper shit than we thought.”
“If,” Kessler stressed, “what we walked in on yesterday was anything to do with Texas. That whole area is thick with gangs – human and wolf – it’s a natural hideout. We know that Texas was operating out of there at one time, that doesn’t mean that he still is.”
“Do we have any idea what those people were doing there?” I asked.
“Bane,” answered Talbot, without hesitation. “Did you notice how weak they all were?”
I nodded. I had thought at the time how lucky we were to come up against a group of wolves who couldn’t fight worth shit.
“Wolfbane addiction can leave wolves in a pretty shitty state,” Talbot explained. “We don’t advertise it to humans because…”
I shrugged. “Because who knows how long our species can get along.”
Wolves and humans had lived in near harmony since the General Amnesty in 1917. Barely a hundred years of uneasy co-existence that always seemed balanced on a knife-edge. A couple of times that fragile accord had come close to breaking and who could say how long it might last?
“They were bane addicts,” Talbot continued. “But they were well-armed, which means they had money. No one employs those poor wretches but a dealer.”
Reed frowned. “Isn’t that a little like putting a monkey in charge of a banana plantation?”
“I’m guessing they’re watched pretty closely.”
I pondered this as I sipped my coffee. “Okay. Given that we know Texas was a bane dealer working from that warehouse and there is still a bane operation at work there, I don’t think it’s a massive stretch to think he might still be involved.”
“The Pack Leader called him small time,” said Kessler.
“Either MacKenzie Sean was wrong or Texas has gone up in the world.”
“More coffee?” asked Talbot, a surprisingly solicitous host, and we all sat for a minute as our mugs were topped up.
“Next question,” I moved the conversation on, “is how is Lovely – or MacKenzie Molly, if you prefer – involved?”
“And is she still involved,” added Kessler. “We know she ran off with Texas but do we even know if she was still with him when she was singing at the Fox? When she was supposed to be with Dog? Let alone now.”
“We don’t even know if she’s still alive,” agreed Reed.
“When I went to look around Dog’s apartment in the rats’ nest,” I indicated Talbot, “just after you’d chased that other guy off - I spoke to a couple of kids sitting on the steps.”
“Wolves?”
“Yeah. They were happy enough to talk for money, right up until I asked about the guy you were chasing and if they had seen him before. They clammed right up like they thought someone might be listening.”
“What are you thinking?” asked Kessler.
“I’m thinking that it takes a certain sort of person to create that level of fear. The sort of person who might run a major bane operation employing a bunch of armed werewolves.” I shrugged. “I’m speculating. But that might potentially link Texas to Dog, and Dog was loo
king for Lovely.”
“Him looking for Lovely is what got him killed,” said Reed.
“Which suggests,” I pressed on, my mouth working only as fast as my racing brain allowed, “that Dog’s case – the one that sent him to jail – is linked to Lovely and Texas somehow. They needed him to go to jail.”
As if arranged by a choreographer, all three guys sat back and took a gulp of coffee.
“That’s a lot of speculation,” said Reed.
“Shit, yeah,” I admitted. “But let’s be honest, if the speculation is wrong then it’s all down to coincidence. It’s coincidence that Dog is killed when he starts looking for Lovely; coincidence that Lovely used to be with a bane dealer whose old hang out is now coincidentally used by a bane operation. So do you prefer a lot of speculation or a lot of coincidence?”
Talbot gave a rueful smile. “Neither.”
“No pleasing you,” I grinned back at him.
“Any other questions to speculate on?” asked Kessler.
I sighed. “One. But you’re not going to like it.”
Talbot leveled his sapphire blue eyes at me. “The Pack Leader.”
I nodded. “I’m not saying he himself is involved exactly…”
“The Pack Leader is not involved,” said Reed, firmly, almost offended by the suggestion.
“But,” I continued, “even if he’s not involved…”
“He’s not.”
“Reed.” Talbot gently admonished the other wolf.
“Even if he’s not,” I went on, “it’s another major coincidence if all this shit revolving around Lovely has nothing to do with her being a MacKenzie.”
Talbot shook his head. “I don’t like coincidences.”
Reed was still looking unhappy. “You can’t be suggesting the Pack Leader is mixed up with bane dealers.”
“I’m not suggesting anything,” I clarified. “I’m saying that we need to think about why this is happening to Lovely – or Molly. That means that this may go beyond bane dealing.”
Kessler pulled an unconvinced face. “That was a hell of a lot of bane dealers coming out of the floor with guns for it not to be about bane.”
The others nodded. They were werewolves, and to werewolves, everything was on the surface, and the clearest, most obvious explanation was probably the right one – unless it involved their pack leader. On the bright side, this meant that werewolves seldom indulged in elaborate plans. On the down side, they also failed to recognize them.
“I’m just saying; keep an open mind.” There was no point in me pushing the possible involvement of MacKenzie Sean any further when I had no idea myself of whether he might be involved.
“Okay,” said Talbot, taking control of the meeting now that the heavy thinking was out of the way. “Let’s say all your earlier speculations are correct. Sometime since he and MacKenzie Molly ran off together, Texas has gone from small time bane dealer to a major player in a refining and distribution operation. The Pack Leader’s daughter is still with him, or was a year ago when, for some reason, it became necessary for them to frame a bouncer and thug named Dog for robbery. Since then, we don’t know what happened to either but when Dog gets out of jail – far earlier than they could have expected – he starts looking for MacKenzie Molly and winds up dead. Thoughts?”
“She’s dead,” said Reed, dourly. “She seduced Dog to put him in jail, after that, Texas didn’t need her anymore so he killed her. Then Dog comes looking and he – Texas – can’t risk anyone finding out he’s killed a MacKenzie, so he offs Dog, as well.”
“That makes sense,” nodded Kessler, brightly.
“Why does he need Dog in jail?” I asked.
Reed shrugged. “Does it matter? He’s a bad guy, bad guys do bad things.”
The problem here was that their interest began and ended with their boss’s daughter. Which was understandable, but I wanted to know what had happened to Dog and why.
“They never found the money, you know.”
Talbot frowned. “What money?”
“The money Dog was supposed to have stolen from the betting shop,” I went on – why hadn’t I thought about this before? I’d gotten so caught up in the Lovely narrative I’d forgotten cop 101; follow the money. “If he didn’t steal it then it’s a fair bet Texas did, with or without Lovely’s help.”
“And that’s why she seduced him,” smiled Talbot, picking up my train of thinking. “Texas then pumps the money into his drug outfit and small-time becomes big-time overnight. They frame Dog and he’s too stupid to defend himself.”
“That makes sense.” Kessler nodded again. “And ties in with what Reed said.”
I was about to shake my head but Talbot beat me to it. “Why would he kill the Pack Leader’s daughter?”
“She was no use anymore,” said Reed.
“They were together for a year before they pulled the job on Dog,” Talbot disagreed. “All he needed was a pretty girl who could sing. That doesn’t take a year’s prep.”
“And it certainly doesn’t take a Pack Leader’s daughter,” I added. “Using Molly made the whole thing more risky.”
“So, they were genuinely together initially,” Reed suggested, “then he needed her for the scam and then… well… he lost interest in her. If he dumps her then she might go to her father and tell the Pack Leader everything, so…” He let the end of the thought hang in the air.
“The Pack Leader doesn’t like wolfbane,” agreed Kessler. “It makes sense.”
It did, and I smiled and raised my coffee mug in salute. There was a niggling voice at the back of my head that said it was all too easy, too simple, too ridiculous that of all the girls Texas could have used he picked the Pack Leader’s daughter, but for now I was happy enough to ignore that voice until I had some evidence. Besides, I found it impossible to go against the guys. Not because they intimidated me in any way, but just because they seemed so happy with their theory. At the very least, I could wait until I had some proof one way or the other – something that went beyond cop instincts.
Chapter 12
With wolfbane proving the common theme running through the investigation, the next logical step to finding the elusive Texas was hitting a known bane outfit.
Without a great deal of hope, we made our way to the old industrial district and to the warehouse we had abortively visited the day before. I laid down the law before we went in.
“This time we do things my way.”
The guys demurred, willing to admit that yesterday had been a fuck-up. We entered quietly, the guys on the alert for sounds and smells, me with my gun cocked in my hand.
The place was empty.
Which was what I had expected. The dealers had cleaned out completely. All signs of yesterday’s fight had gone, to the extent that Kessler popped outside to check if we were even in the right place. Raising one of the trapdoors, we headed down into the basement from which yesterday our attackers had risen. We found a high roofed space that had probably been built to house air-conditioning apparatus. The machinery was long gone but so was any sign of what had been here since. The place looked as if it had been scoured, and while nothing was more suspicious than an abandoned warehouse that had been scrubbed clean, it also gave us no leads.
“Nothing but bleach,” said Talbot as he sniffed the air. “You couldn’t even tell that bane had ever been cooked here.”
“What now?” asked Reed.
“I need to make a call,” I replied.
If Texas was as big a player as it now appeared, then hitting any random wolfbane hangout ought to serve our purpose. Someone would know something about him.
Outside, I made my call and after a significant number of rings, the phone was finally answered.
“Hello?” A slightly irritable response.
“Regan? It’s Marley. I need a favor.”
The Werewolf Squad had a red, amber and green system for dealing with bane hangouts. They didn’t have the resources to hit all of them, so ke
pt tabs on them and restricted their active interest to those which became involved in violent crime. It wasn’t a perfect system, but this wasn’t a perfect city. Rooting through his files, Regan was able to find me a red they hadn’t hit yet.
“The Curtis brothers, you probably know the name. But are you sure about this, Marley?” he asked as he gave me the details of a gang who had already murdered their way to the top of the city’s bane distributors.
“I’ve got back-up,” I reassured him.
“I’m afraid to ask.”
“I trust them.”
“Would I?”
“You don’t know them.”
“So, that’s a ‘no’.”
“You don’t know them,” I repeated. Would I have trusted them a week ago? Shit no.
“Look,” Regan was trying not to talk like my boss or my dad but was clearly worried about what I was in and how deep I was in it, “you know I trust your judgment and – off the record – if you can take out these bastards then I don’t care if it’s done legally or not. I’m not worried that you might be breaking the law, I’m worried you might end up dead. And I would be sorry about that.”
“I didn’t know you cared,” I tried to make a joke.
“Seriously, Marley. These guys have been on the red list awhile because when the squad tried to take them out, we lost officers.”
It didn’t sound good, but it also sounded like just what I was looking for. If Texas had become as big a player in this world as we suspected then these were the sort of distributors he would be dealing with.
“I’ll be careful.” I tried to soften my voice. I liked Regan and he was one of my old family, but try as I might, I couldn’t feel the connection to him and to that life that I had once had. Time was that if I had been in a hole, Regan would have been one of the first people I’d have turned to. But things had changed – I had changed. I felt adrift from my old life and all the people in it. Maybe I might eventually find my way back, but for now, I actually felt closer to my new wolf friends. Somehow, it seemed that they understood me when no one else did. Maybe if you work alongside wolves for long enough, you start to become one.
Her Guardian Harem: Paranormal Reverse Harem Romance Page 9