by Danae Ayusso
Connell continued to growl as he rubbed his hand, glaring at his sister.
Akia smiled as she ripped a big bite off of the pork chop in her hand then chewed with her mouth open just to spite him.
Louvel roared with laughter. “Just like the first time we had dinner as a family. Only this time she is holding her own and is heavily armed.”
Seff growled under his breath. “Don’t encourage them. It will not end well with the Inspector when he discovers that they pulled one over on him.”
“What do you mean?” Ulrik asked before shoving an overly large bite of steak in his mouth. “What did they do?” he asked with his mouth full.
Faelan threw a roll at him and it bounced off of the young man’s forehead. “Manners!” he scolded, talking with his mouth full before smiling.
Beowulf shook his head. “Tonight there will be no talk of the Stray. This is the first time that we have been a family in over a decade, thus we will enjoy it. Daughter, this is your new little brother, Ulrik. Louvel has taken him under his wing and pulled him back from the darkness and shadows of his past, creating the,” he paused and cocked an eyebrow when he saw that the blue haired young man had barbeque sauce dripping down his chin and a rib in each hand, “picture of class and refinement that you see in front of you today.”
The young man smiled wide as he continued to chew.
Akia nodded. “Pleasure, I’m sure. Shop talk can wait, Father, but I’m honestly on the verge of crashing. I worked a fifteen hour shift then rushed home to change for the awards banquet, which I was forced into going to…didn’t get any sleep, and just as I was ready to pass out in the bath, Varg called, and I dropped everything; nearly forty hours without sleep. Do you really want to risk an unannounced visit from Eve?”
That stole everyone’s attention.
“Father,” she whispered, silently pleading with him.
Beowulf nodded. “Understood. Tomorrow we’ll catch up,” he assured her and she nodded her thanks. “Your room is just how you left it, even left the bed unmade just as you left it,” he teased.
Suddenly her appetite was gone, and it felt as if the food she just ate was about to come back up. It was a struggle to breathe, her palms were sweaty, and the room started to feel overly hot and as if the walls were caving in on her.
“Not happening,” Faelan said, throwing his thick arm over Akia’s shoulders and pulled her into him. “I haven’t gotten to have girl time in a long, long time, and now that little sister is home, she’s going to tell me all about Boston and the hot men on the force before she passes out. Slumber party!” he beamed.
Akia nodded. “Slumber party is exactly what I need,” she managed to say with a forced smile. “I’m going to take a shower and make a couple of phone calls while you clean up. Bring up some of those desserts I know you spent hours making today?”
He kissed the side of her head. “Anything for you, Sis.”
“Hey,” Damian said, turning the water to the shower off with one hand while holding his cell phone to his ear with the other. “Is everything okay, Latria Mou?” he asked; he had been waiting for her call.
Akia sighed. “No, not really,” she eventually said after a long stretch of silence before popping a pill in her mouth.
He wrapped a towel around his waist then headed into the bedroom. “What’s going on? Is your father okay?” he asked, greatly concerned.
“You’ll most likely get a call from an annoying and inept Inspector from the Haven Police Department,” she mumbled.
Damian groaned; that was never the start of a good conversation. “What’d you do?”
“Stumbled into the middle of a serial killer investigation,” she said as if it was obvious, and he laughed, thinking she was kidding. “The perp is trying to disguise each kill as if they’re animal attacks, taking one out of the Kodiak Killer’s book.”
That stole the mirth from him. “You’re serious?”
“Sadly, yes. The bodies are being dumped on the beach just outside of my family’s estate,” Akia explained as she made herself comfortable in Faelan’s oversized bed. “Possibly it was a counter forensics measure initially, or simply a body dump of convenience since the first was accidental, that was more than obvious, but now I fear that it’s personal. Father or the family is being targeted.”
Damian pushed his hand through his wet hair in frustration; if they were targeting her family that meant they were targeting her, and that he wouldn’t permit. “How many?”
“Five that have turned up,” she said. “The most recent was discovered less than forty-eight hours ago, that was when Varg called.”
Softly he snarled under his breath.
“The perp has a taste for the kill now,” she continued as she absently twirled a damp lock of her own hair around her fingers.
Damian shook his head; he knew where this was going. “Progression?” he asked.
“Escalating quickly,” she said, sounding exhausted. “From point of first kill to most recent, is countable in weeks. Time between kills is getting shorter with each victim. I fear that if he continues at this pace, he’ll have a victim or more a week, and that’s only because he’s learned to keep them alive for fun before he breaks his toy. The fourth was captive for approximately five days before breaking… Something doesn’t feel right about it,” she admitted, finally speaking her concerns aloud to the one person she trusted and respected more than any other in the world of criminal justice.
He sighed, kicking himself in the ass for not going with her to Haven since she needed him in more than just the physical sense; she needed his expertise as well. “I’m listening,” he said.
“The first three were sloppy,” Akia said, struggling to explain what she saw in front of her when it pertained to the case, but no one else apparently saw it. “The fourth, the jump from savagely attacking without a sense of purpose to the refinement that the fourth presented, was much too quickly of an escalation for the perp. He went from toddler with a loaded gun, in a sense, to a kid with a knife, then a teenager with a hatchet, to a master with patience, knowledge, and skill. That rapid escalation doesn’t make any sense, and it shouldn’t be possible…unless he got guidance.”
Damian’s eyes widened. “The most recent?” he asked, taking notes in his head and fighting the nausea that nearly had him doubling over.
“Gruesome even for my experience,” she admitted. “I’ll text you a picture of the three Does, but it won’t be helpful for the fifth; he took his frustration out on the body. If guidance was suddenly given, the teacher was apparently absent for the temper tantrum that ensued.”
“Understood,” he said.
“Can you run the info through missing persons for me?” she sheepishly asked.
“Why not have the locals do it?” Damian asked, suspicious.
“One; I don’t trust the Inspector,” Akia admitted. “He was much too easily swayed to allow me on the case, on my vacation mind you, and to supervise the suspect.”
“And who is the suspect?”
She groaned. “The less you know the better, at this point.”
His free hand clenched into a fist, and he fought to keep from growling at her because she apparently didn’t trust him with the information.
“The fifth, he didn’t get to have his fun with her, so he’ll strike again, and soon.”
“What happened? Was he interrupted?” he asked, his inner-detective rearing its head, trying to push the thought of her not trusting him from his mind.
“Heart gave out from an underlining medical condition that the perp apparently didn’t know about, which is amusing on a sick and twisted level since she reeked of medication… Heart condition; cause of death was cardiac arrest,” she explained, catching herself much too late. “When he tried to use the synthetic adrenaline to revive her, as he was taught, it didn’t work. There was fracturing of the ribs, what I’m assuming to be from chest compressions. None of the other victims had them. I had the M.E. swab arou
nd the mouth for DNA… I think he gave her mouth to mouth.”
That wasn’t normal, they both knew it, and a killer trying to revive a victim that prematurely died at their hands was very troubling.
“This is only the beginning,” she said what he was thinking.
“Sexual assault?” he asked.
“Negative.”
That was unusual for such aggressive crimes.
“Victimology?” Damian pressed.
“Throw a dart at a board of choices, and you’ll hit it,” Akia dryly said. “First victim was a white male in his fifties; second a dirty female in her forties; third Hispanic male in his sixties; fourth and fifth females, one Asian and the other black, early thirties and barely twenty. The third, fourth and fifth haven’t been identified; the second was a local hermit that no one ever saw, the first was a truck driver from Alberta; no next of kin for either. The first two each had a prior, so they were in the system. The three Does are clean, not even immigration records.”
Damian sighed in resignation and grabbed a pen and pad from the nightstand. “Profile on the latest victim?” he said, readying himself for a long night.
“African female between seventeen and twenty-two; five-five, one-ten; brown eyes, natural black hair that had been professionally relaxed,” she said, going down the checklist in her head. “Hands were long and slender for her size, and soft, but the tips were callused-”
“You’re thinking a musician,” he said.
“It crossed my mind,” she admitted through a yawn. “Cello, violin, harp, guitar, banjo-”
“Nice,” he said with a smile; Akia got ridiculously endearing when exhausted. “Anything else that stood out that will help me narrow down the search fields?”
Again, she yawned. “There was an exotic combination of…musk, sandalwood, tuberose, tiara flower, and neroli,” she said. “It was faint, but I picked it up, nearly missed it though due to her medications giving a different, yet discernible, scent to her blood.”
“Excuse me?”
It was a statement that would get many questions and accusatory looks if asked aloud, and since she was exhausted she was saying aloud what should have been kept in her head.
“The victim had the faint scent of Shalini on her still;” Akia said before blowing out her breath, causing it to make a sound that made Damian shake his head with a smile. He could picture her in his head stretched out in bed, fresh out of the shower with her hair in damp curls sprawled across the pillow, the scent of her skin mixing with soft rose from her body lotion, lips glistening in the light from the bedside lamp from licking her lips while she struggled to connect dots of the case in her mind, and case files covering the bed. “She wasn’t in the water long enough to wash it completely away,” she said, pulling him back to the present. “At over four-hundred dollars American an ounce, you’re not looking for a call girl or runaway. Her manicure and pedicure were top of the line, the type that you have tried to get me to do for years, and I laugh at because you’re delusional in every sense of the meaning if you think I’ll allow you to drop three hundred bucks on my nails.”
Again, he shook his head and tried to keep from laughing; she was ridiculously stubborn and low maintenance.
“The fifth victim comes from money, and that will indubitably cause a problem.”
Damian knew she didn’t mean to say the latter aloud; when exhausted all filters were gone and her defenses were lowered. “Where are you staying?” he asked.
Akia groaned. “I miss you.”
He smiled; her filters being absent did have its advantages though. “You haven’t even been gone a day. I must have really left a lasting impression the last time we met.”
She softly moaned. “Stop trying for compliments, it’s unbecoming.”
“Yes, Ma’am. Is there anything else I need to look up for you?” he asked.
Her only response was a shuddered breath that was followed by a soft purr of a snore.
Damian shook his head in resignation. “Sleep well, Latria Mou,” he whispered before hanging up. “What kind of trouble are you getting yourself into?” he asked before heading to the closet to get dressed; sleep would have to come later.
****
From the doorway he stood, looking into his brother’s room to the bed where the broad-chested redhead was stretched out with a woman curled up alongside him, softly purring in her sleep. A pang of jealousy stabbed at him, but it was unfounded. Faelan was very gay and a brother in Akia’s eyes. But, in Varg’s mind, it should have been he that she was curling up against and contently purring in her sleep with, not their brother.
Looking at her now, the softness that washes across her features when she slept, when her guard was completely down, caused his heart to tighten in his chest. Her hair was much longer than it was the last time he saw her, and splayed across the white bedding and Faelan’s chest in loose curls in varying shades of brown, a soft dusting of freckles were barely visible with her light tawny complexion, even though her eyes were closed in slumber her knew that she still had the most beautiful ocean blue eyes he’d ever seen, and when gazing upon them he felt as if he was drowning in their depths. Her lips were the softest shade of rose he’d ever seen on a person, and they felt like velvet against his skin; the taste of her skin haunted him, remembering the way her breath washed across his lips always caused his cock to twitch, and the warmth of her body on his taunted him in his dreams.
Akia would forever be his greatest regret and biggest weakness.
“Is something wrong?” Beowulf whispered, joining his son.
Varg shook his head.
He looked from the hulking Viking in the doorway to the bed, and he smiled. “It is good to have her home,” he said.
“It isn’t her home,” was Varg’s curt reply as he turned and headed down the hall towards his room.
Beowulf followed. “Boston is her home for the moment, but she knows that restrictions and time restraints make it nothing more than a temporary stop in her life. This will always be her home, just as it is yours and the others home. The others are back now—Rafe because he’s broke from his inability to manage money, Faelan’s nursing a broken heart, Lou is overseeing Ulrik’s rearing, Seff is too damn stubborn to ever leave, Connell felt the need to return for mental solace, and you never left—as is Akia, even if it is only a vacation in her eyes. She has a career and a life in Boston, you cannot tell me that you wish for her to abandon all of that to come home and be as miserable as you are.”
Varg pulled his shirt off then tossed it in the corner. “She should be home!” he argued, losing his patience. “She should have never left.”
“Do you know why she left?” Beowulf pressed; that was the million dollar question, and yet apparently only Akia knew the answer.
He looked to Beowulf, the man that was like father, brother, mentor and friend to him; the man that rescued him from himself more than once, and that had showed him more patience than he deserved. There was warmth and compassion in his dark brown eyes, the fine lines at the corners of his eyes weren’t from age or stress, they were from smiling so much—Beowulf was one of the most optimistic creatures Varg had ever met—and his shoulder length, light brown- gray streaked hair was the only thing that hinted that Beowulf was older than fifty. Youthful innocence he seemingly radiated with, but he was fiercely protective of his children and those of the family, however the one he was most protective of was Akia, his one and only daughter, and because of that Varg never mentioned to him, or anyone, what transpired the night before Akia disappeared.
“You look as if the weight of the world rests on your shoulders, Son,” Beowulf commented.
Varg nodded. “The weight of her world always does,” he said before he could stop himself.
Beowulf nodded his understanding. “Akia is well. She is happy and healthy, and has grown. No longer does she watch her feet, she looks one in the eye, and she speaks with conviction and passion; her whispered words are no longer lost on t
he wind. She’s an amazing cop, one of the best in Boston, and that should make you unbelievably proud of her as it does me.”
Varg nodded, but didn’t say anything so Beowulf left him to his thoughts for the evening. The Viking of few words was very proud of Akia, confused by the person that she now was apparently, but was proud of what she had accomplished.
Ten years ago the world he knew was suddenly shattered when he woke in her bed, alone, and Akia was nowhere to be found. He searched for her for months, they all did, but the trail disappeared. A letter came from the States, solely addressed to Beowulf, and whatever it said officially ended the search. Varg felt betrayed by the woman he loved, the woman that consumed him mind, body, and soul, and that he gave his everything to; she took it then left. A part of him resented her for it, but his conscience wouldn’t permit him to hate her for leaving him.
Varg still loved her.
Now that she was home, he wanted to demand answers, to know why she felt the need to hurt him, to break his heart, to abandon the family as she had…
But the words eluded him.
The moment the smell of her skin, the sweetness of her breath, washed over him from across the room as he watched her sleep, the questions he had asked himself over and over in his head were gone and replaced by the memories of her…
“You are completely insane?!” Seff had yelled, his voice carrying throughout the eerily quiet estate. “I warned you that you could not simply bring a Stray, a female at that, home!”
Beowulf shook his head. “She is a child, one that needs protection. You cannot honestly believe that I would leave her in a cage for those monsters to abuse, do you?”
“That isn’t the point,” Seff argued.
“You do not have a point, my old friend.”
The three elders of the family had only returned a few hours ago with the tiny Stray, and for hours the heads of household had been arguing, their voices carrying surprisingly well. The young girl without a name simply sat on the floor, huddled in the corner, with her arms over her head, waiting for the yelling to stop, waiting for someone to take her, to hurt her, to bring something out in her that was evil and dark, something that she had no control over and was terrified of.