by E A Price
Melissa didn’t say a word; she just snuggled against his chest as he took her home wondering what the odds were that the wolf wasn’t the creature who had killed both of her victims.
*
Gracchus was spread over Melissa’s bed, the scent of their coupling was still fresh and delicious to him, and yet rather than thinking of what they had done and of what he would like to do with her, all he could think of was him – the beast man.
He thought he had smelled one the other night, and he had been right. Though, this one had not smelled quite the same as the other night. The other night, the creature had smelled wild, unwashed. The creature he fought with had seemed clean, freshly bathed. But maybe it was him, Gracchus couldn’t be sure.
Beast men had always been difficult to scent. He could scent them in their human skin; they nearly smelled completely human, but when turned into their animals, they were difficult to scent, to track. Their scents were always shifting and changing – it was the way they were created, purposefully so that gargoyles could not track them.
He growled and batted his tail against the edge of the bed, shuffling and fidgeting, unable to find a comfortable position. He was not used to lying in a bed, it was unnatural for him, and in his agitated state, the softness of the mattress did nothing but annoy him. He grasped one of the pillows, shaking it vigorously in his claws – too vigorously, it popped sending feathers everywhere.
Melissa appeared, and on noticing the feathers and the sheepish expression he now sported, she snickered.
“What did the pillow ever do to you?”
“I am sorry,” he grumbled and started to move to clean up.
Melissa came to stand by the bed and stilled him. She placed her hands on his shoulders and hushed him.
“It’s fine; I’ll clean up tomorrow. I prefer the memory foam pillows anyway. My mom’s convinced memory foam is secretly bad for you and keeps swapping them out for the old-fashioned feather pillows.”
Gracchus grunted, allowing her sweet voice to wash over him. It didn’t really matter what she said; she was just soothing.
She was in nothing but a vest and panties again, and he drew her nearer to him, pulling her to stand between his legs so he could rest his head on her soft chest. His hands grasped her pert rear end, and rather than the moan he was expecting she sucked in a painful breath.
Gracchus snapped to look at her and saw the wince on her face. Slowly he spun her around and snarled at the blossoming bruises on her thighs. He pushed his claws into the waistband of her panties and drew them down.
“Gracchus!” she exclaimed, partly shocked and partly amused.
Her cheeks were the same as her thighs, and the anger at the beast man intensified. What kind of creature would hurt such a precious female like Melissa? Then he groaned as he realized that he himself had cause these bruises when he pushed her away as the beast first leaped at him.
“I hurt you,” he ground out through his teeth. His wings fluttered in agitation.
Melissa tugged at her panties, covering her rear and turned back around. She cupped his face. “No, the floor hurt me when I hit it – you stopped me from being wolf chow.”
She started tracing his cheeks before working her way up to his horns, smoothing her hand over them and testing the tips in fascination.
“I wish I had horns,” she muttered in awe.
“You are trying to distract me.”
Melissa dragged her eyes away from his horns and gave him a concerned look. “No, I’m trying to calm you down. What happened tonight? You weren’t even that angry when the gargoyle attacked us.”
“That thing, I have seen his kind before.”
Her excited, eager expression blossomed even more. “Werewolves? You’ve seen werewolves before?”
“They are not werewolves,” he growled bitterly.
Melissa shuffled her feet, and he snarled at himself for allowing his injured female to remain standing. He gently lifted her onto the bed, scooting across it, so he was lying down, and she was arranged over his chest, lying on her front to allow her bruises time to heal. Plus, he did rather enjoy feeling her body over his.
She settled over him, resting her head on her folded hands and giggling lightly as his tail found her leg again.
Gracchus took a couple of deep breaths before he explained what they were. The gargoyles were created by Merlin, Arthur and the queen of the dragons, Shira, and they proved to be so effective in battle that Morgan le Fay’s army was almost wiped out. In retaliation, she tried to create her own supernatural warriors. She took human men loyal to her, and enchanted them, twisting them into beast men, so that they could turn into huge, oversized animals at will. But the beasts were not enough to save Morgan. They were too wild to control entirely. Most could not control their inner beasts and turned feral, often attacking members of Morgan’s own army. Most died before Morgan was finally defeated, though not all.
Some managed to survive over the years, enough to kill most of Gracchus’ clan, including his mate and unborn youngling. Clearly, some had managed to survive, and the beast nature had been passed down from parent to child over the centuries, and the creatures were still murdering people.
“I thought I smelled one of them the other night – when we were at that park, where your nurse was killed. I did not mention it at the time…”
No, he was sidetracked by his jealousy over Melissa’s partner. He shouldn’t have let his petty feelings get in the way.
“Oh, Gracchus,” she whimpered.
He brought his attention back to Melissa. Tears pooled in her huge eyes. “You poor thing…” The tears trickled down her cheeks.
His hands cupped her cheeks, trying to catch the wet droplets. He did not want her to cry, even for him.
“It was a long time ago, a long time even before we were cursed. I mourned my mate, and I came to terms with it, knowing I was not supposed to mate again,” he added doubtfully.
Melissa stared sadly at him, and fresh tears trickled down her cheeks.
“Please do not cry,” he almost pleaded. He did not like her upset, it made him feel awkward and like he wanted to smash something.
She sniffed and rubbed her nose. “We need to…”
“No.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Not tonight. You are tired,” he explained. “You have had more than enough… excitement for one night. Rest, and we will deal with this when I wake tomorrow night.”
Her lips parted, trying to object, but she sighed and relented. “I am pretty tired,” she admitted. “I can’t fall asleep at work – my desk is far too hard for my head.”
Gracchus frowned at her comment, but as she started trying to clamber away from him, he stopped her. Her warm body over his was calming, and he didn’t want to lose her presence too soon.
He held her in place, his arms and wings wrapping around her. “Relax, sleep,” he purred. “I will wait until you are sleeping. Do not worry; I will not wake you when I move you.”
“Okay,” she yawned, unresisting.
Melissa lay her head on his chest and closed her eyes. In less than a minute, she was snoozing. He enjoyed her for as long as he could, before carefully moving her into her bed, laying her on her front, and grimacing at the bruises on her perfect rear. It was a damn near tragedy to ruin such a beautiful behind! But, he told himself, she would heal – there was no permanent damage. Unlike the two women the beast man had murdered.
Gracchus cast one last look at Melissa, and made his way into her living room, grasping her phone. Melissa’s cats mewled at him, but he was in no mood for their cute little coos. He only had one thing on his mind. The beast man had to be stopped – no matter what.
Twenty-Six
Melissa blushed under Colt’s wary stare. She had caught him looking at her repeatedly that morning. But every time she raised her eyes to his, he looked away, scowling at his computer, and jamming his fingers into the keyboard as if it owed him money.
&
nbsp; He was certainly acting strangely, and he looked even more tired than he had the day before. The man looked like he hadn’t slept in days, though that look on him was infinitely more appealing than that look on her. Colt just looked sexy and manly. Melissa would look like the Wicked Witch of the West – complete with a green tinge.
If she weren’t so distracted, she might have probed him on his mood, but well, she was pretty distracted. There was the werewolf to think about or beast man as Gracchus called him. They needed to find a way to track him and capture him before anyone else was hurt. There was the missing gargoyle somewhere in the city – she wasn’t sure how he fit into any of this. There was the stone gargoyle from Marsters’ office who needed liberating from her collection of antiques. Not to mention the armed-to-the-teeth, Bell who was lurking around and had a known penchant for kidnapping gargoyles. Then, there was Gracchus who she couldn’t stop thinking about, and who admitted he couldn’t be with her. It was no surprise which one of those things was currently bothering her more.
She thought of all the questions she had compiled after he first told her they couldn’t be together. She supposed she wouldn’t need them now. He couldn’t be with her, because he couldn’t bear to replace his mate, and she could not say she blamed him. Her poor, sweet Gracchus. To have lost a mate was tough, but to have lost a pregnant mate – that was too cruel.
Melissa shook her head. There was no point moping over it now. It wasn’t something that she could change. She shifted on her seat, wincing slightly at her bruises and glanced up to see Colt glaring at her accusingly. She frowned at him, and he looked away again. Maybe he was having a bad day. Well, she wasn’t exactly having a terrific one either.
“So, partner,” she said in her brightest voice, “what next?”
Colt shrugged and stood up. “I got a lead.”
“Great, I’ll…”
He was already striding to the door as he said, “I’ll let you know if it pans out. See ya.”
Melissa gaped at the door. He was blowing her off! What the heck was his problem anyway, running off and investigating without her… Okay, maybe she had sort of been doing the same thing with Gracchus. Perhaps she couldn’t claim the moral high ground here.
She let out a huff and dove into her purse, pulling out the address book she found at their nurse’s house the previous night. She found it in a hideaway book, just before the werewolf attacked. She chewed on her cheek. Maybe she should have told Colt what happened; she could have left out Gracchus’ involvement and just showed him the address book. Melissa looked at the door, half expecting Colt to appear again. Oh well, too late now.
She started leafing through the address book and nearly yelped as the door did swing open. But rather than Colt, it was Mean Morgan in all her pristinely dressed glory.
“Morgan?”
The woman cast a dazzling smile around the office, which immediately vanished when she saw that Colt wasn’t there.
“Where is he?” she demanded without so much as a hello.
Melissa considered calling her on her lack of manners, or just pretending she didn’t know who she was talking about, but she really didn’t have the energy.
“Out,” she replied and then added, “working.”
“Humph.” Morgan flicked her hair. “When will he be back?”
“Don’t know, sorry.”
Melissa returned to her book, expecting Morgan to leave, except she didn’t. Morgan hovered in the doorway.
“Something I can help you with?” asked Melissa, dearly hoping the answer would be no.
Morgan looked momentarily uncomfortable, a million miles away from her usual cool bitchiness. “He’s single, right?”
Melissa tried not to cringe. She did not want to get involved in Morgan’s love life, or anyone’s love life. Her own wasn’t exactly spectacular. “I really don’t know that much about him,” she said. “Maybe you should ask his brother?”
Morgan looked at her like she had just told her she was a pink, polka dot elephant. “His what?” she said crisply.
“His brother,” repeated Melissa.
Morgan smiled somewhat smugly. “He’s an only child.”
Melissa frowned. “He is?”
“That’s what it says in his file,” she snickered and then flustered as she realized she shouldn’t have said that.
Morgan had actually gone to the trouble of looking at his personnel file. She must have realized it sounded a little stalkerish, because she turned on her heel and strode away, slamming the door behind her, before Melissa could comment.
Melissa could care less whether Morgan was a stalker, but Colt… why would he lie to her about having a brother?
*
Melissa checked the address again and checked the location on her GPS. Yep, this was the place. She squinted at the building. It looked like an abandoned warehouse – correction, an abandoned, burned out warehouse.
The address book had been full to the brim of various addresses for all sorts of places and people. Melissa had gone through it and found all the hospital and medical facility addresses. It was a long shot, but who knows? Maybe she would get lucky.
She had already been to a couple of addresses, but they didn’t amount to anything. Nothing suspicious anyway. One was a free clinic, buzzing with people and the other was a dentist’s office. This place, however, this had potential. Though as what, she wasn’t quite sure, perhaps for a haunted mental institution. Okay, so ghosts are real – that was a given, but she was ninety-nine percent sure that they could not hurt her.
Melissa checked her gun and with a deep breath, got out of the car. She looked up at the fading sun. It would be night soon, and then Gracchus would be awake. This would be her last stop before going home.
Gingerly she made her way towards the building, climbing through the hole in the wire fence. Chances were she would just catch some underage kids hanging out, drinking beer. She doubted she would find anything to help with her case, but well, she was here now.
Melissa stilled as she heard something. A crunch of stone. A footstep. Something. It could just be an animal. She un-holstered her gun, just in case, and took another couple of steps. She heard the sound again. She had the uneasy feeling that she was being stalked, hunted even.
Maybe she should come back later. Maybe she should come back with Gracchus or even Colt. She may be small, but she wasn’t a coward. However, she was in the midst of dealing with supernatural creatures a hell of a lot fiercer than she could ever be – even fiercer than when she was a teenager dealing with her dumbass, insensitive brothers who thought it was funny to steal her training bra. Having back up was never a bad idea.
She started making her way back to her car when she saw it – the wolf, or werewolf or beast man or whatever they were called. He appeared at the side of the building and was just staring at her. It was well over six-feet tall and hairy as all hell – hairier than even Great-Uncle Ernesto who was often mistaken for a chimpanzee when he went to the beach - Ernesto thought it was hilarious.
Melissa stared at him as her heart thumped erratically. She should shoot it, right? But… it hadn’t done anything wrong – that she knew of at least. Maybe he had killed those two women, but then again, maybe he hadn’t. Strangely, he didn’t look quite the same as the previous night. His fur seemed darker. Perhaps the witnesses from the park had been right and there were two of them. This creature could be completely innocent.
Her eyes flicked to her car. It was fifteen feet away and behind a hole in a fence that she hardly fit through when moving slowly, never mind at speed. She’d never make it. Her only options seemed to be trying to hurt it, or trying to make friends.
“H… hello?” she ventured.
She didn’t even see him move before he was upon her.
*
Hodges grabbed her phone and dialed Captain Bell. He answered on the second ring, barking his name into the phone. He had tasked Hodges with following the FBI agent – Melissa Sanchez.
Given that he was putting up with a lot of flak from the venomous Marsters woman, he wasn’t really in a patient mood. She needed to keep this brief.
“Sanchez just turned up at the old Centaur facility.”
Bell grunted. “She won’t find anything there. All evidence that we were even there burned to a crisp.”
“No, that’s not the issue. The wolfman is here.”
Bell paused. “The wolfman?”
“Yeah, the wolfman – the creature that escaped a year back.”
Another pause. “He’s dead,” Bell snapped impatiently.
Hodges withheld a frustrated groan. “I don’t know what to tell you, boss, but he’s big and hairy and looks like a werewolf, and he’s at the old facility. He was a patient here, right?”
Before that pyromaniac bitch, Danica burned it down during one of her episodes a couple of years ago. After she destroyed it, she was shipped away to somewhere a little less flammable, and the wolf and the other inhabitants were moved to a new facility just outside town.
“Yes, he was,” said Bell slowly.
“So he must be the one killing everyone, right?”
Bell didn’t answer.
“You want me to stay on her or follow him?”
He was silent for a beat. “Follow him,” he answered gruffly.
“You got it.”
Twenty-Seven
Gracchus growled in a mixture of frustration and worry. There was no point in searching the apartment; he could already sense that she wasn’t here. The apartment was cold, and with the exception of the cats, it was empty.
He tried calling her cell phone, but there was no answer. This definitely was not like her.
A small, petty, jealous part of him wondered whether she was out at a bar with her partner, Colt, but he quickly dismissed that. Given everything they had shared over the last couple of days, he did not really believe she was interested in the other male. For some reason, she was interested in Gracchus. Maybe it was just a passing infatuation; given her delight in everything supernatural, it would not be so surprising. He could not deny he was pretty enamored with her, though he could not imagine it to be ‘passing’ any time soon.