It was a good thing I’d always preferred my men rough around the edges.
Extremely rough.
Rourke roared into my mind with his hard, taut body, jet-black tattoos, honey-colored hair, and a perfect layer of stubble running along his strong jawline. My wolf growled. I know. I know. But we have to be careful or Danny will think those smells are for him, so keep a lid on it.
I glanced at the other wolf in the room, pulling myself together with effort.
I’d never met him before. He stood on the other side of Ray, who was currently tied to a folding chair. Ray had thankfully lost my pantyhose gag from the night before, but had what appeared to be a white dish towel tied around his mouth. It might be time to invest in some quality interrogation supplies; the ordinary household supplies were looking a little ragtag. “Hi, I’m Jessica.” I reached my hand out to the unknown wolf.
Hesitation lit in his eyes for a few beats before he extended his hand back to me. Selling myself as friendly to these guys was going to be a huge battle after so many years of fear.
“Tom Bailey,” he replied, dropping my hand.
“Good to meet you, Tom. If you could, I’d like you to wait outside.”
He glanced at Danny, who gave him a curt nod, and then left without looking back.
“One of your guys?” I asked as the door clicked shut behind him.
“Yes. He’s one of the best, and can be trusted.”
“He stared at me like I was a space alien.”
“He was likely just admiring your beauty. You do look splendid, as usual.” Danny swept a careless gaze over me, eyeing me from top to bottom like we were having a spot of tea instead of being the possible harbingers of death to a human. “You were made for skinny jeans. They absolutely adore you.”
I stifled a smile, and instead turned my attention to my immediate concern, Raymond Hart. “Okay, Ray. It’s time for us to settle this.” I lifted a folding chair and set it squarely in front of him, straddling it. “It seems you’ve finally uncovered what you’ve been dying to find out for years. Why I could track criminals so quickly, why I was so fast on my feet, why I had the best instincts on the force. But, as you can plainly see, I’m not a crackhead.” I spread my arms wide in front of me and leaned forward—part intimidation, partly because I could. “The truth is, I was born into a family of wolves. Yes, real-life wolves. And recently I’ve become one. But, honestly, if we’re playing fair, none of this was any of your business to find out. You should’ve left well enough alone. But you didn’t. And now you’re in so deep you have one choice left. If you choose not to take it, your life ends here.” I swept my finger down toward the floor. Interrogation took mad dramatic skills. None of which Ray was buying into. He was completely unimpressed.
His eyes narrowed and his scent changed, going from steady fear to an acidic flare of anger in the space of a heartbeat.
The man had gigantic balls.
His normal steel-colored flattop had drooped and there were dark bags under his eyes. It was doubtful he’d slept a wink last night. No surprises there. You’d think after all he’d seen and gone through in the last forty-eight hours, he’d be ready to acquiesce. Anything to try and get out of this mess. Instead he was ready for a fight.
And I was just the gal to give him one.
I leaned into his space to accentuate my control. I had to make him believe he had only one option left, and not to take it meant his death. “The solitary choice you have remaining, after everything you’ve seen, is to join us,” I stated calmly. “Do you understand what I’m saying? There’s a place in my world for humans. But you have to be willing to come on your own. There’s no in-between.”
Ray spat something from between his gag. It was muddled, but I heard it clear enough.
“It doesn’t matter if you think I’m a bitch, Ray. We’re way beyond that. What we’re here to discuss is you keeping your life. My awesome personality traits are not on the table.”
Danny slid his chair a little closer to the action, scraping it along the worn linoleum, grinning like he’d just won front-row tickets to a WWE match. He perched on the edge of his seat, elbows resting comfortably on his knees. After a moment he said, “This is a nice twist, isn’t it? And here, Mr. Hart, I didn’t think you had a chance of seeing another sunrise. Listen to the nice lady, because she’s not making this bit up. Even though we enjoyed our chat last night, I won’t hesitate to kill you today. That’s how it works. It’s nothing personal, you understand. It’s purely business.”
Ray thrashed for a moment in his seat.
I wasn’t interested in watching his struggle, so I reached over and yanked the towel off his mouth in one motion. “Hannon,” he gasped immediately, taking in a big breath. “You’re never going to get away with this!” He’d only ever known me as Molly Hannon, my alias for the past seven years. “You can’t kill me. Everyone on the force will know—”
“Ray,” I interrupted. “Don’t delude yourself. We’ll get away with anything we want. We excel in covering things up we don’t want anyone else to see.” He didn’t have to know that my killing him would lead to more headaches than it was worth. “After hundreds of years of experience, you kind of nail it down.”
“If anything happens to me, they will track it back you. Your case is all over my desk.” His face was turning beet red from all the strain and anger. “If you kill me, a second grader with a finger up ass could figure it out. And you’ll end up paying for this with life behind bars.”
“I won’t be paying for anything, Ray.” I leaned in closer, my face inches from his, my voice dropping to just above a whisper. “And when we’re done with you there will no trace. There will be nothing left to identify. It will be like you disappeared into thin air.” I snapped my fingers right next to his ear. Had to keep up the show.
He froze. “They’ll find my body,” he stammered slightly. “I’m a police detective, for chrissake. They won’t stop until the case is solved.”
A slow smile spread across my lips. “Will they?” He was going to make me do it the hard way, naturally. My irises sparked violet. It wasn’t a hard thing to do, since I still had more than enough emotion flowing through my veins from this morning. My wolf was at the edge and she was tired of waiting.
He gasped and started thrashing again, struggling against his bonds.
“Think about it, Ray,” I continued as if nothing was amiss. “If we actually exist, what else do you think is out there? You can’t believe we’re the only ones. Joining us will give you a huge advantage. Imagine all the crazy shit you’ll be able to learn and how many crimes you can solve with our help.”
Ray was intelligent enough to follow what I was saying.
He stopped moving.
“That’s right, Ray. Vamps, witches, demons, goblins, you name it—all true. Fairy tales exist. Think of all the things you can learn, all the cases that were never solved because they were Other. You’ll make chief with our help. But if you don’t accept my proposal now, I’ll be forced to have my pal spell your body. That means you won’t be you. Well, that is, until you’re in the ground and buried. But before the spell wears off, you’re John Fucking Doe and nobody will ever know what happened to Raymond Hart. No physical body, no evidence, no case. End of story.” I had absolutely no idea if Marcy, who happened to be my secretary, a witch, and best pal, could even do something like that—but it sounded good so I was going with it. I ended with a dramatic hand slash toward the floor.
Ray didn’t so much as blink.
Danny reached over and cuffed his shoulder so hard the chair nearly upended. “Spells are a backup plan for me, mate. Not the route I’d go. See, I’m more of a concrete blocks and heavy weights guy. Or maybe a nice wood chipper. I’ve never had the pleasure of using one before, but they look fairly interesting and easy to operate, and my garden could use a good fertilizing this time of year.”
Ray’s face turned a coronary red. “I don’t believe you,” he. “Everything y
ou’re saying can’t possibly be true. You’re making this up because you want me to join your crazy cult, but I’m not drinking the goddamn Kool-Aid! Do you hear me? I’m not drinking it!”
I closed my eyes, but refrained from pinching the bridge of my nose. I spoke quietly. “Ray, you saw Danny for yourself. How do you explain away a human shifting into a wolf right before your very eyes? You weren’t on any Kool-Aid then—or were you? I didn’t peg you for the using type, but maybe I’m wrong. Were you high when you saw Danny shift?”
“What?” Ray shouted with enough outrage infused in his voice to make a small child cry real tears. “I’ve never taken a drug in my life!” Then he shuddered. It was the first real fear he’d shown thus far. “When he… changed… that… that was just some sort of trick you played on me. He caught me by surprise, fooled me somehow.” He stammered some more. This was a typical human reaction to something they couldn’t explain away. Finally. Ray, it seemed, had already filed it into a neat place in his mind, coming up with a justifiable story his brain could handle. He sputtered, “I came in… and there was a strange animal… and it shocked me, so I fainted…”
I glanced at Danny and asked, “Did you happen to show him anything more last night when you two were alone?”
“Nope,” Danny answered. “I threatened his life repeatedly, but I had no idea you wanted him to accept us. I figured the less he knew before we killed him the better.”
Ray shot us both a searing look. If he’d his gun, he would’ve shot us without hesitation. “It doesn’t matter what you try to show me. I’m not buying it. You’ve been goofy for years, Hannon, but monsters don’t exist and I’m not joining your cult.”
I narrowed my eyes, letting them spark deeply. “I know you believe it deep down, Ray, you know why? Because I can smell it.” I took in a deep breath to accentuate my point. “You’re just being stubborn and making this excruciatingly hard on all of us.” I sighed. “Unfortunately I don’t have the time for hard. If you can believe it, I actually don’t want to kill you. I really don’t. You’re all kinds of painful, but I believe you deserve to live. The pledge I took to protect when I joined the police force was sincere. But time is running out. My conditions for not killing you are as follows—and they’re nonnegotiable.” He glared at me, but remained quiet. “One: you will swear a Blood Oath of fealty to our Pack. This binds you to us. If you betray the oath, you die. Once you do this, you become an Essential to our Pack—you bring value by your position on the force and we protect you. It’s a fair trade. Two: you take a voluntary year hiatus to assimilate to our ways, starting immediately. Your excuse will be stress related, and everyone will buy it. After a year in the north woods recuperating in peace, you’ll be good as new and no one will be the wiser.”
Rage vibrated off of Ray in short, angry waves. “I don’t care what you say. I’m not swearing some kind of ritual oath to anyone. You and your little cult of misfits can—”
I reached over and yanked his gag back up quicker than he could track. It shocked him into silence.
He was such a thorn in my ass.
“Looks like he’s not willing to compromise, then,” Danny said. “Though, it was a rather sweet deal if you bothered to ask me. I would’ve agreed to it in a heartbeat.”
Ray started to struggle and, in a moment of weakness, I considered killing him. It would be so much easier. But unfortunately easy had never been my style. “Dammit, Ray, why are you such a stubborn idiot!” I shot off my seat and kicked my folding chair. The wall exploded and the chair clattered to the ground in pieces, accompanied by a snowfall of white dust.
“Listen, Jess.” Danny stood in front of me. “You can’t beat yourself up about this.” He placed his hands carefully on my shoulders, glancing at me quickly before averting his eyes. My status was above his and prolonged eye contact in a stressful situation was hard. “I can see the mortality decisions are going to bloody tear you apart, because you’re still seeing the world as a human does. But I can assure you this bloke isn’t worth your frustration.” He gestured idly at Ray, who’d shut up and stopped moving after my tirade. “We’ve much more important things on the agenda tonight, like setting out to find your man.” Danny was joining me as a Selective on this trip, which basically meant he was my muscle-for-hire, along with my twin brother, Tyler. “Dusk will be here shortly. I know you haven’t had much experience killing yet, so I’ll be happy to finish this up for you. It can be over and done with in a jiffy.”
“Yet” was the operative word in that sentence. Killing innocent people shouldn’t be a snap. Just because I was a wolf now was no excuse. I’d spent twenty-six-years as a human. I couldn’t kill the bastard that easily.
He was going to have to work for it.
I sighed. “We’re not killing him, Danny.”
“Come again?” He cocked his head in question.
“He lives. For now.”
I glanced down at Ray, and his eyes narrowed, sensing a trick.
This was the point where he was hoping to gloat while I admitted this was just a weird cult after all. But unfortunately for him there was no Kool-Aid to dispense. This was the real deal. “That’s right, Ray.” I exhaled a long, tired breath. “You’re going to live to see another day. You’re a complete fool, but I guess you’re my fool now.”
“Um, Jessica?” Danny asked. “I don’t think your father is going to be quite as willing to let him—”
“It’s already settled. If I couldn’t convince Ray to swallow the quiet pill and swear a Blood Oath, I had to take ownership of him. If he stays here without me, he dies. Nobody in Pack is willing to babysit him.” I could’ve asked Marcy or Nick to do it, but it was too risky. If Ray somehow escaped and exposed us, they would end up paying for it with their lives. “I’m choosing to decide his fate. He’s mine.”
Danny’s face showed his confusion as he tried in vain to process my foolish ways. “Yours?”
“He’s coming with us,” I assured him.
“You must be joking.” Danny laughed, his face incredulous. “Surely we’ll be trekking where no human can follow. He’s bound to end up killed or worse. Not that there’s actually anything worse than dead, but it could definitely hurt more.”
I shrugged. “Then he’ll die. But I’m not killing him right here in cold blood.”
Danny’s expression switched to a sardonic grin in an instant. “Whatever you say. You’re the boss.”
I took a sharp breath. “You have to be careful, Danny,” I scolded. “Why do you always tread so close to the hairy edge? Someday your mouth is going to spin you into trouble and no amount of sweet talking is going to get you out.” Referring to me like that so boldly could cause waves where none should be, especially when the real boss was still in the building.
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “It’s an addiction, naturally. What fun is the world when everything is so safe and tidy? Everything in its proper place?”
He had a point.
I moved toward the door. “Take Ray to his house and pack a bag. If his house is under any surveillance, regroup. Meet me back at my apartment when you’re done. We’ll be out at full dark; the vamps will be there shortly after. Be ready.”
As I left, I heard Danny say to Ray. “No need to look so glum, Detective Hart. The vampires won’t kill you instantly. They like to play with their prey first. That means you and I will have a lot more happy fun time together. Won’t that be smashing?”
I headed back into the main offices of Hannon & Michaels, the P.I. firm I shared with my partner, Nick Michaels. Nick was a werefox who’d been raised on the Compound with me, my father having taken him in as a child. Because of the fact that male werewolves didn’t play well with one another, we’d been inseparable ever since.
Marcy, our fearless secretary and resident spell caster, stood from her desk as I walked in, reading me accurately with her sharp, intelligent eyes. Marcy was a sassy, curvy, redheaded witch whom I secretly adored. She hated overt emo
tional interactions, so I tended to heap it on whenever possible.
“What’s up?” she asked. “Cop chat didn’t go well? You look a little haggard.”
“I feel haggard. Do we have any food left?”
“Nope, you and your compadres scarfed everything down an hour ago, and there were at least twenty takeout bags in the lunchroom. What is it with you guys? Who can possibly keep up with all these constant hunger demands? It’s unnatural.”
“What can I say? Wolves like to eat.” I chuckled to myself, even though eating massive amounts of food in order to feed my new, faster metabolism was becoming a serious adjustment.
My stomach grumbled to punctuate my point.
“Like to eat?” Marcy said. “Your eyes roll back in your head every time food comes through that door. It’s like watching a puppy dig into its breakfast bowl.”
I couldn’t exactly argue. Food tasted amazing with my new, enhanced senses, and just imagining a cheeseburger could induce orgasmic thoughts.
Marcy read my face accurately. “I can order you more food, Godzilla, but it’ll take a few minutes to get here.”
“Never mind. I’m heading home in about two minutes anyway. Is my dad still here?”
“Yep, he’s in your office making some calls.”
“Did they get rid of the imp?”
“The greasy unconscious guy?”
“That’s the one.”
“Gone. A couple of big fellas took him away. You guys don’t screw around in the breeding department. The boys who hauled him out of here were huge.”
“What about Nick?”
“He’s out on a call, but he said he’d swing by your apartment before you left. You’re supposed to wait for him before you leave town. His orders.”
“Is he still pissed he’s not going?”
“Pissed wouldn’t be the description I’d use.” Marcy tapped a perfectly manicured nail on the table. “Try brokenhearted or severely devastated.”
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