by Storm Cree
Jagger gave his friend an evil look, then closed his eyes and shook his head. Then opened his eyes and met Ezra’s gaze. “For Jewel’s safety, of course he may stay here, but I am the manager here and have work to do.”
“I don’t need to stay here, Ez. I can come along. I’m sure I’ll be fine. I don’t think the elves are looking for me here,” Jewel protested as he grabbed Ezra’s hands.
Ezra cupped Jewel’s cheek and gave him a loving smile. “I don’t think they are looking for you here either, beloved, but with them working with the fairies and coming after our new allies, there may be some around keeping an eye on things, and if they spot you, they can report back. Please, Jewel, I just want to keep you safe,” Ezra pleaded.
After a few moments of Jewel pouting at Ezra, he conceded. “Fine. But I’m not happy about it.”
“Yes, I know, but you are still going to do it. Jewel, you need to put this strife between you and Jagger to rest.”
“Is that why you want me to stay? So that I will have to talk to him?” Jewel asked angrily as he jumped to his feet.
Ezra rose and grabbed Jewel’s hands. “Yes, love. It is part of it. This needs to stop before it’s too late. You need to see how much I truly love and adore you, Jewel. You need to listen to me and believe me when I say I love you and that there is no one else for me. And you need to see that Jagger is no threat to our mating, and never has been. You have seen him with his own mate and witnessed the deep love and respect they have for one another. The trust they give each other. You need to start trusting me, and our love, mate. I’m afraid that if you can’t find a way, then that may be what tears us apart,” Ezra stated, then kissed Jewel quick, released his hands, and walked away, leaving him and Jewel alone.
CHAPTER 16
"Hey Dallas, what do you have?" Nick asked, walking in with Wyn at his heals.
Angelo looked at Nick with concern and Dallas' look was not any better. Sitting down, Nick sighed, "It's arson for sure, isn't it?"
Nodding Dallas relied, "Without a doubt, Nick. However, we have a bigger problem than it just being arson."
"What the fuck can be bigger than arson?" Wyn asked gruffly.
Angelo snorted, "A fireman being the arsonist."
"What the fuck are you talking about? None of my men are starting those fires, Angelo!" Nick snarled.
"Mine either! Go back and get this shit right, Dallas," Wyn snapped.
Dallas stood up. "Sir, we are not wrong on this. Angelo and I spoke to witnesses again and went to each site. There is no other conclusion that either of us could come up with. It was a fireman that did this or someone affiliated with the fire station."
Nick brought his elbows onto his desk, and dropped his face into them. Drawing in a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Nick asked, "Tell us what you have."
Dallas sat back down. "Angelo and I went back to the beginning. We looked over every nook and cranny of the burned-out buildings. We had to find the point of origin. We went to the Hotel and the pattern lead to the new alarm system. The warehouse fire was difficult because it looked like it might be a delay device near the chemicals. However, that isn't where the burn pattern took us."
"We followed the pattern and it took us all the way to the brand-new alarm panel," Angelo explained.
"But Fowler said he hadn't been in that thing since he left town," Nick argued.
Nodding, Dallas replied, "Exactly. So, if he didn't put it in, then why was one in it and who put it there?"
"So, we went to Jensen Manner, the young man that had been in the warehouse the night before and we showed him some pictures. He picked one out," Angelo said softly.
Nick looked at Angelo and then Dallas. When they didn't say anything, Nick asked, "Who?"
"Tyler Fowler," Dallas answered just as softly as Angelo had.
Shaking his head, Nick replied, "No way. Hold on a second."
Getting up, Nick opened the door. "Logan! In my office!"
Logan came running. "Yeah boss, what's up?"
"Come in and close the door. The night of the warehouse fire, where was Tyler?" Nick asked.
Logan looked confused, but answered, "He was here with us."
Nick turned to Dallas and Angelo. "See, he was here that day and I know for a fact he was here when the hotel went up. So, you are wrong about him."
Shaking his head, Dallas replied, "Sir, I don't want you to think that I'm pointing to this station because of any conflict you think I might have. Because I can say, I honestly have none. Your men are great firefighters as well as good people, however, Tyler is the man. Besides being picked out of the photo lineup by Jensen, he installed both systems. The way the fires actually started he could have been in another country and still started those fires."
"Explain," Wyndingo ordered.
Dallas stood up once more and went to the dry erase board Nick kept on his wall. Drawing a square and a line flowing down off it. "This is the panel and here is the wire. What he did was when he hooked in the panel he ran the line to the phone line. He frayed the wires. Taking a match, he placed them directly on the frayed wires with paper wrapped around those same wires and matches. All these systems have a remote testing system. So, he calls the test in, the wire sparks, catches the matches on fire and in turn lights the paper which in turn lights the kitty litter he packed into the wall. We know this because we found some of the particles of the paper and kitty litter on the floor inside the wall."
"But why? Why would he do that? I trained the guy. I brought him into our family. I did everything I could to make him feel at home here. Hell, my boys have treated him as one of their own. Why would he do this?" Nick asked of no one in particular.
Logan coughed and shuffled his feet. He was looking anywhere but at Nick.
"You have something to say, Logan?" Wyn asked in that harsh tone he normally used.
"Sir, if it's alright with you, can I call Sut in here?" Logan asked.
Nick gave Logan a quick nod, and seconds later Sut was in the room. "Hey what's up, Lo─ Dude you reported me? I told you it was a joke. I'll fix your bed as soon as I finish making dinner."
Nick raised a brow, "Actually, he never said anything about a bed incident, but I'm sure we can discuss that later."
"Well, crud," Sut muttered.
"Sut, tell Nick what you saw in Tyler's locker," Logan insisted.
Sut's eyes went huge. "We all agreed not to say anything, Logan. We didn't want to embarrass the chief or Tyler, and did you even think about Jagger? What is he going to think about this?"
"What is Jagger going to think about what?" Nick asked.
"The pictures in Tyler's locker," Sut muttered.
Nick stood up and jerked his office door opened so hard the glass shattered. Ignoring everyone calling his name, Nick went to the locker room. Tyler looked like he had just come out of the shower and was texting someone on his phone. "Hey chief, what's up?"
Ignoring the man of the hour, Nick went to Tyler's locker growling, "Where's the key?"
"W──What?" Tyler asked with wide, fearful eyes.
Nick saw the key around the man's neck and went to him, tugging the key from Tyler's neck and ignoring his hiss of pain. Marching back to the locker in question, Nick jammed the key inside and turned it.
"Chief, what are you doing? You can't go in there, that's my private space," Tyler shouted as he struggled against both Logan and Sut, who were holding him back.
Nick turned to Tyler. "The only private space you have is what I give you. This is my fire station, Tyler, something you might have thought to remember."
Opening the door, Nick was not prepared for what he saw taped to the inside. Pictures of Nick in the station shower, sitting at his desk, on the outside of a home fire they had worked about a month ago. Pulling things out of the locker, Nick caught a t-shirt he was missing, what looked like a house key to his old place, a hair brush he thought he had lost, and then a bag filled with pictures. Opening the bag, Nick went through
them one by one. Some were of him sleeping in his old bed, naked in his bathroom at his old place, and so many others of him half-dressed or nude. He even had him in his bear form out in the fucking woods. However, the last set of pictures had Nick turning to kill the man.
Nick threw the photos towards Tyler. Everyone looked down and saw pictures of Jagger with lines scrawled over his head, or those with the head cut off, some even had Tyler's head in place of Jagger’s.
Nick felt his bear clawing to get out. His claws extended and his large teeth formed as small hairs started sprouting out of his arms. "Why? I took you in! Why?"
Tyler's face contorted in anger. "Because you were mine! When we met, you told me that I could have anything I wanted if I worked hard enough to get it. You were always there to talk to me and show me how to do things. My own father never did half the things you did for me──to me. Then he came along. The second that man entered our lives you stopped everything. You left our home, stopped taking me out for meals, you always had to be with him."
"Jagger is my mate!" Nick snarled.
"No! I am your mate! I have always been your mate! I just had to get you to remember that. To do that, I had to keep you two apart."
"So, you set fires? Tyler, you damn near killed people and for what? I am not now nor will I ever be your mate. I have a mate and that is Jagger," Nick snarled.
Shaking his head, Tyler lifted the hand with his phone in it. "No, Nick. You had one." Tyler pressed send and Nick's eyes went huge with fear.
"What did you just do?" Nick snarled.
Nick was so angry he never saw the bright light behind him as Destrain, Illan, Justice, and Ezra walked through it.
"I asked you a question, Tyler. What did you just do?" Nick snarled just as the alarms went off.
Station one, Station one, respond to 782 Rosser Avenue, 782 Rosser Avenue. Reference to a structure fire. Scene is not secure.
Nick let out a roar as Tyler started to laugh louder and louder, then he began to sing Ding Dong the dick is dead.
Beyond all reason, Nick shifted and with his massive paws gutted Tyler and then bit his head off, tossing it across the room.
"I am so not cleaning that up," Sut muttered.
The alarm went off once more.
Station one, Station one, respond to 782 Rosser Avenue, 782 Rosser Avenue. Reference to a structure fire. Scene is not secure.
Wyndingo went to Nick, shouting, "He's dead, Nick. Stop now, your mate needs you."
By this time, Nick had ripped off Tyler's arms and legs and tossed his massive head upwards, roaring so loud many of the men in the room had to cover their ears.
"Nick, your mate needs you, damn it, let's go!" Wyndingo yelled leaving the locker room.
"What is it? Why does Jagger need him? Is my mate safe?" Ezra asked getting angrier and angrier with each question.
"It's the club, Ezra. We need to go," Destrain replied calmly.
Ezra pointed at the bloody mass on the floor. "And that piece of shit put my mate in harm’s way?"
"Yes, now let's go," Destrain said pulling on the vampire Re's arm.
Nick shifted and raced to the bunker area to grab his gear and put it on, racing to the truck just as it was getting ready to pull out of the station.
"Hurry, Gage, get us to my mate," Nick snarled.
"Uh, chief, remember, don't kill the messenger, but we called in to tell them we're on our way and there is a problem," Sut said nervously.
Nick turned sharply towards Sutter. "Besides the fact that my mate is in a burning building?"
Shaking his head, Sut muttered, "Yes, sir, besides that. The office door is locked and his code is not working. He and Jewel are locked inside and the fire is in the office they are in."
CHAPTER 17
Jagger was seriously not happy that Ezra put him in this situation. He had barely fixed things with his best friend and now he expected him to do the same with Jewel. Hell, he was not the issue, Jewel was. What the fuck did Ezra think he could say to the asshole that he hadn't already?
Sitting at his desk, Jagger started looking through invoices and the numbers were like hieroglyphs at this point. He couldn't concentrate on any of it. Shuffling some papers around, Jagger found the inventory list Blake had given him this morning. He needed to order some more supplies. Okay, he could do that. Pulling up his suppliers, Jagger started tapping in numbers, continuing not to pay attention to the prick in the room. Just before he hit send, he noticed the six-figure number at the bottom of the page. Shit! How many bottles of Absolute had he put? Son of a bitch, he had marked twelve hundred instead of twelve. Shit! Shit! Shit!
"When I was young, my brother and I were really close. We did everything together. I mean, we were inseparable." Giving a soft laugh, Jewel said, "We even did a blood oath, no matter what may happen or what may be, my brother and I will stay with thee. Never to part, never to go, my brother's love will always grow." Shrugging, Jewel whispered, "I guess he forgot about that when he joined the elven army."
Jewel turned to Jagger, and the sadness about took Jagger's breath away. Turning back to the Zen garden, Jewel said, "My parents never argued a day. They would smile and kiss each other and talk so sweet. Dad would tell mom how much he loved her and never regretted a day they were together."
"That's how mates should be," Jagger said softly.
Shaking his head Jewel fiddled with Jagger's Zen garden. "They weren't mates. Which is why when I was fifteen, Dad left us. He found someone else. He said it was his true mate, but I have no idea. I never saw him again. My mom sank into a deep depression. I did what I could, but I just couldn't get her to see that I was still there. Getting her to eat was next to impossible and in a year, she was dead."
Jagger gasped. He had no idea what to say. "What about your brother? Where was he?"
Shrugging, Jewel replied, "I don't know. I went to my aunt’s but she didn't want me. She passed me on to my dad's aunt, but she was like ninety, she died after about two weeks of me being there."
"Jewel, I am not going to take your mate. Ezra and I are brothers of the heart, that is it," Jagger insisted.
Nodding, Jewel turned around with tears in his eyes, slamming his fist over his heart. "I know that here. I really do, Jagger. But here," Jewel pointed at his head. "Keeps waiting for that other shoe to drop. I mean, there is always a shoe for me, Jagger. They say that I am their everything... and then they leave. They either cast me aside or find someone else."
"But Ezra has done neither, Jewel, and your actions are causing a fracture in his clan. If you continue as you are, he may end up fighting for his position as Re. It's one of the reasons I left," Jagger explained.
Jewel opened his mouth when a loud click caught Jagger's attention.
"What was that?" Jewel asked nervously.
Getting up, Jagger went to his office door and turned the knob, but it wouldn't budge. Placing in the code to unlock the door, Jagger watched as it buzzed, and the light that was supposed to go from red to green stayed red.
"What's going on? Why won't it unlock?" Jewel asked nervously.
Shaking his head, Jagger said, "I don't know."
Jagger started banging on the door, yelling for Blake, but then remembered the fire safety door Tyler had installed a week earlier. "Shit, it's soundproof."
"What's that smell?" Jewel asked looking around.
Jagger stopped trying to open the door and turned around, drawing in a deep breath. "Smoke. We have a fire."
No sooner had those words left his mouth then the alarm panel sparked and popped and flames started coming out from all around it. "Shit!"
Rushing to the fire extinguisher, Jagger yelled, "Call 911!"
Jewel pulled out his phone and started pressing buttons, then yelled in a panic, "My phone doesn't work!"
When Jagger pulled the extinguisher off the wall and pulled the ring pointing it to the fire it sprayed and the flames immediately flared higher and wider and spread along the wall. "What the
fuck?" Smelling the tip Jagger knew at that point that this was a purposeful event. Instead of the chemicals to extinguish a fire, someone had filled it with paint thinner.
Jewel was banging on the door screaming for someone to let them out. Jagger had to stop everything and calm himself. Remembering the incident in his office not too long ago, Jagger remembered something someone said. "Jewel, calm down and help me find the tunnel."
Jewel continued to bang on the door. With the panic in his tone, Jagger went to him and turned him around, lightly shaking him. "Jewel, you need to calm down. We are going to get out of here, but to do that, I'm going to need your help."
Jewel gasped, "I can make a portal and send us to the council building where Ezra is."
Jewel swirled his hand in a circle but nothing happened. "Is this room warded against magic? I can't form a portal."
Shrugging, Jagger said, "I have no idea. Now help me here."
"Help you with what?" Jewel asked as he began to cough.
"Someone broke into my office earlier this week and it was suggested that this office, along with others, might have secret passages that lead out of here and to another location. We need to find that damn passage," Jagger said as the smoke and heat grew in the room.
The smoke was filling the room fast, and Jagger was thinking that this idea was ludicrous. Jewel was coughing harder and harder. Jagger went to the vase of flowers that Nick had sent him the day before and pulled his shirt over his head, tearing it. Pouring water over the cloth, he went to Jewel. "Put this over your nose and mouth and breath through that. It will help keep the smoke from our lungs."
Jewel took the cloth as he coughed harder and harder. Jagger pulled him down. "Stay low, Jewel. Smoke rises."
Getting down, Jagger looked around and that's when he noticed the smoke was gathering a great deal around the fake fireplace. Rushing to it, Jagger started pushing things as he coughed and felt the flames getting closer and closer to him.