The Wolf at Bay (Big Bad Wolf)

by Charlie Adhara

  And that’s not all Jefferson would have done.

  Cooper swallowed the hot, acidic anger, guilt, and shame that threatened boil over and burn him alive there on the spot.

  Follow procedure. He, more than anyone, couldn’t step out of line. So far all Simpson was officially guilty of was acting a bit weird. He couldn’t be arrested for terrible customer service.

  Cooper straightened his jacket and didn’t take out his weapon. “Are you—is everything okay?”

  Simpson was staring at some long-stemmed sunflowers and didn’t seem to hear Cooper’s question. He plucked a single yellow petal and rolled it between his fingertips. “I saw you,” Simpson said.

  “Sorry?”

  “Across the street. Watching. I know. I know who you are.” Cooper reached slowly for his badge, but Simpson continued, “He’s downstairs.”

  Cooper paused, then retracted his hand, leaving his badge in his pocket. “Who? Who’s downstairs, Mr. Simpson?”

  Simpson finally faced Cooper, who stumbled back in surprise. His face wasn’t a blank mask now. It was transformed with fury and pain. His irises were larger, the blue-gray bleeding out into the white as the wolf peeked through.

  “Don’t fuck with me!” he screamed, and shoved a display shelf of sprays proclaiming to keep flowers alive twice as long. The bottles rolled across the floor. “I know. I’ve known for weeks, and I can’t take it anymore, okay? So just take him and—”

  The discreet door behind the ferns opened and a short, burly, bald white man burst into the room. “Babe? I heard a crash. What’s—” He cut off and stared at Cooper, who stared back.

  Brian Fasser. The wolf who had come forward claiming to witness a silver sedan speeding away from the scene of the crime. Donny Simpson’s car. Simpson, who Fasser had claimed not to know. He’d lied.

  Cooper saw the exact moment Fasser realized he’d been recognized. Unfortunately, Cooper’s reflexes weren’t quite as fast. He was still reaching for his Taser when Fasser tackled him to the ground, pinning his arm between them.

  “Brian!” Simpson shouted somewhere beyond Fasser’s snarling teeth inches from Cooper’s face. “What the hell are you doing?” And then, “Brian?” he repeated, sounding appalled as Fasser lifted his right hand and extended his claws, four-inches long, sharp as razors and strong as steel.

  “Go lock the door, Donny,” Fasser said.

  “What? No! Who is this?”

  Fasser’s canines elongated and his eyes flicked back toward Simpson. “Just go lock the fucking do—”

  Cooper slammed his head up into Fasser, feeling the sick give of his nose. Fasser bellowed, reaching instinctively for his face, and released Cooper, who bucked him off and scrambled to the side on his belly.

  Fasser lunged after him, landing on Cooper’s legs while his claws tore through the side of Cooper’s jacket, snagging temporarily in the fabric. Cooper grabbed one of the fallen pesticide bottles and swung it in the direction of Fasser’s broken nose.

  Fasser let out a screech, inhuman and wet. His weight disappeared from Cooper’s legs. Cooper rolled to his back, pulled out his Taser, and aimed at Fasser, who was struggling up to his knees while protectively covering his bloody, disjointed nose.

  “Hands above your head!” Cooper said. “Weapons away!”

  Fasser slowly put his hands up. His claws retracted, though his eyes were still all brown, no white, and shimmered a bit in the dim light of the shop.

  Simpson, standing in place in shock, seemed to rouse himself and stumbled forward as if to stand between Cooper and Fasser.

  “Sir, I need you to stay where you are,” Cooper said without looking away from Fasser, whose eyes narrowed. Cooper could practically see him smell an opportunity. He didn’t doubt Fasser would sacrifice Simpson if it provided the distraction he needed to escape. Whatever other issues Park and he had, these two made them look like relationship goals.

  “Who are you? Why are you doing this to us?” Simpson choked.

  Cooper tried to keep his voice calm and soothing. Just because Simpson was too shocked to be threatening now didn’t mean he couldn’t rip Cooper apart the minute Cooper tried to take out Fasser. He was a wolf, too. Stronger, faster and deadlier than Cooper on his best day. And this, quite clearly, was not turning out to be his best day. “My name is Special Agent Dayton and I’m with the BSI.” He ignored Simpson’s sharp gasp. “I don’t want to hurt you, Mr. Simpson, so I need you to back up against the far wall while I cuff Mr. Fasser here on suspicion of murder.”

  “No,” Simpson said confidently. “Brian would never—”

  “Brian killed a man and tried to set you up to take the fall.”

  “No,” Simpson repeated, and took another step forward. Out of the corner of his eye, Cooper saw Simpson’s claws extending slowly. “You’re lying.”

  “Think about it, Mr. Simpson. How do you think I got here? How do you think Brian recognized me? He’s been using your store to launder money, not caring that it could be traced back to you. He ripped out his business partner’s throat and then claimed to see your car leaving the crime.”

  “Don’t listen to him, babe. The BSI just wants any excuse to round us all up and put us down.”

  “Shut up, Fasser,” Cooper said. “Mr. Simpson, you know I’m telling the truth. You suspected Brian was lying about something, didn’t you? But you thought he was cheating on you, right? That’s why you were so suspicious of me before? Well, this is what he was hiding. Why else would he have attacked me just now? Just let me cuff him and we can figure it all out.”

  “No,” Simpson repeated, though he sounded less sure now. Still, he took another step forward, effectively blocking Fasser.

  Cooper tried to shift quickly, still on the floor, but almost too fast for his eyes to see, Fasser slammed his hands into the back of Simpson’s knees and his claws shot out, slicing through jeans and into skin. He then sprang to his feet in one fluid motion, too smooth to be human. Simpson howled and toppled over toward Cooper, who rolled out of the way just in time.

  He fired his Taser at the now-standing Fasser from below. Fasser was back on the ground without a sound, unmoving and unconscious. A blessing, in Cooper’s opinion, considering the Taser prongs stuck to his groin. Cooper hurriedly cuffed Fasser’s hands behind his back while he could.

  “Brian!” Simpson yelled, and scrambled toward his boyfriend.

  “He’s fine. He’s just unconsciou—” Cooper began, putting a hand to Simpson’s shoulder and was promptly knocked onto his back with Simpson sitting on his chest, teeth fully extended and irises dilated to a full luminous blue.

  Idiot, your boyfriend set you up. Twice, Cooper wanted to say, but with Simpson’s claws pricking at his shoulders, through his jacket, he decided calling the guy an idiot was not his best bet.

  “Donny, don’t do this. It’s over. You don’t have to go down with him.”

  Simpson took a deep breath somewhere between a snarl and a sob. “Why did he drag me into this? Why couldn’t he just talk to me? Why couldn’t he just tell me he didn’t love me anymore?”

  “I don’t know,” Cooper said softly. Simpson’s hands relaxed their grip until they were just resting against Cooper’s chest.

  “Did he really hate me that much?” Simpson’s voice cracked like it was too thick with tears, snot, and hurt to fit in his throat.

  Cooper shook his head, reaching slowly for Simpson’s wrists. “I don’t—”

  There was a flash of movement to Cooper’s right, and then Simpson disappeared with a sharp whimper, knocked off his chest by a blur too fast to be anything but another wolf. Cooper scrambled for his gun and turned to see Simpson pinned to the floor with a man kneeling on his back, ass waving in the air and cuffing Simpson’s hands.

  Cooper left his gun holstered and flopped back on the floor with a sigh. He knew that ass. Knew i
t very well indeed.

  “Cutting it a bit close,” Cooper said.

  He heard a huff. “Our Bat signals must have gotten crossed. I could have sworn we said we’d meet outside.”

  Park loomed into Cooper’s field of vision. Despite his light tone, Park’s face was not amused. His eyes were lighter than usual, a golden brown near-glowing themselves, and the corners were tense and wrinkled. He looked older than when they’d first met, Cooper realized, and far more tired. Perhaps that was what happened after four months of being partnered with Cooper did to a person. Or perhaps that was what happened after four months of...whatever their personal relationship was.

  “I know there’s a lot of green stuff in here, so it can get confusing, but this is actually inside.” Park held his hand out. Cooper grasped it and was pulled to standing. “You’re bleeding.” Park frowned, reaching tentatively toward Cooper’s face.

  “No, I’m not,” Cooper protested, and ran an exploratory hand over his face. Nothing hurt, but when he examined his hand, sure enough, there were smears of blood there. “Fasser must have snorted on me. Charming.”

  “Who?”

  Cooper gestured toward Fasser, just beginning to shake off the effects of the Taser. “Our killer, I think. He was going to blame poor Donny, his boyfriend, for everything.”

  Park didn’t even bother looking over at Fasser. Just raised an eyebrow and pulled Cooper toward him so he could inhale the side of his neck, something he seemed to do whenever he didn’t believe Cooper wasn’t injured. “Poor Donny? When I walked in he was on top of you.”

  “He was just talking.”

  “On top of you?”

  “Like you can judge.” Cooper caught a hint of smile against his throat.

  “With his teeth out?” Park murmured.

  “I tend to have that effect on people.”

  Park stiffened and pulled away enough for Cooper to see his frown. “You really do. Which is why you should have waited for me.”

  “They were closing early. If I had waited, we might not have made the Fasser connection in time.”

  “You should have—”

  Cooper pulled out of Park’s grasp, putting some space between them. “I had it under control, Agent Park.”

  Park opened and shut his mouth, biting off whatever he planned to say. He looked away from Cooper. “Fine. Are you calling it in or am I?”

  Cooper didn’t have many fans in the bureau. He’d lost a lot of credibility after his last partner had taken a one-way trip to maximum security. Today, with two injured wolves on the scene, plenty of people would expect Cooper to try and keep his name away from a potential clusterfuck like this. Park was giving him that choice. Offering to take care of him. Which was exactly why he couldn’t take it.

  “I got this,” Cooper said. He turned away so he didn’t have to see Park’s expression of doubt.

  Chapter Two

  After some persuasion, Brian Fasser did perhaps the only decent thing he could for his boyfriend and confessed. Not that he had a lot of choice in the matter. Once Cooper and Park knew where to look, the evidence fell into place to irrevocably prove Fasser had murdered his business partner and was planning to run with one hundred percent of the profit and leave the entire mess in Simpson’s lap. They didn’t grow enough apology flowers in the world to fix that. But at least he admitted Simpson had nothing to do with it. Donny was just a perfect patsy who loved Fasser and who Fasser didn’t love back.

  Even when Cooper and Park had tied up the last details of the case and could finally drive out of Ann Arbor, Simpson had still been hanging around the station hoping to talk to Fasser, hoping something would change. Hoping the past itself would change.

  People fell out of love in phases, even when it should be the most obvious one-and-done sort of deal. Even when you were betrayed and realized the person you thought you cared for had never really existed to begin with. Not really. One moment you could hate them so much it made you sick, and the next moment your brain could totally forget it was even angry and just plain miss the person you used to know. Or thought you knew, anyway.

  Cooper was familiar with that well enough himself. Both with romantic relationships and platonic ones like Jef—

  He shook his head, rejecting the painful thought. The point was, he’d been there. So when the bureau had wanted to book Simpson for assaulting an agent, Cooper managed to get the charges dropped, despite Park’s disapproving frown. He couldn’t help it. He felt bad for Simpson, he really did. He just hoped a relationship never made him look like that big a schnook. Again.

  Cooper glanced automatically at his partner in the passenger seat. Park had been quiet during the drive out of Michigan. Well, even quieter than usual. Preoccupied. An indistinct tension had hovered between them ever since the flower shop, and it hadn’t been helped by the pair of BSI agents that arrived at the end of the day to oversee the transport of Fasser. Cooper didn’t recognize them, but that didn’t mean much. Now that every BSI agent was paired with a Trust agent, Cooper ran across more new faces every case and recognized the names of less than half. That didn’t mean they didn’t recognize him.

  “Just couldn’t resist roughing him up, huh?” said the human BSI agent, Mackinnon, as his Trust—wolf—partner, Wylie, loaded Fasser into the back of their van to take to the closest BSI specialized holding facility. “Electrocuting his dick wasn’t enough—you had to cave his face in, too?”

  Park moved forward, but Cooper shook his head tightly. “Don’t.” He hated Park feeling like he had to protect him. From his own colleagues, no less.

  Besides, everything they said, he deserved.

  The initiation of the new program pairing Trust and BSI agents was going well. Cases were being solved faster, relations with the wolf community were slowly, very slowly, getting better, and improved training was making sure the guilty went where they were supposed to and the innocent didn’t get swept up in the investigation. For the most part.

  It certainly wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t the disorganized, problematic, unchecked system of a few months ago that had allowed corruption and a serial killer to pass within their ranks. Baby steps. And surprisingly, most of the newly paired agents were getting along.

  Just not with Cooper.

  Either they didn’t believe he hadn’t been involved with his ex-partner’s crimes or they thought he should be punished for not figuring it out sooner. Cooper didn’t blame them. He just wondered if Park felt the same way.

  Cooper had pushed to leave Michigan as soon as they’d handed over Fasser, even though there was no way they’d get all the way back to DC tonight. They’d have to find another motel to stop halfway. But with Mackinnon’s words burning in his mind and Park’s loaded looks practically screaming unspoken questions and concern, he was just too antsy to hang around town. Now, however, trapped in a car and starting to feel the aches and pains of his tussle with Fasser, he wished he hadn’t.

  He glanced at Park again, sitting up against the passenger-side door, cheek pressed to the window, one long leg pulled up on the seat. It looked uncomfortable as hell, but Park seemed not to care, lost in thought. His tongue played with the small scar that bisected his upper lip, and his eyes were dilated, whiskey-gold, nearly obliterating the white. They stood out in the dark, lighter than his hair and skin, especially when they caught the reflection of passing headlights and would flash that peculiar and inhuman, flat, greenish-white. Even like this, quiet and contemplative, he looked...wild. Dangerous.

  A passing car blared its horn, and Cooper jerked his attention back to the road, swerving away from the lane he’d started to drift into.

  “Shit.” He rubbed at his eyes quickly, his pulse racing for a different reason than it had been a second ago. “Sorry.” The word sounded weird between them. How long had they been sitting in silence?

  “Are you tired?”

>   Cooper hesitated. “Yeah, a bit.” Better somehow for his pride to admit fatigue than that he had gotten distracted staring at Park.

  “There’s a motel right off the next exit,” Park said, checking his phone. “I wouldn’t mind an early night.”

  Cooper raised his eyebrows without looking away from the road. “Are you trying to seduce me, Mrs. Robinson?”

  Park laughed, a light, warm chuckle. “Would I do something like that?”

  “I don’t know, would you?” He waited, then added, “Please?”

  Cooper only caught the low growl because he was listening for it. It was one of his favorite noises recently and only slipped out when Park lost his careful control.

  Unable to resist, Cooper reached for him and Park’s hand met his halfway, fingers nudging in between his, always so eager for physical touch. Cooper brought their clasped hands to his mouth, kissed Park’s knuckles, and heard him sigh happily. That sound was pretty far up on his list, too.

  “Hey, who’s seducing who here?” Park said, voice a little rough.

  “Right.” Cooper dropped Park’s hand, which fell into his lap, and gripped the wheel instead. “Do your worst.”

  Park started to rub a slow circle into Cooper’s thigh.

  “Okay, maybe not your worst. I’d rather not get pulled over, thanks.”

  Park huffed and walked his fingers up Cooper’s arm teasingly instead. Cooper bit down on his lip when they passed over the spot where Simpson’s claws had dug in, but it was useless trying to hide anything from Park and his wolf hearing. This was the same man who had once come running across the apartment because he heard Cooper inhale sharply while checking the basketball scores and thought something was seriously wrong.