by Rae Foxx
What? No!
That thought was strictly forbidden. I mean, the guy was sexy hot in a rugged danger kind of way, but he was also freaky beyond belief in that rugged danger kind of way.
I was the one that got the idea in Travis' head that the wolf was responsible for this, I was the one that could get him out.
Checking the street both ways, I sprinted across, my shadow from the overly bright moon stretching ominously away from me. I looked like a long-torso monster with tiny t-rex arms. Biting my laugh, I tucked into the shadow of the orange and green overhang that was imprinted with "Sip In Cummings". The shop looked much more inviting without a terrified rabbit darting behind the counter and squeaking his way into the back room. In fact, if it wasn't for the orange, it might look quite nice.
It wasn't the orange that I was glaring at. Or even the same building. I was now facing the butcher’s shop, disappointed.
The glass pane door, the one we had busted through in our fight and the one I had expected to use as my sure-fire in and out entry had been repaired.
"Damn. Bitch is fast," I muttered under my breath. I was trying not to giggle louder at the font choice, or the fact that the logo included a busty woman swallowing a sausage whole.
"There is no way that's an accident." Yep, they are totally doing this on purpose.
So much for following my aunt’s dreams about breaking glass and wolves. Guess she wasn’t as prophetic as she thought.
Checking the street again, I skittered around the side of Sip In Cummings and darted into the alleyway behind the two businesses. It was the alley that I had already had far too many interludes in. Exploding dumpsters... wandering hands.
'Focus, Scarlet.' I swallowed, exhaled, and sprinted forward, dodging the ash and looking away from the spot of brick where...
'Focus, bitch!'
The back doors to the two shops couldn't have been more different. Eddie's was clean and painted in orange and green candy stripes. Even the walls around the door had been scrubbed clean, well up until it hit a straight line halfway through the ten feet of stone that separated the two businesses. Must be the property line.
Kent’s... I mean, Becky's, was filthy. It was aged and splashed with blood in varying shades. Judging by the muck, I would guess that the door hadn't been cleaned in months.
"Remind me never to buy meat from you," I gasped, looking at the lock as if I could teach myself to pick it in minutes. Yeah, that wasn't going to happen, even if I had a hair pin. I looked around, just on the off chance one was lying around.
No hair pins, but there was a rock. Quite a few rocks.
I could smash the lock to hell, although the last thing I needed was to set off an alarm. If that happened Phoquin would for sure be called, and then he would have to arrest me for breaking and entering. Which would mean handcuffs and leading me into the back of his truck.
Handcuffs, now that would be something fun to try.
A blush heated my cheeks. What was it about late-night espionage that made me so horny?
That and I missed him. Maybe I could get out of here and convince him to lock me up.
Maybe I would just force his hand and break and enter.
I picked up the rock and raised it above my head, intending to couple the smashing of the door with an amazon scream. No, wait, I was trying not to get caught.
Or was I?
“Not really the way to do it, little one,” a deep rumble of a warning trickled down my spine as an overheated hand wrapped around my wrist, pulling my arm back uncomfortably. With a shudder, I dropped the rock, trying to turn to face the wolf who had captured me, but with the twist in my shoulder, I wasn't going anywhere.
“Of course, it's you," I grumbled, trying to pry my wrist from his hold, but he only gripped harder, pulling my hand closer to my waist and arching my back.
"Were you expecting someone else to be prowling through the alleys this late at night?" His gruff whisper was seductive gravel as he leaned forward, his warm cheek millimeters from mine as he whispered in my ear. I twisted, trying to see him, to look him in the eyes, but he pulled my arm down more, my back twisting as I stared into the sky. "If I didn't know any better, I would say you were looking for me."
"Yes, because that's why I am trying to break into this door." I snapped, letting my body relax a bit. Thankfully he didn't pull me back anymore. "Let me go."
I heaved again, finally pulling away from him as he let me go and I stumbled into the vile door I had been about to bust open with a rock. A hollow clang rang over the stone, and it was a good thing no one was awake to hear that, or we would have been caught.
“And why are you trying to break into this door?" He looked at the door and then back to me, his gaze dragging over my body as a low grumble sounded in his chest. I had elected not to shift for this very reason, but one intense stare from him and my bones were threatening to melt into jelly.
Figures. He was the one that was naked, and I was the one that was melting into goo. Not that his long, lean muscle and equally impressive length was helping. I swallowed and forced myself to look away, the wolf smirking. I was clearly caught.
"I'm finding clues." I jutted out my chin, voice heavy as I tried to rise up to my full height. I only came to his pecks. To his nipples. He must have been a few inches over six feet.
“Finding clues? All alone, in the middle of the night?" I couldn't figure out if he was concerned or aroused. Or maybe that last one was just me.
"Don’t you know there’s a killer on the loose?” He gave a low chuckle at his own joke.
“Yes, I know," I said, giving him an exaggerated roll of my eyes. "That's why I'm finding clues. Now if you could just give me back my rock..."
"I don't think so," he stepped back, bouncing the rock in the palm of his hands. "Breaking into a crime scene with a rock? Well, that’s not going to help anyone. In fact, it might look like I tried to do it."
I narrowed my eyes, grinding my teeth together as I faced him. No, I'm trying to clear your name. The words were on my tongue, but I bit them away chewing on my tongue in the process.
"You’re getting me into more trouble, sexy fox.”
“No, there’s a book in there that I need. It should have the name of the murderer in there." I held out my hands, expecting him to just plop the rock back into it. Instead, he just threw it over his shoulder, leaning into me as he placed his hand on the wall beside my head.
Well, this was familiar. Focusing on the task at hand was becoming difficult.
"Who would just write the name of a murderer in a book?" He laughed and my muscles in my back tightened. He had a point; only stupid people would do that.
"I also need to find some more of that slime."
"Well, you're just a one-woman Sherlock, aren't you?" He ran his teeth over his bottom lip and I almost whimpered. His blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail at the nape of his neck tonight, making that eyepatch seem even more prominent. The bright blue of his visible eye cut through me, narrowing as he studied me.
With a low growl that came more from his chest, he pushed away from the wall, strutting over to the mangled dumpster that was streaked with grime. With a bit more of a flourish than I would have expected from him, he darted his hand under the hinge and whipped out two silver keys on a hoop.
His eye never left mine as he strutted his way back and popped the door open with a turn of a key and then waved me inside.
My jaw flapped open like a dead fish, I really needed to find a way to control my shock.
“I swiped it from the bear bitch on her way home one day," he said, a smile tugging on the corner of his mouth, pulling at his scars. "After you, milady…”
He held his arm out, head bowed a bit as he waited for me to pass. An eyepatch and yet, somehow a gentleman.
I gave him a grin before I stepped past him, trying not to inhale too obviously as I passed him and stepped into the dark interior of the butchers. I’d assumed the back door would open to the free
zer, but I was wrong. Inside the door was a small, but messy office. Papers were strewn all around and the place smelled musty and damp.
Like death.
Like bodies on hooks.
"Wait!" I yelled, turning to stop him. I needed to stop the door and run away, but he only smiled as the door slammed shut and the room went dark.
27
"Why? Are you scared of the dark?" I didn't know what it was about his voice, but it was frightening in the dark. The low tones rumbled and sent a wave of cold around me. Cold that dripped in the dark and rattled with the rumbling of his voice.
"I'm a fox, I can see in the dark." His chuckle was just as ominous, the sound sparking through my gut in warning as I turned, blinking my fox eyes forward so that I could see him. My mind was already painting images of the scraggly man swinging a machete my way.
He hadn't moved from the door. He leaned against the wall beside it, legs crossed as he watched me with yellow eyes, picking something out from his teeth.
"Then why do you sound so scared?" he taunted, pushing off from the wall to stalk his way over to me, the world coming more into focus with each step. "Why are you shaking, little fox?"
He was less than a foot away, his hand a flutter as it ran down the side of my face, pushing my hair aside.
"I'm locked in a dark room with a—"
"Murderer?" He asked, the eyebrow above his eyepatch quirking up as he leaned closer. My back stiffened. Yes, that's exactly why I was afraid, why I was shaking. I think anyone would if they were trapped in the place, they had found a dead body recently. At least I wasn't having panic attacks and screaming at poor shopkeepers.
I was suddenly regretting my choice to come here at all.
"Are you sure that doesn't thrill you, to be locked away with me?"
"You're not a murderer," I said, fighting to keep my voice strong as I pushed his hand to the side, stepping toward the messy desk and away from him.
"So, it does thrill you." He followed after me, leaning his naked body against the desktop I was sifting through, looking as sexy as an underwear model. If the model had an eye patch and no underwear.
It did thrill me, but I wasn't going to answer him. I just kept shifting through papers in search of the little black book. Or better yet, a sheet emblazoned with the words 'THE MURDERER IS:'.
Hey, a girl can hope.
"I'll take that as a yes," he grinned, making a motion like winking, although with only one visible eye I had no way of knowing for sure.
Eye still on me, the wolf strutted around the desk, ready to pull the drawers open in his own search.
“Wait!” I shouted, leaning over the table and grabbing his hand to stop him. “What if one of those drawers is a trap or a trigger for an alarm or something?”
He chuckled with the same rumble in his throat, his hand frozen underneath mine. "You were going to bash the door open with a rock and now you are worried about setting off some trap in a drawer?”
“Yeah, I mean," I pulled my hand away, realizing that he wasn't going to move. "I’ve seen it in the movies. There’s like acid that poofs out from drawers and burns your face off. " He blinked at me in utter confusion, but I continued on, unable to stop myself. "Or sometimes there’s a bug in places that crawl under your skin and then dig their way to your heart where they eat you from the inside out.”
"A bug that spits acid in your face?" Wolf-man asked, he was clearly trying to restrain a laugh, which for some asinine reason fueled me on more.
"Yes." Why was I being so stubborn about something that clearly wasn't real? God, I couldn't help myself. "But not you. You would only have to worry about the acid getting into one eye because of that eyepatch."
"Saved by the eye patch I guess." He stood up, folding his arms as one side of his mouth pulled up.
"I guess. What’s the deal with that anyway? I mean, how come you can shift and keep the eyepatch and that weird leather cuff on, but you walk around naked the rest of the time? When I shift, my clothes get ripped up by my claws and—"
“Maybe I’m missing an eye," he snapped, interrupting me. Unwinding his hands to lean over the table toward me, a low snarl began radiating from him. "Isn’t that the normal reason for an eyepatch?”
I scrunched up my nose at the thin explanation. “But shifters heal really fast.”
He shook his head and leaned closer, his eyes sparking with that bright yellow light again. “There are some things that you can't heal from Scarlet.”
I should be more concerned about injuries that were so severe that you couldn’t heal from them, and also required an eyepatch, but no. He had said my name, and hearing my name come from his mouth was like foreplay to me.
"Is that why you have a cuff? Chunk taken out... Or maybe..." God, someone shut me up, my mind was taking me places I didn't want to be.
"Maybe what...?" He repeated, still staring at me.
"And I need to find that book. Little black book, about this big." I indicated the size of the book before I dove back down to the desk and shifted through the papers, biting the side of my mouth to keep from talking again.
"What about the drawer-spitting-acid monster?" The wolf asked, he wasn't even trying to hide that damn laugh, which was of course just as fucking sexy as the rest of him.
Fucking hell.
"Just look." I shuffled through papers with far too much zeal, Wolf-man slowly sliding open one drawer after another. It was just the two of us, shuffling through the dark.
"Is this what you are looking for?" Wolf-man asked, pulling out the black book from one of the drawers and waving it at me like he’d won a prize. Fuck. He had what I needed.
He put it on the desk as he dared me to reach for it. "I take that it's a yes?"
"Yes," I reached for it, but he pulled it away. "Thank you—" I began, but quickly got distracted. "Hey, I don’t even know your name. I’ve been calling you Wolf in my head.”
“You’ve been thinking about me…” His non-eyepatch eye twitched as he dropped the book back onto the table, smothering it with his palm. I couldn't reach it if I tried.
Shit, he hadn't said it like it was a question. He was certain, and with that crinkle around his lips, he clearly enjoyed the fact, just like I was enjoying that crinkle around his lips.
Damn it, I shouldn't be thinking like this. I needed that book.
“Yes, because, if you haven't noticed I am trying to solve a murder, which you may or may not—"
“My name is Wulf.” His eyes were kind, the yellow not quite so volatile, his face soft as he leaned forward and watched for my reaction.
He was so exposed, so gentle, and even though knowing his name was creating a balloon of warmth and joy in me, there was something else that I couldn't ignore.
“Wait, your actual name is Wulf and you’re a wolf?”
“Yes.” The softness in his voice was gone, the angry yellow making a comeback. "Is there something wrong with that?"
"No. Just unexpected." I gave him a smile and pushed away from the desk, turning toward the other doors in the office. One of them would have to face a brick wall with its position in the room, meaning that we had two to choose from. "If I was green slime, where would I hide? Behind door number one, or door number two?"
"I vote left," Wulf pointed toward door number one, the door that smelled a bit more like blood and ice. The door that I already knew what was hiding.
I took a step forward and then froze, hand reaching to the frozen handle, fingers extended.
I was as frozen as the handle.
As frozen as the carcasses that were hung just on the other side of the door.
The carcass of the man I had found.
"What? Do I need to put a quarter in or something?" Wulf laughed behind me; his hand soft as he moved the long strands of my red hair aside.
I knew he was being gentle, funny even as he looked for a place to put the quarter. I jumped as though he was preparing to slice my head off.
"Back off,
you bastard!" I spun, palm wide and flat as I went into attack mode and prepared to fight the would-be murderer who wasn't a murderer at all.
"Woah!" Wulf grabbed my hand and yanked me down, his foot sliding forward as he pulled me in and took me to the ground. Hand behind my back, face shoved into the ground and the wolf's naked ass pressing into my back, I was trapped.
"What. The. Hell?" Wulf pulled my arm back and I yelped, the tiny whimper burning my throat as I tried to fight him. I wasn't going anywhere.
"Bodies. So many bodies!" I yelled into the floor a bit louder than I should seeing as we had broken into this place and pulled my hand away from Wulf’s.
“Bodies?" He was full-on laughing at me now, sitting back and allowing me to move away, rubbing the wrist and shoulder that he had mauled in his attack. With a glance between me and the door, he caught on. "Scarlet, for fuck’s sake, you are a fox. Stop being such a baby. It’s just a freezer full of meat!”
Motherfucker didn’t know what he was talking about. That wasn’t just a freezer to me. It was a crypt. It was a coffin; a replay of my fucking nightmares.
“That’s…” I stuttered, my teeth chattering as though I had been locked in the freezer and not outside of it. “That’s where I found him, hanging… Kent. I followed that fucking green slime and there he was, his eyes already bugging out. God, those fucking eyes. I can still smell his blood in there.”
I was no longer looking at Wulf, I was looking at the door. Looking through the door to all of the horrors that I was sure were still just behind the sheet of metal.
“I didn’t realize.” He leaned forward onto his hands and knees, prowling towards me as though he had forgotten he was in his animal form. "It was like that for me, the first time I saw a body strung up."
He sat back again, folding his legs underneath him as I sat up a bit straighter.
"It was when I was about eight," he continued, his eyes still boring into mine even though I could see him fading away. "My father killed a moose. He hung it and had me help him strip the fur and gut the damned thing. Except when I began to cut the intestines out with my dad’s knife... Well, it turned out the moose wasn’t all the way dead. He was still alive when my father skinned him. He began to fight back. Kicked the shit out of me and knocked me to the ground.” He shook his head like he was trying to make it go away. But our memories weren’t Etch-a-Sketches. You couldn't just shake it and make everything disappear.