Following the direction of her pointing hand, I felt my brain short circuit as I caught sight of Hank straightening from a crouch, the last of the wolf’s fur drifting from his skin before being carried away on the breeze. Moonlight gilded the edges of his body, highlighting the angles of his hips and the curve of his ass. The last tremors of the change made the corded muscles of his thighs dance beneath the bronze silk of his skin.
Looking away from him, I dropped down to my haunches and opened the bag while doing my best to ignore Juliet’s retreating chuckle. Under the guise of pulling out my clothes, I watched Hank through the curtain of my hair. It had only been a few days since Holbrook had left for his super-secret assignment, but having grown accustomed to his frequent intimate touches over past the few months, my body ached to feel him. Although the wolf was adamant about her lack of attraction for the pack master, there was no denying the way my pulse quickened when he bent to retrieve his shorts from the bag Juliet had tossed at his feet.
Unabashedly, I watched the muscles flex in his back and thighs as he snugged his shorts up over his hips, and thought I might pass out from the sudden lack of blood in my brain when a bronzed hand slid down to adjust himself.
Hot damn!
“You okay over there?” Juliet called in a teasing voice that brought five pairs of eyes swinging around to pin me in place with a mixture of concern and curiosity.
“I’m fine,” I croaked, clamping down on the desire to throw a one-fingered salute at the smirking blonde.
Running a trembling hand through my hair, I let out a slow breath as one by one the others turned their attention back to sorting out their own clothes, until Hank was the only one watching me, a knowing smile curving his lips.
Busted.
“Damn werewolves,” I muttered under my breath, my gaze sliding away from the smirking pack master even as the heat in my cheeks ratcheted up a notch or two.
Spurred on by my embarrassment, I kept my back to the group as I dressed in record time, not daring to look up until I’d tugged on my shoes and pulled my hair up into a loose bun.
“Anyone up for breakfast?” Juliet asked with a wide smile that encompassed the group as she rocked back and forth on her heels.
Where the hell does she get all this energy from?
I wondered, feeling tired just watching her bounce from one foot to the other.
Hesitating, I was glad when I wasn’t alone in having to stifle a yawn and rub my eyes.
“We’ll have to pass,” Gayle said with an apologetic smile. “This one’s got school in the morning,” she added, hooking a thumb over her shoulder at Brandon who looked like he was seconds away from falling asleep on his feet.
“Yeah, I need to bail too, I’ve got the early shift at work,” Sam said, pausing long enough to give the petite were a goodbye hug before waving farewell to the group and loping off towards her car.
The revving of Sam’s engine almost drowned out Gayle’s words when she said, “It was nice meeting you, Riley. I hope we’ll see you again soon.”
Unsure if, or when, I’d ever run with Hank and his wolves again, all I could do was smile noncommittally and try not to squeak in surprise when the older woman wrapped me in a warm embrace. Releasing me, she hugged Juliet and Hank in turn, thanking them for a good hunt, and then intertwining her fingers with Derek’s, herded their sleepy son along to their car.
“I guess that just leaves you, Riley. What do you think?” Juliet asked, her voice hopeful.
Wiping the moisture from my eyes brought on by several jaw-wrenching yawns I shook my head. “I need to get home, sorry. If I don’t start spending more time at home, Loki will change the locks.”
I could tell from their matching expressions of bewilderment that they were both still flummoxed by the fact that I had a pet, but they made no comments about my peculiar situation. Instead, Juliet nodded her understanding, and said, “No problem. Maybe next time.”
Hank looped an arm around his sister’s shoulder and pulled her in close for a hug. “Not everyone has your boundless energy, sis. We’ll stop for waffles on the way home.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
SITTING AT MY table, bathed in the burgeoning mid-morning light slanting through the kitchen window, I raked my fingers through my hair.
“Who am I kidding? I’m no detective,” I said aloud, desperate for some noise to break the quiet.
I was accustomed to silence, had spent the last several years thriving on it, but now it was cold and unwelcoming. Had letting Holbrook and Alyssa into my life done this? Had they so transformed me that I craved the company of others? Or was it my time with Hank and Juliet? Did the wolf long to be a part of their world, their pack?
The questions circling in my mind, clamoring for attention, lit a spark of pain behind my eyes that I knew if left unattended would quickly bloom into a raging headache. With a grumble, I rose from the table to fetch a couple aspirin from the bathroom, and returned to the kitchen to find Loki sprawled out on the table. It was the second time he’d hopped up there in the past few days. While I normally would have shooed him away and scolded him for being somewhere he knew he wasn’t allowed, I felt a stab of guilt at how much time I had been spending away from home. Between frequent nights spent at Holbrook’s house and my near constant running back and forth to Denver while working on Cordova’s assignment, I’d had little time to spare for my furry companion.
Washing down the aspirin with a glass of water, I settled at the table, and rather than shoving Loki off, grabbed him by the thick ruff at the back of his neck to pull him close enough to press my forehead against his. I remained with my face pressed to his, cherishing the silken feel of his fur, for several moments, content to just listen to the low rumble of his purr.
When a stray hair tickled my nose, I drew back, wiggling my nose in an attempt to fend off the need to sneeze. Slumping back in my chair, I absently jiggled my fingers under his chin to scratch his sweet spot.
“How are you doing, buddy?” I asked, checking in with my old friend. “I know I haven’t been around much the past few days, and I’m sorry. I promise that when this mess with the vamps is over we’ll have a
Firefly
marathon, and I’ll let you have an entire can of tuna. Does that sound good?”
Trilling in reply, Loki pawed at my hand where it had stilled on the table top, demanding that I resume petting him.
At least he’s easy to figure out,
I thought with a smile as he leaned into my touch, extending the reach of my fingers.
If only everything was so simple.
I allowed Loki several minutes of luxuriating in my ministrations before I ushered him down into my lap. I continued stroking the silken fur behind his ears while turning my attention back to the files and their jumbled contents spread across the table top.
“What do you think, Loki?” I asked my purring friend, staring down at the photos of Kensington’s crime scene. I had no idea how Chrismer had gotten her mitts on them and was pretty sure that I didn’t want to know. Still, I was grateful that I had them since all physical evidence of the attack was long gone, sealed away in little plastic baggies in police custody.
Unlike a mundane crime scene, the fact that the victim was a vamp would have meant there was a sense of urgency in getting Kensington’s body packed up and shipped off to the morgue before the sun rose. The first rays of sunlight would have incinerated him, and any evidence on his body, which left me with a short stack of pictures to look through. I’d avoided looking at them for the past few days, initially because I was tired of seeing the brutality one man can inflict upon another, and then, after meeting Whitlow, because it felt like an intrusion to witness the death of her husband.
“Stop being a chicken shit,” I scolded myself, and then turned over the stack of images.
The first few pictures were wide angle shots that encompassed the entire scene, showing Kensington sprawled on his back in a pool of dark blood. The smiling face I had glimpsed in the pictures atop Whitlow’s fireplace was drawn and hollow-cheeked, presumably from the blood loss that had also caused his lips to wither, revealing elongated, yellowed fangs. His pale skin was even lighter than usual, looking almost as white as a sheet of paper and just as thin. I had no love for vamps, but I found myself thinking that no one deserved to die in such a way.
An unexpected surge of emotion tightened my throat when I came to a close-up shot of Kensington’s hand splayed on the pavement, appearing to be reaching for the shattered bottle of maple syrup he had stopped to purchase for Whitlow.
“Well, you can bet
she’s
never going to eat waffles again,” I mused aloud, ignoring the way my vision turned a little watery before I flipped to the next picture.
Like both of the other victims, Kensington had been killed with one of the few surefire ways to permanently kill a vamp—a rowan stake through the heart. Just as silver was potentially lethal to weres and cold iron was rumored to have a similar effect on fae, rowan wood was said to be fatal to vamps when crafted into a stake and driven through the heart.
Then again, I’d like to see anyone who could survive being stabbed in the heart with a wooden stake. Or not.
Shuddering at the thought of how tough a creature would have to be to survive something like that.
Flipping over the last picture, I sighed and slumped back in my chair. They hadn’t been able to tell me anything more than what I already knew—Kensington had been ambushed in the parking lot of Blossom Market just after 5am on his way home from a 24-hour shift at work. His car was found untouched where he’d parked it, so it hadn’t been a carjacking gone wrong, and, judging from the cash and credit cards in his wallet, it hadn’t been a robbery either.
Deciding that I wasn’t likely to find anything in the pictures from the crime scene that the police hadn’t already discovered, I shuffled them into a neat stack and slid them face down across the table. I’m generally not squeamish, but that didn’t mean I enjoyed having the evidence of another’s suffering staring up at me.
“Then again, what do the cops care about a few dead vamps?” I muttered under my breath.
According to Chrismer’s notes, not a whole hell of a lot.
They’d questioned the staff about Kensington and the goings on that night, but from what I could gather had done just enough that no one could accuse them of misconduct. It was obvious that it wasn’t receiving the same degree of attention a mundane murder would. After all, vamps were already dead, right?
“I guess I’m gonna have to go talk to these folks myself,” I said, looking down at Loki where he lay half asleep in my lap. At my words, his eyes opened just wide enough to reveal a sliver of violet, and I could feel the resentment oozing out of him. The claws that flexed into my thighs drove the sentiment home.
“I’ll bring you back a pizza, okay?” I asked, hoping to soften the blow of my absence with the promise of pepperoni and melted cheese.
Swishing his tail in a sign of annoyance, Loki slid down from my lap and stalked into the living room to curl up on the large cushion in front of the fireplace, making sure to turn his back towards me. Raking my fingers through my hair, I grit my teeth against the sigh building in my chest and distracted myself from my guilt by straightening the papers on the table.
* * *
Located at a central point between Blood Alley, New Lórien, and Wolf Hill, Blossom Market was sort of a supernatural neutral territory. You could find anything from refrigerated blood to fae delicacies such as spice stuffed
chimurri
flowers, as well as more mundane items like artisan soaps and gluten-free brownies. Touting a business model based on locally-sourced and organic products, several of them had popped up throughout town in the last couple years and developed an almost cult-like following. With the closest one to my cabin over forty miles away in Breckenridge, I’d stuck to the local market in Leadville. Besides, I’d survived this long without organically grown kale and seaweed chips.
I received several identical looks of scorn from the soccer moms loading groceries into their eco-friendly, hybrid minivans as I maneuvered my gas-guzzling SUV into a parking spot near the front door. Approaching the first employee I saw, a gangly limbed young man wearing the trademark green apron, I waited for him to finish telling a customer about the humanely raised, free-range chickens they used to make their sausages.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” he asked once the hipster had wandered off in search of tofu chips, or some other equally unappealing, cardboard-flavored snack.
“I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.”
“Sure, no problem,” the clerk beamed. “What can I help you with? We’ve got a fresh supply of turkey burgers available in the deli, and I think Richelle just put out some samples of our garlic hummus.”
“As... delicious... as that all sounds, I’m actually here about the ah... attack... that happened a few weeks ago.”
His face paled at my words, and his voice quavered when he said, “The store manager has said we’re not allowed to talk to the press.”
“Oh! I’m not a reporter,” I rushed to reassure him. “I’m a...”