by Grey, Aspen
“Do your feet still sting?” I asked. He shook his head.
“That’s good,” I replied. “Take them out now and we’ll wrap them up and get to bed.”
“Wrap up my feet? I’m going to look ridiculous!”
“To who?” I laughed, helping him step out of the tub onto a towel I’d already laid out on the floor. “There’s no one here but us two.”
Arnold was out. He’d left to head to the precinct to continue his work on finding the killer, leaving Sasha and me home to rest and recuperate. Working on barely any sleep. He was dedicated. I’d told him to take a day off but he’d refused.
“No. There are other boys like you out there on those streets. And they’re in danger.”
“Well, be careful,” I’d told him. “And come back to us.”
“Where else would I go?” he’d replied with a smile, kissing both of us on the head before he went out the door. I’d stood on my tippy-toes and watched through the small window as he got into his car and pulled away.
Please don’t let anything go wrong, I’d thought.
The killer was an alpha, but so was Arnold. Oh, was he an alpha! My rational mind told me that he would have no trouble taking the horrible predator, but my emotions were all over the place.
Get used to it, I thought. He’s a detective. It’s his job.
“You gonna carry me into the bedroom too?” Sasha joked, breaking me out of my thoughts. I frowned and reached for the Ace bandages, sat on the edge of the tub and began wrapping his feet. “I feel bad making you do this.”
“You aren’t making me, goofball,” I replied. “I want to do it. Isn’t this how our relationship has always been? I look out for you.”
“And then I get you into all kinds of trouble…” He sounded like he was about to get upset, so I squeezed his knee, causing him to jump, and looked up at him.
“You keep me cool,” I told him. “You’re my balance. We’re like Yin and Yang, Sasha. You know that. We’d both be lost without each other.”
Sasha’s eyes softened and he sat down beside me and nuzzled against my neck.
“And Arnold?”
“Arnold’s our rock,” I replied. “And our rock hard…”
“Oh, he is that!” Sasha giggled. “I mean—did you see that thing?”
“Biggest I’ve ever seen,” I replied.
“You can say that again!”
“Can you imagine walking around with that between your legs?” I chuckled.
“I bet if he gets a quarter chub, he splits his pants!”
Sasha burst out laughing and placed his hands over his mouth before leaning down against my chest. I smiled and wrapped my arm around him and held him tight, inhaling his scent and feeling the comfort it brought to me.
It was strange that somehow bringing a third person into our lives had made us realize our feelings for each other. What would have happened if we’d never met Arnold? Where would we be?
Thank you, Arnold. Thank you.
Chapter Twenty
Arnold
“Another street boy dead, Irons! Down by North Park!” Chief Marques grumbled as I stepped into his office, which still, despite it being 2019, stank of cigarette smoke. I often wondered if he’d seen the research. “The fuck you been anyway? I expected you here ten hours ago!”
“Looking after…the witnesses,” I told him.
“The working boys?” he asked. “Why aren’t they in here too?”
“I spoke with them, boss,” I replied. “Took their statements. I’ve got it all.”
“All right,” he grumbled, heaving himself back in the enormous wooden chair he used at his desk. Where he’d found that thing was anybody’s guess, but it looked like it had been thrifted about six times before he picked it up, and it squeaked like a bastard every time he moved in it. “So, let’s hear it.”
“Well, I got an eye on him too, boss,” I told him. “And he’s an alpha. A real crazy son of a bitch.”
Chief Marques was the only other shifter in the department. Together, we handled any cases of the shifter world and the human world colliding, which was why I’d been assigned to this case in the first place.
“This isn’t good, Irons,” he said, shaking his head and reaching for his cigarettes.
“Sir,” I said, raising my hand. “Do you mind?”
He cocked his head sideways and tapped a finger on the nameplate on his desk. “What’s this say, Irons?”
I frowned and looked away.
“Irons?”
“It says Chief Mar—”
“Chief Marques,” he announced, plucking a smoke from the pack and slipping it between his lips. “And in my office, I will smoke whenever the fuck I please.”
“Very good, boss,” I replied, reclining slightly in my uncomfortable chair and folding my arms across my chest. “Anyways…”
“Anyways, what’s the plan here? I’ve got reports coming in left and right about coyote attacks or some shit—these fucking humans, I’ll tell ya—and more dead working boys showing up every week. You got any leads on this son of a bitch?”
“I’ve got his scent,” I told him. His eyes lit up. “So, I’m going tracking today. See what I can pick up.”
“Well, you make sure you get it done, Irons,” the chief told me as he puffed smoke from his lips. “I want this bastard off my streets!”
“That makes two of us,” I told him as I got to my feet. I turned towards the door, but before I could grab the handle, he called after me.
“Irons!”
I turned to face him. “Yeah, Chief?”
“There’s something different about you…” he mused, taking another drag. “What is it?”
Shit, he’s on to me.
“I dunno, Chief,” I shrugged. “New moisturizer probably.”
“Nah, that’s not it,” he replied, getting up and stalking around the desk towards me. He puffed away, and I fought back the urge to cough as he got closer.
Shit.
The chief was no dummy—that’s why he was chief, and I felt like a tiny organism under the lens of a microscope as his eyes worked me up and down. He leaned in and sniffed me, and when I saw his eyes go wide, I knew he had figured it out.
“Well, fuck my ass and call me Charlie!” he blurted out with a laugh. “You’re fuckin’ ‘em! You’re fuckin’ my witnesses!”
“No, Chief, it’s not like that—”
“The Hell it ain’t!” he scoffed, shaking his head. “You trying to sabotage my investigation here, Irons? Because if that’s what you’re doing, just tell me and I’ll pull in another shifter detective from LA County!”
“That isn’t it, Chief!” I almost shouted. “They’re….they’re my fated mates.”
The chief’s face froze and his cigarette almost fell from his lips as he stared at me. His eyes were working overtime, running what I’d just said through his famous lie detector of a brain that had gotten him so far in his career. After a moment, a smile crept across his face and he took another drag.
“Shit, Irons,” he laughed. “You’re a wild bastard, you know that?”
I shrugged. “What can ya do, ya know? Can’t argue with fate.”
“Well, Hell,” he chortled, throwing his strong arms around my shoulders in a bro-hug. “I’m happy for you, you crazy cocksucker! Even if you are a sexually depraved heathen!”
“Thanks, Chief,” I replied, rolling my eyes as he released me. I opened the door to his office and stepped out.
“Go down to North Park and ask around!” he called after me. “Body’s been cleaned up, but canvas the area. See if any of those boys saw anything.”
“Gotcha, Chief.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Sasha
Jace and I sat cross-legged in Arnold’s big bed, both of us having grabbed a pair of his sweatpants and a t-shirt to wear. Of course, all of our clothes were still back at our place in Mission Beach, and without a car, getting there would be a long run that I was in no
shape, or mood, to make.
“We’ll have to get our things sometime soon,” I said, casually stroking Jace’s ankle. “Bring it over here.”
“You think Arnold’s going to let us move in that soon?” Jace replied. His question startled me. I hadn’t even thought about it being a possibility that he wouldn’t.
“We’re fated mates, Jace,” I told him. “Not hookup buddies. Not friends with benefits. Fated mates. Of course he’s going to want us living with him. He left us here while he went to work, didn’t he? ‘What’s mine is yours.’ That’s what he said.”
“He was talking about his dick, Sasha,” Jace said. I started to argue but saw the look in his eyes that told me he was joking. “You know me. Always the cautious one.”
“Still?” I asked, leaning forward and taking his hands. “You’re still cautious about Arnold?”
“No…not really,” he replied. “I guess I’m just cautious in general and it’s not an easy thing to shake. I don’t know if I ever will. It’s a bad habit.”
“It’s what kept us safe out there,” I told him, not wanting to let him get upset with himself. “It’s why we’re alive.”
“Yea, but you’re right,” he said. “I shouldn’t be like this with Arnold. He’s our fated mate. I know that, but I still always have this thing in the back of my mind saying we need to look out for ourselves.”
“It will go away in time,” I told him, stroking his cheek. “At least with Arnold.”
“I hope so.”
“It will,” I said firmly. “I know we don’t know everything about him yet, but I get the sense that he’s been through a lot too, just like us. I think he’s wounded too.”
“You got that feeling too?” Jace smiled. “So I’m not just crazy. I feel like we types can just sense that sort of thing in others.”
“It’s because we’re different,” I said. “At least that’s my theory. And I’m sticking with it!”
“It’s not a bad theory,” he smiled, flopping down on the bed beside me. “Gosh, these sweatpants are comfortable.”
I lay down beside him. “And they smell like him!”
“How’s your shoulder feeling, by the way?” Jace asked me.
“To be honest, I hadn’t even thought about it until just now!” I laughed. “But now that you mention it, it’s doing a lot better. Thank God we’re not human, right?”
“Thank God is right!” Jace laughed.
“And your ankle?”
“Oh, no big deal,” he said like the tough guy he was. “Won’t keep me off my feet. I’m surprised you didn’t tear your stitches with that run across town!”
“So am I,” I replied, realizing I hadn’t even thought about that while I was racing through the city. I’d been so focused on my emotional state that I’d completely neglected my physical one. But the stitches on my arm had held fast. I guess the ER had the world’s greatest doctor working or something.
“I’ve got a question, Sasha,” Jace asked. I looked over to him.
“Yes, babe?”
“Are you…feeling it?” he asked.
“It?”
“It,” he repeated, raising his eyebrows. “You know what I mean.”
I did. The heat.
Both of us had managed to suppress our heats while working on the streets. It was a simple result of being emotionally closed off like we were, not wanting to ever give the impression to any of the Johns that we were looking to mate.
On top of that, with the kind of alphas we sometimes ran into during the night, neither of us trusted going out in heat and running into some unsavory characters who didn’t understand the concept of consent.
Sure, I liked a guy to take me and be in control, but he had to know how to do it and know when I wanted it. I didn’t trust those sickos out there, but for the last hour or so, I’d been feeling something changing inside my body, and obviously Jace was feeling it too.
“Yes, I do,” I replied. “I feel it.”
It really was heat. I felt as though furnace, long dormant, had been ignited within me by a spark only Arnold knew. There was a yearning now, beyond just wanting to be dick down into oblivion, for something more, and we both knew what that was.
A child.
Our scents had led him to us, and his scent had driven us into his arms, and now our bodies were crying out for the bond to be solidified—permanent.
“It feels…weird,” Jace observed. “After pushing it down for so long.”
“I know, right?”
“I like it, but I don’t like it,” Jace said.
“Makes you feel a bit out of control?” I asked, knowing the answer. He nodded.
“Now that it’s started, I don’t think I can stop it.”
“Do you really want to?” I asked. “I mean—this is Arnold we’re talking about. Not that douchebag in the Lamborghini!”
“Can you imagine what our babies would be like?” he moaned. “Yours would have your cute, shaggy brown hair—”
“And yours could have a fauxhawk like you!”
“Oh, stop!” Jace squealed, poking me in the side. “You’re going to make me go crazy with baby fever! A little fauxhawk on a little baby boy? How cute!”
“Do you want boys?” I asked. “Or girls?”
“Boys,” he replied immediately.
“Why?” I laughed. “So you can play catch? Throw the ball around? Have some brewskies?”
“I don’t know,” Jace chuckled. “I guess I just know boys better. I feel like I wouldn’t know what to do with a girl.”
“Listen to us,” I said, shaking my head. “Not even pregnant and we’re speculating on sexes!”
“Hey, that’s half the fun, right?” Jace smiled.
“I just hope Arnold gets home soon,” I said, feeling the urge to be bred growing stronger and stronger. “Because I need that alpha seed.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Arnold
They’re safe. They’re home sleeping.
North Park by day and North Park by night were two very different beasts, and I didn’t expect to find much in the way of clues while the sun was up. On top of that, the working boys weren’t out yet, so as I wandered the streets on foot, I couldn’t help but think about Jace and Sasha back at the house.
My angels.
I’d seen them, I’d watched them, I’d protected them and now they were mine. All I had to do was finish up this case and take a long-deserved vacation with the both of them.
I’d felt the itch when I left the house, but now I understood just how undeniable it was.
The urge to breed.
I couldn’t stop picturing them both with my cubs inside them, stomachs swelling as the babies grew, their bodies changing and developing into the fathers they would become. My house would be filled with life, warmth and happiness, something I’d been searching for as long as I could remember. My children would have their fathers and they would never leave them.
I’d share everything with Sasha and Jace, including the reason I was a cop, something I hadn’t told them yet. I suspected that Jace knew there was something different, something off about me. There was something off about all of us. We’d each been hurt before and that was why life had brought us together now. At least, that’s what I believed.
I recognized Little Billy, a working boy who was usually up in Hillcrest at night, coming out of a coffee shop with a couple of lattes. He recognized me too and tried to hide his face as he passed.
“Little Billy,” I said as loudly as I could without yelling, stepping in his way as he came out onto the sidewalk.
“Oh…uh…hey, officer,” he replied uncomfortably.
“It’s detective, Billy. You know that.”
“Hi, Detective,” he replied. “What uh…what can I do for you?”
“Relax, Billy,” I told him. “I’m not here to shake you up or bust you. Just looking for some information.”
“Information?”
“On the killer,” I re
plied. “I know he’s been targeting the working boys and I know there was an attack last night. What can you tell me about it?”
Billy had a baby face and an innocent look about him, but he’d been around, working the streets for at least four years that I knew about. He’d been in and out of rehab and always swore he’d get clean, and from the looks of it, he was now, having replaced whatever he’d been using before with coffee. My gut told me it was only a matter of time before he was back on the stuff, but I hoped I was wrong.
“Listen, man. I don’t want any trouble.”
“Trouble’s what you’re gonna have if you don’t give me something,” I told him. “Because if I’m not out chasing down a lead, I’m gonna be on your ass all night, and not in the way you’d like it. I’ll make sure you don’t make a dime this evening—you or the other boys you roll with. So, if that’s what you want, by all means, keep your mouth shut. But if you want to actually do something to help get this crazy bastard off the streets, tell me something worth listening to and I’ll leave you alone.”
Little Billy sighed and looked around the street. Being seen with a cop wasn’t a good look for a working boy, and he knew that. He nodded towards the coffee shop.
“Inside.”
I followed him back inside and he led me to the back hall by the bathroom and handed me one of the lattes, making sure his back was to the main room of the shop so no one passing by could recognize him.
“Just don’t go tellin’ people I been talkin’ to you, all right?”
“Spill it, kid,” I replied.
Little Billy sighed and sipped his latte, grimacing at how hot it was. “The boy who went down last night—called him Juicy Jim—he was over behind that new bar they’re building by the old arcade. You know what I’m talking about?”
“Sure do.”
“They said this guy came out of nowhere with a pipe, hit him on the head and just ran for it.”
“A pipe?” I replied. That was him all right, but it didn’t add up. “Why wasn’t he just shifted?”
