Watching Seven lavish attention on Lucky—and watching Lucky drop to the floor, shamelessly begging for a belly rub—Lucas realized two new things about Seven.
First, although she clearly disliked herself for things she’d done in the past, babies and dogs—who were stellar judges of character, in Lucas’s experience—loved her and immediately felt comfortable with her. That said a lot about her nature, and confirmed what Lucas had known all along. Seven wasn’t dangerous, and she wasn’t crazy.
And secondly, every new thing he discovered about Seven only made him want to learn more. He wanted to know her. Not the cool exterior she so often showed to the world, but the real her. And more than anything, he wanted to make her smile and laugh, again and again.
So, he was developing a slight obsession with the sister of the man who married the woman Lucas thought he’d been in love with. And that wasn’t even taking into account the fact that he’d broken her out of a mental hospital earlier that day.
When exactly, he wondered, had his life become the subject of a bad telenovela?
Chapter Eleven
One month later
The ginormous Kodiak bear that a moment ago had been Owen McCaffrey tipped its head back and roared.
Harper and Seven were standing close enough to him that the force of his breath blew their hair back and misted their faces with beer-scented bear spit.
Harper groaned and lifted the hem of her T-shirt to wipe her face. “All right, Owen, I’m losing my patience. Will you just shift back so we can talk about this like rational people?”
He curled his lip back and swiped at her with his giant paw. She leapt back in time to save her skin, but not her T-shirt.
Seven sucked in a sharp breath. Having spent the past month with Harper learning how to skip-trace bail-jumping vampires and shifters, she was starting to understand how her sister-in-law’s mind worked. And Seven happened to know for a fact that the T-shirt Owen just ruined was Harper’s favorite. The black Game of Thrones T-shirt had been a gift from Mischa, and it had Khaleesi spelled out in heart-shaped rhinestones across her chest. It now had three jagged claw marks over her belly button.
Now Harper was going to be pissed.
Harper snarled at him. “Owen, I’m giving you one more chance to shift and come quietly with me to the police station. Then, I’m kicking your hairy ass into next week.”
He stood up on his back legs, towering over them, and roared again.
Harper glanced over at her. “If you were here by yourself, what would you do?”
“Break both his legs,” Seven said without hesitation. “Hogtie him when he falls.”
“Weeelll,” Harper answered, hesitating, “that would definitely work. But maybe we could try something a little less violent first.”
Seven kept her mouth shut. Breaking his legs had been her less violent idea. Harper really wouldn’t have liked Plan A.
“All right, Owen,” Harper said. “Just remember, I gave you a chance to do this the easy way.”
And with that, she pulled a can of bear repellant out of her purse and sprayed him full in the face.
After a moment of furious screeching and clawing at its face, the bear slowly began to shift. Seven winced at the sound his bones made as they snapped, crackled, and popped back into the shape of a human. Was it this brutal when Lucas shifted? She hated to think of him going through that. It had to be painful.
Only when a naked—and marginally less hairy—Owen laid at their feet did Harper let Seven truss him up with a set of zip ties, one around his wrists and one around his ankles.
“Fuck, Harper,” he whined. “You didn’t have to use that shit on me.”
“Owen, this is the third time you’ve broken your bond agreement and failed to appear in court. I have no idea how you keep convincing Big Bill to post for you, but I’m sick of skip- tracing your ass and you swiping at me for my trouble.”
“I’m sorry, Harper. I just can’t go back to jail,” he said, sticking his lower lip out in a pitiful pout.
To an outside observer, it would probably look like Harper was being a big bully. In his human form, Owen was beyond pathetic. About five-six, one-thirty with an overbite and an unruly mop of dirty blond hair, he looked like a guy who’d been down on his luck his entire life. But Harper knew this particularly luckless loser was a deadbeat dad, and she had no patience for that.
And Seven couldn’t help but notice that while he was telling the courts he didn’t have any money, he was here, at a bar, dropping money on bad hand after bad hand of poker with other local scumbags. Short of that, he could be found at the Kitty Kat Palace, slipping ones into Misty Mountain’s G-string.
Seven tightened his bindings until he yelped. He started to protest, but she shut him down with a sharp look that had him swallowing hard and averting his eyes.
Harper rolled her eyes at him. “You can quit your whining and put the sad puppy dog eyes away, Owen. I’m not ever going to feel sorry for you. Just pay your child support, loser.”
“Aw, come on, Harper. We all make mistakes. It’s not like you two are so perfect, either. Everyone knows you both worked for Sentry.” His eyes cut to Seven briefly, then back to Harper. “And everyone knows what she did there. You know what they’re calling her on the streets? The Angel of Death.”
Violet had warned her that the Midvale guards were running their mouths, and that the paranormal community was small and prone to gossip.
Don’t let it break you down. You can’t change your past, but you can control your actions from this point on. Be the person you want to be. Don’t let yourself be defined by the past.
She could practically recite Violet’s words on auto-pilot, she’d heard them so much.
Lucas usually gave her his own variation of the speech. It went something like, you’re the only one who can make you feel like shit. Don’t listen to those stupid motherfuckers. They’re just trying to break you so they can feel better about their own pathetic lives.
Less inspirational than Vi’s version? Possibly. But no less powerful.
Deciding to take their advice, Seven shrugged off Owen’s comments. But there was still a tiny little part of her that wished she’d broken his legs when she’d had the chance.
Harper snorted. “Nice try, Owen, but we’re not going to suddenly realize we’re kindred loser spirits and let you go. You’re going to the station as soon as I find a blanket for you to sit on, because there’s no way I’m letting your bare ass touch the leather upholstery in my car.”
Owen sighed and rolled to a sitting position. “Well, thanks for not sending Riddick after me this time, at least.”
“What makes you think she didn’t?”
Owen’s eyes widened at the raspy growl that came out of nowhere. Harper grinned as Riddick melted out of the shadows.
Riddick sighted Harper down like prey and stalked over to her. When he was close enough that she had to tip her head back to meet his eyes, he gave her a gentle shove back against the wall, then proceeded to kiss her silly. When he stepped back, she licked her lips and gave him a breathless, “Hi.”
Seven felt a pang of want in her gut. In her Sentry days, she’d never been in a position to want the kind of relationship Harper had with Riddick. But now? She found she was increasingly envious of what they shared, and not just the emotional connection. She was equally jealous of all the sex they were obviously having.
Seven had only had the occasion to have sex once with a fellow Sentry cleaner. There’d been no emotion involved, but the physical act itself had been very…satisfying. Definitely something she wouldn’t mind repeating. Soon.
Riddick grinned down at Harper, before turning to Seven. “How’re you doing, sweetheart?”
He’d been calling her that for the past couple of weeks. It still always took her a moment before she realized she was sweetheart to him. “I’m fine.”
“Why didn’t you wait for me?” he asked Harper. “I told you I’d go after this
jackass as soon as I got done with Mrs. Perrigrino’s husband.”
“Find anything?” Harper asked.
Riddick nodded, looking grim, and Seven’s stomach fell.
Mrs. Perrigrino was a little old lady who hit the lottery after playing the same numbers every week for thirty years. Shortly thereafter, she met a disarmingly handsome, sophisticated vampire, fell in love at first sight, and got married.
Mrs. Perrigrino’s adult kids hired Harper Hall Investigations to find out if the vampire had married their mother for her money. Riddick had been tailing the vamp for a week and had apparently found the evidence the kids expected.
Poor Mrs. Perrigrino.
Harper shook her head, looking sad, and said, “Mrs. Perrigrino was more important. I knew Seven and I could take care of Yogi here by ourselves.”
“Getting kind of sick of being called names,” Owen grumbled.
“Shut up,” Harper and Riddick said in stereo while Seven barely resisted the urge to kick him in the shins.
“Who has Haven?” Riddick asked.
“My mom,” Harper said, then frowned. “She snatched that child out of my arms like she hadn’t seen her in a freakin’ year or something, then practically shoved me out the door. I’m a second-class citizen in that house compared to Haven.”
Riddick smiled at her, but then his gaze dropped to the tear in his wife’s shirt and all warmth bled from his eyes.
Seven knew this look. She’d seen it in the mirror a time or two.
Owen obviously knew the look too, because he immediately lifted his bound hands to cover his face and started trying to curl up against the wall. “Shit, man, you know I don’t have much control over what I do in bear form, right? I’d never hurt her on purpose.”
“He was mean to Seven, too,” Harper added, not even trying to calm her husband down, sounding a little bored with the whole thing.
Riddick stalked over to Owen, looking determined and more than a little feral.
Owen whimpered. “Call him off!”
Harper snorted. “He’s not a dog. I can’t ‘call him off’.”
Riddick leaned down and plucked Owen off the ground by his bound wrists and shoved him against the wall, holding him several inches off the ground.
“I’m only going to say this once,” he growled. “Never. Ever. Touch. Her. Or I will strangle you with your own intestines and laugh while I do it.”
Owen looked like he might pee himself, but that didn’t stop Riddick from adding, “The same goes for my sister. When you insult her, you insult me. Do you want to insult me, Owen?”
Owen shook his head furiously. “No. Jesus, no.”
“You should apologize to us,” Harper suggested, examining a split in one of her fingernails. “Especially to Seven.”
“Jesus Christ, I’m so fucking sorry. Swear to God I am.”
Harper glanced over at her. “You good with that?”
Seven quickly nodded, not entirely sure what Riddick would do if she didn’t accept Owen’s apology.
Harper shrugged. “Guess I am, too, then.”
Riddick unclenched his fist, letting Owen drop unceremoniously to the ground.
It took Seven a moment or two to process what had just happened. Riddick had been in a murderous rage. She’d seen it. Hell, she’d felt it. Harper must’ve seen it, too, but she hadn’t done anything to stop him. Quite the opposite, really. Why hadn’t she intervened?
Because she knew no matter how angry he was, he was in control, Seven realized. Harper trusted him. Just like Lucas trusted her. Riddick was obviously worthy of Harper’s trust. Maybe, just maybe, she was worthy of Lucas’s trust, too.
It was a crazy thought. Humbling and terrifying and…exciting all at the same time. If she actually was trustworthy, if she actually had it in her to be a good person who contributed to society in ways other than killing, was it possible that she could find the kind of love Harper and Riddick shared?
Be the person you want to be.
For once, Violet’s order seemed entirely…possible.
When Riddick had shoved Owen into the trunk of Harper’s car (apparently his apology hadn’t earned him enough favor with Riddick to warrant a ride in the back seat), Harper told her, “You know, I think we need to do another shopping trip. The clothes you picked out last time? They look good on you, but they’re certainly not helping you lose your Angel of Death title.”
Seven glanced down at her black leather jacket, black tank top, black cargo pants, and black Doc Martens. When she met Harper’s eyes, she could see the teasing glint there. “You’re probably right,” she admitted.
Harper grinned at her. “We’ll go soon. And next time we have to pick up Owen? Let’s do things your way.”
Seven blinked. “I can break his legs?”
“I think you’ve earned it.”
Seven returned her wide smile. This whole fitting in with a family thing? Maybe it wasn’t going to be so difficult after all. Not with this family, at least.
Chapter Twelve
Considering they were a werewolf and a dhampyre living together in the suburbs (which sounded like the set up for a bad sitcom, for Christ’s sake), Lucas and Seven had fallen into a very…domesticated routine over the past few weeks.
Lucas spent his days in Monroe, which was one county south of Whispering Hope. Monroe PD had been desperate enough for help that they’d taken him on immediately, without really inquiring too much about why he’d left his old department. The other guys in homicide didn’t trust him just yet, which was fairly typical of any newcomer, let alone a newcomer who’d come from a vampire crimes unit—but they were mostly a decent bunch.
And dealing with human criminals was a lot more satisfying than dealing with the paranormal ones. Sometimes he was even able to help deliver actual justice, novel idea that it was.
Seven spent her days with her brother and Harper, learning what it took to be a paranormal private investigator. She also had therapy sessions with Vi twice a week, and spent some quality time on the side with Harper and Mischa, who were schooling her on pop culture and the importance of well-executed sarcasm.
But the evenings? Well, those belonged to Lucas and Seven. They’d get home about the same time and forage for food together, which usually ended with him ordering take out since neither of them could cook worth shit. And while they ate, they talked. There were never any lulls in their conversation, and they’d talk for hours about anything and everything. He now knew more about Seven than he suspected anyone in the world did, and vice versa.
He knew she hated vegetables but ate them because they were healthy. He knew her music preferences all fell heavily into the rock family, and when he tried to get her to listen to country or pop, she’d just shake her head and wrinkle her nose adorably.
He knew that watching The Walking Dead made her edgy, but that she’d snatch the remote out of his hand if he even thought about changing the channel while it was on. He knew she fed Lucky scraps off her plate when she thought he wasn’t looking. He knew she was cranky in the morning until she had her coffee, which was why he made sure to wake up before her and have a fresh pot ready to go by the time she stumbled out of bed and made her way to the kitchen every morning.
He knew she almost always fell asleep every night at midnight whether she wanted to or not. And when she fell asleep next to him on the couch watching TV, he could pick her up and carry her to bed without waking her.
And more than anything, he knew he wanted to know more about her. He liked everything he’d learned so far, and it was getting harder and harder to friend-zone her.
He’d been living in a semi-hard state ever since she walked into his house. Her voice, the way she said his name, her perfect pink lips, the way her eyes softened when she talked about Haven, the fact that even after Harper had bought her all new clothes, she still chose to sleep in an old Whispering Hope PD T-shirt of his that she’d liberated from his closet on her first night in his house…it all turned him
on. Shit, he was starting to think he was going to end up with a permanent imprint of his zipper on his dick from all the erections he was sporting in her presence.
But every time he found himself staring at her mouth and wondering what those perfect lips would taste like, he’d pull back.
When he was with Seven, he felt like a complete idiot for having ever thought Harper had been the one for him. Seven fit into his life seamlessly, and the thought of rushing her into anything and blowing what they could have before it ever really started was…well, if he was being honest with himself, it was fucking terrifying.
But, nauseating terror aside, he’d be damned if he was going to completely ignore his feelings—and what he thought she was feeling in return—for too much longer. When the time was right, preferably very soon, he’d…
His phone vibrated in his pocket. “Hey, Vi,” he answered. “Seven’s not here. Want me to have her call you back?”
“No, I called to talk to you.”
Her tone didn’t bode well for what he’d hoped would be another peaceful evening at home. He sighed. “What’s wrong?”
Violet paused for so long he thought she might be purposefully screwing with his patience, but she eventually said, “I got the remainder of Dr. Daniels’ files.”
Well, shit.
“What happened to her?” he asked, completely unable to keep the angry growl out his voice.
“Oh, Lucas,” she said, her voice breaking on his name. “He tortured that poor girl for years. Experimented on her to test her healing abilities and strength.”
A haze of red descended over his vision and his wolf demanded blood.
Hunt. Trap. Shred. Kill.
“What kind of experiments?” he forced himself to ask.
“Drowning was his favorite. He did it to see how much longer she could hold her breath than a regular human and how much faster she could regain consciousness.”
Hunt. Trap. Shred. Kill.
“I’ll fucking kill him,” he hissed.
Harper Hall Investigations Complete Series Page 67
