by Meg Ripley
She flinched as she took a step back, not wanting him to touch her. Not like that or in any other way. “I think I was. And you’re right. Something did change inside me when Kayla died. It took a long time for it to really come out and manifest itself, but I know now that what we had was just a teenage love that we both grew out of.”
He lifted his chin and straightened his shoulders, immediately dropping the kind-and-sensitive act. “You know now? I suppose that has something to do with that dick taking you to Curly’s and seducing you?”
“It has absolutely—hold on.” She put her finger in the air and moved toward him, poking him in the chest. “Did you follow us?”
“What choice did I have? You ran off with a complete stranger in the middle of the night! I had to make sure you were safe!”
A shiver like a trail of slime moved down Penny’s back. She cursed herself for not keeping her senses open and noticing what was happening right away. She’d been so involved with and focused on Raul that the rest of the world had just slipped away as though it’d never existed. Now, it came crashing back down on her with full force. She snagged a pillow off the couch and whacked him with it. “You bastard!”
He put up a hand to fend off the blow, but it forced him to take a step toward the door. Penny continued her assault, using the slaps like punctuation. “You filthy, rotten, disgusting, creepy bastard! If you actually cared about my safety, you could’ve shown it in so many other ways! But no! Everything has to be about you and what you want. I’m sick of this shit, and I won’t put up with it any longer!”
Tyler snagged her wrist and held it tight. “Stop, Penny! As usual, you’re getting hysterical over nothing! It’s as though you don’t even remember how packs work! We look out for each other, and that’s what I was doing for you. I’m just trying to build something between us that I know could be a great thing, and all you do is throw it in my face.”
Penny reached around him and flung open the door. She pushed her face as far into his as it could go, feeling her sharp lupine teeth descend from her gums as she scowled up at him. “You listen, and you listen well, Tyler,” she said in a low voice that wouldn’t carry through the building. “You and I are nothing. I let you come to the society meetings because I thought you genuinely wanted to be friends, but you’ve made it quite clear that the only thing you care about is getting what you want. You’re a selfish asshole, and I don’t want to have anything to do with you. Now get the fuck out of my apartment and out of my life!” She pointed at the open doorway for emphasis.
“Penny…”
With every bit of strength and anger inside her, Penny put her hands on his chest and shoved. Tyler hadn’t expected her to get physical with him, and he stumbled backward. His booted feet tripped over the fake ficus in the hallway, and he sprawled on his backside onto the worn carpet. When he pushed himself up with his hands, he looked dazed.
She gripped the doorway as she leaned out, still letting her teeth show. “Keep in mind that the only reason I’m not ripping your entrails from your body and slinging them from here to Long Beach is that I don’t want to get in trouble with the landlord. Now leave.” She slammed the door and shoved the bolt into place with shaking hands.
Penny sank to the floor, her body flooded with emotions and adrenaline. She closed her eyes and tuned in all her senses. So much of her life was spent on the everyday stuff that any average human would do, and she didn’t let that she-wolf out often enough. Penny focused her hearing on the hallway, expecting Tyler to do something desperate. The only thing she heard was quiet shuffling as he picked himself off the floor and sauntered off down the stairs.
When she’d left Raul on the street corner, Penny didn’t think she’d ever sleep that night. But that encounter with Tyler now had her heart racing for all the wrong reasons.
5
Raul stepped into the kitchen and found Jude pacing the floor. He carried a giant mug of coffee in his hand, as usual, no matter what time of day, and had his cell pressed to his ear. “I know. It’s not easy. Call me if you need anything else.” He hung up and slipped his phone in his pocket.
“Everything okay?” Raul asked as he grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge.
Jude nodded. “It was just my brother, Reid. What’s going on with you? Any creepy ghost news I should know about?”
With a laugh, Raul lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “Nothing concrete just yet. I went over everything from my meeting with the L.A. Society for Spirits with Amar. He agrees that it’s something we can attack full force once we know more, but we need to gather more information before we make any big plans.”
Well, he hadn’t exactly told Amar everything. The Alpha would understand his feelings completely if Raul confessed he’d met his fated mate, but there was no point in spreading the rumor until there was something a little more truthful behind it. In that sense, it was just like this ghost hunting mission.
“Sounds right to me. I hopped on The Shift for a bit today and caught one of the videos. I’ve gotta say, I called bullshit on this whole thing at first, thinking it was just the latest online trend or challenge. If that’s the case, then whoever’s doing it is pretty damn good. I saw a guy dissipate into nothing but mist.” He shook his head as he straightened his button-down shirt. Jude was always impeccably dressed.
“I know.” Raul sat down at the long bar and rolled the water bottle between his palms. The chill of it felt good, but it did nothing to quell the fire that’d been burning inside his wolf ever since he’d left Penny. Last night, it was as if he’d seen all his energy and emotions flow outside his body to meet with hers. Once she was gone, he’d been left with a sinking, empty feeling that he didn’t like.
“What’s your deal, man?” Jude’s words were almost sharp.
Raul snapped his head up. “Why?”
Jude tapped the counter, making Raul look down.
“¡Mierda!” The water bottle was nearly crushed in his hands. “I guess I was just somewhere else. I have this feeling that I should’ve stuck around to protect someone, and I didn’t.” Penny had sent him a text that morning to let him know she’d made all the arrangements for the next step of the investigation, so Raul knew she was fine. Still, it ate away at him. He got up and poured the remaining water into a glass.
“Trouble with your pack?”
“Nah. My pack is a very old one, originally from Mexico, and it’s dwindled over the years. The few of us who remained migrated up here to L.A. in search of a better life for the pack.”
Jude nodded as he refilled his mug at the coffee pot. “Do you ever think that the paradigm for shifters might be changing? That as we blend in more with human society, we’re not as suited to living in clans and packs?” He stirred his coffee as he looked out the window.
Leave it to Jude to wax philosophical. Army Ranger or not, Raul always thought Jude should be working in an art museum or a university lecture hall instead of the SOS Force. “I don’t think so. We listen to our intuition a lot more than humans do, from what I can tell. We know what pulls at us and we go with it. I think that includes our desire for pack life. Mine is small, and there were plenty of times growing up that I wished it were bigger, but I’d never leave it.”
“You sound like you’ve been thinking about this quite a bit.” Jude turned to him and raised one eyebrow.
“Just some personal stuff I’ve been thinking about lately. Nothing big.” Great. Now he was lying to his comrades just to avoid admitting out loud what he knew he felt for Penny. There was nothing to be ashamed of. Amar had met his one-and-only, and the same could certainly be said for their other Force members, Gabe and Emersyn.
“Well, I’m here if you ever need to talk. What about your mission? Need any assistance?”
“Nah, I’m good.” Raul couldn’t possibly invite Jude along for this next step. It was difficult enough to be around Penny without feeling too self-conscious. He was sure the rest of the LASS had detected sparks between the two of
them the other night, and someone as observant as Jude would know in an instant. “This is just a simple interview; it’s nothing to worry about. Depending on where things go, though, I may need your help later. I’ll give you a heads up.”
“Anytime, as long as there’s coffee.” Jude clapped him on the arm and left the room.
Raul looked at the crushed water bottle still sitting on the counter. Just what kind of effect was Penny having on him?
He was still contemplating this an hour later when he drove to Penny’s apartment. During the entire trip across town, he’d been thinking about what he should say, rehearsing conversations in his mind that may or may not ever happen. Everything had to be right. Everything had to be perfect. This was his one and only chance at experiencing true love. No pressure at all, right?
Penny was waiting on her front steps when he pulled up. Raul waved from the driver’s seat, his stomach in a knot. At least she’d saved him from walking up to her place, knocking on the door, and feeling completely breathless when she answered it. But no. She still left him completely devoid of air as she hopped in the passenger side of his truck and shut the door behind her.
“Hey, you.” A smile played on the peony pink of her lips.
Raul yanked his eyes away from them, no matter how much he wanted to lean over and claim those sweet lips of hers with his own again. They’d already kissed goodbye, but what exactly did that mean for them? Time to think about the mission. “So, you said Mrs. Reyes was all set to talk to us?”
Penny nodded and swiped a strand of her hair behind her ear. “She sounded a little confused about the whole thing, but she was more than happy to have the company. I don’t know how much insight she’ll be able to give us, but it’s at least a start.”
“Yeah. Definitely.” Plus, it meant he got a chance to be with her again. Penny had been the only thing on Raul’s mind ever since he’d met her. Even though that was just over a day ago, it felt like it’d been much longer. He felt the proximity of their bodies in the enclosed space of the truck’s cab, and he tightened his grip on the wheel as he focused on driving.
He pulled out from the curb, noticing that a sleek black coupe pulled into the traffic just a few car lengths behind him. “Have the five of you figured anything out since I last saw you?”
She shook her head, sending that blonde hair spreading out along her shoulders. Raul’s fingers tingled with the urge to touch it, to brush it back from her face and press his lips against—Damn it! He couldn’t do his job like this!
“…just keep collecting and analyzing data,” Penny was saying, oblivious to Raul’s wild thoughts. “It’s a slow process, but I think any legitimate science is going to be. You have to look at things from every angle and eliminate possibilities. If this apparition of Victor Reyes had only been seen by his mother or some other loved one, I wouldn’t think anything of it. People see visions of their deceased loved ones all the time.”
“So you’re saying in those cases, they’re just figments of their imaginations?” His wolf was once again scrabbling at the underside of his human form. How nice it would be to take Penny off into one of the parks that surrounded L.A., shift, and just run in the moonlight. He’d never seen her in her wolf form. They hadn’t even discussed it, but he could tell in the deepest parts of himself that she was as he was.
“Yeah. You need so much more proof to consider something a paranormal event, and the mind is very powerful when it wants to be. That’s a big part of the problem, actually, because we all see what we want to see. It’s almost impossible to eliminate that completely.” She was watching him with those eyes, shimmering green, excited, intriguing.
Raul sharpened his focus on the road. At any other time, he could get in touch with his animal side as a way to keep him on track. His wolf was always ready to focus, to work, to get things done. Those wild instincts were far more helpful in urban life than anyone would think. Penny’s presence made everything different; a story he was starting to realize was only repeating itself over and over. “That’s impressive.”
“What?”
“That you’re so aware of how your desires could influence your results if you let them, and that you’re determined to find such cold, hard evidence that no one could argue against. I know we talked about it the other night, but I still think it’s admirable.” The black coupe was still following, far enough back that it could merely be a coincidence. Raul hung a right, threading his way toward the neighborhood in Northeast Los Angeles where Mrs. Reyes lived. The black coupe also turned right.
“I’m glad you appreciate it,” she said with a little laugh. “The rest of the society gets impatient with me because every time we think we’ve had a breakthrough, I immediately dismiss it. Don’t get me wrong. I get just as excited as they do, at least on the inside. I want to find this just as badly as they do, or maybe even more so. I just don’t want to kid myself.” She twisted that charm bracelet on her wrist once again.
“I’ve always been into the supernatural. I love movies and comic books, and I know most people dismiss it as entertainment. Given how much lore and mythology have been based on people like us, plus some other experiences I’ve had with the SOS Force, I have to wonder just how much is out there that we don’t know about. There could be ghosts of some form wandering all around us, and we don’t even know it.”
“Of some form?” Penny twisted slightly in the seat to see him better.
The black coupe turned left as Raul turned left, an unnecessary turn that would take him the long way around to his destination. Raul didn’t like being followed, but he did like having something that distracted him a little from Penny. “I did a little research on the subject once. It was quite some time ago, and I don’t remember all the details, but the basic gist was that everything and everyone that’s ever existed still does; they’ve just moved into a different vibration or frequency. It’s a slightly different dimension that’s intertwined with us, but we can’t detect it. At least, not most of the time.”
“Yes!” Her enthusiasm exploded into the vehicle and made him smile. “I’ve read some things along those lines, and I think it’s such a fascinating idea. It really gives me hope for our project, and honestly, for seeing Kayla again, too.”
He could feel his heart soften as she mentioned her best friend. Raul wanted to pull over, comfort her in his arms, and tell her everything he’d been feeling about her. He needed to tell her that she’d already been appearing in his dreams, but that it was the most pleasurable haunting he’d ever experienced. His wolf went right along with the idea, bristling at not being let out of its human cage. Raul was just teasing himself!
The black coupe made yet another turn behind him, so he forced those thoughts out of his mind. As he pulled up in front of Mrs. Reyes’s house, he noted the coupe pulling in down at the corner. Interesting that someone else, at the exact same time, would be heading along almost the exact same route. Certainly, coincidences like that happened all the time, but Raul had reason to believe this wasn’t just a coincidence. He kept his senses heightened as they got out of the truck.
The house was a tiny bungalow situated on a lot barely bigger than itself. The bright blue stucco siding was accented in black, with a low iron fence that served as a barrier around the graveled flower beds that surrounded the home. Someone had made sure every weed was plucked from those spaces, leaving only a lemon tree at one corner, a lavender bush at the other, and several yucca plants in between.
Raul swung open the screen door and knocked. The woman who answered was much older than Raul had been expecting, considering Victor Reyes had only been in his mid-twenties when he’d died. Her short hair was a steely gray cloud around her face, her golden skin tinged with pink at her cheeks. She smiled at them through her wireframe glasses as she held the door open wide to welcome them in, her red skirt sweeping her bare feet. “Come in, come in! Get in out of the heat!”
“Mrs. Reyes, my name is Raul Castaneda, and this is Penny Grange
r. We really appreciate you taking some time to talk to us today.” He couldn’t help but smile as he walked into the small living room. Mrs. Reyes reminded him of his own abuela, as did the brilliant colors of her home.
“¡Siéntate, por favor!” Mrs. Reyes gestured at the couch as she closed the door behind them. “I hope you had a good drive. Sometimes the traffic just gets so bad. I don’t get out very much anymore. Grocery delivery has certainly been a blessing for me, but I do miss just walking up and down the aisles and running into old friends sometimes.”
Raul glanced at Penny as they sat on the couch, shooting her a look that asked if this woman knew what they were actually doing there. She returned with a shrug and a small smile.
“Mrs. Reyes, we don’t want to take up too much of your time, but—”
“Oh, and where are my manners! I’ve got some fresh chocolate cookies for you and some lemonade. Do you like lemonade? Or would you prefer iced tea? It’s so hot out.” She folded her hands in front of her blouse and smiled at them expectantly.
“Um, iced tea would be fine. Thank you.”
“Lemonade, please,” Penny responded.
“Of course!” Despite her advanced age, Mrs. Reyes practically floated into the kitchen.
“Did you tell her why we were here?” Raul whispered. He had to lean close, wanting to speak softly enough that there was no chance the old woman could hear them in such a small house. The scent of Penny’s perfume reminded him that even though he was on a mission and had to be professional, there were more feral urges constantly working under the surface.
“I told her about LASS and that we wanted to know more about her son. I didn’t tell her you were with the Force, because I figured that was up to you, but everything else I explained over the phone. Like I said, I think she’s just happy to have company. She’d probably treat us the same if we were selling vacuums.”
