by Sasha Winter
“Now if that isn't the best view in town, I don't know what is.” She smiled lazily up at him as he carefully laid himself down beside her. He seemed less sure of himself now, almost shy, and Elise smiled, pulling him over for a kiss.
He managed to pull the blankets over them both as she kissed him slowly, feeling the strength in his shoulders, the curve of his bicep, the dipping curve where his hip met his torso. She followed the curve down his thigh, brushing her knuckles past him to his inner thigh. She sucked lightly at his lip, tugging softly with her teeth as his hands explored her curves.
Rounding the curve of her hip, he followed a similar path down between her legs, not hesitating to slide his fingers between her warm, welcoming folds. She gasped in surprise, letting out a long low moan as he found her slick heat, thrusting two fingers inside of her before sliding them back up to find the small, tight nub of her clitoris. He circled it expertly with his two fingers, gentle yet firm enough to get her blood flowing fast. She spread her legs wide to him, forgetting herself for a moment as he watched her lashes flutter shut, mouth parted to let small moans of pleasure escape.
It was when she felt the deep burning in her belly that she snapped out of it, jolted from her trance as she reached for his quickly hardening member. She felt the desperation build within her; she needed him again. He was still damp from their earlier romp, and she briefly entertained the idea of going down on him when he beat her to the punch.
She had never had a guy she hadn't been dating long term go down on her, and the shock of the gesture added to the pleasure. His tongue sought out her sweet moans, her keening cries, her desperate gasps and pleading, toe-curling pleasure. She noticed that his tongue felt ever so slightly more coarse than she'd ever felt before, and she found it incredibly arousing to think it was probably because he was a shifter.
He brought her close several times, coaxing her to the edge as her thighs strained and back arched before backing off. Three times, she was so close she could have cursed him had she been capable of intelligible speech. The fourth time, her body was wound so tight, he couldn't have stopped her if he tried. Which he didn't. He pinned her hips to the bed with his strong arms, his flat, broad tongue making her cry out in desperate, heaving sobs.
She was a mess, so far from miserable that her tears seemed almost comical as she came down from one of the best orgasms she'd ever had.
Wiping his mouth, he made his way back up, ignoring his straining erection until she grabbed ahold of him. Hair thoroughly ratted, eyes still a bit watery, she knew she looked a hot mess but she didn't care. One look was all it took for him to scramble for another condom. She encouraged him enthusiastically, meeting his thrusts as he ground into her again, whispering vulgarities and moaning into his ear until he was desperate and lost. She rode out his orgasm enthusiastically, still feeling the electric aftershocks of her own as he groaned into her neck.
This time, he barely had the energy to roll to the side and toss the soiled condom into the waste bin next to his bed. Utterly spent, Elise hardly made it further than curling onto her side as she pulled Erik up behind her. Spooning was great, but spooning after sex had to be one of the best things in the world, in her eyes. It didn't take long before sleep had stolen them both away, dreamless in their exhaustion as they held each other close.
They both woke early the next morning, after only a few hours of sleep. Elise felt more rested than she had since she'd been in Sawmill Grove despite the events of the night before, and Erik seemed to feel the same way. They cuddled in bed for a bit, and Elise was surprised that there was no awkwardness between them. He would have been content lying in bed with her the rest of the morning.
“So what's next?” Elise asked, pulling his arm tight around her.
“Well, I should probably lie low for a while. I'm sure those two assholes last night spread the word clear around town last night that I'm a shifter.” He sounded lost.
“You can't just give up. We can't let the killer get away with this, then they'll all turn on you for sure. We need to get back out there, those men be damned. They can say whatever they want, there's a murderer out there and if you let them bully you into silence the fingers will point right at you.” Elise's heart quickened, her muscles tensing as she realized the full weight of what they had to do.
“Then I'll need to go over everything. I'll need to find something to go off, some clue I've missed.”
They got out of bed, neither of them trying to hide their nakedness from the other. Elise had to admit, once they were up and she could see him in all his nude glory, she much rather wanted to take him back to bed. Instead, they both took a quick shower, and Erik found a pair of sweatpants and an old t-shirt for Elise to wear back to the hotel so she could change. She grabbed all of her files, and they headed to the drive-through for breakfast and coffee.
“So where to first?” Elise asked between sips of her latte.
“The station. I want to go over the evidence one more time. Maybe I'll be able to catch...” He paused, sounding awkward and unsure. Elise waited patiently for him to go on. “Maybe I'll be able to catch some scent I missed. The murderer was bound to leave his scent behind.”
Chapter 11
Erik felt no small sense of relief when both of his deputies greeted him the same as they always did. No looks of disgust, and he'd received no ill treatment at the drive-through. But he didn't want to get his hopes up.
They emptied the evidence locker and looked over everything. Torn scraps of Dylan Barnes' clothes smelled of blood and fear. Erik opened the bag containing the necklace with the White family crest on it, and sniffed inside. Among the smells of plastic and age, he caught something he'd noticed before but hadn't really given much thought. He smelled Dylan, but he also smelled someone else. The scent was musty and pungent, like old things and a lack of fresh air. A grin spread across his face as he made the connection, and he felt his panther snarl deep in his chest, ready for the pounce.
Erik packed everything away quickly and then led Elise back out to the cruiser, silent in his contemplation. He gulped down his mocha as he drove down through town, intent on ending this as soon as possible.
Erik couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it before now. Maybe he did have some inkling, he thought, when he looked over at Elise. She was an appealing distraction, one he did not mind falling prey to, but he soon recognized the look of impatience on her face and realized he hadn't explained himself.
“The scent of the murderer was still on the necklace,” he said when they were nearly at the museum. “There will be too many scents in the town but I have a good enough grasp on it that I should be able to recognize it if I smell them again.”
“So what, we have like a smelling line or just make up excuses to get within sniffing distance of everyone in town?” she asked him. “Because one, that could be slightly weird and two, will also not help you fly under the radar.”
“Good point.”
“You could go back to being Santa, and have all the adults sit on your lap instead of the kids. That’d get them all within sniffing distance.”
“Ha ha,” he drawled but couldn’t help but chuckle a bit. “Maybe a little of this, a little of that.”
Elise was still giggling when they pulled up at the museum.
James Callahan was elbows-deep in a box of dusty old artifacts when they walked through the front door and approached him. Erik scrunched his nose at the scent of musty old books.
“Erik, Miss Jackson, so nice to see you again so soon.” Callahan stood, tugging off his gloves to shake their hands warmly.
“James, we need to ask a favor. Elise and I have realized that the killer is, in fact, a human,” Erik ventured. If anyone would believe their theory and help them, it would be good old James Callahan. “A human who tried to make it look like a shifter did it.”
“Well, I'd like to say that's hard to believe,” Callahan said, frowning. “But around here, tolerance isn't exactly a common trait
. Have you considered how the connection to the old case may have played a part?” Erik felt himself relax. Callahan was on board. “Why don't we come on back and have a sit in my office?” he added.
Seated around his desk, Erik debriefed the curator on everything he felt he needed to know. From the odd way Dylan's body had been chewed and hacked up, to the oddity of the paw prints at the scene. They talked for well over an hour, going over every detail, bouncing ideas off each other. Elise remained mostly quiet, only offering the odd idea as she sat beside him looking contemplative.
Erik decided he needed to move, to get up and walk around to get a grip on his racing thoughts. They walked around the museum, listening to Callahan ramble. Elise stopped in front of the same bobcat she'd spotted on their previous visit, and Erik paused by her.
“Have you gotten that panther back from the taxidermist?” she asked, and Erik furrowed his brow.
“Should have by now, but Frank hasn't brought it back in yet,” Callahan admitted. “With everything that’s been going on I haven't thought to ask him about it. Plus it’s the holiday season. You know how it is around this time in small towns. Everything moves slower, and everyone’s on a break.”
Frank. Erik's hackles raised at the sound of his name, because something registered in his brain from when they'd seen him at the museum last time.
“Does Frank have an office here, James? A locker or anything where his belongings are stored?” he asked. Elise caught on immediately, eyes going wide. They’d both made the connection, but James seemed oblivious.
“Oh, err….yeah, sure, I let him keep anything he needs in the custodial closet, right back there. If you'll excuse me, I've just remembered I've got a few calls to make. Help yourself now, Erik.”
He hurried off rather quickly.
Erik and Elise shrugged and made their way back the way Callahan had gestured, past pictures, shadow boxes, and displays. The door to the custodial closet didn't have a lock, only a small ‘employees only’ placard. Erik opened the door and stepped inside and it hit him, literally, full in the face.
“It's him,” he said, breathing deeply, tasting the scent on the back of his tongue. Musty, full of discontent. “It’s Frank. That son of a bitch.”
Chapter 12
Elise watched from the doorway of the closet as Erik pulled out his phone and dialed a number. “Yeah hey, it's Sheriff Grey. I need you to look up an address for me. Frank Miles. Uh huh. Yep. Text it to me when you've got it. Thanks.”
Elise and Erik made their way back out to the cruiser, stopping in to thank Callahan on their way out. Elise watched Erik check his phone as they were buckling their seatbelts, and he punched an address into his GPS with a determined air.
“What made you ask Callahan about the stuffed panther again?” Erik asked her.
“If it wasn’t really a big cat or a feline shifter then those gouges and paw prints had to come from somewhere, right?” Elise pointed out. “Someone with access to the replicas could have easily used those to kill Dylan and frame you. It would explain why the gait looked wrong, like you said. He would have been pressing the paws down in the ground and been more concerned with making sure they were unmistakable rather than accurate.”
“I never really had a thing for intelligence before you,” Erik informed her, keeping his eyes on the road and delighting in the way her scent swelled with pleasure and a little embarrassment. “But right now I find it very attractive. Sexy.”
“Down, Sheriff,” Elise retorted although her voice hitched a little over a giggle. “Save it for when we’ve got this one solved.”
Erik grinned, trying to redirect his focus to the task at hand.
Frank’s house was deserted when they arrived and something about the scene set Erik’s teeth on edge. The house was on the edge of decrepitude, with tarps on the roof and faded paint peeling off the siding. Erik got out of the cruiser first, reaching down to undo the buckle on his holster. Elise got out of the passenger side, walking around the back to stand beside Erik. She felt a tinge of fear, knowing Erik would smell it and hoping he wouldn't make her sit in the car. Erik reached out, squeezed her hand, and proceeded up the weedy driveway.
“Frank!” Erik called out. “Sheriff’s department, come on out!”
There was no response.
He drew his gun and motioned for Elise to stay tight to his side. She did, pressed up against him as he cleared the front porch and knocked on the door. There was no answer and the door gave a little under his knock. When he pushed at it, it swung open slowly.
“Frank?” he called again and Elise was tense beside him. Neither of them could hear any signs of life.
He swept through the living room and the kitchen before realizing Elise was no longer at his side.
“Erik!” she exclaimed from the living room.
There, on the coffee table, were the remains of Callahan’s missing stuffed panther. He glanced up and around, paying more attention to detail. “We’ve got ourselves a murderer board,” he muttered quietly when he found the cork board covered with newspaper clippings and pushpins.
Elise immediately crossed the room to look at the cork board. “I thought only people in the movies made these,” she said, morbidly fascinated. “Look, they thought this case was shifters too but it was just wolves. I remember reading about it when Donald told me I was coming here.”
Erik stepped closer to scan over the old articles. “They said the teenage son saw the wolves devour his parents and insisted they were shifters,” Elise continued in a hushed whisper. “It doesn’t say a name, Erik, but do you think—”
Erik’s sudden pained hiss cut her off and she looked at him in alarm. “Erik?”
His head was craned over his shoulder, a hand going behind his back, and her eyes widened in shock when she saw the blow dart sticking out of him. “Erik, what happened? Where did that come from?”
A sharp stinging pain in her side cut her off the second time and she barely had time to panic as she saw Erik collapse to the ground before her whole world went black.
Chapter 13
Erik was more familiar with the sensation of waking up after having been sedated than he’d like to be. He’d had a rough patch towards the end of his teens, beginning of his twenties, so he wasn’t entirely surprised by the cotton-mouth feeling and the way his eyelids felt like blocks of concrete. He wasn’t surprised but it didn’t make him loathe the sensations any less.
He drifted for a while as feeling slowly trickled back to his fingers and toes and his blood started flowing a little quicker instead of the sluggish way everything had been working when he’d first begun to regain consciousness.
His senses were still dulled, like he was underwater, but they weren’t completely shut off. He couldn’t figure out where he was any further than identifying that it was outside and slightly chilly. It took a while for his brain to start firing again and for him to gather that he’d been out for at least a few hours and he’d been brought somewhere that was definitely not Frank’s living room.
He ran through what he remembered from the moments before falling unconscious. He remembered the house being deserted and clearing the kitchen and bedrooms before Elise had called him into the living room. He remembered the board with the old newspaper articles and the destroyed panther replica and then the sting of a dart in his back.
When he tried to move he couldn’t and he noticed the tight press of rope across his chest and his belly and the burn of the ragged fibers around his bare wrists. The pressure was around his ankles as well where his legs were stretched out in front of him. When he moved, staying within the confines of the rope, he realized that the roughness he could feel against his back was the bark of a tree.
Eventually he managed to blink his eyes into functioning again and they zeroed in on Elise, unconscious and tied to a tree much like he was except across a small clearing. He tried to growl but it came out much more like a helpless whimper which just made him angrier.
&n
bsp; Movement caught his attention and he looked toward it as quickly as he could manage. He saw Frank and a sick, cold dread settled in his gut.
“So, Sheriff,” Frank said conversationally and there was a glaze to his eyes that made Erik reconsider trying to talk reason into him. It wouldn’t work, there was no reasoning with a psychopath and Erik was suddenly certain that Frank had gone past that point. “How does it feel to be completely and utterly helpless for a change?” He crouched down beside him and gripped Erik’s chin hard. “Not a pleasant feeling, is it?”
Erik couldn’t do more than jerk his chin out of the other man’s hand weakly and wait for the world to stop spinning. When his vision leveled out he tried to reach for the shift, sure that he could burst free if he could just tap into a little of his power.
It remained stubbornly just out of reach and Frank laughed. The sound was unpleasant and reminded Erik of the sound of nails down a chalkboard. He shuddered as Frank started talking again. “I spent a long time developing that sedative. It’s delightfully effective on shifters, you know. Makes it impossible for you to use the abilities of that beast that you pretend not to be. I tested it thoroughly to make sure I didn’t make any mistake.”
Erik heard Elise groan across the clearing and couldn’t stop his eyes from darting to her. Frank followed his gaze and made a pleased sound. “Ms. Jackson,” he said warmly as he left Erik’s side and wandered over to Elise. “I’ve been wanting to speak to you since that day in the museum.”
Even groggy, Elise looked at Frank with nothing but fear and no small amount of disgust. It made Erik happy to know that he’d chosen so well.
“Those articles were about my family,” Frank continued. “My parents were mauled to death by those filthy shifters and I had to watch them die. It was horrific, you know. They didn’t die quickly, you know. They suffered. I saw all of it. It takes a long time for someone to bleed out if you don’t hit any of the major arteries. It took them hours to die and I had to sit there and watch the whole time.”
