“Deanna hates me,” Ethan groaned.
“She’ll get over it.” Bash smiled over his shoulder. “I can talk to her alone later. I’ll also need to meet with Jay again, see if he’s calmed and find out what Maximus may have told him.”
Before Ethan could say anything, Bash turned on the bedside lamp, illuminating the room. It seemed to banish whatever remaining spell they’d been under, and Bash began to gather his things to head upstairs.
“Splitting up all day?” Ethan said in distaste. His red hair was perfectly bed-tousled and endearing.
“That would be best,” Bash said again, struggling not to stare at how enticing Ethan was. “I’ll make sure there’s always someone with you.”
Ethan nodded, though it was clear that the only person he wanted to be with was Bash.
Chapter 13
GIVEN EVERYONE’S schedules, Ethan would start with Luke, take a shift at the tattoo parlor later to confer with Deanna and Siobhan, and then stay with Siobhan the remainder of the night to join her on patrol.
That sounded perfect considering Ethan didn’t want to sleep much if it was going to turn out like that morning. The mini make out with Bash had been amazing, but not what started it, and not how it ended.
Ethan had never had so much trouble controlling himself before, and he’d been controlling himself so well in other ways. Being with Bash was like a drug, and even when he dismissed what might just be coercion from his sire or a connection because of their lineages, there was more to Ethan’s attraction.
Bash was a nerd, a good leader, compassionate, witty, fiercely intelligent, and gorgeous like some bronze god. Of course Ethan was lost on him.
“Come on, Ethan. I got a lead I remembered last night while trying to sleep,” Luke said as they turned the final corner toward the Shelter.
Ethan had his sunglasses on, but the glare seemed even more annoying today.
“The easy part is you’ve already met.”
“I have?” Ethan asked.
“Yep.”
A flush of embarrassment filled Ethan as they entered, and it felt like everyone’s eyes followed him, worse and more judgmental than the day before. Luke took Ethan on the same route Bash had, until at a fork in the halls, they turned left instead of right to a row of doors down a long corridor.
When Luke knocked on one, it took only moments for Jesse to answer.
“Luke.” She lit up immediately, completely different from her countenance the day before. Then her eyes landed on Ethan, when she’d probably been hoping for good news about a family, and she was right back to aloof. “What do you want?”
“I was just about to tell my friend here how we have a curfew for kids at the Shelter. You know that, doncha, Jesse?”
“I’m no kid.” Jesse huffed.
“Definitely more impressive than most, even more than me back in the day.” Luke pushed the door open farther, which Jesse didn’t fight.
It was obvious by the clutter and beds that Jesse shared the room with at least one other person, but right now she was alone.
“Not even my best agents know you snuck out Halloween night,” Luke continued, backing her inside and nodding at Ethan to shut the door. “But I saw you.”
“So what?” Jesse crossed her arms defiantly. “You gonna snitch to the Alpha?”
“Have I so far? You were headed toward the tattoo parlor, looked like. That arcade on Beacon, I’m guessing?”
Jesse’s biting silence answered for her, and Ethan picked up on where Luke was going.
“Can you see the tattoo parlor from the arcade?” Ethan asked. “Were you there after nine?” It had been late for an interview, Ethan had thought, but Siobhan asked him to come after closing.
“You can see it,” Jesse said. “And yeah, it was about that time.”
“Did you notice anyone suspicious near the parlor?” Ethan pressed.
“Maybe. What’s in it for me?”
Luke laughed. “Like looking in a mirror, I swear.” He reached out to congenially ruffle her hair with its streaks of blue, and though she ducked away and tried to scowl at him, Ethan could see the way she hid a smile. She didn’t seem to have anyone else here who she was close to, but Luke clearly made her feel like she belonged.
There was a reason Preston’s rats took to Luke as easily as they did their master.
“What if I was working on helping Luke secure you a family?” Ethan said, causing them both to startle. “I talked to Bash about it last night.”
“You talked to the Alpha about me?” Jesse loosened the tight shield of her arms.
“Sure. I know what it’s like to be alone. I lost my parents, too, but when my uncle took me in, it felt like I could start over. I still felt alone sometimes, but having him there made so much of a difference. I know you want that, too, a real place to call home again.”
Ethan let the silence stretch, waiting for her answer, and Luke didn’t interject.
“I maybe… thought I caught a glimpse of someone weird,” Jesse admitted, “but the guy moved too fast.”
“Guy?”
“I only saw him from behind, but he was big. Broad. He slipped into the alley.”
Bingo.
“Someone else might have seen him, even if the Warden didn’t,” Jesse added.
Like Rio! If he’d been working that night, he was right across the street.
“Thank you,” Ethan said earnestly. “You have no idea how much this might help. I promise I’ll keep talking to Bash about a family for you, if you promise to be patient and no more sneaking out. We don’t know who my sire is, so it could be dangerous out there with a vampire around.”
“Says the vampire,” Jesse snorted, but her tough demeanor faltered, and Ethan could see the raw hope in her eyes. “Thanks. You’re not so bad for a fanger.”
“Language,” Luke teased, and Jesse rolled her eyes.
Ethan hardly thought of it as a slur, but he sort of adored how much the pack cared now, especially since Luke had been the first one to call him that.
“Thanks, pixie girl.” Luke tousled her hair again. “I owe you one—besides what I already owe by finding you a home. Not much longer now. I promise.”
Luke made a good ambassador to the common people since other shifters looked at him as one of their own, unlike when Bash walked around. Bash was royalty, but Luke could be the person staying in the room next door—since once upon a time he had been.
Walking back into the hallway, Ethan felt optimistic. They had a lead, and he knew exactly who to talk to once he headed to the shop for his shift. Things were looking up.
Until a kid running down the corridor ran into Ethan’s knees and dropped her doll. He bent to steady her and picked the doll up, but before he could hand it back to her, what must have been her mother rushed over to drag her away, another cat of some sort, given the flash of slit eyes and whiskers in her haste to escape him.
The doll remained in Ethan’s outstretched hand. All Bash or Luke’s presence did was keep people from attacking him; it didn’t mean they accepted him once they smelled what he was.
It shouldn’t have mattered. Ethan had been shunned most of his life—by everyone. No one wanted to be friends with the kid whose parents were murdered.
Now, to these people, he was the murderer.
“Hey,” Luke said when Ethan set the doll on a nearby bench so that hopefully the woman and child would come back for it, “there’s a part of this place I bet you haven’t seen yet. Come on.”
Luke and most of the other circle members welcomed Ethan. It was enough. It should be enough. But Ethan could admit that the taste of acceptance made him want more.
He still had no idea what Luke was thinking when they entered a nursery school.
“Who wants story time?” Luke called, drawing the attention of a dozen kids of preschool age who instantly rushed over.
“Luke!”
“Where’ve you been?”
“We missed you!”
/> “Now, now, calm down. I was here yesterday! But today, I want my new friend Ethan here to read to you. He’s real good at it. Go on,” Luke whispered to Ethan, gesturing at a shelf of books. “Pick one. They love ’em all.”
The teacher watching over the children looked startled, then fearful when she sniffed Ethan, and her eyes widened, but Luke was undeterred, leading the kids to the center of the room where they gathered in a circle around a chair Ethan was meant to sit on. Even Luke joined the circle, crossed-legged on the floor like he belonged right where he was.
“Okay.” Ethan smiled, perusing the books a moment before settling on one of his favorites that almost made his heart lurch, thinking of his mother reading it to him.
The Runaway Puppy.
It was a thrilling story for that age, about a puppy who ended up far from home, something many of these children could understand, and Ethan could, too, more now than he had when his mother used to read it.
The puppy eventually found his way home again, but the story was about the journey and about what home means, carrying with it a very important message that mistakes happen, everyone gets lost sometimes, and no one should ever be without hope.
“You smell funny,” one of the boys said when Ethan sat in the chair.
“Oh, um….”
“That’s not a nice thing to say, Eric,” Luke said. “Maybe he thinks you smell funny.”
The children giggled, and whatever tension had arisen eased away.
“Once, in a faraway land, with a faraway people very different and yet not so different from our own,” Ethan began, keeping a gentle rhythm like his mother once had, “there lived a very small puppy with his very large family.”
Riveted from the start, the children all gasped, giggled, or shouted in fear at all the right times, and Ethan kept on until the last page.
“See,” Luke said after the kids cheered and thanked Ethan, and some even hugged him, “they haven’t learned what to hate yet. Aside from broccoli.”
“Luke,” the teacher said with a frown, having let them have their way for an impressively long time. She pulled Luke aside, and Ethan could tell by the way she spoke hushed and short with him that she wasn’t happy with Ethan’s presence.
Just like the few parents who came in to hastily claim their children.
“We should head back.” Luke tried to play things cool when he rejoined Ethan.
“They don’t want me here. It’s okay.”
“The kids do,” Luke said, patting Ethan’s shoulder. “By the way, who’d you talk to Bash about for Jesse?”
“Oh, um… just someone who’s really good with kids. I’ll let Bash tell you about it.”
“I’LL GET Jay,” Maximus said stiffly when he met Bash at the door.
Bash had procured the largest hotel suite Centrus City had to offer for Jay and Maximus’s stay, basically a three-bedroom apartment, which was necessary given Maximus refused to stay elsewhere, and now that Bash knew Theresa and William were here.
Normally, Bash would have riled Maximus after a welcome like that, made a cutting comment about him speaking so disrespectfully to an Alpha, but he was in no mood to make things worse.
“Mrs. Thornton. William,” Bash greeted as he entered behind Maximus.
Once Maximus disappeared into the next room, William asked, “Ethan isn’t with you?”
“I’m afraid not. He has errands to attend to, and I fear your father would protest his appearance.”
William nodded from where he sat on the floor at the coffee table, playing with action figures. Theresa had been reading but set her book aside and smiled at Bash where Maximus had skirted cordialness.
“How is Ethan?” she asked.
“Well, despite the odds against him. I believe he mentioned helping you with a science project?” Bash returned to William.
“Yeah, but…. Dad won’t let me do Ethan’s idea. I’d have to go back to the Shelter, and he said we can’t go again.”
“Hmm. Maybe I can convince him otherwise.”
“Really, sir? You’d do that?”
The boy, at least, knew respect. “Don’t hold your breath, but if all goes well, even your father and I might be friends when this is over. And perhaps you’ll see me around Brookdale from time to time.”
“With Ethan?” William had obviously latched on to Ethan like everyone else who’d met him, even if he had seen Ethan throw his father across a room.
“We might have to wait and see about that.”
“Bashir.” Jay entered, followed by Maximus, who moved swiftly to Theresa’s side as if he needed to protect his family from Bash. “Let’s speak privately.”
That didn’t have to mean bad news, but regardless, Bash nodded farewell to the Thorntons and followed Jay beyond the glass doors into his private room.
“Don’t you ever overheat?” Jay asked with a soft smile.
Jay cut a more casual figure in jeans and a T-shirt that clung impressively tight to his large biceps, while Bash veered more toward making a statement, even in muted colors, with a button-down, quarter-zip sweater and jacket in all black.
“I prefer layers,” Bash said, taking a seat opposite Jay with a table between them. “I was hoping we might—”
“Before we get to all that,” Jay interrupted, “I have news. I’ve been doing my own research into your….” He cringed noticeably. “Into Ethan Lambert.”
“Oh?” So much for dodging the bullets whizzing toward Bash. “And what have you discovered?”
“There’s a vampire in Glenwood with ties to the city’s Alpha.”
“Kate?” Bash snapped to attention.
“You know her?”
“I knew her father, Ken. She fills his shoes well as Alpha, I hear, but I never knew this.”
“I know Kate personally,” Jay said, “but her father made the initial pact.”
“Pact?”
“This vampire made a deal years ago for safe harbor, which Kate has upheld, but she wouldn’t give the details over the phone. This sort of secret could upset the other neighboring cities, as you know, but she owes me. I figured since Ethan came from Glenwood, it made sense to start there. Maximus is going on my behalf today to see what more he can discover from Kate in person.”
“You’re saying this vampire may have been watching Ethan for years—with permission?”
“Possibly.”
Bash would rip Ken Springer’s throat out if he was still alive, but he held his composure. “Maximus is going? Meaning you’ll be staying in Centrus alone?”
“We still have much to discuss, despite this mystery,” Jay said, trying to come off as nonchalant now, but Bash noticed the way Jay sniffed him. Even if Bash hadn’t stopped Ethan that morning from taking things further, he’d showered like the day before and chosen clothing that hadn’t been anywhere near Ethan.
Still, he saw how not picking up on Ethan’s scent calmed Jay.
“Considering we have time before we’ll know anything more,” Jay said, “I thought we might do more than talking.”
“Such as?” Bash tilted his head curiously, and Jay grinned.
BASH BOUNDED on all fours around another grove of trees, racing after Jay, who was always a few yards ahead. Jay was a lovely brown wolf to contrast Bash’s silver.
They’d left their clothes where they parked, Jay having stripped first, quickly with a teasing grin, taunting Bash to hurry and catch him—if he could—before he shifted all the way to Stage Four and took off running.
Bash had to admit that he felt a thrill giving chase, dashing through his favorite stomping grounds. As an Alpha, he rarely had time for such things anymore.
The woods outside Centrus were filled with trees and hills and glades to tumble through. Shifters of all kinds spent time there, especially in the spring and summer. Now, nearing winter with most children in school, it was easy to find long stretches of those woods empty, especially in the middle of the day.
Jay crested a tall hill an
d paused at the top to howl. When Bash reached him, he threw his head back to join him. After nudging Bash with his nose, Jay went tumbling down the other side, beginning to morph again, on two feet and turning human, where he came to a panting stop at the bottom of the hill and collapsed onto his back, laughing.
Bash did the same, like they were much younger wolves, playing hooky to frolic in the woods.
“Too slow, Mr. Bain,” Jay said, stretching his arms up to cradle his head and gaze at the sky above. It was easy to be naked as shifters without feeling shame or awkwardness.
Bash folded his hands over his stomach. “I may not be as fast as you, Mr. Russell, but what I lack in speed, I make up for everywhere else.”
“That is apparent.” Jay chuckled with a not-so-subtle glance down Bash’s body.
Back to the seduction. Jay was not okay with the idea of marriage without love and romance. He hoped to find it here. Bash owed him the chance to try, didn’t he?
“Maximus had all these terrible things to say yesterday, but none of it was truly bad when I thought about it,” Jay said, bringing his arms down to prop himself up on his elbows. “You went in person to your Shelter to break up a fight. You defended someone that you… believe to be innocent. You stayed calm even when pushed. All signs of a good Alpha. And a good mate. Max doesn’t trust you, but I think that’s because he can’t see how alike you are.”
“Alike?” Bash said with skepticism, looking up at Jay blocking the sky.
“It’s easy to justify our actions, but seeing those same actions in others catches us off guard. The only person Max trusts who acts and thinks like him is him.”
Maximus did seem the type who’d be willing to do anything for those he considered family, just like Bash, even if his temper could use a few tweaks.
“I want this to work,” Jay said seriously. “Your ideas, this merger, it would be so good for my city. For me too.” His hand found Bash’s atop his stomach, cautiously taking hold and lacing their fingers together.
By the Red Moonlight Page 13
