by Danae Ayusso
She wasn’t alone in the library. The others that called Verulfr Manor home were watching her. They never thought it was possible, according to history it wasn’t, and yet the impossible was cowering in fear not more than ten feet from them.
“Should we say something?” Connell whispered.
Louvel simply shrugged; he was too sober to figure out what to say that would assure his nephews that the tiny girl wasn’t going to be a problem, so he sat back and kept an eye on her with the others.
“I’ll get her something to eat,” Faelan said then hurried to the kitchen to whip up something that the terrified girl might enjoy; he was on the verge of losing it himself.
Rafe looked from the terrified girl to everyone else and back again. “This… I thought it… Huh, this is going to suck.”
Varg shook his head, truly disappointed in the others, then headed over towards the shaking girl.
When his large form eclipsed the light, she whimpered then started clawing at the wall behind her, trying to get away from him.
“It’s all right,” Varg whispered. “No one will hurt you ever again,” he promised her.
She continued to claw at the wall like a cornered animal, trying to find a means of escape. There were too many of them, and they were bigger and much older, all were men, and it terrified her even more than the metal dragon that brought her to their home on the Island.
When Varg reached out to try to console her, the moment he touched her arm she completely lost it and spun around and attacked him.
The tiny, thin girl threw herself at him and punched and clawed, snapped her teeth, trying to get to his throat. Varg outweighed her by over two-hundred pounds and had more than three-feet of height on the small girl. With simply the flick of his wrist he could snap her neck, could throw her away from him and into the wall, could easily subdue her with only one hand.
But he didn’t.
Varg allowed her to attack him, to scratch up his face and arms, to bite his neck as she tried to kill him. He simply sat there with his hands in his lap waiting for it to register with her that he wouldn’t hurt her, none of them watching in horror would. She would be safe with them.
After nearly an hour, her swinging slowed and her growling turned into soft sobs, and she collapsed against the strong form she was trying to destroy. He wrapped her in his strong arms and held her protectively to his broad chest as she sobbed. Tenderly he caressed her head and ignored the searing in his neck and face from her vicious assault.
“Shh,” he whispered, trying to be reassuring for the first time in his young life. “You are safe, I promise you. As long as I breathe, never will I permit another to hurt you.”
The tiny girl started sobbing even harder; never had she heard words so softly spoken, but the truth behind them pushed her over the edge of reason, and she succumbed to emotional exhaustion in his arms…
Varg rubbed his hands over his face in frustration and struggled to keep the haunting images from his mind, but it was a losing battle. Every time he looked in the mirror he was reminded of Akia; his face and neck was littered with thin, white scars from her tiny nails and teeth. He’d grown a beard out in order to hide the visible reminder of her, but his scars ran soul deep.
Irritated at himself for allowing the one person he swore he’d never let under his skin again get to him, he headed to the kitchen to grab something to eat before making another patrol around the estate.
****
Faelan groaned as he stretched out and instantly stopped when a soft moan came from the side of him before nuzzling against the side of his neck. He looked down at the face rubbing against him and smiled. “It’s the not type I usually long to wake up next to, but you’ll do,” he whispered before kissing the top of her head.
Last night when he returned from the kitchen with some dessert after Akia was out of the shower, he found her curled up in a ball with cell phone in hand and fast asleep. Not wanting to disturb his baby sister, he crawled into bed and tucked them in for the night. Akia was the only woman that got the honor of sharing his bed.
Something vibrating pulled his attention to the nightstand. Without thinking about the repercussions, he answered Akia’s cell phone.
“Good morning,” Faelan cheerfully greeted, keeping his voice down.
“Um…who in the hell is this?” Damian asked.
Faelan purred. “Ooh, are you the one that smells so damn good?” he asked. “You know, I expected my baby sister to have a hot piece of ass on the side, she deserves it,” he continued, “but never did I imagine that she’d have a hot piece of ass that smells so damn good or dresses so damn well. Valentino, really?”
Damian wasn’t sure what to say. “I’m guessing this is Fae.”
He purred in delight. “You’ve heard of me, I’m touched…if you want, you can touch as well.”
Damian groaned. “Is your sister available?”
“Passed out still,” Faelan admitted. “She had a rough night, two days without sleep, sudden loss of appetite, showered then passed out with a cell phone in hand. I’m curious,” he said, “she hasn’t mentioned you. Are you a mysterious lover?”
“Excuse me?” Damian said, not about to say anything more than that. He knew of Faelan only because Akia and he crossed paths at a hotel when she was investigating a double homicide two years ago. Faelan was there for a baking competition, and she was there for the bodies. She spent a few nights with her brother at her place in the retirement community playing catch up, and when he went back to Seattle, Akia opened up and told Damian of her precious Ginger Bear, as she called that particular brother. “Will you have her call in when she wakes up?”
“I’m still curious,” Faelan said, as if he didn’t grasp that Damian was trying to get off the phone with him, “the shirt my baby sister is wearing has to be yours; custom tailored Valentino is rather pricey.”
He tried not to, but Damian smiled. Akia took one of his dress shirts to sleep in, so she could be surrounded by his scent, since he wasn’t there to sleep with.
“And Gucci, grrr,” Faelan continued. “I love a man that smells good enough to eat. Are you sure you aren’t batting for my team? Because I would love to play catcher for a hottie with excellent taste in designers and cologne,” he teasingly sang. “Ooh, let me guess; tall, blond, dark eyes, Scandinavian descent, never smiles or jokes around. Am I right?”
Damian shook his head; he was none of the above, and it made him curious as to why Faelan would automatically assume that he was, unless… “Is that what your baby sister likes?” he asked the obvious, fighting to sound as nonchalant and indifferent as possible, but the possessiveness biting at him nearly caused him to growl.
Faelan sounded contemplative. “I’m not sure, I thought so since… Never mind. I’m a redheaded bear hailing from Ireland yet can bake as if I’m French. Interested in a Ginger Bear that doesn’t mind being a bottom, or a top if you want to switch?”
“No,” Damian said in a clipped tone. “Let Lieutenant de Wolfe know that Captain Nikas called and has a possible identification of her Doe,” he said then hung up.
Faelan looked from the phone to his sleeping sister many times before he groaned. “Someone has some major explaining to do,” he said in disbelief.
“What are you bitching about now?” Akia asked, groggily as she stretched out and rubbed the sleep from her eyes.
He smiled, waving the cell phone at her. “I might have gotten you fired. Oops, my bad,” he said in a teasing, singsong tone.
She didn’t appear surprised or concerned, and that only confirmed what he was already thinking. “I’ll deal with it later. Was there anything in particular that he wanted?”
Faelan huffed; that wasn’t the response he was hoping for. “Give him a call. I’m assuming he’s the hot piece of ass that you stole the fabulous shirt from.”
Again, she was completely level and indifferent.
“It’s a nice thread count and feels great against my tits, what
can I say?” Akia said with a shrug, snatching the phone from him. “Huh, he called a few minutes ago. Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“I was too busy flirting with him,” Faelan said, and she laughed. “What can I say? I haven’t even seen him, but his taste in clothing and cologne makes my big bone tingle,” he said in a deep voice with a heavy gay lisp.
Akia shook her head in resignation. “Trust me, you aren’t his type.”
“But he’s yours,” he sang.
She smirked but didn’t deny it.
Faelan’s eyes widened and mouth fell open with a popping sound. “O-M-G you have to tell me everything! Every last kinky, sticky, sweaty, sexy detail…mainly those about the hot bod he has to have in order to fill out the measurements of that shirt, and the impressive cock he has to match.”
Akia shook her head then leaned up and kissed him softly on the lips. “I don’t kiss and tell, unlike some horny dogs I know,” she whispered with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. “And you won’t be burying your bone anywhere near what is mine,” she tauntingly sang before tackling him back to the bed.
Akia looked at the gathered officers and government officials that were filling the bullpen of the small police station. She hated being front and center. She hated attention in general, but when she was the lead on a case there was no way around it. The identity of the fifth body proved to be a nightmare in the making. There was a reason why Damian was able to find the identity without a picture, DNA, or dental records. The information on age, size, race, and the calluses on her fingers lead him to the front page of the Boston Globe and the headline: Progeny and Heiress Missing.
Inspector Pierre joined her, standing in front of the group with an air of superiority about him. “Thank you for waiting-” he started.
“Shut it!” Commissioner de Rue of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police interrupted. “If you open your mouth one more time, you’ll be in a holding cell next,” he warned.
Once the identity of the fifth victim was confirmed, officials from both sides of the border got involved. Out of respect for the families of each victim, no official media release has been issued, and each of those involved in the case are being tightlipped in fear of repercussions and the deep pockets of the fifth victim’s family.
The family of Arianna Winterfeld, the only child of Boston real estate mogul William Winterfeld the Third, demanded that the United States government get involved in the case when he came to claim the body. That demand, in turn, caused the RCMP to get involved. When Mr. Winterfeld was informed by Superintendent Manning of the Boston Police Department that his best was already on the case, and after dropping the long list of cases Akia had closed in her career, the mogul demanded that Lieutenant de Wolfe stay on the case as the American liaison and lead detective.
Pierre said no way in hell, but when Commissioner de Rue walked through the door with official documents in hand, the look on the older man’s face made it more than obvious that he was pissed off and would take it out on the first to cross him. Pierre knew he was on the way out of the investigation, so he was shutting up, for the most part, in order to stay in the know since it was, without question, the biggest case of his career.
“Lieutenant,” Commissioner de Rue said in a clipped tone, motioning for Akia to start the briefing.
Akia nodded. “Thank you, Sir. I’ll skip the formalities and get right to it. What we are dealing with is a serial killer that is trying to cover his crimes by making them appear as if they are animal attacks.”
One of the officers raised their hand. “There were hairs consistent with a wolf on two of the bodies,” Officer Paquette argued without being called on.
Akia nodded. “Yes, there were,” she agreed.
“And that doesn’t seem odd to you?” he pressed. “Nowhere in your report and profile has a wolf or animal been mentioned. Does he own a wolf? Does he do something that requires him to be around wolves? Maybe he’s one of those handlers from up in Montreal?” he argued.
“The wolves at the Montreal habitat are not the same species of wolf, thus they were not a match,” she explained.
“You can’t know that already,” Paquette said, his voice raising.
“The foremost expert in canine pathology and psychology has confirmed that the hairs found on the bodies are from a breed that is not common in these parts, or on this continent even,” Akia assured all of them. “The division of the Jeffersonian that Dr. Michele Arberdeen works for is a benefactor of the Winterfeld Natural Resources and Sciences grant, which supports the work of more than a dozen departments at the Jeffersonian in Washington D.C., and because of that generosity, Dr. Arderdeen was more than happy to drop everything and assist with the case. It is in the opinion of Dr. Arderdeen, and that of the Jeffersonian, which I am in complete agreement with, a wolf, or wolves, were not responsible for these deaths.”
“You can’t be serious,” he scoffed. “What are you? Some animal lover that can’t handle the thought of a precious four-legged beast of God killing people?!” he sneered.
Officer Leclair absently smacked him. “Relax,” he said, “not everyone has a hug a tree mentality for God’s critters like the animal rights groups that we have to arrest every summer for chaining themselves to trees. I’m sure the Lead has a reason why the wolf element is being excluded from the profile.”
Akia nodded; she liked Leclair because he said very little, paid attention, when something didn’t make sense he asked questions instead of simply assuming, and when he did speak without being prompted by a question, it was always asked with a sense of levelheadedness and was well thought out. “You are correct, Leclair. It is in my professional opinion that they were staged to look like animal attacks. Four years ago there was a case in the Great White North where the perp was guising his murders by mutilating the victims postmortem with gloves that were fashioned from the paws and claws of bears. It wasn’t until the fourth victim that the M.E. was able to deduce that they weren’t animal attacks. The perp had lost the tip of the knife used to kill his last victim in the ribcage and then tried to retrieve it, without success. That led to a new profile and the apprehension of the Kodiak Killer.”
They nodded their understanding. They would never admit it, but the small police department’s staff was in awe over the level of knowledge the young woman had in serial killers and her professionalism, something they never saw from the Inspector.
“At this time I am confident in stating that the perp is a white male between the ages of twenty-five and forty-five; he is impulsive but learning patience with each kill; educated but secondary education he most likely either dropped out of due to inability to focus, perhaps finding it much too tiring to concentrate on academia, or forfeited it all together; most likely he is single, however we cannot rule out that he is married and in what would be considered a relationship that doesn’t hold his interest; he has knowledge of the area and survival tactics; and he has knowledge of counter forensic measures, which means he might have law enforcement experience, or some type of correlation or relationship with law enforcement.”
That got many murmurs.
“These are not crimes of passion or sexually motivated,” Akia continued. “The perp is crossing gender and race barriers, as well as mixing it up, in a matter of speaking, by varying the age of the victims, thus causing us to not have a clear and precise victimology.”
“That isn’t normal?” Leclair asked, taking extensive notes.
She shook her head; typically she wouldn’t humor someone that just blurted out questions instead of waiting to be called on, but she admired his eager to solve the case mentality: she could relate. “No. Sadly, when sociopaths are involved nothing is normal. However, statistically speaking, vary rarely do serial killers cross the lines of gender, race, age, and so forth. From anyone looking from the outside, if this was a bigger area like Toronto, Montreal, or even Boston for that matter, these crimes wouldn’t have been linked, even with the animal attack aspect. Victim t
wo,” she pointed to the picture of the victim on the board, “was a local that was known of but not known in the least, on this very island and town. The second victim suffered from near debilitating anthropophobia and haphephobia: fear of society or people, and the fear of being touched. That caused her to be a shut in that rarely left her home, so that means the perp is either local,” she said and whispers of disbelief filled the crowded bullpen, “or the perp happened to have come across a shut in that never left her house. If that’s the case, we have to ask ourselves where would the perp and victim have crossed paths?”
They nodded their understanding and started taking even more notes; that wasn’t something they had considered.
“We know nothing, not even the identities of the third and fourth victims, so I’ll skip them for now since the psychology of the kills will tie into them later. The fifth victim was the game changer, as they would say in the states. She was taken on the mainland, hence why only a missing person’s report was on the wire in Haven, and that means we have to look beyond just the island since his hunting grounds go much farther than initially thought. In the case of the fifth, the perp erred greatly. He was, for all intents and purposes, hunting for his next victim, and came across the very last person he could afford to find. Miss Winterfeld wasn’t local, was a tourist from high society that went for a walk, according to her personal security detail, while they got gas prior to returning to their hotel in the city. In the span of only five to seven minutes, the victim was subdued and taken, with military trained security not more than fifty yards away. That tells us a few things; one: he getting much more confident; two: he has the ability to slip undetected, even when trained soldiers are within reaching distance; and three: we should expect another victim, and soon.”
