Collateral Damage

by Susan Harris

  Ever breathed in slowly, and then exhaled. “It was the same kind of dream as before. I came face-to-face with a man who claimed to be my father, and then he killed me. I then made my friend kill my lover. It’s all terribly Shakespearian of me.”

  “It could be that facing the prospect of coming face-to-face with the worst of the supernatural community day in, day out has caused you to assume that you will indeed be killed on the job. Tell me, Ever—what do you know of your birth parents?”

  With a shake of her head, Ever replied, “Absolutely nothing. I was abandoned on some church steps as a newborn, and then my parents adopted me. I’ve never felt the urge to search for them—I’m quite happy with my life—but recently, when I considered there might be something wrong with me, I asked the cop who found me as a baby to help me find my birth parents.”

  “Have you considered what might happen if you are led to those who birthed you?”

  “I haven’t,” she conceded. “With so much going on, it’s not something I’ve thought of much.”

  Patrick glanced at the clock and said, “That just about does it for us today. I have a little homework for you, Ever. I want you to write down all of these dreams and visions—times, dates, what happens, and what is happening in your waking life that brings these dreams to life for you. Do you think you can manage that?”

  Ever rose. “If I get a spare second with everything going on. I can at least promise to try.”

  “Then I will see you next week,” said Patrick, who had risen to show her out. “I’ll contact the station with a time.”

  They said their good byes, and Ever found herself still unable to shake the feeling that there was something in the man’s eyes she recognised. It was hard to believe, what with her eidetic memory, that she might actually not recall.

  As Ever exited the room and closed the door behind her, Ricky sprang up and shoved his phone into his pocket. “Everything go okay?”

  Ever shrugged. “As good as it could have, I suppose. Let’s get out of here.”

  “My wish, your command.”

  Making their way to the car, Ever felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Instinct led her eyes upward, and she shuddered as she saw Patrick studying her from the window before his shadow disappeared.

  If she felt so uneasy around him, why had she divulged her secrets to him? It was as if she’d had some sort of compulsion to speak. One thing she knew for certain—she wouldn’t be going back to see him again.

  Closing the car door, she sighed as the heat took away the chill in her bones. A weather report came on again, and Ever listened intently.

  “According to meteorologists who witnessed the sudden arrival of the tidal wave that wiped out Hawaii, more adverse weather is on the way. Asia is already under an amber weather warning as they experience the worst rainfall in history. We will bring you updates as we get them, but for now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.”

  Ricky glanced at Ever. “The world has gone to hell. But then again, we Irish have never had stable weather.”

  Ever laughed and rested her head against the fabric of Ricky’s seat as the warlock hummed along to the track on the radio. But as she tried to concentrate on getting back to Derek, the devilish face of the man from her dreams continued to haunt her.

  Erika slipped from the shadows and faced the therapist sitting cross-legged in the chair in front of her. Hands perched firmly on her hips, Erika was ready to spit fire.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  The man gasped loudly, and fear darkened his eyes. “Whe-where did you come from? How did you get in here? Please don’t hurt me.”

  He leapt up from the chair, knocking it over, and stumbled to the door before Erika snorted, disappeared, blinked back in near the doorway, and braced an arm across the door, barring the man inside.

  “Quit playing games, dickhead. Do you want to forfeit the last chance we have at survival? Change back—this old-man guise is freakin’ me out.”

  Erika dropped her arm and strolled around the room as she waited for him to become the man she knew he was—handsome, charming, and utterly dangerous. She ran her fingers over the books on his shelf as she spoke. “I have to admit, pretending to be her therapist and analysing her dreams is a pretty ingenious idea. Earn her trust, figure out what she knows, and then use it to see if she remembers more than our Ever is letting on.”

  “My dear, did you just give me a compliment? I fear my heart might burst with lust.”

  She turned at the velvet smoothness of his voice and then cursed the quiver of arousal that coursed through her veins. Damn him, standing there looking all scrumptious and lickable. Dressed now in a pair of dark denim jeans and a less-than-subtle Marvel’s Avengers T-shirt, the person the world knew as the trickster god grinned at her. His feet were bare, his raven-coloured hair hung in waves to his shoulders, and Erika shuddered as she imagined her hands fisted in that hair as she let herself be lost to a pleasure that was legendary amongst her kin. His eyes were of the deepest shade of green, and from the faint twinkle, she knew that Loki had read the traitorous thoughts in her mind.

  “Don’t get used to it,” she snarled, but the damage was already done.

  He chuckled then, a husky sound that only added to the hotness in her loins.

  “But the name? Seriously? Patrick Stir… trickster… not exactly a bright idea.”

  Loki folded his arms across his chest, his grin widening. “We needed to see how much she knows or has remembered. He will awaken soon, and she needs to be ready.”

  As part of the rules Loki had laid out when Ever had been sent on her quest, if Odin broke the rules of play, then he would be sentenced to sleep for a year. Odin had agreed, tricked by his adopted son Loki. He had made the agreement in Valhalla, where time moved at a different rate—one year in Valhalla meant a century in the human realm. Odin’s last blatant disregard of the rules had earned him a century of sleep, and that was due to end very soon.

  “She’s remembering quicker than the last six times,” Erika said, “and her champion is already with her… I think we should take that as a good sign. She used her skills to defend herself against Donnelly, but those stupid rules you set up prevent us from hinting at or telling her anything.” She blew out a frustrated breath. The warrior wanted to cut something or fight something to take her mind off what could be the final phase of centuries of worry and turmoil.

  Loki crossed the room and rested against the desk as he roamed his eyes over Erika’s form. His hands gripped the edges of the desk, this cat-and-mouse game they’d played for centuries adding fuel to the flames between them. Erika was certain that Loki wanted her simply because she resisted him… barely.

  “What you forget, general, is that you and your kin—along with Odin—agreed to the terms of my little quest, but I never did. While I might skirt the rules of the game, I never agreed to take part fully, so I do my part.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  He winked at her then, the bastard, and his lips curled up into a breathtaking smile. “If I let you in on all my secrets, love, then how will I continue to have you lusting after me?”

  “Bite me.”

  He chuckled again. “Oh, I intend to, general. In all the right places.”

  Cursing the blush that crept across her cheeks, she stepped around him and easily moved out of his grasp when Loki reached for her. If he touched her, she would succumb as many a poor soul had done before. When she was out of his reach, she turned.

  “If you cause Ever harm in any way, I will gut you like a pig, Loki. Don’t doubt that I will.”

  “Oh, when you get all flirty with me, Valkyrie, it makes me want to do wicked things to you on that desk.”

  She almost moaned as explicit images flooded her mind. Erika lifted her gaze, and she could only imagine that her eyes mirrored the lust in the trickster god’s gaze. She backed into the shadows, waiting a few more seconds as she
took in the sexiness of the man in front of her, and as his grin widened, she shivered and became one with the shadows, the sensual heat lingering as she vanished from the room.

  Derek drummed his fingers against the table as he kept his head bent low and avoided the gaze of his niece. To say he was ashamed that Chloe had seen him in such a state was an understatement. It irked him, even as the strong-minded woman brushed off his protests when she had first entered the cell area. As she barked orders and spouted legal jargon about due process and supernatural rights, though, Derek’s unease faded and he just about managed to hold back a grin. Within five minutes of Chloe handing out orders, a technical team came to take samples of evidence from his body and clothing.

  Although the delay in doing all of this had contaminated the evidence, they still did it. Scraping evidence from under his fingernails while stripping him of his clothes was not going to help his case much—he was, without a doubt, covered in the dead girl’s blood, DNA, and possibly other things. But his senses were coming back—his vision was almost fully back to normal with his keen sense of smell still a little patchy.

  When the CSI techs finished collecting the biological evidence, they asked him to remove his clothing. He glanced at Chloe and growled at them to wait until she stepped outside. To that, his niece returned a growl of her own, stating she needed to witness the exchange for fear the evidence might be tampered with. So, Derek had shirked off his jeans and stood in his birthday suit, embarrassed as hell to be bare-ass naked in front of her.

  One of the techs then passed him a cloth and bottle of water, advising that he was now clear to wash the blood from his person before he redressed. As he cleaned himself, Derek asked Chloe if she could send a uniform to get some of his clothes from the staff quarters where all the team kept an emergency set of clothing. The uniform had come back with grey track bottoms and a black T-shirt. Unfortunately, Derek must have forgotten to replace the shoes he had used, so he remained barefoot.

  Once Derek’s niece deemed him sufficiently decent, she demanded to know when the interview was to be held and insisted he be moved to a more comfortable location because, as far as she remembered in her old age, Derek was still innocent until proven guilty. After a brief hesitation, the captain nodded, allowing Derek to accompany Chloe to the interview room. He grinned inwardly when he saw the room they lumped him into.

  The interrogation room had been designed for interviewing humans, and they had no idea that Derek could see through the thin, one-way glass and hear anything going on in the viewing room. Sarge must have set it up. The human cops didn’t know any supernatural creature worth a damn could see and hear everything.

  He could see them all standing around like vultures, eagerly waiting to peck hungrily at his carcass. Derek had spent a lot of time with men and women who circled him like he was prey. Having honed his skills, Derek’s demeanour remained calm, his breathing normal. For all who studied him, he appeared to be as relaxed as if he were lounging at home with not a care in the world. But as he sat there, his mind drifted to a night long ago, drenched in blood.

  The night his unit had died and he’d been changed had turned the course of his life off-kilter, and the dreams and wishes he’d had for his future had changed forever. His unit had been sent into a small village outside Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to capture a drug lord who’d been terrorizing the villagers and taking young girls from their families for his harem. Little did they know that the cartel boss was actually a werewolf with a pack at his disposal.

  They’d had no visual on this cartel boss, and orders had come from up high to use lethal force if necessary. In the dead of night, his unit had infiltrated the compound and been faced with monsters none of them could comprehend.

  They’d been taken down in minutes by a pack of snarling beasts. Their training was useless, their guns ineffective. As one of the beasts tore into him, Derek had watched another monster rip his best friend Sam’s jugular out before darkness had consumed him and he’d blacked out. He’d awoken two days later, chained to a bed with silver restraints that had burned his flesh.

  The cartel boss, an American werewolf called Neville Morris, had explained to him that while most bitten men and women died from a werewolf's bite, some who carried a specific gene were turned. His bite had turned Derek, so Derek was supposed to accept him as alpha and let those at home think he had died along with his comrades. After a year of whimpering and begging for his life, Derek had had a lot of anger in his veins, and those who’d challenged him had borne the brunt of it. That had lasted for ten years, until Neville suspected that Derek could one day overthrow him as alpha. In the end, Neville had relinquished his claim on Derek and had let him go on his way.

  Derek lowered his lashes and huffed out a breath. In the years with Morris’s pack, Derek had never grieved for the loss of his combat brothers or his best friend. In all the time Derek had known him, Sam had refused to remove the smile from his face, to acknowledge the badness in the world and let it seep into him; and Morris’s beast had ripped that smile from his face with one jagged claw.

  Ricky reminded Derek so much of Sam—the cheeky grin, the sarcasm, and the unwavering loyalty. Although Derek would never tell Ricky that he reminded him of his dead best friend, it was a comfort to Derek that they were so alike.

  “Are you okay?” Chloe murmured, remembering she could whisper and Derek would still hear her.

  He opened his eyes and tilted his head to look at her, a very wolfish gesture. “Sure… as okay as I can be facing a firing squad.” He gave her a weary smile.

  “So… Ever seems nice.”

  Derek chuckled then, and he heard the voyeurs bristle at his laughter. “Leave it to you, munchkin, to bring up my love life when I’ve a noose around me ol’ neck. You are, without a doubt, your mother’s daughter.”

  Chloe nudged him in the shoulder from her position sitting next to him. “You’ve been avoiding me since you told us that you had mated, but we all can’t wait to meet her. Bring her to Brandon’s party next week, and get it all out of the way in one swoop.”

  “I promise if I still have my head attached to my shoulders, I’ll bring Ever over next week… I still haven’t met her family yet, either.”

  “God, you will have some gorgeous little babies! Hurry up and get moving—I’d like to be alive to see them, old man!”

  Derek’s throat tightened, and he covered his discomfort with a harsh cough. The door to the interrogation room opened, and Derek lowered his lids once more as he scented who was entering the room—his judges, jury, and executioners.

  The two most powerful griffins in the world strode into the room with as much confidence and arrogance as was attributed to their race. But these two deserved to be cocky. Derek had worked with them a few times over the last several years, when it had been deemed necessary to bring in the truth-seekers for internal investigations into conduct. Before Caitlyn and Donnie had signed on to work for P.I.T., another vampire, Aoife, had been selling info to Chester to help him avoid raids and hide evidence of crimes. The griffins had discerned the truth from Aoife and had ordered her execution.

  The griffins were a matriarchal bunch who viewed the females of their species as deities. In mythology, griffins were depicted as having the body of a lion and the head of an eagle, but the two women who stepped into the room portrayed nothing of their mythology apart from their eagle eyes—a tarnished gold colour with wide, black irises. Their eyes were the only parts of their true selves that failed to morph when they took on human forms.

  He felt Chloe flinch in her seat and resisted the urge to comfort her. Now more than ever, he needed to appear as if this were nothing more than an inconvenience. The griffins respected the truth, and only the truth in his own words would absolve him from guilt.

  Slowly, Derek opened his eyes and lifted his head to lay his gaze on the griffins. Like him, neither woman had aged over the years, and they looked as frightening as they always had. Agent Knight glided into the
room and perched herself on the seat opposite Derek, her wavy chestnut hair touching her shoulders as she broached a smile. Agent Gober remained upright, pacing the room after she closed the door, her own two-toned hair pulled back into a ponytail that would have seemed severe on some people but only accentuated the sharp angles of her face, making her look more intriguing. There was no doubt both women were uniquely beautiful.

  “Agent Doyle, I had hoped to meet again under better circumstances,” Agent Knight said coldly, and Derek knew he was already under scrutiny.

  “So did I, Courtney, but despite all this, it’s good to see you again.” He jerked his head toward Agent Gober. “Beckie, not so much.”

  Agent Knight’s eyes glinted in amusement as Agent Gober grunted.

  “This is not a friendly encounter, Agent Doyle. A girl is dead, and we’re here to ascertain whether or not her blood is on your hands.” A glance at his linked hands on the table was followed by a smirk. “I meant that metaphorically, of course, since her blood is most certainly on your hands.”

  Agent Gober levelled her gaze with his, and the wolf in him saw the challenge and riled, wanting to bare its teeth and growl to show this creature who was superior. He expected her to lower her eyes or look away, yet she held his gaze, her own yellow orbs focused on him, baiting him for a violent reaction, and goddammit, it was working. His lips curled, and he snarled before he could stop himself.

  “My client is happy to answer any of your questions so that he can prove his innocence,” Chloe interjected, her voice dragging the daggered gaze of Agent Gober from Derek to herself.

  When Gober realized she had looked away first, she scowled and folded her arms across her chest.

  Agent Knight glared at her partner as she tapped a taloned nail on the table. “We will begin. I’m sure you understand the rules, Agent Doyle, but I’ll explain them for your legal counsel.” She handed Chloe a sheet outlining the nature of their powers and what would occur during the interview.