Grinding for the Coyote

by Serenity Snow

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Adalyn awoke the next morning to gray light straining through the curtains and the pitter-patter of rain on the roof. She groaned as she waited for her alarm clock to go off and when it didn’t she slowly turned her head to give it a curious look.

  There were no red lights glaring only a lamp regally looking down its nose at her. She rolled onto her back with a harsh sigh as yesterday came rushing back to her at break neck speed.

  She was sleeping in another woman’s bed and wearing clothes that had probably belonged to one of her lovers. Still, Adalyn felt a thread of happiness spreading in her chest like sunshine. And she felt safe as opposed to the edge she’d been on before.

  She grinned and moaned softly at the remembered passion. Sam was a good lover. The best she’d ever had if she admitted it.

  The door opened after a brief knock and Sam stepped in carrying a tray. Adalyn gave her a curious look. “Breakfast in bed?” she asked.

  “Too much for you to handle?” Sam asked with a teasing smile. “Here I thought you could handle nearly anything that came your way.”

  Adalyn grinned. “Bring it on.”

  Sam laughed. And Adalyn sat up and plopped a pillow behind her back. Sam sat on the bed with the tray and leaned over to kiss Adalyn softly.

  Adalyn curled a hand behind her head and held Samarra closer. Samarra broke the kiss and Adalyn released a low whine and nuzzled her lover’s mouth stealing another kiss.

  Samarra gave her a smile and then picked up a strawberry and fed it to her.

  “Mmm.” She chewed the juicy fruit and opened when Samarra lifted a blueberry.

  “Sleep okay?”

  “Fine, but I—umm, yes.”

  “But what?” Samarra asked helping herself to a few berries.

  “Nothing.”

  “I wanted you in my bed too,” Sam told her. “I just didn’t want to take for granted you wanted to be there.”

  “You’ve found your life mate.”

  Samarra had hurriedly gotten them past the subject, but Adalyn wasn’t sure how to take the words or even how to feel. She’d been glad for the respite from the subject. On the other hand she needed the answers.

  “I don’t like that you’re hiding something from me,” Sam said. “What are you thinking?”

  “Some things are better left unsaid,” Adalyn told her and reached for a croissant. She took a bite. “Thank you for the breakfast.”

  Sam studied her and looked as if she wanted to push the issue. Instead she got to her feet. “You need clothes. So, after we finish at the police station we’ll go shopping.”

  That kind of evasion was such a masculine thing, but she was glad Samarra let it go. She wasn’t ready to face total rejection of Samarra’s lack of desire for a life mate.

  “No. I should check out my own things. I can’t afford to spend the money until I know I have too.”

  “It’ll just be a few things,” Sam said.

  “You’ll regret it. I love shopping,” Adalyn told her with a grin.

  “Finish up and join me in the kitchen when you’re ready.” Sam bent and kissed her again before leaving.

  ****

  An hour later they were sitting in the police station in an interrogation room with three men. The cool-eyed Agent Rusk sat across the scarred wooden table from watching her carefully while Detective Sang, black eyes unreadable, stood near the two-way mirror hands in his pockets.

  The olive-skinned Detective Jenner sat directly across the table from her. His gray eyes were curious as they studied her. His energy was strong and dangerous, but she didn’t fear him despite feeling as if he could tear her apart without blinking.

  He pushed a folder across the table to them. “Can you identify these men? One of them we found in your bed and the other was on the floor in the living room.”

  Adalyn opened the folder and started. The picture of Randall with his face eaten off was on top. Sam’s hand came to rest on her nape, her grip light and comforting.

  “Damn it, Jenner,” she snapped. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  “I need an ID,” he told her coolly. “It was your girlfriend’s apartment. I’m assuming she knew some of these people especially since a couple of neighbors say they saw him with her before his death. That makes me wonder if she knows who killed him, the two women and the other man.”

  “How could she?” Sam snapped.

  “That’s Randall, the building manager,” Adalyn told him quickly. She turned the picture over. “Curtis, his brother. He lives in the building too, but I don’t know how he got into my apartment. He wasn’t there when I left.”

  “What time did you leave?” Detective Jenner asked.

  “Around one,” she said. “I went to the store. I was going to make lunch for Samarra.”

  “The women?” Detective Jenner quizzed.

  “I already told you who they were,” Sam muttered.

  “Donna from the club, and I’m not sure about the other woman. I’ve seen her, but I don’t know her name,” Adalyn told him.

  “Any idea how they all ended up dead in your place?” Agent Rusk asked, her voice was hard and her stare suspicious.

  “No.” Adalyn shook her head and her eyes narrowed. Agent Rusk was an attractive woman, but hard as she studied Adalyn like she was a bug under a microscope.

  “Looks like animal attacks,” Agent Rusk said. “Do you own a dog?”

  “There was a dog—hyena in my apartment when I returned,” she told the woman. “Randall attacked me and the hyena attacked him. The women came in and I ran.” She held her gaze and put a hand on Samarra’s thigh.

  “Jenner, don’t be a jerk,” Sam muttered. “You have the report. Don’t make her rehash everything over.”

  “We’ll make her hash it out until we’re satisfied,” Agent Rusk told her icily. “Now what about the file? Bobby Reacher said he had proof that his wife belonged to a band of murderous grifters.”

  “I don’t know,” Adalyn said. “He never told me he thought his wife was a killer. He just said he was divorcing her.”

  “What about his other girlfriends? The wife said he fooled around on her,” Detective Sang said quietly. “Maybe he trusted one of them enough to confide in them.”

  “I never met them,” Adalyn told him with a shrug. “He didn’t want me to have to lie to his wife about names, faces, or dates. He never told me anything.”

  “Yet you were in the bathroom in his office the day he was killed.” Agent Rusk picked up a file and glanced at it before giving them a contemptuous stare. “What were you doing in there? Were you the lover he was protecting from his wife?”

  She snorted. “I’m a lesbian not bisexual, agent,” she said it as if she were talking to a child. “I’ve never been with a man.”

  “Even if she was, she didn’t kill him, and this interview is fast coming to an end,” Sam said icily. “You’re looking for something that’s not her problem. Your office should have done a better job of protecting its snitch, and he wouldn’t be dead.”

  “This organization is a dangerous one, Ms. Summerfield, and from all indications they won’t stop until they get that information,” Rusk said in an irritated tone. “Their M.O. is to leave no witness behind. We’re trying to protect your girlfriend but we can’t do that without the facts.”

  “You have them,” Sam told her.

  “Not all of them, and we believe they will be back to finish what they started,” Rusk muttered icily. “And if we find out you had something to do with killing these people, you’re going to jail.”

  Sam gave the other woman a hard stare. “You can’t intimidate me, Agent Rusk, and stop trying to scare and intimidate Adalyn. If you have any more questions, you can ask through a lawyer.” She got smoothly to her feet. “Adalyn.”

  Adalyn rose feeling a wave of protective energy collide with the hostility of the law enforcement personnel.

  “Detective Jenner knows how to reach me and throug
h me, Adalyn,” Sam said and put her hand to the small of her back and led Adalyn from the room.

  Adalyn swore she heard a growl following in their wake and it wasn’t Samarra’s. She glanced over her shoulder and Rusk was staring after them with murderous eyes.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  After they stepped out into the warmth of the cloudy morning, Adalyn looked up at Samarra, her jaw was set, but the tension in her face was easing.

  “Was she a shifter?”

  “Yes. She smelled like a wolf, but Sang is human.”

  “She was pissed off,” Adalyn said, unconsciously taking Sam’s arm as they hurried to the car.

  Sam smiled. “She thought I was going to back down, but Jenner will educate her,” she said with a smirk. “He and I have had more than our share of fights.”

  “Over girls?”

  “Once or twice but mostly over whose dick was bigger.”

  “Mm, I guess he got you beat in that area, but I imagine you didn’t take much crap from him.” Adalyn grinned at her.

  Sam laughed and gave Adalyn’s ass a swat before pulling her against her for a quick kiss. “Dominants fight over a lot of things as kids,” she said. “But some things don’t change. Coyote and wolf dominants don’t back down especially when it comes to something or someone that matters.”

  Adalyn looked up at her then. Did she matter to Samarra?

  “Shopping here we come.” Sam unlocked the door for Adalyn and pulled it open before going still. She glanced around and Adalyn’s gaze followed.

  “Someone’s following us,” Adalyn said. “I can feel them watching.”

  Sam looked at her then and Adalyn quickly climbed into the car. She had to watch her mouth. She tended to give way too much about herself away to Samarra.

  Sam closed the door and rounded to the driver’s side and climbed in. “Buckle up, baby,” she said.

  Adalyn waited for her to say more, something about her comment, but she didn’t. And Adalyn leaned back against the buttery leather seat as anticipation filled her. She shopped with Leah sometimes, but she expected this trip to be different.

  She imagined she’d be trying on clothes for Sam and getting turned on just doing it. However, Adalyn would be keeping spending to a minimum.

  Her excitement waned when they arrived at an unfamiliar boutique in an upscale section of town. The store was quiet and only five people were there. One was being helped by a rail thin associate while the other chattered endlessly.

  An older woman in a pale skirt suit with a severe knot approached them after a few minutes. She had the look of a woman who’d just gotten a whiff of something gone bad.

  “Hello. May I help you?” she asked addressing Adalyn.

  Sam curled her arm around Adalyn’s waist and pulled her against her side. “Perhaps,” Sam said with a chill in her tone.

  The woman’s gaze shifted to Samarra and her brows knit in consternation. “Excuse me?”

  “If you don’t show your prejudice too much, and I see something I like you might make a nice fat commission today. Are you ready to work, or do you want to go back to standing around?”

  The woman paled and Adalyn winced. The hardness in Sam’s voice was cutting.

  “What are you looking for?” she asked carefully, keeping her eyes trained on Sam.

  “Let’s start with some skirts and blouses and a few dresses for my girlfriend,” Sam said. “Size six.” She caressed Adalyn’s arm as she glided her hand down to capture Adalyn’s. Sam led her away then, heading to the lounge area.

  “Do you really want to shop here? She was being a bit prejudiced like she has a problem with your color.” Adalyn kept her voice to a whisper.

  “People in shops like this are nice to cash and credit cards but if she doesn’t show us anything we like, it’s her loss because we’re going to spend an obscene amount of money today and it won’t be here.” She kissed Adalyn’s ear and released her hand before dropping into a comfy looking oversized chair.

  Adalyn’s eyes widened but before she could say anything a slim brunette strolled over to them.

  “Hello, Samarra,” she said almost coolly. “How are you?”

  Samarra got to her feet. “Hello, Brittany. How’s your father?”

  “Fantastic and a little richer thanks to you,” she said with a smile. “Your new secretary?” Brittany asked giving Adalyn a cool look now.

  “My lover,” she replied evenly.

  “Oh, the next flavor. Nice necklace,” Brittany said to Adalyn. “Samarra’s very generous, but she’s never been big on giving gifts. So I guess you picked that out yourself. Where’d you get it?”

  Her stomach fluttered. “Samarra gave it to me.”

  Brittany’s brows lifted, and her eyes slid over Adalyn. “I guess you’re slumming now,” Brittany said to Samarra. “Just be careful. Girls like that always try to take you for everything you’ve got. They see dollar signs, and can’t help themselves.” She walked away after a cool smile.

  “You slept with her?” Adalyn demanded keeping her voice down.

  “We were lovers, but I never spent the night in her bed.” Samarra shrugged.

  “It’s a wonder you didn’t get frost-burn.”

  Right then, the sales woman came up to them with a bevy of items. Sam selected several and Adalyn went off to try them on. She noticed the sales woman was a little more congenial.

  Adalyn bit back a laugh as she made her way to the dressing room. The woman must have heard part of the conversation and was ready to focus on something besides Sam’s skin color.

  Adalyn checked the tags on the skirt and almost fainted. She could never drop six hundred on a skirt. Was Sam expecting her to pay her back? She’d be out of tips for months.

  There was a rap on the dressing room door, and she jumped. “Yes?”

  “Open up.”

  She opened the door. “This stuff is too expensive. I can’t even afford to look at it,” Adalyn muttered.

  “That yellow blouse is going to look divine on you with that skirt, and I can’t wait to take it off,” Samarra murmured.

  Adalyn shivered as she held her gaze. “When you put it like that, I guess we should take it.” She gave Sam a sultry look.

  Sam chuckled and kissed the tip of her nose. “And don’t worry about the price, baby. Just enjoy the day, I know I am.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Cargo studied Darden, his former packmate, wondering if the man had even read the information he’d sent him. Surely, he wasn’t that arrogant.

  “Man, listen—”

  “Are you still in or not?” Darden asked.

  “Fuck no,” he snapped and shook his head. “What the hell is with your alpha? Did you not show her the file I sent you?”

  “She saw it,” he said. “But we can’t afford to allow Wolf to walk away. Even if she doesn’t have the information, she’s going to be brought in to testify. Without her, they have a weak-ass case that our lawyers will poke holes in. With our man in the PD and the fed in our pocket, we’ll get out of this unscathed.”

  Cargo took a sip of the vodka he’d been nursing. The hotel suite was quiet as Darden basked in his coming glory. Glory hell. The man and his alpha were going down in a blaze of blood and guts. He still had no intentions of being a part of it even though he knew his new boss was being courted.

  He was no coward, but he was a practical man. He abandoned any sinking ship without a single compunction. His life was worth more to him than a damn dollar or an alpha’s.

  “Did you see what the coyote did to your buddies?”

  “She didn’t kill everyone on site,” Darden told him with a shrug. “Donna took care of the brothers. They were a liability and you know how I feel about that kind of dead weight.”

  Yeah. He killed his drink. “I know.”

  “The deal your boss is doing here will allow us to move in,” Darden told him with a smug smile. “You’ll get a place in the Snow Fur’s den once we claim it.”
>
  “It’d be nice to have a permanent base,” Cargo said with a smile. As far away from the Mystic Connecticut area as he could get before all hell broke loose. It wasn’t just about that damned shadow coyote.

  The Snow Fur pack didn’t lay down for anyone. They might be able to scare or slaughter Gray Tail into submission. Oaklyn was showing signs of being willing to sell out for a few hundred thousand. Others in his pack wouldn’t go quietly and if Snow Fur joined with them—fucking war of attrition.

  “So, I want you to work with the dancer Donna had helping her,” he said. “I’ve got a team on Summerfield now. You join them and at the earliest opportunity, take them out. Keep things low profile. The less trouble we attract the better and if that cop is snooping around get rid of him too.”

  ****

  “It’s been such a fun day,” Adalyn said, smiling as they sat at a table in Coffee Cafe that afternoon. She couldn’t believe how much fun she’d had picking out lingerie. Samarra had spent way too much on everything.

  Sam gave her a smile as she reached for her glass of iced tea. “I’ve enjoyed myself too.”

  “Thank you,” Adalyn said softly.

  “No, thank you,” Samarra murmured as she reached across the table to cover Adalyn’s hand with hers. “You’ve made my day.”

  Adalyn flushed as their fingers touched. There was a fluttering in her stomach and Adalyn looked away. “I was thinking of leaving because of all this trouble with Joelle Reacher, that’s my boss’s wife. She’s the one with the hit on me.”

  “You were going to just leave without telling me?”

  Was that anger in her tone?

  Adalyn met her copper gaze, dark with anger. “I didn’t want to risk your life,” she said softly as she reached across the table to touch Sam’s hand. “You made it clear you didn’t want a long-term girlfriend, and right from the start I wanted more.”

  “You should have told me to take a walk, Addy,” she said tightly self-deprecation in her tone.

  Adalyn closed her fingers around Sam’s. “I was willing to take what you were offering because I was lonely and I knew that wasn’t going to change.” She shrugged. “I’ve dated a few women in the six months I’ve been here, but I haven’t been able to have a real relationship out of fear of being the cause of someone’s death.”