Glancing around the empty room, he set Persephone’s perfectly poured beer in front of her, slipping a napkin under the glass and turning his attention back to his boss. “I’m doing what I can between shifts here,” he stated, instinctively clasping his hands behind his back. “I’ll find him. I always do.”
Seph took a sip of her drink and set it down, smiling politely. “I know you do, boy,” she cooed, subtly pushing the beer away. “But if there’s an issue we can help with, you really need to let us know. We miss you boys back home.”
“Nothing more than a rough start.” He gave his mistress a smile and a wink to reassure her he was fine. “These jaunts topside every decade or so always take a few months of readjustment.” Sliding his phone across the counter to her, he smirked. “Check out what these can do.”
His bosses had yet to fully grasp that the topside world didn’t work on the same barter system used in the underworld, an issue that frequently left the brothers scrambling with every venture.
Hades rose to his feet and held his arm out for Seph, peeking over her shoulder as she swiped the phone to life and delicately tapped on the music app, smiling as she squealed in pleasure when a song came through the cell’s speaker. “Fascinating as this is”—he chuckled, pushing the phone back toward Alex—“we need to return home. Stay the course and bring the line down swiftly, Cerberus. We miss our guard dog.”
*
Charlotte took a deep breath and pulled the tavern’s door open, carefully balancing the box of baking on her hip. The bar was almost empty, the lunch crowd gone and the first of the after-work crowd still an hour away from trickling in.
“Alex?” she called over, smiling at the stunning strawberry-blonde woman skipping past her on the arm of an immense man with jet-black hair and a deep set scowl.
“Hey, Miss Charlotte. What can I get you?”
Glancing quickly at the baking, she gave him a nervous smile. “After a very long lecture from Max, I figured I’d bring you something to say thanks. For checking on me. On your night off.”
His closed expression, the same one he’d worn the night before, morphed into mild interest as he flipped the lid of the box open and cocked a brow. “You baked for me?”
She pulled her hands from her pockets and tugged at the cuffs of her sleeves. “I picked them up from the grocery store.” She grinned. “But I chose the box.”
His lips pursed, his strong jawline flexing as he visibly fought to keep a straight face. “So, basically, thank-you Oreos?” He finally smirked, plucking a cookie from the pile and examining it before taking a bite. “You buy good cookies.”
“I try.”
He swallowed and gave an exaggerated moan of approval that sent a flush straight to her cheeks. “Damn good. You work tonight?”
She shook her head, doing her best to hide the rush of excitement that ran through her every time he spoke. “Not until tomorrow.”
He crossed his arms and leaned against the back counter. “Big plans for the evening then? Date? Dog-hunting?”
“Oh.” She laughed nervously. “No. No, no. No date. No.”
“Really.”
“Really,” she echoed, biting her lip. “What about you? Are you working all night?”
Cocking his head, he smirked. “Just so happens I’m off in twenty.”
*
Let sleeping dogs lie, you fucking moron.
The mantra had been looping in his mind the whole drive to the bistro, becoming more insistent as he pulled up beside Charlotte’s little coupe and offered her his arm. By the time they were seated on the intimate patio, the chant was clanging through his skull.
“I love this place,” she murmured, poking at the flower arrangement on their table. “It was one of my first discoveries when I moved here.”
Looking over the coffee menu, he adjusted his position on the small iron chair. “Where did you move from? Thomas mentioned you were transferred here a year ago?”
Her cheeks pinked up and she brought her menu up a little closer. “I’m originally from Ohio, but I’ve spent most of the past seven years bouncing from state to state as promotions came up.” She looked up at him and his heart damn near stopped. “How about you?”
“Three months,” he replied, pausing to listen to their server describe the specials before placing his order and biting back a grin as Charlotte placed her very specific request. “The heat’s a little intense, isn’t it?”
“The worst,” she groaned and flopped back in her seat. “Everyone says I’ll get used to it, but I think they’re lying at this point. Where are you from?”
“Everywhere.” He chuckled. “I’m a bit of a nomad.”
“Why here?”
The hunt.
“The terrain.” He sat back, trying to keep his voice casual. “I’m surprised you’re free this evening. Is your date from the other night working or something?”
Subtle.
“No. I don’t know. We didn’t really hit it off.”
That’s a damn shame.
She took a sip from her latte and looked out toward the fields of date trees surrounding them. “And your girlfriend? She’s okay with you hanging out?”
He winced inwardly, thinking back to the night he’d spent with Melanie. “We didn’t really hit it off either.” For more than three hours. He scooted his chair a little closer to her.
She rolled her eyes, her cheeks flushing as she bit back a smile. “Sorry to hear that.”
“I’m not.” He grinned, following her gaze as her dark brown eyes narrowed and she tilted her head to get a good look at his arm. “You into tattoos?”
Nodding, she played with her napkin. “Any meaning behind them?”
Nothing I’m gonna share.
Rolling his shirt up to his shoulder, he angled his right side toward her. “It’s one continuous piece across my back that stretches down my arms. A work in progress.” He straightened his sleeve. “I’ll show you the whole thing sometime. This probably isn’t the most appropriate place to show you that or the one on my chest. But enough about my ink. What I want to know is how someone your size is strong enough to take on someone Max’s size.”
The blush returned, leaving him little choice but to lean forward and hope his shirt hid his physical reaction to it.
“Peace officer training,” she said, taking a sip of the coffee. “Everyone finds their niche, and mine happened to be channeling pent-up rage into flattening bad guys.” She smirked. “Or flattening Max.”
“Speaking of Max, have you two ever been a thing?”
She hesitated just long enough for him to conjure up a whole lot of visions he didn’t want to think about.
“Well, we did kiss once,” she said slowly.
Fucking kill him.
“But it was just for a picture to send to his mother so she’d think he was dating a nice girl.”
He cocked a brow. “Did she buy it?”
“She said we looked like an old married couple who should have divorced a decade ago but were attempting to put up a good front for the sake of the children.”
Blinking a few times as he processed her words, he dropped his hand to his knee, his knuckles grazing her thigh as all memory of Hades, his mission, and his brothers slunk to the recesses of his mind. “And since then?”
“Oh, yuck. Ew.”
*
The cooling misters lining the patio powered down as the sun began to sink on the horizon and Charlotte glanced down at the tab, nudging Alex gently in the ribs when he snatched it from view and placed it facedown with a stack of bills. “I won’t fight you this time, but next time is definitely on me,” she stated with feigned sternness, catching the implication of her words a fraction too late.
A strange look flashed across his face before he smirked and tucked his hair behind his ear. “If I knew you were game for a next time, I wouldn’t have talked so fast this time.”
Biting her lip, she hooked her purse onto her shoulder and stood. “So
, do you see colors differently out of each eye?” she wondered aloud as he downed the last of his fourth coffee. “Like, are things bluer with your right?” When he looked over at her, brows raised, she grinned. “I’ve been trying to figure it out since I saw you without your sunglasses.”
“Never thought about it.” He chuckled and straightened to his full height. He covered his blue eye first, then the hazel one. “No difference. Is that why you always look at me like I’m a specimen under a microscope?”
You’re a specimen, all right.
“I’ve been wanting to poke at your eyes since I saw them,” she replied.
Grabbing his wallet and keys from the table, he offered her his hand. “Not gonna lie. That’s a little freaky.”
He escorted her out of the bistro, slowing their speed as they approached their vehicles. “So, I have Max’s number,” he stated, leaning against his SUV and gently tugging her close to him. “But I’d rather not go through him to set up another date with you.”
She took a subconscious step back, untangling her fingers from his as she pulled her phone out and handed it to him. “I don’t really date,” she blurted out as he used her phone to fire off a text to his own.
“I don’t either,” he muttered, giving her cell back and grinning with his perfect teeth. “So neither of us will be shocked when this goes to hell. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Chapter Seven
Alex paced the small hall of his trailer, his phone tight to his ear. “Yeah, I’m still on the hunt,” he growled. “I’ve been out four times this week alone.”
Ryan switched his tone. “Look, I’m sorry, man,” he grumbled. “I’m just a little on edge, and Bo’s going off the rails again. The sooner we track down the final descendants, the sooner—”
“Yeah, yeah,” he interrupted. “We all want to wrap this mission up. But it’s a big area with a lot of ground to cover.” He ran his hand down his healing ribs. “There’s been nothing in the news about any murders in the region, but usually there’s a break between the second sighting and the first kills.”
“Maybe Bo and I should relocate.”
He stopped pacing and ran a hand through his hair. “Give me a little more time to scout the smaller towns, and I’ll call you the moment I pinpoint our target. It would be a big help if you scan the news, though.”
Ryan went quiet. “Bo said you called him about a girl. That wouldn’t have anything to do with your inability to track down the bloodline, right?”
With a snort, he pulled his phone away from his ear and looked down at it. “You’re kidding, right?” He flopped onto his sofa. “So has Hades checked in with you lately?”
“Why the hell would he?” Ryan asked, his voice cutting in and out. “He hates coming topside.”
He leaned his head back and scratched the stubble on his chin. “Just curious. I’ll call in a few days with an update.”
He had to get back to work.
Bouncing between the underworld and topside life was taking its toll on all of them, the last remnants of the elusive Pirithous line forcing them back up every few decades, forcing them to settle back into an ever-changing human world while they followed scents and leads throughout the continents.
Every time, it became harder. Technology eliminated the freedom they once had to roam and settle at will. Computerized identification that hadn’t existed thirty years prior, smartphones, even the existence of the internet had been in its infancy the last time the brothers had ventured into the human world.
Hunts that once took days or weeks topside now took months or years, the diluted line in its final death throes.
It had been the hunt for this particularly evasive Pirithous descendant that brought Alex to the Coachella Valley. The last of the male line, Hades’s seer had hissed hours before the brothers found themselves in a Colorado field less than a year ago, wearing clothes that had gone out of style in 1989.
Shoving his keys into his back pocket and tossing his backpack over his shoulder, he strode out the door to make the most of the remaining night hours.
*
Charlotte hauled the dog food out of her work truck and dumped some into the new bowl she’d picked up on her way to the park. With her offering in hand, she slipped a large black collar over her wrist and walked cautiously through the brush and set the food in a clear patch. “Dinner’s served,” she called into the dawn light, disappointment settling in when not even the howl of a coyote answered back.
Her radio buzzed to life, Max’s voice crackled with the poor reception. “Clocked you out, Chuck. Location?”
She jogged back to the truck and lifted the handpiece. “The Keys,” she said, her eyes on the ridge to her left. “I’ll head out of here in an hour or so.”
“Text me when you get home,” he replied before the line went silent.
Crawling onto the hood of the vehicle, she took off her hat and badge, undid the top three buttons of her work shirt, and hiked the neckline of her tank top up as she reclined back against the windshield. “Here, puppy, puppy, puppy,” she called out halfheartedly, loosening the laces of her boots and freezing when a soft bark answered her.
She sat up and watched as the huge beast descended the ridge toward her, his head low and ears alert. In the sunlight, the deep blackness of his long fur was amplified against the beige of the landscape, his immense size more pronounced when he wasn’t blending into the night sky. “Hey, boy,” she whispered, easing her legs over the side of the truck. “Hungry?”
He stopped a good fifty yards away and sat, turning his nose up at the bowl.
“What?” she asked with feigned offense. “You don’t like my cooking?”
The animal huffed and rose to his feet, his hackles rising as he approached the food. He sniffed the bowl, blowing out what she could only think of as a resigned breath.
“Go on,” she encouraged. “I know it’s not a fuzzy little bunny, but it’s good for you.”
She leaned forward in anticipation as the dog’s huge head dropped and he buried his nose into the bowl.
“Awwww, you’re such a good boy.”
*
Alex fought back against his gag reflex, forcing the last of the kibble down.
Fucking. Humiliating.
He sat back and used his paw to brush the crumbs from his snout.
Bo can never know about this. Ever.
He’d lasted two nights without seeing Charlotte, work obligations for both of them demanding he remain content with intermittent texts and quick phone calls.
It wasn’t enough.
“Still hungry?” she called over to him, waving the nasty green bag his way.
He chuffed, shaking his head and batting the bowl away. Taking the hint, she slipped off her work truck and crouched, one arm tucked awkwardly behind her back.
“Come on, boy,” she cooed, then frowned. “Girl? Awww, maybe you’re a girl!”
His mind whirring with comebacks, he padded cautiously toward her, his head down to keep his fur over his distinctive eyes. When she lost her balance and moved suddenly, he jumped back instinctively, his ears flattening.
“Oh, honey!” she murmured. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Come here. C’mon!”
Wondering how many dates it would take to hear her call him honey in human form, he inched forward until he was just out of reach. From his angle, he had a good view of her cleavage as she leaned toward him, her shirt gaping open.
He dropped his head.
No looking. That is so not right.
Stretching his snout into her open palm, he began warring internally about the morality of what he was doing. She was completely oblivious that the dog she was petting so gently was the man she’d be dining with in two nights.
“Such a good boy,” she murmured as something slipped over his muzzle, her free hand sliding it over his ears and releasing it as it hung loose around his neck.
Collar.
With a low growl, he pulled his head out of her h
and and backed up before turning tail and barreling away.
*
Charlotte groaned in protest as her phone buzzed again, waking her from a heavy sleep. She smacked around her nightstand until her fingers found the cell.
“I’m going for groceries in twenty. Care to join me?”
She squinted and looked at the sender’s name.
Alex.
Flinging her blanket off, she scrambled to the bathroom to shower, racing back to her room to reply. “Sounds good. Meet you at the tavern.”
She blasted through her routine, forgoing a ponytail when her wet hair refused to comply and tossing her work clothes into a bag. With a final look in the mirror to ensure her jean shorts weren’t too short and her black peasant shirt was the appropriate level of casual, she slipped on her sandals and jogged down the stairs to her apartment parking lot, gasping when she got into her car and the heat of the seat belt brushed her thigh.
Alex was leaning against his SUV when she arrived, sunglasses on and long hair pulled through the back of his ball cap. “Hey, Miss Charlotte,” he greeted, not even trying to hide his perusal of her. “Hop in.”
She climbed into the passenger side and looked around. “This is way cleaner than my car.”
Revving the engine, he backed up and turned onto the road. “I cleaned it out today so you wouldn’t see what a slob I actually am.” He grinned. “Don’t feel around under your seat. I ran out of time.”
As they walked into the grocery store, he reached down and scooped her hand into his. She looked down at the giant mitt encasing her fingers. “Worried you’ll get lost?” she teased, hoping her voice didn’t reveal the thrill that ran through her with the casual contact.
“Worried you’ll find some hot guy in the freezer section and leave me stranded with a single tomato and a can of tuna.” He smirked, tightening his grip a fraction.
Picking up a basket, he gestured toward the produce. “I just need a few things,” he said as they made their way to the fruit. “And I figured this was as good an excuse as any to see you before tomorrow.”
He led her through the store, weaving in and out of the aisles while they chatted about work and bosses. When they hit the pet aisle, he slowed. “So you said that dog from the park didn’t seem too thrilled with the food you put out for him. Maybe it’s the type.”
Junkyard Dog Page 5
