by Rae Foxx
I swallowed against the ever-growing lump in my throat. He rocked his hips into mine once more and then put his lips against the rim of my ear. “Look for the clues that no one else sees, Scarlet.”
I closed my eyes and wished he would kiss me or take me right there against the bricks—that his fingers would cup me, fill me, touch me. My brain had taken a backseat to my more basic instincts, clearly.
But in less than a heartbeat, he was gone. His touch was gone. All that lingered was his scent.
A scent that was a little too similar to blood.
19
"Get a grip on yourself," I scolded myself, as if that would help bring me back to reality. It was working about as well as the cold breeze running over my exposed flesh and hard brick in my back. I just stood, frozen in place as I stared at the dark alley the wolf had vanished into, his words running on repeat in my mind.
"For a fucking wolf with an eyepatch that everyone is convinced is coming from my imagination, you sure make a lot of sense."
For one, I didn't know enough about the Bountiers’ to know if he was one, or even if one was after me. Hearing the word once from a post officer who was shaking so much he might have wet himself hardly made me an expert.
Second, if he had killed the butcher why was he wandering around Cummings Cove at night? It's not like he was being stealthy, and if he was a serial killer he would have been stealthy.
He was right about one thing, though. I wasn’t looking deep enough. There had to be a motive that I wasn’t seeing.
What I had seen was green slime, and I had gossiped about it like some old lady looking through her lace curtains.
Shit. I needed to fix this. I had told Phoquin that the wolf had committed the murder. I had to get to him before he got the wrong man. It was all my fault.
Damn sexy non-wolf with an eyepatch! He was making me rethink more than just my 'sure bet' at finding the murderer.
I skulked out of that alley a few minutes after the wolf had left, enough to catch my breath and control all the weird slaps of emotions whirling through me.
The wolf not being a murderer was really not helping. Now the wolf was just sexy, and mysterious. A sexy, bad-ass, mysterious wolf... God. I was in trouble. I also really needed to find something else to call him, like his name.
I bet he had a sexy name. Something that would come out with a low moan and a rasp. Something that would make all the twitterpated excitement that was bubbling in my core erupt.
Erupt as he pumped in and out of me.
What? No! I pulled to a stop, feet sliding on damp dew from the night. I popped back into my fox in embarrassment.
Those thoughts were not allowed. Those thoughts should not exist. Yes, he was sexy as hell. That body looked like it was carved out of pure marble along with that scent that called to my inner animal made my body feel things I’d only felt for the twins and... maybe the Fuckin’ Chief. And yes, he made me squirm and flower like a fairy in spring or some poetic shit that sounded just as weird in my head. I was a fucking flower fairy, horny as hell, and closed for business.
I already had two mates. And the twins were right, this train was closed. Not for police chiefs that sent my spine into a fireworks show, not for sexy wolves that made me all wet and needy in dark alleyways.
Nope, nope, nope.
I picked up my pace, moving as fast as I could back to the Vagile Ajna and back to my warm bed that was already filled with my mates. At this point I had no illusions that sleep was going to come easily, but I highly doubted the old lady at the police station would appreciate me busting into their single wide two mornings in a row.
Plus it would give me time to figure out what to say to him. If I wasn't lying about the wolf with an eyepatch then I wasn't lying about the green goo.
I just needed to prove it.
I opened the back door to the shop with stealthy silence, glad that the crystal bells that graced the front door weren't back here. The door creaked a bit, and I avoided the spot on the floor that I had learned also creaked atrociously on my way out.
I needn't have bothered; someone was already awake. It sounded like they were chanting and moaning from the main room.
Shit. If this place really was haunted, I was going to lose it. Just one more thing to freak out about.
The moaning grew with each step, and so did the skunk smell that always followed my aunt around.
Double shit.
If I was about to walk in on what I was thinking I was about to walk in on, I was not interested. Chances of that reality grew higher as I slipped through the backdoor to find my aunt kneeling on a knit rug, facing a bookshelf that was covered in lit candles, crystals in hand as she moaned and rocked back and forth. Oh, guess I was wrong. Her hair made a curtain covering her face as she lifted up and then bowed again, saying something about the wolf god and bringing her what she desired most.
Okay, masturbating or not I had no interest in interrupting whatever was going on here.
I tip-toed forward, trying to avoid any squeaky floorboards as I made my way toward the sanctuary. I only made it about half way until I finally noticed what Poetry was moaning and praying too.
"Is that Taylor Lautner?"
Poetry jumped, shrieked, and immediately began to close up the shelf that had concealed a shrine to the on-screen werewolf. I wasn't wrong. It was Taylor Lautner, in all his glory, plastered to each surface. It was a Barbie doll of him, wearing only tiny denim cut-offs standing in the middle, his plastic smile a mockery of Poetry's horror.
She didn't need to answer. Yes, yes it was Taylor Lautner.
"What are you doing up? It's not even dawn yet!" Poetry shrieked, trying to move from covering her shrine to wafting away her skunk smoke so fast that she knocked over a few candles. Luckily she recovered them before they caught anything on fire, like poor Taylor's face.
"I asked first," I was barely able to restrain my chuckle as she lifted a tie-dye blanket and covered the entire shrine with it. Like she needed to make herself look more guilty.
"I was... I was just finishing up my...dawn rituals. It’s so important to have a morning routine.” She was still fanning away smoke, trying to act normal. Well, normal for Poetry.
“Oh, and that includes bowing to that dude’s junk,” I said and she jumped, still trying to cover the shrine as if I wouldn't notice.
"I always speak to the god of the werewolves when I see their jaws in my dreams."
"Taylor Lautner is the god of werewolves?" Yep, I was full on laughing now, this was getting better by the moment.
"Oh shut up," Poetry snapped, looking like Aunt Nancy for the first time as her airy persona fell away. "I had a nightmare and he calms me." She breathed as if she was realigning her chakras and continued. "My dreams plague me child, you would not understand. When you see such things as I do..."
She was really putting it on now. She gasped and pinched the bridge of her nose, sighing dramatically as she leaned against her now-closed shrine while I continued to laugh quietly. Jeez, I don't think I would ever be able to take her seriously after this.
"Perhaps you do understand," she gasped suddenly, back to putting on a show. "You are up in the throes of the witching hour, too. What has kept you awake, child?"
I stared at her, blinked, and let the rock of dread fall into my stomach. What had kept me up was a wolf with an eyepatch and a murder that I needed to solve if I didn't want to be convicted of it.
Okay, maybe I had more in common with her than I thought.
"Just following a wolf with—"
"A wolf?!" She interrupted me, throwing her hand over her head, "the exact thing that I have dreamed of! The creature of the night! The—"
"Bad omen?" I asked, as it was my turn to interrupt her. At least now I knew where I had heard it before.
This woman confused me. One minute she’s talking about wolves and omens and the next she’s worshipping a dude who plays a shifter in a movie.
“What did the
wolf look like?” Poetry said, eyes wide as she stepped closer, ruffling her thirty-thousand layered skirt.
“The same as he always has, not that anyone believes me. White fur," she gasped dramatically, hand to her chest now as she looked at me, horrified. "Blue eyes," another dramatic flair. God, she belonged in a melodrama. "Eye patch." I paused, expecting another over-enthusiastic response.
Nothing.
Hell, she blinked. "Oh."
"What do you mean 'Oh'?"
She sighed with an overdramatic flair, brushed her hand to the side as though she was clearing more smoke and bustled past me, swishing her way to her ancient tea set.
"The wolf in my dreams did not have an eyepatch." Now it was my turn to blink at her.
"Sorry to disappoint." I rolled my eyes, yawned, and turned, ready to get my naked ass back upstairs and to the warm bed that I was sure was still full of twins. That and if I was lucky, sleep.
After my interlude in the alley I was sure that sleep would actually take me now. And not in the nightmare way that it had been for the last few days.
"I did, however, have a dream of a man with an eyepatch," Poetry suddenly said as my hand wrapped around the cold nob leading to my warm bed. I froze, my cheeks actually clenching in sudden panic.
"A man?"
"Yes," she breathed, focusing on her tea again. She didn't turn from it, even though I was sure she could hear my heart thundering in my chest. "That man will lead in different ways. Dark omens, filled with red and murder."
"Murder?" I hated how much my stomach was swimming at that. How much it was wanting to fight her. To believe the wolf. "They’re just dreams."
I threw the door open, ready to storm up to my room and away from this crazy conversation. I was too tired to think straight as it was, and my mind was getting too muddled.
"Yes, that's what I believed too. But your mother voted for my banishment anyway." Her shrill voice followed me a few steps up to my room, it pounded on the back of my head, and pulled me to a stop.
I turned, but the shop was dark, the sound of the teacups had vanished and it was just me, on a step, wondering just how much of my mind I was going to lose in this place.
Or maybe witnessing the murder did that to me.
Being murdered would make you lose your mind too.
Mostly because you’d be dead.
20
I finally slept, and I had no dreams.
Well, I had no bad dreams. I actually had plenty of dreams, mostly involving the same wolf that I had gone to bed thinking about.
Damn it. I was in trouble.
I needed to get these feelings under control. But first I needed to solve the problem I had created and clear the wolf's name. And to do that, I was going to need green slime.
Some of the stuff had dried to the shoes I had been wearing that day, but I had seen enough cop shows to know that if I wanted it to stick I was going to need to find some at the scene of the crime. Which Phoquin had said wasn't there.
I was going full private-eye mode now, and I had the two best sidekicks ever. Who needed Watson when you had Evan and Owen?
“So, we’re going to get clues?” Evan asked, holding my hand while we walked to the edge of the store and peeked around the corner, scanning the street for witnesses. "Does that mean we get to interrogate witnesses, too? Damn I should have brought some cheese-wiz and a rope."
"Do I want to know?" I mumbled, giving the beaming Evan a look. They both ignored me.
“We’re like Scooby-Fucking-Doo. I’ll be Shaggy and you can be Fred.” Owen replied and then started humming the theme song, Evan joining in for a second before he stopped dead in his tracks.
If I didn't know better I would have assumed they had been waiting their entire lives for this.
“Wait! Shit no, Owen," Evan erupted, pulling in front of us and stopping us right in front of the smoothie shop, scaring the shit out of Mr. Rabbit again. He stopped wiping down the counter and yelped, ducking behind it like we hadn’t already seen him. Like the counter would stop us from going in there and eating him if we wanted to. Damned jumpy man. I would bet he was scared of his own shadow. "I’m not Fred. He's lame and wears neck scarves. I'd rather be Scooby-Doo. He's a dog but still better than prissy-boy Fred. Then you and I can be stoners together."
The two whooped and high fived, leaving me to roll my eyes.
"If that's the plan we should have used Poetry's back room to prepare for this." They high fived again.
"Poetry's back room?" I asked, eyebrow tweaking as I looked between them. "How would that help you prepare?"
"You really haven't figured it out, have you?" Evan asked, the two of them closing ranks as Owen checked to make sure no one was watching. "Your aunt sells pot back there. Tons of it."
"Hell, I bought some a few days ago. Good stuff," Owen said and shrugged. I was still busy picking my jaw up off the floor.
"Pot? But... no!"
"Oh yes, that cloud that always smells like a skunk’s ass? It's pot. What else did you think she was doing back there?" Evan placed his hand on my shoulder in an oddly soothing way. Or it would have been comforting if I hadn’t felt so dumb right then.
"My money is still on dominatrix services," Owen piped up. Clearly they had thought of this before. I knew I’d smelled leather and I’d seen several boxes of whips in the back room. Those were not for beating someone’s chakras into formation.
"Oh my god," I gasped, everything clicking together in a million ways and images that I had no interest in seeing again. "Oh my god!"
"Exactly," Evan patted me again and turned toward the butcher shop, which had already been renamed.
Becky's Love of Meat.
Damn, this town just couldn't help themselves.
"Let's do this. Looks like we won't have to break in after all." Evan plunged through the front door, the glass and metal wide open, letting the scents of blood and death seep into the street. It was an odd mix with the carrots and algae that were coming from the smoothie shop next door.
I tried not to gag, putting my fist over my mouth.
“Oh, hello!" The woman behind the counter jumped to attention as we entered, wiping her blood-stained hands on her eyes to dry the tears that were still forming there. Her poor eyes were swollen and red, same as when I had seen her a few days ago, screaming and wailing at her dead husband in a body bag. Instead, she was dressed in old-looking sweats and even from a distance, I could see that she had...the fuck? This woman had a five o’clock shadow at nine in the fucking morning.
It was hard not to stare, but between red swollen eyes and a beard, I was running out of places to look.
"Welcome to Becky's Love of Meat, where we love to swallow meat whole." She plastered a fake smile on as she greeted us and I promptly choked, a weird sound echoing behind me as the twins restrained their own laugh.
She really hadn't thought that one through.
“Thanks... ummm... I’m sorry for your loss.” I mumbled, really not sure what to say since I wasn't here to buy meat, and I really wasn't here to swallow meat whole. Just the thought of that had me choking on a laugh.
‘I'm sorry for your loss’, and I was laughing. Yep, this interrogation was off to a great start.
"Yes, well, how can I help you?" For how red her eyes were and how distraught she was, she really didn't seem that concerned with the fact that her husband had been murdered. She sure did get the shop renamed and reopened fast either way.
Damn, I was already thinking like a detective. I was really going to need a hat.
“We were wondering how long it’s been since that face saw a razor,” Evan said under his breath and I elbowed the fuck out of his ribs making him choke while Owen laughed.
“We have a really nice rump roast on special today. Slaughtered two towns over and brought in special,” Becky carried on, indicating the large cut of meat in the glass case that was inappropriately labeled 'All for you. Open wide.'
Well, at least she had a th
eme.
"I'm bigger. That would be like a hot dog to Scarlet..." Owen whispered to Evan like they had never been taught the art of speaking quietly.
“Shut up,” I turned and said to them, grinding my jaw. Their eyes widened but as soon as I turned, they took up the snickering again.
I stepped to the case, pretending to take a look at the large chunk of meat, but really I was trying to get a good look at the side of the counter where I had slipped on green slime. This was going to be hard if I couldn't get in the back. Shit. I hadn’t planned on her being here and really hadn’t planned on anyone being in my way to look for clues to admonish the wolf for a crime he didn’t commit. I couldn’t see much past the plastic sheeting and the cutting room. Damn it.
I could already tell she wasn't going to help me either. She side-stepped, her over-large brows furrowing as she glared at me. A low growl began emanating from her chest as she blocked my view.
“All the meat I have is up here, so what can I help you with?” She asked, her attention on me as the muscles in her folded arms throbbed eerily.
"I ummm... I..." So much for being a great sleuth.
Becky turned, following my gaze. Her hands went to her hips and she squinted. Yep, long gone was the mourning lady from the ambulance. She was onto me.
“Is there something you need here?" she snarled, her voice dropping an octave as the weeping red in her eyes shifted to something a bit closer to fury. "Are you one of them?”
“I’m sorry?” I asked, stepping back from the woman who was now snarling and towering over me. "One of who?"
She pumped her fists in the air and growled, indicating to me exactly what she was.
A bear.
She was a fucking bear, and I had walked right into her den and poked her with a stick. I was fucked. I was super, duper fucked.
Even the twins knew, they shuffled behind me and pulled at my sleeve in an attempt to get me away from her.
