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“You couldn’t at least fuck it out when I was gone?”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Elliot,” I snapped, my ears burning. I didn’t look over at Taavi, so I had no idea how he was reacting.

“What? You’re going to accuse me of being crass? That’s fucking rich, coming from you.”

I wasn’t, but he usually wasn’t that much of a jackass. If the circumstances hadn’t been what they were, I would have called him a dick and told him to cut it the fuck out. But—Well, clearly whatever he’d done outside that had turned him into the abominable mud badger hadn’t helped him work anything out.

“You going to try to take a finger off again?” I asked him, his irritability triggering mine.

“You fucking scruffed me, you asshole.”

“You werefilthy. You want me to let you ruin the floors?”

“Nobody fucking cares about the goddamn floors, Val. Nobody lives here now. Because Dad isdead.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

Taavi apparently did.

“That’s enough.”

Elliot hissed at him with teeth that were sharper than they should have been.

Taavi leaned forward, hands on the countertop, and growled back, low and resonant, and I honest-to-fucking-God saw his skin ripple and his ears lengthen just slightly. The hands on the surface of the island were slightly curled, and the nails—nothing like Elliot’s claws, mind you, but still—were dark and curled. Claws, not nails.

I forced myself not to take a step backwards.

Elliot’s eyes widened.

It’s easy to forget that Taavi—at five-four and slight—was just as much a predator as Elliot. Moreso, actually. Badgers go after small burrowing things. A hundred-something-pound Xolo dog is a hunter, a fucking bat-eared jackal of a dog that could easily run either of us down and tear our throats out.

Note to self. Don’t piss off the boyfriend.

Taavi won the staring-growling contest, and Elliot sat back slightly.

With a grunt and a ripple of skin and muscle, Taavi went back to looking completely human. The illusion was ruined, though. Possibly forever. I loved him anyway, but I had definitely just fundamentally altered my understanding of Taavi’s ability and willingness to fuck somebody up if he had to.

“You’re grieving, I get that,” Taavi said, his mismatched eyes focused on Elliot. “But that doesn’t mean you get to take out all that anger on everyone around you. They’re hereforyou, but they won’t stay if you keep acting like apendejo. I know what it’s like, believe me, but it’s not going to help either you or your father if you push everyone away.”

Elliot swallowed.

And then Taavi turned his attention to me.

“Andyou. You’re a brilliant detective, at least when you take your head out of yourculo. You’ve got a murder right in front of you, so stop overthinking everything and do your job.Entiendo?”

I nodded. I understood him, even if I wasn’t sure whatculoactually meant. I was pretty sure I got the gist, though.

“Good.” Taavi shoved a pan of wrapped chicken enchiladas at me. “Now put the sauce from the back left pan on this, top it with cheese, then put it next to the oven.”

Then he started scooping the shredded beef into tortillas. Not knowing what else to do, I did as he asked.

“Elliot, you can keep smashing the beans.”

Elliot obediently took the bowl and started smashing, his hazel eyes still wide. I was pouring the green sauce over the pan of enchiladas when Elliot spoke again, his voice much softer and more subdued.

“Can I ask what happened to your parents?”

“My mother was deported right after I was born. She went back to Mexico, to Poza Rica in Veracruz.” Taavi’s voice was even, calm, his hands steady as he wrapped more enchiladas. “She wrote to me, telling me about her job working for PEMEX, the government oil company. About her other job selling art to tourists.”