Page 10 of High Stakes and Soulmates (Fanged Mistakes #3)

“I’m glad!” Zach says, all smiles as I wonder what he has to be so damn happy about.

And then why am I being so damn judgy?

While I’m over here contemplating this, Julian is over there choking himself on the leash as he tries to drag me after him.

“I think Pawficer Sniffington caught a scent,” Maeve announces since no one else has noticed.

“Oh, right,” I say as I hurry after him.

He starts with the car, scrutinizing every inch of it while Maeve acquires the keys to get it unlocked.

I can tell without even talking to Julian that he’s found something.

And then off he drags me back to the house, but when he doesn’t go in the house, I’m a bit thrown.

No, he takes off at a lope and I have to rush after him.

He zips into the backyard and scales a fence like he thinks I’m just over here hopping tall fences with these legs.

“Hey! I can’t just?—”

Ezio hoists me up as I flail, startled. Because I’m not expecting it, I don’t go over the fence, but instead accidentally elbow Ezio in the face with enough force his lip starts bleeding. “I really think I could have taken the gate!”

“Nonsense!” Ezio says, licking the blood like that’s a normal response.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to hit you,” I apologize as I realize I’m hugging his head, and he’s still holding me up like he’s offering me to some fence god or something.

“Your hand is on my ass! It’s like… right up the crack,” I say while I try not to think about his hand anywhere near my nether region that should be off limits to him.

Definitely off limits. Definitely not a place he should explore while my boss, the man who’s into him, and Pawficer Sniffington stare at us.

“You flailed and it kind of just… settled there. It’s not my fault.”

“Isn’t it?” I ask rather skeptically.

Julian growls and I look over as I realize that during all of this, we’ve ended up choking the wolf who is still on the other side. I drop the leash as Zach rushes over like I need more hands in this mess.

“Let me help,” Zach says.

“Nah, I got it,” Ezio insists, turning to body block Zach. Does his jealousy really need to run so deep?

“Really, you guys could just put me down, and I could, you know… go around to the gate. Like are we all just going to hoist each other over?”

“Do I even ask what’s happening?” Maeve wonders as I’m awkwardly cradled in Ezio’s hands who, strangely enough, has moved me farther from the fence to keep Zach from touching me. Zach just wants to help while Ezio juggles a coffee and my body.

“Just put me down,” I urge as Ezio eases me over the fence and finally releases me.

“There you go!” Ezio declares, as though any part of what just happened was a job well done. He even gives me a thumbs-up.

“Are you boosting me over as well?” Zach asks while Ezio hops over with ease.

“Oh, sorry, didn’t hear you. I was already in motion.”

Zach just laughs like Ezio is the funniest man he’s ever met as I look over and catch Julian’s eyes. I grimace a bit before giving him a wave. What the wave is for, I don’t even know. To cover up the fact that I’m not correcting Ezio’s confusion?

“Go on now, search,” I say while Zach runs around to try to find a way over the fence since no one is volunteering to ram their hand in his ass crack and hoist him over.

Julian is quickly off, nose to the ground. We pass behind three houses before he starts past the fourth and hesitates. He turns around and sniffs this way and that before rushing over to the back door of the house and barking.

I stare at the house, confused why the smell led him here, but it’s not like Julian would insist on going inside if there wasn’t a reason.

Uncertain, I head around to the front of the house and knock on the door. There are no lights on and many of the curtains are drawn, making it hard to see inside.

“The mailbox is pretty full,” Ezio says as he flips the lid shut.

“Let me see what I can find on the house. Zach, can you run back to your car and see if you can get a name and phone number?” Maeve asks.

“Of course,” he says before he jogs back. That’s when Maeve waves us over to a dark corner of the yard, behind the privacy fence so it breaks the view of anyone watching. Thankfully, it’s quite dark so even if someone was watching, they probably wouldn’t see anything.

“Can you shift?” she asks.

Julian does and glances back at the house. “There’s something dead in there.”

“It’s bad enough I could smell it before we even reached the house,” Ezio adds.

“Fuck,” she says. “What led you to this house?”

“There’s a clear scent trail from the house of the crime scene we were just at to here.”

Maeve frowns. “Okay. Let’s hope we can see something through the windows to help us get in quickly. Ezio, take the west side, see what you can through the windows. With your ability to see in the dark, it should be easiest for you.”

“I’m on it,” Ezio says, and the two of them rush off, leaving me alone with Julian.

“I’m glad Ezio thought to invite you,” I tell him.

“Yeah? You want to hear the funniest story? Ezio is convinced Zach asked you out on a date,” Julian says with a look that tells me that maybe he knows a bit of what’s going on.

“Yeah? Zach did make it seem like that when he asked me to meet him after I was done working…” I trail off.

“But that man… that man clearly likes Ezio,” Julian says as he watches me closely. “Like… I’m pretty sure anyone would notice that… besides maybe Ezio.”

“Hmm… you think?” I ask. He gives me a look that makes me decide I should get back to work. “I think I have things to do.”

Julian isn’t convinced. “I thought you didn’t like Ezio, so why exactly are you keeping this a secret? I would think that someone who wants to get Ezio off their back would jump at an opportunity to do so.”

“Yeah?” I ask. “Obviously, you’re confused. I just… felt like it wasn’t my right to tell Ezio anything.”

Julian snorts and I glower at him.

“Ezio’s a pretty good guy.”

“I’m not dating anyone.”

“Casimir was also all, ‘I will forever be alone and live with the weight of my past doings on my shoulders.’ So what’s your excuse?”

“My excuse is that a vampire killed my family, and I don’t feel overly comfortable letting them into my life after that.”

Julian hesitates. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Yeah, I know you didn’t. I didn’t mean it like that… I just…” I stare in the direction Ezio is in, although I can’t see him through the fence. “During my search for who did it… some information led me Ezio’s way.”

“As in… Ezio was involved? There’s no way he would have been involved.”

“Right? I feel that now that I know him. But before I knew him, I’d built up this horrible idea of how he was involved.

It’s taken me a bit to… rewrite my thoughts.

But if he wasn’t involved at all, then why did his name come up?

I’m not saying he was involved in killing them.

I know it wasn’t him. But was he somehow tied to it? ”

Julian opens his mouth before pausing, and I can’t help but wonder if he knows something, but he quickly shakes his head. “Just… trust me when I say that Ezio would never do anything to harm you or anyone in your family.”

“I know. The more I get to know him, the more I know that’s true. It’s just… after that, I had an extreme dislike of vampires.”

Julian rubs his neck where he has scars from a vampire tearing it open.

“Ha… trust me, I know. Even after all of this, it still makes me nervous being around vampires who aren’t Ezio or Casimir…

and I guess Yorick, which is funny. I feel like I should be concerned by him but I also think he’s like a child who just wants someone to give him attention. ”

“I agree with that,” I say.

“I know it doesn’t fix anything, but Ezio really does care for you.

Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to give him a chance to show you that not all vampires are monsters.

It’s the same with weres and humans. There’s always someone out there who’s more than happy to destroy a life. Just like whatever is going on here.”

I look back at the house. “Yeah, very true.”

“So you never found out who did it?”

“No.”

“Why don’t you talk to Casimir and Ezio about it? Maybe they can help.”

I slowly nod. “Yeah… I’ll think about it.”

“Alright, well, you know I’m always here to talk if you need to. I would love to help, but like… I know my sniffer is good but I’m actually just an art professor and know absolutely nothing about crime. Ooh, I do like the occasional crime drama, though. Or psychological thriller. Those are fun.”

I grin. “Let’s hope this isn’t a psychological thriller.”

“If it is… the killer is the least likely person… so it must be… Steve!”

That makes me laugh. “Casimir would love it if it was Steve. Or Ezio would love it if it was Zach.”

“Poor heartbroken Zach,” Julian says with a grin.

“I guess we should get back there.”

“Yeah?” Julian waggles his eyebrows. “You don’t like our one-on-ones with me in the nude and you holding my leash? I feel almost… upset.” He twirls the leash I’m at least not holding this time.

“I really should have offered you clothes again, shouldn’t I?” I ask.

“At this point, I have to assume you just like to see me naked,” Julian says. “I appreciate it, but I’m a taken man.”

“I don’t want your taken ass.”

He laughs before shifting and trotting off without me. I realize I should probably follow him, so I find him over with Ezio lapping out of his coffee cup. I guess that’s one way to get rid of it.

“You two were behind the fence for a while. And… are your clothes a bit ruffled?” Ezio asks as he scrutinizes me like the two of us might have been having a tussle behind the fence.

“That would have to do with you chucking me over the fence,” I say, stifling a yawn. Even with everything going on, I feel like I could lie down and take a nap right here. I’m tired of being so tired all the time.

“Ah, understandable,” he replies as I hear the noise of someone coming. Ezio pulls the cup away from Julian who doesn’t seem prepared to let it go—it is pretty good coffee.

Zach approaches us. “So I got ahold of the son who lives out of town. He tried their phone number, but no one answered. And he told us where a key is and insisted someone check in on them because they should have answered the door. He said he doesn’t speak to his parents much, so he hadn’t contacted them in a couple of weeks, but insisted we let ourselves in to make sure they’re alright. ”

“It’s not looking good,” Maeve comments as I see a police car pull up. They were probably alerted by Zach when he started his hunt. The group of us go to the door and unlock it, but I don’t even have to go inside before I’m hit with the smell of decay.

“Well fuck,” Zach says when the lights show us our third set of victims, an elderly couple killed in the same way as the rest, though the decomposition indicates they were killed earlier than the others.

The question now is… if the others were involved in their deaths… how did they end up dying later?