Page 11

Chapter 10

Blue Force

LENNOX

“ T his is where you live?” Charlie hands me a grocery bag. Does she sound disappointed?

After Paddington Inc., we agreed to head to my place to sort through the ASHRA file and plan our next move. It’s more private than either of our offices.

Who am I kidding? I wanted to bring Charlie to my place, see her among my things, have her scent on my chair, in my kitchen… in my bed.

But judging from the look on her face I’m wondering if I should have hired a decorator before bringing her by.

“Is there something wrong with it?” I try not to sound defensive as she pulls her coat off.

“It’s perfect,” she says with a grin that sends my stomach into a backflip. “Gives off real serial killer vibes. I like it.”

“Serial killer?” I ask, taken aback.

“Yup. No windows, one exit, newspaper clippings taped to every wall. Every surface covered in books and old-timey shit. Definitely serial killer vibes.”

Is that bad? Yeah, it’s probably not good. “Uh, sorry about that.”

She laughs and takes the bag from me, thunking it on the only uncluttered surface I have, a small side table next to my recliner. She insisted on stopping by a convenience store for snacks before coming over.

“Your place is cool. Eclectic.” She pulls out bags of chips, a jar of dip, handfuls of what looks like Halloween candy, and an oversized bag of Twizzlers. Seeing the look of horror on my face, she says, “Stakeout food.”

“We’re not going on a stakeout. We’re doing research into ASHRA.” I pick up the jar of queso cheese dip and read the nutrition label. I shudder imagining what this crap will do to her insides.

She shrugs. “Same thing.”

“You know heart disease is the leading cause of death globally for humans.”

She tilts her head back to look at me. “So you’re the guy people avoid at house parties, right?”

“I don’t go to parties.”

“Shocker.” She drops into my chair, grabs a bag of chips, opens it with exaggerated movements and tosses a handful in her mouth, chewing loudly.

My stupid wolf thinks her stubbornness is cute while the rest of me wants to bite those smart lips of hers. “I’ve never had anyone over before. I’m not set up for two.” I move a stack of books from a small table, lift it and set it in front of Charlie, placing the ASHRA file on top.

“You’ve really never had a guest before?” she asks. Before I can stop myself, I hear her whisper of a thought, wow, the only one allowed into his wolf den. I’m special!

If only she knew just how special. “Yes, the only one.” I echo her thoughts and her eyes light up. My wolf leaps happily around inside me, an uncomfortable feeling when we’re here to investigate a murder. Maybe two unless Catherine Grant turns up alive.

Opening the file, I kneel at the table, pulling the pages out. Handing one to Charlie, I take another, unfolding it and spreading it on the table. “This is interesting.”

She looks up.

Examining it closely, I add, “It appears to be the blueprints for a building, including the basement where it’s been marked.”

She squints at it. “No conveniently placed address on there I suppose.”

I crack a smile. “No such luck.”

She places hers on the table. “This one is a lease to a place in Chicago. Don’t suppose this could he ASHRA’s head office?”

Lifting more papers out of the file, I shake my head. “We have another lease for a building in Seattle, another in Los Angeles, and another in Houston.”

“Targets?” she asks.

“I don’t think so.”

“Why?”

“They’re residential. So far, the only uniting factor in our targets are that they all belong to Paddington.”

She stares at me thoughtfully, then shakes her head. “They were targeted because the corporation is a shifter-owned business. We have proof that Paddington was hit, but I bet there are others. ASHRA is a shifter-hating bunch, why target one single shifter-owned company?”

Her logic is sound. “We need to find out who else has been targeted.”

“On it,” she says, pulling out her tablet.

“You have connections I don’t know about?”

“Lots,” she says breezily, her dancing eyes meeting mine. “But for this exercise, I’m simply searching for shifter-owned businesses across the United States that’ve recently been targeted by vandalism and hate crimes.”

Once again, I’m both amazed by her ingenuity and displeased at my poor detecting abilities when I’m around her. She distracts me, but I can’t bring myself to resent her for it.

While she searches, I sift through the rest of the papers from the file. Along with the leases and blueprints, there are profiles of people involved in ASHRA. All human, a few women, but mostly men.

I decide to take a page out of Charlie’s book and open my laptop on the table, seating myself on the floor across from her. One by one, I go through each of the profiles, searching social media and news articles.

An unsurprising picture grows out of my research. The humans involved hold deep anti-shifter prejudices. Some have been harmed by shifters, or had family members harmed, while others come from families with deeply held prejudices against anyone who is different, not just shifters.

Dangerous people.

“I’ve found something,” Charlie says, meeting my eyes. “Come here.” She pats the arm of the recliner and I heft myself off the floor, circling the table to kneel next to her.

“Look.” She rapidly shifts from webpage to webpage. “Human on shifter crimes, and general crimes against shifters were up by between 900 and 1300 percent last year in each of the cities we found a lease in.” She flicks to the next webpage. “When cross-referencing with a random selection of other communities, crimes toward shifters are either down or on par with the previous year.”

Our gazes meet. “ASHRA are a lot more active than we suspected.”

Her face reflects sadness. “There’ve been a few deaths too. Shifters killed in their place of business, as well as a few humans caught in the crossfire.”

“Bombings?”

She shakes her head. “There are a few suspicious fires, but the bombings are more recent.”

I rub my chin. It’s speculation that the crimes were perpetrated by ASHRA as they haven’t claimed any of them. The organization is trying to remain in the shadows, working on becoming more and more active, probably recruiting as many people as possible to their cause.

Charlie echoes my thoughts. “But how do we prove this is all connected to our warehouse?” She reaches for a paper, examining it, and I catch her thought. We need someone to go in undercover, like Greystone and Catherine. I would be perfect. A human….

“No!” I snatch her hand away from the file. “Absolutely not.”

She frowns. “Absolutely not what?”

I shake my head, trying to sort her thoughts from my own. She’s energized by the idea of infiltrating ASHRA to solve our case, confused by my reaction to the thing she didn’t say out loud, and her heart is hammering in giddy anticipation from my proximity.

In a moment of weakness, I allow my wolf to clear up the confusion. Gripping her face, I cover her lips in a plundering kiss, releasing all the desperation my wolf has felt from the moment we discovered our mate.

He’s urging me to drag her from the chair, which I do. I can taste her surprise as she tumbles over the side of the recliner, her booted foot hitting the table and sending it spinning, papers flying everywhere.

I catch her as she falls on top of me, her eyes wide with surprise.

Taking her face between my palms, I ravage her lips again, using my fingers against her jaw to access her mouth, sweeping my tongue inside her sweetness, tasting her nectar.

I try to surface, try to push my wolf back, try to be a gentleman, at least make sure she’s willing before I continue to touch her, taste her. A dim part of my mind registers her arms wrapping around my neck, dragging my head up to hers for a deeper kiss.

Finally, she breaks it, lifting her face from mine, gasping. “I have court tomorrow.”

“Uh, what?” My wolf howls his dissatisfaction at our cut-off kiss, filling my head with noise.

She shoves her blue bangs off her face so she can look at me. “I can’t spend the night; I have court tomorrow.” And a child to care for , she thinks to herself but then mentally arranges babysitting, then remembers she has court again and cancels her child-care plan while my wolf mourns silently.

My brain fries at the possibility that she might have stayed if she didn’t have court tomorrow, then properly registers what she said. I sit up, still holding her on my lap. “Why do you have court?”

She presses her lips to my jaw and lets out a tiny moan as she explores me with her mouth, mumbling, “I’m the witness for an insurance claim.”

My heart feels like it’s about to explode out of my chest and my arms shake with the effort of holding back from crushing her to me. “Prosecution or defense?”

“Prosecution. It was definitely arson.”

“I should take you home so you can get some sleep.” Everything in me is fighting the idea.

“I drove us here,” she whispers, her breath caressing my neck and sending a shudder through me.

“Right… I’ll…” So hard to think with her perfect ass perched on top of me. “I’ll go with you, make sure you make it home safe, then I’ll run home.”

She smiles. “That’s pretty old-fashioned, but I’m not gonna say no. I like hanging out with you, Lennox.” A tiny frown knits her brow. “Who’ll keep you safe while you’re running home?”

“Who’s gonna fuck with a giant wolf shifter running through the streets?”

She thinks seriously about the question. “You’ve seen some of the rats in this city, right? Those buggers are ruthless. Take no prisoners.” She pecks my lips, and crawls out of the circle of my arms, climbing to her feet.

Fuck, I want to beg this woman to spend an eternity with me. But I can’t. Not yet. Not until she’s safe from my enemies. And from my family’s curse.

I push to my feet as well and join her at the door. “Let’s go.” The words are grim as I fight to leash my wolf who wants us to force her to stay forever. She can’t , I tell him. She has to go home to her son .

Surprisingly, this settles him down.