Page 12

Chapter 11

B y the time Maxim had looked at the letter and left, Adler was truly sick of the day. Still, he made himself sit down with Bachmann in one of the conference rooms. She had picked up most of the relevant details and told Adler that she’d want to have a chat with the man that featured in Kelsey’s photos a lot. From the way they posed together, Bachmann had assumed it was her boyfriend or lover or ex.

“That’s what I thought as well,” Adler had told her. “Kelsey’s neighbors said she was quiet and lived alone, so maybe it’s a long-distance thing. You can have a go at finding out more about him if you want to, starting with his name.”

Bachmann beamed. “I can do that, sir. Should I bring him in when I find him?”

Adler shook his head. “Figure out who he is and where he lives first. Keep me in the loop about your progress. We don’t want to jump to conclusions, and if they were together, he deserves a proper notification of her death.”

Bachmann had nodded, and Adler was left with no doubt at all that she would have a name for him within a day. He was also aware that Bachmann doing this by herself gave him time to think about how to approach Gordon. Just remembering the hurt look on Gordon’s face made Adler’s skin itch.

“Fuck,” he mumbled, back at his desk. At some point, he had gotten himself a cup of coffee, but it had gone cold and sat there, stale and half finished, right next to the mail he still had to go through.

He sighed and did that before he took his mug to the sink in the office breakroom, dumped the contents down the drain, and refilled the mug with more coffee just as stale, just as burned. The room with its light green walls that normally offered a nice and quiet space to retreat wasn’t that at all today, and Adler went back to his desk instead.

There, he stared at his computer screen without really seeing. I should text. I don’t want to text. But what if I call and he doesn’t pick up? What if I show up at his office? I can’t just show up at his office. He could have me removed. And it would be intrusive. But I want to see him, hold him, I…

“Fuck,” Adler said again, eyes on his keyboard. It was entirely possible that he was growling at the space bar.

One of the junior officers walking past Adler’s desk heard him but had the grace to not say anything and leave Adler alone, on edge and barely able to hide it.

At that point, Adler decided that everyone would be better served if he went home. He took his laptop, his tablet, and his terrible mood and headed out.

Instead of going straight to his apartment, he found himself heading for Willa’s new house. It’s the full moon, and we would’ve turned together anyways. More to the point, Willa was the alpha, and Adler longed for the comforting presence and strength of an alpha.

He parked his car out on the curb, examining the property the alpha had moved into not all that long ago. It looked run-down, chipped paint, a cracked window, the yard covered in weeds and a massive hydrangea. Willa liked renovating, taking a fixer-upper and applying all her skills to it, then selling it, more often than not to supernaturals.

As Adler walked toward the front door, he had to mind uneven bricks laid out to make a garden path, and in that wildness that looked to not have been tended in years, he smelled living things, rats and insects, weeds and rotting flowers that had been overtaken by nettles. Not unfrequently, Willa used her alpha power to get the younger members of the pack to weed gardens and turn them into something pretty. She called it teaching them life skills, the kids preferred indentured servitude.

Adler rang the doorbell and listened for approaching footsteps, stood up straighter when he heard those, though not much. The door stuck when Willa opened it, and she had to kick it to get it fully open.

“Look at you, Adler. Are you here to trail your rancid mood all over the new carpet?” Willa crossed her arms, eyes narrowed at her second-in-command.

“Sorry,” Adler said and cast his eyes to the doormat.

The alpha tossed her curls. “You look guilty. Come inside and tell me what you did.” She stepped aside to let him pass, and Adler walked in, taking in the strange smells, new carpet, glue, cleaning products and heavy tools.

“I did something stupid, Willa.”

Willa led the way down the hallway, and Adler followed, taking in the paint swatches and the walls she was tearing down or rebuilding.

“Yes, obviously. But what kind of stupid are we talking?”

Adler’s throat was dry, but this was his alpha. If anyone could help, it was her. “Do you know Gordon Morris?”

Willa took a left into a living room stuffed full of old furniture that had probably come with the house. She pointed him at a chair, and Adler sat. Willa dragged over a wooden crate so she was opposite him, sitting below his eyes level. It barely made a difference, but it told Adler his alpha cared and wanted him comfortable. If he’d been in his wolf form, he’d have whimpered with gratitude.

Willa tapped her chin. “He’s a vampire. I think Maxim introduced him to me at some event a while back. Green hair, right?”

“It’s purple now. It’s so pretty in purple.”

He watched her make the connection then. Likely as not, she could smell Adler’s desire. “Oooh!”

“Don’t act so surprised.”

“A lovers’ tryst! I am intrigued.” The alpha leaned forward on her crate, hands on her knees.

“There never was a tryst. Or a date. There was a single kiss.” But what a kiss it had been. Adler’s head buzzed with the memory, taste and texture, lust and desire.

The alpha made a grumbling noise. “I can see the stupid coming through already but go on and tell me.”

“I was just feeling so jealous all of a sudden.” Adler’s mood darkened anew as he remembered. “And he was working with Dr. Jackson—that’s a human pathologist—and for some reason that upset me, and I know it shouldn’t have, but it did, and I told him I was sorry, but of course he was already pretty freaked out by that point. I may have growled and…I think I scared him, Willa.”

Willa nodded. “A vampire wouldn’t like that degree of possessiveness, and for sure not so soon. It’s why your parents always told you that wolves dating wolves is easiest. At least other wolves understand that kind of overblown emotion after as little as a peck on the cheek.”

“It wasn’t just a peck on the cheek. And Gordon is a vampire. I can’t change what he is as much as I can’t change what I am, can I?”

Willa giggled. “How observant you are. You had best make it a very good apology then. And remember to always use your words. Explaining your emotions near the full moon is good. Those who don’t experience it like we do can’t know unless we tell them.”

“I was planning on it, but I don’t quite know how to make him understand. And now I’m scared I made a mess of this and it’s beyond fixing.”

Willa hummed. “People do text, Adler. I’m sure sexy young vampires can handle a text. And if you upset him, he will ghost you. Or block you. In addition, this close to turning, things might feel more dramatic than they really are.”

Adler whimpered. “Right. Nothing to be scared of there, because being ghosted never hurt anyone.”

The alpha shrugged. “Meeting someone new is always scary. Falling for someone who isn’t exactly like you is doubly scary. I mean, you could always call it quits now.”

Adler sighed. “I don’t want to do that. Why is really liking someone so much harder than anything casual?”

“Because, Adler, we are wolves, and very much in touch with our needs and desires, whether we want to be or not.”

“Awesome,” Adler said.

“I think it is. Now text the sexy formerly green-haired vampire, and if you make it longer than three lines, I will bite you. In the ass. Do you understand me?”

Adler lowered his head, an unconscious reaction to his alpha’s command. “I understand,” he said, and wondered how he could say everything he needed to say in under three lines. I really do hate this day.