Page 36

Chapter 36

G ordon couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing. He froze when the werewolf broke his human form, turned wild and snarling, predatory gaze focused on him.

Adler, his body the shield Gordon didn’t want to use, stepped back into a ready stance, thereby pushing Gordon onto the landing. And then, instead of the absolute worst—of the werewolf burying his violent teeth in any part of Adler, things got weirder.

I WILL PROTECT YOU.

Adler’s single thought was clear as an orator’s finest address to a room full of a spellbound audience. To Gordon, it almost came with a physical force, another push to get him out of the way. He stumbled back another step, but then something even stranger happened.

Adler, one day after the full moon, broke his human skin and turned, right in front of Gordon’s eyes.

It was shocking. Logically, Gordon knew the shift wasn’t painful to werewolves, but it looked as if it should be. Adler, so far, hadn’t allowed Gordon to watch when the whole pack shifted, had said he knew it could be unsettling. In this moment, Adler’s clothes tearing under his wolf’s bulk added to the sensory spectacle that had a cold shiver run down Gordon’s back.

Oh, Adler thought, almost idly, before baring his teeth at the strange wolf. Sweetheart, come on, remember to run. Down the stairs, I need room to move.

Gordon blinked. Then he reached for the banister and started down the stairs, not going too far, not wanting to let Adler out of his eyes.

“I shouldn’t be treating hurt werewolves, so you better don’t get hurt, detective.”

Hah! He’s so funny , Adler thought. Then he lunged or met the other wolf lunging at him. Gordon was too far down the stairs to really see what was happening, see the gray and black wolf clashing. All he had was Adler’s thoughts, incoherent but calm.

My alpha would swat you, he thought after a few seconds, and Gordon relaxed minutely, taking one step back up toward the top landing again—only to freeze when a tangle of paws and tails clashed into the banister up there. The wood held, but it creaked. They briefly pulled apart, snarled, but then Adler moved, ramming the other wolf into the wall.

“Yes!”

Don’t watch, get to safety!

“I’m safe, I’m safe, Adler. Go get him!”

The wolf turned to Gordon and locked eyes with him. There was a glint of something there, like cold calculation. The wolf shifted focus, and now the teeth were coming for Gordon.

Nooo!

Gordon saw hungry eyes and the wild spittle drawing lines between incisors as the wolf prepared to jump. That was his world, that was all there was, the last thing Gordon would ever see, teeth and spit and sharpness.

Except the wolf never jumped, was yowling as if he were in pain, and his massive head turned, and he stopped .

He sank to the floor, blood oozing from his side. Wolf-Adler moved to the side, his muzzle slightly wet where he’d bitten down on the wolf’s side, so foolishly exposed when he’d tried to hurt Gordon. Adler’s breaths came out like forge-fueling bellows.

Sweetheart. Are you okay? He added a wolfish whining noise, concern.

“I-I’m fine. It’s fine. I can hear your thoughts though. That’s fucked up, I know, I meant to say something, but that just happened. I’m sorry. I don’t know how to stop it.”

He—you… You have the telepathy? Wolf-Adler’s blue eyes were wide.

“Yeah. Sorry.”

You heard that. Oh, sweetheart! It’s perfect. Why would you apologize? Do I have to be shifted for it to work?

Gordon shook his head. “Nope. All the time. Maybe it’s being close, so perhaps if we stay apart for a little while—”

Adler growled, set one massive paw on the other wolf when he started moving again, but looking at Gordon.

Gordon raised his hands. “Or not. Just stay focused, okay? Bad wolf right there.”

I know, sweetheart. I’ve got him. He’s not getting near you.

The other wolf showed his teeth, but then Adler pushed his paw down harder. Gordon knew he shouldn’t find that display of strength attractive, not in the slightest. But the heart wants what the heart wants. Or maybe I’m just hungry.

Shift. Shift, Adler thought, his hard gaze now focused on the other wolf.

It took several moments, but in the end, Gordon saw fur recede and pupils shrink. Adler remained as he was, the stronger wolf, Gordon’s protector, his teeth close to the now very vulnerable skin of the naked human who was bleeding onto the landing.

He knew you, Gordon. How did he know you?

“I…I don’t know. I have no idea.”

Adler-wolf’s paw was on the naked guy’s chest, heavy, pushing down. Gordon was of two hearts about this, if only for a second. He knew Adler was angry and in a protective mode, and he knew the other werewolf did need to be checked out. Restrained as well, but he also needed medical attention, if for no other reason than he could tell them what had happened.

“Adler, stop. He can’t breathe properly. Adler.”

There was a moment in which Gordon could feel Adler wanting to just keep going, maybe use his teeth on the man again. But he didn’t. He stopped. He let the bloodied wolf breathe, let him live.

“ Gordon! ” Maxim yelled from somewhere inside the apartment.

Adler cast his blue wolf eyes down and looked back at Gordon.

Go. I can deal with this one.

“You won’t, uh…”

A pause, then, No. I’m still a police detective, not a vigilante. Go help Maxim. The scent of blood is really strong.

Gordon nodded. He walked past Adler, and almost as if on instinct, Gordon ran his fingers through his mate’s black fur.

“I’m okay,” he told Adler. “Put pressure on that werewolf’s wound.” He went into the apartment.

From the looks of the interior, this would have made a nice home for an eccentric professor. There was a lot of polished, wooden furniture, the kind you’d mostly find at antique stores or auctions. There were old volumes on shelves and busts and sculptures. Gordon noticed one of Asclepios, but didn’t linger.

He found a back door, the kind servants would have used back in the day, and predictably, it opened to a less fancy staircase in the back.

There, even Gordon could smell the blood.

The scene in front of him was confusing. There was a half-dressed vampire and a naked human, and a hunter between them.

Maxim was bent over the human. Against a wall on the stairs below them, the vampire lay, a fine blade in the back of his neck and his wrists bound with a massive set of cuffs. The blade, Gordon realized, had severed his spinal cord, an injury a vampire could heal from but one that would incapacitate him for a while. Most confusingly though, the vampire’s head was still attached to his shoulders.

Gordon ran down the stairs toward Maxim and the young man. “Oh, fuck.” Gordon saw the traces of blood around the man’s mouth and took in his pale skin. “This looks like hypovolemic shock, and I’m guessing that one tried to turn him?” To his own shock, Gordon recognized the limp vampire from a lecture he’d given decades ago, one Gordon had heard and disliked, even then. “He’s the professor.”

“He is. And he did attempt a turning,” Maxim said, lips a thin line. “From what I can sense, the blood is taking.”

“Oh, fuck.”

The young man’s eyes were unfocused, and he was pale enough to be on Gordon’s table, almost.

“Indeed. He cannot have consented. Not like this.”

Gordon had an inkling of what Maxim was saying. Many had come to the morgue after they had been hurt in unspeakable ways. This young man, his black hair sweaty and sticking to his forehead, wore just a thin bathrobe that had fallen open.

The bite marks—vampire teeth, wolf teeth, bruises around them—already told Gordon enough. The bruises on his thighs spoke in even clearer tones.

“He…” Gordon cleared his throat. “He must have been fed on extensively. Is he that kid we are looking for?”

“He had more color in the photos from his social media accounts, but yes. His name is Raven. His roommate said he would forget to eat when he found a book he really loved, would read through the night until he’d made it to the last page.”

Gordon looked at the hunter, who looked at the human who was turning. Maxim had a strange, detached expression on his face.

Gordon reached out but pulled his hand back before he could touch Maxim. “You know there’s a protocol for this sort of situation. You know we’re supposed to let the turn happen and see if it was enough. Those are the rules the Forum made.”

Maxim looked at Gordon, eyes not those of the teasing, rhyming, ever-annoying vampire, but of the hunter. Of one who had seen more, had maybe seen too much. He knew every aspect of his craft, his burden, his duty.

“I know, and I don’t care,” he said, and slow as the sun to break through the iron clasp of a cloudy sky, he drew a blade over his own wrist, parted the skin until his own blood flowed over, and pushed the wound against the turning human’s mouth, gently, but firmly.

“Maxim—”

“I know, Gordon. If he doesn’t want this life, I’ll end it for him, but he needs to be given a choice, a real one. At least in death, he needs to be given a choice.”

“The turn might have brought him over. Even with what little blood he had, he might have survived.” Gordon spoke quietly.

“Tell me you really believe that, Gordon. Tell me you really think this poor child wouldn’t have wound up on your table a few hours from now, after agony, after pain he didn’t deserve.”

Gordon was silent. He could lie to himself, but not to the dead or those who’d just escaped joining their ranks.

Gordon had been left with the college kid—with Raven—while Maxim and Adler handled the werewolf and the vampire with the blade neatly jammed into his spinal cord.

With Gordon’s help, Maxim had carried Raven back up into the apartment from the servants’ stairs in the back and to a couch in the plushy living room. When Maxim had gone to help Adler, Gordon had left Raven briefly to grab him a sheet from the bedroom.

That had been a mistake. The bedroom smelled of sex and blood. No. Not sex, Gordon thought. He’d wanted to gag. His eyes had started watering, tears he easily avoided when it came to the corpses he took care of, but in this case...

He’d turned on his heel, pulled off his own jacket, and draped that over Raven’s shoulders. Letting anything from this place touch the turning vampire made Gordon’s stomach twist into knots.

Maxim and Adler had gone down the stairs with their suspects, Adler still in his wolf form, likely to avoid having to go look for a sheet himself.

After about ten minutes, Raven began to stir and his eyes flicked open. Gordon reached out to touch Raven’s forehead, and Raven flinched away.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. My name is Gordon, Gordon Morris. The people who held you here are gone. They can’t hurt you anymore.” He looked at Raven’s pale skin, which was turning a different sort of pale as the vampire blood worked into and through it. At this point, even Gordon could smell the change.

Raven seemed sluggish, and Gordon wasn’t sure how much of his words he’d heard or understood. Turning was a confusing time, and Gordon’s own memories were foggy at best.

A knock from the apartment door made Gordon turn. “Yes?”

“It’s Heath.” The dhampir walked into the room moments later. “Huh.” He looked at Raven and held out jogging pants and a T-shirt to Gordon. “The old bat told me to help you get him back to the house while he deals with things downstairs. His name’s Raven, right?”

Gordon took the clothes. “Yes. Can you help me dress him?”

Heath nodded and assisted in maneuvering first Raven’s legs into the pants, then his arms and head into the shirt. By the time they were done, Raven was shivering and his teeth were chattering.

Heath frowned. “You know, I’m glad I never had to go through the change. Everyone says you don’t remember the pain after a while, but the thought of going through it has always freaked me out if I’m being honest.”

Raven’s eyes blinked open and shut, not seeing.

“When my maker turned me, he made sure I was comfortable and felt safe. He said I could have people there if I wanted to and if they were okay with it, but in the end, I chose to do it alone. I kind of remember that it was painful and unpleasant at first, but I wouldn’t say I remember how it actually felt. My maker was there to help with the disorientation and confusion.”

Heath looked at the college kid, expression pensive. “Raven has none of those things.”

“No…I think I’ll stay with him if that’s okay.”

Heath sighed, pulled Raven upright, and put one of his arms over his shoulder so that Gordon could take the other. “If you’re volunteering, that’s fine by me.”

They went outside, down the stairs, and out the door. The alley was difficult to navigate with Raven between them, but they managed. A casually dressed set of two bulky-looking humans stood by the entrance to the alley and barely spared the three of them a second glance.

“43 Ruthaven’s daytime security people,” Heath explained. “To make sure no one goes in there.”

Gordon hadn’t even considered that. “We are still not involving the Forum?”

“Well, that seems prudent, don’t you think? This is a marvelous fucking fuckshow on some ginormous scale, and finding out if it was just that werewolf and the vampire professor hunting together or if there were more people involved seems like a prudent course of action. That’s why we’re also keeping the werewolf and the vampire instead of turning them over.” Heath cleared his throat as the driver jumped out of the town car to get the door for them. “Keeping them alive, that is.”

By the time they got Raven into the car he was a shivering, dead weight, Gordon was almost sure the young vampire wouldn’t remember anything about this or hear them talking, but he still kept his voice low. “Are you telling me you have your own holding facility at 43 Ruthaven?”

Heath put a seat belt around Raven, which made it so they had an easier time keeping him upright. “Well, you know, Maxim generally believes in preparedness and all that sort of thing, so possibly there’s a sub-basement below the garage, and since Bryan’s amazing Lar skills encompass that—well, no escaping a Lar unless he wants you to.”

“You guys totally live in a high-rise with a fucking dungeon in the basement!”

“Don’t look at me like that, all judgy-like.” The dhampir huffed. “It’s a commodity, and it’s not like my opinions are ever considered anyway. For instance, the sub-basement could be a tax write-off, but no, don’t tell anyone about the sub-basement, darling , is all I get.” Heath’s impression of Maxim was very spot-on.

“A dungeon for commodity’s sake. Yeah. Makes sense I guess.” Gordon knew he didn’t sound convincing.

“I’m half with you there, but only because I can’t get the old bat to write it off. Let me check how it’s going on their end.”

Heath pulled out his phone while Gordon kept an arm around Raven as they were heading to a place where he’d be safe.