Page 2

Chapter 2

The Wolfman

VANESSA

O h god, oh god, oh god!

I can feel it breathing above me, can see the pointy teeth inches from my face, lips pulled back in a snarl. I lay frozen underneath the white-furred beast as party guests look on in horror.

Not a wolf. A shifter. I think, anyway.

Slowly it lowers its massive head, yellow eyes glittering with menace.

“Oh god.” I stare up at it, blinking, trying to mentally unfreeze my limbs so I can join the others in their huddle across the room.

He blinks and then… frowns? Can dogs frown?

Under my astonished gaze, he changes, going from a snarling hell beast to a terrifying man with a wild tangle of shoulder-length blond hair and a bushy beard that partially covers a scar on his cheek. The man I saw in the Jeep outside.

“You’re alive.” His voice is gruff, annoyed.

I nod that yes, I am indeed alive, too shocked to use words yet.

He sits up and I realize he’s naked. Very, very… oh boy. He’s big. He’s big everywhere.

As he moves his weight off me, I try to scramble away, yelping when he grabs my ankle, pinning me in place.

“Glass,” he growls.

“What?” My voice is faint.

“Don’t move. You’re surrounded by broken glass.”

I glance down. He’s right. There’s glass from the window and broken plates everywhere.

“I’m not a dog.”

My eyes go back to the shifter crouched next to me, his penis hanging between his knees. I glance quickly away. “What?”

“You called me a dog.”

I scowl. “I did not.”

“You did. You wondered if dogs can frown.”

Okay, I did. “In my head I wondered if dogs could frown. Not out loud.”

“Mating bond,” he mutters, glancing up, his gaze on the buzzing hive of murder mystery guests. “We should go.”

“I’m not… what?” Did he say mating bond? “I’m sorry, but did you say mating bond?”

“Why are you sorry?”

“Huh?” I touch a hand to my head, wondering if I hit it when I fell. I do enough of these parties; I’ve learned how to fall without hurting myself, but nothing makes sense right now.

“You said you were sorry.”

“I’m not… you said something about a mating bond?” I recognize the phrase. It’s when a shifter finds their mate and bonds with them.

“We’ll talk about it later.” He takes my arm and stands, pulling me up with him. “We have to leave.”

I try to pull my arm away, but his grip is tight. “I’m not leaving.”

“Yes, you are.” A cold voice interrupts us from across the room. Yannis, the host, is pointing at us. “Those two, officers.”

My shocked gaze swings to a couple of police officers standing behind the host. I’m not sure if I’m more astonished by their response time or the naked man who leaps in front of me, his bare feet crunching on broken glass as he roars at the assembled people, “Don’t you fucking touch her.”

Seconds later, he’s on the floor, shouting and twitching, four sets of electrodes protruding from his broad chest. I have less than a second to wonder what happened when a pain unlike anything I’ve felt before slices through me, dropping me to my knees.

Our eyes meet, his fierce and angry, golden shards of glittering rage, mine fearful as I clutch my torso. It feels like the currents of electricity are going through him and electrocuting me too, but I haven’t been hit. It’s like I can feel what he feels.

His eyelashes flutter and he’s out. Gasping, I run my hands over my body, but the pain’s gone. Then the officers are moving in on him, dragging him through the glass as I gape after them.

“Her too,” Yannis says in an icy voice, pointing at me as more police arrive.

“No, I—” But I’m cut off as I’m hauled to my feet and pulled stumbling from the room. I realize one of my shoes has been left behind and try to tell the officer, but he ignores me. Placing his hand on my head, he shoves me into the back of a police car with its lights flashing. “Wait, this is a mistake—” The door slams shut in my face.

The silence in the back of the car is jarring after the chaos of the party.

I sit up straighter and look out the windows, catching sight of the shifter as he’s being shoved into the back of a police car. He looks like he’s still unconscious. Is it even legal to lock up an unconscious man? Or shifter?

The car pulls away with him in it, but I’m forced to wait while the officers take a statement from Yannis.

My agent is going to get an earful when I see him. These jobs are always bullshit, but getting arrested through absolutely no fault of mine? Flaming piles of bullshit.

When the officers return, I say, “Excuse me, can you please tell me if I’m being arrested?”

The officer in the passenger seat twists to look at me and I see a name badge. O’Toole. “Thought you’d rob a posh client with your boyfriend, did you? It was a stupid plan. He’ll be lucky if he doesn’t have to drink through a straw for the rest of his life after the amount of voltage he took.”

I feel inexplicably sad for the shifter. He’s clearly deranged but he doesn’t deserve to be permanently disabled over a misunderstanding. I try to explain. “He’s not my boyfriend. I think me mistook me for?—”

“You’ll have plenty of time to confess when we get to the station.” O’Toole turns his gaze back to the road.

“But I didn’t try to rob anyone!” They ignore me and I stop talking to them, listening instead.

“Hey, Landis. Can’t believe I bagged my first shifter,” O’Toole says, grinning at his partner.

“Congrats, you zapped a dumb dog.” She sounds bored.

“What do you think’ll happen to him?”

Landis shrugs, her eyes on the road, her fingers clenched around the steering wheel. “Probably nothing. These asshole shifters can get away with whatever they want, especially the wolves. You know they have a King and everything? He negotiated the original accords, which allows them to do pretty much anything to us humans. It’s disgusting.”

“Maybe we killed him,” O’Toole says, a vicious glee to his tone. “One less shifter in the world ain’t going to hurt nobody’s feelings.”

Grossed out by their conversation, I tune the officers out. They aren’t saying anything I haven’t heard a hundred times before. Anti-shifter rhetoric is everywhere, and it seems to be getting worse.

I ponder my unexpected situation, remembering the way the shifter leapt through the bay window of my client’s home, my lips curling as I see the humor in it. I can’t fathom why these officers thought we were breaking in. If I wanted to rob Yannis, that would be about the stupidest way to do it.

What I think happened is the poor electrocuted shifter thought I was his mate and went berserk when he saw me ‘die’ right in front of him.

Once he calms, he’ll realize his mistake, explain it to the police and pay for the damages he caused. I hope that’s what happens anyway. I’m not waiting to find out. As soon as I explain my side of things, I’m leaving. I need to find Laz and tell him I’m done with these murder mystery jobs.

The ride to the police station takes about twenty minutes and when we arrive, O’Toole opens my door. Climbing out, I ask, “Am I under arrest?” I try to sound respectful, but I’m getting annoyed.

I didn’t do anything wrong and if I’m not getting paid for the only gig I’ve had in weeks, then I want to go home and drown myself in cheap wine.

“Not yet,” he responds.

I’m about to ask him why I was forcibly relocated away from my car if I’m not under arrest when a loud crash comes from the building we’re walking towards. O’Toole and Landis look at each other and walk faster, dragging me along with them.

“Where the fuck is she?” A roar echoes through the station as O’Toole, Landis, and I enter the reception area. Reception is in an uproar with officers rushing around and shouting at each other, but there’s no sign of the out-of-control shifter they keep referencing.

A bolt of relief goes through me when I realize they probably mean my shifter. Well, not mine, but the one who jumped on me. He sounds relatively uninjured after his encounter with the taser guns.

“Where the fuck is she?” he roars again with enough volume to shake the walls around us.

It sets the hairs on my arms on end.

“I will tear this place apart if you don’t put her in front of me right now and if you fuckers put her in cuffs, I will break every neck in this place.”

All eyes go to my wrists, which are bare, and a ripple of relief goes through the station.

“There’s been a mistake,” I say to O’Toole. “I was hired to play a part in a murder?—”

“O’Toole! Landis!” A harried looking officer rushes toward us. “Is this the woman you picked up in Brentwood? The break and enter?” He’s wearing a suit and tie with his badge on a chain around his neck and a name tag pronouncing him Captain Dunphy.

“Yeah, this is her, Captain.” There’s pride in officer O’Toole’s tone and I roll my eyes. Good job apprehending a woman in an evening dress and a single heel who was in no way fleeing the scene when officers arrived.

O’Toole’s smile fades as Captain Dunphy glares at us.

“Take her into my office and make sure she’s comfortable. You idiots picked up a royal from Wolf-Haven. The place is in an uproar and the King’s emissary is on his way.”

“What?” O’Toole looks shocked.

“What?” I echo, equally shocked. Was I attacked by a prince or something? Okay, that’s kind of cool.

A roar interrupts us, so loud it shakes everything, including walls. “Where is she?” A loud crash followed up by something shattering has everyone flinching.

“Do you think he’s looking for… me?” I ask faintly.

“Take her to my office.” Captain Dunphy turns on his heel and rushes away.

Officer Landis, who was smart enough to remain silent through the exchange, stares at me. “Who are you?”

“An actor?” I say it like a question.

She shakes her head and they lead me into an office where Landis points at a chair. “Sit.” They leave, closing the door behind them.

Choosing not to sit, I wander the office, stopping in front of a picture of Captain Dunphy that dominates the back wall of the room. In it he’s shaking hands with the mayor, Lavinia Rose. Other than the picture, there are no personal touches to the office. There’s a desk, chair, filing cabinet, garbage can, a flag, and a coat tree with a Captain’s hat perched on it. No pictures of a wife and kids. Not even a plant.

Now that the shock of my evening has worn off, a bone deep exhaustion starts to take over, leaving a chill in its wake. I rub my hands up and down my arms to ward it off.

Peeking out of the blinds that cover the glass in the door, my gaze goes to the two men beelining toward the office. One is Captain Dunphy and the other is a small-ish, wiry man. He’s wearing an ugly brown suit too big for him and has large round glasses perched on the end of his sharply curved nose.

The captain ushers the man into the office while I step back. “Excuse me,” I say to Dunphy, “but is there something I need to sign to get out of here? I understand I haven’t been arrested, which means I should be free to go.” I try to sound tough, but standing up to authority isn’t one of my strongest traits.

“Sit down,” Dunphy says, striding around his desk without looking at me.

“Alrighty.” I lower myself into the chair, side-eying the owlish man as he opens a briefcase on the captain’s desk.

He hands a sheaf of papers to Captain Dunphy. “On top is the birth certificate and residency declaration for Keenan Wolven-North of Wolf-Haven.”

I perk up. So my mystery man is called Keenan.

He continues, “This is his first cross-species infraction, and it was instigated by the mating call. Article four, section 29, subsection B of the Human-Shifter accords, which you will find highlighted there,” he points at one of the papers, “states clearly that any wolf shifter driven to commit a crime lesser than murder or maiming while answering the mating call shall not be held liable.” He turns to me with a wink. “Thorny Gray-Owl at your service, ma’am. Emissary for King Lock Wolven-North of Wolf-Haven. So pleased to finally meet you.”

I automatically take the hand he offers and give it a weak shake. “Uh, my pleasure?” Everything’s coming out like a question, which I decide is what happens when a person is forced to contemplate a rapidly shifting reality. “I think you must be mistaking me for someone else.”

His eyes twinkle with kindness as he looks me over. “I don’t think so, and he….” Thorny jerks his head at the wall, which gives an opportune rattle as the wolf shifter in lockup throws something big enough to shake the entire building, “Well, he certainly thinks you’re the correct woman.” Thorny turns back to Captain Dunphy, his gaze hardening. “You will drop all charges against Keenan Wolven-North and his mate…” He glances at me. “Sorry dear, your name?”

“Uh, it’s Vanessa Bedalia.”

“A lovely name.” Then to Dunphy, “And you will also release Ms. Bedalia.”

“Ms. Bedalia is not under arrest.” There’s steel in the captain’s voice as he narrows his eyes at Thorny. “She’s free to leave. Your client, however, I still have questions about.”

“He’s not my client,” Thorny says sharply. “Listen closer, human. I am emissary to the King, speaking on behalf of the royal family.”

“I don’t care!” Dunphy snarls. “You aren’t going to waltz into my station and tell me to release a man who caused thousands of dollars in damages?—”

“If you’d be so kind as to look through the paperwork I handed you, you’ll find a cheque in the amount of $50,000 for the homeowner. It should be more than fair compensation.”

“Uh, so I’ll just…” I let my words fade into the tension as I slip out of my chair and ease toward the door. When no one stops me, I turn and run as fast as a woman wearing a single three-inch heel can run.

As I rush past reception and reach for the front doors, a guttural shout comes from behind me, “VANESSA!”

I don’t look back. I kick off my heel and sprint for the nearest bus stop.