Aevar: Trekkers (A SciFi Alien Human Military Romance) (6 page)

His communicator buzzed and he turned it on. “Lieutenant here.”

“Sir, it's Tallon. Are you secure?”

“Yes Tallon, go ahead.”

“The rest of the A Team found me. They were dragged away by some of the creatures but they escaped and killed them all.” Aevar closed his eyes, thanking the stars that they only had one casualty. “The Titan should be docking shortly. Has your team secured all the assailants or do you need back up?”

“They're dead. All the Harvesters on this vessel are dead.”

Tallon responded. “Then you should probably come down here, Sir. I think those people that Ivy has been looking for are here. There’s a lady who looks just like her, at least. One of the recruits turned off the air supply in here; it seems that they were sleeping because of the gas. They are starting to wake up. Also a member of the A Team needs medical attention. I think you said Ivy has some skills?”

“We'll be right down.”

Aevar walked over to Ivy, who still had her blaster out. She was trembling from the adrenaline rush. “Put it down. I need to tell you something.”

Ivy took a deep breath and put the blaster by her side. “Are they down there? My parents?”

Aevar nodded. “We think they are.”

She flung her arms around him, her blaster knocking on his back. They were safe. And for now, the rest of the galaxy was too.

Aevar would find the blue man in his home base sooner rather than later. It would be his duty. But for now, his nervousness rested in meeting the parents of his future wife. Because after they got back to the Titan, he was hanging up his blaster and spending his days with Ivy. It was everything he ever wanted. A feisty woman to bear his strong children.

They would fight together until the very end.

T
urn
the page to read Harrison: Undercover Bear, the first in the bestselling Seattle clan!

M
y arms reached
out into the darkness as I felt my cell phone ringing on my bedside table. I opened up my eyes, rubbing some of the sleep away, trying to feel alert. It would be nice if I could get just one good night of sleep this week. But I knew what the ringing meant.

Another body had been found.

I fucking hated this case. The victims were all young men and women, and their bodies had been littered all over the city for the past couple months. The worst of it? We had no idea what was going on. We hadn’t a single lead in the entire case.

Someone knew something, but no one was talking.

The district attorney had even offered a reward for any credible information, but no one had even come forward. And any time money was playing in the game, we usually had a couple crazies come out of the woodwork. This time, it had just been silent. Like whoever was behind all of this was paying the crazies to keep their mouths shut. That was new.

“Hello?” I tried to sound more awake than I was.

“Harrison, it’s Grady. We’ve got another body. They want you down here as soon as possible.”

I didn’t respond.

“You weren’t sleeping, were you?” he said with a laugh. Smug kid, always busting my ass. Just because I was older than him didn't mean I was any closer to death than he was.

“You know us old folks, we need more sleep. It keeps us looking young. Tell the captain I’m on my way.”

I hung up the call and immediately got dressed. I attached my gun to my belt and my badge to my shirt. Another body, just another Tuesday night.

I
was working
late shift again, and I hated the late shift. Truckers were always nice and gave good tips, but everybody else sucked. Teenagers came in and forgot to clean up after themselves, like I was their mother or something. The older crowd had obviously been drinking, but didn't care. They were just rude. Sometimes I felt like I’d rather take the teenagers over the guys who slapped my ass as I walked away. But I had a mouth to feed, and that was still new to me.

Camden was only two months old, but he was already my entire world. Unfortunately, late shifts meant I couldn’t rock him to sleep, but I needed some extra money, and that's what I had to do. I was still getting used to taking care of someone else besides myself. Sometimes I still felt like a child. It was hard to be a mother when you were acting like a child, so instead, I focused on my attention on Camden. I made sure that he was well taken care of.

His dad wasn't some deadbeat, and he hadn’t walked out on me. He didn’t react in some ridiculous way when I told him. Because the truth was, I hadn't told him.

Camden's father had no idea that he existed, and for the most part, I liked it that way. He wasn’t my type of guy. He had come into the diner late one night looking for a cup of Joe, and what he ended up getting was a lot more.

He just had this look about him, so strong with huge muscles. He just made me melt. He had these ridiculously gorgeous gray eyes that I saw every time I looked at Camden. And he was a good man, which meant I didn’t deserve him. I wasn’t that type of girl.

But I couldn’t deny that if James Harrison had walked back in the diner right now I would let him take me in his arms again. I couldn’t think like that. He was a well-known detective, always on the news cracking hard cases. He certainly wasn't ready to be a father. It wasn't fair to ask him to be. It was one night stand. No relationship. I'd be shocked if he even remembered my name.

I, on the other hand, was single, with a dead-end job and a life going nowhere. I was okay with all those things; as long as Camden and I were safe and well taken care of, we would be fine.

“You’ve got a live one, Penny,” Sophie said to me between chews. She had more sticks of gum in her mouth than I could count. I thought she had a whole pack in there. I hated the way she smacked her lips while we were at work. But she meant well, always giving me extra tables when she didn't need the money. I mean, everybody needed the money, you wouldn’t work if you didn't, but she knew I was harder up than she was.

I turned around to see a man in a suit sitting at my table, which really struck me as odd, because I didn’t think I'd ever seen anyone in a suit sitting at one of my tables. Or anyone in a suit walking in here. I figured he must've been some sort of traveler, not from around here, definitely. We didn’t even serve the best coffee on the block.

“You know,” I advised Sophie, “I think you’re doing the whole quitting smoking thing the wrong way. It’s one piece of gum, not twenty.”

She pushed the gum to one side of her mouth and smiled. “I’ve only got six in here today. That’s better than the ten last week. I think this patch is working, too.”

I shook my head. “Take that off! You have more nicotine in your system than a whole pack of cigarettes!”

I wrapped my apron around my waist and walked over to the customer with my pen and pad in hand. “What can I get for you?”

He looked up at me, his eyes dark green, like nothing I had ever seen before. “I'm not here for the food.”

Great, just what I needed, a creep who thought he had game. “Then what are you here for?”

“You.”

“I’m sorry?” I said, now feeling creeped out.

“I said I’m here for you. I have a proposition for you.”

Jesus. What the hell was going on?

I
drove
my truck to the scene and turned on the lights when I got close so the uniforms would let me in. I made detective about four years ago, and I loved it. Homicide was what I was made for. But the scene of a body lying on the ground, covered with a sheet—I just never got used to it. I thought that after all this time, I would become more accustomed to all the death that surrounded my job, but I hadn't. Every case still bothered me, but none like this one. It was just so consistent. Another kid who looked no older than seventeen. Her insides had been carved out just like all the others. What the hell was this sick bastard up to?

“Harrison! Took you long enough.” Sarge looked me up and down.

“Sorry Sarge, you know waking me up from dead sleep is a little difficult. Hibernation and all that.” He and the rest of the guys laughed. All the same, every detective in my precinct was a bear shifter. The outcasts from all the other precincts. Some people still felt uncomfortable around us, but not Sarge. He had taken us in completely. He was the only one who wasn’t a bear in the whole precinct, besides the uniforms. Most of them were human, but not Sarge. The lone tiger shifter.

His kind was really uncommon. I liked working for him; he was respected. I appreciated that he kept us busy, but he let us for the most part do our own work. But he had been showing up to a lot of the scenes recently. Since we hadn’t found the killer, I could tell that the district attorney was starting to turn up the heat. Enough people had been stopping by the office for us to realize that things were getting serious downtown. He needed to close this case. Every time we felt like we started to get even a little bit closer to finding out who was behind all of this, another body would show up, and we were right back to where we started. I always felt like this guy was one step ahead, and I didn't like anyone to be in front of me.

I watched as Grady bounced up behind him. He was a nice kid, the newest detective on our force. He only came to the precinct about six months ago. But he was eager, sometimes annoyingly so. I remembered what that was like, when I first came to the force. Wanting to solve all the cases by myself, forgetting what teamwork was like. Bears made it even tougher, since we liked to work on our own. I hadn’t even asked him where he was from yet, what precinct had kicked him out once they realized what he was. They weren't allowed to, of course, as we were out in society for the past decade. But that didn't mean that people treated us like they treated humans. Even though there really was no difference between us. Sure, I had a bear that lived under my skin, and a few times a month, I would go out in the woods and spend a day camping with no gear. Fur would sprout out from where my skin was and I’d catch some fresh salmon. Besides that, I was just like everyone else. I went to work, I slept in a bed, and at the end of the day all that I wanted was to settle down with someone next to me.

That hadn't happened yet.

Actually, all the bears in the precinct were alone. Only Sarge had met his mate years ago. Which was kind of weird, because tigers had some serious issues finding mates. Tigers had particular needs, and Sarge sometimes had some OCD for sure. But now he had Natasha, and I was happy for him.

But that didn’t mean I wasn’t lonely. Sometimes I wished I had someone to spend my time with, someone to go out with on Friday night. Watch football games on Sundays. But right now I went home to my lonely apartment and did the same thing over again the next day. And as much as I hated to admit it, it was damn depressing.

There had only been one girl that I'd let get close to me. Penelope, a delicious little dish that I had met at a diner. She was a waitress there, and as much as I wanted to go back, she left in such a rush the next morning that I figured she wanted nothing to do with me. I understood, shifters weren’t for everyone. Maybe she just couldn't get over the bear that was inside me. I hadn't heard from her since.

Sarge pulled me out of my train of thought. “I need you to close this case, man, the district attorney's office is breathing down my neck. I received a call from the mayor this morning, and you know that I don't like to deal with politicians. So where are we with this case? Anything new?”

Gavin stepped in. “Not much Sarge, this girl looks just like all the others. There are marks everywhere, insides completely destroyed, like test subjects or something. We've looked into every lab in the area, and no one is sneaking in there using anybody's instruments to torture their victims. Whoever this guy is, he knows what he's doing. Like we said before the profile, some type of previous doctor, or maybe even a veterinarian. They definitely have medical experience. And it's not just a thing for young people. His victims don’t fit any profile. He’s abducted men and women, various ages, between five and thirty-five. No race or gender preference whatsoever. It just doesn’t make sense.”

I turned to Sarge. “Have you sent a picture of this latest victim to the psychologist yet? Maybe she can shed some light on the subject.”

Sarge nodded. “Yeah, I gave her the wakeup call. I think she was really happy to hear from me again. She wants us to wrap this up just as bad as we do. She's tired of looking at dead bodies. I swear she mentioned vacation this time.”

We all mumbled an agreement. Whoever this asshole was, I couldn't wait to nail him to the wall. But we had to catch him first.

“I gotta say though, he's dropping them in different locations all the time. He’s always a step ahead of us. How long has this body been here?” I asked the group.

“Coroner said about two days. Can't believe nobody found her before then. This is a busy street, but the body was behind the dumpster, and nobody sees that until the garbage man. People only see what they want.” Grady sounded older. The job was wearing on him too.

That only pissed me off more. “So he’s dumping bodies in various locations, and he knew that the garbage men wouldn’t find her until today. So is it possible that he's got some ties to local government? Or that he pays attention enough to know when the garbage men would've seen her? I mean last time we found the body it was over three days old. And he’s dumping them fresh. There's blood on the sidewalk, we've got a drag trail this time. He drives, empties the trunk, stashes the body where he thinks it’ll be found, and moves on. You know what this means: a dead body means he’s already picked up another victim. I can't imagine what he's doing to that poor soul.”

We broke apart as we all searched the grounds and brick walls for clues. We knew it was futile. This guy was good, clean. He always picked up after himself. There wouldn't be any fingerprints on the body because he used gloves. All the instruments were medical grade, so they didn't leave any marks that shouldn’t be there. It pissed me off how good this guy was. Just made my job a little too hard for what I liked to do. I saw Gavin calling me over and thought maybe he found something.

“What's up?”

He lowered his voice to just above a whisper. “You know I've been thinking about something with some of these bodies.”

“Yeah, what are you thinking? That this guy has to die? Because I've been considering that myself.”

“No man, don't you smell that?”

I cocked my head at him. “Smell what? All that I smell is garbage.”

“Exactly. He keeps dumping the body near garbage, underwater, he left a couple in the river for us. Nowhere that bears would pick up the non-human scent. I think these people are shifters.”

“Are you serious? Someone is abducting shifters and killing them for sport?”

He nodded solemnly. “I really started to think it after the last victim. And do we ever see bodies turn up looking like this? No way. Nobody dissects people like this person. I think these people are being tested on.”

I watched as the coroner peeled back the sheet to show Sarge the face of the girl. Her eyes were still open, but even glassed over, she looked terrified. If someone was testing on shifters, I had to find out who. And soon.

Before they start coming after me.