Wicked Days with a Lone Wolf (2 page)

Already clear of the spatter, Sherri took another healthy step to the side. She’d given herself a pedicure the night before, dammit, and starting the day with dead guy blood or
were
scent on her feet was asking for trouble. Or more trouble, anyway.

Ash huffed into the phone. “Sherri? Talk to me.”

Sherri cleared her throat. “I’m fine. I, uh, seem to have won the crime scene lottery this morning.”

Ash muttered something she couldn’t quite understand. “You’re fucking kidding.”

Sherri gestured with the bagel bag, even though Ash wasn’t there to see her. “Do you think I’m kidding? I really wish. Guess what? Found a dead guy. Haha, April Fools. Oh. Wait. It’s September.”

A belabored sigh came over the phone. “Fuck. You need to call my brother.”

Sherri smiled. “That’s why I said I had to call you back.” She replied slowly, in a show of exaggerated patience that she secretly hoped would press Ash’s buttons.

“Okay. Go. Call. No. Wait. Sherri.”

She tightened her hand on the phone. “I have it all under control. I’m fine. Don’t worry, I didn’t drop your bagels in the blood or anything.”

His impatient growl was quiet, but she still heard him. “Dammit, Sherri. Was it a human kill?”

Her eyes skimmed again over the torn and bloody body. Gross. Homicides
really weren’t
her thing. “I’m certainly no expert, but judging from the massive chest lacerations, what appear to be bite marks on the neck, and then the bloody paw prints leading away from the scene? My answer would be no.”

“All right. I’m coming over there.”

“I don’t see anyone nearby. I’m going to wait for your brother, give a statement, and come meet you. You can scramble your eggs and start eating without me if you’re hungry. Bagels and cream cheese will be along shortly.”

“I’m coming over there,” he repeated.

The line went dead before she could argue further.

“Freaking werewolves,” she muttered. “They never listen.”

B
lood rushed in Asher Hughes’s ears as his four paws sped him through the morning shadows of downtown Nogales. He cursed himself, chest tight from shifting too fast on his way out of the house.

Too tight from shifting. Yeah fucking right.

For thirty-five years, Ash had proverbially crossed his arms and refused to take a mate. For fuck’s sake, he’d walked away from his pack rather than someday take over as the alpha of thieves, fools, and murderers. He sure as hell didn’t need to adhere to their ridiculous laws and customs. Taking a mate—
committing until death, under penalty of pack retribution for the love of all things holy
—had never fallen into Ash’s plans.

Until he’d met Sherri. One night in a hotel bar, and all of the possibilities, all his plans changed. He’d nearly lost her before he had her, and he secretly believed he’d wake up one day to find her gone.

This morning’s phone call only dragged his fears into harsh daylight.

He rounded the corner into the back parking lot of Pan Delicioso to find her giving a statement to his brother, Jett, and his partner Detective Parker. She leaned against a painted blue wall, looking as if it were any other Sunday morning. The way the mid-morning sun caught her dark hair and creamy skin made Ash ache to go and lay his hands on her. If he touched her, she’d be warm like she’d been in bed. Dammit to hell, he wanted to be back there with her now.

Marring the entire picture was the fact that she stood a few measly feet from a shredded lump of what used to be a human male. Jesus. Someone sure didn’t like the look of that fucker’s face.

Ash steered around the hubbub, making his way over to his old Jeep. Sherri hadn’t gotten a permanent car of her own yet, so he’d given it to her as a loaner. He liked his bike most days anyway. He would have ridden it that morning except he’d wanted to scan for smells and sounds on the way. Unfortunately, he’d noted nothing unfamiliar.

His brother turned. “Nice to see you, Ash. I don’t suppose you know anything about this?”

Damn.
He should have known he wouldn’t get by Jett so easily. With a quiet growl Ash ducked behind his CJ-7 and dropped the handles of a plastic bag from his mouth. Groaning, he focused his mind and body on stretching back to his full six feet, two inches, reaching skyward to pop all the joints and stretch the kinks in his back.

“Lemme grab clothes out of the car and I’ll be right over,” he told his younger brother.

He gave the side-eye to a young crime scene tech who stood nearby with a blush on her face as colorful as a summer sunset. He snarled to encourage her to aim her attention elsewhere, and she only blushed more before turning away.

He didn’t mind women finding him attractive, but he was no fucking sideshow.

Ash shook his head, looking across the parking lot at Sherri as he pulled on a pair of sweats. He’d never dated a human before. Too much trouble, everybody said.

Talk about trouble. Some humans apparently also came with the occasional homicide. Sherri looked concerned but confident as she gestured and explained the mess she’d found to Jett.

Ash walked over and slipped one arm around her lower back, handing her a disposable container with the other. “I brought you an omelet.” Both their early morning activities and their breakfast had been interrupted. If he couldn’t make love to his woman, at least he could give her some damn food.

Sherri’s eyebrows jumped. “You didn’t have to come. I told you—”

“Eat.” He pushed the box closer, along with a pack of plastic silverware. “You need your energy.”

“Yeah,” Jett agreed, nodding grimly. “You might want to go ahead and fuel up. I’m gonna need you to come to the station for a bit.”

Ash held in a growl, his hand balling into a tight fist against Sherri’s tank top. His female had more than enough backbone to fight her own battles, but times like these he found it hard to stand down.

The struggle had been constant since their relationship began. It didn’t help that his and Jett’s old pack had threatened her safety after their first night together.

Ash felt constantly responsible for Sherri’s protection. And she felt, he suspected, constantly stifled by his overbearing attitude.

“Is that really necessary?” Sherri’s lips pressed flat, her fist digging into one hip. “I’ve been nothing but cooperative with you guys, and there’s no way I could have killed this man even if I’d wanted to.” Her finger wagged back and forth between Jett and his partner. “What the hell, Lane? I’ve been standing here giving you car repair advice!”

Detective Parker’s mouth dropped open. “We just... need you to look at mug shots.”

“Oh.” Sherri relaxed a fraction against Ash’s hand. “Well I can’t tell you much. I told you I didn’t see anybody except the lady who served me inside. Nobody appeared to be lurking in the alley, not that I looked far.” She pointed down to her feet, covered in strappy sandals. She’d painted her toenails a pale shade of pink. “I’m not really wearing my running shoes.”

Ash leaned over. “Hmm. Pretty. Maybe you can remind me what that nail polish looks like later, when you’re wearing nothing else.”

Sherri gave him her
I’m getting impatient
look. “Are you really trying to sex me up at a crime scene?”

Arms out to his side, Ash flashed the grin he’d used to successfully drop her panties so many times. “Baby, in my defense, I’m always trying to sex you up.”

“You’re unbelievable.” Sherri stared him down while Jett and his partner made uncomfortable throat clearing noises off to the side.

Jett tapped him on the shoulder. “I think we’re gonna— Oh. Shit.”

Before Ash could drag his attention from Sherri, Jett and Lane both took off at a run.

***

L
ane Parker drew his gun. His breath echoed raspy and harsh in his ears. His chest burned from running harder than he had in forever. Slowing now, he tried to pull himself together as he crept along an aging fence in search of the thing he’d been chasing.

Thing. Some creature. Jesus Christ.

He’d been an upper-class kid from Connecticut once. All he’d had to do was keep up appearances. Sure, the fact that those appearances had hidden a whole world of ugly eventually bit him in the ass, but that was the way the tea biscuit crumbled, wasn’t it?

Being the work hard, play hard young detective from the Parker family was one thing. Being the work hard, play hard detective who got caught sticking it to the chief’s daughter in the alley behind a party he was supposed to have been busting? Well, his name was probably all that kept him from flat out taking early retirement, but whatthefuckever.

Now he got the fun and adventure of chasing criminals that could rip him apart with their incisors—that was way better than the family’s annual ski trip. Or the golf outings that typically left him wanting to shove a sand wedge down his father’s throat.

He had his own demons to blame as much as anything, didn’t he? His need to fly around like some douche in tights and a cape, saving damsels in distress to make up for the one woman he couldn’t save—the one who wouldn’t fucking let him.

“Wrong place at the wrong damn time,” he muttered. Now look where he’d ended up— living in a place hotter than Satan’s toe jam, partnered with a detective who wasn’t even human, chasing shit he didn’t understand. Didn’t
want
to understand.

All he’d had to do was keep his nose clean. Never could.
Lane Parker. Perpetual fuck up.

“Get the fuck on out here you son of a bitch. I know you’re hiding in this piece of shit,” Lane muttered to the unseen subject. He scanned the ground at his feet, taking in the long streaks of blood that shortened into fat blobs, and then finally tracked faint paw prints to the fence right along where he stood.

He had to have this thing cornered. The house he stood behind lost its occupants to foreclosure. Judging from the blood loss, this bastard couldn’t run any more. It had to be cowering inside somewhere.

Good damned thing, because Lane was about to throw up a lung.

Through a broken slat in the rusted-shut back gate, he could see a way into the house. More blood streaked across the boards. Jagged wood sliced his skin on the way through, but he shoved a shoulder against it and kept moving. His blood pumped hot with triumph when a thump of movement came from a storage shed along the back fence.

Perfect. He had its location pinned down.

He raised his radio to call for backup. He’d get some guys down here to wrestle this
were-
thing to the station. Maybe Sherri could ID it, and then they’d all be done in time for Lane to find a cold beer and an anonymous body to relieve his stress.

Another thump came from inside the shed. Lane took aim at the sound.

“Jett. Is that you? Please. It hurts.” The breathy, female voice calling out from inside sounded familiar. Too familiar.

Lane holstered his gun, abandoning his plans to call for backup. A not-too-distant memory assaulted him, one of an interrogation gone horribly off course. Of warm, feminine hands clutching at his shirt. Feverish lips pressing against his, carrying the tangy and confusing taste of blood and desperation.
Zoe.

Couldn’t be. Could it? She’d said his partner’s name. Like he was someone she trusted. Like
family.
Shit.

Lane rushed forward, beating a fist on the rusted door. “Zoe, That you? It’s La—Detective Parker. Honey, the door’s stuck. I need you to come out here.”

God, he’d been looking for her since that night she’d kissed him in that interrogation room. Swearing it was only to make sure she was safe, knowing his reasons went deeper. Turned out a scared shifter could hide from the human world pretty well if she wanted, and Lane sure as shit wouldn’t chance asking Jett for information about his sister-in-law.

Another bump and the door flew open. Lane poised to grab his weapon again, prepared to be charged by something wounded, angry, and superhumanly juiced. He reared back when a body fell toward him, reaching forward again to make a fast catch. A woman landed in his arms, who was either unconscious or nearly so.

“Dammit, Zoe...” He hissed as he lowered her to the ground. Sometime while running he’d turned his ankle—an old basketball injury—he hadn’t noticed until now. No...

Sometimes it didn’t pay to be right.

He studied Zoe’s face. Her cinnamon skin and dark hair matted with blood. Her scraped arms. The way her lip was swelled and split, the bruise along her high cheekbone made him wonder what had happened between her and this guy. Was this a fight? A wrong-place-wrong-time? Had that guy roughed her up? Had she possibly been the first to attack?

“No... you can’t.” She mumbled and squirmed in his arms.

“Shh.” Lane put one hand to the side of her face. “Zoe, I’ve got you. Don’t move.” He radioed for medical, while tension gathered in his stomach and sank lower. Down, through his legs, rooting his knees and his feet to the dirt.

Shit, she certainly had the capacity to be their killer. He hated to admit that she did. As a member of Jett’s old pack, she’d have been stronger than that human. She was so beautiful though, with her curious eyes and delicate-looking features. Thinking of someone so lovely ripping a man to shreds didn’t work in Lane’s head.

At a minimum, she saw something. Knew something. He had to call this in. Get her medical help. Get a statement. It pained him to admit it to himself, but he didn’t fucking want to.

The ways of these... creatures— Lane still didn’t understand much other than the bits and pieces he gleaned from his partner. Jett didn’t like to talk about what he was, so the information exchange was minimal. Still, Lane might not know
weres
, but he knew about abuse. He knew what a woman who’d been mistreated and worn down looked like, and he’d seen it in Zoe’s eyes the first time they met.

Her ex, he’d hurt Zoe. Lane might have been tempted to fuck the guy up himself if he hadn’t already been dead.

Another stroke of Lane’s thumb along the side of her face. One small comfort before the paramedics arrived and he had to be an asshole. For her. For him. Fuck. If he had any brains, he’d stay as far away as possible.