But there was one big difference. This time, they’d arrested one of the supernaturals. While the four who’d remained behind in the club had gotten away, the one Karissa had knocked out cold was currently being held in an interrogation room at the end of the hall. Mike and Gage Dixon, the SWAT team’s commander and alpha of their entire pack, were in there right now along with the chief of police and half a dozen other senior officers, trying to get the guy to talk. The fact that Hale had been the one who’d carried the suspect all the way back to the club hadn’t gotten him a seat in the room. Of course, Hale hadn’t gotten a chance to reveal much in the way of the details when it came to how he’dcaptured the suspect, so maybe that was the reason he’d been excluded.
Hale took another sip of coffee, grimacing at the acrid taste. Sometimes, he thought cops purposely made the coffee in their station houses taste like crap so no one would drink it. It seemed like an extreme and sadistic measure to go to in order to protect your coffee supply.
As the bitter brew went down, Hale felt a burning in his chest. His hand came up without thought, lightly fingering the fresh scar there. Thanks to his enhanced werewolf healing, the deep wound had sealed up before he’d even gotten back to the club, though it would be tender for another day or so. Still, feeling the wound made it impossible to think about anything but the moment that vicious supernatural had stabbed him. That thought immediately led to Karissa and how she’d appeared out of nowhere and saved his ass. Or, well, his head at least. Even now, hours later, there was a big part of him questioning if any of it had been real. He’d been stabbed in the chest and losing blood by the bucketloads. Maybe he’d been hallucinating.
But as much as he might want it to be so, he knew that wasn’t the case. Karissa, the woman he hadn’t seen in a decade, had shown up in the middle of that alley and kicked the crap out of a guy who’d given Hale all the fight he could handle. Seriously, Karissa, whom he outweighed by morethan a hundred pounds, had nearly put a dangerous supernatural through a wall with one kick.
And she had a sword that could disappear into thin air. What the hell was going on with that?
He was pretty sure he would have noticed a sword if she’d brought it on any of their dates back in high school. Part of him wondered if anything back then had been real or if she’d been lying to him the entire time. Though if he were being honest with himself, he supposed she could have picked up the sword and butt kicking ability at some point over the past ten years. Heaven knew he’d gone through more than a few changes in that time.
Not that it mattered. Hale doubted he’d ever see Karissa and her glowing sword again. An inexplicable weight suddenly crushed his chest, making it difficult to breathe. Damn, he couldn’t believe how much that thought hurt. He replayed those few moments with Karissa, wondering if he should have chased after his ex-girlfriend. Then again, shehaddisappeared in a flash of light. Without a functional nose to track her, what could he have done?
Hale was still contemplating that when Mike and Gage walked into the room. Both of his fellow werewolves looked tired and more than a little frustrated.
“Before you guys start bombarding me with questions about the guy Hale brought in, there are a few things you need to know,” Gage said whenHale and his other three pack mates all opened their mouths at the same time. “First off, he isn’t talking, not even to ask for a lawyer. Second, we have no idea who he is. He didn’t have an ID on him and for reasons no one can explain, it appears that he doesn’t have any fingerprints. They’ve already put his mug shot out there hoping to pick up something with facial recognition, but so far, we’ve got nothing.”
Trey frowned. “If he wasn’t talking, what the hell were you and Mike doing in there for two hours?”
“We were hoping to get him to talk,” Mike said with a sigh. “But he only sat there the entire time, ignoring the detectives asking the questions and glaring at Gage and me like he wanted to kill us.”
“You think he knows that we’re werewolves?” Connor asked, curious. “Or is he simply pissed that Hale kicked his ass?”
Hale would have pointed out that he hadn’t actually done the ass kicking, but Mike continued before he had a chance to say anything.
“I’m leaning toward the first option,” Mike said, moving over to join Hale and the others at the table. “Especially considering the fact that the guy in there is supernatural. I have no idea exactly what he is, but human is definitely off the list.”
“How do you know?” Hale asked.
Not that he disagreed. After everything he’d seen earlier that night, there was no doubt in his mindthat the guy in the interrogation room was a supernatural. He merely wondered how Mike knew.
“If your nose wasn’t so crappy, you would have noticed that the guy smells wrong as hell,” Gage answered. “But the real epiphany came when Chief Leclair stepped in the interrogation room, and everyone looked in her direction except him. Instead, he turned and stared at me with hate in his eyes. Then, out of nowhere, he blinked—sideways. He has inner lids like a lizard or something. It was freaky as hell.”
“Huh. A supernatural reptile creature,” Hale mused, leaning back in his chair. “That’s new. Though it explains the shimmery scales I saw while we were fighting.”
“You didn’t say anything about the guy having scales.” Trey crossed his arms over his chest. “But if I’m being honest, until I got a good whiff of those guys, I thought we were dealing with a deranged pack of omega werewolves considering how aggressive and violent they were.”
Carter gave him a wry look. “I find that comment personally offensive.”
Trey chuckled, as did Hale and the rest of the guys. The Pack was always ribbing Carter about having a little omega in him. Omega werewolves were known for their aggressive tendencies and having control issues when it came to their inner wolf. That wasn’t true in Carter’s case, of course. Asfar as Hale was concerned, the guy was pure alpha just like every other member of the SWAT team.
“Speaking of stuff you didn’t say anything about,” Gage said, pinning Hale with a look, “mind filling us in on exactly what happened after you chased that guy out of the club? Because I couldn’t help noticing that you were incredibly light on the details in your report when you first showed up with him slung over your back.”
While he’d been more than ready to give Karissa credit for kicking that supernatural’s ass a minute ago, now Hale wondered if bringing her up was a good idea. It would only lead to questions he didn’t want to answer. But werewolves who’d been werewolves a long time, like Gage, could tell when someone lying, so he didn’t have much of a choice.
“When that guy ran out of the club, my inner wolf took over and I chased him, even though I realized he was probably trying to lure me away from the rest of you and lead me into an ambush,” Hale said. “But instead, he led me down a series of alleys until we were in the middle of nowhere, then he turned around and waited for me to catch up. Like he wanted to find a place to face me one-on-one.”
Trey grinned. “So you pulled out all your mad martial arts skills and kicked butt. That’s what I’m talking about!”
Hale snorted. “I wish. Whatever kind of supernatural this guy is, he’s as fast and strong as weare. He fought me in hand-to-hand combat without breaking a sweat. When I pulled out the claws and fangs, he pulled out a knife and the blade went through my tactical vest like it wasn’t even there. Then he yanked it out and took a swing at my head that would have taken it clean off.”
Connor and Trey both went wide-eyed in surprise.
“How did you stop him?” Connor asked.
“I didn’t,” Hale admitted. “Someone else showed up with a sword and blocked the swing before the guy could take off my head.”
Gage’s brow furrowed. “Someone with a sword?”
