Rude!
I take a deep breath. Even after a decade, this part never gets easier. I want to hit the gas and get away from here. But I also want to go back to that house and claw Harold’s eyes out for what he did.
I take another breath and do neither. I’ve solved the problem. He can’t hurt anyone else. I’ve become what I needed when I was a helpless kid. No one can hurt me anymore, and I won’t let any werewolf hurt anyone else.
I learned early on that we live in an unfair world, and no one would believe me if I told them the truth. So, I had to take things into my own hands. Become the judge, jury, and executioner.
I push all the anger, frustration, and the annoying fear out with the next breath, pulling up the wall that protects me from pesky emotions, and drive into the night back to my empty apartment, my cold bed. Because that’s all my cold heart deserves.
Chapter Two
Howling, Homicide, and Highly Unapproved Investigations
Nick
Like every day, exactly at eight, the car stops at the Starbucks drive-thru. I focus on the sound as the soft and sluggish voice orders a coffee that can replace engine oil. The same one he got yesterday. And the day before. And every day for the past six months, and I’d bet long before that.
Then the car takes off.
I keep my distance but follow it as I do almost every day. It parks in the same spot, a street over from thePawsitive Care Veterinary Clinic. The name is so cute and so unlike Elliot, I need to know the story behind it. I would ask him if it wouldn’t sound suspicious as fuck and if the guy would ever talk to me for more than a couple of minutes.
Elliot steps out, slamming the door behind him a little louder than necessary. But that’s routine too.
He's cranky in the morning. Like the sun has personally offended him by rising. But you wouldn't know that just by looking at him. His perfectly styled dark hair, which he must spend hours getting right, his spotless white Henley T-shirt, and crisp, tight black pants make him look the part of the respectable veterinarian. His long lashes, pink pouty lips, andlack of facial hair give him an innocent, non-threatening look.
He definitely works hard to achieve that because Elliot isn’t sweet or nice, not even in the vicinity of that.
It must work well because he has a steady stream of loyal customers coming in and out of the clinic, mostly women with pets. Elliot isn’t interested in women, though. Oliver let it slip once, not that it’s a big secret. He wouldn't have said it otherwise. But I saved that information like I save every other thing about Elliot in hopes I can finally figure out if he knows about werewolves.
The fact that I haven’t gotten even close to uncovering anything suspicious in the last six months is horrible for my ego as an LAPD detective and a Werewolf Regulation Bureau Agent. Iknowhe’s hiding something.
My instincts are never wrong.
Elliot drags himself to the clinic, sipping his jet fuel slowly, and my eyes follow his every sluggish movement until the door closes behind him.
I park a little distance away so I have a good vantage point without being visible.
I met Elliot around six months ago at my brother's fake Christmas party that he organized to distract his neighbor, now fiancé, Oliver. Matt was on a Bureau mission to stop Oliver from discovering our existence.
It worked out perfectly, depending on who you ask. Being a firm supporter of Matt's happiness, I'd say it was a great plan. But I’m sure our Bureau supervisor disagrees wholeheartedly. Because Matt didn’t have as much of a handle on Oliver’s curiosity as he believed, and it led to a crazed werewolf attacking Oliver. He ended up learning about our existence in the process.
But I know I saw Elliot's eyes flicker to Matt as he shifted that day. His poker face was good, but notthatgood. We had an agent conduct a covert interview to see whether he knew about werewolves, but he acted completely oblivious.
I didn’t believe it for a second. Despite the distractions, I know what I saw. My wolf was intrigued by Elliot the momentI saw him, but after that incident,Iwas too. So, here I am, like every day, as if I don’t have a thousand open cases in my day job and two pending assignments and a hundred incomplete reports due in my other full-time gig. Just to get an indication that Elliot knows about us. Because people knowing about us without us being aware of it creates loose ends that can lead to disasters.
My phone rings, snapping me out of my staring match with Elliot’s clinic door.
“Do you have time before your shift to swing by the hospital?” Meena's voice fills my car. She is the LA Werewolf Regulation Bureau supervisor, single-handedly responsible for keeping the Bureau agents in line while stopping shit from going sideways.
The Bureau was created to deal with werewolf-related crimes on the down low and keep our existence a secret from humans so they don’t react the way humans react to anything they can't control. We primarily do that by placing agents with emergency and medical services and tackling issues as they come.
I give the door another lingering gaze. I still had an hour until my shift started. “I think I can make it,” I say. “Why, what's up?”
“Another werewolf died by heart attack yesterday," she says, her voice grave.
My eyebrows shoot up. “So the killer didn’t leave after all.” I’ve been hearing about a serial killer targeting the werewolves of the city for a few years now. A team of off-field agents, who are not planted in human departments, has been working on the case for a while.
As far as I knew, they hadn’t found a single trace yet. And then a few months ago, the murders stopped abruptly. The Bureau was sure the killer had moved on. Clearly not.
