The thing was, it was one-way street hot. Marlow had never gotten the sense that Cade had noticed him, or anyone else, as anything but an obstruction. The man only cared about his work and being an asshole.
Until now, when Marlow’s breath caught behind his ribs as Cade pinned him with those wild near-gold eyes.
“Get some rest, Marlow,” Cade drawled. For a second, Marlow was cynically surprised that Cade actually remembered who he was, until the next thing Cade said gave him something else to be surprised about. “You look like you should be in my bed already.”
Marlow stared at Cade, his jaw slack, as he wondered if he’d misheard. Before he could decide or give in to the urge to let his eyes follow the ridiculously perfect triangle of Cade’s body down to check directly, the elevator doors slid shut and cut off Marlow’s view.
“What the hell was that?” Marlow said out loud and looked around to see if anyone else had seen what just happened.
The hall was empty.
After a moment, Marlow shook his head and rubbed a hand over his face. He should be used to being out of step with the rest of the city, even the other cops. Real cops. Marlow was tired to the bone from the late shift, and they’d spent the night on all fours howling at the moon.
Fun police. Marlow snorted as he turned on his heel and headed toward the armory.
Werewolves didn’t know how the other 20 percent—based on the last census, anyhow—lived.
“Forget the wolves,” Bennett said. The other Night Shift officer held court in the middle of the armory. She waved a mug of black coffee, probably laced with whiskey, as she talked. “The fucking rabbits have gone feral. Swear to God, I found a full-grown wolf treed by a bunch of angry bunnies.”
“Yeah,” one of the rookies snorted, sure he’d caught his superior out in a leg pull. He looked around for support. “Right. Then the squirrels got together and stole your car before you got back, right?”
No one cracked a smile. After a second, the rookie’s face fell. He turned back to Bennett, who glared at him.
“Something funny?”
“Oh, come on,” the rookie said. He spread his hands in a plea forsomeoneto see sense. “Bunnies?”
Bennett just shook her head and walked away, toward Marlow. The rookie looked after her with a crestfallen expression, and then jumped when one of the other men chuckled and slapped his shoulder.
“First blue moon? On the job?” Franklin, Bennett’s go-to backup, asked. The rookie had a dull flush on the back of his neck as he ducked his chin in a stiff nod. Franklin pursed his lips and gave a low, breathy whisper as he shook his head. “Oh yeah, you have got a lot to learn. Tell you what, buy Uncle Franklin breakfast, and I’ll get you caught up. Before the bunnies or Bennett get to you.”
The big man threw a companionable headlock on the rookie and marched him toward the door. Marlow paused to watch them go and then gave Bennett a wry look.
“Ever going to tell the kid that ‘bunnies’ are what you call the beat officers?”
Bennett cracked a grin and glanced after her team as they filed out. “Someday. Probably. C’mon, the kid’s new. He needs to learn that blue moon madness is real, for his own good.”
“Except it’s not,” Marlow pointed out. “It’s an old wives’ tale.”
That made Bennett splutter indignantly. She followed along as Marlow headed over to the desk and swung his kit bag up onto the counter.
“That it’s an old wives’ tale is an old wives’ tale,” Bennett said. “What? Do you think all the lunar radiation in the air has no effect or something? There have been studies done, and to the wolves, that stuff is like catnip. They lose control. Tell him, Erin.”
Officer O’Malley grabbed the strap of Marlow’s bag and pulled it to her side of the bulletproof glass wall.
“Last time we had a double bubble,” she said, “we used up three times the average amount of ammo for a month. That’s a fact.”
Bennett slapped her hand on the counter. “There you go. That’s afact. You can’t argue with facts, Kitty-boy.”
The nickname made Marlow clench his teeth. He hated it; that’s why he went by his surname instead of Kit. Bennett knew he hated it; that’s why she used it. Although they had the same rank, Bennett had three years seniority on him. She liked to make sure everyone remembered it. And she was an asshole. Bennett was the sort of person who tickled a kid until they wet themselves. She never knew when to rein it in.
It just made her worse if she knew she’d caught you on the raw, though. Even if you were friends… ish, or at least had no better offers.
“I’m not arguing,” Marlow said in his mildest voice, “just disagreeing. I just do my job; doesn’t matter what color the moon is.”
He took the clipboard Erin slid through the partition to him and scrawled his initials where they were required. The pen had clogged, and he had to scribble in the corner of the sheet to get it to work. The doodle came out as a wolf with black pricked ears and blind white eyes at the top of a long, wrinkled nose.
Bennett lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. “You saying I don’t?”
