Sliver of Silver (Blushing Death) (5 page)

“If we win, we’ll eliminate any threat to
us
.”

He was right, of course, and I understood why he was right. That didn’t mean I had to like it. Narrowing his gaze on me, he evaluated me as if he had a decision to make.

“They fear you,” he bit out with a hard-edged glare that stiffened my spine and made me lift my chin in defiance. “The Blushing Death has quite the reputation in our circles. Having you by my side will go a long way in preventing internal conflict but it won’t be enough.” His voice trailed off, either unable or unwilling to finish his thought out loud.

“You need a soldier,” I said, finishing it for him. The acknowledgement of that statement weighed heavily on me. I wasn’t what he needed, not anymore.

“The threat is no good without the wherewithal to back it up.” His voice was firm and nonnegotiable. Sometimes I forgot he had himself been a soldier once. His face was etched with a sense of duty that furrowed his brow and made his usually kissable lips disappear into a thin line of determination. His voice was firm, commanding in a way that most men didn’t understand and couldn’t fake.

I didn’t know how to respond to his very real, and very justified concern. Pieces of me and my human life slipped away every day. I couldn’t seem to hold on to them, no matter how hard I tried to grab each little piece and clutch it to me. A war, the kind Patrick was talking about, would be all-consuming. Everything I’d worked so hard to build for myself would be gone in the blink of an eye. A war could cost lives. It could even cost me mine.

I glanced up at him, digging deep into the pit of my stomach to search for any inkling of his feelings. Patrick was going to do it. I saw that much in the determination in his dark, cold stare. I didn’t need to search for his feelings in my own gut. I loved him. I could read his face like an open book when others just saw the neutral reflection of confidence he wanted them to see. Most of the time, I knew his feelings better than I knew my own. Patrick was on the verge of starting a war. The only question was, would I fight alongside him? Or mourn him?

“No, I suppose you’re right. There has to be a believable threat,” I admitted in a whisper.

“We’re agreed then?”

I nodded, trying to rid my mind of the doubt filling every facet of me. He didn’t need my doubt and neither did I, not if we were going to live through this.

“Agreed,” I said.

“I’ll let Alex know to set up an event to welcome the Fae delegation properly.” A fiendish grin graced his face, making my stomach twist and stealing all my energy from me. I was suddenly tired and more than anything else, I wanted to sleep and not dream. I collapsed down beside him, resting my head on his firm chest as he wrapped his arm around my shoulders, hugging me in close.

Closing my eyes, his fingers stroked up and down my arm as visions of bloodshed danced in my head.

Chapter 5

I ran. The air was so thick I could barely breathe, like each breath was molasses in my lungs. I had to keep running or I wouldn’t get there in time. Pitch-black darkness, even after my eyes adjusted through the trees of the forest. I ran blind through the trees and brush, relying completely on scent and my own panic twisting my gut into knots to tell me where to go. Leaves and branches crunched under my heavy feet and my muscles burned with exhaustion, but I pressed on through the thick underbrush.

I’m not going to get there in time.

Branches smacked me in the face as I tried to swat them away, cutting my cheeks and neck with sharp edges and branches like a whip. Much denser than I remembered, the forest surrounded me and every branch, vine, and log seemed to be in my way. Each one of them keeping me from where I was supposed to be. Hot tears streamed down my face, mixing with the warm blood that oozed down my cheeks from the scratches left by each and every tree branch. The frustration of my efforts overwhelmed me and I wanted desperately to give up.

I’m not going to get there in time. Time?
Time for what? I had no idea. All I knew was that I had to get there before something terrible happened. Chasing the white rabbit with no end in sight, I kept going hoping to stop the gut twisting anxiety that bubbled deep in me. Then again, I was no Alice.

Hot tears of pain and frustration blurred my vision, making the low-hanging branches harder to see. They seemed to reach out for me, slashing and cutting my face, striking my eyes and digging into my feet. The smallest stream of moonlight peeked through the trees from up ahead like a sliver of silver in the darkest of nightmares.

I ran toward the slim beam of light until the sliver became a patch of shimmering blue moonlight, breaking through the shallow canopy of trees as bright as the sun itself. I took a deep breath through my nose, filling my senses with the scents of the forest and forcing my heart to slow. The heady scent of fear mixed with wet moss, dirt, and clean fresh air, lingering on the breeze like a sweet perfume. The fear I smelled wasn’t mine.

His screams filled my ears with its sharp, piercing cry of suffering, and I picked up my feet and ran. I cringed as the scream turned to a groan and my breath caught in my throat with a lump of dread.

Bursting through the trees into the glen, I gave it everything I had. My heart pounded in my brain and my throat burned with exhaustion from the run. I collapsed to my knees, chest heaving and knees weak from the effort, exhausted. I was too late. Always too late.

Danny’s cold dead eyes stared back at me from the ground. Jackson hovered over him, tall and powerful, his right hand shifted into his werewolf form with claws extended like razors from his fingers. He smirked at me in a sinister sneer of white teeth.

I screamed my frustration at the top of my lungs in a primal, guttural sound that echoed off the trees. Jackson smiled at me; content and pleased with himself. Two additional, fully-shifted werewolves I didn’t know came from the edge of the forest. They pounced on Danny’s lifeless body in a blur of speed and fur. The first buried its face at Danny’s neck and tore, his teeth full of skin, blood, and tissue as it ripped. The second clamped its jaws into the soft tissue of Danny’s gut.

I clenched my fists in the ground in front of me. Dirt packed beneath my fingernails as I dug in the soft Earth. Grass roots ripped from the ground as I yanked my fists free. I couldn’t stop this. I had no weapons and it was three on one. I had never wanted to kill anyone more than I did Jackson at that moment. He eyed me in satisfaction, bringing his partially shifted clawed hand up, drawing it across his throat with a malicious sneer curling his thin lips.

The two wolves turned on me, hunger shining in their eyes as they licked their blood-covered jowls. The one at Danny’s throat was small with a tint of red staining its fur. It had steely gray eyes and crossed in front of the body like a lioness protecting her pride. The second was almost twice the other’s size with eyes as black as midnight and fur to match. I smelled her first. The smaller one was in heat, carrying her scent on the air as the wind blew around me, slamming my senses with her musky scent. The black werewolf followed her lead, crossing behind her, keeping one eye on her and one on me.

Circling me in unison, they moved as if they’d hunted together before. Their effortless, communication-free approach sent chills down my spine. Jackson laughed like it was Christmas morning and my mind went still.

The smaller werewolf leapt at me.

My breath was heavy in my chest. My body was drenched in sweat, soaking through the sheets.
Dreaming, only dreaming.
My gaze darted around my dark bedroom. It was 4:45 a.m., and I was alone. 

I was tired of the dreams but I couldn’t ignore them any longer.

“What do you mean, ‘no?’” Derek’s voice boomed over the phone. Sitting in my office, I tried not to scream back at him. The entire office could hear me. Screaming over the phone at the police in your office is unprofessional, so I’ve been told.
  “I mean not right now. It’s 4 p.m. Can’t this wait an hour?” I hissed.

He breathed, a deep, heavy, unhappy sigh on the other end, huffing and puffing at me.

“Look, I get off at five. I can come straight there,” I added, trying to placate him and his pissy attitude. I couldn’t leave early the day after the Department Chair gave me a –‘talking to.’ I wasn’t trying to get fired. I needed the health benefits. I tended to get hurt . . . a lot. The healing thing I got from Danny was still new and I had no idea how much my body could take. I didn’t want to find out, either.

“Fine, I expect you here at 5:15. No later,” he snapped and then hung up the phone.

No
Goodbye.
No
, See you later.
Nothing. I knew I wasn’t going to be there by 5:15 p.m. There was no way I could fight rush hour traffic and get to the north end in 15 minutes. He’d just have to wait. In fact, I might hang around an extra fifteen minutes just to piss him off.

“Prick,” I said under my breath.

An hour and twenty minutes later I was in my car, stuck in traffic, and heading North. The victim’s apartment was in Old Worthington, just off of High Street. I got off the highway and headed west through the cookie cutter quaint metro suburb.

The buildings along High Street were the same, two story buildings with brick façades and white rimmed windows. Adorable little shops lined the street with equally elaborate window displays filled with ribbons, bright-colored fabrics, and clean, crisp paper. At the main intersection, an oversized, white gazebo stood sentinel in the square like someone had taken a Norman Rockwell painting and built a community based on it. The whole place was annoying.

Making a right onto High Street, I headed north, ignoring the red, white, and blue bunting decorating the gazebo. The décor was a month and a half too early for Labor Day and a week and a half late for July 4th. I drove a few more blocks north and made a left onto Sycamore Lane.

Derek’s car was parked up ahead. He leaned against it with his arms crossed in a huff. Even if I hadn’t seen him, I couldn’t have missed the dull mustard yellow crime scene tape criss-crossing over the pristine white door in a giant X. It was almost 6:00 p.m., and I was late. It wasn’t my fault. Not entirely anyway.

I parallel parked a few spaces down from Derek’s car and got out. It was hot. The humidity was sweltering at 85% and my blouse stuck to my back the minute I got out of the car. My heels clicked on the cement of the street as I strolled the several car lengths to catch up to him and his angry scowl.

“What the hell took you so long?” he grumbled from the porch as he cut the police tape across the door with his pocketknife.

The half-double Dutch colonial, moss green with white trim on the shutters stood in a line of similar houses. Flowers filled the boxes on the windowsills around the victim’s half, making it quaint and tidy like a page from a storybook. The lawn was precisely manicured. The curtains in the windows were lace sheers tied back precisely to create a picture perfect scene from the street. It was cute. I hated to use that word but it fit. 

“Look,” I snapped, following him onto the porch. “I do have a job, ya know. I can’t just drop everything when you call.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said, dismissing me with a shrug of his shoulders.

“I don’t have to help you,” I shouted. I crossed my arms under my breasts and refused to follow him into the apartment. I was being petulant, I knew it, but Derek and I needed to come to an understanding and fast.

He turned back to me with shock widening his eyes. He needed me on this case and he knew it. I wasn’t about to let him forget it, especially if he kept acting like a shit.

“All right, all right, Kid,” he said finally, sounding apologetic. “I’m sorry. This is my first solo scene and I need to put a name to it.”

I tiptoed inside the victim’s apartment, passed Derek without a word, and waited for him to hand me some gloves. I guess his apology would suffice. For now.

The victim’s apartment was spotless and everything had a place. There wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere and the soft beige carpet was vacuumed in the same direction. Parallel vacuum lines of perfection were visible, making me hesitate before stepping on it.

“What are we looking for?” I asked, finally making my way through the room. She was dead. If she didn’t like it, there wasn’t much she could do about it. I flipped through her magazines, which were, of course, in a perfect fan on the coffee table. She had the latest issues of
W
,
Elle
,
Glamour and Travel and Leisure
. I saw no signs of a roommate and no boyfriend. The kitchen was just as clean as the rest of the first floor with a sink that was dry as a bone and a sponge with its own little shelf to dry on. There was nothing there. I headed upstairs with Derek close behind.

“We’re trying to see if she knew her killer or killers,” he said as he scavenged in drawers, opened closet doors, and riffled through her clothes.

The victim’s bedroom was a bit too pink and floral for my tastes and had a girlie feel that set my teeth on edge. The bed was made with military precision and the furniture around the room, including the headboard, had antiqued mirror façades. The room didn’t smell like Pack, or anything other than human. The only smell tingling the inside of my nose was ammonia and the pungent scent of household cleansers, making my eyes water.

“What do you think? Was she a groupie?” Derek asked, sifting through the drawers of neatly folded and organized panties.

“A groupie?”

I dug through her medicine cabinet and found a bottle of vicodin looming over the other items like a shadow, a recent prescription, too. She was in a shit-ton of pain and probably hindered in her range of motion. Under the sink, four heating pads sat neatly stacked alongside an electronic massager. This girl had been weak and an easy target. A crippled gazelle.

“A werewolf groupie,” Derek said, moving on to the woman’s closet for closer inspection.

“The pack doesn’t have groupies,” I snipped. It wasn’t like a damned rock band. “This woman had back problems,” I said. “She has some pretty serious pain killers and treatment items under her sink.”

“Why does that matter?” He turned away from the cream-colored blouse he had between his fingers and faced me.

“She ran a long way with a slipped disc or something. Plus, she outran two werewolves for at least what would you say, 150, maybe 200 yards. They played with her, letting fear and adrenaline fill her system.”

I went over to the nightstand. A picture in a pearlized pink frame of the victim with an older woman, her mother probably, sat staring back at me. They smiled as if the world couldn’t touch them, happy. Bad things weren’t supposed to happen to happy people. Had anyone told her mother? Did the poor woman already know that her world would never be the same? There was nothing I could do to change it, but I could do something her mother couldn’t; avenge her daughter. I could give her that much. 

“You’re sure it’s werewolves?”

“I am.”

“And I’m assuming the
Pack
has laws for shit like this,” he snarled, finally showing his anger. His tone made me feel like I was the one being interrogated. I didn’t like it.

“It does,” I barked. If he could be an ass, so could I. I was better at it than he was anyway.

“Let’s say someone breaks those laws,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest with a belligerent air to his words and a stiff line to his shoulders. I wanted to smack that damned egotistical sneer off his face.

“Who enforces the Pack’s law?” he asked.

“I do,” I said with a blank expression, my eyes cold, and my chin high. I was tired of playing cat and mouse with him. So I gave him what he wanted. An answer.

“I’m not sure I like that answer, Kid. They don’t get their day in court.”

No court of law would understand how the supernatural community worked and no prison could hold them. Werewolves, vampires, and everything else lived outside the rules of normal human existence. Hell, I wasn’t even sure I lived inside the rules of
normal
human existence anymore. Derek stared at me with a new expression crinkling the corners of his mouth. Respect. Unease. Caution.

“I’ll be sure and let ‘em know at the next Pack meeting. Court and jail will look a hellava lot better than punishment by my hand. They could just break out of jail and be back on the streets,” I bit out with anger and sarcasm.

He eyed me with interest, so I threw the latex gloves at him, hitting him in the chest, and stormed from the bedroom. The dead woman’s apartment told me nothing other than she was a neat freak. I wasn’t even sure why we were here. The only thread I had to go on was that the victim was my height, build, and blond. Derek hadn’t put that together yet but he wasn’t overly sensitive to all matters concerning me. Sometimes, I found that refreshing.

Pictures of the dead woman with friends and family lined the wall down the stairs, painting a life that appeared well lived. She smiled in every one of them and jealousy burned in the pit of my stomach. Derek’s heavy footfalls behind me filled the tense silence and I pushed on, ignoring the nausea bubbling in my gut and the thud of my heart racing in my ears.