Chapter 9 #2
“That’s where we come in.” He dropped his phone on the bed and started rummaging through the weapons I’d grabbed from the shed. His brow furrowed as he lifted a simple dagger, twisting the grip with delicate care between his fingers. “Where the hell did you get this?”
Snatching it away from him, I brought it to my face, trying to see what was so special about it.
It was just a basic, boring dagger with a disc-shaped guard and a leather grip.
“Dad’s collection in the garage. He never touches it anymore, and I hate him, so…
” My eyes met his, studying the concern on his face. “What’s the big deal about it?”
“There’s a stamp on the blade, just above the hilt,” he muttered, crossing his arms over his chest.
I brought the metal closer to my face, barely making out the engraving—a single block letter V. “Valentine,” I whispered. “This was my mom’s.”
I rarely thought about my mother anymore.
Shortly after my tenth birthday, we learned the ovarian cancer had spread throughout her body.
Within a year, she was gone. Dad turned bitter.
Angry. Just a few months after she died was the first time he ever hit me.
I think part of me blamed Mom, like if she hadn’t left me maybe life wouldn’t have been so bad.
I knew that was unfair. I knew my father was responsible for his own actions, but I was a kid.
“Your mom’s maiden name was Valentine?” Emery moved closer, his tension palpable as he held out his hand.
“Yeah?” I shrugged, passing it to him. He pressed the blade flat against his palm, seemingly bracing himself. “Why’s that matter?”
“It doesn’t. Forget it.” With a hum, he tossed the dagger back onto the bed. “Let’s get to work.”
That first night was nothing but planning.
Emery stepped out twice after the sun had set to run another perimeter check on the Garland house, returning within twenty minutes each time.
I hung back—not by choice, but I was dead weight to a frickin’ werewolf—calling in a favor with Sheriff Dammond once Em had managed to find a picture of this Vera we were looking for.
I wasn’t sure what good the police would be when it came to hunting lycanthropes, but once I explained that she threatened my friend, and it turned out she had a criminal record three counties over, Dammond said he’d issue an APB.
So, I guessed that was something. At the very least, we could make her feel unwelcome.
The following night, Emery’s anxiety got so bad, I could feel it just being in the room with him.
Apparently, the effects of the full moon lasted three days, and once it shifted into a whining gibbous or something like that, wolves could think clearer.
Meaning that the chances of Vera making her move had spiked.
We both had Hudson’s number at the ready if either of us suspected anything, but the best we could hope for was for Em to catch a scent, or for something on the radio he’d somehow managed to tune into FCPD’s line to come through.
And lucky me got to sit there in my hotel room listening in with my thumb up my ass.
Not literally. The insatiable libido that came with Hudson’s magical oops seemed to have taken a sabbatical in lieu of potential life-or-death bullshit.
Em didn’t come back to the hotel until sunrise that night. He trudged in, hauling a paper sack full of food so unhealthy the bottom was soaked through with grease. He threw himself onto the bed beside me, then fished out something covered in foil, offering it to me with nothing but a grunt.
It smelled like heaven. Like some heart attack waiting to happen, sopping with bacon fat that I’d be paying for at the gym for the next week and a half. I didn’t care. I was sleep-deprived, stressed as all hell, and starving.
“Thanks,” I sighed, giving in to my fate. Practically tearing off the foil, I sank my teeth into the breakfast sandwich stuffed full of meat, egg and cheese and wrapped in the butteriest biscuit I’d ever tasted. “Oh muh gawd,” I groaned through the mouthful.
“Right?” Emery agreed through his own massive bite of food before swallowing. “Oman’s has an early morning special. So good.”
After inhaling my food, I forced myself to get up, dreading the day ahead at the office with no sleep. When I grabbed one of the dress shirts I’d hung in the small, open closet area, Emery sat bolt upright. “What are you doing?”
“Going to work,” I said, dying inside as I peeled off my comfortable t-shirt, not having the energy to care that Emery could see everything. He’d already seen everything, after all. “You can stay here if you want. Place is paid for through the rest of the week.”
“Ty, you need sleep.” He got up, quickly pacing over to steal the shirt and throw it aside. “Call in.”
“I can’t, Emery,” I groaned. “Been gone too long. I have deadlines to meet.”
“How are you planning on being any use to Hudson tonight if you kill yourself pushing papers all day?”
“I’ll manage,” I snapped, grabbing a different shirt when the hulking wolf-man shifted to block my path toward the one he’d snatched.
“Tyler.” Emery grabbed my bare shoulder, giving me a gentle shake.
I met his eyes, glaring. I already knew I wasn’t going to win this argument. I didn’t have the supernatural ability to keep going that he did, and I was far too exhausted to put up a decent fight.
“Please,” he breathed, moving a bit closer to me. His thumb moved over my skin with a soft caress, giving me a warm tingle. “I need you in this with me.”
A snort came out of me. “No, you don’t. I’m not doing shit, Em.”
“I don’t just mean the hunt, Ty,” Em sighed, shaking his head. He dropped his hand, backing away. “I mean…”
Then it happened again. That weird connection to him I’d felt in the kitchen after our night at the Garland house. Like I knew exactly where his head was at. “Hudson.”
He lowered his eyes to the floor, shame on his face for admitting it with a weak nod. “I can’t… I can’t be everything to him that I want to, I know that, but… I’d rather him stay and be happy with you than leave and never get to see him smile again.”
Suddenly, I felt like I’d never met anyone in my entire life that I understood better than Emery.
Maybe he and I were already fighting the same battle.
Maybe we had been our whole lives, and we’d just never been able to see eye to eye because we fought on separate fronts.
One in the human world, and the other in the occult—the world I could never quite reach.
I huffed a laugh. “If you can’t be everything he needs, then what the fuck chance do I have of making him happy?”
Em’s eyes snapped to mine, looking as if he’d been slapped across the face. Shaken, like I’d said something that rearranged his entire wolfy world.
“Fine,” I said, whipping out my phone to send a message to my office. “But no spooning.”
“I make no promises,” Emery said, beaming at me as if I’d just announced it was national werewolf appreciation day. “I’m a cuddly sleeper.”
Pale dusk light was already drifting through the grimy window of the hotel when my eyes crept open. It was colder in the room than it had been when I’d fallen asleep with Emery’s back pressed against mine. I’d expected to wake wrapped in a possessive vice grip, but quickly realized I was alone.
“Em?” I croaked, rolling over to scan the space.
His keys were still sitting on the ratty entertainment center, but he definitely wasn’t around.
Sitting upright, I grabbed my phone, meaning to call him.
I leapt to my feet the moment a message notification appeared from his number with a location pinned in the woods twenty miles north of town.
She’s on the run. Take my car and start driving.