Chapter Three
Maverick
“And there’s a dent in my fucking car,” Taliyah muttered under her breath. “That’s just perfect. As if there isn’t already enough to deal with.”
We’d been fighting a werewolf and an amphibious water monster for the better part of the night, speeding down highways with the lights and sirens blaring, sometimes taking the cruiser off-roading to follow one or both through fields if the terrain allowed. Even after the pair had been successfully apprehended, there was still the problem of loading them up and transporting them to the precinct. The tentacle monster was a lost cause and had to be transported across the country to Jinx Junction, where he could be properly processed and booked.
The werewolf, however, was fair game, and Tally had slammed him into the hood with enough force to leave an impression of his head in the metal. Technically, the dent was her fault, but no force on the planet would compel me to say as much within earshot of her. The next person to piss her off was going to be freeze-dried, packaged, and put in the ground without question.
I sank a little lower into my seat, running over our last conversation, trying to figure out what I’d done to earn this amount of ire. Something was clearly bothering her, and when it came to women, I was usually the common denominator in that equation. We’d been ribbing each other, as usual, when she’d suddenly turned cold and hung up without warning. I couldn’t puzzle out which part of the conversation had set her off.
I opened my mouth to ask and shut it just as quickly. No. Down that path lay disaster. If I confronted her about it now, she’d get defensive or hostile, and I didn’t want that. Tally was only the second good thing in my life to last, and I didn’t want to add her name to my depressingly long list of failed relationships. Time was the key. If I gave her time, she’d have to calm down eventually and then I could apologize for whatever boneheaded stunt I’d pulled.
Taliyah pulled to an abrupt halt in front of the Haven Hollow police department. From the outside, it just looked like a small, bland office building. Unbeknownst to anyone but the pair of us, it had several cells built into a new addition, all equipped to handle monsters. I’d magicked the entrance to that particular part of the building so those not in the know wouldn’t take any notice of it.
Taliyah didn’t even glance my way before she stepped out of the car and stalked to the back, a permafrost hex arcing like lightning between her fingers. Touching the wolf with that lightning would be a hell of a lot more painful than being tased, and he knew it. The wolf stayed still as she booked him and even whimpered in fright when she frog-marched him toward the cells. I didn’t follow her. Crowding her elbows while she tried to do her job was going to earn me a scathing lecture at best and a soul-crushing diatribe at worst. Taliyah was a big girl who didn’t need my supervision, no matter how much I wanted to offer it.
I was debating on whether to bid her farewell, step out, and slink to my car to overthink things when it happened. It wasn’t loud, but I was so attuned to the cadence of her breath and the inflection of her voice that I caught the hiss of discomfort. I’d almost completed the full circuit back to the holding cells before my body checked in with my brain. On this, though, we were in agreement: I wasn’t leaving if she was hurt. Proud as Tally was, she’d probably been banged up in the fight and refused to let it show.
I rounded the corner, expecting to find her bent over with bruised ribs or cradling a compound fracture. The running leap she’d taken off an oak branch had been awe-inspiring to watch. The fall she’d taken after a tentacle whipped into her mid-air, much less so. I thought I’d been able to cushion her fall enough to avoid catastrophic injury, but I might have misjudged the amount of power necessary to provide adequate protection. If she’d been hurt because of me...
But no. Her face wasn’t scrunched up in a rictus of pain. She was staring at a shallow cut on her forearm, probably sustained when she’d been manhandling the wolf. She’d used a little more force than was strictly necessary with him, but I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Even if the duration of the high was short due to werewolf metabolism, meth was still meth. I wasn’t eager to pit my strength against something that strong with no inhibitions and a limited perception of pain.
Blood oozed out of her wound, slowly staining her uniform a shade of purple.
“I’m bleeding,” she said, and her voice sounded distant and echoing, as though she was shouting to me from the end of a long tunnel.
It made the hair at the back of my neck prickle. Tally wasn’t acting like herself. She was many things, but vacant and distracted weren’t on the list of her attributes. Had she hit her head? A brain bleed might explain this odd behavior.
“I can see that,” I said slowly. “Will you let me take a look at it?”
“I’m bleeding,” she repeated, and her lips quirked into a truly unsettling smile. It was nestled firmly in the uncanny valley, an expression that in no way belonged to the woman I knew.
A hysterical giggle burst out of her then, sending a current of pure panic running through me like a live wire. This wasn’t Taliyah. If I hadn’t been with her most of the night, I would have accused the woman in front of me of being a shapeshifter. The bond between us said otherwise, still active enough to allow me to confirm it was indeed Tally standing here.
But what the hell could make her act this way? I’d seen her walk away from a pitched, life-or-death battle less shocky than this. There was no way that one werewolf had shaken her this badly. And neither had the tentacle monster, for that matter.
“I’m bleeding, Mav,” she said, her hysterical giggle rising in pitch.
“Do I need to hex the guy in cell two?” I asked.
It was a calculated and largely empty threat. I hated that she was hurt and would have reacted violently to her injury if it had happened in any other circumstance. Work was an unspoken exception for the both of us. Injury, trauma, and death were risks that came with the job when you were a first responder. She’d never forgive me if I treated her like she was incapable of doing her job.
She’d also never forgive me if I killed someone outside of a life-or-death scenario. My past was littered with every shade of gray imaginable, which both intrigued and disturbed her. If my Tally was in there somewhere, she’d react exactly the way she was raised to by the Morgan family.
A little animation flickered far back in her eyes. The giggle cut off abruptly, as though someone had clicked a mute button. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. Then, as though someone had flicked a switch, she was suddenly in there, her bleak, winter sky eyes filling with the tenacious strength that had suckered me in from the first day we met. Her familiar scowl was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
Tally gave my arm a swat, but there wasn’t much life to the gesture. “You can’t hex him!”
I grinned, brushing a thumb over her jutting lower lip. This close, I could see the thrum of her pulse just under the skin. Her blush was subtle, just a dusting of pink over her cheekbones, barely visible if you weren’t looking for it.
“There’s my girl,” I said quietly. “I knew she was in there somewhere. Do you mind telling me what you were giggling about?”
The color fled as quickly as it came, and she swayed. I caught her before she could topple over and helped her to sit behind her desk. If she passed out here, she’d only have a bruise in the shape of her stapler to worry about, instead of a skull fracture from hitting the cement at speed.
“I don’t even know where to start,” she said on a sigh.
“Why don’t I get you a coffee and you can tell me all about it?” I offered.
“That sounds really good. Thank you, Mav.”
I gave her a knowing smile. “Hey, what are husbands for?”