Chapter 9 Killer
KILLER
About time.
— gus
Even if I wanted to take a few minutes to talk to Joey, that’s impossible. The moment Betsy announces that the meeting is over, he hightails it out the door, leaving the rest of us to fold the chairs and stack them against the wall.
That seems to be a common enough occurrence that not even Carolina complains about it. She just folds up Joey’s chair and carries it over with hers. Betsy tells us all to take the leftover snacks home, then reminds the prey circle that the next meeting is in two weeks.
I… might come back. Who knows? I have Gus and I have Roxy, but maybe it won’t be such a bad idea to make a few friends in Moonburrow. I think of Abigail again. She seems nice, and she might need a friend, too, in case her predator mate becomes a problem.
She hangs back for a few minutes, but when everyone’s packing up, saying goodbye and heading out the door, she walks over to me. This smile is a shy one, and she’s digging into her oversized tote as she approaches.
She pulls out a small pink mesh sachet with something in it. The scent-dampener charm in the room makes it hard for me to tell what it is, but she seems proud of it.
“For you,” she says. “Comfort tea with chamomile. I make the blend myself. It helps with the nerves. I give some to everyone who comes to the prey circle meetings.”
“Oh, that’s so sweet—”
She touches my arm, a fleeting brushing of her fingers against my sleeve. “It works best at night. A little hot water, some milk if you like. It’s good for you.”
I nod, promising I’ll try, even though I know I probably won’t. I’m not really a chamomile tea person. Still, if she’s being friendly enough to offer me some of her special brew, I’ll take it with me.
“It was nice to meet you, Honey.”
I nod. “You, too. Be careful.”
“Thank you. I will.”
Tucking the sachet into my purse, I head out the door.
When I step outside, the night air feels heavier than before. The moon looks too bright, the shadows too long, and somewhere in the back of my mind, something small and instinctive whispers: run.
There’s a predator lurking. For a moment, I freeze, then I force myself to take another few steps away from the community center and the scent-dampener charm inside of the main room.
It wears off slowly, and by the time I see the tall figure separate himself from the shadows on the corner, I get a fresh whiff of pine.
Max.
“Honey? Is that you?”
Busted.
I adjust my hold on my purse, turning toward the sheriff. “Max. How are you? What are you doing here?”
“A lead I was following for my current case.” Declan’s murder. “He slipped away through another entrance, but I thought…” He gives his head a short shake.” You’re here. Why are you here?”
Something tells me that, if I say I’m here for the same reason he is, he’s not going to be happy. “I came by the check out the prey circle meeting. Betsy invited me the other day. I was bored. It seemed like it might be interesting.”
And if you’re here because you were looking for Joey the rat—the ‘he’ kinda gives that away—then we really were both heading down the same path, looking for his murderer.
Max can tell. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. I didn’t lie to him so it’s not like he can scent any deception. Still… he knows.
He exhales through his nose, that tiny yet obvious sign of his wolf peeking through. If it wasn’t anyone else, I’d be seeing spots on the corner of my eyes. But it’s not anyone else.
It’s Max.
“You’re not bored, Honey. You’re curious. And curiosity gets people hurt.”
“Well,” I say sweetly, moving a few steps in the direction of Sycamore Street, “I’ve already died once or twice or a hundred times, you know. Perk of being an opossum shifter. I don’t worry about it.”
His jaw twitches. He clearly hates my attempt at a joke, though he doesn’t say so. Rather than do that, he moves with me. “Well, where are you going now? You shouldn’t walk home alone.”
“I didn’t drive,” I admit. “Wasn’t worth the gas for, like, eight blocks so I have no choice. Besides, I’ll be fine.”
“Of course you will.”
I look up at him in surprise. Predators like Max rarely admit that a prey shifter can take care of themselves. “Thank you—”
“Because I’ll walk with you.”
Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. A babysitter? He wants to be my babysitter?
“I don’t think—”
He’s already matching my pace, long strides eating up the sidewalk. “Humor me.”
I sigh, but don’t argue. Whatever. It’s eight blocks. So long as he stays quiet and I can keep my inner opossum from taking over, shifting, and throwing herself at his feet, I can make it home with my pride—and my secret—intact.
It’s not easy. The more time I spend with Max, the more I don’t understand why I can’t just tell him the truth.
At this point, I know I’ll have to. The time when I believed that this could never work between us…
that’s over and done with. I would never forgive myself if I didn’t try…
but despite how he seems to actually have a vested interest in seeing me survive that goes past me being a possible murder suspect, he treats me like someone to protect.
Someone to coddle.
I don’t want to be coddled. I want to be loved, and while Fate gives you a mate that you can’t help but adore eventually, Max still has no clue that he’s mine and I’m his.
It’s the scent-dampener. That zing that comes with recognizing your fated mate…
he hasn’t felt it yet because I’m still hiding myself from him.
And I have to. At least until Declan’s murderer is found and Dough You Believe in Me—and, you know, me—is exonerated in the eyes of Moonburrow, I have to keep my distance.
That’s easier said than done considering he’s inches away and all I want to do is throw myself into his arms.
He swings his. I didn’t notice it before.
When I think of Max, I think of stoic. Kind of grumpy.
Determined to be in control. For some reason, that just translated to being stiff and still, but I’m so wrong.
He prowls, stalks, moving with such a deceptively lazy grace, I can’t help but be aware of his every movement.
There are accidental touches. Every time his hand brushes mine, my pulse jumps. My temperature rises. My breath catches. If he notices, he doesn’t say, but how can he not notice?
What is going on here?
By the time we finally reach the bakery, the air between us feels too warm for late fall.
I’m almost burning up with things I can’t say to Max, and he’s just as quiet.
Giving myself something to do, I grab my keys from my purse.
I unlock the door and glance behind me. He’s still there, broad and silent, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was a wolf trying to decide if he was on guard patrol or a date.
That seals it for me.
“Want to come in?” I ask, surprising both of us.
His brows lift. “You sure?”
Not even a little. “Yeah. You can check the place for monsters if it makes you feel better.”
I’m teasing.
The door closes behind him with a soft click. The bakery smells like sugar and cinnamon, opossum—Gus—and a hint of pine that drives me wild.
He surveys the front room, doing his duty, then turns to me. “You need to be careful, Honey.”
“I am careful.”
“There’s danger in Moonburrow.”
I figured. “Right. Aren’t the big, bad wolves supposed to keep me safe?”
That earns me a look: half exasperation, half something else. Something that makes my heart beat in triple-time.
His mouth quirks, a begrudging grin. “You’re not scared of much, are you?”
“I’m scared of plenty,” I say lightly. “I just hide it better than most prey. Unless I lose control and play dead, that is.”
He steps closer. “Killer—”
I blink. “You’ve called me that before. You said you believed me when I told you I didn’t have anything with Declan’s death. So why are you teasing me like that?”
He hesitates, eyes searching mine. “You really want to know?”
“Yes.”
He refuses to break eye contact with me. When it comes to the Alpha, this will be a challenge I have to win or lose—and as he makes a softly uttered confession that has me glancing away, I don’t think either of us won.
“Because I don’t want to see you dead. Calling you ‘killer’ feels better than thinking of you as another victim.
I’ve been sheriff in Moonburrow for four years.
Since I was twenty-seven and I took over the pack when my dad stepped down as Alpha.
I got the badge and the top spot over Moonshadow…
in all that time, the only deaths I’ve seen have been pack business.
This one? It belongs to the sheriff. It’s not the same even though you’d think it would be considering we lost one of our own. ”
The words knock the air right out of me. My throat tightens. “It’s not just a case to you. As the Alpha… you had to handle a death of a packmate, too.”
He nods once, jaw set. “Pack burial was this morning. I talked to Declan’s mother. She asked me if he suffered. I didn’t have an answer she’d want to hear.” A soft snort. “Ripping out throats is easy to explain. But poison? Who poisons shifters? And why stop at one?”
His voice tells me he’s sure there will be more deaths. The way he’s watching me is a big clue that he thinks it might be me—but he doesn’t want it to be.
I swallow hard, the sharp ache of sympathy and something warmer catching me off guard. “You’ll find who did this.”
“I have to.”
“I’ll help,” I say, softer than I mean to.
His eyes narrow, not in warning this time, but in open disbelief. “You’re serious.”
I don’t understand why he seems so surprised. At the community center, he made it seem like he knew I was doing some sleuthing on the side. Of course I want to help him. I shrug. “Yeah. I’m serious.”
Suddenly, the air in the bakery changes. It’s quiet, but it grows thicker. I nearly choke on the weight of the expectant look that fills his predatory gaze. His eyes… they’re on me, roving over my face, taking in every detail of the opossum shift daring to look back at the wolf.
There’s something in that expression of his. Max looks down at me like he’s not sure what he’s seeing anymore: a nuisance or a helping hand. I’m not challenging him with eye contact; not like if I was anyone but me. I’m just there, and there is exactly where Max wants me.
His hand drops down, landing on my hip. I didn’t even realize how close we were until I feel the heat of his paw through my shirt. He tugs on me, pulling me closer. At the same time, he bends his head slowly, so slow, I could duck out of his path. I could refuse him. I could get away.
I don’t.
His other hand finds my jaw, rough thumb brushing the corner of my mouth. “You drive me insane, killer,” he mutters.
“Good,” I whisper back, breath coming quickly. I’ll regret this in the morning. I know I will. But if I even try to escape my mate, my opossum will kill me. “Means we’re even, Max.”
He groans to hear me say his name. Maybe if I hadn’t… maybe if I’d called him ‘Sheriff’ or ‘Alpha’, reminding him who he is… maybe then I could’ve stopped this. Only I didn’t want to stop this.
I wanted him to kiss me—and that’s exactly what Max does.
The second his mouth leaves mine, I’m glitching.
Like my brain just short-circuited, which makes total sense.
The potion might keep Max from realizing I’m his fated mate, but I’ve known who he was since the day I crossed into Moonburrow.
This is all my opossum wanted, some sign that our mate might possibly choose us.
For a second, I think I got it, and then I dare another peek up at his face.
His expression is so tortured, my stomach drops all the way to his shoes.
No.
No.
He didn’t want his. Or he did, but he realizes it was a mistake.
I’m a mistake.
Ignoring my opossum’s screech of heartache and pain, I duck out of his loose hold.
Max takes one step back, then another, until there’s enough space between us that the temptation vanishes.
The temptation vanishes.
The tension lingers.
“Right,” he says. His voice is lower, rougher. “That shouldn’t have happened.”
Fuck. That look on his face… I’d expected a reaction. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.
I nod so hard I nearly pull my neck. “Of course. It was an accident. Totally random lipsmacking. Happens all the time in bakeries.”
One dark brow lifts. “Does it now?”
“Constant hazard. Occupational risk. And I didn’t even charm you.”
The way his brow furrows says: didn’t you?
He exhales through his nose, somewhere between a laugh and a growl, then rubs the back of his neck. “We forget it, then.”
“Perfect. Forgotten. Never happened.” I back toward the counter, desperate to put it between us. “You’re still the sheriff, I’m still the—uh—mildly suspected baker.”
And not his mate. How can I tell him I’m his fated mate in the middle of this mess? Especially since, if he still doesn’t know, he’s not looking too closely at me like a female. Not like he did that fleeting moment after Roxy mentioned I’m a Virginia opossum.
Oh, no. I was just the prey shifter who possibly poisoned one of his packmates… but if that’s so, why did he kiss me?
My eyes are on his lips. As if he can sense them, his mouth twitches, the ghost of a smile he doesn’t want me to see… but that he doesn’t hide from regardless. “And you’re still terrible at staying out of trouble.”
I shrug. “What can I say? It’s a consistent character trait.”
He turns for the door, shaking his head slightly as he goes. “Lock up after me, Killer.”
The surprisingly snarky nickname hits differently this time—less gruff, more like he’s rolling it over in his mouth, tasting it, deciding it’s more a tease than an accusation… but how is that possible when he still thinks I have something to do with his packmate’s death?
After Max is gone, I lean against the front counter, heart just about ready to beat out of my chest.
“Forget it,” I whisper to myself. “Yep. Forgotten.”
Gus chitters from his corner perch, calling me a liar.
“Don’t start,” I tell him. “It’s not like the big, bad wolf just kissed me in my own bakery or anything.”
He squeaks once—definitely laughter, the traitor—and curls back on his self-proclaimed bag of flour throne.
Me? I run my trembling finger over my lip, trying to figure out how exactly I’m going to forget it when tasting Max Lobo was like coming home for the first time.