9. Avery #2
“He’s got police protection now, but lemme make a call and double it,” Wade said, walking out of the room.
Getting up, I walked to the back of the room and called Graeme.
“Avery,” he murmured, sounding tired.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but––”
“You could never bother me,” he professed.
“Just wait, I will.”
“We’ll see,” he rumbled, and his voice was like a caress that I wanted to lean into. “What may I do for my mate?”
Would I ever get used to that? “Uhm, we think your cousin might be in danger.”
“Yes,” he stated. “Our family vraekae , her name is Shivani Burman, and––”
“Holy crap.” I was in awe. “Your family has a vraekae ? Really?”
He chuckled. “You sound very excited. I’ll introduce you to her at our wedding.”
The vraekae , or wolf-warriors, were the oldest continual security force in the world.
They were palace guards for pharaohs and emperors and kings.
They had been Vikings, samurai, knights, and a part of every elite fighting force throughout history.
Now they were private security for a small number of lupine families that had made ancient blood oaths with them, as well as for human clients who could afford to employ them.
The price tag for their service was astronomical, but if the hype was true, they’d never lost anyone on their watch, from the Bronze Age to the present.
“I would love to meet her,” I gushed, “and sorry, I interrupted you. Go on.”
More soft laughter, and God, I loved the sound of him. “When my assistant called for a vordr for Remy, that immediately prompted a call to Shivani, and when I explained the circumstances to her, she sent two men to watch over Remy until the police have the guilty party in custody.”
“She must care about him.”
He scoffed. “No. The oath is with my father’s line, the Davenport line, not my mother’s, which is the Talmadge line. She’s doing this because she doesn’t want someone to try and get to me through Remy.”
“But then, why isn’t someone guarding you?”
“I have two bodyguards, Kat, who you’ve met, and Isabella, who you will meet.
Shivani believes them both to be quite capable of taking care of me.
When I travel abroad, she sends extra people along with me, and them, as is protocol, and I suspect, once we’re mated, she’ll assign you your own skyld . ”
“A what?”
“A shield. If you were kidnapped or placed in danger, you could be used as leverage against me, so she’ll want to take that temptation off the board early.”
“Yeah, but Graeme, I’m a cop. I can’t have someone with me or––”
“Oh no, you never see a shield,” he snorted. “I had one for years when I went to school abroad, and I wouldn’t be able to give you a name or tell you what they looked like.”
“Really?”
“Yes, it’s all very cloak-and-dagger. But I’ve known Shivani for years, even before she became a member of the vraekae , so we have a different relationship, which is why she’ll be at the wedding.”
“I can’t wait to tell my father that your family has a vraekae , but okay, thank you for letting me know. I’ll get the CPD detail off your cousin and save the city some money.”
“Good.”
I hung up then, even though I didn’t want to, and was going to find Wade, but he found me first.
“Hey, I just got a report that Talmadge has private security now, so I’m gonna pull the guys we have there with him. Once Talmadge is released from the hospital, we can have a patrol car roll by his place, but it sounds like his cyne has it covered.”
“Yeah, I was just gonna come tell you. I talked to Mr. Davenport, and he explained that his family has a vraekae , so––”
“No shit?”
“I know, right?” I wasn’t sure I’d ever get over being in awe of that.
“Jesus, who is this guy? I’ve never heard of a cyne who had a vraekae . A dryhten , sure, but how big is his holt ?”
“I have no idea.” But I was damn sure going to find out.
An hour later, Peck was pacing in front of the rest of us; Wade was sitting next to me, slouched in his chair, arms crossed; I was leaning so hard on my fist that if it slipped, I’d hit my head on the table; and Ness was doing that thing where you squint to try to keep things in focus.
“I wanna know how Muscle Guy fits in, and who the girl was that Talmadge got beat up over,” Peck informed us.
“I mean, I don’t know that this has anything to do with the rest of the case, I feel like a lot of things were happening at once, but we still gotta find that guy and the girl he was trying to protect. ”
“Okay, so how do we find Muscle Guy?” I asked Peck.
“We know he was warning Talmadge about a girl with platinum hair, so maybe we do like Talmadge and check the society pages and see who’s got platinum hair.”
There were so many dead-ends, but that one actually sounded promising.
Bannerman came in and told us that new leads would have to wait until the following day.
He was sick of looking at us—and smelling us—and it was time to sleep on it and see what, if anything, we came up with.
I was going to argue, but the man’s glare was sharp enough to cut glass, and I was too exhausted to be logical.
Driving home, after dropping Wade off, was dicey.
I was exhausted and afraid I’d fall asleep at the wheel, so I called Graeme.
I could have chosen anyone to talk to during the ride home, but I picked him because, more than needing just any voice on the other end of the line, I wanted to hear his.
If I could have driven to his house instead, I would have, but that was––
“Avery,” he greeted me, sounding genuinely pleased to hear from me.
The fact that his voice was gruff and deep, like he just woke up, pinballed through my chest, lighting everything up. The whimper escaped before I could even think about stifling the needy sound.
“Where are you?” he wanted to know.
“In the car driving home so I can—were you sleeping?”
The yawn and the sound of stretching was ridiculously sexy. “I was,” he rumbled. “I wanted to make sure I was fresh and alert for this evening, since I didn’t get much sleep last night, as you well know.”
“Yeah” was my brilliant reply.
“Wait, driving home?” He growled at me. “Do you mean to say you haven’t slept? It’s almost two in the afternoon, and you haven’t slept yet?”
“I’ll be fine for tonight. I just––”
“You should pull over and I’ll come get you,” he apprised me. “I wouldn’t want you to fall asleep at the wheel or––”
“Why do you think I called?” I teased him. “And I’m really not that far from home.”
“Avery I must insist,” he was adamant.
I snorted. “And yet, I’m still driving.”
He was silent a moment and I was about to tell him that him not talking wasn’t helping anything when he spoke again.
“Wouldn’t it be better,” he began, speaking softly but with a husky, ragged edge that had all of my attention, “if you drove here to me? Then you could have a bite to eat, shower, and go to bed knowing you could sleep in longer?”
The driving to him part sounded so good I had to pull over and give myself a minute to calm down. “Should you have an unbonded omega in your house, though? You’re a cyne , and I wouldn’t want to hurt your reputation or––”
“Avery,” he murmured, and I got the feeling he might have known I was a bit susceptible to his voice, captivating as it was.
“I have a copy of your signed contract here in the safe in my den, and the original is flying, with a courier of Shivani’s choosing, to Bern as we speak, to be placed in my personal vault.
My reputation, as well as yours, is above reproach. ”
My contract was so important to him that he was having it flown to Switzerland? He didn’t trust it to the mail? It had to be hand-delivered by someone his vraekae had chosen?
“Now, please…come to me.”
“But my clothes––”
“As soon as you get here, I’ll send Kat to your home to collect whatever you need. Just leave your keys in your car and––”
“It’s not a home; it’s just a crappy apartment with––”
“Even more of a reason to come to me ,” he stressed, sounding silky and growly, and the few brain cells that were still functioning shorted out as my dick thickened in response.
“Where do you live?” I barely got out.
My house, or my old house, my parents’ house, was impressive.
It had six huge bedrooms and thirteen bathrooms, not to mention the garden terrace and the central courtyard, an abundance of natural light, which my mother insisted on—she hated a dark house—and a carriage house in the back where my grandmother had lived before she passed.
Linden’s home, which I’d been in a million times over the years, was also impressive.
There was an open gallery that spanned the entire first floor so you could look left or right and see everything, like at a museum.
It was a huge, wide-open space, and you got an immediate idea of the volume of the home.
Neither house had anything on the place I rolled up to.
Because Graeme’s home was in the city, in Lincoln Park, there was no big circular drive out front.
Instead, a wrought iron gate blocked unauthorized entrance to the cobblestone driveway.
I was about to open my window and lean out to speak into the intercom but noticed the camera, so I waved, and the massive gates opened inward, allowing me to guide my Jeep down the drive to the back of the house.
I wasn’t sure where to park, but Graeme was there, standing near the ten-car garage, and raised a hand—as if I’d miss him.
I parked where he indicated and took a moment to look at the man before I got out, leaving my keys on the seat before I slammed the door.
In his white T-shirt, black lounge pants, and heavy socks, he looked decidedly normal.
With his arms crossed, biceps bulging and hair tousled in the wind, all I could see was home.
He looked like home to me. It was hard to breathe for a second.