Chapter 10 #2
“My necklace is a tracker,” she explained. The lack of transparency had caused the rift in their relationship, but Olivia knew the truth now. And since they were experiencing a momentary return to their friendship, she opted for honesty.
“It’s also a panic button,” Bel continued. “It links me to Eamon, and it doesn’t rely on cell service. I can be anywhere in the world, and he’d find me.”
“He tracks your movements at all times?” Olivia looked as if she were trying not to let her mouth fall open.
“Everywhere I go. Each time I’ve been taken, my kidnappers left my necklace on. It’s so small and harmless. People remember to toss phones and keys but not book charms, so Eamon had military-grade tech installed inside it.”
“I can’t decide if that’s comforting or terrifying.”
“Ethan Rollo.” She might as well confess everything. “He didn’t just kill the cast and crew members of Aesop’s Files. I got in his crosshairs. I was the better cop, but it didn’t matter because he wasn’t human.”
“Rollo wasn’t human? Our Deputy Rollo?”
“He was a werewolf.”
“They exist?”
“They do.” Bel absentmindedly rubbed her scars.
“So it didn’t matter that I’m a better shot in a crisis.
I can’t compete with indestructibility and claws.
So my necklace is a comfort. One click of a button, and the worst monster of them all comes to find me.
He’s been too late so many times, but with Ethan Rollo, he wasn’t.
He got to me first. Now, I never take this off. ”
Olivia inhaled a shaky breath as another crash of thunder shook the car, and she released Bel’s wrist to lean back in her seat. “How many monsters are out there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Eamon told me he was the worst of them. Are there others like him?”
“No, he’s the last of his kind. When he dies, so does the Dhampir.”
“Do immortal creatures like him die?”
“No.” Bel rubbed her necklace between her fingers. “He’ll have to kill himself if he wants to die.”
“Like he’d ever do that,” Olivia scoffed.
“He will.” Bel’s memory snapped back to their conversation and the reality that she would never bear children if Eamon Stone were the man she bound her life to. “When I die, he’s promised to enter death with me.”
“He’s going to die with you? Is that something Ewan would’ve done if we had…” Olivia trailed off, her features pale below the curtain of rain.
“No, I think shifters are mortal,” Bel said. “Not Eamon, though, but he doesn’t want to live beyond me. So we’ll leave this world together.”
“I don’t understand how evil like him can be so capable of love.”
“I don’t either.”
“But you love him? Really love him?”
“Call me a monster too, because I do.”
“But you knew, right?” Olivia asked. “He told you from the start that he wasn’t normal.”
“Explicitly.” Bel touched her scars. She’d forgiven Eamon for his sins, but she’d never forget the way his teeth ripped through her flesh.
She would never forget the sound her tearing skin made or the pungent scent of her own death.
She knew exactly who Eamon Stone was, but she’d absolved him of his part in the curse that demanded her sacrifice.
“That’s the thing.” It was Olivia’s turn to look like she might cry. “I might have loved Ewan if I’d known. I might have forgiven him. But I’ll never know if I could’ve looked past his nature because, unlike Eamon, he never gave me that chance.”
“Wet puppy incoming!” Eamon boomed over the thunder as he flung open the SUV’s back doors and shoved a soaked Cerberus inside.
“Baby Beast!” Bel recoiled as her dog spewed water all over her interior, but the second he stilled, she leaned into the backseat to capture his face. “Hi, good boy. Did you go for a ride?”
“Everyone okay?” Eamon asked, the rain beating down to plaster his shirt to every muscular curve of his chest. The detectives had been stranded on the roadside for over half an hour, and the storm had yet to relent, drenching him the instant he exited his truck.
“You hit the panic button, but I figured it was because you had no service since I couldn’t reach your cell. ”
“Yes, sorry about the alarm, but this downpour makes me nervous,” Bel said.
“No need to explain. It’s why I gave it to you. Now climb into the back seat so I can drive,” he ordered. “Olivia, Ewan dropped me off. Do you want to ride with him since he’s headed in your direction?”
“No,” she spoke so fast that the words smacked Eamon in the face.
“Okay… so I guess I can’t drive naked. Sorry, my love.” He lunged forward and pressed a sloppy wet kiss on Bel’s lips. “I’ll have to soak your seat.”
“As long as you clean it up when we get home.” Bel gave him a bigger, sloppier kiss and then climbed into the back with her damp dog.
“When have I ever made you clean or service this car?” He waved Ewan off and then eased onto the road.
“Can you really drive in this weather?” Olivia asked, the wall of water thickening as the SUV picked up speed.
“It’s fun.” Eamon reached behind his seat, fingers searching the air until Bel accepted his invitation. “Few things are a challenge for me.”
“Shouldn’t you have both hands on the wheel?” Olivia looked seconds away from climbing out of the SUV and chasing down her ex-boyfriend, the drive home in hostile territory preferable to Eamon’s recklessness.
“I should.” Eamon squeezed Bel’s hand, and she braced for the acceleration. “But where’s the fun in that?”
“Your roses.” Bel scanned the storm-mauled garden, the carnage harsh beneath the soft tones of the sunrise.
“I don’t know how many bushes I can salvage.
I may have to start over with new plants,” the shirtless and dirt-streaked Eamon said as he strode through the disaster with a broken bush in one fist and a football in the other.
“That storm ripped through here without a care, and I think we lost some shingles too.” He tossed the damaged plant onto the garbage pile and then launched the football deep into the garden.
“I had trouble sleeping through it.” Bel handed him her coffee cup, and he took a long sip before returning it to her with a kiss on the cheek.
“You were restless all night.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to disrupt you, but it sounded like war out here. I’m glad I called you to drive us home. I would’ve ended up in a ditch.”
“Hey.” Eamon paused halfway through shoving a leaning tree’s roots back into the dirt. “Don’t say that. Don’t make me picture that.”
“Hence why I called you… Do you need help?”
“What? You gonna shove a tree back into the ground?”
“I meant in a supervisor capacity.” She crossed the damp grass and leaned in for a kiss.
“Sure.” He smirked against her mouth as he deposited the small tree with a grunt. “Watch me all you want.”
“Oh, I will. It’s such a glorious sight.” She trailed a finger down his filthy biceps, dirt be damned, because no matter how many times she saw Eamon Stone without a shirt, it felt like the first, and she prayed they never stopped seeing the magic in each other.
“Well then, feast your eyes,” Eamon teased, flexing his muscles in a mock display of masculinity, but for all his teasing, it didn’t change the fact that he was a Greek god carved immaculately from stone.
Bel rolled her eyes as Cerberus returned with the half-deflated ball, and she launched it into the broken foliage, her distance an embarrassing shadow of her boyfriend’s reach.
“I should drive you to work.” The serious Eamon Stone assumed control of her boyfriend. “If trees are down in my yard, they’re undoubtedly down on the main roads. It’ll take emergency services hours to head out this way, so I’ll take you.”
“Fine by me.” She offered him another sip of her coffee. “I’ll go make us a quick breakfast.”
“Sounds good, Detective.” He leaned down as he returned her mug and dragged his lips over her scars. “Just don’t shower without me.”
An hour later, Eamon eased Bel’s SUV onto the winding, tree-lined road that bridged the divide between Bajka and the Reale Estate, the asphalt more war zone than highway.
Debris littered their path with such violence that if anyone other than Eamon had been behind the wheel, the trip would’ve ended in tragedy… for the car at least.
“I can’t believe that.” Bel rolled down her window and leaned out to get a better look at the monster of a tree blocking the road. “I actually think I heard that fall last night.”
“I did,” Eamon said. “And you flinched in your sleep, so you probably did too.”
“I can’t believe how loud that was. We aren’t that close to home.”
“You called it home again.”
“Well, my library is there, so what do you expect?”
Eamon smiled at her, reaching across the center console to brush his knuckles over her cheek.
“I guess I should call Griffin and tell him I can’t make it to the station.” She leaned into his touch, kissing his palm as she reached for her phone.
“Oh, ye of little faith.” Eamon snatched it from her hand and dropped it into the cup holder. “You should know better by now… unless you’re fishing for a day off.”
“I wasn’t, but now that you mention it, we could finish what we started in the shower.”
“I like the way you think, Detective.” He closed the distance, capturing her in a searing kiss, but as quickly as the temptation to spend the day in bed emerged, it was shattered by the blaring trill of her cell.
“Don’t answer it,” Eamon moaned against her mouth.
“If I worked at an office job, I wouldn’t.” Bel collapsed against his chest, letting him hide her in his embrace as she answered the call. “Hello?” She inhaled slowly, praying whoever was on the other end didn’t hear the breathless arousal in her greeting.
“Bel?” Olivia’s distress was so loud that she relaxed. Her partner wouldn’t detect any emotion that Bel was experiencing through her own haze of anxiety.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“It’s my car,” Olivia said. “Lightning hit my neighbor’s tree last night, and it fell onto its roof, so I’m stuck at home unless someone can pick me up. Will you be at the station today?”