Chapter 2
Oliver Hale dove his hands deep into the pockets of his exquisitely cut suit pants and stared out the window toward the distant mountains.
His lips thinned into a hard line. He refused to think about what was across those ranges. Who was across those ranges.
Leaving Motham had been the right choice, he reminded himself firmly. Taking this job had been the right choice. In his two hundred plus years on this planet, he’d chosen to always move forward, to never, ever look back. The past held horrors beyond words, traumatic memories best forgotten.
Gods knew, he’d endured those flashbacks from his childhood, managed to lock them up behind an iron wall through sheer willpower.
Why then, did the memories of that night with Clare Doyle keep haunting him?
Three years. It had been three gods damn years since he’d left Motham City.
And yet the dreams of her still startled him awake at night, his fangs descended and his cock rock hard.
Oliver cursed under his breath and turned back to his empty desk. There just weren’t enough crimes in Selig to stop him from thinking forbidden thoughts. Feeling forbidden emotions.
That was the problem, wasn’t it? Selig was civilized, progressive, law-abiding.
What he’d give for a feral wolf gang shooting, or a monkey shifter murder.
But nothing like that had happened in his time as head of the investigation bureau in Selig.
Folks were decent here. Monsters mixed with humans with only the rare, not particularly serious crime.
A stolen car, a pickpocketing or two. A house break-in was an even rarer occurrence.
In Selig, humans and monsters worked together, married, and were generally pleasant to one another.
Such a different story from Motham.
How he’d loved that fucking crazy place.
You loved…
No!!!
He pinched the bridge of his nose, cursed under his breath. Yeah, right, as if cursing could shut down images of those hazel eyes and honey blonde hair, that lithe athletic body, the scent of her on his skin.
That call from Saul last week had brought the memories flooding back, torturous and vivid. Saul had pretty much begged him to come back and help solve the missing humans case, and hell, if he was honest, he’d been fucking tempted.
He’d heard she’d taken a senior detective role in Tween not long after he’d left.
She wouldn’t be in Motham. But even so, Motham would be too close.
It was in the same valley as Tween. And those old city walls wouldn’t be able to cage him in if his darkness got the better of him.
He could use his wings, he could shape-shift, harness the powers he’d denied himself for a century.
Tween was a mere few minutes by wing if he chose to seek her out.
He couldn’t trust himself.
So he’d told Saul it was a firm no. And the dreams had gotten more vivid since then, so vivid he could almost feel himself thrusting deep into her tight, sweet pussy.
For fuck’s sake man. Just. Stop.
A sharp rap on the door interrupted his thoughts. “Come in.”
Maureen, his secretary, poked her head around the door. “You have a visitor, sir.”
“I’m not expecting anyone.”
“No sir, but he said you’d see him. For old times’ sake.”
Oliver felt his pulse spike.
“Who?”
“A gargoyle sir, name of Grayson.”
Oliver’s lips twitched. “Sweet gods,” he muttered. “Okay, send him in.”
Maureen disappeared, and a moment later, in strode the gargoyle, head bent, wings furled tight against his massive torso to fit through the door. The doors here were large to accommodate his monster staff, but Grayson Lightfoot was bigger than most monsters.
Grayson’s face broke into a grin as his red eyes scanned Oliver’s suit. “Looking your usual silver self.”
“Looking as stony as ever,” Oliver countered.
The two guys shook hands heartily.
Oliver was tempted to unfurl his wings and raise himself off the ground a few feet, to bring himself eye-to-eye with the gargoyle, but he never allowed himself to shift. So instead, he stood his ground and craned his neck to look into Grayson’s face. “Actually, you look very well.”
Grayson smirked, his cheeks turning a darker shade of gray. “Maisie and me are expecting our first.”
An emotion constricted Oliver’s chest. Jealousy? Of course not. He was a confirmed bachelor, and nothing and no one was going to ever change that.
“Congratulations,” he said. “Is that what you came to tell me?”
“Well, it’s probably my proudest achievement, but no.”
“How’s the agency going?” Grayson ran Tower Security, and his team of highly trained gargoyles and orcs had always worked closely with the Motham PD.
“Good. But this recent case is giving us all the run-around. You’ve heard about it, no doubt?”
“The missing humans,” Oliver grunted.
“Yeah. It’s completely outwitting our resources, to be honest.”
Oliver’s features tightened. “Gods damn it Grayson, here’s me thinking you’ve come to tell me your personal news. Saul sent you, didn’t he?”
The gargoyle chuckled. “Well, I did want to share that I’m about to be a dad, but yep. Saul sent me.”
“No. The answer is fucking no.” Oliver started pacing, raking a hand through his silver hair.
He stopped dead and glared at Grayson, who just stood there, like a fucking granite statue. Immovable. Stubborn bastard.
“I was told not to leave until I had an affirmative answer.”
“Yep. Affirmative to telling Saul to piss off. Satisfied?”
Grayson shrugged. Glancing around the pristine office, his gaze settled on the empty desk.
“Happy here?”
“Sure am,” Oliver rasped. “This place runs like a well-oiled machine.”
“Sounds boring as batshit.”
“Was the batshit comment a deliberate dig?”
“Like your stony compliment? Nope.”
The two men stared at one another. Then Grayson cracked a smile, and Oliver followed suit. Vampires and gargoyles had always had a certain rivalry. And yeah, gargoyles’ wing spans were wider, but Oliver liked to think that vampires had more finesse, more style in the air.
“Ah, mate, I’ve missed our chats up on the rooftop.”
“Missed your fine whiskey, I’ll admit,” Oliver conceded, unable to acknowledge that yeah, he’d missed the damn gargoyle too.
“Guess that’s the best I’ll get out of you as far as compliments go.” Grayson smirked, then hunkered onto his haunches. It was the only way for the huge monster to sit down, he wouldn’t fit in any of the chairs.
Oliver sat in an easy chair, crossed his legs at the ankles and flicked an imaginary piece of fluff off his pants.
And no, damn it, he wasn’t going to offer the bastard a whiskey, even though he had a fine malt in his desk drawer.
“You’ll be here a while. Maisie might wonder where you’ve gotten to. ”
“She said she’d have dinner waiting no matter what the hour.”
Another peculiar stab twisted in the region of his heart. He chose to ignore it.
A moment’s silence followed while vampire and gargoyle did their best to outstare each other.
Finally, Grayson tsked in exasperation. “They need you. And you fucking know it. They can’t solve this crime without your expertise.
Saul’s a good guy, solid at managing the department, but he doesn’t have your knowledge.
” He paused, dropped his voice. “There’s a rumor that Matteus Kominsky is involved.
Never been caught, so you know, he could be… ”
Oliver’s brows drew down. “Don’t remind me,” he rasped.
Three years ago, Matteus Kominsky had kidnapped a human by the name of Shona Dove.
Though she had been rescued successfully, Matteus had vanished into thin air that night.
Every lead Oliver had pursued had turned out to be a dead end.
It had frustrated the hell out of him. And worse, it was a crime involving his own kind.
He should have been able to solve it with his fucking eyes closed.
“You’ve considered Matteus could be involved, surely?” Grayson said.
“I’ve had a gut feeling, yes.”
“And your gut feelings are second to none.”
“Didn’t help us find the bastard,” Oliver grunted. “That fucker just disappeared without a trace.”
“Like these missing humans. No trace. No clues. Nothing.” Grayson paused. “Except for one thing.”
“And that is?”
“There’ve been a couple of reported sightings of Matteus recently.”
Oliver sat up taller. “Where?”
“First time was in Vlad’s dress shop. After hours. Tom, one of my most experienced officers, swore it was Matteus. Then Vlad strode over and pulled the curtains. We questioned Vlad later, but he was his usual evasive, sarcastic self.”
Vlad Kominsky was Matteus’s uncle, a dress designer and a wily, cunning old bastard. But still, one sighting wasn’t enough to go on. “Plenty of vampires buy suits from Vlad—could have been any of them.”
“Could have been,” Grayson conceded. “But two days later, Matteus’s black limo was spotted near the location where the latest victim disappeared, close to Bellamy’s patisserie. That eye-witness report falls within a ten-minute window of the disappearance.”
“Don’t tell me, the car disappeared too.”
“Yup. Exactly.”
Oliver clenched his fists. Vampires could move fast, they could shape-shift, but they couldn’t just disappear into thin air. And the cars they drove certainly couldn’t. There was some kind of freaky magick at play here.
“Too coincidental to ignore, right?” Oliver felt Grayson’s measured gaze on him. “We need your understanding of vampires, Oliver. Your contacts, your history of solving dark crimes. No one will ever forget how you rid Motham of the grimaalds.”
“Yeah, well, thanks. But that’s ancient history.”
“It may have been before my time, but your role in banishing those demons is legendary.”
Oliver couldn’t help an internal flush of pride.
Gods, there were few things he was proud of in his past, but eradicating grimaalds was one of them.
Filthy poisonous demons, with scaly bodies and double sets of sharp fangs, grimaalds had plagued Motham in the early days of the city, lurking between the human and monster realms. Claiming blood—and lives.
In his own dark years, Oliver had guzzled blood next to those lowlife creatures in the shadows of night, outwitting them with his charm to get to victims first.
In the process, he’d learned how to avoid their fangs and sharp claws. How to outsmart their bitter, twisted minds.
Which, when it came to ridding Motham of those vermin, had proven very useful.
When you were out to catch villains, it paid to have once been a villain.
But while the grimaalds were gone, there were still the Kominskys. And while they had no demon in their lineage, they might as well have.
As if reading his thoughts, Grayson said, “Imagine if you could finally put Matteus away. You’d potentially bring down the whole Kominsky drug trade.”
Oliver clenched and unclenched his fists on the arms of the chair.
The Kominskys had operations smuggling drugs into Motham, which kept the feral species well supplied, and highly problematic to law-abiding citizens.
They also dealt weaponry to bands of guerrilla ogres in the mountains.
What he’d give to shut down the Kominsky operations and stop Matteus Kominsky once and for all.
“Ah, fuck,” he gritted out finally. “Tell Saul I’ll take leave from Selig. For three months. If I can’t solve it in that time, it’s over to you bastards.”
“Good decision.”
Oliver shook his head. “Why do I think I’ll live to regret this?”
“You’ve got eternity to indulge that feeling.” Grayson chuckled.
“Fuck you,” Oliver growled with a grin, and as the gargoyle rose to leave, he got up too. At the door, he took the big gray hand extended to him and shook it hard.
Their eyes locked in silent understanding.
After they’d said their farewells, Oliver walked back into his office and stared broodily at the phone on his desk. The phone that barely rang, because he wasn’t needed here. The neat little piles of case files, all solved and signed off on.
Adrenalin pumped through his veins at the thought of locking horns with his adversaries, the Kominsky clan.
Not only was there the unsolved case of Matteus’s disappearance, there were also three centuries of bad blood between the Hale and Kominsky families.
Truth was, for Oliver, there was so much more to this than solving a crime.
There was his own personal vendetta to resolve.
No one in this generation of monsters would ever know about the dark period of Oliver’s existence. Except Waldo, the warlock, and he would keep his own counsel.
Oliver would take those memories to his grave if he could—but alas, dying was not an option.
And then there was another minor fucking problem.
Returning to Motham would bring him closer to Clare Doyle. Closer to temptation. Gods help him, he could almost scent her sweet blood carried on the wind. Tween was too close to Motham City.
But Grayson was right, he was shriveling up from boredom, and the thought of returning to Motham PD brought the fire back into his veins.
If he could get that bastard Kominsky, it had to be worth fighting his own demons.
Squaring his shoulders, Oliver strode out of the room.
To tell his boss he’d be taking a three-month transfer.
Effective immediately.