Chapter Thirteen
The Big Bad Wolf
Rachel Williams
Oh god oh god oh god oh god. He’s trying to kill me. I never want it to end.
I’m almost there. I can feel it, the pressure building. He’s hitting that spot again and again, but it’s just out of reach.
I look up at him in desperation. I need to come so badly I could cry. Ive been in a constant state of arousal since we started and the ache is starting to hurt.
Seeming to understand, he releases my shoulders, grabs me by the neck, and leverages himself backwards. Effectively choking me and jackrabbiting up into that sweet spot again and again.
With a muffled shout, which is all I can manage, I detonate.
“Fucccccckkkkkkk. Bishop.” Holy hell. I don’t know what I was expecting but it was definitely not this. The way he took charge and owned my body. It sends shivers down my spine in anticipation.
I think Im going to pass out.
Ive never been with a man who gave me what I wanted, what I needed. Who even cared about taking care of my needs at all.
This was the best sex of my life. FINALLY.
Releasing me and easing me onto the bed in front of him, Bishop lifts my legs and spreads them outwards, watching my pussy with satisfaction. He slowly pushes his fingers in me, and it dawns on me what he’s doing.
“Why do you do that?” I ask him, my voice rough and my throat aching from the abuse.
His eyes are intense when they meet mine.
He gives me the barest hint of a smile. “Just an urge Ive always had.”
I wonder briefly if he knows what that entails and why but quickly dismiss it. I don’t want to think about that.
He pulls me into him again, settling us back on our sides, the lights still on. For the first time since coming here I feel safe again.
I wake before sunrise, the cabin still and quiet. Bishop is already gone. Probably notifying the family and dealing with getting him home.
The thought doesn’t sting the way it once would have. After last night things between us makes me feel differently. It’s not simple, but it feels like we reached something like understanding.
Fucking each other’s brains out will inevitably lead to mutual satisfaction.
I’m hopeful this means more to him than sex.
Im also hopeful he will do that again. Being manhandled by him was exhilarating and it occurs to me now that I never actually told him that. What I liked.
And I liked everything about last night.
I pull on my jacket, stretching and enjoying the stiffness and the ache that good sex brings, and head to the lab. Beth is already there, hunched over a microscope, her hair tied back in a messy knot. She looks up when I enter.
“Morning,” she says, like we’re old friends. “You ready?”
I nod. “Let’s see what you found.”
She gestures me over. “Brace yourself.”
She’s pretty in a sharp, angular way. Hair pulled back. Eyes too bright. Smile a little too practiced.
Oh god, I hope she didn’t hear us last night. It doesn’t occur to me until now that it must have been loud, and the walls are thin.
She looks me up and down; not in a rude way, but in a way that feels like she’s cataloging me. Measuring me.
Probably wondering how someone can make noises like that and what he was doing to provoke them.
“Where is he?” she asks.
“My…” I hesitate. What is Bishop to me? Friend? Partner? Something in between?
She notices the hesitation. Her smile deepens.
“Your… someone,” she says softly.
“Yes,” I say. “My partner is dealing with the other…agent.”
I trip over the last part. Justin is gone. The guilt eats at me, he’s dead and my reaction was to lust after my boss.
She steps leans closer, too close, like she wants to see the truth in my eyes. “Is he important to you?”
I frown. “Why do you ask?”
“No reason.” But her voice says otherwise.
I lean back, trying to get some distance.
Personal space? Heard of it?
“He looks strong,” she murmurs. “Protective.”
I stiffen. “He’s capable.”
Is she interested in him?
Possessiveness is usually not my style, but Bishop is mine. And I feel all kinds of territorial.
Her smile widens. “And you trust him.”
It isn’t a question. It’s an observation.
I swallow. “Yes.” Uncertain where she is going with this.
She exhales like she’s savoring the answer. “That’s rare. People don’t trust easily anymore.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I stay quiet.
She steps even closer, lowering her voice. “Connections like that… they’re beautiful.”
“And fragile. You’re lucky.”
Beth’s smile doesn’t falter. If anything, it grows.
This is possibly the oddest conversation Ive ever had, but she seems friendly.
“So the results.” She changes the subject and taps the keyboard. “This is the claw sample.”
Im grateful for the distraction.
The magnified image fills the screen: keratin layers, dense and compact but it’s too smooth, too uniform.
“DNA analysis came back,” she says.
I inhale. “Okay. What is it?”
“Polar bear.”
I blink. “That’s impossible.”
Beth nods. “Yep. And not just any polar bear; a dead one. The sample matches a specimen catalogued in a wildlife database from a bear that died years ago.”
A chill crawls up my spine. “So the claw didn’t come from a living animal.”
“Nope.”
I swallow. “How in the hell… that doesn’t make sense.”
“Oh, it gets worse.” She tells me cheerfully.
She moves to another tray, lifting a small evidence bag. Inside are fibers; coarse, gray, brown, black.
“These were pulled from Rourke’s jacket.”
I lean closer. “What are they?”
“Three different wolf species,” she says. “Gray wolf, Northern wolf, and northwestern wolf.”
I stare at her. “Someone is fucking with us.”
“Correct.”
“Wolves don’t coexist like that.”
“Correct again.”
“And they don’t shed fibers like this unless-”
“Unless they’re dead,” Beth finishes quietly. “These fibers came from preserved pelts. Not living animals.”
My stomach tightens.
“The follicles are dead and the fibers have chemicals from the processing.”
She gestures to the cast of the paw print we made yesterday. “Look at the structure.”
It’s massive, elongated, and misshapen.
“The spacing is irregular,” Beth says. “The weight distribution is inconsistent. The claws don’t align with natural bone structure.”
I swallow. “Meaning?”
She meets my eyes.
“It’s not an animal.”
The words settle over me.
Not a bear. Not a wolf. Not a mutation.
Something built. Something stitched together from dead parts. Something designed to hunt.
I straighten, forcing my voice steady. “We need to tell Bishop.”
Beth nods. “He’s going to lose his mind.”
I exhale slowly, thinking of his behavior, what he has and hasn’t said. “He already suspects.”
He’s hinted all along that he believes this is a killer of the human variety.
And now we have proof.
Shaw’s entrance shifts the air immediately, looking me over and smiles in a way that makes me uneasy.
He steps inside, boots loud on the tile, and his gaze sweeps the lab before landing squarely on me.
“Find anything…” His eyes drag down, then back up, slow enough to make my skin crawl. “…interesting?”
No, but if you could find your eyes focused on something else…that would be great.
I keep my expression neutral and professional. Inside, every instinct bristles.
Not this again.
I noticed his interest yesterday but thought he would have moved on to more interesting things. Like the missing people they are supposed to be finding.
Beth doesn’t look up from her microscope, but her jaw tightens. Like she’s seen him do this before and hates it as much as I do.
I force my voice steady. “We found plenty. None of it has anything to do with me.”
Shaw smirks, leaning one hip against the counter like he owns the room. “Didn’t say it did. Just asking a question.”
No, he wasn’t. He was testing me. Seeing if he could get a reaction.
I turn back to the evidence tray, refusing to give him one.
Beth clears her throat pointedly. “Shaw, if you’re not here to help, you can leave.”
He ignores her, stepping closer until I can feel the weight of his stare on the side of my face.
“So,” he says lightly, “you and Bishop were out at the cabin last night. Make up from your lovers quarrel?”
Beth’s head snaps up. “Shaw.”
He lifts his hands in mock innocence. “What? I’m just making conversation.”
No, he’s not. He’s trying to get under my skin. And if he wants to keep pushing me Im going to lay his ass out and show him I am not as tame as I look.
I straighten, meeting his gaze head-on. “If you have a question about the case, ask it. Otherwise, step back.”
His smile widens; not friendly, not amused.
Predatory.
“Relax, Rachel. I’m just saying you look… tired. Busy night?”
Beth stands abruptly. “Out.”
Shaw chuckles, but he does step back, not because he respects the boundary, but because he enjoys crossing it and retreating just before someone calls him out.
I’ve known guys like him all my life. They are all versions of the same little boy who was never checked in his behavior because ‘that’s the way boys are.’
I used to love a boy like that, and he ruined my life and abandoned me.
He nods toward the cast on the table. “Print’s a monster. Whatever made it… you’re not gonna want to be out there alone.”
The implication hangs in the air. Im not scared of someone dressed up in costume.
And I don’t flinch. “Good thing I’m not alone.”
His eyes flick to Beth, then back to me. “Right. Sure.”
He leaves with that same smirk, the door swinging shut behind him.
Beth exhales sharply. “He’s a creep.”
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “I noticed. He doesn’t exactly hide it does he?”
She steps closer, her voice softening. “You okay?”
I nod because I am. It will take a lot more than Shaw to shake me. Because Bishop and I have reached something steady.
Because Shaw’s behavior is annoying, not threatening.
“We should tell Bishop,” Beth says, gesturing to the claw, the fibers, the print. “He needs to know what we found.”
“It’s not an animal,” I say again, the truth settling and lessening some of the fear I have.
“No,” Beth agrees. “It’s something else.”
But the then question becomes. Why?