11. Lucy
CHAPTER 11
Lucy
Pulling the sleeves of my black shirt over my hands, I pillowed my arms on top of the desk and rested my head on them as I watched the footage from the night of the murder. There were over six hundred cameras in this building, and all three monitors displayed six angles each. It played at 5x speed and something about the monotony made me feel sleepy, but my eyes wouldn’t close.
They just burned when I couldn’t even force myself to blink.
Something was wrong with me, but I couldn’t figure out what, so I’d kept it to myself.
Frankie and I still weren’t speaking after that incident in the parking garage. It was stressing me out because I was starting to feel like I was overreacting. I knew she wasn’t the kind of person to pass judgment so flippantly, but I thought I’d known people before.
A pattern of nearly fifteen years of her behavior might seem like enough to trust someone, to a normal person, but not to me. I thought I’d known my father, and I’d been so very wrong about him.
Had Frankie considered me defective this whole time and I’d just been oblivious ?
Was I living a lie all over again?
“You should take a break.” Liam sat on the edge of the desk— his desk, and set a cup of coffee in front of me. “I’m pretty sure you haven’t blinked once in the last thirty minutes.”
Has it really been that long?
Checking the time up in the corner of the monitor, I saw it had and tried not to panic.
When the fuck was I going to find something that would give us a real lead? Frankie was relying on me to find the pattern and here I was…failing at that too.
“You definitely need some water at the very least,” Liam told me, setting a bottle of water down beside the coffee. “I’ll cut the power to the building if you don’t.”
Why was he always so intense?
Sliding my gaze from the footage to the massive alpha beside me, I tried not to let him see how fucking freaked out I was just under the surface.
If my failure to find a single lead hadn’t been bad enough, this legacy alpha and his psycho assistant constantly hovering in my peripheral would have been more than enough to send me into a spiral.
They were way too fucking interested in me, and I felt like I was slowly losing my mind.
Liam had insisted I do my computer work in his office, but not just in it – at his fucking desk. He’d given me all his passwords and logins as well as access to any server owned by Valor. Cassius had been quietly working at his desk to my left, that heavy presence and dark gaze making it difficult to sit still.
Frankie was out questioning the list of potential suspects and witnesses, leaving me alone in here with these two for the last six hours.
Normally, I wouldn’t be bothered working so closely with alphas, but these two exuded just enough pheromones it was all up in my fucking nose, and even their expensive filters couldn’t keep up with the smell of sharp, green apples and oranges mixed with sandalwood and vanilla.
Whatever Cassius had done to those alphas had his scent lingering on his clothes and now I couldn’t stop smelling it. Even Frankie had seemed shaken by his pheromones and I wondered for the thousandth time if I should ask her what had happened or not.
Why I hadn’t already, I didn’t know, and I didn’t really want to think about it.
“Do you think I won’t?” Liam asked, cracking open the water bottle when I didn’t answer.
God, I was way too exhausted to deal with him right now.
Pretending like I was fine was starting to wear on me, and I didn’t know how much longer I could keep going, especially when I’d reached the point in my day when I really didn’t feel like talking.
I took the water bottle from Liam, knowing he wasn’t bluffing. He was definitely the kind of alpha to force me into doing what he wanted with something as flashy and ridiculous as flexing his power – the kind that had nothing to do with his pheromones.
Water would help, but it wouldn’t get rid of the dry mouth no matter how much I hydrated. I could drink a thousand bottles of water and still be thirsty, because that wasn’t what my body needed.
My first heat had come a few weeks after I’d perfumed. Since then, I’d only had four, and they never came at the same time. There was no pattern to predict when the next one would come, and no warning signs at all, but this dehydration I felt in my mouth, my skin…
Was it because of these two and their subtle pheromones, or would it have happened on its own?
I could be losing my mind, or…
Or I really was reacting to an alpha’s pheromones for the first time in my fucking life .
Draining the bottle of water, I set it down and pushed the heavy plastic away before pillowing my head on my arms once more, watching the empty halls and floors speed through the hours.
Technically, I could have one of the rookie detectives do this grunt work, but it was bothering me that I hadn’t found anything other than a rough time frame and a missing wedding ring. There wasn’t a single piece of evidence to justify this feeling I had that Cassius was hiding something either.
Maybe he really wasn’t the murderer, but he was fucking suspicious, and I couldn’t find a single piece of evidence to make myself feel less like a crazy person. His phone records were clean, as were all his computers and tablets. Even the GPS on the cars matched their story.
But they didn’t have any monitoring devices on their tech.
“Staring at this isn’t going to help,” Liam murmured, reaching over to pause the footage. “Why don’t we take a walk?”
“I’m not a pet.” I started the footage back up and glared at the monitor when Liam turned the computer off in retaliation. “Stop fucking with my work. It’s pissing me off.”
“But I’m the client. Isn’t it your job to make me happy?” Liam smiled slightly and pushed the cup of coffee closer. “Take a break and then come back with fresh eyes, or better yet, let me drive you home so you can get some sleep.”
I couldn’t leave Frankie here to do all this work alone.
Liam placed the back of his knuckles against my forehead and instantly my entire body stiffened as I tried to process the barely there sensation of his skin against mine.
Was he checking for a temperature?
Surprisingly, his hand felt warm. And soft. It didn’t have a raspy feel to it at all, and when he pushed my hair out of my face, I couldn’t help but look up at him even though I knew I shouldn’t .
Garnet glittered down at me, but it was impossible to read the expression on his face.
Why did he even care about me? Was he putting on some kind of performance because he wanted to pretend we were dating?
I pushed back from the desk and stood, deciding I’d been sitting here long enough. “Since you’re so insistent on interrupting me, I should just go home, but I’m not leaving without Frankie.”
Every single muscle ached like I had the flu. My joints were screaming from sitting in front of the computer for so long in weird positions. There was a pressure behind my eyes that warned me I was about to get a migraine if I didn’t figure out what the fuck my body needed and fast.
Liam looked like some sort of playboy with the way he was sitting on the edge of his desk, watching me with narrowed eyes. His scent blended together seamlessly with his assistant’s, twining around me like hungry wolves waiting patiently to feast on my flesh. It made my heart race and my thoughts hazy.
My skin was suddenly clammy and sweat slid down my spine, each second feeling like an eternity.
Pulling at the neck of my shirt, it felt like everything was too tight. I reached up to peel the second band of black adhesive off my neck when it suddenly felt like it was choking me.
Why was it so hot in here?
I needed to get some fresh air. That was all I could think about as my vision started to narrow to a point. All I could see was the door and when I took a step forward, I stumbled, just barely catching myself before I stumbled again.
Liam grabbed me before I crashed to the floor. “Jesus fucking Christ, what’s wrong with you?”
Ugh, I felt lightheaded, but I didn’t want anyone touching me when it felt like I needed to peel off my fucking skin.
Shoving him away, I stumbled a few more steps toward the door before collapsing. This time, no one tried to catch me, and I had never felt more grateful in my entire fucking life since I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to keep down the Chinese food I’d had earlier.
“Lucy, what’s wrong?” It was impressive how deep Liam’s voice could get, but this alpha’s intensity wouldn’t make it easier to answer him.
“I think…” Honestly, I had no idea what was wrong. I’d just had an entire bottle of water and had eaten at least two meals today. I’d only gotten a few hours of sleep the night before, but it was the rising temperature in my body that was finally getting to me.
Maybe it was just a fever. I’d been standing in the rain a few times today. It was unlikely that I was about to go into another heat when I hadn’t had one for nearly three years. They were getting fewer and farther between. It was far more likely I’d caught a cold.
God, my fucking head was throbbing.
Pressing the heels of my hands to my eyes didn’t help, and it was concerning that I couldn’t seem to get enough air in my lungs.
“Can you turn on the air conditioner?” I managed. “It’s just a little…warm.”
The scent of sweet oranges, sandalwood, and vanilla was suddenly a lot stronger and I tried to put some distance between us when that scent got in my nose, filling my veins with its tart sweetness – burning me. It tasted bitter on my tongue as I tried to breathe through my mouth instead of my nose, but for whatever reason, that only made it so much worse.
Why did I like the way my tongue reacted to that bitter tartness? It reminded me of the feeling in my mouth when I sucked on an extremely sour candy.
“ Lucy .”
He reached out and I shied away, doing my fucking best not to spiral into a full-blown panic attack. “Please, don’t touch me.” That would only make all this worse .
My neck…the last band of scent blockers was so tight I couldn’t breathe .
Nails dug into my skin as I tried to remove it, but nothing was cooperating and I couldn’t help the small scream of frustration when it wouldn’t come off .
I couldn’t breathe.
Tears threatened to fall when the panic started to win?—
Warm hands grabbed my wrists and shifted them so my arms were across my body, making it impossible to struggle when Liam reached up and ripped the last of the scent blockers off of my skin. The adhesive made it feel worse than getting waxed, but I could breathe again.
I looked up at him in shock and my breath caught when I saw his red eyes blazing down at me.
Every single muscle in my body went completely still.
This was a legacy alpha – a predator of the highest class.
Liam Valor’s eyes were actually luminescent, his entire body surrounding me as he bared his teeth – furious.
With me.
I swallowed down the whimper that nearly escaped me, a tiny sliver of that omega deep inside reacting to his emotions.
Fuck, I was drowning in him, and he was still wearing his scent blockers. How would I ever handle his pheromones if he took them off?
“I’m taking you to the hospital,” he told me in such a deep growl that I shivered.
It took me way too long to understand what he’d said, but when it finally registered, I tried to yank my hands out of his. It was fucking useless when I felt so weak, but I couldn’t help it. There was no way I was going to the fucking hospital, and even if I was, I was going to let him take me.
“Stop it,” Liam snarled, grabbing my face with his free hand so hard I winced. “Do you have any fucking idea what you’re doing right now?”
My stomach flip-flopped and I froze again, searching his eyes for the answer. It freaked me out that I had no idea what he was talking about, enough so that him holding me like this barely even registered.
“You need to rein in your pheromones.” Liam pulled me a little closer, his red eyes flashing with rage. “We’re going to have a fucking problem if you don’t.”
I searched his eyes again, still not quite understanding. “You can smell them?”
Liam dropped his chin and his hair fell into his eyes, making those garnet eyes glow even brighter as he stared me down. He didn’t answer me, but he didn’t need to.
Somehow, he could scent me.
A thread of panic slid through me. “That’s impossible.”
“Is it?” Liam’s hand on my face tightened and he yanked me even closer. “You smell like black currants and summer…wild roses and patchouli.” His eyes became wild and he licked his lips, almost like he could already fucking taste me – as if he planned to devour me.
Somehow, this alpha could scent me—he could scent me and it was affecting him.
Fuck .
What the hell was I supposed to do now?