Chapter 2
Skylar
The coffee machine at Ansdale’s main station is making a sound that suggests it’s either preparing one last cup before death or trying to communicate with something inside the walls.
I stand in front of it with a paper cup waiting beneath the spout, one hand braced on the counter and the other on my hip, watching the little red light blink like it’s mocking me personally.
After six weeks back in this city, I know better than to expect kindness from the machinery, but there’s something uniquely offensive about begging an appliance for caffeine at the end of an unremarkable shift and being answered with a wet grinding noise that belongs in a medical malpractice deposition.
Reyes pauses in the breakroom doorway with a file tucked against her chest, her face set in the expression she reserves for me when she’s decided I’m being ridiculous but doesn’t have the energy to rescue me from myself.
“There’s a fresh pot in booking,” she says, already sounding like she regrets participating in whatever this is.
“There’s a brown liquid in booking,” I tell her, still watching the machine. “Until a lab confirms it contains at least one coffee-adjacent molecule, I won’t be repeating department propaganda.”
She comes in anyway, moving around me to rinse out her mug. “You know, if you stopped drinking it, you wouldn’t have to keep acting betrayed.”
“That’s exactly what it wants. Once we normalize giving in to hostile equipment, society falls apart.
Today it’s the coffee machine. Tomorrow, the printer unionizes.
” I tap the side of the machine with two fingers, and the sound inside shifts to something lower and more threatening. “See? It heard me.”
Reyes’s mouth twitches for half a second before she gets herself under control. “You need to go home after this.”
I glance back at her, offended by the accuracy of her concern. “I am going home after this.”
“You’re going to say that, then you’re going to finish one supplemental, recheck the Wilkes file, and stare at your phone like Caldwell is going to text you the meaning of life from the task force room.”
“That’s unfair. I’d settle for the meaning of the Hex thread and a usable coffee recommendation.
” The machine finally spits a thin stream into my cup, smelling burnt enough to count as a crime scene, but I lift it anyway because standards are the first casualty of overtime.
“Besides, Hunter Caldwell is a treasured colleague and former partner, not a mystical oracle.”
Reyes leans against the counter and gives me a long look. “The Hex case is still going to be there in the morning, Skylar. Your desk will also still be a disaster, but that part is between you and whatever god you angered.”
I take a careful sip, immediately regret having a tongue, and decide dignity is overrated. “My desk is not a disaster. It’s a living archive with trust issues.”
She takes that as the natural end of the conversation, which is rude but probably wise, and leaves me alone with my hostile beverage and the hum of the breakroom lights. The station has settled into its late-night rhythm.
Ansdale’s main station always smells like old files, disinfectant, damp coats, and coffee no sane person should willingly consume, but there’s comfort in that kind of ugliness. It’s easier to trust a place that doesn’t pretend to be polished.
When I left, I told myself it was timing, opportunity, and work. Coming back should’ve felt like choosing something. Most days, it feels more like returning to a room where everyone else kept talking after I walked out.
The job fills the gaps and I know these cases matter, regardless of how small they seem. I’ve built a career on knowing that they do. The problem is that I had been pulled from the case of a lifetime, a fucking serial killer investigation into Hex, that had become my entire reason for existing.
Until the leads dried up after catching Marcus Reynolds. He was just a link in the whole chain and we’ve not been able to find anything else that mildly points us in a useful direction. So, I was pulled back here until further notice.
Caldwell doesn’t call much, not unless he thinks he has a lead which usually ends up in false help. So, I stay busy and I can live with that. I’m a grown adult with coping mechanisms, several of them unhealthy, all of them reliable.
Still, I drag my phone out and check anyway.
There’s nothing. If the task force had found anything worth dragging me into before midnight, I’d know.
If they hadn’t, I’d still stare at my phone like it had personally failed me.
I shove it back into my pocket and head toward my desk, carrying the coffee more out of stubbornness than desire.
The first sip was awful. The second will probably be worse.
I’m hoping the third circles back around to tolerable through sheer exhaustion.
I fall into my seat and pull one of the reports closer, and read the same sentence three times without absorbing it.
It isn’t that the case is complicated. It’s that my brain keeps looking for larger patterns where sometimes there are only people being petty, scared, desperate, or all three before lunch.
The coffee is halfway to my mouth when the front of the station seems to shift. Across the bullpen, Reyes steps out of the hall with her attention already locked forward, and the look she gives me says assault before she opens her mouth.
“West Talbot,” she says as I stand. “Units are bringing in a suspect. Victim’s an Omega.”
I leave the cup on the nearest desk and move toward intake, stopping short when I see the Alpha they’re leading in, his hands cuffed behind his back.
He’s tall, broad, and built with the kind of solid weight that makes the officers flanking him seem smaller than they are.
Tattoos cover his throat, disappear beneath his damp shirt, and run down his forearms to his hands, black ink stark against skin and the pale streaks of white dust smeared all over.
His pale blue eyes are focused off to the side and I almost ask what’s going on when his scent hits me. I hold back a groan as cedar and whiskey cut through the station’s usual scents. I swallow carefully, hating the heat running through my body as I unconsciously lean forward.
Falling for a criminal, Skylar. How very professional of you.
I manage a chuckle, trying to ignore the restlessness in my chest but every step closer, I can’t deny my own biology. Fate has a really funny way of giving me what I don’t want. There’s no fucking way he’s my mate.
He doesn’t seem to notice my crisis, his eyes moving through the bullpen again.
I follow his gaze to an Omega sitting on the bench near the wall, wrapped in a gray trauma blanket that swallows his shoulders and most of his hands.
His head is down, dark curls damp and flattened along one side, silent tears slipping off his chin like he doesn’t know they’re falling.
Red marks stand out near his mouth and along his cheek, that same white powder covering him as well. I grit my teeth as his scent wafts into my personal space as well, a lovely little hell forming in my chest alongside the vanilla and honey scent taking over my senses.
This. Isn’t. Happening.
I shake my head to put myself back into gear. I can think about biology later. Reyes comes up to my side. “You’d think they were in love or some shit the way that Alpha keeps looking at the Omega, right?”
I don’t answer that as a pang of jealousy swells in my chest. “What is all the white stuff? I didn’t think we had that amount of coke wandering the streets in Ansdale.”
Reyes snorts. “Sky, it’s flour, apparently.” I glare at her and she throws her hands up. “What? I was bored and listening to the comms.”
I shrug her off and move toward the intake counter, Reyes a step behind me. “Who’s primary?” I ask Bell, keeping my voice level through force of will and whatever dregs of professionalism survived the last ten seconds.
“Morgan and Vale brought them in,” he says, glancing up from the intake screen. “Assault on West Talbot. They found the Alpha wrapped around the victim. He had some identification on him and we’ve confirmed it’s Kade Rourke.”
I really don’t like the way they’re talking about the Alpha like he’s not standing right here. I chance a glance over at Kade and immediately regret those pale blue eyes staring back at me. “Wrapped around him, how? Like giving him a hug?”
As terrifying as this man looks, he also seems rather... harmless. Granted, that’s mostly the biology talking so I couldn’t explain that to a room full of officers if I tried.
Bell’s expression tightens. He doesn’t have a good answer for that, which is already its own answer, and Reyes shifts beside me like she’s considering whether to step on my foot before I make this worse.
I twist to look over at the Omega again, holding back the urge to shoo everyone away when one of the uniforms crouches too close with a bottle of water.
It’s small, a full-body jump he can’t contain before he curls tighter beneath the blanket.
Kade sees it at the same time I do. His body goes rigid, the officers placing a hand over their guns before yelling at him not to move.
Kade softens his stance immediately, but his jaw is still set.
What the fuck? Needing more context, I move toward the Omega, making sure he can see me before I get anywhere near his space.
I stop a few feet out and lower myself into a crouch with enough distance that he doesn’t have to feel trapped by another body.
“Hi,” I say quietly. “I’m Detective Skylar Grayson.
I’d offer a more impressive introduction, but the department keeps refusing to add ‘coffee machine negotiator’ to my title. ”
The Omega manages a small smile before it disappears, his eyes darting to the two officers behind me.
“Jesus, back up a few feet, yeah?” I yell behind me, waiting for them to comply. The Omega’s fingers tighten in the trauma blanket when the room shifts, but his breathing changes too, hitching less often.
I sit back onto my ass and rest my arms across my knees, trying to make myself smaller for the Omega. “You don’t have to tell me everything right now,” I say. “I’m going to ask one question, and you can answer it or not answer it. Both work.”
His gaze flicks past me toward Kade, then back again.
“Do you want Kade Rourke out of your line of sight?”
If my suspicion is right, as far-fetched as it is, there’s a possibility that Kade isn’t who everything thinks he is. I’ve never been wrong before but...
Emrys’ gaze darts over to Kade again, a tight smile forming on his lips before a tear slips down his cheek. He leans forward beneath the blanket, voice scraped thin and barely loud enough to carry. “He didn’t do it.”
“No?”
My answer seems to break him more than disbelief would have.
His face crumples, and more silent tears slip down, but his voice comes again, a little stronger this time.
“He didn’t do it. I tried to tell them. Outside, I said it.
Kade pulled him off me. The man ran, and Kade stayed, but they wouldn’t listen. ”
“I’m listening now.”
One of the officers behind me shifts forward as I lift one hand without turning, a silent request for patience or maybe a warning. Either way, the room holds.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Emrys,” he whispers.
“Do you go by Emrys?”
“Rys.”
“Rys, then, unless you tell me otherwise.” I keep my voice as calm as I can, because the last thing he needs is the room crowding inside the sound of his own name.
“I need to make sure I understand you. You were attacked by someone who wasn’t Kade Rourke.
Kade intervened. The attacker ran before officers arrived. Kade didn’t hurt you.”
“No.” There’s no hesitation this time, Emrys’ voice strong enough that Bell looks over from the counter.
“No, he was careful. He didn’t touch me after.
He asked if I was bleeding, and he kept looking at my face like he thought there was more blood.
But I needed a hug. That’s why he was touching me.
” His gaze slips past me, fixing on Kade again, running over the flour coating the Alpha’s body. “He has flour on him because of me.”
At first glance, it’s impossible to believe there was someone else. Kade’s covered in flour and so is Emrys. It’s a logical deduction but just a few minutes around the both of them and I’m wondering if everything is wrong.
Convincing the officers who brought him in and the chief that everyone made a mistake, though, isn’t going to be the easiest thing I’ve ever done.
Emrys drags the blanket around him a little tighter, searching my face.
I clock the forming bruise around his lips and the bit of blood but the Omega just shakes his head.
“I’m fine. I just... no, it’s not about that.
My tote ripped,” he says, the words coming a little faster now.
“It was leftover flour from Ardor. I was bringing it home because I said I would, which was stupid because I didn’t even need it, and Priya told me not to carry heavy things after close because I’m short and dramatic about stairs.
I told her I’m not short. I’m average in several countries.
” His breath shakes at the end, as if he’s embarrassed by the spill of ordinary words in the middle of this.
“You’re absolutely average in several countries,” I tell him, solemn enough to make it something steadier than a joke. A smile spreads across my face as his scent evens out a little. “And the flour is the one normal thing in a very abnormal room, so we’re going to pay attention to it.”
A tiny sound catches in his throat, a mixture between a sob and a laugh. His fingers loosen slightly in the blanket. “The man said my name,” he whispers after a moment. “Not Rys. Emrys. Like he knew it already.”
I drag a hand through my hair, a sigh pulling from my lips.
This wasn’t how this night was supposed to go.
“I’m going to make sure they hear you this time,” I tell Emrys, keeping the promise as procedural as I can make it, because anything softer would come too close to the bond pressing at my ribs.
“Medical needs to look at your face, and we need your official statement when you’re ready, but you don’t have to do all of that sitting in the middle of everyone’s assumptions. ”
His fingers tighten once more, but not as hard. “And Kade?”
I push to my feet, nodding to Reyes to take over before refocusing my attention on Emrys. “I’ll make sure to get his side of the story too, so we can prove what really happened.” I want Emrys to be right. I need him to but I also don’t want to promise him hope if I can’t deliver.