4. Fear Lies #3
I oblige. My fingers find the hem of her dress and push it up slowly, revealing inch after inch of pale skin.
She’s not wearing underwear—of course she isn’t, Fate has never been one for unnecessary barriers.
Her pussy is bare, glistening with wetness, and the scent of her arousal hits me like a physical blow.
“Fuck,” I breathe, my control starting to fray. “You’re so wet for me.”
“I’ve been wet since the first time you tried to arrest me,” she admits, her cheeks flushing.
I slide one finger through her folds, testing her readiness. She’s slick and hot, her clit swollen and sensitive. She bucks against my hand, a desperate sound escaping her throat.
“More,” she demands. “Fill me.”
I give her what she wants. Two fingers this time, sinking deep into her tight heat. Her pussy clamps around me, pulling me in, and I imagine how it would feel to have her wrapped around my dick instead of my hand.
“Dorian,” she moans, her hands fisting in my hair. “Don’t stop.”
I curve my fingers, searching for that spot inside her that will make her fall apart. When I find it, her whole body arches off the bed, a cry tearing from her lips. Her magic flares, filling the room with the scent of ozone and wild things.
“That’s it,” I encourage, working her clit with my thumb while my fingers continue their assault. “Come for me, Fate. Let me feel you.”
Her orgasm builds like a storm gathering, her thighs trembling, her breath coming in ragged pants. I can feel her pussy getting tighter, wetter, the tell-tale signs that she’s about to explode.
“Look at me,” I command, and her eyes fly open, locking with mine. “I want to see you when you come.”
That’s all it takes. Her body convulses, a wave of pleasure crashing through her so intense that I can feel it through our connection. Her pussy spasms around my fingers, and she cries out my name like a prayer, like a curse, like the only word she knows.
I ride her through it, my movements slowing as she comes down, her body limp and sated beneath me. When she opens her eyes again, they’re hazy with pleasure, a soft smile playing on her lips.
“Your turn,” she whispers, her hand sliding down my body to wrap around my dick through my pants.
My phone buzzes on the desk, snapping the office back into place.
The sound cuts through the fantasy like a knife, dragging me back to reality with brutal force. I’m still in my office. Still dressed. Still hard as a rock and aching for a woman who isn’t here.
Report. Board. Case. Dead lovers. Poison. Press.
I exhale slowly, open my eyes, and pick up the phone.
The text is from Kelly.
Date info sent. Don’t make it weird.
I stare at the words, my dick still throbbing, the ghost of Fate’s touch lingering on my skin. Outside my office window, rain begins to fall, exactly as I’d imagined it would in my fantasy.
Some coincidences, I’m starting to realize, aren’t coincidences at all.
A second message follows.
Don’t make it weirder.
I look at the contact card she forwarded, the coffee shop name, the time, the brief notes beneath it. Male. Mid-thirties.
The moment is officially over. I come crashing back into reality.
Not enough to be suspicious. Enough not to ignore.
Asked about her work schedule. Watched doors. Left hand in coat pocket most of date. No plate number. Paid cash.
I grin and type back: Received. Not weird.
Three dots appear.
Disappear.
Appear again.
You are constitutionally incapable of not weird.
I almost smile.
Then my gaze shifts to the board, and the almost-smile goes where all almost-smiles go during active homicide investigations: into the shallow grave of bad timing.
Mara and Caleb Ellis smile from their wedding photo. Alive. Bright. Ordinary. Dead six inches to the right.
The office seems colder now. Or perhaps the fantasy heated me enough that reality feels like punishment. I set the phone facedown and return to the board, where the case waits with the patience of the dead.
I underline VIALS.
Then FINAL SCENE.
Then THREAD KNOTTED / NOT brOKEN.
Fate’s words, translated into my shorthand, still feel wrong on a police board. Not because I doubt her. I do not.
The thread darkened. The thread tightened. The thread knotted but did not break.
A clean poison would explain the bodies. Access explains opportunity. Theater explains visibility. Press explains spread.
None of it explains why Fate saw the bond change.
None of it explains why Anneliese handed her a warning on a napkin like the building itself might testify against us.
None of it explains why two human lovers were killed in the one way guaranteed to turn Fate’s gift into a witness.
Or a target.
My wolf rises under my skin at the thought.
I force it down.
Not now.
Emotion can sharpen instinct, but it can also lead a man by the throat. I have seen too many cases ruined by grief, lust, rage, pride, loyalty. The motives are different. The damage is the same.
I will not let my need to protect Fate blind me to the evidence. I will not let my desire for Fate become another weapon someone can aim at her.
The pen creaks in my grip. I set it down before it snaps.
Chief Harrow appears in my doorway, tie already loosened though it is barely midmorning. “Tell me you’ve got something I can give the council before they start calling me every four minutes.”
“I have two dead humans, a likely poison delivery, a wide backstage access pool, press contamination, and a town already naming the killer before toxicology is back.”
He stares at me. “I said give me something, Wolfe. Not ruin my digestion.”
“You asked too early.”
“I always ask too early. That’s leadership.”
“That’s indigestion with a badge.”
His mouth tightens. He does not enjoy me before noon. This is mutual.
“That’s what I’ve got…for now,” I say.
Harrow scrubs a hand over his face. Human. Tired. In over his head and aware of it, which makes him less dangerous than the men who never notice the water rising.
“Fine,” he says. “Keep me updated.”
“I always do.”
“You keep me technically updated. There is a difference.”
“Yes.”
He leaves muttering something about retirement.
I turn back to the board, hoping that this murder is at least “normal.”
Normal murders exist.
They simply do not choose Everwilde as often as they should.
My gaze lands on Fate’s name where I wrote it in the corner, separate from witness statements, separate from victimology.
FATE — SAW THREAD KNOT / NAPKIN WARNING / WITHHOLDING DETAILS
Withholding.
The word irritates me because it is accurate and insufficient.
Fate is not hiding information to obstruct the case. She is holding a door closed with both hands because something on the other side frightens her, and she does not yet know whether opening it will protect us or invite the dark in.
I understand that more than I want to.
My own power sits under my skin, patient and dangerous. Warlock blood. Wolf instinct. Things I use carefully because I know what happens when power answers emotion before judgment can stop it.
Fear lies. Instinct speaks. Need shouts.
I pick up the marker and create a new section at the bottom of the board.
PRIVATE THEORY
Then I hesitate.
Private theories are dangerous. They bypass checks. They turn hunches into gravity. But some thoughts belong where I can see them, if only to keep them from breeding in the dark.
I write:
KILLER WEAPONIZED AFFECTION.
The words look ugly.
True things often do.
Mara and Caleb were not killed simply because they were accessible. They were killed as lovers. As symbols. As a story already understood by every human in the room. The killer chose the moment of false death, the prop poison, the public gasp, the press-friendly name.
He did not just murder bodies.
He used love as stagecraft.
My hand tightens again.
I add a second line beneath the first:
MOTIVE MAY INVOLVE FATED / MATCHED PAIRS.
I stop before writing Fate’s name beside it.
Not because she does not belong there.
Because she does.
Too much.
The office goes quiet around me, station noise receding until all I hear is the faint hum of the fluorescent light and my own breathing.
Protecting Fate cannot become the investigation.
But pretending she is not at the center of whatever this is would be poor detective work.
I write one final note in smaller letters, below the theory section where no one else will look unless I want them to.
PROTECT FATE WITHOUT LETTING HER KNOW HOW BADLY I NEED TO.
For a long moment, I stare at it.
Then I cap the marker, step back, and let the board hold what I cannot afford to say aloud.
Dead lovers. Public murder. A town listening through walls. A woman with fear behind her jokes and magic in her hands. And somewhere out there, a killer who wanted an audience.
Fine.
He has one now.