Allure of the Wolf (Seraphine Thomas Book 2) (19 page)

“Not what we meant,” I snickered as I wiped my hands on my paper towel and stood. “He meant
what
did I smell
at the scene.”

“What like you’re a bloodhound now?” he chuckled, shaking his head as he got up as well with his empty plate.

“No, I’m a
wolf
, thanks.” I blinked at him a moment, wondering if he knew how ignorant he sounded. Did I know this little when I was human?

“What could you really tell at a crime scene without shifting?”

Now it was our turn to laugh. Well,
I
didn’t. Tristan and Noah found his question hysterical. Which pissed Havers off, so I sighed, walking into another game. I moved around the table, leaned in and sniffed him a couple of times.

“I can smell traces of your scented semen on your right hand, faint enough that it was last night and you haven’t showered since,” I started off, going with a bang. “I also detect a faint perfume as if someone hugged you or maybe a kiss on the cheek, but that’s as far as anything went, hence taking matters into your own hand. You definitely had coffee, either a mocha or mint mocha, if plain mocha then you brushed your teeth
and
used mouthwash because I’m getting like a spearmint and some kind of other peppermint?

“But you aren’t wearing the same clothes as last night, they’re too fresh to have been out on the town in Chicago air. Your fabric softener is Downy, Tide laundry detergent, and—” I let out a growl. “I can’t ever tell between body wash and soap. I mean, I can tell it’s Irish Spring but that’s it. Damn it.”

“Okay, you’ve made your point,” he whispered, stepping away.

I sighed and took his plate. “Go, you can run now. It’s okay. I know you’ve hit your cap of not-Brian-approved normal for the day.”

“You think
that’s
why I pull away or leave?” he snapped, taking his plate back as if he needed it still or something, but I understood the symbolism. He wasn’t going. I nodded and he let out a wordless yell. “Woman! You are just—
ugghh
!”

“Wait, this is
my
fault?”

“No, it’s mine, but I don’t freak out because it’s outside my approved normal zone or whatever,” he explained, taking both our plates and setting them on the table as he grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “It’s because it happened to
you
. All this happened to
you
, while we were
together
and I had no idea,
have
no idea how to help you. I was so scared of fucking up and making things worse because you’re always so closed off that I did nothing,
said
nothing
. I just can’t believe this happened to
you
!”

“Um, well, I-I’m sorry f-for your loss?” I stuttered as I pulled away.

What the fuck else did he expect me to say? Yeah, poor, poor Brian. He lost a fuck buddy. I’d lost my
life
basically and was dead dropped without any warning or instructions into a new one.

As I headed to the kitchen, I glanced at Tristan and then Noah even. I was starting to not resent that anymore though. A lot had changed for the better too.

I needed to keep reminding myself of that.

11

Havers didn’t stay much longer after that, talking with me and Noah in the kitchen, while I prepared the salmon, about which instructors were needed still to complete my team’s training. Then he told me he had some cases of his own to handle and a mountain of paperwork to review.

I was sure that was all more than true, but I saw he was embarrassed.

It was Noah who spoke first about Havers’s outburst after he was gone. “That is one damaged human. I mean
seriously
. I don’t think he could get any more twisted into knots or screwed up in the head unless he turns out to be a closet case after all these years.”

“You’re an ass,” I chuckled as I tossed some wood chips into the smoker’s tray now that it was warmed up and the salmon was on the racks in little foil beds.

“No, seriously,” he defended, handing me some more fish to add. “You got hurt, he pulled an ostrich—stuck his head in the sand, pretended it wasn’t going on, and figured he’d see what was going on when the dust settled. But then here you are, it happened to
you
—not him—and you handled it way better, are
thriving
and he’s still processing, lashing out here and again like a teenager. He’s
damaged
.”

“I’m with Noah. I almost like Havers now, and I won’t mind if he comes to barbeques or whatever, but I’m not ever worried he’ll be back in your life for anything other than work. He’s drama and you
hate
drama.”

“I do hate drama,” I sighed. They weren’t wrong. They were actually pretty spot on, and I think finally hearing two other people who had outside seats to the situation say what I’d been feeling about what Havers had done to me was better than hours and hours of therapy.

After dinner was cooking, we brought back out the box of files Noah had come over with and each picked one to start
editing
. It took a whole three minutes of reading my first one for me to glance between them.

“I don’t actually know what I should be cutting out besides the gold thing,” I admitted as my stomach tightened. “And I hate that I’m keeping things from the FBI.”

“Give it to me,” Noah snickered, shaking his head as he reached his hand out. I turned over the file and shrugged. Hey, I was being honest.

“Basically we’re cutting out stuff that won’t help the FBI in any way but will really hurt the species if this ever fell into the hands of a fanatic,” Tristan explained, showing me his top page. “See, like I marked this out that said sucralose is toxic to this species.
They
know that, but the FBI doesn’t need to. They’ll protect themselves from that. But if some whack job found that out—”

“They could start slipping Splenda into tap water or some shit,” I muttered, getting the idea.

“Exactly,” Noah confirmed. He handed me another thick file. “Here, I asked Marlin to give me whatever he had on great white shark shifters right away. Read up on your suspect. We’ll edit.”

“Thanks, I like this idea better.”

So that was what we did for the next several hours. I went and checked on dinner, finding that low was too low if I ever wanted the salmon to actually cook and turned it to just
above
low. Then we were cooking with Crisco… Or brown sugar and some spices in this instance, but the meaning was the same.

Monroe showed up early, probably curious as to what was up or just impatient. And of course he decided to scare the shit out of me by
landing
in my backyard while I was checking the smoker.

Come to think of it, that might have been why it took so long to cook the damn fish. I was checking on it every fifteen minutes. Twit.

“Fuck, Chief!” I exclaimed when I heard a
thump
and he was suddenly there.

“Nice to see you too, Sera.”

“Driving not an option?” I snapped as I took the bottle of white wine he was holding out with a smirk.

“Have you seen the Sunday traffic in Chicago? No thanks,” he teased, dusting off his jeans and T-shirt. “Plus, our gifts are like any other muscle or ability, if you don’t use it, you can lose it. I try to make sure I use it a few times a week so I never lose it. Being able to fly has saved my ass many,
many
times over.”

“Good to know.”

I jumped right in after he said hello to Tristan and Noah. Monroe’s eyes lit up, and he was so excited he interrupted me with questions which I waved off and kept going.
Finally
I got to the end of my ramble and felt like I’d been talking for an hour straight trying to catch him up as I made a salad. “But I think I backed out of Havers teaching our training now that we have an in with Jerome Curtis since he wants
our
help. I don’t want it to be like we’re always needing the regular Chicago FBI office.”

“Plus Havers would like you owing him favors, and we don’t need that shit either,” he muttered, nodding in agreement.

“He’s doing it to apologize actually.” I shrugged when he shot me a wide-eyed look. “My team didn’t have my back in a big way. We’re promising to be an asset suddenly. He’s fixing the bridge he burned.”

“Yeah, you keep telling yourself
that’s
the reason,” Monroe chuckled, shaking his head. “I still agreed with
everything
you did.” My boss shocked the shit out of me by leaning over the counter and kissing my cheek. “I
knew
promoting you was the smartest thing I’ve ever done. Soon you’ll have my job, Sera.”

“No thanks. You deal with political shit and budgets. I would tear my hair out.” It was the honest to god truth. I might not go out in the field as much as division chief as I did as a special agent in charge, but at least I still would. Monroe never did.

That wasn’t a job I wanted for that reason alone.

“I’m going to make some calls, work this out. We should move right away on this and so we can push them face to face on the web cams idea. Nicely done to Davis on that one too.” He whipped out his cell and walked off. Wow, he was
really
happy.

Then again, we finally had a lot to be happy about. Well, besides Engle and the new shark murderer in town.

Just as I finished the salad there was a timid knock at the door. I was closest so I answered it. Opening the door, I ended up meeting the
greenest
eyes I’d ever seen. I mean they were just
green
and clear, sparkly like emeralds or something. Whoa.

“Can I help you?” I asked when the guy didn’t say anything, both of us simply staring at the other.

He hesitantly stepped closer and bared his neck at me, shivering. “Yes, Alpha. Riley asked me to come over.”

“Oh, you must be Jesse,” I hedged, waiting for him to give a half nod. “Nice to meet you, but I’m not an Alpha.”

“Yes, yes you are,” he breathed, still looking up at my ceiling. I chuckled as I leaned in and kissed his neck, thinking that was best since I needed his help. “Thank you, Alpha Thomas.”

“It’s just Sera at my house. Come on in. Are you hungry? We were just about to have dinner.”

He blinked at me and I was drawn to those eyes again as I stepped aside and let him into the house. “We? I didn’t see Riley’s car.” Jesse walked in and shut the door behind him, following my lead further into the foyer.

“No, he’s not home yet. Our roommate Tristan and some of my colleagues are here.”

“Vampires,” he muttered, glancing past me. “Can we trust them, Alpha?”

“I give you my word we can, but we can speak in private after dinner if you’d like.”

He met my eyes, worrying his lower lip a moment before nodding. “I would feel more comfortable that way.”

“Hey, whatever you need, okay? No one’s going to hurt you.”

“Riley said you would protect me from Alpha Engle and that makes you my Alpha now.” His eyes shone at the idea, and I felt my stomach go sour. Shit. I really was starting my own pack basically.

“I’ll protect you, the FBI will, but I’m not going to be Alpha, Jesse,” I hedged.

“Yes, of course,
Sera
,” he chuckled, giving me a wink. Oh goodie, he thought that was a ploy. I slapped on a fake smile and motioned for him to follow me, my siren perking up at the very attractive,
young
man in our vicinity.

She really was a horndog. I reminded her this was work and made a mental note she and I were going to talk age restrictions soon. Yeah, he was legal, but
young
.

And hot. Couldn’t forget hot. Maybe six feet, those green eyes, strong jaw, light brown shaggy hair, and toned just about to be muscular but like he was hiding it. I wondered why that was. He could just be starting to work out and bulk up. Probably to deal with keeping himself from getting his ass kicked by the pack.

“I wanted to thank you for saving me the other day,” Jesse whispered as he followed me into the kitchen. “It was very brave and selfless of you.”

“Why were they hurting you, Jesse?” I hedged, reaching out and laying my hand on his arm. “We can keep it just between us for now, okay? But I really need to know. You might be able to help me with something.”

“You’ll think me a bad person especially now that you’re my Alpha,” he whimpered, moving away.

“No, no I won’t. We all make mistakes, but I seriously doubt whatever you did deserved that beating. I didn’t even recognize you now that you’ve healed. You were in bad shape, Jesse. Tell me why they did that to you.”

“I disobeyed Alpha’s orders,” he rasped, covering his face with his hands. “They were punishing me for my insolence and disloyalty to the pack.”

I didn’t even mean to, but the next thing I knew, I was hugging him. “Jesse, I’ve had people disobey me and they never deserve that kind of beating. What was the order?”