Chapter Nine
“I don’t even know what to say.”
“I’m sorry this has to be sprung on you like this. I wanted to wait at least a few weeks before I told you. I know you have a lot going on in your head. A lot of stress and pressure. You’re it for me. I want you any way I can have you. Nothing has changed. Take the time you need to think on it.”
He knew deep down that she wasn’t going anywhere. When he’d seen her face when Esme had been touching him, the way she reacted had made his wolf preen. She was pissed off. A pissed-off woman was a magnificent thing to behold. At a distance sometimes. But her being jealous that way meant she felt it too.
Esme had understood it right then and had apologized before she left. Tracy had only smiled and patted his shoulder while telling him they’d work it out.
He’d tell Michelle all that. One day. In months or maybe a year.
* * *
Michelle licked her lips, absolutely floored by what he’d said. “I’m pretty sure that test you take for stress factors, you know the one, like moving or getting married or divorced adds points? I’m pretty sure this last week has killed that test dead.”
He let go of her upper arms and ran the backs of his fingers against her cheek. She leaned into his touch and felt better. The barest, rawest truth was that when she was with him she was not alone. When she’d been with Gina and Rhonda and they’d used magick and had shown her some things to defend herself, when Owen had hooked her up with the guy who’d teach her defensive and battle magicks, she hadn’t been alone.
There was a whole world there in Portland just waiting for her to be part of. A world where she didn’t have to be lonely. A world with a man who loved her and wanted to be with her for always. And she didn’t doubt what he’d told her. She knew enough to understand the mating stuff. The extra-guy thing was a little unexpected. But...well, it could be okay if she had a choice. Even hot maybe.
“I grew up in a house without a dad. My mom, well, she had a series of boyfriends because she has no real identity unless she’s with someone. But her choices, my God. I guess, when I realized it was because she hated herself, hated her magick and that she was a witch so she punished herself with men who weren’t good enough for her, I realized that I would never let myself be ashamed of that part of who I was.”
She moved to his windows and looked out over evening in Portland. Wet from rain, the lights glittering, the asphalt dark and slick. He joined her, but didn’t get so close she couldn’t think.
“So I had this career. And I love being a cop. I’d want to do that here too. Something along those lines. It’s part of who I am. I like protecting people. Which I suppose is what you do too, which is pretty cool. Anyway. I am not ashamed of being a witch, but even though I’ve known it forever and have had contact with other witches pretty much my whole life, I have not really lived as a witch. I think you know more about it than I do.”
She wanted to give him the words because he’d been so good to her.
“When I first heard you say I was your mate, I was so angry. I felt rejected.” She turned to him, putting her fingers over his lips and then pulled away because every time she touched him she wanted him and she needed to get all this out. “I get it now. I understand, and I’m so grateful you gave me this space even though I’m sure it’s been hard. But you did it for me and that means something.
“I’ve been alone for a long time. I’ve had Allie and she’s important to me. She’s my best friend. The only other person I know, before you came back into my life anyway, who shared this secret, who I really could talk to and share with. I never allowed myself to imagine what it would be like to have someone like you. To have something like a mate bond.”
She wiped away her tears, and he took her hand, kissing her fingertips.
“I have been so lonely, and you, this world has filled me up in ways I’ve never thought possible. Suddenly my future is full of so much energy and magick and connection, and I’m thrilled and excited.”
He moved to a box of tissues and brought them to her.
“It’s immense. There’s so much I need to process. And I can’t until I find Allie. I’m not rejecting you, but I want to celebrate this thing between us. I want to know more before I do it, and I just can’t put that sort of energy into it right now. Do you understand?”
He nodded and kissed her cheeks, so gently that it made her tear up again.
“I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. Take the time you need. I’ve already told you I’ll answer all your questions. Thank you for sharing all that with me. It breaks my heart that you’ve been so alone and that I contributed to that when I left.”
She shook her head and smiled. “I’ve forgiven that. You’ve apologized but I get it. I understand why it had to happen, and to be honest with you, I think it was part of the whole big plan anyway. That you and I had our path to walk, had experiences we needed to go through and get past so we could come back together later on and truly appreciate what we had.”
“I like that. Tracy said something similar to me. They know. You should hear that from me too. Esme, the female from today...”
She growled. “Her.”
He hid a grin but she saw it anyway. “Anyway, wolves are notorious gossips. Once members of the pack see us together, they’re going to know. It’s all right. We have our own timeline and no one else has a say over it. But I didn’t want you going into some event without knowing that.”
“I need a soak in some Epsom salts before you get what that look on your face is asking for.”
He burst out laughing and sobered quickly. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”
“I’m gonna guess it’s like anything else. Lots of practice will make me more, um, used to such activity.”
He pulled her into a hug, and she held on, her ear pressed to his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart.
“I do actually have some Epsom salts. Like I said, we heal fast but not instantly.”
“I hate that your job is dangerous.”
“Ditto, gorgeous. But it’s who we are.”
“All right. I’m going to make some calls. Just to check in with Pam and this Cesare guy that Gage spoke of. Then I’m going to take a bath and then you can pleasure me.”
He snorted. “I’ll run you a bath. I have some calls of my own to handle. Some folks from National will be in town next week and I want to be sure everything is in place.”
“I’d have a choice, right? In who the anchor was? Is. Whatever.”
“Of course. I mean there are some limits. It has to be a single male who isn’t already an anchor, and it has to be someone of my rank or higher. That limits the pool a little. I’m second. It would have to be an Enforcer or something like that, or an Alpha.”
She nodded. “All right. As for your work? I’ve told you, do your job. I’m going to feel bad if you’re here instead of doing your work.”
“I have all the stuff I need on my computer. I’m connected remotely to our work servers. It’s not anything I can’t do from here. Damon is handling all the stuff that is pressing at work. By the way, it seems like you and Gina are getting on. She’s sort of scary.”
“I like her. And Rhonda. I think I can make a life in Portland. With you. And with the witches here. It’s nice that she understands the situation that I’ll be in as a witch with a Were mate. She’s funny and open and I enjoy her. And yes, she’s definitely scary.”
He went off to start the bath and she checked in. Nothing new with Pam, though the police were on alert after the murder that day. Stricter security protocols in place had slowed everything down, but that was to be expected. Anything Charlie could have told them was now gone. Though certainly he must have known something or they wouldn’t have killed him.
He’d been pretty itinerant but some witches and wolves had gone over the camper he lived in, as well as the cops. They found nothing important.
She was so frustrated. Despite the wonder of having a mate and all that, she was desperate to find Allie. Here Michelle had a mate, had a future filled with so much hope, and Allie was out there somewhere alone. Alone and most likely scared. In pain.
Michelle had never in her life felt as helpless as she did right then. She had no idea what else to do. Josh had sent more wolves out that day to scour out even farther from the huge amount of land they’d searched already. They had Allie’s scent and the scent of the mages and they found nothing.
She blew out a breath and headed to the bathroom. It was steamy. He’d lit some candles, and she smiled at the sight of a robe he’d laid out for her.
The water was hot, but she slowly slid into it, adjusting bit by bit as the salts did their job, easing the soreness from all parts of her.
She closed her eyes and ran through everything she could. Every piece of evidence, the timeline she knew, all possibilities she could imagine. Maybe if she just went over it she’d think of something new.
* * *
He found her drying off and paused to watch her move. The steam carried her scent and his wolf liked that just fine. He felt so much better after talking with her, though he knew she was tortured over her inability to find Allie. Things between them, aside from all the rest, were settled, and he could relax about that at least.
For the time being. Eventually his wolf was going to push a lot harder to claim her. Each minute he was around her, the primal need to seal that bond was a greater weight on him. For now he was all right. Manageable. Barely. But soon enough it would be impossible to be around her, especially when she was upset or in danger, without the bond.
He put all that out of his head as she looked up. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself. You feeling better?”
“Physically, yes, I am. The rest? I ran through everything that has happened since I got the call that she was missing. I don’t think I’ve overlooked anything.” She shook her head. “I know she’s out there alone and I need to find her. I asked Gina and Rhonda as well as Lark and Gage if there were any spells to use to find her. I don’t have any of her blood.” She swallowed hard. “And I guess I’m glad of that, but at the same time it limits my ability to find her. Maybe.”
He leaned there against the doorjamb and watched her process. He hated how upset she was. “I understand, you know? It’s the nature of our jobs to have these experiences and frustrations. But when it’s someone you care about, it’s a million times worse. All the stuff you tell yourself on a regular case, that you’re doing all you can, that sometimes you just can’t make it work, well it’s not comforting.”
She nodded, turning to brush her teeth.
He loved the sight of her in his space. Standing naked at the sink, doing something as mundane as brushing her teeth, but damn it, she marked his life with her presence and it was all good. Even with the heartache it was good.
She pulled on the robe, and he allowed himself to move to her to hug her, kissing the top of her head. “You’re doing all you can. She’s lucky to have you. She knows that.”
“If she’s still alive. And terrified. Waiting for me to save her and I haven’t.” She pulled back and padded out to his living room. “I called her mother. She’s out of her mind with the waiting and not knowing. Thinking of every horrible scenario. She trusts me to find Allie.”
She flopped into the big overstuffed chair near the fireplace he’d turned on while she was in the bath, not wanting her to get cold.
“I told her I was doing all I could. But the words sounded so empty.” She slammed a hand against the couch arm, frustrated. “Why can’t I find her? I hate just sitting around. I need to be out there doing something. Here I am having all this good stuff. You. Connecting with other witches. I’m smiling and having meals and sleeping. And she is out there.” Her voice broke.
He got to his knees before her, taking her hands, his fingers tangling with hers. His wolf needed to comfort her. It made him crazy to see her so upset. If there was anything at all he could do to fix it he would. But there wasn’t.
“What is it you can do? You went through it all in the bathtub like you said. You could go stand out in the parking lot at the gas station or at the park yet again, and then what? We searched. You were there, Pam was there, I was there, Damon was there. We combed over that whole area and found little more than nothing. I sent my people out and they didn’t find anything either. And you’ve followed up on everything. Sometimes waiting is part of this game. You know that. You’re doing all you can to find her.”
“She’s all alone and she’s counting on me. I’m fucking up!”
He pulled her close, the scent of her filling him until it nearly hurt.
“You’re not fucking up. You aren’t. But you aren’t a superhero either. We keep looking. We do all we can. We know that most likely they took her elsewhere. Not to the stand of park and forest we were in. So tomorrow when it’s light, how about we continue down that road we were on? We followed it for a while and found nothing, let’s go even farther, maybe take some of the side roads. There are some islands out that way. We’ll check those too. We aren’t giving up, Michelle. You aren’t giving up.”
Desire rushed over his skin, but he pushed it away. She needed comfort and that’s what he’d give her. He kissed the hands he held in his own.
“We’re in this together. You’re strong. You’re smart. You’re magnificent.”
She smiled through her frustrated tears, and he kissed her cheeks, tasting her pain and upset. Taking that into himself and giving her back love.
She turned into his touch and her lips met his and he took her mouth. Slowly, surely. She was his. He knew it. She’d agreed and certainly he was hers. There was no need to rush. Just learn and be with one another. He didn’t know what the next days would hold for Allie. But he knew Michelle would be with him either way.
His wolf seemed to find that satisfactory and eased back a little.
She slid her hands up his chest and to his throat. Her hands strong but so very soft, warm as her thumbs caressed the hollow at the base and then up to his jaw as he continued to kiss her.
“Thank you,” she murmured when he broke the kiss.
“For what?”
“For being here for me. For being so supportive. For talking me off the ledge. For opening the door into this life I could never have imagined. I’d have fallen apart if you hadn’t been helping me with this.”
He shook his head. “No you wouldn’t have. You’d be muddling through because that’s who you are. But I’m so glad I’ve been here with you. So glad the witch whose delightful ass I was checking out turned out to be you.”
“You checked out my ass?”
He snorted. “Is that even a question? I came into the lobby and there was this woman there with the nicest ass. I checked you out before you’d even turned around. That it was attached to you, and that you’re my mate? Well that’s cake.”
“I’m sort of drunk. You put a lot of liquor in that tea. I figured I’d sweated it out in the bath.”
“How about I order in and we watch a movie? You haven’t eaten in hours, and you should know wolves need to eat about every three hours to keep up with our metabolisms. Though...do you get horny when you’re drunk?”
She rolled her eyes. “It seems that I’m permanently horny when I’m in your general proximity. It’s sort of disconcerting.”
“Not for me.” He shrugged and stood.
* * *
A ringing phone woke her up just after dawn, three days after he’d revealed to her that she was his mate. Josh was already up, moving around. Probably in his office playing catch up on his own work as he’d been spending so much time away from it, driving Michelle all over the city looking for that SUV or for signs, any signs, of Allie. They’d even headed up to Seattle, stopping at all the rest stops north and south on the way back for any signs of the mages and found nothing.
Guilt flashed through her again. Sure he’d told her he had things in hand, but she felt bad for taking him away from the office.
Rolling from bed and sliding into the robe, she moved to the bathroom to brush her teeth, the muffled sound as he answered and spoke to whoever rumbled in the background.
And then she paused, a chill running through her at the change in his tone.
She rushed out and down the hall as he was writing something down. “Yes, yes. On the way. I need to wake her up. Yes, I know. I’ll rush. Try to hold off calling anyone else until we arrive.”
He hung up and turned, he was so pale she knew it was bad.
“What?”
“Get dressed. One of the teams of wolves I sent out stumbled on a house with the scent of the mages. And something else. Pam is there, she’s holding things down until we arrive. Damon is on the way as well.”
“What is it? You’re pale.”
“They smell death inside. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s her. Just, let’s get out there now.”
With trembling hand she got dressed before rushing into the bathroom to brush her teeth. She pulled her hair into a ponytail in the car on the way to the scene, trying really hard not to think about it. Hoping that the scent of death was anyone but Allie.
He parked on the side of the road and turned to her. “We’re not going to get any closer in the car. I don’t want any evidence of our presence that close. Not until we know more.”
She got out, and they jogged down a street and then up a dirt road. “It’s a mile or so up here, Pam says.”
Michelle got caught in a web of despair about five minutes later as the house came into view on a vista just ahead.
“Yes, they’ve been here.” She tried not to gag on the fetid, rotten-meat stench of that magic they used. Wrong energies. Dark.
Pam was waiting for them, along with Damon and one of the wolves she remembered from the lobby that first day she’d come to ask for Pacific’s help.
“We haven’t gone in yet.” Pam looked to Josh and then to Michelle. “You ready? You go low, I’ll go high.”
Michelle had worn her vest and she was glad. And she hoped the spell she’d learned the day before from Gina to defend herself would work.
The closer they got, the worse the stench was. From the faces on the Weres all around her, it wasn’t just a magical stench but a physical one. And then she smelled it, death. Not just death magics, but the smells that indicated someone had died and died badly. Still fresh enough that it probably had been within the last eight or so hours.
Josh kicked the door in so hard it flew off the hinges, and as they’d planned, Pam went high and left while Michelle kept low and went right.
They swept through room by room. The house only had four rooms, and so when they found nothing, they went out the back door and that’s when she saw it.
Michelle made a sound. She didn’t know where it had come from, only that it was full of everything she’d been feeling. All her grief and guilt and fear. A sound that ripped from her so hard it hurt.
Allie lay, bloodied and broken in the center of a circle. A blood circle, not a salt circle.
“Wait!” She held up a hand as she dug through the pocket of her jacket and pulled out a bag of salt she’d blessed only the day before according to Lark’s directions.
She spoke softly, through tears as she traced another circle just inside the blood circle. She tried hard not to look at Allie as she did.
No birds sang. There was no sound in that yard and there should have been. The leaves on the trees should have been rustling. There should have been insect sounds, the rustle of small things in the underbrush. But there was nothing.
Once she finished the circle, she spoke the last words of the spell and the power rushed through her and broke the blood circle with a rush of sticky, sick energy that thankfully disappeared quickly.
What didn’t dissipate though, was the stench of death.
Michelle broke the salt circle. She moved to Allie. Pam approached and put a hand on her shoulder. “This is a crime scene. Remember that.”
It wasn’t like she needed to check a pulse.
There was nothing left in Allie. Her magick, her aura usually so vibrant in Michelle’s othersight was gone. There was nothing. She’d moved on. She’d been brutalized. Left torn, broken and empty on the ground like garbage.
“I have to call this in. I need all the wolves gone. Michelle, you can stay. But we can’t touch anything else.”
“Before they get here, I’m going through the house one more time to get scents.” Damon paused and then took Michelle’s hand. “I’m sorry, Michelle. We will find justice for this. I promise you.”
She nodded, absently. “Is Gina being protected?”
His expression turned feral. “Yes. At all times.”
Josh watched, saying nothing until Pam stepped away to call it in and get crime-scene folks out.
He took Michelle’s hand, drawing his thumb back and forth across her skin. She stiffened and took her hand back.
“God, beautiful, I’m so sorry. I want to hold you so much. I wish this was different.”
She shook her head hard, once. “It’s not. I need to deal with this I can’t afford to lose my shit right now. I have to do my job and I can’t if you touch me.”
He nodded. “I understand. I don’t like the idea of leaving you here.”
“You have to. I can’t explain you to the cops. Pam is under enough scrutiny right now. You have to go. But if you’d have my car brought over, I’d appreciate it.”
“That I can do.” He paused. “I love you, Michelle. You’re not alone. No matter what.”
She turned, catching his gaze, and that connection between them clicked into place. She nodded, shoving back all her emotions. She needed to be cold and hard and ruthless right then. She needed to examine that scene with every single one of her senses, and that meant she had no room for guilt, or even love.