Chapter Two
Ethan
Once upon a time, Ethan Ellison had been a simple man, doing a simple job for the Seattle Police Department, living an uncomplicated life. He had fucked whomever he wanted to fuck. Had drunk. Had danced. Had solved simple crimes involving petty people smart enough to abuse magic but dumb enough not to do it very well.
It was easy to see how that all fell apart; to track the moments he went awry. It began that morning Police Captain Jordan Augustas called him into her office to meet his temporary partner: Patrick Clanahan, werewolf, Major Crimes, kind of a dick but ultimately a decent sort of guy.
That moment stood out, but recently, Ethan had begun to wonder if the fault in his stars stretched further back in his personal history. Had he been cursed from the start being born of a loveless witch and a power-hungry mage? Was it too simple to blame the course of one's life on their parents?
Of course.
A part of Ethan missed the simpler days he’d lived before he'd ever been tangled up in all of Patrick Clanahan's werewolf mate bullshit.
Now, he lay in a bed next to the other man, pressing his body to the very edge of the mattress so that there was maximum space between them, and fighting for sleep. And when he did find that ephemeral dreamland, it seemed determined to be as unpleasant as possible.
Five nights out of seven since returning to Seattle, Ethan woke up drenched in sweat, gasping for air, and swearing in the same breath that he couldn't remember what the dream had been about.
He suspected that Pat knew he was lying, but dark circles had been growing under the wolf's own eyes, and he never said anything about the lies.
Ethan woke himself up again with hitching breaths. He’d sweated through the arms and chest of his T-shirt. Next to him, Pat groaned and rolled over so that they were facing one another.
"You okay?" the wolf mumbled, eyes flickering against the pull of sleep.
"Go back to sleep," Ethan said, pushing himself back.
The wolf reached for him, thick shoulder muscles bunching up under the sliver of silvery moonlight that lit the bedroom.
Ethan pressed the wolf's hand down against the bed and repeated, "I'm fine. Go back to sleep."
It wasn't fair him waking Pat up like this every night when the wolf still had to go into the station in the morning. Was especially cruel on mornings like the previous day when he got a call from Dispatch hours before his alarm was set to go off.
For once, the images in Ethan's mind were foggy and easier to push aside as he slipped out of the bed and hid himself in the downstairs half bath. It was tiny and cramped, a little dusty because Pat never used it, but if he was very quiet, sometimes Pat would do what he was told and go back to sleep without coming out to investigate further.
He sat on the closed toilet and waited for his heart to calm down. This took a while, but in the meantime the townhouse remained quiet, no sign of Pat following him downstairs.
Ethan sighed and sat back. He could see the upper half of his face in the vanity mirror, just pieces of it illuminated by a streetlight outside, the rest of it fell into dark shadows that appeared almost skeletal.
"You’re not looking so hot, man."
Ethan's spine straightened with a snap, his wide eyes sweeping the dark for the voice. He stood up and slipped—
"Ethan!"
His eyes snapped open, meeting Pat's wide, scared expression. Ethan had two fists wrapped up in the wolf's sleep shirt, knuckles digging hard into Pat's sternum, and he couldn't tell if he'd been trying to drag the wolf closer or shove him away. His heart beat so fast it ached under his breastbone, and his breath shuddered in and out of his lungs in short little bursts that were a hair away from a full on panic attack.
He gasped, mouth open wide, trying to suck in enough air to fight off the black spots fringing the edges of his vision.
Above him Pat's eyes were so wide. The wolf had one hand wrapped around Ethan's wrists and the other arm around his shoulders, trying to tug him closer against his locked elbows.
It was instinct to flatted his hands against Pat's chest and shove at him. It shouldn't have been so easy to move Patrick Clanahan, and not just because he was a healthy young werewolf, but because he was a solidly built man, easily twenty pounds of muscle heavier than Ethan. But a little zing of electricity shot through Ethan's fingers and jolted Pat away from him.
The wolf shouted as he fell over the opposite side of the bed with a crash.
"Fuck," Ethan said, pressing one hand against his hammering chest. He looked around the bedroom, searching for that voice, but—but that had been the dream. Hadn’t it?
"Fuck!"
He scrambled across the bed and met Pat as he hauled himself up off the floor, a startled look on his face.
"I’m so sorry!"
The wolf shook his head.
Ethan reached out one shaking hand, not quite making contact.
"Are you okay?"
"Nothing’s broke. Are you okay?"
He shook his head. "It was just a—”
"Don’t say it was just a dream."
"It was," he said with a scowl, confident that those wolf eyes would be able to see it clearly even in the low light.
"That’s wasn't 'just' anything."
Ethan sat up straight and crossed his arms, both in defiance and to hide the shakiness in his muscles.
"What else do you want me to say?"
Pat threw up his hands and made a frustrated noise. "Anything. I wish you would say literally anything. Anything you want to say. I’m here. I’m listening. You can talk to me about anything." The wolf glanced down. He pressed his hands against the edge of the bed, gripping the mused duvet.
"I know I'm not always the best at—at talking about things."
Ethan snorted.
"I know," Pat repeated. "But I want to be here for you. I’m trying to be. But I don't know—”
"You know half the problem is you just don't fucking listen to me?" Ethan snapped, embracing the rush of anger simmering inside his chest. It had burned away the edges of his panic.
"What? I just said I was—"
"You’re proving my point right now."
The wolf's mouth snapped closed with a click. He stood in one smooth motion and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. The light under the door flicked on, and Ethan listened to the water running.
He slipped out of the bed and stripped out of his ruined clothes. They weren't exactly the same size, but Pat had been over-eager to get Ethan into his clothes before. Now he stole sweatpants and a well-washed tank top from the wolf's drawers and pulled them on, savoring the feel of soft cotton against his skin. The sense memory of water on his face clung to the edges of his mind.
Ethan shook his head. Dreams were tricky things. He could still feel the water, but the sound of the voice, the exact timbre, was already fading.
By the time Pat emerged from the bathroom, Ethan had wrapped himself up under the duvet, back turned towards the middle of the bed. The wolf climbed in on the other side and they there in silence and deep breathing.
"You want me to listen, but you don't want to talk," the wolf said softly.
Ethan's face split into a painful smile that he was glad the wolf couldn't see. He didn't reply, and after another minute of silence Pat huffed and turned over onto his side, facing away from him.
He couldn't fall asleep again even though his eyes felt hot and gritty. Eventually, Pat's breathing evened out enough that Ethan could tell he'd dropped into a light doze. Both of their phone alarms went off too soon, rousing the wolf to get dressed.
It was still dark outside, darker even still thanks to the drizzling rain that had been a constant feature since they flew in from Toronto.
Ethan debated with himself whether to stay in bed and pretend to sleep, but while the shower was running, he forced himself to get up and go downstairs. He made toast and coffee before Pat came stumbling down, unknotted tie wrapped around his neck.
Ethan watched a bead of water make its covetous track down between the wolf's collarbones. He shouldn't feel envy for a drop of water. According to Pat that—all of that muscle and bone and frustrating obstinance—was his and only his, but there was nothing in Ethan that could make him reach out and take it. He buried his nose in his coffee cup and grunted a wordless goodbye as Pat left for work.
Patrick
Pat met Sabira Mallory in the parking lot. She had a newspaper raised over her head to fend off the rain.
"I spent most of last night making phone calls," she said.
Their trip to the club near yesterday's body had been frustratingly fruitless. Despite Mallory's assertion that someone would have to be on the premises to get ready for the evening's crowd, they had been met with a quiet, locked building. Pat's wolf senses had confirmed that there hadn't been anyone home.
"Hopefully Lynch has a name for us," he murmured, holding the door open for her.
They stopped at their desks first to strip out of raincoats and shake water out of their clothes. Then they went down to the second floor break room to see if anyone had made coffee for the morning shift. Mallory sniffed the Mr Coffee carafe suspiciously and dumped the dregs into the sink while Pat measured grounds into a paper filter for a new pot. Even if the coffee left something to be desired, some charitable soul had set out two boxes of pastries.
Mallory picked up an apple fritter between her first and middle fingers and said, "It's not a scone, but you can't argue with fried dough no matter what continent it comes from."
"Were you able to find the club owners?" Pat asked, ripping his attention away from the coffee. He didn't really need the caffeine since Ethan had poured him enough coffee into a travel mug to make his stomach churn but it gave his hands something to do.
"Still a negative on that point, but I did have a long and illuminating conversation with the manager at the adult bookshop our victim died behind. Not a vampire—yes, I checked their information through our system—and according to Mr Jester—yes, and that is his real name—they don't get vampires around their neighborhood."
"That’s a bold statement."
"So said I to Mr Jester, but he was very adamant. He wanted to make sure that I knew the neighborhood didn't put up with that kind of riff raff. His words exactly."
Pat frowned. "What does that mean, 'riff raff'?"
"I think he meant anything non-human. A bit rich coming from…but it doesn't do any good to judge people for their preferences. Do you know much about the local coven?"
"There’s no central coven in the city. The nearest one sleeps in Port Townsend. But that just means we have a couple thousand vampires, more than half of them undocumented, and there's no central oversight body to keep everyone in line."
"So, it's a complete mess."
"More or less."
"And do these undocumented vampires often kill humans? I tried looking that up too, but I don't have the right clearance."
Pat snorted as the coffee machine clicked off. He reached for Mallory's cup, pouring coffee over a spoonful of sugar and handing it to her. He used a spoonful of powdered creamer in his own coffee. It didn't taste all that great but it was safer than drinking from any of the milk cartons in the shared refrigerator.
"Thanks," Mallory said. Her eyes shut in satisfaction as she sipped.
They took the stairs back up to the third floor and settled in at their desks. Mallory shared her notes from the day before with him while they checked their email. Nothing from Lynch but it was still early. There were also brief reports from the responding officers and a complete folder of pictures of the crime scene.
"How long would it take for a single vampire to drain a person?" Mallory asked.
"Not sure."
"But they don't usually need to feed so much, right? I’ve read that. Only a feral or a starving vampire would need all of the blood from a human body, and this girl looks well and truly drained."
"Could have been more than one feeder."
"Wouldn’t there be a second set of bite marks if that were the case?"
"Not necessarily."
"So, are you going to tell me how you know so much about vampires?" Mallory asked without looking up from her computer.
"You make it sound like I'm some expert. I’m not."
"But you have met one before."
Pat frowned at her, looking for the angle to her question. He couldn't believe that it was as innocently asked as it sounded. Not with his history. But Mallory made an expectant gesture with her hands, waiting for an answer, guileless.
"I've met a few over the years."
She matched him frown for frown. "Why are you being so cagey?"
"I’m not."
"Clanahan."
"Oh, come on," he snapped.
Mallory’s set her coffee mug down on her desk with a thud.
"You read everyone's files," he said.
"You mean I've read your file."
He stared at her.
"Yes, of course. I did when I was promoted to your partner, but I don't see how that's relevant. There’s nothing in there about vampires."
"What? That’s not right."
She made an exasperated noise. "Do you think I would have missed something like that? Now, will you please just explain. Why are you so touchy about the subject?"
"My ex-partner was killed by vampires."
"Ellison?" she said, shooting him a confused look.
"No."
"Sloane. Did you read his file too?"
"Most of its classified. At least from my clearance level."
"Seriously?"
"You didn't know?"
Pat shook his head. "Why would it be? Everyone here knows what happened."
"Maybe if they were in this department at the time, but I've only ever heard rumors about it below this floor. Captain Augustas said it was gruesome. That it left its mark on you."
"When did she say that?" he demanded.
"When she gave me this job."
"She warned you about me?"
"I know, you'd think you were a loose canon I needed watch out for," Mallory said in a wry voice, looking away.
He couldn't even argue with her about that.
"So, what happened to Sloane?" she asked, sighing heavily. "It has to be more interesting than just death by vampires if someone higher up thinks it needs to be classified."
"I never thought about it as a conspiracy."
She gave him a arch look.
"I don't know, and that's part of the problem. Adam went off on his own. Looking into something. And then he was attacked, and he died before I made it to the hospital. No physical evidence except for the bite, nothing in his files or at his apartment to tell us what he'd been investigating."
An image of Ethan's wane face staring out the window of his townhouse flickered across Pat's inner eye. He flinched and came back to himself in the moment, sitting across from Mallory, whose dark eyes were tracking him she could glean every secret from the shadows on his face.
"Case closed," he muttered.
"And apparently classified."
"I don't know why they'd do that."
She narrowed her eyes at him. "Indeed. And you never looked into it any further?"
"Jordan ordered me not too. Besides, I saw the scene, they didn't miss anything. And I searched Adam's apartment myself. There were no leads."
"No coven door to knock down."
Pat shifted in his seat and looked away, staring at his email inbox.
"Not that you didn't try."
"Maybe," he muttered.
"I find it hard to believe that there's no organized family in a city of this size. I should look into that."
"I’m going to go see if Tobias has something for us."
She made a distracted noise to mark his departure.
Pat didn't immediately head down to the morgue basement level. He stopped in a corner of the stairwell and pressed his back against the cool cement, bending and gripped his thighs. His whole body curved as he pulled deep breaths into his lungs, trying to sort out the tangled emotions whipping around his head.
It felt like it had been months since he thought about Adam, and it set him back on his ass to do it now. To realize that he hadn't given his dead partner a second thought since—
Pat scrubbed at his eyes until they felt wide open and raw.
In the first basement level he found the night shift Assistant Medical Examiner dozing behind Lynch's desk. The name tag pinned to his white lab coat read Patel. He startled upright when Pat cleared his throat.
"Do you have a report on the girl who came in yesterday?"
"Which one?" Patel asked, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and looking at Pat with a frown.
His head throbbed with phantom pain. It was rare for a werewolf to develop an actual headache, but this job liked to stretch the limits of his enhanced physique.
"The one killed by vampires?"
"Oh, man, yeah." The doctor woke up his computer and clicked around the screen. Just as Pat was ready to lose his patience, Patel made a negative noise with his tongue and shook his head. "Sorry, it looks like Doctor Lynch has the autopsy scheduled for later today."
"Why is it taking so long?"
"We’re a little bit busy at the moment, friend."
Pat held up his hands. "Sorry. I just thought—"
"Yes, I know what you detectives think."
He stared at Patel.
"That each of you is the only one with an active case. But that's not the case, as they say."
A little voice in the back of his head that sounded like Ethan whispered, that's a saying they say, huh? But he kept his mouth shut.
"You’re right. I’ll wait for her to email me about it. Sorry to waste your time."
Patel’s face twisted up with what Pat liked to think was a little bit of guilt.
Before he left, he asked if any of the other bodies that had come in showed signs of bite marks.
"Why?" Patel asked suspiciously. He leaned back in his chair and propped his shiny black shoes on the edge of the desk, wrinkling a stack of copy paper.
"Just curious. Could help me with my case."
"You don't expect me to believe that?"
"It’s not a lie."
"Sure. Actually—there were…" Patel cut himself off and crossed his arms over his chest. "What did you say your name was, Officer…?"
"Detective Clanahan," Pat said, tapping a finger to the badge clipped to his belt.
"Right. Gotta be careful."
"Do you have a lot of people in here who shouldn't be?"
Patel rolled his shoulders. "You never know."
"Right. So, the other bodies?"
"It’s funny you ask."
He stared at the doctor.
"Doctor Lynch asked me to do a report on deaths we've concluded were vampire related."
"For yesterday?" Pat demanded.
"No, no, for the month. It’s not part of my regularly job, but I can see why she asked."
Pat grit his teeth to keep from strangling the guy as he continued to pause and shoot Pat significant looks, like he thought they were on some kind of detective show and they had to leave cues for the audience at periodic intervals.
"Could you skip to the point?” he demanded.
Patel gave him a dirty look. "It’s interesting because—well, I don't know if Doctor Lynch knew what I would find or if she was just going off her lovely intuition, but either way the numbers really do paint a fascinating picture."
He waited.
"Potential vampire attacks are on the rise. I’ve only mapped the last six weeks, but I wouldn't be surprised if the trend goes back even further."
"Why hasn't anyone else noticed?"
Patel rolled his eyes. "Well, it's not like everyone has all of the datapoints that we do down here. Besides, no one likes to say the v-word around—" he cut himself off and shot a furtive look at Pat under his dark fringe. "You said your name was Clanahan?"
Pat pressed his lips together. "Email me a copy of your graphs or whatever they are."
"Uh, sure. No problem!" Patel yelled after his retreating back.
Pat's werewolf hearing could hear his ungrateful jackass even as the elevator doors slid shut between them.