I managed to delegate the rest of my tasks for the day so I could go home early. For some reason, I didn’t like the thought of Syla being alone with Sarah – of any of my friends being alone with Sarah, really. I ordered an Uber home, and soon enough the car was pulling into Antun’s gravel driveway. I hurried out and unlocked the front door, rushing inside.
Laughing met me on the stairs as I climbed. Syla’s laughter, followed by Sarah’s. I skipped steps, taking longer strides to cover the distance faster. Once I was up the stairs, I saw Sarah and Syla sitting on the couch, a plate of cookies on the coffee table and mugs of tea in hand as they chatted.
“I’m telling you, the guy’s eyes bugged out of his head when he saw me. I don’t think he even realized Michael was in there,” Sarah chuckled.
“That is insane! I’m glad you were able to get out. Do you think you got a scent for the killer?” Syla asked.
“I think so. I was able to sniff a lot of corpses, both part of the case and not, and I think I have a smell isolated that was only on the victims.” Sarah turned toward me and greeted somewhat dryly before sipping her tea, “Drew.”
“Are the guys almost home?” I asked.
“According to Antun’s location, they’re almost here. I think you’ll have only gotten here just before them.”
As if trying to beat her words, the door downstairs unlocked and I heard two sets of familiar footsteps on the stairs. I turned and met Michael’s eyes. They softened when he saw me, and he gave me a quirked smile. “Quite a day today, eh?” he said, arms opening as he topped the stairs.
I went straight into them. They enveloped me and everything was alright again, if only for that moment.
He looked up and caught Sarah’s jealous eyes, though she tried to hide it. He asked her, “You got out alright? No injuries?” I loved that he was such a kind person, though at the moment I wished the kindness didn’t extend to Sarah.
She lifted her arms, her hands facing one way and then the other as she flipped them. “All good, though I think I might’ve bruised something when I knocked against that one table in there,” she said with a small wince as she touched her ribs.
Oh, boo-hoo for you. Attention-whore.
“Would you like me to check?” Antun asked.
She glanced at Michael, as if wishing he were the one to have asked, but said, “No, thank you. I’ve had much worse before, this’ll heal in no time.”
Oh, look at me, I’m a werewolf, I heal faster blah blah blah. Grr, can we get to the point already?
“You think you’ve got a scent?” Antun checked.
Sarah nodded toward Syla, “I was just telling Syla when you got here. It was very faint after all the cleaning had been done, but it was still there, different from the other corpses.”
Michael folded his arms across his chest and rested his chin in one hand. “I have an idea… but you might absolutely hate it, Sarah.”
Her face perked up as if she didn’t hear the last part of the statement, simply because it came from Michael and it was directed at her.
Back off, I wanted to snarl at her, but I didn’t want to look like a jealous girlfriend to everyone.
“In order for you to use your sense of smell most effectively, you need to be in your werewolf form, right? While large, I think we could still pass you off as a service animal if you wear the vest and leash. Then we can walk with you as you track him down.”
“You mean walk me, not walk with me,” she teased. “I don’t mind, as long as you’re the one holding the leash.”
“I don’t think it matters too much who holds the leash,” I gritted out.
He’s mine, back off!
Sarah shrugged as if she didn’t care, but her gaze lingered on Michael longer than on anyone else.
For fuck’s sake…
“Sarah, can I speak to you outside for a moment?” I burst out, my eyes ablaze as I tried to maintain the rest of my mask of civility.
She stood, walking past me and Michael and down the stairs. I followed behind her, and once we stood on the front porch, I crossed my arms and glared up at her. “Stop trying to flirt with my boyfriend,” I said outright.
She examined her nails, saying, “Mmm, no.”
“Bitch, I’m trying to be nice here. Leave him alone or we will have issues.”
“ Will have issues? Have you been living under a rock? We’ve had issues for months now, ever since you decided to steal Michael away from me.”
“Can’t steal something that wasn’t yours to begin with,” I ground out.
Sarah stood there, in joggers that were a little too short for her and a slightly oversized shirt that looked somewhat familiar. “Wait… why are you wearing my clothes?”
She looked down, then back up at me, her eyes going wide. “These are yours? I thought these were Syla’s!” She lifted her arms as if she suddenly realized she was covered in Drew germs, disgusted. “ Ugh, just my luck,” she groaned.
“You’re telling me,” I mumbled under my breath.
She sighed, folding her arms across her chest reluctantly. “I got here in my werewolf form, no clothes, so I needed to wear something. Unless you’d rather I didn’t,” she said with a wicked gleam in her eye.
“I’d rather you take every last item of clothing I own before you go nude in front of my boyfriend.”
“Well,” she said with a too-wide smile. “Where do you think my clothes from before went? I didn’t want to shred good clothing.”
“You bitch…” I breathed out, anger barely contained.
“He was a gentleman, turned around and everything, but I wouldn’t have minded if he’d watched.”
Something in me snapped. I lunged for Sarah’s throat with hands and fangs, tackling her to the ground. She managed to slip in a punch to my nose, making me reel back and my eyes watered. She got back up and started to transform right in front of me.
“You rip that shirt, I’ll rip you,” I promised wrathfully.
“You attacked me first,” she defended before charging at me.
We rolled in the gravel, flashes of fangs and fur and hair as we tumbled together. I felt arms wrap around me from behind and lift me away from Sarah. I scrambled trying to get at her again, only to see Antun and Syla holding her back by the arms, barely. It was Michael who’d lifted me out of the fight.
Sarah barked, “She started it.”
“And I’m finishing it, too” I swore as I fought against the hold around me. “Let me go!” I struggled against Michael’s grasp, but he was just too big for me to overpower, even as a vampire.
“What is this about?” Michael yelled over the sounds of us hissing and snarling at each other still.
“Because she’s insecure,” Sarah spat at me.
“Because she’s a whore,” I barbed back. I tried to twist in Michael’s arms, but to no avail. “She stripped in front of you!”
“Behind me, and I didn’t see anything!” he promised, holding onto me as I continued to fight against his hold.
“I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at her! ”
“Stop it, both of you!” Syla shouted at us. It was surprising enough that both of us stopped struggling for a moment. “Drew, Sarah, stop antagonizing each other! We’re supposed to be finding a murderer, not fighting amongst ourselves.”
Forcing the truth into the conversation fully ended the fight. I stopped struggling against Michael, and his hold loosened to a firm hug. Antun and Syla let go of Sarah’s arms and she transformed the rest of the way back into her human form, glaring at me the whole time. The three of them walked into the house, leaving just Michael and I in the front drive.
“Can I let you go?” Michael whispered in my ear.
“Yes,” I ground through my teeth.
“ Should I let you go?” he countered.
I looked at him, my eyes still angry. I shook my head once and he settled into place around me, arms locked but not uncomfortable.
“Okay then, I guess I get to hold you a little while longer.” He kissed my temple and I started to thaw, if only a little. It was adorkable and I couldn’t help the small grin from tilting up the corner of my mouth. It was almost enough to make me forget about why I was angry in the first place. Almost.
❖ 🩸 ❖
When Sarah arrived at the house the following weekend, she was wearing a simple tee shirt with jeans. “Is there a place where I can change?” She threw a glare in my direction for the briefest moment. “Somewhere private so I don’t ruin my clothes?”
Syla showed her to our room, telling her to scratch at the door when she was done. After a couple of minutes, they came back down the stairs, Syla holding neatly folded clothes and Sarah in her werewolf form. Fully transformed, she really was a beautiful beast. Well-muscled and standing tall on all fours, she looked like a wolf but with rich, auburn fur instead of the traditional grey.
With Antun’s connections, getting a service animal vest had been a simple matter. He had to get a larger size due to Sarah’s werewolf form being so big. We looked up large dog breeds that look like wolves, and decided if anyone asked, we’d call her a Tamaskan mix. Not like we could say we were walking a wolf through the streets of Seattle.
The ride into the city was cramped. Syla and I sat in the back with Sarah in her wolf form. Even just sitting in the center of the back seat, she was huge and Syla and I had barely any room. Syla pet Sarah’s fur as she stuck her head out Syla’s window. Which meant her tail was whacking me in the face the whole time. Once Syla noticed, she apologized and asked Sarah to sit back down. Sarah glared at me, her icy blue eyes full of disdain. Whatever, as long as I wasn’t getting a face full of tail anymore.
We parked and hooked Sarah up to the leash. She sat and whined at Michael as if to ask him to be the one to hold the leash. Her puppy dog eyes won out and he took the leash. Her tail wagged and she held up her head in triumph for a moment, before dropping her nose to the ground and sniffing. She started pulling on the leash and we all followed.
We had no idea if we were going to end up facing the killer, so Antun had brought along the yew dagger, hidden in his waistband. Again, I wished we had more than one. The sword was too conspicuous to bring along, so our tools were very limited.
Antun and Michael acted the most natural of all of us, besides Sarah. They carried on a conversation, about what I had no idea. Syla walked as casually as she could, but her eyes were a little wary. Then there was me, masking my hardest and failing miserably – I eyed every person who passed with suspicion and a slight degree of fear.
Sarah didn’t go in a straight line. In fact, I could’ve sworn we had looped at least once. I wondered if she was just enjoying playing puppy to Michael and was about to say something when her nose lifted and she sniffed rapidly, her entire body freezing. She dipped her head down and started sniffing in a zig-zag pattern on the ground. Her ears were perked forward, eyes narrowed in concentration. Her tail was still, no more wagging like earlier.
She had found the scent and was fully focused on it. She pulled at the leash, whining and then barking as if she were trying to say something. She whimpered as she tugged, all of us trying to keep up without full-on running. With a sense of annoyance, Sarah suddenly turned and started gnawing on the leash.
“You want me to let you go?” Michael asked.
She barked once, as if saying she was saying, “Yes!”
Antun moved closer. “Is someone in danger?”
She barked and whined again as she tugged at the leash with her mouth.
Without question, Antun released the buckle that held her to the leash. She bolted forward, and the rest of us ran after her. To an outsider it might’ve looked like a bunch of people chasing their dog, but in reality, we were following Sarah to who knew what. All we knew was that one moment she was following the scent of the killer, and the next, she was bolting toward someone who was in danger.
I briefly wondered if we were going off course. I really hoped not. Then again, I also hoped that we’d get to whoever it was in time to help. Sarah dove down an alley, and we all pursued after her. As we got closer to whoever it was, she slowed and kept as close to the wall as she could. Following her example, we all did the same, following after her in close single file.
The scent of old sea food and wet paper hung in the air. The alley was damp, with puddles in the dips of the pavement. Sarah stopped at a corner, sniffing, and her hackles rose. Antun carefully glanced around the corner, careful to keep most of himself out of sight. He leaned back against the wall, looking at the rest of us. He nodded, confirming the worst – we were about to face the killer.
