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Sergeant Rudolph Storr showed up before the baby-sitting olves could arrive I&039;d called hiional Preternatural Investigation Team, RPIT, or RIP A lot of people call us RIP, for Rest in Peace Hey, at least they knoe are

Dolph is six foot eight, built like a pro-wrestler, but it isn&039;t just physical size that makes him impressive He&039;d taken a squad that had been meant as a joke to appease the liberals and made it work RPIT had solved more preternatural crimes in the last three years than any other police unit Including the FBI Dolph had even been invited up to lecture at Quantico Not bad for soiven his command as a punishment Dolph wasn&039;t exactly an optiive him lemons and he made damn fine lemonade

He closed the door behind him and stared down at me "The doctor said my detective was in here I just see you"

"I never said I was a detective I said I ith the squad They assumed the rest"

He shook his head His black hair actually hid the tops of his ears He was overdue for a hair cut "If you were playing cop, why didn&039;t you yell at the uniform that was supposed to be on this door?"

I sht I&039;d leave that to you I assume he knows that he was a bad boy"

"I took care of it," Dolph said

He stayed standing at the door I stayed sitting in un on hih to hurt without flashing a gun at hi on, Anita?"

"You know everything I know," I said

"How did you happen to be Johnny-on-the-spot?"

"Stephen called me"

"Tell me," he said

I told hi I wanted that stopped The cops are pretty good at stopping cris, likekilled the wereleopards&039; old alpha It was the only thing I left out Forhonest

Dolph blinked at me and took it all down in his trusty notebook "Are you saying that our victim allowed someone to do this to him?"

I shook my head "I don&039;t think it&039;s that si they&039;d chain him up He knew there&039;d be sex and pain, but I don&039;t think he knew they&039;d coive hi into shock faster than it could fix itself"

"I&039;ve heard of wereani froed "So the shapeshifters Nathaniel is pretty low in the power structure, so I&039; as well" I spread my hands wide "I don&039;t know"

Dolph searched back through his notes "Soency entrance wrapped in a sheet No one saw anything He just appeared"

"No one ever sees anything, Dolph Isn&039;t that the rule?"

That earned me a small smile It was nice to see the smile Dolph wasn&039;t too happy withthe Master of the City He didn&039;t like it He didn&039;t trust anyone that socialized with the monsters Couldn&039;t blame hiyou know about this, Anita?"

I raised a hand in a scout&039;s salute "Would I lie to you?"

"If it suited your purpose, yes"

We stared at each other The silence grew thick enough to walk on I let it sit there If Dolph thought I was going to break first, he rong The strain between us wasn&039;t this case It was his disapproval of my choice of dates His disappoint forThe fact that I was dating a vao, even less, and I&039;d have felt the sa Dolph and I, both, had to deal with it

And yet, he was reed with hiet out of this daardless ofdead, I wanted the date The thought of Jean-Claude waiting for , but true I don&039;t think anything short of giving up Jean-Claude would have satisfied Dolph I wasn&039;t sure that was an option anymore for a lot of reasons So I sat and looked at Dolph He stared back The silence grew thicker with each tick of the clock

A knock on the door saved us The officer, now attentively on the door, whispered so to Dolph Dolph nodded and closed the door The look he gave me was even less friendly, if that was possible

"Officer Wayne says that there are three relatives of Stephen&039;s out here He also says that if they&039;re all relatives, he&039;ll eat his gun"

"Tell him to pucker up," I said "They&039;re fellow pack members Werewolves consider that closer than faally it&039;s not family," Dolph said

"How many of your h that door?"

"We can shoot theood as you can, Anita"

"But you still have to give the before you shoot them, don&039;t you? You still have to treat them like people instead of monsters or you end up in front of the review board"

"Witnesses say you gave Zane, no last naenerous"

"You were shooting hienerous"

We went back to staring at each other Maybe it wasn&039;t just dating a vampire Maybe it was the fact that Dolph was the ulti people,people People who hurt me or threatened h And less than two o I&039;d killed two people where the bodies couldn&039;t be hidden Self-defense both times Never saw the inside of a courtrooer than I was tall The woerprints had been the answer to several political killings that Interpol had lying around Big-tiuys that no one really mourned, at least not the cops

But it fed Dolph&039;s suspicions Hell, it did everything but confirm them

"Why&039;d you recommend me to Pete McKinnon, Dolph?"

He didn&039;t answer for so long, I thought he wasn&039;t going to, but finally he said, "Because you&039;re the best at what you do, Anita I may not always approve of your uys You&039;re better on a murder scene than some of the detectives on my squad"

For Dolph, this was a speech I openedfro compliment"

"You just spend too much time with the damn monsters, Anita I don&039;t mean who you date I , soet what it&039;s like to be nor, Dolph I&039;ve never been normal"

He shook his head "Don&039;t purposely , Anita It&039;s not the fur or the fangs that make you a monster, not always Sometimes, it&039;s just where you draw the line"

"The fact that I play with monsters is what ht, I wouldn&039;t be as good helping you solve preternatural crimes"

"Yeah, sootten you to consult with us, if you&039;d besofter"

I frowned at hi you blah it off, but his face stopped o to the monsters on one of ains with theuy? If I&039;d left you alone"

I stood up I reached out to hi hihter, Dolph You&039;re not ood at it And who else you gonna call?"

He nodded "Yeah, who else? The shifters outside can come in andvisit the patients"

"Thanks, Dolph"

He took in a long breath and let it out in a big rush of air "I saw thethat your friend Stephen got shoved through If he&039;d been human, he&039;d be dead It&039;s just luck that no civilians were killed"

I shookcareful of the huth he has, it would have been easier to kill than to maim"

"Why would he have cared?"

"Because he&039;s in jail, and he gets a bail hearing"

"They won&039;t let him out," Dolph said

"He didn&039;t kill anyone, Dolph Since when haven&039;t you seen soet bail for assault and battery?"

"You think like a cop, Anita It&039;s what ood"

"I think like a cop and like a ood"

He nodded, closed his notebook and slipped it into an inner pocket of his jacket "Yeah, that&039;s what ood" He left without another word He sent in the three olves and closed the door

Kevin was tall, dark, scruffy and sarettes Lorraine was neat and prirade schoolteacher She smelled of White Linen perfume and blinked nervously at hed around three hundred pounds, most of it muscle He&039;d buzzed his hair down to a fine dark prickle, and his head looked too small for his massive body The men looked scary, but it was Lorraine&039;s handshake that left power vibrating down h power to be the big bad wolf

Within twenty minutes I was free to leave The mismatched trio of olves had divided the shifts so that one of them would be with the boys at all tiuard them? Yeah Because if they abandoned their posts and let Stephen get killed, I really would kill theh, fine, but if they just gave upI&039;d given Stephen, and now, Nathaniel,I made sure that all of them knew that

Kevin said it best, "If Sylvie shows up, we&039;ll send her to you"

"You do that"

He shook his head, playing with an unlit cigarette I&039;d told hi it seemed to comfort him "You&039;ve pissed in her pond I hope you can clean it up"

I smiled "Eloquent, Kevin, very eloquent"

"Eloquent or not, Sylvie is going to bust your ass if she can"

The smile widened I couldn&039;t help it "Let me worry about , not mine"

The three olves looked aton all their faces, al lupa isfor dominance," said Lorraine in a small voice

"I know that," I said

"Do you?" she asked, and there was so childlike in the question

"I think so"

"You kill us if we fail you," Kevin said, "but will you die for us? Will you risk the same price you ask us to pay?"

I liked Kevin better when he wasn&039;t being eloquent I stared at these three strangers People I&039;d just met Would I risk my life for them? Could I ask the to return the favor?

I looked at them, really looked at thehtly her hands shook Teddy, who stared at e in theht miss if you just looked at the body Kevin, who looked like he should be in an alley looking for a fix, or in a bar drinking up his share of whiskey There was so underneath the cynicism It was fear Fear that I&039;d be like all the rest A user who didn&039;t give a damn about them Raina had been that, and now Sylvie The pack was supposed to be their refuge, their protection, not the thing they feared most

Their war overemotions made most shapeshifters leak power If you were sensitive to it, you&039;d feel it I&039;d felt it a lot over the years This time was different somehow I didn&039;t just sense the power,of skin, a line of goose bu deeper It was almost sexual, but that wasn&039;t it either It was as if the power had found a part of me, caressed a part of me, that I never kneas there

Their power filled , and I felt it, whatever it was, open up like a switch being thrown A rush of warha warasp to my throat I knew the taste of the power, and it wasn&039;t Jean-Claude It was Richard Somehow, I&039;d tapped into Richard&039;s power I wondered if he felt it all the way out of state, studying for his degree

Six weeks ago to save both their lives, I&039;d let Jean-Claude bind the three of us to each other They were dying, and I couldn&039;t let theo Richard had invaded my dreams by accident, butelse was too painful This was the first time I&039;d felt Richard&039;s power since then The first time I knew for certain that the tie was still there, still strong Magic is like that Even hate can&039;t kill it

I suddenly had the words, words I couldn&039;t have known "I ae, your peace I will stand with you against all harm Your enemies are my enemies I share blood and flesh with you We are lukoi, we are pack"

The warered Only Teddy&039;s hand kept ht?" he asked in a voice as deep and impressive as the rest of him

I nodded "I&039;m fine, I&039;m fine" As soon as I could, I stepped back Richard had felt the pull hundreds of miles away, and he&039;d cutwhat I was doing, or why A rush of rage danced down inside ry

We were both bound to Jean-Claude I was his human servant and Richard was his wolf It was a painful intimacy

"You aren&039;t lukoi," Lorraine said "You aren&039;t a shapeshifter How did you do that?"

I smiled "Trade secret" Truth was, I didn&039;t know I&039;d have to ask Jean-Claude tonight I hoped he could explain it He was only the thirdhistory to have bound both a le bond I suspected strongly that there wasn&039;t a ed it more often than I wanted to know