No matter how hard I tried though… I couldn’t choose.
Dagger
As soon as I could comfortably move around fully clothed, I was back on the streets with my partner, hunting Conrad Marchand and Armand Vincenzo.
The doc had told me minimum seven days of recovery, but I was good to go at five. Mostly thanks to Hunter’s blood donation, in all likelihood.
I had to grudgingly give it up to the pole-dance prince for that save.
Being around Serenity seemed to help too. My legs weren’t perfect and my jaguar tattoo had become a bigger nuisance, itching like it had caught fleas, but I felt so strong in her presence, and my animal also seemed particularly awake. He’d been jealous that Hunter’s jaguar had gotten to meet Serenity first because I “couldn’t handle a couple of burns.” But he seemed to forgive me when I made sure to spend lots of time with her. He was always there, pushing to the front of my mind, when she was near.
The taste of Serenity’s goodbye kiss this morning still lingeredon my tongue, riling my jaguar further as I hid my new, less-than-legal switchblade in my pocket and thanked the back-alley dealer.
I was eager to scout for those vamp fuckers and get back home—or what was fast becoming my new home. My sad existence in my two-bedroom apartment near the precinct was fast becoming a distant memory.
The last few days, my life had come to revolve around Serenity’s sleepy-eyed good morning greetings and lingering goodnight kisses. I rated a day’s success on how many times I’d made her laugh. Hell, I was even looking forward to seeing Bryce at dinner and gaming with the vamp kid after. Sometimes we could convince Hunter to go in for a round of cards beforehand. Leaving this morning to get back to my everyday life had smarted like a ripped Band-Aid.
Teddy Bear—Detective Jackie O’Hare to any wise stranger—waited for me on the sunny side of the alley, leaning against our undercover SUV. Even as I headed toward him, I wanted to return to Serenity. I’d never hung my hat on someone else’s happiness before, and I wasn’t sure I loved it. My jaguar, however, had no qualms about it. He stalked through my mind in full territorial mode, aching to make his mark and claim her for himself. While he liked being around Hunter’s jaguar again, he wasn’t exactly keen on the group living and loving arrangement with the others, leaving me to constantly remind him it was what our mate wanted.
He saw catching that bastard Conrad as a mating gift for her, something to make her choose us over the others. He’d proudly drop the vamp’s head on her bedroom carpet if I let him.
At least when it came to protecting her, he and I were in total agreement. I lay awake at night stressing over dilemmas about how to keep her safe without her feeling smothered.
As for the polyamory thing, if we had a chance in hell of making it work, I knew one thing: harmony between me and Hunter was key.
Teddy Bear kicked off the car and popped open his door as I emerged from the alley into the biting wind and bleak daylight. “All tooled up for the hunt now, Tiger?” he asked in his gravelly, booming voice.
“Locked, loaded, and ready for some payback.” I patted my newly issued replacement pistol at my hip. Like my old knife, my standard-issue gun had been warped beyond saving by the drug lab fire. After my brush with death, my lieutenant had even sprung for a backup pistol, which I toted in a shifter-size ankle holster.
Teddy Bear gave an approving grunt and stroked his thick but well-groomed beard. Like the curly hair on his head, it was a bright shade of ginger. The only carrot-top grizzly I knew—a mark of his Scottish heritage.
The car wobbled when Teddy Bear dropped into the driver’s side. They made shifters fucking big in Scotland. Must have been something in the water. Or whisky. His extraordinary size—and infamous temper—was sometimes an inconvenience, but it got crooks talking.
I zipped my puffer vest up to under my chin, feeling the winter chill even as I slid into the passenger seat and shut the door behind me.
Teddy Bear didn’t seem affected. As usual, he looked completely at ease wearing only his regular sports coat, shirt, loose tie, and jeans.
Looking over at his colossal frame—seven feet two inches tall, shoulders like two silverback gorillas glued together—I shook my head. “It’s fucking cold, man. You pop all the buttons on your coat or something?”
Breaking into deep, grumbling laughter, he threw the car into drive. “You do know, some of us shifters actually have body hair to keep us warm,” he chided in his thick, Scottish brogue. “Ya, baby smooth, wee bastard. Is your willy waxed too?”
“Yeah, nice and smooth. Your wife likes it that way.”
Teddy Bear laughed. No other cop in the department, not even Chief Morgan, would have dared make innuendos about the giganticbear’s wife. But we’d come up as rookies together, beating the streets and cracking cases, saving each other’s asses several times. Ball breaking was basically mandatory.
“Ha! That’d be a fine sight to see, laddie. My Maggie’s far too much woman for you. You’d get eaten alive.”
I hadn’t met Teddy Bear’s wife, but if she was anything like him, he may have been speaking literally.
Jerking my head away from him, I wafted my palm in front of my nose and cracked my window. “And what the fuck kind of cologne is that? Yeesh!”
“That’s a traditional Scottish recipe, handmade by the shores of Loch Ness, ya cheeky bastard. Just managed to get hold of a bottle after many years of trying.” He rubbed his stubby neck, sniffing the back of his hand wistfully. “Ahh, that’s the rolling heather on the snow-capped Scottish Highlands.”
I scoffed. “More like a ferret pissing on a pile of cow shit.”
“Ach, what would you know? All that smoke from the fire’s fucked your smell up.” He reached into his jacket’s inside pocket with difficulty in the small space, cranking the seat back an extra few inches. “And talking of that particular incident, this is what I wanted to show you.”
“Aha, the big surprise you’ve been keeping back. It better not be a bottle of thatEau deNessie. I appreciate a gift, but I just ate.”
