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“No. I think there’s been a misunderstanding and I need a few minutes with him.”
The sheriff nodded. “Okay, you can all come back this way. If we can sort this out in a civil manner, that works for me. And don’t mind Edna here.” He gestured to the officer at the desk. “She woke up on the wrong side of the bed today.”
Edna growled at the sheriff, and that made Brandy wonder if the noises Reardon had made when they’d made love had actually been wolf growls.
She turned to face Meredith and Parker. “Look, I need to talk to him alone. You guys stay here.”
“Hell, no.” Parker grabbed her bicep. “You are not going in there without me.”
“Parker. I’ve got this. Honestly. Call Chella and tell her to meet us back at Silver Moon with Dylan.” She gave his forearm a squeeze and he let go of her arm.
“I don’t like this, B.”
“Me neither,” Meredith added.
“I know, but you have to trust me. Okay?” She took her mother’s hand and squeezed that too. “I’ll be fine.”
“I won’t unlock the suspect,” Sheriff Olsen said. “They can have their talk with a set of steel bars between them. He won’t be able to lay a hand on Brandy.”
Parker nodded his thanks to the sheriff and guided Meredith to a bench across from the front desk. He pulled out his phone, and Brandy assumed he was calling Chella as she’d suggested.
“This way.” The sheriff guided her down a hallway and into the cell block. The Canville Police and Fire Department was small, but it had six jail cells, three on each side of a long corridor. They walked past five empty ones and Sheriff Olsen stopped at the last one.
Brandy still had to take another step in order to see into the cell. To see Reardon. Her heart raced and thoughts pinballed around in her brain. She wasn’t sure she was ready to hear what he had to say. She wasn’t sure she couldnothear what he had to say.
“Brandy?” Reardon’s voice was low and a little hoarse, but it called to her like the Pied Piper’s flute.
“I’ll be right on the other side of this door if you need me,” Sheriff Olsen said. “Give it a good bang.” He met her gaze and, seeing she’d heard him, he slipped out of the corridor.
“I can smell you, Brandy.” Again Reardon’s voice had a magnetic pull on her, tearing her from her position and making her take that one final step.
“And what do I smell like?” Her breath caught in her throat when she peered into the cell to find him sitting in the middle of a cot, his elbows resting on his knees and his hands cradling his head as he looked down at the cement floor.
He turned that green-gold gaze up to her, and yeah, like how couldn’t she have known he was Alator? Dylan had been spot on. The man and the wolf had the same unusual eyes. And that crop of black hair and that black stubble around his jaw was the exact shade of Alator’s silky fur.
And those big man hands were as massive and solid as Alator’s paws.
A shiver worked its way through Brandy as all the connections sewed together. She dug out her phone and started the video. At the sound of the footage, Reardon got up from the cot and approached her. Those big hands curled around the bars as he watched the phone screen in silence.
When the video was finished, Reardon’s green-gold eyes turned to her. “I was trying to tell you.” His words were uttered on a whisper.
Slowly, Brandy wrapped her hand around his on the bars, noting that he no longer wore a bandage around his knuckles. His totallynotscraped knuckles. “I know. Tell me now.”
Reardon peered out the cell, down the corridor, then toward the door the sheriff had gone through.
“We’re alone,” Brandy said. “Just keep your voice low. I assume you don’t want the entire town to know what you’re capable of doing.”
Nodding, Reardon moved his hand so his was now covering hers. A vision of Alator’s paw on her thigh last night flashed into her mind, and she knew that whatever Reardon was about to tell her, she’d believe.
“I’m not entirely human,” he began.
“No shit.” Brandy sifted out a breath as she wiggled her phone then stuffed it into her pocket. She brought her other hand up to rest on the bars and Reardon covered that hand, too, with his. “So are you… are you an actual werewolf?” She whispered that last word so it was barely audible.
“Aye.”
“How?”
“By birth. I’m the Seventh Son of a werewolf, born on a December full moon. It’s the way of things where I come from.”
