Shifting Shadows (Sparks Collide Trilogy) (26 page)

The biggest problem was the broken
glass of the side window in the living room, next to the bookshelf. I went over
to the window and sniffed at the shards. “Definitely human” I’d said aloud.
Will came by me and confirmed it with a head nod.

“Was it the same human that you smelled
at Doc’s?”
Logan
asked.

“I don’t think so, unless he’d changed
his scent dramatically. This was a different human.”

“But one who wore the same type of
clothes.” Mena stated as she walked in with Annabella. “We spoke with the two
neighbors who witnessed a dark figure running away from the house. They didn’t
get more specific than that though.”

“That’s all right. That’s what Kira and
Doc seemed to have seen and both had been there with him.”

“That’s so scary.” Annabella said and
inwardly I had to agree.

When we left the victim’s house, we
went over to where the family was. They wouldn’t hold the funeral until
Wednesday but they were altogether now and preparing for it. It was always the
worst part of stuff like this when you had to talk to the people in mourning.
Everyone was in such deep pain and despair and it was hard to handle as an
outsider. You didn’t want to make anything worse but you also had a job to do,
one that could potentially find the victim’s murderer. It was a catch-22 to
make them answer questions about the death when it was the last thing they
wanted to discuss.

Luckily Annabella had a way with
people. I wasn’t sure if it was because of what she’d been through or if it was
just who she was. Annabella could look at anyone with almost any problem and
somehow you knew she’d understand. She might not have experienced the problem
but pain was pain, I guess. The family was devastated by his loss but we were
able to get one of his younger sisters away to talk to in private.

Annabella held her hand as I asked her
all sorts of questions throughout the interview. “Did your brother have any
enemies, had he been acting strange lately, was anything stolen, had he come
into some money, broken up with a lover? Etc. Her answer to all of the above
was no. He was a good man, devoted to his work as a teacher. On the rare
occasions he dated, he was a gentleman. He’d made a decent wage but nothing
more substantial than any of his other neighbors. Nothing was stolen. He’d
seemed normal yesterday when she’d called to fill him in on their mother’s
condition. Apparently she was recovering from a heart attack. This was not the
sort of news that would help. I thanked her and Annabella hugged her.

We interviewed a few more neighbors who
weren’t too grief-stricken to talk but they all had similar answers. Not too
similar that it was suspicious. Not everyone liked him as much as his sister
but then again, we’d try to pull away people who weren’t crying all that much
so it was to be expected.

Last, we’d visited the body. It was
still in their morgue and going in there was the creepiest thing of all. We
looked at the body of the kind school teacher and the saw all of knife wounds
he had on, surrounded by black and purple welts. These mortal injuries had come
from a blade made of silver. There was no doubt in my mind. By then we knew
that the similarities were too insurmountable to overlook.

This had been done by someone connected
to, if not the same guy, as our attacker. I looked at the body, lying in the
open casket and shuttered all over. That could have been me. That could’ve been
Doc. That could’ve been Kira. Demi, of all people patted my hand in
understanding. As the female alpha she knew what it was like to take the
responsibility of others onto her shoulders. It was a kind gesture for her to
try and comfort me but I can’t say it made me feel any better. Death was
freaking chilling, no matter how much you tried to deny it. I felt nauseous for
the rest of the day.

When we felt we’d exhausted every
avenue, we thanked the pack and wished them well. On our way out we saw the
vamps and some of the local pack with tense postures standing head to head.
Will
came
to my side immediately. I watched the
werewolves snarl and snap and the vamps reveal their fangs.

“What should we do?”
Logan
asked.

“We wait.” A split second later and one
of the werewolves shifted and jumped onto a vampire. His clothes had been
ripped to shreds and flew around the field. The vampires attacked and wolf
after wolf emerged from the group where their human forms once stood. “Shit.
Defensive moves only, we’re trying to end this.” I said to my pack.

I stripped and shifted too and my pack
followed my lead. If we were going to stop the fight, we needed our best chance
against the vamps. We jumped in the middle but it was harder than expected to
keep neutral.

The bloodsuckers attacked us too. One
vamp had gotten a hold on me but let go when my blood gushed into his mouth. He
spit it out and started freaking out. Our blood tasted disgusting to them and I
was glad for it. The vampire was heaved over dramatically and I easily pushed
him away from the fight. It served him for trying to suck my blood in the first
place.

When I got back in I noticed
Trent
missing and I’d found him on the
bottom of a pile of craziness. I’d managed to pull him out and push more wolves
back but it wasn’t easy. What felt like ten years later, my pack and I were
able to push the wolves back because they were beginning to
tire.
I went full force Alpha then and got them to heed my directives to back up and
chill the hell out. They didn’t know how to react to me calling the shots but I
used my Alpha force until they understood.

Eventually my pack and I separated the
groups enough for them to calm down. Paul the vampire stepped forward and said
“Thank you for your hospitality” with the most bitter, condescending voice I’d
ever heard. It was also kind of funny because he’d lisped through his S
slightly so it sounded like
hoth-pitality
. Fangs had
some disadvantages.
Sucks to suck, as they say.

We’d shifted back and went to leave.
The Alpha shook my hand and thanked me but his pack was not as thrilled with
our intervention.

Overall, I was impressed with my pack
because we were fighting to break it up and we hadn’t initiated the fight. It
might have been a first for me. After that we all went for a run. We needed to
shift a few times anyway to heal the injuries and it just felt good after such
a trying day.

Thinking back on the investigation
filled me with pride but it wasn’t something I wanted to repeat, it was
dangerous for all of us and worse because we were no closer to finding the one
responsible for the attacks.

On the way back, it started pouring
rain again. We’d had to run back into the house but it didn’t make a
difference, we’d still gotten wet. I shrugged off my sopping jacket and left it
by the fire to dry. All I needed now was a shower and I’d even feel marginally
normal.

Before I could get to my room I passed
by the den and all the adrenaline I had just released began to build back up
again at the site of Kira. I knew I messed up this morning but I hadn’t known
what else to do. She was right. I shouldn’t have lied but I also didn’t know
what I could really do if she had decided she was coming. I’d just wanted to
protect her. It was time to make things right.

“Hey,” I said into the den, where she
sat completely relaxed in my favorite chair, her hair sprawled around her
shoulders, looking like she had just taken a nap. I wanted to join her in the
room, be relaxed with her. Reality check, I couldn’t allow myself to take even
one step closer because I looked and smelled like the monster from the black
lagoon. Not to mention she probably hated my guts right now, so I hovered in
the doorway.

I noticed Max sitting on the couch
nearest her, I frowned at him. I’m not sure what he saw in my face but it had
the desired effect. He shot up lightning fast, muttered something about getting
ready for dinner, and left. Smart guy, I mused. I smiled at her, hoping she
would smile back.

She did but it looked
forced
. It didn’t reach her eyes. “Hey, back. How
did…everything go?”

“It was ok, we didn’t get much out of
today but I’m almost positive the attack was the same as ours. I just think it
was a different person. Whoever is doing this must have several humans working
for them because all of the characteristics were the same, lots of silver and a
black outfit but the smells were different. At the end of it all, we broke up a
fight with their pack and the vamps.”

“I didn’t know about the silver but it
makes sense, considering.” She blinked. “Wait, vampires? Are you guys ok? Does
anyone need me to heal them?”

I thought about it and thought about
how awesome it was that she could do that. “No, everyone’s basically ok,
nothing that won’t heal by tomorrow anyway. Plus Annabella uses her nursing
skills when necessary but I don’t trust it till she’s got a degree. I guess I
would just ask them if anyone wants anything. You never know.”

“Right, I’ll do that.” She smiled
briefly and I already wanted her to smile again.

“On the up side, when I spoke to my
father to report back to him, he mentioned that we’re safe to come back home
whenever we want. It’s been quiet there according to my uncle.”

“That’s good news, I guess. Sorry your
day sucked.”

“That’s ok. So how was your day? Looks like
you had fun.”

She really smiled then and my chest had
something weird going on with it when I saw it. “Yeah we did, I talked Max out
of research because last night was fun but it left me exhausted, thought a
movie day would be better than research.”

I saw my opening, “Last night
was
fun. We’ll do it again.” Shit, did I just make that a command? Well I sucked at
subtlety but whatever, I’d go with it.

She stared, clearly trying to figure me
out. I let her look her fill as I attempted to appear open and non-threatening
in my face and body posture. I didn’t want to intimidate her. I wanted her to
trust me, like me. After what seemed like forever but was probably only five
seconds she answered. “Yeah, although I’m not sure that club would let us back
in after witnessing
Brandon
and
Trenton
’s dance moves.”

I laughed. It was true their dancing
was awful and while her response was not exactly what I was going for, it was
also, definitely, not a no. “We’ll leave them home next time.” I said and held
my breath waiting on her reaction to that when Rosie walked up next to me in
the doorway. “James Dellarson, you need to shower if you think you’re getting
one crumb of my food tonight. You smell like the bottom of a sewer.”

“Not my fault, I had to break up a
vampire fight.”

Rosie sneered. She was right though,
vampires smelled awful to us and their stink lingered on my person. “Don’t
care.” Rosie admonished. “No one in this house is getting my food, smelling
like that. Now get.” She slapped me with her dish rag.

It was the worst possible moment to
show up but she was right, I should shower, I was starving and I wasn’t going
to get anywhere with Kira while smelling like this. I smiled at them both and
went off my to room, hoping there was still some hot water left.

If
Logan
didn’t stop beaming at her I was going
to smash his face into the ground as many times as it took to break every
pretty, pearly white in his mouth. See if he’s still smiling at her then, I
thought.

I should’ve been able to detect every
word being spoken at the table as well as every noise for miles but at that
moment, my own rage was all I could hear. I knew
Trent
was talking to me but I ignored it.

Did Max just touch her arm? Since when
is that necessary to get someone’s attention? I decided then that I should
remove that hand of Max’s altogether. It was for the best. Boy genius could
learn to type with one. I couldn’t remember feeling more jealous of anyone in
my life as I had of Max when I saw him in the den with Kira. He got to spend
the whole day with her alone, laughing and talking and enjoying movies, just
the two of them. I watched her look over at Max with a smiling face, wait a
second, nod, pass him the rolls, then continue her conversation with
Logan
.

I closed my eyes and just breathed for
a second, I needed to get myself under control. I knew the guys understood that
she was off limits. They wanted us to be together. I just needed to her to
understand it but I wanted to give her time. Maybe I was moving too slow. I
should’ve considered this before but I didn’t realize my reaction would be this
strong to seeing her smile at someone that wasn’t me. Freaking werewolf
instincts were strong and I never really understood this part of it until now.

Calm down. Calm the hell down and then
find a way to make her smile at you, I thought. Good, now I was putting my mind
toward a goal and being rational again, very good.

Trent
was practically screaming in my ear
now. “DUDE, seriously
dude snap
out of it.”