Page 9 of Last Hope
Smiling with satisfaction, she whirled him around and slammed his body down onto the table, gripping him by the hair and holding his hands behind his back just as the door to the interrogation room opened and in popped her chief, Teddy O’Conner, a look of worry and anger on his face. Behind him was Terrance, sporting the smallest of smiles.
“Victoria, that’s enough!” Teddy yelled at her.
With a sigh, she let the suspect go and stepped back while Teddy took over. “I wasn’t going to hurt him…”
“Liar,” Teddy mumbled. He knew her well enough to know she didn’t take shit from anyone and if an asshole was going to attack her then she was damn well going to defend herself, withaggressiveforce. “Leave, I’ve got it from here.”
Sighing again, Victoria backed out of the room and went over to the water cooler and grabbed a Styrofoam cup. Terrance was at her heels and she could feel him smiling the whole way. “Wipe that look off of your face, Crawford!” she demanded, slightly annoyed.
He chuckled and Victoria was still amazed by the sound.Monthsago she could barely get him to smile, let alone chuckle. It still amazed her at how close they had become in only a short amount of time.
“I was expecting you to burst into a wolf at any time during that interview, trying to kill him.”
She downed her drink in one go. “Oh, believe me, I wanted to. Talk about annoying ass people.” She rolled her eyes. “But did you hear what he said?”
He grunted sarcastically in answer as if to say“Of course I heard what he said.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “The part when he said they have a new ‘Master’ now. You know how I don’t like jumping to conclusions—”
He snorted.
“But,” she continued as if he hadn’t interrupted. “I have a bad feeling Isis’s brother is behind the whole thing.”
He shrugged.
“I know you want to investigate it further, without jumping to conclusions, blah, blah, but I can’t shake off this gut feeling that it’s him. Maybe I should go back in and interview the guy again; maybe he’ll let up and tell me.”
“Or maybe he’ll try to rip your throat out.”
Victoria narrowed her eyes at Terrance, recognizing the disapproval in his monotone. He was so easy for her to read now, more than before, at least, even if he did keep a big part of himself hidden. He was taller than her—and she was quite tall— with black hair that fell in waves just over his dark eyebrows. His eyes were stone gray, calming, almost empty, but not to her. She saw how they danced with anger.
“You know the risk we take on this job,” Victoria whispered to him, setting down her cup to the side. “Besides, I can defend myself against him.You know that.”
He nodded once. “I know, but…” He let the unfinished sentence hang in the air between them. He didn’t need to finish the sentence, because Victoria already knew what it was that he was thinking and she was glad he was decent enough to not finish the thought out loud.
He knew she was capable of defending herself, from the first moment they had met she had proved it time and time again. She wasn’t used to having him worry about her well-being, it made her feel…weak.And, though she knew he had her back, she didn’t really need protecting. He knew she’d blow a gasket if he ever muttered the words aloud.
Well, she thought, he had muttered the words aloud, and that had been once, she recalled. She had been lying in the hospital a couple of weeks back because, during the battle at the mall against Caesareon’s minions, she had been blessed with the misfortune of taking a silver knife to the side, thanks to that Russian bitch.
Silver inside of a werewolf’s body was agonizingly painful. She had almost died there but, luckily, Terrance had gotten her to a hospital as quickly as he could where they tended to her nicely. She remembered how it felt to wake up there, Terrance by her side.
The memory was at the edge of her mind…
Victoria’s throat had been dry, her lips stung and she felt as though the blood from her veins had been drained completely, and her whole body ached, like she had rolled around on a giant cheese grater. Her eyes opened, only to be assaulted by fluorescent light. Blinking it away, she turned over, the movement hurting her joints. She groaned and heard a voice.
“Hello.”
Terrance was sitting on a chair by her bedside, staring at her. She smiled at him. “Hey,” she said.
He leaned forward and touched his fingers lightly against her cheeks. His eyes were rimmed with dark circles, like he hadn’t slept in so long. It sent a jolt of surprise through her. She had never seen Terrance look this…this…worried.
“You okay?” she asked. Her voice was hoarse, scratchy…foreign.
“I was going to ask you that…”
She chuckled. “I feel like shit.” She tried sitting up but was rewarded with a sharp pain down her spine. Terrance pushed her back down against the pillows. “Downside to being a wolf is that silver nonsense. I swear I’m going to retire.” She laughed but Terrance didn’t mirror the sound. He stared at her, his soft grey eyes practically void of all emotion. “What?” she asked.
He cleared his throat. “I thought I lost you, Victoria,” he whispered. And she heard something in his voice—fear. She stared at him in shock.
