Page 3 of Lone Wolf
“We pride ourselves on looking after our guests,” I said promptly. “Can I assist you in choosing someone to help you enjoy your night? I know everyone here.” We were discreet in Nevada Ashes. Nothing was said out loud, not until we were behind closed doors. Then, well, it was down to the individual shifter what they were willing to do. “Tell me what you like.”
“Uh…” His eyes turned to me and I watched his pupils expand and smelled the first real scent of arousal from him.
Curious? Or closeted? “We are very good at keeping secrets here,” I whispered and smiled at him reassuringly. “Let’s see, who’s working tonight?” I glanced around the room—like I didn’t have the entire roster memorized—and put a finger to my lips as if thinking very hard. “There’s Chantelle, the ash blond in the blue dress over by the climbing rose. She’s very new, butveryenthusiastic. Or if you want someone older and a little more relaxed,” I craned my neck as if searching, but I already had the entire patter planned out in my head. “There he is. Richmond, with the light brown hair over by the rain wall? Little bit of gray at the temples? He’s very good and has an unending curiosity about new things.”
My companion barely glanced at Richmond and I had a moment’s worry that I’d judged him wrong, but then his tongue darted out to nervously lick his lips while his eyes flickered quickly over my body, and I knew he was mine. “What about you?” he whispered and I could smell the anxiety, the fear of rebuff, in his scent.
“I’m whatever you want me to be,” I whispered, leaning in to him. “Tell me what you’ve always dreamed of doing and what you’ve always been afraid to ask for.” I didn’t use this line on everyone, but there was no smell of danger about him; it was most likely safe. I raised my glass to my mouth, making sure the bright blue of my bracelet was visible so he’d know what price range he was dealing with, and let him make his decision.
He stared off into nowhere for a few moments, then downed the rest of his drink and put the glass down on a nearby table with perhaps a little more force than was necessary. “I…” he stuttered, then took a calming breath and restarted. “Would you show me your room?”
“I would be delighted,” I told him in a voice rich with promise. I abandoned my drink on the little table, then reached out to twine my fingers through his and accepted the little metal tag he passed me. My bracelet would pick up the tag’s signature, and accounts receivable would then know which credit card to bill my time to. It was a pretty slick system. “My name is Salem. What’s yours?”
“Uh… Greg?”
Greg, huh? Probably not, but it would do. And most of our time together wouldn’t need names anyway. “Follow me, Greg, and I promise you won’t be disappointed.”
CHAPTER THREE
Damian hit print on the last of the reports for their latest ‘investigation’ and tiredly shoved his chair back from the desk so he could walk across the office to pick them up.
"Go home, Damian, you’ve been up forty-eight hours straight," one of the other officers told him.
"Heading there," he said shortly. "Just gotta sign this and drop it in the box." He did exactly that, shoving it into a brown manila envelope before he stuck the appropriate label on the front of it and put it in the box for internal mail. He could do it all in his sleep now and, honestly, he kind of felt like that was what he was doing today.
Quietly, he gathered his wallet and his car keys from his desk, locked everything that should be locked, then went to check out at dispatch.
“You okay?" His partner and team lead Oscar caught up to him just inside the building’s main door.
"Yeah. Why?"
Oscar shrugged. "You haven't been yourself lately. Quiet." He gave him a hard look. "Not going lunar on me, are you?"
Fuck me for teaching him some shifter phrases."No, I'm not going lunar. Just tired." He threw a wry smile in the human's direction as a sop to the man's conscience and pushed the door open.
"Missing home?" Oscar asked suddenly.
Damian froze. "What do you mean?" he replied, careful of his tone.
Oscar came out the door and let it close behind them. "I'll walk you to your car," he said, subtle code forLet's have this talk somewhere no one can hear us.
Damian followed him, anxiety raising the hair of his ruff.
The grounds of the Federal Audits Agency—an entirely fake name for an entirely fake agency--were perfectly landscaped, if by landscaped you meant concrete barriers, cracked pavement, and faded paint surrounding a nondescript concrete building that could have belonged to any underfunded government agency. The parking lot was behind a tall wire mesh fence topped by cheap-looking razor wire, a few weedy flower tubs scattered here and there to relieve the starkness of it.
They stopped when they got to his car. Damian crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the hood. "What's the problem?"
Oscar copied him. "Just that you've been quiet, kind of tense lately. And I got thinking about it and figured you might be missing home a little. It's not easy, being a dead man. Worse when you're a shifter, given the way you guys pack together."
A subtle shift in Oscar’s scent signaled that there was more to his gentle interrogation than Oscar was letting on, probably something that Damian wouldn’t like, but still he had to concede the point. He wondered if they’d lost shifters before to that creeping need to be with pack—he definitely wasn’t the first or only shifter in the bunch.
Just the one that had been around the longest.
"Not much to be done about it. I made my deal, I'll stick to it." His family was doing well; he had another niece from this spring and the latest intel had suggested that his youngest brother might be getting mated soon. Yes, it was a steep price, but not too steep for what he'd been able to get in return.
"How long has it been since you took a vacation?" Oscar asked mildly.
"You know exactly how long it's been."
