Page 40 of Night Call

CHAPTER 10

RUMBLED

Pember

One,two, three, four, five rings. Click.

“Pem, you there?”

Pember swallowed, his throat thick from sleep.“Immy? It’s half three in the morning. What’s up?”

“I’m not feeling good. Can you come get me?”

Pember snapped awake, almost splitting his top lip between his teeth. He could taste the blood and sweat on his tongue, and grimaced at how his pyjama shirt clung to his clammy skin. Thankfully, he’d put a pillow at the edge of the mattress to stop himself from falling out of bed again.

Scrubbing both hands through his damp hair, he sat up. “Shit,” he whispered, looking at the clock through his fingers. It was 3:27 am. It always was.

Stripping the bed, he padded downstairs and threw the sheets into the washing machine. At this rate he was going to get through a family-sized bottle of detergent a week.

He’d thought the white noise machine would help, but it didn’t. He’d thought the pillows and blankets would make his nest feel more comfortable, but if anything it was suffocatingto be cocooned in the middle of the night. Part of the problem, he realised, was that his mum had never taught him to build a proper nest, choosing instead to put him on suppressants the moment he hit puberty. It was all he’d ever known.

He’d only ever had one proper heat, and that was due to being unwell and throwing up his medication. It had been terrifying, and confusing, and he’d felt utterly out of control. His mum had bollocked him something rotten, despite it being her idea for him to go out that night.

However, that’d also been the night he met Oliver—the fateful evening when he’d rescued him from the Cock and Bull restrooms. Pember never wanted to feel like that again, so dulling his cycle felt like the best option all around.

Pulling out a chair, he browsed the internet for coffee machines whilst waiting for the kettle to boil.

A message flashed across the screen. ‘Can’t sleep?’It was Oliver, a little green icon flashing over his contact picture. He probably saw one over Pember’s too.

‘Early start,’he typed back. ‘Ran the victim’s bloods overnight, I want to get in early to check on the results.’

He had no reason to lie about the nightmares. Not to Oliver, at least. But since Imogen died it’d become something like a nervous tick.

Oliver sent back a thumbs up emoji. ‘Blake said you’re smashing it. How’re you getting on with the rest of the motley crew?’

Pember bit his lip, absentmindedly pressing his fingers to the tender rectangular bump on his forehead. Blake’s heart rate monitor had really done a number on his face.

‘They’re nice,’he replied. ‘I really like Maya, Duncan’s funny and Wallace is extremely knowledgeable.’

‘Good. Your mum still being weird?’

His gaze dropped to the table. ‘So far so good. Nothing crazy.’

Nothing crazy. So why did he constantly feel on edge?

‘That’s good. What about Blake? Has he stopped being a grumpy twat?’

Pember coughed back a laugh. ‘I think he’s warming up.’

The alpha’s tired face popped into his mind. How his brows pulled together as he furiously scribbled notes during the post-mortem. How his glasses rode lower and lower on his nose as the morning drew on. How, despite his perfectly tailored suit and close shave, he wore pink flamingo socks inside his brogues.Pink bloody flamingos.As if the man wasn’t a walking contradiction already.

Pragmatically speaking, he and Blake were compatible through scent, and he was certainly handsome, with his strong jaw; long legs; straight white teeth;largefangs; thick, pullable hair; broad, grabbable shoulders; full, kissable lips—Pember shivered—not to mention the angle of his Adam’s apple, the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled and how he made the hairs on the back of Pember’s neck stand on end every time he spoke.

Take a breath.

Yes, he was very easy on the eye.

But something else had passed between them at the morgue. Something that made Pember’s chest tight and his toes tingle. It was attraction. Attraction that went beyond the physical. He wasn’tsoinexperienced that he couldn’t recognise the signs.

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