Page 11 of Blood Bearon
“Nope, you’re going to jail. We’ll sort stories out later, pal. You were caught red-handed at a crime scene.”
Khove snarled and casually snapped his handcuffs, bringing his hands out from behind his back. “If I was a criminal that had done this, not only would I not have stuck around at the crime scene like an amateur waiting to get picked up by the police, but I also wouldn’t have let you catch me.” He held up his wrists so she could see them in the mirror.
The cop car squealed to an abrupt stop and Khove’s face was smashed into the metal cage separating the front from the back.
“How did you do that?” she snapped, gun out and facing him.
“Ow,” he groaned, pulling his face back from the cage. “That hurt. Weren’t you supposed to put a seatbelt on me?”
“Shut up. How did you do that?”
“I’m strong,” he said plainly.
“Right,” she said, clearly not believing him. “Why wait until now? Why not do it earlier and escape? Why run in the first place?” The questions came rapid fire.
Khove’s teeth ground together. “Because I’m not your bad guy, Detective. I’ve been trying to tell you this all along. You startled me. I’m not used to being snuck up on, okay? It just doesn’t happen. I thought you were—” Cursing himself, he stopped speaking before he said anything else.
How could he tell her what he’d thought she was?Oh yes, Detective, I ran because I thought you were a possible minion of one of the most dangerous shifter-mages in centuries, and I wasn’t prepared to fight, since I left my gear in the car to refrain from alarming humans.
Somehow, he doubted that response would go over very well. Neither would him expressing his relief at finding her amidst the chaos ongoing in Plymouth Falls. His initial plan had been to come and enlist her help, as he’d told his Queen. What hehadn’tmentioned was the growing need within him to find her. To keep her safe, amidst the war his kind’s politics had seemingly unleashed upon the humans.
“I’m not the enemy,” he repeated instead of speaking any of his other thoughts. “Someone is after my company. They are attacking our property.” His anger at Korred slipped through, and he saw the fear in her eyes. She was afraid of him.
Maybe he shouldn’t have broken the handcuffs so casually.
“I’m sorry if I scared you,” he said quietly, sitting back into the car as best he could, trying to relax the situation. “That wasn’t my intent. I honestly did not expect to see anyone at the site back there. I was fairly positive the nearest unit was at least another five minutes or more away, based on how many other of our properties have been attacked.”
The detective just stared at him through those oddly blue eyes, calculating. Analyzing.
“How did you even know about the attack?” she said at last.
“I didn’t,” he admitted. “We theorized what buildings might be hit next, based on which ones had already been attacked. I got lucky and picked the right one.”
She shook her head. “How did you knowanyof them had been attacked? This only started a few hours ago as far as I can tell.”
He smiled tightly. “Our security systems are all tied into the head office. We take our employees’ safety very seriously.”
Khove very carefully did not mention the number of informants they had in the city. None of them knew what they were reporting on, or to whom, simply that if something happened, they should call or text a certain number with information.
The system had been set up a number of years earlier. It was thought that if one of the other Houses made a move on Ursa, they would start with their holdings in town itself, before moving on the Manor. Now it was paying dividends.
“This is our property, Detective,” he repeated. “Someone isattackingus. Just us. What would you do in that situation? Sit around? Even if you had the resources to help an already stretched police department?”
Finally, he saw some of his words hit home. Her fellow officers had never experienced anything like this before. They were all born and raised in Plymouth Falls, he was fairly certain. Not this detective though. She had big city experience. He could see the worry for her peers in the corners of her almond eyes as they tightened ever so much, deepening the shadows there.
“Maybe,” she conceded. “Maybe you aren’t the bad guy. For now though, I’m still placing you under arrest.”
He sighed impatiently.
“It’s for my safety. After the way you destroyed those cuffs, I can’t help but wonder if maybe you’re hallucinating, or on some drugs. I can’t risk that.”
He was about to reply, but the radio crackled to life first as the dispatcher reported another building going up in flames.
The detective cursed.
“What is it?” he asked calmly.
“I’m the closest unit,” she said, keying the radio and speaking some code to the dispatcher, code that made precisely no sense to him. “Hang on.”
