Page 4 of High Stakes and Soulmates
Casimir chuckles. Just over there patting a dog, painting, and chuckling.
Not at all concerning.
“And I am finished,” he announces, and without hesitation, he flips it around to show me. Julian had wandered off, so of course he rushes over to soak in the masterpiece with me.
“Ohwow,” Julian says, unable to keep his grin at bay. “So much detail in such a tiny penis.”
“Right? It was a lot of work to make it as lifelike and tiny as possible.”
“I can barely see it.”
“I know!” Then Casimir cackles up a storm.
The rest of “me” is a half stick figure, half alien-looking thing.
“Julian,” I whine.
“Hey… you agreed to it,” Julian says. “And it’s… charming. Like in an abstract way.”
“If it’s so charming, I want you to hang it on the wall.”
“Yes, Julian, splendid idea,” Casimir says.
“Alright, we’ll just remove one of the Gustov paintings and do just that. Maybe the one hiding the hole in the wall from when you threw a dog brush or something at it?”
Casimir quickly retracts his statement. “Don’t you dare.”
My phone beeps and I pick it up before eagerly opening it. “My Cyrus has texted me!”
Cyrus: The second you won’t burn to a crisp, I need you here.
“He needs me!” I declare.
“It… it looks like he’s inviting you to a crime scene, not a date,” Julian says, but I excitedly yank my clothes on and wait by the door for the very second I won’t burn up. Julian seems to think it’s quite strange that I’m standing there for about seventeen minutes before I can finally go to my man.
CHAPTER TWO
CYRUS
The lights of the police vehicles flash in the dusk when I near the crime scene. It’s right on the edge of town, tucked between two other upper-class homes.
“Didn’t want to call you in this time of night, but I thought that we should probably tackle this one,” my boss, Lieutenant Altman, says as she shakes her head.
While Maeve Altman isn’t a were or a vampire, her daughters, Willow and Olive, are werewolves. They both were turned when they were in their teens, and after witnessing them shift on a full moon, she was pretty confident she’d just lost her mind.
Thankfully, she managed to keep them locked in the basement until morning, when they shifted back.
At that point, the three of them ended up getting brought to Terrance, Julian’s father and the leader of the pack in this territory. Because of this, she knows about weres and vampires and is also aware of my role in their community. It’s led to the two of us getting placed on every case that doesn’t appear to have been committed by a human, as well as those that involvevampires or weres. Thankfully, we have someone like Casimir who can use his allure to convince people that vampires and weres aren’t real whenever there’s any need for it.
“Sounds concerning,” I say as I gear up with gloves and protective covers for my shoes so I won’t contaminate the crime scene.
I can smell the blood the moment I walk in, it’s so strong, but the main part of the house looks normal, and I see nothing that stands out as having been disrupted or moved around. Maeve heads toward the group of people hovering outside the bedroom, and when I follow her, I see a man lying on the bed. His legs dangle off the edge of it and his arms are splayed out as he vacantly stares up at the ceiling. His pallor and the lack of apparent wounds make me question if he was drained.
“I see,” I comment, knowing I can’t ask her if the man’s been drained with others hovering around us. “But there’s clearly another.” The smell tells me there is.
“Sure is,” she says, stepping through a door and into what looks like an office where the scene unfolds. I come to a stop to pull it all in as I realize that the woman has been staked to the wall. Her feet dangle at least two feet off the ground, and there’s a metal stake driven straight into her heart, pinning her there. But beside her, there are two streaks of blood running along the wall. At first, I question if the person had accidentally rubbed their fingers on the wall before I see that the streaks seem to have been purposely put there, based on the way they stop and start again.
“Can we have the room, please?” Maeve asks.
