Page 5 of Filthy Fae

“Yeah?” I looked up.

Darrel studied me as he pulled on plastic gloves from under the sink. “Are you okay? This still has to be pretty raw for you.”

“About Zane? No, that’s fine.” I swallowed hard. “I can compartmentalize my duties as alpha and my feelings toward what he did. That’s what being alpha is, right?” Looking down at what I was doing, I added, “I’m already having to compartmentalize being his landlord.”

“Actually, I wanted to ask you about that.” Darrel grabbed a second trash bag, and without asking, started transferring the trash I’d already searched through into the second bag. His dark blue eyes met mine. “The apartment you lived in before, which your sister and Zane now occupy, is one you got rent-free in exchange for working here, right?”

“Yeah,” I said, a little absently as I finally found my jeans, pulled them out, and realized that I held only a pant leg. “Crap.”

“Well, is Marie paying you more now that you no longer get your rent free?”

I let out a laugh with a bitter edge that surprised even me. “Marie wouldn’t raise the salary on my job if droves of these things attacked the complex every day, and it was part of my daily duties to fight them off.”

“What if she could give that rent cut to another tenant in exchange for that tenant taking over some of your duties around the complex? You said this Gretel lost her job as a plumber.”

“The rent break is a really good idea, but I’m managing.” Groaning, I threw down the top of my jeans which definitely didn’t have my keys or wallet. “They probably sank to the bottom. Well, this is going to be disgusting.” Holding my breath, I started shoveling the material into Darrel’s bag to get deeper.

A key scraped in the lock of the front door, and Lance stalked in. Of the three "celestial arranged marriages" I'd been thrown into by the universe, the one that fit the least comfortably was with the alpha of San Francisco. In truth, Lance and my true mate bond hadn't even been confirmed yet. We'd have to get down and dirty for that one, and I was far from ready to do that with this enigma of an alpha.

He was, however, the best person I could possibly think of to have on my side in a crisis. I was breathing my own sigh of relief seeing him here.

His piercing gaze immediately found mine, while I stood with my arms deep in a trashcan. He looked the exact same as he had four days ago when he'd left Arcata to head to his domain to "handle a couple of critical matters." When my packmates saw Lance again, they all assumed he had spent his time away from our pack as a biker and then reformed into a businessman. It was an easy mistake to make as he had red and black tattoos ringing his neck and wrists that his ten-thousand-dollar tailored suit did nothing to hide.

But from what I discerned from the tidbits I got off Aaron and Darrel, their brother was always both a businessman and a biker, and he was so confident that his business skills would earn him respect, he didn’t care what his associates thought of the tattoos covering his whole body. Even in these circumstances, seeing him made something inside of me flutter. His brow wrinkled as his gaze drifted down to what I was doing while one of his hands absently held the door open for one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen.

The werewolf woman wore a pantsuit and had what Mack would call sumptuous curves. She wore no-nonsense heels, and her stick-straight black hair was pulled back in a ponytail. The severe hairstyle did nothing to diminish her beauty. She had deep-set eyes, a straight chiseled nose, and full lips. A briefcase rested under her arm while the smartphone in her hand claimed all of her attention.

“What is that smell?” She muttered, and then the toe of her shoe caught on the lip at our stoop. Her suitcase went flying, and she grabbed Lance's arm to break her fall.

Without warning, my wolf came roaring to the forefront, trying to wrest control from me. She pushed an image into my mind, a small red wolf lunging and biting into the woman's arm. The wolf's teeth sunk down through the woman's suit sleeve, and blood dripped down from her muzzle. The woman screamed in shock and terror as the wolf ripped her arm away from Lance.

My claws lengthened, shredding the fingers of my gloves. Pain seared in my mouth as my fangs grew and sharpened. With every ounce of control I possessed, I forced my wolf back, sending her deep into my mind. Thank all that was holy that I had spent two years mastering my control over my wolf because she fought me every inch of the way. When I'd finally shoved her down, I blinked into awareness to find a very different scene than I expected. The woman crouched on the floor, prostrate in submission.

Lance had closed the distance, standing just beside me, his eyes glowing golden with his wolf. "What’s going on?" he demanded, his voice a growl. He lifted a section of my hair that must have burned short with acid. "What happened to you? Why is your wolf taking over? Are you injured?"

Inhaling a shaky breath, I peeled off my ruined gloves, reached forward, and cupped his cheeks. Going to my tiptoes, I pressed my forehead to his--knowing it was the best way to soothe Lance's wolf. "I'm fine. Darrel and I just ran into a little trouble, but the creature is dead."

“What creature?” He growled, but his heavy breaths were slowing, and when I checked, his golden eyes were subsiding into their normal green.

“Something we don’t have to worry about right now,” I said.

“Scarlet,” Darrel said, making me step away from Lance. Darrel ran a hand over his beard and tilted his head toward the floor, where Jane was still lying on her belly.

Crap.

Feeling heat surge into my cheeks, I cleared my throat and said through a wince, "Sorry, Jane. Please, come on up. We've had an interesting afternoon, and obviously my wolf is a little overactive."

Her head popped up, and the woman looked over with a little smirk on her mouth, giving me the distinct impression that while she was submitting to me, she wasn’t all that submissive in general. "No worries," she said, climbing off the floor, smoothing her pantsuit and grabbing her briefcase and phone.

Lance gestured between the woman and me. "Scarlet, this is Jane. She’s the pack lawyer and private investigator for San Francisco. Jane, this is Scarlet, alpha of Six Rivers. Scarlet is also my mate, but you've probably already figured that one out."

I was his unconfirmed mate--but no part of me wanted to correct him. Turning to Jane, who still had a knowing grin on her beautiful face, I said hello. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the lawyer and PI parts of the job supposed to be kept separate in court cases?" It was what I'd seen in crime dramas, though obviously I wasn't going to admit that part out loud. "That way, the PI can be called to the stand?"

I half expected her to tell me to stay in my lane, but she took my question in stride. "There are no public cases with witnesses when werewolves murder humans. If this gets to court, it'll just be me, opposing counsel, and a judge in a room. The judge will determine guilt, and you'll be responsible to execute him immediately. But we're not going to let this case get that far." She tucked away her phone and offered me her hand. "It's nice to meet you, Scarlet."

"Likewise," I said, shaking her hand.

My wolf pushed forward just a little, urging me to show the woman our strength by squeezing her fingers, but I managed to dial it back to a firm handshake.