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  “That’s horrible. Had she been abused?”

  “She hadn’t been physically abused but there are many other ways a human can abuse a loving, caring, desperate companion. Her owners were assholes in every way. They were very uncaring people who dumped her and the rest of her litter in the shelter along with their mom. They weren’t puppies but still, the family just dumped all of them and moved away. She was separated from her mom and the others almost immediately because she’d gotten kennel cough and a very bad respiratory infection. The shelter had her in the sick room—what they call the infirmary—for months. By the time she was healthy enough to be released, the rest of her family was already gone. She was alone.”

  “But she knew she was a shifter?”

  “Yes. She’d only shifted once before when her mom was teaching the whole litter to shift while the human owners were away. When I got there, she no longer remembered how to shift at all. Anyway, Mary was the last to be adopted. Before I adopted her and brought her home, she’d been in shifted form so long, she no longer recognized her humanity. It took me almost two years before she was trusting enough to shift, and the rest is history shall we say.”

  “Damn, that’s quite a story, Precious,” I said. “What about the rest of the town? Do they know you’re both shifters?”

  She nodded. “Most of the folks in town who are shifters themselves, already know who all the other shifters are. That goes for me and Mary too. The humans think we’re roommates rather than true mates in love.” She sighed, smiling sadly. “And now you know all of it.”

  I paused but figured since the cat was out of the bag, I should ask her. “How many people…ah, shifters, know about me and Vincent?”

  She smiled sadly. “Sheriff Romeo, Prosper Woods is a really small town. Most everyone has heard about your connection, by now. Word just gets around.”

  I shook my head, looking down at my boots. “I figured as much.”

  Precious reached out and patted me on the hand. “Don’t worry about it so much. It was bound to come out since everyone can smell everyone else in this damned town.”

  I chuckled, looking up at her. “Thanks, Precious. I’m glad you were so honest and took the time to talk to me about things. We’d better get to work then.”

  “More coffee?”

  “Nope. But I’ll take one more doughnut,” I said, eyeballing the nearly empty container.

  “That’s a deal,” she said with a sweet smile, holding the container out. I plucked one more filled doughnut and shoved it in my mouth.

  I was happy to have had the talk with her, but I was pretty sure if she kept baking for me, I was going to have to invest in a gym membership.

  Vincent

  I had a hard time sleeping. After Romeo left, I’d gone to the store in the morning with the intention of speaking to Scott. Once Romeo had explained that the man had admitted to being a medium, I wanted more information. I’d missed my chance in seeing him because Bryce had been scheduled for the morning shift. After spending a short time at the store, I’d left and returned home to find my bed and get some much-needed sleep. Little did I know it was fruitless. I tossed and turned like mad.

  My thoughts kept returning to Sergio and the other two vampires and the danger that waited just outside town. Though, I’d told Romeo that the Conclave most likely wouldn’t take up a second case over the same books, I wasn’t as certain as I’d tried to convey. If it was a legitimate claim, Sergio might prevail. I really should have just sold the books to him. The decision to keep them was one I hoped I wouldn’t regret. I didn’t know what they contained, but whatever it was, Robert had made me swear an oath to protect them, and I couldn’t go back on the promise to my maker. No vampire ever dared to do such things. It was unheard of.

  After a sleepless day, I rose after sunset and decided I should venture out again. I really wanted to check in with my lover. I was still tired, but I dressed and stepped out onto the porch, surveying the front yard where only a couple of weeks ago, an entire pack of werewolves had positioned themselves behind their alpha, ready to kill me. If it hadn’t been for Romeo, I know I would have had a hard time of it that night. As it was, there were no scents of shifters in the air tonight.

  I walked to the Civic and got in, adjusting the rearview mirror, and making a three-point turn. My driveway was long since my cabin was located deep in the woods. I’d very quickly decided I loved living in California’s redwood forest. It was so beautiful here but still cold even in early spring. I’d visited the redwoods only once before but that had been over a hundred years ago. Still, the place felt like it would be somewhere I could be happy for a very long time.

  I was thrilled to have Romeo in my life and humbled that he’d chosen me as his mate. No one had ever wanted me that way before. No one had certainly ever loved me.

  I drove out onto the main road, headed toward town. My commute took me past an old drive-in movie theater. I’d passed it every day since my arrival in town, but I’d never thought to just stop and look at it. There was no reason to. The large screen was caked with dirt and what I figured had to be paint, since it looked like someone had fired brightly colored paintballs at it. They’d spattered and run down the screen which now looked more like a Jackson Pollock painting than an outdoor theater screen.

  As I passed by tonight, I was surprised to see the screen lit up playing a grainy cartoon along with the headlights of several cars parked in spaces in the old lot. The lot itself was made of cracked asphalt. Tufts of grass had grown up through grooves, threatening to reclaim the surface back to that of the wide-open field it had once been. I slowed to a crawl, pulling onto the shoulder of the road and stopping just before the driveway to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. The lot was filled with cars—old cars—cars that all dated back to the 1950s and 60s, when I was sure the drive-in would have been a popular hangout for both teenagers and families alike.

  I got out of the Civic to get a closer look at what I was seeing. The scene before me looked surreal. The cars were striking and alike in one aspect. They were all—to the last one—translucent. I could see right through them. The freakiest thing I’d ever seen was happening right before my eyes. Figures of what could only be ghosts were sitting in the cars, walking through the lot, paying for popcorn, candy, and drinks at the remnants of a concession stand. Smiling ghosts wearing brightly colored red and white translucent uniforms were serving up drinks and treats to the kids who stood by the sides of adult ghosts, holding out ghost money.

  I shivered as I spotted a small figure standing at the edge of the woods far removed from the other ghosts. If it was a ghost I was looking at, he had to be a child. There was something different about him, setting him apart from the other child-sized figures at the drive-in. He was still translucent, but his skin and clothing were dark, smoky in color, different from the happy-go-lucky figures of other kids running around having a blast. He just stood there, looking on from his place in the woods, and I suddenly had the overwhelming feeling that he belonged nowhere… not here in this world…definitely not in the ghostly world I was seeing. My heart hurt for the little person, and I had no idea what I could or should do to help him.

  As a vampire, I was intimate with being dead. But there was something different about vampires and ghosts. I’d met many ghosts over the centuries I’d lived. Some were happy like these ghosts, enjoying the camaraderie of others just like them. Some—a very few—were utterly miserable but like the ghost of Marley in the Scrooge tale, they’d made their own chains, link by link. Some, like Marley, tried to make up for the people they’d been in life by warning loved ones to change before it was too late. Others were destined to live eternally in misery.

  As I watched the small figure of the ghost child lower his head and turn away, he slowly melted back into the trees until I could no longer make out the small, dark form. The moment he disappeared, all the ghostly activity at the drive-in vanished just like it had never been there at all. I sto
od beside the Civic, blinking my eyelids. I wasn’t even sure I’d seen what I’d just seen.

  That wasn’t entirely true.

  The specters had been there. Their 1950s and 1960s cars with their rounded fenders and sharp fins had been there. The ghosts of small children had run through the lot in between cars, laughing, playing just like they had probably been doing as living people.

  Most of all, the small figure of a lost child had been separate from all the others, standing on the periphery of the lot, unnoticed by anyone but me. I’d felt the child’s deep sadness and even now, as I stood in the cold night, I reached up and rubbed knuckles over my sternum, trying to soothe the ache I felt in my no longer beating heart. What I’d seen had been real and as I turned away from the now empty lot with its weeds poking through cracked asphalt, I felt utterly bereft. Perhaps the way that small figure had felt as he’d hung his head and then turned away.

  I got into the car and started it up again, looking up at the now blank screen once again spattered with rivers of colored paint and caked with dirt. The old drive-in sign was blank, the cartoons gone, the concession stand, drooping and most likely filled with mold and mildew. The poles where speakers had once hung, were crooked, some falling down, rusty and weather-beaten, having been reclaimed by the elements.

  I drove into town, feeling more anxious than I had in a long time.

  Chapter Seven

  Prosper Woods Chronicle. Letters to the editor:

  “Ever since moving to Prosper Woods, I’ve been having problems with ants in my kitchen. What I want to know is why no one told me the ants around these parts scream when you point a can of Raid at them?” Signed, “Worse than a room full of crying women.”

  Romeo

  It was well after seven p.m. when Dr. Willoughby’s faxed autopsy report finally came through. I was on edge. It felt like I’d been waiting for bad news all day. Since Sally had gone home in time to pick up her child from school, and Precious took off just around five, I’d been left alone to pace through the station. Every so often I stopped to drain a fresh cup of coffee. There just wasn’t anything else to do until the report came in. I put down the fifth cup of coffee when I noticed my hand shaking. Enough was enough. Still…I had things on my mind.

  Big things.

  I’d spent the majority of the day trying to decide whether to call my best friend Mel and confess that I was a unicorn. Every time the thought ran through my mind, I mentally punched myself in the face. Maybe I’d just invite him to come and stay in Prosper Woods for a few days, let him get the feel of the place. My buddy wasn’t stupid. He’d been our scout sniper in the Marine Corps and besides putting the rest of my buddies to shame when it came to the handling of weapons, he was sharp as a tack. If there was a person I trusted more, I couldn’t think of who that’d be. Working out how to explain my newly discovered identity was something that had confounded me all day.

  I studied the coroner’s report and was pleased to see that Sally was right. Doctor Tammy Willoughby was a hell of an ME. After rehydrating the corpse’s fingers, she’d been able to pull a clean set of prints that exactly matched the former sheriff, confirming his identity. From there, she’d run every test she could on the body and checked over every inch of skin. She’d taken multiple x-rays and had finally come to the conclusion that the sheriff hadn’t been murdered after all. She’d found very little food in his stomach which meant he hadn’t eaten right before death. She found no evidence of cancer or other disease processes, including heart disease.

  Dr. Willoughby concluded that the sheriff died of natural causes right where he sat, based on the external examination of his body.

  I had to admit, I was as surprised as hell to find out that there were no signs of a werewolf attack. I had no idea whether the ME was a supernatural or not, but either way, if she’d seen evidence of an animal attack on the sheriff’s body, I had no doubt she would have mentioned it. The ME was a professional, and I really appreciated the thorough report she compiled for my case file. I was just tucking it away in the folder Precious made for that purpose when I heard a throat clearing. I looked up, only to find Vincent standing in my doorway, grinning at me.

  “Hey there!” I said, standing up and walking out from behind my desk to meet him halfway as he crossed the floor of my office. He swept me into his arms, and as he lowered his face, I caught a whiff of Vincent’s unmistakable scent. He smelled like mint and tea and the citrus bodywash I’d used when taking a shower with him. He felt simply incredible in my arms and even better when his mouth crashed down on mine.

  He kissed me like I was the last man on earth, and I kissed him back ravenously. Our tangling tongues quickly hardened my dick and it pressed decadently against the zipper on my blue jeans. I badly wished we were already home in bed where I could slowly explore his body with my tongue. When he finally loosened his grip on my body and lifted his head, breaking the kiss, we were both panting, and I was raring to go.

  “That never gets old, Romeo,” he said, gasping.

  I fucking loved his growly voice. It was low and combined with the way he watched me with sparkling lust-filled topaz eyes, I couldn’t imagine ever tiring of this incredible man. I let go of his ass where both hands had landed after he pulled me into his arms and slid my flat palms up his chest, resting them there as I continued to stare. The absence of a racing heartbeat was so strange but at the moment it really didn’t bother me. His chest still heaved with his panting breath.

  When my stomach suddenly growled, he laughed out loud, grinning widely where his inch long fangs gleamed. I stared at them for just a second before he managed to retract them. He lifted his hand and covered his lips, looking shy and embarrassed.

  “Sorry about that,” he said behind his hand. “It happens when I get turned on.” He grabbed my right hand and brought it down to the long, hard ridge in his pants. I let my fingers trace over his thick cock and nearly groaned, closing my eyes. My traitorous stomach growled again, this time, even louder than before. My eyes flew open, only to meet his amused grin.

  I glanced at the clock, noting that it was late and remembering that I hadn’t eaten anything since lunchtime. Sally and I had gone over to the saloon for a cheeseburger and the best goddamned onion rings I’d ever tasted in my life.

  “I’m sorry. I haven’t eaten in hours,” I said, looking back at Vincent.

  “Come on. Let’s feed you.” Vincent took my hand in his, tugging me toward the door to my office.

  “Hang on.” I dropped his hand and walked back to the desk, withdrawing my gun and badge and closing the drawer before sliding the gun into the holster on my hip. I looked up at Vincent and smiled, walking toward him. “Ready?” I shut out the light as we headed down the hall and out into the empty lobby of the sheriff’s station.

  Since Prosper Woods was the opposite of a bastion of crime, there was no need for anyone to take the night shift. Dave and Sally switched off having the phones—including the 911 calls—forwarded to their cell phones, not minding the extra pay they received when they were on call. Since they rarely had to leave the house while they were on call, I was pretty sure neither one of them hated the duty one bit.

  “Where do you want to eat? It’s my treat,” Vincent said as we stepped outside, and I stopped to lock up. His car was parked beside my old truck in front of the station. For a split second, I was tempted to tell him I’d love it if we could drive into Stockton for some sushi but then I remembered he was a vampire, and we’d both be in danger if we left Prosper Woods. I think he realized what I was thinking when he stopped me out in front of the station and turned to face me.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Vincent said, tuning into me as always.

  “What?” I cocked my head to the side, watching Vincent’s face grow very serious.

  He sighed deeply, looking utterly pained. “I’m so sorry, Romeo.”

  I lifted my hand, cupped his stubbly cheek and stared into his golden eyes. “Why?”


  He sighed. “Because of me, you’re stuck here with nowhere to eat except at my house or yours.”

  “First of all, that’s not true. The saloon serves a great burger and sides, and the diner, Todd’s Hash House, has a massive variety of stuff.” I suddenly grinned at him. “And, I happen to know first-hand that they both stock up on ketchup by the case.” My smile didn’t seem to make him feel any better and I could see the dejection in his features when he shrugged.

  “Wherever you prefer, Romeo,” Vincent said, sounding more upset than he needed to.

  “Well, when I was in the saloon at lunchtime, I had the best onion rings of my life. If you don’t mind, we’ll eat there,” I said.

  Vincent snorted. “The saloon owned by Floyd Reardon? The alpha werewolf?”

  I’d completely forgotten about that little factoid. “Oh, shit. I forgot. Well, we can grab something and take it back to your house or better yet, we can eat at the diner. I’m pretty sure werewolves don’t own that place. That would just be too much of a coincidence.”

  He looked undecided and finally shrugged. “Let’s go to the saloon. I know for a fact; Reardon isn’t going to give us any problems out in public even if he is inside the bar.”

  “There is that to consider for sure,” I said, frowning, “but there’s also something else.” I was hesitant to tell him that the bartender, Greg Brown, was part of the Frederick pack.

  “The fact that the bartender is a werewolf?” Vincent asked, as if reading my mind.

  My eyes widened. “You know about that?”

  “I saw him the night the whole pack was in the woods. It’s kind of hard to miss the guy. He’s as big as the side of a barn,” Vincent replied with a smirk. He slid his arm into the crook of mine. “Let’s go. I think both of us should try and make at least one ally in the pack.”