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  As the others left, Cam said his goodbyes and made his way back to Noire.

  “What was that all about?” Noire asked. “Not that I mind getting away from those people, but what are we investigating now that the poor woman’s remains are gone?”

  Cam reached into his pocket and pulled out a plastic baggie. Inside was a pair of black feathers with slight white spotting. They looked wet. “Do you recognize these?”

  “Where did they come from?”

  “Beside the body. The team didn’t bag them, must’ve assumed they were from a local bird. But they’re not, are they?”

  She picked up the evidence bag and peered at the feathers. “No, they’re not. Gavia immer, I’d say.”

  “Which is?”

  “Check your wallet for a dollar coin. Provincial bird of Ontario, the Great Northern Loon—but you don’t see them down by Toronto often. A little farther north and they’re extremely common. Noisy little bastards too.”

  She was startled by the brilliance of his smile as he leaned down to kiss her quickly on the mouth. “Noire Pelletier,” he said, “I am very glad you’re along on this little adventure. Now let’s go find our boat.”

  “How are we getting back to the mainland? The last ferry left an hour ago.”

  Cam flashed her that smile again. “Oh I’ve got that under control.”

  Chapter Three

  The crime scene team had left them a boat by the ferry dock—a small, fast catamaran patrol boat. As Cam piloted the boat, Noire closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, her hair whipping out behind her. She could almost relax now that she was away from the crime scene. She reached back and began to undo her braid, tearing at it, suddenly needing everything about her professional self gone. The water was slightly choppy and she got stuck on a snarl, letting out a frustrated cry.

  Cam stopped the boat. As it came to a halt he turned away from the wheel, leaving it to drift. Distant lights from the Toronto skyline gave the water an eerie glow; she could almost believe she was dreaming.

  Cam reached out and lifted her into his lap. Flustered, she didn’t push away as his deft fingers began untangling her hair.

  His lap was warm—much warmer than even his hands. She couldn’t help remembering how his fingers had felt inside her, and wondering how warm his cock might be. Noire leaned into him, sighing and letting her muscles go slack. “Thank you,” she said.

  “No worries.” He finished working on her hair and pushed it behind her ears. “You must be exhausted.” When she didn’t reply, he pressed a finger to her lips. “Your hair is beautiful. Like a wild thing.”

  “Mom used to say that, but without the compliment.” Noire smiled at him. Fawn had always been the one with stick-straight, easy-to-manage hair. Silly how a small word of praise about her appearance pleased her, but it did. She missed Fawn, but she wasn’t Fawn—could never be that naive, and she was strong enough to get through this.

  And she had an ally now. One who was slowly massaging her thigh with his strong hand. Noire melted into him. Perhaps she could trust him.

  “Look, this is going to sound crazy, but…” Noire pulled up the sleeve of her sweater, exposing the blue elastic band she wore.

  Cam’s eyes went wide. “Did you steal this from the crime scene?”

  “What? No! Of course not. I have one too. I think it’s a clue or something.” A clue. She felt ridiculous. Who am I, Nancy Drew?

  “An elastic band.”

  “Look, Cam, just listen for a moment. I’m staying at a hostel near Spadina and Adelaide. I’ve been there before. When you check in, they give you a set of sheets and towels. They’re held together with a blue elastic band—like this one. I always pop mine straight onto my wrist so I won’t lose it.”

  “So the only evidence you have that this girl stayed at the hostel is you’re both wearing blue elastic bands on your wrists?”

  His tone was kind and his face sympathetic, but the content of his words reminded her of Detective Wahid back on the island. Noire worried she was losing control. She was exhausted. She had no idea what she was doing—her job usually involved finding lost hikers and teaching children about conservation, not identifying bite marks left by some fucked-up serial killer. And it had only been four days since her sister was murdered.

  Her eyes filled with tears and she turned her head, wiping at them frantically. She did not want this man to see her cry. Yes, he turned her on, and he made her feel safe, but he was also her only contact with the case. She couldn’t let Fawn down. The cops had no idea what they were looking for.

  He cupped her chin in his hand, turning her face back to him, and looked straight into her eyes. “There’s something you’re not telling me. You know something about this case.”

  What could she say? That her sister was a shapechanger and she thought the killer might be too? That the killer somehow stole her sister’s ability to become a deer and bit the latest victim’s neck to…what exactly? Taste her? Test out his new deer teeth?

  “They’re the same elastic band,” Noire said. Grasping for an idea, she remembered the way he’d sniffed at the body earlier and blurted out, “Can’t you smell it? Doesn’t it smell the same as the one on the girl?”

  He cocked his head, never breaking eye contact with her. He raised Noire’s hand to his mouth and quickly sniffed at the elastic band. “Mmm. Your scent is getting in my way. You smell like trees, you know. Like needles under a pine tree, the kind you can crawl beneath, immerse yourself in, and take a long nap.”

  Noire blushed, she was sure, scarlet red. “Is that good or bad?”

  “Oh very good, I assure you.”

  Then his mouth was on hers. She murmured with pleasure and parted her lips to let him in. He paused, leaned back to look at her, cocking his head to the side again like a playful puppy, smiled and nipped at her bottom lip.

  She pressed forward farther into his lap, trapping him against the leather seat of the catamaran. Noire took charge, nipping back and sucking his tongue into her own mouth. It was a bolder move than she’d normally try, but she felt inspired. It certainly seemed to work on Cam—he kissed her back, hard, and his hands moved to her sweater, lifting it over her head. Underneath she wore only a lighter gray lace camisole and her bra. She shivered in the wind.

  “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “You won’t be cold for long.” He pulled off the camisole as well and began a trail of warm kisses down her neck. Noire arched her back, pressing her pussy firmly into his lap. His cock was hard through his jeans and she shifted, getting him in the right spot to finish what they’d started on the ferry.

  His mouth trailed past her breastbone and he bit her softly between her breasts. Noire reached behind her and unclasped the bra. As the lace fell away, he didn’t wait a second before grasping one of her pebble-hard pink nipples in his mouth, sucking it with a strength that almost hurt. She let out a small whimper and he mouthed “Sorry” against her breast. He leaned back and she clutched at him, pulling him close.

  “Don’t you dare stop,” she ordered, and his chuckle against her breast tickled. She laughed.

  He kissed his way back up to her neck, then took her earlobe between his teeth and whispered, “Unexpected, she’s an alpha in the bedroom.”

  The word “alpha” penetrated her desire-fogged consciousness. What did that remind her of? As he captured her mouth in another kiss she thought back over the past few hours. The way he carried himself, tall and proud, but somehow relaxed, like a lead sled dog with his tail high, everything about him screaming dominance. The playful puppy kisses. The way he’d smelled her wrist and her hair, and how his nostrils had flared at the crime scene—was he sniffing for something then too?

  The abnormally high body temperature, just like her sister Fawn’s.

  Her sister, the shapechanger.

  Noire pulled back from the kiss. “You’re a werewolf,” she said.

  “What?”

  His voice. As soon as she heard it she knew she’d mis-
stepped. Shock, confusion, a bit of anger. And she knew her guess was right.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said.

  “You’re a werewolf. That’s how I know about the hostel. Because my sister is too. Well, no—my sister’s a deer. Or was. And the bites on the victim—they were deer too, remember?”

  “You’re not making any sense.”

  She wasn’t; he was telling the truth there. She could see from the puzzlement in his eyes that he had no idea what she was saying, going on about sisters and deer. But she also saw fear. She could almost feel his fear—no one could know what he was. What would they do to him if someone in the RCMP found out he wasn’t human?

  Fire him? Yes. Noire was sure there weren’t exactly protocols for the hiring and maintaining of Mountie werewolves. Kill him? Maybe. He was definitely a threat, at least one night a month. Lock him away somewhere to study him?

  She saw an image in her mind—white walls on all sides, a bed with white sheets, a door with a small window, but barred. Some sort of medical examining room. A cage. That would be a fate worse than death for her, and it was the same for him.

  She felt a fierceness in her heart and knew she would protect him. “I won’t tell anyone,” she said. She let her eyes grow large, like Fawn’s, and showed some of her fear. “Please don’t hurt me.” She knew he wouldn’t, she could sense that right down to her soul, but she also knew that placing herself in the role of prey, of victim rather than fellow alpha, would calm him.

  How did she know for sure that he wouldn’t hurt her? Could she trust herself?

  “It’s not you, is it?” she asked.

  The Mountie shook his head in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  “The bodies. Weres hunting weres. That explains the biting. But they weren’t canid teeth. Bear, and then deer. You weren’t the one who murdered them?” She clearly didn’t believe that, or she wouldn’t be still sitting half-naked on his lap. Hell, she wouldn’t even be in the boat—she’d have jumped out and tried swimming for shore, only to be found, topless and a Popsicle, another mystery for Toronto’s finest to not solve. Get it together, Noire.

  “Noire, I swear to you I had nothing to do with that woman’s murder. And I would never hurt you.”

  “I believe you. Or I will, if you tell me the truth.”

  “There’s no such thing as werewolves, sweetheart.”

  “Bullshit.” She was angry now. She’d trusted him, and now he was treating her like an idiot. She stood up, grabbed her sweater from the boat’s floor and pulled it on, leaving her bra and camisole behind. “I’ve never met one before, far as I know, but they exist. My sister was a shifter. Fawn Quinlan.”

  Now the pieces were falling into place; she knew he would recognize that name.

  “Your sister was the first Toronto victim.” He said it like a statement and not a question.

  “Yes. Fawn. Her name wasn’t a coincidence.” Noire reached into her pocket and pulled out a photo. She’d been showing it at the hostel, hoping for some news about her sister. Cam squinted at the picture—a young woman, limp brown hair framing her face, her eyes wide, brown and huge, like Bambi brought to life.

  “She was a deer?”

  “Yes. No one knew but close family. Then she told some boyfriend in Toronto and suddenly she ends up dead, skinned, with marks on her neck that could only have been made by bear teeth. Then this new victim has more bites—but this time, deer bites. I know it’s connected. The elastic band you dismissed? Fawn stayed at that hostel too. That’s why I’m there.”

  “You think our killer met your sister there.”

  “Yes,” Noire said.

  “Then I guess I’ll have to check it out.”

  “We will. I’m the one staying there; I’m coming too.” She pressed her lips together and put on her best stubborn alpha face. She’d talked down regular wolves in the wild; surely she could manage a werewolf too.

  “Noire, honey, there’s a serial killer on the loose. It’s one thing for a park warden to consult on a case and identify a few animal bites, but for the sister of a victim to get involved? The only reason they let you was because no one had put two and two together yet, I assume from the different surnames.”

  “Fawn and I had different fathers. That’s how she got the shifter thing.”

  “Yes.” He nodded. “It’s a recessive trait. So your mother had it, but your father didn’t. You’re sensitive, though, aren’t you? It’s why you live in the woods and work with animals.”

  “Mmhmm. And why I can identify werewolves—everything about you screams wolf. I’d have seen it sooner if I wasn’t so distracted.”

  “Distracted by the case?” He gave her another one of his patented disarming grins. Noire felt it work on her even as she tried to ignore it. “Or by something else?”

  “If I admit I find you distracting, will you let me in on the case?” She tilted her head and held eye contact, challenging him.

  “I really can’t—”

  She uncrossed her arms now and smiled back at him. “What if I make you?”

  “You can’t tell anyone.” His eyes narrowed and for a moment Noire could sense his emotions in her mind, as if they were distant echoes of her own. He was suspicious and frightened. The image of a cage with silver bars flashed into her mind’s eye, then vanished. He thought she was threatening him with exposure.

  “You mean that you’re a werewolf?” she asked. “You admit it then.”

  The suspicion remained on his face, but he nodded.

  She moved closer to him and let her face soften. “I would never do that to you. But a woman has other ways of being persuasive.” She felt a flicker of surprise—from herself? Or from him?—as she reached down and grasped the button at the top of his pants. She deftly undid it and then lowered the zipper, very slowly.

  “I’m not afraid of a little wolf,” she said, grinning at him.

  “Little?”

  “Oh my…maybe not that little.” She’d reached inside now and pulled his cock free. She held it between her hands, taking in the heat of him. Yes, definitely a werewolf—his body temperature was closer to the 38.5 degrees Celsius of the animals she handled in her professional life, rather than the men she handled in her personal life.

  She started at the bottom of his shaft and licked upward in one long motion to the head. She let her hair fall around her, shrouding what she was doing so he couldn’t see. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. She knew now that when he did that, he was smelling her.

  “What do I smell like now?” she asked, somewhat indistinctly around his cock.

  “You smell—“ He moaned as she nipped at the tip of his cock. “Like a she-wolf in heat, but there’s a very distinct human bouquet, like strawberries. And you are very wet.”

  “You can smell that?” She felt herself blushing.

  “Yes.”

  She licked the pre-cum from the tip of his cock and then paused. “So,” she said. “What’s your answer?”

  She took his cock in her mouth. He moaned and buried his hands in her hair, pulling it back from her face so he could watch her. She slid her lips down his cock, enveloping it, her mouth soft and wet. “Mmmm?” she said, mouth completely full. She moved slowly up and down the shaft, grasping the bottom in her fist. She could hear them both breathing, so loud in the quiet of the night. The water was still now. She wondered if the people on shore could hear her breathing, the wet sucking sounds as she moved her mouth, the Mountie’s moans as she worked faster and faster.

  Then she stopped.

  And remain stopped.

  She slowly, very slowly, moved her mouth until his cock was entirely free of her. She blew on it lightly, sending some of the cold November air to chill him. “If you want to finish,” she said in a low, teasing voice, “I suggest you let me on the case.” And then she did the most overt thing she could think of, drawing her tongue slowly along her bottom lip. “I’m very hungry, but I suppose I could find something else to put in
my mouth.”

  “Fine,” he said, snarling a little, and she could see the wolf lurking beneath his calm gray eyes. “You’re my new partner. Try not to get yourself killed.”

  “Excellent decision.”

  She lowered her head and took him inside her mouth again, moving slowly this time, teasing him. He leaned back, thrusting his hips and holding her down with a gentle hand in her hair until he lost control and came. She sucked him dry, then swallowed and pulled his face to hers, kissing him hard, the slightly bitter aftertaste of his semen on her tongue.

  When they were finished there was nothing more to say; they’d now come to an understanding. She zipped up his pants and he started the boat again, heading for shore in companionable silence.

  Chapter Four

  Entering the hostel was like an assault on Noire’s senses, but she felt a little more equipped to deal with it now that she knew the man standing behind her felt the same way.

  They had walked to the hostel together after Cam docked the boat. It was past midnight and the waterfront had quieted down, but a thirty-minute walk north to the Entertainment District of downtown Toronto was a different matter—the sidewalks were crowded with shivering twenty-somethings and wannabe-twenty-somethings in club wear, and the ground beneath their precarious heels reverberated with bass from dance clubs on both sides of the street.

  Noire had been grateful when they’d ducked down a quiet side street. Pale brick houses ran up the street on one side like a line of schoolgirls in uniform. Each large house contained several rooms housing backpackers and other frugal travelers from around the world. Noire herself was staying here in a private room; before her death, Fawn had bunked down with seven other women.

  She led Cam to the steps of the first house adorned with a large Canadian flag flapping violently in the November wind. He held up a finger and pulled out his cell. He didn’t need to speak for her to know what he was thinking—the Mountie was calling in to the local team, checking with the police for updates. The wind carried his voice away from her, so she waited.