Fair Game

‘Fair enough. Our profilers figured that the Big Game Hunter was well-to-do about fifteen years ago. You were going to speculate about a job.’

‘Right. He’s not bright, and because of that hisother nature is going to be difficult to conceal.’

‘“Other” as in fae?’

Charles nodded.‘Yes. So he’ll be a box boy at a grocery store or a stocking clerk. Maybe a janitor or handyman. He’d be very strong. Dockworker, if you still have them here.’

‘Would people remember him?’

‘Is he scary, do you mean? Like your husband?’ Charles shook his head, following Brother Wolf’s instincts. ‘I don’t think so. I think people are going to feel sorry for him. Otherwise he’d be in jail. Scared people generally run or attack. If someone ever attacked this one, he’d kill them. If he went around killing people in the open like that, he’d be in jail or dead.’

‘All right,’ Leslie said. ‘We’ll see what we can do with that. Run it by our profilers and see if they agree.’

The condo wasn’t home, but it felt welcoming all the same. Charles pulled some steaks out of the fridge and cut them up in bite-sized chunks. One of them he set down on the floor for A

He watched his mate eat with a satisfaction that had never faded since he’d met her, half-starved and wild-eyed. Brother Wolf never forgot how thin she had been, and he would get pushy if he thought A

When she was finished eating, she changed back to human.

It always made Charles restless when she changed, seeing her hurting and knowing that there was nothing he could do to help. He paced back and forth a couple of times, then sat down and turned on the TV, idly flipping through cha

‘Bed,’ she said. ‘Or you’re going to be married to a zombie.’

He’d intended to talk with her, he remembered, to tell her about his ghosts. But neither of them was in shape for talk.

Charles looked at her and said in his most serious voice,‘I don’t think werewolves can become zombies.’

‘Trust me,’ she said in a passable zombie voice. ‘Another ten minutes and I will eat your brains.’

He pulled her down onto his lap.‘I think I’ll chance it.’

She sighed as if a

He laughed.She made him laugh.‘I don’t know. Let’s find out.’

A rather long while later, A

‘Go to sleep,’ Charles growled, pulling her closer.

‘I warned you,’ she said. ‘You didn’t let me sleep.’ She yawned widely and said regretfully, ‘And now I have no choice but to eat your brains.’

‘Obviously,’ he said. ‘You need more exercise before you go to sleep.’ He rolled onto his back. ‘I suppose I’ll just have to be a good mate and help you with that.’

She crawled on top of him, naked and warm and soft, smelling like a miracle that had saved him from a lifetime of aloneness.

‘I wouldn’t want you to strain anything,’ A

His mouth caught the nearest of her body parts– the soft inside of her elbow – and gave it a light nip. ‘England is the furthest thing from my mind.’

She settled down on top of him, taking him inside her, and he quit talking altogether. Her eyes were blue, her wolf’s eyes, when she came for him for the second time that night.

Flushed and joyous, A

‘Move,’ Charles told her.

She laughed again, her eyes still moonlit azure– but she moved.

They slept in.

Charles woke up first and watched her face in the late-morning light. It was peaceful and pleased Brother Wolf even though the moon was waxing nearly full and the urge to hunt always ran strong in his bones at that time. Contentment was still something new for Charles, something he’d never experienced in all his long life before he’d met A

‘I’ve been thinking about the killers,’ A

Charles waited for her to continue.

She sat up with a snap. In a voice filled with hushed excitement she said,‘The fae – he’s the soldier, the bottom of the pecking order. Doing as he’s told, when he’s told to do it. The old guy, he’s the one who started this. He’s the Alpha.’

‘Mmm,’ Charles said, when it appeared she needed his agreement. The hunting moon might not be stirring Brother Wolf, as long as he had A

‘Who is the second young one?’ she asked. ‘Do you think he’s the obedient second? Loyal, dedicated? Or is he the Alpha in training, waiting until the old man is too old to control the pack so he can kill him and take over?’

‘Neither of us is a trained profiler,’ he felt obliged to point out.

She bounced in the bed, her brown eyes glittering with excitement.‘Now that Lizzie is rescued, all we have to do is solve the rest.’

‘As they have been trying to do for longer than you’ve been alive,’ he told her dryly.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but they didn’t have you and me on the case.’

They had a TV now, and satellite– mostly so A

He supposed he was enjoying it, too. More now that the i

‘Motive,’ she said in the same voice he imagined Archimedes might have said, ‘Eureka!’ in his bath all those years ago.

‘Doesn’t work the same way in serialkiller cases as it does in most murders,’ he said. ‘Serial killers are addicted to the hunt and they aren’t capable of stopping, most of them. Their lives are controlled by the kill.’

‘He’s tagging his victims,’ A

‘These are less than human,’ said Charles, repeating what they both knew. ‘Animals I have killed.’

‘Right. Animals that he has killed. He’s claiming the kill with that tag.’ She frowned. ‘Aren’t serial killers supposed to try to step into the investigation? To watch people struggle and fail to solve the case – or to control the case better?’

‘I’ve heard that,’ Charles agreed. ‘For some kinds of killers.’

She gri

‘All of which the FBI knows better than we do,’ he said. ‘We’ve probably helped the case as much as we can until someone else is taken.’

A

‘We’ll stay here for a while. Leslie and Goldstein seemed to be sensible people. They’ll call us in if they need us.’

She tilted her head and asked,‘What does Brother Wolf say about all of this?’

‘That these hunters didn’t get what they want; we stole their prey. They’re going to be hungry and even more dangerous. On the other hand, I, Charles, say that we ought to eat something, as it is long past morning and we missed breakfast and are in danger of missing lunch – and Brother Wolfis pleased to concur.’

‘You are always trying to feed me,’ she accused him without heat as she got out of bed.

‘No, that’s Brother Wolf.’ Charles smiled. ‘I’ll cook.’

Charles had meant to talk to her about his ghosts over breakfast, because he’d been tired last night, and then he’d been distracted. But something she had said nagged at him.