“Come for me, baby. I want you to come on my cock.”
As if we’d been standing on some precipice, the words sent me flying down, crashing into a storm of ecstasy.
Body bucking wildly, I imagined Nate grunting in satisfaction, calling out my name as his cock twitched and spasmed inside me while I came. It took several seconds for me to come down. My fingers still moved across my pussy, rubbing more slowly, almost massaging the throbbing flesh as the fantasy fluttered away from my mind like birds in a storm.
Once it was all over, I lay there, gaping at the dark ceiling, feeling awful for what I’d just imagined. My ex was twenty feet down the hall, and I’d just orgasmed to a fantasy of Nate fucking me. Along with the post-orgasmic bliss, a wave of shame and embarrassment settled over me as the lust subsided. Even though we were no longer together, I had a weird sense of betrayal for doing that with Rick right out in the living room.
“What the fuck?” I hissed to myself as I readjusted the covers, moving to a cooler part of the bed.
The release did what I’d wanted it to. After rolling onto my stomach, my eyes grew heavy, and I was asleep within seconds. A blissful, thankfully dreamless sleep.
14
Nate
Maps, newspaper clippings, and copies of police reports lay scattered in front of me. A skittering sound drew my attention, and in a flash, I smashed the cockroach crawling across the desk with one of the books.
“Fucking gross,” I hissed, using a tissue to clean up the mess.
The apartment was in a low-rent area—one of the few places I could find that rented by the week. The problem was, places like this were all the same. Preying on the poor and giving themjustenough to not be homeless, but not much else. This wasn’t the worst place I’d stayed in all my wanderings, but it was definitely not The Ritz.
Returning to my work, I tried to focus, doing my best to forget about Cameron. It had been less than a day since I’d seen her, but she was still on my mind. I’d even called Ollie to have some uniformed cops watch her to put some distance between us, thinking it would help.
So far, it hadn’t. I kept thinking of the way she’d ridden my leg, grinding her pussy against me while I’d kissed her. Howher body had shuddered when she came. It made me hard just thinking about it.
Shaking my head to clear it, I marked off areas on the big Toronto map that took up most of the desk with a highlighter. Possible locations for our boy’s hideout or base of operations—if you could even call it that. I’d seen the fucker. He was out of his mind and as close to fully feral as a shifter could get. Most likely, he was holed up in a gutter or under an overpass at night, waiting to attack his next victim.
I tossed the highlighter down and leaned back, stretching my aching muscles. Desk work was my least favorite part of the job. I preferred to be out and about, searching the streets or forests. Unfortunately, this was an important piece of the puzzle that needed to be handled. That didn’t mean my body had to like it.
A vertebra in my lower back popped, and tension released along my spine.
“Oh, shit,” I grunted in relief. “That’s nice.”
I picked up a red pen and began to mark the areas where the feral’s victims were found, along with the garage and alleyway where he’d attacked Cameron. With a different color pen, I circled the areas where I’d found traces of his scent, then used the highlighter to mark wherever a witness or bystander had seen someone matching his description.
Ollie had passed along other police reports of people calling in to complain about vagrants acting strange, overly aggressive panhandlers, and homeless men. No way of knowing if any of them were the feral I was looking for, but I wanted to cover all the bases.
When I was finally done, the map looked like a child’s art project. Marks, checks, Xs, and highlighted areas everywhere. Not a damn bit of it made sense. The original area I’d found his scent didn’t coincide with any of the other areas. It all seemed random. If that was the case, and all his wanderings and attackshad no rhyme or reason, why was he tracking Cameron? Surely it would be less effort to just grab another woman with similar looks.
Something here didn’t add up. A feral would have very little in the way of rational decision-making skills. Unless I was wrong about him, and he wasn’t as far along the path to becoming fully feral as I thought.
Tapping the pen on the table, I stared at the map, trying to make sense of the seemingly random pattern of movement. Reaching over and opening the door of the tiny fridge, I pulled out a beer, popped the top, and took a swig.
Eyeing the map, I tried to visualize the areas I’d searched in person. At this point, I’d traversed at least a hundred kilometers of streets throughout Toronto. Halfway through my beer, Ifinallybegan to see a pattern. Setting the bottle down, I leaned forward and studied the map.
Strange. A larger number of sightings of the guy were located in high-end areas of town, like the business district, downtown, affluent neighborhoods like Rosedale and others. Yet, the victims were in poorer areas. The deceased victims, that was. Cameron was the lone exemption, though the parking garage of the first attack was in an area that was in more of a middle-class neighborhood.
Why would a feral be seen that often in the nicer areas of the city? It made no fucking sense. Loud noises would make him jumpy and uncomfortable. It’s why they tended to stay in the wilderness once they slid into being feral. The fact that he was in a major metropolitan area at all was strange, and rather than staying in the more rundown and isolated areas, he chose the busiest parts.
“What are you doing, asshole?” I muttered.
I’d checked in with every homeless shelter in Toronto, but I’d had no luck yet. Same for churches, temples, and synagogues—places that sometimes took in the homeless.
Outside, a dog barked, shattering the silence of the afternoon. A thought formed in my mind, spinning up from a vague notion to a fully realized idea. What if my guy wasn’t spending the nights in his human form, but as his wolf? Sleeping in dog parks or open woodland? What if the victim on the jogging trail had been spotted and then tracked from the guy’s nesting spot?
Before I could talk myself out of the idea, I searched the number for animal control, then called. While it rang, I pulled out a sheet of paper with Ollie’s personal information printed on it. Another item he’d given me to assist in my search.
“Good afternoon, Toronto Animal Services, how can I help you?” a voice on the other end said after three rings.
