Alpha Bear Detective: BBW Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (10 page)

A long pause. “I mean there’s documented evidence that shifters are dangerous to humans,” he said. “I mean that we have photographs and recordings of attacks. I mean that ‘shifter rights’ groups are the beginning of a sea change, of shifters trying to establish themselves as the dominant group on this planet. You know there’s more and more of them every year? Their birth rates just keep going up. Someday there’ll be more of them than there are humans, and what will that mean for us? Subjugation. Unless we take action
now
.”

Maria settled herself on the bed. Maybe she could get some information out of this. “I didn’t know all that. Tell me more.”

*              *              *

Fifteen minutes later, she stepped out into the kitchen, feeling like she needed another shower. Roger Sutherland’s senseless hatred was like dirty water, pouring out of the phone and getting all over her. It was insane how clear it was that he truly
believed
all of it.

She had to tell Levi about it, even though all she had to wear out to see him was a towel. There were more important things than sex happening right now.

“Hi,” said Levi, looking very carefully at her face, and nowhere at all south of it.

“Hi. I think I made a breakthrough.”

His eyebrows shot up. “A breakthrough? What do you mean?”

“Sutherland called me.” She held up her phone. “And I got him to stay on the line and have a conversation.” She filled him in on the details of what she’d said.

As she talked, his eyebrows came down again, settling into a frown. “Why didn’t you come right to me when he called?” he asked when she’d finished.

Maria blinked, surprised. “I wasn’t in any danger.”

“It’s not about
danger
. “ Levi ran a hand through his hair; it resisted being pushed back and fell forward into his face in a way that Maria tried not to find attractive. “Just—if you’d told me, we could’ve recorded the call. I could’ve at least listened in. And it’s not your job to make decisions about whether you’re in danger, anyway, it’s mine.”

“It’s not my job to make decisions about my own
life
?” Maria shot back, a little stung.

Not that he didn’t have a good point about recording the call…

“Of course you can! Just—” he threw his arms open wide. “I’m here. I’m a police detective. I am
supposed to be helping you fix this
. That’s literally my job, and I’m pretty good at it. But if I don’t know what’s going on, I can’t do my job.”

Maria subsided, a little ashamed of herself. “I’m sorry. I understand.”

“It just seems to me like you’re too used to doing everything by yourself.” When Maria looked up at him, Levi was giving her that same tender look that she remembered from when they’d been—

“I am,” she said quickly, to distract herself from the memory. “I like being self-sufficient. I like being able to take care of things on my own. But I get that this is a bigger situation than just me, and I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

The last sentence came out a little shaky. She’d started to shiver—the house was a little chilly, and she was still damp and wearing only a towel.

And Levi had noticed that. His eyes traced the top edge, where it had slipped dangerously low during the phone call. Even though they’d just been arguing, Maria wanted to let it slip more, tease him with hints of skin, until she dropped it totally on the floor—

Levi took a step forward, his hand coming up…and stopped.

“Sorry.” He looked away. “Thanks for understanding about the phone call. But I didn’t mean just in this situation. Wouldn’t it be easier if you could let other people help out once in a while?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She could hear the defensive note in her voice.

“Just—you seem pretty alone.” He looked back at her, his face serious. “Your family’s far away. And you’re always worried about what Laura needs, and not what you need. And you’re—uh, you’re single. Right?”

Now
that
was insulting. “
Yes,
I’m single. You think I’d do what we did earlier if I wasn’t single? What the hell do you take me for?”

He held up his hands. “Sorry. Of course not.” Were his cheeks a little red? “I just mean—you don’t seem like you have a lot of support. No one to take care of you when things go wrong.”

“And maybe if I weren’t
single
, then a
man
could take care of me! Since I clearly can’t take care of myself.” She knew she was being a little unreasonable, but he’d touched a nerve. “Let me tell you something. Every time I’ve started dating a man, they’ve had the same reaction you have—oh, poor Maria, living all by herself in a strange city! And suddenly everything in my life is about what
they
like and what
they
want and what they think I should do.”

“I didn’t—” he started, but now she was on a roll.

“
You should get a new job, Maria, you work too much
. That’s code for ‘I don’t care what you want for your own life, I just want you around to do stuff for me in the evenings.’ Or,
You never do anything fun, you need to relax!
That’s code for, ‘Forget your plans for this weekend, you have to come to whatever I want to do and hang out with my dumb bro friends.’ Or my favorite,
You’re too tense, you need to lighten up.
That’s code for, ‘If you don’t like what I’m saying, you’re wrong and you can’t get mad at me about it.’” She let out a shuddery breath. God, it had felt good to say all of that.

“I’m sorry you were treated like that,” Levi said. “But I promise that’s not what I was trying to say.”

She shook her head. “Well, say it better, then.”

He was silent for a minute. “I can’t right now,” he said finally. “I have to wait until this case is over. I’ll say it then.”

That
left her without any words.

After a second, he held up his notebook. “I have to get this info to the lieutenant. I’ll call the house phone with any news.”

“Okay.” It sounded airless.

He hesitated one more second, then nodded to her and left.

After the door closed behind him, Maria slumped back against the wall. “God, I am such an idiot.”

And she was still wearing only a towel.

*              *              *

Levi pulled out of the safehouse driveway and started driving toward the police station—and then remembered that he had to go home and change. He smelled so overwhelmingly like sex that even ordinary human noses could probably pick it up.

“God,” he said to the empty car, “I am such an idiot.”

He was annoyed with Maria for taking the phone call without Levi there—what had she been
thinking
, not coming to him?—but that didn’t give him the right to criticize her personal life.

Especially because he’d been motivated by the most personal of reasons.
He
wanted to be the man in her life.
He
wanted to be the person she relied on, that she came to for help.

And whatever she said, everyone needed someone to rely on. She’d obviously had some bad boyfriends in the past, men who hadn’t respected her at all—his bear growled in alpha anger at the mental picture—but he’d thought she understood that he wasn’t like that. He wasn’t the sort of man who would get in the way of her job just because he was too insecure to be with a smart, capable woman.

And when she hadn’t come to him for something that was demonstrably his job…

That had hurt. But she had no way of knowing how much. She didn’t know that she was his mate.

He needed to tell her, but he had to wait until after the case was over. Sleeping with her had been a big enough mistake.

Oh, but it wasn’t a mistake
. His bear was
extremely
self-satisfied about the sex, and, Levi had to admit, the rest of him was as well. When Maria had shrieked out loud as she came—

Levi almost missed a stoplight turning red and had to return his focus to the road.

The
second
the case was over, they were having a conversation.

He just hoped he could convince her that he was worth it. That those other guys had been assholes—and they sounded like assholes—and she should give him a chance.

Because he knew that he couldn’t go the rest of his life without hearing her moan his name again.

*              *              *

When he got to the station—dressed in as close to a duplicate outfit as he could find in his closet; he didn’t want any awkward questions, and cops could be irritatingly observant—he went to the lieutenant and filled him in.

“So you see, sir,” he finished, “Humans Against Shifters are either the culprits, or are interested in taking credit. Either way, it’s worth investigating.”

The lieutenant nodded slowly. “Well, Hale, I suppose I can admit that I was wrong. This is a legitimate lead after all. Are we tracing the number?”

Levi nodded. “I called it in right away. If this guy is stupid, we might be all done with this more quickly than we thought. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were a pay phone or a prepaid cell, though.”

The lieutenant nodded. “Well, wait for them to get back to you and see what we can do. If it’s a dead end, we may have to work the connection Ms. Hernandez seems to have with this man.”

Levi could feel his jaw tightening. But he’d known this was the only option when he came into the lieutenant’s office, hadn’t he? “Work how, sir?”

“He seems to believe he’s convincing her of something. Maybe we can convince him back. If she set up a meeting in a public place, we could surround him and take him in.”

“Would Ms. Hernandez need to be present at this meeting, sir?”

“That depends on the suspect’s conditions for meeting and our own risk assessment.”

“Sir,” Levi said carefully, “I believe the risk to be very high. I would be extremely concerned for Ms. Hernandez’ safety in such a situation. If her presence was required, maybe a female officer could impersonate her—”

“Hale, you know as well as I do that we don’t have any female officers that look anything like Ms. Hernandez,” Moyer said impatiently. “Roscoe is six feet tall, Petrov is a tiny skinny little blonde thing, and O’Malley is the whitest girl I’ve ever seen. Even in a wig, no one would think for a second that they were Ms. Hernandez, and particularly not a paranoid militia man. If it comes down to that, we’ll put Ms. Hernandez in a bulletproof vest, set her up somewhere without any sniper sight lines, and surround the place with uniforms. If he shows a weapon, we’ll take him down. Does that satisfy you?”

It did not at all satisfy him, but Levi knew the lieutenant wasn’t really asking for his opinion, just his compliance. So he said, “Yes, sir,” even though it left a bad taste in his mouth.

“Glad to hear it. Go find out about that phone.”

“Yes, sir.” Levi stood and left the lieutenant’s office, trying not to think about Maria staked out like a lamb for the wolves.

His bear roared a protest.
Nothing can hurt our mate!

Levi agreed grimly. No matter what he had to do, he would make sure nothing happened to her.

*              *              *

Maria felt a million times better once Officer Roscoe arrived with a suitcase for her and she could actually
get dressed
.

She put on jeans and a sweater, not wanting to get back into a work suit until she absolutely had to, and then sat down with her laptop. She called up the research she’d done on Humans Against Shifters a few weeks ago and went through it, adding notes and explanations so it would be helpful for other people and not just for her.

She had Levi’s card in her purse—he’d given it to her last night—so she finished up by emailing him the file with a note saying what it was.

She hesitated before she hit
send
, thinking about adding something about being sorry for yelling at him, or anything personal to make it clear that she wasn’t mad. But this was his official police email, so that might not be smart. She just signed it “Maria Hernandez” instead, and sent it off.

She hated this sordid situation they’d gotten themselves into. Maria always tried to act in ways that she would be proud of; she was almost never afraid to tell people what she’d done and why. She didn’t sneak around like this.

That was one of the things that had drawn her to Laura—an honest politician for once. Someone that might help not just shifter rights, but the corrupt politics that were the norm around here. Someone that could really make a difference.

She was proud to work for Laura; she was used to being proud of her personal life, too. Maybe she was single and she worked too hard, but she never, ever stuck around with men once she figured out they were bad news. All the guys she’d described to Levi had been unceremoniously dumped very soon after the incidents. She didn’t keep dating assholes, and she didn’t get into relationships she was ashamed of.