She could lose her job over this.
Breathe.
She’d just call Bree, let her boss have the PG-13 rundown of everything—that Kanon was cleared and Lennox would be in later after she was back in the state. All further mentions of lions she could just disregard. After she took those showers. Lennox dug her phone out of her back pocket and flipped open her Contacts just as a knock sounded on the front door, firm. Demanding.
Both lions stirred on the bed. Tegan stretched out, arms lifting above his head, so that his shirt rode up revealing the flat of his stomach, muscles clenched. Kanon buried his head under a pillow and groaned.
The knock sounded again.
“Ugh,” Kanon muttered and chucked the pillow off the bed.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get it,” Lennox muttered and stuffed her phone back in her pocket.
Peeking through the peep hole she caught a glimpse of an angular face, dark brown eyes, rust red hair and her nose caught the very distinct scent of dog. Shifter. And not just any dog. Rhodesian ridgeback.
The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. Shit. A Hound? And not just any Hound but a ridgeback. And oh
God
, she smelled like lions. Like she’d been groped and cuddled and nearly-fucked all night long. By lions. Rhodesians were bred to hunt lions, like wolfhounds had been to hunt wolves. The shifter versions weren’t that different. And here she was, cavorting with the enemy. Shit, shit, shit.
Lennox spun on her heels, knowing damn well whoever was at the door could hear her hasty retreat, and made her way back to the bed. “Get up. Get up now.”
Tegan peeked up at her, his eyes still hooded with sleep.
“Ridgeback at the door. Get up.” Panic swelled in her voice. There was no time for a shower. Anything they did could be considered cover up.
The Hound knocked again. “I know you’re in there.”
Lennox swallowed back a groan and stalked back towards the door, flipping the locks before yanking the door open. “What?”
The word came out a snarl, but she knew damn well it wasn’t the tone of her growl that left the ridgeback on the front stoop stunned. His nostrils flared, catching the distinct whiff of dog, under layers and layers of lions and a pretty hefty dose of lust.
She couldn’t imagine finding another Hound in her predicament. It just didn’t happen. Ever. The ridgeback swallowed and dug out his badge, flipping it open to flash ID at her. “Walker Hennessy. Shifter Town Enforcement,” he broke off and stared at her for a moment. He inhaled a sharp breath, scenting.
Lennox squeezed her eyes shut for a second, gathering strength and pride, though there was more dignity on a bathroom floor than the scrap she had left. She yanked out her badge and flashed it at him.
“Lennox Donnelly. What do you want?”
Walker froze, his eyes locked on her badge and she watched as the astonishment sank in. Her reputation preceded her. Her track record was impressive. The sheer stunned silence on his end told her more than she wanted to know.
Like the fact that up until now—with her stinking of lions, lust, and her hair fresh rumpled from bed—he’d been thinking she was the Hound to look up to. The Hound to want to be. And all his dreams were fizzling down the drain alongside what was left of her ego.
His gaze flicked up to hers and she forced herself to hold a thin smile, barely keeping it from a grimace. A Hound did not cower, and Lennox would be damned if she tucked her tail now. One eyebrow arched, she cleared her throat.
“Uh...” Walker swallowed. The floor board creaked behind her and Lennox titled her head just in time to see Kanon, shirtless and barefoot in his blue jeans, striding up to the door. Tegan tugged his shirt on in the background.
This so was not happening.
“Problem?” Kanon said, leaning against the doorframe beside her. He swallowed the extra space with sheer bulk, and the moment Tegan stepped up behind her she was surrounded. None of this was doing one iota of good for her credibility.
Walker tensed, but he shifted his gaze to hers and held it, professional decorum coloring his words. Polite, respectful, but she could read the stunned shock in his gaze. She couldn’t think of a single ridgeback who’d ever slept with a lion-shifter.
Looked like she was going to be the first, and protesting whether or not sex had actually happened, wouldn’t save her any face so she didn’t bother.
“Tristan Hale was murdered last night while leaving his club. He was ripped up pretty bad. Looked like a lion.”
The Hound glanced between the pair standing behind her, eyes narrowing, but as rough with sleep as they looked, Lennox knew they didn’t look—or smell—like men who’d showered last night...and they definitely didn’t look like they had blood dried on their hands.
“Witnesses placed the pair of them at the bar last night, the only lions there.”
“Hold out your hands,” she snapped at both of them.
Kanon flinched and held his out in front of him, while Tegan stretched his out over her shoulders. They had a fine layer of dirt under the nails but that was it. Her gaze struck the Hound’s and held. He gave a slight nod. His nose would tell him the rest.
Walker nodded. “Just following leads, thank you.”
Tegan withdrew his hands only to place them against her shoulders, squeezing gently. A tremor ran down his arms, and anyone with a good nose would smell the sadness rolling off of them. “Tristan’s dead?”
Walker let his gaze slide away, almost guilty as he pondered the bush by the door. “I apologize; it’s not how I normally would have broken the news.”
Kanon rumbled next to her. “And how would you
normally
have done it?”
Lennox caught him with a hand against his chest. Now was hardly the time to thrash a Hound. She’d cleared his name last night and now one of their witnesses was dead. Lennox stiffened. The testimonies.
She dug her fingernails into her palms and forced herself to focus. “Could you pick up a trail?”
Hennessy shook his head, tired. Bags darkened his eyes and he looked like a man dragged from bed too early. “Couldn’t get a scent to save my ass.”
He raked a hand over his face, a sigh slipping from him.
“As far as I know, a baboon could have done it. But the claw marks on him look big, too big for another wolf—though we haven’t ruled that out—and lions are known for having nasty tempers. Took a hit and went with the first names on my suspect list.”
Lennox understood. She’d have done the same thing. Lions were violent in general. Look at any pride in the wild and scars and gashes abounded. They battled over food, slamming claws into the foreheads of blood relatives as if that were a normal Sunday meal. Adding the human element didn’t always settle the beasts, and by the tension strung out between the two men behind her, it took a hell of a lot of control to rein in the inner lion.
“Well, I can vouch for these two if you need any more proof. They came home with me.”
The reproach in her voice dared him to say something, but Walker shook his head, a small smile toying at the edges of his lips. “They don’t smell like they’ve showered. The physical evidence is enough.”
The Hound started down the stairs, only to pause, one hand on the rail as he tilted his head to look up at her. “If you wouldn’t mind, I could use your opinion at the scene. You’re the best, or one of them. Caesar Torres, you, and your pack are
the
best.”
As if she didn’t know that. And Torres and Bree were going to kick her merry little ass soon if she didn’t call and explain things.
“Never really thought you of all Hounds would be—” He broke the words off midsentence, cringing.
It would have been easy to take offence. To lift her inner hackles and snarl at him. Except, she really hadn’t seen herself spending the night with two lions. “It’s not quite what it seems.” As if that cliché would save her. She raked a hand through her hair and sighed. “But yeah. Neither did I.”
There was no way in hell though, that she was admitting Kanon was a target of hers. That he really should be sitting behind bars in a silver cage, not playing necky-necky with her and his partner.
The expression on Walker’s face told her he wanted to ask, the restraint damn near strangling him, but she wasn’t about to explain further. When she said nothing more, he tilted his head towards the plain blue Crown Vic parked at the curb. “I could still use your take on the scene.”
Of course he could. There would probably be other Hounds there too. If word got wind and scurried back to Bree... Lennox fought the urge to pick up her cell and call her boss, just to spill her guts before the international gossip highway started talking.
But gossip wouldn’t move that fast. Not about to refuse him, she did have one catch. She didn’t even have to look at the pair behind her to know they’d both insist on coming, and nothing short of a silver bullet through each of their hearts was going to stop them.
“They’ll have to tag along.”
“As long as they don’t touch anything, I really don’t care.”
Flat handed against his chest, she nudged Kanon back into the house. “Get your shirt on.”
He didn’t argue, and a second later he reappeared tugging his shirt back on over his head. He stuffed his feet back in his shoes while passing Tegan’s pair to him. In all of five seconds they were ready, in their rumpled, sleep, sex, and alcohol riddled clothing.
“One last thing,” she murmured. “The written testimonies, where are they?”
It took the three of them another five minutes to turn the room and hall upside down, but nothing. Lennox felt a painful twist in her gut. “Maybe we left them at the bar.”
The words didn’t sound at all comfortable to her ears so instead, she turned back towards the front door and waved them out. “After you.”
Death.
Tegan recognized the smell the moment the car door opened and Lennox stepped out, the coppery tang of blood thick on the mid-morning breeze. The lion in him regarded the smell with a cool, distant regard. Possible food? Tegan slammed the no down on the animal hard and fast, shoving the instinct away.
One hand gripping the car door, he froze, the yellow crime scene tape wrapped off Metro and part of the surrounding parking lot. A camera whirred under the trigger happy snap of a reporter’s finger, but Tegan ignored it, instead focusing on the splay of blood against the brick wall.
Tristan’s.
Kanon slipped out of the car behind him, large hands wrapping around his waist. Just a brief contact to lend strength as they walked around the building after Lennox. But he had to know. Someone had killed a close friend and—Hounds or no Hounds—Tegan wasn’t about to let whoever it was just walk away.
If he could pick something up at the scene, he would. And by the brief flex of Kanon’s fingers against his hips, he could feel the taut anger in his partner too. They’d get their revenge. Whoever had done this would pay.
Two other Hounds—a second ridgeback, and something else, a muskier flair to her scent—stood around the back of the building between the bar and the dumpster. Tristan’s body was slumped against the wall, his guts draped out over the sidewalk. Tegan stopped cold. A roar built in his chest, aching to rumble and he swallowed it back.
He would
not
lose it here. Not yet.
The couldn’t afford a show of anger.
The woman rose, eyes narrowed on them as she addressed the Hound with Lennox. “Hennessy...”
“They’re clear.” He gestured towards Lennox with a broad wave. “Sesarina Dade, Kyle Rogers, this is Lennox Donnelly.”
Both Hounds looked shocked, Sesarina’s lips curling back in a small sneer, but Lennox met her with a cool glare. Her confidence never faltered, not even when she looked down at Tristan’s blood splattered against the bar.
“I didn’t realize ridgebacks fucked lion-shifters.”
Lennox’s lips thinned, but she stepped towards the body, attention solely on the work at hand. Her voice came out sweet, pleasant, but Tegan didn’t miss the bite to it. Nor did the woman with the barbed tongue. “Less than wolfhounds and their wolves.”
Neither denying nor confirming sex, Lennox knelt beside the body, her nostrils flaring. Tegan found himself scenting as well. Concrete, blood, sweat, the Hounds milling around, a hundred other bodies that had passes this very spot last night, but nothing on Tristan himself. Not even the slightest whiff of his attacker, and for wounds like that, the son of a bitch should have left a mark. And yet there was
nothing
. How the fuck were they supposed to find who was behind it if there was no scent?
Lennox tilted her head slightly, a frown creasing her brow as she studied Tristan. “It’s like it’s been wiped?”
Sesarina snorted. “If you’re accusing a Hound of doing this, maybe we should be looking at you. You are after all with the two suspects we originally had in mind and if anyone has the skills to cover up a murder, it’d be you.”
“Dade!” Walker took a step towards the wolfhound, but she didn’t back down. Her gaze was locked on Lennox’s back, waiting, ready for the pounce. Tegan curled his hands into fists at his side and leaned back into Kanon. They couldn’t afford to react.