Mr. Nimble checked the rooms, which consisted of the kitchen, bathroom, and Oscar’s bedroom. The apartment felt so small and unwelcoming after being at the Lakelands’.
“What happened to your couch?” Mr. Nimble asked as he stared at the bloodstain and then at Seth’s neck. “Who did this to you?”
Seth didn’t feel like finding an excuse that would appease his neighbor. He was tired, so damn tired. All he wanted to do was lie down in Oscar’s bed and sleep. His adrenaline and anger were gone, and he felt drained. His throat hurt from the screaming and crying. His neck hurt from the vampire attack, and now his head was giving off a powerful throb.
Rubbing his temples, Seth shook his head. “I’ll explain later. I just need to rest right now.” He didn’t owe his neighbor a damn thing, especially not an explanation. But Seth knew he could get Mr. Nimble out of his apartment quicker if he promised to tell him later.
“I don’t think you should be left alone,” Mr. Nimble said as he took a step closer.
Seth became very aware that it was just the two of them there. He had been so distraught over everything that had gone wrong in his life that he had allowed Mr. Nimble to just walk right in.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“I’ll be fine.” Seth opened the apartment door, letting his neighbor know that was his cue to leave. Mr. Nimble walked to the door, turned and fully faced Seth, and then leaned in so closely that Seth could smell a light scent of aftershave. Or was it cologne?
“I know about your furry friend. I also know about the man who attacked you, Seth. Close the door.”
Seth’s eyes widened as he stared at Mr. Nimble and then out into the hallway. He wasn’t sure why he was staring at Tyler’s apartment, but he was looking at the closed door across the hall desperately, willing it to open and for Tyler to step out.
“Close it now,” Mr. Nimble said roughly as he reached out and grabbed the door, swinging it closed.
“What are you doing?” Seth’s brain refused to register one more threat against him. It refused to acknowledge that Mr. Nimble was out to harm him. His mind cleared, and Seth felt a coldness enter him. Only this time the coldness made him feel numb, took him to a place where everything was quiet and peaceful in his mind.
“I’ve been watching you, Seth,” Mr. Nimble said as he leaned closer, making Seth take a step back. “I’ve been watching you and learning some very interesting things.”
Seth thought back to the few times he had seen Mr. Nimble. It didn’t make any sense to him. They were mere acquaintances. His neighbor hadn’t been around when Chance confessed to being a bear. He hadn’t been near when the vampire attacked Seth. What was he talking about?
His mind flickered on the few times Mr. Nimble had come into Seth’s apartment to check for a leak and to check for a fire when his neighbor swore he smelled smoke.
Seth turned, walking away from the man as he walked to his bathroom. Mr. Nimble didn’t try to stop him as Seth left the room. He walked slowly into his bathroom and looked around. It was tiny, only allowing one person at a time to fit in there. He glanced around, scrutinizing every inch, every square inch of the bathroom. His breath caught in his throat when he saw a small wire over the medicine cabinet.
Reaching up, Seth tore at the wire until he could pull it free. He examined it, turning it over in his hand.
“Technology is amazing, isn’t it?” Mr. Nimble said from behind him. “It’s really quite incredible how small cameras are these days.”
Cameras?
Seth turned the small device over in his hand, and then glanced at the shower. A chill crawled down his spine and stabbed him in the back as he thought of showering while Mr. Nimble watched.
Oh, god. Oscar bathed in here as well!
“You watched me and my nephew in here?” Seth asked as he turned toward his neighbor. Disgust and revulsion filled his words and expression.
“I have no interest in your nephew. He’s not who I was watching.”
Seth should have been terrified by Mr. Nimble’s confession. But he only felt relief that he wasn’t standing in front of a pedophile. He wouldn’t have been able to handle that. “And why were you watching me?”
A smile formed at Mr. Nimble’s mouth, but it didn’t reach his eyes. They were filled with something else, something Seth had no description for. They were almost wild, excited, and charged with something bordering on insanity.
“Because you are my next victim, Seth.” Mr. Nimble’s voice was singsongy.
Okay, now Seth was scared. The numbness faded, replaced by a fear that Seth wasn’t too sure he’d survive from. He stood in his tiny apartment alone with a crazy man.
“Next?” Seth asked as he tried to keep the fear out of his voice.
Mr. Nimble’s eyes brightened, almost shining as he nodded. “Now come out of here and join me in the living room.”
“I don’t think so,” Seth said as he backed further into his shoebox bathroom. “Get out of my house.” He tried to sound firm, but his words were shaky and a bit strained. Seth curled the tiny camera in the palm of his hand as he took another step back.
His mind was screaming that Seth was trapping himself, that he had nowhere to go, but Seth backed up nonetheless. There was no window he could climb out of, no other door he could use to run through. If he wanted out of his bathroom, he would have to go through his neighbor.
That wasn’t a comforting thought.
“Do you smell that?” Mr. Nimble asked as he leaned his head back and inhaled deeply.
Seth sniffed lightly, but all he could smell was the air freshener sitting on the back of the toilet. It smelled like lilacs. He didn’t smell anything else. Was his neighbor a fan of lilac?
“Fear,” Mr. Nimble said joyfully as he lowered his head, his eyes blazing with lust. “I smell fear coming off of you, Seth.”
Was his neighbor a bear shifter?
Seth dismissed the thought as soon as it entered his mind. Only the Lakelands were shifters and Mr. Nimble wasn’t one of their relatives. Chance would have mentioned that when he got pissed that Mr. Nimble was in his apartment the other day.
Seth fought like crazy when Mr. Nimble reached out and grabbed his arm. He swung his free arm for a punch, but his neighbor had Seth’s dominant arm, making him use his left. Seth was no good with his left. It was an awkward swing, missing Mr. Nimble by a foot.
“Fight me, Seth. Fight me with everything you have. I like a fighter.”
Mr. Nimble was stronger than he looked. His hand held Seth firmly as he dragged Seth from the bathroom. When Seth shouted for Mr. Nimble to release him, he got a well-placed backhand to his face.
“We mustn’t let the neighbors know how much fun we’re having.”
Yes the hell he did. “What kind of monster are you?”
“My tastes run a little on the depraved side,” Mr. Nimble said as he talked as if he were reminiscing about some fond memory. He listened as Mr. Nimble confessed to killing three other men, after having played with them.
Seth sat there in horror, wondering if his nightmare was ever going to end. He just couldn’t handle one more threat, one more promise of being someone else’s victim. It was too much. He started to wish that he had stayed on the Lakeland ranch. But Seth knew that hadn’t been the right choice either. He was running out of options and scared about everything that was going on around him.
He just wanted to feel safe. Seth wanted to know that the monsters in the closet weren’t real. Being in Chance’s arms made him feel safe, but Seth had run. He had run from the only place that had given him shelter from the cold world around him. Seth had felt trapped when Chance had towered over him, and now he would give anything to be in his mate’s arms.
What a damn fool he had been.
“I have our playroom set up in my apartment,” Mr. Nimble said, interrupting Seth’s thoughts. “Come play with me, Seth.”
“No,” Seth said as he yanked at his arm. He kicked his leg out, trying to swipe it under Mr. Nimble’s and unbalance the man. But instead, he knocked his leg into the television stand. Seth kicked once more, but this time he didn’t kick at his neighbor. He used the momentum to knock the television to the floor, a loud crash echoing in his apartment.
Mr. Nimble shrugged. “It’s your property you’re damaging.”
Seth had prayed that the noise would alert one of his other neighbors that something was wrong. But as he thought about it, he knew he was wrong. If the cops weren’t here by now from the screaming he had done earlier, they weren’t coming.
It was up to him to save himself.
He stopped struggling and walked with Mr. Nimble toward the doorway. Seth’s only chance was to get out into the hallway where he had more options. He could shout, fight harder to get free, or do anything and everything to escape from what Mr. Nimble had in mind. After hearing his neighbor describe in detail what he had done to the other three men, Seth knew he had to get free. He was just shocked he hadn’t vomited at the gruesome details.
Go him!
Damn, he was losing his mind.
When Mr. Nimble reached the door, he turned toward Seth. “I’m not sure why you stopped fighting, but if you alert anyone to what we are doing, I’ll kill Oscar.”
Seth knew it for a lie. Oscar was well protected at the ranch. He knew in his heart that if something happened to him, the Lakelands would raise Oscar as one of their own. He had confidence in that knowledge. As confused and afraid as he was, as much as he had lashed out at the men only trying to help him, Seth knew they would take Oscar in and raise him.
Seth just gave a slight nod, playing into Mr. Nimble’s assurance.
When they exited the apartment, Seth saw Tyler entering the apartment building, a bag of groceries in his hand. Tyler had always given him the willies, and it was strange that he was looking for help from the man now. He gave Tyler one long look, trying his best to convey his fear and need in that one look.
They had a moment when their eyes met, and Tyler stared at Seth with a knowledge that made Seth almost buckle with relief. Mr. Nimble’s hand gripped Seth’s harder, painfully so. He pulled slightly, letting Seth know that he needed to keep moving.
Seth yanked against Mr. Nimble as he reached for Tyler. “Please,” he begged Tyler as something hard struck against Seth’s head. He dropped to his knees and fought against passing out as he watched Tyler draw a gun from behind him and aim it at Mr. Nimble. The groceries lay on the floor, forgotten. Seth wasn’t sure why he was focusing on the bag.
Tyler had fresh fruit in the bag. The man seemed to like apples. Not the green ones, but the shiny, plump red ones. Seth wanted to grab one and take a bite.
“Let him go, Leonard Nimble,” Tyler said as he took a step closer, leaving his bag of groceries behind. “Federal Marshal. Put your hands up where I can see them.”
Seth stopped staring at the apples and looked over at Tyler. Since when was Tyler any kind of law enforcement? He was the creepy neighbor, not Mr. Nimble. It was reversed. Mr. Nimble should be the one with a gun to Tyler. None of this made any sense to Seth.
Mr. Nimble gave a smile that was more like a flash of teeth. He bowed his head slightly and then released Seth. Just that easily, Seth was free. He didn’t understand what was going on, but Seth wasn’t looking a gift horse in its mouth.
Scrambling against the outer wall of his apartment, Seth kept his back against the paint job as Mr. Nimble took off up the steps. Tyler looked down at Seth, as if assessing if he was hurt or not.
“I’m fine,” Seth said, waving Tyler away. He was still trying to grasp the fact that Mr. Nimble was the bad guy and Tyler wasn’t.
He should be going hysterical by now from everything that had happened to him. But Seth wasn’t crying or shouting out his frustration. He laughed. It started off as a small snicker and then rolled downhill into a full-blown laugh that included tears and holding his side from laughing to hard. He slumped over, trying to catch his breath as he laughed so loudly that an elderly woman who lived next to Tyler opened her door.
“Are you okay, young man?”
Seth nodded, because there was no way he could answer her with his voice. He laughed until she closed her door. He laughed until he felt as if he couldn’t catch his breath. Seth laughed until the police showed up, guns drawn, staring at him strangely as he lay crumpled on the floor with his stomach hurting from using the muscles too long.
“Seth?” Detective Lewis Keating said his name cautiously as he approached. “Where’s Chance?”
Seth knew the detective. He had come into the diner where Seth worked on more than one occasion. He was a nice guy, always eating with one of the other customers, Evan.
“I don’t know.” And that quickly Seth’s laughter turned into a full-blown crying session. Maybe he was truly losing him damn mind.
Chance walked slowly into the apartment building. One of the timber wolves called, saying his mate was with Seth and that Seth was having some sort of nervous breakdown. Chance would never tell Seth, but he had seen this coming. The signs had been written all over the walls. Hell, they were jackhammered into the fucking concrete.
His heart clenched and his breath caught when he walked through the police standing in the foyer of the building and saw Seth lying crumpled on the floor, weeping loudly. Chance pushed past everyone and scooped his mate into his arms, carrying Seth into his apartment. It looked like a scuffle had happened in there, and Chance was angered by that fact. He knew his mate had seen more than his fair share of violence in the past couple of days than he probably did his entire life.
“You’re safe, Seth.”
“What’s wrong with me?” Seth asked as he wiped at his eyes.
“I’m scared one second, angry the next, laughing a second after that,
and then reduced to tears. I feel like my mind is breaking apart, and
there isn’t anything I can do to stop it.”
Chance rested his cheek on Seth’s head, sighing deeply. “You’ve
seen a lot in the past couple of days. Your brain is trying to make
sense of things. Sometimes it doesn’t know what to think, so it refuses
to make any sense of what is happening. I think your mind has been
overloaded, Seth. It needs time to process things, time to break the
occurrences down and examine them.”
“Occurrences?” Seth said the word like it left a bad taste in his
mouth. “I would call them something more than occurrences,
Chance.”
“Maybe, but you know what I’m saying is correct.” He hoped like
hell Seth understood, because Chance wasn’t sure he could explain it
any differently. It was what it was, plain and simple. His mate’s mind
was refusing to believe that monsters existed. His mind refused to
believe anyone would hurt him. Seth was going through a lot, and he
kept running away. How was Chance supposed to help him if he
didn’t want any help?
“So what do I do?” Seth asked, sounding so damn helpless. “I would tell you to come back to the ranch and use that time to let
your mind process all of this, but you keep running, Seth. If you keep
running from what has happened, you won’t help your psyche
recover.”
Seth glanced up at Chance, really looked at him, and his green
eyes looked dull, like someone who had seen too much. They weren’t
sparkling any longer. Not like when Chance first met him. Not like
when Chance was hanging out over here for two months. The past
few days had dulled them, made Seth see a world he wasn’t ready for,
and Chance hated that fact. Hated that Seth’s golden gems were now
unpolished, but living in the shifter world tended to do that to a
person. There were no fairy tales, no false sense of security. The
preternatural creatures knew the dangers that existed in the real world
but still managed to live happily—most of them anyways. “You sound smarter than the average bear,” Seth said as he sat up,
pulling out of Chance’s arms.
“Was that a joke?” Chance asked.
“Apparently not if you have to ask.”
Chance chuckled, pulling Seth close enough to kiss his forehead.
“It was a damn good joke. I’d rather be Yogi than Boo Boo.” “Do you think he ever shagged Cindy?” Seth asked. “And how
did he get away with stealing so many picnic baskets without
attacking anyone?”
Chance could see that Seth’s change of subject was a way to cope
with things. He could help Seth with this one. If Seth needed to focus
on something else to deal with the trauma his mind was trying to work
through, Chance would indulge. “His wit and charm, Seth. He was a
very suave bear.”
Seth laughed. “Hardly.”
Were they still talking cartoons or was Seth referring to Chance?
“You don’t think bears are charming?”
“I think the joke has gone way off course,” Seth said as he
burrowed back into Chance’s arms. Chance wasn’t going to argue
when he had his mate pushing into him for safety and refuge. He
really hated to break the easygoing conversation, but he needed to
know what had happened here tonight.
“I got a phone call that you needed help, Seth. But no one told me
why.”
Seth stiffened but didn’t pull away. The teasing fled the room as if
a strong breeze had blown it away, replacing it with cold hard reality.
“Mr. Nimble wasn’t the nice neighbor I thought he was, and Tyler
wasn’t the creepy neighbor I pegged him to be.”
“Tyler is a shifter, Seth.”
If Chance thought Seth was stiff already, he was wrong. Seth’s
shoulders turned to cement as he lay still in Chance’s arms. “What do
you mean by that?”
Oh, hell.
This was not going the way Chance thought it would. He
dreaded the answer to his next question. “Do you think my family
members are the only shifters in existence?”
By the way Seth’s breath hitched, Chance had his answer. “Let’s
leave it alone for now, okay?”
Seth nodded.
“But I still want to know what happened.”
“Mr. Nimble is a whack job. He’s killed men, Chance. He said I
was his next victim. He placed cameras around my apartment and
watched me—” Seth shot out of Chance’s arms. “The cameras!” Chance was on his feet, following Seth as his mate ran into the
kitchen. “Mr. Nimble had come to my apartment about a water leak in
my bathroom. I found a tiny camera in there. But he also came down
here about smelling smoke and checked my kitchen.”
Chance began to search the kitchen. He checked around the stove,
the refrigerator, the microwave, as Seth checked around the cupboards
and by the small pantry. Chance felt his skin crawl when he found a
tiny camera tucked away above the window, hiding just inside the sill. He grabbed it, being careful as he pulled it free. He knew that the
timber wolves had an electronic expert, and was hoping Nero could
tell him if this was just a visual camera or if there was audio. If there
was audio, Mr. Nimble knew too much.
“Found it,” Chance said as he showed Seth the small device. “That’s exactly like the one I found in my bathroom,” Seth said as
he glanced at Chance’s hand. “Do you think he planted any more?” Chance and Seth spent a good hour or two searching the rest of
the apartment. From the look on his mate’s face, he was shocked
when Chance found another one in the living room, hidden behind the
entertainment stand, but enough in the open to view what was going
on.
“When did he put that there?” Seth asked the entertainment stand.
Chance knew his mate was talking to himself, trying to work things
out in his head. “What if he saw us having sex, Chance? What if he
saw you biting me?” Seth shivered, rubbing his arms as he looked at
the camera lying on the coffee table. Tears shined in the corners of
Seth’s eyes as he turned his back to Chance. “What has he seen?” “Or heard,” Tyler said as he walked into the apartment. He didn’t
knock. He didn’t say a word as he closed the door behind him.
Chance didn’t like the fact that Tyler felt he had a right to just walk
in. His bear woke, sniffing the air as Tyler moved closer. Wolf. Tyler was a wolf. Chance had known that, but his bear was measuring Tyler up. Chance’s bear gave a low growl when Tyler came to close to Seth.
It wanted to rip Tyler apart for being near his mate.
Chance was feeling the same exact way. He laced his fingers
around Seth’s wrist, giving a gentle tug as he pulled Seth semibehind
him. Even though Chance had known that Tyler was a shifter from the
scent out in the hallway when he had visited Seth on many occasions,
he still didn’t know the man. Tyler was still a stranger. The only
reason he knew the man’s name was because Seth had used it. “I had Mr. Nimble’s apartment wired, so I heard and saw
everything that he heard and saw.” Tyler had the decency to blush
slightly, which only made Seth look mortified. Chance didn’t care
about voyeurism, but he did care when it came to Seth. His mate
didn’t like it, so Chance became offended that anyone had seen Seth
naked. When sharing men with Chauncey and picking them up in
clubs, being seen became a moot point.
But this was Seth, his mate.
“He knows that you are a bear shifter, Chance. And he knows that
vampires exist. We have bigger problems than prosecuting him. Even
if he sounds crazy as hell when he begins to spout off about shifters
and vampires, it will make some humans look a little more closely
than the preternatural world is comfortable with.”
Damn if that wasn’t true.
The number one unspoken, and spoken, rule was not to let the
humans know about the preternatural world. Chance knew that a lot
of humans would accept their world, maybe even be fascinated by it.
But there were a lot of zealots out there who would do whatever it
took to wipe the monsters out. That was a chance the
monsters
weren’t willing to risk.
“What’s your plan?” Chance asked.
“I’m new around here. I know that there is Alpha Maverick, but I
think we need a vampire to bespell Mr. Nimble, make him forget
what he’s seen and heard.”
Made sense. “What about the human cops upstairs? Things could
get a little tricky if a vampire walks in and hypnotizes your perp,”
Chance pointed out. He knew he had to call Christian. There was no
telling what Mr. Nimble had already said.
“I have my evidence on tape already,” Tyler said. “When Mr.
Nimble cornered Seth and confessed to the murders, Leonard’s
listening devices picked the whole confession up in his apartment, so
I picked it up in mine.”
Seth paled even further. His mate looked like he was about to
faint. Chance wanted to protect him. He wanted to take Seth into
Oscar’s room and leave him in there so he wouldn’t hear everything
that was being said, but Seth couldn’t be coddled. He needed to face
what was happening in the
real
world and stop running from it. As harsh as that sounded, Chance knew it was true. Either that
theory worked, or Seth would go insane and Chance would be visiting
him in a rubber room.
“Call the vampire,” Tyler said.
“He is the prince,” Chance warned. Tyler looked wide-eyed at
Chance, as if he had just performed some sort of magic trick that had
amazed Tyler.
“No shit,” he whispered.
“No shit,” Chance repeated.