If I did that and sent the undead monster at the man, then there was a chance I would escape.
But I heard his booming laugh behind me right before his own arcana thundered out of him. It was overwhelming. The tables had turned. I was the puddle compared to his ocean, now.
Maddox
I arrivedon the scene and raised a brow. The beat cop gave me an apologetic shrug.
“There…there was a body here ten minutes ago. I don’t know where it could have gone!”
I narrowed my eyes and stifled the rising growl of the new beast within me. “You’re telling me that you lost…a body? It didn’t just get up and walk away on its own, kiddo.”
That was a lie. I knew that bodies could, in fact, do just that. If that was the case here, then there was more at play than a simple hit and run.
The dispatcher had told me that this was a case of a hit and run. At least, that’s how the anonymous caller had described it. It didn’t take a genius to put these clues together. This was nothing more than a distraction to pull me away from Addie.
My beast rose and clawed at me. Furious, the creature demanded that I go back to her. I swallowed the beast back down and redirected my attention. I still had a job to do, and I couldn’t allow Addie to pull me away all the time.
She could protect herself. The woman had powers that were dangerous in the wrong hands. She didn’t need me.
My beast disagreed. It tore at me from the inside. I sucked in between clenched teeth when the searing pain radiated through me. The beat cop glanced warily in my direction.
On the outside, I likely looked the same as ever. I’d stopped trying to look put together when my ex-wife passed. There was just no point anymore. I didn’t want to give people the wrong impression. They deserved to know just what they were dealing with when they spoke to me.
On the inside, I was a new kind of mess. The fight with this beast made my knees shake. I’d never known pain quite like this before. No matter how hard I shoved, the beast came charging back at me. It slammed into me like it was trying to break the bars of a cage.
The damn thing wanted to break free of my body and run right back to Addie like some sort of trained dog. I wasn’t going to allow that to happen, though. I refused to be at her beck and call.
She’s fine.
The beast growled and snapped its teeth.
“Detective Greene?” the beat cop asked nervously.
My head jerked upright. I realized that I’d been trapped in my internal struggle. I hadn’t been paying attention to anything outside of myself.
Addie, the beast roared inside my skull.
The beat cop spoke, but I couldn’t hear anything he said over the roar inside me. When the beast leapt, it shook me. I staggered on my feet. The beat cop’s lips never stopped moving. Everything he said was lost.
I refused to let this monster change me. I wasn’t going to run. This was my job, and I would stay here and see it through to the end. No beast would tell me what to do.
But I could feel my grip on sanity slipping. The beast’s voice grew louder and louder. Its howl hit the back of my throat and filled my mouth. I had to clench my jaw to keep from letting it out.
All the while, the beat cop watched me with wary eyes. He put a hand on my shoulder to steady me.
“Are you sure you don’t need me to call someone else? If you’re drinking on the job again, I’ll keep it quiet as long as you promise me you’ll go sober up in the car.”
I’m not drinking on the jobagain.
Not seriously. Not like when my ex-wife passed. I hadn’t even been able to confront her about how she’d cheated on me. Death had swiftly claimed her, leaving guilt and anger simmering in my gut with nowhere to go.
I needed to stop letting women ruin my life. They were exceptionally good at it. One broke me as a man while the other turned me into a monster. Women were not worth the strife.
The monster in me pawed at the ground…at my soul? At my bones? It was a strange feeling, this vibration rumbling along my entire being. It gave away the beast’s restlessness. The thing would fight me tooth and nail until I returned to Addie.
I should have been more worried about her. My anger over what had happened to me was blinding my view. I wanted to be pissed at her. The beast’s adoration for the woman who’d gotten me into this trouble rubbed me the wrong way, but she still deserved protection.
Since it wouldn’t destroy my reputation, I lied to the beat cop. “You’re right. I did have a little too much whiskey in my cereal this morning. I think I’m going to go sleep this off in the car. When you find that body, you let me know.”