Ruff Trouble

Chapter 1-1

Part 1: Hounding the Beat

Chapter 1

“b***h!”

Chantelle rolled her eyes. Like no one ever called her that before. When would some men learn many a woman wore the moniker with pride? In her case the insult held more than one connotation, and she rejoiced in either meaning.

“Sticks and stones,” her fellow officer, Bobby, muttered. She shot him a look he would interpret without effort. Thanks for the help, Bobby, buddy!

From the moment they’d met, she and Bobby understood each other with a single glance, the expression he pulled now clear: “Can’t we let this jerk-off go so we can go home instead of having to do the paperwork?”

He didn’t mean it; his heart and other parts of his anatomy did the talking. No way would Bobby set this cretin loose.

Fighting a grin, she held the perp against the police vehicle as she cuffed him, grateful for the stab vest she wore. She’d knocked the flick-knife out of his hand before he opened it, but the vest also worked as a barrier between his body and hers.

“Charles Manning.” She stopped short of calling him Manson as this bastard was no better in her eyes. His abuse destroyed lives. “I’m arresting you on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm, and for resisting a police officer. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court.”

“Ain’t yah gonna help hold me down, pig?” Her captive hollered at Bobby.

A growl eased into her throat. Charles was too classy a name for this being. She flicked through choicer words to call him.

“She needs no help.”

Chantelle’s lips twitched. She didn’t, and her prisoner doubtless questioned why as he struggled. Let him assume what he liked. She was tall enough and muscled enough for every man on the force to believe she slaved at the gym. She lifted weights at home, sure, but running and rough s*x kept her healthy and trim. Also, she had the whole supernatural factor. They both did.

Bobby’s relaxed stance didn’t fool her. He stood tense, using all his resolve not to haul her away from her prisoner and give the man a good kicking. Not because of anything the guy had done to get arrested, although bad enough, but because he resisted and laid his filthy hands on her. Bobby displayed all the signs of restraint.

She liked it when Bobby crossed his arms. His biceps strained the material of his uniform—one among many reasons it delighted her they had sent him to respond to her call. With the police spread so thin, officers often went out alone, and she and Bobby worked shifts and on a different rota. They didn’t work together systematically. He appreciated this moment the same way she did.

“Anything you say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?”

The perp ignored his rights to release curses at Bobby, but it didn’t stop Chantelle rattling them off, anyway. Not her fault if a crook tuned her out, although she gave him a tug, asking again, “Do you understand?” to which she received a grunt.

Good enough. She disregarded his rudeness. What she wouldn’t overlook was the way he spat at Bobby, missing him by too small a margin. One insult too many after the day she’d had, which began with a call to proceed to a disturbance: “Female with injuries.”

Worse, the woman, so frightened, tried to pretend her attacker was a random break-in. Chantelle’s mind flashed back to an hour before.

“She won’t let us touch her,” one of the ambulance crew declared. “Maybe you can try.”

A mad resentment had flared; a crazed notion the man lumbered her with the woman’s pain. The emotion faded in an instant. The woman required treatment, and a friendly, female face might well do the trick. Didn’t stop Chantelle from feeling sick.

“Mary, is it?” The woman nodded. Chantelle wanted to urge her to let the paramedics assist, but she needed to calm her, talk her round to letting them in. “You’ve had a break-in?”

“Y-Yes. Sorry. My manners. Please, sit.”

Chantelle had settled to placate the other woman. “You’re hurt.” The marks on her face were blatant.

“I…fell.”

“Fell?”

“He…startled me. I tried to get away. Tumbled down the stairs.”

There was no blood on the stairs, but a few drops marred the furniture. More stained the woman’s clothes, and the handkerchief used to stem the flow. One side of her face turned purple, swelling.

“The neighbour claimed she heard a lot of noise.” A more direct query—whether Mary was the person who cried out—would be too leading.

“I suppose I shouted.”

“The neighbour detected both a man and a woman’s voice.”

“Did she?”

“Yes. Mary, burglars rarely shout or make much sound.” They seldom stuck around involved in full-blown arguments. They fled or tried to silence their victims. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“He was…standing there.”

“Did you recognise him? Do you know who he was?”

Mary hesitated, but at last she nodded.

“Someone you know?”

Another nod.

“Mary, you’re injured, and you must accept medical attention. Tell me who did this, and I swear to you I will find him.”

Mary believed her. She might not have such faith in a human officer, but Chantelle wasn’t entirely human. Though people didn’t know what she was, they sensed something which at times convinced them. She possessed another advantage: an ability to track.

Less than an hour later, she gave chase, shouting into her radio: “Eight four requires assistance. Pursuing male suspect on foot. I need another unit, rapid, please?” As she’d flung herself over barriers and jumped from stairways with more agility than an average athlete, she spied the squad car—no siren but lights flashing—whizzing along on a side road in the distance. The driver directed the car round to the far side of the estate as she hoped. There, they’d corner the criminal. She hadn’t known right away Bobby drove though she suspected when she noticed the excellent skill used.

Knight in shining armour. Chantelle had smiled as she’d spotted her prey. She’d yelled the proverbial, “Police! Stop! Don’t move!” aware the caution would inspire the same result as it often did. The suspect kept running until Chantelle caught him.

As she finished her monologue of his rights, she at last growled. A true growl. The man in her hands froze. She smelled fear. Music in motion. A beat to groove to. Her eyelids fluttered as she drew in his scent. Fine, so she inhaled the stench of an unwashed body poisoned with drugs and too much alcohol, but beneath…Ahhhh.

“PC Shepherd?”

Damn. She’d zoned out. “I’m dandy,” she informed Bobby. The perp moved his head, gaze snapping between them, expression puzzled and more than frightened. He hadn’t a clue what happened, but he discerned something did. “I just need to eat,” she added.

Bobby raised his eyebrows as her captive flinched, making it impossible for her to resist grinning at him. At them both. She wouldn’t snack on this lowlife if she were starving. She teased Bobby and loved injecting fear into this cretin who spent his time terrorising other people. So, this one enjoyed beating on women, did he? Let him try to batter her. Chantelle widened her grin, showing her incisors. Did he notice her teeth were too sharp?

“I’ll bag him, shall I?” Bobby meant he’d put him in the back of the car.

“Sure.”

She handed the lucky man over. He didn’t know how fortunate he was. Now, if this little scene hadn’t left her all het up and bothered. The glance Bobby gave her said he caught on, too.

She hated not seeing his eyes as they were: the right one brown and the left one so blue—a vibrant luminous glowing ring encircling the dark pupil. He wasn’t able to get a contact to match the blue eye. Besides, he’d appear strange, so he settled on brown to match the other. To blend in. To come across as normal. To be human.

Some people remarked he had wolf eyes. They were wrong.

Did he detect how she ached to view him as he was in all his nude glory? Maybe. His nostrils flared as she stood in the overspill of his response to her arousal. Power. She sucked it in.

Mistake.

An image of Bobby pulling off her uniform, throwing her naked on the bonnet of the patrol car right there in front of the perp, did many familiar and devastating things. She wore trousers as most females in the force opted to do these days, but wished for a skirt, torn between the longing to bend over and wishing to face her lover. Her fingers flexed with the itch to ensnare his black and grey-flecked hair, pull so hard he’d plead with her to stop.

Not that Bobby would. He wouldn’t make her quit because no way would he want to escape from her clutches, from her dragging his mouth to her breast.

They must wait. No way would she give the guy stashed in the car a show. He’d be entertained, and enjoyment didn’t come into her definition of what a criminal deserved. Besides, they mustn’t let anyone in the department grasp they were an item, or one of them would be in line for a transfer, if not disciplinary action.

Her radio made a noise; words crackled out: “Are you receiving? Over.”

She replied, tempted to ask dispatch to tell ‘Sarge’ to put on the kettle, an in-office witticism, but one she shouldn’t sing out over the airwaves.

“Let’s go back, shall we?” The lump in Bobby’s throat bobbed, and Chantelle needed every ounce of control not to fling her body into his arms, not to fasten her teeth at his neck. Better yet, she’d flick her head back, offer him her gullet. She might be a strong independent woman, but it didn’t mean taking the submissive role had to be enslaving.

“Paperwork, then we f**k?” Chantelle whispered, unable to resist notching up his desire. Increasing hers.

Bobby swallowed again. “Yeah.” He fumbled with getting the car door open. His voice sounded husky. She almost laughed at the private joke.