On the Prowl by Kate Rudolph

15

Despite his initial impressions,Andre had to admit that Darlene and her team had a decent security setup. Far from perfect, but in normal circumstances that should have gotten the job done.

And he was here to make sure they could get back to normal circumstances eventually.

Darlene was pissed as hell that the photographer had gotten back to the hotel rooms, but had already identified how it’d happened—he’d paid off a hotel employee—and was working to remedy the situation. She acted quickly, and he had a feeling she might even be useful against the ghost werewolf. She had a good head on her shoulders and seemed highly adaptable.

Not that he was going to say a word about the ghost werewolf. He could still barely think the term without rolling his eyes. But he had seen the beast himself. Shadows and claws and glowing eyes.

It was a threat to Em, somehow. And he wasn't going to let it get any closer.

"She said you were a private investigator?" Darlene asked with a practiced air of indifference.

She was fishing. It wasn't every day that a stranger like him showed up out of the blue and sat shirtless in her boss’s dressing room.

Or maybe he was fooling himself. Maybe Em had men in and out of her dressing room—and other areas—all the time.

His wolf bristled under his skin. Oh now, he did not like the sound of that. Em was… he wasn't going down that road. He couldn't ignore the attraction blazing hot between them, but it couldn't come to anything.

And he certainly wasn't going to let himself start having thoughts that would only lead to emotional agony.

"I needed a new job after I got out of the service." He wasn't going to directly lie to Darlene if he could help it. Lies had a way of adding up, but he would play along with the story Em had given her.

"How long have you been in the business?"

"A couple years." It was how long he had been a bodyguard… and a werewolf. But that was close to private investigating, right? It felt like it. But he was probably fooling himself.

Darlene accepted it. "So what do you think is going on? We've had some weird shit that I can’t understand go down."

"I'm trying to figure that out." And he had no idea. "What kind of weird shit?" Em had only told him about the torn clothes and bad dreams. As far as she was concerned, things were otherwise normal.

But Darlene was shaking her head. "I'm sure it's just my imagination. Some places just give me the heebie-jeebies. Like someone's watching me in the dark. Ready to attack. But I think that's just from watching one too many horror flicks."

Or there was a beast stalking the shadows. But Andre didn't say that out loud. There was no need to speak of it yet. If he had to tell her, he would. He just hoped he didn't have to.

"Is it okay if I wander around backstage while the concert’s going? I want to get a feel for what goes on." And he wanted to see if the monster showed up again. It was bold and likely to get bolder.

"As long as you stay out of the way of other people. And here," she said, handing him a lanyard with a large plastic badge on it. "Keep that on. It’ll let everyone know that you're supposed to be back here."

Andre slipped the lanyard on and didn't remind her that he had navigated backstage for hours just fine without any form of identification.

"There's a spot in the wings where you can watch the show," she told him. "Just make sure you can't see the audience and that you make way when you need to."

He nodded and took off. It was tempting to go watch the show. He had never been backstage at a concert before. But he had a feeling that Em was right and that the beast would not attack her while she was on stage. At least not yet. It seemed to be escalating, but that was a few steps higher in any game of escalation. It would probably try to get to her in some other way first.

Andre wouldn't let it.

He headed towards the dressing rooms on the thought that the beast had gone to Em's the night before, so why wouldn't it try again? He found Vi standing in front of Em's dressing room door, waving her hands in front of it.

Was she holding a flashlight? Something seemed to be glowing, but he couldn’t see what it was. He took a step closer, but before he could confront her, three of Em's backup singers rushed down the hall, probably for a costume change. And even though there was no time for her to get away, Vi was no longer standing there.

That was weird. And Andre didn't like weird.

He approached the door and opened it, sticking his head inside to look to see if Vi was hiding there. But no one was in the room. He could smell Em's scent and his own along with a hint of Darlene's from earlier. There were other scents too, ones he didn't quite recognize. Probably from her makeup people or costuming people. But there wasn't the lack of scent that came from the ghost werewolf… the shadow beast. Yeah, that was better. No scent from the shadow beast.

And he didn't think he caught Vi's scent, though he only remembered that there'd been an odd note to her scent. He couldn't recall exactly what she smelled like.

And that was strange in itself. He had no difficulty memorizing people's scents—it was almost the same as memorizing faces. But Vi was fuzzy in his mind. And he couldn't remember meeting anyone else like that.

He would keep it in mind. Maybe Vi needed to be questioned. After all, she had been on this tour for a while, and at the very least had probably seen some of the weird stuff that Darlene had mentioned.

He wandered backstage some more, but finally ended up in the wings just as Em started one of her more famous hits and the crowd went wild.

He flinched away from the loud noise. Maybe a rock concert wasn't the best place for a werewolf. But since he was on the stage, he was behind the huge speakers that projected her sound out to the thousands of people in the audience, and it meant it wasn't quite as loud as it otherwise would have been.

It hurt. But once Em started singing, the pain faded away as he watched her belt her heart out.

He had thought the performance during sound check was all she had to give. But he hadn't realized just how much she was holding back. He had never seen this side of Em before. There were hints of it. And she always had that irresistible quality to her.

She made him want things. More than just a roll in the sheets. She made him want what he had seen only once before, what he had thought could never exist.

Mate.

Was it fate? Hormones? Was it something quantifiable?

He didn't know if he cared. His wolf wanted to charge out on stage and claim Em in front of all these people so that they would know exactly whose mark she wore.

But she wore no mark. And she was not his. And Andre had to back away from the stage as the song came to a close. One assistant shot him a pointed glare, and he realized he was almost visible to the crowd.

He bled back into the shadows and then retreated further backstage to look around more for the shadow beast.

He was here for a reason and he had to remember that. Em wasn't his. But he was going to keep her safe.