Sliver of Silver (Blushing Death) Read Online Free Page A

who is here and not constantly somewhere else.” The authority in his voice was surprising. “If you can’t . . .” He left the rest unsaid. He didn’t need to say it. I nodded since I could not quite bring myself to say anything coherent. I went back to my office, shut the door, and cried.

Chapter 3
    Sitting on the couch in my living room, reveling in the silence, I let my shoulders slump. The tears I thought I was done shedding ran down my cheeks again in hot streams of frustration. I never imagined my life spiraling out of control to the point where I’d be in trouble of losing my job. I buried my head in my hands and then someone knocked on my front door. I thought long and hard about not answering it until his gentle voice rolled through the door.
    “Dahlia,” he said. “I can hear you breathing.”
    I sighed, a deep get-it-together kind of sigh that shuddered on the way out. Wiping the tears from my eyes, I got up and jerked the door open.
    Dean glared down at me. His deep olive-green eyes met mine with concern, seeing too much of me, seeing things I didn’t want him to see. The red, puffy outline of my eyes where I’d been crying burned. His lips pressed in a hard line across his square jaw as he stepped through the door. He closed it behind him softly with too much tension in his body.
    He’d kept a close eye on me since Danny’s death. Sometimes I appreciated it but other times, like now, I didn’t want him to see how bad I’d gotten.
    His face was stern and unreadable but there was an edge to him that hadn’t been there before Danny’s death. The edge was in his energy as it washed over me like a thousand hot jittery bugs crawling on my skin.
    “Everything all right?” he asked. I went back to the couch and plopped down hard.
    “Yeah, peachy,” I quipped. I just wanted to be left alone. “What can I do for you?” I asked. I was trying to hold it together for appearances, for a little while, anyway. He crossed his arms over his chest, bulging his biceps and chest out to ridiculous proportions as if he didn’t believe me.
    “You were at a crime scene this morning,” he stated. He was blunt and to the point, like me and I appreciated it about him. There was no beating around the bush when he decided to talk. The problem was that you had to get him to say it. He was the strong silent type . . . very silent.
    “Yeah, how’d you hear about it?” I asked. I hadn’t told anyone yet and I didn’t like the feeling I was being watched. Running my hands through my hair to get the strands out of my face, I huffed on the verge of shaving my head in anger if I couldn’t keep it out of my face. Me . . . on edge? Nah! 
    “Tag was on shift this morning,” he said.
    I gave him a blank stare, having no idea what the hell he was talking about.
    “Stewart Taggar.” He paused. “Thin guy . . . red hair.” When he mentioned the red hair, I vaguely remembered a ginger at the single Pack meeting I’d attended. I remembered him more from the crime scene at Mrs. Corning’s murder, Midnight Ash’s first victim. No matter what I did, I couldn’t seem to shake Midnight Ash or her carnage.
    With my spark of recognition, Dean continued. “He works at the coroner’s office. He took the body away.”
    “Well, he saw the body,” I snapped, annoyed. If he already knew, why come to me? Why did he keep coming around? “He can tell you as well as I can.”
    “Tag’s transport only.”
    “Fine,” I huffed. “I’m pretty sure it was a werewolf kill. There were two of them,” I almost growled. I just wanted him gone. I wanted everyone gone.
    “Were you going to tell me?” he asked, anger flaring and giving his voice a deep, dangerous, edge he usually only used with his pack. Power prickled around me, heating up with his anger. It was scorching before, now it physically burned. A nnoyance blazed in his glare as his eyes narrowed on me. His jaw tightened to granite with muscles jumping and veins