22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Once we were outside, I had my fellow recruits gather in a spot where it was clear that none of the items had been buried. I raised my voice. ‘Fluffy has tracked several things for us in real-life cases. We’ve worked together to locate some missing hikers, found evidence, and tracked down suspected perpetrators. Tracking with a K-9 unit can be a huge advantage, especially in time-sensitive cases.’

I leaned down, unhooked Fluffy’s lead and gave him a quick ruffle for confidence, then turned back to the assembled recruits. ‘I’ve had Sergeant Marks bury three items – a piece of clothing, a raw chicken leg and a small bag containing marijuana.’

One of Thorsen’s group, Frederick Miller, raised his hand, his expression pugnacious. I braced myself but chose to face his heckling head on. ‘Yes?’ I called on him.

‘Marijuana is perfectly legal in Alaska,’ he sneered. ‘Or, being a foreigner, didn’t you know that?’

Sergeant Marks turned around and looked like he was going to say something but I put up a hand. I didn’t need him to intercede on my behalf; I needed to show everyone, including myself, that I could handle this.

I gave Frederick a flat look. ‘It’s only for demonstration purposes. Besides, I didn’t think you’d appreciate me borrowing your cocaine.’ I gave him a saucy wink and the class burst into laughter. Miller turned a pleasing shade of red.

Visibly dismissing him, I turned back to the class. ‘Which item should we find first?’ I asked the others.

Jones raised his hand. ‘The chicken leg?’ he asked timidly.

‘Absolutely. The chicken will be easy for a dog to find since they have incredible noses, plus food is necessary for us all. It’s useful to know that your dog can always find you sustenance, no matter where you are.’ Despite myself, my mind wandered to surviving beyond the barrier.

I cleared my throat again and forced my brain to focus, then pulled out three plastic bags from my backpack. ‘Scent tracking is different from other kinds. We want to start with showing the dog what scent he is looking for,’ I explained.

I held the bag with a piece of raw chicken in it out to Fluffy and gave him the verbal command ‘smell’. He obeyed although, truth be told, if I’d said ‘headless chicken’ he’d still have found it. But this was a class and I wanted to do it properly. ‘Seek,’ I ordered.

Fluffy turned and, nose down, began searching for the chicken leg. He snuffled this way and that along the earth, wandering around in a circle. It was immediately clear when he caught the scent because he froze, lifted one of his forepaws and looked in the direction he thought the object was. ‘This stance is called pointing,’ I explained. ‘He’s showing us where he wants to go. To confirm his instructions, I’ll tell him again. Fluffy, seek.’

Obediently, Fluffy’s nose shot down to the ground again and he snuffled forward to an area where it had been disturbed. He stood over it, turned to me and whined. ‘Fluffy, retrieve,’ I commanded.

He began digging; the chicken hadn’t been buried too deeply and in a moment he’d uncovered it. He turned, barked at me, then sat next to his prize looking chuffed.

I confirmed that he had indeed found the chicken and patted him on the head. ‘Good boy.’ I turned to the class. ‘Dinner, anyone?’ I joked. There was a gratifying array of chuckles.

‘You’ll note,’ I said, ‘that Fluffy has found the chicken but he hasn’t picked it up, mouthed it or eaten it.’ There were a few appreciative nods, no doubt from the recruits who knew how much willpower and training it took for a dog not to devour food on the spot. ‘Anyone else want to choose what comes next?’

‘Yeah, the marijuana,’ one of Thorsen’s sidekicks said, eyes still flashing with challenge.

I sighed inwardly but forced my face into a pleasant expression, picked up the scent bag for Fluffy and repeated the process. Marijuana had a strong scent so it was easy for a dog to locate. Fluffy had his nose to the ground in a moment and his stance set to pointing only a few sniffs later. I repeated the command to seek and he hastened forward. It wasn’t a large area to search and in moments he’d uncovered the bag.

This time the recruits seemed a little more impressed. Everyone could appreciate how handy it was for your dog to be able to locate contraband, especially with such lightning-fast precision.

‘Good boy,’ I praised Fluffy again and passed Marks the baggie of weed. He pocketed it, and I resisted the urge to joke about him making me some special brownies.

The last item to be found was an old shirt that I’d worn for a day during Commander’s Weekend. My scent on it was strong and I let Fluffy sniff a scrap of it. It had been hidden well, away from the immediate area around the side of the building, yet Fluffy shot to it with no effort.

I praised him calmly, but inwardly I was jumping up and down and cheering. He had totally smashed it and I was prouder than a mum when their child performed their first nativity play. Keeping a handle on my exuberance, I turned back to my audience. ‘Any questions?’

‘How do you teach them to do that?’ a recruit asked.

‘I’m not an expert on teaching handling,’ I admitted, feeling an utter fraud. But I’d seen Gunnar train Fluffy back in the days when he’d thought Fluffy was a dog, so I did have some knowledge. ‘But it’s basically the same way the academy trains us – with a shit tonne of time, effort, treats and repetition.’ There were some appreciative titters.

‘How old is Fluffy?’ someone else asked.

Since I couldn’t say he was a nineteen-year-old former werewolf, I made up a number on the fly. ‘He’s five.’

‘Has he brought down any perps?’

I nodded proudly. ‘Oh yes. He’s stopped several crimes.’

I was nervous that someone would ask something I couldn’t answer and I stifled the urge to end question time. Another hand was raised. ‘You used hand signals and vocal commands. Why is that?’

‘Sometimes your dog will be working in a noisy environment and he’ll still need to correctly interpret your commands. Similarly, there’ll be occasions when stealth is required. Silent signals are a lot better when you’re tracking a perp.’

‘Has he ever located a dead body?’

I thought of the Savik brothers; both had been dead and Fluffy had helped find them. ‘Yes. Yes he has.’ That took the happy atmosphere down a notch or two, but it also felt right to end the session on a sombre note. We weren’t out there to play with a dog, we were there to talk about a K-9 unit and its benefits.

It was starting to rain but luckily my hour was up. I dismissed the students and they jogged back inside. Marks turned to me. ‘Great job,’ he said, giving me a nod. ‘You’ll hand the dog off now to Mackenzie?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good.’ He nodded stiffly and marched off.

Fluffy and I went to the car park. By now the rain was falling even harder but suddenly I didn’t care because Connor was standing waiting for me. His dark hair was dripping but that didn’t stop a slow, sensual smile curving those delicious lips. ‘How did it go?’ he asked.

I wanted to lick those raindrops right off him. All of them. It would be a long job, like painting the Forth Bridge, but I was totally up for it. ‘We nailed it,’ I managed to say, but it came out the wrong side of breathless.

His smile widened. ‘Of course you did.’ He moved closer. ‘I didn’t doubt you for a second. Either of you.’ The space between us closed further until our bodies were pressed together. His left hand slid around my back as he pulled me into him.

I looked up at him as water poured down us both. ‘Thank you,’ I said, though my mind was blank and I had no idea what I was thanking him for.

He cupped my face gently. ‘You’re welcome,’ he murmured, and then we were kissing. The warmth of him was a sharp contrast to the cold around me. The rain was buffeting us but I couldn’t have given fewer fucks; all I felt was him, the press of his tongue against mine, the slide of his hand that was grasping my ass, pulling me to him as if he could make us one, here and now. I was on board with that plan. The scent of him swirled around me and the jolt between us was so strong that I gasped into his mouth.

Fluffy barked loudly and repeatedly. Connor pulled back and rested his forehead against mine. ‘Good thing the dog’s still got his head,’ he groaned. ‘I’ve all but lost mine.’

I rubbed against his denim trousers. ‘I don’t know – I think I’ve found one of them.’

He groaned more loudly. ‘Witch,’ he accused teasingly.

‘Apparently so,’ I said wryly. I sighed and looked at him with real longing. ‘I’ve got to go. I’ve got class.’

‘Education is important,’ Connor agreed gravely. ‘You should definitely go.’ He leaned forward and gave me a final chaste swipe of his lips. ‘Go and learn. Now. Or I’ll drag you away to teach you something else.’

‘Promises, promises,’ I shot back. I was tempted to stay with him but I also had an annoying sense of duty. Gunnar had sent me to the academy to learn; he was killing himself to hold Portlock without Sidnee and me to help him, and here was I enjoying smouldering kisses in the rain.

I stepped away from Connor with a jerk as if I was pulling myself away from a magnet. ‘Soon,’ I blurted, though again I didn’t know what I was promising.

‘Soon,’ he agreed. ‘Go, Bunny, before I don’t let you leave.’

I wanted to sass that I was a strong independent woman and he couldn’t stop me from doing anything, but my knees were weak and my vocabulary had been reduced to incomprehensible noises that would surely only encourage him. I staggered back a few more spaces and the tension left his shoulders. He opened the door to the truck and Fluffy jumped up. Connor slid in after him, then they both watched me until I’d made it back inside the building. I sent them a finger wave and turned away.

I crept into the back of the classroom and settled on a chair at the back. The wind rattled the windows as I took my seat; I guessed it was a good thing I’d come in, out of the storm.

Sidnee shot me a wide-eyed look. ‘What happened to you?’ she mouthed.

‘Rain,’ I muttered.

She sniggered. ‘Uh-huh…’

Try as I might, I couldn’t focus on anything but replaying that kiss over and over again. The thing between Connor and I was truly fire. Every now and again I tried to drag my attention back to Fischer’s lecture, but my thoughts kept bouncing between the kiss, my demonstration the next day and the poltergeist problem.

It sucked not having a tonne of free time to investigate Petty’s situation. Part of me toyed with involving Sergeant Marks because he’d have access to old records and the like, but if Petty’s issue was an internal one then the staff were the main suspects. Recruits came and went; if Petty was trying to shine a light on a problem here, surely it related to someone who worked here. Ugh. This was all so frustrating.

Sidnee poked me in the ribs. ‘What?’ I demanded.

Lieutenant Fischer cleared his throat. Crap on a stick. I looked up at him. ‘Can you answer the question, Barrington?’

Bugger. I could feel a blush trying to rise but my floppy heart wasn’t pushing enough blood for that. ‘Can you repeat it?’

With narrowed eyes and a hint of impatience he said, ‘What is the leading cause of death in cold-water immersion?’

I knew this. I leaned into my memory for the recall. ‘Umm, cold-shock response.’

‘Correct. What is that exactly?’ he pressed.

‘Um… It’s a physiological response that includes gasping for air, uncontrollable rapid breathing that can lead to drowning, increased heart rate, peripheral vasoconstriction and hypertension, which can all decrease circulation and increase the risk of death even in calm water.’

‘Correct.’ He went back to his lecture.

I turned to Sidnee. ‘Oops,’ I said.

She sent me an amused smirk. ‘I knew you had it.’

I focused on the lecture and this time I kept my wilful mind on the game. I didn’t like being called out – I felt a total twat like Thorsen.

I did keep checking the clock though, as the lecture dragged on. Although the cold-water survival stuff was interesting, I’d rather have been out doing some snooping or snogging. I reflected on my own cold-water experience when we’d been chased by the terrifying kushtaka. Good times. After nine interminable weeks at the academy, I was so ready for a real case.

The lecture moved onto facts and figures about rates of survival. I wondered what a vampire’s life expectancy would be in the deep cold, or if it would affect a full vamp like Connor. I knew I’d been cold when I’d jumped in the bay and had to be saved by our friendly water dragon, and I’d been almost unbearably cold when we’d jumped in the water to avoid the Otterman, but Connor had been an exceptionally strong swimmer. Didn’t the cold affect him as much as me? I was a hybrid and there wasn’t a lot of information about creatures like me, so I had to learn by doing. So far I’d learned that I didn’t like cold water a whole lot, but I didn’t know if it would kill me – and I wasn’t keen on experimenting.

I checked the clock for the millionth time. Five minutes to lunch. I wiggled in my seat a bit; my bum was numb and I was getting super snoozy even with my soaking wet clothes. I needed blood and food. I ’d have to run upstairs to get changed and drink some blood, but then I’d have time for a much-needed break.

I was so exhausted; the adrenaline of teaching had fired me up but now I’d crashed and my energy levels were in the toilet. So of-fucking-course, that was when Petty the Poltergeist came roaring back into the academy with a vengeance.