The stableboy was not inside as we’d anticipated. A man we hadn’t met yet was, though. I cast a glance at Kelly, deciding to let him take the lead with this fellow, given the semi-hostile look he was giving us both.
Kelly didn’t need any prompting. “Where’s the little fella who took care of our beasts when we came in?”
The man shrugged, then spat into the sawdust and hay covered floor.
“You don’t know where he is right now or you don’t know anything?” Kelly asked, his tone sharp.
The man gave him an insolent look. “I just don’t know. What you and that freak you got with you going to do? Drag me into a dark corner and eat me?”
“Why you—” Kelly lurched forward and I grabbed his arm, giving it a gentle tug.
“He’s not worth it. He’s trying to rile us up to distract us.”
Kelly looked at me and nodded. Turning back to the man, he asked him, “What is your name and position, or do you not know those things either?”
“Jepp, not giving you my last name, and I’m the stablemaster.”
“You’re the stablemaster and don’t know where one of your stableboys is?” Kelly was not letting this go.
Jepp gave another insolent shrug. “Maybe he’s in bed. It’s gone dark and he’s only twelve.”
I cursed myself mentally. Of course he’d be home with his parents. Humans weren’t nocturnal like my people were. Kelly looked chagrined as well.
“Thank you,” he said through gritted teeth. “Now, where is home for him?”
“Cottage down by new sheds, along the river. You can’t miss it as the wash house is attached. Anything else, gentlemen?” He sneered the last word.
“Yes, as a matter of fact,” Kelly told him. “You best be taking proper care of our mounts and you should lose the attitude. I will be speaking to Lord Roe about you otherwise.”
Kelly spun on his heel then and I admit I was feeling petty over the general rudeness of this person, so I hissed at him in warning, allowing my fangs to fully drop, knowing full well that the lanterns in the stable were no doubt making my eyes glow in the way humans found so disconcerting. Jepp gasped and took a stumbling half step backwards. As I spun around to follow Kelly out, the acrid tang of fear wafted towards me, and not from the mounts. No, that was all Jepp.
“You just scared the piss out of him, didn’t you?”
“Almost literally,” I admitted and we both laughed.
“Good. That asshole deserved it. Come on, I know where the river is from here and it’s not that late. The kid should still be up.”
He was right of course, as we’d risen just as the sun was going down. We walked for a short while along the packed dirt track and the river soon came into view. As Jepp had said, there were three large sheds along a wooden dock at the river’s edge, as well as a small cottage with a wash house close to the river’s bank a short distance away.
“I bet they have a full view of the goings on there,” I mused.
“I would think so.” Kelly gave me a sidelong glance. “I have a feeling we’ll be able to get more answers than we hoped for here.” He frowned, his expression turning thoughtful. “I wonder why they bring in all the needles by road if they have a dock. You’d think it would be a mix of both, but Mal only mentioned wagons.”
It was a good question. If the kid didn’t know, maybe it was one his parents would. Kelly might not have ever had a case like this where he had to do a lot of detective work and he certainly didn’t have the training a Hunter went through, but he had excellent instincts. He had the makings of a mighty fine detective.
A mighty fine one, indeed, I thought to myself as he quickened his pace a bit to be a few steps ahead so he’d be the first person they saw, as we’d agreed. Damn, look at that ass. And those thighs.
I mentally pictured those powerful thighs bracketing my own. To my horror, it was accompanied by my dick trying its best to harden within my trousers and a sudden feel of slickness from behind.
Shit! Not now!
I stopped. “Um, I’ll be a moment,” I called out after him.
He paused, half turning to look at me in concern.
“You all right? The food didn’t make you sick, did it?”
“No, no. I just need a minute to compose myself.”
“Oh, yeah, best to come up with everything we want to ask before we go in there.”
I nodded. That was true, but not why. Not that I was about to enlighten him that my body had apparently decided he was the alpha I should mate with. Not happening!
“Right,” he said, turning to face me fully. “So we want to know if he ever saw Jeddah meeting a suitor or anyone else his parents didn’t know about, if they’ve ever seen pine needles arriving in barges or anything like that, and what they see going on at the shed in general. Oh, and if the lad can tell us how regular a visitor Joe Ackroyd is. His mount or the beasts pulling his carriage would be stabled here during visits.”
My dick subsided at the thought of the dead we were here to gain justice for. The slick I just had to put up with, though it would be absorbed into my undergarments soon enough. Hopefully it was a small enough amount so as to not leave a detectable scent that even their much weaker sense of smell would notice. I decided to try to get them to come outside to talk to us, just in case, as a breeze blew our way from the direction of the river, carrying with it the smell of pine, water, and fish. It would make it easier to make it seem a natural topic to broach when we asked about the sheds, making it seem more like casual conversation which is what we were striving for.
I mentioned this to Kelly and he agreed. “Okay, we ready now?”
“As we’ll ever be,” I replied, giving him a small smile I hoped came off as joking.
He turned back around and strode the remaining distance to the door and rapped firmly.