Rise Above ?

Chapter Seven

Markus actually growled low in his throat at the memory, nearly seeing red. Holy heavens, he’d nearly ripped Bill’s fucking head off after that. All he’d done was turn to glare at Bill so hard, growling low and deadly in his throat, unable to help the way his claws had extended out of his fists and Bill had squeaked and jumped a little away from him.

Markus hadn’t taken pleasure in the shock and fear that had passed over Bill’s expression at the sight of his anger – no, he would have felt so much better if he’d just served Bill’s intestines on a platter to hungry mongrels.

“What’s wrong with you?” Bill had said, trying to sound like he wasn’t frightened out of his mind and Markus let his eyes flash and that was all it took to have the alpha scurrying away like a little puppy with its tail in-between its legs. Pathetic.

And if Markus wanted to be honest, this authority thing was wearing him off seriously. He knew he was young and – god forbid that awful word – petite, so he had to be extra stern and brooding or no one and I mean no one would respect him or take him seriously. It was frankly some serious bullshit where he was concerned yet he didn’t have a choice. When he’d first joined his old team back in Serai, the officers there had basically walked all over him, making him feel like trash until he’d put his foot down, stopped feeling guilty about his age, brilliance and size and told them to fuck off so hard they’d steered clear of his way for weeks after that.

It was only then that for the first time in his life, Markus actually felt proud for being who he was. It wasn’t his fault he was born like that; he was probably going to be stuck that way for the rest of his life so he might as damn well love it.

As he stared at the unopened file on his desk, he sighed at another problem.

Ever since he’d resumed work this morning, Dallas has been giving him the stink eye. He’d thought yesterday would serve to make them work as at least acquaintances – if not friends even – but given Dallas’s reputation with alphas and the fact that he was naturally an asshole, Markus thought that he really shouldn’t be surprised at the turn of events. He sighed again knowing that whatever he found, he had to meet up with Dallas and Tania to discuss.

Although Seth West, their boss, hadn’t said it in blatant terms, Markus knew that himself, Tania and Dallas were sort of the leaders of their little team. Bill, Emily and Cocoa were honestly there for field work or an outside view and opinion while Dallas, Tania and Markus were meant to deal with all the dirty and logical work – Seth wouldn’t admit it, but he didn’t trust Bill to use his brain efficiently to put together the pieces of a crime puzzle.

Markus flipped open the red folder and began to read. The Medical Examiner, Spencer Smith, said that he’d gotten a lead on what might have killed the alpha but he wasn’t too sure because he didn’t have enough evidence.

When he saw the possible cause of death however, Markus froze.

Poison.

That rang a bell in his head. Poison? He frowned hard, trying to think. Why did that ring a bell? It took about a minute for it to finally click and Markus felt his eyes grow wide.

The pill in Serai!

Was that what was happening now? Oh wow, now that he thought about it, the two cases were eerily similar. Alpha – although there was no evidence but Markus could bet on his life that this was the case – trying forcefully to hook up with omega, omega blowing him off, alpha not getting the hint, alpha getting poisoned and then ending up dead, omega disappearing.

Without the context, it was exactly the same thing that was happening. It was really frustrating that they had no physical representation of the pill, he was sure that it would have really helped in finding out a lot of things – like what type of pill it was, who made it and all that jazz.