Oh no, not him. It was not him. Jill held her nose back in disgust, this felt like it was a sick prank. Was there a way to trick a werewolf nose in a prank? She backed out and looked at Lily, her best friend who had come to eat out with her. "Hey, something's wrong with my nose."
"Wrong with your nose?" she asked. "What do you mean?"
She couldn't outright say scent, it would be a dead giveaway. If anyone found out, they could kill her. Especially?
The guy that smelled just like her mate.
Lily kept staring at Jill, waiting for more information.
"Is there some way to trick your nose into smelling something it's not supposed to smell?"
Lily just shook her head and then just grinned. Yeah, she got the hint. "You found one? Is he in there?" she asked excitedly. "Who?"
"The Werewolf Killer." She just kept looking at Jill like she was joking. "I'm serious."
Lily looked back inside real quick and then shot back out. Of course, she looked horrified. "Oh no, it's Grayson W. Clark. What is he doing in there?"
"Eating a sandwich." Well, she asked. "He's out of uniform, and not on duty. No one is going to recognize him. Even if they did, humans wouldn't care."
"Okay. Jill? That's so impossible, he's . . ." Lily couldn't continue.
Neither could she. Grayson was full human, and a full blooded killer. "This has to be some kind of dumb trick someone's playing."
"Maybe your really sensitive to what he has on his sandwich? I smelled egg," Lily suggested. "Did you smell egg? Egg is really strong in there."
Was she really asking if she got 'the cozy warm scent that can only be experienced and never explained' mixed with the smell of egg? "It's not just egg, Lily."
"Maybe with the hot sauce?" Lily was reaching too. "I swear I smell a lot of egg. He's human, they don't smell like that? They are ineligible for that kind of thing."
Grayson wasn't an expired coupon. Oh, dealing with Lily sometimes. "We should get away from here." Jill looked toward the window one more time. She couldn't stick around for long, he had already seen her strange reaction. He already gave her a look that she couldn't shake.
She swore he even smiled at her. Grayson W. Clark did not smile at werewolves. "Let's go."
---
"Hey? Earth to Gray?"
Grayson turned and looked back at his friend, Billy, he'd been eating with. They were on their break and just wanted to get a quick bite to eat, but that was the weirdest sensation he felt. It was like electricity. No, it wasn't that. Two ladies were outside, deciding on whether they should go in or not. It normally didn't affect him, except? He really wanted the first one to come back inside.
He didn't know why, which was distracting him.
"Usually you don't look at the girls who are looking at you back," Billy noticed. "You liked one?"
Grayson tried to brush it off. "Doesn't matter, I'm done." He got up from his seat. They would be going back on duty soon. He put on his jacket and dusted off his patch.
"I liked one," Billy admitted as he grabbed his own jacket. "I feel like eating eggs."
Grayson just looked toward him a second. "Come on, William, let's go."
"I have a big hankering for eggs now. Boiled eggs," Billy said as they both headed out.
Grayson looked out in the distance. A strange part of him felt odd, like not going after that woman was wrong. His instinct usually led him in the right directions to stop werewolves in time. They never kicked in when someone just came into a place to eat. He never even shared a single word.
"I have to have a boiled egg soon," Billy repeated again as they got in their patrol car. "Seriously. Why do I want eggs so bad? I'm never that fond of them." He rubbed his nose.
Ugh. "Billy, now is not the time. Make jokes on break." Grayson took off, heading back to HQ.
"I'm not joking," Billy promised. "I don't get cravings this bad, if I were pregnant, it'd probably feel like this. Stop by the store real quick, I need to pick up some eggs."
Was he kidding?
"We've got a few minutes extra, humor me?" Billy didn't look like it was a joke.
Both of their reactions weren't normal. Billy never craved eggs, and he never cared about a random woman coming into a restaurant. "When did you start craving eggs?" Were those women actually trying something against them?
"When I saw one of those women come and peek in but never sit down," Billy said. "Her hair was that same kind of yellow as a deep fried egg. Honey type of yolk. I'm going crazy."
"I think we've just interacted with some new distraction technique by the enemy," he told Billy. Yeah, Billy seemed surprised but just for a second.
"Yeah." Billy's voice was soft. "Of course a woman like her had some undercover plan. We better head back. Skip the eggs, we'll probably have to see the company doctor instead. What do you think they slipped us?"
There was no telling, but getting to HQ gave them the best chances to get it figured out. Putting up a farce of pretty women coming in while they were off duty? He even had her looks memorized, every single feature. Once they were in the clear?
He'd track her and that other friend of hers down. Wolf or a human traitor, they would find out and make them pay.