Drifting In Shadows, Waiting For The Storm

3.

Angelina had looked at him as if he had lost his marbles and maybe he had. Maybe the whole run in the woods had simply been to unleash what he wanted and couldn't get. What he couldn't even dream of ever touching.

Monroe heard a groan and it was his own.

He was yearning for something forbidden, deadly, probably fatal. He wanted Nick Burckhardt, in a really good way, and it would be the last thing he ever did if the Grimm found out.

Angelina suspected it.

Eddie had never told her in so many words, but protecting Nick, holding her back, allowing the detective into his home to question her… and the way he had insisted they were in the past.

A healthy, strong and wild blutbad female wanted him and he had declined; at least until that night. That damned night!

He had promised Nick that Hap would be safe; he would keep him safe. Now the blutbad was dead and Eddie felt like pond scum. Not so Angelina; she was torn up over the death, but there had never been any admission of guilt. She had followed her instincts. Like good blutbaden should do.

Eddie scrubbed a hand over his face.

Shit! Damnit! Fuck!

Three weeks after the whole fiasco there was still silence.

It was about that time that Eddie confessed to himself that he missed the Grimm. He missed his presence in Monroe's home, the lingering scent trail he left as he moved through the house, the beers they shared, the questions he asked, the smiles… the teasing… the banter…

Eddie groaned and let his head bang gently against the wall. He had abandoned the clock, had tried himself at work around the house, and had finally grabbed a bottle of wine and gulped down the first glass.

He had told Nick the truth about no longer loving Angelina. It had been lust and the fact that he hadn't had any since… well… since giving up the animal, becoming a better person…

Normal instinct; simple lust.

To take the edge off.

And it had gotten Hap killed.

Everything was coming back to that. Nick's expression as he had looked at him, a kind of disappointment that had torn into Monroe like a knife.

Angelina had been all furious anger and hatred; Eddie had been numb realization that he had messed up. He had gotten Hap killed.

His best friend in the blutbaden world. The only other of his kind he would trust not to kill the Grimm. Geez, remembering how Hap had looked at the young detective, all easy acceptance and curiosity. So different from his sister, who had wanted to kill Nick and eat him.

It made Eddie sick to the core.

Because while he wanted Nick, too, wanted to taste him, it was in a completely different way.

But now… it was messed up. Everything.

Abandoning the wine – he had had enough already, even for a blutbad - he switched on the TV, cruising through the channels.