“Like that he had a brother or that he was a werewolf?”
“Both.”
I wanted him to be lying, but he wasn’t. He didn’t turn his head away or cover his mouth with his hands; his eyes moved naturally around the situation. He was telling the truth. Or his version of it.
Play nice, Lanard. You’re out of your league here.
Dammit. I hated when Ethan was right. What did I know about people who changed into animals? I had no clue where to start with this piece of information, let alone with how to trust this man in front of me.
He nodded and extended his hand. “Rafe MacCallan.”
“Merci …” and I trailed off because as I touched his hand, I was met with another wave of warmth, and a soft, intimate brush of silky fur against my neck. It left me breathless and my knees went weak for another moment.
Like lightning, MacCallan held on to my hand and scooped his other arm around my waist, bringing me close to him again.
“Are you all right, Miss Lanard?” he asked as I gained my footing.
I blushed only for a second before embarrassment turned into anger. I never faint and now I’d come close twice in one night. I took a step away from him and shook it off, regaining my solid footing, physically and mentally. It was probably hunger. I was trying to get food on a regular interval. Yet another thing that Ethan did, regulate my food cycles. He was always hungry.
With the pale of his skin and the bright of the moon, MacCallan managed one of the most pronounced furrows in the history of eyebrow furrows. He gestured back in the direction of the road. “Better be getting you back to your car.”
“Not without my …” I scanned the forest floor for my device and found it just on the other side of MacCallan. Still recording. So if I was eaten tonight, at least it would be well documented.
I followed the broad sway of his shoulders as he moved easily through the tangled underbrush, and noticed he was only wearing a long-sleeve black cotton shirt. No jacket or anything else to keep him warm.
During our silent hike, he paused a few times, and I watched as he listened, turned his head and cocked it at a funny angle. Just like Ethan had done that night.
Ethan was a werewolf.
If I just kept repeating it to myself, maybe it would sink in.
We broke the line of the trees to a small parking lot. I recognized Emily’s Jeep that I had followed. I pointed down the road to where I’d hidden my little four door on a small side drive parallel to the gravel road I’d crept down hours before my entire world view had shifted.
MacCallan kept peering into the tree line and perhaps he could see into the dark.
Maybe now we were out of the woods, I could get a little more out of him. Just a few simple, general questions. Something to orient me with this new information. Something simple that might help him open up to me, answer the gathering questions pressing down on me.
“Are you naturally hot blooded? I mean, it must be thirty degrees out here and none of you were wearing …” My brain flashed to the sheer amount of nudity I’d just witnessed. “Um, coats,” I covered quickly.
“It’s cyclical. Our body temperatures rise under a full moon,” he said smoothly.
“Like a fever?”
“Almost, but nothing is communicable unless in animal form.”
I stopped, startled at his meaning. “Communicable?” I asked. “Like a disease?”
“We talk of it as a disease because there is no real vernacular to describe it. In this language, at least.”
There were too many questions. Even if I rapid fired this interrogation, there was too much to know, too much that I had to know to move forward to even ask the next question. I wasn’t going to sleep. I had a two-year friendship to rethink, a magical community to explore, and a new gang to start hunting. My instincts told me Ethan’s death was somewhere in the crosshairs of that mess.
I went back to the basic of journalism, Build Rapport 101. “Can I buy you a burger?”
Sam’s was this great little place off the highway back toward town. From the private property, it was only a short fifteen minutes to get there. I ended up at Sam’s more often than I wanted to, but people felt cozy in the little, twenty-four-hour mom-and-pop diner. It was easier to spill secrets in this remote locale. The vinyl seats had become a confessional booth to many as I sat and listened, rarely even having to ply my charm at all.
I scooted into my usual booth in the corner of the long restaurant and watched as MacCallan sat across from me in the hot seat. He had the same grace as Ethan, that effortless smoothness I’d never been able to explain. Until tonight. It was the animal in him. The wolf coming through.
Under the fluorescent lights, I got a better look at him. He was closer to my height than Ethan’s, his shoulders broader than mine. His hair was dark brown, like Ethan’s, with faint red highlights I knew shimmered red in the sun. As he scanned the menu I had memorized, I watched him turn over the laminated list and noticed he had good, solid hands. Ethan’s has been long and spindly, like him. My Grand-Mere had told me that was the measure of a good man, that he had to have good, strong hands.
I slid off my coat, warm for the first time in hours. I glanced down and spotted blood on my sleeve, and my heart raced at the sight. It was all I could see, all over my hands, all over my shirt and jeans, the table. Like a scene from a horror movie, splashed up on to the window and across the table.
“Excuse me,” I managed out before I ran for the bathroom.
I leaned over the porcelain sink, my head against the mirror, and took in three deep breaths, trying to get my heart to stop pounding. I had to force my gaze up to my reflection. No bruises, no gashes along my neck. I was fine. No wounds. I was fine.
Well, I wasn’t really fine. The bandage on my arm had leaked through to my shirt. The damn thing wasn’t healing. But then, I hadn’t really given it a chance, definitely hadn’t followed the aftercare recommendations.
I dropped my bag on the sink and opened it, digging through for the small first aid kit I’d nicked from Ethan’s desk. One of the few things Emily didn’t take home, probably because she knew that I needed it more, having witnessed some of the scrapes that we had been in.
I carefully covered the old bandage with a new one and taped down the edges. Once patched up, I washed my hands.
“I’m fine,” I told my reflection, but the sour taste in my mouth told me the truth.
I took out my ponytail and raked my fingers through my hair to find some semblance of order in the curls. I put it back into a bun and then dug out some lip balm from my back pocket. I patted my face with a damp paper towel. I couldn’t do anything about the dark circles under my eyes. I was presentable enough for this conversation. I might feel like shit, but there was work to do, there were stories to write, promises to keep. And I now at least one of Ethan’s family members seemed willing to talk to me.
MacCallan shifted in the booth as I slid in across from him.
His gaze stayed with me as I settled. “I ordered some coffee.”
“Perfect.”
The waitress came back with two mugs and a hot carafe. She poured the steaming brew and slid them over to us.
“Thank you, Vicki.”
“You’re welcome, Merci,” the woman nodded before she went to attend to a few other customers.
“Come here often?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.
“People like their privacy when discussing personal matters.” I lined up two creamers and three packets of sugar—visual reminders of the big questions I needed to ask him—I was pretty sure he wasn’t the type of informant who wouldn’t take kindly to me jotting down notes about werewolves.
He took in short breaths and kept licking his lips. He rubbed the knuckles on his left hand and spun a signet ring on his left hand. He must have turned the coffee cup around a million times. If I didn’t know better, I would have pegged him as a guilty informant. He’d done something, or was just about to do something.
Only one way to find out. Start asking questions. “So how did a Scottish boy end up with a brother from the Midwest?” I asked as I dumped in one sugar packet and stirred.
The familiar sizzle cascaded up my back, and pressure swirled behind my eyes. I settled into interrogation mode and relaxed.
He finally turned toward me, and I caught his gaze. I knew I was being analyzed, assessed, sorted. My skin hummed under his heavy scrutiny, and the weight of it pushed at me from all sides. But this, in the hum of the hunt is where I lived. I couldn’t be certain about him.
But he still wasn’t talking. I tried another question to ease us into the conversation where I could tease more information from him and calm the static forming in my brain from a lack of answers. “Why didn’t Ethan tell me he had a brother?”
“You’ll have to ask him.”
“Why do you think he never told me he had a brother?”
He finally picked up the coffee cup. “Perhaps his literature professor brother wasn’t anything to tell his work friend about.”
I winced. Work friends. We were so much more than just work friends. Or were we? I was sitting across from his brother I hadn’t even known existed. Trying to get answers to questions that I could have never imagined.
“The police have been around to talk to all of us,” he finally said.
“Yeah, I got my social call, too.”
He took a small sip of the still steaming cup and put it back on the saucer. “Emily showed me the initial police report from that night. It was brilliant work of fiction.”
I nodded and it jostled the hornets’ nest in my brain, sending a few questions out to buzz around as I dumped in a creamer reserved for the next question. “What do you think happened that night?”
“I think Ethan was targeted.”
“Why?” was all this award-winning reporter could come up. “Because he was a werewolf?”
I wasn’t sure if my confession techniques were that strong, or if the literature professor just needed to weave a story. The narrative came flowing out of him easily, without the need for my normal interrogation tactics, the incessant questions, the direct eye contact. “Technically, the term is Shifter. Ethan was the Riko of the pack, the protector. Emily is the Shala, the teacher. Recently, the pack had some dangerous run-ins with Warlocks and—”
Finally, a word I understood. “Like the motorcycle gang?”
MacCallan shook his head, but his eyes never left mine. “Actual Warlocks with magic. About five years ago, there was a major turf war, and we ran the Warlocks out of town. I need to know if he was targeted by a regular gang because of the story you were working on or if these Warlocks are back in town.”
There wasn’t a shade of doubt in his eyes. He’d stopped fidgeting and actually grown more confident in the way he looked at me. But Werewolves and Warlocks? Was he serious?
I sat back in the booth. “If there are werewolves and warlocks in Philly, I think I would have run into one by now.”
“We’ve had thousands of years to learn how to disappear within society. You’d be amazed at what we can get away with.”
“What else is out there? Are there other magical beings?”
“Oh yeah. Outside of shifters and warlocks, there are Elementals – they have influence over the elements. Fey can glamour, warp your senses, play with time. Guardians are like Superman with special powers. And those are just a few of what I know to be in Philadelphia.”
I closed my eyes. Why wasn’t I sick to my stomach? Why wasn’t I afraid? This was insane, right? There is no such thing as werewolves or warlocks or guardians, oh my.
And yet, I’d seen it tonight. I’d seen Levi standing as a man and then a moment later standing as a black wolf. I’d felt it in the air, and it had nearly knocked me out of a tree. Magic was real, and I was just going to have to wrap my brain around it to get to the bottom of the story, because this was the only reason that I could think of as to why Ethan would lie to me.
I opened my eyes and blinked away desert-like dryness. I focused on MacCallan, and the familiar tingle trickled down my back as my gaze locked with his. “Why are you telling me all of this?”
MacCallan maintained our steady connection, something not too many people could do, withstand the Lanard stare. “The pack doesn’t want to believe this was a premeditated attack. But something dark is happening here.”
“What sort of dark?” Was it the same sort of dark that made informants disappear from the streets and hunted down journalists?
“I don’t know. Levi’s got them thinking they are safe and secure and won’t let us investigate.”
“Wait. So, Emily’s older brother is your pack’s leader?”
MacCallan nodded. “Ethan was feeding Levi and the pack information from the police and the stories you guys worked on. We all knew you were trying to sniff out a new gang in town.”
The betrayal of it all temporarily distracted me from his impossible story. Ethan, my best friend, my family, had died in my arms, and yet, he’d been going behind my back, feeding my stories to someone else? Just the idea of it made my gut wrench.
Why would he do something like that? After everything that we had done together, everything I told him about me, didn’t he trust me enough to tell me his secret? I forgot the line of questions queued up to the right of my coffee mug. “Why didn’t Ethan ever breathe a word of this to me?”
“Pack law has it that humans can’t know of our existence, so both of us could be executed if the pack finds out that you know.”
The idea of execution actually made me feel a lot better about the situation. I was back in familiar territory.
I studied him. His youthful face betrayed by the small lines around his eyes, the sparse gray at his temple. Nothing about him told me he was lying. In fact, I only saw a mirror of my own grief in the dark circles under his eyes.
He seemed to scrutinized his hands, running his finger along the deep lines in his broad strong palms, over the callous on the right middle finger. A writer and not a typer. When he finally spoke, his voice was low, his tone a mixture of defeat and determination. “Even Piper told me to leave it alone.”
There was that name again. It even distracted me from the note of betrayal still humming around me. Piper. The name that echoed on Ethan’s lips night after night as I watched him die again and again in my arms.
“Who is Piper?” I asked and I let myself dump in the packet of sugar that would make my coffee palatable.
“She is the Den Mother,” he said simply, like I was supposed to know what all that meant. Like I was supposed to know what any of this really.
But before I could issue a second question, one that would pry out exactly what a Den Mother was, his face grew hard and the furrow between his brow deepened to oceanic trench depths. It paused my usual compulsion.
“Even she told me to drop it, to take some time to run it off, get some sleep, but I need to know the truth. I need to know if it was your investigation or the Warlocks, if his death was magical or not.”
Well that was familiar, wasn’t it? When there were that many people saying look the other way, there really was something to look at. My father had taught me that.
“I know this sounds insane,” he continued, “but magic is real and werewolves are not just on the telly. I know that it is hard for a person like yourself to accept this.”
“A person like what?” I asked.
“A journalist.”
I counted the remaining packets of sugar, the questions all lined up and ready to be asked. I was a journalist, one of the best, and MacCallan was offering information. Information about Ethan. But at what cost? What was I going to have to pay to get the answers I needed to sleep peacefully again? What would he have to pay for disobeying pack law and coming to me?
“I won’t be able to print a story about people who think they’re animals, and I’m not thinking the police force is up to it, so how would I bring his killers to justice?”
“You’ll leave the justice to me.” His truth rambled down my spine like a stick along a picket fence. “If the cause is magical, I will take care of it. If it was your story, it’s your responsibility. But we need to find out who is responsible.”
“Are you giving me an ultimatum?”
“Think of it as a trial partnership.”
I scoffed at the idea. “I’ll investigate the new gang, but I can do it on my own.”
He shook his head. “You’re one human. And they nearly killed you along with Ethan. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“And you don’t know who you’re dealing with, Professor.” I grabbed my mug and finally took a sip of the hot, sweet coffee. “Maybe I should investigate how a big piece of a national park reserve was quietly sold to a private family?”
MacCallan ran his tongue along his lower lip and I had finally nailed down his tell.
“Maybe I should investigate the B&E that caused Levi to move his business?”
He leaned back in his seat and dropped his hands to his lap. “You don’t need to prove to me that you are a good investigator, Miss Lanard.”
“But you do need to prove that you are a trustworthy informant.”
“Informant?” He looked like he’d tasted a lemon.
“You have information I need about Ethan’s life that could have led to his death. That makes you an informant.”
“No, Miss Lanard. We are in this together. Partners.”
I laughed. “Never, Professor.”
There was a shift in the air, a subtle heat that passed across the table like someone had lit a gas burner on the stove. I didn’t need to see his hands to know his knuckles had gone white; the clench in his jaw was familiar enough. I was telling him to sit. I was made of do, of fight, of chase, and perhaps the man across from me was made of the same thing. Maybe he couldn’t work through it without getting his hands dirty as well.
My resolve melted, for both our sakes. “We work together on this, but on my terms, following my instincts on this one. You might know about full moons, but I know this city, how it ticks, and I won’t have you getting under my feet.”
The Truth About Night Page 5