by Sam Hall
“Feels so good to have you back in my arms, love.” He moved in closer, slowly, surely, waiting for my hand to snake out and grab him around the neck before he closed the gap. I frowned for a second, just stroking the slope of those broad shoulders, the thick bush of his beard.
“Those arms have changed a lot since we were in high school.”
“Yeah?” He whipped his shirt off. Damn shifters, always ready to get naked at a moment’s notice. “Better?”
“You’re fishing for compliments.” My voice was a growl, but my hands? They were curious, stroking over the muscles, the scatters of freckles, sliding down his sternum, the other hand reaching out and tracing the hard bead of his nipple.
That was the thing, wasn’t it? I’d never have completely new sex with Declan. I knew his lips would fall open when I pinched it. He’d told me he felt it in his cock when I did that during a make-out session. But there was enough different, fresh, freeing about this that my gasp matched his. I stared into his eyes as I gave it a solid tug, seeing his hips thrust forward, his hand reaching out to bring my lips down for—
The ring of my phone cut through the night air, the music, the hum of the car engine. I shot him an apologetic look as I pulled it out and saw an unknown number.
“Paige Spehr speaking,” I said when I answered the call.
“Ms Spehr, sorry for calling you at this hour, but I thought you needed to be the first to know. This is the coroner’s office. We examined your father’s body before it was interred as a precaution, human rules and all that, as well as taking the usual battery of blood tests required. We didn’t expect to find anything, so we didn’t bother to mention it, but…”
Everything fell away as I waited for him to finish the sentence.
“We’ve reason to believe your father died as a result of foul play. I understand the prohibitions against exhuming bodies, but I really feel…”
The phone dropped to the ground, my fingers hanging limply by my side, while Declan said something, did something, but all I could hear was the erratic beat of my heartbeat thudding in my ears.
“Paige? Paige?”
Declan’s face swum up into my field of vision, but I just shook my head. No, no, no, that was what beat in my blood.
“Mase, I need you up here, now. Yeah, I’m with Paige at the lookout. Right, well, hurry.”
Chapter 32
One of the mindfulness meditations Zack had taught me to do was imagining your thoughts as dead leaves falling on a flowing river. The thoughts passed by without comment, without response, while realising they always will, but you kept bringing your brain back to the exercise as a way to try and train it to be less caught up in the ‘reality’ of your thoughts. Well, it appeared I’d been too successful. When a large hand steered me into the local hospital, I was the leaf, thoughtless, empty, dead, and I was pushed along by the current that was them.
“It’s come as quite a shock.”
I blinked, saw that Mason, Declan, and some guy sitting behind a desk were all staring at me, prompting something inside me to focus.
“The alpha was a picture of health when Paige left town five years ago. She had no reason to expect him to die so suddenly, so she’s taking it very hard,” Mason explained.
“Of course, and her assumption was actually a good one,” the man said. Coroner, my brain supplied belatedly. Brian…someone. “I suspect the alpha had been administered a drug called coumadin. The tests they did when he was admitted showed abnormal clotting rates consistent with being prescribed this drug. It’s used for preventing blood clots in those with atrial fibrillation and other conditions that would cause your blood to abnormally clot, and while it can be dangerous if not used correctly, it’s very effective. The problem is there’s no record of Alpha Spehr having been prescribed the drug. With shifter health and healing powers being what they are, there’s little use for them locally until our elders get to a very advanced age. The alpha was still in the prime of his life.” The man’s hands formed a steeple. “This puts me in a difficult position. Our samples are all tested in human labs, and the findings are sent as an alert to me and human authorities. We’re going to need to bring the local police in on this, if only to keep the human ones from intervening.”
“I’ll contact the senior sergeant in the morning, if that’s all right,” Mason said. “I need to get her home, get her safe. The police and the coroner’s office will have our full cooperation, but…”
“I understand. I admit, I was a little concerned, dropping this sort of information on the heir.”
The implication being I might wolf out and rip his head off. He couldn’t have been more wrong. My beast felt completely divorced from me right now, because my thoughts and my feelings were as well. I got to my feet, going for the door, and the guys scrambled to say their goodbyes and follow after me. I couldn’t take a full breath until I was outside, looking up at the night sky, seeing the slice of Mother Moon left to us.
She was in her slow process of turning her face away from us, and that made perfect sense, so I just stared and stared until someone put their hand on my shoulder and ushered me over to the car.
Leaving town had been a little like a butterfly shedding its cocoon. If you’d ever looked into it, seen the process on YouTube or whatever, you knew it got quite brutal. Well, mine had been a step worse. I’d had a reliable car, a bag full of junk, and a bank account with some cash, and not much else. I hadn’t emerged from my cocoon, beautiful wings unfurling, I’d been ripped from it, forced to get those premature wings flapping, because it was fly or die.
So being taken out of the car, walked back into the enforcers’ quarters past the curious eyes of the other men, down the hall to an all too familiar room, it felt like I was taking several steps back. Like I’d returned to the cocoon, pulling it tight around me. Mason laid down on the queen-sized bed that smelled of him and then pulled me after him. I obeyed, because that was what I did. When my world fell apart, this was where I went.
“You can leave me with her, call her mates, let them know what’s happened.”
“No, I can’t, and deep down, you know that.”
“What? You want to make this about you right now?”
“No, I want to make it about her. She needs us, Mason. I used to think it was just you and was prepared to step back, get out of her way. I only ever wanted her to be happy, and you know that. Deep down, you do.”
My eyes closed when I felt Declan’s hand on my skin as I snuggled down against Mason’s chest, sucking great lungfuls of him in, one after the other of that deep, spicy male scent. The smell of safety, the smell of comfort, the smell of home.
But Declan was right. When he settled down on the bed, cradling his body against mine, fingers pushing back my hair, his scent mixed with Mason’s and they became something more than the sum of their parts.
Something that gave me permission to let go.
The next breath was a long shuddering one. I’d thought I’d been doing so well, just taking one step after another, focussing on settling the succession and coming to grips with what I was. It was all about just keeping on moving forward, I’d thought.
Well, I was about to go screaming back.
The tears felt like acid as they fought their way free, my ribs shaking, my whole body tensing against them. But they leaked out anyway in poisonous trails that scoured my skin, and letting one out meant letting them all out.
“It’s OK, Paige,” someone insisted, but they fucking lied. It wasn’t, he wasn’t. He was dead, not due to some physical malfunction of his brain or body but because someone decided to take him from me. My fangs snapped down, and my fingers went to claws, fabric shredding underneath them.
“Paige…Paige!”
One set of arms went around me like bands of iron and held me still, stopping me from striking out at the shadowy form. He smelled like home, but it was a lie, all of it. This wasn’t home, it was some kind of fucking trap for wolves like me, caging me in. My first instinct
when I saw Dad die was to run and keep on running until I couldn’t anymore, and I should’ve honoured that. She knew, deep down inside, my wolf, she knew this wasn’t right. But I’d let myself be lured back and sucked in by them. I thrashed against my bonds, despite the desperate sound of my name repeated over and over. I wasn’t going to do this, lie down, cuddle between them, and cry piteously for my murdered father. I wasn’t.
Because that’d make it all real. Instead, I did the only thing I knew how to do—come out swinging.
“Let her go,” came the steely order from the darker one. Mason, my beast said with a sneer that matched the one on my face, but he just stared me down, eyes shining like the fucking moon.
“Yeah, let me go,” I snarled, my wolf in my voice. “Open the door, Mase.”
I spat the last word, but he just shook his head, dodging when a clawed hand went smashing into the wood where he’d just been.
“He was murdered. You were his beta. Your whole fucking purpose was to protect him and keep him alive.”
Mason’s head jerked like my fist had actually connected, but I was a fighter, so I knew how to go for the low blows.
“I know.”
“Someone came into this house and gave him…whatever that was.”
“I know.”
“They took him. They took Dad. They looked at him, at all he did and said to try and help people in this motherfucking shithole of a town, and they said no, no more of that. You had to have known. You had to have your suspicions.”
But those lips remained resolutely closed.
“Let me out of here. I’m not staying in the place with the very people who failed to help him when he needed it.”
“No.”
“Mase…”
“Shut up, Declan.”
“I’m not asking, I’m telling you,” I said, ignoring the little aside between the two men. “Let me out so I can do what you failed to do, or I will fucking hurt you. I’ll find them.”
“Find who, Paige?” Declan snapped, my eyes jerking sideways. “You’re hurting and you don’t want to be. You think we don’t feel what you feel? That we don’t want the person who did this to die screaming? You need time to process, to let the pain inside you out. Give it some time, and then when heads are clear, we hunt them, together.”
“Not together,” Mason insisted.
“No,” I nodded to Mason, “you’re fucking right there, just not in the way you think.”
My attention was wrenched back when I heard someone at the door, Mason moving to block me, but he was too slow. I struck him hard with an elbow to his ribs, taking advantage of his faltering stance to push past him and the concerned enforcers clustered around the door. I strode out of the room and down the hall to the sound of Mason shouting, “Don’t let her leave!”
They hunted me, making my wolf fight to come to the surface, and I snarled my scorn when they fanned out, surrounding me.
I knew I was just acting out. Like an overtired kid, I was lashing out at those closest, rather than the real villains, but I had a child’s control right now. I hadn’t fought my beast this hard since going through puberty. Because in her mind, this was all too simple—hunt those who dared harm the pack and take out anyone who got in the way.
I threw back my head, let out the mangled gargle of a howl an in between form allowed, letting everyone, every fucking citizen of this town, hear my challenge. I would find who did this, and they’d better be quivering in their little hole right now, because when I got my claws on them…
“Fuck, we’re gonna have wolves pouring in here at that,” one of the men said.
“Forget that, focus on her,” Mason ordered.
“You need to let me out,” I said between pants. “I need to get out.”
“Not like this, not yet. You’ll hurt someone and hate yourself for it, or worse, you’ll hurt yourself,” Mason said, positioning himself between me and the door out.
“You can’t protect me. You can’t protect anyone.”
“Maybe,” he tilted his head in my direction, “but I’ll never stop trying, and you know that. You have to go through me to get out of here.”
“Fucking gladly.” I fell into a loose stance, despite my muscles locked tight.
“Whaddya wanna fight him for?” someone drawled. When I turned around, the one who’d taken me down in the ring stood there. Micah. He smirked, all insolence, drawing a long snarl from me, but those grey eyes just flared brighter. “You already put him on his arse. Just like I did you.” I growled, my teeth baring. “You reckon you’re all that, city girl who learned to fight?”
“Jesus, Micah, shut the fuck up,” Declan hissed.
“You gonna be all pack princess? Have the fellas let you beat them up for thrills because they’re dying for just one little touch from you? Let you keep that illusion that you’re hot shit alive?” He tilted his head, that shit-eating smile spreading across his face. “Fight me, and if you can put me down, you can walk out of here.”
Anger was a fire that burned up everything indiscriminately, and I was a raging bushfire out of control, but right then, it all narrowed down, focusing on Micah. That arrogant smirk, those big fists smacking into each other. If he thought he was going to take me out, he had another thing coming. That grin only widened when I took a step towards him, his hands going up, gesturing for me to come closer like a dog. I came all right, running from a standing start, my wolf stretching within me as I made my way. She shifted when I did, when I threw my body into a flying kick, arrowing in for that smirking face.
Trouble was, he was smirking for a reason.
At the last possible moment, his foot snapped up, smashing into my guts, aborting my strike and leaving me to fall heavily onto the ground. Every scrap of oxygen had been forced out of my body.
“Paige!” Declan came stampeding over, but the others held him back.
If I’d thought I was in pain beforehand, I knew how wrong I was. My body was in riot, desperately working to suck more air in, but it felt like I’d forgotten how. My diaphragm ached, and my throat constricted because I was trying to draw it in too fast, forcing me to purse my lips. It was counterintuitive, but it always worked.
“Flashy, princess,” Micah said with a broad grin. “Leaves you fucking open though, doesn’t it? So you giving up? I fucking stink and wouldn’t mind rubbing one out in the shower before bedtime.”
“Fuck you…” I rasped, getting to my feet.
“Well now, that’d be even better.” He looked me over with insulting slowness, as if imagining how that’d go as I raised my fists. Over my dead body would be how it went.
He bounced on the balls of his feet, hands up, looking like he wanted me to hit him rather than caress him, and I was all too happy to oblige. I struck out, and he countered, blocking my blow with the flat of his arm, so I was moving on, striking again and again from different angles, with different fists, and he intercepted every single one of them. My muscles bunched, trying to get faster, meaner, harder, and he did the same with a grin. I watched the sweat trickle down his face, saw the shake in his arms, but he never let a hit land. His grin just got nastier, his wolf’s fangs in his mouth now when I backed off. I was just wasting energy. He wanted to follow, I could see it in the flash of those silver eyes, which gave me an idea.
I turned on my heel and walked to the door.
It was the ultimate insult to another wolf. They weren’t threat enough for you to consider guarding your back against, and anyway, I wanted out the door, not him.
But I got him nevertheless.
I grinned as I heard the feet, the shout of my name to watch out from my loyal mate.
Mate?
That almost derailed me, but the moment his hand hit my shoulder, mine locked around his wrist, pivoting under him, pulling him off balance and tossing him over my hip.
I could see now why he’d grinned. I liked the look of him sprawled out on the ground too, that smirk wiped clean. He was much prettier without
it. I walked over, smiled his smile, and then moved past him.
Except his hand whipped out and grabbed my ankle, yanking it out from under me and sending me smacking down across him, which was where it all got ugly.
I’d been trained and trained well, and so had Micah. We had skills, but they weren’t being used right now. Our beasts were too close to the surface to use mere monkey fighting tricks. His fangs were bared to me and mine to him as we got in each other’s faces, claws raking at the other’s flesh. The scent of his blood stung my nose, and it made my eyes go red.
“They’re gonna fucking kill each other! Get the stun guns!”
But they weren’t worth paying attention to. I was in another cocoon now, a brutal, snarling, slashing one where all my rage was safe to let out. We rolled, end over end, kneeing, scratching, biting, tearing, yanking hair, until finally, it all stopped.
I was over him, crouched like an animal, my fangs at his throat, listening to the rapid tattoo of his heart, right before I was about to stop it.
“Fucking hell! We—”
“Back off,” Micah croaked, flapping a hand, but that was all he moved. My fangs tightened a tiny amount, but he just reached up, slowly, so slowly, and then lightly brushed through the brambles of my hair.
It wasn’t just that which brought me back, my human side fucking aghast at what I’d done. As it came online, it rapidly catalogued all of the ways I was hurt and had been hurt. Including the much heavier, much denser one inside my chest.
Daddy…
I yanked myself back, still straddling Micah’s hips, and saw the mess I’d made. Tears formed as I saw the bloody carnage I’d made of his chest, his arms. They were healing rapidly, the cuts and the bites, but some of them would scar.
“Jesus…”
I went to scramble back, away from this, this aberration, but he gripped what was left of my shirt and held me there.
“Don’t.” He shook his head, sharp and decisive. “You need to feel strong. You’re afraid when you don’t. What you heard, you can’t fight or fuck. You can’t do anything about it, not yet, and what you’ll have to do will be painfully slow and meticulous, searching for clues. Fuck, you might never find out who did it.”