I could feel the icy press of accusation against my face as Aidan took another moment to eulogize Lydia. Her body, so I’d been told, had been sent to her estranged parents. I hadn’t known that she and James had once been part of Max’s pack. It was all I could do to straighten my spine a little more and keep my eyes forward and clear of stormwater. I was seated on a lonely chair facing Aidan and the Council of Alphas—Max, Josh, Dean, and four other stern faces I’d never seen before. They were all relatively young, powerful and masculine. Aidan had since introduced each alpha, but I’d already forgotten the names of the faces I didn’t know. What did their names matter—I was just a mutt to them and they were just my nameless executioners. They all sat behind a long rectangular trestle table, only one chair remained unoccupied: Aidan’s.
Her Athabaskan’s (Nicole included), had arranged themselves in a sort of crescent shape at my back, the group tapering towards the bench of glowering alphas. Tristan stood at my periphery, directly opposite Nicole, and his quiet rage fulminated like a blaze, staving off a little of the bite of cold surrounding me.
I became aware that Aidan was no longer talking and shifted my eyes to see her running her gaze over her congregation. I felt my blood chill as she finally fixed her gaze to me.
“An irremediable wrong has been perpetrated. The willful disregard of life is unforgivable, the loss unnatural and immutable. Only death can balance the scales of nature.” Her jaw tightened. “A life for a life—that’s the law of the pack.”
Tristan’s growl rumbled through the rafters. “And what about a life stolen?” The words seemed to hiss through his canines, his scowl peeling the flesh from Nicole’s bones.
For just a moment, her eyes widened fearfully and she shrank back from him. I could almost hear my cold sweat falling from my brow, the stillness was so horribly acute. I should have been consumed with hate for her. Tristan seethed with it, enough for the both of us, unwilling to temper or hide it. I was inundated only with unalloyed terror, there was no space for anything else.
It was Max that answered him. “We’re not here to weigh in on how she became a mutt, only her crimes.” He held up a hand to his son when Tristan opened his mouth to fire off a retort. “Go on, Aidan.”
“Tonight,” Aidan went on, “we settle things once and for all.” She aimed a hard, cursory look at Tristan and then transferred it to the assembly at my back. “Tonight we abnegate one of our own”—she turned to me again, a pathos tightening her mouth—“and the cost of blood will be great. Blood I myself will shed.” Her fists clenched at her side as a moody excitement reverberated through her pack. But when she continued the room fell silent again. “Let’s begin.” She nodded to Augustus, who instantly withdrew from the room, and then she took her place at the judge’s bench with the other alphas.
Before long, her second-in-command returned, a clear plastic bag in hand, and deposited what looked like “evidence” on the bench for the alphas to inspect.
My gut twisted as Max pulled out a blood-soaked shirt. My blood-soaked shirt. But not my blood. My missing phone and purse were there too.
Max took a delicate whiff of the stain and then passed it to Dean. “Is it…?”
“Lydia’s.” Dean nodded stiffly, pushing the shirt away.
A vicious murmuring suddenly swelled up behind me.
“You’re sure,” Josh asked, stern-faced.
Dean nodded again. “I’m sure.”
An uprush of disgust and horror threatened to choke me. I’d killed her!
With an impatient snarl, Tristan loped over and snatched the shirt for his own scrutiny. Jaws clenched, he breathed in deeply and then carefully tasted the fibers. Finally, he lifted his nose from it, a dour pleat in his brow.
“Are you satisfied?” Max asked coldly.
Ignoring his father, Tristan brusquely handed the shirt back to Josh. “Tell me what else you smell.”
After a diligent sniff, Josh lifted his gaze back to Tristan. “Gasoline.”
“Uh-huh.” Green eyes narrowed keenly.
“Irrelevant,” Max drawled, watching as Dean also took a whiff. “The shirt was found in a parking lot. Gas—” with a supercilious snort “—is a logical concomitant considering leaky cars are generally found in parking lots.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Let’s proceed, shall we.”
Tristan set his teeth and after a tense pause, in which the whole room seemed to hold its breath, he moved to stand at my side, an expression of confidence sublimating his cold rage.
“Now for the witness account,” said Aidan.
Witness?! My gasp was swallowed by the shocked silence pervading the hall. Clearly, no one had expected this except, of course, Aidan herself. Even Max and Tristan were stunned by the development.
Augustus, meanwhile, had moved to stand beside the bench so that he was both facing the alphas and addressing the spectators. Here, evidently, was the eyewitness to all my crimes.
“You’re the eyewitness?” Tristan’s fists were balled. “Why weren’t we informed of this before?”
“I’m really more of an earwitness,” Augustus replied. “And we’re in the business of uncovering the truth, not warning the accused.” This was followed by a tense silence in which one feral glare pinned the other.
“For God’s sake, man, get on with it.” Josh pinched the bridge of his nose before dragging his hand impatiently down over his mouth. “Some of us are tired and jet-lagged.”
“Why were you there that night?” Max asked Augustus.
“Aidan had reservations—” his eyes flickered briefly to me “—about the girl’s ability to control herself. Clearly, she was right to doubt.”
The crowd instantly rumbled their scathing agreement.
From the tail of my eye, I noticed Nicole studying Augustus with a curious frown. She then exchanged a quick glance with her sister, but both women’s looks were so guarded that I could make no sense of either one. When she turned to catch me staring, Nicole parted her lips smugly and shot me a cold-blooded wink.
I wanted to vomit.
“Wherever she went, I followed her,” Augustus said. “I didn’t know till later that Lydia had been sent to Florida for the same purpose.”
There’d been those brief moments, like in the parking lot at the hospital, when I’d thought I was being watched. Now it all made sense because they had been watching me! “You could have stopped me” —coming out of my chair, shaking with violence — “you useless bastard!” He should’ve saved Lydia from me!
“Control yourself, Miss Spencer!” Max thundered. He then shot Tristan a pointed look as if to say, “Keep your mutt on a leash!”
But his son had not yet unfastened that murderous glare from Augustus yet. Through clenched teeth, he said, “It sure as hell sounds like you could’ve prevented two deaths that night.”
“If you’ll both shut up a minute I’ll explain.” Augustus, unlike the rest, appeared both bored with my outburst and unaffected by Tristan’s threatening glares. Only when I’d planted myself back in my seat, still trembling with anguish, did he continue. “That night, at the cafe, I observed her through the window. It was starting to rain and the wind was picking up. Pretty miserable night,” he muttered irritably, “to be out babysitting, but Aidan didn’t trust anyone else to watch the mutt.”
“Careful…” Tristan growled.
He shrugged, unapologetic. “For a moment there, I thought she was gonna tear into that old lady’s poodle right there in front of everyone. Damn thing wouldn’t stop growling.” The hush was charged as everyone waited for him to go on. “But she seemed to snap out of it. The old bag and her suicidal runt finally left and I got back to cursin’ the storm. That is until Lippy here lost her cool a second time and got into an altercation with the victim, Alex.”
“Andy,” I corrected him quietly.
“Yeah, Andy, the pretty boy.”
“What altercation?” Josh asked.
“She overheard them talkin’ shit.” He
gave another infuriating shrug. “Just your stereotypical college brats running’ their damn mouths. They didn’t mean nothin’ by it, and they never meant for her to hear them.” His teeth gnashed as he shook his head at me. “You should’ve controlled your temper, girl.”
I wish I had.
“What happened next?” Josh again.
“Like I said, there was an altercation. She made it clear that she’d heard them.” Outraged whispers crescendoed as he paused. “No human should have heard them.”
I flinched.
“Then she threw a fit and stormed out.”
“There’s your motive,” Nicole muttered scathingly.
“Shut up.” For all his tone was low, Tristan had never sounded so savage, or homicidal. I almost feared for Nicole. Almost. “I’m this close—” he pressed his thumb and forefinger tightly together “—to going rabid on you.”
“I was livid,” Augustus proceeded, undaunted by the interruptions, “and wanted to run after her, maybe slap some sense into the girl, but by then I realized I had company.”
“Lydia.” This from Dean.
“Yeah, she’d been watching from the other side of the building and as soon as Evan took off she followed, bolting over to my side.” He shook his head ruefully. “We never even sensed each other.”
The rain! Though it couldn’t completely thwart a werewolf’s nose, it did, however, confuse and dampen scents into olfactory chaos. It was why I loved the rain so much, it offered a little reprieve.
Augustus scratched his chin. “She was fit to be tied, that she-wolf. Railed at me for sticking my nose where it didn’t belong. And there I was, riled at being discovered. I’d been told to remain invisible.” For the first time, his face softened with remorse. “Then we heard Evan scream. Just once. Heard it through the thunder. That was the last time I saw Lydia alive. She warned me to get lost, then she hurried away. Figured I’d let her think I’d slunk away like a good dog. I waited at that window, biding my time. Suited me just fine since I needed to be sure Andy and his boyfriends hadn’t worked themselves into a suspicion over Evan’s mutant hearing.”
“Were you satisfied they hadn’t?” Josh asked.
“Pfft, those chumps had nothing on the brain but sex.”
“Wait, so you didn’t run after Lydia and Evan?” Tristan cocked his head suspiciously. “You didn’t see Lydia die?”
“Like I said, I kept an eye on Andy. He promised the cook he’d close up since Lippy here had left in a huff.”
“No one heard any screams?” This from Max.
“Nah, the storm was wailing something fierce by that time, so Andy and the others stayed put. No one heard a thing. The storm seemed to distract them from Evan’s tantrum too, so I decided to go check up on Lydia’s progress. I was upwind, but I figured the rain would help a little to confuse my scent.” His mouth fell at the corners. “Turns out I had bigger problems.”
“She was already dead?” Dean’s face was drawn and his voice gruff with suppressed emotion.
“Yes.”
Once again, I felt every eye flaying the flesh from my back.
“She’d gone to help Evan and it got her killed.”
43
Law Of The Jungle
Throughout Augustus’ testimony, Aidan had barely blinked her flinty eyes. She sat eerie and motionless—cold and formidable as a marble Lion Dog guarding her Forbidden City.
Augustus gave a tired sigh and explained that Lydia’s jugular had been torn from her throat. Her eyes, he recalled, had been wide and glassy, empty of every last drop of life. He appeared grave as he pictured her for us—her gaze frozen as the rain spilled over bloodless cheeks like cold tears.
Disturbed by this vivid imagery of Lydia’s crying corpse, I felt the tears course hotly down my face into my trembling mouth.
“She was so much stronger than Evan,” he said, “and could’ve easily overpowered her. Why hadn’t she?” He shook his head, incredulous.
“I told her to protect Evan with her life.” Dean’s eyes were clouded over as he watched his younger brother. Although there were no recriminations in the look, there was still something of regret. She’d followed her alpha’s directions down to the last fatal blow it seemed.
After a protracted silence, Augustus spoke again. “Lydia’s body was lying beside Evan’s car, near the cypress trees out back, but there was no sign of Evan except her clothes lying torn and discarded next to Lydia. I made sure no one could see the body from the cafe or the road—not that anyone was out in that wet hell—and then I bolted after Evan.”
“You didn’t at least try to hide the body properly?” This from one of the nameless alpha’s. Maybe his name was Bob? I knew a Bob back in South Africa who, like this alpha, had wild hair and an unkempt beard that was probably harboring a colony of feral chipmunks.
“Couldn’t have a deranged wolf running rampant in Juno Beach, now could I?” Then he swatted the air dismissively. “Like I said, I was the only asshole out in that godforsaken weather. The rain was coming down in sheets and the wind was howling from every which way. It was a cluster fuck, man.”
“Obviously, you didn’t find her.” Bob’s beard rustled ominously as he spoke.
“Her scent was wet and weak, but I eventually tracked it to the beach and found what was left of her trail disappearing in the surf. She was headed north along the shoreline. I did catch a brief glimpse of a large black mutt streaking off in the distance, but by the second time the lightning lit the beach she was gone. And, like you said, I’d left the body in the parking lot way too long already. So I abandoned the chase and headed back for Lydia.”
“And the evidence,” Max added, giving my soiled shirt a scornful prod.
“Yeah…” Augustus let the word drag. “The evidence. About that.” He approached the bench to bend his wily eyes over the crimson stain.
The blood still smelled so fresh—even from where I sat, it choked me with the stench of roaring accusation.
“When I first found Lydia’s body,” Augustus said, “I don’t remember seeing any blood on Evan’s shirt. When I doubled back, though, it was soaked in blood.”
“Well, a severed jugular would naturally cause a sizable bloodstream to—”
“I know that,” he interrupted Bob. “But Lydia’s blood was being washed downhill into the storm drain. Evan’s shirt had been lying, unstained, upslope of the body.” He shifted his mismatched eyes to Aidan. “Tell me how that makes any damn sense.”
Every gaze, including mine, followed his as though all the answers lay with the taciturn young matriarch, which maybe they did, but her eyes remained illegible and steely green.
“Doesn’t take a wolf to know that that shit just don’t smell right.”
“What—” Max’s voice was thick with ire “—are you getting at?”
“Simply this: the way I see it, there’s reasonable doubt as to Evan being Lydia’s killer—inadvertent or not.”
The whole room shared my stunned and silent shock.
“Evan must have circled around.” Max was emphatic about my guilt, the bastard.
“With respect, sir, that’s impossible.”
I sat up straighter in my seat, as alert as Tristan was beside me.
“Her tracks showed her heading north along the shoreline. I told you, I saw her for myself. I know a mutt when I see one. There’s no plausible way she could’ve covered the distance back to the parking lot in the time it took me to backtrack.”
“Notwithstanding the fact,” said Tristan with some heat, “that you’ve all accused her time and again of being rabid.” He was glaring at Augustus as he said the last. “And, therefore, incapable of premeditated murder.”
“Down boy,” Augustus said coolly.
A combative spark flared between the two males. I’d never known Tristan to allow anyone to rile him up the way Augustus was doing. Well, except Nicole. Sometimes Dean. It was frightening. I was saved the trouble of defusing his anger when Josh gave a
n impatient sigh.
“Hold up.” He dragged a frustrated paw down his face before leaning back in his chair to fix Augustus with a long look. “What about Andy? We have two slayings to account for.”
“Well, this is where the rabbit hole really gets dark and twisted. While I’d been on my goose chase, Andy’s friends, the cook included, had made a run for it. The rain was nowhere near letting up, so I guess they wised up and bolted. There were only two cars left in the lot when I got back—Andy’s and Evan’s. The building was shut up and the lights were all out. I didn’t see or smell his body at first because I was hell-bent on getting Lydia into the trunk of Evan’s car. She’d all but bled out, but I laid her on my jacket and dumped Evan’s clothes on a rubber floor liner. Then I finally smelled it. He was lying beside his car. Poor bastard had been attacked from behind and disemboweled. There was nothing I could do. The boy was dead, I checked. Wasn’t gonna waste time with him, since I still had to figure out what to do with Lydia”—he began enumerating his chores on his fingers for us—“then take Evan’s car back to her mother’s. Plus, I still had to head back out to look for my stray mutt.”
“You’re absolutely sure it wasn’t Evan,” Josh asked carefully.
“Brother, I’m not sure of anything, but you tell me how a scrawny mutt magically doubled back and beat me to the carpark, disembowel the kid, and then transfered the shirt downstream of Lydia’s blood. All without me catching wind of it.” He gave an incredulous snort. “I only had a small distance to cover”—his eyes narrowed—“and I didn’t waste any time.”
“Who then?” Dean’s voice had become menacing. He was looking directly at Nicole.
“What the hell is going on here?!” Max looked thunderous.
The same question was etched in the rest of the alphas’ faces, except Aidan’s, and they were glancing at one another with growing outrage. Furious whispers crescendoed from all corners of the hall. My heart raced maniacally, my thoughts were thrown into chaos.
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