"Damn it," I said automatically. Vampires were always bad news.
"I didn't know there were any in Dublin."
"There's not, not anymore."
Oh.
"Well, on that happy note," Cooper said, standing up from his seat at the table, “I guess I'll start dishes."
As if on cue, I stood too. "Let me help."
"No," he shook his head emphatically. Before placing his hand on top of mine and moving it gently away from my plate. "You really have done enough." He coughed, looking away uncomfortably. "If something happened to Katie. Well, I don't want to think about it."
There is no denying how much these men cared about their human charge.
"Let me help," I said. "Just sitting here, isn't making things any easier. I need to keep moving, to do something."
"I can respect that," Cooper said with a nod. "I'll tell you what, you can dry." Supernaturally fast, he moved from the table to the counter before throwing me a dishrag. I caught it in midair, grinning.
It was getting harder to remember that these men weren't unlike the ones that had ripped my family apart.
It was something that I barely thought about in my day-to-day life, ever since I moved to the city. I haven't had to. And now that horrible memory was coming at me from every angle.
Pressing my lips together, trying to focus on the slowly growing stack of plates in front of me rather than the memories of the crash only a few hours before that threatened to overwhelm me.
Who would have guessed that getting hit on by a creep at the pub was going to be remembered as a highlight of this terrible day? That and the pancakes.
It took a pretentiously dramatic ringtone to bring me back to the kitchen, to the task at hand.
"Sorry, that's me," Cooper said from beside me, holding up soapy hands. "Can you grab it from my back pocket?"
Giving my hands one last wipe on my pants, I fished Cooper's phone from the back of his jeans. "Bryan," I said, reading from the display.
"My brother." The phone rang again. "He lives nearby and must have found out somehow that I was in town. Can you put it on speaker?"
I did as I was asked, leaving the phone on the driest stretch of counter I could find.
"Where are you?" An angry voice sounded through the phone's speaker.
"Umm, hey Bryan" Cooper answered, looking over at me before rolling his eyes so dramatically that his brother could probably hear the motion through the phone.
"Where. Are. You?" The voice repeated.
"Okay, you caught me. I'm just outside the city. And yes, mom knows I'm here. I'm supposed to go see her tomorrow."
"I know what you did, Coop. You told me you weren't a danger to anyone. And I had to pretend to believe you. Then you come back into town without telling anyone, shacking up with god knows who two days before a body is found not two minutes away."
I stopped breathing. A body? I didn't know much of anything about the guy on the other end of the line, but it was clear he thought the wolves had killed someone.
Was I in even more trouble than I'd initially realized?
Probably.
"What?"
"They're coming for you, Cooper. Everyone. Someone called in a body not ten seconds ago, destroyed by wild dogs. I always knew you'd do something like this. It's part of who you are now."
"Bryan, I have no idea what you're talking about."
In my gut, I believed him. Cooper was as confused as I was.
"Play that game as long as you can, big brother. You won't ever get another chance to—"
The call cut off abruptly when the wolf standing beside me picked it up and smashed it against the nearby wall, sending pieces flying through the air before clattering down on the tile by my feet.
Ethan appeared a moment later. Could he have heard everything that had just been said even from the other room?
"Tell me, Melanie," he said. "Do you believe in coincidences?"
"Before, sure. Today ... not so much."
"Agreed. When I asked you to stay here in case you could be of some help, I hadn't really intended for you to come and examine a possible dead body. Still ... is there any chance you want to go check out a possible dead body with us?"
"Want to, no. But in the name of no such thing as coincidences, there's a big part of me that thinks I should go check it out anyway."
Chapter 8
Ethan didn't wait for an answer before taking charge, leaving me scrambling to figure out what was happening.
We were quickly split into two groups—those that would go track down the source of Bryan's accusations, and those that would stay. What no one said out loud was that if it weren't for the fact that Katie had been with them, they wouldn’t have needed a second group at all. But no matter what had happened, who had died, or how the wolves might have been involved, it was easy to see from the way Ethan held himself, glancing in Katie's direction every few seconds, that there was no way he was leaving her unprotected, even for a moment.
I was assigned to the first group, surprising no one. It probably had everything to do with my being too much of an unknown factor to be trusted with Katie, especially because of my all too direct connection to her attempted abduction, but since I'd been hoping to be invited along, I couldn't complain.
It wasn't as though my day so far hadn’t raised enough red flags about exactly how safe I was going to be in Galway from here on out. But Cooper's phone call was making it seem more and more likely Katie and I weren’t the only ones at risk. Something was happening in my city, and until I knew what it was, I'd never be able to turn my back and sleep soundly. I'd spent years trying to stay in the loop about what had been happening in the supernatural community without getting involved, and clearly, I'd been failing on all fronts.
If I wanted even a chance of survival, I needed answers.
And apparently answers meant leaving the relative safety of the manor in midmorning with three wolves, only two of which were in human form, and go hunt down a body. A task only made slightly less daunting by the fact that some of the wolves who had been patrolling outside had already picked up a scent that could lead us to answers.
While I didn’t know the specifics, there was an obvious psychic link between the wolf pack. Ethan, and the others all seemed to be getting simultaneous updates, allowing them to adapt their plan without meeting face-to-face with each other.
But whatever had happened, they each seemed confident that they'd find the evidence they needed somewhere nearby.
"This could be a distraction," Cooper pointed out as everyone in human form stood at the top of the long driveway, preparing to go our separate ways. His eyes wandered over to where Katie sat on the front steps, head leaning against one of her palms, phone in the other.
Ethan’s jaw clenched as I turned to look at him. If he was trying to hide the battle raging inside him about whether he should stay with his daughter, he was doing a lousy job. If there hadn't already been a clear trail to follow, I had serious doubts about which team he might have ended up on.
John stepped forward before Ethan could speak. "I won't let her out of my sight while you're gone. Alec and Jermaine will stay outside. No one will take a step toward this house that we don't know about. Hell, I'll sit on her the whole time you're gone if it will make you feel better."
Katie looked up from the step long enough to stick out her tongue before returning her full attention to her phone. John's tone had seemed dead serious, but the teenaged girl I'd been mistaken for earlier had a much better sense about the wolves in her life than I did. "The sooner you're gone, the sooner you're back," John added when Ethan didn't respond.
Finally, Ethan nodded. "You're right. The best way to protect Katie, to protect all of us, is to find answers about what the hell is happening here. If anything changes ..."
"You'll know," John finished, already moving back inside as Katie stood to join him. "And happy hunting."
Which left me, Cooper, and Ethan to find those
answers, along with a russet-colored wolf who met us at the road. "Sean, Melanie. Melanie, Sean." Ethan said, not looking at either of us as he studied the surrounding area.
I hadn't realized we’d be traveling on foot. In a matter of minutes, the manor house was out of sight as Sean led the way across an open field, his nose never once leaving the ground. Cooper followed close behind, jogging to keep up the pace, while Ethan and I took up the rear.
"Can you tell how far we have to go?" I asked, extending my stride to try and keep up. I had so many questions about the wolves—who they were and how their abilities truly worked—but wasn't sure how much I could safely ask.
"Not far now," was the only response.
Up ahead, the others had already stopped moving, waiting by a fence post as Ethan started jogging toward them. Reluctantly, I did the same, grateful for the chance I’d had earlier to fully recharge, even if the experience had been less than pleasant.
I recognized the property immediately. I'd seen the very same barn not long ago, on the same winding road that I'd taken to reach Ethan on my second trip up into the country.
There was no way for me to smell what the wolves could, but the way the three men I was with were all looking at that barn ... it told me everything I needed to know.
A shiver overtook me as I hoisted myself over the post and beam fence, briefly grabbing Ethan's hand as I hopped over and planted myself on the ground. In the distance, I spotted the same horse from earlier pacing along the opposite end of the property, nervous and giving himself as much distance from our group of intruders as he could manage.
"In there?" I asked. Cooper nodded, but already Ethan had taken his place, leading the group as we approached what looked to be a long-abandoned building. Something unspoken must have passed between him and the others as Sean stayed by his side, and Cooper slowed down to take up the rear.
Despite being surrounded by creatures who could rip apart any opponent, I was anything but comfortable. The only time I'd ever seen a dead body was my memories from the day I was born, and it wasn't an experience I was eager to relive. But I also wasn't about to excuse myself to wait outside and let these men I'd only just met deal with whatever was waiting for us. Whatever was in there, the only eyes or perspective I could trust absolutely was my own.
Taking a deep breath, I stepped inside the dimly lit barn. A few missing planks in the ceiling were the only things keeping the barn from complete darkness, casting several strong beams of light onto the dusty floor in front of us. When I saw the body, in the center of the room, both shredded and broken, all the remaining air was forced from my lungs.
Instinctively, I took a step back, bumping into Cooper in the process.
Cooper. A werewolf. And if what his brother said was right, a potential suspect. "Shit," he mumbled from behind me.
In that moment, I was having some serious doubts about my own decision-making skills.
I sidestepped, moving myself closer to the door, but unable to take my eyes from the body. The form was lying face down in the dust, and looked to be female. Whoever this girl had been, several chunks of her back had been ripped away by something long and sharp. Green mist shimmered over her, dim but there.
Fae magick.
"It looks like a wolf attack," Ethan said, standing so close to the body he could almost touch it. "But it doesn't smell like a wolf. It doesn't smell like anything."
I barely heard the words being spoken around me as I continued to take in what I was seeing through the lens of my own magick. From what I'd heard, the fae could be ruthless killers, but everything about the gashes in the corpse in front of me looked animalistic.
Fighting both nausea and fear in nearly equal amounts, I struggled to put the pieces together. But there was just too much to take in. Too much flesh, too much blood.
Not enough magick.
I needed to see more.
Taking a step closer, I fought the urge to hold my breath. There was definitely fae magick here, but I didn't know if the fae were capable of faking a wolf attack. There was so much I didn't know, and I wasn't about to point the finger at an entire race without knowing more.
Whoever this girl had been, she was about my height with straight brown hair that had clumped together with blood from a head wound I couldn't see. Scraps of a pale-blue fabric clung to parts of her body, while the dark jeans she'd worn were mostly intact. Her feet were bare.
This poor girl. I bit my lip to hold back tears.
"Turn her over," I said. My voice barely came out as a whisper. I had a theory, but it wasn't one I was ready to put words to.
Wordlessly, they followed my suggestion, no one questioning whether it was in our best interest to disturb the body. Because if I was right, it was in no one's best interest for the human police to find what we had.
Ever so gently, both Ethan and Cooper moved the girl so her face looked up toward the ceiling, showing us all what we needed to see. Someone swore, though I didn't catch who, too busy taking in the slightly pointed ears, and the impossibly long, white eyelashes in front of me.
The body we'd found wasn't human. It was fae. Ethan growled beside me, his whole body rumbling with the noise.
A fae girl. Who had been ripped apart by werewolves.
No. That wasn't right either. Because if the magick I was still seeing on her was her own, even after she'd died, shouldn’t there also be evidence of her attacker?
I wasn't exactly an expert in any of this, but at least I was with three people who were probably extremely familiar with werewolf attacks.
"What can you tell me about this?" I asked, glancing at Ethan without meeting his eyes.
Right away, his brows quirked up, but it was Cooper who spoke first. "Hey, we appreciate what you did, but we don't answer to you."
"No, but you are strangers in my city. And as soon as you turn up, I get abducted, and then this. I heard the same call you did. Someone thinks this was wolves."
"It wasn't." I turned back to Ethan to see him shaking his head. "At least it wasn't any of our wolves. There's no way anyone could have done something like this without me knowing. Any one of my wolves would have gone into a complete rage to destroy a body like this. Not only would I have felt it, but I know where my men have been all day."
"Except," I pointed out, "you probably wouldn't confess to me if you did think one of your people had done this, right?"
"It wasn't any of my pack," Ethan said, a hint of that same growl from earlier back in his tone. "And no one has scented any other wolves in our territory in months ... our territory being the entire island. I can't explain this. Which is a serious problem, considering that her faction is going to want answers."
"The fae aren’t our only problem," Cooper added. "There's at least one car approaching." At that, Sean trotted back outside without prompting, whether to stand guard or get out of sight, I didn't ask.
Squaring my shoulders, I braced myself to make the smallest of confessions, silently reassuring myself that this was for the best. That maybe I could do something useful here. Because no matter what was already going on, absolutely no good could come from the fae believing that one of their own had been killed by the wolves.
"Well, I'm not sure how much help this is going to be. But I can tell you that whatever did this, it wasn't fae. As far as I can tell, there wasn't even any magick involved." Both Ethan and Cooper turned from the body to look at me. "You knew I was a lesser magick. Well, this is what I can do. I see magick around me. And all I see on her is what's left of her own power, though it's fading every second."
"Guys," Cooper interrupted. "I don't mean to rush this, but if we don't want to be seen coming out of the building with the corpse in it when the police show up, we've got about a minute."
"Shit," Ethan said, looking over his shoulder out into the blinding sunlight beyond the barn. "Getting arrested for this is going to be the least of our problems if someone shows up here and finds something visibly inhuman."
"
Isn't this what that summit is all about?" I asked, getting a little anxious about being caught at a crime scene. "Exposure."
Ethan nodded. "And right now, it's looking like Galway is about to be Ground Zero for exposing the underbelly of the magickal world to all of the humans who have been pointedly ignoring it for centuries."
"You asked me earlier if I believe in coincidences ... but really, what are the chances that someone attempts to take your daughter the day before a fae girl is murdered, a month before an inter-faction summit is set to take place right here in Galway?"
God. Is this what would have happened to me if I hadn't managed to escape? I forced myself to look away from the dead girl. There was no way to know how old she was, being fae, she could have lived for centuries already, but it was hard not to see at least a little of myself in her.
Or did she die as a plan B? Or was this completely unrelated?
"We need to move her, now," Ethan snapped. I expected Cooper to argue, pointing out that there would be an obvious trail of evidence from the body to his brother to Cooper, but instead he moved instantly to do what his Alpha had commanded.
By then, even I could hear the car coming, my chance to run retreating with every second. "Stop!" I had a way to help. I just needed everyone to stop moving for a damn second and give me a chance to think.
"No," Ethan said as he grabbed hold of the fae girl by the middle. "I don’t know who you are, but you clearly don't know the first thing about how any of this works. We're not risking exposure to make you feel better."
My eyebrows shot up immediately. Gone was the grateful father I'd met before, replaced with this jerk? Ugh. But I didn't have time to argue with him when I had a solution that would work far better than whatever these two had planned.
"Put her down where you found her, and I'll glamour the body to look human, covering up any evidence of what happened to her along with hopefully any evidence on her body that we were here."
I was so going to regret this decision. But I also had no intention of being party to hiding the body of a murdered girl.
Both Cooper and Ethan froze, the girl's body hanging in midair between them, making me cringe.
Magic in my Bones (Lesser Magicks Book 1) Page 6