Grave Origins

by Lori Drake

  Vince fell asleep on the floor in a nest of destroyed couch cushions shortly afterward. The three Alphas retreated into the hallway for a quiet chat.

  “Well, that was… interesting,” Chris said. “What do you suppose the odds are that he comes back to himself when he wakes up?”

  “Nothing I’d like to gamble on,” Lucas said, turning to Sam. “Did you bring the sedative?”

  Sam nodded, producing a bottle of pills from his pocket.

  “Are those Dad’s?” Chris asked.

  “Yeah. In retrospect, might’ve been a good idea to slip them into the steak.”

  Lucas snatched up the bottle. “I’ll improvise.”

  “What are you going to do with him once he’s sedated?” Chris asked.

  “Get him in a room with a door we can lock,” Lucas said. “For everyone’s safety—his and ours.”

  Chris sighed. “We’ve got to figure out a better long-term solution.”

  “I talked with Dad and Sara,” Sam said. “Dad said he’d seen wolves go feral before, but they never came back.”

  “And Sara?” Chris asked.

  Sam grunted, looking toward the family room momentarily. “Sara says she might be able to help, but Jon…”

  “Won’t let his pregnant wife anywhere near a feral lycanthrope,” Chris finished. “Rightly so. She can’t just tell us what to do?”

  Sam shook his head. “It’s not that simple. She said the ritual is complicated, and she’d need a witch to help her with the magic side of things.”

  “I’m sure Cathy or Em—er, Dawn—would help.”

  Lucas, who had been glancing back and forth between Sam and Chris as they conversed, jumped in there. “What if we restrain him? Make sure he can’t harm your pack sister or her child?”

  Sam stroked his jaw. “I’m not sure. But it’s a thought. Let me talk to Jon and Sara.”

  “And I’ll talk to Cathy,” Chris added, taking out his phone.

  “Who’s Em-er-Dawn?” Sam asked, eyeing him.

  Chris stopped mid-call and glanced up from his phone. “Uh. Cathy’s new apprentice. Prospective apprentice.”

  “Wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain phone call Jon received yesterday about a former client of his, would it?”

  Chris really didn’t want to talk about it in front of Lucas. So he played dumb. “I dunno who all of Jon’s clients are.” He shrugged and finished calling up Cathy’s number, then tapped to dial her before Sam could interrogate him further. While Lucas and Sam turned their attention to the best way to get pills in a sleeping man, he waited for Cathy to answer. When she did, he smiled. It was good to hear her voice.

  “Hey, are you up for company? I need another favor.”

  Heidi was right where Joey expected her to be: in the kitchen. Joey didn’t bother knocking, just opened the back door and quietly slipped inside with Ben on her heels. The scent of fresh meat hung in the air, and Joey’s wolf took immediate notice, perking up within her fleshy cage.

  Heidi had her back to the door, but there was nothing wrong with her ears. “Hey, could you grab the aluminum foil? I forgot it and I don’t want to get blood everywhere.”

  “Sure, where is it?” Joey said.

  Heidi spun and blinked, because the pair who’d entered her kitchen were obviously not who she was expecting. Her hands were tinted red from the meat she’d been butchering—a side of beef, from the looks of the large chunk of meat on the cutting board. She held a huge cleaver in one bloodied hand. The hand holding the cleaver trembled, and she set it down hastily on the counter before wiping her hands on her already-messy white apron.

  “I’ll get it, no worries.” Heidi flashed the siblings an anxious smile as she edged a few feet down the counter to open a cupboard. A plastic holder was affixed to the other side with boxes of foil, wax paper, and the like.

  “What’s for dinner?” Joey wandered over to take a look. A few steaks had already been carved out of the big chunk of meat, lying flat on the cutting board.

  “Steak and potatoes,” Heidi said.

  Lingering by the door, Ben leaned against the wall and folded his arms across his chest. “My kind of people.”

  Heidi peeked over her shoulder at him, absently plucking the roll of aluminum foil from the holder. “Will you be staying for dinner? There should be enough…”

  Joey leaned against the counter. “Nah. We’re heading home, actually.”

  “Oh?” Heidi tried to play it cool, but there was no mistaking the way her shoulders eased in response. “Did you find your friend, then?”

  “Not yet.” Joey watched Heidi spool out some foil. “Actually, that’s why I’m here. I wanted to follow up on that chat we were having earlier.”

  Heidi’s pale green eyes flicked toward her again, not quite meeting her gaze. “Oh?”

  “Yeah, you know. The one you obviously didn’t want to have in front of Lewis. The one where you warned me Maria might be in danger, and then all of a sudden… poof, she vanished. So, what’s the deal? Why was—or is—Maria in danger?”

  Heidi began transferring steaks to a foil-lined baking sheet with trembling hands. She didn’t answer right away. Joey smacked her open palm lightly against the countertop, not wanting to give Heidi too much time to think up an excuse. The woman was flighty as hell.

  Heidi jumped at the sudden noise, and only Joey’s quick reflexes prevented the steak Heidi dropped from hitting the floor. Heidi hastily took it from her and moved it to the pan. “It’s probably nothing. Ancient history, you know? My overactive imagination.”

  Joey glanced down at her hand, grimaced, and walked over to turn on the sink. “You don’t really expect me to leave it at that, do you? Not when my packmate is missing…”

  Heidi bit her lip and sighed. “No, I guess not.”

  Joey went back to watching her, fingertips dangling in the stream of water as she waited for it to warm. “She looks a lot like her mother, doesn’t she? Maria.” She didn’t know that for sure, of course. She was just guessing, based on the way the Cincinnati wolves had reacted to her when they met her. Kyle, in particular.

  Heidi went as still as a stone. Seconds passed. Joey wasn’t sure if she would say anything at all, but eventually Heidi nodded. “Yes. Yes, she does.”

  “And that ancient history… it has something to do with Meghan, doesn’t it?” Ben asked, still holding up the wall by the back door.

  Heidi’s shoulders slumped. “Yes.” She finished transferring the steaks and took up the cleaver again. “Meghan was… a force of nature. More alpha than her father knew how to handle. You know what they say about the flames that burn the brightest burning out the quickest? That was Meghan. Sometimes I think she was destined for an early end, no matter what. But even so, she didn’t deserve what she got.”

  Lathering up her hands, Joey frowned. “What happened to her?”

  Heidi sighed heavily and brought the cleaver down sharply, slicing deep into the hunk of meat. “She fell in love with the wrong man.” A weighty pause followed, as if she might leave it at that. But she did, eventually, continue. “Most of the pack thought it was a passing thing. A teenager’s infatuation. I knew better. She loved him. Chose him. Not everyone appreciated or respected that decision. And when she got pregnant… it caused quite a stir. She was already on the outs with her family by then, but the rest of the pack shunned her. Still, she stood by her choice. They moved in together, and it seemed like that was that.”

  Joey listened in silence, rubbing her hands together under the stream of hot water until the soap washed away. Heidi’s story felt wrong on several levels. What family would turn their backs on their daughter because of her choice of mate? What was so scandalous about a pregnancy? Surprising, sure, but worthy of shunning and scorn? Every new wolf conceived was a cause for celebration, in her mind.

  Heidi went on. “Then one night, someone broke into their home. Paul was killed, and Meghan went into labor—probably from the shock of it all. She died in
childbirth—some sort of hemorrhage, I assume. And that was that.”

  Joey shut off the water and grabbed a hand towel, frowning as she dried her hands. “And no one gave a second thought to her child?”

  “Not really,” Heidi said. “Most assumed it followed its mother, I think.”

  “That’s fucked up,” Ben said, shaking his head.

  “I don’t get it,” Joey said. “Why would someone be so violently opposed to them being together that they’d, well, get violent about it? It’s not like shacking up with a lone wolf is some big scandal. Even for a Rochester. She was over eighteen, so who gives a fuck who she chose as her mate?”

  Heidi gave the side of beef another good whack with the cleaver, slicing cleanly through the bone and sinew. “Because Paul wasn’t a lone wolf. He was human.”

  Ben straightened. “Wait a minute…”

  Joey blinked rapidly as pieces started to click into place. The pack’s disapproval of her choice. Her parents cutting ties. The scandal of the pregnancy... “Holy shit. Are you saying Meghan got knocked up by a human? That’s why everyone was up in arms?”

  Heidi nodded, though her back was still to them both as she continued hacking at the meat.

  “That explains… a lot of things,” Ben said.

  Joey nodded. “Yeah, but not why Maria is a wolf. That shouldn’t be possible, should it?”

  Heidi shook her head. “No, it shouldn’t. A one in a million chance, probably. But that’s why I warned you that Maria might not be safe here. She looks enough like her mother that… someone’s going to figure it out, eventually. It might not go over well.”

  “Do you know who killed Meghan and Paul?” Joey asked, studying Heidi’s back with narrowed eyes.

  “No,” Heidi said. A little too quickly, by Joey’s estimation. “But it doesn’t matter. Maria’s gone, so she’s safe.”

  “How can you even think that? She might’ve been taken by someone who figured out who—or what—she is.”

  “Given how and where she disappeared, I find that unlikely,” Heidi said, shaking her head again. “No, she’s safe.”

  “I take it Lewis doesn’t know any of this?” Joey asked. “Is that why you didn’t want to talk about it in front of him?”

  Heidi finally turned to look at her, cheeks wet from tears that’d rolled down them while her face was hidden. “No. Lewis knows nothing of this, and it’s better that way.”

  “Why?” Ben asked, echoing Joey’s thought.

  “Because it would tear this pack apart. It’s been twenty-six years. Sometimes it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie.”

  “You’re protecting a murderer,” Joey said, and if it were possible for her to frown more deeply, she did.

  Heidi turned back to the butcher block. “Excuse me. I have a lot of work to do.”

  For a hot minute, Joey considered compelling Heidi to answer. But she was already on the outs with Lewis, and dominating his mate would only get her in more hot water. Shaking her head, she turned and walked toward the back door. Ben arched an eyebrow at her, but she shook her head and motioned for him to join her as she opened the door and stepped out into the late afternoon sun.

  Ben stepped out behind her and closed the door. “That was quite a tale. Do you think it’s true?”

  “The most outrageous ones usually are.” Joey tipped her face up toward the sky and let the sun warm her skin while she thought about it. “I take it from your reaction in there that you’ve never heard of a human and a wolf having a wolf child either?”

  “Nope. But that’s assuming it actually happened. I mean, no disrespect to the dead, but it is possible Meghan was stepping out on her beau. And the idea of a jealous lover—the father of her child—killing her pet human isn’t too far-fetched.” He rubbed his forehead. “Jesus. Even saying that makes me glad I’m gay. That’s a level of drama I sure as shit don’t aspire to.”

  Joey snorted and slugged his shoulder lightly. “But what about Jack? He’s definitely human.”

  “I dunno. In the wild, wolf litters can have more than one father. Can lycanthropes? I have no idea. The fertility rate is so low, it’s highly unlikely. And we still don’t know for sure if he’s even Meghan’s son, for sure.”

  While Ben spoke, movement in Joey’s peripheral vision caught her attention. She turned her head and frowned, lifting a hand to shade her eyes from the sun. Two men she didn’t recognize were running toward the house from the general direction of the barn. They both looked like ranch hands, dusty and sweaty from being out in the field. Joey stepped out of the way as they rushed for the back door. A moment later, Heidi—her face as white as the bloody apron she still wore—came tearing out of the house and ran off in the direction the laborers had come from.

  Joey hesitated only a moment before jogging after her. She couldn’t think of many things that’d send Heidi off in that state, and they were all bad.

  20

  Chris didn’t make it more than halfway to Cathy’s before the next crisis demanded his attention.

  “Hey, boss, the cops are back, and they want to search the house.” Even over the car’s speaker, the anxiety in Adam’s voice was obvious.

  A spike of adrenaline set Chris’s heart to racing and his hands tightening on the wheel as he quickly checked his blind spot and darted across three lanes of traffic to exit. The chorus of horns blaring in his wake was a fitting counterpoint to the alarm bells going off in his head.

  “What do I do?” Adam said, when Chris didn’t answer right away.

  “Do they have a warrant?”

  “They have… something. I didn’t get a very good look at it. I asked them to wait while I called you.”

  “If they have a warrant, we can’t refuse the search. Make them show it to you again, so you can verify it’s a warrant, then let them in. I’m on my way home now. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” Fortunately, halfway to Cathy’s from Lucas’s wasn’t very far from home at all. Still, it was farther than he would’ve liked to be right then. Not that there was much of anything he could do differently, were he there.

  He drummed his thumbs against the steering wheel as he got back on the highway, going the opposite direction this time. The BMW’s engine roared as he opened up the throttle, regaining speed swiftly to reach—and exceed—the speed limit. When he realized how fast he was going, he pulled it back to a more reasonable five miles over. As he sped toward home, he told himself he didn’t have a reason to worry. Kate’s belongings were gone. Her body was gone. There was no trace of her remaining on his property but for the holes she’d left in the hearts of the people that cared about her.

  Chris beat his estimate, pulling into the driveway a scant thirteen minutes later. That was when he realized he very well might be screwed. Not only were there three police cars, one of them was a tribal police car, and another… a K9 unit. If they had a cadaver dog, there was no small chance that they might find a body in the woods. It just wouldn’t be the one they were looking for.

  He parked behind the cruisers, since they were basically blocking the whole driveway, and climbed out of the car. As he did, a slender figure leaning against the tribal police car turned and looked his way. His wolf, already agitated, went on full alert. It was Leta.

  Once the initial wave of astonishment and anger passed, Chris shut the car door and approached Kate’s daughter. Unlike her previous visit, this time she had a badge on a steel ball chain dangling around her neck. Her expression was cool as she watched him approach, lifting her chin slightly.

  “Mr. Martin,” she said.

  Chris shook his head and glanced in the direction of the woods. “You just couldn’t let it go, could you?”

  She arched a brow. “The police received an anonymous tip regarding the location of my mother’s body.”

  “Anonymous tip my ass,” Chris growled.

  Leta shrugged. “A means to an end. This all could’ve been avoided if you’d just let me take her home.”

  Chris’s wo
lf surged to the fore, and it was all he could do to rein it in. Leta must’ve felt the shift in his energy, because her eyes widened, and she flinched away slightly. Taking advantage of that moment of weakness, he leaned closer. “You have no idea what you’ve done. No idea.”

  Her show of indifference faltered, and she looked away, unable or unwilling to meet his gaze with his wolf riding so high. “Then tell me.”

  “I can’t. I have to call my lawyer.” Chris rocked back on his heels and spun to march in the direction of the house, phone already in hand. At the rate he was going, he was going to have to put Jon on speed dial. He waited until he was sufficiently far enough from Leta to make the call, on his way up the front steps.

  When Jon picked up, there was a considerable amount of background chatter, like he was out and about somewhere.

  “Hey, bro, are you busy?”

  “Kind of, why?”

  “I think I’m about to get arrested.”

  Joey caught up with Heidi easily. By the time Heidi rounded the corner of the barn and skidded to a sudden, horrified stop, Joey was right behind her. She ended up crashing into Heidi’s back, but that wasn’t what brought Heidi to her knees. It was the sight of Lewis lying on the ground, sightless eyes gazing at the clear blue sky.

  Heidi scrambled across the intervening distance with a gut-wrenching wail. Joey remained where she was, struck dumb. It seemed so unreal, for the big mountain of a man to be so still, so pale. Ben rushed past her and took a knee beside Lewis, putting his fingers to the side of the fallen Alpha’s neck. He glanced up and met Joey’s eyes a moment later, giving her a minute head shake.

  By then, Heidi was prostrate over the body of her mate, making a terrible keening sound that no human should be able to make, much less hear. Joey approached to kneel beside her and put a hand on her back, not knowing what else to do. He may have been an overbearing prick, but Joey didn’t have the feeling that Lewis was a bad Alpha. She rubbed Heidi’s back while Ben discreetly closed Lewis’s eyes.