I trusted my gut and my abilities. Whether it’s foolish or not, they haven’t failed me yet.
I parked the car and got out, carrying my thermal draped over one arm. Rosalin followed, and when I heard her door close I hit the lock on the keypad, climbing the stairs to my apartment.
I hit the switch on the wall and the light flooded the room. I shut the door, locking it behind her.
“Shit,” she said.
“What is it?” I asked watching her take a cell phone out of her pocket.
“I was in such a hurry I forgot to bring stuff.”
“That’s fine,” I said tiredly. “We’re about the same size. I’m sure I can find clothes and a spare toothbrush.”
“You don’t mind?” she asked, uncertainly.
“Right now, I’m too tired to mind.”
She went to the couch and sat down. “It seems strange, doesn’t it? How all of this has happened? You’re not used to it.”
“I’m not used to what?”
“Putting your trust in someone else,” she said.
“No.”
“I meant what I said.” She held my gaze. “I won’t betray your trust, Kassandra.”
“Good,” I said, “I’m a bitch when crossed.”
She smiled. “I find that hard to believe.”
I ignored the sarcasm in her tone and went back to my bedroom. I found a pair of shorts and a gray shirt with a white dragon on it. I handed the clothes to Rosalin and went to the closet at the end of the hallway to procure a black comforter. There were pillows already on the couch that she could use. I dropped the comforter on the arm and set about starting a fresh pot of coffee.
If I was going to question her, I really needed some freaking caffeine.
“Do you want some?” I asked, turning just in time to see her shirt fall to the floor.
“Sure,” she said and my gaze dropped to a line of white scar tissue that decorated her back.
She pulled the shirt down and turned to look at me.
I got two mugs out of the pantry and carefully poured the coffee in, adding milk and sugar to mine.
“Milk or sugar?” I asked.
“Milk,” she said.
I handed the white coffee mug to her. “What happened to your back?”
Her eyes met mine. “Silver,” she said and dropped her eyes to the pentacle scar at the top of my sternum.
She smiled. “I’m guessing that was silver, too?”
“Yeah.” I sat down, nursing my coffee. I grinned over the brim of my mug. “Fortunately, though, the chain wasn’t.”
She laughed and it seemed to lessen the tension between us.
“You don’t want to tell me more about your back, do you?” Leave it to me to bring the tension back.
“No.”
I nodded, dropping it. I curled my legs under my body, resting back in the chair.
“How did Sheila become your alpha?” I asked.
“She’s stronger than the rest of us.”
“I’m taking it that’s your way of telling me she wasn’t elected by democratic vote?”
Rosalin laughed. “Elected? Lykos don’t elect their leaders,” she said. “That’s a pretty idea, but it doesn’t work that way.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“In order to be an alpha,” she said, “you have to be able to prove to the rest of the pack that you’re more dominant than the rest of us. Most of the time, it’s about power and bluffing. Personality plays into it as well. There are wolves in the pack that are submissive to the core. They’ll never aspire to climb the pack ladder because they enjoy the safety of being under the rest of the pack’s protection.”
“Like an omega wolf?” I asked. In the wild, the omega wolf was the lowest-ranking wolf in a pack. It was the wolf that got picked on the most. The wolf that didn’t get to eat until the rest of the wolves were done eating. Yet, as badly treated as it appears the omega wolf is, he or she is still under the protection of the rest of the pack. Which is why I asked, “It just looks like they’re treated poorly? The wolves in the wild usually don’t actually cause any physical harm to the omega, they just snarl and humiliate him or her.”
“That is how it is supposed to be, yes.” Something in her voice made me meet her gaze. “With werewolves, it doesn’t always happen that way.”
“What are you thinking that you’re not telling me?” I leaned forward.
Her eyelids fluttered closed and she whispered, “Sheila has led the pack for eight years, and throughout the years she’s held the pack together and followed the rules in every way. Lately, her hold is slipping.”
“What does that mean?”
“She’s let her darker desires cloud her judgment,” Rosalin said. “She’s a sadist, Kassandra. She has issues.”
“You’re not talking a little slap and a bit of hair pulling, are you?”
“No,” she said. “She’s abused those who are meant to be under her protection. It’s gotten worse since her brother arrived.” A growl trickled from between her lips.
“I take it you don’t like him?”
“No one does,” she said. “The only reason the pack has accepted him is because we have no other choice. It’s not unusual for a new wolf to come in flaunting the Rite of Challenge. He hasn’t done that…yet.”
“The Rite of Challenge?” I asked.
“One werewolf challenges the other to a duel,” she explained. “If the wolf challenging a higher-ranking wolf defeats them, then they get the higher-ranking wolf’s position. It’s a way to move up in the pack hierarchy.”
“So, if someone challenges you, they get to be beta wolf?”
“Yes,” she growled, but her eyelids flickered nervously.
“Don’t worry,” I said, “I’m not going to challenge you. How is the duel fought?” I asked.
“By shifting,” she said and her gaze lowered.
I sat my mug on the table and slid to the floor, looking up at her. “It’s to the death, isn’t it?” I spoke what I sensed.
“Not always,” she whispered.
“But most of the time?” I whispered. “Is that how it is?”
She put her face in her hands, auburn tresses hiding whatever expression she wore. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “Usually, it’s to third blood. There are some that hold to the older customs, which yes, is to the death.”
A single tear dripped from her chin. I moved to her without thinking.
I pressed my lips against her damp cheek, catching that tear on the tip of my tongue. I closed my eyes, savoring its salty sweetness, breathing my breath against her skin. Her scent came on my exhaled breath, the smell of moist soil and earth, the smell of wolf. Somewhere inside me I felt the wolf stir. Pack, she thought, and a fierce yearning gripped my heart.
Rosalin’s fingers stroked my hair, lifting the white streak.
“Doesn’t it get lonely?” she asked, smiling with soft sorrow.
“What do you mean?” I whispered, leaning into her touch.
“Being without a pack. Especially with the mark of the alpha on you.” She tugged at the white streak.
“I haven’t been around any other wolves to know,” I said, suddenly understanding why most other wolves didn’t have a punk-rock hairdo like mine.
She murmured, “But, you feel it, don’t you?”
I turned, rubbing my cheek against her fingertips. “Feel what?” I asked, dipping my head and sliding my cheek across her jeaned thigh.
“Kassandra,” she said with a hint of laughter in her tone that the wolf and I were happy to hear.
She smelled good. I wanted to carry that smell with me. I wanted to make her smell like me. I opened my mouth and sank teeth playfully into her thigh. She gasped above me.
I could smell the subtle and clean smell of detergent on her clothes, could taste it, but the scent I focused on drawing into my lungs smelled of that damp soil, of pine trees, of rich earth and patchouli. I dug my teeth in a little rougher, growlin
g my frustration around a mouthful of jeans.
“Kassandra,” she said and I rolled my eyes up to her. She touched my face and the scent grew stronger, less tainted. I turned my face toward her wrist. Yes, that’s the smell we wanted.
I froze feeling my heartbeat pounding against the side of my neck.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “It’s your wolf, Kassandra, just go with it. What does it feel like she wants?”
My eyelashes fluttered closed. Her scent spiraled in the air around me. What did I want? What did she want?
“Smell,” I said and Rosalin began taking off her shirt.
I wrapped my hands around her shins, digging my nails into her calf muscles. “No.”
With a nod, she did what I asked. She left the shirt on. I climbed up onto the couch. Rosalin lay back and I gave her a distrusting look. It seemed so natural just to lie down with her, to lie next to her and smell her. I tried to argue with the wolf, but Rosalin moved her wrist to my face again and the wolf followed that smell. Where the wolf went, my body followed.
I pushed myself up off the couch in one fluid motion, breathing heavily, scrambling to my feet and nearly tripping over the coffee table.
She watched me with those compassionate honey eyes.
“Why are you scared?” she asked. “It’s only natural.”
“No.” I hugged myself. “Rosalin, no, I’m not ready.”
“Your wolf seems more than ready.”
I felt her as she paced inside my mind. The wolf didn’t try to slam into any metaphysical bars. She didn’t want out. She just wanted the comfort of another wolf. She didn’t understand why I didn’t agree with her. It confused her. It didn’t confuse me. Rosalin might have been another wolf, but as a human, she was still a stranger to me.
I asked, “What if I wanted to join the pack?”
“Is that what you want?” She gave me a disbelieving look.
I opened my eyes. “No,” I said, “but it’ll probably be necessary.”
“Oh,” Rosalin said, “because you suspect…”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Sheila would be going against pack law if she didn’t at least meet with you,” she said. “I can take you in and introduce you, if she gives me permission, but you’re going to have to play it like you’re seriously considering joining.”
“I know. If that’s what it takes, Rosalin, I’ll do it.”
Chapter Thirteen
My cell phone rang from its place on the nightstand. I rolled over, blinking at the bright little window on the phone’s face. I flipped it open.
“Arthur,” I grumbled sleepily, and rolled my eyes toward the clock. “It’s almost four o’clock in the morning. What the fuck?”
“Guess again, Lyall.” Instead of Arthur’s voice, someone else’s gruff voice grumbled in my ear.
I sat up in bed. “Deputy Sheriff Witkins,” I said, wondering why the hell he was calling me from Arthur’s phone. The only explanation I could think of was not a good one. “What happened?”
“There’s been another murder,” he said, then asked me if I remembered how to get to the Nelsons’.
“For the most part,” I said, leaning over and finding a pen and legal pad in the top drawer of the nightstand. I put the pen in my mouth, taking the cap off, speaking around it. “Give me the address.”
“Go about two and a half miles past the Nelsons’,” he said, “When you pass Cole Road, you’re going to make a left onto Southeast Twenty-sixth Street. My men have got their lights on.”
I kicked back the covers, tearing off the sheet of paper with the directions on it. “Deputy,” I asked, “may I speak with Arthur?”
“Yeah, but make it fast,” he said. “The scene is getting cold.”
I bit back the retort that the scene was always cold by the time they called me in.
“Hey, Kass,” Arthur said.
“If there’s not a steaming cup of coffee in your hands by the time I get there, Kingfisher, I’m going to kick you in the balls.”
I closed the phone, hanging up before Arthur could reply. My feet hit the floor as I stumbled around the room grabbing what I needed: shirt, jeans, bra, socks, shoes, and my shoulder holster. I went into the bathroom, relying on my night vision as I slipped the nightgown off, allowing it to fall to the floor. I shimmied into the jeans, pulled the bra straps up on my shoulders, and slid the shirt on over my head.
A crime scene at four o’clock in the morning—there’s more than one reason cops despise bad guys. I plucked the directions off the bathroom cabinet, shoving them deep into the pocket of my jeans. I grabbed the shoulder holster, shrugging into it on my way out.
I stopped in the living room, eyes flicking to the sleeping werewolf on my couch. Sighing, I went into the kitchen and tore a piece of paper off the magnetic notepad on the fridge.
I hastily scribbled:
Rosalin,
Had to go out. Be back soon…
Don’t touch anything.
There, that worked. I carefully slid the piece of paper onto the coffee table, listening to the languid sound of her breath. I grabbed my jacket off the chair. My keys jingled and I quickly muffled them with my palm, slipping out of the apartment as quietly as I could.
I knew my apartment like the back of my hand. If Rosalin touched anything, I’d know. The fact that I’m a werewolf and could trace her scent if I tried hard enough also came in handy.
*
I took I-40 to I-44 like I was going out to the Nelsons’ home. The drive turned out to take a little over forty minutes. I followed the directions Witkins had given me. The paved road turned into gravel that made an obnoxious grinding noise beneath the Tiburon’s tires. Over the crest of the hill, nestled behind an old wooden fence surrounding a trailer home, the lights from two police interceptors cast a blurry blue and red haze out over the land. I guided the car through the open gate, parking next to one of the squad cars. The cops had left their headlights on and I watched as they helped one another string the black and yellow tape from the right side of a double-wide trailer to the wooded area on the southeastern part of the land.
I spotted Arthur and Deputy Sheriff Witkins standing in front of the trailer. Arthur saw me approaching and started heading toward me. Goddess bless his little heart, he was holding a cup of coffee.
“Here,” he said, eyes sparkling. “I’d like to have kids someday, you know.”
I took the cup of coffee, taking a sip. I nudged my head in the direction of the trailer. “Who lives here?”
He pulled a little notebook out of his pocket. “The trailer belongs to a man named Carver White. Twenty-five years old. Works in a clothing store. Single. He lives alone and has lived here for five years. He heard someone scream around three o’clock. Ran out and found the body. Said he ran back in and called us. No sign of the murderer,” he said, closing the notebook and stuffing it back in his shirt pocket.
“Wonderful,” I grumbled, taking another sip and making my way toward the guys with the crime scene tape. Arthur followed as I lifted the tape and ducked.
Beyond the tape the land sloped down toward a small creek. There were trees lining the area, and enough cops standing around that all I had to do was play connect the cops to find the body. Arthur pointed to a large cypress as we approached.
“There,” he said.
The body was propped up against the base of the tree. A breeze stirred and the smell of blood and feces hit my nostrils. I coughed, lifting my shirt and covering my nose with it, not that the material would help much.
I breathed in and out of my mouth, holding my coffee close.
“I need gloves,” I said, stopping in front of the body and looking down. Her hair was long and brown, falling down over her breasts and matted with blood. Her lavender-colored blouse was so thick with blood that it had turned the color of dark plum. The woman was posed against the tree, like a trophy. I knelt, turning my head enough to see the blood
that originated at her throat, spilling out over the front of her body.
“Here,” Arthur said, kneeling with me.
I handed him my coffee and put the gloves on. I reached out, touching the woman’s jaw. Her face was pale and wide-eyed with death. I used two fingers under her chin to guide her head upward. It moved easily, which meant that rigor mortis hadn’t begun to set in.
“Oh God,” I whispered, looking at what had once been the woman’s throat.
It was an empty cavity that still seeped blood at the edges. Ivory bone glistened sickly at the back.
I let her head fall back down, taking another deep breath through my mouth. The wolf didn’t rise. I felt in her a certain amount of disinterest, cold neutrality. I traced the edges of the wound with two fingers. The edges were jagged and I stifled a shudder as a wave of nausea hit me. The beast’s ears perked inside me, like she was curious. I slammed my shields in her face, not willing to risk tempting her. She could remain neutral or she could get hungry. Only one of those could be an option right now.
Not tonight, I thought.
I scuttled around the body: brown boots, bloody jeans, charm bracelet on her right wrist, empty hazel eyes.
“Any ID?” I asked.
I heard Arthur take out his notes. “Veronica Monroe,” he said.
“Late twenties?” I asked.
“Twenty-eight,” he said.
“Have you contacted the family?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“Kass, is it another werewolf attack?”
I gestured for him to come closer and brought her jaw slowly up to show him the victim’s throat.
Arthur paled, but forced himself to look. “Here,” I said, the tip of my finger tracing the jagged wound. “You see these? At the edges of the wound?”
“All I see is blood,” Arthur said, sounding disgusted.
“Look closer,” I said, and touched the tip of my gloved finger to one curving piece of torn flesh and then another. “Here and here,” I said, “these are where the upper incisors clamped down.”
The medical examiner could precisely calculate how many teeth marks there were. Obviously, I couldn’t. Werewolves have more teeth than humans. Humans generally have thirty-two teeth, while wolves and werewolves have forty-two. Definitely one aspect of shifting that hurts like a bitch. Figuratively speaking, of course.
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