by Meg Ripley
1
Walking through Aiza’s home was like passing through a stranger’s house. Sera recognized nothing of her sister in the decor, the personal items, or even the photographs. Aiza had been a dark-haired child of just eighteen when she left their parents’ home, and the woman in the photographs was blonde, fifteen years older, and hiding a lifetime of pain in her eyes. Sera had come to Aiza’s little bungalow in Portland to find something, anything, that might shed some light on her sister’s life—and death—but so far the only thing she’d learned was that she truly knew nothing about her eldest sibling.
Sera composed the obituary on the plane. She emailed it to the Portland Press Herald and posted it on her sister’s social media accounts, but only her closest family attended the funeral: their parents, Sigfreid and Judy, and their younger brother, Steven. There might have been another among the bereaved: a stranger who stood at a distance in the cemetery. Nobody else noticed him, but Sera had caught him out of the corner of her eye. In the fading light, she saw a ragged scar carving his face into uneven halves. Thick, bushy eyebrows shaded his eyes and a long, silky mustache flowed past his chin, almost to his neck. He’d been in full leather gear, and as he turned away, she caught a flash of a badge stitched onto his left sleeve: the profile of a wolf’s body against a full yellow moon.
The sign of the Wolf Brotherhood, Sera came to learn. Most wolf packs were complex families with complicated lines linking them to their allied packs, but not the Wolf Brotherhood. They rode without allies, and any wolf banished from their own pack found a home among the Brotherhood. No crime barred them from membership; no wolf was too wild or too dangerous. As long as they swore their oath to the Alpha, they were welcome to ride with them.
Sera had found a badge just like the stranger wore in Aiza’s belongings. To her, that pointed to a connection clearly worth pursuing, but the local sheriff’s department disagreed with her on that.
“They were associates. That’s not evidence. Besides, there were no signs of foul play. There wasn’t even anything suspicious in the coroner’s report.” Sheriff Daniels offered a small, placating smile. “I know how upset you are. I know this is very painful and difficult to process, but it was an accident. Sometimes accidents happen when it’s wet and dark.”
Accidents did happen. Bad things happened to good people all the time. Lives were cut short without warning for the stupidest reasons and there wasn’t a damned thing anybody could do about it. Sera couldn’t deny any of that.
But in her heart, she couldn’t accept it. Aiza deserved better.
Sera parted ways with her family in the cemetery. Siggy and Judy had cut short a cross-country trip, parking their RV in Chicago and flying back to Portland. They had a plane to catch and Steven’s wife was just about to have a baby.
“I’m sorry. I’d stay and help you out with everything, but she’s going to pop at any moment,” Steven said.
Sera gave her little brother a long, long hug. She hadn’t seen him in years—not since she left for college—and he was already grown up, with a job, and a wife, and a baby. She felt a familiar twinge in her heart at the mention of a baby, but it was flooded under the sadness and confusion she felt for her sister.
“Go to your wife.” She squeezed him and stepped back, “I took the week off so I could take care of everything.”
“I can come back. I’m only an hour away.”
“I’ll call you if I need you,” Sera promised, knowing she wouldn’t end up making that call.
Aiza had never been the easiest person to get along with, but Sera always had a special relationship with her sister. Even after she left home, the two had stayed in touch for years until one day, Aiza simply stopped answering her phone. She didn’t return letters, didn’t respond to emails, or even send out a Christmas card. Sera had feared the worst long before the phone call actually came and confirmed it. Now all she could do was try to find some sort of closure.
But as she picked her way through Aiza’s home and her closest belongings, she began to realize that there would be no closure. Not until she satisfied her curiosity once and for all.
Her first step was to track down the scarred man.
There’d been no time to snap his picture, but Sera found two photographs of him in Aiza’s nightstand, tucked away under her a stack of bills and old magazines. One picture was of the two of them with wide smiles, taken a few months before. Sera stared at that picture for a long, long time, trying to find a hint of the girl she used to know.
The other picture was of the man by himself, sitting on a brand new motorcycle. He wasn’t smiling at the camera, but the light in his eyes couldn’t be missed. Neither picture had a name or any other identifying information, but it was a start.
With nothing but the pictures in hand, Sera set out to scour Portland for a clue—any clue. Aiza had kept several social media accounts, but none of them offered any clues about the scarred stranger. The bars were probably her best bet. Sera learned quickly that ordering a drink and greasing the bartender’s palm helped make the experience more pleasant, though the first two nights were entirely unsuccessful. The bartenders, waitresses and bouncers would talk to her, but they wouldn’t give her any helpful information.
Sorry, honey, never saw him.
Nope, don’t know him.
He hasn’t been around here.
By the third night, Sera’s optimism was fading, and so was her patience. She had the same feeling in her gut she had when she talked to the sheriff—the same feeling she always got when somebody looked her in the eye, smiled, and lied right to her face. It almost didn’t seem worth it to go out and try again, but when she glanced at the photo and saw her sister’s smiling face, Sera knew she didn’t have a choice. Somebody had to be Aiza’s champion. Somebody had to fight for justice.
The day was sunny, but clouds started to gather by twilight. A full moon loomed that night, but there were too many clouds to see the silver disc. When Sera hit the first bar, it was raining, and by the time she stepped out of the fifth bar, her coat was soaked through, her hair was a mess, and she was buzzed.
“No more beers,” she muttered to herself as she jammed the key into the ignition. “Stupid rain,” she added as she pulled out of the parking lot. Her fingers felt like ice, and even with the heater on full blast, she couldn’t get warm. Rain splattered against the windshield, hitting it faster than the wipers could push it away, and the heat of her breath slowly fogged the glass, further obscuring her vision.
She slowed to a crawl, leaning forward and squinting through the fat raindrops slamming against her windshield. The headlights did little to slice through the darkness, and as much as she didn’t want to give up for the night, she knew it would be best to find a safe place to park and sit this one out.
With that decision made, she signaled and looked for any parking lot or turn off to get her off the road. Staring intently to her right, she didn’t notice the creature darting across the road from the left until it was too late to swerve out of the way. Her foot went to the brake, but the pedal barely depressed before she felt—and heard—her car collide with a body.
Sera jammed the car into park and paused, trying to catch her breath, her heart beating so hard she thought it might burst up through her throat. “Please don’t be a dog. Or a deer. Please, please, please...”
She threw open the door and ducked her head against the rain, hurrying to the body lying under her bumper. Not a deer. Definitely not a dog. The prone body under her car was a man. A very tall—very naked—very gorgeous man. She couldn’t see much in the furious storm, but she could see that much just fine.
“Mister? Hey sir? Sir? Hello? Hello! Mister! Wake up! Come on, oh, please wake up!” She gently slapped his face, but he didn’t respond. “Oh God, please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead.”
She pressed her fingers to his neck, searching for a pulse and sobbed with relief when she felt it, strong and solid against her fingertips. His pulse was re
gular, as was his breathing, and she didn’t see any signs of blood in the flickering light. That didn’t rule out a serious head injury, but at least he was unlikely to die from the impact.
Sera straightened and took stock of the situation. The storm gave no sign of fading. She definitely couldn’t leave the poor man on the side of the road and she had no idea where the nearest hospital was. She should call 911, but the police would certainly be dispatched, and Sera didn’t want to talk to them.
She didn’t see the streak of lightning, but the thunder was so loud it made her teeth vibrate. Good God, girl, don’t you know enough to get out of the rain?
She bent her knees, squatting beside her unfortunate victim and hooked her hands under his arms. Sera’s frame was short but powerful. She visited the gym daily, a habit she began five years earlier as a freshman in college. She could deadlift her own body weight—two-hundred and eighty pounds—and she was able to half-lift, half-drag the stranger from beneath the car and to door. From there, she hefted him into the back seat, tucking and folding his long limbs under the spare blanket she kept in the backseat.
Sera had no idea where she was, especially in relation to Aiza’s house. Taking a naked stranger back there seemed out of the question anyway. Her phone told her there was a motel only a mile further down the road; all she had to do was drive in a slow, straight line and not hit any more men, and she would be fine.
Under normal circumstances, she would have been no more than five minutes away from her destination, but nearly thirty excruciating minutes passed before she saw the pink neon light through the rain. The vacancy sign flashed like a beacon, drawing her right up to the front door.
She worried the man behind the front counter would try to speak with her, but the exchange was mostly silent as he swiped her credit card, produced her room key, and explained she would need to drive around the corner of the building and park in the back.
Sera found a parking spot right next to her room door and sent a quick prayer of thanks to whichever deity or saint was in charge of such things. She propped the room’s door open, turned the heater on full blast, and grabbed all the threadbare towels in the room before considering how to move him.
She couldn’t drag his naked ass across the payment, so she pulled him into a seated position and then braced herself and lifted him into a fireman’s carry. She kept her footing and her balance under his extra weight, making it all the way to the bed, and managed to lower him to the mattress before collapsing in exhaustion.
“Good job. Now what’s the plan?” Sera muttered.
Getting dry. Getting warm. And getting this man to wake up. She promised herself if she couldn’t rouse him to consciousness by morning, she would call the paramedics. His pulse was still strong, his breathing steady, and under the bright, even light she didn’t even see a mark on him. She let her eyes linger over his body perhaps a fraction longer than necessary before covering him with a blanket, but even after he was covered, she couldn’t stop looking at his perfectly proportioned, flawless body.
A small coffee maker sat by the sink and Sera brewed herself a pot, feeling a hundred times better once she downed a cup of the hot liquid. Suddenly, the man moved as if roused by the smell, and she gently slapped first one cheek then the other, trying to pull him back into the waking world.
“Mister? Mister, can you hear me? Hey, come on guy, wake up. Wake up!”
His eyes flew open and his arm swung wide. She barely had enough time to duck the blow, scurrying to get out of his reach. His gaze darted around the room as he took in his surroundings and finally settled on her.
“Who the hell are you?”
She licked her lips. “My name is Sera.”
“Where the hell am I?”
“The Shangri La Motel.”
He held the back of his head and squinted at her. “Shangri La?”
“Yeah, pretty cheesy, but it was the closest motel.”
“The closest motel to what?”
“Um, well... How are you feeling?”
“My head hurts, but I’m alright.” He explored the back of his head with his fingertips. “I’ve got a pretty nasty bump.”
“I’m sorry about that. You ran in front of my car and I didn’t see you until it was too late. You might have hit your head on the road.”
“You hit me with your car and brought me to a friggin motel? Why not the hospital?”
“I—I don’t know where it is, and it’s raining pretty bad. Plus, I wasn’t sure if a man in your…condition wanted the authorities to get involved. But we can call the paramedics now if you want; I was going to call them in the morning if you didn’t wake up.”
The man started to shake his head and grimaced with pain. “No, it’s fine. Were there any other damages? You weren’t hurt, were you?”
“No, no, I’m fine. The car is fine. I was going pretty slowly. I don’t even think I hit you that hard. Do you want some water?”
“That coffee smells great.”
Sera nodded and poured the remaining coffee in the second Styrofoam cup and started brewing another pot.
“Thanks,” he said as she passed over the cup. “You wouldn’t happen to have any food, would you?”
“No, but we could order a pizza.”
He nodded. “I like the way you think. I’m Seth, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you, Seth. What do you like on your pizza?”
“Pepperoni.”
“Pepperoni? Is that all?”
“I’m a man of simple taste.”
Sera shrugged. “Fine with me.”
She was happy to order the pizza, as it gave her an opportunity to concentrate on something besides Seth. He seemed unconcerned by his naked state—he didn’t even fix the blanket, and she could see every line of his chiseled stomach and hips.
Looking away from the lower half of his body only brought her attention to his face. His eyes were a warm shade of gray, his lips were full and the most alluring pink, and his strong jaw was covered with black stubble. Long black curls framed his face, softening the edge of his jaw and aquiline nose, and she wanted to comb her fingers through each one.
“Sera, how did you get me in here?”
“I carried you.”
“You carried me? All by yourself?”
“Yeah. Does it surprise you that a girl can be strong?”
“No,” he answered quickly. “No, not at all. It’s just, you’re so...short.”
“I am short,” she agreed amicably, “but I can bench press two hundred pounds.”
Seth whistled between his teeth. “Remind me not to piss you off.”
“This is your reminder.” They exchanged a grin and Sera added, “Seriously, though, are you okay? Do you need a doctor? Would you like some ice for your head?”
“I’m fine. I’m mostly just hungry. Starving, actually.”
“Can I ask, what were you doing running around in a rainstorm naked? Is that how you get your rocks off or something?”
“Well, I wasn’t exactly running around naked; I do have a bit more sense than that. And I wasn’t just out there for the fun of it. When you hit me, did you happen to see if anyone was following me?”
Sera shook her head. “I didn’t see anyone else, but the rain was coming down pretty hard.”
“Hopefully I lost them and they didn’t follow me here.”
“Lost who?”
“No one.”
“You just said they could have followed you here. If that’s the case, I think I have the right to know who might come knocking on my door.”
Seth inclined his head. “Fair enough. The Wolf Brotherhood.” He smiled wryly at Sera’s sharp intake of breath. “I take it you’ve heard of them?”
“Yeah. You could say that. I’m looking for one of the wolves, actually.”
“Well, you should stop looking for him.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Trust me. A nice girl like you has no business tangling with people
like that.”
Sera shook her head. “I’m not tangling with anybody, I just need some information about my sister. Here, wait a second.” She dug through her purse, producing the photos. “This is who I’m looking for. Do you know him?”
Seth didn’t answer right away but she saw the flicker of recognition in his eyes as he studied the picture. “Never seen him.”
“Really?”
He passed the photo over to her. “Really.”
“Seth, I know we just met and we don’t really know each other, so I hope you don’t think I’m terribly rude when I call you a liar.” She sighed. “Let me level with you. I don’t know how, but I know this man was involved in my sister’s death. I just need to ask him some questions about the night she died.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Seth said softly. “And I don’t think you’re terribly rude, though I’m not lying. I’ve never met the man, but I think I know his name: Dwight Lance.”
“Thank you.” Sera placed the photo back into her purse. “And thanks for the name. That’s the most I’ve got in three days of looking.”
“Looking? Are you showing that picture around town?”
“Do you know a better way to find a man?”
“I know that you don’t want the whole world knowing you’re looking for that particular man.”
Sera frowned. “Why? Do you think he’s dangerous?”
“I think Mr. Dwight Lance might come looking for you once he hears you’re beating the bushes for him.”
“Good. It’ll save me a trip.”
“You want the werewolf who may have been involved in your sister’s death to hunt you down?”
Sera lifted her chin. “I’m not afraid of that bastard.”
“I can see that. I’m just advising you to be careful.”
“Sounds like you should have taken your own advice. What did you do to get the gang on your tail?” At his hesitation, Sera added, “Maybe if you talk about it, I can help.”