He’d just typed the first few sentences of his email, when he heard the crunch of rocks outside.
Sage must’ve too. “What—?”
“Don’t move.” He crossed the room in an instant, and grabbed her arm to keep her from standing up. “Are you expecting someone?”
“No, just…oh.” She glanced at him and brightened. “It’s got to be your clothing order. That still hasn’t come.”
“No vehicle pulled up. Whoever is outside isn’t here to deliver a package. Or if it is one, you won’t want to be around for it.”
Her eyes lit up with excitement. “Oh, wow, do you think someone’s—”
“Sage, just go upstairs while I take care of this.”
“And miss out on the action? No way.”
Was she fucking serious? He narrowed his eyes and took a step toward her. The sound of splintering wood had her fleeing with a shriek before he could.
Chapter Fifteen
The door smashed fully open, and Nathan turned and met the action head on.
Instinct had him shifting halfway through the air, but even before he was fully changed, he recognized the intruder.
They smashed together, human and wolf, rolling to the ground before Nathan could fully shift back.
He pinned Donovan to the floor, forearm over his friend’s windpipe.
“Stop it! Larson, get the hell off him,” Sienna cried, rushing through the door to defend her mate.
“Did you come to take me in? How the hell did you find me?” Disbelief and fury turned his words to a snarl.
Donovan and Sienna were here. How the hell had they found him? They were in Sage’s fucking house. How?
Sage let out squeaky gasp, and Nate swung his gaze toward her, ready to order her upstairs again.
But there was no fear in her eyes, only shock and guilt. The latter emotion had him releasing Donovan instantly.
“Sage? What the hell did you do?”
“We got a call yesterday,” Donovan replied flatly as he stood up, his gaze sliding to Sage. He cracked his neck and rubbed a hand over the reddened skin.
No way. Donovan couldn’t be implying what he thought he was. Nathan clenched his jaw so tight he could feel the blood stretching the veins in his temple.
Nate strode to her and caught her elbow, pulling her easily to her feet. “You called them?”
“I…”
He could see her mind working. The lie already forming on her tongue.
“The truth, Sage. Don’t fucking lie to me.”
She bit her lip and then nodded. “Okay, yes, I called them after doing some investigating on some of the shifter sites.”
“Christ.” He closed his eyes. Saw his future flashing before his eyes. This was it. The end of the line.
“It was supposed to be harmless,” she rushed to say. “I just wanted to hear from someone who trusts you that they doubted your guilt.” She paused, and he could hear the misery in her voice when she continued, “I never thought Warrick and Sienna would show up on my doorstep.”
No. Of course she hadn’t. Sage was a shifter, but she was still a civilian. She didn’t think like an agent. Didn’t realize that Donovan was the kind of agent who’d turn over every stone to find his perp when he had a clue.
His lips twisted bitterly. “Whether you meant to or not, you turned me in, Curls.”
“No. I told you I wouldn’t.” Her voice was so shaky she almost stumbled over her words. He could hear the tears behind them. “I told them I was a reporter and I just had some questions.” She grabbed his hand with trembling fingers and squeezed. “I swear it, Nate, I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“And see that’s where you messed up, ma’am.” Warrick took a step toward them. “You almost had us going. It was actually pretty clever, using the reporter bit.”
“So how did you figure it out?” she asked. “How did you find me? The paper I said I worked for is real.”
“You called him Nate.” Sienna spoke for the first time, and stepped forward.
The way she stared at Sage, with such curiosity and consideration, had Nathan biting back a curse. He knew that look. Sienna was the most brilliant scientist at the Seattle office of the P.I.A., but when she let her hair down she was also great at playing matchmaker.
“Nobody calls him Nate,” Sienna continued lightly. “The reporters who call the agency ask about Nathan Larson. Or Agent Larson. But when you said Nate you triggered our suspicion.” Sienna paused and arched a brow. “Using a nickname like Nate is almost…intimate.”
Damn Sienna and her perceptiveness. And damn Nathan for giving Sage a nickname to use that he hadn’t heard since childhood.
“So we did a little research of our own,” Warrick took over the conversation. “And called the paper you said you worked for—”
“And realized I don’t work there. Of course.” She glanced over at Nate and bit her lip, before muttering, “I should’ve used the name of someone who did work there. Crap, I screwed up.”
Hell yeah she had, but Nathan couldn’t blame her—should’ve expected she’d do something like this. Hell, she’d hinted she wanted to.
“I’m sorry.” Her gaze sought his, and the misery and the way her eyes implored forgiveness had his stomach knotting.
He shook his head, and said flatly, “It’s done. Don’t worry about it.”
“But if they turn you in—”
“Let me deal with this, Sage.” Nathan eased her behind him, and turned to face the shifter he pulled rank over in every way and form. “I trust there are more agents outside?”
Donovan folded his arms across his chest, his gaze unreadable. “We came alone.”
That knocked the breath from him. Nathan slid his gaze to Sienna, to see if there was any hint her mate was lying, but the truth was in her expression.
She and Donovan had traveled here without backup.
“You didn’t tell anyone about Sage’s phone call?”
Donovan gave a small shake of his head. “No. We didn’t.”
“So you’re saying you ignored protocol?”
“Are you going to reprimand me if I say yes?”
“Fuck no. I’m considering hugging your stupid ass out of relief.”
Now the other man’s mouth twisted in amusement. “Good. Not that you could do any reprimanding right now. Word is you’ve been stripped of all authority and are wanted dead or alive.”
Dead, huh? Again he heard that bad western music in his head, and Nathan offered a tight smile. “Sounds like the fun’s just beginning.”
“Sounds like you’re up shit creek without a paddle, sir.”
Even with all the scandal and darkness over his head, his agent still called him sir. The irony almost made his sick.
“Then I’ll make my own damn paddle. Why are you here, Donovan, if you’re not turning me in?”
“We’re here to bring the metaphorical paddle,” Sienna answered, moving to stand beside her mate. “I don’t think you’re guilty of what they say you are, Nathan.”
“But you do?” He directed the question at Donovan.
The other man didn’t reply, just stared at him. “There’s a lot of shit you’re going to have to explain.”
Fuck. There’s a lot he couldn’t even remember, let alone explain.
He suspected the Donovans were here with good intentions as they’d said, but if they weren’t and there were a bunch of agents with guns outside the door, then he’d rather figure it out sooner than later.
“What about the Seer?” The thought just occurred to him. One of his agents had recently used the Seer—a woman who had the ability to see past visions. “Surely someone at the agency went and saw her? Tried to find out what happened that night?”
“The Seer was poisoned the morning after the attack on Alicia’s village.”
“Christ.” He looked away and shook his head grimly. “I’m not even shocked anymore. Let’s go for a walk, Donovan.”
Donovan didn’t even bl
ink at the order. “That’s probably a good idea.”
Nathan glanced back at Sage, saw she was taking in the conversation with wide eyes from several feet behind him. For a moment the tension in his body eased, especially the knots around his heart.
She was so sweet, much too trusting and naïve in an endearing way. And he’d gotten her wound up to her eyebrows in this mess.
“Sage, do you mind staying here with Sienna?”
“No, of course not. If you’re hungry we’ve got plenty of food.” Sage offered a weak smile at Sienna, and it was clear she was nervous to be alone with the other woman.
She’d be fine, though. Sienna was a warm, smart-as-hell woman, and he suspected Sage always landed on her feet.
Donovan stepped back and gestured to the door. “After you.”
Nathan drew in a slow breath and then strode past him, ready to face whatever lay beyond the house.
A moment later the truth was revealed. Nothing. There was nothing but trees, the crisp autumn air, and a friend beside him who might be risking his own career to help prove Nathan’s innocence.
“So.” Donovan drew out the word as they walked through the trees. “The truth is I’m struggling to have complete faith in your innocence, Larson. I mean, seeing as I watched you rip out your fiancée’s throat and all.” Donovan’s words were spoken oh so casually. “Are you going to try and deny you did it?”
Nathan’s gut kicked and he closed his eyes for a moment.
“No.”
He remembered the warmth of Alicia’s blood on his tongue—tasted the metallic tang of it on his canines.
“I did it. But I did it because I had to stop her.”
“Stop her from what?”
“From killing her entire pack.”
“She killed the pack? You had nothing to do with their slaughter?”
“It was her—I had no part in what happened to them.” He hesitated. “Or if I did, I don’t remember it. But my gut is telling me I didn’t. A lot is fuzzy, I admit. Maybe if we can find survivors. I’ve been searching online, but—”
“There were none.”
“None?” That took the wind from his sails.
“No. One woman looked like she might make it, but passed away before we could get her help.”
God. His head pounded and rage and pain exploded inside him. “I thought…there was a little boy. Like four or five years in age. I thought he survived.”
“A boy?”
Nathan shook his head and squinted his eyes closed, trying to remember those few memories. Had he imagined it?
“I thought if I could just save one. Fuck, I thought he escaped. I’d hoped…”
“I don’t remember any kid that age on the deceased list. We’ll have to check into it.”
“We?”
“We didn’t come all the way down here to say hi and have some tea, Larson. Sienna believes in your innocence, and I doubted your guilt just enough to want to do a little bit of investigating on my own.”
“You realize you’re risking your career. Your reputation,” Nathan murmured gravely. “Possibly your acceptance within the shifter community.”
“I know the risk. We both do.” Donovan paused. “We’ve decided to take it.”
Because they were damn good people. Honorable. Trustworthy. He should send them away. Hell, he’d already gotten Sage in over her head.
“You can’t change our mind on this,” Donovan added, as if sensing what Nathan was going to say next.
Nathan’s throat tightened with gratitude, and his words were rough as he muttered, “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. I’ve got more bad news.”
More? Could there be any fucking more?
“There’ve been some women turning up dead in Washington, Oregon, and now there’s word of one in California. It raised flags within the P.I.A. because the manner of death has shifter written all over it.”
The story about the woman in Cannon Beach slid through Nathan’s head.
“Wait. Jogger out in the woods near Cannon Beach a few days ago?”
“That’s one of them, yeah.”
“I just read about her. Raised some flags with me too. In fact, it had similarities to the murdered human woman case you and I were investigating last week in Seattle.”
“Those were my thoughts exactly. Which was why I wasn’t easily convinced that you could’ve—” Donovan gave a hard shake of his head. “Don’t worry about it actually.”
“Finish your thought.”
“Hell, I don’t want you to stress it, because it was just a murmur going through the agency. But,” he hesitated again, “there’s some speculation that you might be behind the murders.”
Donovan’s words sunk in like a wrecking ball to the chest. Nathan couldn’t breathe, reply, couldn’t do anything but replay those words in his head.
“It’s a farfetched theory, Larson. Someone reported a possible sighting of you in California recently, and it’s just a crazy coincidence that women are turning up dead in the states you would’ve had to travel through.”
Shit. It only got worse. Not only did the P.I.A. think him guilty of killing his fiancée and her pack, but that he was killing women along the west coast.
Donovan scratched the back of his head and gave Nathan a quick look. “Seriously, don’t sweat it. I’m sure you were nowhere near the coast anyway.”
Actually, he had been, but he wasn’t sure he should admit that to Donovan. He’d passed through the exact spot the woman in Cannon Beach was found.
A thought seized him, making him still in his steps. Had his chest go tight and his head pound. All those moments he couldn’t remember in the few days after he’d been injected with the drug. The flashes of occasional rage and feeling completely out of control.
The drug hadn’t left his system right away—he’d known that and fought it as he ran. Hell, there were still moments where he felt its dark finger reaching up to drag him back into that blood thirsty abyss.
He knew without doubt that he’d never killed, let alone met, the woman in Seattle. He and Donovan had investigated her death, but that was the only connection to her.
But the other two… Fuck. What if one of those rages, one of those blackouts, he’d done something completely unforgiveable? What if the lingering effects of the drug had encouraged him to turn into a horrific monster?
Not possible. His mind denied it, but the unease didn’t leave his gut. The victim in Cannon Beach had seemed familiar.
“Larson?”
The concern in Donovan’s tone had him pulling away from those dark thoughts.
“I don’t know.” His tone was flat. “I’m pretty sure Jocelyn injected me with something crazy that night we rescued Grace. Both Alicia and I. I controlled it. Her not so much because she slaughtered her entire pack—family included.”
Donovan absorbed the info with a stoicism that was so traditional to him.
“Did she kill Andrew too?” Donovan asked, referencing Jocelyn’s former assistant who’d been guilty of kidnapping a P.I.A. agent and her sister.
“If I trust the images in my head, than yes. I’m pretty sure she did.”
“Trust the images.”
Donovan didn’t understand the power of that drug that bitch had given Nathan.
He shook his head, and couldn’t stop himself from voicing his fear. “You think I could’ve done it? Killed those women?”
“No.” Donovan responded before Larson even finished the question. “Not just no, but hell no. You’re not a murderer, Larson.”
“I killed Alicia.”
“Because she was slaughtering her pack. You said so yourself. You were strong enough to fight through whatever drug you were given and had the clarity to stop her.” Donovan stopped walking and grasped Larson’s shoulder. “I trust you. You’re a damn good alpha. Commander. Friend. You didn’t kill Alicia’s pack any more than you killed those women.”
He appreciated his friend’s fait
h in him and wished like hell he had more in himself. But there was so much he couldn’t remember. So much about himself that scared him during the past week.
“You guys are fucking incredible for coming down here,” he muttered wearily. “Because you’re right. I’m up a creek.”
“Well, not entirely. It looks like you’ve got some help from an outside source.” Donovan cast him a sidelong look. “Who’s the girl? You kidnap her or something?”
“Pretty much.”
There was a moment’s stunned silence. “Hell, I was kidding, Larson. Are you serious?”
“I was running out of options. I needed a place to stay.”
“So you abducted a woman who looks like she should be teaching second graders art? Nice move.”
“She’s a writer, and her innocent appearance was why I picked her. I figured she’d be an easy target.” Nathan hesitated. “Unfortunately, I’ve now learned her brother is an alpha.”
“I sensed she was a shifter, but her brother’s an alpha? Might’ve fucked yourself over on that one.”
“I thought that initially, but now I don’t know. She seems to want to help me. I can’t explain it, but she believes in my innocence.”
Donovan cleared his throat. “Excuse my directness, but maybe she’s been a little charmed because you’re sleeping with her?”
Awkward. Nathan considered his response. What had happened between them was no one’s business, and Sage would be mortified to know her sex life was being discussed.
“We’re not—”
“Give me some credit. We sense these things, and trust me, the vibes you guys are giving off aren’t discreet. Sienna and I both picked up on the fact when we came in. You may as well have a text bubble above both your heads that says, ‘Hey, we just fucked.’”
He struggled not to bristle at the crudeness of the term “fucked”. And of course it was obvious to Sienna and Donovan—he’d been stupid to think otherwise.
A few branches cracked in the distance, and he glanced around—waited—but there was no more noise and nothing within view.
“Look. We had a connection. I had a lot of pent-up frustration. You know how we get.”
“I do know. So you slept with her? You think that’s wise?”
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