“It wouldn't be so bad if all the guys just... I don't know, made it simpler.”
“And they say women are complicated,” Reagan commented with a snort.
“Who the hell are 'they'?”
“Somebody that doesn't have to be in this situation.”
“Exactly,” Julia said.
A noise caused Reagan to tense and then she saw him coming.
Slash.
Reagan released a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. Julia watched each of the Combatant bleed out of the woods.
What was happening now? Julia wondered, stress sinking its familiar claws deep.
“She's arrived,” Slash said, his chest heaving from the sprint.
“Who?” Reagan asked, a furrow creasing between her brows.
“Delilah,” Julia breathed.
They turned to her.
“Yes,” Slash looked at her curiously. “How did you know?”
Julia tapped her head. “Telepath.” She had to only search and that new signature bleeped on her radar.
“Ah,” Slash said. Then he gave Julia a look that might have been sympathetic.
Paul could only soften so much of the thoughts of other people's minds.
But not hers.
Julia heard Delilah like a summons and it was Julia who led the three of them to the house.
The Combatant followed, pacing the Rare One.
*
Julia heard the arguing even as far away as she was from the huge mansion and hesitated. Her life was so filled with strife already, she didn't know if she wanted another entanglement.
There was no decision about it though, as once she heard Scott her insides tightened painfully, his emotional signature overlapping onto hers and she waded into the fray of emotions. She didn't have to be a telepath to feel the snarled mess of his thoughts.
Scott was angry... and- he was afraid.
Julia came at a jog, Reagan easily matching her stride with a fighter's gait.
“You knew this entire time and didn't tell anyone!” Scott's voice exploded into the night. “You thought you'd what- kill Julia, take over the Regions, one by one, then secure your little lackey and rule with ultimate power.”
“She must have the blessing of those who would support her,” Reagan said as she walked into the yelling match without pausing and Julia looked from a screaming Scott to a smug Jacqueline. Then her eyes came to a young woman with looks so much like Scott's it made Julia's step falter.
She was vampire, but she was also something more.
Delilah turned cool eyes to Julia and she fought to remain impartial, though she knew that the advisors were now complete. The triumvirate.
Jacqueline laughed, her hands now free. “I am still royal.”
“Your attempt on Julia's life will not be without consequence, Jacqueline. Your lies of lineage have been uncovered. You shall not rule here,” Marcus announced. “Anywhere,” he finished.
Julia stepped forward and Jacqueline's hawkish eyes trained on her with unerring accuracy, no light needed, though the moon lent plenty.
“No,” Reagan said, “allow me.” Reagan circled the older woman warily. “You have no honor. I would never follow where you lead. There is no contest.”
“You would be brought to heel like the dog you are,” Jacqueline replied easily.
“I am many things but 'dog' is not one, Singer bitch.” Reagan let the barest of growls slip out from between her teeth.
“Stop. You're right, Reagan, you won't follow her because she won't be in a position to lead,” Alan Greene said and Reagan gave a hard look at her uncle. He had been glaringly absent, attending to Lacey as soon as they'd arrived at Region One.
“You're so wrong,” Jacqueline said and Julia began to worry when a smile as venomous as the poison Jacqueline had used overtook her face. She never took her eyes off Julia and called out, “Anthony.”
Julia watched the energy swirl around the Were before he was illuminated. A veil of red, like a halo of blood, began to radiate all around him. Julia stumbled back and she felt Scott come from behind her, wrapping his arms around her. “What is it?”
“He's red... he's all red.”
Delilah smiled at Julia. “Aura reader,” she said and hissed with her delicate fangs peeking out. The Combatant swarmed around her and William said, “Leave her, she will not fight you all,” he indicated, swinging an elegant hand in her direction.
“Not yet,” she replied, nodding in his direction.
“Delilah, my delicate flower,” Jacqueline began and Delilah gave her scathing eyes, interrupting her, “I am no one's flower.”
“You will be.”
“You are a master at self-delusion, Jacqueline.”
Tony stepped up beside Jacqueline and the color that burst around her body was like a flame that's come back to life, a bright violet, almost black.
“Do you see colors around them?” Scott asked in quiet confirmation.
Julia nodded slowly, it was like fireworks had just gone off, a pure sensory overload as colors swirled and whipped around each supernaturals’ body.
Marcus came forward. “You see their life's colors?”
“I guess... I think so,” Julia replied, her throat suddenly dry.
“She does,” Delilah said.
“How do you know, Delilah?” Slash asked, hands folded as he cautiously studied the newcomer.
“For I am as well,” Delilah said with a smile. “I have Singer blood, thanks to the blood whore who stands in our midst.”
Julia watched all the purple bleed out of Jacqueline's aura, leaving it like ink.
They all looked at Delilah, then Jacqueline.
“What color am I?” Julia asked her as a pale blue like the distant Alaskan fjords moved with her body as she came closer to Julia, like icy mist.
“Why white, of course, Rare One- white.”
“No,” Jacqueline breathed.
“Yes,” Delilah answered.
Jacqueline's face became a mask of rage and she clasped her hand around Tony's. Julia looked between the two of them and was suddenly afraid down to her toes.
“You cannot punish the sire of the Moon Warrior... or- his mate,” Jacqueline announced and Julia thought she sounded entirely too happy about it.
Julia felt the silence rather than heard it. It was a great absence of sound like a black hole had opened, in this moment rather than some distant point in space.
“Jacqueline, don't do this,” Marcus warned.
“Do not?” she railed. “I will... I must.”
It was interesting how the force of her personality stole her beauty, leeching it from every plane of her face. “What's happening?” Julia asked.
“I am protecting what's most important,” Jacqueline said.
“What?” Julia asked.
“Me,” she replied.
Julia looked from a healing Tony to Jacqueline.
It was like a stone of portentous understanding fell, without ever landing.
But it would land, of that, Julia had no doubt.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Karl
Truman looked around him and surveyed the supes with a passive-aggressive grunt. He loved his new body. It no longer lumbered along. He'd been big before, the former athleticism of his youth propelling him through his middle-aged years without too much trouble, but aches and pains had begun to awake in him and he'd known his time on the job was limited.
He'd been a good cop, and now he was a werewolf. And, according to David, his Packmaster, he was now one of the count-on-one-hand Reds. Truman took another long drag on his cig and blew a smoke ring into the night sky while the supes argued and screamed at each other. Let them have at it, Truman decided easily. His quarry had been found, the riddle solved- the girls, and Caldwell, safe.
“That'll kill ya,” Cynthia Adams said from behind him. He knew it was her- couldn't stop the sniffer for his life.
“Not anymore,” he remarked, scrapi
ng the butt of the cig on the sole of his boot and stuffing it in his pocket. His hand moved to the pocket of his shirt and found half a pack had survived the last thirty hours of his life. It was a beautiful thing.
Cynthia shrugged. “So...” she began, looking over at Julia, Jacqueline and the newcomer, Delilah. “What do you think of all this?”
Truman looked at the girl. “I think I'm out of a job and I'm in the middle of something that doesn't have a place for me.”
Cynthia nodded. “Yeah, I hear that.” Then she smiled, sweeping a palm toward him. “I guess you got the good end of the stick. Nobody would recognize you.”
“Not true. I'm so goddamned old that there's a few people who would remember me this way.”
“Did you...” Even though the light was dim on the porch, Karl could see her blush.
He felt himself frowning. “Spit it out.”
“Did you really look this good back then?”
It was Truman's turn to feel the heat rise on his face. “I don't know, what kind of a dumb ass question is that?” Christ, he had to get out of here. Grab a walk, some space, whatever it took. Watching the drama of Julia Caldwell unfold from thirty feet away was too close for Truman.
“Shit- sorry. Don't take it personally,” Cynthia said, rolling her bottom lip into her mouth and nibbling it with small white teeth.
“Okay, listen,” Truman said, raking fingers through his hair then realizing he had hair to rake. Disconcerted, he let his hand drop. “You've had a couple of years to get used to this weirdness. Me,” he jabbed a thumb in his chest, “I was a cop a couple of days ago, minding my business, doing the job and – bam!” He threw his fists together in a collision of flesh and Cynthia gave a startled yelp. Karl didn't know what to do with that so he ignored it. “Some ancient werewolf... a werewolf for cripe's sake, takes a bite out of me and now I'm... one of them.”
Cynthia approached him, her hair a strange color between silver and gold, the illumination of the porch light and the moonlight at the edges of the deck fighting with each other. “Seems to me that it beats being a human. Seems to me that you found Julia and me. And Jason.” She threw up her palms and narrowed her eyes on him. “Don't pity yourself, Detective Truman.”
“No, Miss Adams. I'm not some pansy who needs false sympathy from people to get off. I mean, I don't have anything to identify with. I was a cop, and now I'm some kind of mythical creature that I didn't know existed until last week. Coming to terms and all that happy ho-ho shit.” He watched her face pale at the revelation and lit up again. Felt good to be back to smoking. Too bad the damn Singers weren't smokers. He'd have to figure that out. His one vice was back to stay.
“What about the politics? Do you see what's happening here?” Cynthia asked, her eyes searching his face and not liking what she saw there.
Truman shrugged. “Not my problem anymore. They've got a whole boatload of guys poised to take out the first person who harms Julia. I'm an accessory. I'm not needed. And believe me,” his eyes drilled hers, “I'm low man on the totem pole. They made that crap clear from the get go. Pudwackers,” Truman added in a mutter.
Truman's nostrils flared and he straightened, Cynthia looked at his face and turned, automatically stepping back from where he stared into the blackness just off the porch.
“Truman,” Jason greeted and beside him Emmanuel nodded to the newer Were.
Truman faced them, his back to the porch deck that intersected the wall. He didn't want anyone having access to his back. His eyes flicked to the Adam's girl, as he thought of her. Actually, he noticed that she was a woman now. She was watching the Were from the other pack...
“Truman,” Manny acknowledged.
“Hey....” Truman didn't bother to feign not remembering, he dug his third cigarette out of the pack and lit it, the red glow springing to life like a firefly in the gloom. “Manny,” he supplied. His dark eyes never left Truman. Who now understood that was dominant eye contact. Karl didn't drop his gaze. Instead he nodded as neutrally as possible. “Thanks, I'm not great with names.”
Cynthia gave him a sharp look. “I doubt that.”
He didn't look at her. “It's a recent development.” The Weres all looked at each other.
After a few moment's Cynthia said, “Gawd, I can cut the testosterone with a knife!”
Jason laughed and Manny kept looking at Truman, who stared back. “Maybe your policeman friend is so newly turned he doesn't understand what staring at another Were means.”
“I know,” Truman said.
Manny came forward, his hands curling into fists.
“Oh for shit's sake,” Cynthia muttered.
They ignored her.
“Do you want to offer something further, Red?”
“If you want to see who's the bigger dog, that works.”
“Stop,” Marcus said in a low voice and both Were turned to him, their eyes reflective in the gloom.
But it was Jason who said, “It was just getting interesting.”
Marcus frowned. “We don’t encourage violence for its own sake but rather, for a purpose.”
“Could've fooled me,” Cynthia commented.
Marcus' frown turned into a scowl. He moved that gaze to Truman. “You might wish to see this.”
Karl felt his heart rate pick up. He was too new to have anyone take notice of him. Well... until he wouldn't back down from another Alpha. As a point of fact, Truman hadn't been much for that even before becoming a werewolf. Imagine that.
“Alright,” Truman said and gave a look to Manny; Alpha to keep an eye on. He walked into the fancy-pants parlor and took stock of his surroundings. The Singers looked to have robbed a few banks along the way, he thought. Every surface gleamed in the old place, highly polished floors met with huge baseboards of Douglas fir, which were at the feet of plaster walls that ran to twelve foot ceilings. Truman's eyes roamed the newly repaired scars like a broken spider web that ran all over those walls. Then he saw replacement glass in panes yet to be glazed and knew that something violent had occurred here.
Marcus swung his arm out to precede him, his dark eyes and elegant manner contradicted what Truman had already figured out about these people.
Dangerous: The Singers looked human but Truman knew that was camouflage.
He moved ahead of the male leader of Region One. The fine hairs of his neck rose and Truman turned.
Manny and Jason had moved into the room. Truman felt crowded.
“Give the good officer some space,” Marcus said, moving to a large flat screen television that hung on the wall and with a smooth hand he grabbed the remote and turned it on in one motion.
Truman ignored the Were at his back, he figured he was safe enough for the moment. He spread his legs, folded his arms across his now firm and muscular chest and waited for the next revelation.
He wasn't disappointed.
A pansy newscaster checked the knot of his tie nervously, tightening it like a noose before he said in an ominous voice that was just shy of yelling, “Breaking news!”
Truman watched his bright eyes and a grim slash of lips outline who the man hunt was after.
Of course, it was Detective Karl Truman. Fuck a duck.
The newscaster shuffled papers self-importantly and seemed to look through the TV and directly at Truman.
“Detective Karl Truman of the Homer Alaska Police Department, has been missing forty-eight hours. He was last seen in the Gig Harbor area of Washington State.”
A shitty picture of Truman flashed across the screen. God, do I look that old? Truman wondered. Then his mind answered for him, not anymore.
“Truman was on an interstate search for the missing twenty-one year old Cynthia Adams, who is the lone survivor of a triple murder in Homer from two years ago. Jason and Julia Caldwell along with Kevin Lancaster, also of Homer, are now presumed dead. We turn our attention to lead forensic specialist from the HPD who was on-scene for the aftermath.”
Truman's eyes followed the cam
era as it made a sickening lurch to a wooded area that rose from the charcoal-colored beach and Truman felt his gorge rise. It was the crime scene that started this whole mess, the place where he couldn't find those kids. It had led him here. The question was: were they better off? Were any of them? A squirrely looking guy in a lab coat stood there with another newscaster and Truman squinted out of habit, then realized his vision was the best of his life. No need to squint.
He knew that doctor, George Alexander. And he knew too much. Alexander had evidence that would blow the whole Were pack out into the open. But right now, it wasn't about that. They were on Karl's tail. That could be a nightmare.
His attention was jerked back to the boob tube when Alexander began speaking, “Detective Truman was lead investigator on this triple homicide...”
No shit Sherlock, Truman thought.
“Is there any chance that one of the three, whose bodies were never recovered, has survived and that even now there is hope that Truman has located one of the missing teens?”
Alexander's hands went into the pockets of his white lab coat as the breeze from the nearby ocean lifted the hair off his forehead. The gray skies of Homer were the backdrop for his perfectly framed somber expression and Truman had an unexpected sharp pang of homesickness. “They would be young adults now...”Alexander corrected, “and there was... too much blood for anyone to have survived.”His eyes were distractingly real in that moment.
Liters of blood, was what he didn't say, Truman knew.
The microphone was suddenly crammed underneath Alexander's nose a little deeper. “What do you speculate has happened to the lead investigator in this case, Karl Truman? What about the fourth victim? Cynthia Adams survived this tragedy and has since left the state.”
Truman saw Alexander's face shut down and knew, with a deep an abiding certainty, that he'd had a special little chat with somebody. Or several somebodys because he answered, “I can't comment on the ongoing investigation. I can only comment that there are three people who died here over two years ago and one who survived and that the lead investigator is now missing. You may extrapolate anything you wish from those facts. But they remain only that- facts.”
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