by Lyra Evans
“Connor,” Oliver said, trying to shake him back to reality. “You were twelve! It was a dragon! If your mother and father couldn’t handle it, what makes you think you could have done anything?” Oliver shook his head. “If you’d’ve been there with them, then you would just have died too.”
“Then at least I would have died with them!” Connor cried, and Oliver pulled back sharply, Connor’s eyes full of wild, cold fire, the kind of look of indescribable grief.
Oliver knew it had nothing to do with him. It wasn’t about them. Connor wasn’t saying that he’d have preferred dying at twelve in a blaze of fire than grow up to meet Oliver. He wasn’t saying that. It was just the pain of feeling responsible for his family’s deaths that made him say it. But still, the comment stung. It burned a little hole in Oliver’s heart, and Oli worked every fiber of his will to close over the hole and keep at it with Connor. Connor was hurting. Connor needed him.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Oliver whispered. “There’s nothing you could have done.”
Connor jerked his head to the side, looking away from Oliver. “At the time, I thought there was at least one thing I could do,” he said, and Oliver’s face fell. “The only thing I did manage to track with scent was the dragon. So I went after it, picking through the jungle woods in a panicked, desperate rage. I wasn’t careful. I left tracks behind, I left swathes of scent, I made noise. But I didn’t care. All I cared about was finding the dragon.”
Oliver swallowed hard. “And did you?” he asked.
Connor laughed bitterly. “No,” he said. “I probably wouldn’t be here if I had. But my parents had sent word to Donna’s family when they couldn’t find me the night before. They asked for more Wolves to come and help search for me. They were worried. Scared out of their minds was the phrase Donna’s father used, if I recall. When they showed up to a ruined campsite full of blood and ash, they followed the freshest trail they could find. Mine.
“They caught up with me on the edge of a marsh,” he said, his tone evening out again, as though the anger and guilt began to fade back to the empty acceptance of reality. “Fought me back to safety, really. I kept trying to get away, but thankfully I wasn’t very good yet. So they took me back to Court with the news of my family.”
“Connor, I’m sorry,” Oliver said again, grasping his shoulder and squeezing. “I can’t begin to imagine how horrible that was for you. But I also don’t understand how Nadia can say what she did—”
“The news was difficult for a lot of Wolves to swallow,” Connor said, anticipating Oliver’s issue. “Dragons are so rarely seen, and they don’t inhabit our Court at all, so many Wolves who don’t leave the boundaries of the Court don’t really believe they exist. Plus there was the matter of the trail I left.” He sagged. The wind rustled through the palms, playing a soft clapping as though the trees were an audience at the end of a performance. “I’d meant to cover my trail leaving the camp, but to an outsider, it was easy to think I’d meant the trail to lead toward the camp.” With another bitter, incredulous laugh, Connor said, “Some argued I’d wanted my parents killed. They said I laid a lure for the dragon, or some other such monster, to come eat my family. After all, why was I the only one spared? Where was I? How lucky I had been to be hidden so well away from them.” An expression of utter disgust pulled at the edges of Connor’s expression. “Lucky.”
“They couldn’t honestly believe that,” Oliver said, outraged at the idea. No one can control a dragon or predict their behaviour. Hundreds of Wizards and Witches had tried, over the centuries. But even with carefully designed lures using a dragon’s favourite meats, sometimes dragons simply ignored them.
“Thankfully they didn’t,” Connor said. “There was a short inquiry, and the vast majority of the pack agreed it was a horrible accident and that I was innocent. So I went to live with Donna and her family until I was old enough to take over my pack. It wasn’t the challenge I’d promised my mother, but it was something.” Connor shrugged. “Still, there were some dissenters who thought I was just a master manipulator and planned the whole thing. Nadia’s family are some of them, apparently.”
Oliver exhaled roughly, unable to make sense of that perspective. Brainwashing was a dangerous thing, Oliver supposed, thinking of how Nadia challenged Connor at every chance. If she’d grown up believing Connor was a usurper, a murderer, then of course she didn’t trust his judgment. But shouldn’t experience seeing Connor taking care of his pack outweigh that?
“Your pack won’t believe that, though,” Oliver said.
“I don’t know,” Connor admitted. “It may seem too coincidental now, what with Logan killed so soon after I’d made it clear I meant to challenge him.”
Oliver stilled, a thought occurring to him. “What if it isn’t?”
“What?” Connor asked.
“Coincidental,” Oliver said, and Connor blinked at him. “What if Logan’s murder wasn’t a coincidence at all, but a carefully plotted attack to frame you and dredge up your past as corroboration?”
Connor sat up straighter. “That would mean someone who knows of my history could be involved,” he said, then shook his head. “But that’s almost every Werewolf in our Court.”
Oliver considered the evidence. “Maybe. But most people wouldn’t be thinking about your past regularly enough to frame you that way,” he said. “But someone who was raised to believe you’d cheated and murdered your way to Alpha…”
“You can’t mean—” Connor began, eyes wide and sharp.
Oliver nodded. “I think Nadia might be involved.”
Chapter 16
There was no evidence. Nothing concrete, nothing empirical. There was nothing to present to a judge or jury, no physical proof of what Oliver was saying. But he had a gut feeling. The kind of instinct that burbles within you when standing next to a dangerous stranger. Oliver knew better than to trust solely to those instincts, but this case was full of all-too-convenient evidence and an unfortunate number of inexplicable voids.
Slowly, the sun began to fall in the sky, the air growing cooler by degrees. The heat captured in the stones of the patio and the rocky water feature by the pool radiated outward still, though somehow the intensity of the temperature was now bearable. Oliver wiped at his dewy forehead and got to his feet. Pacing in a tight circuit around one end of the pool, his wet feet dried quickly on the hot stones. Connor stayed where he was, his mind running a track internally rather than acting it out with his feet.
“Nadia…involved in framing me?” Connor said, still aghast at the possibility. “I know she and I have had our differences, problems I thought we’d resolved in the pack. The right way. With sparring and discourse. We’d always walk away feeling better for it.” With a bitter side-look, he added, “I did.”
“We can’t dismiss any idea at this stage,” Oliver said, trying to sort through the evidence in a new way. All the details of the murder and everything following were no longer indicators of a killer, in Oliver’s mind, but rather pieces of a greater puzzle. What did the evidence against Connor actually mean regarding who framed him? What did the voids of evidence mean? How did they fit together? What, if anything, was Nadia responsible for?
“You don’t think she was involved in the murder too?” Connor said, barely whispering the words. Still, the gravity of them carried the question to Oliver’s ears.
“I don’t know,” Oliver said. “Nadia is clearly more dangerous than I previously gave her credit for. And more ruthless.”
Connor shook his head. “She wouldn’t kill Logan,” Connor decided. “She loved him. He loved her. They were so close. He told me as much. He was always trying to bring the two of us closer together. I can’t imagine him trusting her if she harboured any ill feelings toward him.”
You couldn’t imagine her framing you for murder, either.
But Oliver didn’t say it. There was no evidence. He had to keep reminding himself of that. And as he looked at Connor, the foundations of his strikin
g, lean frame shaken by the constant assault of betrayal, Oliver wished he was wrong. He hoped that Nadia’s strike at Connor’s reputation was just an unfortunate coincidence. That would make her indelicate, fickle, perhaps. But it didn’t make her a heartless criminal.
“It just doesn’t make sense,” Oliver said aloud, realizing he was getting nowhere with the pacing. He stopped and lay down on the ground, feet back in the pool. The palm fronds overhead cast a dappled shadow over his face. “Logan is murdered, leaving tons of evidence that points to you as the killer, but not the evidence we’d expect to find in that kind of attack. Then Nimueh whips the NCPD into a frenzy, pushing for action over investigation and putting everyone on edge. Meanwhile, your Court’s in disarray and before any kind of investigation is complete, Nadia steps up and reminds people of deaths you were cleared of years ago. She’s casting suspicion on you when there’s already a heaping serving of it.” Oliver shook his head. “It’s just creating a deeper divide within the pack communities.”
Connor pulled off his shirt and stood up, peeling off his tight pants. After a moment, he inhaled deeply and dove into the pool, splashing Oliver lying on the poolside. Oliver jerked up, suddenly soaked, and glared at his lover.
“You’ve all the grace of a grizzly bear,” Oliver shot, as Connor surfaced, whipping his white blond hair back in an arc of droplets. Connor cast him a quick smirk before sinking back to his neck.
“I needed to move,” he said, “and cool down. You should join me. I think there are clarity filters set into the pool.”
Oliver cocked an eyebrow, completely unconvinced, but as he was already wet and needed something better to do than pace and lay uselessly in the sun, he cast aside his clothes and jumped feet-first into the pool.
The soothing qualities of the water were magnified a hundredfold when Oliver was fully submerged. Within moments he felt his skin softening, the pink flush on his cheeks and shoulders fading back to the usual complexion. The muscles in his back and shoulders, so tight and knotted from the stress of Logan’s murder and everything surrounding it, began to ease. His muscles tingled, his scalp pleasantly stimulated down to the roots of his hair. Oliver popped back up to the surface, a relieved breath emerging from his chest.
When he opened his eyes, he felt lighter and more awake than he had since before the aborted bonding ceremony. A small pang of regret hit his stomach at the thought, remembering what it was they should have been doing now, but Oliver pushed it aside. They had more serious matters to address.
“Nadia can’t be Alpha,” Connor said, treading water and staring at the palm trees ahead of him. Oliver wasn’t sure how he was managing to tread water considering the pool was only barely deep enough for Oliver not to touch the bottom. Although Connor’d managed the dive without killing himself, so perhaps he was more talented a swimmer than Oliver gave him credit for.
“I wouldn’t vote for her,” Oliver agreed, but Connor shook his head.
“No, I mean she isn’t ready,” he said, giving Oliver a strange look. “And we don’t vote. But regardless, the pack wouldn’t follow her. She’s untested and hasn’t won a challenge for it. Plus she’s got too many detractors. Not enough support. And her actions following Logan’s death only cement that.” Connor pressed his lips together until the fullness of them was pinched down to a straight line. “She would know that.”
Oliver thought it out. “Could she be deluded enough to think this is her time to strike? While there are no other real contenders, with you out of the way?”
Again, Connor shook his head no. “With me out of the way, there would be many other contenders. Lane would probably step forward. Maybe Kyrie. Certainly Juniper. And any other number of strong Wolves, I’m sure. They would be no match for me, but against Nadia they wouldn’t be worried. Each of them has more support and more experience than she does.”
“So what is Nadia thinking?” Oliver asked, his mind drawing a blank.
“She’s creating cracks in her own pack,” Connor said aloud, as though he was only just thinking it through himself. “While she knows other packs would be rallying behind second-choice leaders.”
Oliver swam aimlessly around in circles in the pool, allowing the water to play over his arms and back, his mind elsewhere. “It’s like she’s not terribly interested in how this will affect her own chances at Alpha.” And then it clicked. “Like she’s setting the stage for someone else to come unite everyone.”
Oliver stopped in the shallower end, barely keeping his head above water, and Connor stopped too. They stared at each other, the wind playing over their faces suddenly cold.
“She’s working with another Wolf?” Connor asked. “But who? Who would try something this underhanded?”
Oliver heaved his shoulders, still unable to make sense of the pieces of evidence from the murder. But the more he sat in the water, the clearer the possibilities became.
“There were voids of evidence,” Oliver said. “Things that should have been there weren’t, and things that by all means should have been covered weren’t.” Connor shrugged slowly at him. The pool water tasted of mint and rain on Oliver’s lips. “How do you plant evidence or remove it?”
Connor watched him, and Oliver raised a hand, plucking at an invisible sheet over the pool and lifting it, mimicking Rory’s actions from the night they had escaped the NCPD at their bonding ceremony.
“Fae?” Connor asked, blue eyes a perfect match to the pool water. “You think a Fae was involved?”
Oliver shrugged. “Who else can make that happen?” Oliver asked. “Only a Fae can remove evidence and plant evidence so cleanly. What if Nadia is working with a Fae?”
At which point Oliver lost Connor. His expression shifted from alarm to disbelief. “No,” he said. “No Werewolf would accept a Fae as Alpha. A consort, maybe, or a mate, but not as sole Alpha. That’s even less likely than Nadia taking over.”
Oliver breathed deeply, chewing on the answer. “Okay, maybe there’s someone else,” he admitted. “But I think it’s safe to say that there are more people involved than we previously thought.” And the coldness, the depth of the plan struck Oliver hard. There were several people who banded together to murder a leader of the Three Courts and pin it on Connor. That wasn’t a reasonable amount of effort just to frame one man. Who could possibly hate Connor that much that they’d destabilize an entire Court to act out their hatred?
A little green bird appeared suddenly by Oliver’s ear, catching him off-guard and making him splash roughly in the pool. Connor bit back a laugh that Oliver caught, and Oli gestured at the bird to deliver its message.
“I should hire your friend there as a police liaison,” Captain Marks’s voice said through the little bird’s beak. “She’s got a keener eye than all my officers and twice the brains.” Oliver raised an eyebrow. There was a pause, and then, “well, other than you, I suppose.” Oliver pulled a face at the bird. “In any case, her harassment of the coroner led to a further inquiry, which is great, except it isn’t. They wanted to figure out why it was there was no saliva or DNA evidence of Pierce, or anyone else for that matter, on Logan’s body. So they did some digging and found a requisition form for forensic counter-potions dated a week ago. Apparently, according to the techs, this kind of magic could be used to mess with a crime scene and remove key evidence.” There was another pause, and Oliver’s mind raced. Who would think to use forensic potions that way? “Worth, the form has your signature on it. They think you took the potions and gave them to Pierce to cover your tracks. You are now officially labeled an accomplice to murder. You better crack this case fast, or they might just kill you both before you can. Stay safe.”
The bird vanished, and Oliver stood, jaw tight and gaze steady. Whatever else the message included, it told Oliver one very important thing.
“What is it?” Connor asked, searching Oliver’s face. His blond eyebrows were low over his eyes. Oliver raised his face to Connor slowly. A resoluteness set into Oliver such as he
had never felt before.
“This is bigger than we thought. There are more people involved than just Nadia and a Fae,” he said. “And at least one of them is in the NCPD.”
Chapter 17
Out of the pool and back within the relative safety of the Birch house, Oliver and Connor sat in the kitchen. The remnants of a roasted chicken and assorted vegetables lay between them. Lucia Birch had sent a message via Tweeter bird regarding dinner, saying she would be detained with matters of Court, and Eriol worked late hours at the hospital. The stove prepared the chicken and vegetables itself, Oliver having only to place the ingredients within a glass casing atop it.
It had taken them only ten minutes to eat it all, and as they stared at the picked bones of their dinner, they wallowed in an uneasy silence. Neither of them knew quite what to say about their situation now. That both of them were officially fugitives, framed for Logan’s murder, was in itself bad enough. But that someone—or someones—in the NCPD were complicit in the frame-job made Oliver nauseated.
“The obvious suspect is Davin,” Oliver said, as though it was a foregone conclusion. “But the problem is I just don’t think he’s got the brains for it. I hardly thought he was capable of filling out his own paperwork, let alone forging believable requisition forms and staging a crime scene. It’s a miracle if Davin even manages to supervise a crime scene properly, how is he supposed to orchestrate this whole thing?”
Connor picked at a minuscule piece of chicken remaining on the bone and popped it into his mouth. He already looked thinner than two days prior. His high cheekbones and sharp features seemed hollowed, drawn, and though his beauty never diminished in Oliver’s eyes, Oli could still tell Connor didn’t look his usual poised, unflappable self. He wondered vaguely what he, himself, looked like to Connor now. Was his hair still ruggedly disheveled, or did he look the mess his mane usually was?