by Kari Cole
Marianne flipped a photo of Conroy’s body to Terry as if she were passing nothing more consequential than a menu. She said, “I heard someone ripped out the man’s tongue.”
Ellis cocked his head. “Who told you that?”
Last night, they’d all agreed to keep that detail under wraps. Luke slid a look to Dean, who shook his head. He wasn’t surprised someone had leaked the news to Marianne. There were too many pack members involved in the body recovery and investigation, and they all would feel compelled to answer the elders’ questions. He should have ordered their silence.
Like a rodeo bull, Terry snorted and huffed. “Basically, Sheriff, you’re telling us you have nothing. A man is dead. Murdered in our territory. And you’re worried about gossip? I thought you were supposed to be some fantastic tracker—even better than Liz. Can’t you follow a physical trail? Where are the people who’ve gone missing in the last six months?”
“Please,” Marianne said, her voice dripping with disdain. “They haven’t even found the bastards who killed my Tara.”
“Marianne—” Mom said.
Marianne slapped her hand on the table, rattling the coffee mugs. “No, Lena. Your mate—our Alpha—is dead. As is his uncle”—she pointed at Ellis, and then Dean—“and his little sister. It’s been fifteen months. My baby is dead. Where are the heads of her murderers? I don’t care about some human.”
* * *
Luke stood on the front porch as Marianne peeled out of the driveway. The bitter, rusty stench of her anger and grief clung to him. He couldn’t blame her. She was right.
The door swung open behind him and Terry stomped out. A mean gleam came into his eyes. “There is a lot at stake, Alpha. Don’t allow yourself to become distracted. Do you think no one noticed your scent when you walked into Rissa’s house yesterday? How you reacted to that slip of a girl?”
A nasty, rumbling growl rose in Luke’s throat. “Careful,” he rasped. The urge to rip Terry’s eyes from their sockets to prevent him from ever looking at Isabelle again nearly overwhelmed him.
Stefan stepped onto the porch. “Terrence,” he said, his voice hard.
Terry’s mouth closed with a snap. He glared at Luke, and then the stupid bastard turned his back on Luke and started walking to his car. Did he think Luke wouldn’t notice the challenge and disrespect, or simply not care?
“Terry,” Luke said in a low, dangerous tone. The sharp edge of claws pulsed at his fingertips. “Feel free to challenge me at the next pack run.” His wolf would enjoy the fight.
Terry stiffened. After only a few seconds, he lowered his eyes and hurried to his car.
“That’s what I thought,” Luke murmured.
Snow and gravel shot across the yard as Terry gunned the engine and raced down the drive. “Terrance doesn’t have what it takes to be Alpha,” Stefan sniffed dismissively, his blond hair swirling in the breeze. “Never has. Never will.” The sour scent of anger filled the air around him. “He’s a junkyard dog.”
A grin tugged at Luke’s mouth. “All bark and no bite?”
Stefan laughed, and it reminded Luke of the many times he’d heard that sound ring through his house—this house—growing up. Stefan had been one of his father’s closest friends.
“Oh, Terry likes to bark and snarl,” Stefan said. “He’s never understood that the most lethal predator is the silent one. But make no mistake, he’ll take a chunk out of you if he can.”
Luke’s wolf snorted. “Let him try.”
“Good enough.” Stefan clapped him on the back and smiled at someone behind Luke. “Goodbye, Lena. Alpha.” Then he, too, strode off to his car.
“How much of that did you hear?” Luke asked his mother when she leaned against the porch rail and looked at him.
She shrugged. “All of it.”
“Great.” He rolled his shoulders, his skin itching. His beast paced inside him, wanting out. He needed a run, but he had a few more hours of work to do before Isabelle got back.
“Wolf scratching at the gates?” Mom asked. She gave him a sad smile. “Your father used to need to shift and run after a meeting with the Council, too. Remember?”
“Yeah.” When Luke was young, his dad would take him along. They’d play and hunt. Sometimes they’d stalk Mom while she gardened. She’d always pretended to be surprised when her pup would pounce and mock growl.
Luke sucked in a long breath. Then another. The air smelled of pine, cedar, snow, earth, his mother, and pack—like home.
His wolf settled in his skin, like a key turning in a lock.
“Ah, that’s better,” Mom said. She touched his arm when he opened his mouth. “Don’t apologize. We’ve been through this. What happened to your father was not your fault. Even if you had been here in town, what could you have done? They were gone before any of us could help them.”
The muscles in Luke’s jaw bunched up so tight, he thought they’d snap. They had been through it. It didn’t matter how many times. Luke should have been here in Black Robe, helping his father with pack business, like his father wanted, not in Seattle pursuing his own crap. But for once, he kept his trap shut. It upset his mother whenever they discussed this.
Mom sat down in one of the many Adirondack chairs lining the porch. “That meeting wasn’t fun, but you were upset before it even began. Want to talk about it?”
Luke pinched the bridge of his nose. His headache roared with a vengeance. “I had just called Chicago. They shuffled me around on hold for almost an hour. None of the little mutts would give me their leadership’s direct lines or answer any of my questions.” If he could have reached through the phone and strangled the unhelpful shits, he would have.
“That’s odd. They must still be in transition there. Which, I suppose, is not unexpected.”
No, especially since the new leaders had achieved their positions through a bloody coup d’état. At least Isabelle had missed a pack-wide civil war. Still, the bits and pieces he’d gathered so far about her life formed a disturbing picture.
“How is Izzy? The goddess picked a good mate for you. I like her.” A twinkle lit Mom’s eye. “She put Marianne in her place.”
“She coldcocked me.”
Lena laughed. “I know.”
“She’s terrified of us.” And he had no idea what to do about it. Or anything else.
“Give her time. Her wolf will sort it out.”
He almost laughed at that, except Isabelle’s hatred of her beast really wasn’t funny. “I’m screwing this all up,” he said.
“Oh, Luke. You’re not—”
“Yes, I am,” he said. “Marianne was right. I haven’t found Dad’s killers. People are missing. Dying. On my watch. I’m failing them. I can’t even feel them.”
Mom stood in front of him and touched his arm again. “What do you mean?”
Disgust burned like acid in his gut. Jesus, was he really whining like a baby to his mommy? But he’d started down this trail. “The pack. I can’t sense them. Not like I should. Not like Dad did. I look inside”—he knocked his fist against his chest—“but they’re not there any more than they were before. I can’t differentiate them, tell where they are, or how they’re doing. What kind of Alpha can’t sense his pack?”
“I don’t believe that,” Mom said. “I’ve seen you at pack runs. Watched your wolf and the other wolves’ reaction to him. They follow him. Easily.”
His wolf sniffed and flicked an ear at Luke.
“That’s because he isn’t conflicted. You are.” Mom’s pewter eyes swirled with gold. “You think you stepped up because there was no one else. But that’s not true. You did it because you had to. It’s who you are. Alpha. To your core. You can’t change that, Luke.”
Even if he might want to.
Chapter Twelve
Freddie’s Bell 429 handled like a dream. The flight to Spokane had been beautif
ul and easy. For the first time since she’d arrived in Montana, Izzy felt relaxed and comfortable. Not at all like when Luke was around.
When he looked at her with those intense, green eyes—
“All right, Iz?” Freddie asked.
Inside, she cringed and hoped he couldn’t tell where her mind had been. “Just enjoying the ride.”
“How much farther?” Jenny Erlington, VP of Branson Development, asked over the headset. She’d asked this same question at least four times since they’d gotten into the Bell this morning. Did she think they were going too slow or something?
“It’s still about fifteen minutes off to the northeast,” Freddie answered.
“I’d like to fly over the whole western edge,” Alan Branson said. “I want to see if there might be another place for an entrance.”
Freddie’s jaw tightened. “Sure.” Despite his many attempts to be charming, he was batting a big, fat zero getting either of their clients to chat about their business.
Maybe Izzy should give it a try. It’d been her experience that Very Important People liked to brag. “You’re building a mine?” she asked.
“Yep,” Branson said. “Substantial veins of silver and copper ore run through the area. We’ve done some test drilling, but the real work will start when we get the final permits.”
“The project will be a huge boon to the area,” Jenny said. “The mine itself will create over one hundred new jobs. Not to mention all the ancillary economic benefits: an increased need for workers to build the roads and housing for our employees, increased demand for the retail businesses and restaurants. The list goes on and on.”
“Wow,” Izzy said, with a disgusting amount of gee-golly in her voice. Without looking, she knew Freddie was rolling his eyes. “Your company must be huge to undertake such a big project.”
Alan laughed. “Hardly. Jenny and I run a tight ship.”
“We have investors,” Jenny added, leaving the “duh” unsaid.
Izzy resisted the urge to rub her hands together. Now they were getting somewhere.
“Exactly,” Branson said. “We’ve—”
A huge boom! shook the Bell, throwing Izzy against the restraints. Alarms shrieked as the helicopter wobbled and spun, losing altitude.
She ignored the clients’ screaming and tried to compensate for the rotation, but the rudder pedals wouldn’t budge under her feet. Then, suddenly, the pedals went flat to the floor, completely inoperable.
She swore and hauled up on the collective, trying to gain altitude before they slammed into a wall of trees.
Beside her, Freddie’s voice was taut as he called in a Mayday. She could hardly hear him over the racket of alarms squawking and the engines groaning like they were dying. She couldn’t spare him a look. All of her attention was focused on the swirling blur of green and gray.
Wait. Was that—yes. There. A hole in the trees. Straight ahead.
“Going in!” she shouted over the maelstrom.
Izzy ignored everything but the feel of the collective and cyclic in her hands, and the fast-approaching opening in the deadly trees.
Then they dropped from the sky.
Chapter Thirteen
Luke stepped onto the deck outside his office and took in the view of Black Robe Lake glittering beneath the mountains. Neither the scenery nor the fresh, cold air did anything to assuage his anxiety. For the last few hours, his wolf had been prowling around in his head, teeth snapping. It wasn’t normal for him to be so close to losing control like this.
“Damn mating dance,” he grumbled under his breath.
He checked his watch. Still time to get in a quick run before Isabelle got back. Unbuttoning his shirt, he went back through the French doors. He slipped the last button free when his computer chimed indicating an incoming video call.
Rubbing a hand along the back of his neck, he soothed his wolf. Soon, he promised him. Soon we can run and hunt.
“Wyland,” he said as soon as the monitor displayed another face.
A young male with bright red hair and strange gold eyes blinked back at him. “Wyland,” he said with a slight nod. “I’m Cameron Beck, Alpha of the Milwaukee River Pack.”
Christ. Luke had heard the new Alpha was young, but this guy looked like he might not be legal to drink. “How old are you?” he said. What he really wanted to ask was if the kid was still in high school.
Beck rolled his eyes. They looked almost orange in the light of the afternoon sun—more tiger than wolf. Maybe it was a problem with the settings on Luke’s computer?
“Old enough, man,” Beck said. “Old enough.”
Whatever. “You’re a hard male to get ahold of.”
“Sorry about that,” Beck said, looking anything but apologetic. “I’m told you’re looking for information on two females who may have come from our territory.”
“Yes. Isabelle and Elizabeth Meyers. Or Izzy and Bess.”
“I’ve got the names. Before I give you any information, tell me—why do you want to know?”
“I explained that before.”
“Humor me,” Beck said, his weird eyes glinting.
Luke swallowed back a growl. “Because Isabelle has turned up here for her foster brother’s wedding to my Luna, and I’m having a hard time understanding why an established pack, especially one as large as Milwaukee River, would allow two female werewolves to grow up in the human foster care system.”
“They’d be adults now. This is old news. I’m still not getting what their upbringing is to you.”
Luke did growl this time. “Listen, you little—” His wolf pulled him back. The beast had heard or seen something that Luke had missed. Cameron Beck watched Luke with seemingly impassionate eyes, but now that Luke was paying attention, he saw the concern and calculation in the other Alpha’s gaze.
“Sorry,” Luke said. “There was a murder here last night. I haven’t gotten much sleep.”
“One of your wolves?”
“No. A human. He wasn’t involved with our pack but—” He shrugged. “It’s a small town.”
Beck studied Luke for a minute, then seemed to come to some conclusion. “All right,” Beck said. “Let’s cut to the chase, ’kay. You want info on a coupla girls from my territory. That makes them mine in my eyes.” He waited out Luke’s growl. “I’ve done my research on you, Wyland, and from everything I’ve heard, you’d do the same if our situations were reversed. I’ve only been Alpha here a short while. Lotsa shit went down before my time, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel some responsibility to the Meyers sisters now. You feel me?”
Video chat was a lousy way to get a true read on a man. Better than just his voice, but Luke would give his truck to be able to catch the other male’s scent right now. He studied Beck and took a leap of faith. “Isabelle is my mate.”
“Well,” Beck said in a slow drawl, “mazel tov.” He cocked his head like the wolf he was and the gold of his eyes became liquid, glowing. “You know the sister is dead, right?”
“I heard. Suicide.” Luke’s stomach churned every time he thought of it and the fact Isabelle had watched her sister kill herself on a video call much like this one. “Are you aware that she killed a man the night she died?”
“What? Who?”
“I don’t know. I’m getting this secondhand from the human brother. She confessed to Isabelle. I don’t know if she named the guy.”
“Shit. Can’t you ask your mate?”
Luke sucked in a frustrated breath and released it. “It’s complicated.”
Beck shook his head, obviously thinking Luke was nuts. He was probably right. “All right. I’ll have to look into that. No one mentioned cleaning up any scenes.” The other Alpha’s eyes narrowed and the wolf peeked out again. If someone had held out on Beck, they were in trouble now. “I’m sure you’ve heard our change
in leadership was...less than peaceful.”
“I’ve heard. I also heard the previous leadership transition was a bit rocky, too.”
Beck’s bark of laughter echoed in Luke’s office. “Yeah, you could say that. Anyway, during that time some things were lost—not the least of which was lives and their memories, but records, too.”
The breath Luke had been holding left him in a rush. “Fuck.”
“There’re no records, in the pack’s archives at least, of an Elizabeth or Isabelle Meyers. I did, however, find one half-burned piece of paper stuck underneath the file cabinet that references Isabelle Elise Randolph and Elizabeth Ann Randolph. Twins, I would guess, going by the birthdates listed. And the timing fits.”
Luke barely heard the last thing Beck said because he was still stuck on the females’ last name. “Did you say ‘Randolph’? As in—”
“The name of our old Alpha from back in the day,” Beck supplied. “Yeah. The paper I found, it seems to be a request for registration to the Associated Genealogy charts.”
Luke fell back in his seat. He couldn’t have been more stunned had Beck actually come through the computer and slugged him in the jaw. The last name by itself didn’t necessarily mean that Isabelle and her sister were close relatives of the deceased pack master, but a registration for the genealogy charts...
He dug his fingers into a knot of tension at the back of his skull. Worldwide, lycanthropes maintained a loose association of clans and packs, sometimes coming together in times of great need or to negotiate matters of conflict. In the old days, before the advent of computers made it so dangerous to keep a list of every known shifter, prominent lycanthrope families made sure to register their offspring. Luke had never seen the point. It wasn’t like they had a shifter king or uber-Alpha. It all seemed ridiculous and pretentious to him. But still, lycanthropes from the old families added to the register. If Isabelle’s and Bess’s names were on that registry...
“Do you know? Was Randolph their relative?”
“Grandfather,” Beck said. “Which means their father was our Beta. They both died on the same night, you know. The Beta’s mate, too.”