The Grant Wolves Box Set

by Lori Drake

  Itsuo bowed, then carefully stood the chair holding Chris’s body back up.

  “What the fuck?” Eric exclaimed, presumably as Chris left him. “What happened? Untie me right now!”

  There were questions Joey wanted to ask Itsuo. A lot of questions. They’d have to wait. She sighed and walked back to retrieve her bag of peas from the island.

  “Hard pass,” she said, meeting Eric’s eyes. “We need to talk.”

  “Fuck you! I don’t have anything to say to you.”

  “You can talk to me, or you can talk to your pack.” She pressed the frozen peas against her face again and leaned against the countertop. “They’re pretty upset with you right now. I already had a pretty good idea you were a shithead, so my world-view isn’t necessarily rocked.”

  “I’m not saying a goddamn thing until you let me go.”

  “Then it’s going to be a long night. If you like, we can leave you alone. Well, not entirely alone. Roger’s around here somewhere”—she glanced around the room—“he can keep you company. Though, fair warning, he likes you even less than I do.”

  Eric glared daggers across the room. “I don’t give a fuck what either of you think.”

  Joey lowered the bag of peas and tossed it lightly, flipping it over to press the other side against her face. “Pardon if I’m not super broken up about that. So anyway, why’d you kill Roger?”

  Eric snorted. “You know why. He was a hunter. He killed Micah.”

  “Bullshit. You made that up. What I don’t get is why. What really happened to Micah?”

  He glared at her in silence.

  Joey’s fingers tightened on the frozen vegetables. She was getting really tired of this shit, but did her best to rein in her temper. Now wasn’t the time. “You know what I think? I think you killed Micah.”

  “That’s a dangerous accusation.”

  Joey arched a brow. It was the one hidden behind the peas, but she couldn’t help it. It was the only one she could arch. “You’re not denying it.”

  He snorted. “Because it’s not worth dignifying with a response. What possible reason would I have for killing a member of my own pack?”

  “I dunno, Eric. You tell me. Why are the only two alphas in your pack the one that’s in love with you and the one that can put you in your place but won’t actually challenge you?”

  Eric frowned. The ropes around him creaked as he moved his arms, probably testing for a weakness. “Who told you Micah was an alpha?”

  Joey smiled. “You just did. But here’s the thing. I’ve been onto you since the day we met. I’ve always known something was wrong with this pack, and now I finally understand what. It’s you. You’re a broken, ruthless tyrant who’s pushed his people into doing things that are abhorrent to them. You keep them in check through subjugation and fear, and you’re not afraid to put down the ones that don’t fall in line.”

  Eric smirked and shook his head. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Joey pushed off the counter and walked over to him, lowering the makeshift compress so she could lock eyes with him. “I don’t? Enlighten me. What happened to Micah?”

  “Micah… was an accident.”

  Joey’s eyes flicked to Itsuo to make sure he was still there. He had been still and quiet since setting Chris’s chair upright, but he did still seem to be listening. Frowning and listening.

  “What kind of an accident? You were cleaning your silver-loaded shotgun and it went off?” she asked, returning her focus to Eric.

  He looked away. “We had an argument and got in a fight. These things happen, you know? Only it went too far. I think he broke a rib, punctured a lung or something. He started coughing up blood, and I didn’t know what to do. I went for help, but when I came back, he was gone.”

  Joey swallowed an uncomfortable lump in her throat. “He drowned in his own blood.”

  Eric met her eyes again, a smile creeping across his face. “You’re so fucking gullible.”

  Joey’s fist flew practically of its own accord, striking his smug face so hard that his chair rocked back and fell over.

  “Oof. Hahaha, the look on your face…”

  Joey shook out her hand. “I’m starting to understand the true meaning of justifiable homicide,” she muttered, and gave Itsuo a nod. He set Eric’s chair upright again and clocked one ear for good measure.

  “Hey!” Eric shot Itsuo a glare. Blood leaked from both nostrils and he turned his head to spit blood on the floor before looking back to Joey. “Micah betrayed me. Betrayed the pack. He had to be put down.”

  Joey pressed her knuckles into the bag of peas in an effort to ease their discomfort. “How? What betrayal is so bad that you’d kill for it, but keep it a secret from everyone else?”

  Eric spat blood on the floor again. “None of your fucking business.”

  Joey fought the urge to punch him again, but maybe he was right on that count. Why he killed Micah wasn’t particularly vital to the current situation, so she let it go. “So, you killed him and blamed it on a hunter. Where does Roger come in?”

  Eric shrugged, as much as his bonds would allow. “Couldn’t just let the hunter get off scot-free. What kind of Alpha would I be?”

  “What kind of… The kind that doesn’t murder innocent humans!” Joey hurled the bag of peas at him with a growl. It smacked against his chest and slid down to his lap. She left it there, not wanting to put her hand anywhere near his crotch. With luck, maybe he’d get frostbite on his dick.

  “Innocent humans my ass,” Eric retorted. “They’re all just hunters in the making.” There was hatred in his eyes as they burned into hers.

  Joey blinked and rocked back on her heels. “What?”

  “Don’t ‘what’ me. You know what. The only reason we still exist is because they don’t know about us. If the truth got out, they’d turn on us. All of them. They’d exterminate us, or worse.”

  “You can’t be serious.” Joey’s eyes darted to Itsuo. “I think I knocked some sense out of him.”

  Itsuo shrugged and tucked his hands up his sleeves. He didn’t appear particularly surprised by the sentiment.

  Eric went on, “There are billions of them, Joey. Billions of them, and how many of us? Hundreds? Thousands, maybe, worldwide? Killing one of them means nothing.”

  Joey managed to recover from the shock enough to say, “This all started with you killing one of us, lest we forget. Micah wasn’t human. He was a wolf, and now he’s gone. That’s on you. I ought to let Roger kill you. Hell, maybe he’d take you in trade for the others. You’re disgusting.”

  His savage smile chilled her to the bone. “So much for every life being precious.”

  Chris groaned and lifted his head.

  “Chris!” Joey moved swiftly to him, abandoning Eric for now. She lifted a hand to his cheek and looked into his eyes. “It’s you, right?”

  “Yeah. I know that was my idea, but kind of regretting it now.”

  Itsuo stepped forward, but Joey held up a hand. “Not until we know for sure,” she said, then looked back at Chris. “What were you for Halloween last year?”

  “Nic—“ He shook his head. “Nothing.”

  Joey leaned over and hugged him as tightly as she dared. It’d been a trick question. Halloween had come and gone, uncelebrated, shortly after he returned from the dead. Relief flooded her. Chris was back. Granted, Roger could possess him again at any moment, but for now it was enough.

  “Get a room.” Being tied to a chair didn’t stop Eric from grousing.

  Joey loosened her hold on Chris enough to press her lips to his. He made a surprised noise, but kissed her back. For a few seconds, nothing else mattered. She poured her heart and soul into that kiss, even though it was brief and awkward, with him still tied to the chair and all.

  “You did not just kiss me to spite him,” Chris murmured when their lips parted.

  “Only a little,” Joey replied, and set to freeing Chris from his confinement with help fro
m Itsuo.

  “What’d I miss?” Chris asked, flexing and stretching stiff muscles as he was released.

  “I’ll catch you up along with everyone else,” Joey promised.

  “Are you sure that is wise, Josephine-san?” Itsuo said as he untied the last knot.

  “They need to know, and we need to figure out what we’re going to do about Roger. And Eric,” Joey said, sparing the still-bound Alpha a glance.

  “What do you mean, ‘do with Eric’?” Eric asked.

  Joey ignored him as she helped Chris to his feet.

  “Were you serious about turning him over to the cops?” Chris asked, standing but leaning on her even after he was on his feet. She caught him wince and was immediately concerned.

  “No!” Eric exclaimed. “No, you can’t do that. You can’t let them put me in a cage!”

  Joey hadn’t quite thought it through, but even so… “Yes. He killed someone. Hell, he killed two someones. We can’t just let that go.”

  Chris said, “You know what’d happen to him if he ended up in long-term custody, if he couldn’t shift…”

  Eric struggled against his bonds now, “My pack won’t let you do that. They’ll stand by me, you’ll see! And when I get my hands on you—”

  Joey rounded on Eric, shooting him a glare. “You’ll do what? Choose your words carefully, Eric. Because I know exactly what kind of man you are, and I won’t take threats lying down.”

  Chris touched her arm, drawing her attention back to him. “We should bring everyone in here.”

  Her brow furrowed. “Why?”

  “Transparency. They need to know, and this way there’s no question about what was said to whom. Everything out in the open, all the cards on the table.”

  “What about Jenny?”

  “Good point. Probably not a good idea to move her again. I guess we can bring him to them.”

  “We? You’re barely upright. Can you walk?”

  He grimaced and straightened, pressing a hand to his injured ribs. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

  Joey turned to find that Itsuo had already picked up Eric’s chair and was halfway to the door. She reached for Chris’s hand. “Come on. Can’t let them start without us.”

  19

  By the time Joey was finished explaining the complicated tale of Micah and Roger’s deaths, Chris was lightheaded with anger. It went well with his raging headache and aching ribs. Ben had him in a chair and was once again attempting to wrap a pressure bandage around him.

  Chris wasn’t as surprised to find out about Micah’s murder as he would have been if Itsuo hadn’t already tipped him off about Eric’s history of killing off rivals. Eric’s pack took the news pretty well, all things considered, but that solidarity Eric had been expecting didn’t materialize.

  “Don’t look at me like that. You know everything I do is for you,” Eric insisted, meeting their eyes one by one until they all looked away. All but Itsuo and Jessica, anyway.

  “Now what?” Brandon asked, but it was Chris he looked to rather than his Alpha. “What do we do now?”

  Chris sat there awkwardly for a moment. At least the question didn’t send Eric off on a tirade again. “Now we need to decide what to do about Roger.”

  “He still wants to kill us, right?” Jessica asked. Her voice was rough; Chris imagined her throat was pretty swollen, if the marks on her neck were any indication.

  Chris deferred to Joey on that count. She nodded. “Yes. I tried to reason with him, but he’s not exactly sane. Ghosts aren’t rational beings. They’re powered by emotion, and all he has left is anger and hate.”

  “Then we have to end him,” Jessica concluded. The others nodded along with her, some with more obvious reluctance than others. “It sucks that there’s no other way, but it is what it is.”

  Chris caught Joey’s eyes, wishing there were another way. She nodded to him, as if understanding even though he hadn’t voiced the thought. That was just how they’d always been—the last few months notwithstanding. In perfect sync. It was nice to be back there again.

  Ben finished up the bandage and secured it with several flimsy metal clips, then passed Chris his shirt. Chris put it on as quickly as he could without injuring himself further. Even with the fire going, it was still damn cold in the house. Once his head popped through the neck hole, he said, “Okay, then we need to start by burning the body.”

  “Salting and burning the body,” Joey corrected, from her position on the sofa by Jenny’s feet. “This could get nasty, because you can be damn sure Roger’s going to try and stop us.”

  Chris nodded and surveyed the walking wounded. “Adam and Lucy should stay with Jenny.” He couldn’t quite bear the thought of breaking up the twins. Whatever happened, they had to stick together.

  “I’m fine. I can go,” Brandon said.

  Ben said, “Me too. And don’t tell me to stay with the wounded. Everyone’s triaged. It’s fine.”

  Colt unfolded himself from his seat on the floor and stood. It was a vast improvement from staring into the fire. “I’ll go.”

  “I’m in,” Jessica said.

  Joey looked Jessica over. “Are you sure?”

  Jessica nodded tightly. “I’m sure.”

  “Okay,” Joey said. “So, that’s me and Ben, Colt, Jessica, and Brandon. That should be enough.”

  Chris pushed to his feet. “I’m going.” He ignored Joey’s pointed frown. She wasn’t the boss of him.

  “That’s not a good idea, bro.” Ben put a hand on Chris’s shoulder and tried to push him back down into the chair.

  Chris held his ground. “I said I’m going, okay? I’m going to see this through.”

  “What about me?” Eric said. “You can’t just leave me tied up in here.”

  Chris hesitated, considering. Eric was a formidable fighter, but he was a complete wild card. He could just as easily betray them and stab someone in the back as he could help.

  “All in favor of Eric staying?” Joey asked. Every person from Team Body Burning raised their hand.

  “Do we get a vote?” Lucy asked, eyeing Eric with the wariness one might a coiled serpent.

  “Fuck you all. I hope you die out there,” Eric spat, glaring around the room.

  Jessica walked over and grabbed a handful of Eric’s hair. She yanked his head back and leaned down, putting her face close to his. “You’d better hope not, because if we do, Roger’s coming for you, and you’re going to have to just sit here and take it.”

  Eric glared up at her in silence. There was some pretty intense eye contact, but Jessica didn’t back down. After a few seconds, she released his hair from her grip, then turned to go. But at the last moment, she seemed to change her mind, and spun, punching him in the abdomen beneath the mass of ropes crossing his torso. The chair slid backward several inches.

  “That’s for Micah,” she said, and walked away.

  They collected their coats and the key from Eric, then headed out back to the shed, with a side trip to the kitchen for salt and lighter fluid.

  The stench of death and decay was just as terrific as Chris had remembered. He focused on breathing through his mouth and held on to the supplies while the others dragged the tarp-wrapped body out of the shed and over to the fire pit some distance from the house.

  “You haven’t ever burned bodies out here, have you?” Chris asked out of morbid curiosity.

  “Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies,” Jessica rasped, but laughed hoarsely in response to the look he gave her afterward. “No, of course not.”

  “Didn’t seem like a silly question to me,” Chris mumbled, ducking his chin to try and keep the cold wind from blowing down his coat’s upturned collar.

  Once the body was in position, they unwrapped the tarp to expose it. It didn’t look any better than it smelled, bloated, rotting flesh teeming with maggots. Chris’s stomach heaved, but he made himself look. It was something he’d never be able to un-see, but it was important to him. A reminder of the dept
hs to which someone could sink. But as he studied the corpse, he saw something wasn’t right.

  “Wait,” he said, tightening his hold on the canister of salt when Joey tried to take it from him. She gave him a questioning look. “I don’t… I mean, I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I don’t think this is Roger.”

  “How do you know what Roger looks like?” Joey asked, as everyone crowded closer for a better look.

  “He attacked us in the woods. I got a pretty good look at him while he was trying to chew my face off.”

  “Hell’s bells.” Colt’s stunned words drew everyone’s attention. “That’s Kate’s ex.”

  Jessica groaned. “Son of a bitch. He dug up the wrong body.” She turned and stalked for the shed.

  “Where are you going?” Chris asked.

  “To get a shovel,” Jessica croaked.

  Chris met Joey’s eyes briefly, then Joey hurried after Jessica while the others lingered by the fire pit.

  Meanwhile, Colt scratched his head. “Why was Kate’s ex buried in the woods?”

  “I think the better question might be how many more bodies are buried in the woods,” Ben said quietly, glancing toward the trees.

  “This thing isn’t going to go all Romero on us, is it?” Brandon asked. “Like Kate, eh?”

  Chris gave the bottle of lighter fluid a little shake to gauge how much was in it, then stepped forward and squirted a healthy dose on the rotting corpse. Ben caught on and lit a match, tossing it down once Chris was done. They all stepped back and watched the flames dance in the cold night air.

  How had Kate’s ex ended up buried in the woods? As much as he hated to even think it, Chris was starting to get an idea of just how Eric had bound his pack to him so tightly.

  “You should know… he tried to kill you,” Brandon said.

  His train of thought derailed, Chris looked up and met Brandon’s eyes across the fire. “Me?”

  Brandon lowered his eyes, but nodded. “In the woods, earlier. Eric knew full well you were possessed, but he wasn’t pulling any punches. He was smiling while he did it, like he was glad for the opportunity.”

  Chris thought back to the way Eric had clobbered Brandon with the shovel. He hadn’t been pulling any punches then, either. “You stopped him?”