by Chloe Neill
“’Cause it changes the odds in his favor,” Alexei murmured, and the others chuckled.
“That helps,” Connor acknowledged with a warm smile. “But it’s not the only reason. Family is family; family matters. It’s good to be here with you, and we appreciate the warm welcome.”
Miranda coughed an objection.
“Very subtle, Miranda,” Connor said quietly, voice flat.
She just rolled her eyes, looked away.
“We appreciate it,” he said again, looking at Georgia. “And this food. So let’s eat.”
“Hear, hear,” Georgia said, and we all raised our glasses.
I didn’t think it was an accident that none of them held the Alpha Stout.
* * *
* * *
The meal was one amazing dish after another. The chicken was juicy and perfectly flavored with butter and herbs. There were warm yeast rolls, carrots and asparagus, and a casserole dish of cheese potatoes covered in crispy tater tots.
If this was hot dish, I was in. And I felt very much like my mother’s child.
The conversation flowed naturally, from Grand Bay news, to Pack updates from Chicago, to very polite questions about my parents and Cadogan House.
“The idea of living in a giant dorm always seemed suspect to me,” Georgia said, stabbing an asparagus spear.
“Masters and Novitiates have a special relationship,” I said. “A kind of connection that makes them more like family than roommates.”
“Does that make it better?” Wes asked. “That’s like living at home with your parents.” He gave Georgia a wide smile.
“Very funny, child. Maybe you should go visit the vampires. See how they live.”
He looked at me. “That a possibility?”
“Probably so. As long as you aren’t afraid of fangs.”
When the eating slowed and Carlie excused herself to go back to the bakery, Connor pushed back his plate and took a contemplative sip of Alpha Stout he’d finally managed to convince some of them to try. Only the Chicago shifters—Miranda and Alexei—took him up on it, and Alexei made it only halfway through his glass.
“I don’t want to ruin a lovely evening,” Connor said, “but I’d like to talk about Loren.”
“We’ll talk,” Georgia agreed, picking a tater tot from her plate and popping it into her mouth. “Someone should.”
Connor looked at Cassie and Wes. “I’m sorry to bring this up, but he was left at the initiation. Were you having trouble with anyone?”
“We’ve discussed that,” Wes said, draping his arm protectively across the back of Cassie’s chair. “And the answer is no. We don’t have issues with anyone, and no one has issues with us, at least that we’ve seen. We’re family people. We tend to keep to ourselves.”
“We think it’s more likely they wanted to make a statement,” Cassie said, gaze on Wes. “The clan was together. The event was special. You leave the body there, you make a statement.”
Connor nodded. “Did anyone have any particular problems with Loren?”
“I don’t know of any real issues,” Georgia said, and she sounded convinced. But Cassie and Wes exchanged a look that said there was more to dig through here, more to consider.
“What about Cash?” Connor asked. “He seemed pretty eager to keep the investigation as low-key as possible.”
“That’s Cash,” Georgia said. “He doesn’t like humans, doesn’t trust them. Barely trusts anyone who isn’t clan. Certainly doesn’t trust anyone who isn’t Pack,” she said, with some chagrin, as she looked at me.
“Cassie?” I asked quietly. “Wes? Do you know of any problems with Loren?”
Cassie winced, looked apologetically at Georgia. “I don’t want to speak ill of the dead.”
“It’s not ill if it’s the truth,” Georgia said. “So spit it out.”
“It’s just, there were some general complaints,” she said. “About how he didn’t really listen to concerns when they were brought to him. Same for Everett and Cash. The younger shifters want change. They want to revitalize the clan, the resort. They don’t feel like they’re being heard.”
“And me?” Georgia asked, spine snapping straight. “Are people having words about me they aren’t willing to say to my face?”
“No,” Cassie said kindly, and put a hand over her mother’s. “You care about the clan, and everyone knows that. Everett and Cash and Loren are . . . old-school. They care about staying in control. And sometimes, that’s at the expense of the clan.”
Georgia sat back, breathed in deeply, and took that in, waited for it to settle.
Cassie, concern in her eyes, looked at me. “I don’t know about anything specific, but—”
She looked at Wes, who nodded and said, “Tell them.”
“Loren was with Paisley before she died.”
The room went silent.
“How do you know?” Connor asked.
“I saw them. They were walking together along the main road. There’s a coffee shop about half a mile up. It’s a nice walk, so I assumed that’s where they were going. I was driving on my way into town. I waved, but I don’t think either of them saw me. Or at least they didn’t acknowledge me. I ran some errands in town, came back again. And that’s when I found out what happened.”
“I thought Loren found her after she was dead,” Connor said, which was what Marian had told us.
“That’s what I heard, too,” Georgia said, frowning and shifting in her seat, as if literally discomforted by the information.
“That may still be true,” Cassie said. “But it’s not the entire story. And it didn’t look like they were having a very good time.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“It looked like they were arguing about something. I mean, I couldn’t hear them. I could just see that they were talking kind of . . . energetically, I guess. Neither one of them looked particularly happy. I just figured they were disagreeing about something.”
“Did you tell anyone?” Connor asked.
“No,” she said. “There didn’t seem any point. Cash, the sheriff, and Loren decided it was an accident.”
“It could have been an accident,” Georgia said. “Paisley had no enemies. She was young, sweet. Naive but kind. Full of life. There’s no reason anyone would have wanted her dead—Loren or anyone else.”
Maybe not. But there were a lot of reasons for murder. Revenge was only one of them. She could have seen something she wasn’t supposed to. Or had something that someone else wanted.
“It was a horrible accident,” Georgia said, “and there’s no evidence of anything else. We have enough tragedy to focus on without creating more trouble for ourselves.”
Connor looked at her for a long time. “We found a print in the woods,” he said. “Big animal. Vaguely wolf but much bigger than anything else we’ve seen.”
I nearly pulled out my screen to show her the photograph, when Connor gently squeezed my knee. A sign to keep that to myself, I figured, so I just adjusted my napkin.
“Bigger?” Georgia said, leaning forward. “What’s bigger?”
“We were hoping you’d have some idea—since you live here,” he added.
“No,” she said, and glanced at the others, who seemed just as baffled—and concerned—as she did.
“Whatever made the prints smelled like Pack,” Connor said, delivering the final blow.
“No one in the clan would have killed Loren,” Georgia said. “We live with the clan, day in and day out. We’d know if someone was capable of—of what was done to him. We’d know,” she said again, stabbing a finger into the table to make her point.
“Okay,” Connor said. “You’d know more than me. But you’ll tell Cash what we found? Just so he’ll know, too?”
Georgia nodded. “I will.” But she pushed back her chai
r and rose, and walked back into the kitchen without another word.
* * *
* * *
The mood when we prepared to leave was much darker than it had been when we’d arrived.
Connor picked up the mostly full growler as we stepped out of Georgia’s cabin onto the porch; I had a container of leftover chicken I was already planning to eat for breakfast.
Georgia stepped into the doorway behind us. “Elisa.”
Her tone was concerned, serious, and I had to steel myself, prepare myself to turn around and meet her gaze.
“Yes?” I asked as innocently as I could manage.
Her brows met at a point between her eyes. “The power,” she said. “It’s fighting you.”
Cold ran down my spine like ice water, and I had a vision of my mother’s face—tear streaked and sobbing—if she discovered what I really was.
“It’s fine,” I said, and could hear the tightness in my voice. “It’s handled.”
“Is it?”
Connor glanced back from the edge of the porch, brows lifted at the fact I’d stopped following him.
“It’s fine,” I said again, this time my voice harder. I immediately regretted my tone, but could hardly apologize when I couldn’t admit what I was apologizing for.
“I don’t think you believe that,” she said, her gaze intense on my eyes. “But if you change your mind and you want to talk, I’m here.”
That couldn’t matter. It just couldn’t.
* * *
* * *
“You want a drink?” Connor asked when we returned to the cabin and he’d squeezed the growler in with the blood in the refrigerator. “Maybe that Scotch we discussed?”
“Rain check,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m still digesting dinner.” I was also worn out—physically, emotionally. It had been a long night. And given tonight’s events, I suspected tomorrow wouldn’t be any easier.
I pulled off my boots, sat down on the couch, and let my head fall back. And opted not to tell Connor what his aunt and I had discussed. He didn’t need any more drama piled on.
“Same,” he said, taking a seat beside me, weariness in his movements.
“We aren’t leaving tomorrow,” I predicted.
“I think I need to stay.” He turned his head to meet my gaze. “I can get you home if you need to go, but I’d like you to stay, too.”
I reached out and took his hand, big and warm, in mine. “We rode up together. Might as well go home the same way.”
He squeezed my hand. “I’d say I’m sorry for dragging you into this, but that’s why I wanted you to come. At least in part.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry for it, for you and your family and the Pack.”
“Me, too.” He sighed. “There’s a small part of me that dreads the possibility of being Apex because I’d have to deal with idiocy and self-aggrandizing shifters and poor decision-making.”
“And the rest of you?”
His eyes went hard, and there was purpose in them. “Is thrilled about the possibility of getting to deal with idiocy and self-aggrandizing shifters and poor decision-making.”
“You know, you can be a little scary sometimes.”
He snorted. “Says the immortal with berserker powers.”
I meant to hide my flinch, but didn’t quite manage it.
“That was intended as a compliment,” he said, and I nodded. “But I’m sorry if it didn’t feel that way.”
“It’s fine,” I said, but still felt that hollowness in my gut that came with having my weakness pointed out. Ironic, given my strength was part of the problem.
“I like Carlie,” I said, trying very much to change the subject. “She’s really friendly.”
“Doesn’t have an evil bone in her body,” Connor said. “She’s a good kid, loves her family, respects the Pack. Saw me change when we were kids—that’s how she knows about Sups. I tried to tell her she’d imagined it, that I’d been working on a magic trick and every other excuse I could think of. She didn’t buy any of it, said she didn’t care if I was a werewolf, because I’d taught her how to ride a bike. It was as simple as that.”
“And you and Georgia seem to be close, but you didn’t tell her about the photographs of the tracks we found.”
“I think it’s best to keep the evidence in our hands,” Connor said. “I trust her, but I don’t trust the clan. So we’ll do our own search, let them do theirs. Maybe we’ll both end up in the same place.”
That would be its own magic trick, I thought. “If it helps, I don’t think she’s involved in the murder. Or the cover-up.”
“I don’t think so, either. Or at least not directly. But she’s an elder. That means she bears responsibility.” Connor sighed. “I should update the Pack,” he said, and pulled out his screen, and placed it upright on the coffee table.
He tapped and the ringing began, and his father’s face appeared a moment later.
Gabriel Keene’s hair was pulled back in a headband, and his face had been coated in pale pink slime. “Children,” he said nonchalantly, nodding at us in turn.
“I have many questions,” I quietly said.
“As do I.”
“I’m being made up,” his father said, eyes flat. “Your nieces and nephew are visiting, and they decided I needed a makeover.” There were giggles off camera, and his eyes grew wide. “No mascara. My lashes are plenty full.” He looked back at his son. “Is there some reason I might need to immediately drive to Minnesota? As soon as I wash my face, at any rate.”
“Sorry to burst your bubble, but no. But that’s not to say something isn’t happening out here.”
“Tell me,” his father said. “Slowly.”
Connor managed not to smile. “There’s definitely clan infighting. One of the elders was killed, his body left at the initiation. And we found tracks near the spot where his body was dumped. Animal but not like anything we’ve seen. They smell like Pack—like clan. And there was magic, but splintered.”
His father’s brows lifted. “Well. That’s a lot. How was he killed?”
While Connor gave him the details, I sent him the photographs we’d taken on the trail.
“Not Pack,” Gabriel concluded. He must have been viewing the photos on the same screen he was using to communicate with us, because he was squinting at something to our left. “Not human. Nothing I’ve seen before. But they smelled like Pack?”
“They did,” Connor said.
“And broken magic,” he said. “That’s a new one. Maybe a disorder? A spell?”
“We don’t know,” Connor said. “But we haven’t sensed it at the resort.”
“Hmm,” he said. “What’s the infighting?”
“Young versus old, it seems. The younger shifters are, I think, sick of passing, of hiding their identities.”
“Exactly what I told Cash a decade ago. There’s no point in hiding. Not anymore.” He shifted his gaze to me. “We can thank vampires for taking most of the heat there.”
“Sorry not sorry,” I said, and Gabriel smiled.
“What’s the next move?” he asked.
“They’ll plan the memorial,” Connor said. “If there’s a schism in the clan, we’ll probably see evidence of it when they make those plans. Memorials are a big deal in the Pack,” he said, shifting his gaze to me. “The celebration of life, the reunification of the body with the earth.”
“That will be telling,” I said. “If the clan had any involvement in his death, if someone was angry at him, it might come out in those discussions.”
“Might,” Gabriel said. “Unless they’re savvy enough to hide it.”
“Nothing hidden regarding the murder,” Connor said. “But we’ll see.”
“When were you supposed to come back?” his father asked.
“Tomorrow,” Connor
said, glancing at me. “But we’re negotiating.”
“If both of you can swing it, I’d like you to stay a couple more days. I don’t want whatever has infected the clan to spread to the rest of the Pack. It needs to be isolated and rooted out. If they get suspicious, say—I don’t know—that you’re staying to pay your respects to Loren.”
A tiny hand holding a tiny pink brush sneaked into view. It smashed bright pink powder onto Gabriel’s cheek, leaving a splotch.
“Thank you,” Gabriel said, voice and eyes flat. “That’s very pretty.”
A child giggled.
“I’m also open to your driving home immediately,” Gabriel said. “Please.”
“I wouldn’t want to interrupt your grandchild bonding time,” Connor said with a grin. “And I don’t mind staying.”
“I can clear it with the Ombudsman, if that would help,” Gabriel said. Then added, “Not on the walls, Milo.”
“I think Yuen will understand the delay,” I said. “But it probably wouldn’t hurt for him to hear from the Apex.”
“Done,” Gabriel said as tiny glitter stickers were pressed to his face. “Feast your eyes on the Apex of the North American Central Pack in all his glory.”
“Heavy is the head that wears the crown,” Connor said, “and is covered in glitter stickers.”
* * *
* * *
When the call was done, Connor settled back onto the couch again, ran a hand through his hair.
As if by instinct—and where had that come from?—I curled into him. Connor made a sound of satisfaction, wrapped his arms around me.
“You sure you’re fine with staying?”
“I’m too intrigued to leave,” I admitted. “As long as Yuen’s good with it.”
“I’m pretty sure he will be when he’s advised you’re helping solve a supernatural murder.”
“Which is, ironically, what the sheriff’s office would be doing if Cash hadn’t paid him off.”