Matthew stared at him, in disbelief, that cigarette still hanging from his mouth and burning away at the tip. Hazel stared back and forth between him and her alpha, in disbelief that it was all going down like this.
And then, Hann jumped in and explained the whole story, while Matthew and Hazel listened in disbelief.
Brian wasn’t a rogue. Brian was a shifter, to Hazel’s surprise, from a pack in Vermont. He used to travel up to Maine all the time with his father, which is where he met Hudson years ago. Both were troubled youth, and when Hudson learned just what Brian was, their friendship was sealed. Brian was dangerous, and Hudson loved that. Even though he hid his new found obsession with danger and death from his parents when he got back from boarding school a changed kid, he still had those dark thoughts.
And they had matured just like he had.
So, when Camilla broke up with him one night because she was annoyed with his obsession with the supernatural and death, Hudson never got over it. He thought that she was his light. And then, he had no light.
So, he started planning little ways that he could get back at her. Not until Brian, who Hudson hadn’t seen in years, came back up to Maine angry at the shifter community and hungry for destruction, did they think of a plan.
Brian would get what he wanted, and so would Hudson.
And they killed her.
“Now, Detective, I long for justice for that poor girl just as much as you do,” Hann told him. “And I know that this is going to be hard for you to understand right now, but I am willing to work with you for the rest of your life to track down any wrong shifter who thinks they can harm humans like this. But you must understand, a species like Brian cannot go to regular prison. He would kill every single person that goes near him and escape, never to gain justice.”
“What do you propose, then?” Matthew asked, taking a drag of his cigarette. He seemed to be dealing with this whole thing rather well, though Hazel knew that he was freaking out inside.
“I propose he goes through our own justice system,” Hann replied.
Just then, Michael, an Elder that was close friends with the Moonlight Maine Pack and Hann, appeared. Brian started screaming when he saw the Elder walking near him with justice on his mind.
“No, please, don’t take me there,” Brian begged, his crazy yells now turning into desperate pleas. They fell on deaf ears.
He was a cold-blooded, demented, killer. He would get what was coming for him.
“And the other?” Matthew asked, nodding toward Hudson.
“He will be tried for the murder of Camilla Phillips through Jerome’s criminal justice system,” Hann replied. “And we can also do something to help his memories, regarding us shifters, that is.”
Hann nodded at Michael again, who nodded toward Matthew who was staring at the hooded Elder in disbelief.
“I’m gonna need to hear everything before I agree to anything,” Matthew finally stated, staring straight at Hann. “And I mean everything. Including what . . . this is. What you are.”
“Of course,” Hann nodded, smiling slightly. “Why don’t we go into the house and talk for a bit? I’ll make us some coffee.”
“I prefer whiskey.” Matthew and Hann walked into that little house together, leaving the shifters alone with the two murderers. Michael took the screaming Brian and was gone instantly, taking him to the courts of shifters that was as brutal and deadly as Brian.
They would treat him great there.
“How did you guys find out about this?” Hazel asked Lorelei, confused.
“I may have snuck into Matthew’s office a few minutes before you got there to see what his letter said,” Lorelei confessed, giggling into her hand. “Lucky I did, though. You guys would’ve been butchered without us!”
Hazel nodded, finding herself giggling alongside Lorelei.
She couldn’t help it. Camilla Phillip’s murderers had finally been found, and they would be brought to justice, in more ways than one.
Hazel smiled. Justice was sweet. And the murder case was closed.
Chapter 16
Lorelei felt nervous. She had been waiting outside of the police precinct, in the pouring rain, for what seemed like two whole hours. Looking at her watch, she discovered that she had indeed been waiting two hours for Detective Matthew Reynolds to exit the precinct. It was dark, and it seemed like every other worker in the building had left for the night. With the murder case closed and sealed, there wasn’t much for them to stay around for.
But Detective Reynolds was still in there. Lorelei wouldn’t have missed him leave the building.
The sky screamed with anger as the rain poured down on Lorelei, with only the awning of the building keeping her slightly dry. She couldn’t believe she had forgotten her umbrella. While, as a shifter, she didn’t really feel the chill the storm brought, she did feel the soaking wet clothes against her skin. And it was not fun.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity later, Matthew exited the front of the building. Wearing a huge overcoat that she realized he was always in, he walked to the last car in the parking lot, sans umbrella. Lorelei felt her heartbeat quicken slightly. It had done the same thing the last two times she saw him. Hence, why she’d waited two hours in the rain to talk to the man.
“Detective Reynolds!” Lorelei exclaimed over the crying sky as much as she could. She realized her lungs worked better than she thought when the detective quickly turned around, eyes narrowed as he attempted to see through the dark and the rain.
When he saw her standing there, blonde hair plastered to her face from the rain, she saw his eyes widen very, very, slightly. That expression alone, however small, made her feel just a bit more confident.
“Miss James?” he asked, walking closer to her as she walked toward him. They met in the middle of the front parking lot, no one else around. Just his car, the rain, and the flickering street lamps that Jerome was notorious for. For such a cute town during the day, the town seemed down right demented and full of ghosts at night with those flickering street lamps and fog that descended on the town.
And those pesky wolf howls all night long.
“I wanted to catch you before you left,” Lorelei explained, trying to sound all mature and adult, though she knew she sounded like a little schoolgirl with a crush right then. She couldn’t help it. Matthew seemed to awaken something in her that she had never felt before.
“What can I help you with?” Matthew asked her. “Has something happened?”
Lorelei could swear she saw a worried expressions in his eyes right then, making the butterflies in her stomach flutter faster and with more energy.
“No,” she assured him, smiling to show him that she was quite all right. “I just wanted to thank you personally, again, for everything. I . . . well, it seems that you’ve taken the news about shifters and wolves quite well. That’s more than we can say for others.”
“As long as we caught the killer, I don’t care about what you all do up in those woods,” Matthew told her, the rain soaking his hair as he flipped it out of his eyes. “And as long as Hann sticks to his word, I don’t think we’ll have a problem. I mean, we haven’t had a problem before this–so there’s no reason we should have a problem after.”
“Yeah . . .,” Lorelei stated, trailing off slightly. She knew what she came here to say. She was so confident before she left her house, having practiced with Tatiana the exact sentence she would say. But it seemed that once she was in front of Matthew’s presence, and extremely seductive good looks, she lost all control of her intelligent brain. And she knew it was an intelligent one. Everyone told her so.
She should’ve just walked into that precinct two hours ago when she first got there. She didn’t know what was holding her back, but she knew that she had to act. She had to do something.
“Are you sure I can’t help you with anything?” Matthew asked again, leaning in closer.
It seemed the closer Matthew got, the more confidence Lorelei gained
.
“I want a job!” she exclaimed, blurting out the real reason she was there and butchering the whole monologue she had prepared about why Detective Reynolds should even hire her.
“Wait–what?” Matthew asked. He took a step back, a confused look on his face.
“Just think about it,” Lorelei began, excitement lighting up her eyes as she thought of all the possibilities the police department in Jerome could have if they had an officer from the Moonlight Maine Pack. “You would have your very own shifter police officer. I would make sure that any crime that happened where a shifter was responsible would be taken care of–in a legal way, of course. No crime would go unpunished. We would be a dream team!”
“You wanna be a police officer?”
Lorelei sighed when she saw the look Detective Reynolds gave her. The look that everyone seemed to give her. The look that said she was pretty, all right, but she was a small, innocent, naïve little girl that really had no experience in life. Lorelei knew this, but she knew that she had power and strength within her that no one would even guess at. She knew that she had her brain. She knew that she couldn’t easily be bought off.
And she knew that she would be a damn good detective. A damn good police officer. A damn good fighter.
If only Matthew could see that.
“I’m willing to deal with that look,” Lorelei told him, her sassiness jumping in as she folded her arms across her chest in annoyance. “And I’ll raise you and offer you a deal. How about we do a trial run? A week or two where I learn the ropes and you get to decide if I can do it or not. And then, when that week is up, you can decide if I have the job or not. No long term offers until you see my skills up close.”
That seemed to get Matthew’s attention.
He sighed and brought out his cigarette package, opening it up and searching for a cigarette. When he found there was none left, he threw it to the ground halfheartedly with another sigh.
“Okay,” he finally said as the rain poured down on them, not letting up a bit. “But we’re doing the trial run.”
“Deal!” Lorelei jumped up and down in excitement, which just seemed to half-annoy, half-amuse Matthew even more. He rolled his eyes, though Lorelei could see his mouth twitch up in a smirk as he walked backward to his car.
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning at five,” he yelled to her as he got into his fancy, expensive car, slamming the door shut behind him.
Lorelei watched him peel away from the police department, speeding on the dark and empty streets as he drove far away from her to God knows where. She hated that he drove so recklessly. He was a human after all. If he got in a car crash in his fancy car, that wouldn’t be very good for his life expectancy.
Lorelei seemed to hum with excitement as she danced around in the rain for a few seconds more, alone in front of the police precinct–her new job location–and feeling like she was finally doing something with her life.
With a final laugh, Lorelei picked up the empty cigarette package that Matthew carelessly tossed on the parking lot concrete and skipped over to the trash can on the street to properly dispose of the trash.
She couldn’t wait for tomorrow morning.
Chapter 17
“It brings me great joy to hear the news that the Moonlight Maine Pack has been having a truly awful time lately,” Gabriel spoke to his fellow Elders around the library where he lay, a book in hand.
Gabriel, who’d defected from the rest of the Elders under Michael’s control a few months ago, had been traveling around the world, stopping here and there so that Michael and Hann never found out where he truly was.
Because planning an uprising is a lot of work, and tends to go by much faster when there aren’t people trying to stop it. At least, according to Gabriel’s knowledge.
Gabriel now lay in the middle of the library in a very nice mansion in California. Now, Gabriel hated California, and he hated new architecture. He despised Los Angeles and the beaches. But there was something about a library that could change everything for him, and when he found how majestic the library at this specific mansion was, his whole mood changed instantly.
And when he heard about the murder investigation that had been occupying the Moonlight Maine Pack for the last few weeks, his mood grew until he thought he was going to start singing with the choirs in joy.
“I just love when the universe decides to play along with my plans,” Gabriel told his friends as he laughed, leaning back on the little couch and feeling the soft cushions squeeze into his back as he clutched the poetry book he was reading. “It just makes life that much easier, doesn’t it?”
“In bad news, sir,” an Elder said, speaking only when there was enough silence that made it evident Gabriel was done speaking and had finished his thought. “They have found the shifter and human who killed the girl. Justice has been served in both the town of humans and the town of shifters.”
“But for a month, they all tore themselves apart,” Gabriel reminded his Elder, lifting a finger in the air. “And even though I am sorely disappointed that they did find justice, I know that hell broke loose for Hann during this time. And that makes me so utterly happy.”
Gabriel wished he could bathe in Hann’s despair. More accurately, Gabriel wished he could bathe in Hann’s blood. And Michael’s. And all of the Moonlight Maine shifter blood or any pack that dared to go against him.
“The good news is the Moonlight Maine Pack has been so focused on that issue that they’ve slowed the search for us and the rogues,” the same Elder said, smiling behind the hood that covered him.
Gabriel nodded and smiled, not wanting to send too much happiness toward that Elder. He hated when they thought that they were friends. He was better than them. Higher than them. Their boss and leader. And they needed to always remember that.
Gabriel stretched back and yawned, his white skull glistening in the light that cascaded down around him from the diamond chandelier above. Yes, he truly loved this library with its jewels and diamonds and high-vaulted ceilings. It made him feel like he was at home. Gabriel, unlike any other Elder around, chose to not wear his robes or hoods that covered his scarred and disfigured face and skin. He hated them if he was being honest, and he didn’t know why he had to hide his true self. Of course, humans and even shifters, tended to be a bit wary when they saw him, but he didn’t care. He loved the sun on his skin and rain on his face, and he wouldn’t hide it from anyone.
Even if it did look like he was centuries and centuries years old. Well, actually, he was that old. And sometimes, he sure as hell felt like it.
Not today, though. Not when there was good news about the struggle that the Moonlight Maine Pack was having.
“Sir, I have a question?” Another Elder stepped forward, his timid voice squeaking in the vast library.
Gabriel rolled his eyes. He didn’t remember the name of this one, but he remembered his voice. And he really hated his voice.
Really.
“What is it?” Gabriel asked, his voice sharp and to the point. The Elder seemed to jump from the retribution, making Gabriel smile in delight. He loved when he could put some fear into the Elders’ steps. It made him feel good.
“What is our next move?” the Elder asked his leader. “Our next move with the rogues?”
“You really must quit with these nonsense questions,” Gabriel reprimanded him, opening his book back up and carelessly flipping through the pages. “I know what I’m doing. And you know what you’re supposed to be doing. We all have our jobs, and we all must work at them in order to be successful. So, quit it with the questions. When the time is right, my plans will all be revealed to you. And you will see how glorious they are.”
The Elder nodded in agreement, excitement jumping off of him where there was once fear. Gabriel rolled his eyes again. He longed for the fear to be back in that Elder. He really hated when they got giddy with evilness. They became annoying peasants soon enough.
“Leave me,” Gabriel told them, l
ifting his hand and smiling when they all immediately got up to leave their leader alone in the library, much like when they found him. “I would now like to read in peace without your constant, unintelligible chattering.”
The Elders filed out of the room one by one until Gabriel was alone with just himself and his books. He smiled as he flipped through the pages of his poetry, thinking of the pain Hann and Michael must have gone through during that murder investigation.
He couldn’t wait until he put them through even more pain–at his hands.
Hazel stared at Ethan, who was laughing outside of the gym in the sunlight with Finn and a few other shifters. He was so beautiful, and now that life had calmed down a bit in the last few days, she felt happier than she had in ages.
She had gotten together with Ethan during one of the most trying and darkest times of her life. She knew that if she didn’t have him by her side during that time, she would’ve lost it. She would’ve had a mental breakdown. And while she was still recovering from the mental exhaustion that the murder investigation left her in, she was happy.
And she had only Ethan to thank for that.
They were basically living together now, as Hazel wouldn’t let Ethan leave her house after sex. She wanted to fall asleep cuddling with him, and he was more than willing to stay with her. They were slightly possessive of each other, but Hazel loved having a man constantly wanting her.
And boy, did Ethan constantly want her.
They’d had sex on just about every surface they could in both Hazel and Ethan’s house. Ethan made Hazel feel alive, and she was always ready for him. Always wanting him. Always needing him. They’d even had sex in quite a few public places because they could just never get enough of each other.
Thank God for shifter adrenaline.
Even now, as Ethan noticed Hazel walking toward him and his friends, she could see his eyes glimmer with desire, sending chills down her spine in anticipation of what would come when they got home. If they even made it home. It became more often for them to pull over on the side of the road and take each other right then and there. Though, after a few embarrassing situations, they now managed to drive into the woods a little bit if they could to hide from peering eyes.
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