“We’re family.”
I rolled my eyes, and couldn’t help but think of Seth. “Family don’t turn their backs on one another.”
“Seth knew the rules, Maisie. He chose to break them. That’s on him.”
I watched him carefully. Had he really meant that? He stared at the fire, a blank expression on his face.
Seth had met a girl named Lila. He’d desperately loved her. The pack allowed for a were to tell their partners after marriage, but that was it. If they divorced, they couldn’t trust that partner to keep their mouths shut. Simply put, they killed the person. A were knew this going into a marriage. Sometimes their spouses did, too, but from what I knew, most didn’t find out until after. Like my mother had. And then what do you do?
With Seth, he’d gotten so close to Lila that he’d wanted her to know him. All of him. He’d shared his secret. Lila had loved him, but she couldn’t keep a secret. No one had believed her, of course. She left him soon after, and Seth had been heartbroken.
Eventually, Lila grew to loathe Seth because he wouldn’t admit the truth to people and they started to think she was crazy. Seth had to let people believe it because if they didn’t, the pack would have killed her. I’m surprised they didn’t anyway. Douglas banished Seth soon after, but Seth wouldn’t leave. So Laird, Seth’s own father, ran Seth out of town. And then…without the girl he loved or his family at his side, he’d ended his life. The cops had found him hanging from an old oak tree. Lila was admitted to a psych facility after she had a very public meltdown.
Thinking of everything and how it happened still choked me up. I remembered the conversation I’d had with Seth when the others had found out. How it felt to have a six foot-three, a hundred and ninety-pound boy cry on my shoulder as I struggled to find words to help him. I’d told him he’d always have me. I’d sworn to him.
I fought tears and swallowed the massive lump in my throat. That had been the last time I’d seen him. I couldn’t save him. I would have. I would have given up a limb, an organ, or all the money in the world if it made him whole again. Now I’d never get the chance.
“Seth never would have killed himself if the pack hadn’t banished him. He’d still be here,” I said.
“You need to move on.” Noah lowered his voice and looked over his shoulder. Laird and Jordan came out of the house, followed by Rex. “This conversation is over, Maisie. Don’t mention his name again.”
“Whatever,” I said with a weak shrug.
He gripped the arm of my lawn chair and I snapped my head in his direction. He raised an eyebrow.
“Fine,” I snapped.
Laird and the others sat in the remaining seats. I hadn’t realized I would have such a big audience to share my news. “All right. Let’s get down to business,” Laird said. He shifted in his seat before snatching the cooler and using it for his own feet.
Jordan, the smallest of the Marshall brothers, scowled at me. “I think including her is a mistake. Her interests aren’t in line with the pack.”
“I didn’t ask you what you thought.” Laird nodded to me. “Go ahead. Tell us about your little road trip.”
The men stared at me, and it made me squirm in my seat. “Okay, then. Well, the bullet is actually a Dosifine.” I pulled it out of my pocket and used the flashlight on my phone to illuminate it. The symbol on the bottom had disappeared again. I did as Mr. Jenkins had done and it magically returned. The men watched, their expressions a mix of curiosity and suspicion.
I held it out so the men could have a closer look. I almost offered Laird the flashlight on my phone to see it better in the dark but remembered he wouldn’t need it. His eyes saw just fine in the dark, probably better than I saw in the daylight.
“What’s this symbol?” Laird asked, pointing to the symbol on the bottom.
“It’s the mark of a hunter.”
The men’s gazes quickly moved from the object to my face.
“That’s not possible,” Jordan said. “They’re extinct.”
I shook my head. “No. They’re not. The witches I spoke to today said they still exist, they’re just careful not to be seen. They also told me that they mark their victims before they die.”
“Mark how?” Rex asked.
“That symbol.” I pointed to the bottom of the bullet. “It would be on their body somewhere.”
“I don’t remember seeing that on Marco,” Rex said.
“I don’t, either,” I said.
“Get a look at him and make sure. If he’s marked, then that’s the end of this. The pack isn’t at risk,” Laird said.
Noah averted his eyes.
“What am I missing?” They didn’t even seem surprised that he could be marked. That he could have done something to warrant getting one in the first place.
Noah shook his head.
“You don’t need to know,” Laird told me.
“You want me to figure this out, then yeah, I need to know. How can I help you if you leave me in the dark?”
“You going to let her talk to you like that?” Jordan said as his incisors started to lengthen.
Laird held a hand out to his brother to calm him. “Move on, Jordan.” Then to me, he said, “Check Marco’s body. If he’s marked, then this is over.”
I opened my mouth, but one warning look from Noah and I snapped it shut. I was confused. They would let this go because they didn’t want a war? Because they were afraid? Okay. That was good, wasn’t it? If Marco was marked I could walk away and so would they. I could go home and forget about this place again and everyone in it. I met Noah’s eyes. My stomach twisted. An itch started in my gut, and I couldn’t scratch it.
“The body is at the coroner’s office,” Rex said. “That could be a problem.”
The coroner’s office was in the same small building as the police station. I sighed thinking of MacGregor at his desk and the lies I’d have to come up with to get past him.
“What if he wasn’t marked?” Jordan said with a touch of frustration in his voice.
Laird looked to me for an answer. I didn’t have one. “I don’t know. I guess it might have been random? A hunter definitely killed him. The Dosifine proves that. As far as I know he was a good guy and they had no reason to target him, but if that’s not true…then we have our answer. He did something to get their attention. Case closed.”
“We deserve our revenge,” Jordan said. “For Agatha, if not for the rest of us.” Agatha was their sister and Marco’s mother.
Laird leaned back and rubbed one of his fingers along the underside of his chin. He considered the conversation and it took him a minute or so to respond. “No. This is done. He’ll have it on him, I’m sure of it. When you confirm it, we move on.”
Why was he so sure?
Jordan opened his mouth. “Laird—”
Laird bared his teeth, his incisors lengthening in an instant. He growled at his brother and leaned forward. Jordan wouldn’t look away. A challenge. I thought it might result in a fight, but then Noah laid a hand on Jordan’s shoulder. Noah wasn’t the biggest, but I’d seen him fight another wolf from a different pack in high school—to settle an argument—and it had been brutal. If they hadn’t had the ability to heal quicker and better than humans, that other wolf would have bled out on the grass on that old ballfield in Hebbville. He’d been just sixteen then, and after that day, the pack sure minded him. It had given me pause too, but that werewolf on the grass, bare-chested and bare-footed, had not been the boy I’d known in private. Sure, he’d always been bossy, and he had a terrible ability to piss me off at the drop of a hat. But he’d also been the person to protect me when I needed it, to offer a shoulder the few times I’d cried about my dad, and more than once he’d been the one to hold me after I’d woken from crippling nightmares about my stepbrother.
Noah’s knuckles whitened as he tightened his hold on Jordan’s shoulder. I saw the change in Jordan: a bead of sweat on his forehead, his shoulders hunching, and a flinch on the left side
of his pale face. Finally, Jordan slumped back in his seat. A threat from Noah was usually enough. For humans and supernaturals. Noah patted the side of Jordan’s face, like he might to an obedient dog. Then he sat back and took a drink of his beer.
Laird chin-nodded to Noah. “Get a look at the body. The sooner the better.”
“I want to go,” I said. “What if he misses it? What if the symbol isn’t visible to the naked eye, like the mark on the Dosifine?”
“She has a point,” Rex said.
Laird’s jaw ticked. “All right. Get it done. Maisie, did you find out what those words on the whatever-you-call-it mean?”
I inhaled sharply. I really hadn’t wanted to share this. I hadn’t wanted to worry Rex or Noah until I figured out a way to break the curse. “Dosifine. And yes, I did.”
The silence was electric.
He stared at me, waiting.
“It’s um…well…it’s a curse.” I swallowed hard and met Noah’s eyes. “Whoever’s flesh this burns is damned.”
Rex’s eyebrows lifted. “Marco?”
I nodded before bowing my head. “The magic would have sent him to hell.”
A hush fell around the fire pit. It was a tough pill to swallow, especially for someone as well liked as Marco.
“Can it be broken?” Laird finally asked.
“No. I might be able to find a way to help the living who’ve been cursed,” I cleared my throat. “But it’s too late for the dead.”
Rex turned his hand over and ran his finger over his burned flesh. He might have been big and strong, but an eternity in hell had to scare even the toughest of men. Noah looked completely unaffected. He didn’t even look surprised. Sometimes I wished I had his courage.
“Well, add that to your to-do list then,” Laird said simply.
I tipped my head to the side and regarded him. Did he think he had to ask me to save Noah and Rex?
Noah and I walked down the short driveway until we stopped at the motorcycle. He’d had one in high school, but it had been one he’d made from spare parts. It hadn’t been nearly as nice as this new black cruiser.
“This is yours?”
He nodded.
“Pretty.”
He scoffed. “You don’t call a bike like this ‘pretty.’”
“Okay. What do I call it? Handsome?”
He laughed. “Neither.”
He took the helmet hanging from one of the handlebars and handed it to me.
“What about you?”
He knocked his fist on his head and winked at me. “I have a thick skull.”
“I already knew that,” I said with a grin.
“Ha ha. Get on the damn bike.”
He hopped on, and I sat timidly behind him. I’d never been quite this close to him—with him straddled between my thighs. I didn’t know where to put my hands and settled for his hips. It wasn’t enough once Noah got to the highway and picked up speed. I gripped him tighter and then slid my arms around his firm chest. The wind blew at my face, chilling me, but his warm body kept me toasty and blocked the rest of it. I rested my chin on his shoulder, and once he turned his head to the side to look at me. His expression was unreadable.
“What?” I asked, talking just loud enough for him to hear.
He shook his head and faced forward.
“You smell the same,” he said finally.
Though I couldn’t smell him for the wind and the ocean, I’d smelled him earlier when he hadn’t been paying attention. He smelled he same. And I liked the memories that came with his smell. Those memories didn’t make me hate this place so much. In fact, they made me miss it. He turned left and continued along the paved stretch until we reached another gravel road. It hadn’t been here when I lived here before.
“What’s this place?”
He didn’t answer.
The road was new and freshly graveled. It snaked through dense forest. At the end of the road was a small ranch house, painted in a pale shade of gray. The door was stark white and so was the front porch. He pulled up in front of the steps and turned off the engine.
I let him go and found I felt empty without my arms around him. It bothered me how much I’d liked holding on to him. I wanted to feel that way when Mason was near me, but I didn’t. I hated that I didn’t.
“Whose house is this?” I asked.
“Mine. I’ll be right back.”
He stood and climbed off the bike after putting the kickstand down. He jogged up the front stairs. When he went inside, he shut the door after him. Oh, no, he didn’t. Call me curious. But I wanted to see his home, and since he’d butted his nose in my life, I wanted to butt my nose into his.
I climbed off and none too gracefully. I kicked the seat, and it started to topple over; I almost went ass over teakettle trying to right it. Damn. I bet this cost a lot, and I didn’t have a ton of savings to fix it if I damaged it. I carefully made sure it was secure before I jogged in after Noah.
I opened the door and took in the open space. It looked like it had been newly renovated with pale brown stained floors throughout. The kitchen had dark gray wood cabinets and butcher block counters. The tall chairs at the island were solid wood and looked custom. In fact, so did the table and the benches on either side of it. They reminded me of the one in Laird’s house. I walked over to the table and ran my hand over the smooth surface. The design was straight edged and simple, and yet, it looked expensive. The ends were all decorated with carvings, like the rest of the furniture. I heard rustling from down the hallway and followed it. The last door on the right led to his bedroom. More wooden furniture. A beautiful oak bed with a tall headboard that nearly reached the ceiling. He rummaged around in his closet. A duffle bag sat on his made bed.
“Couldn’t resist coming in?”
“No.”
He chuckled quietly at that before tossing a flashlight and a mask on the bed.
“It’s nice. This furniture is amazing.”
He let out a grunt.
How could he afford all this? “What do you do for a living? Are you some closeted white collar worker?”
He laughed at that.
“Seriously. I never asked. What have you been doing since I left? College? Robbing banks?”
He pulled out a handgun and slid it in the back of his well-worn jeans. I raised my eyebrows. I’d never been comfortable around guns. Which made no sense considering the harm I could do with my fingers.
“No.”
“No, what?”
“No, I don’t rob banks, and I didn’t go to college.”
“Then what do you do? This place is really nice. How do you afford it? And the bike and the car?”
He approached me and tipped his head down to watch me. He was so much taller than me. If it wasn’t him, I might have found it intimidating. But I’d never been scared of Noah—not really. Not even after witnessing that fight when he was sixteen, or the others he’d half-assed but won in high school—he’d always given human guys a half-dozen free punches when they’d given him trouble before knocking them out with a single weak—by werewolf standards—blow. I might have been the only one in high school who wasn’t afraid of him. I knew he’d never hurt me. I still believed that.
“You really want to know?” he asked.
He shook his head, his eyes alight with amusement.
I frowned at him. “Assassin?”
He laughed. “No.” He made a face. “Well…sometimes.”
I gulped. Laird and his brothers worked at and owned a metal junkyard. It supported the whole pack. I’d always assumed he did more than that—perhaps something illegal—but Mom had never questioned him about it. As a kid, I kind of decided it wasn’t my business. Or maybe I didn’t care enough to make his business mine. If he did kill people for Laird or engage in illegal activity, it wouldn’t have surprised me. He’d already admitted to me he had to ditch a car. My mind could only think of a few reasons why, and I didn’t like any of those choices.
“I’ve
always thought Laird was into stuff he shouldn’t be. I guess it makes sense that you would be too.”
His warm breath washed over my face. “The less you know, the better.”
He turned his back to me and then started packing his duffel.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m getting supplies.”
“For?”
“We’re breaking into the coroner’s office.”
My jaw dropped. “Um, what? Why would we do that?” I scratched my head and then put my hands on my hips. I thought it made me look bigger. Okay, maybe not.
“Because we need to get in there and look at Marco’s body.”
“That’s not what I meant. Why would we break in when we can just go and ask see his body?”
Noah laughed. “You think they’re going to let us?”
“You’re family. Of course, they’ll let you.”
He hitched the duffel up on his shoulder. “They’re investigating a murder. They won’t let us near him until their investigation is over. And if we go in and they say no, it’ll make it even harder to break in. Worse, if they figure out someone broke in, we’ll be the first people they look at.”
He had a point. I ran my hand over the necklace. If only I had magic to make us invisible. Wouldn’t that be something? “I don’t think we have to do this the hard way. I’d rather try than break the law.”
A smile built on his face and it gave him a glow that almost made me smile too.
“Let’s just try, okay? Then we can do it your way.”
He shook his head at me and I expected him to shoot me down. Instead, he surprised me when he said, “You’re the boss.”
“Wait? What?”
“I won’t say it again.” His tone was teasing.
“Well, if I really am the boss, then maybe you can answer one question for me?”
He groaned.
“What did Marco do to deserve a mark?” I wanted to know, no matter what Laird had said or how deeply it pulled me in. I had to. I don’t know why. “Did he do anything that the rest of you haven’t done?”
Pack Witch (Captured Souls Book 1) Page 11