When she released him, he gazed at her in puzzlement. “Really? In front of the kiddies?”
With a wry smile, she gave him a shove, and said, “Feed me.”
Cell phone already in hand, he walked away with a wink, and she returned to the group, most of whom were playing it cool about her open display of affection. All except David. As she approached, he grinned and said, “Didn’t think you had a heart, Reyes.”
“Beats not having a brain,” she volleyed back.
“So what’s the plan?” Jesus asked, rolling his eyes.
Diana huffed out a breath. “Weasel hasn’t lawyered up yet, but he isn’t cooperating. I want to give him one more chance before ratcheting up the pressure.”
Brendon met her gaze and folded his thickly muscled arms across his broad chest. “Am I that pressure?”
“What do you think?” Diana gestured to the viewing room. Through the one-way mirror they could see their suspect nervously prowling around the edges of the room.
“Shifters don’t like to be caged in,” Brendon said.
“I’m betting they like their personal space, too. David and I will make him a little uncomfortable before you go in,” Diana said, then glanced consideringly at Maggie. “And you. Two werewolves are bound to make him even more nervous.”
“Why not me?” Rafe asked, noticeably taken aback by her choice.
Diana glanced between the two of them. “You both have a stake in this, but I think Maggie might throw him more. Call it a gut feeling.”
“I’m good with it, Diana,” her friend said. “I hate waiting. It’s time I had more skin in the game.”
Diana gave a nod. “All right. Let’s do it. David you take the lead.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Weasel spun around as Diana and David walked in.
“I told you that I got nothing to say.”
“Sit,” Diana commanded, and jabbed her finger at a table and four chairs placed in one corner of the room.
Weasel’s gaze skittered uneasily between them, but did as instructed.
After he was seated, David wheeled himself in front of Weasel, trapping him. Diana took a seat on the other side of the table and slouched in the chair while David tossed out the first question.
“How did the blood get on your sneakers?”
Hands hanging loosely between his widespread legs, Weasel shrugged with feigned nonchalance. “I cut myself.”
“It’s not your blood. In fact, the tests tell us it matches the blood type from one of the murder victims.” David lifted the folder on his lap, took out a photo of the decomposed and rat-eaten bodies, and handed it to the shifter.
Weasel’s beady eyes shot wide open and his nose started to twitch. His hand trembled as it held the photograph, but he faked bravado. “Someone made them lunch meat, but not me.”
He carelessly tossed the photo onto the table and Diana picked it up. “Nasty business, but I guess you would know. You were there.”
“I wasn’t—”
David slammed a hand on the table, the sound echoing in the tight confines of the room. “Bullshit, Weasel. The blood type is a match. The DNA tests are going to confirm it belongs to one of the pieces of lunch meat, as you called them.”
“I had nothing to do with it—”
“Let’s say we believe that you didn’t do the actual killing. But you were there. Why?” David pressured.
“It was an abandoned building. It’s what we do,” the shifter replied with shrug, a little tighter and more anxious than before.
Diana tipped her head, feigning mild curiosity. “You’re a…what? Were-mouse? Were-hamster?”
With a challenging snarl, he said, “Make no mistake. I’m no pet rat or timid little mouse.”
David chuckled at the man’s pique. “Oooh, I’m terrified.”
Weasel’s control slipped. The front of his face morphed into a weasel’s pointy snout, whiskers, and a hint of reddish brown fur. “Don’t push me,” the shifter warned, an odd, squeaky rumble beneath his words.
David beamed him a chilly smile. “What are you going to do? Bite my ankles? Is that how you killed those two?” He jerked his hand at the photograph on the table.
The shifter let out a weird gurgling noise as his transformation continued. When he spoke, his voice was pitched higher and squeaked like a rusty hinge. “You don’t want to mess with me, gimpy. Besides, any idiot can see it wasn’t a bite that did in those two taggers.”
“Really? You don’t think it was a bite that killed them?” Diana asked in a bored tone.
Weasel jerked, realizing he might have made a mistake. Hunching his skinny shoulders, he morphed back to his human form and shrugged. “I mean, what do I know? I wasn’t there. I just took a guess.”
“Ah,” David said, and made a show of carefully examining the photo. “Hmm. I don’t see it. What did you spot that made you take that guess? ”
Weasel wrinkled his pointy nose as he looked at the photo. “If you can’t see it, you’re blind.”
“See what?” Diana asked, still playing ignorant.
Smiling slyly, Weasel lifted a surprisingly slender index finger and wagged it at them. “No way will you get it from me. Maybe you should check with your wolf friends.”
Diana grinned inwardly. He was making it too damn easy. “Huh. Maybe we should.”
She exchanged a look with David and he wheeled himself to the door. She joined him, and they went out into the hallway just as Brendon and Maggie came out of the viewing room.
Diana gave Maggie’s arm a reassuring rub. “Tag, you’re it.”
…
“Watch and weep,” Maggie said, flashed a grin, and strode into the interview room, Brendon at her heels.
Weasel jumped up from the chair, letting out a nervous stream of squeaks and grumbles. They quickly boxed him into the narrow space between the table and the wall.
He wrung his hands and bounced between the desk and the wall and the corner, eyes glued to his feet, deliberately ignoring them. His nose twitched and his snout shifted in and out as if he was having trouble controlling it.
“Hello, Howell,” Brendon said, using Weasel’s real name. The alpha wolf’s voice rumbled from deep in his broad chest.
That sound of it awoke something in Maggie. Something primal. It tightened the muscles of her body and sent a shiver through her bones. She battled her reaction, but Brendon didn’t make it any easier when he stripped off his denim jacket, showing off the muscles exposed by a polo shirt that strained against his chest and arms. At the vee of chest exposed by the neckline, a hint of scar was visible. Weasel’s gaze dipped to it for a brief moment before it veered off again.
“No ‘Hello’ for me, Howell?” Brendon asked, tossing his jacket on the chair and folding his arms across his chest, making the powerful muscles of his biceps look even larger. Maggie swallowed…and smelled the sweat that broke out on Weasel’s face.
The rodent bowed his head subserviently, and mumbled, “I live to serve, Adalwolf.”
Maggie shot a puzzled glance at Brendon, who calmly explained, “It means ‘noble wolf.’ A title of respect.”
“I do respect,” Howell said anxiously, bobbing his head up and down amid his squeaks and grumbles of complaint. He shot only half glances at them, as if afraid to make eye contact.
Maggie had always believed eyes were the window to the soul. Maybe Weasel feared what the alpha would see in his.
Brendon grinned, displaying a glimpse of sharp canines. He eased into the chair in front of Weasel, blocking that route of escape. “Rodents like Howell use the term in the hopes we wolves won’t gobble them up,” Brendon said as Maggie took the seat on the other side of the table as they had planned.
“Not true, Adalwolf. Not true,” Weasel replied, but continued with his anxious motions and sounds, his gaze still averted.
“Sit,” Brendon commanded, and the weaker shifter immediately complied. “The lady here—” he waved his hand in her direction—“she’s going
furry in a month, thanks to Brad Jefferson and his sick games. She’s not very happy about that. Maggie’s my friend, so I’m not happy, either. Not happy at all.”
Weasel’s squeaks went up an octave.
Jerking high the hem of his polo shirt, Brendon revealed his nasty scars and growled, “Jefferson did this to me. He will pay for that. You will too, Howell.”
Weasel’s beady eyes went wide. He turned to her, pleading for understanding, his dark gaze filled with fear. “I had nothing to do with either of those things!”
Brendon scooted his chair forward until his knees bumped Weasel’s, making the little man jump and squirm. But Brendon was too close to avoid. “Prove it,” he growled.
The acrid scent of terror filled the air, almost making Maggie gag.
“I swear, Adalwolf! How can I prove—”
“You know what Jefferson is planning, Howell. I know that. You can’t claim not to be responsible. You could have stopped him. You’re as guilty as he is.”
“I’m not—!”
“You saw him kill those two kids,” Maggie jumped in. To her surprise, a hint of a growl rumbled through the words.
“No! I—”
She cut him off sharply. “You were there.”
“Tell us why,” Brendon demanded.
“They’ll kill me!” Weasel keened, and wrung his hands. His voice was a high-pitched squeal, almost hurtful on the ears. His nose twitched madly, and his face shifted completely as his control eroded.
“Who?” Maggie asked, her tone sliding into a soothing “good cop” mode.
At Weasel’s prolonged silence, Brendon answered for him. “The Rat Reggies.”
“Reggies?”
“Leaders.”
She rounded on the were-rodent, feigning shock. “You betrayed your own pack leaders?”
Weasel’s eyes goggled and his head shook violently back and forth. “No! No, I didn’t. I just brought Jefferson information. Nothing more. I have no idea what he plans to do!”
“Does he plan another attack?” Brendon asked, unconsciously rubbing at the scars on his chest and abdomen.
“I don’t know.”
Weasel’s pupils contracted and even more of him shifted into his rodent form.
“You’re a shitty liar, Weasel,” Maggie said with disgust. “You do know. I’m betting Jefferson made you promises about what you’ll get once he’s in control.”
The shifter said nothing, but his body was going haywire.
Brendon’s green eyes were beginning to glow, and he started to morph, his face elongating into a muzzle and his teeth growing pointier. He leaned forward until the tip of his nose shoved into Weasel’s face. “Relax, Weasel. You don’t have to worry about the Reggies.” His voice was menacingly deep and full, like the bark of a big canine, as he said, “Once I’m done, there won’t be enough of you left to eat.”
Weasel whimpered and squeaked. And when Brendon released a deep-throated snarl and licked his face, he wet himself.
“You’re mine now, Weasel. Wherever you go, I will find you.”
“No, Adalwolf. Please,” Weasel pleaded. “I’m innoce—”
“Jefferson is threatening my pack. Putting my wife and child in danger. I cannot, will not, allow anything to happen to my people. Choose. You’re either with me, or against me.”
Weasel started shivering so violently Maggie worried he might shake right out of his skin. He did. His human form shifted to the reddish-brown fur of his rodent self.
Maggie’s gut twisted, and a low, uncontrolled, rumble came from deep within her, shocking her to her toes. Brendon gave her a pleased look and a wolfy grin.
Weasel shit himself, filling the air with the smell of his rank defecation.
Brendon jerked away, waving a hand in front of this face. “Damn, Weasel. What have you been eating? Those vandal kids?”
“Did you snack on those victims, Weasel?” Maggie asked, horrified. “Is that why their blood is on you?”
“I didn’t eat anyone! Jefferson ripped their throats open and left them for the rats,” Weasel shot back, wrapping his arms around himself in a vain attempt to quell the quaking of his body.
Brendon shifted back even farther from Weasel’s stench and restored his fully human form. “Finally, some progress.”
“Why did he kill them?” Maggie asked, needing to understand the reason Jefferson murdered the two taggers.
With no hesitation or deceit, Weasel said, “They desecrated his lair. They deserved to be punished.”
“What about Jefferson’s attack on Brendon? And his plans for the Reggies?” she asked, wanting to confirm their theory about Jefferson’s motive.
“It’s not just him. Jefferson’s only one of them,” Weasel replied, squirming around on the chair.
“One of whom?” Maggie asked with a frown.
“The leaders.”
Brendon leaned forward again, the tension evident in his big body. “Leaders of what?”
Weasel hesitated for a long moment, and Maggie was sure they’d pushed him too far. He wasn’t going to answer.
Suddenly, Brendon sat back, shock on his face. “A coup,” he said, his expression going stony with certainty. “A half-blood coup.”
Unfamiliar with shifter lingo, Maggie said, “Does that mean what I think it means?”
Brendon and Weasel spoke at the same time, confirming her worst fear with a single word.
“War.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
With Weasel all cleaned up and tucked safely into a holding cell, the whole team gathered around the conference room table in the war room, eating the heroes, pizza, and salads that Ryder had ordered in. Between bites, they discussed the information Weasel had finally spilled about a meeting tomorrow night of the half-bloods plotting the coup against the collective shifter pack leaders.
“So let me get this straight,” Diana said as she munched on one of her favorites, an eggplant parmigiana hero from Luigi’s. “The half-bloods have lesser status than full-blood shifters?”
Brendon nodded, and swallowed a big bite of extra-meat pizza. “Lesser status because they are inherently weaker in many ways. Physically and genetically.”
“Genetically?” Maggie asked. Diana suspected her friend was intrigued on several levels—scientist, human, neo-shifter.
“Full bloods breed full bloods—full shifters,” Brendon replied. “Even when a half-blood mates with a full, there’s no guarantee the offspring will be shifters. Unlike vamps.” He shot an uneasy glance at Diana.
She unconsciously rubbed a hand over her belly as his words registered. That very issue had been simmering in the back of her mind for months, but she had chosen not to dwell on it. She had no desire to think about it now, either.
“I’m assuming continuity of leadership is important in your pack structure,” she mused around her bite. “How long have you ruled?”
“My line has been the rulers of our pack for nearly a hundred years. We breed alphas beyond challenge, and life has been good under our reign.”
“Until Jefferson came along,” David muttered.
Brendon’s fingertips touched the scars beneath his shirt, and he glared at David. With a laser-like stare at her partner, Brendon said, “Trust me. I won’t make that mistake again.”
“You’ll be boosting your protection?” Jesus asked.
“Already done. But more important, we’ll be at the half-blood meeting tomorrow to put an end to this coup.”
Diana regarded the shifter, then Rafe, who sat at his right. The firefighter was in training, but there was something telling Diana that Brendon appreciated a great deal about the newly turned half-blood. Rafe was physically powerful even as a human, and after last night she knew strength ruled the wolf world. Moreover, from what she’d seen of the firefighter, he was morally and ethically strong, as well as loyal. The wolf leader could count on him to help protect the pack…and his pregnant wife.
“You’re not going to that meetin
g without us,” Diana warned. When her colleagues echoed her statement, she said, “We have an obligation to bring Jefferson to justice for what he’s done.”
Brendon shook his head and gave a humorless chuckle. “Human justice? Do you really think someone like Jefferson will allow himself to be caught and judged by humans? He’s made a mockery of the rules in both worlds.”
His rebuke stung, but Diana wouldn’t back down. “Justice is our mission. It’s something we won’t compromise.”
…
Ryder knew his wife would not back down. Not about that.
It worried him that the alpha wolf recognized that, but refused to accept it. As Brendon hesitated, eyes nearly slits as he considered her and the other FBI agents around the table, Ryder prepared.
The alpha wolf would not be stupid enough to attack them here, not alone and outnumbered. But Ryder suspected all guarantees were off once the humans stepped into the shifter world. That was the way it was with vampires, and he didn’t think the weres were all that different.
After a long, pregnant pause while everyone at the table waited, Brendon surprised everyone. With a nod, he said, “If you want Jefferson that badly, he’s yours. If he’ll let you take him.”
A safe bet, Ryder figured. Jefferson would never allow himself to be captured alive by the FBI. Which made Ryder fear for not only his wife, but for all her friends going out on the mission tomorrow night.
So he’d be going, too.
No matter how much Diana bitched, he would not let her go on the raid. The question was, who else could he get to help protect her team?
Vampires and shifters avoided each other like the plague. They had for millennia. Getting his vampire friends to put themselves on the line to help the shifters… Yeah, good luck.
Looked like he’d have to call in more favors.
He hated that he’d had to do that so often lately, but then, he and Diana had helped many of them. Life-saving help. And no doubt would again in the future.
So Ryder sat and listened carefully to the plans.
…
Diana had obtained blueprints for the station and the tunnels in the City Hall Loop area where Weasel had told them the half-bloods were to meet. Although the City Hall subway station had been closed to the public since the 1940s, the New York Transit Museum still gave occasional tours. And present-day subway riders who stayed on the train for the loop back could catch glimpses of the old station that progress had made unusable.
Born to Love (The Vampire Reborn Series) (Entangled Ignite) Page 19
