by Lori Drake
“Stop it,” Itsuo said, rising from the floor. “Infighting will only divide us.”
Jessica glared down at Joey for a few seconds more, then stepped back. “I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at Eric. He lied to us.”
The words sent ripples of discontent through the room, but as unpalatable as the suggestion was, no one jumped to defend their Alpha. Joey’s eyes lingered on Jessica’s, searching. For what, she wasn’t sure. Some hint of deceit, or a confirmation of innocence, perhaps. As for whether Jessica’s assumption was on point, she couldn’t say for sure. As much as Joey didn’t want to think Eric could do something like that, she wouldn’t exactly put it past him. Still, there was no reason to get everyone riled up unnecessarily.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Joey said, and the air of disquiet in the room settled back down.
“What do we do now?” Lucy asked in the quiet that followed.
“Nothing’s changed,” Joey said. “We still have a vengeful spirit to deal with, and he wasn’t very forthcoming about what he might want besides killing everyone. Adam, how’s that phone coming?”
Adam turned back to the array of electronics across the coffee table. “I need more time.”
“Didn’t your friend say Plan B was awful for a spirit?” Lucy said.
Joey nodded. “He did.”
“We can’t do that to him.” Lucy’s blue eyes were wide. “He’s suffered enough.”
“He may not have killed Micah, but he sure as shit killed Kate.” Colt spoke up for the first time, and his words fell across the room like a pall. A simple truth that no one could dispute.
Joey walked across the room and crouched to retrieve the planchette from where it’d landed under a side table. She brought it back over to Lucy. “See if he’ll talk some more? We’ve got some time to kill.”
“I’ll help,” Jessica said, and moved over to kneel across the board from Lucy, taking Joey’s spot. That was fine with Joey. The whole experience gave her the heebie-jeebies.
While Lucy and Jessica tried to make contact with Roger again and Colt went back to staring into the fire, Joey drew Itsuo and Ben aside.
“How long have you known Eric?” she asked Itsuo, keeping her voice pitched low and hoping the others were too distracted to care about eavesdropping.
Itsuo tipped his head. “Thirty-five years, give or take.”
Ben’s brows shot up. “I thought you were new to the area.”
Itsuo’s lips quirked in a small smile. “Newly returned to the area, technically.”
“Ah, I see,” Joey said, keeping an idle eye on Lucy and Jessica. “So, you weren’t here when Micah was killed.”
“No, Josephine-san.”
“But you were here for…”
He nodded. “The hunt, yes.”
Joey looked off toward the others, nibbling her lower lip. She hesitated to ask what was on her mind, but of all of them, she felt like Itsuo was the most likely to give her a straight answer. “Do you think he knew?”
“That Roger wasn’t the one?” Itsuo asked, lifting a brow.
Joey nodded, studying his face. He gave little away, only shrugged.
“It is possible. Eric… has never had much respect for the sanctity of life. When he came to Seattle, he was a very angry man. A lone wolf, who protected no one but himself, no one’s interests but his own.”
“It doesn’t seem like much has changed,” Joey murmured.
“It has. Somewhat.”
“What do you mean?” Ben asked, folding his arms.
Itsuo glanced between Ben and Joey. “He may seem selfish to you, but he protects his people. Enough that he is willing to go to… extremes.”
“How is loosing a pack of wolves on a hapless human protecting anyone?” Joey asked. “If Roger didn’t kill Micah, whoever did is still out there, and if it is a hunter…”
Itsuo cast a glance in Jenny’s direction, hesitating.
“What?” Joey asked.
Itsuo sighed. “If Eric is to be believed, there have been more hunters in this region in the last twenty years than there have been in nearly a century before.”
Joey exchanged a glance with Ben. “Are you saying he blamed Micah’s death on a hunter, when that wasn’t what happened at all?”
“That’s… beyond bad,” Ben said.
Itsuo spread his hands. “It is within the realm of possibility. No one knows, I suspect, but Eric.”
“What about Jessica?” Joey’s eyes slid toward the woman in question. She still didn’t trust Jessica. Not after what Jessica had done to Chris, even if it had supposedly been in the name of protecting him. She was too close to Eric. She’d been his second in command for over a decade; she had to know at least some of his secrets.
“Jessica believes what Eric tells her and rarely presses him for more than that, but she’s not blind,” Itsuo murmured. “Not entirely.”
Joey mulled this over while Itsuo excused himself and resumed his silent vigil by the couch. If his suggestion was on point, Eric hadn’t merely pinned Micah’s death on the wrong man. He’d falsely blamed a hunter for it too. But why?
“Penny for your thoughts,” Ben said quietly.
Joey met her brother’s eyes and shook her head. “Not worth even that much, I’m afraid.”
He let it go, but the tension failed to ease from Joey’s shoulders. Now that the seed had been planted, its roots wormed deep into her brain.
What if Eric had cried wolf to cover up Micah’s death?
18
Chris sat on a chair brought in from the dining room, sans shirt, while Ben examined the worst of his wounds. He stiffened when Ben’s fingers prodded his sore rib, inhaling sharply. Joey hovered nearby, charmingly worried. She’d taken one look at him when he walked in the room and called for Ben. Despite everything that’d happened, she still knew him better than anyone else.
“Is it broken?” Joey asked.
“Hard to say without an x-ray, but I suspect it’s at least cracked,” Ben said. “He’s awfully tender. How long ago did this happen?”
“I’m not sure, maybe five minutes? Ten?” Chris said. He grimaced and glanced over at where Eric and Brandon stood nearby, looking on. Eric’s other eye was blackened now. He looked like a raccoon. Chris wondered if he’d done that while under Roger’s influence, and if it was a bad thing to hope was true. Brandon wasn’t obviously injured, but he had an uneasy look about him.
“Something like that,” Eric said.
“What happened?” Joey asked, though she was shooting accusatory glares at Eric. To be fair, he was the most likely suspect.
“Roger possessed him and he had to be subdued,” Eric said.
“Did you have to subdue him so hard?” If looks could kill, they would’ve had another corpse to contend with. Joey was cute when she was angry, as long as the anger wasn’t directed at Chris. Okay, she was cute then too.
Realizing his mind was wandering, Chris said, “I’ll be fine. It was rough out there, is all.”
Joey huffed, but let the subject drop.
“Lift your arms up over your head?” Ben asked.
Chris did so, but only got his left hand up about level with his head before pain shot through his side and he had to lower it.
Ben observed this and nodded. “Can you breathe okay?”
“Yeah. I mean, my chest feels tight when I take a deep breath, but…”
“No wheezing, rattling, or coughing up blood?”
“No, none of that.” The question reminded Chris of the blood Eric had been spitting up in the woods, but he seemed okay for the moment.
“Good, then you didn’t puncture a lung,” Ben concluded. “Still, you need to be careful. Take it easy for at least an hour while it sets. I’ll wrap it up.”
Joey stepped in close and laid a hand on Chris’s bare shoulder while Ben went for his medical bag. He reached up with his good hand and squeezed her fingers. She squeezed his shoulder. It wasn’t much, but it was enough.
“Um, no. My phone’s busted. Adam’s working on it. But we did have an interesting conversation with Roger.” Chris followed the direction of her eyes as they shifted toward Eric.
Eric stared back at them and arched a brow.
“Roger says he’s innocent,” Lucy blurted. Arms folded, she studied Eric with a frank gaze, making uncharacteristically bold eye contact.
Eric scoffed. “Of course he does. He knows we’ve got his nuts in a vise, if Joey’s plan works out.”
“What reason would he have to lie about it? Did you know?”
There was no immediate answer, but Eric stared Lucy down until she lowered her eyes. Then he cast a wider glance around the room. “So, the dead hunter says he’s innocent, and suddenly you all think I’m the bad guy? Is that it? That’s gratitude for you.”
“No one’s saying that,” Adam said, putting an arm around his twin.
“Everyone take a deep breath, okay?” Chris suggested. The irony of the suggestion didn’t escape him, given that he was literally incapable of doing that himself at the moment.
Eric rounded on him, eyes hard. “Stay out of this, Martin.”
Chris briefly considered doing just that, but with more than one pair of pleading eyes on him, he stood. Pain flared and he bit back a grunt. He felt unsteady on his feet, but endeavored not to show it. Joey stepped up beside him, and Ben joined on his other side. A united front.
“No,” Chris said. “Like it or not, we’re here and we’re involved.”
Based on his stormy expression, Eric did not like it. He did not like it one bit. A muscle in his cheek twitched as he looked from one alpha to the next. Lastly, his eyes shifted to Jessica. “What about you—are you buying into this insanity?”
Jessica grimaced, clearly torn, but said, “I think you need to answer Lucy’s question.”
“Of course I didn’t know,” Eric snapped.
Jessica closed her eyes and breathed out a sigh. Around the room, shoulders relaxed, but Chris’s eyes lingered on Jessica as she stood and walked over to Eric. The tension hadn’t quite left her frame.
“I’m sorry,” Jessica said.
The heat faded from Eric’s face and his lips quirked in a benevolent smile. “I forgive you for doubting me. I forgive all of you. Now let’s—“
Jessica’s palm connected with Eric’s cheek. The force of the blow snapped his head to one side.
“I’m sorry,” Jessica said, this time biting off the words, “for being so stupid.”
Eric’s retribution was swift. Before anyone could do more than gasp, he grabbed Jessica by the neck with both hands. She didn’t try to stop him, didn’t fight back, just gazed unblinkingly into his eyes as he squeezed.
Chris spared a quick glance around. The Granite Falls wolves looked on in shocked horror—all but Itsuo, who, oddly, smirked. None of them made a move to intervene.
“Eric, stop!” Joey rushed forward and grabbed Eric’s arm. Chris grabbed the other one, and together they tried to pull him back, but his hands held fast and he dragged Jessica along with him.
Jessica’s face started to turn red.
“Let her go!” Chris ignored the burning, shooting pain in his side and jammed his fingers against the wound on Eric’s back. It’d worked before, and it worked again. Eric howled in pain and released Jessica, but whirled on Chris and charged him.
Chris hit the floor hard with Eric on top of him. The fall knocked the breath from his lungs. He gasped in pain. His chest was so tight, it was like steel bands had clamped around it. He could swear he felt his ribs grating together as Eric rose over him and began throwing punches. Chris flung up his arms, but his efforts to deflect the blows weren’t effective. Eric’s fist connected with his face several times before he grunted in pain and twisted to make a grab for the fireplace poker in Joey’s hands. She must’ve hit him with it. They grappled over it while Chris struggled to breathe. Eric still straddled his torso, his knee jabbing Chris’s injured side as he twisted to contend with Joey. Chris didn’t even have the breath to cry out.
Ben joined the fray, wading in to punch Eric across the jaw. Eric’s head snapped back and he lost his grip on the poker. Physics being what they were, Joey went sprawling, landing on her ass in a most uncharacteristically graceless motion.
“Chris, stop him!” Joey shouted.
Chris wasn’t sure how he was supposed to do that, but he didn’t have enough breath—or time—to ask questions. He punched at Eric’s side with his good arm, but Eric ignored him.
“Shut him down!” Joey cried, with escalating urgency. “Like Emma, remember?”
It clicked. Chris knew what she wanted him to do, but wasn’t sure if he could. He’d never tried leaving his body on purpose before, and right now, he wasn’t sure if it was a good idea. But he closed his eyes anyway and focused on what it was like to slip out of a borrowed body. How different could it be? He willed himself upward and opened his eyes when the searing pain in his side vanished. The world had gone gray. He’d done it. On purpose.
Chris looked around with newfound clarity, despite the washed-out colors and slightly blurry landscape. It was then that he realized something else had happened while he was preoccupied with Eric. Pandemonium had broken out. Itsuo’s glowing eyes told Chris that he was under Roger’s influence. He had Adam by the hair, and, before Chris’s horrified eyes, slammed his head against the coffee table once, twice, three times. Lucy clung to Itsuo’s back like a spider monkey, hindering him but not having much luck when it came to stopping him entirely. Her hands beat at his head and shoulders ineffectually, while Brandon looked on from behind them, eyes wide in shock.
Forgetting his concern for his own well-being, Chris shot over to stand on the other side of the coffee table.
“Roger! Hey, man, knock it off!” He waved his arms for added effect.
The spirit-possessed man did pause and looked over at him, though he still held on to Adam’s hair. The younger man looked dazed and was bleeding from cuts and abrasions on his face, as well as from the nose. One of the cuts had a tiny circuit board stuck in it.
“You again? Stay out of this, or you’ll die too,” Roger said, in an eerily distorted version of Itsuo’s voice.
“Please, Roger! Adam’s as innocent as you are. He thought you killed his friend. It was a mistake!” Chris wasn’t sure if pleading would do him any good, but for the moment, Roger had stopped trying to put Adam’s face through the coffee table, so Chris counted that a win.
“Innocent?” the spirit sneered. “Hardly. Killing stains his soul, and he’s not even sorry about it.”
“He’s sorry! Believe me, he’s sorry. They all are.” All except Eric, anyway. But Chris wasn’t about to offer the vengeful spirit a trade. “Just let him go.”
The spirit snorted and slammed Adam’s head against the coffee table again. “Make me.”
Chris frowned, quickly evaluating his options. Possess Adam, try to fight back? That hadn’t gone so well with Kate. Then he remembered what’d happened when he tried to battle Roger over Colt’s body. He’d bounced right off. It gave him an idea.
The next time Itsuo brought Adam’s head down, Chris dove over Adam’s head and threw himself at Itsuo. He staggered backward and lost his grip on Adam’s hair, further overbalanced by the blue-haired hellion clinging to his back. Adam fell forward across the coffee table and didn’t get up.
Itsuo managed to catch his balance without toppling to the floor, but a moment later, someone else barreled into him. It was Brandon, finally stirred to action. This time, Itsuo went down. All three of them did, taking an end table down with them. The cheap wood gave way under their combined weight with a noisy crack and collapsed, sending chips of particle board flying.
Lucy scrambled out of the pile and went for Adam. It was a bad idea, because it left Brandon alone to contend with Itsuo. While Itsuo was considerably less
formidable with Roger in the driver’s seat, Roger did have a single-minded desire to kill everyone that made him dangerous. He also had nothing to lose. If Itsuo killed someone, great. If they killed Itsuo, he’d be just as content. Roger bashed Itsuo’s head against Brandon’s, briefly stunning him, then grabbed one of the ruined end table’s legs and began clubbing Brandon with it. The two men grappled over the weapon, rolling around on the floor.
Chris cast his eyes about for something, anything that he could do to help. Ben and Joey had managed to drag Eric off his unconscious body, but that fight was still far from over. The only person not engaged in frantic fisticuffs, unconscious, or tending to the wounded was Colt. Even Jessica had recovered enough to try to help wrangle Eric. Colt just sat there, staring into the flames while the chaos swirled around him. On one hand, Chris couldn’t blame him. He’d probably be pretty damn despondent if Joey had been the hog-tied corpse upstairs. On the other, he wished Colt would do something, anything, to help.
Unwilling to take over anyone else, Chris finally dove for Eric. The world slammed back into focus, colors surging into brilliance as myriad aches and pains assaulted him. Eric had a killer headache and the wound in his back burned like fire. He’d been holding his own against the three trying to wrestle him to the ground, but when Chris took control, he let Eric’s body go limp. The others swiftly overpowered him, pinning him to the ground facedown with his arms twisted behind his back.
“Brandon needs help. Roger’s got Itsuo,” Chris said. No matter how many times he possessed someone, it was always weird to hear their voice when he spoke. Hearing Eric’s made his skin crawl. He didn’t like being inside this slimy worm.
Though she gave him a wary look, Joey glanced over her shoulder and frowned at what she saw. Chris twisted to try and see around her, but Ben must have taken it as another effort at escape. He planted a knee in the small of Eric’s back. Pain flared and Chris cried out in pain. The knee lightened, slightly.
When his vision cleared, Chris saw Joey go over and haul Itsuo off Brandon. The older wolf didn’t fight her, just scrambled back and hopped up into a fighting stance, expression wary as he watched Brandon like a dangerous animal. Brandon just lay there, panting, the table leg clutched in one hand.
