by Meg Ripley
“Two of my pack mates went missing. The last anybody heard from them, they were here in Portland. Their trail led me right to the Brotherhood’s front door, but the Brotherhood doesn’t take kindly to questions from strangers; that’s why I think you ought to tread carefully.”
“Pack mates? You’re a wolf?”
“Yes. And I’m not leaving Portland until I get to the bottom of what’s happened to them.”
“Sounds like we’re chasing the same trail. Maybe we should team up.”
Seth arched his eyebrow. “You’re pretty trusting.”
“More like the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Besides, you haven’t given me a reason not to trust you.”
A sharp knock on the door made them both jump.
“It’s just the pizza,” Sera said, grabbing her wallet. She didn’t look through the peephole, and Seth’s shouted warning came a second too late as she twisted the lock. Thee knob turned violently in her hand the door slammed open, knocking her back several feet. In the blink of an eye, the man on the other side shifted into a wolf and lunged for her throat.
Sera automatically put her arms up to defend herself, but it was too little, too late. The wolf’s weight and momentum knocked her to the ground and the beast snapped furiously at her face, the long muzzle only narrowly missing her eye as she batted her fists at its nose.
It lunged for her again, so close she could smell the rotting meat odor of its breath. The great wolf’s weight pinned her to the carpet, crushing the air from her lungs.
And then it was gone.
Seth pulled the wolf back by the scruff of its neck and threw it against the wall with enough force to knock the animal unconscious. As soon as it hit the floor, it transformed again, becoming a wiry man with sandy, scruffy hair and a distinctive tattoo on his chest. Sera pushed herself to her feet and took a deep, shaky breath.
“Think he was here for you, or me?” Sera asked.
“I don’t like either answer.” Seth went to the open door, peering out into the darkness. He checked to the left and right before slamming it closed and engaging the locks. “We don’t open that door again.”
“What about the pizza?”
“Fine, you don’t open that door again.”
Sera kicked at the unconscious man’s ankle. “What are we going to do with him? Call the cops?”
“No,” Seth said quickly. “We don’t want to do that.”
“Why not? We didn’t do anything wrong. This guy attacked us!”
“Yes, he did, but the police and the Brotherhood have a...complicated relationship.”
“The cops are crooked?”
“Not all of them, but enough take bribes that they wouldn’t be above placing a call to the Alpha.”
“And tell him exactly where we are,” Sera guessed.
“Precisely.”
“Well, I don’t want this asshole waking up in here. We’ve got to do something with him.”
“I say we question him. We’ll just need to make sure he can’t go anywhere.”
Seth stripped the bed as he spoke, yanking the blankets to the floor and pulling the sheets free from the mattress. He worked quickly, tearing the sheet into strips and then braiding three of the long pieces together to form a thick, hardy rope. Once Sera saw what he was doing, she began making a rope as well, and soon they had enough to bind his ankles, wrists, and throat.
Once they had him bound to the chair and positioned in the far corner, there was another knock on the door.
“I’ll get this one,” Seth announced.
“Wait.” In all the excitement, Sera totally forgot that he was naked. She handed him a towel to wrap around his waist, which he took with a wink, and to her horror, a flush crawled up her throat and covered her cheeks. “I, uh...here’s twenty bucks to give the guy.”
Seth opened the door only wide enough to exchange the money for the pizza box, using his body to block the delivery boy’s view of the room. A half-naked man in a motel room wasn’t anything unusual, but a half-naked man with another man bound and gagged in his room might attract the wrong kind of questions.
“Good God, I’m starving,” Seth announced, opening the box with a wild grin. It came with a little tub of parmesan cheese and chili flakes, and he covered the pizza with both before tearing into it. Sera merely watched as he downed the first three slices without pausing. “Shifting takes a lot of energy,” he explained around a mouthful of the fourth slice.
“It would appear so. Mind if I get in on one of those slices?”
He passed the box to her with a sheepish grin. “It’s good pizza.”
Sera returned his smile and bit into a greasy, cheesy slice. It was good pizza, but not quite as good as the view. Now that he was awake and moving, she had a completely different appreciation of his tall, lean body.
He moved with an unconscious grace, each gesture fluid and easy. It wasn’t difficult to imagine him as a wolf, prowling through the shadows and the moonlight.
Sera chewed her pizza thoughtfully, her attention shifting to the strange man on the floor. The tattoo on his chest confirmed who sent him, but there were no other clues to his identity, no distinctive scars or other points of interest. As she studied him, his eyes began to flutter and he began to twitch.
“Shit! I think he’s waking up!”
Seth crossed the room to their prisoner, grabbed him by a fistful of hair and slapped his face. Hard. Hard enough to pull him completely into the waking world.
As soon as his eyes opened, he began to struggle, but the makeshift ropes held strong and he wasn’t able to escape. Seth slapped him again, drawing his attention, and they stared at each other in a silent, but obvious, power struggle.
The stranger was the first to look away, his shoulders slumping and his gaze shifting to the ground.
“What’s your name?” Seth growled.
“Braxton.”
“Who sent you?”
Braxton didn’t answer. Seth still had a handful of the man’s hair and he gave him a good shake, like a wolf might shake a pup.
“Who sent you?”
Braxton didn’t seem afraid of Seth, but he still cast down his eyes and muttered, “The Brotherhood.”
“Why?” Seth asked.
The question required another hard shake and a slap to the face before Braxton grudgingly said, “This bitch is making the Alpha nervous. She’s showing Dwight’s picture all over town, asking about some dead girl. He doesn’t like it.”
“Why not? Does he have something to hide?”
“Look, I don’t know, man. Don’t hit me again. I’m not even a full member of the pack, okay? He doesn’t tell me anything. I just get my orders and try not to get killed.”
“What’s Dwight’s last name?”
“I don’t know. Jones? I don’t even know the fucking guy. I saw him once.”
“He has a scar?” Sera asked.
“Yeah, that’s the guy.”
Seth looked at her with an arched brow and a silent question-do you believe him? Sera nodded as a few more pieces of the puzzle fell into place. She’d been right. This Dwight was the key to understanding what happened to her sister and she was the only one who could excavate this particular cover-up.
Seth released his hair and crossed to Sera’s side. “What do you want to do with him?”
“Can we just leave him here for the housekeepers to find in the morning?”
“Where are we gonna go?”
“I have a place. The rain is letting up; I think we can get there in one piece.”
Seth nodded and returned to Braxton’s side. He got the man’s attention with another fistful of hair, leaning down to stand nose-to-nose with him. He inhaled deeply, his nostrils flaring as he marked Braxton’s scent.
“The bitch, as you so charmingly called her, is a lot nicer than I am and she wants to let you live. But I suggest you leave Portland—hell, you may even want to get out of Oregon. Find yourself a new pack and have a healthy, lon
g life. Because if I catch wind of you around town, I will tear your head off and dump your body in the woods. Do you understand me?”
Braxton nodded frantically. “I’ll go, man, I’ll go. I don’t even like it here.”
“Excellent.” He turned his attention to Sera. “Ready?”
“Let’s roll.”
“Wait. Are you just going to leave me here?”
“They’ll find you in the morning,” Sera said, opening the door. The rain was still falling, but it was more of a sprinkle than a wall of water. “Besides, it’ll give you plenty of time to think about your options.”
“Pleasant dreams,” Seth said as flicked off the light and closed the door behind him.
“Um...do you want to go get your clothes?”
“They’ve been lost. Torn to shreds when I shifted back in the woods.”
“What about a wallet? Money? Anything?”
“I’ll need you to spot me a few bucks, but I promise I’ll pay you back.”
Sera nodded. It would be worth twenty bucks to get him covered up. At least then she would be able to think about something other than how great he looked—and how much better he would look towering over her, positioned between her legs.
“Okay, we’ll get some clothes, we’ll get some sleep, and in the morning, we’ll get to the bottom of the Brotherhood,” Sera announced. It felt good to have a plan—or a jumping-off point, at least. Something more concrete than a picture of a stranger and a gut feeling.
2
Seth studied the photo of Aiza for a long, silent moment. Sera studied his face while he did so, looking for any flicker of recognition, any mild change of expression that would betray him. But there wasn’t as much as a twitch of an eye. His face was as still as stone as he passed the picture back to her.
“I’ve never seen her before. Sorry; I never spent much time in Portland.”
Sera shrugged. “It was worth a shot. It’s just...what was she doing with those assholes? You know? What business did she have with them?”
“Was she a wolf?”
“No. I mean...I don’t know. I hadn’t seen her or heard from her in years. She could have been turned into one. But I thought that was generally frowned upon?”
Seth nodded in confirmation. “It is. And it’s downright banned by the Brotherhood. They’ll allow turned wolves in the pack, but if anybody is caught turning a werewolf, they’re executed.”
“Wow. Wait...they’re executed?”
“Both the wolf and the one they’re turning.”
“Do you think that’s what happened to Aiza?”
“I don’t know.”
“How can we find out?” Sera asked. “Is there a way to tell if Aiza was a wolf when she died? Would it have been in the coroner’s report?”
“Unlikely.”
“What about her medical records?”
“Only if she volunteered the information.”
“There has to be a way. You’ve never needed to test to see if a body is also a werewolf?”
“It comes up less than you think.” Seth folded his arms and ducked his chin, giving the impression of studying the ground; she could almost see the wheels turning behind his eyes. “There’s a way. But we’d have to...do something you probably don’t want to do.”
“What? Tell me.”
“Exhume her body.”
“We’d have to dig her up?” Sera couldn’t believe she was considering this, but knowing the answer could be the key to solving the mystery. “What then?”
“We expose her skin to wolfsbane.”
“Wolfsbane?”
Seth smiled. “It’s a flower. That’ll be easy enough to get—it grows wild all over the place.”
“Then I guess we’ll just need some shovels.”
Seth’s smile transformed into a frown. “Are you sure about this? It’ll be mighty hard to explain why we’re digging up a body when the cops come.”
“Then we better not get caught. We’ll go to the store in the morning and get shovels and head torches and we’ll dig a big hole.”
He looked skeptical at that. “In the middle of the day?”
“No, tomorrow night. That’ll be soon enough. In the meantime, maybe you should help me go through her room.”
“You want me to help you go through your dead sister’s personal belongings?”
“If you wouldn’t mind.” Sera took a deep breath, understanding her request was a little strange. “I think a second pair of eyes will help. Besides, there might be some Brotherhood or wolf-related information that I don’t recognize, but you might.”
“I’ll be happy to help in any way I can, but I can’t guarantee anything.”
“It’s better than no help at all.”
Sera had been through every drawer and nook and cranny, but she’d left everything where she found it. Now she was glad she didn’t quite have the heart to tuck her sister’s life away completely. If there were any clues to be found, Sera didn’t want to be guilty of disrupting the evidence.
They began to rummage, and minutes later, Seth straightened from his perusal of Aiza’s bottom drawers. “Well, this might be something.”
“What have you got?”
“A collar.”
“A collar? Like, a dog collar?”
“Yes. An electric dog collar. With your sister’s name on it.”
“What? Let me see that. Why on earth...what would she have this for?” Sera physically recoiled at the thought of her sister wearing that thing, using it, being punished with it. “It’s probably not just a sex thing, is it?”
“We won’t know until after we do the wolfsbane test. But if I were a betting man, I’d say it probably wasn’t a sex thing.” At her inquiring look, he added, “A human that’s turned into a werewolf lacks the instinct to shift from their wolf form to their human form, but a good shock to the system, like from this collar, will do the trick.” He paused, tilting his head. His nostrils flared. “Stephanie is here.”
“What? How do—” The chime of the doorbell halted her question. “Who’s Stephanie?”
“She’s the female alpha of my pack. I hope you don’t mind, I called and gave her the address when we got here.”
Sera shook off the pang of disappointment. Of course he’d call for a ride at the first opportunity. “As long as she wasn’t followed, I don’t mind. Hey, did you tell her how we met?”
“I told her you helped me get away from the Brotherhood. That’s all she needs to know.”
The doorbell chimed again and Seth hurried to the front of the house. Sera’s attention shifted back to the collar, her active imagination easily conjuring a thousand scenarios linking Aiza’s death to the darker implications of the electrified leather. She frowned, studying the leather closer. It was clearly hand stitched, made to order and personalized. Somebody poured effort and love into its creation.
“Sera? Do you mind coming out here for a minute?”
Sera stashed the collar in the drawer. “Coming.” Maybe he wanted to say goodbye. Or maybe this Stephanie wanted to get a good look at her. Sera knew nothing about the hierarchy of wolf packs, and she wasn’t sure if being the alpha female meant she was also involved in some way with Seth.
The first thing that struck Sera was the other woman’s height—she was easily six feet tall, and she was not wearing heels. Her tall frame was well-muscled and nicely curved, and her almond-shaped eyes and pointed nose gave her a distinctively pretty face.
Her light brown hair was pulled back into a sloppy bun and she wore ratty gray sweatpants and an oversized sweater. A duffel bag sat on the floor at Seth’s feet, and she was looking him over with thin-lipped concern and more than a hint of exasperation.
“Stephanie Tanner, this is Sera Simpson.”
Stephanie’s grip was firm but her smile was friendly as they shook hands, and it was clear her exasperation was reserved for Seth. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said. “And thanks for helping this idiot avoid a broken nec
k.”
“Um, well, it was the least I could do,” Sera said, finding herself warming to the other woman.
“Yeah. Seth told me you’ve got your own unfinished business with the Brotherhood. Don’t worry, he didn’t go into any details, but you should avoid those guys if you can. I’m going to tell you the same thing I told him: go home. Where it’s safe.”
“Well, thanks for the warning, but I can’t go anywhere. Not until I find out what they did to my sister.”
Stephanie studied her for a moment and then offered an understanding nod. “I get it.” She looked back to Seth. “I brought everything you asked for. Is there anything else I can do?”
Seth took one of the pictures of Dwight from his shirt pocket. “See what you can find out about this man. His name is Dwight and he may have been the last one to see Aiza alive.”
“Brotherhood scum?”
“The sort you find at the bottom of a swamp, I’d imagine.”
“On it. Any word on Tony or Chen?”
Seth shook his head with a grim frown. “Not yet, but the trail isn’t cold.”
“I’ll call you when I know anything.” She turned to Sera, surprising her with a quick, tight hug. “We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll walk you out,” Seth said. He was outside with Stephanie for a long time—long enough that Sera had enough time to start cooking breakfast and drive herself crazy with all the images of what they might have been doing outside—but she played that off as he entered the kitchen. “I hope you like eggs.”
“Even if I didn’t, I’m starving. Can I do anything to help?”
“You can grate that cheese. I thought she was coming to pick you up.”
“Did you want me to leave? I can call her.”
“No,” Sera answered quickly. “No, I...I’d like you to stay. But I thought maybe you’d want to go.”
“I want to help you.”
“And Stephanie? She wants to help me, too?”
“Let’s just say you’re not the only one who’s lost someone to the Brotherhood. Now, let’s figure out what we’re going to need tonight—besides no rain and a lot of luck.”
