But there is that stigma attached to age. I’m only twenty-two, but it’s five years difference. And fuck if it doesn’t feel wrong to want her. I know she’s fucking innocent in that respect, and I’m an even bigger asshole because that only turns me on more. Fucking hell. I am going to have to get over this shit and fast. I don’t do females. I do women, human women. The way I want—no drama, no tears, no commitment, and never more than once. No, that’s a lie. It’s often more than once, but never more than one night.
The moment Willow threatened to cut off my balls, she did something to my dick. Screwed with it big time. Whether it was the threat of being disconnected from his buddies or just her nearness, I’m not sure, but the fucker gets solid fast at just the thought of her. It’s fucked up.
I went to town last night, to take out my frustration with a woman. Even a blowjob didn’t get me off. I was hard—I’m a man, it happens naturally. But there was none of the usual excitement for me. I had the chick on her knees, choking on me and all I felt was anger because she wasn’t who I wanted her to be. Her hair was blonde, not dark, and her eyes were blue as she looked up at me. All fucking wrong. I pulled out of her greedy mouth, turned her away from me in the small cubicle, and bent her over the toilet. I thought if I didn’t look at her face it would be better. I fucked her hard, so hard she ended up almost bent double in the corner. And she was making all the right noises, so I knew she was enjoying herself. I just wish I had been. In the end, I gave up, tucked my cock inside my jeans and walked away. Willow will be back tomorrow. Boxing day. Only one night left. I just have to get through today.
Jared and Devon haven’t been out of their room long, but Devon has promised us all a Christmas dinner, so I guess that is a bonus. Devon can cook. I go into the kitchen and find Devon and Jared in there, stupid fucking grins in place and all over each other. Fucking wonderful. Just what I need for my own viewing pleasure. Fuck. I smile a weak, half-assed smile at Devon, before Jared’s face changes and he asks me what’s up. If he’s asked me that once he’s asked me a million fucking times.
‘I’m good,’ I tell him like always. And like always, he cocks a brow and questions me again without words.
‘I’m good!’ I tell him with a little more vehemence.
‘Suuuuuure you are. Your mood got anything to do with a certain female being absent?’
‘Don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I tell him moving toward the door. I’m done with the twenty questions.
‘Howard, sit down, food is almost done. Please don’t go,’ Devon pleads. Fuck me. I look at Jared with wide eyes silently asking him to fucking drop it. He does. Devon starts crashing plates and bowls around and then the table gets loaded with all kinds of stuff. It smells great. As soon as she sits down, Jared and I tuck in. There is a lot because she’s cooked for everyone, but no one else is eating with us because they are on guard or doing whatever other duties they have. We’re about halfway through the meal when a guy named Jordan comes running through the back door.
Jared stands immediately, and I’m only a second behind him. If there’s a threat, we’ll be ready. Jordan bends at the waist taking in a lung full of air.
‘Out by the edge of the property…’ He looks at Devon and then back at Jared. ‘There’s a body— human’ he says. Shit.
‘Fuck, Howard, call Harrison. We need him here to stay with Devon.’
‘I can do that?’ Jordan suggests. I shake my head as Jared embraces his mate and whispers in her ear that he needs her to listen to him and stay in the house with Harrison. It’s not long before Harrison is here, and we leave a willing Devon with him. Which, considering she fights Jared on every-fucking-thing, shocks the shit out of me. Not one complaint. Nada. I even lift my brow in question at Jared as we leave through the back door. He just winks at me. Jordan walks us through the forest but shocks the shit out of me as soon as are out of sight of the house.
He turns to Jared. ‘You might want to prepare yourself, man, it’s a fucking kid,’ he says his face saying it all. It’s bad. Fuck. We arrive at the electric fence surrounding our property. And don’t have to walk far to get to the body. The stench in the air is rancid and could be smelt from about halfway here. As we arrive at the scene, Jared turns away, and with his hands on his knees, he throws up. I cover my mouth. Jared isn’t the first to throw up. The scent of it is evident in the air. The scene before me is disgusting. And the stench on the body is werewolf. That fact alone is disturbing. The poor girl suffered a degrading and painful death, and this is a message. Bastards. Jared pulls himself together and comes back to my side.
‘Anyone touched the body?’ I ask as Jared stands up straight wiping his mouth.
‘No,’ Jacob, one of the pack, answers. ‘I’ve been here the whole time. I found her,’ he says with a slight break in his voice.
‘Can we get her down, boss?’ Jordan asks. The poor girl is strewn across the fencing. I look at Jared waiting for his answer.
‘No, we call this one in. The girl deserves better, and I won’t be responsible for her family never knowing she died, left in fucking limbo, wondering.’ I nod my okay. It’s not the normal way we deal with the dead, but then we don’t normally have kids to bury. Luckily this is far enough away from where we put our dead to ground but still I worry that we will have police on the property.
‘You sure?’ I ask because someone fucking has to. He looks at me like I killed the kid. So I put my hands up, offering surrender. ‘Jared, I’m just looking out for the pack, making sure it’s the right thing to do. I’m not disagreeing with … fuck you know what I mean.’
He nods and reaches into his pocket for his phone. He dials and puts it to his ear.
‘Need you home now,’ he tells Brad as soon as he answers. Brad replies, but I’m not paying attention. ‘Yeah, it’s fucking bad. Let my dad know that wolves killed and mutilated a fucking little girl on our property. Get everyone together, and head back now.’ He kicks a branch across the floor as Brad replies. ‘Yeah, women too. I want everyone with us where I know they’re safe. Go fucking careful on the way back and keep your eyes peeled. Make sure you’re carrying.’ And that was that. The pack are on their way back, and we are calling this murder in to the police. A first for us.
‘Jared, we need to talk to everyone and make sure we have our stories straight before we call the cops.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, it’s Christmas day. They are going to wonder why the fuck we were out this far from the house when we should be home eating dinner?’
‘Okay. Jacob. You were out walking, and you came across her, okay?’
‘It’s a tradition. You do the walk, no matter the weather, on Christmas day, okay?’ I school him because the first thing they will ask is why. ‘You walked the same walk with your dad before he passed and do the same thing every year alone now.’ He nods his acceptance. ‘You called us, and we came running because you weren’t able to tell us what was wrong, just where you were approximately. After that nothing needs to be lied about. Everyone clear?’ I ask of all. I get a resounding ‘clear’ in answer, so we head back to the house, leaving Jacob to watch over the girl, and we double up the guard on the perimeter.
I am uneasy about all this, and I know Jared is too. Wolves don’t kill for fun. And this screams ‘fun’ for some sick fuck. That poor girl must have been eight at the most. She had her whole life ahead of her, but instead, she was killed slowly and tormented until she died. A snarl bubbles up, and I can’t stop it. I feel sick to the fucking stomach. My instincts to protect the pack had taken over, but now, what we found and what that baby girl went through is sinking in. Scumbags. I can’t wait to put the fuckers responsible to ground.
We’d all got the scent of the girl. And we all knew who was responsible. Jared makes the call, and we all wait while he speaks to the officer. When he’s done, we sit at the table, our plates still half full with food. Devon has covered all the dishes in the centre of the table in foil and cling film,
but no one has moved to eat, and I’m not surprised after what we just witnessed. It takes a lot for me to pass up food, any of us anyway, with the metabolism we all share. But right now, I can’t even consider it.
It’s not long before there’s a knock on the door. That was fast.
I answer. The officer is in uniform, and he states he’s been sent to watch the scene until his superior arrives. I walk him through the woods to Jacob and help him cordon off the area with white and blue police tape. I do my best not to look over to where the girl is stuck unceremoniously on the fence post and wire fencing. It makes my stomach lurch at the thought of it. On the way over, the officer asks the usual questions. When did we find her? Who found her and when? I answer as we’d pre-decided. Although we aren’t lying about any of it, we have to give a reason for Jacob being on the perimeter of the property, and guard duty can’t be it. So a small white lie has to do. The cop then goes over to Jacob and asks him the same questions. In addition to those, he asks if he had been there since the discovery. He replies with the truth.
‘So no one has touched her or the surrounding area?’ Jacob shakes his head no. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Since I found her no one has been near her. I’ve been here the whole time. I called the guys to come, and I threw up along with a few others.’ He gestures over to where Jared had emptied his stomach. ‘We called you guys straight away,’ Jacob finishes. The copper nods in acceptance. He ushers us both behind the tape I’ve just helped put up, and we stand at the other side, waiting as I hear Jared leading some more people through the forest. These are CID. Criminal Investigations Department. And they treat every single one of us like suspects. We have to have our prints taken, and our mouths swabbed for DNA. And that’s a problem.
I see the panic flash in Jared’s eyes as he agrees but the cool calm exterior stays in place, and they don’t notice anything. Jared looks right at me as they move to swab me, his eyes wide. I know I’m going to have to make sure those samples stay out of the wrong hands. FUCK. On first inspection, they will appear normal and will be checked against the database and also against the DNA on the little girl. They won’t match either the girl or the database, so we have nothing to worry about there. Where we do have to worry is if the analyst notices any subtle differences in any of the samples by looking too closely. That’s what we need to keep under control. How? That was the fucking question of the day, wasn’t it? How the fuck do I steal from the lab in the police headquarters?
We leave the police to their investigations and hope that they do the young girl justice. I walk back with Jared and Jacob. Jacob is in pieces now. I think the shock is diminishing and realisation is setting in. I cup his shoulder in my hand and bring my mouth close to his ear. ‘It’s okay, let it out,’ I whisper. He takes in a shaky breath and hiccups on a sob. Jared claps him on the back—his face impassive as he just stares blankly forward, but the reassurance that his alpha has his back is there, and I can tell Jacob appreciates the sentiment. I stop Jared just outside the house while Jacob goes in. I fold my arms across my chest and say what’s been burning my tongue since they swabbed my mouth.
‘Jared, I don’t know how the fuck we are going to contain this shit?’ Jared looks to the sky as if it will rain down some sort of answer for us. It won’t.
‘I don’t know what the fuck to do right now, either, but we need to do something,’
‘They’ll run our samples first, then cross check it in the database for any past criminal offences they have on record. Any DNA found on the girl will also be checked against all of our samples before ruling any of us out. It will be looked at too closely for my liking but it’s the only way now we’ve called it in.’
‘You think that was a mistake?’ Jared questions, not aggressively, but like he’s re-evaluating what he should have done.
‘No, I don’t think it was a mistake, but its gonna put us in a shit situation. We need Brad a.s.a.p. so we can at least find out where they keep this kind of evidence.’
‘He’s on his way with the rest of the pack. I hope to fuck that calling this in was the right thing to do, Howard. But I just couldn’t live with giving her a shallow grave with the rest of the dead that aren’t worth shit, ya know? Fuck. All I could think of was if that was my kid…’ I look at him now, and I see it in his eyes. There’s a change, only small, but it’s there.
‘You got something to tell me?’ I ask with a slight grin. He closes his eyes and nods his head before he looks at me with a small smile on his face.
‘Yeah, she told me this morning. I’m gonna be a daddy.’ I can see the elation and the pure fear battling within his eyes. This will mean he will fight even more fiercely to protect his pack. And he was brutal before. God help the American pack is all I can say.
‘I’m real happy for you both. Fuck, man, welcome to adulthood, daddy.’ I laugh trying to make light of the whole fucked up mess. Jared going to be a dad is fucking brilliant news. And we would have to celebrate that real soon. ‘We will celebrate right after this shit is dealt with, yeah?’
‘Hell, yeah. It’s not everyday you find out your mate’s growing your baby.’
‘That’s weird.’
‘Isn’t fucking weird.’
I frown and nod. ‘Jared, it’s fucking weird, growing your baby! She isn’t a plant.’
‘My baby is growing in her stomach, dip shit, so she’s growing my baby.’
I shudder. ‘Can we just leave it at she’s pregnant?’ Jared shakes his head at me and rolls his eyes. The conversation, however fucking creepy, has gone some way to cheer him up. And I find that knowing Brad is on his way—meaning Willow is on her way too—makes me somewhat happier. I wink at Devon when I walk in and look at her hand, which is protectively holding her stomach. Our eyes meet again, and she smiles knowingly. I’m not sure if it’s meant to be a secret or not, so I say nothing else. Jared fills everyone in on the details and that everyone will need to give samples. At which point, Devon freaks the fuck out.
‘Baby, it’s okay, we’ve got a plan, and we are gonna handle it,’ he tells her. Lies to her actually. We have no fucking plan and zero ideas right now. But we need one and fast. The police come knocking, and they tell us that we need to stick around for questioning. No one is allowed to leave the house, and they are leaving two officers with us. I assume because they can’t haul us all to the station for questioning and we are, at this moment in time, suspects, and they need to make sure we aren’t all concocting a story. We are all asked the same questions over and over. Each of us taken into the library to go over the same things, individually. Luckily, we have filled Devon and Harrison in on the reason Jacob was out in the woods. They want to know where we have been forty-eight hours prior to the discovery. They are telling us nothing, but I assume the girl has been reported missing. So they have to have some idea of who she is. They aren’t about to tell us though, that much is clear.
Hours go by, and Devon busies herself warming food and feeding everyone. We’re all inside now and unable to patrol. I’m on tenterhooks, looking at the door every few seconds and when Brad and Maiya walk through the door I’m up and out of my seat so fucking fast, walking around them to see where Willow is at. I hear Brad say something smart as I move past them but I take no notice. I find Willow just getting out of the car. Brody has the door open waiting for her, and I go around him, taking her in, making sure there isn’t a hair out of place.
‘Howard, seriously will you fuck off?’ Brody grumbles in my ear.
‘How about you fuck off, so I can make sure she’s okay?’ I retort.
‘Or how about you both fuck off and leave me to get out of the car by my own damn self?’ With that, she pushes me out of her way and storms from the car.
‘Well done, idiot,’ I sneer at Brody before I follow Willow up to her room, with Brody like a fucking Yorkshire terrier snapping at my heels. I turn and face him.
‘When will you get the fucking message?’
His brows shoot up in
question. ‘What fucking message is that?’ I look at him, and my mind goes for a little vacation somewhere else because I don’t have an answer. What the fuck am I even doing? I start to speak and snap my jaw shut. ‘Yeah, thought so,’ he says like a cocky little fucker, and I see red. My hand grabs at his scruff, and I slide him up the wall next to the door. His eyes widen minutely, but I have to give it to him, he doesn’t flinch, despite me knocking him on his arse the first time we met. He curls his fingers into my t-shirt and pushes against me with just as much force. Fuck, we have police in the house, and I’m up here scuffling with one of my own. I step back and release him, just as Willow sticks her head around the door.
‘You two done?’ she sasses. We both look at her like she just slapped our arses. I nod, turn, and leave. I hear Brody getting chewed out for treating her like she’s a child that can’t look out for herself. I smile to myself as I turn at the top of the stairs. I look back down the corridor, and our eyes meet as I catch her looking at me over Brody’s shoulder. Her lips purse flat, and she averts her gaze quickly, but not before my dick stiffens in my jeans. Fuck me, I need a drink. I get to the kitchen and find the copper still sitting at the table. Rolling my eyes, I walk through to the sitting room where we have a well-stocked cabinet, and I pour myself a large tumbler of Wild Turkey whiskey. It burns on its way down, and I savour the feeling. Closing my eyes, I try to rid myself of Willow’s image. But as if my brain is torturing me, instead, comes an image of her smiling down at me while she straddles my lap. Her hair blowing in the breeze as we sit in a small clearing. Her nipples are taut through the thin slip of material she has covering them. And her makeup-free, perfect face glows as she leans down to kiss me.
Fated Love (Stone Pack book 3) Page 2
