by Mary Lindsey
“Is Grant here?” he asked.
“Not yet.” The girl flipped a yellowed page in what looked like an ancient book. “Are you going to run away now?”
What the everlovin’ hell? “From you?”
“No. From yourself.”
He didn’t answer. He simply watched as she turned another page.
“Blood will tell, I suppose.” She raised her eyes to his. “Cowardice is genetic.”
Well, creepiness was certainly genetic. Rain leaned against a lawn sprinkler display and stared. “Are you talking about my mom or my dad when you mention cowardice?”
“When your father found out he’d been chosen, he did several foolish things. First, he got married, thinking that would make him less desirable to us. Then, he tried to convince his wife to leave New Wurzburg.” She wrote something in the book. “Like we wouldn’t have found them.”
She was skirting around and not coming straight out and giving anything away. It could all be interpreted without any wolf or witch twist. His palms had become sweaty, and he fought to control his breathing. He’d never let this girl see his discomfort. Ever.
“Then a miracle happened.” She returned her attention to her book.
“What?”
Her smile belonged in a horror movie. Nothing creepier than a knowing, smug smile on a child. “You.”
They’d planned to convert his father into a Watcher. A chill crept up his spine. “You planned to hook my dad up with Freddie? That’s sick.”
A blond eyebrow quirked up. “So you know about Freddie—about New Wurzburg.” She gestured to the yellowing tome in front of her. “Exactly how much do you know?”
Oh shit. So much for playing dumb. She’d clearly baited him to see how much he knew. He gritted his teeth, refusing to look away. “I know enough.”
“We never intended a pairing between your father and Freddie. She wasn’t born yet. We planned a pairing between him and any suitable female to produce new stock to dilute the bloodline. But like I said, we got something much better because you are appropriately aged for the next Alpha.” She shrugged. “That is, unless you’re a chicken like your father.”
He moved closer to the counter to get a better look at her book, which appeared to be handwritten names in lines with lines drawn between them. “I’m not scared of anything or anyone.”
“You should be.”
The bells on the door clanged, and Rain spun to find Grant striding in with a grin on his face. “Hey, Rain.”
“He knows,” the girl behind the counter announced. “He knows everything, which means this won’t be anything like Gerald Loche.”
Grant’s happy expression fell into one of confusion and possibly anger. “How did you find out?”
Rain answered with a noncommittal shrug.
“If Freddie told you, she…” He didn’t finish the sentence.
“The penalty is death for revealing our true natures to a human,” the girl said as if she were remarking on a flavor of ice cream. “And that would make my big brother sad.”
The death penalty. “Freddie didn’t tell me.”
Grant paced back and forth in front of the counter. “She must have.”
“He specifically knew of the lupine primogeniture program,” the creepy little sister announced.
“How?” Grant’s question was leveled at Rain.
“I figured it out,” Rain said, shoving his hands in his pockets to hide the trembling. “Not hard. It’s pretty obvious.”
Grant looked from Rain to his sister and back again.
He had to turn this away from Freddie. “Well, I suspected when I overheard you talking to the boys in the hallway. You even got physical with Thomas. Then, there was the night at the winery. Like I wouldn’t know something was up from that shit you pulled.” The guy’s face paled. “And then, back in Freddie’s cabin, I totally figured it out without her saying a word. I mean, it’s not in my nature to want to bite a girl unless my nature’s been altered, right? The wine you gave me did a serious number on my brain and body. A wolf’s a wolf, right? Nothing subtle there.”
Grant went from sickly pale to red. He looked to his sister as if for advice.
She flipped another worn page of her book. “Well, if his beast rose far enough, he could have figured it out on his own, especially if you were that obvious, Grant.”
It was the first time Rain had liked the little freak.
“The chief knew you’d given me the wine,” Rain added to twist the knife. “She didn’t seem to mind that I was in on New Wurzburg’s dirty little secret.”
Grant’s face got even redder. His sister cleared her throat and turned a page in her book. “My suggestion is to either submit a termination request and have him put down, which will bring a lot of questions your way, or make the best of it and go forward.” She studied Rain a moment, and he schooled his expression to his go-to who-gives-a-shit look. “It could work in our favor that he knows and is still here, as opposed to running away like his sire did.”
The door bells jangled, and all three tensed.
“Good morning, everyone,” Grant’s dad said, pushing his glasses up on his nose. His gaze stopped on Rain and stayed there. “Ready for a hard day’s work?”
“You bet.” Rain was relieved his voice came out steady.
After a long once-over that somehow felt like a threat, Charles Ericksen jerked his head toward the back of the store. “Need deliveries made to Carter Ranch and Haven Winery. Clipboard is on the truck seat.”
“Got it,” Grant said. “Follow me, Rain.” With a tug on Rain’s sleeve, they headed to the back of the store at almost a run. It struck Rain that Grant was as anxious to get away from his dad as he was.
“You can drive if you want, but it might be easier if I do, since I know the area,” Grant said, yanking open the driver’s door of a white panel truck.
“I don’t have a license.”
He grabbed a clipboard off the seat of the truck and shot Rain a surprised look. “You drive a motorcycle.”
“Different kind of license.” He didn’t have one of those, either, but Grant didn’t need to know that. Information needed to flow one direction today.
After a quick inventory of rolls of barbed wire, wire staples, and rope for Carter Ranch and two oak barrels and half a dozen blue drums of chemicals for Haven, they struck out.
Grant changed the tuner from a talk-radio station to classic country music. Didn’t make much difference what he played, really; the truck didn’t have AC, and the wind through the open windows made it hard to hear. “So, you still getting along with Freddie?”
Info one way, he reminded himself. “Going good, I guess.”
The guy looked over but didn’t reply. After they pulled onto the highway, he cleared his throat. “So, you know your purpose in all this.”
“To make the world a better place,” he said in a singsong voice with a smirk.
Again, Grant glanced over. “You will make the world a better place if you can convince Freddie to step up as Alpha.”
“Why wouldn’t she?”
“She’s still messed up from her father’s death.”
“She doesn’t talk much about that. What happened?”
He shifted in the seat and checked his mirrors. “Accident. She didn’t tell you about it?”
Info flows one way. “Not really. Where’s her mom? She never mentions her.”
He switched off the radio, lips in a grim line. “Her mother was on loan from Germany. She was returned three days after Freddie’s birth.”
“On loan, like breeding stock in a zoo? Do you know how messed up that is, man?”
“Yeah. Pretty messed up.” He flipped on a blinker and turned onto a dirt road. “The alternatives are worse.”
Rain really wanted to confront the guy but was afraid of giving away too much or being overly specific and putting Freddie, Gerald, or Petra in jeopardy. He hadn’t heard mention of using female disposables. Only males. Ma
ybe women were more likely to have loved ones who gave a shit about them and would notice if they went missing than guys like him did. Maybe it was harder to successfully convert them. Who knew.
They backed the truck up to a huge metal barn and unloaded the items. It felt good to lift heavy stuff. It knocked off some of the edge and nervous energy. Neither spoke again until they pulled into the Haven Winery parking lot.
“Freddie’s pretty special,” Grant said, taking a small road off the back of the lot that ran behind the main building.
Rain opted to stay silent and see where the guy was going with this. He was still steamed over the loaner-mom thing.
“You were carefully picked,” he added.
“Yeah, because I can be gotten rid of easily.”
“Because Freddie likes you, and I thought you two would suit.”
Rain gritted his teeth.
“She requested we cancel your conversion.” Grant waited as if Rain would respond. Fat chance. “Any idea why?”
Rain didn’t even move a muscle in response, but his chest ached at the thought she’d cut him out of her life like that.
“She’s afraid the process will kill or mess you up, like Gerald.” Grant looked over at him. “Are you afraid?”
He met his eyes directly. “No.”
The road led to a metal roll-up loading door in the side of the main building. Grant backed the truck up and Merrick, Kurt, and Thomas came out to meet them. Freddie joined last and waited by the side of the building.
Grant put the truck in park and killed the motor. “Don’t hurt her, Ryland.”
Rain kept his voice low enough to not be heard through the open windows. “Says the fucking zookeeper.”
“Hey! It’s about time,” Kurt shouted from the loading dock. “You barely beat the storm.”
As if on cue, a clap of thunder vibrated the air.
“I’m not the bad guy, Ryland.” Grant pulled the keys out of the ignition. “I’m on her side.”
Grant opened the door and stepped down on the pavement. “I’ll help you guys get the full drums loaded in, and Rain and Freddie can go get the empties for us to take back.”
“I’ll show you where they are, Rain,” Freddie said.
When they entered the dark hallway that he recalled from Friday night, he took her hand and pulled her to a stop. “Hey.” He kissed the spot on her neck he’d bitten in front of the guys at school. There was barely even a bruise now.
“Hey, yourself. I’m surprised you actually went to work today.” She leaned into him, and all that anger and tension he’d felt in the truck cab with Grant melted into the wall behind him.
Leaning his head back against the paneling, Rain closed his eyes and marveled at how simply being near Freddie made him feel better, like cool fingers on a sunburn. “Why would I not go? The antidote wine worked fine.”
“I was hoping you’d get smart and quit the job at Ericksen Hardware like I suggested.”
He ran his hands down her back and up to her shoulders again. “Some of your suggestions are really good. Some suck.”
“It was a good suggestion.”
“Like asking Grant to cut me loose?”
She pulled away, but not before he saw the stricken expression on her face. “We need to get the empty chemical drums out of the way before my cousins come down this hallway with full ones and there’s no place to put them.”
He followed her into the big room with the stainless steel tanks he remembered from his “tour” with Thomas, Kurt, and Merrick.
“Here you go.” Not making eye contact, she rolled a handcart to him and pointed to a line of blue plastic storage drums. “Those go back to the truck, and the new ones go in their place. They’re light, but they don’t stack.”
He tipped one easily and slid the handcart under the edge.
From the hallway, laughter drifted into the large room. The guys needed a place to put the full drums, so instead of taking them all the way to the truck one at a time, he decided to first move them out of the way so the new ones could slip in their places. Without using the handcart, he shoved one across the concrete floor to a spot near the closest tall metal tank. A second one followed.
“How’s Ruby?” she asked, sweeping the empty spots he’d cleared.
“She’s fine.” He grabbed the third drum but couldn’t slide it easily like the others. “This one’s not empty. Want me to leave it?”
“It’s empty. They all are.” She set the broom against the wall. “I cleaned and tagged them myself on Friday.”
A yellow label that said return was stuck to the top of the barrel.
He shoved it again. “Nope. Definitely not empty.”
There was a metal band around the top that had a lever handle attached. He pulled out on the handle, but it wouldn’t budge. Freddie joined him with a short pry bar. She inserted it under the handle, using the lip of the barrel as a fulcrum, and ripped up. The band came loose with a metallic pop and Freddie instantly stepped back, nose wrinkled.
“Man, you guys are slow,” Kurt said from the doorway, pushing a cart with a barrel from the truck on it. “What have you been doing? No, wait. I don’t want to know. Keep that stuff private.”
“There’s…” Freddie covered her mouth. “Something rotten in there.”
It must have been her super wolf nose making her that sensitive, because Rain only smelled something rank, like slightly spoiled milk, but nothing to make him back up to the opposite side of the room. Maybe the chemicals that they’d stored in the drums smelled like that. He pitched the ring to the side and pried the top off the drum.
With an instinctual step back, his stomach flipped over, and like Freddie, he covered his mouth.
“What is it?” Kurt peered into the drum. “Oh shit.”
Rain replaced the top but didn’t put the tension band back in place. “We need to call the cops. Nobody touch it.”
“We should open the garbage bag and see what’s inside,” Kurt said, pulling a pocketknife out of his jeans.
Before he reached the drum, Rain grabbed his wrist. “I said, nobody touches it.”
“What’s going on?” Grant asked from the doorway. Merrick held the other end of a rolling dolly with two barrels on it.
Kurt yanked his arm out of Rain’s grip. “There’s something dead in a garbage bag in that barrel, and Livestock here won’t let me take a look.”
Thomas pushed his way around Merrick into the room. “We need to see what it is.”
“We shouldn’t touch anything until the cops are here.” Rain stood defensively between the barrel and the boys.
“Things don’t work like that around here,” Thomas said, moving closer. “The family protects its own.”
“What if it’s one of your own in this barrel?” Rain asked.
“Like I said. We’ll deal with it.” Thomas moved closer and squared off.
Rain couldn’t let him touch it. If it was a human in there, they could blow all the evidence. “What if it’s not one of your own?”
Kurt, knife still in hand, moved shoulder to shoulder with Thomas. “We’ll deal with that, too.”
“Back off, you two,” Freddie said.
“Come on, Freds. It’s probably just garbage someone was too lazy to take out.” Kurt looked to Thomas as if seeking affirmation. The pecking order was clear. If Petra was right, and they passed Freddie over and Kurt was made Alpha, it would be an uphill climb for the guy and the whole pack. He was a born follower.
“Cut it open, Merrick,” Thomas ordered from the doorway.
Thomas, on the other hand, was not a follower, but he was unpredictable, and Rain didn’t trust him.
Merrick’s eyes flew straight to Freddie, who pulled out her phone. “Don’t move, Merrick. Let me think.”
Rain hated to make his next move, because it would hurt Freddie, but after what Petra had told him, he knew this was the perfect time to watch everyone’s reactions to see if any of these guys knew about the cover
-up of Freddie’s dad’s death. “The family protects its own? Kinda like you did when Hans Burkhart was murdered?”
All three boys appeared stunned, but it might have been because Rain knew about it rather than they were unaware it was murder. Grant, however, gave no reaction at all, confirming this wasn’t new news to him.
Thomas’s fists balled. “He got crushed by a harvester.”
“It was an accident,” Kurt said.
Jaw dropped, Merrick simply stared at Freddie.
“No, it wasn’t. There was no harvester.” Freddie’s voice was muffled by her hand. “He was murdered.” Her eyes flitted to the barrel. “And I’m not going to let another one get swept under the rug.”
Merrick abandoned the dolly and moved close to Freddie.
“I don’t know what you’re up to, Ryland, but no way are you going to tell us what to do,” Thomas growled.
“Call the cops, Freddie,” Rain said.
“And don’t tell her what to do, either,” Thomas added.
“I think we should leave the chief out of it for now.” Grant was still in the doorway. “Someone should call Ulrich. The winery is pack property, and he should decide whether to call the chief. Meanwhile, Rain’s right. Nobody touch anything.”
Thirty
Ulrich Burkhart arrived within minutes. To Rain’s surprise, he didn’t make a move to open the barrel. After a few questions regarding the discovery of the drum directed solely at Freddie, he called the chief and told her there was a mysterious bag in a chemical drum they suspected was a dead body, and then he called another person, saying only, “We have a situation in the fermenting room at Haven. Come now.”
After the calls were made, Ulrich Burkhart didn’t ask any more questions. He simply waited, like the rest of them, prowling the length of the room and running his hands through his gray hair. Fortunately, they didn’t have to wait long. Charles Ericksen banged on the door, and Merrick let him in. At the same time, a huge, dark-haired man Rain had never seen before stormed in from the hallway door.
