Instead of trying for a second shot Heuter ran back toward Travis – proving to Anna that he was no Alpha wolf, whatever he thought he should be.
The bars gave a little bit more and she was sliding forward – and Travis hit her again, in exactly the same spot on her nose where he’d hit her the first time.
Charles knew he was winning. He didn’t know why Benedict Heuter wasn’t going invisible; maybe he was too panicked to do it. Charles wouldn’t complain. The horned lord healed faster than a werewolf, but he couldn’t replace blood, not unless he was a lot more powerful than he seemed. Blood loss was slowing the fae down, making him clumsier.
There were things that would have made this better. The floor was too slippery – it was a dance floor and he could smell the wax on it. It bothered the fae more than it did him, though, so it wasn’t really a major problem as long as he didn’t miscalculate. He’d also rather not have two other villains loose and running around with silver-loaded guns while he fought the fae, but they were human and Brother Wolf’s instincts were to discount them as a threat. The other thing he knew was that, winning or not, he had to keep his attention on the fae. Slower, clumsier – but he was fast enough and deadly with those antlers. He’d scored once on Charles’s shoulder when he’d gone for the fae’s throat, and it burned. The tips of those antlers didn’t just look silver; they were silver.
The second rule of any drawn-out fight was to demoralize your opponent. The fae had started out scared of him. The strike to Benedict Heuter’s face wasn’t anything near fatal, but losing an eye was scary – and creatures with antlers and hooves were prone to panic. Fight or flight instinct, the scientists said. Wolves were all fight, and creatures like Benedict were all flight. Panic made people stupid, and since Benedict was already not all that bright from what Charles could tell, panicking him could only make things better.
Of course, the first rule in any kind of fighting was not to get into a long-drawn-out confrontation in the first place. Charles started to sprint forward again when there was a crack of a pistol. The bullet didn’t hit him so he ignored it and continued his line of attack. But the small pained sound that Anna made almost immediately afterward was another thing entirely.
He looked over to see Anna half in and half out of the cage, her nose dripping blood, and Travis Heuter standing beside the cage with an extra-long, extra-thick pool cue that had been chewed up on one end. Anna jerked herself back into the cage, where all they could do was poke at her – and something hit him like a freight train in the ribs.
Ignoring the pain, he caught the horned lord’s leg, just above his hock, and his fangs severed the big tendon and the smaller muscle there. In a human this would be the Achilles tendon, and slicing it rendered the fae’s leg useless.
Benedict tried to put his leg down and fell when it collapsed under him. Charles slid under the antlers and closed his teeth on the horned lord’s neck.
Benedict was beaten. Helpless.
He had raped Lizzie Beauclaire and doubtless dozens of others, probably killed as well. Brother Wolf thought he needed to be killed. Charles hesitated.
A car pulled up in a squeal of brakes and rubber and Charles recognized the sound of the van Isaac was driving. The cavalry was here, the horned lord subdued. Killing him to save Anna was unnecessary.
There was something wrong with Benedict’s ability to reason, possibly wrong enough to make him not responsible for his actions. Had he been born into a different family, maybe he wouldn’t have spent his adulthood killing people. He’d given up the fight, lying still beneath Charles and waiting for the final, killing strike just as deer or elk sometimes did. He was harmless. Imprisoned in bars of steel, he’d hurt no one.
On the island, Charles had decided that he would no longer kill for political expediency, because it had put Anna in danger by interfering with his mate bond. Brother Wolf and he were in agreement: this was not a political kill. This one would have hurt their mate, had killed the wolves under their protection – and had hurt the brave little dancer. Brother Wolf knew what should happen to those who broke the laws: justice.
Charles sank his teeth in deep and then gave a sharp jerk, popping the bones of Benedict’s neck apart. The fae spasmed briefly as life left and death entered, and then Charles’s prey was nothing but meat. It felt right and proper, and something inside him settled with the meting out of justice. This was what he was, the avenger for Benedict Heuter’s victims. This was his answer to the ghosts who had haunted him.
Why had he killed them? Because it was just that they pay for the harm they had done. Warmth flooded his flesh as the cold fingers of the dead left. He was free of them – as they were free of him.
Something warned him, instincts or the sound of a finger pulling a trigger, and he moved instantly. He heard a gun go off and something hit Benedict, almost where Charles had been a moment before. That was a second shot that had missed: someone was a lousy shot.
Charles moved again, leaving the bulk of the horned lord’s body between him and the guns, before turning to see that both Travis and Les had guns out, impossible to see who had shot at him. But Travis’s gun was aimed at Anna.
‘This is the FBI. Drop your weapons,’ Goldstein shouted from the open door next to the hole Charles had put in the wall. He and Leslie both had their guns drawn, too. There was no sign of Isaac or Beauclaire – Charles assumed they were rounding the building to see if they could enter from the back. ‘Drop your weapons or I’ll shoot.’
‘Don’t be hasty, Agent Goldstein,’ said Travis. He had his gun in a steady two-handed grip. ‘This gun is loaded with silver. I shoot her in the head and she dies. I know that no one wants that.’
Charles stood frozen, his breath still. He was too far away. It would take him three leaps to get to Travis – and that was two leaps too many.
Les Heuter had raised his hands over his head – but he hadn’t let go of his gun.
‘Les Heuter, Travis Heuter, drop your weapons,’ said Goldstein. ‘This is over.’
No one moved.
Charles growled.
‘Drop your weapons,’ said Goldstein, and then he gave in to what must have been years of frustration and pushed it too hard. ‘You are done. We know who you are and you are going down. Make this easy on everyone.’
‘You drop your weapon,’ Travis screamed. ‘You fucking drop yours. You are nothing. Nothing but the impotent tool of a liberal government too weak to serve its people and protect them from these freaks.’ It sounded oddly like a memorized speech, like some of the phrases Charles Manson’s little harem had spouted. Maybe Travis Heuter had said it so often he didn’t have to think about it anymore. ‘You drop your weapon, or I’ll shoot her now and move on to you.’
Goldstein and Leslie were focused on Travis. They missed Les, missed the odd expression on his face that changed from desperation to satisfaction. They didn’t see him change his grip on his gun, drop down on one knee, and fire almost in the same single motion. Charles had seen it, but there was nothing he could do without risking Travis shooting Anna, and he wouldn’t do that.
‘Get down. Get down now,’ shouted Goldstein, but Les Heuter was already on the ground. ‘Flat on your face and lock your hands behind your head.’
Les had already done it before Goldstein had gotten out a word. The human’s reactions were too slow. Now Les was harmless and killing him would be more difficult. Had Charles had a gun at that moment, he would have killed Les anyway, because although Heuter had shot his uncle, it hadn’t stopped Travis Heuter from pulling the trigger. Travis Heuter, with a bullet hole right in the center of his forehead, had still managed to squeeze off a shot before he died.
Anna had collapsed in a heap on the bottom of the cage.
He’d hit her in the thigh and her blood pooled around her like a red blanket. Her nose was bent and swollen; Travis had broken something when he’d hit her with the stick.
‘It wasn’t my fault,’ said Heuter. ‘It was my uncle. He
made us do it. He was crazy.’
Anna whined, and Charles quit hearing Les Heuter try to blame the dead for his crimes.
Charles wrenched the doors of the cage apart with his bare hands, not even realizing that he’d become human again until it registered that he had opposable thumbs to grip the skin-burning silver. He’d never been able to change that quickly before.
And he stank of fae magic. He jerked his eyes to Beauclaire, and the old fae, standing in the doorway next to Isaac, gave him a nod. Later, Charles would wonder at that; he didn’t know that there was a way for a fae to affect the change of a werewolf.
But Anna was hurt and there was no time to worry about what Beauclaire was right now. No time for the blind panic he felt or the way he wanted to tear into Travis Heuter’s dead body. He had to make sure that Anna would survive.
‘… stop the bleeding until we can get an ambulance out.’
Charles growled because Goldstein had come too close to his injured mate. But Isaac stepped in before Charles was driven to act.
‘Leave him alone; you don’t want to be anywhere near them right now.’ Smart wolf, that Isaac. Too young or not, Bran had been right to leave him in power. Charles would have killed anyone who got too close.
Threat to his helpless mate averted, Charles mostly ignored the words going on behind his back as he checked Anna over with gentle thoroughness.
‘Why is he wearing deerskin and beads?’ ‘Shut up and stay there until we get some cops in to read you your rights.’ ‘I mean, he’s Native American but how are we going to explain—’
When Charles changed without thinking, when he changed from wolf to human too fast, sometimes his clothes forgot what century he was supposed to be in. The soft deerskin felt comforting and familiar as he touched Anna’s poor nose. She licked his fingers nervously because he was hurting her.
First, the bleeding.
He reached down and ripped Travis’s sleeve off his arm, ignoring the squawk from the feds as he did so. But Anna growled when the makeshift bandage came close to her, so he dropped it. It made sense that she wouldn’t want his scent on her, but Charles’s buckskins wouldn’t work, leather not being absorbent at all.
‘I need—’ He didn’t get the words all the way out before Isaac said, ‘Catch,’ and tossed him one of the huge first aid kits all of the packs kept in their cars on Bran’s orders. Just because you could heal fast didn’t mean you could heal fast enough, the Marrok liked to say.
Charles banished his da’s words, wishing the ghosts of them didn’t linger in his ears. There was no reason to panic. She was bleeding freely, but the bullet had gone right through and was embedded in the floor, and there was no sign of arterial bleeding. But Brother Wolf wouldn’t be happy until she was well.
Once he had the bullet wound under control, he took a second good look at Anna’s head.
He bent down to touch his lips to her ears and asked her, ‘I can do it now, or you can wait until later. Their drugs don’t help much and they’ll have to rebreak …’
Now. Her voice was clear as a bell in his head – and he realized that their bond was open and strong.
For a moment he was breathless. When had that happened? When he’d accepted his role as justice once more? Accepted that there were other answers than death – but that death was the proper and fitting one? Or had it been when he’d seen blood and known that Travis had managed to hurt her even with her mate so close, when guilt and right and wrong had become only words next to the reality of his mate’s wound?
But Anna was hurt and there would be time to figure out what had happened later.
He used their bond to soak up her pain and take as much of it into himself as he could. Then he set the bone of her nose back where it needed to go before the werewolf’s ability to mend quickly made it heal crooked. She didn’t flinch, though he knew he couldn’t take all the pain from her.
Stop that, Anna scolded him. You don’t need to hurt because I do.
But I do, Charles replied, more honestly than he intended. I failed to keep you safe.
She huffed a laugh. You taught me to keep myself safe – a much better gift for your mate, I think. If you had not found me, I would have killed them all. But you came – and that is another, second gift. That you would come, even though I could have protected myself.
She was confident and it pleased him. So he didn’t think about the three experienced, tough wolves these men had killed at their leisure. Let her feel safe. So he didn’t argue with her about it, just ran gentle fingers through the ruff of her fur.
The ghosts are gone, she pronounced with regal certainty, and was asleep before he could answer her.
But he did anyway. ‘Yes.’
13
When Charles was a boy, every fall his grandfather had taken his people and met up with other bands of Indians, most of them fellow Flatheads, Tunaha, or other Salish bands, but sometimes a few Shoshone with whom they were friendly would travel with them. They would ride their horses east to hunt buffalo and prepare for the coming winter.
He was no longer a boy, and traveling east was not a treat anymore, not when it meant that he and his mate were back in a big city instead of settled into his home in the mountains of Montana. Three months had passed since he’d killed Benedict Heuter, and they had come back for his cousin’s sensational trial. Boston was beautiful this time of year – the trees showing off their fall colors. But the air still smelled of car exhaust and too many people.
He had testified; Anna had testified; the FBI had testified. Lizzie Beauclaire on crutches with her knee in a brace, and the scars that the Heuters had left her with, had testified. She might, with enough surgeries, be able to walk without crutches again, but dancing was out of the question. Her scars could be reduced, but for the rest of her life she would bear the Heuters’ marks as reminders every time she looked in a mirror.
When the prosecution was done presenting its case, the defense began.
They’d spent the last week guiding the jury through the hell that had been Les Heuter’s childhood. It had almost been enough to engage Charles’s sympathy. Almost.
But then, Charles had been there, had seen the calculation on Les Heuter’s face when he shot his uncle. He’d been planning this defense, planning on blaming his ills on the dead. His uncle had been wrong; Les Heuter was smart.
Heuter sat in front of the court, neatly groomed in slacks, shirt, and tie. Nothing too expensive. Nothing too brightly colored. They’d done something with his hair and the clothing that made him look younger than he was. He explained to the jury, the reporters, and the audience in the courtroom what it was like living with a crazy man who’d made him come help him clean up the country – apparently Travis Heuter’s name for the torture and rape of his victims – when he was ten years old.
‘My cousin Benedict was a little older than me,’ he told them. ‘He was a good kid, tried to keep the old man off my back. Took a few beatings for me.’ He blinked back tears and, when that didn’t work, wiped his eyes.
Maybe the tears were genuine, but Charles thought that they were just too perfect, a strong man’s single tear to create sympathy rather than real tears, which could have been seen as weakness of character. Les Heuter had hidden what he was for more than two decades; playing a role for the jury didn’t seem to be much of a stretch.
‘When Benedict was eleven, he had a violent episode. For about two months he was crazy. Tried to stab my uncle, beat me up, and …’ A careful look down, a faint blush. ‘It was like a deer or elk going into rut. My uncle tried beating it out of him, tried drugs, but nothing worked. So the old man called in a famous witch. She showed us what he was, what he must have instinctively hidden. He looked like a normal boy – I guess the fae can do that, can look like everyone else – but he was a monster. He had these horns, like a deer, and cloven hooves. And he was a lot bigger than any boy his age should be, six feet then, near enough.
‘My aunt had been raped by a stranger
when she was sixteen. That was the first time we realized that she’d been raped by a monster.’
His lawyer let the noise rise in the courtroom and start to fall down before he asked another question. ‘What did your uncle do?’
‘He paid the witch a boatload of money and she provided him with the means to keep Benedict’s ruts under control. She gave him a charm to wear. She told him if he carved these symbols on an animal or two a month or so before the rut came to Benedict, it would stop them. She’d intended for us to sacrifice animals, but’ – here a grimace of distaste – ‘the old man discovered that people worked better. But now the witch knew about us, and we had to get rid of her. My uncle killed her and left her on the front lawn of one of her relatives.’
It was a masterful performance, and Heuter managed to keep the same persona under a fierce cross-examination, managed to keep the monster that had helped to rape, torture, and kill people for nearly two decades completely out of sight.
His father was nearly as brilliant. When his wife had died, he’d abandoned his son to be raised by his older brother because he was too busy with public office, too consumed by grief. He’d thought that the boy would be better off in the hands of family than being raised by someone who was paid to do it. He had, he informed the jury, decided to resign from his position in the US Senate.
‘It is too little, too late,’ he told them with remorse that was effective because it was obviously genuine. ‘But I cannot continue in the job that cost my son so dearly.’
And throughout the defense’s case, the Heuters’ slick team of lawyers subtly reminded the jury and the people in the courtroom that they had been killing fae and werewolves. That Les Heuter thought that he was protecting people.
When Heuter told how his uncle portrayed the werewolves as terrifying beasts, his lawyer presented photographs of the pedophile slain by the Minnesota werewolves. He was careful to mention that the man had been a pedophile, careful to say that the Minnesota authorities were satisfied that those involved had been dealt with appropriately, very careful to say that these were examples of the kinds of things that Travis Heuter had shown his nephew.
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