“Besides,” I added. “We were together last night.”
“So you’re each other’s alibis. I guess we overreacted and everyone can go on their merry way,” Nicholas said with a sarcastic smile. If I knew I could get away with it, I would have reached across the table and smacked him.
“You know what I find funny?” I replied, gaining courage the madder I got. “That Adam and I are treated like criminals when you, a leader, are free to molest women and no one says anything to you. If anyone deserves to be punished, it’s you, Nicholas.”
The room got scary quiet, the leaders all traded looks. The air around the table was suffocating. Nicholas was emanating an overwhelming, angry power. He. Was. Pissed. He might have had some lusty juju, but that wasn’t an excuse to use it on whomever he wanted. Sure the women thought they wanted him, but once his seductive influence was withdrawn, the women were left feeling dirty and used. I couldn’t be the only one who had a problem with a man like that as one of our leaders.
Nicholas shot up and stalked around the table, his angry gaze trained on me. I knew what was coming and couldn’t do anything about it. If I struck him back, the leaders would bring the hammer down on my ass.
Adam stepped around my chair, blocking Nicholas’ path. “You can’t get mad at her for telling the truth. If she has said something that’s not true, by all means, prove her wrong.”
“How dare you stand against me, alpha,” Nicholas said, his voice dripping with venom. “Move!”
Adam held his ground, squaring his shoulders and curling his hands into tight fist. As much as I would’ve loved to see Adam take Nicholas down a notch, it wouldn’t have ended well. Adam would be punished for assaulting a leader. Luckily, the remaining leaders took care of the situation before anything uglier happened.
“Nicholas, take a walk,” Jeff advised, rising from his chair with Wade and Michael following suit. Nicolas looked over at his brethren, and then turned his icy glare to me.
“The day will come when they won’t be here to protect you. I look forward to that day,” he threatened, stalking out of the room.
“Seriously, what’s up with him being a leader?” I asked, turning towards the men around the table.
“It was his birthright,” Wade answered. “His father was leader before him, his grandfather before that.”
“And did they also have the influence to take away a woman’s willpower?”
“From what I understand, his grandfather was a ladies man, but I don’t think he had any special power. His father had a little bit, but it seems to have gotten stronger with Nicolas. I’d hate to see what his son will be like.” Wade stared in the direction Nicholas had stormed out, a look of disgust on his face.
At least I wasn’t the only one who thought Nicholas was a sleezeball. “Do a lot of werewolves have special powers?” I sat back down, anxious to learn more about my kind. Adam took the chair Nicolas had been sitting in, and the energy in the room settled to a comfortable level, well as comfortable as it could being in the presence of three leaders and an alpha.
“It’s rare, but it’s not so uncommon that it’s a big deal, ya know?”
I nodded and was about to ask another question when Michael spoke up.
“You’re very good at distraction, Ms. Avery. We’re here to talk about you, not the history of our kind or how loathsome Nicholas may be.”
The relaxed look on Wade’s face disappeared and was replaced with seriousness. I glanced at Adam. He’d calmed down now that Nicholas was gone, but I could still tell he was revved up.
“You want to know if I killed, Eve,” I said, tired of the questioning. “I did not. If I wanted to kill her simply to be with Adam, I would’ve done it months ago. Matter of fact, I turned Adam down countless times because I didn’t think we should be together while he was mated to her,” I explained.
“Yet you didn’t hold those same worries last night,” Jeff noted.
“Do you deny your stomach when you’re hungry?” I asked, and I heard a soft laugh escape from Wade. “I was supposed to be sentenced to death tonight. I didn’t hold any worries last night. If I was going to die, then I was going to end my life on a happy note.”
“So you could’ve killed Eve, since as you said, you had no worries. What would be the point of worrying about being caught for murder when you would be dead within the day?” Michael questioned.
“For crying out loud! I’m talking about sleeping with a man that I’ve refused myself, not murdering his mate! I don’t care enough about Eve to go through the trouble of killing her out of spite. I know you want to pile all the guilt onto my shoulders, that’d be the easiest path, but by killing me for the crime, you’d become the very thing you’re accusing me of—a murderer. I am innocent in this matter.”
When I was a kid I hated the merry-go-round. I didn’t see the point of climbing onto a metal circle and being spun until I was so dizzy I couldn’t see straight. Tonight I was of a figurative merry-go-round. The questions went around and around, but never went anywhere. Asking the same questions a different way kept the problem at a standstill and me dizzy with fury.
“If you don’t believe, Anna, then believe me,” Adam said, reaching a hand under the table, his fingers gently squeezing my knee. “All of you have known me for a long time. I was with Anna last night and at no point did she leave my side, nor I hers. We spent the entire time in the cabin until Joe came this morning.”
The leaders looked at each other as if they were having a mental conversation that our ears couldn’t hear. Hell, maybe they were. Their eyebrows would arch, dip, and scrunch as if debating their argument to each other. This went on for at least five minutes. I reached my hand under the table and gripped Adam’s. Life was so much easier before becoming a werewolf. I’d never seen the inside of a police station, and now I felt like I was on trial every day of my life. I’d gladly go back to doing my chores and not complaining if it meant the leaders would leave and never come back. I had a soft spot for Wade. He was like a moody older brother. Still, he was a leader first and foremost and wasn’t the type to let a friendship get in the way of his duties. As I watched him, I wished Elle batted for his team—they’d make a great couple.
“A decision has been made,” Michael announced. “We believe you when you say that you did not have a hand in Eve’s disappearance.”
“But?” I questioned.
“We cannot overlook the link between you and the murdered humans. This connection to Adam impedes with your sentencing. I do not know if it’s true, but if we were to kill you, Adam would die also—or at least suffer severely from the loss. We do not wish to punish him for your wrongdoings.”
It sounded good, anything was better than death.
“You will be shipped to Idaho and be housed in the Anderson pack. There you will work as a servant until the end of your days,” Michael said, causing me to gasp.
“I request to go with her,” Adam insisted, his fingers gripping my hand so tightly I winced.
“You would abandon your pack for your own selfish reasons?” Jeff asked with aversion.
“No,” I interrupted. Looking at Adam, I said, “You can’t give up your post as their alpha because of me. I won’t allow you to leave them for me.”
“What kind of life will I have if you’re not by my side? Do you think I’ll be a good alpha when I’m distracted by thoughts of you? I will not lose you.”
“You were going to lose me anyway,” I reminded him. Had it not been for our pairing last night, I would have died tonight. “At least this way I’ll still be alive, and I’m sure I can have visitors,” I looked at the leaders. “Even people in prison are permitted visitors.”
The leaders talked amongst themselves, and Adam stared at the tabletop, his jaw set in stone and his eyes just as hard. I was getting very good at putting on a brave face. The truth was I was terrified. I didn’t want to leave Adam or my pack. Would the new alpha be as respectable as Adam, or would he try to visit my be
d every night? Would I be treated like a criminal for the rest of my life? All of these thoughts sent a shot of fear through me, but I had to remain strong on the outside for Adam’s sake. I was going to make sure that his number one priority was taking care of our pack.
“We will grant you seven, one day breaks where visitors will be allowed to visit you. But you are not to leave the grounds, and you’ll have a spectator with you at all times,” Michael said. “We don’t take joy in tearing you away from your family, Anna, but horrific crimes have been committed, and we have to take action.”
I nodded, unable to refute his words.
“If Anna is murdering people, and I still don’t think she is for the record, then what’s to stop her from doing the same in Idaho?” Adam questioned with anger.
“From what we understand, the attacks happened at night,” Jeff said, crossing his arms. “Anna will be caged during the dark hours with surveillance. This will help us see if she is, in fact, changing without remembering.”
“That’s bullshit!” Adam shot up and paced the floor like he was a caged animal. “She does not deserve to be treated like some dog!”
“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Jeff said. “The cage is very large and a full sized bed is inside, along with a mini fridge. We’re not sadistic, Adam.”
Just as I was about to say something to try and calm Adam down, the phone rang. Adam answered it a little ruder than necessary and then his face fell. “Be right there,” he told the caller, hanging the phone up. When he looked at us his eyes were wide and his mouth slightly open.
“What is it?” Wade asked.
“Eve’s shirt was found two miles from here. It was soaked in blood,” Adam replied.
We combed the forest for any more clues. Eve’s bloody shirt had been found hanging from a broken branch, but no other traces of her existed. The sky let lose a downpour of rain, colder this high up in the mountains. The pack spread out and continued to search for hours. Emotions grew heavy the longer we looked and didn’t find anything. Adam had been quiet. I gave him space, knowing this couldn’t be easy on him. They’d been together awhile so I didn’t take offence that he held feelings towards her. What kind of person would that make me if I were to get jealous of a potentially dead woman?
“I think I found something,” Sawyer called from twenty feet away. Digging my heels into the soggy earth, I ran forward. The sensation of running, the scenery bobbing up and down with my heavy footfalls, brought this morning’s weird episode back. I stopped, ignoring Sawyer and those who rushed to his side. Tilting my head up, I stared at the canopy of the trees. The sky was a gloomy gray, lending a dark eerie feeling to the forest. Swiveling my head from left to right, it was like I was seeing the vision again. This was the place I’d seen in the shower, but how?
The chattering of the pack drew me out of my thoughts. Jogging the rest of the way, I weaved in between the bodies to see what they were looking at. Sawyer knelt down on the ground, his hands carefully brushing leaves away from some markings in the dirt.
“What is it?” Elle questioned, bending over to get a closer look.
“Looks like scratches, like someone was digging their nails into the dirt.” Sawyer placed his hand over the markings, not to touching them. I knelt beside him and placed my hand over the indents. My head filled with pressure and my eyelids grew heavy, my arm falling towards the earth. As my fingertips made contact with the scratch marks, it happened again. Nausea churned in my stomach. A cold sweat broke along my brow and I became lightheaded. Then the vision came.
A hand clung to the earth. The fingernails digging into the soil for purchase. The person’s arm jerked back as if something tugged its body away from the spot. The movement was a simple one, but I’d never been more frightened in my life. The hand lost its grip with the earth and slid along the leaf littered ground as something pulled it away. Now that the nails weren’t obscured within the dirt, I got a good look at them—long, red, and tipped in white—exactly how Eve did her nails.
“Anna…Anna,” someone called frantically, shaking my shoulder. My eyes opened—a lazy action that felt like slow motion. I focused on Elle’s face in front of me, her red hair wet, and clinging to her head. Her green eyes were wide and water droplets trickled down her cheeks.
“I’m okay,” I murmured, still a bit dazed. “It was Eve.”
“What was Eve?” Sawyer and Elle asked at the same time. I hadn’t meant to say it aloud. These visions, or whatever they were, would only make the leaders think I was guiltier. They’d say they were glimpses into my memories, ones I thought I didn’t have. Sawyer and Elle waited as I bit my lip and wondered what to tell them. They both watched me with suspicion, a look I couldn’t take from my friends.
“I saw it,” I whispered. “I saw her hand being dragged away.”
Elle and Sawyer looked at each other. “What do you mean, you saw it?” Elle knelt down and slung her arm around my soaked shoulders. The rain continued to assault my body until I felt the icy coldness soaking into my bones.
“It was like a movie playing. I saw the arm that was here, nails digging into the earth as something pulled it away.” I looked down at the indent in the dirt. The rain was quickly washing it away, but I could still see the harsh lines from where Eve’s nails raked as she tried to hold on.
“Even if that’s true,” Sawyer said. “How do you know it was Eve’s hand?”
“Because she’s the only one I know who wears fire engine red nail polish and keeps her nails longer.” The majority of the women, what little we had, all had jobs to do. That meant long, pretty nails didn’t last long. Eve, as the alpha female, didn’t have that problem. Aside from guarding her territory next to Adam’s side, she didn’t contribute much.
“What’s goin’ on? You guys find something?” We all turned to see Adam peering over our shoulders, staring at the muddy ground. Elle and Sawyer didn’t say anything. That meant a lot because they swore their loyalty to Adam—not me. I couldn’t help but feel proud to have them on my side.
“We thought so, but it was just mountain lion tacks,” I lied. The words tasted bad in my mouth. Adam and I were just starting our complicated relationship, and I was already lying. I’d been horrible at relationships my whole life; I couldn’t expect to become an expert overnight, right? I’d eventually tell Adam everything. I needed to understand what it all meant first. The logical side of my brain told me that if I told Adam, perhaps he could lend some insight. Then again, when did I ever listen to logic? I was too stubborn to give into it.
“The weather is getting bad,” Adam said, looking over his shoulder. The pack was heading out of the woods. “We’ll pick up the search as soon as the rain lets up. For now let’s get home and get something to eat.”
I stood and Adam slung his arm around my shoulder, pulling me against the warmth of his body. I gave Elle and Sawyer a ‘thank-you’ look and followed Adam back to the truck.
*
“What was that back there?” Elle and Sawyer cornered me in the laundry room as soon as they saw their chance. Sawyer stood guard by the door so I couldn’t make a run for it, while Elle stood like a brick wall in front of me—her green eyes squinting and impatient.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “This morning is the first time it has happened.” I reached for a dry towel from the metal shelves where we stored them and rubbed it through my hair. “I’ve had dreams…” I ignored their confused faces and yanked my soaked shirt off. Luckily, I’d done a load of laundry the other day and it still waited for me in the dryer. I shifted the wrinkled clothes around until I found a white babydoll tee that had a sunset and palm tree design on the front. The shirt was old and the picture was fading, but it held a special place in my heart. My mother got it for me a few years ago when her and my father visited the Bahamas. Wearing it made me feel closer to her, and at the moment there was nothing I wanted more than for her to tell me everything was going to be alright. As I thought about it, I heard her voice s
ay those exact words. I’d stored it in my memory and pulled it out when I felt like crumbling. When I was younger, I always believed those comforting words, now…now I wasn’t so sure.
“You’ve been lying to me?” Elle accused. Her eyes drooped and her lips turned downward as she looked away from me.
“Not lying—just not telling you everything. I was scared and for good reason. The leaders are convicting me of the murders. I was supposed to be dead already.”
I expected to be bombarded with questions. Instead, Elle’s arms reached out, clasping behind my back as she hugged me tight. I looked over her shoulder and saw Sawyer was staring at me, his eyebrows drawn and his lips in a thin line. I gave him a small smile. I bet he was happy he wasn’t involved with a mess like me anymore.
“We’ll run away,” Elle said, stepping back to look at me. Her hands gripped my arms almost painfully.
“Are they still planning on doing it tonight?” Sawyer asked so quietly I almost didn’t catch it.
Peering around Elle’s body, I said, “Not anymore. Because Adam and I are bonded, it would kill him if I were to die.” Looking back at Elle I said, “I can’t run away. That would also kill Adam, and I don’t want to spend my life on the run.”
“But…what are they planning to do with you?” Elle asked, her voice trembling.
I hesitated, hating that I had to break the news that this could be the last time they saw me. “I’m being shipped to the Idaho pack.” The stipulations of that sentence hadn’t sunk in yet. There’d been too much going on to really think about what it meant.
“So you did kill those people?” Elle questioned with disbelief.
“They did a DNA test and it came back positive. I don’t remember doing it, but I can’t argue with lab results.” Up until now I hadn’t talked about the murders with anyone except Adam and the leaders. I was sure that gossip was flowing through the pack. I mean there was only one reason why the leaders always wanted to have secret meetings with me. The obviousness of my situation spoke volumes.
01 Taming the Wolf - Anna Avery Page 17
