by Michele Hauf
Russell’s murder changed everything. This was not a simple retrieval mission any longer. This was personal, and criminal.
She no longer had the choice of not calling the pack. She had to let Karl know what had happened. Saving face, hiding her failure, was nothing when compared with the loss of Russell.
The tiny screen of her phone glowed as she punched in the numbers, but the sign of life was deceptive. Instead of a ring, a high pitched squeal sounded.
No reception. The region was hilly and sparsely populated. She’d had a signal in town, but even there it had been choppy.
She snapped the phone shut and shoved it back into her pocket.
She was on her own, at least for now.
Her gaze returned to the stake.
She hadn’t come prepared to take away a murder weapon, or a body, but she couldn’t leave Russell behind. Couldn’t risk his being found by humans before the pack arrived. She would have to drag him somewhere, hide him until she could get back into town and cell coverage, and call Karl.
As she was glancing around, looking for a likely hiding place, the woods went silent. She froze, stood so quietly she could hear her own heartbeat, solid, steady, reassuring. Nothing else moved, not even a frog or bird. The woods were noisy places, birds and insects searching for mates and defending territory.
There was only one thing that could make the creatures still to the point they had. A predator was in the woods, and not one the tiny creatures that called the forest home recognized. They might see her presence as unwelcome and watch her with guarded interest, but wolves were natural encroachers.
Whoever, whatever, was approaching now wasn’t. Her mind went one place—the vampire come back to cover his tracks, to take Russell or at least the weapon that had killed him. But it couldn’t be...not in the day.
Perhaps he had an accomplice. Some human he had brainwashed into doing his bidding.
The quiet intensified. She could feel it.
With no time to do anything else, she pulled off her shirt and wrapped it around her hand. She’d worn the voluminous shirt to protect her skin from sun allergies, but here in the woods, that wouldn’t be an issue—besides, she had no other choice.
Wearing just her jog bra, she jerked the stake from her pack mate’s chest. It was heavy and obviously made of metal. With Russell’s blood covering what wasn’t covered by leather, she couldn’t at the moment know what type, but she assumed iron. It was a common choice for stakes.
She moved through the woods with care, hid the weapon beneath a rotting log and then returned to spy on whoever, whatever, had followed her.
She crouched behind a bush, then waited and watched.
The vampire, dressed in long pants and a long-sleeved shirt and wearing a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses, shoved aside a patch of brambles and stepped into view.
Despite the one-hundred-plus temperature, a chill moved over CeCe’s body. A vampire in the day.
It broke every truth her father had taught her about the creatures. Rattled her faith that anything she knew and believed was true.
Shocked, she didn’t move; the vampire, however, seemed focused. He walked in a direct path toward Russell.
Her suspicions fell into place, like coins dropping into a jar.
He had killed Porter and Russell. The only question left was, had he come here to cover his crime, or had he followed CeCe with plans to kill her too?
Chapter 5
Marc hadn’t traveled far into the woods, but the terrain was rough and thick with brambles. The area was also three miles from the mouth of the cavern and river that drew tourists to the region.
In other words, the path the female werewolf had chosen, while not exactly hidden, was not a major thoroughfare either, and he sincerely doubted she’d chosen it randomly. She’d come here for a reason, perhaps to hide the body decaying only a few feet away.
Marc filed the thoughts away and scanned the trees surrounding him. There was no immediate visual sign of the female wolf, which of course only meant she had sensed his approach and hidden. Slowly, he inhaled.
Skipping his daily feeding served him well this time; it sharpened his senses. Life pulsed near him. Before he had drawn a second breath, he knew exactly which tree the female crouched behind.
Deciding to let her believe for the moment that he was ignorant of her presence, he turned his attention to the dead werewolf.
The male lay faceup and alone in a flattened area of brambles. Marc recognized him instantly—the wolf who had been with the female, who had raced up the stairs ahead of the dog.
Keeping a portion of his attention on the tree where he knew the female hid, he moved toward the body. There was no sound from her quarter, no hint of life.
But she was there. Of that, Marc had zero doubt.
Still, as long as she stayed hidden and made no move to attack, he might as well take advantage of the time and study the dead wolf.
He hadn’t had time or reason to analyze the male werewolf too much earlier, but he was young. Not puppy young, but even considering the extended lives of weres and their deceptively slow aging, this wolf was too young to have had any real life experience.
In other words, an easy target. For the female? Had the other wolf challenged her claim to the treasure? It went against everything he’d heard of werewolves and their blind pack loyalty, but the evidence that someone had wanted the wolf dead was irrefutable.
Marc moved to the side, so he was facing the hidden female, and crouched next to the body. The pose had dual purpose. It both assisted in his examination of the body and gave the female the false impression he was off guard, inviting her to make some move.
Alert for any movement, he lowered his gaze to the werewolf’s body. Lost in his investigation, for that moment he all but forgot the female and his plan to lure her out of hiding.
A gaping rectangular hole marred the wolf’s chest. His shirt, stiff with blood, stood away from the wound like a ragged crown.
The young wolf had been staked in the heart...like a vampire. Cold shock rolled over Marc. He did nothing for a moment, giving his brain time to process what this meant, but the time offered no answers.
Stakes were for vampires, to pin them to their beds while they slept, keep them from rising again. They weren’t for werewolves.
Werewolves were shot or torn apart or like all hunted supernatural beings...burned.
No, that wasn’t true. He had heard stories from the war that wolves had been staked, but he had never witnessed the act and had never really believed them. Why use a weapon that requires such up-close interaction when a gun will do?
He brushed his finger over the wound. Whatever had happened or not happened before, this wolf had definitely been staked. The opening, while not large, hadn’t closed in on itself. Which meant the weapon hadn’t been removed when the werewolf was alive; it had been removed after his death, quite a while after his death.
From behind her bush, the female moved.
Instantly alert, Marc sprang forward. Attack or be attacked. The motto had kept him alive for two hundred years.
He landed in the brush, two feet from the female, close enough he could see the glimmer of gold in her amber eyes and smell the wildness of the wolf inside her.
Her hands tensing into claws, she stepped back. She’d removed her shirt for some reason. Her skin glistened with sweat.
He stored the thought away and assessed the threat. In her human form he could take her; as a wolf he wasn’t as sure.
Knowing he had only a few moments before she realized this too and shifted, he glided forward.
She leaped to the side. He paused. The grace and ease of her movement wasn’t lost on him, but it also served as a reminder of the animal inside her.
Now six feet away, she s
tared at him, within easy reach if she had been human and not capable of leaping impossible lengths.
Her eyes slanted in her face, the first sign that she was close to changing. It was the first time he’d seen her in the day. Her skin was pale like a vampire’s; it made her hair seem darker, glossier.
“So, you killed Porter and Russell too. Which first?” She threw the words out like tiny exploding bombs.
Sensing that aggression would only push her closer to the animal she was so close to becoming, Marc stilled. Like her, his true nature clamored to get out. His fangs descended and his senses sharpened.
He could see her pulse throbbing at her throat, hear her heart pounding and smell the sweet heavy aroma of her blood as it coursed through her veins. He pressed his tongue against the sharp tip of one canine and concentrated on the small but shooting pain.
“Stop with your frivolous accusations. You know I didn’t kill him. You saw me arrive.” He flexed his hands and lowered his shoulders.
The female took a step forward, her dark hair bristling like a wolf’s ruff raising. “You obviously killed him earlier and came back. Why? To hide your sin or to stop me from telling my alpha, stop him from declaring the laws of peace broken?”
The idea that she would falsely accuse him, reignite the aggression that simmered under the surface of all vampire-werewolf interactions, and possibly restart the war, angered him. No treasure was worth bringing back the decades of death and destruction.
He moved forward to meet her and this time he showed his fangs. “One dead wolf, killed by a stake through the heart. The weapon of choice for vampire hunters.”
“And a human. Or is Porter too far below a vampire’s notice to count? Have you already forgotten him?”
“Why would I have killed Porter? What would be my reward? And I spoke to someone. The death was natural causes, most likely a heart attack.”
She laughed. “I saw how you confused him, confused everyone in that bar. They didn’t even remember you were there. How much harder would it be to convince them a body drained of blood was a simple victim of a heart attack?”
He made no attempt to hide his humor. “If only it was that easy.” When she didn’t seem to share his levity, he continued, “The people didn’t remember me because I kept them from seeing me while I was there—they had no chance to acquire a memory of me. But to hide fang marks, or blood loss...I would have had to be present when the body was found, and even then, later, when someone new viewed the body at the morgue or hospital, they’d see the truth.”
Her body stiff, she grunted. She didn’t want to hear that he was innocent and her bias would keep her from seeing the truth, whatever it was.
“Let’s say I did perform this miracle. What would my motive have been?”
She jumped on the answer. “Treasure. You took him into that bathroom, spelled him into telling you where it was and then you killed him to keep him from telling anyone else.”
“Then why am I still here?” Her logic was idiotic. This conversation was idiotic and frustrating.
She hesitated.
“If I had the treasure, why would I stay here? Why would I bother following you into these woods?”
“To keep me from telling the pack what you have done.”
He leaned back onto his heels. “The pack. You think vampires fear the pack? You think vampires would trust the pack, believe them over one of their own?” He didn’t add one of the Fringe, the vampire regulatory body he’d joined one hundred years earlier. The Fringe was a secret shared only among the vampires, created to keep the group in line. Keep them from killing one another off or letting one rogue vamp endanger them all by doing exactly what she accused him of doing—killing humans.
If he had killed Porter, he wouldn’t be worried about the werewolves. He would be worried about the Fringe.
“I didn’t kill Porter and I didn’t kill your friend. Look at how he died—a stake through the heart. We both know that isn’t how a vampire would kill a werewolf.” He held her gaze, kept his own doubts brought on by the remembered tales from the war off his face.
Something flickered in her eyes.
Doubt.
The emotion was real. He realized then that she had truly suspected him, which meant she was innocent. Porter could easily be just what the humans had said, a heart attack, but this... He let his gaze flicker to the dead wolf....
If the female hadn’t killed this wolf, who had? Perhaps another wolf? Perhaps hiding in the woods now...watching them?
He tensed. His eyes on the female, he listened for any other sign of life in the trees. He would have sworn they were alone, but he’d been through too many battles to trust even his own instincts.
The forest was silent. He inhaled, searching again for other life, but all he could smell was the heady sweetness of her blood. It overwhelmed every other sense he had, even that of the dead wolf.
Her expression shifted again. Logic warred with a belief...bias against vampires...that she couldn’t shake.
“I don’t believe that. Russell didn’t kill himself.”
Then a vampire must have done it. Her prejudice was so complete, it was beginning to bore Marc.
“Doesn’t the pack have cable? Watch crime shows? The most likely killer is always the person closest to the victim. Who would that be?”
Her jaw tightened. “The pack is a family.”
He laughed again. “And families never kill each other.”
She stared back at him, ire clear in her gaze. But then he was questioning everything she held dear. He pitied her, almost. If her beliefs were that blind, she deserved to have the chains of lies that kept them in place snapped in two.
“Who was closest to your pack mate? Who had reason to kill him?”
She squared her shoulders and turned to look at the woods. “No one.”
Marc wanted to laugh again, but he suppressed it. “Think again, because someone did.”
“During the war—”
He cut her off. “The war is over. The vampires ended it.” The Fringe had ended it. They had gathered up the weapons used and threatened any vampire who didn’t let things lie.
She shook her head. “Vampires started the war and werewolves ended it.” She glanced toward her fallen pack mate. “Perhaps someone...some vampire...is trying to do the same thing again. Perhaps that’s who has reason to kill Russell.”
He laughed. “Is that the fairy tale they tell pups before they snuffle into their blankies for the night?” He tilted his head to meet her gaze. “How old were you when the war ended? What could you possibly know of it?” Werewolves were long-lived, but if this female had seen over seventy new years, he’d be surprised. The war had ended only a decade after that.
“I...” She closed her mouth, her lips pressing into a thin line. Then just as quickly she opened them again. “I know not to trust a vampire’s lies.”
“Because wolves don’t twist the truth, won’t say or do whatever it takes to protect the pack?”
“That at least you are right about, vampire. We protect the pack.” Her hands formed fists at her sides. She lifted her upper lip, flashing a snarl. “Tell me what you know. If you didn’t kill Russell and Porter, who else is here with you? Who are you protecting?”
His lips twisted into a sardonic smile. “Protect? Who would a vampire protect? We have no pack, no loyalty, no love...isn’t that what you believe?”
“I—” Her words broke off. She turned on the ball of her foot. “Damn. Humans.” She shoved past him, grabbed the dead werewolf by the wrists and began tugging him across the uneven rocky ground.
Annoyed the female had heard or sensed the entrance of humans into the trees before he had, Marc pressed his tongue against his fang and watched her.
Jerking the body through the trees, she
seemed to have forgotten Marc. Brush snapped and the spice of some wild herb she had trampled filled the air. Being dismissed so thoroughly annoyed him anew.
Moments earlier she had accused him of not one, but two murders. Now she acted as if he were no bigger threat than one of the trees that stood between her and whatever destination she was headed toward.
He crossed his arms over his chest and arched one brow. As she tugged and then pulled the body backward, she left a flattened line of grass and scratched earth in her path. Even a human wouldn’t miss the trail she was creating, not without some aid.
She could...should have...shifted, left him standing here with the body.
Of course, that would have meant leaving her pack mate for the humans to find, and as he had just pointed out, werewolves would do anything to protect the pack, even dead pack.
“How far?” he asked.
She paused. Hair clung to her face; the heat and humidity of the woods wore on her, unlike him, causing her clothing to cling to her athletic but feminine form and sweat to bead on her brow. “You mean a vampire can’t—”
The sound of branches snapping cut off her response. The human was close, too close.
Marc waited, interested in what she would do.
She would have to shift now, or she’d be caught with her dead pack member’s body. No matter who was wandering through the trees toward them, explaining that would be difficult. The police would be called and she’d be stuck answering questions, which, after being seen at the bar with Porter so near to his death, wouldn’t be good.
She must have realized this too.
With a curse, she grabbed up branches and tossed them over the dead wolf’s body.
The human was close now. Marc could finally smell him, a male who smoked and drank excessive amounts of coffee. His blood would taste of both. Marc wriggled his nose with annoyance. The human’s scent edged into the female werewolf’s, would soon stomp out the wild beauty of hers.
Unaware of his thoughts, she picked up another branch and tossed it onto the pile. She seemed lost in her work and unaware exactly how close the human had gotten.
