by SM Reine
Lincoln’s throat got thick. “I appreciate hearing it, ma’am.”
“It’s not my fault that I got blessed like this and others got messed over, like John,” Sissy said. “But I like to be a good neighbor anyway. That’s why the first thing I did with the new money was to build that school, and then make sure it’d be named after your daddy. After all the Marshalls did for the community, it was only right to honor y’all as best I could.”
“I heard there was a vote about the school’s name,” Lincoln said.
“Not like a formal one,” she said. “We surveyed folks to get a read on their opinions, but I never once thought I’d name it for anyone but John.” Sissy was so earnest about this, oblivious to how upset the sanctuary’s shifters were by the outcome. “Has he been awake at all?”
“Not since I’ve arrived, ma’am,” he said. “When he wakes, I’ll make sure he hears how considerate you’ve been.”
“Nobody’s upset at me, are they?” Sissy asked. “Among the Marshalls?”
Not upset enough to kill Mama Cassidy. “Is there nobody else you think might have wanted to kill Mama?”
Sissy’s mouth twisted thoughtfully. “Follow me out this way.”
She took them to the fields, stripped down to make way to industry. Even the towering pistons couldn’t obscure the peak of Mount Bain, which was one of the tallest crags in the range.
Lincoln did know a lot of the guys as they passed through the oil field. They called out his name and waved. He’d gone to school with some; others used to work at the lumber mill before they’d ramped down production.
But this wasn’t a social call, and Lincoln couldn’t stick around to catch up. Sissy took them to the paddock where they’d held the Fall Festival’s petting zoo. It was still painted the same sun-worn red as it had always been.
“Someone’s been killing our goats,” she said, slipping into the paddock. She held the gate open so that Lincoln could follow. “We’ve tried everything to keep them safe. Reinforced the fence, put up barbed wire, even tried electrifying the outer perimeter. But…”
“It didn’t work,” Lincoln said.
Something had torn right through Sissy’s defenses, leaving behind nothing but scuffed dirt and a few brown splatters. Tufts of hair still stuck to the fence.
“They got the last of them two nights ago,” Sissy said, sniffling into her tissues. “I ain’t had the heart to clean up. They got my Misty. The one I bottle fed.”
Sophie rested a hand on Sissy’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you, honey,” she said, squeezing Sophie’s hand. “Whoever got at my goats must have been awfully mean, and awfully bent on making us hurt. Maybe they went after Mama too.”
Or maybe another change in Genesis had bolstered the raccoon population in the Appalachians, and some really big-ass coons had gotten into the coop. There were a lot of non-preternatural answers to this.
Lincoln doubted the goats and hospice were connected.
Or maybe he was just hoping they weren’t connected.
“Oh, my knee,” Sissy said. “Y’all better hold onto something. We’ve got another earthquake coming.”
Her final word was punctuated with a hard thump—hard enough that Lincoln took a step, but not so hard that it messed with the oil derricks. The shaking only continued for a moment. It was over by the time Lincoln managed to right himself.
“Is that from the drilling shifters?” Lincoln asked, mostly joking.
“They’re not drilling,” Sissy said. She grabbed Lincoln’s arm for balance while she shook out her aching knee. “It’s Mount Bain. You know that’s a volcano?”
“It’s dormant,” he said.
“It was, before Genesis. That thing’s gonna blow at any minute. You mark my words and plan your exit now.” That sounded as much like paranoia as Uncle Art’s conviction that the shifters were drilling.
“We’ve gotta get going, but I’ll be in touch with more information about the case,” Lincoln said.
Sissy Cassidy surprised him with a hug before he left, and she forced a pie into Sophie’s grateful hands too. (“You look too skinny,” Sissy had said tearfully into her tissue.)
They trudged back to town on the side of the road. It was a nice day and the walk wasn’t long. Sophie had already opened the pie and was breaking off small pieces to eat. “I hope our investigation takes us back there soon. This is amazing!” She offered the tin to him.
“Get that garbage away from me. If it’s not from Poppy’s, it’s heresy,” Lincoln said.
“Poppy’s?”
“I’ll introduce you later. We’ve gotta move fast.”
“Ah, we must be taking this lead with the goat murders back to Sheriff Adair,” Sophie said.
“Hell no. If Noah hears about the goats, it’s just gonna mean he goes after the werewolves even harder. He’ll never believe they don’t kill livestock.”
“I’m pleasantly surprised by how much you care for the pack,” she said.
“I care about my family. And you know who’s gonna lose if Noah picks a fight with the shifters?”
“Noah?” Sophie guessed.
“Every last human resident of Grove County,” Lincoln said. “The shifters will take over. The OPA will endorse it. They’re all friends, and they don’t care about us. The whole county will become public property, a tourist destination for pack-spotters. The towns I grew up in will be unrecognizable.”
“If you grew up in towns where corruption like Noah’s is only rewarded, perhaps they should be changed,” she said softly.
There was no point trying to make an outsider see the truth. Sophie had only ever inherited her legacy from a bunch of no-work academics, one Historian passing it onto the next.
“Besides,” Sophie added, “do you really think the pack wants to take over like that?”
“They’re relentless, untouchable, bloodthirsty monsters twice a month,” Lincoln said. “I wouldn’t put anything past them.”
Chapter 20
Abel closed his eyes against sunlight and awoke an indeterminable number of hours later, feeling somehow heavier, achier, and in more pain than when he’d passed out. His head had slid off of the pillow as he dozed and made one of his shoulder muscles cramp. It radiated to his crown as a headache. His stomach was empty, and his head was filled with tiny electric zaps.
A baby was crying.
“Rylie,” Abel said without opening his eyes.
He spread a hand in the bed beside him and bumped the headboard with his knuckles. He’d twisted around diagonally somehow. Probably tossing in his sleep, even though it felt like he hadn’t moved once.
That baby was still crying. Each muffled cry through the wall made fresh pain lance through his fatigue-blasted brain.
“Rylie!” he called again, louder.
This time she called back. “I had to set him down for a second. He’s okay.”
“I’m trying to sleep, Rylie!” He wasn’t sure that she could hear him over the crying. Werewolf hearing was good, but that baby had lungs like a jet engine.
The crying didn’t stop. He rolled over onto his stomach and checked the clock. It was early afternoon, and he had only slept for two hours.
Two hours.
And Benjamin was kicking up a racket without stop.
“Rylie!”
“I’m hurrying!” she shouted back.
Abel fell out of bed trying to get up. He rubbed a hand over his painfully dry eyes, over his shorn scalp, down the back of his neck. He almost ripped the door off the frame because he forgot to check his strength.
The source of the sound was in the living room: a little brown baby in a little gold bassinet. Benjamin’s hair was growing fast; the fluffy curls framed his sweaty forehead as he screamed all the louder. He’d gotten himself so worked up that his fists were shaking.
“The hell is the problem?” Abel asked, sniffing the air. There was no predator. No dirty diaper. The smell of milk was fresh, so
he wasn’t hungry.
Rylie hurried out of the bathroom, pulling her robe around her body. “I put him down to use the bathroom.”
“So he started crying?” Abel asked.
“He wants to be held,” she said, pushing past him. Rylie swept the baby against her shoulder. Benjamin was slow to stop crying, as if he’d forgotten why he was upset in the first place.
“He woke me up,” Abel said.
Rylie rocked him side to side, keeping one arm on his back so she could use the other to open the refrigerator. Most cottages didn’t have one—everyone ate from the public mess—but an Alpha with a new baby could have anything she wanted. She took fruit juice out and poured it awkwardly into a waiting mug. “I’m sorry he woke you up. I had to use the bathroom, as I said.”
“You coulda taken him with you,” Abel growled.
“I needed to…relieve myself,” she said, with a vague hand gesture that probably meant taking a dump.
“So? I needed to sleep!”
Rylie threw the juice bottle back into the fridge. “You can’t blame me if I wanted five minutes to myself.”
“You had five hours last night,” Abel said. He’d taken the baby so Rylie could catch up on some sleep. It had been easy enough; Benjamin had mostly napped and stared at the ceiling fan. “I need to sleep too. I’m the one being Alpha while you’re on vacation.”
Her eyes were frantic. “This is a vacation?”
“That’s not what I mean,” Abel said. “Not like you’re having a vacation, but you’re…away. I know you’re working hard. You’re probably working harder than I am.” It was a generous lie, considering Rylie mostly laid around with the baby watching TV while he broke up fights between shifters.
“Fine. I’m sorry. I’ll take him with me to the bathroom next time. You can go back to sleep.” Rylie chugged the cup of juice and slammed it, empty, to the counter.
Blood was dotted around the edge of her fingernails.
“Jesus, Ry.” Abel caught her hand, turning it over so he could see. She had the same bloody pinpricks on every finger. Her nails had loosened as claws grew underneath.
She let out a breath, snuggling her cheek against the baby’s head. “I’m under control.”
“You’re not,” he said.
“I’m not going to transform while I’m holding the baby,” Rylie amended. She curled her fingers around Abel’s. “I’m so tired. I’m just…so tired. Every time I close my eyes, I see the guy pointing a gun at me. And I think that this time, he’s going to shoot the baby.”
Pedregon was right. He’d been right all along. Abel had gotten snappy with her for waking him up, but she was still suffering from his failure to protect his family.
Abel kissed her neck, tracing her veins up to her jaw. He inhaled the smell of her hair. She was his safe place—his home. She should have felt like that all the time too.
“I’m gonna send Aunt Gwyn your way,” he said. “She’s gonna take the baby. You’re gonna eat half a deer and sleep for hours.”
She drew back. “Aunt Gwyn has better things to do.” The tough old lady used to be a rancher, and she was helping the sanctuary build a ranch to sustain the entire pack.
“Nothing better than helping you,” Abel said.
“Why don’t you just watch the baby?” Rylie asked. “Only for a few minutes. We could all get into bed and try to nap…” Her optimistic eyes fell on the bed through the doorway.
He took her by the waist, lifting her onto her toes so that he could kiss her. Benjamin was warm and soft between their hearts. He’d stopped making grumpy noises. His baby-gray eyes gazed up at nothing.
“I’m more useful if I’m not babysitting. I’m gonna be Alpha so you don’t gotta worry,” Abel said. He kissed her again, and then again, because he forgot to be annoyed when he tasted her. She was his mate. He was incomplete without her, and his soul lived for the moments that she made him whole.
Rylie softened against him, and they kissed like they had before the baby was born.
“Being Alpha can wait a few minutes, though,” Abel murmured, trying to shift Benjamin into his arms. “And the baby can entertain himself a few minutes too.”
Rylie held the baby tighter, stepping back onto flat feet. “I’m not in the mood right now, Abel. I’m sorry. I’m tired.”
“You don’t gotta do anything,” he said. “Let me take care of you.”
But she shook her head, holding the baby with bleeding fingertips, and retreated into the bedroom. “Thank you for getting Aunt Gwyn. You’re right. I really need some sleep.”
She shut the door.
Abel could still feel her lips and taste her breath, and he stood there for long minutes waiting to see if she’d come back out. She didn’t. Why would she?
He never could have gotten enough of Rylie, but she’d had enough of him.
Trevin and Crystal waited for him outside. They were the two Abel trusted most in the pack—steady presences throughout the years, and survivors of the war between angels, demons, and shifters during the Breaking. Trevin was shirtless, wearing joggers and high tops; Crystal wore Daisy Dukes and had permed her hair. They looked good and Abel never would have noticed if he hadn’t personally looked like garbage. He hadn’t showered since Benjamin was born. He was wearing the same stained sweats he’d put on after murdering Rylie’s attacker.
The two of them looked well-rested, and Abel hated them for it.
“What do you want?” he snarled.
Trevin didn’t even blink at his tone. He matched strides with Abel. “I researched all the victims Seth picked out, including the lady who died last night. I couldn’t pick out a single potential target because they all look kinda like assholes who deserve to die. Mama Cassidy embezzled to feed an opioid addiction. Graeme Oneill used eminent domain to get the land the hospital’s built on, which meant evicting a whole trailer park. I found evidence of tax evasion when I looked at Jeffrey Kafer, and Anita DeLuna covered it up for him.”
“You found that much dirt overnight?” Abel asked.
Crystal rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t like it was hard. These people are from Podunksville, USA. They didn’t have to cover their tracks because they were protected by obscurity.”
“Plus, in small places like this, everyone’s got something going on,” Trevin said.
None of that helped, except that it made Abel feel better about whichever murdering dick had decided to take justice into their own hands.
“Question.” Crystal raised her hand like she was in school. “Who in this community would know everyone’s dirty laundry and have reason to kill them for being amoral?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “The clergy. The clergy would know.”
“All the priests from St. Philomene’s have been dead for years,” Abel said. They’d died before the Breaking even struck.
“But there are still churches around,” Crystal said. “Little community gatherings, the black church in Woodbridge…maybe a coven of witches capable of killing people?”
“And the witches wore claw gloves to check on their ritual’s efficacy?” Trevin asked, folding his arms. “Yeah, right.”
“You can fake claw marks easily, in a thousand ways,” she said.
It wouldn’t be the first time it happened. Abel had watched this play out before, the first time that Northgate had been wracked by murders. The cult had tried to blame it on werewolves then, too.
“What are you thinking?” Trevin asked, watching Abel’s face closely.
“I’m thinking I want to know who’s doing this before the cops find out,” he said. “I want first shot at him.”
Crystal’s eyes brightened. “Then we hunt for witches?”
“Hell yeah,” Abel said, “we hunt.”
Chapter 21
Sunset was falling by the time Lincoln and Sophie pulled back up the dirt drive to his family’s house. The whitewashed boards glowed in moonlight, transporting Lincoln to a youth where his world had been so much smaller. He wo
uldn’t have been surprised to find his parents in the kitchen, impatient for him to wash his hands so they could eat. Just like they always used to do, before his mom showed her true face.
Just like the days when Lincoln had felt safe.
The sensations of security were fleeting. Aunt Bee, Ashley, and Skylar were in rocking chairs on the stoop with tall glasses of lemonade sweating on the table between them. Every last one of Sophie’s bags—all but the one she’d taken with them that day—were sitting on the stairs.
Sophie went rigid when she saw her things outside. Lincoln couldn’t blame her. She had unpacked her less sensitive belongings just that morning. In order to get everything in a pile like that, his family would’ve had to open her bags, open his drawers, and stuff everything in. Huge privacy violation. The kind of rudeness he couldn’t imagine Aunt Bee endorsing.
“Stay here, Miss Keyes.” Lincoln jumped out of the pickup. He got to the front of the truck before realizing that Sophie had followed him. He stopped. “I told you to stay there.”
“What authority do you have to order me around?” Sophie asked. “Those are my belongings.”
“And that’s my family,” Lincoln said.
“I’m perfectly capable of handling myself against the likes of them.” Sophie strode up the path, leaving Lincoln no choice but to hurry behind her.
“What’s going on?” Lincoln called to the women before Sophie could speak. “This looks an awful lot like you’re kicking my guest out.”
“I won’t talk about it with that girl around,” Aunt Bee said.
“My guest,” he repeated, disbelieving. He’d seen his aunt make up beds for millworkers going through a rough patch, and they were much worse guests than Sophie had been. Putting their dirty feet on tables. Taking up the bathroom for hours. Leaving trash in the hallways.
“She’s a snoop!” Aunt Bee lifted a crumpled piece of paper—Sophie’s diagram of the kitchen, including the inventory. “She went through everything in my kitchen. Every cabinet, every shelf…!”
