Wolf trap, p.5
Wolf Trap, page 5
I wouldn’t just listen to her, I’d help her find closure also. Because as much as I could tell that Rosa was glad to be out of danger and among her family at last, she wasn’t quite able to hide her pain any longer. When her gaze caught on a dog being walked on the other side of the street, a big mutt that almost appeared lupine from a distance, the corners of her mouth sagged precipitously down.
Then she turned back to face me and her living family members. Rosa would stay here and hold her loved ones tight because she was the center of this mass of tight-knit kinship. But at night when no one was looking, would she slip into the darkened kitchen and brew a solo cup of tea rather than asking for help? Would she sit with the lights out and remember the grandnephew she’d lost for no reason she could understand?
I couldn’t bring Benito back to life, but I could resolve that limbo. I still had a few hours before my memory reset after all, which should be enough to finish dealing with the mystery of his death.
“I owe you,” I told Rosa, feeling something wrench in my gut at the words. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Stay,” the older woman contradicted. “It would be good for someone who understands the other side of Benito’s life to be present at his wake.”
And now her shoulders bent down even further until their sag matched her mouth’s frown line. I itched to prop her back up. But I couldn’t, not yet.
Instead, I shook my head. “I’ve got some errands to run. I’ll drop in again later though?”
Before Rosa could argue the point, a force of nature whirled up behind me. Kami’s arm crooked through mine while she offloaded a paper napkin full of goodies into my free hand. “Eat this one first,” she said, pointing at something fried and warm. “It’s amazing. Then tell me where we’re going.”
That was information I didn’t want to convey in front of someone who’d clearly put me into the category of younger-relative-to-be-protected. Rosa had made it out of that greenhouse unscathed only because of the Executioner’s alpha strength and he wouldn’t be along during this second expedition into the heart of O’Connell territory.
So instead, I guided the conversation around to the issue of transportation, which Rosa promptly solved with her usual generosity. Her van needed to be picked up from the mall parking lot anyway and she didn’t mind us borrowing it to run so-called errands. Especially if Kami—who had a driver’s license—was the one behind the wheel.
“Tru needs a license too,” Rosa chided, handing van keys to the designated driver. “Soon. She can’t depend on you forever.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Kami answered, face serious but eyes twinkling. “My number one top priority is getting this albatross to stop whacking me in the chest.”
And Rosa smiled back, the first hint of amusement she’d offered since her grandnephew’s death. “Tru can learn to drive and still enjoy your company. And I look forward to enjoying both of your company when your errands are over. The attic guest room will be empty if you want to spend the night.”
Our overnight stay sounded like an offer, but I could tell it was more of a plea. Rosa needed us there, so I was grateful when Kami brokered no objections. “You got it,” she agreed.
Chapter 10
On the way to the mall, Kami claimed the front seat of the car driven by one of Benito’s brothers. The twenty-something who’d been dragooned into providing transport for the first leg of our journey should have been old enough to handle a moderate amount of teasing, but Kami’s sparkle was so extreme that he almost ran three stoplights. In the mall lot, she rewarded him for the ride with a lip-lock that set him blushing and stammering so hard I wasn’t sure he’d make it home in one piece. He definitely guided his vehicle into the curb while craning his neck to wave goodbye.
“That wasn’t nice.”
“Wasn’t it, though? He looked pretty darn happy after I kissed him.” Kami pushed a button and all the windows in our borrowed van slid down in synchrony. She was driving too fast, but traffic was sparse and the wind felt good on my face so I didn’t complain.
“You didn’t want to tell Rosa where we were going,” Kami continued, turning the full force of her charisma in my direction. “Which brings me to the obvious question: which bank are we robbing tonight?”
I wasn’t entirely sure she was kidding. After all, stars had started piercing the darkening sky and night begged me to shift and sprint across dew-dampened ground, hunting pleasure. Perhaps that was why Kami was acting so crazy. Perhaps night called to her as well.
But I was capable of resisting the urge while Kami didn’t appear to have an ounce of impulse control stashed anywhere about her person. For her own safety, my upcoming visit to Peter’s bedroom would have to be a solo endeavor. Finding my way back to the city afterwards would be tricky but better than Kami exploding the powder keg that was a den of resting wolves.
So—“No banks,” I told her at last. “I just need you to drop me off then I’ll meet you back at Rosa’s.”
“Tru has a boyfriend!”
I didn’t. Or I thought I didn’t. Not that I’d remember if I did.
Out of nowhere, the Executioner’s face rose up in my mind’s eye. Not as I’d seen him last, but as he’d been that morning, long lashes closed as he nestled into the pillow beside mine. He might be an alpha werewolf, but something about him felt dependable. Tantalizing. Like boyfriend material.
Squashing the random thought, I focused instead on my current circumstances. These few moments in the car with Kami were, at long last, my chance to unlock the mystery my lack of memory presented. “Kami,” I started, not even sure which question to ask first, “Can you tell me more about my past?”
“Can I?” Kami rolled her eyes. “Yes. Tomorrow. You’re just going to forget, again, if I do the whole song and dance tonight.”
She was right, and yet… I opened my mouth to ask a more specific question. Something smaller and easier to answer. Like—where was Okaasan? Had I simply been reacting to the Executioner’s job title and alpha scent when I wrote Scary Guy on my arm or did the two of us share a darker history? When had my memory loss started? Was it likely to ever end?
Okay, so maybe those questions weren’t so small after all. Before I could spit any of them out, Kami had already moved on. “Hey, I forgot to tell you, your clothes are in my bag. If you want to change, I can get your uniform clean for tomorrow.”
And suddenly the too-revealing jumpsuit I’d grown used to over the course of the day chaffed unbearably against my skin. “You’re a lifesaver.”
“A lifesaver and a mood-saver,” she agreed as I slid out of my seat and into the back so I could wriggle out of one set of clothes and into another. “Now it’s time to par-tay!”
With that, she cranked up the radio until the bass thumped like the blood through my veins. Kami’s voice twined with the lead singer’s and she elbowed me after I returned to the front seat, demanding I join in.
Instead, I tried to stick to the topic at hand. “Kami!” I yelled, “I need to talk to you!”
“You need a break!” she shouted back. “Death! Werewolves! Let it go for one song at least!”
Despite myself, I couldn’t help finding her amusing. “You’re telling me I should willingly forget the little bit of the past I actually remember?”
I hadn’t raised my voice to carry above the music this time, but Kami seemed to hear me anyway. Because she grinned and nodded far more vigorously than the conversation merited. “Exactly! If you don’t know the words, just hum!”
Kami’s joy at the open road was contagious and I soon found myself segueing from a quiet hum to an open-mouthed croon of backup vocals. One song led to another and I only interrupted the party to provide gestured directions as we exited the highway and rolled past horse pastures I could no longer see in the dark.
By the time Kami pulled over at the blind curve my direction sense promised was just out of sight of O’Connell’s driveway, I felt free and alive in a way I hadn’t since catching sight of Benito’s body. Kami was right. I’d needed that singalong.
She turned down the radio but didn’t shut it off as I got out. “I see you have a phone now,” she observed. “Call me if you need a ride.”
After that, she rattled off a number which I keyed in along with her name while watching her taillights disappear around the bend. Then I was climbing over the stone wall—harder while human than it would have been vulpine but far from impossible—and picking my way through a pitch dark woodland, before freezing as a familiar voice rasped out a single word.
“Unfortunate.”
Unfortunate was right. The chances of both me and the Executioner ending up back on O’Connell property by chance were infinitesimal. And while he had a right to be here, I did not.
So I’d take my lumps and try to turn the tide in Peter’s favor as best I could rather than dealing with this solo. I squared my shoulders and stepped forward, then froze as a female voice proved the Executioner hadn’t been addressing me after all.
“Unfortunate or not,” she said, “the damage has already been done. Human authorities were contacted about the gunshot and the sighting went all the way up the chain. Which means we need a public execution, the sooner the better.”
Execution. I ignored the tightness in my jaw and focused on what was directly in front of me. How had I missed not just one nearby person but two?
Oddly, no matter how hard I sniffed, all I smelled was bitter lemons. The Executioner’s scent lacked the sweetness I usually associated with his presence, but it was still distinctively his. Meanwhile, I picked out his broad shadow at last, nearly hidden by shrubbery twenty feet away.
Then he moved just the tiniest bit and reflected moonlight glinted off a thin rectangular device that I was now quite familiar with. The woman we’d both listened to a moment earlier wasn’t actually here with us on O’Connell property. Her voice was simply being broadcast from the speaker of a cellphone.
Which didn’t make their conversation any less disturbing, not when I distinctly remembered the Executioner’s words just before Peter dropped that tray of potting soil. “This wolf was slaughtered by gunfire within earshot of human officials,” he’d rasped. “A breach of shifter law that carries with it the penalty of death.”
He and this unknown woman were discussing executing a boy who suffered from a debilitating disability. They were planning a final punishment without considering mitigating circumstances such as motive or age.
My fingers clenched around the handle of my umbrella when the Executioner failed to argue with the woman’s assertion. Instead, he offered one word only. “Understood.”
Then he ended the call and turned to face me as easily as if he’d known I was present all along. The light of the fingernail moon illuminated a strong nose and high cheekbones while the dark shadows of his eyes somehow managed to touch me in a way that was almost physical.
“I’d hoped,” he rasped, “that you wouldn’t come.”
Chapter 11
Despite his cool welcome, the Executioner didn’t order me to leave. Nor did he speak again as we wended our way through O’Connell’s sprawling garden which, here at the edge, more closely resembled wild forest.
Without the kitten’s presence, in fact, I was left wondering if I’d imagined the earlier signs of softness in the man beside me. A rabbit hopped onto the path we’d been paralleling and he instantly stiffened like a wolf would have. Lights blazed on overhead in response to the rabbit and the scent of alpha fur wafting off the Executioner grew so overpowering it nearly made me choke.
He was still two-legged, though, which couldn’t be said for other inhabitants of this property. Too close for comfort, one wolf yipped off to our right then another to our left. O’Connell had booby-trapped his garden with motion-activated lights alerting lupine guards and this rabbit was bringing the latter down upon us at this very moment.
I froze, fear clogging my throat as I remembered…
Running. Fleeing a wolf pack that hunted me as if I was no more dangerous than a rabbit munching clover. My pads tore and bled. My lungs wheezed. Yet their hot breath came ever closer until…
The past blinded me, so I felt rather than saw when a warm hand pressed into the small of my back, guiding me away from the spotlight. A huge body backed me up against a tree trunk, not quite touching my skin but standing vigil between me and danger anyway.
I panted, frozen by fear of the past and of the present. Alpha musk surrounded me and I couldn’t quite recall what was then and what was now. I only knew that the overwhelming musk clogging my nostrils wasn’t safe, wasn’t good.
My mouth fell open, panting out terror, and a hand landed atop my lips. It could have been a threat—broad palm covering my mouth, muffling my ability to scream for help.
But the touch was feather light. The gesture was a warning only.
Be silent, he was telling me. Be still.
I was. I stood there chest to chest with the Executioner, listening as four-legged sentries stalked just a few yards from our hiding place.
I couldn’t see them, but I could hear them. Well, no, that wasn’t quite true. I could hear the rabbit shrieking out its death squeal. I could hear a snap followed by the scent of blood spinning toward us so powerfully that iron coated my tongue.
I shivered, hoping our scent trail had been far enough away from the rabbit so these guards wouldn’t notice. Then gradually my shivers faded. The Executioner’s body heat, close but not quite touching, had warmed my frigid skin.
Inside that protected cocoon, I couldn’t tell when the wolves left, their feet silent on the path and their howls choked by rabbit flesh. All I knew was that the glow of light just barely visible out of the corner of my eye quenched after a breathless eternity. All I knew was that the Executioner took one long step away from me and allowed cold air to invade where the warmth of his body had recently clung.
“I apologize for invading your personal space,” he said at last, voice rougher than it should have been after so few words. But perhaps he’d spoken to that woman more than I was aware of, had rubbed his throat raw in the process.
I had a strange urge to offer him a juice box the same way Rosa had. But I didn’t possess a purse full of grandmotherly items. Hadn’t expected to need anything for tonight’s invasion other than my sword and my wits.
So I just shook my head and followed the Executioner deeper into O’Connell’s garden, the wild space stretching large as a park before us. By the time we reached a small cottage, we were so far from the main house there were no lights present other than the faintest glimmer around one room’s curtains and the tiniest sliver of illumination above the back door.
Little light was visible, but scents were strong here. Dog pee overwhelming wolf pee.
If I’d hoped the Executioner had misread clues and intended to bark up the wrong tree, I’d hoped wrong. Because every indication pointed in one direction only.
This was where Peter and his German shepherd denned. And the Executioner had come to avenge Benito’s murder by doling out another death.
I went for my weapon but the Executioner was faster. Hot fingertips pressed against the back of my hand before I managed to disinter the blade from its umbrella sheath.
“Quiet.” His rasp was a mere breath of sound. His touch wasn’t iron restraint but, rather, warning just like it had been during the rabbit killing.
Then I heard the reason for his caution. Claws clicked across stone close enough to send a chill down my spine. The wolves who’d torn apart that rabbit weren’t the only ones patrolling and it wouldn’t take much to draw their compatriots down upon us.
But would revealing ourselves as trespassers be worse than letting the Executioner murder a teenager? Surely the O’Connell pack would protect their alpha’s grandson, and I could come back later to win closure for Rosa.
My grip tightened on my sword’s hilt as I considered my options and the Executioner, rather than clenching down harder, removed his hand from mine. “You lead.”
He’d leaned in close to ensure his near-silent words would be heard, and I found myself following suit. Warmth fluttered between us like the butterflies in my belly.
“And you’ll follow?”
“Yes.”
I shouldn’t have believed him, but those butterflies made the chill autumn night seem full of birdsong. Meanwhile, the click of claws on stone had paused as if instinct warned of our proximity.
The wise course of action was to take this discussion inside. So, turning my back on the big, bad werewolf I knew, I opened the unlocked door.
Opened the door and walked straight into a growling canine. It rose, stiff-legged in the near darkness of a small living room at the same time a voice called from somewhere off in the even dimmer interior. “Shep?”
In response, the dog gathered its breath for a bark and…
…the Executioner’s hand clenched down over its muzzle, stifling sound and asserting dominance. One long second of struggle then the dog dropped to its belly, whimpering. The door behind us snicked shut at the same moment the overhead lights flared bright.
Peter stood at the switch, a quilt draped around his shoulders like a cape. But this boy was no superhero. He was naked except for the blanket and a thin pair of boxers, goose bumps dotting skinny forearms.
I half expected him to go lupine or to pull out the gun he’d used on Benito. Instead, he just stood there clasping the quilt closed under his chin.
“I know why you’ve come,” he told us, gaze on the floor. “I won’t fight you. Just, please, don’t hurt Shep.”
Chapter 12
Blackout curtains blocked the interior of Peter’s cottage from view by patrolling wolves while thick walls allowed us to speak at a normal volume without the need for close proximity. Still, I found myself sinking onto the deep sofa beside the teenaged murderer as I introduced myself then slowly drew out his confession one murmured response at a time.
