* * *
* * *
“You want a drink?” Connor asked when we returned to the cabin and he’d squeezed the growler in with the blood in the refrigerator. “Maybe that Scotch we discussed?”
“Rain check,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m still digesting dinner.” I was also worn out—physically, emotionally. It had been a long night. And given tonight’s events, I suspected tomorrow wouldn’t be any easier.
I pulled off my boots, sat down on the couch, and let my head fall back. And opted not to tell Connor what his aunt and I had discussed. He didn’t need any more drama piled on.
“Same,” he said, taking a seat beside me, weariness in his movements.
“We aren’t leaving tomorrow,” I predicted.
“I think I need to stay.” He turned his head to meet my gaze. “I can get you home if you need to go, but I’d like you to stay, too.”
I reached out and took his hand, big and warm, in mine. “We rode up together. Might as well go home the same way.”
He squeezed my hand. “I’d say I’m sorry for dragging you into this, but that’s why I wanted you to come. At least in part.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry for it, for you and your family and the Pack.”
“Me, too.” He sighed. “There’s a small part of me that dreads the possibility of being Apex because I’d have to deal with idiocy and self-aggrandizing shifters and poor decision-making.”
“And the rest of you?”
His eyes went hard, and there was purpose in them. “Is thrilled about the possibility of getting to deal with idiocy and self-aggrandizing shifters and poor decision-making.”
“You know, you can be a little scary sometimes.”
He snorted. “Says the immortal with berserker powers.”
I meant to hide my flinch, but didn’t quite manage it.
“That was intended as a compliment,” he said, and I nodded. “But I’m sorry if it didn’t feel that way.”
“It’s fine,” I said, but still felt that hollowness in my gut that came with having my weakness pointed out. Ironic, given my strength was part of the problem.
“I like Carlie,” I said, trying very much to change the subject. “She’s really friendly.”
“Doesn’t have an evil bone in her body,” Connor said. “She’s a good kid, loves her family, respects the Pack. Saw me change when we were kids—that’s how she knows about Sups. I tried to tell her she’d imagined it, that I’d been working on a magic trick and every other excuse I could think of. She didn’t buy any of it, said she didn’t care if I was a werewolf, because I’d taught her how to ride a bike. It was as simple as that.”
“And you and Georgia seem to be close, but you didn’t tell her about the photographs of the tracks we found.”
“I think it’s best to keep the evidence in our hands,” Connor said. “I trust her, but I don’t trust the clan. So we’ll do our own search, let them do theirs. Maybe we’ll both end up in the same place.”
That would be its own magic trick, I thought. “If it helps, I don’t think she’s involved in the murder. Or the cover-up.”
“I don’t think so, either. Or at least not directly. But she’s an elder. That means she bears responsibility.” Connor sighed. “I should update the Pack,” he said, and pulled out his screen, and placed it upright on the coffee table.
He tapped and the ringing began, and his father’s face appeared a moment later.
Gabriel Keene’s hair was pulled back in a headband, and his face had been coated in pale pink slime. “Children,” he said nonchalantly, nodding at us in turn.
“I have many questions,” I quietly said.
“As do I.”
“I’m being made up,” his father said, eyes flat. “Your nieces and nephew are visiting, and they decided I needed a makeover.” There were giggles off camera, and his eyes grew wide. “No mascara. My lashes are plenty full.” He looked back at his son. “Is there some reason I might need to immediately drive to Minnesota? As soon as I wash my face, at any rate.”
“Sorry to burst your bubble, but no. But that’s not to say something isn’t happening out here.”
“Tell me,” his father said. “Slowly.”
Connor managed not to smile. “There’s definitely clan infighting. One of the elders was killed, his body left at the initiation. And we found tracks near the spot where his body was dumped. Animal but not like anything we’ve seen. They smell like Pack—like clan. And there was magic, but splintered.”
His father’s brows lifted. “Well. That’s a lot. How was he killed?”
While Connor gave him the details, I sent him the photographs we’d taken on the trail.
“Not Pack,” Gabriel concluded. He must have been viewing the photos on the same screen he was using to communicate with us, because he was squinting at something to our left. “Not human. Nothing I’ve seen before. But they smelled like Pack?”
“They did,” Connor said.
“And broken magic,” he said. “That’s a new one. Maybe a disorder? A spell?”
“We don’t know,” Connor said. “But we haven’t sensed it at the resort.”
“Hmm,” he said. “What’s the infighting?”
“Young versus old, it seems. The younger shifters are, I think, sick of passing, of hiding their identities.”
“Exactly what I told Cash a decade ago. There’s no point in hiding. Not anymore.” He shifted his gaze to me. “We can thank vampires for taking most of the heat there.”
“Sorry not sorry,” I said, and Gabriel smiled.
“What’s the next move?” he asked.
“They’ll plan the memorial,” Connor said. “If there’s a schism in the clan, we’ll probably see evidence of it when they make those plans. Memorials are a big deal in the Pack,” he said, shifting his gaze to me. “The celebration of life, the reunification of the body with the earth.”
“That will be telling,” I said. “If the clan had any involvement in his death, if someone was angry at him, it might come out in those discussions.”
“Might,” Gabriel said. “Unless they’re savvy enough to hide it.”
“Nothing hidden regarding the murder,” Connor said. “But we’ll see.”