5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

It didn't take long to isolate footage of the right corridor but it took far longer to find anything actually happening , even when we played the video at double time. A werewolf padded in after a run – Thea – I was relieved her and Sophie were doing so well with their shifts, but they didn't come anywhere near Larsden's room. I was just concluding that a ghost must have broken in when Greg suddenly leaned forward. ‘There!'

I leaned in and watched as Nicholas Ramsay let himself into Larsden's room. Son of a bitch! He was in there more than half an hour, and when he came out he had a laptop in his arms. As he carried it out of the mansion we tracked him through the cameras to the gates. A car was idling in the road. Ramsay opened the door, chucked in the computer, spoke to someone for a moment then shut the door. He shifted into his werewolf form and ran off .

Now we were cooking. Excitement coiled through me – this might be the easiest murder to solve ever. Besides, I'd never liked Ramsay: something about him had always seemed just a little… off. He'd always looked at me coldly and I'd assumed he was one of those men who didn't like the idea of having a Queen, but maybe his dislike was personal. Maybe he didn't like me because I'd helped shut down his lucrative venture, the black tourney.

‘Nicholas Ramsay,' I said grimly. ‘Well, well, well. Who's been a naughty boy? I guess we'd better see if he returned during the night.' It was easier to go and knock on his door than to watch the screen to see when he'd walked through all the entrances to the mansion.

Greg flicked the screens to live mode and cycled through the CCTV views. ‘There,' he said as he pointed at the screen. Nicholas Ramsay was sitting in the pack common room next to Philip Harden. The room was still quiet, and I saw no reason not to confront him immediately; everyone needed to learn that I wasn't backwards about coming forwards.

Why would anyone travel in their chosen direction but lead with their rear? Your enemies would strike at you. It would be most foolish. Esme's tone was heavy with disapproval.

It would indeed. Let us hope our enemies are foolish.

Of course they are, she sniffed. Otherwise they wouldn't be our enemies.

I loved how black and white Esme saw things; perhaps it was a result of literally only seeing black and white. A wolf's vision had only very limited colour, mostly blue and yellow; everything else was fifty shades of grey.

‘Good morning,' I said pleasantly to the two men when we entered the room.

‘My Queen,' Harden inclined his head respectfully.

Ramsay did not utter the honorific but gave me a polite nod. Lucky me. I fixed him with a look. ‘So did you kill Larsden?'

He blinked and his mouth fell open slightly. ‘Of course not!' he protested.

‘Ah,' I said, as if I understood. ‘You just broke into his rooms when he was already dead?'

Ramsay's jaw dropped completely for a beat before he surged to his feet. ‘I don't have to listen to these accusations.'

‘The fun thing is that you kinda do. Sit.' I snarled and gave his chest a firm push. He balked but sat. ‘I have cameras all over the property,' I continued. ‘So when I was asking you about the break in, I wasn't really asking . I have you on video. You look really good on the small screen.'

‘You don't understand.' His tongue darted out to wet his lips and he suddenly looked scared.

‘I think I do. You stole Larsden's laptop to help hide his involvement in the black tourneys, presumably because you were also involved.'

Harden was staring at him aghast. ‘Nicholas, is this true?'

Ramsay flicked his eyes to him, clearly dismissing him as unimportant, and glared at me. His hands opened and closed into fists. ‘You stupid little girl. The Domini hate loose ends. You've signed my death warrant.'

We can sign it faster if he calls us stupid again, Esme growled. She was urging us to shift and teach the rude man a lesson.

Harden glared at Ramsay for his disrespect then reached over and shoved his shoulder. Harden was growing on me.

‘Watch yourself,' Greg murmured to Ramsay. ‘I'll kill you myself if you disrespect our Queen again.' I'd never thought I'd miss the days when Greg called me ‘alpha'.

‘It is time for you to do the right thing,' Harden said darkly. ‘Tell us the truth, Nick.'

Ramsay looked at him for a long moment, as if he was going to say something, then shook his head and swallowed hard. ‘Damn you all,' he said.

He clenched his jaw hard. Moments later, he gave a gurgled gasp as his body seized up. His chest wheezed as he tried to pull in air, but his lungs weren't obeying, and the noise got louder as he clawed at his throat. Foam frothed around his mouth, white spittle poured from his thin lips and his eyes rolled back in his head.

Oh shit: he hadn't been kidding about the Domini killing him. Fuck! How had they reached him? A spell? A rune?

Greg leapt into action. He tried to loosen the collar around Ramsay's neck but it was some kind of poison or spell that was killing him, not tight clothing. We didn't have a witch on hand to save him – and anyway, it was all over in a moment.

Ramsay gave a last pained gasp as his lungs stopped working, then slumped over like a man who'd lost his skeleton. Greg leaned forward and checked his pulse, but we all knew it was a done deal: Nicholas Ramsay was dead, killed by whoever – or whatever – the Domini were. The question now was had they been involved in Larsden's death, too.

‘Well,' I said brightly, ‘turns out he wasn't wrong about the death-warrant thing.'

Greg pried open Ramsay's mouth. ‘Cracked back tooth on the right. '

I stared at him. Was he saying what I thought he was saying? ‘He killed himself? With poison in his tooth? Who the fuck has poison in his teeth ready for an interrogation?'

‘Bad people,' Greg said grimly.

‘People with things to hide,' Harden added darkly. ‘And things to fear.'

‘No shit.' I sighed. ‘He just needed to come up with some BS about why he needed the laptop. He could have told me it had nude photos of him on it, then spirited himself away. But no, he killed himself. What an idiot! What did he say before that? "The Domini don't like loose ends?" Who the fuck are the Domini?'

Harden shook his head. ‘They're not real. They're like the bogeyman – they're a scary story to tell little kids, "Listen to the alpha, or the Domini will get you."'

I stared at the second corpse I'd seen in as many days. ‘Ramsay apparently thought otherwise,' I said drily.

Harden grimaced. ‘Ramsay willingly ingested poison and he knew he was dying. He could have been trying to throw us off the scent of his real employer. The Domini are children's tales, nothing more.'

‘Maybe,' I conceded. It was nice to hear Harden use the word ‘us'. He hadn't seemed like he was on Team Queen before, but all it took was a few dead bodies and he was obviously warming to me. Nothing like a bit of death for some positive team building.

‘Where is Ramsay from?' I asked Harden. ‘Which pack?'

‘He's Merseyside.'

I wondered if it was a coincidence that he was part of the neighbouring pack to Larsden. I didn't like coincidences. Lord Samuel had named another wolf as suspect: Aitken. We'd need to check out his pack – discreetly – and make sure his teeth weren't filled with poison before we did any more interrogations. To be honest, though, if my enemies wanted to kill themselves and each other, it made things a little easier for me. Maybe I could sit back and look pretty while they all destroyed themselves. Here's hoping.

But looking at the crumpled corpse, it was hard to see this as anything but an error on my part. I'd mishandled the situation, another man was dead and once again he'd died before I could get any information about his co-conspirators. I couldn't help feeling that I was screwing up royally. If my enemies' sole aim was to make me look like a screw-up, then objective achieved.

This day was not looking up. Knowing my luck, Mum would even burn the Yorkshire puddings.