Chapter 61

Imade it to the bottom step before a call from George had me growling. I didn’t need another interruption. Still, I fucking answered because if George was reaching out, it meant more shit had hit the fan.

“What—”

“Main Street. Now,” he snapped over me. I stopped dead in my tracks at the slight tremble in his voice. Very few things got to George, which told me we had another dead wolf.

“Who?” I asked.

“This wolf only has three legs—”

“Michael,” I whispered. “Fuck! How bad is it?”

“Just get to Main Street and keep it discreet,” George said. “I can’t officially bring you in on this one, but I can consult with you. The others… it’s too public.”

“I’ll be there in a few.” Perks of a small town: everything was only a few minutes away. Downside? There was no fucking way we could hide this from anyone.

“Need me to go with?” Declan asked when I ended the call. I faced him, shoving my hands in my pockets.

“It’s too public,” I replied. “You stay here and take care of yourselves. I’ll take care of this myself.”

“You don’t have to,” he told me. I offered half a fucking grin because it was all I had in me.

“I know, but it’s in the middle of everything. It’ll start looking real fucking suspicious if George lets the lot of you help with a mutilated animal case.” He winced as I said it. “You know I don’t fucking think of this as just that, right?”

He hesitated, which didn’t bode well for me.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Declan!” I growled, and my wolf echoed the sentiment. “I make some hard fucking choices, but I’m not heartless. Michael seemed like a good guy. All of you like him. I wouldn’t wish this shit on him.”

“Right,” Declan said. I could tell he wasn’t fully convinced. “Right. Text us what it looks like?”

“Yeah, I will,” I snapped and stormed away before I said something stupid.

Main Street was a fucking mess. Our police force was just George and two others—and honestly, sometimes it was questionable why we even had them. Only George took his role seriously. The three of them scrambled to maintain the overly-intrigued crowd and keep them away from the taped-off section.

I pressed my way through the crowd without a single fucking apology as I made my way to George. The relief on that man’s face was intense. Not that I blamed him. He was out of his comfort zone. Hell, we all were.

“Come here, kid,” George said quickly. He ushered me under the tape and shoved a badge in hand.

“What is this?” I asked.

“I’m deputizing you, Killian,” he replied. “I don’t have a clue what I’m doing with this shit, kid. I need your help. You were always better than these two shitheads at this job. We can reinstate you when all this is over.”

“I don’t want to be reinstated, George,” I told him honestly while dropping the chain over my neck.

“Well, maybe just stay a deputy and help me with all this… you know.” He leaned in closer as he whispered the words. Fuck, he had a point.

“We can talk about it later.” I crossed my arms and stared hard at the bloodied sheet tossed over the wolf’s body. Michael’s body. Just the words made my stomach turn. “Come on, George. You’re going to show me what’s going on.”

George grunted, his lips tightening. His steps were heavy and forced as he led me away from the edge of the crowd to the body. When the tarp was lifted for me to see, my chest constricted.

Fuck.He was mutilated beyond recognition. The stump of a back leg was the only damn thing to identify him by. Fur and skin were ripped off. I cocked my head to the side and dipped into my wolf’s senses, letting my vision sharpen.

Not ripped off. Grated off.

“Is his back leg dislocated? At the hip?” I asked quietly. George only nodded, swallowing hard. “He was tied up and dragged by a truck or something, wasn’t he?”

“Looks that way,” George said. Fuck, what a brutal way to go. And unnecessary. This was just fucking torture. I hoped to hell Michael had died quickly, but I doubted it.

“Do we know where?”

“Not a clue.” He sighed and crossed his arms. “I got Manny driving a few of the bigger back roads to look for anything out of the ordinary. There’s so damn many small ones, it’ll take us a good week to comb through them all.”

I let out a small sound at the fact that George dragged his own kid in combing through the back roads. It wouldn’t matter. They’d never fucking find it. There was no way in hell a hunter would leave that kind of evidence around.

Leaving Michael like this in the middle of town was the fucking message.

Be afraid. No one is safe.

That was the lesson we needed to learn.

I scanned the crowds. Humans were easily discernible from wolves. The humans were curious and disgusted. Who the fuck would do such a thing in such a nice town like Cedar Harbor?

But the wolves? They fucking knew. And they knew it could’ve been one of them instead of Michael. Maybe now they’d spend more time at the pack house rather than in the woods. It was safer that way.

“I wouldn’t bother,” I told him finally. I kept my voice down and my eyes up. “This thing… it’s not leaving shit behind. This right here is all that matters.”

“What do we say?”

“Chalk it up to an out-of-town asshole.” I shrugged. “Tell them some shithead passing through did a goddamn stupid thing. It’s not a big deal—it is, but we need them to think it’s not.”

Chess pieces. That was what this was. It was all fucking chess pieces, and we were the fucking pawns to be wiped off the board. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I ran a hand over my face, exhausted as I stepped away.

While George went off doing his own thing with whatever the fuck they needed to do, I started a group chat between my brothers, the Stones, and the Ironwoods along with Isla and Cade.

Second body is Michael. Looks like he was tied up by the leg and dragged down a gravel road. He’s unidentifiable except by his leg.

SAM: Fuck.

COLE: Jesus fuck. Anyone call his family?

I’m still at the goddamn crime scene. The hunter left him in the middle of fucking Main Street.

MAVERICK: That’s fucking brutal.

Cole? Can you guys handle contacting his family?

COLE: Yeah. I’ll ride out there and handle it. I’ll take Alice with me.

FINN: What the hell are we going to do?

Lock everyone the fuck up until we kill this thing?

ISLA: While I understand that motivation, you can’t ask your pack to do that. It’s an irrational request. They can’t give up their entire lives for an unidentified period of time.

COLE: What the fuck are you? A psychiatrist?

ISLA: Board-certified psychologist with a specialty in trauma background.

AXEL: In other words, she’s smarter than your dumbass on how to handle this.

DECLAN: Then what do we do?

ISLA: At this point, you need to do damage control. The problem with the hunter is that you have nothing to offer them in the way of a solution. All you have is a way to instill more fear and irrational behavior.

We know that shit already.

ISLA: You need to smooth it over.

There’s no fucking way we can smooth this over.

ISLA: Smooth it over may be the wrong terminology here.

You think?

ISLA: You need to offer them comfort and support. Create boundaries while encouraging the use of the pack house as much as possible. They need to feel safe until this can be wrapped up, even if it takes weeks to months or more.

ROAN: You need to protect the fucking pack house.

SAM: What do you mean?

Explain, you furry fuck.

He didn’t. Jesus fucking Christ. This wasn’t the time for Roan to be distracted—not after saying something like that. I squeezed my phone as anxious energy surged through my body. Waiting wasn’t my strong suit. My wolf growled deep inside me, echoing my frustration.

That five fucking minutes it took for him to say shit was agonizing.

ROAN: Well, two things:

ROAN: 1—it’s a fucking gold mine of wolves coming and going. If the hunter set up shop outside the house, he just has to sit there and pick you off one by one.

Jesus fuck…

SAM: And #2?

ROAN: What the fuck will happen if the hunter gets inside your barriers?

That’s not fucking possible.

COLE: Bea says anything is fucking possible with magic.

COLE: Especially when hunter magic is designed to take out wolves.

ALICE: Y’all need to be safe. Our place is open if you need it.

We can’t fucking do that. The last thing we want is to lead the hunter right to another pack house.

MAVERICK: If any of your pack members want to leave—those with kids especially—send them down to us. We’ll keep them safe.

My phone rang after the last text message came in. Declan. I answered without hesitation.

“How do we protect all of them?” he asked when I answered. Panic laced his voice, his breathing heavier than usual.

“I don’t know,” I admitted quietly. That tightening in my chest was accompanied by a wave of hopelessness. I didn’t have a fucking clue what to do. How the hell were we supposed to hunt down the very thing born and trained to destroy us?

I felt my resolve fracturing the longer I stared at Michael’s body. That hopelessness mingled with bad habits trying to edge their way to the surface—and how I wanted to fucking cave. To give in. To not deal with shit.

I couldn’t see a way out of this.

Not one that ended quickly and without more bodies of innocent wolves.