“I came to kill you both.” His shadow shrugged on the pavement in front of me, and rage swelled like a roaring blaze inside me. “Since the council found out you infected and murdered poor Leland Blum, you’ve been declared public enemy number one. I was going to return Robyn and throw your corpse in as a bonus. Looks like now I won’t be able to take her back alive.” His silhouette shook its head as we passed the Elephant Cafe. “It’s such a shame I couldn’t get to her before you killed her too.”
I had to swallow fury in order to speak. “You really think they’re going to believe that?”
“I think they’re going to believe their noses. Your scent is all over her. And they’re going to believe the enforcers who’ve already testified via video that you admitted to infecting Corey Morris. You made it easy for me, Titus. And your brother was a far more accommodating—and prolific—infector than I could ever have hoped for.”
Son of a bitch. Drew set the trap, and I walked right into it. He’d known all along that I’d take the blame to protect my brother. That I would tie my own noose, in front of my entire household.
“So, what, you infected Justus, then sat back to see what would happen?”
The silhouette of his head fell back as he snorted. “Do you think I would leave all this to chance? I made sure Spencer wasn’t working the night I infected Justus so that he wouldn’t be intercepted in the ER. Then, when you went on patrol by yourself, I anonymously emailed him a picture of his ‘girlfriend’ fucking her actual boyfriend—that was not easy to get—and told him where to find them. He did the rest on his own.” Drew shrugged. “I’m sure he didn’t mean to hurt anyone, but the newly infected have very little impulse control.”
Bastard! How could I not have seen what was happening? How could I have lived and worked alongside Drew for years, yet had no idea how deranged his ambition was?
His shadow shrugged again as we passed the dark, frozen carousel. “New, untrained stray plus psychological trauma equals psychotic train wreck with the strength of several normal men. You remember that math, don’t you Titus? You’re the one who taught me the equation.”
“So we could prevent it!” Anger thrumming through me, I stopped walking and turned slowly. “That wasn’t an instruction manual, Drew! We’re supposed to be helping people!”
“And now that I’m Alpha, I’ll finally be in a position to.”
“You got there by infecting and murdering people! How could you do that to Justus? You’ve known him since he was nine years old. He thinks of you like a brother!”
Drew rolled his eyes. “Justus doesn’t think about anyone but himself. But don’t worry.” He glanced pointedly at the gun still aimed at me. “He won’t suffer much longer.”
“You’re psychotic,” I spat, disgust riding every word. Rage fueling every breath.
Drew’s eyes narrowed. He raised the gun until I was staring straight down the barrel.
My heart slammed against my rib cage, but even fear couldn’t mute my fury. I had to get that gun away from him. “How are you going to explain the gunshot, Drew?”
“There are a hundred drunk college kids partying in the herpetarium. If they even hear the shot over their music, they’ll assume some idiot took his second amendment rights a little too seriously.”
My brows rose. “And the blood?”
“I don’t have to explain that, as long as I’m not here when people find it.”
“That’s not what I mean. If the cops find blood with no body, they’ll test the DNA to identify it. And what do you think they’ll find?”
Drew shrugged, but couldn’t quite hide his uncertainty. “Jace said they always assume the sample was contaminated with cat DNA.”
“And how do you think the council will react to you giving them one more chance to figure out that’s not the case?” I lowered my hands boldly and looked straight into his eyes. “Their most important rule isn’t ‘don’t kill people’. It isn’t ‘don’t infect people’. It’s ‘do not under any circumstances expose us to the public’. Do you really want to crown yourself Alpha with that hanging over your head? Do you think they’ll let you?”
Drew frowned. His aim wavered. “If I bring them your body, they won’t—”
A dark blur flew out of the shadows. Drew screamed as he was driven to the ground. The pistol flew from his hand and slid across the pavement into the bushes. He landed on his back, a large black cat on his chest. Growling inches from his face.
I blinked, stunned, trying to process the sudden tackle.
“Robyn, no!” I shouted. The last thing she needed was another murder on her record. Justified though it may be. “Don’t—”
She lunged for his throat and sank her teeth into his flesh.
The fragrance of fresh blood blossomed in the night air, and like the scent of a lover, it made me want things. Crave things. But I pushed those primitive urges back. “Robyn—”
“It’s not me.” She pushed her way through the foliage at the edge of the path behind the carousel. “It’s—”
“Justus no!” The order rumbled from my throat with a depth and resonance no human could have produced. I lurched toward him, and my brother froze, his teeth still piercing Drew’s flesh, on either side of his trachea. “Let him go.”
Justus growled for a second. Drew’s breath hitched, his chest stilled in panic. Then my brother let him go and backed away.
Blood spurted from both sides of Drew’s neck onto the concrete.
“Shit!” Robyn rushed forward and pressed her hands against the wounds, trying to hold them closed. I pulled my shirt over my head and held it out to her, but when she reached up to take it, more blood poured onto the concrete.
Drew’s mouth opened, as if he wanted to say something.
“Don’t talk. You’re making it worse,” Robyn whispered, tears filling her eyes. But by then his gaze had lost focus.
Drew sucked in one more weak breath. Then he went still.
“Motherfucker!” I shouted, and Justus whined, cowering on the ground in the shadow of a carousel horse. Dimly, I realized that his posture was the instinctual reaction of a Pride member to his Alpha. Something he hadn’t needed to be taught.
If that instinct had kicked in a second earlier, Drew might still be alive. He might still be able to admit what he’d done in front of the council.
“We needed him,” I whispered as I sank onto the concrete, wishing I had something to wipe my bloody hands on.
“Justus will be enough,” Robyn insisted. “They’ll be able to smell Drew in his scent.”
“That won’t excuse what he did. We needed Drew to testify to manipulating him. To sending him pictures of Ivy and Leland, knowing what would happen. Without that, he’s just another rogue stray.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Robyn whispered. “But we need to clean this up and get out of here.”
She was right. “The Elephant Cafe.” I pointed with one bloody hand at the closed restaurant. “There might be bleach inside.”
Robyn stood and dropped my backpack at my feet. “I’m on it. Clean up your hands and put a shirt on.”
While she was gone, I dug carefully in my bag for a packet of antiseptic wipes, a must-have for any infant’s diaper bag and shifter’s supply pack. Justus watched me; his head cocked to one side.
“Don’t worry,” I said as I wiped blood from my hands and arms. “I’m going to take care of this. I’ll protect you. I’ll teach you.” If I’d done that in the first place, Drew could never have gotten to him.
It took most of the packet of wipes to get me clean enough that I could wear the spare shirt from my bag without getting blood on it. As I tugged the top into place, Robyn returned carrying a gallon of bleach and a roll of brown paper towels that could only have come from a public restroom.
By then, Drew had stopped bleeding, but there was a large pool of blood beneath him. I rolled him over, and while we listened for any sign of approaching company, we sopped up as much blood as we
could with the paper towels, shoving them into my backpack with the used wet wipes for disposal—or incineration—later.
When we’d done as much as we could, we doused the blood stain with bleach. That wouldn’t erase any trace of blood, but it would destroy Drew’s DNA and prevent his death from exposing the existence of shifters.
“Okay, I’ll take these back and wipe down everything I touched.” Robyn held up what remained of the bleach and paper towels. “Then I’ll catch up with you.”
“We’ll wait here for you,” I said, but she shook her head firmly.
“You have a dead body and a giant cat. You need to get the hell out of here right now. I’ll meet you at the car.”
Unable to argue with her logic, I nodded and lifted Drew’s corpse. “Come on, Justus.”
Robyn headed for the Elephant Café, and my brother and I pressed on toward the exterior fence where we’d come in, hidden by foliage as much of the time as we could manage.
We could hear the party well before we got to it, and once we came to the herpetarium, it became clear why: the event had spilled outdoors.
“Fuck,” I whispered, eyeing several dozen students holding beer bottles and cocktails in plastic light-up cups. Most of the girls wore cheap plastic headbands with panda or tiger ears on their heads, and several of the guys carried an inflatable giraffe or gorilla under their arms. And as far as I could tell, every single one of them was wasted.
Unfortunately, they were also between us and the section of fence I’d parked Spencer’s car behind.
“Wow,” Robyn whispered from behind me, and I nearly dropped Drew’s body in surprise. Her stealth was rapidly improving. “What’s the plan?”
“I don’t know. I guess we go the long way.”
Justus growled and shook his head. Then he stepped out of the brush onto the wide, paved walkway.
“Justus!” I hissed. But he only padded silently toward the party spilling onto the concrete in front of the reptile house. “What the hell is he doing?”
“Creating a distraction,” Robyn answered softly. “He’s got your brains and my sense of adventure. Admittedly a dangerous combination.”
“Okay, when this is all over, we’re going to have a talk about how you’re smart, and I’m exciting, but for now—”
A woman screeched. All laughter and drunken conversation died, leaving the music playing for a crowd that had stopped dancing.
They’d spotted Justus.
My brother stared at them, growling. His tail swished. He paced to the right, and panic washed over the crowd. Girls screamed. Guys dropped their inflatable animals. People ran in every direction, digging phones from their pockets.
In seconds, there wasn’t a party-goer in sight.
“Come on!” Robyn called as she stepped out of the bushes onto the path. “They’re all calling 911.” Just as she’d predicted they would.
Justus raced after her, and I took up the rear, weighed down a little by Drew’s corpse. My brother jumped over the fence with no problem. Robyn stared at it for a moment, then leaped several feet in the air. She landed less than a foot from the top, and while she climbed over, I contemplated the dead weight of the murderer I still carried like a sleeping child.
“I’m going to have to throw him over,” I said at last. “So either get ready to catch him, or stand out of the way.” The shuffle of shoes away from the fence told me which she’d chosen.
I sucked in a deep breath, then heaved Drew over the fence with as much height as I could give him. His jacket snagged at the top and a patch of material tore loose. But he made it over and crashed to the ground with a sickening thud.
I snagged the torn material on my way over the fence, then picked up the corpse and followed Robyn and Justus toward Spencer’s car. Robyn got behind the wheel while I stored the body in the trunk, in a roll of plastic kept just for that unfortunate possibility—a tip from Faythe and Marc. Justus lay across the backseat, no doubt exhausted and starving from his shift.
“Where to?” Robyn asked as she pulled out of the parking lot into a long line of fleeing college kids. None of whom should have been driving.
“Home. I’ll call Jace on the way.” As she pulled onto the highway, I twisted in my seat to look at my brother, who lay with his muzzle resting on his folded front paws.
“We have a lot to explain to you, and it’s going to come fast and hard. And the only thing I’m sure of right now is that the council’s going to want your head. But I’ll be damned if I’ll let them take it.”
Robyn
“You think they believe him?” Knox set a pesto, provolone, and mozzarella grilled cheese sandwich on the bar in front of me, cut into two triangles. On a paper plate. It smelled better than any three a.m. snack I’d ever tasted, but I had no appetite, despite the fact that I’d shifted two hours earlier and had yet to replace the calories that had burned.
“I don’t know.” Titus had been on a call with the council for more than an hour. Because they were gathered for Isaac and Melody’s wedding, he’d caught several of them in one place and the others were all conferenced in, and everyone wanted a chance to talk. To yell. To make demands. To ask questions.
“Even if they don’t believe him now, they will once they meet Justus,” Lochlan said, cutting into a fresh omelet. “Drew’s scent is on him, plain as day. They can’t possibly think Titus infected anyone after that.”
“Yeah, but that’s part of the problem.” I picked up half of my sandwich and truly contemplated taking a bite. “I think he’d rather take the blame than let them hurt his brother.”
“How could they possibly hold Justus responsible for what he did, after Drew manipulated him?” Naveen demanded as he dumped a splash of whiskey into his coffee in lieu of cream. Or sugar. Or more coffee. They’d started drinking the minute they saw Drew’s corpse and smelled Justus’s scent, yet not one of the enforcers had so much as slurred a single word. Difficulty achieving intoxication was one of the benefits—and drawbacks—of a shifter’s insanely quick metabolism.
“The same way they held me responsible,” I told Naveen. “But since Justus isn’t a woman, they have no reason to offer him the ‘mercy’ they offered me.” And for the first time since my sentence had been handed down, I realized what a mercy it truly was.
Titus was afraid they’d execute Justus. Swiftly. The council needed me, but they neither needed nor wanted another male stray they weren’t sure they could control. A stray who’d infected four people, including a woman who’d died from scratch fever. They had no reason to let him live.
My gaze fell on Justus, sleeping off his pre-dawn breakfast in clean clothes on the window seat at the back of the kitchen. He was only three years my junior, but he looked so much younger and more vulnerable than I’d ever felt, even after everything that had happened to me over the past few months. Justus was less than two years out of high school. He’d lost his parents. And in a way, he’d lost his brother, when Titus was infected and began putting distance between them in an attempt to protect him.
And if Titus couldn’t pull off a miracle, he’d very soon lose his life.
TWENTY-FOUR
Titus
I pulled the heavy drapes closed and turned off the overhead light, then sank into my leather arm chair with my eyes closed, treasuring the final minutes of darkness before the sunrise would drag this nightmare into another day. An hour and a half was longer than any conference call should last, and sharing it with ten other Alphas—eleven including Marc Ramos—had made time seem to stand still.
And still, I had no answer.
They’d believed everything I’d told them, probably because I’d offered to ship them Drew Borden’s body as evidence. But as usual, most of the council members had less use for the truth than they had for what it would buy them.
Faythe and Marc had argued on my behalf, of course. And Rick Wade had been a voice of reason, to the best of his ability. Which was limited because in many ways, he agreed with most
of his fellow council members.
Justus had broken the law. He was dangerous. And asking the council for a favor on his behalf wasn’t a good way to engender their good will, considering that they hadn’t yet ruled on my last request—to have my Pride recognized. And that I hadn’t returned their wayward tabby.
Minutes after I sat, my phone rang from the arm of my leather chair, illuminating my darkened office with a bolt of bright white light. Rick Wade’s name appeared the screen.
I took a deep breath and accepted the call.
“Okay, Titus, we’re ready to make you an offer.” Wade’s voice echoed over the line, in that telltale way speakerphone mode has of making a caller seem a little too far away.
“I’m listening.”
“As you know, infecting a human is a capital offense. Which carries the death penalty. The same goes for exposing our species to the world. By our count, your brother infected four people—one of whom didn’t survive scratch fever—and took actions that could easily have exposed us at the Jackson Zoo. We are well within our right to demand his life on all five charges. But we’re willing to spare him, considering the circumstances of his crimes. On one condition.”
I knew what they were going to say before Wade could even form the words.
“You turn both Robyn and Justus over to us, and we’ll take the death penalty off the table for your brother.”
“So, I give you Robyn, or you kill my brother?” My voice sounded cold and dead. I didn’t even have the energy to summon anger.
“That’s not what we’re saying. We’re asking you to do the right thing, for its own sake. And in return, we’ll agree to see your brother disciplined and rehabilitated, rather than executed.”
“Disciplined, how?”
“We haven’t discussed that yet, but he’s committed very serious crimes. The most common measures are incarceration, declawing, and the loss of both incisors. Though that last one’s a bit archaic and unlikely.”