His brows had shot down low. “Body?”
“In Arizona. A man. The poor guy’s throat had been ripped out. At first, we thought it was just a random killing, but then the other body turned up. A month later, just when the full moon rose again.” Maybe the words came out too fast, but she needed to tell him everything. If he told her to walk, she would, but it was time she revealed all the secrets she’d been carrying. “The local papers started dubbing the killer as The Werewolf.”
“Shit.”
Right. “The Other world doesn’t need attention like that.” Her job had been to make sure no paranormals attracted that kind of heat. A low profile equaled humans and paranormals who continued to exist semi-peacefully together. A big supernatural coming out party—well, that equaled hell. Humans were too biased against their own kind. No way would they all take to monsters with open arms.
His shoulders rolled. “A shifter was killing?”
“Killing only humans. Every month, he left another body.” Those dead haunted her. “Our crime-scene guys measured the cuts, found trace evidence on the victims and we knew we were after a wolf shifter.” At first, the crime-scene guy had thought he’d found dog hair on one of the vics. That had been the evidence they needed. Not dog hair. Close, but . . . “We thought a Lone was hunting.”
Lones were the wolves who’d been forced out of the relative safety of the pack. The wolves who’d be most likely to have a psychotic breakdown. They were the ones with the sharpest blood hunger, the fiercest rage. Their beasts were too strong, they needed—
“I was Lone for six years.”
She knew that. “But now you’re alpha.” The only Lone who’d ever come back. That was one of the many reasons he’d been watched by the FBI.
“I’m alpha only because I clawed and bit my way through the bodies to claim the pack.”
And he had killed. She knew that. Pack justice. Pack was brutal. Wild. But for the wolves, it could be all that kept them sane.
She cleared her throat. Finish it. “There weren’t any Lones in the area near the kills. There was a pack, but . . . no Lones. So I was sent in.” Because she hadn’t believed they were truly looking for a Lone. The prey was always different—men, women, all races, all ages. But the location had been centered around Fallen, Arizona. Right around the home of Rafe’s pack.
He laughed. A rough, bitter sound. “Let me guess. When you went into the pack, no one knew you were a charmer. You went in, spied in their minds, and tried to find your killer.”
That had been what Rafe wanted him to believe. She came into my pack, seduced me, used me, because her mission was to take down my wolves.
Rafe was a very good liar.
“Rafe knew exactly who and what I was.” How else would she have gotten into the pack? “Rafe knew that I was a charmer, and he wanted to use my power. He came to me.” And she’d been so stupid. “He found me at the FBI. He knew about the killings and he said he wanted them stopped before his pack was forced to leave the area.”
The tension in the room was so thick it seemed to suffocate her. Sarah tried to suck in a deep breath of air.
Lucas just watched her. “I’m guessing Rafe wasn’t on the extermination list? Not if he just waltzed into the FBI office.”
She shook her head. “He’d—he’d never hurt anyone. Always kept a low profile. He’d pulled together his own pack, and he—”
Lucas lifted a hand, stopping her. “Right. Got it. The f**king upstanding citizen came to you because he wanted the killings stopped.”
He really had seemed upstanding, at first.
“How long was it,” Lucas asked. “Before you found out Rafe was behind the kills?”
Too long.
The wild, musky scent of the wolf teased Marie’s nose. She pulled her shawl closer. She was always cold, even in the summer. Death stood too close to her.
She didn’t look back over her shoulder. Just kept staring at the sun. Not so bloody anymore. Almost . . . beautiful. Parts of the world were rather nice to look at.
Others weren’t. She’d seen it all in her ninety-three years. War. Famine. Hope.
Horror.
Time to let it all go.
She began to chant softly, whispering so carefully. She’d learned the words at her mother’s knee. Had passed them down to her darling Carline, only to see her only daughter die at the hands of a vampire.
Vengeance had come.
Vengeance always came.
“Rafe had taken a new wolf into his pack. A guy, barely eighteen, named Sean Walker.” Wide smile, dark eyes—his image flashed before her. He’d seemed so nice, so normal, then he’d shifted into a wolf and she’d caught the darkness in his mind. Seen the flash of bodies and the pool of red. “He’d been making the kills.”
“The guy knew you were a charmer and he let you close enough to see his thoughts?” Doubt hung heavy in Lucas’s voice.
“Rafe—Rafe brought me in as his companion, he didn’t tell the others—”
His eyes glittered. “That was your cover?”
Being Rafe’s lover. A lie that had become truth. Her chin lifted. She wouldn’t apologize. She’d made a mistake—like Lucas’s hands were lily-white. “Sean didn’t know,” she said instead. “All of the pack changed around me at some point. Sean—when he shifted, I knew.”
“And what did you do?”
Her lashes lowered. “I reported to my boss at the FBI. Special Agent Anthony Miller is the leader of our task force. I told him, and then he told Rafe.” She’d followed the chain of command, thinking it meant something.
But Miller had already known how Rafe would deal with Sean . . .
“Pack justice.”
“Yes.” She hadn’t realized how brutal or how swift it would be. Two wolves, fighting to the death. But no news coverage. No nosey reporters to deal with. Just a quiet end for a murderer—at least, that’s what Anthony had thought he’d get. “Rafe . . . Rafe killed Sean.”
The FBI had believed the murders were over then. Six dead. Peace for the victims, finally.
“Then you and Rafe got close.” She could easily hear the fury underscoring Lucas’s words.
Fury and . . . jealousy.
For a moment, her lashes lowered. Rafe had understood her. Seemed to, anyway. After years of being on the outside, not having anyone who understood other than her grandmother, he’d been a temptation for her.