Authors: Marcy Jacks
Tags: #none
those people attacked,” Rhyan snapped.
Now Blasius recalled the man. Poor soul, to have the back of his
head blown off was a bad way to go. No honor in being taken when
the back was turned.
“I was not of the men charged with disposing of the dead, but I believe they were taken into the hills.”
He did not understand the reason for Rhyan’s blanching face.
“All of them?” he asked. “He was buried together with the rest of those people? They killed him! Why would you put them together?”
“They weren’t put in the same grave.”
Blasius turned at the new voice that had unexpectedly added itself
to their conversation.
Tristan, that omega werewolf that Blasius had seen around on the odd occasion, was practically hiding half of his body behind the side of one of the cottages, as though attempting to keep out of Blasius’s sight.
Blasius understood his fear. He had to be told the story from another werewolf after his confusion continued to mount over the
behavior of the young wolf.
The body that Blasius currently inhabited, an alpha wolf formerly
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named Deacon, had once attempted to force the omega into becoming a part of his harem, and would have succeeded had the boy’s mate, a hunter of all people, not come to his rescue before the initiation could
commence.
Before Blasius had been annoyed when the omega had avoided him, even after nearly every other werewolf on the land had begun to warm up to Blasius’s presence. Then he heard that and understood. He’d left the omega alone, not so much as coming to him to make innocent conversation.
Blasius would not wish to be near a man who looked so much like
an alpha who had attempted to do such things to him either. If he ever met another wolf, human, hunter, or any such creature who resembled the alpha responsible for Rhyan’s death, he knew without any doubt that he would kill the man.
Yet now Tristan was here, attempting to help Blasius as he struggled with the odd moods of his mate.
“What do you know of this?” Blasius asked.
“I was one of the men put in charge of burying the bodies,” Tristan replied, hesitantly stepping out for them to see.
Blasius’s brows came together. “And odd activity for an omega.”
“Who cares?” Rhyan said, stepping closer to Tristan. “Can you take me to where he is?”
Tristan nodded. “Yeah, follow me.”
Tristan turned and began walking toward the northern side of the land and then behind the alpha’s house.
Blasius had no need for any sort of invitation to go along with them. He was Rhyan’s mate, and in charge of his safety in these dangerous times, so of course he would follow as well.
That did not stop him from being angered that Rhyan had not so much as asked for Blasius to accompany him.
They walked into the trees, the hill sloping as they traveled. Blasius could hear the steady thump of Rhyan’s heart, especially as the sound got to be louder and louder.
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Something was making his mate act this way. The closer it was they came to the grave of the human, the more frantic Rhyan’s heart became.
Then they were on the spot. There was naught there to give away that any bodies were buried in this area aside from the scent of recently turned earth. Even new small plants had been placed to give the illusion that there was nothing amiss.
To human eyes, anyway. Blasius could still tell the difference.
Rhyan’s senses were still improving, and he searched around the area, inhaling deeply through his nose. He could smell the turned earth but could not see that the graves were right at his feet, it seemed.
“Where is he?” Rhyan demanded.
“That’s the grave of the hunters, right there,” Tristan said, pointing to the spot just in front of Rhyan’s feet in the center of the clearing.
Rhyan stepped back when he realized was he was nearly standing upon. “Jesus Christ!” he cursed.
Then he stepped forward again, staring at the place where Tristan had pointed, the ferns and small shrubs and new weeds poking out of the earth hiding the grave quit well without making it too obvious that someone was attempting to hide something.
“You said Decker’s not in there,” Rhyan reminded the omega. “Where is he?”
“Over there,” Tristan said, nodding his head toward the foot of an
oak tree.
Blasius looked at the same time as his lover, and he could not help but think that it was a fine place to be buried, even if a little too close to one’s enemies. The oak was tall, thick, and strong. The branches seemingly reaching out to protect the grave itself, hiding it from view, but now that he and Rhyan knew what they were looking at, it was impossible to miss.
Rhyan approached the grave and moved one of the low hanging branches out of the way. Small purple and white blossoms grew from
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out of the little vines that sprouted from the earth where his friend was
buried.
Again, Blasius thought it was a fine resting place.
He did not fully begin to understand that there was more wrong here than he knew until Rhyan fell to his knees, his spine and head bending in despair.
He did not weep. He did not need to. Blasius understood.
He went to stand behind Rhyan, and he put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Were you lovers, then?” he asked.
Rhyan nodded, and then he lifted his head, as though he’d just thought of something. “Ex-lovers, actually, but we were still friends. I liked him, and even though we were at different places in our careers, we still got along like friends.”
Blasius did not enjoy the way Rhyan’s chin trembled toward the end of his speech. He did not enjoy the knowledge that Rhyan had had lovers before Blasius either, though he would never admit to being jealous of a dead man.
“I hate that he’s so close to them,” Rhyan said, barely casting a glance toward the other unmarked and nearly invisible grave. “But I’m glad he’s not sharing a space with them.”
Rhyan looked up at Tristan. “Thank you.”
“I never said I had anything to do with keeping them apart,” Tristan said.
“No, but I’m pretty sure you did. It would’ve been easier for you all to just dump them in the same grave. Someone had to dig the second hole.”
Tristan’s face heated, and he looked away from Rhyan’s grateful gaze. “He was wearing a police uniform. Didn’t seem right putting him with the people who killed him.”
Rhyan nodded then put his hands on the earth, as though he could somehow touch the spirit of the man within the grave.
Blasius knew all about wandering spirits, as well as how they enjoyed the attentions of the living. He was simply glad that there
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were no spirits here to disturb them.
It had been something he had not spoken to anyone about since taking possession of this body and returning to life. He could still see the dead, much the same way the vampire Ivan could.
Perhaps it was because he was still, at least partially, connected to the spirit world. There was one spirit in particular who wandered this pack, and that was the ghost of Eric Martin, Ivan’s mate. He managed to keep all other spirits away from the land, and though Blasius was certain that the man suspected Blasius could see him, Blasius continued to pretend ignorance of his presence, as well as the presence of any other spirit he happened to see while he was on the edge of pack land.
The spirit of Rhyan’s former lover, as well as the ghosts of the hunters who had killed him, were not here. Perhaps they’d moved on, to heaven, hell, wherever it was that spirits went when the left the earth. Blasius did not know.
He was simply glad that the man his lover mourned was not here.
Blasius would no doubt shame himself if he had to confront such a
specter.
“Were they all killed?” Rhyan asked, glaring down at the other
grave.
“Don’t know,” Tristan said, becoming more and more at ease in Blasius’s presence. Perhaps that had more to do with the fact that he was not required to speak to Blasius.
“There are five people buried here, including your…partner,” Tristan said.
“Five,” Rhyan said, frowning at nothing in particular. “So only
four of those other men, those hunters, were killed?”
“Yes,” Tristan nodded.
“I counted at least five of them. One of them got away before you could finish him off,” Rhyan said, jumping to his feet and walking away from the graves.
Blasius quickly followed him. “Where are you going?”
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“To tell your leader or alpha or whatever that someone else might be coming back here with backup,” Rhyan said, not looking back at them as he hurried back down the hill.
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Chapter Seven
Now that Ryan knew there might be one of those motherfuckers alive who was responsible for Decker’s death, he found himself a little less torn between staying and attempting another escape.
His connection to Blasius was one thing, but now that there was a killer out there, who very well might’ve been the one to pull the trigger that blew off the back of Decker’s head, he was a lot more interested in what being a werewolf could do for him in terms of hunting the man down and killing him.
James, the alpha with the scarred face, had rubbed his hand over his forehead, most notably over the eyebrow that was half missing. He didn’t look tired by any stretch of the imagination, but he did look like the constant news of hunters coming to kill him and his pack was really starting to annoy him.
Ryan could hardly blame him. As much as he loved the cat-and-mouse chase involved in a crime spree, there were those times when he had to stop and wonder when it would all stop.
“Everything was pretty chaotic that day,” James had said when they had their meeting. “It was nearly impossible for us to know just how many other hunters their leader called in for backup. You sure about this?”
“I can’t be sure about exactly how many there were,” Ryan was forced to admit. “But Tristan said you only buried four hunters and Decker. I counted at least five men shooting at your pack that day.”
Based only on what Ryan had been able to count, the fact that there could be more of them out there than what he’d seen was left
unsaid.
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James was the kind of guy who didn’t need Ryan to spell things
out for him. He liked that about the other man.
“Mick?” James had asked, and another large male stepped closer
to their group.
“Yes?”
“How many men do we have on sentry?”
Mick told him, and James cursed.
“Almost all our alphas,” he said.
Mick nodded. “Including Isaac. Even the vampires have started helping out by doing night rounds.”
That made Ryan sit a little straighter in his chair. Vampires? Did he just say frickin’ vampires?
James drummed his fingers on the table. “I don’t want a repeat of what happened the last time. It’s not in their nature, but the omegas are going to have to learn to defend themselves so that the alphas won’t have as much to worry about.”
“But they’re already learning how to use firearms with Isaac and Jason,” Mick said.
“That’s not exactly good enough when there aren’t enough guns for even half the omegas here to use. I don’t want that many firearms on my land anyway,” James said. “The last thing I want is for one of the pups to get their hands on them and hurt someone, or themselves.”
Mick nodded. “I can gather a few omegas up who will be willing to learn. Tristan will probably be the most interested, and with Isaac to help him, the both of them can better convince the omegas that this is the way to go.”
“They don’t need convincing,” James said, lacing his fingers together. “They’re going to do it whether they like it or not.”
Ryan suddenly got a good idea of just why this was the man in charge around here. People did what he said, period.
“You were a cop, too, right?” James then asked, turning his hard stare onto Ryan.
Ryan felt the way Blasius had tensed up beside him and was
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forced to ignore it. “Detective, but you don’t get to that position without doing some street work first. I’ll do whatever you want me to do if it means getting the guy who killed Decker.”