“You said there was a problem that needed to be addressed, Shay.” Callum’s voice carried, even when he made no attempt whatsoever to make it do so. “Perhaps we should head inside to discuss?”
Callum’s suggestion was every bit as pointed as my response to Shay’s taunts, a reminder to everyone present that the Snake Bend alpha wasn’t calling the shots, that, officially, all of the alphas were on even footing.
And that, unofficially, it wasn’t even close.
“Of course,” Shay said tightly, before turning his attention back to me. “I’m afraid you’ll have to leave your protection out here, Bryn.”
Referring to Devon as my protection was an insult, implying that I couldn’t protect myself.
If Shay thought it was going to get a rise out of me, he was wrong. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m sure Devon can find some way to entertain himself.”
Dev didn’t miss a beat. Towering over everyone else there and looking every inch the werewolf warrior, he nodded austerely. “I’ve been considering teaching myself to juggle.”
Biting back a smile, I took the first step forward toward Shay’s house. Callum followed my lead, and a second later, all of the alphas were breaking off from their backup.
Alpha. Alpha. Alpha. I felt the call, heard it in the air all around us. These men were dominant. They were strong. And each and every one of them was pushing down the animal instinct to fight the others, the whisper telling them—and me—that there was only ever meant to be one.
Alpha.
If the power was this overwhelming outside, it was going to be unbearable with the entire Senate crammed into a single room, but I wasn’t intimidated, wasn’t frightened.
Something about this moment felt right. Like I belonged here. Like this was what I’d always been meant to do.
The last thing I saw, as we filed into Shay’s house, was Devon and his mother watching us go, three feet between them, miles apart.
Game on.
CHAPTER NINE
SHAY’S LIVING ROOM WAS OPEN AND LARGE, BUT where Callum’s house was made of stone and wood, Shay’s seemed to be all glass and steel: cold and sleek, with sharp edges everywhere you looked. Instead of arranging the furniture around a central hearth, the room boasted a larger-than-life conference table.
In a show of restraint, Shay didn’t seat himself at the head of the table. No one did. But from the moment a screen descended from the ceiling, it was clear that this was the Shay Show. If the performance outside had been aimed at making me feel like I didn’t belong here, this room had been constructed to make the other alphas feel like artifacts of a different time—and to remind them that in the modern world, exposure wasn’t a minor threat. It couldn’t be quarantined or contained.
“These images have already made their way to the internet.”
Shay clicked through a series of crime scene photos, each more ghastly than the last.
“Luckily, both local authorities and the person responsible for leaking these pictures seem to believe this is an isolated incident.”
Shay paused, and in the space between his words, I could hear the beating of my own heart. The sound of it—and the picture on the screen, blood spread across white walls, like someone had been finger painting with it—made me dizzy, almost nauseous.
“Local authorities are wrong.”
This time, when Shay clicked over to the next slide, the images weren’t crime scene photos, but they were just as bloody. Just as gruesome.
“These were taken last week, just outside of the southernmost portion of Snake Bend territory and just north of the Arkansas state line.”
Years of geography lessons—the kind regular girls never had to take—came pouring back into my mind. The Snake Bend territory reached from North Dakota over to Minnesota, and then down through Iowa and most of Missouri. The Delta Hills Pack had most of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama—but there was an area between the southern tip of Snake Bend and the northern border of Delta Hills that didn’t officially belong to either pack.
No-Man’s-Land.
There were strips of land throughout the continent that fell to the same classification, places where geographical barriers and state lines didn’t line up, or where history might
have divided up territories in a way at odds with the present.
No-Man’s-Land was the only option for wolves who didn’t want to be associated with any pack—and sooner or later, most lone werewolves broke under the pressure of life alone and went Rabid.
“We’re lucky that as of yet, Missouri and Wyoming officials are not talking to each other.”
Was it my imagination, or did Shay’s gaze rest on me a second too long when he said Wyoming? That was where Cedar Ridge territory met up with Stone River. And in between the two, there was another slice of No-Man’s-Land.
One I knew all too well.
“You’re sure this is the work of a rabid Were?” the Ash Mountain alpha asked. “The Wyoming attack could have been a human, albeit a disturbed one. And Missouri—looking at the body, there’s no way to know that wasn’t an animal.”
I couldn’t help staring at the photos, looking for differences. The victims were both decimated past all recognition. They had no faces, no extremities, no visible sign of having ever been a person with a name and a family and a future.
These people were dissected and torn to pieces and devoured, and while an animal might have managed it in the backwoods of southern Missouri, the Wyoming crime scene was indoors. Someone had opened the door to the house, and—it appeared—closed it after they left, but there were clear teeth marks in some of the wounds.
The jugular had been ripped out. The walls had been sprayed with blood, and then hands—human hands—had played in it.
This wasn’t just a werewolf who had lost control. This was a monster who enjoyed the control he had over his victim, and whether or not the same person was responsible for the Missouri attack, there was a very good chance that whoever had killed the Wyoming victim was a Were.
Anger bubbled up inside of me, overriding my earlier nausea. Wyoming was near the edge of my territory. This was a threat to my peripherals, my pack, and that someone had chosen to do this so close to the place where the last Rabid had set up camp with his own victims—the kids who now looked to me for protection as members of the Cedar Ridge Pack—felt like a slap in the face.
Or possibly a warning.
“I don’t see how this is a Senate matter.” The alpha from Luna Mesa had an almost musical voice and a calm about him that made me wonder exactly how old he was. “Two attacks is not a pandemic. Let the local alphas investigate and deal with the situation. I’d venture to guess that neither you nor Callum needs our interference, Shay.”
The words reminded me of something I’d known, but forgotten: the Senate wasn’t called every time there was a Rabid. The reason Callum had called it the last time was because the man had been hunting across the country, in and out of different territories, for years. Plus he’d done something the others had thought next to impossible: created new Weres.
But one murder in Wyoming and one in Missouri? As graphic as they were, as horrific, the Luna Mesa alpha was right. That shouldn’t have been a Senate affair. For a few moments, I thought that perhaps Shay was just trying to undermine Callum—and me. It even occurred to me that he might have sent someone to play Rabid in between our lands, but that didn’t explain why he was claiming that a similar attack had happened near his territory, or what he was hoping to gain by going public with this information now.
Nothing could have prepared me for what Shay said next.
“Believe me, Arturo. This is a Senate affair.” Shay took a seat, like the fight had drained out of him, but I knew better. The look in his eyes told me he was about to deliver a lethal blow—though to who or what, I wasn’t sure.
Beside me, Callum looked straight ahead, staring at a fixed point in the distance. His facial expression never changed, but my stomach plummeted, and my heartbeat became audible once more.
Shay looked at me, only at me. “I have reason to believe that this Rabid is going to strike again. And I have reason to believe that she’s female.”