Caged, page 16
“It’s not unusual to have times like that when you’re in therapy,” I agreed. “Change is scary. Those first steps come a little easier, then suddenly you realize you’re on a whole new path with new responsibilities. It can be tempting to slide back into bad habits just to feel the safety and comfort that familiarity provides.”
“Or maybe he was faking it so I’d let my guard down,” Liam said flatly. “Maybe he’s been planning to leave and form his own pack from the get go.”
I hesitated. “Would that be so bad? You said yourself he had the potential to be a strong alpha.”
Liam met my eyes, and the intensity in his blue gaze made me lean back, my cutlery sagging in my hands. “Stephen is strong, and I have no doubt he’d enjoy being the boss of a group of people. But being the boss means a lot of grunt work, and it means enforcing the rules whether you like it or not.” He stabbed his steak again and sheared off another hunk of seasoned meat. “Stephen can’t even follow the rules himself. What chance does he have to make others follow rules they know he’s broken?”
“Edwin seems to have an idea of how to handle him,” Peasblossom said through a mouthful of honey.
Liam’s face emptied of emotion, and he dropped the bite of steak. “Edwin thinks I should have punished Stephen. Physically.”
My stomach turned, and I regretted the last few bites of steak. “I see.”
“Edwin’s alpha wasn’t a bad man. He was like my father, a firm man who believed in order to successfully control a pack of werewolves, one had to use a method of control that both a human and a wolf understood. He was the sort of man who would sit with a sick wolf, bring them food, make sure they were well cared for. And he was a man who would beat a member of his pack unconscious if they defied him.”
“I see.” I picked up my soda and took a long sip, trying to control my reaction. I didn’t like the sound of beating someone unconscious under any circumstances.
“I’ve tried to run my pack more like a military unit. A firm hierarchy, punishment that involves moving down the hierarchy, and challenges that build strong ties, and feed loyalty.” He shook his head. “Maybe I have it wrong.”
Liam’s phone rang, and he slammed his knife down on the table, startling me bad enough that I jumped. He ignored my reaction and barked into the phone. “Osbourne. What about it?” His shoulders tightened and he stared at me. “How hard would it be for someone to activate Stephen’s collar?”
It took me a second to realize he was talking to me. “Not that hard. The difficult part of those collars is building the binding spell into the collar. Once that’s done, it takes relatively little power to activate the spell. It’s meant to be hard to get off, not put on.”
“Could it be reversed so it kept someone in wolf form instead of human form?”
“It would trap you in whatever form you were in when it was put on.” Realization dawned, and I dropped my fork. “You think someone collared Brenna? Who’s that on the phone?”
“Ruth. She’s in my office.” Liam shoved his chair back. “Check the other drawers,” he said into the phone.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
He ended the call and looked at me as he stood up. “We have to go. Stephen’s collar is gone.”
Chapter 15
“Liam!”
Panic pushed my voice up an octave as I lurched after Liam. His stride was longer than mine, and his anger made him faster. It would have been hard enough for me to keep up with him if he’d been human, but he wasn’t human and that meant I had to run.
Blake and Sonar had done a good job sending the earlier crowds back to their rooms. There were only a few stragglers standing around to see Liam flow down the hall like a storm cloud, his energy crackling in a menacing aura around him.
“We don’t know that anyone used the collar,” I said, trying to sound calm despite my erratic heartbeat. “For all we know, Stephen took it just in case you found out about his plan to leave and tried to stop him.”
“You don’t understand. Stephen is planning to leave, and with Brenna’s help, he’s apparently planning to take a good portion of the wolves in my care with him. Do you know what would happen if Stephen left and took those new wolves with him?”
“It would be bad.” I put a hand down on my waist pouch, checking to make sure Peasblossom as still secure in the side pocket.
“It would be a disaster. Stephen has enough strength that he could probably defend against challengers.” Liam pivoted around a corner. “But just the fact that he’d be leaving his pack without permission from his alpha—that he’d be leaving because he broke the rules and couldn’t take the punishment—would set the pace for the new pack. Anyone who didn’t like the rules would break them and think they could just walk away, start a new pack. They’d be easy targets for alphas who would see them as fresh meat, an easy means to build their numbers.”
A thought occurred to me, and I tensed, tripping over my own feet as I struggled to keep up. “What if that’s why Stephen took the collar? What if he intends to use it on members of his own pack? He could hold that over their heads, and that kind of punishment would scare most shifters.”
Liam swore a streak so long I finally reached down to cover Peasblossom’s ears. The pixie’s eyes were wide, and she was surprised enough by Liam’s language that she didn’t struggle against me.
We entered another hallway in the men’s dormitory wing, and Liam increased his speed, leaving me behind. I watched him make a beeline for an open door and guessed that was the room Stephen and Emma shared. Since the door was open, I figured Blake and Sonar were still searching their quarters, or perhaps Kristine was there with Emma.
“Where is it?” Liam’s voice carried into the hallway.
I started to run, urged on by the rising anger in his voice. I arrived at the door to the room and halted before crossing the threshold. Stephen and Emma’s quarters were larger than I’d expected, more of a small apartment than a single room. The kitchen on the left was separated from the living room by a low counter, and a short hallway led to a tiny bathroom. A door to the right of the bathroom was likely the bedroom.
Even if the living room area had been full-sized, it still wouldn’t have been big enough for the two male shifters standing there now. Liam towered over Stephen, looking much larger through nothing more than the sheer force of his rage. He flexed his hands at his sides, obviously struggling not to lash out.
Stephen’s arms were loose at his side, his spine straight but not stiff. The serenity on his face provided a sharp contrast to the boiling heat of his own energy lashing around him. “Where is what?”
“The collar. Where is it?”
“I don’t have it. If you don’t believe me, ask Blake and Sonar. They just left after searching the place—on your orders.” His eyes glinted with a gold shine. “I’d ask Emma to back me up, but she’s still in wolf form. She’s in too much pain to shift back.”
Stephen looked past Liam as he said the last part, staring at something over my shoulder. I turned to look and almost fell over when Ruth pushed past me through the door. She didn’t spare me a glance, but as I regained my balance, movement in the hallway caught my peripheral vision. A number of doors along the hallway opened, as sensitive hearing alerted the other residents to the conflict brewing in Stephen’s room.
Before I could warn Liam that a crowd was forming, he grabbed Stephen by the front of his shirt. He hauled him off his feet before slamming him into the wall.
Ruth took a step forward, then stopped herself. Her hands curled into fists and she pressed them to her sides.
“I know what you’ve been up to. You used my sister. You manipulated her. Where is she?”
“What’s going on?”
My heart stopped at the sound of St. John’s voice. Oh, Blessed Goddess, not now.
I whipped around, ready to tell him to run, but Liam was faster. Ruth pivoted with preternatural agility to get out of Liam’s way, and I did the same, though not as gracefully. I hurled myself out of the doorway, stumbled, lost my balance and pitched backward. Strong hands caught me under my arms, and I looked up to find Blake staring down at me, his mouth set in a grim line. He steadied me and we shared a moment of understanding before facing the newest catastrophe.
Liam had St. John backed against the wall. He hadn’t grabbed him yet, but his body vibrated like a tuning fork, and his eyes had bled to gold. St. John had that stillness to him that all animals took on when cornered by a predator.
“The collar,” Liam rasped. “The one Stephen wore. Did you steal it?”
St. John visibly fought to stay calm. “Why would I want that collar? I was a thief, not a kleptomaniac. I don’t—didn’t—steal things just to steal them, I stole things that were worth a lot of money. Which that collar is not.”
That wasn’t true. I could think of a lot of people who would pay out the nose for a collar that powerful. I didn’t say that though.
“Maybe you wanted it so you could trap Brenna, sell her to Varca so you could run away like you always do.”
St. John’s mouth fell open, a lock of white-blond hair falling over one crimson eye. “What?”
“The witch,” Liam continued, his voice dropping another octave. “The one who was your lover, the one you stole from. Do you still talk to her? Would she help you activate the collar if you asked? Have you stolen anything else from her, anything you could use on Brenna? Can you work magic? Charms?”
I winced. Liam was going off the rails. And in front of witnesses. No one in this hallway would know the details of the investigation, they wouldn’t understand Liam’s questions. This was bad. Very bad.
“The only charm I have,” St. John said calmly, “is my winning personality.”
Liam closed a hand around St. John’s neck, squeezing until the other man’s eyes widened. My heart leapt into my throat, and it took everything I had not to intervene. Ruth seemed to sense my conflict, and she put herself between me and Liam in silent warning. She cast her eye over the assembling shifters, performing crowd control with nothing more than the force of her stare.
“Do not toy with me,” Liam ground out. “Where is my sister? Where is Stephen’s collar?”
“You might as well answer.” Ruth stepped closer to Liam, careful not to invade his personal space. “We’re heading to his office now. We’ll find out who was there.” She pointed at me. “She’ll find the evidence if you were anywhere near that collar.”
Liam raised his head, as if only just then realizing that there may be physical evidence to prove who’d taken the collar. He looked at me, and I jumped.
“You can work Vincent’s spells.”
It wasn’t a question, but I nodded anyway. “I can use Vincent’s spell to check for St. John’s DNA. And if I can take their fingerprints, that would be even better.”
Stephen stepped over his threshold to stand in the hallway where the observers could see him. “Alpha, I would ask that you listen to your witch. Please gather the evidence before you accuse us.” He took another step. “And let St. John go. You’re hurting him.”
Unease rolled through my stomach. The shifters in the hall looked at Stephen like he was their savior, here to protect them from the big, bad wolf. We needed a distraction.
I unzipped the pack around my waist. “Bizbee, could I have the fingerprint kit please?”
The grig grunted, and a second later he popped out of the pouch holding a small wooden box. I felt a change in the air as the hallway full of shifters picked up the new scent. Bizbee’s antennae bounced as he jerked his head from side to side and found himself the focus of a dozen sets of eyes. His body stiffened, and he clutched the fingerprint chest like an anchor.
“Thank you,” I said, gripping the box.
The grig’s wide eyes flicked to me. “What are ye into now, lass?” he whispered.
“Just a routine investigation.” I looked up and down the hall, meeting the gaze of a few shifters on either side. “It’s all right, Bizbee, no one here is going to hurt you. We’re all friends.”
I let the witchy look spread over my face. It wasn’t magic, not exactly. More evolution. A near-preternatural ability to channel the stare of every mother who had ever been or ever would be. A silent warning to behave. The shifters looked from my face to the grig, and they visibly relaxed, making an attempt to look as nonthreatening as possible.
Bizbee released the box and vanished back into the pouch without another word. I opened the fingerprint kit and removed the ink pad and a couple cards with squares that blocked off space for each fingerprint.
I went to St. John first. Liam had released him while I was talking, but he still crowded the fox shifter against the wall until the fox barely had room to breathe without making their chests touch. I smiled at St. John and opened the stamp pad. Liam stepped back to allow me space to work.
“I’m surprised to see you,” I said, keeping my voice light. “I thought you were having some alone time.”
St. John moved stiffly, as if he had to fight not to keep still. He pressed each of his fingers in turn against the ink pad, then the card, putting each finger on the appropriately labeled square. “I realized it was silly to hide,” he said finally. “I’m in no danger here.”
I glanced up in time to see him look over my shoulder when he said the last line.
Straight at Stephen.
Blood and bone.
I didn’t miss the way Stephen met the gaze of each member in the gathered crowd individually, behaving for all the world as if he were promising each of them that he would protect them from harm. I gritted my teeth and held out the ink pad. “Your fingerprints, please.”
Stephen’s stare fixed on me, an uncomfortable weight that raised the hairs on the back of my neck. I lifted my chin, letting my magic rise and pressing it out so it flared around me. Stephen stepped into my space, then hesitated.
“I’m glad you’re here, Mother Renard,” he said in a low voice. “I think you’re just the person to offer much needed comfort to our alpha in his time of need.”
The insinuation when he said the word “comfort” did not go unnoticed. But even as I felt Liam move behind me, I fixed Stephen with the same look I’d given seven-year-old Tanya when she’d hidden her little sister’s favorite toy to avenge a destroyed tower of blocks.
“Your alpha has invited my partner and me to assist in his investigation into the death of Adrian Varca—and all incidents relating to that murder. As such, my skills are at his disposal. You remember my skill set, don’t you?”
Stephen’s body went completely still, a sharp contrast to the flood of his aura pouring over me with all the heat and intensity of a live volcano. I was ready for it, and I leaned into the heat, putting my face closer to his.
“Behave yourself,” I whispered. “Playtime is over. It’s time to grow up.”
The sardonic smile left Stephen’s face, but he didn’t glare at me outright. He was still playing a part for his audience, and getting into a battle of words with me wouldn’t do him any favors. I didn’t know if it was the disappearance of Stephen’s smile, or the anticipation of using the fingerprints and forensic spells to get proof of his wrongdoing, but whatever the cause, Liam looked more like himself when I finally turned my back to Stephen.
Liam stared at St. John and Stephen in turn. “Until further notice, you’re both confined to your rooms.” He looked at Blake. “Call security and have them put an anklet on St. John. Stay with him until it’s done.”
He didn’t wait for a response before launching himself down the hallway with his shoulders squared and his head held high. Ruth and I followed after him. We shared a look, and for just a moment, we had an understanding. We needed to present a united front. Stephen was looking for cracks in the line of authority. We had to make sure he didn’t find any.
Kristine met us in the hallway outside Liam’s office. She was wringing her hands and pacing back and forth, muttering to herself as if rehearsing something she wanted to say. She looked up as Liam approached, but Liam stormed past her into his office and headed for the desk.
“What happened?” Kristine whispered.
Ruth ignored her and stepped inside the office, and I waited for her to pass before responding.
“Stephen’s collar is gone,” I said grimly.
Kristine wrapped her arms around herself. “Damn. I was afraid of that.”
“What do you mean?” Peasblossom climbed out of the side pocket of my pouch and aimed her grappling gun at my shoulder. I grabbed her before she could pull the trigger and lifted her to her usual seat. She scowled, but lowered the grappling gun.
Kristine bit her lip. “I was sitting with Emma in her room when Stephen came back. He was…upset about how Liam handled the situation. He said something about having had enough.” She hesitated, then added, “It sounds like he’s about to do something he’ll regret.”
“Shade!” Liam barked.
I jumped, and Peasblossom squeaked and tilted madly on my shoulder. I steadied her with one hand, rushing into the office with my pulse thundering in my ears.
“Forensics, right, sorry.” I called my magic, focusing my mind on the task of casting the now-familiar forensic spell Vincent had taught me. Silver light spiraled from my fingertips, then arced to form a large net that settled over Liam’s desk and the immediate area surrounding it.
Smoky shapes rose into the air. Mostly the odd human and wolf combination that signified a werewolf. “No fox DNA.” I tilted my head, squinting at some of the werewolf shapes. “I can’t tell if the male werewolf is Stephen or you. But there’s female werewolf.”
“That would be me,” Ruth said dismissively. “I was the one to check to see if it was missing. My fingerprints will be everywhere too.”
I nodded and approached the desk. I hadn’t put the fingerprint box away yet, and I opened it now and retrieved the small brush and black powder. I dusted the drawer handle, and saw two and a half clear prints. I held up the fingerprint cards.
