It’s her. Brylee’s friend, Natalie.
My stomach turns, my gaze never leaving Natalie’s face even as Kain and Lord Carlin begin whispering as they kneel at her side.
“Don’t let her mother see her like this,” Kain says quietly. Lord Carlin nods.
Kain looks up to Chaos and the shifter strides away with intent without a spoken word ever passing between them.
“What could have done this?” someone whispers in a shaking breath.
“Something dark and deadly,” another voice answers.
“Ocknala,” a man growls out.
Agatha stiffens at my side the moment she hears the name of her fictional spirit that she created just to get some cookies and gin and maybe a little privacy.
For once, it’s not me who fucked up this time.
“Let us not accuse our spirits.” Agatha’s frail hands come up at her sides as if to appease the dozens of angry and protective shifters. Her male friend, the second in command, comes to her the moment she speaks, his broad shoulders spanning out behind her small body. It’s a protective stance, and I am not the only one who notices it. He looks hard at the men surrounding Agatha, and I wonder if he knows about Ocknala and the spirit’s lack of actual existence. The defensive stance the older man holds makes me think he does know.
“You said yourself it was an aggressive essence,” someone in the back reminds her.
She nods continuously to the unseen shifter, her brows lifting as if to say ‘well fuck me and my antics.’
“It is a dangerous thing to falsely accuse a spirit. Perhaps you should investigate this young woman’s death. The girl’s death deserves more than just angry allegations.”
“She’s right,” Kain says as he stands. Rime looks to his friend and then they both look to me, seeing me for the first time. “I want men standing watch through the night. This wasn’t an animal attack. And whatever it was that came to the edge of village could have just been passing through.” A few murmurs of relief skim through the crowd, but they quiet the moment Kain speaks again. “Or it could return.”
Rime slips away from Kain, and I lean into him the moment he comes to me. His arms wrap around me, warming all the way through from the way his chest aligns with mine. I hadn’t even realized how cold I was until now.
“Yes, Skovence look into the girl’s recent actions for any indication on what she was doing out here in the middle of the night.” Lord Carlin instructs Agatha’s male friend. Long gray hair shifts against his jaw as Skovence nods to his alpha, but he never leaves Agatha.
A few more men are instructed to remain out tonight, searching the area and to stay on guard until sunrise.
Kain slips his big hand into mine and pulls me away from the murmurs, the crowd, and the vacant look of the dead girl who’s still staring wide eyed at me.
“I told you to stay inside.” Kain pulls me along and Rime matches our quick pace, but that careless look holds in his smooth features.
“You actually thought she’d listen to you. That’s cute,” Rime glances to Kain and the simple mocking comment pisses the shifter off even more.
“I used to think bad things happened to you at random, Arlow, but now I know.” Kain shakes his head as he leads me toward his mother’s house. “Now I know that you fucking immerse yourself into the bad. You dive right fucking in, head first, flail around a little bit, and somehow still come out unscathed on the other fucking side, looking for the next damn drowning contest.”
How dare he say something so outrageous.
My cold feet pad quickly across the floorboards, past the curious expression of Sinister and Myla and I stomp away until I’m pacing in the middle of the living room.
“I wasn’t searching for the bad, you egotistical alpha asshole.”
“Is that military code for something?” Sinister smirks at me, but his sarcasm does nothing to dissolve the tension in the room.
My jaw clenches and I storm away, not stopping until I get to Kain’s room where I throw off his fucking coat that smells just like him only to pull on a shirt that smells just fucking like him. I can’t believe I like this man. I cannot believe I think someone so completely arrogant is attractive.
What is wrong with me?
In the other room Myla, Sinister, and Rime whisper to one another about what we saw in the woods. It makes my stomach twist all over again as they whisper her name.
“I’m not an alpha.” Kain’s voice is gentler as he slowly closes the door behind him. His back leans against it as he watches me stomp around and internally lecture myself for my poor taste in men.
“Really? You’re not?”
