Rex pressed his lips together.As little as he enjoyed being scolded like a child, he understood where Arlen was coming from.Bickering with the dragons wouldn’t help anyone.
“I can assure you that Rex didn’t kill anyone,” Arlen told Jacob.“You can choose to believe me or not, I don’t care.I told you we were here to help your clan, and we are.”
“One of you killed him,” Jacob insisted.
At least he wasn’t set on Rex being that person anymore.That still left four people he could accuse, including Harmon.Rex didn’t like that.
“We had no reason to kill him,” Arlen said.He sounded like he was losing his patience.
“We were fine until you arrived.”
Rex had had enough.He cleared his throat, but no one paid attention to him.Arlen looked like he was about to strangle Jacob, which was a feeling Rex understood and even shared, but they couldn’t afford to make Jacob an enemy.
“Stop,” he said.“Accusing each other isn’t going to help.I understand why Jacob believes it was one of us, but it wasn’t.That means there’s a killer in this clan.Now, Jacob, you can continue freaking out, or you can start working on finding out who did this.Since you’re still convinced it was one of us, we’ll all stick around.We were going to anyway until you found a new leader, but that way, you don’t have to fear that we’re trying to get away with murder.We can investigate together.”
Jacob looked like he wanted to say no, but he knew he didn’t have a choice.He could continue accusing Rex and his people, but there was a chance that the killer was a dragon shifter, and he couldn’t ignore that.It would be easier, but also much more dangerous.
Jacob was positioning himself as the next leader.As such, he needed to find who the killer was and why they’d killed the man on the floor.It might be for personal reasons, but considering the guy had been one of Martin’s supporters, it might also be to ensure that he would never be the clan’s leader.If that was the case, Jacob might be the next in line to get stabbed in the heart.
Considering the way Jacob was staring at Harmon and the others, Rex couldn’t say he’d be sorry if that happened.
“Fine,” Jacob said.“We’ll investigate together.”
Rex nodded.He’d hoped for that, but he’d been sure that Jacob would tell him to fuck off.It was a step in the right direction.
The problem was that it was only the first step.They’d need to take a lot more of them before they could fix this mess.
* * * *
HARMON WAS IMPRESSEDby the way Rex took control of the situation.Arlen had been losing his patience, but Rex hadn’t, even though it would’ve been warranted.Jacob seemed to be making this more complicated on purpose, maybe because he hoped that it would get them kicked out of the clan house—or worse.He didn’t want to deal with them, which was understandable, but they weren’t going anywhere.
Especially now that someone was dead.
“I think that the first thing to do is tell the people gathered out there to leave,” Rex suggested.
Jacob stared at him.Rex hadn’t ordered him to do something about the spectators outside the door, but he had to know that Rex wanted him to do something about them, right?Having so many people out there peeking through the open door wasn’t helping.The dragons were angry and worried.One of theirs had died, so Harmon didn’t blame them, but this situation was complicated enough without Jacob making it even more so.They couldn’t afford for it to turn explosive and pit the dragons against the vampires.That wouldn’t end well for anyone.
Hopefully, Jacob realized that.
Rex stared back at Jacob for a moment before sighing.“That means that you need to tell these people to go back to their rooms.Isn’t it getting late for you, anyway?”
The clan followed a normal human schedule.They worked during the day and slept during the night.Rex, Harmon, and the others kept a vampire schedule, which was why they’d left the pack in the early morning and had gone to bed shortly after arriving.They’d known it would make them more vulnerable, but the alternative had been arriving in the evening before people here went to bed.It would have been useless and would’ve given Jacob the opportunity to refuse them entry.
Jacob finally moved.He stepped out into the hallway, snapping at people.Now that he was gone, Harmon inched closer to Rex, who was once again staring at the body on the floor.He wasn’t the only one.All five of them had run when they heard the screaming, and now, they were gathered around the body.
“What do we do?”Mallory asked.
“I don’t think we have a choice,” Rex answered.“I promised Jacob we’d find the killer.”
“What were you thinking?”Merrick grumbled.
Rex glared at him.“That I didn’t want anyone to get hurt.”
“I could have taken Jacob.”
“Could you have taken all the other people outside the door, too?Because you know Jacob wouldn’t have been fighting alone.He might be reluctant to call himself clan leader, but that’s how a lot of people here see him.I’m sure that if he ordered people to fight, they would.”
Harmon suspected he was right.The people here were hurting after so many years of Martin being in charge.They didn’t know what to do when someone wasn’t ordering them around.They were lost and needed guidance, which was why some people were already clamoring to become the next leader.No matter how reluctant Jacob might be, he had more power than a normal clan member.He knew that people looked up to him.
