I took one last look around, scenting and trying to find anything that would bring me answers. Chance did the same.
We all waited until we got back to our vehicles to shift back into our human forms. I redressed and went back to where my cousins stood.
“You knew that was Richard,” I said, looking between them.
Ronan dipped his head toward Montgomery. “He knew.”
Montgomery looked between his brother and me. He remained quiet for so long that I wondered if he intended on speaking at all. Finally, he nodded and folded his arms across his chest.
“I worked with Richard and knew his scent.”
That made sense. Though Montgomery wasn’t part of my pack, he’d worked between our different communes, having met the foremen that worked our sites.
“And that son of a bitch Pines,” he said through gritted teeth. He clamped his jaw shut so tightly that it looked like it hurt.
“You should tell him,” Noah encouraged.
“Ronan said you remembered something.” I raised an eyebrow and waited for Montgomery to speak.
When he first awakened from his coma, Montgomery had no memory of what happened or how he ended up in that basement. Plus, the confusion about whether or not he was Ronan and Noah’s long-lost brother. But scents didn’t lie. Though his had worn off over the years, Chance’s nose still picked up on the smell of pine and spruce trees and limestone and shale common in the Colorado mountains.
Add to that the confusion about Sera, and it was impossible to get answers out of Montgomery about what the hell happened.
“I remembered meeting some strange man at a diner outside the Arizona site,” Montgomery started. “I was getting ready to head back to my hotel for the night before making the drive the next morning to New Mexico.”
I nodded, knowing he disappeared sometime after last being spotted in Arizona.
“The guy, dressed in a dark suit, came out of nowhere and took a seat at my table. Said he had a proposition for me.” Montgomery frowned. “I don’t like propositions, and I told him to screw off.”
“I suppose he didn’t take that too well.”
Montgomery snorted. “No,” he said gruffly. “He just sat there with a superior look on his bony face. I tossed a few bills on the table and left. He followed me out and said he could offer me money. I told him to fuck off again, but he kept going. Told me what he had planned would be simple. All I had to do was relay information back to him about your pack.”
Montgomery jutted his head at me. I wasn’t surprised. This person, whoever the fuck they were, clearly had it out for me and my pack.
“I kept going to my truck, and that was my mistake. I turned my back on the sneaky son of a bitch. Out of nowhere, I felt a pinch in the side of my neck.” He shook his head. “The next thing I remember was coming to on a cold metal table. In the basement of that fucking doctor’s.”
His eyes darted over his shoulder in the direction of the cabin.
“Did they tell you anything?”
He shook his head. “No one ever spoke to me after that day at the diner. I was in and out of consciousness.” He worked his jaw, his eyes falling to the ground. “They were doing some kind of experiment, trying to devise some sort of potion to weaken shifters or kill our wolves.”
I looked over at Chance and then at my other cousins. Everyone’s expression was full of fury. Separating us from our wolves was impossible. As I told Reese months earlier, we are one.
“Was this man a shifter himself?”
Montgomery nodded. “I could smell his wolf. But he didn’t just have it out for the Nightwolf pack,” he continued. “The few periods I was awake and could hear them talking, he mentioned getting payback with your pack. But also, he wanted to use whatever potion he and Pines were creating on all shifters. He planned to start with the Alliance.”
I stilled before dropping my hands to my sides. “The Alliance?” The question came out warily. “He planned to use this potion on the Alliance counsel?”
Another nod. “To weaken them and assume power. He made a huge deal over outsmarting everyone who’d ever gotten in his way, of being taken advantage of and considered weak.”
Montgomery stopped talking and turned in the direction of the cabin. “And that human motherfucker was the one to help him do it. He, at first, used those old people at that home where he worked. But over time, he realized they were too fragile. Their DNA was compromised from old age and disease, so…”
“That was when they decided to take you,” I finished for him.
He didn’t answer, but his sharp gaze met mine. Montgomery tightened his fists at his side. Ronan moved next to him and placed an arm on his shoulder. Montgomery shook his body free and walked away toward the truck.
