It reminded me of a memorial. Live flowers would be more the dryads’ style. They wouldn’t want to kill a plant, but I could see them encouraging the growth of one to commemorate the life of a fallen sister.
I bent down and brushed the flowers away from the stone, uncovering a trio of multicolored pebbles, polished smooth by a river, stacked one on top of each other.
“Find anything?” Brax asked form behind me.
I straightened and gestured at what I’d found. “I think it’s a memorial by the dryad’s community. I’d be willing to bet this is where she was found.”
He came to stand beside me. “I think you’re correct.”
I stood and turned in a circle. We were only a few feet from the pond. The dryad’s tree was on the opposite side. From what I knew of that species, dryads didn’t venture far from the safety of their trees. What was she doing this far from hers?
“This can’t be right,” Brax said, echoing my thoughts. “What caused her to leave her tree?”
“Maybe someone promised something she wanted?”
Brax shook his head. “Dryad’s are relatively simple. They gain satisfaction from tending to their trees and need little else.”
“Maybe something scared her.”
“Enough to abandon her tree?” Brax raised an eyebrow skeptically. “I doubt it. She could have just merged with the wood to escape.”
“Unless it threatened the tree as well,” I said, thinking out loud. “Or maybe something lured her a little away from safety and then got between her and it. She might have run at that point.”
“That’s an interesting theory,” a voice said from the shadows of the woods next to us.
Brax snarled and dropped into a defensive crouch. I dropped my hand to my belt and the knives hidden there. Even wearing someone else’s pants, I’d insisted on keeping my belt and none of the werewolves had argued with me.
A man stepped from the shadows, the faint light of the moon illuminating his sharp features. Liam’s eyes were intense as they observed the two of us. He seemed to be alone, which I was grateful for.
The vampire regarded my growling companion coolly. “Are you done yet, or should we give you a few more minutes to get your beast back under control?”
Brax’s voice was guttural and barely human when he said, “I’m always under control, bloodsucker.”
Seemed like the two weren’t fans of each other.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, hoping to forestall the coming fight.
Liam shot me a sharp glance. “I didn’t know I needed permission for a stroll in the park, infant.”
I narrowed my eyes. Cute.
“So, it just happens to be coincidence that this is the scene for one of the murders and that you—
Someone who has expressed considerable interest in these occurrences—just happened to be out for a stroll,” I said.
Right. If that was true, I was a sparkly unicorn filled with rainbows and moonbeams.
“The murderer has a debt to pay,” Brax spat. “Don’t get in our way.”
“It’s not only werewolves he’s been killing, wolf. You had your chance to solve this after the first death. You failed or were just too self-absorbed to take care of business. He’s killed several of ours, so now it’s our turn to clean up your mess.”
Brax laughed, a deep ugly sound. “As if your kind could stop squabbling between themselves long enough to solve anything.”
Liam’s lips lifted, displaying a set of impressive fangs. He hissed, sounding like a pissed off cat, only way larger and more dangerous.
I stepped back, not wanting to get caught between them by accident. It sounded like these two had unresolved issues from before this night.
This was one thing I think the myths had right. It seemed there was no love lost between vampires and werewolves. My treatment at the werewolves’ hands had been relatively civil, though that may have been because of my relative youth and lack of danger.
