He clicked another couple of buttons, and everything changed on his screen again to reveal the same background, but this time fourvery familiarfaces were in the frame.
Confusion had me shaking my head. “But Mom didn’t meet them until I was older. I remember…”
I shifted through every one of my earlier memories, but there was nothing of the Rogers pack until we moved in with them. “Are you sure that’s where I was born?”
Slade responded by speed typing his way to another photo, this one showing my mom in front of the shack, her face drawn, and in her arms a small bundle that clearly looked like a child. “There’s no other footage,” Slade said softly. “I found these by scrolling through security footage from a convenience store across the street, and I had to dig deeper than I ever have before to find the deleted footage from that time.”
He didn’t elaborate on how he knew when and where to search for the footage, but I got the feeling it hadn’t been easy.
“What do you think it means? The guy is my dad, and the pack was in my mom’s life long before I was born? Or… could one of those assholes be my actual father after all?”
Slade let out a frustrated huff, running his hand through his short hair, the thick strands disheveled for him. “I don’t believe any of the Rogers pack is your father, but there’s no evidence to suggest the other male is either. I was hoping you had someinsight, or it might have triggered a memory of meeting the other shifter before. I can’t find an identity for him, except for a possible connection to this image from the past...”
He slid his chair a few spots along and typed into one of the other computers. It booted up immediately, displaying dozens of photos scattered across it. He pulled up an image of the first shifter again, clearer this time, dressed in an older fashion style. Including a large top hat and coattails.
“That looks like the same guy,” I noted, feeling stupid as soon as I said it out loud; Slade’s mega brain would easily be able to tell that.
Slade nodded as he leaned back in his chair to meet my gaze. “Yes, but this is Valdor Breinstine, born 1802.”
Which explained the outfit. “Eighteen hundreds… So, an ancestor? Or I guess that first photo is grainy, so maybe they’re not even that similar looking.”
Slade didn’t appear convinced as his brow furrowed. “By my calculations, based on height and facial features, these two are genetically identical. I just don’t know how or why. It is at least giving me a place to start searching as I trace through this family line. I’m not sure why they’re shrouded in secrecy, but Iwillfind out.”
There was a spark of excitement in his tone that I rarely heard, but I wasn’t surprised that Slade enjoyed this sort of deep diving investigation when unravelling a mystery. “I wish I was more help,” I told him. “I don’t remember ever seeing him before, but then again, I don’t remember the Rogers pack being around in my younger years. Why were they there when I was born?”
I shook my head, frustration rearing its head. I’d ignored a lot of shit in my life in the hopes of living past my twenty-sixth birthday, but to know they’d been in the background, manipulating Mom long before we lived with them, really scaredme. “Has there been any follow-up by the Alpha Council yet? Shouldn’t they have done something about their attack on us by now? Why aren’t those assholes in jail or dead?” I wasn’t familiar with the punishments doled out by the councils and cities, but considering rogues were generally killed, why shouldn’t evil, kidnapping murderers get the same fate?
The mouse cracked under Slade’s hand, loud enough to indicate it was more than superficial damage. “The Silver City council is insisting we provide evidence before they allow us to take any further actions. Our word isn’t enough, and even though I’ve pulled up all the security footage from when they entered Golden Claw, there’s nothing that shows the Roger pack’s faces. The shifters we do have footage of are mostly dead now, thanks to me and Hunter, so the council is calling it a settled matter.”
My heart sank, and I reached out to clutch the back of a chair, knuckles tightening until my fingers ached. Slade noticed. Of course he noticed. “It’s not over, Snow,” he said, in a quietly dangerous tone. “We’re making our own plans, which do not involve the council’s approval or knowledge. Hunter will give final instructions, as he has a more level head to maneuver through the politics involved.”
“You have a very level head, Slade,” I told him, voice strained. “I don’t know where you got the idea that you’re a raging beast without reason or control. If anything, you’re so contained at times that I want to shake you a little and wiggle parts of you loose.”
A strange, broken sound echoed from his chest, and I jumped back as he stood. “It’s control or destroy. There’s no in-between for me.”
With that blunt statement, he left his desk and headed for the door. At first, I thought our meeting was done until he calledback, “Wait here while I grab a new mouse from the storage cupboard. I’ll be a few minutes.”
When his overwhelming presence was gone from the room, I sank into the chair he’d just vacated, my heart slamming in my chest.Fuck.That was intense, and I wasn’t even surewhyit was. Slumping forward, I lay my head on the desk and sucked in more calming breaths.
Which did fuck-all to help.
Jumping to my feet, I paced back and forth, my wolf rising to check in and see if I needed her. She’d shift and run if that was what it took to calm me down.
I don’t even know if it’s Slade, or the photos, or the weird guy who looks like the weirder older guy. But all of it is fucked up.She howled in response, agreeing with my assessment. What Slade had uncovered here had a deep-seated unease rising, and if I’d been in my beast form, all my fur would be standing on end.
I almost wished Mom was here to ask, but even if she had been, she’d be no help. She’d die again before revealing any secrets to me. Shehaddied due to those secrets, I was certain.
I’d thought I understood exactly what contributed to her death, but maybe I’d been the one fooled. She knew the Rogers pack before I was born. Otherwise, why would they have been there? Had they truly been scent matched but let her have a child to another shifter? It made no sense.
As I paced, a sliver of light caught my attention between the joins of two of the gray curtains. Wondering if the sun was finally starting to rise, I decided that a glimpse of nature would help calm the panic racing through me.
When I slid the heavy gray curtain, with its intricate gold stitching aside, I expected to find a bank of windows like mine, only… it was another wall of screens. He had windows as well, but the first sheath of curtain concealed eight wall-mounted screens.
It took a few seconds for me to understand what I’d uncovered, but eventually I recognized the scenes playing across the screens—it was our pack house and yard. One of the screens near the middle repeated footage from earlier today when I’d been in the kitchen with Kassidy and Hunter; another was me in the pool this morning; a third was Hunter kissing me before bed tonight.
Oh fuck.I knew exactly what this was: security footage. But not just any old footage.
This was Slade’s stalker wall, and I was on every single screen.
