After a few moments, Tristan drew a deep breath and pulled back from Colby. “Sorry,” he said. “I just needed to know you’re safe.” He took another sharp breath, as if preparing himself for something. “I need to talk to you.”
With one last glance at the rest of them standing around looking strangely somber, Colby followed him inside.
TRISTAN
Colby’s face was pale as he stared at Tristan. “All of them?”
Tristan hesitated. “They didn’t find Nico’s—he wasn’t there,” he amended.
Sinking down on the bed, Colby closed his eyes and drew in a shuddering breath, which Tristan had no way of interpreting.
“Are you okay?” he asked at last, and could have kicked himself for the useless question.
Colby shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “I just—I should be feelingsomething, shouldn’t I?”
“There’s no right way and no wrong way to deal with something like this,” Tristan said, and winced. Fucking Psych 101 and its clichés. He put a hand cautiously to Colby’s knee. “I’m sorry.”
Because even if they were assholes and worse, he couldn’t see that anyone—except perhaps Cale, and Nico, and one or two of the others—deserved to be slaughtered. He fought down a wave of nausea at the memory, and he pushed to his feet.
“I need to shower.” He was desperate to get out of his clothes in case they carried any hint of that terrible stench.
“Do you want me to come?” Colby asked.
Tristan nodded, suddenly close to tears. It wasn’t just the shock of what they’d found and the smell that he knew he would never forget. It was knowing that if it had happened a few days earlier, Colby would have been among the bodies.
And then there was Jesse, because try as he might to concentrate on the road on the way home, Tristan’s eyes had been drawn to the rearview, and he’d seen proud, defiant Jesse Turner clinging to Matt like a lost child. And Matt… He’d never imagined Matt was capable of the tenderness he’d shown as he held Jesse. Tristan had snapped his gaze back to the road as he’d realized he was looking at something between them no one should see.
He needed Colby’s strength and comfort. The mirror was misting as Colby stepped into the shower, and he leaned against him, letting Colby wash him. Slowly, the stench of that place was erased and replaced with the steady scent that was uniquely Colby. And maybe he was the one who should be giving comfort, but right now he needed this, and he let himself be held.
COLBY
The pack, lacking only Matt, Bryce, and Jesse, gathered in the kitchen. It was evident to Colby that every one of them had showered. The subdued air in the room led him to wonder just how bad it had been, and he swiftly decided he was glad not to know.
He was still numb from hearing what had happened, though a part of him, one he couldn’t understand, was glad Nico hadn’t died like that. He also couldn’t understand how in the hell it had happened, because while they might not have the tight discipline he’d known from the Army, not one of them backed down froma fight and they were all aggressively aware of the world around them.
Bryce came into the kitchen and sat in Matt’s usual chair, prompting the rest of them to settle around the table. Most had mugs of coffee in their hands, though the one held by Dave didn’t smell like any coffee Colby had ever tasted.
“How’s Jesse?” Tristan asked. His voice was low, as if he were speaking in church.
“Matt’s with him,” Bryce said. “In fact, that’s as good a place as any to start. I don’t know how many of you know Jesse was found wandering on his own as a pup, with no memory of anything before that. Well, it turns out that the thing his mind was blocking out was a massacre like the one we found today. So far as he knows, his whole pack was slaughtered.”
“Jesus.”
Colby wasn’t sure who’d said it, because everyone around the table looked as ill and shocked as the word had sounded.
“Now that might be coincidence—”
Christian barked a mocking laugh, silenced by Bryce’s glare.
“We don’t assumeanything,” Bryce said, and damn, he was no Matt Urban but there was an authority in him Colby hadn’t suspected. “That’s both lazy and dangerous. Karl, what can you tell us?”
“Eighteen bodies, including Cale’s. Only a couple had started to shift. Means it happened fucking fast, and to take a pack like that by surprise, we’re talking pros and a lot of them. I found footprints from multiple combat boots.” Karl’s grip tightened on his mug. “This wasn’t a fight. It was a planned, coordinated hit. They were shifters but also ex-military. Probably special forces. It had that kind of slickness.”
“But who would do something like that?”Tristan burst out. “And why leave them there that way?” His voice was shaking and Colby placed his hand on Tristan’s arm in an attempt at comfort.
“As for that, give them a while, and they’ll be picked clean, all evidence gone,” Karl said.
Colby concentrated on comforting Tristan instead of wondering what the hell was wrong with him that he could just accept that statement about his previous pack and not feel anything. He should be angry, or upset, orsomething. But it was like he was watching all this unfold from behind a glass screen, where none of it touched him.
