“Nobody has ever tried to strip the core out of a supernatural in the way you’re suggesting,” Lydia pointed out. “We can’t be sure it will work, much less what will happen if that core ends up with no place to go. We don’t know what it will do to Kamden, especially if his essence tries to fight its way back into him.”
While this back-and-forth argument continued with no clear end in sight, the subject of the conversation sat on the opposite side of the shop with Karissa, acting like he couldn’t hear a single word being said. Carter assumed Kamden was merely trying to stay positive in the light of all the negative things being said right then, but he was pretty sure the man’s faith was holding on by a thread.
Just when it seemed that the conversation between Lydia and Kat was about to turn heated, a tinkling bell sounded from the front of the shop, telling them someone had entered. Carter caught a handful of scents that he knew well and one that was only slightly familiar. Even as his omega sense of smell worked to identify that last person, the fancy curtain that separated the workroom from the front of the shop was pushed aside and Mike, Trey, and Hale walked through, along with Marshal Turner. Given the expressions on his pack mate’s faces, something was going on.
“What’s up?” Carter asked, his heart beating a little faster.
“Marshal Turner stopped by the compound asking to talk with you specifically, but he wouldn’t say why,” Hale said, suspicion in his eyes.
Turner scowled. “I have no intention of causing your pack problems. I just need your help.”
Pack?
Carter’s breath seized in his lungs when he realized what the man had just said. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hadley step closer to him. On the other side of the room, Karissa stiffened, while Kat looked ready to conjure up a spell at a moment’s notice. Even Lydia and Kamden looked nervous.
“The fact that the Marshals are aware of the existence of our pack is problem enough,” Mike muttered, folding his arms across his chest.
“The Marshals don’t know you’re werewolves,” Turner said, holding up his hands in apology. “It’s just me and the three most trusted members of my team. And the only reason I’ve approached you now is because I’m desperate to get your help stopping Strickland.”
“How did you figure out we’re werewolves?” Carter asked, ignoring the stuff about Strickland for the moment as he fought to contain the minor meltdown that had started at the thought of a major federal law enforcement agency knowing about the Pack.
The marshal looked at Carter and each of his pack mates in turn. “I’ve been aware of the supernatural community for almost a decade. Werewolves were some of the first creatures I’d ever heard about. A couple years ago, I heard rumors about a large pack in the Dallas area, but I didn’t think much about it until I saw the way you four handled yourselves in those woods near the shopping center. That’s when I started thinking those rumors might be true.”
“Maybe we’re simply good cops,” Mike said, neither his expression nor his tone giving anything away. “Four SWAT officers arresting two suspects shouldn’t garner that much attention.”
Turner pinned him with a look. “Except we all know that those two suspects were anything but normal. Even then, if it wasn’t for what I saw last night, I still wouldn’t have known for sure.”
“What did you see last night?” Carter asked, not sure what kind of game this guy was playing by dropping hints, implying he knew something about the nature of the men Strickland had working with him.
“McMahon—the escapee who took the header off the roof—had four slash marks across his chest, through his clothing, and almost down to the bone,” Turner said, looking straight at Carter. “Between those slashes and the way you healed up so fast after that fight near the shopping center, it wasn’t hard to figure out you’re a werewolf. And if you’re a werewolf, it made sense that the rest of your SWAT team is as well.”
Mike regarded him warily like he was trying to figure out whatever the hell was going on here. “Okay, so you know we’re werewolves, and yet you still want our help. I assume that means you’ve figured out that Strickland is also some kind of supernatural.”
“I’ve known Strickland was a supernatural for a long time,” Turner said. “From the moment I first started chasing him eight years ago—after he killed my brother.”
Silence reigned within the shop. Carter glanced back and forth at everyone else, wondering if any of them had seen this coming. From the expressions on their faces, he guessed the answer to that was a resounding no.
“So this was never about catching the prisoners who escaped from Coffield Unit?” Trey asked, hooking his thumbs in the pockets of his uniform pants. “You were after Strickland the whole time? But how does that even make sense? It’s not like he was in hiding before his arrest.”
“Strickland may not have been hiding,” Turner agreed. “But unfortunately, it wasn’t Strickland I was after until recently. The creature who killed my brother changes his identity frequently and it took years to follow the trail of bodies across the country to Strickland and the Dallas area.”
“Crap,” Kamden said at the same time Carter caught onto the implications of what Turner was saying. “The creature who killed your brother is a skinwalker.” He shook his head. “And here I thought you were in Dallas because you were after me. That’s a relief.”
Turner’s eyes narrowed. “Why would I be after you? And how did you know Strickland is a skinwalker?”
Kamden hesitated. “Because I’m one, too.”
The marshal took a step back, alarm on his face, looking like he was about half a second away from going for his gun. “You’re a skinwalker?” He looked around the room at everyone else. “And the rest of you are okay with that?”
“Of course, we’re okay with that!” Lydia snapped, moving over to stand protectively near Kamden, slipping her hand into his. “Just because the skinwalker you’re after is a murderer doesn’t mean that all of them are like that. Kamden has never hurt a soul and he wouldn’t be the man I’m planning to marry if he wasn’t a good person.”
Turner stared at the couple, clearly baffled now. The marshal thought he knew what skinwalkers were and this new reality seemed to be throwing him off balance.
“I think we should all slow down and take a breath,” Hadley said calmly, her gentle tone counterpoint to the tension filling the room. “Since we all seem to be more than a little confused right now, maybe Marshal Turner could explain what happened to his brother and then Kamden can explain how he’s a different kind of skinwalker than Strickland.”
For a moment, Carter thought Turner might still draw his weapon, but then the marshal nodded.
“My brother, Randy, disappeared from his apartment in Boise in 2015,” he said quietly. “He stopped showing up for work and wouldn’t return any of our calls. It was like he fell off the face of the earth. The only clue I could find was a flash of someone on a motel security camera off Interstate 84. It wasn’t definitive, but I thought it might be him, and hoped it would lead me to another clue. Instead, it led to a body in one of the motel’s rooms. The body was in a bathtub, partially dissolved with some kind of industrial acid. There was very little left, but I got enough uncontaminated skin to try for a DNA workup, praying I was wrong about who was in that tub.”
