“I don’t think we’re ready to draw that conclusion yet,” Austin said as he slid Bishop’s plate full of now-cold food toward him. “Because we don’t yet know that the other women on the list—the ones not related to shifters—weren’t also targeted. It’s possible that it’s just coincidence that several of these women are related to shifters, if the others aren’t.”
“Actually, that’s looking less and less likely.” Tucker nudged me, and I slid out of the booth to let him up. “Three of those other women appear to have died of previously undiagnosed medical conditions, at least according to social media posts by family members. The infections that took them to the hospital were secondary to that.” Tucker refilled his mug from a fresh pot behind the bar. “And a fourth was diagnosed with meningitis posthumously.”
A deeply unsettling feeling sank through me. Half of the women on Spencer’s list were either sisters or daughters of Pride members, and we could add Yvette as well as Nolan’s sister Emily to that list. Of the six who were not related to shifters, four had other verified causes of death.
“So, heistargeting our sisters,” Austin growled, and his anger rolled through me, triggering an echoing growl of outrage from deep in my throat. “Our daughters.”
“Why?” Bishop gripped his fork so tightly it was cutting into his fingers. “He’s obviously one of us. So what the hell does he gain from killing our female relatives?”
“He isn’t trying to kill them.” My voice was so soft it would have been inaudible to a human. “He’s trying to infect them. He’s trying to create female strays from women he knows are carrying the genes that make that possible, in theory at least. Sisters and daughters of known strays.”
Stunned silence followed my declaration. There were no dissenting opinions.
I stood and grabbed the empty tray, because I needed something to do with my hands to keep them from trembling. Bishop stared at his plate, but I could feel Austin watching me as I crossed the front of the bar and backed through the swinging door into the kitchen, where I set the tray down and began filling the commercial-size sink with scalding water and dish soap.
The swinging door creaked behind me, and I caught Vance’s scent even as I recognized the cadence of his steps. “You okay?”
“Just doing dishes.”
“You’re the boss. The boss doesn’t have to do dishes.”
I flicked soap suds at him, and Vance patiently wiped them from his face.
“We had a chance to stop him,” I whispered low enough that the running water would shield my voice from everyone out front. “We should have stopped him.”
“We thought we had,” he whispered back, standing so close that his arm brushed mine. Vance had been my best friend and most trusted ally for nearly three years. Everything about him was a comfort—his scent, his size, and his voice. The way he always knew not just that I was upset, butwhyI was upset.
But this time…
“We were wrong. We were fuckingwrong, and that cost lives. We let our people down. We got their sisters and daughters and wives killed.”
“No.” Vance turned me by both shoulders, his voice so soft I could hardly hear him. “Hedid that. Whoever he is. And we’re going to figure that out.”
“How is thispossible?” I hissed, struggling not to let despair leak into my words. Fighting to stay mad, as sudsy water dripped on my boots. Anger was much more productive than fear. Than despair. “We killed Silas. We put him in the ground. How could we not know he wasn’t acting alone?”
But the answer to that was even more traumatic for me than the question itself.Iwas the reason we hadn’t known. I was the reason we’d buried Silas and moved on, assuming we’d done what needed to be done.
“There was a lot we didn’t know back then, Charley.” Vance shrugged.
But that was my point.
“This is my fault. None of these cases pre-date mine. I was the first victim, and I said Silas was the only one. How could I not know he had a partner?” We’d put the case to rest based entirely on my testimony to Titus. To the council. I had a chance to be not just the first victim, but thelastvictim, and I blew it.
“You were sick. You were traumatized. You’d just been attacked, and you had no idea what was going on. Who we were, or whoyouwere, in this new world. It isn’t your fault if your memory was compromised by all that. Or if you were too sick to process what you saw and heard.”
“Vance—”
“And it’s entirely possible that you never saw anyone else. That you had no reason to know Silas was working with someone.”
He was right. I knew that. Still…
“If we’d gotten both of them in the first place, all those women would still be alive. Austin would still have his sister. Bishop would still have his wife.”
Vance sighed. “That’s on the rest of us, but not on you. Back then, you were the victim, not the Marshal. Not the investigator, the enforcer, the Alpha, or the Council. If anything, we failedyou.”
If I were in his position, talking to a victim, I would say the same thing. And yet, I still felt responsible. I knew, deep in my heart, that I’d had a chance to prevent all of this, and I’d failed.
Vance took a breath, and I could see him thinking through words not yet said. “Do Austin and Bishop know? About your connection to this?”
