Chapter Six
Daniel was sleeping and Chris sat in Jake and Will’s kitchen while the three of them discussed what to do.
“You and I could pay a visit to this Doctor Hollis tomorrow?” Will suggested.
“I think that’s our best option,” Chris said.
Will’s phone rang. “It’s Mitch. I had better see what the overlord wants now.”
That left him alone with Jake and Rhea, who was chewing on a giraffe toy.
“So he doesn’t know he’s a wolf?” Jake asked.
“He knows now, but I think he’s in denial.”
“And not just a wolf, an Omega.”
“We haven’t mentioned the O word yet. He’s freaked out enough as it is.”
“Are you going to tell me about the Alpha in the forest, because Will keeps changing the subject when I ask about it.”
Chris cursed silently, hoping Will would return to the room. Trying to field questions from a curious Omega like Jake wasn’t going to be easy.
“You’ll need to ask your mate.”
“I’m asking you, because maybe whatever it is might come easier for you.”
Chris didn’t take the bait. He knew what had happened to Jake had been terrifying, and that Will had saved him from an awful fate. He wasn’t sure how the Omega would handle knowing that not only was the Alpha still out there, but he was stalking other Omega. Ones even more defenseless than Jake had been.
“Is it something to do with the Omega trafficking? I know Will worries about telling me that sort of stuff.”
“Jake, please.”
“It’s him, isn’t it? The Alpha who bought me from Antoine?”
Damn it.
“Will thinks so.”
“You said you thought he’d probably done it before. Bought other Omega.”
“More than likely.”
“So Daniel was going to be his next victim?”
“We don’t know that. He seems to have been stalking him, but he might be just as in the dark as we are about what Daniel is.”
Will returned, his face grim. “Mitch is on his way over, to talk about Daniel.”
That wasn’t good. Chris was hoping the legal wrangling would take a few days, or even a week or two, to sort through. It sounded like it might be a lot sooner.
“Your mate knows about the Alpha chasing Daniel.”
Jake got to his feet, reaching for Will. “I asked Chris outright. He didn’t just tell me. You should have told me. I’m not a kid you need to protect from serious conversations.”
“I just didn’t want you to worry.”
“I don’t, not anymore. Not about me or Rhea. I worry about the Omega out there, the vulnerable ones with no one to protect them.”
They embraced, Rhea held between them, gurgling happily.
Chris felt a pang of longing for the love, the connection, that they shared. If he wasn’t married to his work, maybe things would be different.
Mitch joined them in the kitchen, Jake stepping out to put Rhea down for a nap.
“Dale County fast-tracked their request in front of a judge. They’re insisting we hand Daniel over to their custody.”
“Is there any chance they’ll bring it to trial?”
“He thinks not. Says, at most, they’ll do a blood test to confirm lycanthropy, then put him down.”
“He’s innocent, I’d bet my life on it.”
Mitch shook his head. “He’s guilty of being a shifter. To them, that’s enough.”
“Even if it means the actual murderer goes free?”
“You said that there’s no evidence of another murderer.”
“We had Daniel’s clothes packed up and sent off to the lab. We’re hoping they’ll prove he didn’t have contact with gasoline, so couldn’t have set the fires. But, by itself, it won’t be enough.”
“You have until eight am tomorrow morning to surrender him to Dale County police. Or Eden police are going to serve warrants and start searching premises. I can’t let that happen. Trigger happy police around anxious shifters, it’s a disaster in the making. I’m sorry, Chris.”
Chris looked to Will, but he was staring at the table.
“Of course, while we’d naturally have to escort Daniel to Eden’s border to ensure you’d departed our jurisdiction, we’re under no obligation to ensure you reach Dale County. Once we confirm you’ve left though, they will be searching for you.”
“We can’t just up sticks and run, Mitch. We have jobs, responsibilities, families, ” Will argued. “Besides, where would we take him? No Pack will want to harbor a murderer the humans are looking for, no matter how innocent we believe he is.”
“Not we, Will. Me. And I won’t take him to a Pack. I’ll bring him to that hospital, to Doctor Hollis. He’s the one who treated Daniel. He’ll know what was done to him. Maybe he has some way to prove that Daniel couldn’t have been the wolf who killed his family.”
“It’s worth a try,” Mitch said.
“I’ll come with you,” Will offered.
“No.” Chris shook his head. “I need you here, tracking down that bastard Alpha. Right now, we know he’s bought at least one Omega, stalked a second, and murdered three humans. Given how well he’s covered his tracks, it probably wasn’t his first time. We could be looking at a serial killer. Of Omega, and humans when it suits his purposes.”
“That’s a human term,” Mitch argued. “It doesn’t apply to shifters.”
“If the shoe fits.”
“Does it? He doesn’t exactly have a pattern.”
“Omega are his pattern. Antoine told Jake that he liked his Omega innocent.”
“And whatever Daniel is, from a shifter point of view he’s incredibly innocent. He didn’t even know what he was,” Will replied, his face grim.
“Exactly. We’re facing the possibility that this Alpha targets Omega, the more innocent, the better. And given no victims have come forward and we haven’t found many bodies, either he’s holding them for extended amounts of time or he’s killing them.”
“If the human papers get hold of this, there’ll be a panic. No talking about serial killer shifters out in public, okay?” Mitch said.
“Of course,” Chris agreed. “Besides, at this stage, it’s just a theory.”
At Chris’ request, Jake found Daniel some clothes and after a bit of back and forth, Will agreed that he could go in with Chris, introduce himself to Daniel, and help him get cleaned up.
Daniel was awake, dull eyes tracking them as they entered.
Jake introduced himself, setting the clothes down on the bed. “We thought maybe you’d like to shower and get dressed.”
“Where are my clothes?” Daniel asked, pulling the blanket tighter around himself.
“We sent them to the local crime lab for analysis,” Chris explained.
That served only to confuse Daniel. “Am I under arrest?”
“You’re in our custody but not technically under arrest.”
“So if I tried to walk out of here?”
“You’d be stopped.”
He looked at the clothes, the bathroom door, then back to Chris and Jake. “I can have a shower?”
“Sure, go right ahead,” Jake said, gesturing at the door.
Daniel looked down at himself, at the door, then back to them again. Chris had the feeling he was missing something before Jake slapped a hand to his face and turned to him.
“I forgot. Humans, nakedness. They’re funny about that stuff.”
He turned his back, tugging Chris around to do likewise. “Sorry, Daniel. We won’t peek.”
“So you don’t need to watch me shower?”
“No, go right ahead. There are towels already in there. We’ll wait out here.”
They heard him get to his feet and walk rapidly across to the bathroom, shoving the door closed behind him, mumbling “it’s called modesty,” under his breath.
“Well, that was fun. He doesn’t look like he wants help so I might leave you to it. We have a new arrival in the Haven who needs some hand-holding.” And Jake was gone.
Chris took a seat at the end of the bed, his back to the bathroom door. The shower was on, he could hear it, feel the steam that was escaping under the doorway. He could hear Daniel’s heart as well, a reassuring thump-thump under everything else. Without warning, it sped up, thump-thump-thump- and Chris got to his feet, turning towards the door. He went closer and knocked. “Daniel, are you okay in there?”
There was no answer, only the fast beat of the Omega’s heart and he pushed open the door, rushing inside.
Daniel was in the shower, curled up on the floor, his back bowed. It was exactly how he’d been when they’d called Heidi the previous day. Reaching in, Chris shut off the water. Then he grabbed a towel and wrapped it around Daniel as he lifted him. He carried him into the bedroom, yelling for help. Daniel latched onto him, whimpering under his breath, his face a mask of pain.
“It hurts.”
“I know, I’m sorry. Just try to breathe through it, okay?”
He felt stupid and useless, unable to do anything but tell the agonized man to take deep breaths.
“Where is the pain, Daniel? Tell me where exactly.”
“My back, my spine, right in the middle.” He cried out again, his words lost in a howl of agony.
“I’ll call Heidi,” Will said from the doorway.
Chris turned Daniel over onto his stomach, tugging the towel out of the way before laying his fingers on Daniel’s back and feeling along his spine. Could he be in this much pain without some sort of visible sign? Without something a shifter’s senses could detect?
About halfway down, he hit a point that felt different than the rest. Daniel yelped as his fingers pressed in.
“Sorry, Daniel. Just hold on, okay? Help is on the way.”
He felt again, more gently this time. It was strange, one moment hard like bone, the next lumpy, yielding beneath his fingers, like it was changing consistency, shifting under his touch. Almost like Daniel’s body was starting to shift but couldn’t make it past the first stage. Could he help?
Laying his fingers back on the pulsing skin, he started to push them along, sweeping firm circles. He wasn’t sure what his aim was, relaxing the muscles, soothing the skin? He recalled his mother’s soothing hands when he was a child undergoing his first changes. Changing had been painful and sore, and he hadn’t always wanted to let it take hold. His mother had done this, used her hands to ease and soothe.
Daniel’s crying quieted to whimpering, his body sinking into the bed as the tension slowly eased.
“Why?” he asked. “Why does it hurt so much?”
“I don’t know, Daniel, but I think I know how we might find out.”
“Danny,” the other man said, turning his head to the side, his wet eyes meeting Chris’. “Everyone calls me Danny.”