Scout felt bad for leaving Rayven by herself in his house, but he couldn’t risk bringing her along. Every officer in town was probably looking for her, and he wouldn’t be surprised if the cops in all the neighboring towns were also on patrol, looking for a dangerous but gorgeous brunette with eyes that could melt your soul.

Scout cleared his throat, as the thought of Rayven made him feel rather concerned and protective all at once. He would have loved to spend the entire day with her, but there were urgent things that he needed to do.

First of all, he had to call a pack meeting at his house so that everyone could be kept in the loop about what was going on, and as the alpha, he had to share the news of Rayven’s situation. He was worried about their reactions, and he wondered if those reactions would change when the pack learned he had imprinted on her. It wasn’t something he would be able to keep from them—it would be clearly visible to every wolf around them.

Scout climbed out of his car and walked up to the front door of Onyx’s house, which opened before he could even knock. Onyx stood in the doorway, still in his sleepwear, his hair a mess on top of his head.

“Morning,” Scout greeted him. “Can I come in?”

“Sure,” Onyx said, standing aside so that Scout could walk in. “What are you doing here?”

“I need to do a few things in town, so I thought I’d drop in and see how you were doing. You know, after the whole prison break last night.”

“I'm fine,” Onyx muttered. Suddenly, his eyes widened. “Speaking of, where’s Rayven?”

“At my place,” Scout answered.

“You left her alone?” Onyx yelled. “I took her there so you could protect her, not just leave her there by herself!”

“Onyx, she’ll be fine,” Scout assured him. “The alarm system is on; nothing’s going to happen to her. And even if someone somehow managed to break in, I’m sure your sister can take care of herself.” Onyx looked ready to argue, but Scout didn’t give him a chance to. “It’s a hypothetical scenario, Onyx!”

“Fine,” Onyx relented. “Did she say anything after I left? I mean, she told me what happened, but she didn’t really want to talk about it.”

“I probably know as much as you do.” Scout shrugged his shoulders. “She just told me why she was in the alley where that guy was killed.”

Onyx raised an eyebrow. “Does that mean…?”

“I believe her,” Scout confirmed.

“You do?” Even though Onyx didn’t smile, the expression on his face was the happiest Scout had ever seen him. “That’s great! Now all we need to do is prove she didn’t do it!”

“I don’t know how we’re going to do that,” said Scout. “As far as Rayven is concerned, there was no one else in that alley or even close to it. We don’t have much to go on here.”

“So what do we do?”

“Get the pack together,” he ordered. “I need to talk to everyone tonight. But now, I’m going to check out that alley.”

“Wait, what?” Onyx asked.

“There has to be something that can help us prove Rayven’s innocence,” Scout said, making his way to the door.

“Just be careful,” his beta said. Scout stopped to frown back at him, and Onyx mirrored the gesture. “I know what you’re going to say, and I don’t care. I just don’t want you to also get locked up for something you didn’t do. Breaking people out of cells isn’t a hobby of mine.”

“Even if you do seem to excel at it,” Scout replied.

Onyx scoffed. “That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Scout smirked at him, reaching out to open the front door. “Don’t get used to it. I’ll see you later.”

Scout sat in his car and stared at the alley sealed off with yellow police tape and plastic barricades. He made sure the coast was clear and that he wasn’t being watched or had been followed before he pulled the key from the ignition. He carefully climbed out of his car, always fully aware of his surroundings, and made his way to the alley. He glanced around him once again before he slid between the two barricades and walked into the dark alley. His eyes adjusted almost immediately, and he looked around him. There wasn’t anything special about the alley; it was simply the unfortunate scene of a gruesome crime. Nothing stood out to Scout, except for the stench of the deceased man’s blood, even if it had been cleaned up.

Rayven had a point: male human blood didn’t have a pleasant odor at all.

Scout’s thoughts immediately drifted back to her, and he wondered what she was doing. His common sense took over, and he silently scolded himself for losing focus.

He paced around the area, inspecting everything as closely as he could, until he came to the back wall. He narrowed his eyes and noticed faint scratch marks on the bricks. Their length and the space between them told Scout that they weren’t human, but they also seemed to have been… cleaned, maybe? No, not cleaned—more like someone had tried to cover them and hadn’t been entirely successful, leaving just enough of a mark for them to be visible to whoever paid attention.

Scout stepped closer and inhaled deeply. Oh, how he wished he had Wren’s sense of smell. Wren, one of his older brothers, could smell anything miles away, and it was the strongest ability any of the old pack members had ever seen.

Scout frowned to himself. It was the first time he had ever wished one of his brothers was here with him. They would have been of invaluable help to him… if only they could agree on anything. Not that they had spent all of their time arguing, of course. They hadn’t only been brothers, they had been best friends.

If any of his brothers were here, though, Scout knew he would start comparing his ability to theirs, thinking his own wasn’t as useful as he wished it was. Then again, would he still believe that now that he was the alpha of his own pack?

Father certainly never thought I was good enough, Scout recalled bitterly. The only one worthy to be alpha in his eyes was Cole.

He shook his head to himself. He had a job to do now, and he couldn’t keep losing himself in the past.

Scout inhaled deeply, trying to pick up a scent from the scratches. Despite not being as strong as Wren’s, his sense of smell still led his mind to an area in the woods that he didn’t recognize. He couldn’t see any kind of distinguishable landmarks or anything that he could use to identify the place. There were only skeletal trees, a crescent moon in the dark sky overhead, and snow on the ground. No footprints or paw prints. No rocks, no overturned trees, not even a lake or a river.

Scout slowly backed away from the wall and sighed. His eye caught a small smear of blood on the ground, which had apparently gone unnoticed, and he walked over to it. He crouched down and scraped it with his fingernail. Carefully smelling the dried blood, a sense of familiarity ran through him. He… he recognized the scent, but he didn’t know how. He couldn’t remember where he had smelled this scent before, or even if he had smelled it before.

The sound of his phone ringing in his pocket pierced through the quiet in the alley, and Scout quickly stood up from the ground and answered it.

“Scout,” came Onyx’s voice, “where are you?”

Scout glanced around him. “Still searching for something helpful in the alley. Why?”

“Rayven isn’t answering her phone.”

Scout stopped dead in his tracks. “Have you tried the house?” he asked.

“I did,” Onyx answered. “I thought she might be taking a bath or something, but I’ve called a few times and she’s still not picking up.”

Okay. There was no reason to panic. Perhaps Onyx wasn’t entirely wrong. Rayven could be taking a shower, or she might have fallen asleep, or maybe she had simply chosen not to answer the phone, fearing that the caller would be looking for Scout and demand who she was and what she was doing in his house.

“It’s probably nothing,” Onyx continued, though Scout could hear the tension and concealed terror in his voice. “But could you go check on her?”

“Sure,” he said. “I’ll tell her to call you back.”

“Thank you, Scout. I appreciate it.”

Scout disconnected the call and made his way out of the alley. He was rather disappointed and frustrated that he hadn’t found anything that could prove Rayven’s innocence, but at least he wasn’t leaving empty-handed. There was a reason the scratch marks he had seen had been barely visible, and Scout would figure out what that reason was.

As he walked back to his car, he tried to recall any memory related to the familiar scent of the blood, but he kept drawing a blank. Maybe he was focusing too hard, and stepping away from the situation would help him come back to it with a clearer sight. Besides, it was time to talk to Rayven again.

Scout parked his car in the garage of his home and entered through the inter-leading door. The house was quiet, and he frowned to himself.

“Rayven?” he called out, placing his keys and his wallet on the kitchen counter. He first checked the rooms, thinking she might be passed out on one of the beds after the long night she’d had, but she wasn’t in any of them.

Scout called out her name again, and as he stepped out into the hallway, he noticed the large television in the entertainment area was on. He didn’t allow anyone to go in there if he wasn’t home, and his jaw clenched. He walked towards the sliding doors of the entertainment area and quietly opened them.

Rayven sat on the floor in front of the television, playing video games. After a few seconds, she seemed to notice his presence, because she turned her head to him and smiled slightly.

“Hey!” she said. “You’re back.”

“What are you doing in here?” Scout asked, walking towards her.

“Isn’t it kind of obvious?” she replied, holding up the black controller.

“You’re not supposed to be in here.”

Rayven shrugged her shoulders and turned her attention back to the television. “You should put up a sign, then.”

Scout’s hands clenched into fists. He reached for a panel against the wall, and the television immediately switched off.

“Hey!” Rayven exclaimed again, except her tone was angrier now. She turned her head to glare at him. “That was uncalled for!”

“We need to talk,” Scout said, “about what happened the night you were arrested.”

“What else do you want me to say?” Rayven demanded as she placed the controller next to her on the floor. “I already told you everything.”

“I know,” Scout said, and he sat down on the couch. Rayven stood up from the floor and took a seat a little away from them, keeping a certain distance between them. “I was in the alley earlier.”

“You were? Isn’t it closed off?”

“Do you seriously think that would stop me?” he questioned.

“Probably not,” she scoffed in return. “Did you find anything? Did you see or smell anything?”

“I found some scratches against a brick wall. They were quite long and widely spaced, so they weren’t human. Someone tried to cover them up,” Scout said.

“Cover them up?” Rayven repeated. “Like trying to hide them? Isn’t it illegal to hide or remove evidence?”

“Yes,” Scout nodded, “but maybe that was after taking pictures of it for the case file. Or maybe there were no pictures of them.”

“You think the entire police department is in on it?” Rayven questioned.

“I wouldn’t cross out the possibility.”

She groaned out loud and covered her face with her hands. “This is a nightmare.”

Scout felt helpless, like he had no control over any of this, and he hated it. He hated being unable to find a way to help her, unable to promise her that everything would be fine, because he didn’t know if everything would be fine. But he was going to do everything in his power to make it so.

“We’ll clear your name,” Scout said, softly placing his hand on her shoulder. “This’ll be over soon; you’ll see.”

Rayven uncovered her face and let out a deep sigh. “Thank you,” she mumbled with a soft smile. “You have no idea how much this means to me. Did you find anything else?”

“Just some blood,” Scout answered, and he dropped his hand from her shoulder. “Probably a spot the forensics team overlooked. I recognized the smell, and I’m sure I’d recognize it if I smelled it again, but I can’t figure out how or from where.”

Rayven was silent for a moment. Then she looked away from him. “I’m sorry for dragging you into this mess.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” Scout said. She smiled slightly at him, but she still didn’t make eye contact with him. Scout could tell she had something else to say, so he waited for her to speak again.

“Can we talk about…” Rayven bit her lip. “Did you—I mean…” She finally glanced at him, her expression hesitant. “Did I imagine the whole imprinting thing?”

Scout was a little taken aback by her question, though he supposed he couldn’t blame her. He had acted rather distant towards her earlier, not to mention how rude he had been.

“No,” he answered. “You didn’t.” Rayven exhaled in relief, and Scout wanted to punch himself for making her feel she had imagined it. “I’m sorry that I acted the way I did.”

“I’m just glad it wasn’t only me,” she said, running her fingers through her hair. “So… what are we supposed to do? Do we have to start dating? Are there steps to follow? This is the first time it’s happened to me.”

“Well, imprinting is kind of a the-first-time-is-the-only-time deal,” Scout said, and Rayven chuckled. “So I guess we’re stuck with each other now.”

“Great,” she muttered. Her voice had been dripping with sarcasm, but when Scout turned to frown at her, she was smiling, and the genuineness behind it made him smile back.

“Well, now that that’s settled,” said Scout, “I should tell you that the pack is having a meeting here tonight, in the basement. I want to tell them about what happened so they’re all in the know, and they’ll keep their ears open for anything that might be helpful.”

“Oh,” Rayven said. “Okay. The more, the merrier, right? So how many members are coming?”

“About four hundred.”

Rayven stared at him with wide eyes. “Four hundred?” she echoed. “And your basement is big enough for all of them?”

“Yes. When I built this house, I had pack meetings in mind,” Scout responded, and he held back a laugh at the shocked expression on her face. “The meeting isn’t for everyone, though. It’ll be me, the betas—those are your brother and Creek—our gamma Kala, the deltas, the epsilons, and the zetas. The zetas then have a meeting of their own, and they tell the rest of the pack.”

“That sounds so complicated,” Rayven said with a frown. “How do you keep track of everyone and everything?”

“That’s why I have Onyx and Creek,” he answered. “As betas, they’re second-in-command. Creek has this amazing ability to know where everyone is at any given time. He’s one of the best trackers we have.”

“And Onyx is a tracker, too?”

“He is the best one we have.”

Rayven smiled, no doubt proud of her brother, but the joyful gesture fell in the blink of an eye. “Scout, could you promise me one thing?”

“Of course,” Scout said immediately, even though he usually tried to avoid making promises. Sometimes, the strength of his will wasn’t enough to keep them.

“Can you promise me that you won’t let anything happen to Onyx?” Rayven pleaded. “I… I just got to see him after thinking I never would again, and I don’t want to lose him a second time. I don’t think I could lose him a second time.”

Scout recalled Onyx telling him he and his father had been separated from the rest of his family. He remembered how utterly destroyed he had looked as he talked about his twin sister, whom he thought was dead.

“I promise,” he said eventually. “I know how that feels, and I wouldn’t want either of you to go through that again.”

“You—you know how it feels?” Rayven asked.

“I—” Scout cursed to himself. He hadn’t meant to bring up his own complicated family. “Yeah. I do.”

“May I ask what happened?”

He stared at the struggle in Rayven’s eyes: how she wanted to know about it and yet didn’t want to push him if it was a subject he wasn’t comfortable discussing. Scout immediately knew he couldn’t say no to her.

“I lived in Minnesota with my parents and my four brothers,” he began.

He told her about the torch that had flown in through the window of his room, setting their home on fire in the middle of the night with his entire family inside. He told her how he had stayed behind to help one of his brothers, who had gotten trapped in his room. He told her how all five of them had to escape the flames separately, hoping that the others had made it out. He told her about their argument, about his youngest brother being the first one to leave, about each of them eventually following his lead and walking away from each other.

When he was done, Rayven stared at him with unshed tears filling her eyes.

“I’m… I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

“It’s fine,” Scout said, forcing a nonchalant smile on his face. “It was a long time ago.”

“And you have no idea where they might be?”

“Not that I care all that much about it,” he replied.

Rayven reached out to hold his hand. “Really? Because I think you care more than you’re willing to admit.”

Scout held back a sigh. He shouldn’t have told Rayven about his family, about his brothers. She and Onyx, who had most likely always longed to see each other again, wouldn’t understand his choice.

“I have to make a call,” he said, pulling his hand away and standing up from the couch, leaving the room through the sliding doors. For the first time in years, he felt vulnerable, the one thing he had vowed he would never be after the fire.

And then Rayven had come along and ruined him.