Vaughn Ellis navigated his department-issued Ford Expedition around another icy bend. Headlights reflected off falling snow, creating a snow-globe effect. It’d be blinding for a man with normal vision. But Vaughn wasn’t a man. Nor was he normal even by lycanthrope standards.
A wood cross and a wreath of plastic flowers nailed to a tree marked the next fork in the road. With his reflexes and enhanced eyesight, he didn’t need to slow down for the sharp turn, but he still decreased his speed to match the posted warning.
“Should be coming up in another mile or so,” his deputy, Dean Simmons, said.
Vaughn grunted his acknowledgment.
Silence reigned once again.
In general, he was a male who appreciated the quiet and rarely disturbed it. More than one previous girlfriend had described him as uncommunicative. He preferred laconic. Dean, on the other hand, almost never shut up. At the station, before pack runs, around town or the pack house, Dean smiled and laughed. Boasted, joked, cajoled, teased, told a thousand stories, asked a million questions. Except around Vaughn. The moment he came near, crickets.
It was part of the uneasy, awkward two-step they did to maintain the peace. Peace that everyone sensed could and would shatter at any moment. Dean didn’t push and Vaughn didn’t challenge. Such was their unspoken agreement. Because at work, Vaughn was the boss. Within the pack, only Luke outranked Dean and Rissa.
Unless Vaughn wanted to question the status quo.
Violently.
Sometimes, he really wanted to.
“Got something to say?” Vaughn asked, thinking that once the male left his presence, Dean must unleash all his pent-up words like water over a blown beaver dam.
The SUV bounced over a pothole. “Nope.” A few seconds passed, then, “Yes. Why are we both here?”
“Thought that was obvious. The local sheriffs found a car with plates matching our BOLO.”
“Yeah, but inspecting the mechanic’s car should only take one of us. It’s not like we don’t have stuff to do back home.”
That was true enough. Two murder investigations, three missing persons cases, a team of Feds in town for the helicopter crash, and one cut-up werecougar awaiting identification. There was plenty to do. And that’s precisely why Vaughn wanted Dean where he could keep an eye on him.
Vaughn slid him a look. “Got a problem with my company?” His wolf’s claws spread and clicked in his mind. He shouldn’t antagonize Dean, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself every now and again. The bigger male’s dominance rubbed his fur the wrong way, and Vaughn was too dominant not to want to test that.
Another sigh. “Listen, let’s cut the bull.”
This should be good. He nodded once.
“We both know you could challenge me whenever you want,” Dean said. “You might win. You might not. I’m wolf enough to admit we feel pretty equally matched dominance-wise and you’re a big, strong son of a bitch. I’ll give you that. Almost as big as me. But I have something you don’t.”
Vaughn’s wolf gave a low growl. “Yeah? What’s that?”
“I’m invested in this,” Dean said, the words hitting Vaughn like a .44 caliber bullet to the chest. “I’ve got a mate. Friends. Family.” In other words, You don’t. “I’ve had Luke’s back since we were pups. No matter how much he argued otherwise, I knew one day he’d step up to lead, and when he did, I’d be there beside him, protecting him. Just like your uncle Darren did for Luke’s dad.”
Look where that got Darren.
Dean huffed. “Hell, maybe you wanna take a shot at Luke, too. But even if you get past me, you ain’t gonna take him down in a fair fight.”
Now it was Vaughn’s turn to scoff.
“I know, I know,” Dean said, flapping his gums like usual, totally comfortable. Totally pissing Vaughn off. “Like I said, you’re a big S.O.B. Luke, though, he’s invested, too. This is his pack.” Not yours. “His territory.” Not yours. “He takes that shit seriously.” You don’t. “You know the funny thing?”
Vaughn spoke through gritted teeth. “What?”
“If Luke thought you could lead the pack better than him, he’d bare his throat to you at the next run. All he cares about is taking care of us. All of us. He’s friggin’ pathological about it.” Dean nailed him with a stare, daring Vaughn not to look him in the eye. He did, and Dean’s green eyes flared with gold. “What do you care about, Vaughn?”
Flashing red and blue lights pierced the dark night and Vaughn yanked his gaze back to the road, stopping the SUV before it slammed into a parked Spokane County Sheriff’s vehicle.
Dean was out the door before the Expedition finished rocking on its tires. Cold air swirled into the cab, stirring up the stench of Vaughn’s fury and Dean’s utter self-confidence. Goddamn it. He jammed the gearshift into park and leapt out, stalking toward the edge of a small ice-covered lake and the half-dozen local law enforcement officials.
He stopped before reaching them, putting on a show of looking around, trying to regain his control. He couldn’t afford to let Dean know he’d gotten to him, or to let the humans see the predators in his eyes.
Snowflakes landed on his face and eyelashes as he breathed in the crisp air. He calmly and deliberately set his uniform hat on his head. Again, he inhaled and let his mind sort through the varied smells, cataloguing them, analyzing, slowing his pounding heart. Snow, earth, pine, cedar, maple, lake water, engine oil, gasoline, diesel, various scat and urine deposits, rabbit, vole, swallow, crow, hawk, marten, werewolf, human sweat, soap, deodorant, cheap aftershave, and—
Dean swore.
Vaughn sniffed again and swore, too. Silently.
A tow truck’s gears ground as it winched a decade-old Chevy sedan out of the lake. Broken slabs of dirty ice bobbed around it. The hole in the surface of the murky water gaped like a wound.
Time to work, he told his beasts, steeling himself for the onslaught to his senses. Vaughn joined Dean and the others waiting on shore for the car to come to a rest. Water poured out the closed doors and undercarriage. Weeds and mud clung to the frame and windows.
Dean introduced him to a squat man in his midfifties with a ruddy face. Spokane County Sheriff Glen Toretti mashed a piece of gum like he was kneading bread with his teeth. They shook hands. Vaughn was pleased to see that despite his anger, his hand was steady.
“Plates match the BOLO your department put out,” Toretti said.
“Looks like,” Vaughn said, trying not to rub his nose. He looked around for divers, didn’t see any. “Anyone get a look at the body inside yet?”
“So sure there’s a body, are ya?” Toretti said. “Guy could’ve just dumped the car.”
The interior of the Chevy was shadowed, the windows covered in grime. Dean cocked his head to peer through the muck on the window. “If he did, he dumped it with a guest inside.”
Toretti flashed a heavy-duty Maglite through the windshield. “Huh.” He nodded to a young deputy. “Let’s open ’er up and see what we got.”
The kid barely touched the door handle before liquid gushed out over his boots in a small flood. Vaughn had to hand it to him, at least the kid didn’t yelp. That water had to be freaking cold.
They all flashed lights into the car, illuminating the wet, rumpled, bloated body of a smallish man with a paunch. They couldn’t see the face because the head had slumped forward, the neck obviously broken.
“Well, shit,” Toretti said.
“What’s that smell?” the deputy asked.
Dean looked at Vaughn, his expression grim.
“Citronella oil,” Vaughn said. His eyes were already starting to sting.
Toretti and his deputy looked at him like he was nuts. Probably was. He did feel kind of crazy. Inside, his wolf raged. It wanted out, to get the hell away from the stench and the Beta grating on his nerves.
“Got something to tell me?” Toretti asked.
Nothing I want to. Didn’t have much choice, though. “Found the body of a murder victim a few days ago. Broken neck, doused in citronella.”
“What the fuck for?”
Vaughn shook his head.
After a few minutes of taking pictures of the victim in the car, they moved him onto a body bag on the ground. The man was about five-foot-five, small-boned, and Caucasian. Definitely dead and definitely still in possession of his tongue. That much they could see thanks to his open mouth.
Toretti patted the guy down and found a wallet in a pants pocket. “Michael F. Smith. Forty-three years old, Spokane, Washington. Name matches the one on the car registration.” He looked at Vaughn. “This your guy?”
Vaughn shrugged.
“It’s the guy we were looking for,” Dean said. “Whether or not the poor bastard was the guy we needed, don’t know.”
“Why were you looking for him? The other guy’s murder?”
Dean’s motor mouth opened, then it snapped closed, and he looked at Vaughn. Vaughn almost grinned at the other male’s consternation. Lead or follow? Beta or deputy?
“No,” Vaughn said. “He was wanted for questioning in regards to a helicopter that crashed two days ago.”
“No shit? The one where that rich developer bought it?”
“Yeah. Smith here was a mechanic at the airfield the helo took off from.”
“What’s your other stiff got to do with him and the developer?”
Vaughn didn’t answer. The citronella was the only thing linking the mechanic to Eric Conroy, and through that, Conroy to Branson. Without that, only the timing was suspect.
The county coroner, a spark plug of a man in his sixties, finished writing something in a pad and proceeded to pull the edges of the body bag together. “All set, Sheriff?” he asked Toretti. When Toretti nodded, the coroner zipped the bag closed, causing the head to wobble in a way that made it clear the neck, and probably the spine, too, were snapped clean through.
“The force of the car hitting the water did not do that,” Toretti said, gnawing his gum.
No way. More like the force from a sharp twist delivered by a pair of supernaturally strong hands.
After loading the body into an ambulance for a ride to the morgue, Vaughn and Dean headed back to their vehicle. Dean sneezed and rubbed his eyes. “Hate that damn shit.” For once they were in complete agreement. “What the hell did a county clerk in rural Montana have to do with an airfield grease monkey from Spokane, Washington, and a fancy-pants developer from Missoula?”
“A lot, obviously.”
“Luke’s not gonna be happy.”
“Luke’s happiness is not my problem.” In fact, the male could rot for all Vaughn cared. “Human law enforcement is involved and there’s nothing I can do to keep them out.” Not when bodies were being left out in the open for anyone to find. Sloppy, sloppy.
Vaughn pinched the bridge of his nose, his face aching as anger and frustration tempted him to change. Idiocy always annoyed him. “Something like this has to be reported to Interclan Enforcement.”
Lycanthropes may not have a united governing body, but they did have their own law enforcement. Someone had to make sure the secrets were kept.
“We don’t want—”
He cut Dean off. “I don’t care what you or Luke wants. I have an obligation.”
An almost sub-audible growl rumbled from Dean’s throat. Vaughn’s wolf tensed, ready for a fight. Eager for it.
“He is your Alpha,” Dean snarled. “Your uncle was the sheriff. He—”
“You know what I learned from my uncle Darren?” Vaughn asked, his voice low and vicious. The predators within snapped at Dean, baiting him.
“What?”
“Betas die protecting their Alphas.”