Redmond Wilkes had clearly decided he was going to be strong and silent. As he looked up at the six tall, muscular men and two women standing over him, it became apparent that strength and silence were not traits that came naturally to him.

“He’s the only one left,” Samson said. “Might as well just kill him now.”

Wilkes gave a whimper and turned his attention to Madden. “You’re a police officer. You can’t do that.”

Madden smiled. “It may have escaped your attention, but I haven’t exactly stayed within the letter of the law today.” He nodded to Samson. “You’re right. Killing him is probably the best solution. It’s less messy if we have no witnesses.”

Wilkes licked his lips. “Wait. I . . . I might be able to help you.”

Madden leaned his shoulders against the wall and folded his arms across his chest. “I doubt it.”

“I have information about what’s been going on.” Wilkes cast a nervous glance in Maria’s direction. “With the case you’re working.”

Fury—cold, hard, and implacable—hit Madden in the gut. This guy had come into Lowell’s house, pretended to be a forensic artist, placed Maria in danger, and all that time he had information that might lead them to the killer?

Grabbing Wilkes by the front of his torn and bloodied shirt, Madden hauled him to his feet. “Listen to me, you piece of shit. You are going to tell me everything you know. Everything. If I get even a hint that you are lying, or holding out on me, I will rip your fucking head off and use it to scare the birds off my lawn.”

As Madden dropped a quivering Wilkes back to the ground, Sebastian intervened. “Let’s not be too hasty.”

A rumbling growl issued from deep in Madden’s chest. Wilkes shuffled slightly closer to Sebastian.

“What are you saying?” Madden asked.

“The last time you decided to use some guy’s severed head as a lawn ornament, we had to rethink the plan. You live in an apartment, remember?” Sebastian gave Wilkes a smile that sent the other man quickly scurrying away from him. “Just rip his throat out instead.”

Madden nodded. “Good point.” He turned his attention back to Wilkes. “Talk. Start with this little welcome committee.”

“The master told us to be here.” The words tumbled over themselves as they left Wilkes mouth. It was as though in his haste to please Madden by showing him he was willing to talk, he couldn’t them out fast enough. “He contacted us with the details, told us what time the plane would land, how we should stand, what we should do. We were to listen for his commands.”

“Who is the master?” Madden knew the answer, but he wanted confirmation. He wanted Wilkes to say the name out loud.

“He is the mighty werewolf hunter, Jean Chastel.”

Madden could sense the tension that coiled through his own muscles also hardening the bodies of his teammates. It was one thing to suspect they were up against their old enemy. It was quite another to have it confirmed. Chastel used powerful sorcery to wage war on werewolves. He had risen to prominence in eighteenth century France when he had killed a feral werewolf known as the Beast of Gévaudan. Over the ensuing centuries, Chastel had recruited a huge following. Known as the Hellhounds, his supporters would go to any lengths to please their master by bringing Chastel the head of a werewolf. In return, Chastel was prepared to offer huge rewards. The biggest bounty of all would be paid to the Hellhound who could bring him the head of an Arctic werewolf. The head of a member of the Brotherhood of the Midnight Sun? That would secure a place in Hellhound history.

It would be easy to dismiss the Hellhounds as cranks who stayed at home and posted on-line about their werewolf hunting exploits. That was how the human police viewed them. Days like today showed how wrong that perception was. On this occasion, they had struck lucky—or unlucky—and found themselves face-to-face with real werewolves. There were many instances of Hellhounds getting it wrong and pursuing innocent victims in their attempts to please Chastel and claim his bounty.

“I didn’t see any sign of Chastel here while you were fighting. How did he get his commands to you?”

In the past, Chastel had thrown every magic trick in his sorcerer’s repertoire at the brotherhood in an attempt to defeat them. He exerted mind control over his followers, used a variety of disguises, switched bodies with unsuspecting innocents, and persuaded his Hellhounds to become werewolves themselves in order to fight the enemy from within. He had even made telepathic contact with Fenrir and together they had hatched a plan to destroy the brotherhood. Madden might hate Chastel, but he never underestimated his ability.

“The master doesn’t need to be physically present to communicate with us. His power is such that he can speak to us without words.” Wilkes allowed a trace of pride to creep into his voice.

“Telepathy.” Even so, Madden judged Chastel would need to be close by. He had been controlling a large number of his followers. Doing that from a distance would not have been an easy task. Madden even suspected Chastel might have been close enough to see the action without getting his own hands bloody. Which meant Chastel was in Anchorage, possibly even here at the airport.

“How did Chastel”—Madden refused to call him “the master”—“know we would be here?”

Wilkes looked bewildered. “He is the master. He knows everything.”

It was obvious Wilkes didn’t have that level of information. Chastel didn’t need to share every detail of his operation with his foot soldiers, and Wilkes was clearly one of those. Madden suspected Chastel had been watching Lowell’s house. Once the brotherhood decided to move, it would be an easy matter to discover their destination. Air travel wasn’t an easy thing to keep secret. At least Samson had used his security team to protect Lowell’s house. Odessa, Valetta, Cindy and Luka would be well protected inside the mansion while the brotherhood was away.

“And your orders were to kill us?”

“Those are always our orders,” Wilkes confirmed.

“Tell me what you know about the Cage Killer.”

The swift change of subject caught Wilkes unawares and his eyes shifted uncomfortably to Maria’s face. Madden felt his heart begin to pound. Was he finally going to get somewhere? Get the snippet he had been waiting for that would crack this case wide open? He didn’t believe Chastel was responsible for the Cage Killer murders. He had a feeling Chastel had seen an opportunity in the mind of this twisted killer and exploited it. If there was a chance to damage the werewolf community, Chastel would take it, even if it meant offering the hand of friendship to a serial killer. Hell, Chastel would sign a pact with the devil if it meant he could get himself a werewolf scalp.

Wilkes looked like a man who was hoping the ground would open up and swallow him whole. “I was tricked.”

Madden caught hold of him by the throat and lifted him off the ground. Wilkes made a choking sound as his feet scrabbled wildly inches above the concrete.

“You’re a fucking liar.” Madden’s voice was low-pitched and menacing. “When you arrived at my friend’s house pretending to be a forensic artist, you knew exactly which case Maria had been part of and what she had been through. You exploited her suffering on behalf of your precious master. No more excuses. Tell me what you know, or be prepared to part with your head.”

He dropped Wilkes back onto the ground where the other man lay on his side clutching his throat. “I don’t think he can talk,” Maria said.

“Delaying tactics.” Madden eyed the squirming figure coldly. “They all try it.”

He waited with his arms folded across his chest until Wilkes gradually straightened and sat up. Jenny moved forward and handed him a bottle of water. Wilkes gulped from it eagerly. Casting a scared glance in Madden’s direction, he set the bottle on the ground and tried out his voice. The first sound that came out was a rusty croak. Clearing his throat, he tried again.

“Okay, I knew what I was doing. The master told me who Maria was when he sent me to make the sketch.”

“What happened to the real artist? The person who should have turned up that day?” Madden asked.

“He, or she, was paid by the master to take a sick day.”

Madden’s lips tightened. So much for police integrity. “I don’t understand why it was necessary for Chastel to send you along in place of the real artist. What did he hope to gain from it?”

“The master wanted to know how much Maria had remembered of her captivity.” Wilkes risked another glance at Madden’s face. “And because the master thought it would piss you off when you knew one of his followers had been inside your territory.”

Madden laughed. “He was right.” His expression hardened again. “Now tell me what you know about the Cage Killer.”

Wilkes shook his head. “Nothing.” He saw Madden’s expression shift and cringed closer to the floor. “I swear. All I know is he is someone close to one of you who has a grudge.”

* * *

“Someone close to one of us who has a grudge?” Madden drained half his bottle of beer in one swallow. “Close to whom? And what sort of grudge?” He ran a hand through his hair in a familiar gesture that signaled his frustration. “This gets us no closer to the killer.”

They were seated in a private room in the hotel. After their unconventional arrival in Anchorage, Madden had decided to wait until the following day to approach Anton Rainer. Although he no longer held out much hope of finding the environmentalist. If Rainer was one of Chastel’s followers, he would already have been alerted to their arrival and was likely to have fled his Kenai Peninsula home.

Wilder had booked them into a hotel close to the airport and they had congregated to review the day’s events. It was getting late and Maria could feel the drama catching up with her. Her nerves felt frayed and her senses had gone into overdrive. The voices of those around her were alternately too shrill or too booming. The bland gray and white color scheme in the hotel room seemed loud and annoying. The scent of beer and coffee stung her nostrils and the taste of the steak she had eaten earlier left a metallic film on her teeth that no amount of brushing would remove. She was back in the town that had been her home her whole life, but she had never felt so out of place. All she wanted to do was sleep, but she had a feeling slumber was a luxury that would elude her for some time.

Because Wilkes’s words had struck a chord with her. But she couldn’t be right. Could she? This whole thing, all these people dying. It couldn’t all be about her. I’m not that important.

Someone close to one of you who has a grudge. The words played on a loop in her mind. Maria’s whole life had been spent trying to overcome the bitter grudge her brother had felt toward her. No, it was more than a grudge. Caspar had hated her. Her parents had tried to pretend that wasn’t the case. They had done their best to cover it up, to call it sibling rivalry and brush it off as a normal part of family life. But Maria had always known the truth. It had been there in the looks he gave her, and in the sly punches, kicks, and pinches behind their parents’ backs. Her parents had always replaced her favorite toys when they were damaged or went missing and tried to make excuses when Caspar threw a tantrum or pretended to feel ill whenever a special treat was planned for Maria. She soon learned to stay in the background. But it never seemed to make any difference. He continued to resent her no matter what she did. She knew their parents had hoped the situation would improve as they grew older. It didn’t. As he passed from childhood into his teens, Caspar’s smoldering dislike had hardened into bitter animosity.

She hadn’t heard from Caspar for years. When their parents died, his anger had spilled over even further. Jealous of Maria’s talent and success in the art world, Caspar had refused to speak to her at the funeral and had not responded to her calls, letters, or emails since. She knew he wanted to make his own way, also as an artist, but she had no idea how he was doing.

Caspar detested her, but was he capable of murder? She must be wrong. This was her overwrought brain snatching at wild solutions. Murder wasn’t exactly a minor allegation to make against someone with whom she had grown up. And, if it was true, it meant the whole Cage Killer investigation was about her. Every murder had been committed because Caspar wanted to get at Maria. But that can’t be true. I didn’t know any of the other victims.

Unless Caspar had become so unhinged he had killed people with the same coloring as the sister who had insinuated her way into his family? But that was even more far-fetched. And how did it fit with Madden’s theory that the Cage Killer was a fledgling werewolf hunter who had turned to Jean Chastel for help? The answer to that question was simple. It didn’t.

But, in light of what Wilkes had said, she didn’t feel she could keep this suspicion to herself. As wrong as it felt to throw Caspar to the wolves—Did I really just think that?—she had to share her fears.

She drew a deep breath at the same moment that Madden’s cell phone rang. He moved to one side to answer it and silence fell over the group. When he joined them again, his expression was grim. “It was Callie. A parcel addressed to me arrived at the Fairbanks Police Department a few hours ago. It contained an index finger. Initial tests show it probably belonged to Hendrik.”

* * *

The only way Madden knew how to deal with the storm of emotions raging through him was to hold on to Maria like he was never going to let her go. Because he wasn’t ever letting her go. It was a vow he had made to himself. And when the time was right, he would prove it to her as well. But he had screwed things up so spectacularly, he didn’t know how to get them back on track. He would never forget the look of pain he had seen in the depths of her eyes. A look he had caused when he rejected her. He had to find a way to erase that.

But everything was so crazy right now. Dealing with the horror that was going on around them had to be his priority. When he talked about their future, he wanted to be sure they had one. Then he wanted to be sure he could make it a good one.

He was just relieved she was still talking to him, let alone sharing a room with him. When he had closed the door behind them and paused, looking at her long and hard, not daring to hope they might get back to their former intimacy, she had come to him, taking his face in her hands and pressing her lips to his.

“No talking. No analyzing. Not yet,” she had said, as she had taken his hand and led him to the bed. “There will be plenty of time for that later.”

They had managed to snatch a few hours’ sleep in between some frantic lovemaking. Maria’s face was troubled as she raised herself on one elbow and looked down at him. “I need to talk to you about something.”

Madden wanted to soothe away the frown that was pulling her brows together. “It was what Wilkes said about the Cage Killer being someone close who had a grudge.”

“Go on.” Madden shifted into a sitting position and drew her into the crook of his arm.

She sighed. “I don’t want to think like this. Thinking like this feels like the ultimate betrayal of the people who took me in and gave me a home.”

Madden placed a finger under her chin and tilted her face up to his. “Tell me. Whatever you say is between us.”

She shook her head. “That’s just it. As soon as I say the words, it won’t be. Once I tell you, it will become part of your investigation. He will become part of your investigation.” Madden remained silent, sensing the battle that was going on inside her. Eventually, she took a breath. “Okay. I have to do this, because I know you can’t leave anything unexplored. You know that I was adopted, right? Well, my parents already had a child, a boy, named Caspar.” Maria’s voice wobbled. “Caspar hated me.”

“You mean he resented you coming into his family?”

“No, I mean he really hated me.” The expression in her eyes saddened him in a way her words couldn’t. Madden knew what it meant not to belong. He had lived with isolation all his life. He thought he had come to terms with it. But the pain on Maria’s face stripped away his defenses and left him raw. When he looked into her eyes and saw what she had been through, he was taken back to his own experiences as a cast out cub and then a wolf with no pack. “What Caspar felt for me went way beyond sibling rivalry, or even the expected resentment of a child who has an adopted sister brought into the family. It was so extreme that my parents took us all to a family therapist. Nothing helped. Nothing changed.” She pressed closer to him. “It never has.”

“You think he could be the Cage Killer?” Madden could understand the reason for Maria’s reluctance. No matter what her life with this brother had been like, saying those words out loud, suggesting that a family member might be a murderer, was never going to be easy. No matter what that person had done in the past, family loyalty was always going to be strong enough to cause an eye-watering amount of guilt.

“I don’t know what to think.” She was trembling now and Madden ran his hands up and down her arms in an attempt to soothe her. “But when Wilkes said that . . . about someone close who had a grudge, it made me think of Caspar.” Her eyes pleaded with him for understanding. “And I had to tell you.”

“Maria”—Madden wrapped his arms around her, warming her with his body—“you were right to tell me. Caspar will never know it was you who spoke to me. I will get it to my team right away. They’ll check him out from a distance, and hopefully eliminate him from our inquiries. If it looks like he is a suspect, then our investigation into him need never lead back to you.”

“If Caspar comes under investigation, I expect he will blame me anyway.” The desolation on her face shocked him. “I have no idea what his life has been like since I last saw him, but I have a feeling that he will have managed to come up with a reason why everything bad that has happened to him from that moment on has been my fault.”

* * *

Madden was an image of male perfection. Naked, aroused, and with his eyes burning with raging need. He was everything Maria had ever dreamed of and more. He could drive her wild with a look, steal her breath with a touch, connect with her soul as he entered her. And he was between her thighs. Perhaps they should have tried to snatch another hour or two of sleep . . . but sleep was overrated.

Strong and dominant, his eyes roamed over her body, fueling her arousal even further, driving her to a point just beyond desperation.

“Please . . .” She lifted her hips, pressing herself against his hard length.

“You didn’t obey me today, Maria.” Although there was a hint of a smile on his lips, his voice was stern.

She gasped. Now? They were going to talk about this right now?

He lowered his lips, smothering her protest and silencing it with passion and fire. As his tongue entered her lips, she felt the blunt pressure of his cock pressing against her swollen folds. Tingling fingers of sensations began to stroke her flesh.

“When I tell you to do something, I expect obedience.” Madden raised his head, his eyes glittering gold.

Maria writhed desperately against him.

“Are you listening to me, Maria?”

She nodded, only half aware of what he was saying. “Madden, I need you inside me, now.” Her voice sounded a lot like a plea.

He levered himself onto his elbows, smiling down into her eyes. “Then tell me what I want to hear. Tell me you will obey me in future.”

“You walked away from me when we were about to mate, and now you decide to be an alpha?” She gasped as he moved his hips, pushing the head of his cock into her a fraction. “Oh, dear God.”

“Your choice, Maria.” The smile deepened as he withdrew again.

“You bastard.” The whispered words had no heat to them.

It was a game and she was loving every delicious, tormenting minute of it. They both knew she was going to say the words, and they both knew there was no winner or loser.

“I can wait all night.” Madden slid a hand down to caress her breast. “Can you?”

“Do I have to obey you in everything?” She tried wriggling her hips to see if she could bring him any closer. He didn’t move. Just stayed stubbornly in position, with his cock pressed up against her entrance. It was as if he was an iron statue. Damn the man.

Her legs were spread wide with her feet draped over his thighs, her hips were angled to allow his huge erection to penetrate her. His gaze traveled down to lock on the point where their bodies joined. Everything about this situation made the conversation more erotically charged.

Madden’s lips twitched. “Just tell me I’m your alpha. We can sort out the details later.” As he spoke, he traced a finger down her body, finding her clit and circling it once in a possessive gesture.

The caress was too much for Maria. With a soft sigh, she threw back her head and jerked her hips upward. “You win, my beautiful alpha. I’m yours too command.”

“Thank fuck for that. I couldn’t take much more of that torture.”

He pressed into her, moaning hoarsely as he watched his cock part her tender flesh.

Furious heat built inside Maria as he stretched her. Nothing felt as good as this. This fierce tenderness. This intrusion of his body into hers. It tipped her beyond pleasure and into rapture.

She lifted her upper body, wanting the same view Madden had, wanting to watch as his girth disappear into her.

His hips bucked and he tipped his head back, the muscles in his neck cording. Hunger, pure and possessive, swept across his features and darkened his eyes with amber heat.

Maria arched to him as he quickly pulled back and plunged all the way inside her again. The pain-pleasure sensation had her bucking and writhing in ecstasy.

Madden’s hands gripped her buttocks, lifting her to him, as he drove mindlessly into her. His erection was a delicious friction, spreading wildfire across her the sensitized nerve endings of her vagina, sizzling outward through her whole body.

“More.” Her voice was hoarse and demanding as her pelvis slammed up and down in time with his thrusts.

“Like this?” It was a snarl. He was fucking her wildly now, the rhythm so fast and furious that their bodies were slippery with perspiration.

“Yes. God, yes. Just like that.”

“Say it again.” His mouth found the tender flesh between her neck and her shoulder, and Maria cried out as his bite intensified her pleasure.

“I’m yours.” The eroticism of being possessed by Madden was keeping her hovering on the edge of orgasm. So close to tipping over. “Always yours.”

His strong, thrusting hips, the thick length of his cock impaling her, her muscles clenching around him, his teeth gripping her flesh . . . the tension coiling through her body began to tighten and spiral.

She had lost control of her own body. Handed it over to Madden. He lit a fire inside her and it swept through her, burning every part of her. The orgasm that tore through her made her cry out in shock at its intensity. Blinding white light exploded behind her eyes, sending darts of pure bliss shooting outward to pierce her skin.

She held on to Madden, winding her arms tight around his neck, shuddering through each agonizingly delicious spasm, feeling him jerk and shudder as his own release tore through him. Madden collapsed onto her, his breathing harsh as he murmured her name.

When the tremors finally, ceased, Madden lifted his head to gaze at Maria. “Mine. You said it yourself.”

His lips brushed hers and, although he shifted his weight to one side, he kept one leg across hers in a possessive gesture.

The previous day, when he had questioned her obedience, her human instincts had rebelled. Under that intense amber gaze, her mood shifted. She was a werewolf. This was her world now. She could no more fight Madden’s dominance than she could deny the influence of the midnight sun. She lowered her eyes and nuzzled her nose along the line of his jaw. She was scenting him while marking him with her own aroma. It was a gesture of submission and apology. His indrawn breath signaled his appreciation of the action.