Page 12 of Escalating Alpha (Seraphine Thomas #18)

He sighed. “I didn’t fucking know what was going on, Thomas. I swear it. This wasn’t our fuckup or trying to handle non-human cases. I just found out this morning. I’m the one who reported it directly to Galvin because I knew it would be a mess that the local PD hid four supe deaths. I get he’s under a lot of stress but…”

I snorted. “He didn’t wait for the full story. Yeah, we’re used to that.”

He snorted next. “We’re good. I just talked to you last week. I would have told you if I’d known. He’s pissed I didn’t know sooner. How could I? If they’re not sharing information with us—I don’t have enough of the budget I need already. Does he want me to send agents to snoop local PDs that they’re really turning over what they should?”

I snorted. Yeah, that wouldn’t do much besides make things worse. “You guys don’t have a good relationship with your PD?”

He let out a small growl and scrubbed his neck. “It used to be better, but one of the newest lieutenant colonels was big on the former president’s agenda. Off the record, I have a feeling this was without the commissioner’s knowledge. He’s—I can’t see him pulling this shit.”

I nodded. We had rogue anti-supe—even anti-federal—in CPD. There was no getting around it. People had their own agendas and used their power for them.

“Perez and I have six months of our costs now even with the upgrades and renovations. We’ve cut so many bullshit costs and corners getting rid of dead weight and finally handling so much we all know is crap. I’m hopeful with the glaring proof that it will get better,” I told him, seeing the frustration and burnout I knew well.

“Yeah, but that’s only for when our office gets overhauled. We’re far down on the list. They took forever to do it, and now they’re not really doing another one until they give your place a while to work. I don’t get that or—”

“That was smart so it didn’t fall apart,” I sighed. “And given how we raced to do it—once it’s really going, it will go fast down the list. It should be two months per office.”

He couldn’t hide his shock but then sighed. “Supes. You have supes involved.”

“Yes, ones I know personally and are fine being the flooring and painting elves who help us but cannot be fucked with or bullied. They cannot be. So part of this was to show how well things went so hopefully a lot of chiefs care more about that than bullying vampires or being pissed us supes are in their hallowed halls.”

“Or start rewarding those of us who work well with your office,” he bit out. “We’ve always handed over what we should and—stop giving the problems so much attention and reward those who deserve it.”

“Preaching to the choir, man.”

We were quiet for a bit, but he broke the silence right before we reached where we were going. “I’m sorry you got dragged into this and your SAiC couldn’t just handle it. I didn’t deny her information. I didn’t have any to fucking give.” He nodded when I did a double take. “The local supes called us and finally told us what was going on. That’s how my morning started.”

“Wolf Alpha?” I hedged.

“How did you know? He seems to have a real hard-on for you,” he worried.

“Yeah, I know,” I sighed. Heavily. “I might be the Alpha of the wolves soon if he doesn’t pull his head out of his ass.”

“Maybe you can get the others in line. I don’t like to listen to rumors, but even I hear all of the time that they’re involved in stealing this and that.”

“We’ll sniff around while we’re here, but I doubt it. You don’t even know the mess and bullshit that’s dumped on us just for being supes.”

“Or people assume they’re supes because they’re criminals,” Emilio added from the passenger’s seat. “We see that all of the time in Chicago or when I worked for the council. People completely sure they were reporting vampires and they were human. They assumed supes because they were bad guys.”

“Yeah, that actually seems likely around here,” the division chief grumbled.

Lovely.

Not even ten minutes later, I was about to explode. Like… Explode .

I turned to the officer and couldn’t hide my venom. “Can you explain this to me in crayon-eating terms how the fuck you ruled this as a drug overdose , you idiotic useless asshole?”

The shock from everyone—even my own team—was almost hysterical if the situation wasn’t so severe.

“This is exactly what was done in Memphis with those shifters,” the guy finally snapped. “The drugs they were given did this to the bodies so they could become trophies—”

“Arrest him,” I said, nodding that I wasn’t kidding. “Arrest him before I put him in the ground. The fact this was kept from the FBI—arrest him for obstruction of justice, tampering with evidence—everything.”

“Do it,” the local division chief told his people. “I don’t know that we have before, but it’s got to be that bad.”

I met his gaze and didn’t hide how close I was to losing my shit. “Yeah, it’s that bad because there weren’t any drugs involved in Memphis. He’s pulling all of this out of his ass. Those people were mounted in human form like animal kills.” I gestured to the first body who was half person and half puma—dead and trapped that way. “I’ve never seen this.”

Several people cursed under their breath.

“Which means this could absolutely be poison or murder or a list of everything,” I told the officer. “And you just fucked any clues we could have had with your assumptions. The three others might not have died if you called us in instead of assuming it was supe drugs which there aren’t any.”

“There have to be if you have birth control and other medications,” he seethed.

“No known recreational drugs. We barely get high on pot,” I spit out. “Of course there are things that work on us—you are so underqualified—this has to stop. It’s never going to get better with these pathetic slaps on the wrists.” I gestured to the agents to go ahead. “Arrest him and whoever was in charge of the case—the detectives or whoever else have been involved.”

“This won’t stick, Thomas,” the officer seethed.

“Maybe not, but this will make you assholes rethink how far you’ll abuse your power and making calls you’re not qualified to make,” I threw right back. I met Emilio’s gaze. “Take a few pictures, send them to Monroe, and call him. Get him the update and tell him what I did.”

“You’re going nuclear,” he muttered.

“Have you ever seen anything like this?” I asked him, guessing the answer from the way everyone was freaked out at what we were looking at. “Yeah, so we’re stumped and he was making the call it was an OD. I’m tired of this same shtick with the locals. We should have done this from the start so it never happened again.”

“Agreed,” he said before I could ramp back up. He told the coroner who Monroe was so he was allowed to see the pictures.

I gave the coroner a look to tread carefully. The man simply gave it back to me which I found surprising.

He sighed and stepped away from the body. “I told them repeatedly I couldn’t—I have no experience with supes. They wanted me to sign my name to an OD for all of them. We found nothing in their blood, not that we are equipped to even know what to look for. I run a clean lab and wouldn’t do it. I won’t let people send photographs either.”

Fair enough and I said as much. He wasn’t happy to be dragged into it all and basically was trying to keep his nose clean while surviving all of this.

I took a few more deep breaths that I let out. “Okay, walk me through what you’ve found. Please. And then we’ll get it all transferred over to our labs.” I looked at Davis. “Warn our people in Chicago. They aren’t set up for supe anything here, and this is something I’ve never seen before—none of us have.”

“The council might have,” she muttered.

“Yeah, okay, check with Haton, and we might get a team to Chicago to investigate.” I looked at Emilo. “I want one of ours with these transports. I’m not risking—anything. I’m not risking anything at this point.” I promised the coroner we’d have all the right paperwork for him before we did anything.

Because I did follow the fucking rules.

Mostly.

The first body was found three weeks ago and wasn’t a local puma, so no one knew to even say anything.

“So…” I let out a slow breath and tried to move past my rage. “Something had to put his body in this state. Assume drug or potion, but jumping to some recreational drug and it was an OD is ridiculous.”

“Or someone cooking up something to try out on unsuspecting supes,” the division chief added. “This guy brought it in if not a local, and—if something injected, it would be able to turn the tables on him. You’d see something weird if it was snorted, right?”

“Depends how old he was and strong and I can’t tell when he’s this long dead,” I told him. “I could swallow some acids and heal. I’m not old but powerful. It’s all pretty damn broad.”

“Which is why humans don’t investigate for supes. Got it. Yeah, I’ve heard that.” He bobbed his head and looked at the coroner. “You find anything wrong with the organs?”

“Didn’t have permission to open him up, none of them,” he said.

“They wanted you to pronounce an OD and didn’t even have you open them up?” I seethed, taking a minute to calm down again. “Okay, so I don’t have experience with ODs in humans or this side. If it was a human and we were talking recreational drugs—what would you normally find?”

I was impressed when my people were immediately writing it all down and asking follow-up questions. We looked over the other bodies, and… It was genuinely difficult for my mind to put together what I was seeing.

Each body was half and half of human and animal form. Or third form which was already a mix. Clearly, it mattered if the shifter was strong enough to be able to change into that third form.

Or did it?

“We need to find out if these shifters were strong enough to have a third form,” I commented as I moved over to the third body.

“You’re thinking something that might force them to turn into a third form and kills them when they can’t?” Lewis checked as he moved over by me.

“I’m considering all possibilities no matter how crazy they might sound or something will tell me it’s not possible. Clearly, something new is.”

“No, I get it, and your idea has merit,” he agreed as he moved around the table.

“You’re not supposed to be in here,” I hedged. “You’re not FBI cleared.”

“He was given liaison credentials from the vamp council,” one of my team told me. “Just him. Apparently, he’s seen a lot of crazy and investigated a lot for them.”

“Gotcha. That’s helpful.” I noted a few more things for my team and turned to Lewis before moving on to the last body. “Have you seen anything like this?”

He met my gaze and it was hard. “No. I’ve seen other things that shifters don’t make public for hunters taking trophies but not this. This—I don’t know what this is, Chief Thomas.”

And that was terrifying.

“So the first body was found three weeks ago, but the last was a week ago,” I muttered. “That absolutely makes me think this was something tested and the person disappeared after getting these results and probably attention.”

“Meaning they could be back when they work out the kinks,” Lewis said but then swore. “Or to somewhere bigger to do this more if this was the actual goal.”

“Yeah, I really, really am going to chew on the local police. We have no idea how fast it happened—we have nothing but four dead shifters in a way that shouldn’t be possible. Awesome.” I yanked off my gloves harder than needed. “Fucking awesome.”

I thanked the coroner and made it clear to my people that they did not leave those bodies alone for a second until the paperwork went through and we could transport them. I didn’t want them disappearing now that I was going scorched-earth on this. They understood, and even the local division chief assigned a few of his people to guard the bodies as well.

I stepped outside just in time to see Freddie deliver a gorgeous punch to a man who didn’t see it coming and went down hard.

“Don’t react,” I said to everyone with me. “I have a feeling this is wolf shit and it’s legal. They want the attention and to back me into a corner.” It was difficult not to laugh when several people gave me annoyed looks that I’d figured it out.

Including the guy who was now on the ground.

Asshole.

“How people still underestimate me to this level constantly is fucking annoying,” I grumbled while Reagan made his move.

He tugged up his pants and squatted down to the level of the Alpha who was holding his face gingerly. “You ever spew your shit about our Alpha again and we will break you. I don’t know how to say this for you knuckle-dragging wolves here in St. Louis, but every Alpha is not in her bed. You don’t even believe that and we sense it.”

“Because we’re stronger than you,” Freddie drawled. “We smell the bullshit.”

Reagan nodded, snapping in the Alpha’s face when he turned like he was going to blast Freddie. “Your pride won’t allow you to just ask for help like Des Moines did. They were accepting of the terms without this bluster and tearing down of our Alpha because you can’t accept you need her help .”

“Our Alpha—” one of the Betas with them started to interject but gasped when I let out a fraction of my power.

“You interrupt my Beta again like you fucking matter here and I’ll be contacting the council that I tore out a feral wolf’s throat while here instead of just focused on the mess we already have,” I warned, my voice cold and deadly.

Reagan’s lips twitched, but he kept the Alpha’s gaze. “We have dozens of packs begging for the deal Des Moines got.” All my wolves nodded when their wolves couldn’t hide their shock. “There’s a fucking waiting list to even meet with her to discuss it. And they’re respectful and begging. You are prideful and a douchebag.

“You’ll give her the win of letting her bed you? Fucker, have you looked in the mirror? She’s supermodel gorgeous and you look like you were pushed out someone’s ass instead of the normal way of being born. We are tired of you twisting the situation around and acting like you matter. You don’t. You wouldn’t be a feather in Sera’s cap.”

“And we can all smell the desperation pouring off of you,” Freddie added, pulling back his arm when it looked like the Alpha might get up. “Stay down there before I get really pissed.” He glanced over at Ashley who was mostly blocked by one of Lewis’s guys like she was supposed to be. “You have the numbers for Reagan, right, kiddo?”

“Yeah, you want them or me to read them out?” she asked.

“Read them out,” he instructed.

She nodded and shot me an apologetic look, probably knowing it was going to be news to me. “Twenty-seven packs have asked for the deal Des Moines has or a conversation about it. Seventeen packs, the council wants our Alpha to investigate or possibly handle. And nine, they’re begging her to take over. Regularly.”

I sighed. Heavily. “I really am going to become the Alpha of America if some people get their way. Great.” I moved over towards Reagan, tapping his shoulder and saying it was time to move on while making a point not to even look at the Alpha which pissed him and his people off. “Let me make it clear that if I take over St. Louis you wouldn’t be who I put in power. Ever.”

I almost laughed at the fear that instantly filled my nose. Fucker. He’d never considered I’d just take over and kill him.

Seriously, what a fucking idiot. He was making all of these waves, and—it wasn’t like I hadn’t done it before. I had.

Simply not since I’d been recovered from my abduction. So a year and a half was too long for people’s memories?

“I have to speak with the families of the three local victims,” I told them. “If he steps a toe out of line or tries to make us or wolves look bad, tear out his throat and I’ll worry about the mess on the other end. We can’t have something else make shifters look bad when we were wronged.”

“Yes, Alpha,” all my wolves responded.

Davis had gotten a jump on things and the right people brought in for me to speak with. Two were so grateful that I was there and would help that they kept crying. I understood their upset, and it was valid after weeks of trying to get someone to do what they should.

But I wasn’t the best with my own emotions, much less other people’s. And I needed information from them.

The first was cold and full of rage—again, expected. He was exceedingly helpful about his brother.

No, nothing out of the ordinary.

No, he hadn’t gone off the map, made new friends, been secretive about anything, nor asked for money.

No, he hadn’t seemed paranoid or worried—nothing that pointed to him being a drug user or drugs being in the picture. Fine, some people were functioning while using all sorts of drugs, but if this was something new… I didn’t see that being a factor.

“You’ll get whoever did this, right?” he checked as he stood.

“I will do my absolute best and never give up. That’s what I can promise you,” I answered as I met his gaze. “I don’t give up. I don’t want to give you false hope because sometimes we can’t ever get the answers or find the people. I have cases still that wake me in the middle of the night because they’re like sand through my fingers.”

He nodded. “Thanks, Chief Thomas.” He turned Davis’s card in his fingers. “I’ll let you know if I find anything else. I’ll check in with his friends too—human and supe—and let your agent know.”

“Any nerves you register let us know,” I told him. “Doesn’t mean they did something wrong, but it’s worth an in-person conversation. Don’t try it and spook them. Enough has been fucked up on this already and I can force answers.”

He dipped his head. “Yes, Alpha.”

Good.

“I’m a bit shocked at what you said and the lack of hope you gave,” the local division chief admitted when I took a break.

Lewis snorted but then apologized, giving me a look. He sighed when I nodded for him to go ahead. “We’re immortal, Chief. Telling someone that unsolved cases keep us up at night makes it clear we won’t give up. And when we can live hundreds of years—that’s a lot of years to hope and not be brushed aside. That’s what she was telling him. That she cares that much.”

“That’s what most supes want to hear,” I added. “Humans want someone to blame, not always caring they got the right person. I saw it time and time again. Supes want the right person even if they have to wait. We’re too—our animals can’t handle sending someone innocent away when we smell lies and sense so much. So supes want to hear we care and will do it right.”

He opened his mouth and then closed it, repeating that a few times. “Sometimes you guys are scary like you talking about ending that Alpha like brushing your teeth. I know bravado and you were serious. But then other times I think you guys have the right outlook and I wish more humans thought the same.”

“Both can be true,” I said, not taking offense. I gave a half shrug. “And I was serious how easily I’d kill him because him spreading rumors and lies can bring trouble to my door and the fight for Alpha is to the death. I’m not letting my people die for that asshole, and we’ve lost people in those kinds of fights—other fights for what was right.”

“Now ask her how often those wolves she’s had to kill wake her up in the middle of the night too,” Lewis muttered gently, giving me a knowing look.

I didn’t make the chief ask. “Too fucking often.” I snorted. “At least once a week. It’s great. I hope it fades because I did the right thing.” I wasn’t surprised when the chief patted my shoulder.

Yeah, that was how most people felt after talking to me instead of the rumors and bullshit about me.

Right before we wrapped up and all the paperwork was in for the transports and more, Reagan pulled me off to the side. “Virgil is begging you to swing by Memphis. It’s pack business, but he says he’s in a bind and finally got people ready to talk. He said he didn’t want to call in those favors we owe him, but he really hopes you can pull one out for him.”

I glanced at my watch and sighed. Yeah, we weren’t going to get the bodies to Cook County ME before closing, and no matter the strings, they wouldn’t sit around and wait for us either. Late morning would be the best we’d get to start probably.

“Yeah, make it work.” I pulled him down for a quick kiss, apologizing for my tone. He gave me one back, clearly understanding where my head was and how overloaded we were.

So what else was new?