Page 9 of Rogue If You Want To (Fur-Ever Mountain Pack #2)

TORIN

Otto was asleep, as he had been for over twelve hours.

It wasn’t surprising considering his now-healed injuries, the effort it’d taken to shift, along with his otter’s antics in the stream.

River. This is Stoney River .

My mistake. It wasn’t much of a river, but I let it go.

He’d agreed that we had to find out as much as we could about the attack and what his brother’s grievances were that he would take out a shifter hit on his twin.

I strode over to the small. newly built place that was Creven’s office. There was a knot in my belly, not the good kind, and it twisted my insides as I worried about another potential attack, perhaps with fatal consequences.

Creven was behind his desk, a large mug of coffee beside him, while Auden hovered around him, his nervous energy apparent in his frantic pacing. Their grim expressions didn’t improve my mood.

“You saw Otto’s wounds before he shifted.” It wasn’t a question. They knew I did, but I nodded at Auden.

“A huge beast who slashed from above.” Otto may have been sitting at the time of the attack.

“The slashes, as deep as they were, weren’t designed to kill Otto.”

I scoffed at Creven’s suggestion that this was, what?

A playful tiff that got out of hand? There was no other explanation, and I refused to let these guys railroad me into accepting their version.

It appeared they wanted to wash their hands of us so if the hunting party came looking for my mate, they could say they knew nothing.

Maybe it was wrong to trust them and I should get Otto out of here.

“I don’t believe that, sorry.”

Auden pulled out an old book from the shelf and thunked it on the desk. He flicked through the pages until he found what he wanted and stabbed his finger at the images.

“Do these wounds look like Otto’s?” He pushed the book across the desk.

I didn’t want to look because if I did, it might prove what he was saying, and then what? Perhaps we’d be in a worse position. But I forced myself to examine the pics. The pattern and depth and angle of the wounds were similar to Otto’s.

“Yeah. So what? You have a different theory other than they weren’t supposed to be fatal?”

This wasn’t how I should be speaking to an Alpha and a respected elder. I was a newbie at pack life and shifter everything. Creven could easily bleed me and make me clean the toilets in the dining hall.

“They were done by someone who knew how to injure a shifter but not kill them, at least not immediately.”

Creven took over. “They tortured Otto, wanting to see him suffer. Human behavioral analysts would say the hatred his brother had for Otto was deep-seated. This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision because his twin annoyed him.”

I threw up my hands. “Okay, they tortured him. That’s the end of it.” Hearing the words in my head, I couldn’t believe I was being so blasé about his brother making my mate suffer, considering the guy must have taken pleasure in it.

Creven held up his hand. Maybe he was finally tired of my insolence. “Auden has been using his contacts with other packs and dens to find out more about Otto’s background.”

I slumped into a chair. This was where they told me my mate had a dark history. He was a liar, a thief, or his attack was payback for a life he’d taken. But no matter what he’d done, that was then. I couldn’t turn off the mating instinct like water from a tap.

“Don’t know any otters or the bevy they live in.” Auden leaned back against the wall. “But I know someone who knows someone…” He waved his hand in the air as if he couldn’t be bothered with the details.

I put my head in my hands and braced myself for bad news.

“Otto’s father died recently.”

My head shot up. Otto was grieving as well as being injured, though he hadn’t mentioned his father’s death.

“Onley was the Alpha of a small but influential bevy north of here, and he fell from a cliff.” Auden’s steely gaze was fixed on me as he spoke.

Was that supposed to tell me something? It was tragic, yes, but not unheard of. “That’s unfortunate.”

“Otters don’t fall from a height.” Creven leaned forward and clasped his hands. “They’re agile and aware of their surroundings. Onley was an experienced hiker, and the trail was one he knew well.”

They both stared at me as if willing me to grasp what they were saying.

“You’re saying it wasn’t an accident but he was murdered.” That fit with the attack on Otto. His brother wanted to be Alpha and pushed my mate out of the way. It seemed like the end, but the furrows in Creven and Auden’s brows suggested I hadn’t grasped the implications.

“They think Otto killed his father because the Alpha favored Otto’s twin.”

“What?” I closed my eyes, trying to block out the arrows zinging at me. “Why?”

“Otto disappeared around the time his father was killed, and no one in the bevy has seen him since.”

If the shifter council or the police were after my mate, we could solve this easily.

We’d march into the police station or wherever and relate the story of the attack.

And they’d want evidence. So we’d show them…

what? The police were probably human, and there wasn’t even a scar on my mate’s body.

And I had no experience of shifter councils and didn’t know how they operated.

I had to think, so I paced the floor. We’d tell them where my mate was attacked, and they could find the place and take DNA. But could Otto lead us there, and would there be any viable evidence? Shit. Sweat trickled down my spine and into my briefs.

“There’s more.” Creven sighed.

What else would there be?

“Otto’s brother declared himself Alpha.”

That was what I assumed. He could head his bevy of otters, and Otto and I would live our lives.

“He told the bevy that with his brother as the culprit, he was branding him as rogue so no one would help him.”

“But we did.” I clapped because I’d outwitted my mate’s brother.

“He spun a tale that Otto had always wanted to be Alpha and he hated his brother and this was his revenge.” Auden pushed himself off the wall and slammed the book closed. Years of dust circled in the air above it and settled on the desk and floor.

My poor mate. I should get back to the cabin and comfort him.

“Do you understand what a rogue shifter is?” Creven’s voice was softer than Auden’s, but there was no mistaking the steel in his tone.

I shrugged. “He no longer has a pack.”

“It’s more than that,” Creven explained. “He’s been cast out and marked as dangerous, and if other shifters encounter him, they don’t have to adhere to shifter law.”

I conjured up mental images of what shifters might try to do to Otto.

“And coupled with Otto being the murder suspect, the bevy is crying for his blood,” Creven added.

Dear gods. How much more was my mate supposed to suffer?

“Are you saying they’re going to hunt him down and…” I gulped. I wasn’t familiar with shifter justice. “…and take him before the shifter council?”

“No. They would?—”

“Stop, please. I can’t take any more.” I ground both fists over my eyes, wishing I could roll back time.

You owe it to our mate to hear them out so we can protect him .

“If it’s any consolation, we know Otto didn’t kill his father because he was already injured when his father’s body was discovered.” Creven tapped the scribbled notes in front of him.

Oh goody. We got a win, not that it would do us much good if an army of angry shifters beat down our doors and carried my mate off.

“There’s a bounty on Otto’s head. He’s a marked man.” Auden looked out the window, and I flinched, worried he was looking for anyone who wanted to earn that reward.

They wanted us to move on. All I had was a car and not a very good one. I could drive across the country, but unless the bounty was lifted, Otto would always be running and we’d never be safe.

We had no proof of what had really happened, and even Otto’s memories were fragmented.

Creven explained that Auden would continue to use his contacts to get more information about the situation. “His brother is bound to have made mistakes. Hiring someone to attack his twin and probably another someone to kill his father is messy business.”

I couldn’t focus on my mate’s brother possibly fucking up because I had to break the news that his father wasn’t just dead, but murdered. I wanted to put my fist through a wall because the one person who should have loved him had destroyed Otto's life.

I sank back into my chair, feeling overwhelmed. "What do we do?"

“We find proof of what happened and we protect Otto.” Creven slammed a fist on the desk. But I glanced at Auden who strode toward the door, his hands clenched at his side. He wasn’t in agreement, but as Creven was his Alpha, he couldn’t override the decision.

“How do we protect my mate against a horde?”