Page 116 of The Wolfing Hour

“You knew?” She looked at me with those green-brown hazel eyes, so like Ronan’s. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because it would’ve put you in danger. Not sure I made the right call.”

She looked around. “Where’s Ronan?”

“He’s okay. He didn’t keep anything from you, so don’t be upset with him. The evidence was emailed to me anonymously, though I have a good idea who sent it.”

“One of Dad’s old security team,” she said, suddenly calm. “I’m betting Jade Walker. Her daughter Raquel is a friend of mine. She and her mom were kicked out of the pack after the whole missing wolf thing with Tasha and Lena Amador. Dad said she and Gregg Krupp had failed the pack by allowing Blacke shifters into our territory. He forced her to quit her job, sell her house, and leave this side of the country. Mr. Krupp, too.”

“Why didn’t he just kill them?” I wondered aloud.

“I’m sure he had his reasons.” Rory stared over my shoulder at the window, shrugged.

A squeal of tires outside was followed by three car doors slamming. At a motel like this, there was no reason to believe they were here because of me, yet I was certain they were. I was the perfect example of the law of attraction in action, and lately all I attracted was trouble.

“Come out, trailer trash,” a male voice yelled.

Rory jerked upright. She was dressed in pink running shorts and a cotton top with a rainbow across the front. Her skinny arms and legs were crisscrossed with silver burns. Not as severe as Mason’s, but horrible, nonetheless.

He’d done this to his own kid.

Rage erupted in me.

A growl spilled from Rory’s mouth. She hadn’t shifted, but the emotion I was bringing into the room was making her want to.

“We have to keep our emotions under control,” I said, taking a shaky breath. “Remember, Ronan has to fight him for the pack.”

“That wasn’t my father. That was Shawn Krane. He and some of Dad’s wolves used silver on me.”

I recognized the name. Krane was one of the wolves who’d left Gladys for dead.

“So, excuse me.” She cleared her throat, set her shoulders, and stood. “But I’m going to kill him now.”

“I get it, really. Like, you have no idea how much I get it. But could you give me a minute first?” I took my cell out of my pocket and sent out a group SOS text with the address of the motel. “Just one?”

Her gaze was the same gold as her brother’s when he was more wolf than human. “One.”

I opened the motel room door and stood on the concrete step. Roughly fifty feet away, in the center of the lot, Floyd leaned against the front bumper of his SUV. The alpha wolf was flanked by two males—one I vaguely recognized but couldn’t name, and Shawn Krane.

“Where’s the little bastard who burned up my bar? I’d like to have a word.” Floyd laughed with malicious humor.

“He’s not here.” A bald-faced lie, because Cecil was hiding in the dying oleander bushes to my left. Fennel was to my right, crouching behind a broken terracotta flowerpot.

I glanced down the line of rooms. Every door and window was shut tight, curtains drawn. Not a smoker or skateboarder in sight. The office was dark, the vacancy sign turned off, the cameras facing the rooms tilted down, floodlights off.

“So, you’re here all alone.” He laughed again, this time louder and more crazed. “You make kicking your ass easy, you dumb skank.”

“And yet you couldn’t pull it off this morning,” I said.

His laughter cut off. “Demon bitch.”

I kept my gaze on him but let my attention slide to my partners.

“Go,” I chanted, my voice like a dandelion seed on the wind.

Fennel slunk out from behind the pot and crossed the walk behind me. Cecil scurried through the bushes and disappeared.

If the alpha leader saw them, he gave nothing away. I was pretty sure he hadn’t, though.