Page 35 of The Secret Mate Society

I hadn't even looked at them."Of course."

"Good.The Council requires an update on your...investigation into the journalist.Have you made progress?"

My grip tightened on the phone.Ethan's taste was still on my lips, his scent still clinging to my skin despite the shower."I'm handling it."

"I'm sure you are."There was something in Elias's tone that made my wolf bristle."However, the Council has some concerns about your methods."

"What concerns?"

"You've been seen with him multiple times.In public.The Council wonders if perhaps you're getting too...involved."

Heat flooded through me, part anger, part panic."I'm gathering intelligence.Getting close to a target requires building trust."

"Indeed."Elias paused, and I could practically hear his violet eyes narrowing."Just remember, Alpha Thorne, that some lines cannot be uncrossed.The Council's patience has limits."

The line went dead, leaving me standing naked in my bedroom, water pooling at my feet, with the distinct impression that I was being watched.Warned.

I sank onto the edge of my bed, my head in my hands.The Council suspected something.They knew I was spending time with Ethan, and they were watching me closely enough to know about our public meetings.If they found out about the kiss, about how my body had responded to him, about the mate bond that was forming whether I wanted it or not...

My phone buzzed with a text.For a wild moment, I hoped it was Ethan, maybe apologizing for walking away, maybe asking to see me again.Instead, it was Trevor.

Leadership meeting tonight.8pm.Emergency.

Emergency.My stomach dropped.Had they found the rogue?Or worse, had the Council already contacted my pack about myinvestigationmethods?

I forced myself to get dressed, pulling on jeans and a flannel shirt with mechanical precision.Every movement felt wrong, like I was wearing someone else's skin.The wolf in me was still restless, still aching for its mate, but I shoved those feelings down deep.

By the time I arrived at the auto shop where we held our emergency meetings, Patrick and Trevor were already there.The tension in the air was thick enough to cut, and I could smell the anxiety rolling off my Beta and Gamma in waves.

Trevor approached me as soon as I walked in, his expression grim."We've got a problem, Calder."

"The rogue?"

"No."He glanced around, then lowered his voice."It's about your journalist friend."

My blood turned to ice."What about him?"

"Patrick did some more digging.Turns out Ethan Murphy's father wasn't killed in a car accident like he claims."Trevor's eyes met mine, and I saw something there that made my stomach drop before he even spoke."He was killed by a werewolf.And Ethan was there when it happened."

The world tilted sideways.Everything I thought I knew about Ethan, his nervousness around the cattle attacks, his knowledge of details he shouldn't have known, his obsession with supernatural stories, suddenly made terrible sense.

"How do you know this?"I managed to ask.

"Police reports from upstate New York.Fourteen years ago.Father and son camping trip gone wrong.The official report says bear attack, but..."Trevor pulled out a manilla folder, showing me a photocopied document."The coroner's notes tell a different story.Claw marks inconsistent with any known bear species.Bite patterns suggesting a much larger predator.And witness testimony from a fourteen-year-old boy about a 'monster' that walked on two legs."

I stared at the papers, the words blurring together.Ethan had seen his father killed by a werewolf.Had lived with that trauma for fourteen years.And now he was here, in Portland, investigating attacks that matched the same pattern.

"There's more," Trevor continued quietly."The responding officer noted that the boy kept insisting the creature had 'human eyes.'That it looked at him like it recognized him before running away."

Human eyes.The kind of eyes a werewolf would have when partially shifted.The kind of eyes I'd probably had in the rain earlier when I'd lost control.

"Could it be someone else?”I asked, hoping against hope that there wasn’t a name attached to the file.

“It’s him,” Patrick said, speaking up at last.“The man murdered was David E.Murphy.”He stepped over, handing me a page that had been left out of the file.It was an article photocopied out of an old newspaper about the attack.“Ethan is listed as his child and the only survivor of the attack.”

The photo attached to the article showed a young man, his face blank with shock, standing next to a police officer.Those same green eyes that had looked at me with desire earlier today were hollow and haunted in the picture.His shirt was stained with blood.

It was Ethan.There was no doubt about it.