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“I’m only guessing at what Ben told you. He probably mentioned we went to high school with a girl named Holly Benson. Popular girl, real pretty. You know the type: blonde hair, blue eyes, belongs in an ad campaign for the benefits of zit cream or something.”
Oh yes. I knew plenty about that kind of girl thanks to my brief experience with sororities as a freshman.
I considered the way he spoke about her, warmly but unattached. He didn’t resent her or the popularity she had, but he also didn’t sound like someone carrying a torch. And he most certainly didn’t sound like someone who had killed the girl.
But I’d watched enough Dexter to know sociopaths could blend in with normal society. Maybe he didn’t feel things for anyone.
He continued, “She and I hung out a bit. She didn’t like to be at home. Her stepdad…” Wilder stopped looking at me for a minute, like he was afraid I might glean something secret from his expression. “Her stepdad was awful, and he deserved everything that happened to him in prison. I don’t often say people deserve to die, Princess, but trust me, that asshole had it coming. If it could have been worse, I’d have been glad of it.”
I wasn’t sure how to feel about the direction this confession was going. On one hand his story was aligning with the way police thought Holly had died. But my less naïve mind told me it was awfully convenient to blame the stepdad if the only other option was thinking Wilder had killed her himself.
“You’re saying the stepdad did it?”
“I’m saying not only did he kill her, but he terrorized her, chased her, hunted her through the woods like she was an animal, and made damn sure she felt every bit of it as she died.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“Because she was still alive when I found her.” He stared at his hands, and for the first time since he’d started talking, I turned away as well. The raw pain on his face was too much. Either he was telling the truth, or he was a damned good actor, and I didn’t think anyone could fake emotion like that.
I wanted to touch him, to comfort him like I had earlier, but I was afraid to move.
“It was during a pack run. He’d left her out there, half-buried, but he hadn’t bothered to make sure he finished the job. I was in wolf form when I came across her body. I’d gone after the blood thinking a trapper might have caught something I could steal. You know how it is when you’re in the fog. Blood is food. You’d follow that smell to the ends of the earth.”
I nodded tightly. The feel of the hunt was a familiar one. Not even a full twenty-fou
r hours earlier I’d been hunting a rabbit myself. I couldn’t fault him for doing what came naturally.
“And what you found was the girl.”
“She was a mess. He’d…” Wilder balled his hands into fists. “He’d torn her apart. I could smell him all over her. I…” He looked up, his skin pale and his eyes shining. “You don’t need to hear about this.”
I didn’t argue. Having not known Holly or what had happened to her, I didn’t need to hear the gritty details of her death. It sounded like it had been awful, regardless of who had killed her. Bile tickled the back of my throat, and I suspected if I heard more, it would only get worse.
“What happened then?” I asked.
“I recognized her scent, but she obviously didn’t know who I was. It was the height of the full moon. I couldn’t shift back to help her, and just me being there scared her worse. She was sobbing when Ben found us. Not long after he showed up, Holly died. And no matter how often I explain it to him, he won’t listen. He didn’t bother to smell her, didn’t look anywhere else for the truth. Ben wanted to believe I was capable of murder because he didn’t like my brother and because he was convinced he loved Holly. He thought I killed her so he couldn’t have her, like she was a chew toy we were fighting over.”
Now his anger was apparent, chasing away the former sadness in his voice. I urged the conversation forward. “So you left the pack?”
“Callum didn’t know what to believe, but he knew keeping me and Ben in the same place would be impossible. We got into some brutal fights, knock-down-drag-out, broken-bones-and-blood kind of fights. I think if we’d been forced to live together at the compound much longer, one of us would’ve killed the other.”
It wasn’t hyperbole, either. Two Alphas butting heads often led to one of them winding up dead. That was the way of the pack. You couldn’t keep alphas together for long before things came to bloodshed. I don’t know how the Eastern pack managed so long with a strong Alpha as the King’s second-in-command and never came to a coup.
“I only came back because I knew Hank was stirring up shit. He’s…difficult. I get that. I’ve lived with him most of my life. And I know you guys think he’s hateful and has no redeeming qualities, but you’re wrong. Yes, he has awful views on things, and no I don’t agree with him about any of it. He’s a racist, he’s an asshole, he’s vulgar and speaks his mind much too freely, especially when no one wants to hear what he thinks. I understand why people hate him. But I also know the Hank that raised me and made sure I was fed and clothed and wouldn’t let foster care take me away. He worked three jobs to earn enough to keep us together, and he loves me. He may not be the kind of person we want as a poster child for the pack, but he’s not beyond redemption, Princess. And I was hoping if I could convince you of that, you might talk some sense into your uncle for me.”
Ahhh, there it was. His motive for coming. “You want me to convince Uncle Callum to let you go after Hank and the Church of Morning?”
“If anyone could do it, it would be you.”
“Then no one can do it.” I got up, and after a moment’s hesitation I sat next to him on the bed. I’d meant to leave some space between us, but my added weight made the mattress dip, and I ended up right next to him, our thighs pressed against each other. The sudden warmth of his body beside mine made me grateful for the darkness of the room because I was blushing something fierce.
“I figured—”
“I know what you figured. But believe it or not I can’t convince Callum to do anything he doesn’t want to. Talking him into letting me go to Tulane was like ripping out my fingernails with my teeth. If he thinks what you’re planning might negatively impact the pack, he’ll refuse it. Flat out. And frankly I agree with him. If you go after the Church alone, you’re going to do something that either proves their point or puts us all at risk. Or worse, gets you killed.”
“You think me dying is worse than the pack being put at risk?”
I didn’t need to see him to know he was smirking. How could he do that? Bare his heart to me one moment and in the next be flirting again like he hadn’t just told me one of his darkest secrets. This guy was something else.
