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The knife felt heavy in my wet palm.
“What the fuck?”
Sheriff McGraw grabbed me by the armpits, yanking me off Deerling’s supine body. Timothy got to his feet, rubbing his cheek with only the slightest wince.
“Let her go,” he instructed.
The sheriff hesitated, then released me. He stooped to collect his gun, but I was too busy gaping at Deerling to take much notice of who had the weapon.
Deerling’s formerly blue eyes glinted yellow-green, the irises all wrong for a human.
“No fucking way. You’re a… You’re…”
“My blood is tainted, like yours. The difference is, I resist my sin while you animals revel in it.”
He was a goddamned werewolf.
Suddenly the heightened scent of wolf in the room made sense. It wasn’t Wilder or the fur. It was Deerling. He hadn’t been using the magnolia and wolfsbane to keep us at bay. He’d been using it to mask his own smell from others who might recognize him for the liar he was.
Knowing he was a wolf made this whole thing so much worse.
I’d had enough trouble acknowledging a human could hurt others this way. But a werewolf doing this to his own kind? A wave of disgust hit me, and I tottered like I was on a boat in the midst of a storm. Only sheer determination kept me upright.
“You’re a werewolf.”
“What?” Sheriff McGraw looked from me to Deerling then back, clearly trying to decide whether or not I was lying.
“Look at his fucking eyes.” I pointed at Deerling, and he sneered. It was obvious he no longer cared. I didn’t think he had any intention of letting us leave here alive, McGraw included. He figured his secret would die with us.
But the wolf was out of the bag, and he didn’t know.
I backed away until I was flush with Wilder, my foot against his thigh.
Please be okay.
Sacrificing myself was a risk I’d been willing to take, but his life wasn’t something I was okay with giving up. Now he was bleeding out, and that was my fault. If Wilder Shaw died here, all bets were off. Cain could kiss his deal goodbye.
I would bring the wrath of God down on Deerling, werewolf or not.
“This is a t-trick, it’s… You’re m-making this up,” Sheriff McGraw stammered. The gun shook in his hand, and he couldn’t figure out where to point it, so it ended up angled at the floor.
I almost jumped out of my skin when something touched the back of my leg. Wilder, his eyes barely open, had cupped the back of my calf. He squeezed, his touch weak.
But he was alive.
“You didn’t need to fake the werewolf attack. You killed her yourself. All that stuff downstairs is just your trophy room. You were your own weapon.”
“I showed everyone. Wolves are monsters.”
“You’re the monster.”
“I wasn’t.” He licked his lips. “I wasn’t always. Not until her…”
I glanced at the fur I’d dropped near the podium. “Her?”
He shook his head. “I knew a girl when I was younger, and I loved her, but it turned out she was a monster. And you animals don’t know how to love. You only know how to ruin lives. So now I make sure she and those bastards can’t hurt anyone else.”
The redhead at the compound. All those kids. Jesus, what was he doing? He’d known she was a wolf for over a decade, if his killing spree was an indicator, but he had kids younger than five. What the hell was he doin
