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“I’m afraid your friends will need to wait out here.” Perry jerked his thumb towards Wilder and Mags, like maybe I’d be confused about which friends he was referring to. “Typically we only allow lawyers beyond this point, but with the new laws…well, you know.”
I did know. One of the few pieces of legislation to go our way recently had been a federal law recognizing the importance of pack and—in the case of vampires—council power. This didn’t mean our law superseded human law, it just meant law enforcement recognized the ability of our people to self-regulate. No one wanted to have werewolves and vampires mixed into gen pop in a prison. We had begun working alongside local officials wherever possible to offer solutions to crimes involving the supernatural population.
The efforts had their detractors, of course, but overall it was proving to be an incredibly efficient system. Especially considering it was the way things had been done for thousands of years before humankind figured out we were here.
The “leave them be” mentality seemed to be most popular. We had governed ourselves for a long time while still adhering to the laws of American government. As long as nothing we did—and no one needed to know exactly what we did—broke those laws, we were left alone.
Things were trickier for vampires. They were technically dead, so how did one regulate their procedures? Secret had once been one-third of their ruling council, the Tribunal. She’d told me about a few vampire punishment techniques that had made my toes curl. If humankind at large knew what the vamps were up to, they would not be as cool about letting the Tribunal run things.
What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them, though. Not all werewolf punishments would be considered humane. But it was the way things were done.
Wilder probably wanted to argue that he should be allowed
to join me, but one glance from me and he bit his tongue. Instead he leaned up against the tail end of the cruiser, crossing his arms with a casual grace that made him look absolutely edible. How could he make the simplest gesture that hot?
He caught me staring at him and winked.
Cheeky bastard.
Detective Perry knocked twice on the front door of the bar, and a huge man who smelled distinctly of bear opened it up. He was about six and a half feet tall with a bald head and broad chest. His nostrils flared when he smelled me, and we both nodded our awareness to each other. It was smart using a shifter to guard the wolves.
“Do you normally keep suspects at a crime scene like this, Detective Perry?” I followed him through the door, and it shut behind us with a whispered click.
“Normally, no. But I think we both know this isn’t the most normal situation. And there aren’t a lot of places in town where we can safely hold a shifter, let alone two of them. We’re not allowed to keep them with humans in the holding cells and, well, like I said, it’s been a hell of a night. This was our best option. Kind of a last resort.” He half-shrugged in a what can you do manner.
The bear-officer asked to see my ID and checked it against a list of authorized pack representatives. This didn’t bother me because I liked that humans were able to confirm which wolves could and couldn’t speak for the pack. Explaining our power structure to those who couldn’t feel it was about as useful as describing a Picasso painting to a blind person. It was beautiful and functional, but if you couldn’t sense the whole thing, it might seem like a giant mess.
He did a quick check of my purse, making sure I wasn’t carrying anything unseemly, then handed it back. He looked as if he was about to say something.
“Thanks,” I said before he could try to ramble off my title, which was also listed.
Detective Perry took me into a small, poorly lit room with a table and two chairs at the back of the bar. “Gimme a minute,” he said, and left the room.
I took a seat, and Perry returned a moment later with a third chair. There was a lingering aroma of wolf in the air. I could smell the familiar odor of pack as soon as I came through the door, telling me my boys were being held somewhere nearby.
“Your conversation won’t be recorded, but it’s a requirement I stay in the room with you. The same lawyer-client privileges don’t extend to pack, so if they incriminate themselves here, I can take it as a confession, okay?”
“Noted.” I also took this to mean my pack mates hadn’t yet said anything to prove their guilt. For that matter, thanks to the scant details Mags had offered me, I honestly didn’t know why they were in lock-up beyond that they were in a fight. The coroner’s van out front already had me assuming the worst.
Perry left again, and when he came back, he had two young men with him. I didn’t know Mason and Emmett well, but I was familiar with them. I’d only been Alpha for two short months, and in that time I’d met every werewolf in and around New Orleans. Forty-eight in total, and they were all my responsibility. It had taken me three weeks and a lot of flashcard quizzing from Mags to remember everyone’s name and family connections, but it was all worth it to be able to greet my people personally when I saw them.
“Emmett.” I nodded to the lanky, sandy-haired man who had turned twenty-two only three weeks ago. He was sporting a good amount of stubble, and his hair was in a state of disarray. His shirt was stained with a fair amount of dry blood, but he didn’t look injured, which gave me pause. Mason sat down next, shorter and bulkier, all stocky muscle and dark hair. He had a wild, unsettled appearance about him, like being locked up for a couple hours was starting to get to him.
Wolves didn’t do well in captivity. I’d spent some time in a jail cell myself once, so I knew how he felt. This situation was actually a vast improvement over the tiny room I’d been locked up in. Mason didn’t see himself as lucky, though. He was feeling trapped, which was apparent in his darting, red-rimmed eyes. Right now it was my job to make sure they maintained their cool while they were in custody, or things were going to go from bad to worse right quick.
Once they were seated, neither of them looked directly at me.
Not good.
“So who’s going to be the first to tell me what happened?” I asked.
They shifted nervously until Emmett locked eyes with Detective Perry, giving him a silent, pleading stare. That one look said it all. Emmett and Mason didn’t want to be the ones to break the news to me. They were willing to let a complete outsider do it for them.
Extra bad news.
I turned to Perry and squinted, waiting for some kind of answer. “What are they being charged with, Detective?”
He waved a hand emphatically. “No charges yet, Miss McQueen.”
