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“And the rest of you?”
His eyes went hard, and there was purpose in them. “Is thrilled about the possibility of getting to deal with idiocy and self-aggrandizing shifters and poor decision-making.”
“You know, you can be a little scary sometimes.”
He snorted. “Says the immortal with berserker powers.”
I meant to hide my flinch, but didn’t quite manage it.
“That was intended as a compliment,” he said, and I nodded. “But I’m sorry if it didn’t feel that way.”
“It’s fine,” I said, but still felt that hollowness in my gut that came with having my weakness pointed out. Ironic, given my strength was part of the problem.
“I like Carlie,” I said, trying very much to change the subject. “She’s really friendly.”
“Doesn’t have an evil bone in her body,” Connor said. “She’s a good kid, loves her family, respects the Pack. Saw me change when we were kids—that’s how she knows about Sups. I tried to tell her she’d imagined it, that I’d been working on a magic trick and every other excuse I could think of. She didn’t buy any of it, said she didn’t care if I was a werewolf, because I’d taught her how to ride a bike. It was as simple as that.”
“And you and Georgia seem to be close, but you didn’t tell her about the photographs of the tracks we found.”
“I think it’s best to keep the evidence in our hands,” Connor said. “I trust her, but I don’t trust the clan. So we’ll do our own search, let them do theirs. Maybe we’ll both end up in the same place.”
That would be its own magic trick, I thought. “If it helps, I don’t think she’s involved in the murder. Or the cover-up.”
“I don’t think so, either. Or at least not directly. But she’s an elder. That means she bears responsibility.” Connor sighed. “I should update the Pack,” he said, and pulled out his screen, and placed it upright on the coffee table.
He tapped and the ringing began, and his father’s face appeared a moment later.
Gabriel Keene’s hair was pulled back in a headband, and his face had been coated in pale pink slime. “Children,” he said nonchalantly, nodding at us in turn.
“I have many questions,” I quietly said.
“As do I.”
“I’m being made up,” his father said, eyes flat. “Your nieces andnephew are visiting, and they decided I needed a makeover.” There were giggles off camera, and his eyes grew wide. “No mascara. My lashes are plenty full.” He looked back at his son. “Is there some reason I might need to immediately drive to Minnesota? As soon as I wash my face, at any rate.”
“Sorry to burst your bubble, but no. But that’s not to say something isn’t happening out here.”
“Tell me,” his father said.“Slowly.”
Connor managed not to smile. “There’s definitely clan infighting. One of the elders was killed, his body left at the initiation. And we found tracks near the spot where his body was dumped. Animal but not like anything we’ve seen. They smell like Pack—like clan. And there was magic, but splintered.”
His father’s brows lifted. “Well. That’s a lot. How was he killed?”
While Connor gave him the details, I sent him the photographs we’d taken on the trail.
“Not Pack,” Gabriel concluded. He must have been viewing the photos on the same screen he was using to communicate with us, because he was squinting at something to our left. “Not human. Nothing I’ve seen before. But they smelled like Pack?”
“They did,” Connor said.
“And broken magic,” he said. “That’s a new one. Maybe a disorder? A spell?”
“We don’t know,” Connor said. “But we haven’t sensed it at the resort.”
“Hmm,” he said. “What’s the infighting?”
“Young versus old, it seems. The younger shifters are, I think, sick of passing, of hiding their identities.”
“Exactly what I told Cash a decade ago. There’s no point in hiding. Not anymore.” He shifted his gaze to me. “We can thank vampires for taking most of the heat there.”
