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I followed the faint trace to the water and pushed outward to grab the signal. But unlike every other time I'd been seeking this object, the trail ended in the middle of nothing, and I scowled where it disappeared.
The water's edge carried other familiar scents, but the artifact wasn’t there. It occurred to me that someone wanted me to think it was.
This meant the person who possesses it brought it here to leave a tantalizing trail and make me think it had sunk out in the water. Why? To become supper for the ‘gators in the bayou? Maybe they wanted to drown me? It's difficult to know. But anyone who knows how my ability works would have figured this ruse would be unsuccessful. This cut Thorn, Chastity, and Kye from the list of suspects. Not that it would stop the wolves from beating the shit out of me if they caught me out here.
I crouched and considered my limited options. And I strained every sense to track Marvin and Peta. Were they alone?
“Well, well, well,” said a voice I knew too well.
I whipped around to see Peta, her blonde hair twisted in dreadlocks, wearing a torn tee and ratty jeans.
“Hey, Peta,” I said. “I see you haven’t made that hair appointment yet.”
“Fuck you.”
I winced. “Sorry. You aren’t my type. Where’s your boy toy? Can’t keep up?”
“I’m here, bitch,” said Marvin from behind me.
I turned to keep Peta and Marvin in my line of sight from either side.
“Well, look at this family reunion,” I said cheerfully.
Peta out–and-out growled at me and bared her teeth.
“Feeling furry?” I asked. “I guess it’s that time of the month.”
“Bitch!” said Peta. She launched herself at me, and I managed to step backward as I watched her turn mid-flight into her wolf shape.
“No, Peta,” said Marvin. “Don’t—”
I wasn’t sure what Marvin was talking about until I saw the tell-tale rounding of her stomach. I gasped. Shifter females, because of the disparity between human-length pregnancies and wolf, shouldn’t shift. Wolf pregnancies are only two months long, while humans—nine. If she were more than two months pregnant, the baby’s volume would tear her apart internally.
Peta fell into the water, thrashing and whining in agony. Marvin knelt beside her and tried to hold his woman, but he couldn’t contain her.
This was worse than seeing a pack hunt a deer and tear it apart. There was absolutely nothing anyone could do.
Finally, her twisting stopped, and she lay glassy-eyed, her fur wet with swamp water and blood pooling around her. I didn’t want to see where the blood came from.
Marvin gave a long howl, filled with grief, and though I hated how he treated me, no one deserved this. I knew the pain of losing a mate.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Marvin’s eyes met mine.
“This is your fault,” he growled. “You shouldn’t be here. She, they, wouldn’t be dead if you didn’t show up where you are not wanted.”
I don’t know what came over me. The most unreasonable rage surged through my body. My breathing chugged like a freight train. I didn’t just want to—I desired to tear Marvin apart, not just for the cruelty he had shown me over the years, but for his unrelenting stupidity. He should never have brought his pregnant mate on patrol knowing there was a chance she’d get startled into the change.
And I want to yell this at him, but I can’t speak.
And then the answering cries of the pack in full furry mode swept over the swamp, and I see them in my mind’s eyes practically flying over the mangroves, paws unerringly touching the roots to spring to the next tuft of land.
They would be here soon, and I couldn’t be here when they arrived.
Marvin stared at me with such hate that he would have killed me with that gaze if he could. And as he clutched his fallen mate, shaking with rage, it struck me.
The Hand of Belial carried the essence of wrath. And it was wrath that gripped Peta and startled her to change. Marvin now shook with rage, and if he didn’t want to keep holding his dead mate right now, I’d be lying shredded in the mangrove swamp.
