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“Then prove it,Alpha,” Moira says with obvious disdain. “Let us track this blood trail together, your Tracker against me. I’m much more experienced than your kidnapping welp here, and when I prove what he’s done Ruby will be free of him! Free from whatever cursed spell he’s put on her!”
“I think it’s Ruby that's ensnared him!” Grace steps out of the Dark Moon pack, clutching two little children. “Chase went up there to find my boy and he found her! How do we knowsheisn’t the killer?”
“Grace! That’s enough!” Chase growls.
“You would have been mine! Until she came along…” Grace falls to her knees in tears and her pack surrounds her to comfort her.
“Is that true?” I ask Chase.
He shakes his head. “I was helping her with her missing son. Had I not met you, something might have blossomed. But this, Ruby? This is fate, this is right. As badly as I feel for Grace, it was simply not meant to be.”
Grace wails in misery as Chase speaks to me, and my heart breaks for her. She’s so lost, so sad, and the one hope she had for her future was taken from her by an enemy pack. I can understand her pain, and my sorrow reaches for hers, but she slams a mental barrier between us and glares at me before she storms away.
“What do you say, Ryder?” Cole asks as he steps forward, murder in his eyes.
I know in my heart he’ll call for the same punishment that Ryder said would wait for whoever killed Brody, and I scream.
“It wasn’t him!” I say, my voice shrill. “ It couldn’t have been him! Brother, you have to believe me!”
“If it wasn’t him, Ruby, then let him prove his innocence. Step aside.” Cole moves toward me and Killian rises to his feet. His shoulders are shaking when his cold blue eyes lift to look at my mate.
“If you killed my son…” he starts, the air ripples with power as Killian begins to shift. He fights it, but his body is acting of its own accord. “I’ll rip you to shreds…” he growls, more beast than man, and as he finishes a giant gray wolf is snarling menacingly at my mate.
I shift so fast I don’t realize what’s happening, and I step protectively in front of my man.
“We will do it!” Ryder shouts over the growls and screaming women. “Chase and Moira can track this trail. We’ll follow, and when we know for sure that he didn’t do this? I expect to never see you or your pack in this town again.”
“And if he did?” Cole hisses between his teeth. “We hunt him down, and you and all your pack leave this valley forever…”
They both shift, each Alpha snarling and snapping in each other’s face. In moments only Cookie standing in the doorway is still humanesque, and she looks absolutely terrified. The moon shines brightly in the cloudless sky tonight, illuminating the earth as both packs face each other and prepare to fight.
I have to do something to stop this, I have to make the packs see reason! Neither pack would commit such a heinous crime, children are our future. No one would risk this. I try to touch my brother’s mind, try to tell him there must be someone else, but he just snarls at me. I’m his enemy now, I’ve sided against him.
When my mate concedes to his Alpha and starts to walk slowly through the packs towards the mountain I stay tightly to his side. Moira trots in front of us, her wolven shape much smaller than even mine and weathered with age. She scents the air as my mother joins her. Even though they’re the same age, my mother possesses youth and strength while Moira is withering away. It hits me that maybe her bitterness and lifetime of being alone has made her crumble and age faster than she should have.
Chase steps up beside the pair and I snarl at Moira. He scents the ground and steps forward, following the trail of blood up into the woods with me at his side and our warring packs behind. The blood trail seems to go on forever, winding aimlessly over the mountain as if to confuse the scent, something we all know a Tracker would do. I shudder and snap at Killian when he gets too close to Chase. I’ll die before I let anyone hurt him. No matter my feelings for him as a friend, I will kill him.
I will not risk what I’ve found with Chase, not for anyone.
When we crest a familiar hill, my blood freezes in my body; I see the tire marks on the road, the shattered remnants of our accident. This is all hitting too close to home, too close to the path Chase and I followed that first night. I’m practically walking underneath Chase to protect him now, snarling and snapping at anyone who gets close. He can't focus on his own safety, all he can sense is the scent trail.
“So much blood, so much horror for that boy, whoever did this stopped along the way to hurt him more…”he tells me and only me, speaking as if to himself more than explaining what he sees.my scent is everywhere, almost inside the blood itself, but there's another scent- faint, I don't recognize it.”
Chase pauses to scent the air again.
“Whoever did this has taken great lengths to frame me. There are even scraps of my hair and fur where they stopped. Moira is out for blood, if we find where this started, she’ll attack. Be ready, my love.”
I say nothing, only agree. All I can think of is how to save him. I can't even begin to wonder who would hate him enough to do this. I look over at Cole, the corded muscles of his wolf form are twitching, his eyes never leave Chase. Can I fight my own brother? Kill him? I don’t know if I’m capable, but I know I’ll try.
“It’s here!”Moira declares, almost gleeful in her victory.
Chase and I stand at the entrance to the same cave we were trapped in, where we made love, where we created this baby. I look at him in terror, and he shakes his head.“Don’t say anything, don’t expose yourself to being here as well. That's the last thing we need.”
We enter the cave silently. I don’t smell myself at all, nothing of our sex or our sleeping here is left in evidence. Shocked, I exchange looks with Chase, and know immediately that he covered my tracks. Had anyone in my pack found this cave they would scent nothing but old rock and stale water.
Until today.
Even I can smell Chase here, as well as the strength of blood and feces and terror.
