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“Only because you don’t try hard enough.”
There was a knock on the door. Cole was on his feet before I even saw him move, and he crossed to open the door. He held a whispered conference with Reynolds, one of the older shifters who had served under our father too.
“What?” Stone asked without looking up from the tactical map as Cole strode back across the room.
“Jenny Havens claims that Peter West raped her early this morning.” Cole delivered the words flatly, but then, his demeanor was always flat.
“Claims?” Teresa’s eyebrows rose.
“I’d like to see them both,” Stone said, his voice chilly. “Now. Teresa, can you finish up the logistics?”
He was protecting Teresa. She’d come with us if Stone didn’t give her a more important assignment.
“Of course, Alpha,” she said, her voice cool and neutral, as if there was nothing else beneath that cold presence.
But I knew a little bit about what Teresa had been through, a long time ago.
The three of us headed out, leaving Teresa bent over the maps and plans. The dozens of times that she, Stone, and Cole went through every minute detail would help our people come home alive and ensure the Longroad pack wasn’t as lucky. But I still didn’t want to be part of it when they were so very good at the job.
“Well, I guess I’ll be heading back to Cynthia.” I yawned and stretched.
“You can come,” Stone said. “In case Peter needs to be . . . persuaded . . . to answer questions.”
I didn’t bother to argue with my brother. As much as I liked to pretend otherwise, no one ever truly won an argument with Stone.
The three of us strode down Main Street, then hooked a left and traversed the quiet road that led to the small jail. When we walked in, Laurence, Cole’s second for pack security, rose to his feet from behind the desk. Jenny sat beside him, her eyes red from crying. Stone’s demeanor shifted the second he saw her, his jaw tightening with anger.
“Stay here,” Laurence said to her kindly, then walked us back into Cole’s neat-as-a-pin office. He said, “I’ve got Peter waiting in mine. It’s all he-said, she-said. They went out last night, and she claims he wouldn’t take no for an answer after he walked her home. Hard to tell what happened, exactly. She doesn’t look banged up.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” I pointed out, not that any of them were listening to me.
Stone nodded. “Louisa can help us sort out exactly what happened last night.”
“Take him,” I said, and Stone glanced at me, his brows rising, probably because I so rarely took an interest in the pack’s governance. “Not her. If she’s telling the truth, she shouldn’t have to see it again.”
“You’re right,” Stone agreed, which were words that always surprised me coming from my big brother.
When we walked back out, Peter leaned over Jenny, speaking quietly and intensely. Jenny looked up at Stone, wide-eyed and desperate.
“What the fuck?” Stone asked, his voice a dangerous rumble. “Who told you to go anywhere, Peter?”
His mouth fell open as Stone’s words had wounded him. “I was just trying to talk to Jenny, tell her that maybe I messed up last night, but I never meant to hurt her . . .”
“I’ll see about that,” Stone promised.
He didn’t even have to gesture. Cole always seemed to know what Stone wanted—as though the two of them shared some kind of psychic bond—and as Peter took off running for the door, Cole fell on him. He slammed Peter against the wall the first time to get him under control, and Peter’s head slammed into the drywall with a sick thud. Then Cole did it again, and that was just punishment. Cole wouldn’t brook disrespect of his alpha.
No wonder Stone liked him more than he liked his own baby brother.
“Send for Louisa,” Stone said briefly to Laurence. “We’ll meet her at the rocks.” To Jenny, he said, “You’re free to go.”
There was no escaping the pack, anyway. Stone hesitated then as if he wanted to say something else to her, maybe something comforting, but he didn’t manage it. Instead, he turned back to a silent statue, larger than life and not quite human. His natural form.
She looked wide-eyed and terrified of him, edging around the room and slipping through the door. Stone sighed under his breath to himself.
We dragged a still-babbling Peter through the forest to Louisa’s Rock. That was what we had come to call the place where the witch walked through people’s minds.
Louisa arrived a few minutes later, breathing hard from running through the woods, her cheeks almost as pink as the streaks in her hair. I was always surprised by how young the witch looked, all round cheeks and wide eyes for Stone. I was pretty sure she also had a ridiculous, pointless crush on Stone.
