Red

  What was going on? He hadn't bled that much, had he?

  Patrick turned his eyes on my mate. "You're hurt, Sawyer. I don't know how you survived being shot earlier, but you obviously can't take much more of this."

  I snarled and snapped at him and he lifted his hands in surrender again as he edged back one more step. His foot knocked some rocks over the edge. They tumbled down the incline, bouncing and cracking against the stone face before plopping in the water. It was a long way down. Long enough to break a neck or something else vital.

  "Just stand down and I'll go. I'll leave you be."

  Right. Exactly like he'd let my mother be.

  "You don't want to do this."

  No. I didn't. And yet, I did. This wasn't about being an unthinking beast, about being out for blood for the sake of blood. This was about survival. My survival. Sawyer's. Patrick would never give up, never go away. And if he did, someone else would take his place if we let him go. We would never have peace, never have safety as long as he still lived. Because a man didn't give up his entire life, his marriage, and his career in pursuit of a centuries old family feud just because he surrendered one battle.

  I wished I could speak, to say what I was thinking.

  Even as I thought it, I felt my bones begin to shift. With a yelp of surprise, I fell back to my haunches. Things were moving fast, joints realigning, fur receding, muscles transforming. Painful, but not the all out agony of becoming a wolf in the first place. I looked to Sawyer, knowing my eyes were wide, confused.

  A blur of motion caught my attention, and I turned to see Patrick lunging at me. With a roar, Sawyer threw himself between us, slamming a shoulder into Patrick's midriff. He flew backward, arms pinwheeling, searching for balance, even as his feet left the ground and he tumbled over the side. His scream cut off abruptly with a splash and a crunch. Then all was quiet.

  Sawyer peered over the edge for a long moment before returning to me. I watched in fascination as he seemed to kind of . . . melt back to human with a great deal more grace than I was managing. Then he was kneeling and gathering me into his arms until we were a desperate tangle of human limbs.

  I couldn’t touch enough of him. Even as he was trying to kiss me, I was still frantically running my hands over every inch, assuring myself that he was real and here and alive. I framed his stubbled cheeks in my hands. "You're alive. You're alive! How? I watched you die."

  "Guess hell spat me back out," he said, one corner of his mouth quirking up.

  "Sawyer!” He looked like hell. He was filthy, as I was. The long, shallow cut on his chest was still oozing. And a fresh pink scar puckered just over his heart. I laid my hand over it.

  "I was starting to shift when he shot me. Bullet missed my heart. I guess we're a little more indestructible than I realized."

  I wrapped my arms tight around him. "Oh God. Oh God, I thought I'd lost you."

  "I'm right here."

  I pressed my lips to the scar, feeling his heart heart beat strong and true and whole. “I love you.”

  He made a humming, contented noise deep in his throat.

  A groan came from somewhere behind us.

  "Dad!" I disentangled myself and raced toward him.

  He looked a total mess. Half his clothes were burned, the skin beneath red and beginning to blister. His hands were still bound. A quick search located the knife Patrick had lost in the fight. I used it to saw through the ropes. I was almost afraid to turn him over. But he groaned again as I released his arms, so I grabbed his shoulder and pulled. A livid purple bruise spread across his temple. He'd need to be assessed for a concussion. I quickly checked the rest of him over. The shoulder he'd landed on was dislocated, but he didn't have any broken bones and wasn't bleeding from anything bigger than a surface scrape.

  "Ellie?"

  His eyes were open, staring at me.

  "Hi, Dad. You're gonna be okay. Patrick's . . . " I hadn't leaned over to look. I glanced back at Sawyer for confirmation. He shook his head. "Patrick can’t hurt us anymore."

  Color was creeping across his face and I started to flipping through my brain trying to figure out what that was a symptom of.

  "Ellie, you're naked."

  I looked down. "Um. Yeah. Lost my fur."

  "Here."

  I looked up to see Sawyer holding out a t-shirt. He'd robbed some shorts out of one of the packs for himself. Grateful, I took it and slipped it on. One of Patrick's. He was a pretty small guy, so the shirt barely came to the top of my thighs, but so long as I didn't bend over, all the important stuff was covered.

  Dad was glaring at Sawyer. "I don't know whether to thank you or kick your ass."

  "You have nothing to kick his ass for, Dad. We didn't—um.” Nope, couldn’t actually say that to my dad. He knew well enough what I was talking about. “We didn't,” I repeated firmly. “I was right. It's straight up genetics. And as you can see, he's just like me."

  "How is that possible?"

  "There’s a whole helluva lot that your family history got wrong," said Sawyer.

  He bent and began rummaging through the other pack, finding another pair of pants and tossing them to me before helping Dad sit up.

  I turned and shimmied into them. Dad's. Naturally they swallowed me. Gripping the waistband, I shuffled over to pick up the knife and the rope I’d slipped out of when I shifted. While I was hacking, I could hear Dad giving Sawyer instructions on how to reset his shoulder. By the time I’d fashioned a belt to hold the pants up, it was done with a crunch and a short scream.

  I bent to roll up the legs so I could actually walk, and I heard the snick of a chambering round.

  I didn’t stop to think, didn’t stop to consider the impossible or the morality. I just turned, using the momentum of my motion to fling the knife before I even consciously saw my target.

  My aim was true. The knife buried itself to the hilt in Patrick’s throat. For a moment, he stood there, looking like some kind of undead soldier, broken and twisted, bruised and bloody, the gun wavering in his good hand. Then a thin trail of red snaked down from the knife and he collapsed with a gurgling wheeze.

  “That’s for my mother, you son of a bitch,” I breathed.

  There was a beat of stunned silence in the clearing before Dad stumbled over to Patrick. I knew he was dead even before Dad knelt and checked for a pulse. He kicked the gun away for good measure.

  Sawyer crossed to me. He didn’t try to shield me anymore. Death was an ugly reality, one I would have to find a way to live with. His hands slipped around mine, and as he tugged me close, I finally looked away from the body and up at him.

  “It’s finally over,” he said.

  “No,” I said, tipping my face up to his. “It’s just beginning.”

  ~*~

  Sawyer

  “Bumps and bruises, some scrapes. No lasting physical damage. You’re incredibly lucky, Miss Rose.” The doctor laid down her otoscope and pulled off her gloves with a snap of rubber. “We’ll be keeping your father overnight for observation. I’ll send a nurse back as soon as we get him settled in a regular room. We don’t technically need to keep you, but given tonight’s events, I don’t think he’ll sign off on you going home, so we’ll arrange somewhere for you, too.”

  “Thank you.”

  The doctor fixed me with an amused glance. “I assume you’ll be staying, as well?”

  I tightened my hand around Elodie’s. “Yes.”

  “Thought so. The sheriff is still waiting to talk to you.”

  Elodie sighed and dropped her head to my shoulder. She needed sleep, not to be badgered at two in the morning about something that was already over.

  “Send him in, I guess,” she said.

  As soon as the doctor left, Beasley and two of his deputies crowded into the tiny room. The scent of Elodie’s anxiety immediately bled through the antiseptic stink of the ER.

  “We need to speak to Elodie,” said the sheriff looking at me. “Alone.”

  I tense
d, prepared to tell him exactly what he could do with that suggestion, but Elodie’s hand tightened on mine in warning.

  “No. Sawyer stays.”

  “Elodie—”

  “My father is still being treated, I’ve just been through hell, and Sawyer saved my life. He stays.” Elodie’s tone brooked no argument.

  “Fine.” Beasley nodded to one of the deputies, who had a notepad and pen. “Tell us what happened to you.”

  Here we go, I thought. Time to make that cover story fly. I worried about how this was going to go. Elodie had, thus far, proven to be a terrible liar.

  “Four days ago my father and I had a fight.”

  “About what?” asked Beasley.

  “What do you think?” she asked, injecting just the right amount of irritated teenager in her voice. “It was a continuation of the verbal butt whipping he started to give me in your office. He wasn’t inclined to get over it that quickly.”

  The sheriff inclined his head in acknowledgment.

  “I was angry, so I packed a bag and left.”

  “Running away,” he clarified.

  “Getting some space,” she corrected. “I figured after a few days away, he’d realize I’m not a child he can control anymore.”

  “Why the park?”

  “As you are well aware, my car had been sabotaged. I needed to get away on foot. The park is right out my back door, so it seemed the best option.”

  “Even after someone nearly ran you down.”

  “I thought that was Amber. Or someone with Amber. And she’s got about the same amount of survival skills as a two year old. She’d never come after me there. I didn’t think I was in any real danger or I’d never have gone.”

  “So you entered the park behind your house. What happened then?” His eyes flicked to me, shrewd and questioning. “Did you have plans to meet Mr. McGrath?”

  Ah, he’d asked the wrong question.

  “No. I just hiked in to do some camping. I didn’t know I was being followed.” She fell to silence, closing her eyes as if remembering her ordeal. A shudder ran the length of her body and she pressed her face to my shoulder. Maybe she was remembering. I curled my arm tighter around her shoulders.

  “What happened next?” Beasley prompted.

  Fast forward, I thought.

  But before she could continue, a set of running footsteps came pounding down the hall.

  My father skidded to a halt in the doorway. He was breathing hard, his hair in disarray, his eyes far more gold than green. I could smell the fear on him.

  “Sir, this is a private—” began one of the deputies.

  “That’s my son,” Dad snapped. “Sawyer, are you okay?” There was a whip of temper in his voice, but I recognized the desperation beneath. Only then did I realize what he’d probably been going through since I left.

  “I’m fine,” I said. I leaned closer to Elodie. “We’re both fine. Sorry I worried you.” As apologies went, it was about fifty miles shy of what was called for, but with our current audience, this was as good as it was gonna get for now.

  He released a breath on a long exhale and nodded.

  “If we can proceed?” said Sheriff Beasley.

  Elodie took a deep breath. “Nothing happened the first night. But the next day, I ran into Dr. Everett.”

  “You didn’t think that strange?”

  “I’ve been interning for Dr. McGrath and Dr. Everett. We’ve been out in the park all summer, doing analysis on the feasibility of reintroducing red wolves into the wild here. He said he was doing a prey density analysis in that sector. He wouldn’t be the first scientist to work on the weekends.”

  “Did you feel threatened?”

  “No. No, I didn’t suspect a thing.” Her lips twisted in a bitter smile. “That’s what they always say when reporters interview the neighbors of serial killers. ‘He seemed like such a normal guy.’”

  Dad had gone very still, very pale in the door as he listened to her account.

  Elodie took another breath and continued. “He let me go at that point. Said he’d see me at work next week. It was hours later before I realized I was being followed. I thought I was just being paranoid. Until he tried to shoot me.” Her voice broke and her hand dug into my arm, her scent spiking to fear.

  “It’s okay,” I murmured. “I’m right here.”

  One of the deputies handed her a glass of water. She sipped and set it to the side.

  “Dr. Everett shot at you,” prompted Beasley.

  “Tranquilizer darts. I got lucky when it hit the padded strap of my pack.”

  “Did you know it was Dr. Everett?”

  “No, and I wasn’t sticking around to find out. I ran.”

  “Why didn’t you try to get out of the park, come for help?”

  She glared at him. “I’m sorry, in the process of running away, I kind of lost my direction. Getting away from the psycho with the gun was a slightly higher priority. I lost him, but I couldn’t find my way back.”

  The lie smelled bitter on her skin.

  “I found a cave and hid. And I found this.” She pulled some pink, girly hair thing out of her pocket. “It’s Molly’s.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Well, this is supposition on my part, but he went for the only person who’d be able to track me. My father. It was all under the guise of being part of the search and rescue team.”

  “So your father is the one who tracked you down.”

  “He is the one who trained me, after all,” she said. “Dr. Everett shot us both with tranquilizer darts right after they found me.” Elodie rubbed a hand against her neck, though the puncture wound had already healed. “I don’t know where he took us or how long I was out. The next thing I remember was waking up in the woods tied up next to his campfire.”

  “Did he say anything about why he took you? What he was planning on doing with you?”

  “He wanted to finish what he’d started with Rich and Molly before they’d escaped. Presumably that means he planned to wound us and then watch while we were eaten alive by local predators. I really wasn’t in a chatty frame of mind, Sheriff.”

  “And how did you escape?”

  This was the part where I jumped in. “I found them. I’d seen Patrick grabbing some tranq guns and extra darts after hours. It was weird behavior, so I followed him. I kept up for a while, but then I lost him, and got lost myself.” I did my best to look embarrassed by that.

  “Then I stumbled across a radio. One of the ones the rescue team uses. I picked it up and I was standing there thinking about whether or not I was over my head and should call for someone to get the hell out of the woods, or if I still had any hope of finding my own way back. But then I heard radio chatter about Dr. Everett and Mr. Rose searching for Elodie and what direction they were headed. Well, I was a Boy Scout, so I start started heading that way and just hoped I wasn’t going in the opposite direction. I mean, I still didn’t know what was going on with Dr. Everett, but finding out that there was a search underway for Elodie, I wanted to find them and help. I know I should have used the radio,” I looked down and scuffed my foot on the floor, trying to look sheepish, “but I wanted to help, not use up the rescue team’s resources looking for me, too, and then get sent home.

  “Anyway, it was probably more dumb luck than anything that I got anywhere near them. It was smoke that eventually led me to their campsite, and more dumb luck that I was too tired to call out and actually got a look at the situation before giving myself away.”

  I outlined the fight with as much accuracy as possible, leaving out the part about Elodie and me being fanged and furry, until it came to the end. “He was waving the knife at us, trying to keep us back, and he slipped and went over the cliff.” This was the really iffy part. “I don’t know if the fall would have killed him or not, but he fell on his own knife.”

  Before search and rescue had arrived, we’d tossed Patrick’s body over the side, staging things to look like he’d land
ed on the knife. It was the best we could come up with on the spot. If anybody decided to do some serious forensic analysis of the scene or the body, we had no way to explain the reality.

  “Then we radioed for help. You know the rest,” said Elodie.

  “There were bite marks on the corpse,” said Beasley.

  My stomach twisted into a knot. We hadn’t been able to come up with an explanation for this. Had hoped they wouldn’t ask.

  “Bite marks?” asked Elodie.

  “Looks like an animal or something. On his arm and shoulder.”

  Elodie just looked at him with one brow raised in question. “Would you like to take impressions of my teeth, Sheriff?”

  “You don’t know what bit him?”

  “I don’t know what may have decided to investigate the body after we left. We didn’t stick around to guard it.”

  Beasley still looked somewhat skeptical, as if he knew something we were saying didn’t quite add up, but he couldn’t put his finger on what. He opened his mouth to ask something else, but my father interrupted, stepping fully into the room.

  “They’ve given you their statements, Sheriff. It’s very late. They both need some rest. You’re done here.”

  I felt the full weight of an alpha behind the order. Apparently so did Beasley because he rounded up his people to go.

  As he was walking out, I said, “If you search Patrick’s truck, you might find evidence that he transported Rich and Molly.”

  “I’ll get my people on it. In the meantime, y’all don’t leave town.”

  The door shut behind him and we were left alone with my dad. We all listened as the pack of footsteps receded down the hall. Then Elodie slumped, exhaustion taking its toll.

  “So how much of that story was actually true?” Dad asked.

  When she lifted her head, her eyes glowed gold. “The part about Patrick hunting me like an animal and Sawyer saving my life. Repeatedly.”

  Dad actually took a step back. He tilted his head, got a whiff of her new scent beyond the antiseptic. His brow furrowed. “You two have a lot of explaining to do. Not the least of which,” he said, turning fully to me, “is explaining why you didn’t come to me when you were in trouble.”