That last part came out harder than she intended for it to, but that was all right. She pushed through the barrier. Zelda had her feet planted and she was holding her own. She had no idea how long she would be able to hold her ground like this. It didn’t seem like something she would be able to do for long, but she had to try.

  And right then, as though the universe was trying to tell her something, her long ears flicked, the sound of sirens coming in the distance.

  Bill’s ears did the same. He turned towards the front door as though he expected the police to break down the door at any second.

  The sirens were still a ways away, but Zelda doubted they had more than two minutes before they arrived.

  “They’re coming now, and Victor better be with them and not hurt. I won’t tell them that Ben isn’t here.”

  Bill narrowed his eyes at her.

  Ben came back into the kitchen, his hand still clutching at his side. He’d clearly heard everything she’d just said.

  Zelda held her breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  Ben’s lips thinned. He turned away from her, shaking his head as though he should have seen this coming.

  “All right, fine. Whatever. I’ll go have a chat with them.”

  She blinked. “You will.”

  Ben sneered at her. “Not that you’re giving me much of a choice.”

  She fell back a step at that. “Are you…I thought…”

  “What?” Bill asked. “Did you think we were going to hurt you if you didn’t do what we asked you to?”

  She didn’t want to admit that she was kind of thinking that, yeah.

  Ben growled low under his throat, his arm hardly pushing hers as he pushed passed her. “Remind me never to do anything for you ever again.”

  Okay, ouch. That stung, but she couldn’t help it.

  She was right about this. Wasn’t she?

  The sirens came closer. They were right outside now. They’d driven right into the middle of pack property and Zelda could make out the sounds of the tires scraping against the earth and gravel.

  Victor’s voice was a Godsend.

  “Zelda!”

  Chapter 31

  Zelda ran out of Maxwell’s house. Victor was there, standing beside an unmarked police car, with a couple of cruisers behind him, their lights still flashing. Detective Grey was there, and they seemed to be having an argument about something, which stopped the instant Zelda rushed out.

  She and Victor looked at each other. Zelda ran to him. He met her halfway.

  Which turned out to be a problem when she jumped into his arms and kissed him.

  Victor held her up. He kissed her back, but Zelda heard and felt the groan and cringe he released when she did.

  Zelda dropped to her feet immediately. “I’m sorry. Shit. I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

  She wanted to touch his chest, to feel for herself that nothing was wrong and he was perfectly all right, but she kept her hands to herself.

  Victor grunted, grabbing her wrist and pulling her away from the house. “Fine. Just knocked the wind out of me.”

  She doubted that was all that happened, but he wouldn’t be standing here, or have taken it so well when she’d jumped into his arms, if he had anything broken, so there was that to be grateful for.

  Still, Zelda reminded herself that she needed to take it a little easy on him.

  Victor grabbed her arm, his eyes on fire as he stared at the scratches Linda had left behind. “What the hell is this?”

  “Oh!” Zelda shook her head. “No, don’t worry about this. This was just some idiot with something to prove. Ben didn’t do it,” she said quickly when Victor glared back at him.

  Victor pulled her towards the cruisers. He didn’t let go of her hand. She felt the rage and the anger within him and honestly couldn’t blame him after what happened, but she was still so utterly happy that he was alive and well, that he was standing there in front of her, that she hardly noticed it.

  “Stay here.”

  She nodded.

  “Did they hurt you? Anything else like this?” He tapped her arm, careful not to touch her wounds.

  Zelda shook her head, her hands touching Victor’s face, the back of his neck and shoulders. As though she needed proof he was actually alive. That he was right here.

  Victor barely seemed to notice, not with the way he stared towards the front door.

  Zelda could swear she saw a hint of bright red in his eyes, an alpha’s anger, but it was gone so quickly she might have just seen the reflection of the red police lights off his blue stare.

  Bill and Ben walked out of the house. Bill stayed on the deck. Ben stepped down the stairs.

  “Motherfucker.” Victor moved forward.

  Zelda grabbed him around the shoulders. “No. Don’t do that.”

  “I should fucking kill you!” Victor pointed his finger at Ben as though it was a weapon.

  Ben stared back at him as though he was of no consequence. “I barely tapped you and she’s not hurt. Don’t be like that.”

  “Idiot! That was kidnapping!”

  “She’s still technically part of this pack.”

  Zelda wanted to signal to Ben that he needed to stop talking. Right fucking now. It didn’t matter which pack she was a part of when the humans got involved. Their law trumped pack law. Everyone knew that. It didn’t matter how much they wanted to fight against it. No matter how much they protested it.

  Human law was law. And Zelda had gotten the humans involved.

  Some of her former pack mates came out to see what the fuss was about. She doubted many of them had gone back into their homes when Zelda showed up with Ben, but now that there were multiple police cruisers here, lights flashing, men in blue uniform out with their hands on their weapons, they all stared at Zelda with that same angry, glaring expression in their eyes.

  And Zelda, for once, didn’t feel the need to curl up and hide. Maybe it was a side effect of going against an alpha’s orders.

  Grey pointed to Ben. “Someone get him into handcuffs.”

  Ben lifted his hands into the air, waiting for the police to grab him, yanking his arms behind his back. Ben grimaced when the handcuffs clicked into place. They were definitely silver this time if the look on his face was anything to go by.

  While Detective Grey read Ben his rights and told him why he was being arrested—kidnapping and assault now added to the resisting arrest he’d done at the hotel, and the suspicion that he was involved in Maxwell’s murder.

  “Victor, Ben told me that he did kill Gerard.”

  “What?” Victor looked at her with such a wide expression, then at Ben. That same angry look came over his eyes as before. Zelda thought it was a testament to his self-control that he was able to hold himself back from attacking the other man straight out. The clenched fists and tight shoulders suggested heavily how much he wanted to do just that.

  “Grey, can you come over here?” Victor called instead.

  Detective Grey looked away from Ben with an unhappy expression on his face. At least he seemed to be done with Ben when he walked over. “What is it?”

  “Tell him what you just told me.”

  Zelda did. “But he said it was because he had to! He said Gerard was the one angry with me about going to the police. He was the one sending people after me. Maybe he was the one who got those other wolves to attack my skulk.”

  And poor Steve had gotten in the middle of that.

  Victor looked at Grey. “What do you think?”

  Detective Grey rubbed his narrow jaw. God, he looked so young to be doing this sort of work, but when he turned back to Ben, there was something fierce in his eyes when he went back to him.

  Victor walked with him. Zelda held back, but she didn’t need to be so close to hear everything as perfectly as though they were speaking to her. “Is that true?”

  Ben pressed his lips together, narrowing his eyes at the detective, then he nodded. “Yeah, it’s true. I was worried Gerard would want to come after me too. We had a fight. I knocked his ass out.”

  “Why didn’t you leave him like that? You’d already defeated him, hadn’t you?”

  “An alpha doesn’t defeat someone for real unless they kill them or injure them enough to get the message across. That wasn’t enough. I didn’t want to risk he would go after Zelda again.”

  Grey looked back at Zelda. Zelda saw how tense Victor’s spine was becoming.

  Grey shook his head. “That’s not self-defense, you just described a murder.”

  Ben’s eyes widened. He looked at Zelda, then back at Bill, as though he expected any of them to do anything. Zelda wanted to do something for him, but she hadn’t even stopped to consider the details. If Ben had put Gerard into the truck when he was alive and then push it into the lake, then, yeah, by definition, that was a murder.

  Bill, who, as an alpha, would be used to having his own commands obeyed, stepped forward, attempting to be diplomatic. “He was defending the life of one of our own. You there, you’re her mate, right? Can you honestly blame him for that?”

  Again, Zelda heard that tiny growl rumbling in Victor’s throat. “Until I know for sure that story checks out, then I’ll treat it for what it is. If he did think he was defending Zelda, then I can still be grateful to him and be comfortable with letting him go his time.”

  Apparently, Bill’s diplomatic attempt was not going to go over well.

  Ben dug his heels in a little as the officers tried escorting him to one of their cruisers. “Hey, wait a minute! I tried telling you that at the hotel! You wouldn’t listen to me!”

  Victor barely looked at him. Zelda didn’t understand his cold demeanor until he spoke again. “You told us at the hotel that you were afraid Gerard was going to kill you. I got enough information to know that body was in the water a lot longer than that.”

  Zelda’s eyes flew wide. She looked at Ben, and then, as though someone had flipped a switch, her shock melted away. Of course. Why would she think anyone was telling her the truth at this point? Why would Ben make himself look like anything other than an innocent bystander?

  “These are pack matters,” Bill said. “I can deal with him.”

  Did he honestly think the police were just going to let Ben go and hand him over to Bill? They were already starting to put a little more effort into getting him into the car.

  One of the nicer officers was trying to tell Ben not to fight him. The fact that he was an alpha was enough to make a few of the other officers stand by a little tense, and Zelda didn’t want him to get shot again.

  For one thing, the officer shooting might miss and get Victor. That would just be her stupid, idiotic luck with everything that had been going on lately.

  Bill stepped forward when he was ignored. Detective Grey stepped into his path. “You’re not going to do jack shit. You take one more step and I’ll have you in handcuffs with him.”

  “That’s our alpha!” someone shouted.

  A woman joined in, thankfully not Linda. “You can’t take them. We need them!”

  Grey rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Anyone else wants to get in the back of a cruiser, be my guest. I have no problem making a few more arrests today.”

  Zelda shook her head. The people around him were clearly getting pissy about this whole thing and she didn’t want anyone getting hurt.

  “Guys, just let them do their job. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  “You shut your damn mouth!”

  Zelda looked in the direction of the voice. It was a male, his tail bristled behind him, his ears pointed high, and his face already halfway changed into his more animal shape. “You’re the one who invited the police here in the first place.”

  Victor stepped in front of her before Zelda could say anything back. “You put those claws away before I snap them off your fucking fingers.”

  The threat wasn’t directed towards her, but Zelda’s spine stiffened regardless.

  Victor was definitely in a bad mood.

  Maybe it was the command that did it, Zelda sure as hell felt it, the need to obey. The instinct to give into someone more powerful than she was.

  The other shifter clearly didn’t want to obey. He wouldn’t stop scowling, but he wasn’t so eager to challenge Zelda now that Victor stood for her. He couldn’t quite make himself hold Victor’s stare.

  Zelda almost felt sorry for him.

  “Victor?”

  He didn’t look away from the shifter challenging him. “Hm?”

  Zelda glanced towards Ben, who was forced into the back of a police cruiser. “Did you mean what you said? Gerard was already dead?”

  He briefly glanced back. There was a hesitation there, as though he didn’t want her to know, didn’t want to tell her something so horrible, but he said it anyway. “Yeah. The full autopsy isn’t done yet, but it doesn’t take much for the coroner to figure out that much. He was dead before Ben came to pay us a visit.”

  Zelda looked towards the cruiser. Ben stared at her through the window.

  There was regret in his eyes. As well as fear. She couldn’t stop looking at him. Victor tried talking to her, but she couldn’t quite make out what he was saying.

  Victor grabbed her shoulder, finally managing to get her attention. “Zelda, baby, why did he bring you here?”

  Zelda could hardly bring herself to look away from Ben. She pitied him, but also feared what he was capable of. “He wanted me to stand beside him and tell the rest of the pack that Gerard…that Gerard was trying to hurt me. He wanted me to say…”

  She honestly couldn’t get the details right in her head. What specifically had he wanted her to say? He definitely wanted her to help him ease the tensions of the pack. It was strange, since the pack didn’t like her, but not so far out of the ballpark that she couldn’t fathom it.

  But Gerard was already dead? Then…why?

  “I don’t get it.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t make any sense. He wanted to bring me here to help him calm the pack, but now…I don’t…”

  Victor pulled her to his chest. Zelda was worried at first about the idea of hurting him, the injury Ben had given to him, but the way he held her made it almost impossible for her to pull back.

  “Try not to think about it, baby.”

  But she couldn’t not think of it. “Do you know why he wanted me here?”

  Victor’s soft voice became harsh again. “I have a couple of guesses.”

  And since his guesses usually turned out to be correct, Zelda shivered at the possibilities he was thinking of.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  She nodded, comforted with Victor’s arms around her shoulders, but Zelda could still feel the heat of the many glares on the back of her head.

  She doubted this was over.

  Chapter 32

  Victor valiantly held back a hiss as Zelda gently touched his chest, trying to rub soothing cream onto the skin without actually doing any rubbing.

  The deep purple and blue bruise looked almost like a terrible flower on his chest. Zelda decided not to tell him that as she touched the tender skin. She highly doubted he would appreciate the comparison.

  “He got you good, didn’t he?”

  “Fucker got me worse when I got up and you weren’t there.”

  Zelda stopped tapping cream onto his skin. She looked at him, then set aside the jar. “I promise, he didn’t hurt me.”

  Victor didn’t say anything, but his eyes darting down to the bandage wrapped around her arm was answer enough.

  “I promise, this was just from some nobody. I told you not many people in that pack liked me.”

  “No kidding.”

  They were back in Zelda’s bedroom. They didn’t go back to the hotel. She’d wanted to come home, to have the scents and smells of family around her, even if Mike and Link didn’t know she was here.

  Zelda wasn’t sure when she would tell them what happened. When she did, she figured it might best to keep some details all to herself. They were going to find out soon enough that Zelda had come home with Victor anyway. It was just a matter of time before someone sent Mike a text, and then he’d call Zelda in return.

  “I’m sorry I made you worry.”

  “It wasn’t you that did it.”

  She smiled. “If it makes you feel any better at all, the person who did this to me,” she lifted her arm, “I punched her right in the throat.”

  Victor didn’t laugh out loud like she was hoping he would, but he did smile at her.

  “You’re really upset, aren’t you?”

  He nodded. “It shouldn’t have come to that in the first place. I should’ve been able to keep you away from him.”

  Zelda opened her mouth, then shut it again. She didn’t think reminding Victor that he was a subhuman going up against an alpha would do much of anything for his bruised ego.

  She lifted his hands, pressing her lips to his knuckles instead. “I’m just glad you came.”

  Victor’s eyes weren’t hugely wide, but it was definitely the look within them, the way he inhaled deeply through his nose, that let Zelda know what else was coming.

  “Fuck, come here.” He grabbed her by the back of her head, yanking her forward, their mouths finding each other in a hard, bruising kiss.

  Zelda felt the need of her mate as Victor held her in a bruising grip.

  It wasn’t just him who needed it. She needed it, too.

  Much as Zelda wanted to be careful with Victor’s body after what happened to him, she could hardly help it if he decided to grab her and yank her into his lap. She could hardly manage to keep a distance between their chests, and soon, she stopped trying.

  The sensation of her fingers threaded through his hair, gripping tight, seemed so much more important.

  It was still weird, thinking that this wasn’t going to end in a nice, tidy little bow. There were some things Ben hadn’t been saying. He’d clamped up when he realized that Zelda’s input wasn’t going to do much to help him. Victor suspected he had more to do with Maxwell’s death than he was letting on, and even if he didn’t, murdering Gerard, regardless of why he’d done it, was going to guarantee him some time.

 

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