Bayou Blues (8 page)

Wilder would go, with or without me, in spite of what he’d told Callum. Ben, given the chance, would have no problem letting Wilder run off to certain death, but it wasn’t Ben’s example I was trying to live up to. What would Callum do? He would consider the risks and benefits to the pack. He’d find a way to stop Wilder from going, and he would sacrifice Hank if it became necessary.

But he’d also been willing to give Hank a home even after he’d strayed. My uncle might play the hard and mean dictator, but I knew he cared about everyone under him. If he’d taught me anything, it wasn’t to yield to his command but rather to think for myself. That might have led to us butting heads from time to time, but I liked to believe he respected me for standing up for myself.

He’d brought me home to keep me safe. Now I was thinking of leaving again if it meant bringing another wolf back alive. Callum probably wouldn’t not understand my logic right away, but in the long run, if I succeeded, there was a chance he’d come to respect it.

After finishing off the beer, I toweled myself dry and went in search of clean clothes.

Maybe I was asking the wrong question. Perhaps instead of wondering what Ben or Callum would do, I should think of a different role model.

What would Genie McQueen do?

She would help Wilder save his brother.

The whole house smelled of roast chicken and garlic. Soon enough other pack members would start to come in for supper, and there’d be no escaping them. If they knew I was coming home, they’d expect me to be at the table when Lina served up the food, meaning I couldn’t run away yet.

There were other things that could derail my plan as well. Like my car being in Wilder’s possession, for one. Callum had several other cars I could use, but he’d want to know why I was borrowing one.

Being duplicitous wasn’t a skill I’d had a lot of practice with. With
Memere
in the bayou there’d been no reason to lie, and since I’d come back among the pack, I hadn’t needed to hide things from anyone. I didn’t keep secrets from Cash either because he knew what I really was. Lying was new territory for me, and my palms were sweating from nervousness.

On the plus side, the other wolves would assume I was freaked out because of the incident on the highway, so they wouldn’t mention anything when they smelled how uneasy I was. One of the major downsides to living amongst werewolves was that you couldn’t pretend you weren’t afraid when the smell of it was all over your skin like cheap perfume.

I followed the mouthwatering aroma of chicken towards the dining room, my stomach gurgling its strict orders to eat as much of Lina’s home cooking as I could before I split. I might look small, but like every wolf I knew I could pack away two thousand calories in a sitting without thinking twice about it.

I’d almost reached the dining room when a hand grabbed me roughly by the arm and yanked me into the library. I wrenched myself free and turned to lash out at my assailant, until I got a good whiff of him and realized it wasn’t a random stranger. I should have known that from the beginning since no outsider would be able to get inside the house without someone noticing.

“Jesus, Ben, you scared the hell out of me.”

He didn’t apologize, but he did drop his hand, not attempting to hold me against my will. I hadn’t seen a lot of Ben since I’d left for Tulane, but I wasn’t a fan of who he was becoming while he tried to climb the ladder to the throne.

“I’m assuming you have something to say that couldn’t wait until supper?”

“Stay away from Wilder Shaw.” He sneered when he said Wilder’s name, and I didn’t like his bitter tone. And I
really
didn’t like being told who I could and couldn’t spend time with.

There was a point in my life I would have listened to whatever Ben or Callum told me to do. I used to be meek and a world-class pushover. But I wasn’t that girl anymore, and it was time the men started showing me the respect I was due.

Then make them,
a nagging voice scolded me.

“Sorry, that sounded an awful lot like an order, Ben.”

“Could you listen to me, for once, and trust me about this? Stay away from him.”

“I’d be more willing to listen to you if you gave me a real reason. Just glaring at him and telling me to steer clear isn’t good enough. Not to mention it’s insanely presumptuous of you to assume I was
planning
to spend more time with him. We just met.”

“Don’t play dumb with me. I could smell it on you when he dropped you off.”

I froze, my eyes narrowing at him. “Smell
what
?” If he said
sex
, I was going to punch him in the nuts so hard he’d never have pups or sing in a tenor again.

“Attraction. I could smell the wanting all over you. He’s
beneath
you, Genie. You’re a princess, which means you have a soul-bonded mate out there. Someone who isn’t a fucking mechanic.”

Ugh
. “Snob, much? First thing, whether or not I’m attracted to someone shouldn’t matter to you. Period.” But, oh God, had Wilder known? Was it that obvious?
Focus, Genie
. “Second, if I
ever
hear you tell me to wait for my soul-bond again, I’m going to throw up. They’re not exactly common, and what’s more, I
have
a boyfriend.”

“The human?” He snorted.

“Wow. You’re really trying to insult me in every way possible today, aren’t you? You’ve never met Cash, so don’t give me that attitude.”

“I don’t need to meet him. He’s human. You’re not marrying a human.”

“
You don’t get to decide that
,” I snapped, my voice lilting higher than I’d expected it to. “You’re not my king. You’re my brother. And even if you
were
the King of the South, it’s not up to you to decide who I marry. Human, mechanic or otherwise.”

Ben looked stunned by my outburst. I guess he’d been expecting me to nod and accept his ruling like everyone else in the pack had learned to do. But he wasn’t the only one who had changed while I was gone.

“Are you really thinking of marrying the human?” He seemed surprised by this, and his expression was somewhere between pain and panic.

“I’m twenty-one, you idiot. I’m not thinking about anything beyond my finals and getting this whole Church of Madmen situation sorted out. Marriage isn’t part of my five-year plan at the moment.”

Ben’s relief was nakedly obvious. Did he think I had run off to Tulane to hunt down a husband? That was beyond insulting. This wasn’t 1952.

“Good.”

“But if I
did
marry Cash, I’d expect you to come to my wedding, shake his hand and be nice to his entire family. Understood?”

He nodded vaguely, because now that he knew it wasn’t in the cards, he didn’t have to keep any of his promises for the time being. And honestly it was becoming less and less likely Cash and I would make it to a wedding if we couldn’t even get past a full year without our problems coming between us.

“About Wilder, though…” he started again.

Damn, just when I thought I’d escaped this extra-humiliating topic where my brother reminded me he could
smell
my attraction. Gross.

I sighed. “I’m going to yell again. Do you want me to yell again?”

He put a hand on my shoulder, and I didn’t pull away. Skin to skin, I felt our connection like a physical tether. Touch was soothing between werewolves, especially those of the same pack. For Ben and me it was extra effective because we’d been soothing each other by touch since before we were born.

I softened, willing myself to listen. After all, he might have a good reason to not like the younger Shaw brother, and I should hear him out if he thought it was important. I might not agree with whatever he was about to say, but I owed it to Ben to listen.

“I get the feeling you guys aren’t on the friendliest of terms,” I said, hoping it would get him to the point faster.

“You missed a lot while you were in the swamp.” From the firm set of his jaw I could tell he was gritting his teeth.

“What’s the deal with him anyway? He can’t have been with the pack long if he came and went while I was away.” It must have been during the four years I was gone, but that was a short period of time for a wolf to stay with the pack. All the other wolves near our age had grown up with us, and I would have remembered Wilder. Hank had been with the pack even when I was a child, but not Wilder.

Seeming to understand why I was doubtful, Ben said, “Their family split them up when they were younger. Hank was the problem. I guess they figured being close to the king might straighten him out, which is why Hank was here when we were kids. It turned out Wilder had alpha traits, so he went to live in Shreveport with extended family. But about a year after you left, he came back. I don’t know all the details. I think Callum was hoping Hank would feel less ostracized with family around, or maybe Wilder was being groomed to take over the Atlanta pack. I’ve never asked.”

“And?” Was this all because another Alpha was around? That seemed petty even for Ben. Something else had to have gone down for Ben to dislike Wilder so much. Part of me suspected this must have something to do with a girl, but the only eligible female their age was Magnolia. And she couldn’t keep a secret to save her life. If there’d been a man in her life at one point who wasn’t Ben, she would have told me.

“There was a girl.”

Ding ding ding ding ding
. “Somehow I knew this would all boil down to jealousy.”

Ben narrowed his eyes, clearly annoyed with me for interrupting him. In spite of us spending so many years apart, I’d learned how to push his buttons like an expert since I’d returned. Both intentionally to annoy him, and often without meaning to.

“Would you please listen to me for a minute?”

“Fine.”

“There was a girl he and I went to school with. Her name was Holly.”

Was.
The burden of the past tense made my heart clench, and I swallowed hard, already not liking the trajectory of this story. Ben looked sad all of a sudden, which wasn’t typical of him. He liked to keep his emotions checked at all times, but memories of this girl were causing him to slip. It made me nervous enough to not want to hear the rest.

But I had to.

“What happened?”

“She went missing. They found her a few days after the full moon, dead. Her stepfather was arrested and convicted, but…”

I knew the rest of his sentence, even though he drifted off quietly. The kill hadn’t been right, not quite human. And a dead girl in the woods after a full moon? We were all lucky no one knew about werewolves then, because all fingers would have pointed at Callum and the pack faster than someone could say
howl
.

A cold sensation crept up my spine. “Does she still have people here, Ben? Now that we’re out, are they going to start thinking the cops made a mistake?”

He shook his head. “Her mom moved away years ago. Last I heard she died. The stepdad was killed in prison. No one likes a guy who kills kids, right?”

I wanted his words to make me feel better, but instead I felt bad for the girl. No matter who or what had killed her, she’d never gotten her chance to grow up and get the hell out of this town.

“You’re missing the point,” he said.

I wasn’t. I was thinking like a pack ruler, and he was thinking like someone who was too emotionally attached to the girl’s death to see anything else. I felt for my brother and was heartbroken he’d been so hurt, but if he was going to be king, he couldn’t let his personal feelings get in the way of looking for the truth.

For the first time it struck me that maybe I
should
be gunning to take over Callum’s throne. I hadn’t seriously considered it because Ben had been grooming himself for the job his entire life. He was literally born to be king. But wasn’t I just as good? We were the same age, the same rank, and all the claims he had to the throne applied to me as well.

I’d never wanted to fight him for it, and I’d long convinced myself I didn’t want it. But things felt different.
I
felt different. And I was starting to wonder if I was more cut out for the role than I—or anyone else—had given me credit for.

“What’s your point, then?” I asked.

“My point is Wilder killed her.”

I stared out my bedroom window, watching the sun fade from yellow to orange and the sky darken around the light like a closing fist. When all the light had vanished, I opened my windows and the double doors onto the veranda and let the night air waft in.

The heat of the day was still heavy, but with the ceiling fan going and the cool evening breeze sweeping across the floor, soon my skin was prickled with goose bumps. I wasn’t cold. Werewolves rarely got cold. But I wasn’t feeling warm and fuzzy either.

Thanks for nothing, Ben.

My brother had managed to derail my plans before I’d gotten a chance to fully act on them. I’d been hell-bent on running off to Wilder and helping him find Hank. Then Ben had said those three magic words.

Wilder killed her
.

If—and it was a big
if
—Wilder had killed Holly, it explained a lot about why he’d left town and why he wasn’t popular with the pack. He’d put everyone at risk, and he’d murdered a girl. Maybe murder was too strong a word. As a young wolf he might have lost control. There were legitimate, albeit awful, reasons that sort of thing happened. If he’d been out on his own without a pack member to guide him, if he hadn’t yet learned to control the wolf instead of letting it control him… Things went disastrously wrong from time to time.

I didn’t know this man well enough to be making excuses for him, yet they kept popping into my head unbidden. I wanted reasons to think well of him while still believing my brother. Ben wouldn’t lie to me about something this big. He might willfully mislead me on smaller points, but not this. He wouldn’t ruin a man’s reputation for kicks.

Doubt nagged at me, but I ignored it because I wasn’t sure which of them I was doubting.

“Dammit.” I kicked my bag, knocking it on its side and sending my textbooks sprawling onto the floor.