“I don’t know,” he says as he continues fucking with his phone like a distracted adolescent. “Where do you think she keeps those oranges? I’ve yet to figure that out, and I gave you my only one. Don’t you owe me a favor?”
“I passed it off to Damien, so no, I’m not making this mess disappear. It’d be too much of a favor for a bloody orange anyway.”
I run a frustrated hand through my hair. Emit is going to lose his shit.
My gaze cuts to one wolf, absently glancing over the small thing, and my eyes close as I exhale harshly. “Shit.”
“What?” Arion asks in a bored tone as I kneel closer to the small, lifeless wolf.
“This is Fay.”
“Fay? Who the hell is Fay?”
“She’s supposed to be in Vegas. Emit sent all his omegas away since they were getting antsy with all the tension in the air,” I quietly explain.
I quickly look over the other wolves, not recognizing them, and hoping none of the others are here.
“As in the omegas Shera said Violet has taken up with?” he asks, putting that phone away like he’s suddenly interested.
I run a hand over my jaw and fire off another quick text to Damien. She just lost her mother, then Anna, and now Fay. How much can one girl handle before she finally breaks?
“If vampires did this, they wouldn’t have picked some lowly omega Emit screws on occasion. The omegas are considered the sluts of the pack; not targets,” he states.
“Or they just didn’t care which wolves they killed, so long as it sent a message that a war was coming,” I go on. “Perhaps your betas are acting up again.”
“My betas don’t kill wolves,” he says on a snarl. “They know I’ll handle it if necessary, and then you hypocrites will punish—”
A howl in the distance ends the regurgitated argument, and he huffs out a breath. “He’s so sensitive about wolves dying, so this isn’t going to be fun,” Arion states like he’s already exasperated. “I was in the middle of playing with my pencils.”
“I don’t even want to know what that means,” I tell him as I head to cut off Emit.
I don’t get the chance, because he bursts out of the forest just in front of us, skidding to a halt as he snarls and growls, his eyes swinging to Arion and turning into lethal slits.
“I didn’t do it. It wasn’t me,” Arion states flatly, smiling bitterly.
Emit’s eyes land on Fay and swing up to meet mine. Arion, for all his psychotic faults, certainly wouldn’t have risked killing one wolf that Violet cares for. Not while he’s striving for one of his insane goals.
Emit shifts, quickly turning to flesh, still kneeling over Fay’s limp body as he lifts it carefully, his jaw grinding.
“Are any of the others—”
“They’re Fay’s second pack,” Emit says, shaking his head in interruption to the question I was going to ask. “She’s been running with some other omegas who’ve been with some of the head betas.”
“They’re all omega wolves? Even the larger ones?” Arion asks, as Emit remains eerily calm.
He gently puts Fay’s body down, and he glances back over the rest of the dead, keeping a stoic expression. “They all have different omega minor packs, like Fay. Aside from her, they all live with different powerful betas, yet run together to bring the betas closer when they drift apart. Betas, after all, have one important instinct—protect the weak. Whoever killed them wanted massive impact.”
“Who the hell keeps up with what omegas do or don’t mean anything to the betas they’re leeching off?” Arion asks, receiving a growl from Emit.
“If they’re all omegas, these wolves were defenseless, and someone still shot them. Whoever did this left no scent, left no trace of evidence, and has made it hard for me to hunt them,” I cut in, stopping them before they start arguing. “Guess I’ll get to work, then. Could take me a few days to hunt them down.”
“Emit can tell Violet about Fay,” Arion decides, and I think we’re both surprised when Emit doesn’t argue. “I’ll start getting to know my new betas that have been cultivated over this past century and find out if any of them are pathetic enough to go after a small pack of harmless, female wolves.”
Arion practically vanishes after that.
“This will make all my wolves restless and uneasy,” Emit goes on.
“Directly after you’ve had your meeting stating Arion has been effectively punished and won’t harm another wolf,” I observe.
“He didn’t do this,” Emit says sourly, his look softening on Fay’s tragic form. “Not even he is this low.”
Shera’s car comes pulling up, and she gets out, walking toward us as she flicks her red hair over her shoulder.
“You really have a set on you for coming here,” Emit growls at her.
“Your girlfriend is desperately seeking you,” she says to me, ignoring Emit altogether.
“What?” I ask incredulously.
“Violet Carmine is apparently asking everyone at her party—that is evidently anti-vampire themed—if someone can come find Vancetto Valhinseng. Be sure to let her know it was the vampire she discriminates against who brought you her urgent summons.”
With that, she turns and struts off.
Emit and I exchange a look, and his lips tense.
“Think she’s already learned of Fay?”
“Damien wouldn’t—”
“Oh,” Shera calls out, an evil smile on her lips as we turn our attention to her. “It’s apparently about Damien, and she sounded really scared, according to my source.”
A worried feeling creeps up inside me.
Emit turns, shifting before he even finishes dropping to the ground, and he sprints off. I glance over at the bodies, and yell for two of my men to come out of hiding.
“Get them to my place and keep this quiet.”
They give a nod and go to work, while I hurry to my car, hoping Damien hasn’t crossed a line to finally get me to kill him.
I’ll do far worse if this is him goading me with this dark path.
I quickly drive toward his house, speeding around every vehicle that gets in my way as the snow drops in heavy knots. Every nightmarish scenario enters my mind and has my steering wheel whining from the grip.
I barely even get the car stopped before I’m racing up the steps.
I catch sight of Emit sprinting in from the other side, leaping up to the same landing of stairs I’m on. Only at Damien’s party can a naked man Emit’s size not even draw a curious eye.
“If he’s done what I think he’s—”
“He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t drop to that level,” I say tightly as I hurry down the hallway.
Arion appears as if from thin air, as a belated chill runs down my spine with the wind he’s stirred. He is far too fucking fast.
He grins as he knocks on Damien’s door.
“Surely you didn’t think my beta would only tell you such things,” he says with a smirk.
Emit kicks down the door, and Arion’s brow furrows in confusion, as I swing out my blades and—
Violet is rocking on the bed with Damien’s head in her lap, running her fingers through his bleach blond hair, as she looks over at us.
“I don’t know what happened, but he’s been like this for over an hour now,” she says on a strained note.
Her hair is wet with a few dry spots, like she hurried through a shower and her hair getting wet was just a hazard and not an intention. She’s wrapped in one of Damien’s robes, and the scent of sex is strong in the air.
Arion sniffs, frowns, and sniffs again.
Emit’s nose wrinkles when he sniffs a few times.
“It’s been a while, but is that—”
“He finished with you?” I ask Violet, an edge to my tone as she strokes his cheek with affection he doesn’t deserve.
“I didn’t feel pain. He said I would,” she says as she swallows thickly, confusing me. “Then things got out of hand when there wasn’t any pain, and I think it somehow did something to him instead of me.”
“I don’t think that’s what it did to him,” Emit states flatly, even as his lips twitch.
“How are you alive?” I ask her, but she’s too distracted, brushing another piece of hair from his face.