He snapped his mouth shut, but curled his hands into fists and lowered his head—not like a wolf acknowledging status, but a ram getting ready to charge.
“If it’s not your Alpha, then perhaps it’s the hunter that lives among you.” Amos smirked at me and raised his eyebrows. “She is, as she said, taught about the uses of wolfsbane.”
“How much wolfsbane did he have in him?” I asked, ignoring the accusation.
No one seemed to mind the allegation anyway. Amos Fletching had missed the notice that I was protected, but not precisely included. Remy and Forrest both relaxed though Teresa gave me a wide-eyed look of concern that I appreciated.
Amos squinted at me—I think he might have been a little disappointed at my reaction. “What?”
“How big a dose was he on?” I repeated.
Amos looked away, but when Scarlett cleared her throat, he nodded at her.
“Testing has been inconclusive on that matter,” she said. “The Regional Committee of Magic is having us run additional tests on the wolf’s fur and tissue samples, so we can judge if the amount present in his system was a result of a single dose, or multiple.”
“Multiple?” I frowned. “I think it’d be pretty difficult to miss wolves getting juiced with wolfsbane multiple times.”
“We are set to interview the Low Marsh Pack starting tomorrow,” Radcliff said. “We hope to get additional information through personal testimonies.”
So Amos really did have a legit reason for bringing in more hunters. That’ll teach me for jumping to a conclusion like an impatient puppy.
I’d been staring at the forest as I mulled over what this meant, which was how I realized the hunters were slowly closing in.
“Time will reveal who the real culprit is,” Amos said. “But I have my suspicions.” He glanced at the lodge, which made Forrest lift his upper lip in a sneer.
Werewolves. So overly loyal—to their Alpha, anyway.
I squinted in the bright afternoon sun and wished we were inside with the air conditioning blasting down on us. “What you mean is you don’t have any proof of anything. You just know wolfsbane was used.”
“Not entirely.” Amos wagged a finger at me. “The eyes of the hunters’ association has been on the Northern Lakes Pack for some years. As expected, given its oddly high percentage of successfully turned wolves, and that for over ten years it’s had a nearly 100% survival rate, even among those who don’t successfully change and remain human. That is an impossibility—one that isn’t natural.”
Amos narrowed his eyes at Aeric and Wyatt, who were stoic and silent.
“We’ve concluded,” he continued, “that there must be a kind of illegal magic at work here. We will find it, and uncover how your Alpha has been going against nature itself.”
I opened my mouth to point out Greyson had only been Alpha for about two years, so if something magical was at work it obviously had nothing to do with him, but Remy growled and tried to wrestle herself free from Aeric’s grasp.
Aeric pulled the young wolf’s arms behind her back and held her straight, but no one stopped Amelia when she jabbed her finger in Amos’s direction.
“Take that back,” she yelled.
“Why would I when it’s obviously true?” Amos gloated.
“Guys, he’s just trying to rile you up,” I said.
I was ignored.
Young Jack jostled past Amelia. “Apologize to Alpha Greyson!”
“Greyson isn’t even here to be offended,” I pointed out.
Again, no one listened to me.
Forrest was trying to break free from Wyatt’s hold, but Wyatt held him pinned in a choke hold as he tried to snag Young Jack—who evaded him. What worried me, however, was that the other hunters who had been sticking to the edge of the meadow were starting to approach.
Is this a setup for something?
“If Alpha Greyson is not the culprit, then the only other option is that he is incompetent—how else could a wolf dosed with wolfsbane wander so close to a human city without being sensed?” Amos asked.
“Our failings as packmates to watch our lands and borders are hardly our Alpha’s fault,” Wyatt said in a voice hard enough to crunch rocks.
I stepped away from my backpack, just in case I needed to move in a hurry—it was not a good sign that Wyatt was starting to respond to him.
It meant the wolves weren’t going to put up with this much longer.
Amos shrugged. “Isn’t it? He’s your leader, after all. For all that he was appointed to the position and didn’t earn it. You’re just his training wheels, you know.”
Oooh, that’s going to hit them.
I was skeptical about the way Greyson had been made Alpha of the Pack and his obvious future career as the Pre-Dominant, but to the Pack, Greyson was their leader. They’d defend him with their last breath.
Remy strained in Aeric’s grasp, snarling as the musky whiff of werewolf magic shimmered around her—she was going to shift if she didn’t get herself under control, soon.
I glanced at Aeric to see if he could help her, but his gaze was deadly as he stared at Amos.
This is bad, I realized. Amos went too far. Even Aeric and Wyatt won’t hold back much longer. If one of them attacks Amos…no committee would find what he said a just reason for attacking him. They’ll bill it as a wolf attacking a hunter—or a human attacking a supernatural if Jack jumps in.
The political ramifications would be disastrous.
But I didn’t have werewolf strength. I couldn’t hold back Jack and Amelia.
How, then, was I supposed to get everyone out of this?
Amelia shouted, and as Jack made a grab for Amos, Radcliff and Scarlett flicked out daggers.
That’s it.
Faster than a human, I zipped past Jack, closing in on Amos before he even realized I was there.
“Amos,” I said.
He blinked in surprise at my abrupt appearance. “What? Aren’t you going to try to stop your little friends?”
“No,” I said. “I wanted to know, have you ever had your nose broken before?”
Amos stared at me in his disbelief, looking down his very obviously crooked nose as he did so. “Yes.”
“Good. That’ll make this easier.” Arranging my fingers so I wouldn’t break my thumb, I pulled back, then punched Amos in the face, hearing the satisfying crunch as his nose broke.
Chapter 11
Pip
Amos toppled, falling to a heap on the ground as blood trickled from his nose while his niece and nephew stared at me in shock.
My fist throbbed like crazy, but I smirked down at Amos, who groaned as he held his hands to his nose, fighting the tears that clogged his eyes.
Young Jack and Amelia gawked at me with wide eyes—Teresa cheered—and Remy and Forrest stopped fighting Aeric and Wyatt so they could gawk at Amos in shock.
Even Amos’s hunter family didn’t quite know how to react. The ones that had been on the fringe and fast approaching us when it looked like a wolf or human was going to attack Amos were frozen with visible confusion.