Chapter 7 Roxy and Max #2
If he actually means what he says, I should be calling him ‘Alpha’.
It’s the proper way to address the leader of the pack, though not even Colin pushed us to use the term unless it was important.
Opossums are almost as ungovernable as raccoons, mainly because we either hiss or drop. There is no in-between.
Only I didn’t drop. I thought I was seconds away from fainting, and then Sheriff Lobo—no, Max… he’s Max—hurriedly reached out, steadying my arm, and the light-headedness that precedes an entire Honey shutdown simply went away.
Oh, that can’t be good.
I glance up at him. There’s that curious look on his face again. Like he’s searching for something, but even he doesn’t know what it is.
“One of our packmates”—our packmates, he’s calling them our packmates—“is a chemist. They called in some favors and we were able to figure out that the poison was sprinkled on top of the cupcake. It glittered—”
“The cupcake I made for you didn’t glitter,” I tell him. “I put crushed caramel candies on top of the frosting as a garnish. That was it.”
“Right. The glitter was only obvious under a microscope. It was silver, Honey. He ingested straight silver cut with wolfsbane and something they haven’t figured out yet, but it’s deadly to supes. You’re a supe. Unless you’re a sadistic possum, I’m pretty sure someone else laced my cupcake.”
I blink. A heartbeat later, I start to sway.
His cupcake. That’s right. If Declan gave it to him after it was poisoned, Max could’ve died. He could’ve died and I would never have had the chance to confess that he’s my mate…
Max wraps his arm around my back, keeping me on my feet. “Oh no you don’t. You’re not in danger, Honey. No need for any of that.”
I want to believe that. Not in danger… someone used one of my cupcakes as a vessel to commit wolficide. Maybe I’m not in danger, but what about him?
“Could it have been Declan?” I ask. “He’s the only one I gave that cupcake to. I didn’t even make a batch. It was special.”
My ears burn at the tops. Oh, boy. Now you’ve done it, Honey. You just admitted to Max that it was more than a simple peace offering—
“We don’t know. He was a good wolf, a decent delta, and he did a great job managing the only gym we have in Moonburrow.
I don’t know why he had my cupcake, why he didn’t give it to me at the pack meet, or how he ended up being poisoned by it, but I just wanted to assure you that I will find out. That’s my job.”
Of course it is. He’s the Alpha and the sheriff. He’ll solve the crime.
And whether he wants me to or not, I’ll help.
That, of course, is easier said than done.
I’m no Miss Marple. I’m no Jessica Fletcher.
I’m none of those old lady amateur sleuths that I only know about because I spent a lot of my youth at Grandma Jean and Grandpa Gary’s house.
I have no idea how to even start investigating what happened to Declan, and I spend the rest of the morning after Max left the bakery trying to come up with something that might resemble a lead.
Murder mysteries make it seem so easy. You have a victim. You have a cause of death. I think about what Max said. According to his chemist, the poison was made up of three things: silver, wolfsbane, and a secret third thing.
Shoot. It doesn’t even need to have a third thing at all.
Silver is a huge threat to shifters. It burns our skin; I can’t even imagine the danger it would do if ingested.
Wolfsbane—or aconite—is a plant that nukes so many of our abilities.
It was initially farmed to ward off ‘werewolves’, but that’s because it works.
Wolfsbane doesn’t just repel shifters. It does something to our senses.
When wolfsbane is involved, we don’t hear as well, scent as well, or heal as well.
The only other element that messes with shifters that I know of is mercury.
Add a little of that to any poison and you can do nasty damage.
I knew a story about someone who had their soda spiked with it.
While mercury isn’t as powerful as wolfsbane or silver, it’s insidious in how it cuts us off from our inner beast until it wears off.
It wouldn’t make a good poison. Oh, no. That’s the silver and the wolfsbane, and since I don’t have a clue what to do with that information, I just tuck it in a corner of my brain so that I can focus on helping my customers.
News spread even further. Of course it did.
I’ve seen twice as many customers at this point today than I ever had, and it doesn’t take an amazing detective to figure out it’s because my bakery is the scene of a crime.
It doesn’t matter if Declan’s body was found out back.
It was on my territory, with one of my cupcakes.
Shifters can be a morbid bunch sometimes.
I wouldn’t be surprised that my customers were clearing me out of my stock in case I suddenly decided to go straight murderess.
Like they wanted to see if I served them a poisoned cupcake, would they survive?
Hey. It’s money in the register, and if they want to roll the dice, maybe I should whip up another batch of Can’t Resist Cupcakes. At least then they’d get something tasty, and maybe I could get some answers.
I don’t, but that’s because I promised Sheriff Lobo—Max—that I wouldn’t bake them for any paying customers in Moonburrow again. However, it does give me an idea.
People gossip in Moonburrow. I usually drown it out, busy as I am, but today… today I listen.
And I strike gold.
A little before I was getting ready to close for the day, a wolf shifter female and a jaguar male comes into the bakery together.
I don’t remember seeing them before, but as they’re both predators, I figure they might be higher up in the Moonshadow Pack than someone like me or Roxy or Fannie the fox shifter.
Maybe they are. Or maybe they just thought they were better than me and I only existed to ring them up some cranberry and orange scones because they walked in while in the middle of a conversation and only paused it to place their order.
They were rude, but they were very helpful. Just as the wolf shifter was handing over her card to pay, she said, “Wolfsbane. Yeah.”
My ears perk up. Wolfsbane, you say…
The jaguar frowned. “I thought the Alpha refused to let anyone have wolfsbane in Moonburrow.”
Makes sense. If I was the Alpha, I’d bar that from a supe town, too. Sure, it has some beneficial properties—mainly for witches and their potions, like my scent-dampening charm—but the risks don’t outweigh those benefits.
“Of course he doesn’t,” cuts in the wolf. “Only the apothecary carries it. Good thing Joey’s got a part-time job over there, working for the witch who runs it. It’s the only place you can get your paws on the stuff in town.”
“And it doesn’t bother him?”
The wolf female shrugs. “He’s a rat. Nothing bothers him.
” Her head turns, gold eyes looking me over as I do my best to appear innocent.
No, I’m not eavesdropping on every word you say, why do you ask?
She taps her nails on the top of the pastry display, the tips of her claws clicking against the glass. “My card? Our scones?”
Oh. Right. I hand her the debit card still in my hand, then pass her the bag full of scones she ordered.
She flashes me a smile that’s all fang before bumping her hip into that of her companion. Nodding at the door, she heads for it without so much as a ‘thank you’.
That’s okay. I should be thanking her for my first lead.
As soon as I close, it looks like I’m going to see a rat about some wolfsbane.