Chapter Four
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A SCREAM STARTLED REX out of sleep. He jumped up, ready to defend himself and Harmon, even though he was completely naked. He looked around the room frantically, but there was no one there. He and Harmon were alone.
Someone was still screaming.
Harmon scrambled out of bed, too. His expression was as shocked as Rex felt. They looked at each other, then quickly reached for their clothes. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t good.
It figured that they couldn’t even have one day before things went to shit. Hell, they hadn’t even started talking about the future clan leader. The only thing they’d done was free the prisoners. The hardest job still needed to be done.
This didn’t bode well.
The screaming continued. Rex pulled on his jeans and rushed out the door. He almost collided with Arlen and Mallory, who were coming out of the room next door.
“What happened?” Mallory asked.
Rex shook his head. “I know as much as you do.”
Mallory swore. “Whatever it is, we’re not going to like it. We need to be ready to defend ourselves.”
Rex glanced down at himself. He was barefoot and bare-chested, but it didn’t matter.
He’d been fighting for his life for hundreds of years, and he could do so naked if he had to.
The problem was that he’d be facing a bunch of dragon shifters.
They could shift and stomp him to death without thinking twice about it.
Mallory looked Rex up and down. “I didn’t expect you to sleep in the nude since you have a roommate.”
He sounded amused. Rex flipped him the bird and ran in the direction from which the screaming had come. He hoped it was the right direction, anyway. The screaming had stopped, so it wasn’t easy to tell.
He could feel people behind him, so he knew he wouldn’t have to face whatever the fuck they were about to walk in on alone. It was a relief, even though he wished Harmon didn’t have to be there.
Shit. Rex finally understood how his siblings felt.
All of them were dating people who were more than capable of defending themselves, yet they still freaked out at the thought that they would have to.
He didn’t want Harmon to be in danger. Rex didn’t want anything to happen to him—not even a scratch.
Rex was fucked, wasn’t he? He was already thinking of Harmon as his to protect, even though they’d only spent one night together.
One of the bedroom doors in the hallway was open. Rex didn’t hesitate to rush through, ready to defend himself or attack, whichever was needed.
Neither was. No one attacked them, and there was nothing to defend anyone from. There was a body on the floor, with a woman standing over it. She wasn’t screaming anymore, but she was sobbing and holding both hands to her mouth as if to suffocate the screams.
Mallory made a beeline for her. She was startled and jerked back when he gently touched her shoulder, but he didn’t let that stop him.
He gently guided her toward the door, and she went easily, which was a surprise.
Rex would have expected her not to want to go anywhere with a vampire she didn’t know. Clearly, she was in shock.
“What the fuck?” Merrick muttered as he crouched next to the body.
It was the body of a man, and he was very clearly dead.
The knife in his heart was a pretty good indication of it.
There was a pool of blood under the body, and when Rex crouched on the other side of the body, he could tell the man had been dead for a while.
The smell of blood was strong, making him wrinkle his nose.
Normally, he wouldn’t mind, but with how long the blood had been there, it didn’t smell great.
The man’s skin was pale, which was to be expected considering the amount of blood on the floor. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, but his feet were bare. His eyes were open and cloudy, so Rex reached over and closed them. He didn’t think anyone would mind.
“What’s happening here?” Jacob asked as he pushed his way into the room.
His steps faltered when he saw the body on the floor.
He took a step back, looking from Rex, who was still crouching next to the body, to the other people in the room.
Merrick slowly straightened as if getting ready to intervene.
“What did you do?” Jacob asked.
Rex snorted and got to his feet. “If I’d wanted to kill this guy, I wouldn’t have stabbed him in the heart,” he said. “But I didn’t do anything. I’ve never seen this guy before.”
Jacob licked his lips and looked down at the body. He was pale and looked like he was about to puke, which wouldn’t help anyone. “He was one of Martin’s supporters.” Jacob looked up at Rex again. “You killed Martin. You want all his followers dead.”
Rex shook his head. “I couldn’t care less how many supporters that dickhead had. As long as they stay out of my way, I don’t want anything to do with them.”
“You’re here to force a new leader on us.”
“Wanting the clan to have a good leader doesn’t mean I’m going around killing people.”
“He wanted to be the next leader.”
That wasn’t surprising if the guy had been one of Martin’s supporters. Rex still wasn’t sure why that meant he’d kill him. “And if he’d stepped up, we would have told him to fuck off.” Supporting Martin would have been enough.
“I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you. I shouldn’t have let you into our home.”
“I just told you that I didn’t kill this guy. Hell, for all I know, you killed him and are using me as a scapegoat.”
Jacob looked offended. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“Well, I wouldn’t kill this guy.” Rex didn’t want to say that he wouldn’t kill anyone because it would be a lie.
He’d killed people before, and he was pretty sure that Jacob had, too.
Clearly, the man was ashamed of it, which he should be since he’d probably been following Martin’s orders.
Rex had only ever killed to defend himself.
“Enough,” Arlen snapped.
Rex pressed his lips together. As little as he enjoyed being scolded like a child, he understood where Arlen was coming from. Bickering with the dragons wouldn’t help anyone.
“I can assure you that Rex didn’t kill anyone,” Arlen told Jacob. “You can choose to believe me or not, I don’t care. I told you we were here to help your clan, and we are.”
“One of you killed him,” Jacob insisted.
At least he wasn’t set on Rex being that person anymore. That still left four people he could accuse, including Harmon. Rex didn’t like that.
“We had no reason to kill him,” Arlen said. He sounded like he was losing his patience.
“We were fine until you arrived.”
Rex had had enough. He cleared his throat, but no one paid attention to him. Arlen looked like he was about to strangle Jacob, which was a feeling Rex understood and even shared, but they couldn’t afford to make Jacob an enemy.
“Stop,” he said. “Accusing each other isn’t going to help.
I understand why Jacob believes it was one of us, but it wasn’t.
That means there’s a killer in this clan.
Now, Jacob, you can continue freaking out, or you can start working on finding out who did this.
Since you’re still convinced it was one of us, we’ll all stick around.
We were going to anyway until you found a new leader, but that way, you don’t have to fear that we’re trying to get away with murder. We can investigate together.”
Jacob looked like he wanted to say no, but he knew he didn’t have a choice. He could continue accusing Rex and his people, but there was a chance that the killer was a dragon shifter, and he couldn’t ignore that. It would be easier, but also much more dangerous.
Jacob was positioning himself as the next leader.
As such, he needed to find who the killer was and why they’d killed the man on the floor.
It might be for personal reasons, but considering the guy had been one of Martin’s supporters, it might also be to ensure that he would never be the clan’s leader.
If that was the case, Jacob might be the next in line to get stabbed in the heart.
Considering the way Jacob was staring at Harmon and the others, Rex couldn’t say he’d be sorry if that happened.
“Fine,” Jacob said. “We’ll investigate together.”
Rex nodded. He’d hoped for that, but he’d been sure that Jacob would tell him to fuck off. It was a step in the right direction.
The problem was that it was only the first step. They’d need to take a lot more of them before they could fix this mess.
* * * *
HARMON WAS IMPRESSED by the way Rex took control of the situation.
Arlen had been losing his patience, but Rex hadn’t, even though it would’ve been warranted.
Jacob seemed to be making this more complicated on purpose, maybe because he hoped that it would get them kicked out of the clan house—or worse.
He didn’t want to deal with them, which was understandable, but they weren’t going anywhere.
Especially now that someone was dead.
“I think that the first thing to do is tell the people gathered out there to leave,” Rex suggested.
Jacob stared at him. Rex hadn’t ordered him to do something about the spectators outside the door, but he had to know that Rex wanted him to do something about them, right?
Having so many people out there peeking through the open door wasn’t helping.
The dragons were angry and worried. One of theirs had died, so Harmon didn’t blame them, but this situation was complicated enough without Jacob making it even more so.
They couldn’t afford for it to turn explosive and pit the dragons against the vampires. That wouldn’t end well for anyone.
Hopefully, Jacob realized that.
Rex stared back at Jacob for a moment before sighing. “That means that you need to tell these people to go back to their rooms. Isn’t it getting late for you, anyway?”